The condemnation of Cecco, therefore, may be a good example of the way in which the Inquisition could be manipulated for private ends, but it does not seem a sign of any general attack by the church and Inquisition on astrology or on learned men who showed an interest in occult science. The charges repeated, or invented, against Cecco by Villani and the late manuscripts are loose and exaggerated. Why Cecco d’Ascoli was burned at the stake is a problem that has puzzled more than one investigator, and none of the explanations offered is entirely satisfactory. It is, however, fairly evident that the process against Cecco was a failure as an attempt to check his teachings and simply advertised him and his writings. It came late in the medieval period and apparently was not soon repeated. Everything tends to indicate that his execution was an exceptional and sensational, but not especially significant event. The attitudes toward astrology of Thomas Aquinas, whom the church canonized, and of Albertus Magnus, who was beatified, are much more important and more characteristic of medieval ecclesiastical culture.
[2950] G. Castelli, La vita e le opere di Cecco d’Ascoli, 1892, chapter 12.
[2951] For an account of this literature see Castelli’s opening chapters.
The important contributions of G. Boffito will be mentioned presently. W. St. C. Baddeley, Cecco d’Ascoli, Poet, Astrologer, Physician, 1894, is a worthless popular essay.
[2952] Sphera Mundi cum tribus Commentis nuper editis videlicet Cicchi Esculani, Francisci Capuani de Manfredonia, Iacobi Fabri Stapulensis.... Impressum Venetiis per Simonem Papiensem dictum Bivilaquam, 1499. As the leaves are unnumbered in this edition, the following references will follow the foliation of the 1518 edition, sphera cum commentis, etc., which will be cited as Sphera.
BN 7337, 15th century, pp. 32-41, Caeci Aesculani super sphaeram, seems to contain only portions of Cecco’s commentary and to omit Sacrobosco’s text entirely.
[2953] Il Commento di Cecco d’Ascoli all’ Alcabizzo, edito a cura del P. G. Boffito, 1905. This will be referred to as Alcabizzo.
[2954] Studi e Documenti di Storia e Diritto, Publicazione periodice dell’ accademia di conferenza Storico-Giuridichi, Roma, XX (1899), 357-82, “Perchè fu condamnato al fuoco l’astrologo Cecco d’Ascoli?”
[2955] Muratori, Scriptores, tome 13, X, 39-40.
[2956] Riccard. 673 (M-I-25), fol. 111r-v, “De magistro Cecco de asculo quare combustus sit.”
[2957] Gli Eretici d’Italia, Turin, 1865, I, 151.
[2958] H. C. Lea, A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, III, 444.
Lea’s sources for his account of Cecco would seem somewhat dubious from his own description of them, since he says, “I owe many of the above details to a sketch of Cecco’s life in a Florentine MS which I judge from the handwriting to be of the seventeenth century and of which the anonymous author appears to be well informed; also to a MS copy of the elaborate sentence, much more full than the fragments given by Lami and Cantù.” Lea supplied no further means of identifying these MSS, but presumably he had reference to two of the following:
Poppi 199, 18th century folio, Vita e morte di Cecco d’Ascoli.
Panciatichiani 117, 18th century, p. 50—“Abiura di Cecco d’Ascoli e sua morte seguita in Firenze l’anno 1328, con altre notizie appartenenti alla sua vita.” Precede una nota sul padre Accursio Buonfantini Inquisitore, che esaminò e condannò Cecco d’Ascoli; pp. 51-9, Esame e condanna di Cecco d’Ascoli, “Al nome de Dio amen. Noi frate Accursio ... / ... Familiari e servitori dell’ Inquisizione e molte altre persone”; pp. 60-3, Memorie della vita e morte di Cecco d’Ascoli, “Nella città d’ascoli nella marca fu un artigiano assai commodo ... / ... che troppo dalla credenzia della vera fede si allontanano”; pp. 63-4, Altre notizie date dal Sig. A. M. Manni, “Maestro Cecco fu cittadino ascolano, filosofo et astrologo ... / ... delle Virtù delle Pietre, manoscritto del sig. Alessandro Cherubini.”
Palat. 895, 17th century, carte 15, Sentenzia contro a maestro Cecco di maestro Simone degli Stabili da Ascoli, data in Firenze l’anno di nostro Signore 1328, “Noi frate Accursio di Firenze, dell’ ordine de’ frati minori, per autorità appostolica Inquisitorre della eretica malignità della prouincia de Toscana ... / ... come in Firenze è pubblico è notorio per l’euidenza del fatto manifesto.”
