“On the Nature of Things”

This is the title page for one of the most fascinating and popular books of the Italian Renaissance – _De rerum natura_, or, _On the Nature of Things_, by the Ancient Roman Lucretius. The expense of the artwork and skill of the miniaturist – the copier was an Augustinian friar for Pope Sixtus IV dating to 1483 — are evident. Here’s the question: what was the papal curia’s interest in Rome’s most famous atheist?

Lucretius was a first century BCE philosopher who wrote _De rerum natura_ as an extensive poem to explain how the universe works. And in it, he was very clear that the Gods had no place in it: “All religions,” Lucretius opined, “are equally sublime to the ignorant, useful to the politician, and ridiculous to the philosopher”. In his view, nature operated independently of any divine forces. Lucretius became known as the best Roman spokesperson for Epicurian philosophy, which taught that everything is made up of atoms and that the goal of life should be to achieve tranquility and absence of fear.

The fact that Pope Sixtus wanted this manuscript produced in such a luxurious manner is jarring — the Renaissance lauded Humanism, but was not atheist. But it wasn’t just Sixtus who was enamoured with Lucretius’s poem: Machiavelli and many others copied and read it as well. (Incidentally, the first English translation was done by a female scholar named Lucy Hutchinson).

Part of the reason for the revised popularity of _De rerum natura_ in the Renaissance was because Lucretius had excellent Latin, the type that Italian philologists were swooning over in the 15th century. Perhaps another reason was because atheist ideas had been broiling around increasingly in the Late Middle Ages as a response against perceived Church corruption, which is the thesis of Alec Ryrie, in his book _Unbelievers: An Emotional History of Doubt_ (2019).