Pierre d'Ailly
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pierre d'Ailly (in Latin, Petrus Aliacensis, Petrus de Alliaco) (1351 – August 9, 1420), was a French theologian, astrologer, and cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.
He was born in Compiègne. He was chancellor of the University of Paris from 1385 to 1395. He was involved in the effort to end the Great Schism by means of an ecumenical council and participated in both the Council of Pisa (1409) and the Council of Constance (1414-1418) which condemned the Bohemian reformer Jan Hus. He was a lifelong friend and mentor to Jean Gerson.
D'Ailly's Imago Mundi, a work of cosmography, influenced Christopher Columbus in his estimates of the size of world land-mass.
Aliacensis crater, on the Moon, is named after him.
[edit] Sources
- Catholic Encyclopedia article
- Laura A. Smoller, History, Prophecy, and the Stars: The Christian Astrology of Pierre D'Ailly, 1350-1420. Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ; 1994) ISBN 0-691-08788-1.
[edit] Further Reading
- Kren, Claudia. (1970). "Ailly, Pierre D'". Dictionary of Scientific Biography 1: 84. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
