CHAPTER LXX

PETER OF ABANO

Plan of this chapter--Birth and family--Travels abroad--At

Paris--His Latin version of Abraham Aben Ezra--Conversation

with Marco Polo--Translations from the Greek--Did he teach

at Bologna?--Return to Padua--Three works of astronomy

and astrology--Publications in the year 1310--Undated

and spurious works--Closing years of his life--Relations

with the church--Great reputation--Not a miracle in

a rude age--But completed the work of his period--No

mere compiler--The _Conciliator_ his masterpiece--Its

method--Specimens of its questions--Was Peter the founder

of Averroism at Padua?--Reputation for magic--Summary

of occult science in the _Conciliator_--Definition

of astronomy and astrology--Nature controlled by the

stars--Astrology a science--And not magic--Occult

virtues from the stars--Astrological medicine--The

stars and length of life--Nativities--Revolution of

the eighth sphere--Conjunctions--The astrological

interpretation of history--Chronology--Astrological

images--The stars and invocations, incantations,

and fascination--Stars and spirits--Were Peter’s

views heretical?--Fascination--Incantations--Number

mysticism--Poisoning and magic--The treatise _De

venenis_--Specific form or valence--An allusion to

alchemy--Mineral, vegetable, and animal poisons--How

poison takes effect--Safeguards against poison--The

Bezoar--Physiognomy--Astrology in his other

works--Attitude to “magic”--Magic books ascribed to

him--Geomancy--Conclusion.

Appendix I. Previous accounts of Peter of Abano.

Original sources--Michael Savonarola--Secondary accounts

since 1500.

Appendix II. A Bibliography of Peter Abano’s writings.

Arrangement--Translation of Abraham Aben Ezra,

1293--The _Physiognomy_, 1295--_Problems_ of

Alexander of Aphrodisias--Translations of Galen--The

_Conciliator_, 1303--_On the astrolabe_--_On

the motion of the eighth sphere_, 1310--The

_Lucidator_, 1310--Commentary on the _Problems_ of

Aristotle, 1310--_On poisons_, 1316(?)--_Addition to

Mesuë_--Dioscorides--Pseudo-Hippocrates--Geomancy--Prophecies--

_Heptameron_, or _Elements of magic_--_Elucidarium

necromanticum_--_Annulorum experimenta_--_Circulus

philosophicus_.

Appendix III. Peter of Abano, Abraham Aben Ezra, and Henry Bate.

French translation from the Hebrew--Peter’s Latin

version--Additional treatises in Peter’s version--A

Latin translation by Henry Bate--Other writings of Henry

Bate--Other works by Abraham.

Appendix IV. Was Peter called to Treviso in 1314?

Appendix V. Peter’s salary at Padua.

Amount exaggerated--Why was it so far in arrears?

Appendix VI. When did Peter die?

Appendix VII. Was the _De venenis_ addressed to Pope John XXII?

Survey of the editions and MSS--Inference from a citation of

Avenzoar--Popes and poisons.

Appendix VIII. Peter and the Inquisition.

His own statement in the Conciliator--His professions

of orthodoxy--Does his will show fear of the

Inquisition?--Gloria’s inference--Did Peter’s sons inherit

his property?--If so, how?--Burning of Peter’s bones for

heresy--The account of Michael Savonarola--Scardeone’s

account--Naudé’s statement.

“... _he reconciled conflicts, a wonderful warrior!_”

--_Tomasini (1630) p. 22._

[Sidenote: Plan of this chapter]

Peter of Abano, or Peter of Padua, as he was often called from the

larger city near his birthplace where he did much of his teaching, was

one of the most influential men of learning during the last years of

the thirteenth and the opening years of the fourteenth century. Of his

writings in medicine, philosophy, and astronomy many are extant, and

most of these in printed editions. Yet he has never been adequately

or accurately treated in English. In our language there have merely

been brief notices of or incidental references to him in histories

of science and medicine, or of the inquisition and of rationalism in

Europe, or in general encyclopedias. Such passages and parallel ones

in foreign languages[2757] often give dates of Peter’s life or death

incorrectly, or do injustice to his opinions from an insufficient or

very indirect knowledge of his works, or represent him as a victim of

the Inquisition and an example of the hostility of the medieval church

to science to an extent which the sources do not justify. There are,

however, in European languages, especially Italian, some secondary

studies of importance concerning Peter. It is upon these and a direct

examination of his works that the present chapter will be based. To

avoid prolixity of text and footnotes, details of bibliography[2758]

and a number of problems concerning his life which require to be

discussed at some length have been transferred to appendices at the

close of the chapter. In the present text, since most of Peter’s

works can be dated rather exactly and since they were among the chief

events of his life, we may combine biography and bibliography in large

measure. We shall then treat somewhat, although by no means adequately,

of his place in the history of science, and finally of his propensities

toward astrology and other varieties of magic.

[Sidenote: Birth and family.]

Peter’s own statements in his chief work, the _Conciliator_,[2759]

show that he wrote it in the year 1303, after having worked it over

in class-room lectures and discussions for ten years previously, and

that he was fifty-three years of age at that time. In other words,

he was born in 1250. On one point of his biography more precise and

scientific detail is forthcoming than is customary in the lives of the

great men of the past, for he confides exactly how long a time elapsed

before his birth, nine months and fourteen days, as he had learned by

astrological scrutiny and from his “most careful mother.”[2760] In his

will Peter gives his father’s name as Constantius of Abano,[2761] and

he was probably the notary of that name whose tombstone inscription has

been preserved.[2762] Scardeone stated that Peter had one son named

Benvenuto,[2763] whose name also appears in a list of inhabitants

of Padua in 1320[2764] and who took part in a street fight there in

1325.[2765] Gloria was the first to call attention to two other sons,

named Pietro and Zuffredo, whose names appear together with their

brother’s in deeds of sale and of inheritance of November 19, 1318,

and February 2, 1321. Gloria was of the opinion that these sons were

illegitimate, and Peter’s failure to make them his heirs in his will

may perhaps be so interpreted, but they are not called natural sons in

the documents.

