Bernardino Telesio (1509–1588) belongs to a group of independentphilosophers of the late Renaissance who left the universities inorder to develop philosophical and scientific ideas beyond therestrictions of the Aristotelian-scholastic tradition. Authors in theearly modern period referred to these philosophers as‘novateurs’ and ‘modern’. In contrast to hissuccessors Patrizi and Campanella, Telesio was a fervent critic ofmetaphysics and insisted on a purely empiricist approach in naturalphilosophy—he thus became a forerunner of early modernempiricism. He had a remarkable influence on Tommaso Campanella,Giordano Bruno, Pierre Gassendi, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes and onfreethinkers like Guillaume Lamy and Giulio Cesare Vanini.

• 1. Life, Works and Influence
• 2. Cosmology
• 3. Psychology
• 4. Theory of sense perception
• 5. Theory of knowledge
• 6. Ethics
• 7. Science and Religion
• Bibliography
  • Works by Telesio
  • Summaries and contemporary works on Telesio
  • Secondary literature
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Life, Works and Influence

Bernardino Telesio was born at Cosenza in Calabria in 1509 as the sonof a noble and quite wealthy family. Having been educated by his uncleAntonio Telesio, a humanist of note, he studied in Milan, Rome and thefamous university of Padua, which he left in 1535. There is noevidence that Telesio gained a doctorate. Instead of undertaking auniversity career, he spent several years in a Benedictine monastery(1535–44) without taking oaths. Later he lived in the Neapolitanhome of Alfonso III Carafa, Duke of Nocera. In 1553 he married andsettled in Cosenza, becoming the dominant figure of the AccademiaCosentina, which came to focus on natural philosophy under histutelage. Telesio never held a salaried position. After the death ofhis wife in 1561, which marked the beginning of his financialdifficulties, he seems to have spent some time in Rome under thepatronage of Pope Pius IV. He rejected the Archbishopric of Cosenzaoffered by Pius IV in 1565, leaving this position to his brother. From1576 on he was moving between Cosenza and Naples; in Naples he livedwith the son and heir of Alfonso Carafa, Ferrante, to whom hededicated the final version of hisDe rerum natura. He diedin his hometown in 1588.

Telesio dedicated his whole life to establishing a new kind of naturalphilosophy, which can be described as an early defense of naturalismand empiricism bound together with a rigorous criticism ofAristotelian natural philosophy and Galenic physiology. Telesio blamedboth Aristotle and Galen for relying on elaborate reasoning ratherthan sense perception and empirical research. His fervent attacksagainst the greatest authorities of the Western philosophical andmedical traditions led Francis Bacon to speak of him as “thefirst of the moderns” (Opera omnia vol. III, 1963, p.114). He was perhaps the most strident critic of metaphysics in lateRenaissance times. It was obviously due to his excellent relationshipswith popes and clerics that he was not persecuted and was able duringhis own lifetime to publish his rather heterodox writings, which wenton the index shortly after his death. His principal work is theaforementionedDe rerum natura iuxta propria principia(“On the Nature of Things according to their OwnPrinciples”), which in the last augmented edition of theauthor’s hand appeared in Naples in 1586. TheDe rerum naturais a huge treatise in nine books which deals with cosmology, biology,sense perception, reason and ethics. Another treatise of majorimportance isQuod animal universum ab unica animae substantiagubernatur. Contra Galenum, in which Telesio critizised centralconceptions of Galenic physiology and psychology. This work was neverprinted, but circulated in manuscript copies (De Franco, 1981, p.XXII). Smaller treatises deal with a variety of themes such ascolours, dreams, geology and meteorology, some of which were publishedin Rome in 1565 (De iis quae in aere fiunt et deterremotibus;De colorum generatione;De mari).Telesio’s philosophy was disseminated by friends and students such asTommaso Campanella, whose writings contain long paraphrases ofTelesian ideas; by Sertorio Quattromani, Telesio’s successor as headof the Accademia Cosentina, who published a synthesis of hispredecessor’s philosophy in 1589; and by Antonio Persio, who gavelessons on Telesio’s thought in Venice and published a collection ofsmaller works, theVarii de naturalibus rebus libelli, in1590. Giordano Bruno speaks of the “giudiciosissimoTelesio” in the third dialog ofDe la causa, whilstFrancis Bacon based his own speculative philosophy of nature on ablend of Telesian and Paracelsian conceptions (Giachetti Assenza 1980;Rees 1977; 1984). Thomas Hobbes followed Telesio in the rejection ofspecies (Schuhmann 1990; Leijenhorst 1998, p. 116ff.) The physiologyof René Descartes inDe homine shows closesimilarities to Telesio’s physiological theories as they are presentedinDe natura rerum (Hatfield 1992). Telesio also had someinfluence on Gassendi and on libertine thinkers (Bianchi 1992).

