PACIOLLI, L'C.A

PACIOLI, L. C. A. — Franciscan, mathematician, b. at Borgo S. Sepolcro between 1445 and 1450, d. at Rome after 1514. He led a very eventful life: while still young he was in Venice, instructing the sons of a wealthy merchant for whom he wrote an early treatise on algebra, c. 1470. In the same year he was in Rome with Leon Battista Alberti; shortly afterwards, perhaps in his native town, he took the Franciscan habit. From 1475 he was professor of mathematics at Perugia, where he composed a treatise that may be the one contained in cod. Vat. 3129. In 1481 he was at Zara, then again at Perugia, at Naples, and at Rome. In 1494 at Venice he published his major work: *Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalità*, perhaps lacking originality but of great importance in the history of mathematics because it was the first printed treatise of its kind, greatly aiding the dissemination of science.

A very interesting work was the *Divina proportione*, composed in 1496 and illustrated by his friend Leonardo da Vinci, with whom he was particularly associated from that year, when Ludovico il Moro had summoned him to Milan to teach, establishing for him the chair of mathematics. After the fall of the Moro, he wandered for some time with Leonardo: he was at Florence, then taught at Pisa (1500), at Bologna (1501–1502), again at Florence (1502–1505), and in 1508 he lectured on Euclid at Venice. For a *Libellus corporum regularium* he was accused of plagiarism, as having usurped from his friend Piero della Francesca, who had painted a magnificent portrait of him, now lost after serving as the model for the one that remains, attributed to Jacopo de’ Barbari (Pinacoteca di Napoli: V. MATEMATICA, vol. VIII, cols. 341–42).

pp. 165–92; I. Ricci, *Fra L. P. L'uomo e lo scienziato*, Sansepolcro 1940; R. E. Taylor, *No royal road: L. P. and his times*, Chapel Hill 1942.

Pacomius, St. —

I. Life

He began to lead a retired life of prayer and charity, but soon realizing that he could not live in solitude in the village, he resolved to embrace the eremitical life, placing himself under the direction of a famous local monk named Palamon. The latter directed a colony of hermits, imposing upon them his own manner of life: daily fasting in summer, on alternate days in winter; eating only bread and salt and a little pulse, no oil or wine; performing manual labor, giving its proceeds to the poor; spending half or even the entire night in prayer. Pacomius lived for several years in close intimacy with Palamon and had ample opportunity to observe the shortcomings of eremitical life not subject to a true rule or strict obedience to a superior. Thus in Pacomius matured the conviction that to be of greater help to a larger number of souls it was necessary to introduce the common life in a monastery under the direct authority of a superior.

To carry out his plan he left Palamon and settled at Tabennisi, an abandoned village on the right bank of the Nile. Soon he began to build a monastery enclosed by a wall to receive other monks, but the first experiments do not seem to have been encouraging, since he failed to subject the first recruits to the common life. Soon, however, others came willing to accept the established manner of life, and then still others, so that in a short time the monastery of Tabennisi gathered about a hundred monks. It was at this point that Pacomius imposed his Rule and assigned the offices and tasks, and built a church within the monastery.

When Tabennisi could no longer accommodate the influx of new recruits, Pacomius founded nearby a new monastery at Pbow. Up to this time the Pacomian community had grown in the normal way by receiving individual candidates. Now it increased by the accession of entire colonies of ascetics who embraced the new institution, submitting themselves to the obedience of Pacomius and his Rule. The first was a group of ascetics from Senesit; Pacomius sent some monks from the first monasteries and there regulated life as in them; next came another colony living not far away on the opposite bank of the Nile, at Themouson; then a third group of hermits living at Thebiu under the direction of Petronius. This last acquisition was of particular significance, inasmuch as Petronius donated to the Congregation all the possessions of his family, greatly increasing Pacomius’ material resources. The five monasteries were situated relatively close to one another. Soon others arose at greater distances: three to the north around Panopolis (Ahmim), the first at the request of the local bishop, Ario, the other two at Schedsinà and Tescinè, at Pacomius’ initiative; one to the south, at Phenum.

Apart from the later expansion, the Congregation counted during Pacomius’ lifetime nine monasteries of men and two of women. And this succession of foundations was achieved within the brief span of c. 25 years, between 320 and 346. While this expansion was taking place, Pacomius transferred, for convenience of government, the central seat from Tabennisi to Pbow, where thereafter the superior general and the general bursar would reside, and where the general meetings of the Congregation would be held. And it was shortly after one of these meetings, that of Easter 346, that at Pbow a plague broke out and in a short time carried off more than a hundred victims, the most illustrious of whom was Pacomius himself, who died on 9 May 346, after forty days of severe suffering, having designated as his successor Petronius, who, however, was carried off by the plague two months later. He was succeeded by Orsisius, who, to avert a schism, entrusted the government to Pacomius’ beloved disciple Theodore, retiring meanwhile to Senesit, to resume sole rule after Theodore’s death (27 Apr. 368).

II. Organization

P. is the first to have written a rule. This is preserved in full in the Latin version that St Jerome made in 404 from a Greek exemplar, which in turn derived from the original Coptic at the request and for the convenience of a group of Latins at Canopus who understood neither Greek nor Coptic. The authenticity of Jerome’s translation, in 194 articles, is now confirmed by the discovery of Coptic fragments that correspond fully to the Latin version. This also resolves the question of the short recension: it is merely an excerpt from the original Rule. It is not that P. composed his Rule all at once from the beginning. Rather, it developed gradually as circumstances revealed the need for new prescriptions. From this Rule and from scattered indications in the Lives of P., one can outline the organization of Pachomian cenobitism.

