  Bernardino Telesio was born at Cosenza in Calabria in 1509 as the son of a noble and quite wealthy family. Having been educated by his uncle Antonio Telesio, a humanist of note, he studied in Milan, Rome and the famous university of Padua, which he left in 1535. There is no evidence that Telesio gained a doctorate. Instead of undertaking a university career, he spent several years in a Benedictine monastery (1535–44) without taking oaths. Later he lived in the Neapolitan home of Alfonso III Carafa, Duke of Nocera. In 1553 he married and settled in Cosenza, becoming the dominant figure of the Accademia Cosentina, which came to focus on natural philosophy under his tutelage. Telesio never held a salaried position. After the death of his wife in 1561, which marked the beginning of his financial difficulties, he seems to have spent some time in Rome under the patronage of Pope Pius IV. He rejected the Archbishopric of Cosenza offered by Pius IV in 1565, leaving this position to his brother. From 1576 on he was moving between Cosenza and Naples; in Naples he lived with the son and heir of Alfonso Carafa, Ferrante, to whom he dedicated the final version of his De rerum natura. He died in his hometown in 1588.