On balance, Arnau enjoyed more success as a phy-
sician than as a theologian and reformer. A council at
Tarragona condemned a dozen of his theological works
in 1316, and most of the several Beguine communi-
ties inspired by his ideal of a lay spirituality dwindled
away where they were not suppresssed outright. The
taint of heterodoxy may have contributed to the later
ascription to Arnau of many alchemical works, none
with any verisimilitude. His genuine medical writings
are numerous, however, and enjoyed great popularity
down to the sixteenth century—particularly his Regimen
sanitatis for Jaime II and the Medicationis parabole
dedicated to Philip le Bel in 1300. Arnau’s more abstract
scientifi c writings are often original attempts to develop
some particular aspect of medical theory and to imbed
it within a broader naturophilosophical framework,
and—like his Aphorismi de gradi-bus—they show
considerable breadth of knowledge and imagination.
Often harshly critical of his academic colleagues, he
was particularly severe on their overdependence upon
Avicenna’s Canon, which had been the dominant author-
ity behind the thirteenth-century schools. (To be sure, his
own works are heavily marked by Avicennan problems
and conclusions.) In 1309 he was one of three advisors
who helped Clement V draw up a new curriculum for
the medical faculty at Montpellier, one that made the
works of Galen rather than Avicenna the core of medical
instruction at that school. Attempts have been made to
see his theological and medical positions as unifi ed, but
in many respects he seems to have been able to keep his
two lives/passions compartmentalized.
See also Avicenna; Clement V, Pope; Jaime II
Further Reading
Arnaldi de Villanova Opera Medica Omnia. vols. 2, 3, 4, 6.1, 15,
16, 18, 19 published to date. Barcelona, 1975–.
Crisciani, C. “Exemplum Christi e Sapere. Sull’epistemologia di
Arnaldo da Villanova,” Archives Internationales d’Histoire
des Sciences 28 (1978), 245–92.
García Ballester, L. “Arnau de Vilanova (c. 1240–1311) y la
reforma de los estudios medicos en Montpellier (1309),”
Dynamis 2 (1982), 97–158.
Perarnau, J. L’“Alia Informatio Beguinorum” d’Arnau de
Vilanova. Barcelona, 1978.
Santí, F. Arnau de Vilanova: L’obra espiritual. Valencia, 1987.
Michael McVaugh
VILLANI, GIOVANNI (c. 1280–1348)
The Florentine chronicler Giovanni Villani was a
merchant and politician as well as a writer. He was the
author of the Nuova cronica (New Chronicle), a history
of Florence set in a much wider context, beginning with
the tower of Babel and extending to 1348, the year
when he died of the plague. In this work, he combined
municipal patriotism and a cosmopolitan outlook with
a passion for statistics and detail. Despite its length,
it was (like Dante’s Comedy) a great popular success,
circulated in many fourteenth- and fi fteenth-century
manuscripts. However, although there were a number
of subsequent printings, it was given a critical edition
only quite recently (Porta 1990–1991).
Giovanni Villani was born into a mercantile family of
some standing in Florence. Giovanni’s father served a
term as a prior—a member of the main governing board
of the city—in 1300; and Giovanni and his three brothers
were able to secure positions with two of the leading
Florentine banking and commercial houses. Giovanni
himself became a successful and rich businessman,
though he must have lost most of his fortune in the great
fi nancial crash of the 1340s. He was also successful so-
cially and politically. He married, as his second wife, a
woman from the aristocratic Pazzi family; and he held a
place in the ruling Florentine oligarchy, serving in vari-
ous communal offi ces, including three terms as prior. His
business career not only gave him intimate knowledge
of the power struggles in his own city but also put him
in touch with the wider world. He was able to travel
extensively and receive reports from all over western
Europe at a time when Florence was one of its richest
and most populous cities. In this golden age, Florence
enjoyed—as Giovanni observed in a meticulous statisti-
cal description of its trade and resources c. 1338—an
income greater than that of many kingdoms. At this
time, its banking and mercantile companies controlled
and manipulated a disproportionately large concentra-
tion of capital and trade. Of these companies, the most
powerful were the Bardi and the Peruzzi. As early as
1300, Giovanni was a shareholder with the Peruzzi fi rm,
and c. 1302 he went to Bruges in its service; he was con-
nected with it for a number of years, as were several of
his relatives. Then, probably by 1312, but certainly by
1322, he transferred his activities to a new but rapidly
growing fi rm, the Buonaccorsi, in which he and his
brother Matteo became prominent—in fact, Giovanni
was its codirector by 1324. Certainly by the late 1320s
its operations were varied and widespread, including not
only banking but also trading in many commodities, and
extending over a vast area: southern and northern Italy,
southern and northern France, Brabant, Flanders, Eng-
land, and various parts of the Mediterranean. Although
Giovanni mentions other places from time to time, it
is these regions of which he seems to have had real
knowledge. At least for those chapters of his chronicle
that cover the period 1300–1348, we may suppose that
conversations, oral reports, and merchants’ letters are
at least as important a source as chronicles and offi cial
documents.
Giovanni’s access to both offi cial and private docu-
ments must have made possible his unusually rich andVILLANI, GIOVANNI