ARNAUD DE VILLA NOVA, a famous physician, who lived about the end of the 13th and beginning of the 14th century. He studied at Paris and Montpellier, and travelled through Italy and Spain. He was well acquainted with languages, and particularly with the Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic. He was at great pains to gratify his ardent desire after knowledge; but this passion carried him rather too far in his researches: he endeavoured to discover future events by astrology, imagining this science to be infallible; and upon this foundation he published a prediction, that the world would come to an end in the middle of the 14th century. He practised physic at Paris for some time; but having advanced some new doctrines, he drew upon himself the resentment of the university; and his friends, fearing he might be arrested, persuaded him to retire from that city. Upon his leaving France, he retired to Sicily, where he was received by king Frederic of Arragon with the greatest marks of kindness and esteem. Some time afterwards, this prince sent him to France, to attend Pope Clement in his illness; and he was shipwrecked on the coast of Genoa, about the year 1313. The works of Arnaud, with his life prefixed, were printed in one volume in folio, at Lyons, in 1520; and at Basel in 1585, with the notes of Nicholas Tolerus.
ARNAUD D'ANDILLY (Robert), the son of a celebrated Advocate of the parliament of Paris, was born in 1588; and being introduced young at court, was employed in many considerable offices, all which he discharged with great integrity and reputation. In 1644 he quitted business, and retired into the convent of Port Royal des Champs, where he passed the remainder of his days in a continued application to works of piety and devotion; and enriched the French language with many excellent translations of different writers, as well as with religious compositions of his own. He died in 1674, and his works are printed in 8 vols. folio.