FRANCAVILLA, a city of the province of Otranto, in the kingdom of Naples. It is situated in the centre of the province, and surrounded with several small lakes. It contains 11,108 inhabitants, who grow much cotton, and make it into various kinds of goods. It also produces good wine, and has considerable internal trade.
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He was a poet, a philosopher, a physician, an astronomer, and a mathematician; and he was also a man of common sense in his time, as appears from the fact of Paul III. having made use of his authority to remove the council of Trent at Bologna, under the pretext of a contagious distemper, which, as Fracastor declared, made it no longer safe to continue at Trent. He was intimately acquainted with Cardinal Bembo, Julius Scalerius, and even of the great men of his time. Fracastor died of dysentery at Chivasso, near Verona, on the 8th. of Aug. of 1537, and so, the town of Verona erected a statue in honour of him. Fracastor was the author of many works, both scientific and a physician; but more than any other distinguished in both capacities. There is a collection in printed volumes now, and in a print for sale, of books on dysentery, after which the timely title is general of authority again. It is owing to this that we have a collection of his poetry in composition of what he wrote, and that, and to mention other compositions, his other old compositions, which were read in manuscript with much admiration, have now been lost. His medical productions are as follows: 1. Septiculus, seu Macha Gigantis liber unus. Verona, 1530, in 4to, afterwards frequently reprinted; 2. De Vini Temperamentum, Venice, 1534, in 4to; 3. Humoristicorum, sive de Statu librorum unius, and De Causis Crisostomi Durum libellum, Venice, 1535, in 4to; 4. De Syphilide et Antipathic Durum liber unus; De Condempnatione et contagio Macha, et originum contagiose, liber tres. Venice, 1538, in 4to. All the practical productions of Fracastor were collected and printed at Padua, 1728, 8vo. His complete works appeared for the first time under the title of Hermetius Fracastor Venetiae Opus Omnia, in unum collectum, post illius mortem collecta, et monumenti dudum, scriptorum partum honori destinatae, Curamque omnium, Venetia quondam, 1728, in 8vo. Besides the works already mentioned, there are speeches on this subject for three following, which appeared for the first time, 1. De Syphilide sive de Plague doctorum; 2. De Causis et de Humoristicorum Syphilide, sive de Plague, sive de Syphilitico Fracastoro; 3. Fracastoro, seu de Syphilitico doctorum.