Peter the Eater

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Pietro Mangiadore, Latinized as Petrus Comestor, was born in Troyes at the beginning of the twelfth century and was dean of that cathedral, then chancellor of the University of Paris, where he taught theology; he finally retired to a life of prayer at the Abbey of Saint-Victor, where he died between 1179 and 1185. He was chiefly a systematizer and organizer of theological doctrine, like Peter Lombard. His principal work is the Historia scholastica, a compilation with commentary on sacred history from Adam to Saint Paul, widely diffused in medieval schools. Dante numbers him in the Heaven of the Sun alongside Hugh of Saint-Victor and Peter of Spain, calling him by name in the verse «e Pietro Mangiadore e Pietro Spano».