2. Cosmology

Telesio’s vision of the genesis of nature is simple to the point ofbeing archaic, yet at the same time astonishingly modern in the sensethat he seems to have been one of the very first defenders of a theoryof natural evolution without metaphysical or theologicalpresuppositions. According to hisDe rerum natura, the onlythings which must be presupposed are passive matter and active force,the latter of which Telesio thought of as twofold, heat and cold.These principles were meant to replace the Aristotelian metaphysicalprinciples of matter and form. In order to explain how all naturalbeings came into existence by these opposing forces, Telesiopresumed that in the beginning God had created two primary globes, thesun and the earth, the sun being the seat of heat, the earth that ofcoldness, and that He had separated them with such a distance in spacethat they could not extinguish each other (DRN book I, ch. IV). Allnatural things result from the battle of these antagonistic forces forthe possession of matter. The main region of that creative battle isthe surface of the earth, where they create metals, stones and animatebeings. The primary activity of warmth is to move fast and to dilateand rarefy matter, whereas that of cold is to hinder movement and tocondense matter. Things differ according to the amount of heat or coldthey possess (and therefore according to their density and derivativequalities such as velocity and colour). The quantity of matter is notchanged through the action of these forces upon it. The role of heat,cold and matter as ‘natural principles’ had beenhighlighted before by Girolamo Fracastoro in the first version of theHomocentrica and in the dialogueFracastorius sive Deanima (Lerner 1992), as well as by Girolamo Cardano in hisLiber unicus de natura.

Telesio’s cosmology puts an end to metaphysical explanations. Telesiothought space to be absolute (DRN book I, ch. XXV–XXVIII), thusabolishing the Aristotelian notion of a bipartite cosmos divided intoa sublunary world, in which generation and corruption take place, anda supralunary sphere with eternal regular movements. The existence ofvacuum within space is admitted, but things are said to have a naturalinclination to avoid empty space. In the cosmological chapters of bookIV Telesio critizised the Aristotelian explanation of the movement ofthe cosmos by a transcendent telos, the God of Aristotle’smetaphysics: the sky doesn’t move because of a desire for a being moreperfect than itself, but because it is its own nature to move and thusto sustain its own life (DRN book IV, ch. XXIV; Aristotle,Metaph. XII, ch. 6–7). Likewise, he rejected the ideathat the motions of the subordinate spheres were caused by unmovedmovers, the pure intelligences of the Aristotelian and Christiantraditions, an assumption which he reprimanded to be obscure andincomprehensible even via imagination (Bondì 1018).

The things of nature are not created, governed and sustained by divineprovidence. In Telesio’s philosophy, there is no such thing as atranscendent mind or idea. All things act solely according to theirown nature, starting from the primary forces of cold and heat. TheEpicurean chance is enclosed in Telesio’s Stoic-influenced philosophyof nature (Kessler 1992): everything can produce everything, an ideawhich was soon to be sharply rejected by Francesco Patrizi da Chierso,one of the most important contemporary readers of Telesio(“Obiectiones”, in the appendix of Telesio’sVariilibelli, p. 467 f.). In order to sustain themselves, theseprimary forces and all beings which arise through their antagonisticinteraction must be able to sense themselves as well as the oppositeforce, that is, they must sense what is convenient and what isinconvenient or damaging for their survival and well-being. Sensation,therefore, is not the property of embodied souls. Telesio’s philosophycan thus be described as a pansensism in the sense that all beings,animate or inanimate, are said to have the power of sensation.