It was a true religious congregation. At the head of all the monks scattered across the various monasteries stood the superior general, first based at Tabennisi and later at Pebou. The general exercised supreme authority over all the monasteries, over all the superiors whom he appointed directly, and over all the monks. He maintained the unity of the dispersed family by regularly visiting the monasteries and keeping up frequent correspondence with the superiors. To keep alive the consciousness of being members of one body, twice a year—at Easter and in August—he gathered them all around him at Pebou. At this assembly the brethren edified one another and listened to the father’s exhortations, while he regulated the good order of the community, confirmed or changed the superiors of the monasteries and the heads of the houses. The first assembly had as its main purpose the celebration of the Paschal feast; the second, instead, concerned temporal administration—at Pebou there also resided the general steward who procured the necessities for all the inhabitants and sold the products of the monks’ labor—and the restoration of fraternal charity through mutual forgiveness for any wrongs that might have been committed.

The monasteries were enclosed by a wall, within which stood various buildings: the monks’ dwellings (each monastery was divided into several “houses,” up to forty, each with twenty to forty monks having their own cells); a church, refectory, kitchen, storeroom, wardrobe, infirmary, library, various workshops, and a meeting place for the entire community. Each monastery had its superior, appointed by the general and assisted by a second-in-command. Even the individual houses within the monastery had their own head with a deputy. Every three or four houses formed a tribe. The monks were assigned to one house or another according to the trade they practiced, not—as Palladius attests—according to differing temperaments, and they held rank according to seniority of profession.

The monks’ habit consisted of a sleeveless linen tunic girded at the waist. A tanned goatskin hung from the shoulders to the knees, and over this they wore a short cowl with a hood bearing the sign of the monastery and the house to which each belonged.

Spiritual life bore the imprint of P.’s concern to make it possible and easy even for beginners, and its characteristic note was moderation. For acts of piety, five assemblies were prescribed each day: in the morning toward dawn, at midday and in the evening before the common meal, before retiring to the individual houses with six prayers and some psalms, and then toward midnight a general assembly. This was usually presided over by the superior and consisted of three parts: psalmody, readings from Holy Scripture, and certain prayers. For the celebration of the Eucharist, at first on Saturday they went to the village church, and on Sunday the village priests came to celebrate in the monastery church; later, when the monastery had its own priests, Mass was celebrated on both days in its own church. It is not certain whether Mass was celebrated on other days. Spiritual progress was fostered by tri-weekly instructions from the monastery superior and bi-weekly ones from the heads of the houses to their subjects. To this were added frequent spiritual conferences, frequent private talks with the superior, occasional exhortations, and the study of Scripture imposed on all, for which P. required that everyone learn to read. The same moderation appears in ascetical practices: all were obliged to fast on Wednesday and Friday, while on other days they were given two frugal meals of bread, legumes, fruit, and cheese—sufficient to allow the monks to practice voluntary self-denial in some way. P. permitted some to undertake special mortifications and even fasts, provided they did not hinder their duties, for he always had in view the demands of the common life.

All the monks, beginning with the superior, were to engage in manual labor, which at first consisted of making ropes, mats, and baskets from Nile rushes and palm leaves; later, as the community developed, all the professions necessary both for the life of a large organism and for procuring through their sale the resources needed to support so many monks arose. Cultivation of the fields outside the monastery also greatly expanded, and at harvest time numerous groups of monks scattered into the surrounding area to offer their labor in exchange for a fixed quantity of produce. For all these tasks, both inside and outside the monastery, P. laid down precise and wise rules, though these were not always observed, especially outside.

The Rule also reveals, in many respects, P.’s organizational genius; the spirit of moderation and sound balance that characterizes his entire institution is not contradicted by the minuteness of the prescriptions, the regulation of every act to be performed, or the elaboration of a complete penal code, since all this, besides being necessary to establish a communal life, fully accorded with the temperament of the Egyptians of that time.

It is difficult to attempt even an approximate census of the Pachomian monks. Cassian and the first Ethiopian recension of the Rule of P. reckon the monks at about 5,000, Palladius at about 7,000, while St Jerome in the prologue to his Latin version of the Rule puts the number at more than 5,000—a figure that applies to the end of the fourth and the beginning of the fifth century. Generally historians consider this last number greatly exaggerated. Yet if one considers that Pachomian monasticism was not only an ascetical and spiritual movement but also a genuine social phenomenon, the number should be close to the truth, even allowing for a considerable increase after P.’s death.

Was everything pure gold in the Pachomian monasteries? The answer differs depending on whether one consults the Greek or the Coptic Lives. The former present a picture that is as bright as possible, with scarcely a blemish, and reduce the monks’ failings to very little. The latter, while agreeing with the former on the substance and the figure of the founder, report more frequent and more serious infractions of the rules, indeed even grave transgressions in delicate matters. This is the picture that seems most to correspond to reality. Yet this in no way detracts from P.’s immense merit.

Studies: Tillemont, VII, pp. 167-235, 674-92; E.-C. Amélineau, besides the work cited above, *Etude historique sur St Pahôme*, Cairo 1887; id., *Monument pour servir à l’histoire de l’Egypte chrétienne*, Paris 1888-95; P. Ladeuze, *Etude sur le cénobitisme pakhômien pendant le IVe siècle et la première moitié du Ve*, Louvain 1888; G. Grützmacher, *Pacchomius und das älteste Klosterleben*, Freiburg im Br. 1896; St. Schiwietz, *Das morgenländische Mönchtum*, I, Mainz 1904, pp. 119 ff.; H. Leclercq, *Cenobitisme*, in DACL, II, cols. 3091-98; id., *Monachisme*, ibid., XI, cols. 1807-17; id., s. v., ibid., XIII, cols. 499-510.