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CECCO

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Originally appearing in Volume V05, Page 593 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CECCO D'See also:

ASCOLI (1257-1327), the popular name of See also:FRANCESCO DEGLI STABILI, a famous See also:Italian encyclopaedist and poet—Cecco being the diminutive of Francesco, and Ascoli, in the marshes of See also:Ancona, the See also:place of the philosopher's See also:birth. He devoted himself to the study of See also:mathematics and See also:astrology, and in 1322 was made See also:professor of the latter See also:science at the university of See also:Bologna. It is alleged that he entered the service of See also:Pope See also:John XXII. at See also:Avignon, and that he cultivated the acquaintance of See also:Dante only to See also:quarrel with the See also:great poet afterwards; but of this there is no See also:evidence. It is certain, however, that, having published a commentary on the See also:sphere of John de Sacrobosco, in which he propounded audacious theories concerning the employment and agency of demons, he got into difficulties with the clerical party, and was condemned in 1324 to certain fasts and prayers, and to the See also:payment of a See also:fine of seventy crowns. To elude this See also:sentence he betook himself to See also:Florence, where he was attached to the See also:household of Carlo di See also:Calabria. But his See also:free-thinking and See also:plain speaking had got him many enemies; he had attacked the Commedia of Dante, and the See also:Canzone d' Amore of Guido See also:Cavalcanti; and his See also:fate was sealed. Dino di Garbo, the physician, was indefatigable in pursuit of him; and the old See also:accusation of impiety being renewed, Cecco was again tried and sentenced, this See also:time to the stake. He was burned at Florence the See also:day after sentence, in the seventieth See also:year of his See also:age. Cecco d' Ascoli See also:left many See also:works in See also:manuscript, most of which have never been given to the See also:world. The See also:book by which he achieved his renown and which led to his See also:death was the Acerba (from acervus), an encyclopaedic poem, of which in 1546, the date of the last reprint, more than twenty See also:editions had been issued. It is unfinished, and consists of four books in sesfa rims. The first book treats of See also:astronomy and See also:meteorology; the second of stellar influences, of See also:physiognomy, and of the vices and virtues; the third of minerals and of the love of animals; while the See also:fourth propounds and solves a number of moral and See also:physical problems.

Of a fifth book, on See also:

theology, the initial See also:chapter alone was completed. A See also:man of immense erudition and of great and varied abilities, Cecco, whose knowledge was based on experiment and observation (a fact that of itself is enough to distinguish him from the See also:crowd of savants of that age),had outstripped his contemporaries in many things. He knew of metallic aerolites and See also:shooting stars; the See also:mystery of the See also:dew was plain to him; fossil See also:plants were accounted for by him through terrene revolutions which had resulted in the formation of mountains; he is even said to have divined the circulation of the See also:blood. Altogether a remark-able man, he may be described as one of the many Cassandras of the See also:middle ages—one of the many prophets who spoke of coming See also:light, and were listened to but to have their words See also:cast back at them in accusations of impiety and sentences of death. The least faulty of the many editions of the Acerba is that of See also:Venice, dated 1510. The earliest known, which has become excessively rare, is that of See also:Brescia, which has no date, but is ascribed to 1473 or thereabouts.

End of Article: CECCO

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