3. Psychology

With regard to psychology, Telesio took a materialist standpoint.According to his general rejection of the metaphysical (and thereforeinappropriate) principles of matter and form, he rejected Aristotle’sdefinition of the soul asforma corporis, i.e. as form andentelechy of an organic body (Aristotle,De anima II,1).According to Telesio, the soul is a separate being, but not in thesense of the Platonists, who define it as an immortal essence actingas the governor and mover of the body during its embodied life.Telesio held the soul to be a specific part of the body, defining itas thespiritus coursing through the nervous system andhaving its main seat in the brain. Thespiritus whichovertakes the role of theanima of the philosophicaltradition is produced by the white ‘semen’. Telesio callsit thespiritus e semine eductus. He maintains in DRN book V,ch. I:

“This [separate substance] will therefore be thespiritus, which took its origin from the semen, as we willexplain elsewhere (and it is to be found in all things made fromsemen, namely those which are white and bloodless, with the exceptionof the bones and similar things); and only the spirit is whatperceives in the animal, and moves sometimes with the whole body,sometimes with single parts thereof, and solely governs the wholeanimal. That is to say, it performs those actions which, according tothe concurring opinion of all, are typical of the soul.” (Vol.II, p. 208).

To ascribe psychic functions to a specific part of the body implies arejection of the difference between organic and inorganic life, whichdichotomy was central to the Aristotelian, Platonic and Christiantraditions. According to Telesio, there is a quantitative and not aqualitative difference here, which consists in the higher degree ofcomplexity and the higher degree of warmth that some physical bodiespossess. Whereas metals or stones are homogenous bodies, organicbodies consist of heterogeneous parts, including the bodily (thoughinvisible) spirit in the nerves and brain (DRN book V, ch. II). Andjust as there is no metaphysical difference between living andnon-living bodies, there also does not exist a qualitative differencebetween animals and humans—in both, it is the same spirit whichcoordinates the functions and operations of the different bodilyparts. In DRN book V, ch. III Telesio states:

…and when it has been proved that in animals the spiritproduced from the semen is the substance of their soul, then onecannot doubt that the same exists in humans, albeit in a much morenoble form, and it is surely not of a very different nature and doesnot possess highly different capabilities. We see that humans areformed by the same things as the other animals, and that they possessthe same abilities and even the same organs for feeding andreproduction, and that they produce a very similar semen and eject itin the same way and with the same pleasure and from a very similarpart and become tired after ejaculation, and that the same things arebeing formed out of the semen in both cases, namely the same nervousand membranous systems. And it is only [the spirit] which in allanimate beings is perceiving and moving in the same way and accordingto the same dispositions. (Vol II, p. 216).

In order to explain how animate beings perform different functions andoperations, traditional psychological as well as physiologicaltheories referred to a threefold soul. Whereas Aristotle inDeanima had distinguished between theanima vegetativa,anima sensitiva andanima cogitativa (whichdistinction also corresponds to that of plants, animals and humanswith their specific faculties), Plato had established three parts ofthe soul (Republic 434d-443e), which in theTimaios(69aff.) he had associated with different organs, namely the rationalpart of the soul (logistikon) to the brain, the spirited(thumoeides) to the heart and the desirous or lower passions(épithumêtikon) to the liver. In thistripartition he was followed by the Stoic physician Galen (Deplacitis Hippocratis et Platonis VII, I and III), who added athreefold spirit—thespiritus naturalis being producedin the liver, thespiritus vitalis refined in the blood andthespiritus animalis distilled in the brain. Whereas theAristotelian psychology was combatted in theDe rerum natura,Telesio dedicated a whole treatise to the criticism of Galen, theQuod animal universum ab unica animae substantia gubernatur.Contra Galenum. According to Telesio, the functioning of anorganic body cannot be explained by presupposing a plurality ofrulers. In asserting the unity of the soul (i.e. spirit), Telesiofollowed the medical theorist Giovanni Argenterio (1513–1572),who defended the unity of the spirit against the Aristotelian andmedical traditions.

Telesio combined the medical theory of spirit with a basically Stoicnotion, that of thehegemonikon, according to which thespirit in the brain is responsible for all the states and operationstraditionally ascribed to the tripartite soul: “the animal… is governed by one substance residing in the brain”(Quod animal universum ch. XXV; Var. lib. p. 254). Whereas inQuod animal universum he went on to explain the affects interms of physiology, inDe rerum natura he added a theory ofsense perception and a theory of knowledge on physical grounds.

