Cecco d'Ascoli facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Cecco d'Ascoli
Born	1269  Ancarano
Died	16 September 1327, 1327  (aged 57–58) Florence
Occupation	Writer

Cecco d'Ascoli (1257 – September 26, 1327) is the popular name of Francesco degli Stabili (sometimes given as Francesco degli Stabili Cichus), an Italian encyclopaedist, physician and poet. Cecco (in Latin, Cichus) is the diminutive of Francesco, Ascoli was the place of his birth. The lunar crater Cichus is named after him.

Life

Born in Ancarano, in the modern Abruzzo region (at the time under the jurisdiction of Ascoli), he devoted himself to the study of mathematics and astrology. In 1322 he was made professor of astrology at the University of Bologna. It is alleged that he entered the service of Pope John XXII at Avignon, and that he cultivated the acquaintance of Dante only to quarrel with the great poet afterwards; but of this there is no evidence.

Having published a commentary on the 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 payment of a fine of seventy crowns. To elude this sentence he went to Florence, where he was attached to the household of Carlo di Calabria. His freethinking and plain speaking had made him many enemies; he had attacked the Commedia of Dante, and the Canzone d'amore of Guido Cavalcanti. The physician Dino del Garbo was indefatigable in pursuit of him; and the old accusation of impiety being renewed, Cecco was again tried and sentenced for relapse into heresy. He was burned at Florence the day after the sentence, in his seventieth year.

Works

See also

In Spanish: Cecco d'Ascoli para niños