Chapter LXX: Peter of Abano (2)

Peter alludes several times[2840] to the subject of fascination in connection with images and incantations. It seems evident that he is here trying to account among other things for hypnotic power. In the _Lucidator_ he defines _maleficium_, the usual word for sorcery, as a sort of fascination, “taking possession of one’s powers so that one loses self-control,” and “impeding sexual intercourse.”[2841] In opposing the theory that vision is by extramission of rays Peter explains the deadly glance of the basilisk as due to corrupting vapor and not to visual rays, and fascination as caused by some more occult force than the evil eye in a literal sense.[2842] And when arguing that the confidence of the patient in the doctor is a factor in the cure Peter emphasizes the power of a strong will impressed in an occult fashion.[2843] Some men, it is true, like the followers of Asclepius, deny any virtue of the mind and regard their fellow-men as swayed like beasts by the passions of the senses, deeming wisdom, sobriety and continence a jest, calling human affection and altruism into question, and further despising dreams, divinations, prudent counsels and the whole subject of astrology. But Peter believes in the power of one mind over another or over matter. Such a mind can cure the sick or even cast a man into a well or cause a camel to enter a Turkish bath (_caldarium_). It is also one of the causes of prophetic power. The believers in fascination and incantations say that such marvelous virtues of the mind are derived from the stars. But Christians regard prophetic power as directly inspired by God, an opinion which seems ridiculous to the Peripatetics.

[Sidenote: Incantations.]

In much the same way Peter discusses incantations.[2844] He lists several definitions of an incantation, such as that ascribed to Socrates, “words deceiving human minds,” or “an utterance put forth with astounding influence in aid of an enchanted person who is especially confiding,” or “an utterance at discretion of meaningless words, which since it has to do with the strange and occult is esteemed the more by the person enchanted and so helps him the more.” An incantation may be either spoken, or written and bound on the body. The enchanter should be astute, credulous, and strong-willed; the person enchanted should be eager, hopeful, and disposed in every way to forward the success of the operation. Incantations are especially effective in sleep or in the case of women and simple folk who have the more faith in them. Peter tells an amusing anecdote of a noble who taught a poor old woman to repeat as an incantation the sentence, “Two and three make five and so do three and two.” He thought her a witch, however, and when a fish bone stuck fast in his throat, sent for her to remove it. When he found that she really knew no magic except the absurd incantation which he had himself taught her, he laughed so heartily that the bone was dislodged and he was thus cured by his own incantation after all.

All this sounds rather sceptical on Peter’s part, and he also recalls Galen’s detestation of certain medical authors who wrote down superstitious words and fables such as old-wives and witches are wont to repeat and stupid gypsies who utter fascinations. “For they conjured and sprinkled and suffumigated medicines as if divine, when they plucked the herbs from the soil or when they suspended them about the neck or elsewhere like a phylactery, all which is false and stupid and offensive to the art of medicine.” But while Peter joins in condemnation of such superstitious medicine, he yet believes in the efficacy of incantations and represents their opponents as incredulous and materialistic persons who will accept only action by gross material contact. He admits that there is no property in the incantation itself nor in its sound when uttered to explain its marvelous effects. We must look rather to the virtue of the mind of the person repeating the charm, to faith on the part of the person to be benefited, and to divine, angelic, demonic, or sidereal assistance. At any rate experience demonstrates the validity of incantations and spoken words, as in the case of the Eucharist, or of the divine names employed in the notory art, or the restoration to life of a dead man which was performed in Peter’s presence by magic words which the enchanter uttered in the ear of the corpse. Peter goes on to speak of the movement of the holy wafer or Psalter or sieve towards a thief who enters a church. Other wonders wrought by incantations which he lists are the ability to endure torture without giving signs of pain or to walk over sharp swords and hot coals without injury, to lift another man or raise a great weight with a single finger, to stupefy snakes and tame wild horses, cause insomnia, reveal the future, painlessly extract arrows that are so deeply embedded in the bone that they could not be pulled out. Paroxysms of epilepsy may be quieted by pronouncing the names of the three Magi in the patient’s ear. Peter also repeats the cure for epilepsy found in so many medieval authors and involving religious ceremonial and repetition of a verse from the Bible. Anent Peter’s allusion to the employment of divine names in the notory art, we may note that a work on that subject is listed among evil books in his _Lucidator_.[2845]

[Sidenote: Number mysticism.]

