Peter of Abano

Peter of Abano (c. 1250-1316) was a very influential medical thinker from the fourteenth century. He also had an influence on fourteenth-century philosophy in Paris and Padua.

Peter of Abano was Italian by birth and received his basic education in Padua. At some point in his life (unclear when), he traveled to Constantinople where he is said to have learned Greek. Toward the end of the thirteenth century, he moved to Paris. In Paris, he soon got into serious trouble with the inquisition. He was, for example, accused of having held the position that the intellective soul is derived from the potentiality of matter. He was, however, never convicted and left Paris in the early fourteenth century (c. 1306) to return to Padua. In Padua, he got into trouble again with the inquisition, but died before he was charged with anything. Apparently, his bones were later burned in Padua as a sign of his heresy (Hasse 2001:636).

Peter’s most famous work is the Conciliator differentiarum philosophorum et praecipue medicorum. Presumably, it was written during his time in Paris and then perhaps revised later on in Padua. Its possible influence on fourteenth-century philosophy has been very little studied (it is in general very little studied), but it later became a standard text in medicine and was printed numerous times in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries (see Siraisi 1987, 2001; Nardi 1958).

Peter also wrote another work that was perhaps not as influential as the Conciliator, but which was also printed numerous times in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, namely an Expositio problematum Aristotelis. It seems also to have been written during his Paris period and then revised in Padua. It was often circulated later in the fourteenth century in a shortened version by John of Jandun.