[Sidenote: Travels abroad.]

At some time of unknown date Peter was in Sardinia, where he says

he saw a case of poisoning from “Pharaoh’s fig,”[2766] and at

Constantinople, where he discovered a volume of the _Problems_ of

Aristotle, which he translated into Latin for the first time. It was

probably there too that he saw a Greek version of Dioscorides arranged

alphabetically--his own edition of Dioscorides follows another text,

the medieval Latin version--and secured the works of Galen and other

treatises which Michael Savonarola[2767] says that he translated from

Greek into Latin. Peter is also said to have visited Spain, England,

and Scotland, but I have found no proof of this, although allusions to

such visits may possibly occur somewhere in his voluminous works.

[Sidenote: At Paris.]

A number of years of Peter’s life were spent at the University of

Paris, where Michael Savonarola states that he was regarded as a second

Aristotle and called “the great Lombard.” There he wrote his work on

Physiognomy (_liber compilationis phisonomie_) which he dedicated to

Bordelone Bonacossi who was captain-general of Mantua from 1292 to

1299. In the version which has reached us and which is dated 1295 Peter

alludes to an earlier draft which had gone astray and had failed to

reach its destination in Italy.

[Sidenote: His Latin version of Abraham Aben Ezra.]

In 1293 Peter found astrological writings of the Jew, Abraham Aben

Ezra, who had flourished at Toledo in the twelfth century, defectively

translated from Hebrew into French,[2768] and therefore published a

Latin revision of his own, apparently also adding treatises which had

not been included in the previous translation.[2769] This raises the

question whether Peter was acquainted with Hebrew and Arabic,[2770]

or whether he may have used a Greek version of Abraham’s treatises

in correcting the French one. At any rate Peter’s Latin version of

Abraham’s astrological works had a widespread influence, as it was

retranslated into various European vernaculars and apparently even back

again into Arabic.[2771]

[Sidenote: Conversation with Marco Polo.]

Peter talked with the famous oriental traveler, Marco Polo, at some

time between the latter’s return to Venice in 1295 and the completion

of the _Conciliator_, in which he cites Marco’s statements to him

concerning tropical countries near the equator.[2772]

[Sidenote: Translations from the Greek.]

A translation of the Problems of _Alexander medicus_ is ascribed to

Peter in the list of his works in a fifteenth century manuscript.[2773]

This can hardly refer to Alexander of Tralles. Perhaps what is meant is

a translation of the Problems of Alexander of Aphrodisias, of which I

know only one manuscript where it is dated 1302. Savonarola, however,

states that Peter translated the Aphorisms of Alexander and also the

Rhetoric of Aristotle, but the latter translation does not seem to be

extant. Some at least of Peter’s translations of Galen’s works would

appear to have been executed before 1303, since they are referred to

by him in the _Conciliator_. Also two of them are found in manuscripts

dated as early as 1304 and 1305, the latter containing Peter’s

completion of the translation of Galen’s _Therapeutic Method_ begun by

Burgundio of Pisa.

[Sidenote: Did he teach at Bologna?]

This last manuscript was written at Bologna in 1305 and is about the

only evidence we have to support the old tradition, which was already

questioned by Mazzuchelli, that Peter taught at Bologna.[2774]

[Sidenote: Return to Padua.]

Savonarola seems correct in stating that Peter completed the

_Conciliator_ and began the composition of his Commentary on the

Problems of Aristotle at Paris, and the _Explicit_ of the latter work

likewise states that Peter wrote part of it in Paris and finished it

at Padua in 1310. He left Paris therefore at some time after 1303 and

returned to Padua at some time before 1310. Apparently he might have

been in Bologna in 1305 but in 1307 he is listed as a member of a

gild in Padua.[2775] Grabmann in his recent researches concerning the

thirteenth century translations of Aristotle has called attention to

a translation of the History of Animals made from the Greek in 1260

and of which Peter of Abano purchased a copy in 1309 from Francesco of

Mantua for the price of seven Venetian _soldi_.[2776]

[Sidenote: Three works of astronomy and astrology.]

In the _Conciliator_ Peter refers a number of times to three works

of his in the fields of astronomy and astrology, namely, a treatise

on the astrolabe, another on the motion of the eighth sphere, and a

work entitled _Lucidator_, of which the preface and a few chapters

are extant and which perhaps was never finished, since such allusions

to the work in the _Conciliator_ as I have noted are to these few

chapters, while from the nature of these same allusions to the

_Lucidator_ and from its own preface one would expect it to be of

somewhat the same length as the bulky _Conciliator_, since it was to

discuss disputed points in the fields of astronomy and astrology in the

same way that the _Conciliator_ discussed them in the field of medicine.

[Sidenote: Publications in the year 1310.]

But we now encounter the seeming difficulty that, while both the

_Lucidator_ and work on the motion of the eighth sphere are cited

in the _Conciliator_, which was finished in 1303, they both mention

1310 as the date of their composition. A further indication that the

_Lucidator_ was published after the _Conciliator_ is that in its

preface Peter states that its method and arrangement will be similar

to those of the _Conciliator_, which is also cited later in the text

itself.[2777] Apparently, therefore, Peter had written first drafts

of the two astronomical works before he finished the _Conciliator_ in

1303, but did not complete or publish them until 1310. In that same

year, as we have seen, he completed his Commentary on the Problems of

Aristotle.

[Sidenote: Undated and spurious works.]