The superstitious esteem for certain numbers which prevailed both in ancient and medieval times does not pass unnoticed in the _Conciliator_. Arguing the question whether the child born in the eighth month will live,[2846] Peter discusses the subject of perfect and imperfect numbers for three columns, stating that this is the doctrine of Pythagoras and of arithmeticians in general. In a later chapter,[2847] however, he declares that natural phenomena cannot be proved by arithmetical numbers since they are not caused by them, and alludes to Aristotle’s strictures upon Pythagoras.

[Sidenote: Poisoning and magic.]

Poisoning and magic were often scarcely distinguished in antiquity. The Greek word φάρμακον and the Latin _veneficium_ or _veneficus_ might have reference either to poisoning or sorcery, either to a poisoner or enchanter. Plato states in his _Laws_[2848] that there are two kinds of poison employed by men which cannot be clearly distinguished, although one variety injures the body “according to natural law,” while the other “persuades overbold men that they can work injury by sorceries and incantations.” The Latin poet Lucan centuries later drew a sharper distinction when he declared, “The mind which is enchanted perishes without foul trace of poisoned draught,” and this dictum we have found embodied in more than one medieval definition and description of magic. However, all magic is not enchantment; the poisoner and magician worked in the same secret and sinister style, sought similar injurious ends, and availed themselves of the same powerful occult virtues in natural objects. Poisoning and bewitching seemed very similar processes, especially at a time when men believed in the existence of poisons which could act at a distance or after a long interval of time. In one passage of the _Conciliator_[2849] Peter uses the word _veneficus_ rather in the sense of an enchanter or magician than a poisoner, when he says that, if you wish to injure another person or to make him love you, the _venefici_ direct you to gaze fixedly at him at the same time uttering a certain incantation. But let us now turn to the treatise _De venenis_, in which Peter has much more to say on the subject of poisons.

[Sidenote: The treatise _De venenis_.]

It will be recalled that Peter’s treatise on poisons was written for the pope. The topics considered in its six main chapters are: the classification of poisons, how they act upon the body, how to guard against them, the effects and cures of a long list of particular poisons, and finally the problem of a panacea or _bezoar_ against all poisons. Peter classifies poisons according as they come from animals, vegetables, or minerals, and as they take effect internally or externally. Those which take effect internally are usually administered in food or drink, or swallowed without admixture. But one may be poisoned externally not only by contact, as in the case of snake-bite, but through the sense of sight, as when the glance of the basilisk kills, and through the sense of hearing, as when the _regulus_[2850] kills bird or beast by its hiss. In fact, poisoning may be through any one of the five senses. Some snake-bites Peter classifies under the sense of taste rather than touch. Other serpents emit a poisonous odor, or kill a person who touches them only with the tip of a long lance. The hands and arms of fishermen become paralyzed when they take hold of nets in which a certain fish has become entangled. These last are perhaps exaggerated accounts based upon electrical shock.

[Sidenote: Specific form or valence.]

