APPENDIX IV
WAS PETER CALLED TO TREVISO IN 1314?
It was stated by Bonifazio in his History of Treviso,[2904] and repeated by Mazzuchelli[2905] and Tiraboschi,[2906] that on August 7, 1314, the Trevisans, wishing to establish a university, brought Peter to their city, where he taught and practiced medicine for a year. Colle[2907] agreed that he received a call but doubted if he accepted it because his will, drawn up in 1315, makes it appear that he is still in the employ of Padua. But it is not quite certain that he even received a call, if we judge from the extant original documents,[2908] a decree issued by the government of Treviso on August 9, 1314, and letters of the 15th and 16th of that month. The decree indeed aims at the institution of professorial chairs in the two laws and medicine (phisica) at Treviso, namely, Ordinary Lecturers in Civil and Canon Law, and Extraordinary Lecturers in Civil Law and Medicine. Under each of these four heads it lists three names, and that of “Master Peter of Abano” heads those in medicine. But the decree further states that “the doctors named below” are to be balloted upon, and apparently by lot,[2909] and thus arranged in order of first, second, and third choice. The position is then to be offered to the first one chosen; if he refuses, to the second; and so on. It is also stated that the incumbents “are to lecture and teach through three years continuously after their arrival,” not for one year. The normal salary is set at four hundred petty pounds annually, although the Council of Three Hundred are left some liberty in increasing or diminishing this amount. Moreover, we have a letter of August sixteenth notifying Peter of Suzara of his final appointment after he had indicated that he would accept the election. Similar letters were sent to five others of the twelve men named in the decree, and the name of Peter of Abano is not found among the five, the professor named in medicine being Henzelerius or Hengelerius. Either therefore Peter of Abano had not been elected or had refused to accept the appointment.
[2904] Bonifazio, Storia di Trevigi, 1591, P. 354.
[2905] Mazzuchelli (1741), p. xxii.
[2906] Tiraboschi (1775) V, 51 and 156.
[2907] Colle (1825) III, 133.
[2908] Verci (1787) VII, Documenti, pp. 39-40, 43-4, 46-7 (from Raccolta Scotti, IV, 376, 342, 388).
[2909] “... quod infrascripti Doctores per sortem eligantur ... quod illi qui scripti sunt inferius ad lecturam ordinariam per se sortiri debeant unus contra alium ad buffolos et ballotas.... Et simili forma observetur et debeat observari in scriptis ad extraordinariam lecturam....”