No definite date can be assigned for some of Peter’s works, namely,

his continuation of the _Grabadin_ of the Arabian physician, Yuhanna

ibn Masawaih, to whose second book on remedies appropriate to diseases

of particular parts of the body he added a discussion of remedies for

complaints of the heart and digestive organs, and his edition of the

medieval Latin version of the _Materia medica_ of Dioscorides, of which

we have treated in an earlier chapter.[2778] Peter is also credited

with a Latin edition of the little tract on astrological medicine, or

prognostication of diseases according to the motion of the moon in the

signs; but a Latin translation of the same work is also attributed to

William of Moerbeke who lived a little earlier. Some other medical

treatises that have been ascribed to Peter, like the Questions on

Fevers, listed in Mazzuchelli’s bibliography, are really portions of

the _Conciliator_. Works of geomancy and magic attributed to Peter and

probably spurious will be described more fully later in connection with

those subjects.

[Sidenote: Closing years of his life.]

It has been stated by more than one author that Peter went to Treviso

to teach medicine in 1314, but it is doubtful if he even received

a definite call from that city, although it had his name under

consideration.[2779] His salary at Padua has repeatedly been stated at

the high figure of five hundred pounds or lire a month but this amount

really represents his annual stipend.[2780] He must, however, have been

fairly well-to-do--we have hints that his practice was lucrative--for

in 1315 when he made his will he had not been paid any salary for three

or four years, and yet had considerable property. Peter was dead before

the close of 1318,[2781] but the apparent attribution of his work on

poisons to Pope John XXII[2782] makes it seem that he lived beyond

August, 1316. One manuscript of that treatise speaks of Peter as acting

dean of Montpellier at that time, but this is unlikely.[2783]

[Sidenote: Relations with the church.]

We have dubious stories and more reliable data to show both that Peter

had intimate and friendly relations with popes, whom he seems to have

served in a medical capacity and from whom he received patronage and

protection, and on the other hand that he was in difficulties with

the Inquisition.[2784] Besides the fact that his work on poisons was

certainly written for some pope, if not for John XXII, we have the

tale that he was physician to Pope Honorius IV (1285-1287) and charged

him one hundred florins a day.[2785] On the other hand, we have the

assertion of Thomas of Strasburg, Prior-General of the Augustinian

Friars from 1345 to 1357 that he was present in Padua when the bones

of Peter of Abano were burned for his heretical errors, and the

statements of still later writers, which are perhaps after all merely

unwarrantable inferences from Thomas’s assertion and from Peter’s

own words in his will and the _Conciliator_, that Peter died while

under trial a second time by the Inquisition, which had once before

instituted proceedings against him unsuccessfully. But these matters

require a longer discussion than seems advisable now and so will be

treated of more fully in Appendix VIII to this chapter.

[Sidenote: Great reputation.]

The promptness with which Peter’s works appeared in book form after the

invention of printing and the number of times that the _Conciliator_

and some others were reprinted attest his long continued reputation

and popularity as a medical authority and man of broad general

learning. Regiomontanus, the renowned mathematician of the fifteenth

century, when lecturing on Alfraganus at Padua, delivered a public

panegyric upon Peter of Abano.[2786] It was perhaps to be expected

that Michael Savonarola, grandfather of the famous friar who tried to

reform Florence and himself a physician and medical writer of some

note, should belaud Peter in his work on the great citizens of Padua

in the past, which he wrote about 1445; and that these eulogies should

be repeated in such books as Scardeone’s _On the Antiquity of the

City of Padua_, Naudé’s _Apology for Great Men who have been falsely

suspected of Magic_, Tomasini’s _Eulogies of Illustrious Men adorned

with pictures_, and Duchastel’s _Lives of Illustrious Physicians_. But

Peter’s reputation at the close of the middle ages is also attested

in a criticism of some of his views by Symphorien Champier which

was written in 1514 and is found appended to the 1526 edition of

the _Conciliator_. Champier’s object is to correct Abano’s errors,

that is to say, those passages in the _Conciliator_ where he regards

Peter’s views as bordering too closely upon magic or of too extreme an

astrological character for a Christian. But he admits Peter’s great

medical reputation, stating that the most learned physicians praise the

medical and philosophical views of the _Conciliator_ and that Peter is

believed to have surpassed all other Christian physicians in his study

of medicine and advancement of truth. But, as Horace says, even Homer

nods; hence Champier will correct Peter in a few points in order to

enable lovers of Peter’s doctrines to get the benefit of them without

falling into his occasional errors.

[Sidenote: Not a miracle in a rude age.]

The writers of the Renaissance and of early modern times became so

enthusiastic over Peter of Abano, and at the same time so failed to

appreciate the character and accomplishments of medieval learning in

general, that they were wont to depict him as a miracle of learning

in a rude age--just as more recent scholars have over-estimated Roger

Bacon’s superiority to his time--and to regard the physician of Padua,

like the author of the _Divine Comedy_, as a precursor of their own

period rather than as a final representative and product of a rich

earlier period of culture. Thus Scardeone in the sixteenth century

spoke of him as the first medical translator from Greek into Latin

since Roman days, forgetting earlier medieval translators of Greek

medicine like Burgundio of Pisa and William of Moerbeke. And in the

seventeenth century Tomasini called Peter “a man most illustrious, in

genius, doctrine, and merits, in a rude and unhappy age,” while Naudé

declared him “a man who appeared as a prodigy and a miracle in his

age.” This depreciation of the times in which Peter had lived became

accentuated, as in the similar case of Roger Bacon, by the report that

he had been persecuted by the medieval church.

[Sidenote: But completed the work of his period.]

As a matter of fact, as Dante really closed the medieval period of the

flourishing of vernacular literature and the age of romance, so Peter

of Abano came in a sense at the close of a period or movement in the

history of science. He thus not unnaturally occupied himself especially

in supplementing, correcting, and reconciling the work of his

predecessors. Some works that had been unsatisfactorily translated,

he retranslated. Such important works of Aristotle, Galen, and others

as he could find that had not yet been translated, he translated from

Greek into Latin. He filled in the missing portion of the medical work

of Yuhanna ibn Masawaih. And in his _Conciliator_, a tome of enormous

bulk, he endeavored to reconcile and harmonize the conflicting opinions

of the medical men and philosophers who had gone before him.