Poisons may also be classified according to the form of their species (_forma specifica_). Some prove fatal owing to the excessive preponderance of one quality, being excessively hot or cold or moist or dry. Others are deadly because their entire composition, the very form of their species, is fatal. Peter then gives an interesting definition of this “specific form.” “It is nothing else than the value or valence (_meritum_) which any object composed of the four elements acquires from the proportions of those elements existing in this compound and from the influence of the fixed stars which regard the species of inferior compounds.” Through the light of the stars streaming down in straight lines pyramids of astral force concentrate upon terrestrial objects,--the same doctrine of stellar rays, emanation, and multiplication of species that we have met already in Alkindi, Grosseteste, and Roger Bacon. Peter adds that this specific form of any compound is not easy to discover except as human experience gradually reveals it empirically, “because we do not know and we never shall know the quantities and the weights of the elements in the compounds.” That is to say, Peter sees the desirability but despairs of the possibility of any such discovery as that of atomic weights and valences, and consequently of a true science of chemistry. His despair is not surprising in view of the fact that medieval men were still trying to conduct their scientific researches upon the outworn Greek hypothesis of only four elements, earth, air, fire, and water, all of which are really compounds and indeed in the middle ages were not supposed to be ever found in their pure state. Desperation like Peter’s was needed before science could be induced to take a fresh start, and, like Arnald of Villanova, he is to be given credit for an approach to the chemical conception of valence.

[Sidenote: An allusion to alchemy.]

With the subject of alchemy, it may be remarked in passing, Peter appears to have had little to do, and not even any spurious treatises on the subject are extant under his name, as they are in the cases of Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, Arnald of Villanova, and Raymond Lull. Colle,[2851] however, noted a passage in the _Conciliator_[2852] where Peter speaks of two friends of his who had told him that they had succeeded “by the art of decoction” in making silver which was true to every examination but from which they had not profited much openly.

[Sidenote: Mineral, vegetable, and animal poisons.]

In his second chapter Peter discusses various mineral, vegetable, and animal poisons under the caption, “Of each poison in particular” (_De unoquoque veneno in speciali_). Quicksilver made by the art of alchemy he declares a more deadly poison than natural mercury. He is either an early advocate of inoculation and homeopathy, or else is guilty of silly reasoning based upon sympathetic magic, when he states that the magnet taken internally produces melancholy and lunacy and that doctors employ it with other medicines to cure melancholy. Incidentally he mentions two kinds of magnet, one which attracts iron toward the north pole, another which draws human flesh toward the south pole. Vegetable poisons may be the juices of herbs, the fruit of trees, or seeds. Some animals have poison in their brains; some, in their tails; some, in the blood; some, in the saliva and spittle; some, in the gall; and some, in their entire bodies.

[Sidenote: How poison takes effect.]

The question, how poison takes effect upon the human body, occasions Peter considerable difficulty, since he is unwilling to admit either that the heart naturally attracts poison or that poison runs naturally to the heart. Avicenna says that a man with a hot heart offers the best resistance to poison, but Peter adds that much depends upon the human soul and the constellations. He notes that the action of poison is very similar to that of medicine and thinks that the art of medicine was suggested by the action of poisons. Incidentally he repeats from his authorities statements that there are trees whose shade is poisonous to sleep in or to bathe beneath, and that a man was killed by the vapor from wood cut near the caverns of serpents which was used as fuel in heating his bath. He also repeats the tale of Socrates and the dragon.[2853]

[Sidenote: Safeguards against poison.]

