This paper focuses on two short dubitationes on animal’s technical abilities, which Pietro Pomponazzi discussed in 1514 and in 1519 while teaching at the University of Bologna and commenting on Aristotle’s Physica, II, t. 80. A comparative analysis between the respective positions, expressed at a distance of five years, allows to retrace the change in Pomponazzi’s thoughts from the period immediately preceding the composition of De immortalitate animae to the writing of the De incantationibus and De fato.

Keywords: animals; teleology; natural instinct; astrology; virtus aestimativa; prophecy; determinism.

English title: The swallow’s nest. Two lectures of Pomponazzi on Phys. II, t. 80

DOI: 10.14640/QuadernidiNoctua5-18