1. It is said that Vanini knew not god. Which Gramond’s expression. Deum ignorabat.
2. That he brought to light again the book entitled Of the Three Impostors.
3. That he had advanced the words of the atheists.
4. That he answered them very lightly.
5. That he held in execration the humanity of Christ.
6. That he accused the Virgin Mary of having lost her virginity.
7. That he esteemed nature the only god (see: god = nature).
8. That he blamed those schoolmen who reasoned about angels.
9. That he required a physical account of the nature of devils.
10. That he denied the immorality of the soul.
11. That he was an astrologer.
12. That he contested the future destruction of the world by fire.
13. That he maintained fatality.
14. That he fancied letters in the heaven.
15. That he refuted neither Cardano nor Haly.
16. That he laughed at scared things.
17. That he was rejected by the friars and turned out of their monastery.
18. That lastly, he was condemned to die.

“Men sprang forth like mushrooms, say they. Diodorus Siculus imagines the first man was brought forth out of the slime of the earth, but if so, observes Alexander, how does it happen, that in five hundred thousand years, since which, the world has formed itself, there has been none brought forth in that manner? Nevertheless, he is not the only who has taken that story for truth, and is assured, that by the concurrence of the stars it is very practicable—and this is the opinion of Cardano: he pretends, that as the smaller animals, mice and fishes, are produced by putrefaction, it is very probable, that the greater animals, and even all in general, are derived from them also. A handsome method of reasoning, replies Alexander, a mouse may be brought forth out of putrefaction, therefore a man may also! Are there not now sufficient heaps of filth and slime? Why then is there not sometimes a horse, sometimes an ox produced from it? That’s right, says Vanini, but Diodorus Siculus relates, that in a certain part of the Nile, where it overflows, leaving behind it as it were a bed of mud, which as soon as it is heated by the sun, there are produced from it, animals of a monstrous size. That’s well, says Alexander, but as for me, I could never subscribe to such a lie.”

Vanini (1616) conjectures that humans originated from heated mud and or were quadrupedal monkeys.

“Others have dreamed that the first man has taken his origin from mud, putrefied by the corruption of certain monkeys, swine, and frogs; and thence, they say, proceeds the great resemblance there is between our flesh and propensions, and those of those creatures. Other atheists milder have thought that non but the Ethiopians are produced from a race of monkeys, because the same degree of heat is found in both. Truly, replies Alexander, I wonder that those people can dispute the excellency of man above other creatures, when they behold the uprightness of his structure. Well, answers Vanini, atheists cry out to us continually, that the first men went upon all four as other beasts, and it is by education only, they have changed this custom, which, nevertheless in their old age returns again. I should be glad to see this experiment, says Alexander, if a child just born, and brought up in a forest, should walk upon all four. But let us abandon those deliriums to atheists, and hold to the rules prescribed by our faith.”

“Vanini, under trial, being interrogated what he thought of the existence of god, answered, that he adored as the church did; a god in three persons. Having taken up a straw, ‘this straw’, he says, ‘is enough to prove that there is a creator.’ Upon which he pronounced a remarkable sensible discourse on vegetation, on motion, and on the necessity of a supreme being, without whom there could be no motion or vegetation.The president Grammont, who was then at Toulouse, relates this discourse in that history of France of his, which is in these days so perfectly forgotten: at the same time this Grammont, from an unconceivable prejudice, pretends, th at Vanini said all this out of vanity, or out of fear, rather than from any inward persuasion.

But on what can this rash and atrocious judgment of the president Grammont be founded? On the face of Vanini’s answer it is evident that he ought to have been acquitted of the accusation of atheism. But how came it that he was not? This unfortunate priest dabbled also in physics. There was found in his apartment a live toad, which he kept in a vessel full of water. They did not fail, on this, to accuse him of witchcraft; it was averred that this toad was the god he worshiped; they gave an impious sense to several passages of his books, than which nothing is more easy nor more common, by taking the objections for the answers, by a malignant construction of some ambiguous phrase, or by poisoning an innocent expression. In short the faction that was oppressing him, extorted from the judges a sentence that condemned this unfortunate man to death.”

“Vanini was a staunch disciple of Plato, Aristotle, Averroes, Cardanus [Cardano], an Pomonatius [Pomponazzi], whom he copies everywhere, on the creation, the origin of man, and other matters relating to natural philosophy.”

— Translator (1714), Life of Lucilio Vanini [4]

“Those same persons, who at the present day discover atheism to be such a strange system, admit there could have been atheists formerly [but not presently]. Is it, then, that nature has endued us with a less portion of reason than she did men of other times? Or should it be that the god of the present day would be less absurd than the gods of antiquity? Has the human species then acquired information, with respect to this concealed motive-power of nature? Is the god of modern mythology, rejected by Vanini, Hobbes, Spinoza, and some others, more to be credited than the gods of the pagan mythology, rejected by Epicurus, Strato, Theodorus, Diagoras, &c. &c.? Tertullian pretended that Christianity had dissipated that ignorance in which the pagans were immersed, respecting the divine essence, and that there was not an artisan among the Christians who did not see god, and who did not know him. Nevertheless, Tertullian himself admitted a corporeal god, and was therefore an atheist, according to the notions of modern theology.”

— Baron d’Holbach (1770), The System of Nature (pg. 303-304)

“The president Grammont relates, with a satisfaction truly worthy a cannibal, the particulars of the punishment of Vanini, who was burnt at Toulouse, although he had disavowed the opinions with which he was accused. This president even goes so far as to find wicked the cries and howlings which torment wrested from this unhappy victim of religious cruelty.”

— Baron d’Holbach (1770), The System of Nature (pg. 319)

“They found it easier to burn Vanini that to confute him.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer (c.1830), Dialogue on Religion (pg. 5 + clause, pg. #) [2]

“There has been a considerable number of those whom history calls atheists. Leucippus, Democritus, Xenophanes, and others of the Atomistic and Eleatic Schools, are said to have been such. In his Intellectual System, Cudworth puts into this category Seneca and the younger Pliny among the Romans. Since the Reformation, such men as Rabelais, Machiavel, Bruno, Vanini, D'Alembert, Diderot, Buffon, Condorcet, Mirabeau, La Place, Frederic II, and even Pope Leo X, have been charged with atheism.”

— Willis Lord (1875), Christian Theology for the People (pg. 67)

A generic guide to tree pruning, showing where and which branches to cut off; Vanini, according to Francois Garasse (1624) said that human populations should, periodically, be trimmed in like manner. [5]

“As to men, they should do as the [forest] rangers, or keepers do yearly in great forests; they go to examine, and to find out the withered trees, and to clear the forest, cut down what is useless, and superfluous or hurtful, keeping only the good trees, and the young branches of hope. In like manner, every year should be held a rigorous visitation of all the inhabitants, in the great and populous cities; and every thing useless, and what hinders the rest from living should be put to death. As for example those that follow no business beneficial to the public, decrepit old persons, all vagabonds, and idle people: nature should be lopped, the cities cleared, and every year at least a million should be killed; who are like wild brambles, or nettles, and hinder others from growing.”

— Lucilio Vanini (c.1615), paraphrased by apologist Francois Garasse (Ѻ) [5]

“There is neither god nor devil, for was there a god, I would intreat him to consume the parliament with his thunder, as being altogether unjust and wicked; and was there a devil, I would also pray to him to swallow it up in some subterraneous place. But since there is neither the one nor the other, I cannot do it.”

— Lucilio Vanini (1619), “Last words”, response, in front of a thousand spectators, when told to call out for god for mercy [4]