About the Author

Peter of Abano, a town in the vicinity of Padua, was born in 1250 and was a learned physician of his period, who attempted to conciliate the different medical systems and is supposed to have been the first European who quoted Averroes. He established himself at Paris, but at the instigation of jealous professional brethren he was accused of heresy and fled to his native place. At Padua a chair of medicine was created for him, but the accusation followed its victim; by some he was charged with denying the existence of demons, by others with obtaining his knowledge from seven imps whom he kept in a bottle. The Inquisition instituted a process, but the designed sufferer was delivered by death--as some say, on the eve of his execution. As a counterpoise, a century later his bust was placed in the town-hall of Padua. He remains, therefore, one of the moral martyrs of Magic.