The fourth chapter is concerned with safeguards against poison, which often take the form of amulets and charms and are, if anything, even closer akin to magic than the poisons themselves. There are the horns of a serpent which sweat at the advent of certain poisons but not of others. There is the gem that ceases to gleam in the presence of poison. There is the stone which Alexander wore in his belt until a jealous snake stole it while he was bathing in the Euphrates. There is the following image recommended in the book of the Persian kings--possibly the _Kiranides_. Engrave the gem Ematites with a kneeling man girded by a serpent whose head he holds in his right hand and tail in the left.[2854] Set this stone in a gold ring and under the gem place a dried root of _serpentaria_. Either Peter or the author of the book of the Persian kings affirms that he wears such a ring and has been preserved from poisoning by it. An emerald is another good safeguard against poison. Peter perhaps has a confused recollection of a story told by Albertus Magnus[2855] when he adds that it has been proved that a toad’s eyes will crack if it gazes at an emerald. There are seven herbs, namely: Ipericon, “which Achilles is said to have found in the Trojan army by the oracle of Apollo,” Vincetoxicum, Enula, Rafanus, Diptamus, Aristologia, and Lactucella, which will cure any poison. This virtue is not due to the elements composing them but to the force of the seven planets. Peter’s antidotes are not all occult or talismanic. He also prescribes the more commonplace methods of a drink of butter and hot water to provoke vomiting, the use of a syringe to clear the intestines, the application of a relay of hot fowls to the wound, or the sucking of it “by the mouth of some slave or servant”--_sclavi vel servi_, an interesting bit of etymological evidence of the medieval transition from the Latin _servus_ to the modern word “slave,” and for the derivation of the latter from the Slavs who were sold in southern and western Europe. Peter also mentions the famous _terra sigillata_ which, he says, causes vomiting if there is any poison in the stomach. Kings and princes in the west[2856] take it with their meals as a safeguard, and it is called _terra sigillata_ because stamped with the king’s seal. Now, however, the seals are no longer trustworthy and Peter cautions the pope against what may be offered him as _terra sigillata_.[2857] Over seventy brief chapters are next devoted to enumeration of the effects produced by as many poisons and how to remedy them. The poisons include the blood of a rubicund, choleric man, the bite of a fasting man, the gall of a leopard, and the salamander. Among the remedies are duck’s fat and pulverized mouse dung. The remedies operate against the poison either by “breaking its sharpness,” or “resolving its substance,” or “expelling it,” or “corrupting it and utterly taking away its virtue.”

[Sidenote: The bezoar.]

Finally Peter comes to the discussion of “bezoartic virtues” which free from death by occult and divine virtue rather than by their natural composition. Under this head he proposes to deal with two difficult questions: first, whether theriac is a bezoar (i. e., antidote or panacea) and medicine for every poison; second, whether there is any poison which can be set to act at a given time, so that the victim will die from it then and not before. In those copies of the _De venenis_ which I have seen the discussion of this second question is never reached. Perhaps it was intended only for the pope’s ear and not published. As for the former question, some believe in a bezoar or stone that frees from all poisons without medical assistance. Edward I of England, when wounded by the Sultan’s poisoned sword, is said to have been cured by such a stone which “the general preceptor of the Temple gave him, and I have seen one like it.” It is red, purulent, light as a sponge, and fragile as gypsum. But Peter inclines to believe that each poison has its own antidote which is the best cure for it. Like Galen, however, he extols that “divine and noble” artificial compound, theriac, a mixture of all the single medicines which break or dissolve or expel poisons. It may, he thinks, deservedly be called _Bezoar_, since it is good against all poisons, although for any particular poison there may be a superior particular remedy. After Peter’s treatise has apparently ended with the words, _Deo gratias_, there is added a note from the Pandects concerning the stone _Begaar_ or Bezoar, asserting its reality and superiority to any simple antidote or any of the compound theriacs.[2858]

[Sidenote: Physiognomy.]

Peter’s treatise on physiognomy mentions Philemon, Aristotle, Palemon, and Loxius as the founders of the art, and Rasis, Zacharias, and Avicenna as Arabian authorities. Peter proposes to combine their separate contributions to the subject “into one lucid and perfect doctrine.” The first draft intended for the captain-general of Mantua has got into “the hands of some rascal who scorns to communicate it to me or others.” At the sollicitation of his friends and lest invidious detractors envying another’s work gain glory from it, Peter has written another draft which he flatters himself is longer and better. “So praise be,” he piously ejaculates, “to God, the better producer of everything, who from that evil has created this good and best!” Peter’s treatise differs from other Physiognomies mainly in its emphasis upon astrology, to which its third book is largely devoted. He gives the influence of each sign and planet upon the physique and character of the person born under it, and discusses in considerable detail the process of generation, the influence of heredity as well as of the stars, and the effect upon the babe of any strong imagination, especially on the part of the mother, during the period of generation.