Castelli, p. 42, says that the number of copies of the sentence and relation of the death of Cecco found in the libraries of Italy is incredible, but he mentions only two.
[2959] Cecco’s Commentary is not divided into such sections in the two editions and MS which I have seen.
[2960] “del Bavaro”; the illusion is presumably to the emperor, Louis of Bavaria.
[2961] Listed above, p. 951, note 5. Panciatich. 117 is very similar to Palat. 895, but the wording is not identical, and from fol. 56v on the former omits much of the diffuse moralizing of the latter on how wicked it is to pry into the future and to destroy faith in freedom of the will, the basis of all morality (see Palat. 895, fol. 9r-v).
[2962] Such as ascribing to Cecco views which he cites from other authors only to condemn immediately.
[2963] In Palat. 895, for instance, fol. 12v, “Deliberarono condannare alla morte il detto maestro Cecco”; fol. 13v, “lo condanniamo alla morte come merita.”
[2964] Sphera, fol. 11; BN 7337, p. 33. Cecco also uses the inhabitants of Ferrara and Bologna to illustrate his point. Each city or state, however, has a triple influence exerted on it by the stars, according to its climate, its province, and the moment of its building. See also fol. 14.
[2965] Alcabizzo, ed. Boffito (1905), pp. 31-2.
[2966] Ibid., 53-4.
[2967] Ibid., pp. 58-9.
[2968] Alcabizzo, p. 31.
[2969] Sphera, fol. 20; BN 7337, p. 37.
[2970] Alcabizzo, pp. 9-10.
[2971] Sphera, fol. 11.
[2972] Alcabizzo, p. 20.
[2973] Ibid., 23-4, 49-50.
[2974] Ibid., 50.
[2975] Ibid., p. 23.
[2976] Sphera, fol. 7, “... elementa alterant complexiones, complexionibus alteratis alterantur animae que in nobis sunt quia anime consequuntur corpora ut dicit philosophus in principio sue physionomie.”
[2977] Alcabizzo, pp. 32, 43, 46-8.
[2978] Alcabizzo, pp. 34 and 36.
[2979] Ibid., 29-31.
[2980] Alcabizzo, p. 26.
[2981] Ibid., p. 43.
[2982] Sphera, fol. 18.
[2983] Ibid., fol. 4; BN 7337, p. 32.
[2984] Ibid., fol. 12.
[2985] Sphera, fol. 14; BN 7337, p. 34.
[2986] Ibid., fols. 22-23; BN 7337, p. 39.
[2987] “Unde iste bestia zoroastes et aliqui eum sequentes dicunt quod Christus fuit ortus in dominio istarum quartarum ex virtute incuborum et succuborum de quibus supra dixi vobis quod horribile mihi videtur scribere ista verba.”
[2988] BN 7337, p. 39.
[2989] Sphera, fol. 23.
[2990] Alcabizzo, p. 49.
[2991] Alcabizzo, p. 17. In the Sphera, fol. 22 (BN 7337, p. 38), he had promised to treat of this matter in the commentary on Alcabitius’ De principiis.
[2992] Palat. 895, 17th century, fols. 10v-11r.
[2993] Tiraboschi (1775), V, 165.
[2994] Sphera, fol. 18.
[2995] Ibid., fol. 3, “a sancta matre ecclesia vituperabiliter improbata.”
[2996] Or Liber de angelica factura, (or perhaps factione) as it is called in BN 7337, p. 35.
[2997] Sphera, fol. 15; BN 7337, p. 34.
[2998] Sphera, fol. 20.
[2999] Sphera, fol. 17.
[3000] In BN 7337, p. 37, these names are spelled, “Orion, Agimon, pagimon, et egin.”
[3001] “vel gatti” in the printed text; “vel capti” in BN 7337.
[3002] Sphera, fol. 21.
[3003] Sphera, fols. 17 and 22.
[3004] Sphera, fol. 16.
[3005] Sphera, fol. 17; BN 7337, p. 35.
[3006] Sphera, fol. 22; BN 7337, p. 39.
[3007] Alcabizzo, p. 16, “sicut silogizabit quidam noster medicus exculanus cum matre sua fatua sicut ipse.” If the reading were “patre suo fatuus,” one might be tempted to try to see in it a reference to Dino del Garbo and his son, Tommaso del Garbo.
[3008] Villani, X, 40.
[3009] Cited by Castelli; I have not seen the work.
[3010] Tiraboschi (1775), V, 165.