Your complimentary articles

You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.

To buy or renew a subscription please visit the Shop.

If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.

Brief Lives

Paolo Sarpi (1552-1623)

Gerald Curzon reviews the life and opinions of the original New Atheist.

Paolo Sarpi, the first philosopher to develop systematic arguments for atheism, is now hardly known except by historians of ideas. Once he was famed throughout Europe. John Donne kept his portrait in his study. Boswell called him a genius. Both Gibbon and Macaulay praised him.

…