PETER OF ABANO. - Physician and philosopher, b. at Abano (Padua) in 1257, d. at Padua ca. 1315.

After completing his early studies at Padua, following many travels he went to Paris, where he taught philosophy and medicine at that University; having returned to Padua, he taught for various years at the University, arousing however the concerns of the ecclesiastical authorities. Acquitted, during his lifetime, of the charge of heresy, 40 years after his death, his writings having been subjected to a new trial, he was condemned and his ashes disinterred and burned.

P. d'A. is considered by some (Ferrari, Pincherle Calogero) as the introducer into Italy of Latin Averroism (v.). In reality he condemned as erroneous and impious the thesis of the unity and uniqueness of the agent intellect (Thorndike, Nardi). P. was a credulous and consistent astrologer, and, in those times, Averroism, astrology, heresy, unbelief had become almost synonymous terms.

Principal works: Conciliator differentiarum philosophorum et praecipue medicorum (Venice 1476); Liber compilationis physionomiae (ibid. 1482); Expositio problematum Aristotelis (Padua 1482); among the unpublished ones, the Lucidator astronomiae should be remembered (cf. P. M. Duhem, Le système du monde, IV, Paris 1913).

Bibliography4 works

BIBL.: S. Ferrari, Intorno ai tempi, alla vita, alle dottrine di P. d'A., Genoa 1900; B. Nardi, La teoria dell'animo secondo P. d'A., in Riv. di filos. neoscol., 4 (1912), p. 723 ff.; L. Thorndike, A history of magic and experimental science, London 1923, pp. 917-26; C. Giacon, P. d'A. e l'averroismo padoxono, in Atti XXVI Riunione della S.I.P.S., Rome 1938, pp. 334-39.

Carlo Giacon

@incollection{ec9_pietro_d_abano, author = {Giacon, Carlo}, title = {Pietro d'Abano}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {IX}, pages = {1395--1396}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1952}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/pietro-d-abano} }

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Peter of Abano

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