Vanini studied law at Naples and theology at Padua. He travelled in Germany and England in 1612, after which he abandoned his Catholicism. He published Amphiteatrum aeternae providentiae (the theatre of eternal providence) in 1615, and in 1616 De admirandis naturae reginae deaeque mortalium arcanis (On the secrets of nature, queen and goddess of mortal beings). He was much influenced by Averroes and Pietro Pomponazzi, rejecting revealed religion and divine creation, and advocating a conception of divinity as totally immanent in nature. His works were declared heretical and he was burned at the stake by the Inquisition.