A “libertine friar”? Paolo Sarpi and the 17th-century French libertines (Naudé, La Mothe Le Vayer, Patin, and Dupuy’s circle)

This article investigates the presence of Paolo Sarpi in the French libertine milieu of the seventeenth century. References in the libertine texts show that the Venetian friar was an author read and appreciated in this milieu. Moreover, Sarpi and the libertine philosophers offer a similar caustic and disruptive interpretation of religion. However, it is worth analysing how the French libertines read Sarpi: from this analysis emerges the image of an authentic “libertine friar.”