[Sidenote: No mere compiler.]

Pico della Mirandola at the close of the fifteenth century made a

trenchant criticism of Peter’s erudition, when he characterized him as

“a man fitted by nature to collect rather than to digest.” But this

judgment was also too severe, for Peter was no mere compiler, but

something of an experimental astronomer as well as a painstaking and

critical translator, voluminous commentator upon Aristotle, and great

medical authority. In the _Conciliator_ he makes several references to

his personal astronomical observations and to other treatises which he

has composed upon astronomical topics and which are at least in part

extant. He did not hesitate to correct the astronomical calculations

of Ptolemy, and appreciated the margin of error in astronomical

observations caused by variations in the construction of instruments

as well as in their employment by the human observer.[2787] His

_Lucidator_, we have seen, was intended to parallel in the field of

astronomy and astrology the achievement of the _Conciliator_ in that of

medicine; but the portion completed or extant is not a great addition

to Peter’s science, since it covers about the same ground already

discussed in portions of the _Conciliator_ and more especially in the

treatise on the motion of the eighth sphere.

[Sidenote: The _Conciliator_ his masterpiece.]

The _Conciliator_ therefore remains his chief work and the one

for which he is most famous, his masterpiece and most influential

writing. Like the _Opus Maius_ of Roger Bacon, it to a large extent

covers his views as expressed elsewhere and is representative of his

philosophy and learning as a whole. It is in many ways a valuable

historical document, providing a good example of scholastic method, a

broad picture of the state of medieval medicine, and much incidental

illustration of the more general knowledge of Peter’s times, as when

he alludes to the overland travelers and to the ocean voyages of the

thirteenth century. He learned from Marco Polo that there was human

life in the Antipodes, he cites a letter of John of Monte Corvino from

India “in the coasts where lies the body of the Apostle Thomas,” he

alludes to the attempt of two Genoese galleys to reach India by sea

“almost thirty years ago”[2788]--two centuries before Vasco da Gama and

Columbus. The _Conciliator_ does not, however, quite cover the entire

field of medieval science. The subjects of “geometry and perspective,”

for instance, Peter rather avoids, explaining, “The arguments taken

from the books of geometricians and students of perspective, such as

Euclid, Alhazen, and others, and marked out by letters of the alphabet,

I omit because most of those for whom I am writing are unfamiliar with

that sort of thing.”[2789]

[Sidenote: Its method.]

The _Conciliator_ is made up of over two hundred questions or

“Differences” which Peter and his associates have been investigating

publicly for the past ten years. Each problem is stated and any

doubtful terminology is explained; the utterances of past authorities

anent the question are reviewed; the true solution is then reached

and the reasons for it given; fourth and finally, hostile objections

are answered. This rigid scheme of argumentation does not, however,

prevent Peter from indulging in a deal of rather rambling digression.

This makes a very long volume, especially as supplementary questions or

corollaries are added to some of the two hundred odd _Differentiae_.

Also it is, like most works in scholastic form, hard and tiresome

reading, as one has to keep in mind all the authorities and objections

which Peter has cited and raised until he finally gets around to

answering them. Many of the questions concern purely medical matters

and admit little debate between philosophers and physicians. The first

ten, however, deal with general questions such as whether medicine

is a science, whether a doctor ought to be a logician, whether the

human body is amenable to medicine, and whether the physician can help

the sick by a knowledge of astronomy. Nearly a hundred distinctions

are then concerned with medical theory concerning the elements, the

physical constitution, generation, the members of the human body,

fevers, and kindred questions. The last odd hundred distinctions deal

with matters of medical practice and personal hygiene.

[Sidenote: Specimens of its questions.]

The mere list of these questions is interesting and illuminating, and

a few of them may be reproduced here to show the kind of questions

then debated by doctors--some of them are identical with the questions

put by Petrus Hispanus in his _Commentary on the Diets of Isaac_--and

to illustrate the broader scientific and philosophical interests of

Peter’s volume and time.

11. Is the number of the elements four or otherwise?

14. Has air weight in its own sphere?

23. Is the brain of hot or moist complexion?

28. Is manhood hotter than childhood or youth?

30. Does blood alone nourish?

42. Is the flesh or the heart the organ of touch?[2790]

52. Does the marrow nourish the bones?

57. Is vital virtue something different from natural and

animal virtue?

66. Is spring temperate?

67. Is life possible below the equator?

69. Is the white of an egg hot and the yolk cold?

70. (Supplement). Is wine good for children?

72. Is there a mean between health and sickness?

77. Is pain felt?

79. Is a small head a better sign than a large one?

80. Are the arteries dilated when the heart is and

constricted also when it is?

81. Is there attraction exercised when the arteries dilate

and a loosening when they are constricted?

83. Is musical consonance found in the pulse?

101. Can a worm be generated in the belly?

103. (Supplement). Is death more likely to occur by day or

night?

110. (Supplement). Are eggs beneficial in fevers?

114. Does the air alter us more than food or drink does?

115. Is life shortened more in autumn than other seasons?

118. (Supplement). Should one take exercise before or after

meals?

119. Should heavy food be taken before light?

120. Should one eat once, twice, or several times a day?

121. Should dinner be at noon or night?[2791]

122. Should one drink on top of fruit?

123. Should one sleep on the right or left side?

135. Does confidence of the patient in the doctor assist the

cure?

153. Is every cure by contrary?

154. Should treatment begin with strong or weak medicine?

157. Does sleep help the cure?

171. Is cold water good in fevers?

182. (Supplement). Can fever coincide with apoplexy?

183. Is paralysis of the right side harder to cure than that

of the left?

193. Can consumption be cured?

194. Does milk agree with consumptives?

204. Is a narcotic good for colic?

206. Is blood-letting from the left hand a proper treatment

for gout in the right foot?

[Sidenote: Was Peter the founder of Averroism at Padua?]

