:''To be distinguished from
Diego López de Zúñiga (theologian) (d.1531)''
Diego de Zúñiga of Salamanca (sometimes
Latinized as Didacus a Stunica) (1536–1597) was an
Augustinian Hermit
The Order of Saint Augustine, ( la, Ordo Fratrum Sancti Augustini) abbreviated OSA, is a religious mendicant order of the Catholic Church. It was founded in 1244 by bringing together several eremitical groups in the Tuscany region who were fo ...
and academic. He is known for publishing an early acceptance of the
Copernican theory.
Life
A student of
Luis de León
Luis de León ( Belmonte, Cuenca, 1527 – Madrigal de las Altas Torres, Castile, Spain, 23 August 1591), was a Spanish lyric poet, Augustinian friar, theologian and academic, active during the Spanish Golden Age.
Early life
Luis de ...
, he taught at the
University of Osuna and the
University of Salamanca
The University of Salamanca ( es, Universidad de Salamanca) is a Spanish higher education institution, located in the city of Salamanca, in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It was founded in 1218 by King Alfonso IX. It is t ...
.
His ''In Job commentaria'' (Commentary on Job, 1584) addressed Job 9:6, in such a way as to assert that the Copernican heliocentric theory was an acceptable interpretation of Scripture. This publication made him one of a very small number of Catholic scholars of the sixteenth century who set out an explicit accommodation with the ideas of Copernicus. He did, however, subsequently change his views, on another front, philosophical rather than theological. In ''Philosophia prima pars'', written at the end of his life, he rejected Copernicanism as incompatible with Aristotelian theory on
natural philosophy
Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin ''philosophia naturalis'') is the philosophical study of physics, that is, nature and the physical universe. It was dominant before the development of modern science.
From the ancient wo ...
.
The ''Philosophia prima pars'' was a large-scale work on metaphysics, structured in accordance with current university practice, and aimed at a reform in the university teaching of philosophy. Written from an Aristotelian point of view, it aimed to fortify the Peripatetic philosophy, fending off sceptics and arguing for it as scientific. Against the sceptical attack, truth was treated under metaphysics.
[Charles B. Schmitt, Quentin Skinner (editors), ''The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy'' (1990), p. 611 and p. 616.]
The work of Zúñiga was placed on the Church's
Index, together with Copernicus' ''
De revolutionibus
''De revolutionibus orbium coelestium'' (English translation: ''On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres'') is the seminal work on the heliocentric theory of the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) of the Polish Renaissance. The book ...
'', by a decree of the Sacred Congregation from March 5, 1616:
Notes
Works
* ''Philosophiae prima pars, qua perfecte et eleganter quatuor scientiae Metaphysica, Dialectica, Rhetorica et Physica declarantur'' Toledo: 1597.
Partial Spanish translation: Metafísica (1597) - Introducción, traducción y notas de Gerardo Bolado - Pamplona, Eunsa 2008.
Física (1597) - Introducción, traducción y notas de Gerardo Bolado - Pamplona, Eunsa 2009.
Further reading
* Rafael Chabrán, ''Diego de Zuñiga, Job and The Reception of Copernicus in Spain'', Ometeca. Vol. 1 No. 2 & Vol. 2 No. 1 (1989–1990): pp. 61–68.
* Victor Navarro Brotons, ''The Reception of Copernicus in Sixteenth-Century Spain: The Case of Diego de Zuniga'', Isis, Vol. 86, No. 1 (Mar., 1995), pp. 52–78
External links
The Birth of Ontology. A selection of Ontologists from 1560 to 1770
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zuniga, Diego De
Augustinian friars
Spanish philosophers
16th-century Spanish Roman Catholic theologians
1536 births
1597 deaths
University of Salamanca alumni
16th-century Spanish philosophers