Marius Nizolius (Italian: Mario Nizolio; 1498–1576) was an Italian humanist scholar, known as a proponent of Cicero. He considered rhetoric to be the central intellectual discipline, slighting other aspects of the philosophical tradition.[1][2] He is described by Michael R. Allen as the heir to the oratorical vision of Lorenzo Valla, and a better nominalist.[3]
He was born in Brescello. He was professor of philosophy at Parma and Sabbioneta.[4]
His major work was the Thesaurus Ciceronianus, first published in 1535 in Brixen but not under this title, and running into many further editions. It was a lexicon of Latin words used in Cicero's works. It was adopted by Renaissance extremists who considered that writing in Latin could only be correct within this restricted vocabulary.[5] His Antibarbarus philosophicus (original title De veris principiis et vera ratione philosophandi contra psudophilosophos, Parma, 1553) was edited by Leibniz in 1670 with an important Preface.[6] It was a reply in a controversy with Marco Antonio Maioragio (1514-1555),[7] and going back to a dispute from the mid-1540s over the Paradoxes of Cicero.[8]
He died in Sabbioneta.
