ABANO, or Arose, (PETER DE) one of the most celebrated philosophers and physicians of his age, was born in the year 1250, at Man°, a village in the neigh bourhood of Padua, from which he received his name. After studying Greek at Constantinople, to which he went at an early age, he repaired to Paris, where he was instructed in the science of mathematics, and wok his degree of medicine and philosophy. Ilk thirst for knowledge seems also to have prompted him to travel into England and Scotland, which he is said to have visited before he returned to his native country. In the year 1302, he was appointed professor of medicine in the university of Padua ; but though this office was created for himself, he soon relinquished it, and went to practise physic at Bologna. His reputation as a phy sician was so great, that, for every visit to his patients, who resided without the walls of Bologna, he received the sum of 50 florins ; and when he w as called to Rome to attend pope Honorius the Fourth, he demanded 400 ducats a-day for his trouble.
The science of astrology seems to have been a fa vou•ite study of Abano's. Ile wrote no less than three works upon this subject ; and we find him predicting the effects of his medicines, and the fate of his patients, from the aspect and position of the stars. Ilence he was regarded as a magician by the vulgar, and was sup posed to hale acquired his knowledge of the seven li beral arts, under the tuition of seven familiar spirits, whom he kept imprisoned in a crystal vase. With superior pretensions to knowledge, Abano could not long escape the notice of the inquisition. He was accused of denying the existence of and spi rits ; and, in through the malice of a rival phy sician, he v as denounced before the inquisitorial tribu nal as guilty of necromancy and divination. By the powerful influence of his friends, the severity of his judges was softened, and he was acquitted of the charges which malevolence had preferred. This disappoint ment, however, did not extinguish the hostility of his en emies: the philosophical studies, and the liberal senti ments of Abano, supplied them with fresh sources of accusation ; and as if the crime of necromancy had not appeared sufficiently heinous, they preferred the more popular and destructive charges of heresy and atheism.
Again dragged before the inquisition, and anticipating, probably, the issue of his trial, the health and spirits of Abano began to decline, and death rescued lino from the grasp of his enemies in 1315, at the. age of sixty-six. But even death (lid not disarm the malignant fury of his persecutors. The holy inquisitors sat in judgment on his lifeless corpse ; and, as if the spirit that had fled from its cold tenement had been sensible to suffering, they condemned the body to be consigned to the flames; old threatened, with excommunication, the magistrates of Padua, unless they put in execution the barbarous sentence. The body of Abano, however, had been rais ed by an affectionate domestic from its place of inter ment in the church of St Anthony, and concealed in a sepulchre that happened to be open in the church of St Peter. When the inquisitors found that the body had been carried off, they threatened vengeance against eve ry person concerned in the transaction : but the magis trates of Padua opposed this barbarous excess of rigour ; and the inquisition was satisfied with the impotent pa rade of burning Abano in effigy in the market-place ot Padua. The corpse was afterwards transferred to the church of St Augustine ; where a sepulchral stone still marks the spot in which the persecuted body of Abano was at length suffered to repose.
While Abano remained at Paris, he composed his principal work, intitled, Conciliator difTerentiarunz Phi lo•ophorum t t precipue Medicoram, which was first pub lished at Venice in 1471. It was reprinted at Mantua in 1472, and though it has passed through many editions it is now \ cry scarce. His other works are, 1. Dc it orals eorumquc rentediis, Mantua, 1472. 2. Expo sitio Pt-obit-maim .4ristotelis, Mantua, 1473. 3. La Eisionotnie do Conciliator Pterrc de ..ipono, Pad. 1474. 4. Jls1rolabinut Planum in tabulis ascendena, Sec. Venet. 1505. 5. Textus Mesur noviter emendatus, Venet. 1505. 6. Geo/mu/au, Venet. 1549. 7. Dioscorides di gcstus Alphabrtico ordine Szc. Lugdun. 1512 ; and a number of other works on astrology and magic, which are too trifling to be mentioned here. (g)