Mersenne and Vanini
ALTHOUGH many scholars have cited Marin Mersenne's Quaesj1 tiones celeberrimae in Genesim for his critical remarks about the life ofJulius Caesar Vanini, none of them has realised the extent to which Mersenne dealt with Vanini's works.1 They have found in Mersenne only a story about Vanini's intention to teach atheism, his execution, and one or two criticisms of his ideas. Far from making here and there a few comments about Vanini, however, Mersenne devoted a large portion of the volume to a critical analysis of the view of nature and religion which Vanini presents in his two books.2 The purpose of this article is, first, to explain why no one has hitherto discovered the extent of Mersenne's preoccupation with Vanini and, secondly, to examine briefly his basic attitude to Vanini's life and works. The name ofJulius Caesar Vanini has generally been synonymous in French literature with atheism from the time of his death in 1619 to the present. When he was convicted of atheism by the Parlement of Toulouse and burned at the stake, his reputation was then and there firmly established for most of posterity. There have been some exceptions, however, notably among the philosophes, who, like Voltaire, considered him to be not an atheist but rather the victim of judicial injustice.3 Recent scholars have also begun to question acceptance of this verdict by past generations. J. S. Spink says, for example, that Voltaire was right to refuse to call Vanini an atheist if by that term one means 'a