PAOLO VENETO (PAOLO NICOLETTI). – Philosopher and theologian of the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine, born in Udine around 1368, died in Venice (according to other accounts, in Padua) in 1429 (1428). He probably taught in Siena and Bologna (in which cities he carried out duties for the Order) and at the University of Padua (1408–15). In 1413 he was commissioned by the Republic of Venice to undertake an embassy to the King of Poland; the Republic subsequently prohibited him from attending the Council of Constance (1414–18), where his presence might have compromised the government of the Serenissima. He travelled (1420–28) through various cities of Italy, and finally obtained permission to resume teaching in Padua, albeit for a short time.
Following Giov. di Janduno, he adopted and openly professed Averroist doctrines (the unity of the intellect, the double truth, etc.), of which Padua was then the principal centre. Later he came under the influence of the Parisian masters, Alberto di Sassonia (v.), whose doctrines had begun to spread in Padua. Sigieri di Brabante (v.) and Tommaso di Wilton, he held that the one intellect becomes individualized in individuals by entering into the rational soul, the substantial form of the body. He wrote: Logica parva seu Summulae (Venice 1499; subsequent eds.); Logica magna (ibid. 1481; subsequent eds.): the Logica of P. V., adopted in the 15th–16th centuries as a school textbook, is of Ockhamist inspiration; Summa totius philosophiae naturalis (Milan and Venice 1476): a commentary, informed by Averroism, on the works of Aristotle; Super universalia Porphyrii et artem veterem Aristotelis expositio (Venice 1494); De compositione mundi, etc. (Paris 1498); Commentarius... in libros Posteriorum Aristotelis (Venice 1477; subsequent eds.); Expositio super 8 libros Physicorum Aristotelis (ibid. 1476); Sophismata, etc. (ibid. 1480); Universalia praedicamenta sexque principia (ibid. 1494); De quadratura circuli; Summa de poenitentia; De conceptione B. Mariae Virginis; as well as Sermones, etc.