4. Theory of sense perception

Telesio rejected the traditional concept of sense organs, replacing itwith a mechanistic explanation of sense perception (DRN booksV–VII). In his opinion, to speak of sense organs isinappropriate, as the so-called sense organs are nothing else than“parts of the body which are either more subtle or soft thanothers, or perforated and open. One should not believe in theslightest that they are made thus in order to offer some capacity orsupport of perceiving to the sensitive soul (which seems to be theduty of organs), but in order to provide an easy and open entry to theforces of external things and to those things themselves.” (DRNbook I, ch.VI; vol. I, p. 68). What is perceived are not the forms orspecies of things as the Aristotelians believed, but impulsesof light and air (DRN book V, ch. VIII; vol. II, 254; for therejection ofspecies see DRN book VII, ch. XXX–XXXIIIagainst the Aristotelian and ch. XVIII–XXIX against the Galenictheory; Telesio’s rejection ofspecies was taken up byHobbes,Leviathan book I, ch. I “De sensu”). Asthe sense of touch provides the most narrow contact between outerobject and sensing spirit, it assumes the role of the primary sense,which was traditionally identified with the sense of vision (DRN bookVII, ch. IX, vol. III, p. 34.) Theinformatio theory beingrejected, Telesio comes close to a neuronal explanation of senseperception, which is a mechanical process arising from the transfer oftactile impressions through the nerves to the brain. It is the spiritresiding in the brain which experiences nervous dilatations andcontractions, and which judges these sensations according to the basicscheme of pleasure and pain, giving out corresponding reactions likemoving towards something or avoiding contact (DRN book VII ch.II–V). Strictly speaking, sense perception is a sensation ofsensing (sensus sensus) which takes place in the brain:“Sense perception can only be the perception of the activitiesof things and impulses in the air, and can only consist of theperception of [the spirit’s] own passions, transformations andmovements, particularly the latter. Indeed, the spirit perceives thembecause he perceives that it is affected by them, that it is beingchanged and moved.” (Vol. III, p. 6)

In his explanation of sense perception Telesio comes close to theDemocritan theory which he combines with the basic Stoic notion ofconservatio sui, a key term in Telesio’s philosophy. Pleasureis identified with the sensation of self-preservation, pain is thesensation of destruction (DRN book VII, ch. III; vol. III, p. 10). Inthis, as well as in his theory of knowledge, Telesio seems to followGirolamo Fracastoro’s explanation of sense perception andunderstanding given in the closing chapters ofDe sympathia etantipathia rerum and in the epistemological treatiseTurriussive de intellectione.

5. Theory of knowledge

For Telesio, theconservatio sui is the foundation from whichall sensitive and cognitive functions arise. Defending an empiricalapproach in epistemology, Telesio tried to annul the traditionaldistinction between sense perception and reason, and he denied thatthere exists something like a purely mental sphere and a correspondingintellect which Aristotle inDe anima III had callednous. Understanding is a process which requires senseperception and memory. According to Telesio, our memory is not visual.What we remember are movements which our spirit has experienced andgiven out when being in contact with external forces. If now thespirit undergoes a similar experience, for example the pain of gettingburned, it will ascribe this perception to a similar or identicalcause and call it ‘fire’ (DRN book VIII, ch. 1; vol. III,p. 160). The ability of making rational conclusions(ratiocinari) consists in comparing new expierences to oldones and in supplementing hidden or unknown aspects when refering themto former experiences. Telesio even suggests replacing the termintelligere withexistimari andcommemorari(DRN book VIII, ch. III; vol. III, p. 164f.). Intellectualunderstanding therefore does not mean to reach a realm of necessityand eternity, not even in mathematics, which according to Telesioarises from sensual experience and is a science of less dignity thanthe observation-based natural philosophy (DRN book VIII, ch. IV; vol.III, p. 176f.).

6. Ethics

The ethics exposed in the 9^th book ofDe rerumnatura is strictly naturalist. The only objective which Telesioascribes to the spirit is self-preservation and self-improvement, theformer lying in its ability to react suitably to influences from theexternal world, the latter in its capability of finding means toimprove its state of being. This comes about through theoreticalknowledge, specifically through natural philosophy and medicine (cf.DRN book VIII, ch. XXI) and through learning to control one’s ownemotions and desires. According to Telesio, we can voluntarily provokeand suppress affections and their related actions (DRN book IX, ch. I;vol. III, p. 332f.); what is more, we are able to master the degree towhich we desire and are affected (DRN book IX, ch. II; vol. III, p.334). The principle of moral virtue is said to be a knowledge of whatis helpful and what is damaging for survival and well-being in humansociety. All virtues and vices are reduced to self-conservation.

