The interest in Telesio (1509–88) has grown in the last decades. His sensualistic physic, as Omodeo's volume clearly shows, is indispensable for understanding the transformations in sixteenth-century intellectual history and in the scientific investigation of the world. After an overview of Telesio's historical impact on his immediate successors by Roberto Bondì, Miguel Angel Granada opens the series of thematic investigations by analyzing the concept of the soul, from its identification with the spiritus a semine eductus (natural soul) of De Natura (1565) to the more orthodox, but less congruent, anima a Deo immissa (soul of divine origin) of the final edition of the work, in 1586. The important role played by the corporeal spiritus in the work of Agostino Doni, a key figure in the history of the Italian Reformation, is illustrated by Riccarda Suitner, who considers the influence on it of both Michele Serveto and Telesio.

The core of the volume is devoted to Telesio's explanation of a number of specific natural phenomena and its impact. Hiro Hirai analyzes the role of Aristotle and of some passages from Hippocrates (present in Cardano's work) on Telesio's doctrine of cosmic heat. Oreste Trabucco focuses in particular on the controversy of Federico Bonaventura on the winds, which followed the publication of the Libelli (1590). Bonaventura's criticism shows how difficult it was to maintain “a theory of matter framed in qualitative physics” from outside the Aristotelian philosophical system. Pietro D. Omodeo offers a precise analysis of the Telesian explanation of the tides, not only in relation to the medieval tradition (Albumasar and Alpetragius, in particular) but also to the work of more recent authors (Pico, Bruno, Pandolfo Sfrondati, Cesalpino). In presenting Telesio's explanation of the rainbow, Elio Nenci insists on its Aristotelian framework, recalling the crucial comments of Alexander of Aphrodisias and Olympiodorus.

Arianna Borrelli traces the presence of Telesio's meteorology in the work of Giambattista Della Porta, who certainly was not interested in building a coherent theoretical system, but probably read the pamphlet on air and earthquakes (1570) that shared some ideas on solar heat and thermal causes of rarefaction and condensation. Martin Mulsow publishes the report offered by Antonio Persio in his De Natura Ignis (Biblioteca Corsiniana, MS Linceo VII) of a dispute on the nature of light between his master and Quinzio Buongiovanni, professor of philosophy and medical theory at the University of Naples. The dispute most likely took place after the publication of the second edition of Telesio's main work (1570), and attests to Telesio's “genuine sensualism” and his efforts to “find an accurate language of description” of natural phenomena (189).

Rodolfo Garau emphasizes the historical impact of the doctrine of self-preservation in the explanation of motion and shows its influence on “proto-inertial natural philosophies” (235), found, for example, in the works of Descartes and Spinoza. Giulia Giannini shows there is no evidence of the Accademia Telesiana during the philosopher's lifetime, while after his death the Accademia Cosentina was configured as an encyclopedic academy, in which the use of the vernacular was particularly widespread. Alessandro Ottaviani publishes a scholion found in a copy of the 1565 edition of Telesio's De natura, now in the Biblioteca Corsiniana in Rome (31 A 9), which he attributes to Angelo Baronio.

The importance of this book lies not only in the careful contributions on the individual Telesian doctrines but also in the successful attempt to situate his work in the Italian and international intellectual debate. It invites us to focus on the limits of a too narrow Newtonian conception of science, as well as on the boundaries of sixteenth-century anti-Aristotelianism. This was endowed with a polemical spirit, but it was actually nourished by Aristotelian conceptual tools. Omodeo's volume is valuable reading for specialists but it also provides students and scholars from other areas with important elements for understanding Renaissance natural philosophy.