PETER OF ABANO.-CECCO D'ASCOLI. ±±1 only through confession and abjuration, so that when he was pros- ecuted a second time it was for relapse. That he would have been burned there can be little doubt, had he not evaded the stake by opportunely dying in 1316, before the termination of his trial, for he was posthumously condemned : according to one account his bones were burned ; according to another his faithful mistress Marietta conveyed them secretly away, and an effigy was com- mitted to the flames in his place. If Benvenuto da Imola is to be believed, he lost his faith in the stars on his death-bed, for he said to his friends that he had devoted his days to three noble sciences, of which philosophy had made him subtle, medicine had made him rich, and astrolog} 7 had made him a liar. His name passed into history as that of the most expert of necromancers, concerning whom no marvels were too wild to find belief. It mattered little that Padua erected a statue to him as to one of her greatest sons, and that Frederic, Duke of Urbino, paid him the same tribute. Like Solomon and Hermes and Ptolemy, so long as magic flour- ished his name served as an attractive frontispiece to various treat- ises on incantations and the occult sciences.* Yery similar, but even more illustrative, is the case of Cecco d'Ascoli. He early distinguished himself as a student of the lib- eral arts, and devoted himself to astrology, in w T hich he was reckoned the foremost man of his time. His vanity led him to proclaim himself the profoundest adept since Ptolemy, and his caustic and biting humor made him abundance of enemies. Ke- garcling astrology as a science, he inevitably brought it within Aquinas's definition of heresy. In his conception the stars ruled everything. A man born under a certain aspect of the heavens was doomed to be rich or poor, lucky or unlucky, virtuous or vicious, unless God should interfere specially to turn aside the course of nature. Cecco boasted that he could read the thoughts
- Bayle, s. v. Apone — G. Naudg, Apologie pour les Grands Hommes, Ch. xrv-
— Muratori Antiq. Ital. III. 374-5. For the printed works attributed to Peter of Abano, see Grassc, " Bibliotlieca Magica et Pneumatica," Leipzig, 1843. The one by which he is best known is the " Heptameron sen Elementa Magiffi," a treatise on the invocation of demons, printed with the works of Cornelius Agrippa. This version, however, is incom- plete. A fuller and better one is among the MSS. of the Bibliotheque Rationale, fonds latin, No. 17870.