7. Science and Religion

Whereas medieval and Renaissance authors often seemed to rely on thedouble-truth theory in order to maintain the freedom of scientificresearch and teaching, Telesio maintained a purely scientificapproach. But he did not deny the existence of God and of the humansoul. Telesio’s God is not the God who acts in nature and history,though he did not deny the possibility of miracles (DRN book IV, ch.XXV; vol. I, p. 176). The God Telesio seems to imagine can be comparedto a mechanic. Just as the best mechanic creates an artefact whichwill work without interruption and default, so the power of thealmighty divine artist is represented in a cosmos which is able togenerate and to sustain itself without ever running the danger ofcorruption (see DRN book I, ch. X).

Besides the natural soul or spirit Telesio accepted the existence ofan immortal soul superimposed by God (DRN book V, ch. II–III).But in his theory of psychology and ethics the soul does not play anysignificant role, for which reason researchers have often held it tobe an addition designed to avoid conflicts with the Church. On theother hand, there do exist certain modes of behavior which cannot beexplained in a purely naturalistic and materialistic way, such as thehuman striving for eternity and the martyrs’ denial of the highestobjective of self-preservation. But far from building a bridge to thephilosophical tradition, Telesio’s definition of a second, divinelysuperimposed soul as “forma corporis et praecipuespiritus” deals a deathblow to Aristotle’s teachings. Accordingto Telesio, the idea of an immortal soul was totally unknown to theheathen Aristotle, who is severely criticized for confusing theconcept of a natural spirit with the religious idea of a soul (DRNbook V, ch. II–III):

And when we have reproved Aristotle and will continue to reprove himfor having introduced the soul into the body as its peculiar form, wehave not condemned him and we will not condemn him because he equatedthe soul created by God (a thing which one might suspect wascompletely unknown to him) with the form of humans, but ratherbecause... he equated the soul which was generated from the semen andwhich is the only one which senses, causes movements and is (so tospeak) something akin to the semen, with the form of the body. (Vol.II, p. 218f.)

Nonetheless, the few pages which Telesio dedicated to the immortalsoul do not open a path to metaphysical or theological theories. Inscience, Telesio adheres to a naturalistic worldview. It was TommasoCampanella who combined Telesian naturalism with a theory of the animacreata and human mind which he based upon sceptical doubts. (Boenke2005, Ernst 2014, Bondì 2018).

Bibliography

Works by Telesio

De rerum natura iuxta propria principia

• De natura iuxta propria principia liber primus etsecundus. Romae, apud Antonium Bladum, 1565.
  • Ed. Alessandro Ottaviani, Torino: Nino Aragno, 2006 (EdizioneNazionale delle Opere di Bernardino Telesio vol I).
  • Facsimile ed. Roberto Bondi (2011). Also contains “AdFelicem Moimonam iris” (1565), Roma: Carocci. (Telesiana I,preface N. Ordine).
  • Delle cose naturali libri due – Opusculi – Polemichetelesiani, volgarizzamento di Francesco Martelli [1573], reprint ed.Anna Laura Puliafito (2013) with introduction and index, Roma: Carocci(Telesiana 5).
• De rerum natura iuxta propria principia liber primus, etsecundus, denuo editi. Neapoli: apud Iosephum Cacchium, 1570.
  • Facsimile ed. Maurizio Torrini (1989), Napoli: Istituto SuorOrsola Benincasa.
  • Facsimile ed. Roberto Bondi (2013). Also contains Opuscula (1570):“De his quae in aere fiunt et de terremotibus”; “Decolorum generatione”; “De mare”, Roma: Carocci.(Telesiana II, preface N. Ordine).
  • La natura secondo i suoi principi, con testo originale a frontesecondo l’edizione del 1570, ed. Roberto Bondi (2009), Milano:Bompiani. (1st ed. Firenze 1999).
  • La naturaleza según sus propios principios (Libros primeiroy segundo nuevamente editados) Nápoles 1570, traducción,introducción y notas de Miguel Saralegui (2013), Madrid:Tecnos
• De rerum natura iuxta propria principia libri IX.Neapoli: apud Horatium Salvianum, 1586.
  • Facsimile ed. Guido Giglioni (2013), with introduction and index,Roma: Carocci (Telesiana 4)
  • Facsimile ed. Cesare Vasoli (1971), Hildesheim, New York: G.Olms.
  • Ed. and Ital. transl. by Luigi De Franco (1965–1974). 3vols, I-II: Cosenza (Casa del Libro) 1965, 1974, III: Firenze: LaNuova Italia, 1976 (cited here asDRN).