Peter has often been called a disciple of Averroes and the founder of

Averroism in Italy at Padua,[2792] but I have noticed little in his

works to substantiate this. Renan admits that Peter knew neither the

_Colliget_ nor the medical works of Averroes, while the doctrine of

religious change according to astrological conjunctions which he takes

as a sign of Averroism[2793] in Peter came of course from much earlier

Arabian astrologers. Indeed, it would seem that most of the points of

view which are loosely designated by the word “Averroism” had been

common enough among earlier Arabic writers and had even in considerable

measure been taken from other sources than Averroes himself by the

Latin world. Only if we accept the very dubious and loose assertion

of Renan that “medicine, Arabism, Averroism, astrology, incredulity,

became almost synonymous terms,”[2794] can we connect Peter of Abano

with Averroism and even then we have the obstacles that Peter often

makes profession of Christian faith and that Steinschneider asserts

that he made no translations from the Arabic.[2795] And if astrological

medicine be Averroistic, Peter was certainly not the first Averroist in

Italy.

[Sidenote: Reputation for magic.]

Along with his reputation among the learned as a medical authority

Peter acquired a popular reputation as a magician and nigromancer.

This reputation had become established by the middle of the fifteenth

century, when Michael Savonarola tells us that Peter’s great knowledge

of astronomy enabled him to make such predictions that men thought

he employed magic, and that the present tradition among his fellow

townsmen is that Abano was most skilled in the magic art. Of Peter’s

astrological skill Savonarola tells the story that, noting the approach

of an unusually favorable constellation, he advised the immediate

building of a new Padua in order to make her the queen of all cities.

Similarly Scardeone ascribed to Peter the idea of the numerous

astrological pictures illustrating the influence of the planets and

signs upon terrestrial life with which the ceiling of the Palazzo della

Ragione at Padua is adorned.[2796] A different story and on the whole

perhaps the most incredible one is told by Benvenuto of Imola,[2797]

perhaps seventy years after Peter’s death. About to die, Peter said

that his life had been especially devoted to three noble sciences, of

which one, philosophy, made him subtle; the second, medicine, made him

rich; and the third, astrology, made him a liar.

But to return to Peter’s reputation as a magician. Savonarola, whom

we were quoting and who evidently has a favorable opinion of magic,

continues, “Moreover, this helps to round out his teaching, nor

is it contrary to his other sciences, but makes the man the more

illustrious.” Naudé,[2798] on the contrary, endeavored to exculpate

Peter from the charge of magic and regarded “the common opinion of

almost all authors” that he “was the greatest magician of his age and

learned the seven liberal arts from seven familiar spirits whom he held

captive in a crystal,” as a legend developed from Peter’s astrological

predictions and from his own statements concerning incantations in the

156th _Differentia_ of the _Conciliator_. As for the story of seven

familiar spirits, already before Naudé Giovan Francesco Pico[2799] had

noted the incongruity between the universal reputation of Peter of

Abano as a magician and the doctrine attributed to him that there are

no demons. Among the authors whom Naudé had in mind was doubtless the

learned Bodin who in the sixteenth century declared that Peter of Abano

was proved to have been easily the chief of Italy’s magicians. Naudé

admitted that Peter had left treatises in physiognomy, geomancy, and

chiromancy, but held that he had then abandoned “the idle curiosity

of his youth to devote himself wholly to philosophy, medicine, and

astrology.”[2800] We have already stated that Champier’s criticisms of

Peter’s teachings largely related to astrology and magic. Let us now

turn to Peter’s own works and see what his attitude in regard to such

matters really was.

[Sidenote: Summary of occult science in the _Conciliator_.]

In the _Conciliator_, as in most of his writings, Peter manifests

a marked weakness for astrology and an extensive familiarity with

that art. His penchant displays itself in the very prologue where he

mentions “the power of genesis in the stars” (_vim geneseos sydeream_)

in stating that most men are slaves not only in body but also in the

nature of their minds. Peter also occasionally displays a credulous

interest in dreams, fascination, incantations, and other varieties of

magic. The sections of the _Conciliator_ in which he has most to say of

such matters are as follows. In the ninth Difference, “Whether human

nature is weakened from what it was of old?” he appeals to astronomy

and astrology for support of his views and digresses to speak of his

own astronomical researches and publications and of the influence of

the stars. The tenth _Differentia_, “Whether a doctor to-day can help

the sick by his knowledge of astronomy?” discusses at considerable

length the arguments against the art of astrology and argues in favor

of astrological medicine. Question one hundred and thirteen, “Whether

natural death can be retarded by any benefit?” involves further

astrological discussion. In Difference one hundred and fifty-six the

efficacy of incantations in medicine is considered. We shall have

occasion, however, to cite many other _Differentiae_ than these four.

[Sidenote: Definition of astronomy and astrology.]

By Peter’s time the words “astronomy” and “astrology” were beginning to

be used in about their present meaning. He is at pains to explain that

their derivation from the similar Greek words, _nomos_ and _logos_,

does not justify this distinction. But he accepts the division of the

science of the heavens into two parts, one descriptive and dealing

with the measurement and motion of the stars, the other judicial and

studying their effects. This latter is subdivided as usual into the

branches of revolutions, nativities, interrogations, and elections,

which last includes the science of images. Conjunctions go with

revolutions.

[Sidenote: Nature controlled by the stars.]

In the tenth _Differentia_ of the _Conciliator_ Peter lists and

replies to a number of arguments against the art of astrology, such

as that the distances involved are too great, the number of stars too

numerous, their influences too diverse and conflicting, the instant of

nativity too minute, to admit of accurate calculation and prediction.

These objections remind us of those raised by Sextus Empiricus.