[Sidenote: Astrology in his other works.]

Peter’s penchant for astrology is further evidenced by his Latin version of the various astrological treatises of Abraham Aben Ezra, and his translation of the brief treatise attributed to Hippocrates on the prognostication of diseases according to the moon. Peter or some previous translator or editor opens it by saying that while reading the works of Hippocrates he found this book, “small but of great utility and very essential to all physicians. Whoever is well acquainted with it can pronounce health, death, or life in every infirmity.” Peter brings in astrology even in his commentary on the Problems of Aristotle. When Aristotle mentions an astronomer or astrologer in a derogatory manner in the same breath with a juggler or mime or pipe-player or rhetorician, Peter is at pains to explain that in Aristotle’s time the science of judicial astrology had not yet attained its present perfection.

[Sidenote: Attitude to “magic.”]

In those of his works which are certainly genuine Peter seldom uses the word “magic” and never, I think, speaks of it approvingly, although Michael Savonarola could see no reason why he should not do so. Despite his reputation for magic, the longest discussion of such arts in his admittedly genuine works occurs in the _Lucidator_,[2859] where, after the manner of Michael Scot and Albert in the _Speculum astronomiae_, he is chiefly concerned to distinguish astrology favorably from these other forms of divination and magic. With occasionally some additional detail he mainly repeats the old account of the origin of magic with Zoroaster or Cham, the son of Noah, and with Hermes or Enoch or Mercurius; and the old classification of the occult arts found in Isidore and Hugo of St. Victor.

[Sidenote: Magic books ascribed to him.]

Naudé states, on the authority of Castellan, that when Peter was burned in effigy after his death, the reading was forbidden of three superstitious and abominable books which he had composed, entitled respectively, _Heptameron_, _Elucidarium Necromanticum_, and _Liber experimentorum mirabilium de annulis secundum 28 mansiones lunae_ (Book of marvelous experiments with rings according to the twenty-eight mansions of the moon).[2860] Naudé adds, however, that Trithemius and Symphorien Champier could find no books on magic by Peter of Abano.[2861] Such treatises, however, exist both in print and in manuscripts, which last are mainly of late date, and will be found listed in Appendix II. Prophecies ascribed to “the most reverend nigromancer, Peter of Abano,” were printed in Bologna in Italian about 1495 and occur also in Latin in a Vatican manuscript. The printed _Heptameron_ or _Elements of Magic_ consists entirely of specific directions how to invoke demons, and if genuine, might account for Champier’s charge that Peter borrowed from Picatrix. The reader is instructed in the construction of the magic circle, in the names of the angels, and concerning benedictions, fumigations, exorcisms, prayers to God, visions, apparitions, and conjurations for each day of the week. The work seems quite certainly spurious.

[Sidenote: Geomancy.]

It is more probable that Peter may have written a geomancy in view of his devotion to astrology and Naudé’s statement that he had left treatises in “physiognomy, geomancy, and chiromancy.” At any rate a geomancy exists under his name in several printed editions and manuscripts. In the _Conciliator_ he asserted that the future and what was absent could be predicted by means of characters “as geomancy teaches.”[2862] In the _Lucidator_ he concisely described the method of geomancy, and admitted that its figures were produced under the influence of the constellations and that not infrequently its judgments were verified, but he regarded it as a very difficult science of prediction and one requiring long experience and practice, although many persons tried their hand at it because it looked easy.[2863]

[Sidenote: Conclusion.]

