One of the earliest and most significant historiographic reconstructions of Giulio Cesare Vanini’s human and intellectual life is due to Schopenhauer, who is not so much interested in elaborating an overall and complete
interpretation of the figure and work of the philosopher from Taurisano, as
in recovering, through a new and personal reading, what seems to him alive
and vital in his thought. This is the case of Vanini’s ideas on the freedom of
the will and the problem of evil, which, in the memoir On the Freedom of
the Will, lead Schopenhauer to assign to the Salentine a leading role, before and after him never fully recognised, in the crisis of modern theodicy.
Therefore, for the historian of philosophy Schopenhauer, Vanini represents
a fundamental junction in the history of theodicy that, well before Bayle, he
would have contributed to radically undermine. This represents an absolute
historiographical novelty.