  Renaissance, Francesco Patrizi of Cherso (1529-1597) was a leading critic of the dominant Aristotelianism of the times. Not to be confused with the earlier humanist and political theoretician, Francesco Patrizi of Siena (1413-1494), Patrizi of Cherso focused his attention on a wide variety of philosophical, scientific, artistic and literary issues, providing in his “New Philosophy” a major alternative to earlier schools of thought and a model which later thinkers such as Galileo Galilei no doubt found valuable in developing the mathematized physics which would prove the dominant force in the rise of early modern science. In addition, Patrizi's research into the history of ancient and medieval philosophical sources as an essential part of his method for establishing the legitimacy of his own position would make those texts available to his contemporaries in a way they had never been before and serve as a model for future generations of scholars. It also emphasized the centrality of the study of the history of philosophy as an integral part of engaging in philosophical investigation in its own right.