Against such objections Peter adduces not only arguments of his own,

but the opinions of philosophers, astrologers, and physicians. All

wise men agree, he says, that aside from God, the celestial bodies

are the first causes of happenings in this world. Aristotle and the

Commentator,[2801] indeed, hold that God does not act directly upon

our lower world, and that all operations here are through mediums and

instruments; but the true Christian Faith contends that the Creator

can, if He will, affect His creatures “immediately and without motion

and alteration.”[2802] Of the general law, however, that the natural

world is universally controlled by the heavenly bodies there can be no

doubt in Peter’s opinion. In another chapter[2803] he cites in favor

of this view the assertion of Hermes, Enoch, or Mercury that each sand

of the sea has its star influencing it, and that of the _Centiloquium_

ascribed to Ptolemy that the face of this world is subject to the face

of the heavens.

[Sidenote: Astrology a science.]

The only question is, how far are we able to follow the workings of

this general law in individual cases? The perfect astrologer would

require a thorough acquaintance with all the infinite detail of nature

and the powers of mind and body. Often therefore astrologers can only

approximately and not precisely predict what the stars signify.

But the science of astrology should not be abused because certain

men who call themselves astrologers or physicians but are really

diviners and liars err in their judgments. But astrology proper is

neither deceitful nor idle, and the astrologer “speaks the truth in

most cases and very rarely fails of correct prognostication except in

certain particulars.”[2804] Peter’s confidence in astrology despite

the complexity of the problems involved reminds one a little of the

confidence of the political or social scientist of the present in his

methods compared to those of the mere politician or indiscriminate

philanthropist.

[Sidenote: And not magic.]

Again in the first _Differentia_ of the _Lucidator_ Peter argues the

question whether astronomy or astrology is a science and meets various

arguments raised against the study of the stars.[2805] He holds that,

while difficult and laborious, it is noble and honorable, a beautiful

discipline adapted to the loftiest intellects, an entirely lawful and

licit science. Like Michael Scot, Peter lists and defines various other

arts of divination and magic in order to show that the science of the

stars is in no way superstitious, as some of them are, and that it

neither conjures spirits nor employs exorcisms and suffumigations, as

do some arts of divination which try to justify themselves by claiming

a connection with the highly reputable science of the stars. Like Guido

Bonatti, Peter characterizes as “hypocrites” those who under pretense

of defending God’s prerogatives attack judicial astrology as derogating

from divine majesty and involving necessity and compulsion. Those who

detest such a science should rather be detested themselves, he says,

together with those vulgar deceivers and charlatans whom they mistake

for astrologers.

[Sidenote: Occult virtues from the stars.]

Indeed, if the perfect astrologer should know nature and man

thoroughly, it is also true in Peter’s opinion that astrology helps one

to solve the problems of natural science. “We see,” he writes,[2806]

“that precious stones and medicines have marvelous and occult virtues

which cannot come from the qualities and natures of the elements

(constituting them), since nothing acts beyond its species and every

agent produces an effect in matter commensurate with itself.” It

is useless to try to argue _a priori_ from the qualities of the

constituent elements what these occult properties of particular objects

will be; they can be investigated only by experience. And it seems

evident to Peter that they can be accounted for only as products of

the influence of the stars. Indeed, the same species of plant, grown

under a different quarter of the heavens, may acquire new virtues.

All inferior objects, he affirms in another chapter,[2807] are filled

by the action of those superior bodies with demoniac functions and

virtues, so that Aristotle in _De coelo et mundo_ says that some of

the ancients held that all these objects are full of gods. An indeed

suggestive passage from Aristotle, and more so than Peter of Abano or

the Stagirite himself realized, tracing back the conception of occult

virtue to its origin in fetishism and animism, whence too the gods

sprang!

[Sidenote: Astrological medicine.]

Peter was convinced that a knowledge of astronomy and astrology was not

only valuable but necessary in the practice of medicine. “Those who

pursue medicine as they should and who industriously study the writings

of their predecessors, these grant that this science of astronomy is

not only useful but absolutely essential to medicine.”[2808] Peter

cites Hippocrates and Haly in his support and advises the medical

practitioner to look up the nativity of the patient, or, if this

is impracticable, to address an interrogation on the case to an

astrologer. By astronomy one can also foretell changes in the weather

and regulate the treatment of the case accordingly. Diet and drink,

purgatives and drugs, should all be administered with due regard to

the constellations. Two _Differentiae_[2809] of the _Conciliator_

discuss at length the theme of critical days and their relation to the

phases of the moon, which planet, as Peter more than once explains,

is assumed to represent the influence of all the others, while to

it is especially delegated the control of generation and corruption.

The doctor should therefore keep his eye especially upon the moon,

a point further emphasized in the pseudo-Hippocratic treatise of

astrological medicine which Peter is said to have translated. In still

another chapter of the _Conciliator_[2810] the question at issue is

whether blood-letting is preferable in the first or some other quarter

of the moon. Surgeons, too, should not operate when the stars are

unpropitious and should note the apportionment of the members of the

human body among the signs of the zodiac. When the patient’s symptoms

are ambiguous, the perplexed doctor may bridge the gap in his medical

prognostication by recourse to astrology. This will tend to increase

his reputation with his patients who will marvel at his power of

prognostication. While thus discussing his tenth question, whether a

doctor should know astronomy, Peter adds that astrology is useful in

metaphysics as well as in medicine, giving as an example the fact that

Aristotle appeals to astrologers at one point of his _Metaphysics_.

[Sidenote: The stars and length of life.]

Peter more than once touches upon the influence of the stars upon

the length of human life: in Difference 9, for example, where he is

inquiring whether men lived longer in ancient times than in his own

day; in Difference 21, where the point at issue is whether a temperate

“complexion” is more conducive to longevity, and where he indulges

in considerable detail about the control of the planets over the

process of generation; and in Difference 113, where the question is

whether there is any way of putting off natural death. According to

the astrologers, one hundred and twenty years--the length of a greater

solar year--was the natural term of life, a considerable reduction from

the age of the patriarchs of the Old Testament, but much longer than

most men lived in Peter’s time. He thinks that the people of India live

longer because their climate is subject to Saturn. In Difference 26

Peter divides the life of man into seven ages under the seven planets.