Such was the attitude of the learned and influential Peter of Abano at the close of the thirteenth and opening of the fourteenth century toward the subjects which we are investigating. We may well agree with Tomasini that he combined medicine and philosophy, astrology and natural magic, in the closest union. He amassed a great deal of the lore of the past, Greek, Arabic, and the writings of his Latin predecessors. Indeed, when he repeats what earlier Latin writers in the thirteenth century had said, just as they had repeated what the Arabs said, we rather begin to weary of the subjects under discussion and to feel that medieval Latin learning is growing stagnant or stereotyped. Pico della Mirandola spoke of Peter not only as “a man fitted by nature to collect rather than to digest,” but also as one “whom alas the less learned are wont to admire most when he lies most.” In other words, Peter’s failings continued general for some time. The Latin epitaph which Tomasini in the seventeenth century drew up to accompany the portrait of Peter in his book on illustrious men, although containing one or two erroneous statements which we have already corrected, sums up rather well the salient points of both Peter’s learning and occult science. It may be translated thus:

“From a rural locality, of auspicious cognomen, a man most illustrious in genius, doctrine, and merits, in a rude and unhappy age became the most fortunate and learned physician. Now too he shines with rays eternal, investigator of all natural forces. He gave the secrets of the Greek tongue to the Latin idiom by his power of assiduous practice and constant reading. Employing the virtues of herbs and stones, the sure aspects of the sky, stated hours and moments, by the crowd he was reputed to fascinate men. He opened the arcana of the art medical; he reconciled conflicts, a wonderful warrior! The name of Conciliator he won by uniting medicine and philosophy, astrology and natural magic, in the closest bond. Born for study, he died studying. A. D. 1316, aged 66.”[2864]

FOOTNOTES:

[2757] As distinguished a scholar as Steinschneider (1905), pp. 58-9, for example, gives the date of his birth as 1253 or 1246.

[2758] Appendix I, “Previous Accounts of Peter of Abano,” describes the sources and secondary accounts. Appendix II, “A Bibliography of Peter of Abano’s Writings,” lists the editions and MSS of his works used in this chapter and some others.

[2759] Preface and Diff. 9.

[2760] Diff. 49.

[2761] Verci (1787) VII, _Documenti_, p. 116.

[2762] Salomoni, _Inscriptiones Urbis Patavinae_, p. 323; Scardeone (1560), p. 202; Mazzuchelli (1741), pp. v-vi; Colle (1825) III, 128.

[2763] (1560), p. 202, “Huic unicus fuit filius Beneventus nomine.”

[2764] Gloria (1884), p. 587.

[2765] _Chronicon Patavinum, anno_ 1325, in _Muratori, Antiquitates_ (1778), XII, 252.

[2766] _De venenis_, cap. 47.

[2767] In Muratori, _Scriptores_, XXIV, 1135-8. Savonarola’s account of Peter is so brief that it does not seem necessary to cite it further by page.

[2768] HL XXI, 500-3.

[2769] The problem of Peter’s and other translations of Abraham is discussed more fully in Appendix III.

[2770] Steinschneider (1905), pp. 58-9, asserted that Peter did not translate Abraham either from Arabic or Hebrew. Peter himself uses the verb “ordinavi” rather than “transtuli” of his version; see his _Tractatus de motu octave spere_, II, 3, in Canon. Misc. 190, “Unde abraam evenere cuius libros in linguam ordinavi latinam.”

[2771] Steinschneider (1880), p. 126. He further states that what seems to be a partially divergent Spanish translation of some works of Abraham (Rodriguez de Castro, _Bibl. Españ._ I, 25-6) was “again translated into Latin by the Spaniard Louis of Angulo (Wolf, _Bibl. Hebr._, I, 83, now Cod. Paris 734)”. But BN 734 contains only a “Liber ordinis pontificalis per Gulielmum Durantum.” What is probably meant is BN 7321, fols. 87-116, “Explicit tractatus de nativitatibus abrahe avenzre translata de ydyomate cathalano in latinum a lodovico de angulo hyspano in civitate lugdunensi anno Christi 1448.”

