There are doubtless many more MSS. Manitius (1911), p. 285, states that “Der lateinische Secundus findet sich übrigens in alten Katalogen von s. XIII an nicht selten, ... nämlich in Canterbury (Christ-Church und St. Augustin), Dover, Peterborough, Prüfening, Durham, bei Benedikt XIII, Amplonius von Ratinck, Borso d’Este und in Leicester.”
[1613] The Dicta or Sententiae of Secundus were printed with the Altercatio Hadriani Aug. et Epicteti philosophi, in 1628; see Manitius (1911), pp. 268 and 284.
CHAPTER LVIII
PETRUS HISPANUS
Nationality: at Paris—Medical works and later life—Death and character—The Thesaurus pauperum—Is it interpolated?—Its essential character is fairly represented even by the printed version—Devout tone of its preface—Arrangement of the text—Emphasis on occult virtue—Authority and experiment—Some of Peter’s authorities—Parts of animals; suspensions—Remedies for toothache—Prescriptions for epilepsy—Against sorcerers and demons—De morbis oculorum—Summa de conservanda sanitate—A marvelous treatise on waters—Other works ascribed to him—Commentaries on Isaac’s Diets; their scholastic method—Their questions concerning nature—Absence of astrology and occult virtue—Incorrect ideas about nature—Reason and experience—Via experimenti—Question of Peter’s relation to Roger Bacon and Galen—John of St. Amand on medical experimentation—Natural and occult science in John of St. Amand—Appendix I. Some Manuscripts of the Thesaurus pauperum.
Nationality: at Paris.
Petrus Hispanus, or Peter of Spain, who finally became Pope John XXI, is said by Ptolemy of Lucca, who died fifty years after him in 1327, to have been of Portuguese nationality.[1614] His birth is placed at Lisbon between 1210 and 1220, and he is said to have been the son of a physician named Julian.[1615] However, in the preface to his De conservanda sanitate, as preserved in a fifteenth century manuscript, Peter speaks of himself as from Compostella and as familiar with all Italy, Burgundy, Gascony, and parts of Spain.[1616] In other manuscripts he calls himself Petrus Hispanus. He came to the University of Paris at an early age, as he himself testified when pope in a letter to the bishop of Paris.[1617] In the same epistle he refers to the many years he spent at Paris occupied with varied studies. His text-book in logic was universally adopted and often commented upon, and has now been shown to be, not, as Prantl held in his History of Logic,[1618] a copy of the work of Psellus, but an independent product of the Parisian school. It was printed from forty to fifty times between 1477 and 1519.[1619]
Medical works and later life.
From 1246 to 1250 Peter was at Siena in the faculty of arts. Perhaps he then wrote the letter to the emperor, Frederick II, On the Rule of Health, if it be a genuine work, which precedes his Thesaurus pauperum in at least one manuscript.[1620] Ptolemy of Lucca calls Peter “an all-round scholar and specialist in medicine,”[1621] and mentions particularly among his medical works the famous Thesaurus pauperum, which we shall presently consider as a very influential and representative handbook of medieval medicine. In all seventeen medical works are attributed to Peter, of which only three have been printed.[1622] At the beginning of his treatise on eye diseases Peter speaks of himself as a professor of the art of medicine and an investigator of the truth.[1623] In the Thesaurus pauperum he cites Albertus Magnus as well as Gilbertus Anglicus, but he probably did not write it very late in life. Pope Gregory X made Peter a cardinal in 1273,[1624] he was also an archbishop, and in 1276 the career of the celebrated scholar culminated in his election to the papal see following Gregory’s death.
Death and character.