VENETO, PAOLO

Logician; b. Paolo Nicoletti, Udine, Italy, c. 1369; d. Padua, June 15, 1428. He joined the augustinians in Venice, and before ordination was sent to study at Oxford (1390–93). By 1408 he was a doctor of theology at Padua. In 1409 (or 1412) during the western schism he was appointed general of the order (Roman obedience), but resigned after nine months. In 1413 he served as ambassador of Venice to Emperor sigismund and King Ladislaus of Poland. He was banned from Venetian territory for reasons unknown in 1420. He then taught in Siena (1422), Bologna (1424), Perugia, and again Siena (1427), where he became rector of the university. From Oxford he had brought many books until then unknown in Italy. An outstanding professor, he introduced into Italy a type of logic that had flourished at Oxford during the 14th century, and that was still in vogue in Italy after 1500 (see logic, history of). His own widely read works on logic made him an authority no one dared contradict. The works include the Logica parva (Milan 1473), Logica magna (Venice 1481), Summa totius philosophiae (Milan 1476), and 10 commentaries on Aristotle. He leaned toward averroism.

Bibliography: d. a. perini, Bibliographia Augustiniana, 4 v. (Florence 1929–38) 4:39–46. f. momigliano, Paolo Veneto e le correnti del pensiero religioso e filosofico nel suo tempo (Turin 1907). c. von prantl, Geschichte der Logik im Abendlande, 4 v. (Leipzig 1855–70; reprint Graz 1955) 4:118–140. b. nardi, Saggi sull'Aristotelismo Padovano dal secolo XIV al XVI (Florence 1958). a. b. emden, A Biographical Register of the Scholars of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500, 3 v. (Oxford 1957–59) 3:1944–45.

[f. roth]