Varii de naturalibus rebus libelli

• Varii de naturalibus rebus libelli ab Antonio Persioediti. Quorum alii nunquam antea excusi, alii meliores factiprodeunt. Sunt autem hi: De cometis et lacteo circulo, De his quae inaere fiunt, De iride, De mari, Quod animal universum, De usurespirationis, De coloribus, De saporibus, De somno. Unicuique libelloappositus est capitum index. Venetiis: apud Felicem Valgrisium, 1590.
  • Facsimile ed. Miguel A. Granada (2012), Roma: Carocci. (Telesiana5)
  • Prima edizione integrale, ed. Luigi De Franco (1981). Alsocontains “Solutiones objectionum Francisci Patritii”;“Ad Johannam Castriotam Carmen”. Firenze: La Nuova Italia.(Cited here asVarii libelli).

Recent editions of singular works

• “Il commentario ‘De fulmine’ di BernardinoTelesio”, ed. Carlo Delcorno (1967),Aevum, XLI:474–506.
• Ad Felicem Moimonam Iris, facsimile ed. and introd.Roberto Bondì (2009), Paris: Les Belles Lettres.
• De iis quae in aere fiunt et de terraemotibus –De mari, ed. Luigi De Franco with Ital. transl. by F.Martelli (1990), Cosenza: Bios.
• De saporibus opusculum, ed. and Ital. transl. by GiovanniGentile and Guido Francesco, (1968), Roma: Arti grafiche E.Cossidente.
• Sobre los cometas y la Vía Láctea., ed.Miguel A. Granada (2012), with Spanish transl., introduction andnotes, Madrid: Tecnos.

Summaries and contemporary works on Telesio

• Bacon, Francis: De principiis atque originibus secundum fabulascupidinis et coeli. Opera Omnia ed. J. Spedding, R.L. Ellis, D.D.Heath, Vol III, London 1887, facsimile ed. Stuttgart – BadCannstatt 1963, pp. 79–118, (pp. 94–118 on Telesio).
• D’Aquino, Gio. Paolo:Orazione in morte di Bernardino TelesioPhilosopho Eccellentissimo agli Academici Cosentini, in Cosenzaper Leonardo Angrisano 1596.
• Patrizi, Francesco, “Obiectiones”, in BernadinoTelesio, Varii libelli (op. cit.), ed. De Franco, pp.463–474.
• Persius, Antonius, “Apologia pro Bern. Telesio adversusFranciscum Patritium”, in Bernadino Telesio, Varii libelli (op.cit.), pp. 474–495.
• Quattromani, Sertorio,La filosofia di Bernardino Telesioristretta in brevità et scritta in lingua toscana (Neapoli1589), ed. E. Troilo, Bari 1914.

For a complete list of contemporary and early Telesio editions seeGiliola Barbero and Adriana Paolini (2017),Le edizioni antichedi Bernardino Telesio: censimento e storia, Paris: Les BellesLettres.

Secondary literature

Conference proceedings, miscellaneous works and exhibition catalogues

• Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi su BernardinoTelesio (Cosenza, 12–13 maggio 1989). Ed. 1990, Cosenza:Accademia Cosentina.
• Bernardino Telesio e la cultura napoletana. Atti delConvegno internazionale, Napoli 15–17 dicembre 1989. Ed.Raffaelo Sirri e Maurizio Torrini (1992), Napoli: Guida.
• Bernardino Telesio e l’idea di natura “iuxta propriaprincipia”. Mostra bibliografica, documentaria eiconografica. Ed. 1989, Roma: Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca delloStato.
• Bernardino Telesio nel 4º centenario della morte(1588). Ed. M. Santoro (1989), Napoli: Istituto Nazionale diStudi nel Rinascimento meridionale.
• Mostra bibliografica Telesiana. Celebrazioni per il IVCentenario della morte di Bernardino Telesio 1588–1988. Ed.1988, Cosenza: Biblioteca Civica.
• Bernardino Telesio tra filosofia naturale e scienzamoderna. Ed. Giuliana Mocchi, Sandra Plastina, Emilio Sergio(2012), Pisa, Roma: Fabrizio Serra. (Bruniana eCampanelliana, Suppl. XXXV, Studi 14).
• Bernardino Telesio y la nueva imagen de la naturaleza en elRenacimento. Ed. Miguel A. Granada (2013), Madrid: Siruela.
• Bernardino Telesio and the Natural Sciences in theRenaissance. Ed. Pietro Daniel Omodeo (2019), Leiden, Boston:Brill.

