Cecco d'Ascoli

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Cecco d'Ascoli

Cecco d'Ascoli (actually: Francesco Stabili, scholarly name: Cichus Esculanus; * 1269 in Ancarano near Ascoli ; † September 26, 1327 in Florence ) was an Italian poet, doctor, astronomer, astrologer and free thinker .

Acerba , incipit, 1484
Cecco d'Ascoli, L'acerba (chapter on avarice). Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana , Plut. 40.52, fol. 24v (14th century)
Cecco's Acerba in a 14th century manuscript in Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana

Life

From 1322 Cecco worked as a professor of mathematics and astronomy at the University of Bologna . It has been said that he was in Avignon in the service of Pope John XXII. confessed and that he had sought the acquaintance of Dante , only to then start an argument with him. There is no evidence of this. What is certain is that Cecco wrote a commentary on the Sphaera of John de Sacrobosco , in which he made bold claims about the workings of demons . About this he got into disagreement with the clergy, in 1324 he was sentenced to fasting and prayer and to the payment of a fine of 75 crowns. To avoid this punishment, he went to Florence , where he was accepted into the house of Duke Carlo of Calabria . According to other sources, he was accused of heresy by the Inquisition and removed from office on December 16, 1324.

Cecco had made many opponents through his undisguised free- thinking, he had criticized Dante's Commedia and Guido Cavalcanti's Canzone d'Amore , so his fate was sealed. The doctor Dino del Garbo kept suing him, the old indictment of godlessness was brought up again, Cecco was brought to justice and sentenced, this time to death . The day after the verdict, he was burned at the stake on September 26, 1327 in Florence .

Cecco d'Ascoli left behind numerous works, most of which were never published. The book to which he owes his reputation and which led to his death was the Acerba (from acervus ), an encyclopedic poem of which more than twenty editions had appeared up to 1546, the year of the last printed edition. It is unfinished and includes four books. The first book deals with astronomy and meteorology , the second with the influence of the stars, physiognomy , vices and virtues ; the third is about minerals and the love of animals; the fourth discusses a range of moral and physical problems and their solutions. Only the opening chapter of a fifth book on theology has been completed.

A man of tremendous erudition and great and varied abilities, with a knowledge based on experiment and observation - which alone sets him apart from the scholars of that age - Cecco was in many ways ahead of his contemporaries. He knew about metal meteorites and falling stars , the dew was no mystery to him, he explained fossilized plants through the upheavals on the earth's surface that had led to the formation of mountains, he is even said to have recognized the blood circulation .

The least flawed of the many editions of the Acerba is that published in Venice in 1510. The earliest known edition, which has become extremely rare, is that from Brescia, which is undated but can be dated to around 1473.

The lunar crater Cichus is named after Cecco.

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personal data
SURNAME Cecco d'Ascoli
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Francesco Stabili; Ascoli, Francesco de Stabili Cecco de; Cichus esculanus; Cicchus esculanus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian poet, doctor, astronomer, astrologer and free thinker
DATE OF BIRTH 1269
PLACE OF BIRTH Ancarano near Ascoli
DATE OF DEATH September 26, 1327
Place of death Florence