Chapter LXXV: Appendix: I

PREVIOUS ACCOUNTS OF PETER OF ABANO

[Sidenote: Original sources.]

As is usually the case with past authors and scholars, Peter of Abano’s own works[2865] are the best source concerning the events of his life as well as his learning and superstition. Another important document is his will, published by Verci, whose _History of the Trevisan Mark_ includes some other documents bearing upon Peter’s career.[2866] Other contemporary source-material connected with Peter or members of his family has been noted by Gloria in his collection of material concerning the University of Padua,[2867] or by even more recent investigators. Less valuable are the inscriptions, chiefly sepulchral or eulogistic, which older writers reported but whose dates are late or uncertain. In a MS of the fifteenth century[2868] a page between two of Peter’s treatises is devoted to a “Catalogue of writings which Peter of Abano partly composed himself, partly translated from the Greek.” The list has not, I think, been noted by previous writers on Peter of Abano, but adds little to our knowledge of his compositions. What the sources for Peter’s life are, however, appears in more detail in the appendices which follow and in the notes to the text.

[Sidenote: Michael Savonarola.]

What we have to consider further at present are the previous secondary accounts of Peter which may be reckoned as of some importance. The first occurs in the work on great citizens of Padua composed about the middle of the fifteenth century[2869] by Michael Savonarola, the noted physician and medical writer and grandfather of the Florentine reformer, Girolamo Savonarola. Michael at least appreciated Peter’s learning and shared in many respects his point of view, and, while he makes some assertions which we must regard as extremely exaggerated, if not entirely legendary, seems to have had access to documents which we no longer possess as well as to local tradition. He states that he treasures in his possession the original manuscript of the _Conciliator_ in Peter’s own handwriting; and he mentions having read with great pleasure an abundance of letters by which the people of Padua had recalled Peter from Paris to their midst. Savonarola’s account, however, is brief.[2870]

[Sidenote: Secondary accounts since 1500.]

Scardeone, who wrote in the sixteenth century _On the Antiquity of the City of Padua_,[2871] can scarcely be regarded as so good an authority as Savonarola, but he makes new assertions concerning Peter’s life and his account has been much followed by modern writers. In the early seventeenth century Naudé included Peter in his defense of great men who had been charged with magic,[2872] but incorrectly gave the date of his death as 1305, while Tomasini gave 1316 as the date and included a portrait of Peter in his _Eulogies of Illustrious Men adorned with pictures_.[2873] I have not seen the account of Peter in Duchastel’s _Lives of Illustrious Physicians_,[2874] published at Antwerp in 1618, nor Goulin’s _A Historical and Critical Notice on the Life of Abano_,[2875] printed in 1715; but have used an article with a similar title which Count Gian-Maria Mazzuchelli[2876] published in 1741 and which included a bibliography of Peter’s works. Tiraboschi, in his _History of Italian Literature_,[2877] corrected and supplemented Mazzuchelli on a number of points and in general displayed a sounder judgment than previous writers, although he still retained some of their errors. A further step in the study of Peter of Abano was taken by Colle who published a monograph concerning him in 1823,[2878] which he reprinted in 1825 with some variations in his _Scientific and Literary History of the University of Padua_.[2879] A monograph by Ronzoni in 1878[2880] does not seem to have made any new contributions, but in 1884 Gloria adduced new source-material in his _Monuments of the University of Padua_,[2881] and pointed out errors in Colle’s account. Sante Ferrari discussed Peter’s contributions to biology in a pamphlet published in 1900,[2882] when it was stated that he would soon issue a volume upon Peter, which has been supplemented in 1918 by a further study. Meanwhile in 1912 B. Nardi discussed “The theory of the soul and the generation of forms according to Peter of Abano,”[2883] and in 1916 Antonio Favaro wrote on “Pietro d’Abano ed suo ‘Lucidator astrologiae’.”[2884]

FOOTNOTES:

[2865] An account of the editions and MSS of them will be found in Appendix II.

[2866] G. B. Verci, _Storia della Marchia Trevigiana e Veronese_, Venice, 1786-1791, in Tome VII (not VIII, as it is usually incorrectly cited).

[2867] Andrea Gloria, _Monumenti della Università di Padova (1222-1318), Presentata il 29 dicembre 1884, Memorie del Reale Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti_, vol. XXII, pp. 583-9. This publication, however, is rather an account from the monuments than the monuments themselves, of which Gloria printed only a limited number of copies and which I have not seen.

[2868] Canon. Misc. 46, fol. 30v.

[2869] Muratori estimated that Savonarola completed the _Libellus de magnificis ornamentis regiae civitatis Paduae_ soon after 1445.

[2870] It is contained in Muratori, _Rerum Italicarum Scriptores_, XXIV, 1135-8.

[2871] Bernardino Scardeone, _De antiquitate urbis Patavii et claris civibus Patavinis libri tres ... eiusdem appendix de sepulchris insignibus exterorum Patavii iacentium_, Venice, Volgrisi, 1558. I have used the edition of Basel, 1560, where the account of Peter occurs at pp. 260-2. It is also printed in Graevius, _Thesaurus antiquitatum et historiarum Italiae_, 1725, Tom. VI, Pars. 3.

[2872] Gabriel Naudé, _Apologie pour tous les grands personages qui ont esté faussement soupçonnez de Magie_, Paris, 1625, pp. 380-91.

[2873] Jac. Phil. Tomasini, _Illustrium virorum elogia iconibus exornata_, Padua, 1630, p. 20.

[2874] Duchastel, _Vitae illustrium medicorum qui toto orbe ad haec usque tempora floruerunt_, Anvers, 1618. I presume this is the “Castellan” whom Naudé cites.

[2875] Goulin, _Notice historique et critique sur la vie d’Abano, in Mémoires littéraires et critiques pour servir à l’histoire de la médecine_, Paris, 1715, p. 15.

[2876] Mazzuchelli, _Notizie storiche e critiche intorno alla vita di Pietro d’Abano, in Raccolta d’opuscoli scientifici e fisiologici_, vol. XXIII, Venice, 1741.

[2877] Tiraboschi, _Storia della Letteratura Italiana_, Modena, 1772-1795, vol. V (1775), pp. 152-9.

[2878] Francesco Maria Colle, _Notizie sulla vita e sulle opere di Pietro d’Abano, in Opuscoli Filologici_, Padua, 1823, pp. 7-36.

[2879] Colle, _Storia Scientifico-Letteraria dello Studio di Padova_, Padua, 1824, four vols., III (1825), 128-55.

[2880] Ronzoni, _Della vita e delle opere di Pietro d’Abano_, Rome, 1878, in _Atti della R. Accademia dei Lincei, serie terza, Memorie della classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche_, II (1878), 526-50.

[2881] See above, p. 914, note 3.

[2882] Sante Ferrari, _Contribuzioni alla storia della biologia_; _Pietro d’Abano_, Genoa, Ciminago, 1900, 23 pp.

[2883] B. Nardi, _La teoria dell’ anima e la generazione delle forme secondo Pietro d’Abano_, in _Rivista di filosofia neo-scolastica_, IV (1912), 723-37.

[2884] _Atti del R. Istituto Veneto_, LXXV, 515-27.