Geomancy.
It is more probable that Peter may have written a geomancy in view of his devotion to astrology and Naudé’s statement that he had left treatises in “physiognomy, geomancy, and chiromancy.” At any rate a geomancy exists under his name in several printed editions and manuscripts. In the Conciliator he asserted that the future and what was absent could be predicted by means of characters “as geomancy teaches.”[2862] In the Lucidator he concisely described the method of geomancy, and admitted that its figures were produced under the influence of the constellations and that not infrequently its judgments were verified, but he regarded it as a very difficult science of prediction and one requiring long experience and practice, although many persons tried their hand at it because it looked easy.[2863]
Conclusion.
Such was the attitude of the learned and influential Peter of Abano at the close of the thirteenth and opening of the fourteenth century toward the subjects which we are investigating. We may well agree with Tomasini that he combined medicine and philosophy, astrology and natural magic, in the closest union. He amassed a great deal of the lore of the past, Greek, Arabic, and the writings of his Latin predecessors. Indeed, when he repeats what earlier Latin writers in the thirteenth century had said, just as they had repeated what the Arabs said, we rather begin to weary of the subjects under discussion and to feel that medieval Latin learning is growing stagnant or stereotyped. Pico della Mirandola spoke of Peter not only as “a man fitted by nature to collect rather than to digest,” but also as one “whom alas the less learned are wont to admire most when he lies most.” In other words, Peter’s failings continued general for some time. The Latin epitaph which Tomasini in the seventeenth century drew up to accompany the portrait of Peter in his book on illustrious men, although containing one or two erroneous statements which we have already corrected, sums up rather well the salient points of both Peter’s learning and occult science. It may be translated thus:
“From a rural locality, of auspicious cognomen, a man most illustrious in genius, doctrine, and merits, in a rude and unhappy age became the most fortunate and learned physician. Now too he shines with rays eternal, investigator of all natural forces. He gave the secrets of the Greek tongue to the Latin idiom by his power of assiduous practice and constant reading. Employing the virtues of herbs and stones, the sure aspects of the sky, stated hours and moments, by the crowd he was reputed to fascinate men. He opened the arcana of the art medical; he reconciled conflicts, a wonderful warrior! The name of Conciliator he won by uniting medicine and philosophy, astrology and natural magic, in the closest bond. Born for study, he died studying. A. D. 1316, aged 66.”[2864]
[2757] As distinguished a scholar as Steinschneider (1905), pp. 58-9, for example, gives the date of his birth as 1253 or 1246.
[2758] Appendix I, “Previous Accounts of Peter of Abano,” describes the sources and secondary accounts. Appendix II, “A Bibliography of Peter of Abano’s Writings,” lists the editions and MSS of his works used in this chapter and some others.
[2759] Preface and Diff. 9.
[2760] Diff. 49.
[2761] Verci (1787) VII, Documenti, p. 116.