ABSTRACT
Gassendi’s essay on Robert Fludd (1574–1637) is noteworthy for its very objective way of describing the work of the English theosophist. Unlike Kepler, who denied that Fludd had any scientific value, or Mersenne, who denounced its heterodox aspects and wished to exclude Fludd from the Republic of Letters, Gassendi provides a neutral description of the objective content of the gigantic Utriusque cosmi historia (1617–1624). The Exercitatio of 1630 thus has an informative value: it gives a concise view of the main aspects of this very “hermetic” philosophy. But, at a second level of reading, the Exercitatio also enables to better situate Gassendi within his own intellectual environment. The complex relationships he had with Kepler, Galileo, Mersenne, and with the figure he had just met, Isaac Beeckman, can be traced in part through Gassendi's interaction with Fludd. Meaningfully, the Exercitatio makes no reference to the Fludd’s geocentrism. Nevertheless, it shows how his conception of the relationship between philosophy and theology is liable to censure. Gassendi thus intervenes, in an indirect and inconspicuous way, in the heliocentrism dispute that was tearing his time apart.
