Jacopo Mazzoni

Jacopo Mazzoni (1548 to 1598) was an Italian philosopher and man of letters from Cesena. Born there on 27 November 1548, he studied in Cesena and Bologna and, from November 1563, at Padua, where he followed the Aristotelian philosopher Federico Pendasio, and he devoted himself to the books of the ancient philosophers beginning with Plato and Aristotle. His first work, a discourse on diphthongs, appeared at Cesena in 1572. He planned a vast systematization of knowledge divided into the active, the contemplative and the religious life, and he wrote a defense of Dante. Invited by Grand Duke Ferdinando de Medici to Pisa, he held from 1588 to 1597 the ordinary lectureship in Aristotelian philosophy and the extraordinary one in Platonic philosophy. He was named reformer of the University of Ferrara, fell ill, returned to Cesena and died there on 10 April 1598.