The Quaestiones super IV libros De caelo date back to the Pomponatian classes of the year 1500-1501; the lessons take place in Padua.
The dating of the course is shown by the colophon (f. 89r).
The scribe is anonymous.
The quaestiones on De caelo, book I, are twenty-one, from the prologue to the textus commenti 140.
The quaestiones on book II are nine, and they are based on textus commenti 15, 39, 40, 42, 49, 103.
The quaestiones on book III are eight (textus commenti 28, 29, 67).
The quaestiones on book IV are five (textus commenti 22, 23, 24, 30).
Finally, there is an index of the quaestiones (f. 146r).
There is also a "parallel" reportatio of the course written by Tommaso Campeggi (Firenze, Biblioteca Laurenziana, ms. Ashb. 1048, ff. 64r-135v).
During the lessons, Pomponazzi presents the issue of planetary motion.
In particular, as regards the movement of the Earth, Pomponazzi denies that the Earth moves secundum rem but not secundum imaginationem, i.e. he admits the movement of the Earth as a theoretical hypothesis.
Pietro Pomponazzi
Pietro Pomponazzi, said Peretto, was born in Mantua, on September 16th, 1462.
He studied at the University of Padua in 1484, and he graduated in artibus in 1487.
He taught at Padua from 1488 to 1496.
The composition of the Tractatus de maximo et minimo ad Laurentium Molinum, in manuscript form, is prior to 1496.
From 1496 to 1499, Pomponazzi, as teacher of logic, followed Alberto Pio of Carpi in his exile in Ferrara.
From 1499 to 1509, he returned to Padua to teach.
From 1510 to 1511, he was in retreat in Mantua.
From 1512 to 1524, he taught at the University of Bologna.
There are numerous handwritten reportationes of Pomponatian lectures written by his students and admirers.
In Bologna, Pomponazzi published all his treatises: Tractatus de intensione et remissione formarum (1514), Tractatus de reactione including Quaestio de actione reali (1515), Tractatus de immortalitate animae (1516), Apologia (1518), Defensorium (1519), Tractatus de nutritione et augmentatione (1521).
Two texts remained unpublished: De incantationibus and De fato, composed in 1520 circa and published posthumously, respectively, in 1556 and in 1567.
The Dubitationes in IV Meteorologicorum was published posthumously in 1563.
The collection of the Tractatus acutissimi, utillimi et mere peripatetici, including the six Bononian treatises and Quaestio de actione reali, was printed in Venice in 1525.
Pomponazzi died in Bologna, on May 18th, 1525.
