CECCO d'ASCOLI. - Francesco Stabili, b. at Ascoli in 1269, was a physician, astrologer, naturalist, poet, presumptuous and eccentric. Attached to the Bolognese faculty of Medicine (1324), he was suspended from teaching as a heterodox and fined (16 Dec. 1324); readmitted and promoted to the higher chair (1325), he left Bologna for Florence (1326), where he was appointed physician to Duke Charles of Calabria; but, having made himself hated by the duke, by the famous physician Dino del Garbo and by the Church, he was tried as a devotee of necromancy and a Patarine and burned (17 July 1327).

He wrote in Latin a Tractatus in sphaeram, the De principiis astrologiae and the De eccentricis et epicyclis; in the vernacular a poem interrupted at the fifth book, L'Acerba, where in singular rough terzines (ABA, CBC,... ZZ) he treats of natural and spiritual things with allegories, obscurities, and polemical barbs, especially against Dante, and is rarely moved by nature and by his distant homeland.

Bibliography6 works

BIBL.: Works: G. Boffito, Il « De principiis astrologiae » di C. d'A. nuovamente scoperto ed illustrato, in Giorn. stor. d. lett. ital., supplement 6 (1903), pp. 1-73; id., Il « De eccentricis et epicyclis » di C. d'A. nuovamente scoperto ed illustrato, in Bibliofilia, 7 (1905-1906), pp. 150-67; L'Acerba ridotta a miglior lezione dal prof. dott. Achille Crespi, Ascoli Piceno 1927. Life: G. Castelli, La vita e le opere di C. d'A., Bologna 1892; G. Boffito, Perché fu condannato al fuoco l'astrologo C. d'A. in Studi e documenti di storia e diritto, 20 (1899), p. 357 ff.; A. Beccaria, I biografi di C. d'A. e le fonti per la sua storia e la sua leggenda, in Memorie d. R. Accad. d. scienze di Torino, 2nd series, 58 (1908), pp. 1-94. Studies: N. Sapegno, Il Trecento, 2nd ed., Milan 1938, pp. 137-39, with the relevant bibliography; E. Allodoli, in ch. 4 (Opere di divulgazione culturale e religiosa) of the Storia illustrata d. lett. ital. scritta da un gruppo di studiosi, Milan 1942, pp. 234-37.

Alberto Chiari

@incollection{ec3_cecco_d_ascoli, author = {Chiari, Alberto}, title = {Cecco d'Ascoli}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {III}, pages = {1226}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1949}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/cecco-d-ascoli} }

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