Archaeologica Medica: XXIX.-Arnald of Villanova, the Mystic Physician.

ARCHIEOLOGICA MEDICA. XXIX.-ARNALD OF VILLANOVA, THE MYSTIC PHYSICIAN. DR. LALANDE1 has recently done good service by drawing attention to the history of ArnLId of Villaliova, one of the few great medical names which emerge from the mass of ignorance and credulity marking the thirteenth century in Europe. Born in Provence, probably at Villeneuve-Loubet, in the arrondissement of Grasse, at some time between 1235 and I240, Arnald was the son of a poor family called Bachuone or Bachinone. He was educated by the Dominicans, and perhaps practised medicine for a time in his native town. He went to Aix when he was about 20, and thence to Paris, where Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus, [St.] Thomas a Becket, and Peter d'Apono were then teaching philosophy. Here he studied for ten years, taking the degree of Master of Arts in the university-a degree which required that its recipient ishould be at least 35 years of age and should have studied for eight years. Arnald left Paris, and went to Montpellier, then the centre of Arabic medicine; from Montpellier he travelled into Spain, where he lived from 1280 to about 1286, acting for a short time as principal physician at the Court of Aragon. From Spain he migrated to Italy, where he became better acquainted with the Aristotelian tenets of the North Italian universities and with the Pythagorean doctrines of Padua and Naples. ln Italy he knew and perhaps taught Raymond Lully, and he laid the foundation of his reputation as an alchemist and mystic. He returned to Montpellier in 1289, and it was partly owing to his teaching that the school obtained the very high reputation it held amongst the medireval universities. Here, however, his tenets soon involved him in difficulties with the religious orders. Fifteen charges were brought against him. He had dared to say that the papal bulls were of purely human origin, that only those would be damned who set a bad example, that works of mercy were as pleasing to God as the sacrifice on the high altar, and that the founding of churches and of perpetual masses would not prevent the founder from incurring everlasting damnation if he had not charity. The conflict ended in the imprisonment of Arnald at Paris, and in the burning of his books. The intervention of powerful friends, amongst whom was Gilles Aycelin, Archbishop of Paris, soon procured him his liberty, and in 130I he left France for Italy. Three years later he was at the papal court of Benedict XI, after whose death he lived for some years in Sicily, acting partly as physician and partly as adviser to King Ferdinand, the brother of James, King of Aragon. In 1308 he was again in the papal court, now held at Avignon, for Clement V issued a Bull, dated September 8th, in favour of the faculty of medicine at Montpellier, which shows that Arnald was high in his favour. He was also entrusted with a political mission from Frederick, King of Sicily, to Robert, King of Naples and Count of Provence. The mission failed, but it brought Arnald to Naples, where under the Royal protection he and Lully continued their alchemical work in peace. From Naples he returned to Paris in 131I, passing through Avignon on his way, but declining the offer of Clement V that he should become his chief physician. Religious difficulties in Paris, and the fear of the Inquisition, soon caused him to travel back to Palermo, and during the voyage he was wrecked on the coast of Africa. Eventually he arrived in Sicily, where he occupied himself in writing his commentary upon the Schola Salernitana, but in 1313 Clement V again sent for him to cure a fit of the gravel. The great physician started for Avignon, but died off Genoa, and was buried in the town where Van der Linden (I609-I664) says that his tomb was still to be seen. Arnald was a remarkable man, in many ways so far in advance of his time that it is not surprising his enemies told the wildest stories about him. It was said that he boasted of being able to make a man by chemical means, and that when he saw the embryo shaping itself in his alembic, with all its limbs and organs, he stopped the experiment lest God should be obliged to give a reasoning soul to his creature. As a matter of fact, and judged by his writings, Arnald was a careful physician, paying more attention to physical signs in his diagnosis than was usual with his contemporaries, deeply