En passant par Bâle

In 1580 Montaigne leaves France, carrying a copy of his own Essais which will be confiscated in order to be examined by the Vatican’s censure. On the way to Rome, he seems to conduct a sort of investigation into the urgent political need to stop the religious conflicts: he chooses to stay for a while in the open-minded (tolerant) city of Basel, where he cherishes the opportunity to face the intellectual heirs of the Italian heretics and the ideas taking shape in such a middle ground, especially the Aristotelian natural philosophy.