Scipione Chiaramonti

Scipione Chiaramonti (1565 to 1652) was an Italian philosopher and noted opponent of Galileo, born into a noble and wealthy family of Cesena and the son of a doctor. He studied at the University of Ferrara, married Virginia Abbati and fathered twelve children, and ran a Lyceum at his house where he taught mathematics, optics and perspective. He served the Este court as mathematician and adviser, taught natural philosophy at Perugia, and held the chair of philosophy at Pisa from 1627 to 1636. In the quarrel over the comets of 1618 he argued that they were sublunar, and in Antitycho of 1621 he attacked Tycho Brahe, defending the traditional geocentric model so firmly that he rejected even the Tychonic system. Galileo answered him through the character of Simplicio in the Dialogue, and he replied with the Difesa. He also wrote a work of political philosophy, Della Ragion di Stato, and a history of Cesena, where he died in 1652.