Alternate Names
Peter of Ailli; Petrus de Alliaco
Born Compiègne, (Oise), France, 1350 or 1351
Died Avignon, France, 1420
Pierre d’Ailly remained an important authority for cosmographers and astrologers throughout the Renaissance period.
D’Ailly was born in Compiègne to prosperous burghers Colard d’Ailly and his wife Pétronille. D’Ailly studied at the University of Paris, where he received the licentiate in arts in 1367 and became a doctor of theology on 11 April 1381. D’Ailly had a distinguished career in both university and church, serving as rector of the College of Navarre of the University of Paris from 1384, chancellor of the University of Paris from 1389 to 1395, Bishop of Le Puy from 1395 to 1396, Bishop of Noyon from 1396 to 1397, Bishop of Cambrai from 1397, and Cardinal from 1411 until his death in Avignon in 1420. One of the most prominent churchmen during the years of the Great Schism (1378–1414), d’Ailly was also a prolific author in the areas of theology, ecclesiology,...
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Selected References
Guenée, Bernard (1987). Entre l’église et l’état: Quatre vies de prélats français à la fin du Moyen âge (XIIIe-Xve siècle). Paris: Gallimard. (English translation by Arthur Goldhammer as Between Church and State: The Lives of Four French Prelates in the Late Middle Ages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991). (Contains a lively biography of d’Ailly, highlighting his role in church politics).
Joannes de Sacrobosco (1498). Uberrimum sphere mundi commentum intersertis etiam questionibus domini Petri de Aliaco. Paris: Jean Petit.
Petrus de Alliaco (circa 1483). Tractatus de imagine mundi et varia ejusdem auctoris et Joannis Gersonis opuscula. Louvain: Johann de Westphalia. (This is the incunable owned and annotated by Columbus).
— (1490). Concordantia astronomie cum theologia. Concordantia astronomie cum hystorica narratione. Et elucidarium duorum precedentium. Augsburg: Erhard Ratdolt.
Salembier, Louis (1886). Petrus de Alliaco. Lille: J. Lefort.
Smoller, Laura Ackerman (1994). History, Prophecy, and the Stars: The Christian Astrology of Pierre d’Ailly, 1350–1420. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
— (1998). “The Alfonsine Tables and the End of the World: Astrology and Apocalyptic Calculation in the Later Middle Ages.” In The Devil, Heresy and Witchcraft in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honor of Jeffrey Burton Russell, edited by Alberto Ferreiro, pp. 211–239. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
Tschackert, Paul (1877). Peter von Ailli: Zur Geschichte des grossen abendländischen Schisma und der Reformconcilien von Pisa und Constanz. Gotha: Friedrich Andreas Perthes. (Reprint in 1968. Amsterdam: Rodopi).
Valois, Noel (1904). “Un ouvrage inédit de Pierre d’Ailly, le De persecutionibus ecclesiae.” Bibliothèque de l‘école des Chartes65: 557–574. (Partial edition omitting much of the astrological material; complete version contained in Marseilles, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 1156, fols. 1–8, 11–30).
Watts, Pauline Moffit (1985). “Prophecy and Discovery: On the Spiritual Origins of Christopher Columbus’s ‘Enterprise of the Indies.’” American Historical Review90: 73–102.
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Smoller, L.A. (2014). d’Ailly, Pierre. In: Hockey, T., et al. Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_328
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