ARNALDO of VILLANOVA. - Lay physician and theologian, prolific Catalan writer, born around the middle of the 13th century in the diocese of Valencia, died in Genoa on 6 September 1311. He studied medicine in Montpellier, where for six months he also attended theology lectures at the Dominican house. He also studied Arabic and Hebrew, but distinguished himself especially in medicine, so much so that he served as physician to the kings of Aragon and Sicily, and to Popes Boniface VIII and Clement V. missions. He used this position to propagate nebulous eschatological ideas and to promote reformist plans inspired by a false spiritualism, all the more readily embraced because he believed himself to have received a divine revelation commissioning him to announce to the world that the Antichrist had already been born. While serving as ambassador of James II of Aragon in Paris in 1299–1301, the University of Paris condemned his theories and had him imprisoned. He met with the same fate in Rome under Boniface VIII and in Perugia under Benedict XI. After his death, several of his writings were condemned by the Inquisition of Tarragona (1316). He was also a protector of the Catalan Beghards and the Franciscan Spirituals of Provence, whom he defended in his pamphlets. His sincerity seems beyond doubt.
His medical writings were published in incomplete editions at Lyon (1504), Paris (1509), Venice (1514), and Basel (1585). A good collection of his theological works is found in Vatican Latin ms. 3824, from which Finke (q.V. bibliography) published several. Other writings are scattered in manuscripts and editions; some exist in both Latin and Catalan.