[Sidenote: Nativities.]

It is clear from many passages in the _Conciliator_ that Peter

believes that much of a man’s life and character can be inferred from

his horoscope. The geniture of a prince may involve the slaughter of

vast multitudes in war, although their own horoscopes may not have

definitely indicated this fate for them but only a certain inclination

in that direction.[2811] Peter devotes considerable space and pains

to the process of generation and the problem of measuring the time of

nativity. He gives physiological explanations why twins, even before

birth, are not under the same astrological influence and approvingly

quotes the lines of Lucan:[2812]

_Stant gemini fratres fecundae gloria matris_

_Quos eadem variis genuerunt viscera fatis._

[Sidenote: Revolution of the eighth sphere.]

In connection with the subdivision of judicial astrology known as

revolutions Peter was especially interested in the motion of the

eighth sphere of the fixed stars, concerning which we have seen he

wrote a distinct treatise[2813] and of which he treats in both the

_Lucidator_[2814] and _Conciliator_.[2815] Ptolemy had reckoned that

the sphere of the fixed stars moved one degree in a hundred years and

that consequently the eighth sphere made a complete revolution every

36,000 years. Albategni’s estimate was 23,760 years for a complete

revolution or a motion of one degree in the course of sixty-six years.

Peter’s own calculation was that one degree was accomplished in seventy

years. He regarded this as a matter of great importance because of the

vast changes which he believed the revolution of the eighth sphere

brought about. Its influence could even change dry land into sea,

as the story of the lost island of Atlantis showed. Peter mentions

the doctrine of the _magnus annus_, held by “certain Stoics and

Pythagoreans” that history would repeat itself as soon as the eighth

sphere had accomplished a complete revolution. His own favorite theory,

set forth three times in the aforesaid three works, was that when the

heads of the equinoctial and tropical signs of the mobile zodiac come

directly under the heads of the same signs of the immobile zodiac in

the heaven of the fixed stars, then virtue from the First Cause passes

in a more perfect manner through the mediate causes or heavens and

men live longer and are stronger. For some five hundred years before

and after the period of exact coincidence a golden age occurs, men of

genius appear in large numbers, and the world tends to unite under one

government. Such a period in Peter’s opinion was that of classical

antiquity, when there were great rulers like Darius, Alexander,

and Julius Caesar; great minds like Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle,

Stoics and Peripatetics, Euclid, Abrachys, Ptolemy, Galen, Cicero,

and Vergil; and when both the Roman law and the Christian religion

were promulgated. But then gradually, as the discrepancy between the

mobile and immobile signs increases, all is changed to the contrary,

human nature deteriorates, the span of life is shortened, monarchy is

corrupted, faith and law are made light of, the people are oppressed,

and true sages are rare indeed.

[Sidenote: Conjunctions.]

In a number of places in the _Conciliator_ Peter discusses the subject

of the effects of conjunctions of the planets. He states[2816] that

very rarely at long intervals of time, when a greatest conjunction of

Saturn and Jupiter occurs in the beginning of the sign of the ram, a

well-balanced type of constitution[2817] is produced, but never more

than a single specimen at one time. Such a man becomes “a prophet,

introducing a new law or religion, and teaching sages and men.” Such

a man, according to Isaac Amaraan, Avicenna, and Algazetes, is midway

between angels and sages, and some say that Moses and Christ were such

men. Peter also hints at a coincidence between the length of time

that astrology teaches that such a perfectly proportioned physical

constitution will last and the duration of Christ’s life. Champier

included this passage in his list of Peter’s errors. Champier further

attacked the astrological doctrine of great conjunctions and censured

Peter for connecting Noah’s flood and the advent of Mohammed with them.

In another passage[2818] concerning this same conjunction of Saturn and

Jupiter in the first degree of _Aries_[2819] Peter asserted that it

not only altered the strength of human nature and affected the length

of life but produced new kingdoms and religions, as in the case of

the respective advents of Moses, Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander the Great,

Christ, and Mohammed.

[Sidenote: The astrological interpretation of history.]

This astrological interpretation of history Peter carries out in

further detail. As he had divided man’s life into seven ages, so he

distributed periods of history among the seven planets. Each presides

in turn over human affairs for a period of 354 years and four lunar

months, a term analogous to the number of days in the lunar year. When

Mars governed the world, the flood occurred because of a greatest

conjunction of the planets in the sign _Pisces_. Under the Moon’s

supremacy happened the dispersion of tongues, overthrow of Sodom and

Gomorrah, and escape of the children of Israel from Egypt. Peter also

alludes to the less significant minor conjunctions which happen every

twenty years, to the moderate ones which take place every 240 or 260

years, and to the effects following eclipses. A solar eclipse seventy

years ago, he says, was followed by sterility of the soil, movements

of phantasms and of good demons and bad demons, intercourse of incubi

and succubi, a weakening of human nature and increase of avarice and

cupidity.

[Sidenote: Chronology.]

