Castellani, Giulio

Giulio Castellani was an Italian nobleman, Aristotelian scholar, and clergyman born in Faenza, Italy, who is mostly known for his Adversus M. Tullii Ciceronis academicas quaestiones disputatio (1558) where Castellani defended dogmatic Aristotelianism against Cicero’s Academica and Skepticism in general as exposed by the influential humanist Francesco Pico della Mirandola. Castellani also published a book entitled De humano intellectu libri III in Bologne in 1561, where he gave an important contribution to the controversy on the immortality of the soul raised by Pomponazzi and Averroism. In this book, Castellani favors Alexandrist positions against the trend of Simplician Averroism defended by the Paduan scholar Marcantonio Genua. As a professor, Giulio Castellani taught at the Academia degl’Invaghiti in Mantua where he lectured on Aristotle’s Ethics at the beginning of the 1560s. At the end of his life, he received the chair of philosophy at the Sapienza University in Rome. Castellani also developed an important career in Italian religious institutions. Named Canon of the Cathedral of Faenza by Pope Pie V in 1571, he was later appointed Bishop of Cariati (Calabria) by Pope Sixtus V, but he died in October 1586 just before being consecrated.