Selected articles and monographs

• Abbagnano, Nicola, 1941,Bernardino Telesio e la filosofia delRinascimento, Milano: Garzanti.
• Agrimi, Mario, 1992, “Telesio nel Seicentonapoletano”, inBernadino Telesio e la culturanapoletana, Napoli: Guida, pp. 331–372.
• –––, 1991, “Il rapporto Parmenide –Telesio dal Persio aal Maranta”,Giorn. crit. filos. ital,70: 15–34.
• Artese, Luciano, 1987, “Filosofia telesiana e ramismo in uninedito di Antonio Persio”, inGiornale Critica dellaFilosofia Italiana, LXVI: 433–458.
• Barbero, Giliola and Paolini, Andrea, 2017,Le edizioniantiche di Bernardino Telesio: censimento e storia. Con premessadi Nuccio Ordine, presentazione di Roberto Bondí, Paris: LesBelles Lettres.
• Bianchi, Lorenzo, 1992, “Des novateurs modernes en laphilosophie: Telesio tra eruditi e libertini nella Francia delSeicento”, inBernardino Telesio e la culturanapoletana, Napoli: Guida, pp. 374–416.
• Bidwell-Steiner, Marlen, 2012, “Metabolisms of the Soul: ThePhysiology of Bernardino Telesio in Oliva Sabuco’s Nuevafilosofía de la naturaleza del hombre (1587)”, inBlood, Sweat and Tears. The changing concepts of physiology fromAntiquity into Early Modern Europe, Manfred Horstmanshoff, HelenKing, and Claus Zittel (eds.), Leiden, Boston: Brill, pp.661–683.
• Boenke, Michaela, 2005,Körper, Spiritus, Geist:Psychologie vor Descartes, München: Fink.
• Bondí, Roberto, 2018a, “Dangerous Ideas: Telesio,Campanella and Galileo”, inCopernicus Banned. The EntangledMatter of the Anti-Copernican Decree of 1616, N. Fabbri and F.Favino (eds.), Firenze: Olschki, pp. 1–27.
• –––, 2018b,Il primo dei moderni. Filosofiae scienza in Bernardino Telesio, Roma: Edizioni di storia eletteratura.
• –––, 2014, “Il Telesio di Bacon”, inLa raggione curiosa. Atti del convegno in memoria di PaoloRossi, Roma: Aracne, pp. 25–48.
• –––, 2013, “Dios, naturaleza y alma enTelesio”, inBernardino Telesio y la nueva imagen de lanaturalezza en el Renacimiento, Migual Á. Granada (ed.),Madrid: Siruela, pp. 21–42.
• –––, 2006, “Omnia mutantur, nihilinterit. Telesio e la teoria della generazione e dellacorruzione”, inHomo moriens. Ermeneutiche della morte daOmero a oggi, Marcello Zanatta (ed.), Cosenza: Pellegrini, pp.281–292.
• –––, 2000, “Tempo edeternità”, inSegni e percorsi dellamodernità: saggi in onore di Paolo Rossi, F. Abbri and M.Segala (eds.), Arezzo: Università degli Studi di Siena, pp.1–16.
• –––, 1997,Introduzione a Telesio,Roma, Bari: Laterza.
• De Franco, Luigi, 1995,Introduzione a BernardinoTelesio, Soveria Manelli: Rubbettino.
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• Telesio, in the Catalog of the Scientific Community, Galileo project,maintained by Albert Van Helden and Elizabeth Burr (RiceUniversity)
• Bernardino Telesio (1509–1588), entry by Emilio Sergio inTheInternet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

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