Atheism and its diffusion in the sixteenth century Some remarks

Atheism, whether ­considered as an attitude of indifference to divinity or as a rational (not systematic) rejection of it, did not fade as if by miracle in the Middle Ages. However, it was almost invisible in that period: it had not been ­conceptualized and philosophers and theologians did not take the phenomenon seriously. Only heresy was a source of ­concern. Everything was to change during the Renaissance and particularly the Reformation. Then the “atheists” would also then be perceived as a threatening collective entity.