Pomponazzi published his Tractatus de intensione et remissione formarum in Bologna in 1514 (per Hieronymum Platonidem de Benedictis).
The text includes the epistle of Giovanni Vergili and the dedication to Prince Alberto Pio of Carpi.
In the treatise, Pomponazzi refutes the Mertonian thesis and the Calculatorian theories of Oxford logicians, to defend Aristotelianism and ancient metaphysics against the terministic orientation of Calculatorian logic.
The subject of controversy is De intensione et remissione, the first treatise forming the Liber calculationum, composed around the middle of the 14th century and published in Padua in 1477.
The principal issue of the Pomponatian treatise concerns the quantization of qualities, i.e. the measurement of intensification (intensio) and attenuation (remissio) of a certain quality according to a specific set of values or shades (latitudo).
Compared to the opposite position of Calculatores, the Mantuan contends that between the intensio and remissio there are arithmetic differences such that their respective latitudines are uniform and, therefore, even comparable, when these are in relationship of inverse proportion.
Towards the end of the treatise, Pomponazzi faces aliquae dubitationes about the relationship between God and the finite creatures regarding the measurement of intensio and remissio in terms of appropinquatio and distantia to the highest degree.
The author, not wanting to openly reject the Thomistic thesis, leaves unresolved some theoretical difficulties.
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.