[2772] Conciliator, Diff. 67.

[2773] Canon. Misc. 46, fol. 30v. “Item transtulit problemata Alexandri medici dria. gnta” (differentiae quinquaginta).

[2774] Mazzuchelli (1741), p. xi. He was not, however, aware that in a 1555 edition of the _De venenis_ a prefatory note states that Peter taught at Bologna.

[2775] Gloria (1888), II. 10.

[2776] _Beiträge z. Gesch. d. Philos. d. Mittelalters_ (1916), p. 247, citing Zassari, _Cesena MSS_ (1887), p. 316, Cod. Plut. IV-n-4, S. XIII.

[2777] BN 2598, fol. 102r.

[2778] See above, chapter 26. I. 610.

[2779] See Appendix IV for a fuller discussion of this matter.

[2780] See Appendix V.

[2781] See Appendix VI for further discussion of the date of his death.

[2782] See Appendix VII. John XXII was elected August 7, 1316.

[2783] Bibl. Naz. Turin H-II-16, 15th century, fol. 115v, “... temporis decano studii montispessulani....” The records of the University of Montpellier are unfortunately not well preserved for this period.

[2784] See Appendix VIII, “Peter and the Inquisition.”

[2785] The sum has become 400 ducats in Hoefer, _Histoire de la Chimie_, Paris, 1842, I, 135, and Pouchet (1853), pp. 532-3. Colle (1823), p. 17, questioned the story on the ground that Peter at the age of thirty-five or thirty-seven would be too young to charge such a fee, and for the better reason that the chronicler Filippo Villani tells the same tale of a Florentine physician. A prefatory note to the 1555 edition of the _De venenis_ states that when Peter taught at Bologna--which he probably did not do--he would not visit a patient outside of that town for less than fifty florins, so great was his reputation. Honorius IV therefore at first promised him a fee of one hundred florins but gave him one thousand when he recovered his health as a result of Peter’s ministrations.

[2786] Naudé (1625), p. 382.

[2787] See his treatise on the motion of the eighth sphere, _Distinctio II_, cap. 3, in Canon. Misc. 190, fol. 80r.

[2788] Diff. 67.

[2789] Diff. 64.

[2790] In Diff. 1 Peter had held that “the regulative power of the body resides in the brain,” and in Diff. 18 that “the brain is the seat of sensation and motion”:--“Virtus corporis regitiva habitaculum habet in cerebro” and “Cerebrum est fundamentum sensuum et motuum,” cited by Colle (1825) III, 144-5, in a list of what he considered Peter’s notable contributions to natural science.

[2791] _An prandium cena debeat esse maius?_

[2792] This can perhaps be traced back to a passage in Tiraboschi (1775) V, 147, “_Il primo, ch’io sappia, a commentare tra gl’Italiani le opere di Averroe, e a farne uso scrivendo, fu Pietro d’Abano che nel suo Conciliatore assai spesso lo vien citando or sotto il vero suo nome or sotto quello per eccellenza adattatogli di Comentatore._” Renan (see note 2) has already pointed out that Peter was not the first Italian to cite Averroes.

[2793] E. Renan. _Averroès et L’Averroïsme_, fifth edition, pp. 326-7. Yet Renan admits that Averroes was then regarded as an opponent of astrology. We shall see, however, that Peter cites Averroes for the association of seven spirits with the planets, a point not noted by Renan.

[2794] _Ibid._, p. 327.

[2795] Steinschneider (1905), pp. 58-9.

[2796] The paintings do not seem to have been executed until about 1400.

[2797] Muratori, _Antiquitates Italicae_, III, 374-5.

[2798] Naudé (1625), pp. 381-91.

[2799] _De rerum praenotione_, VII, 7, cited by Mazzuchelli (1741), p. xxvii.

[2800] Naudé (1625), pp. 380-1.

[2801] If this means Averroes, it will be noted that Peter does not sustain him against the Christian Faith.

