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Italy has an ancient tradition of studying libertinism and free thought, which are considered important components of modernity. Italian research, therefore, uses a plural definition of philosophy, capable of yielding to everything that, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, did not correspond to a strictly Cartesian image of this discipline. It explores the overlap between different philosophical traditions and displays an interest in the rise of historical studies, textual criticism, and comparative analysis of religions. Without denying the existence of turning points and moments of rupture in the history of philosophy, Italian studies emphasize the presence of relations between the Renaissance, libertinism, free thought, and the Enlightenment: common sources, a technique of coded writing, an antireligious polemic that is often akin to atheism, and the use of historical and hermeneutic methods to sift through any story and belief.