The chronology of some of Peter’s astrological periods of history

has been sharply criticized. Thus Lea remarks, “Even worse was his

Averrhoistic indifference to religion manifested in the statement that

the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in the head of Aries, which

occurs every 960 years, causes change in the monarchies and religions

of the world as appears in the advent of Moses, Nebuchadnezzar,

Alexander the Great, Christ, and Mahomet--a speculation whose

infidelity was even worse than its chronology.”[2820] The printed

editions of the _Conciliator_ which I have consulted also give the time

as 960 years, but it would seem as if the figure must have been wrongly

copied in or from the manuscripts, since in the _Lucidator_,[2821]

which I have examined in manuscript, Peter shows acquaintance with

different systems of chronology, stating, for example, that Ptolemy

and Galen flourished under Antoninus Pius in the year 886 of the era

of Nebuchadnezzar or in 141 A. D. Peter therefore would appear to have

known perfectly well that no such period as 960 years had elapsed

between the time of Nebuchadnezzar and Christ, to say nothing of

Alexander and Christ. In another passage of the _Conciliator_,[2822]

moreover, Peter explains that conjunctions may precede by many years

the events which they signify and produce but which are long in the

making. Thus the conjunction for the flood preceded it by 287 years

and the conjunction connected with Mohammed came fifty years before

him, as Albumasar and Alchabitius state. In his treatise on the eighth

sphere Peter stated that his theory of its motion and influence holds

good independently of the question whether the world is eternal, as

all the philosophers except Plato held, or had a beginning and when

that beginning was. He gives, however, a list of various estimates of

the number of years since creation, such as Bede’s estimate of 5259;

Abraham Judaeus’ of 5071; the Septuagint, 7270; Josephus, 5262; and

so on up to the enormous figure of 1,474,346,290 years given by the

Indians and Persians.[2823]

[Sidenote: Astrological images.]

Peter believed not only that astrologers could predict the future

with considerable assurance of success, but also that they could

influence the future to suit themselves and perhaps change threatening

misfortune into good fortune by applying to earthly objects the occult

virtue of the heavenly bodies. The way to capture and store up such

celestial influence is by means of images made by human art with due

reference to the constellations. Of such astrological images Peter

speaks frequently in the _Conciliator_.[2824] Physicians are advised

to construct such images at the proper time when “the vivifying and

health-exciting celestial light” will flow freely into them, as is

illustrated by the astronomical images of Ptolemy, Thebith ben Chorat,

and others. The figure of a scorpion made as the moon is leaving the

sign of the scorpion cures that reptile’s bite.[2825] Human life can

be prolonged by such images which add to the influx of astral force

received at birth.[2826] On the other hand, Peter elsewhere states the

theory that the impulse to construct an image was received at birth

from the stars,[2827] and so does not really alter their influence. He

usually, however, speaks as if the employment of images was a matter of

choice. They are more often made by night than by day, so that the rays

of the sun may not obscure and dissolve those of the other heavenly

bodies.[2828] The astronomers of India employ allegorical images.[2829]

Peter himself “has tested to remove pain in the intestines the figure

of a lion impressed on gold when the sun was in mid-sky, with the

heart of a lion, when Jupiter or Venus was in aspect and the evil

unfortunate stars were declining.” He bound this amulet “on the bare

flesh with a string made of sea calf’s hide and a clasp from the bone

of a male whale.”[2830] What could be more magical? In another passage

Peter notes that theologians attribute the efficacy of such images to

demons, but he sets aside this suggestion as not in accord with his

present method, which apparently takes into account only natural and

not spiritual forces, although he suggests that the celestial light and

force may be regarded as the instruments of intelligences.[2831] In the

_Lucidator_ Peter makes much the same distinction between astronomical

and necromantic images as Albertus Magnus had made in the _Speculum

astronomiae_. Notes by Peter on astrological images are contained in

the _Astrolabium planum_, published in 1488.[2832]

[Sidenote: The stars and invocations, incantations, and fascination.]

Peter refers twice in the _Conciliator_[2833] to his success with an

invocation to God to acquire knowledge, when the head of the dragon and

Jupiter were together in mid-sky and the moon was approaching them. He

also cites _Albumasar in Sadam_ for a similar practice by “the kings of

the Greeks,” when they wished to ask God for anything. Elsewhere[2834]

he states that the defenders of fascination and incantations aver that

their potency consists in the virtue which the soul of the operator

receives from the stars, just as an image receives their motion and

light. The horoscope of the person uttering the invocation is a factor

of some importance, but not the preponderating influence.[2835] Not a

few of the Magi invoke Jupiter, Saturn, or another heavenly body by the

name of the intelligence which guides it.[2836]

[Sidenote: Stars and spirits.]

This last passage and one or two others already cited show that

Peter was inclined to associate spirits and intelligences with the

heavenly bodies. Once he describes a celestial body as “perpetual and

incorruptible, leading through all eternity a life most sufficient unto

itself, nor ever growing old.” In the same chapter[2837] he tells us

that when Aristotle wished to investigate the number of Intelligences,

he betook himself to two famous astrologers and according to the number

of spheres as stated by them calculated the number of Intelligences. In

the preceding chapter[2838] he had repeated from Averroes the following

association of seven intelligences or angels with the planets: Saturn

and Cassiel, Jupiter and Sachiel, Mars and Samael, the Sun and Michael,

Venus and Anael, Mercury and Raphael, the Moon and Gabriel.

[Sidenote: Were Peter’s views heretical?]

This passage and Peter’s invocation are a dangerously close approach

to astrological necromancy. Enough so perhaps to justify the

reproach which Champier repeated from some “recent authority” that

Peter borrowed a great deal from Picatrix, “a very idle book full

of superstitious prayers to planets and evil spirits.” Champier,

however, cited no specific passages to substantiate this charge, and

I doubt if it can be shown that the _Conciliator_ either cites or

makes unacknowledged quotation from Picatrix. It will also be observed

that Peter does not assert that the stars themselves are spirits or

intelligences or gods, and that both Aquinas and Albert were inclined

to agree that angels or heavenly intelligences moved the stars. That

Peter’s views were objectionable to some persons, however, is indicated

by the closing passage of this ninth _Differentia_, in which he has

associated seven spirits with the planets, the rise of prophets and

new religions with great conjunctions, and activity of demons with

solar eclipses. Some malicious persons have long troubled him, he says,

but his utterances in nothing derogate from divine wisdom but rather

confirm it, and at last an apostolic mandate has snatched him and his

truth from the hands of his detractors. In other words, the pope has

protected him. Peter’s astrology sometimes seems to show scant regard

for human free will, but he recognized it as an essential Christian

doctrine.[2839]

[Sidenote: Fascination.]

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.