[2802] This passage is from Diff. 135.

[2803] Diff. 101.

[2804] Diff. 113.

[2805] BN 2598, fols. 99-107.

[2806] Diff. 60.

[2807] Diff. 101.

[2808] Diff. 10; see also Diff. 113.

[2809] 104 and 105.

[2810] Diff. 168.

[2811] Diff. 64.

[2812] Diff. 23.

[2813] Canon. Misc. 190, fols. 78r-83r.

[2814] Diff. 2, BN 2598, fol. 109v.

[2815] Diff. 9 and 18.

[2816] Diff. 18.

[2817] “Complexio temperata.”

[2818] Diff. 9.

[2819] Peter thus is the precursor of recent writers in preferring a conjunction in Aries to one in Pisces as the sign of the Messiah: see chapter 20, I, 473.

[2820] H. C. Lea, _A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages_, III, 440.

[2821] Diff. 2, BN 2598, fol. 109r.

[2822] Diff. 113.

[2823] Canon. Misc. 190, fol. 83r. Some of the figures may very likely have been miscopied by the writer of the MS.

[2824] See Diff. 9, 10, 16, 64, 101, 113.

[2825] Diff. 10.

[2826] Diff. 113.

[2827] Diff. 64.

[2828] _Idem._

[2829] Diff. 9.

[2830] Diff. 10.

[2831] Diff. 64.

[2832] _Firmicus Maternus_, ed. Kroll et Skutsch, II (1913), p. xxxii.

[2833] Diff. 113 and 156.

[2834] Diff. 135.

[2835] Diff. 64 and 156.

[2836] Diff. 9 and 156.

[2837] Diff. 10.

[2838] Diff. 9.

[2839] _De motu octave spere_, IV, 2, in Canon. Misc. 190, fol. 83r, “ut veritas fidei credere nos compellit cum agens liberius potentiam habeat super materiam omnifariam.”

[2840] _Conciliator_, Diff. 64, 113, 135.

[2841] BN 2598, fol. 101v, “fascinatio animalis occupans vires ut sui compos esse non valeat, actum venereum impediens.” It is hard to say if _animalis_ should be translated “animal” or “of the soul.”

[2842] _Conciliator_, Diff. 64.

[2843] _Ibid._, Diff. 135, “confidentia est intentio vehementer apprehensioni occulte impressa.”

[2844] _Ibid._, Diff. 156.

[2845] BN 2598, fol. 101r, “ars dicta notaria fortunati.”

[2846] Diff. 49.

[2847] Diff. 105.

[2848] Book XI, p. 933 (Stephanus).

[2849] Diff. 64.

[2850] A serpent of Nubia of the thickness of two fists, with a sharp-pointed head and of green color.

[2851] Colle (1824) III, 146.

[2852] Diff. 178. “Et iam testificati sunt mihi duo amicorum fideles argentum arte decoctionis fecisse verum omni examine non tamen valde lucrari aperte.”

[2853] See above pp. 262-3.

[2854] For a similar image mentioned by Arnald of Villanova see above, p. 858.

[2855] See above p. 546.

[2856] “De partibus occidentalibus”; this may be a slip of the copyist, or a careless retention by Peter of the wording of some Arabic writer.

[2857] Addit. 37079, fol. 106r, “Nunc autem periit fides sigillorum. Nota bene. Quoniam tam illegalis quam allegans ad vos sigillata portatur.”

[2858] J. G. Frazer (1911) I, 305, gives some instances from Mongolia of use of “bezoar stones as instruments of rain” combined with incantations. Here “bezoar” is used in the sense of a stone found in the stomach or intestines of an animal.

[2859] Diff. 1.

[2860] Naudé (1625), p. 381.

[2861] _Ibid._, p. 390.

[2862] Diff. 156.

[2863] Diff. 1.

[2864] Tomasini (1630), p. 22.