The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1

196/265

CHAPTER THIRTY: Villanova-A Physician’s Contribution

Our study now turns to a group of writers in the end of the thirteenth century arid the beginning of the fourteenth. The earliest of this group was hot in the main stream of Joa he was not a churchman but a layman and scientist. It was Villanova, the celebrated Spanish physician and alchemist, who made a still further application of the year-day principle that had been stressed for the 1260 year-days by Joachim of Floris a century prior, and had been extended in effect, though mot in specific application, to the 2300 days by the pseu De Semine. Villanova asserted the year-day equation as a basic rule for the 2300 days. This was a noteworthy advance. PFF1 743.1