Background
He was born in 1246-1250 in Abano Terme, Italy. He lived in Greece before studying medicine and philosophy at Paris.
He was born in 1246-1250 in Abano Terme, Italy. He lived in Greece before studying medicine and philosophy at Paris.
Studyed medicine and philosophy at Paris, and at the completion of his studies there he established a highly successful practice in Padua.
In his major work, Conciliator differentiarum quae inter philosophos et medicos versantur, Abano attempted to reconcile the differences between the two main currents of medieval thought: the Arabist and Christian interpretations of Aristotle. The metaphysics of the physicians, stemming from the Arabians Avicenna and Averroës,Averroes, was fundamentally opposed to the Christian interpretation of Aristotle by such theologians as Thomas Aquinas, Abano's senior contemporary. The Conciliator was a compendium of answers by commentators on Aristotle to a wide variety of anatomical and physiological questions. This attempt to synthesize medicine and theological authority became known as the Paduan school for medical dialectics, of which Abano is considered the founder.
Abano's great success in medical practice caused his rivals to accuse him of magic. These accusations, together with his espousal of Arabist views, resulted in his being twice tried by the Inquisition for heresy. In the first trial, he won acquittal, and he died before the second was completed. His other writings include De venenis eorumque remediis (1472), which is an exposition of Arabic theories, most of them primitively superstitious, of poisoning and contagion.