Anatomy, the outer and smaller of the bones of the leg. See Anatomy Index.

Surgery, an instrument in use among the ancients for the closing of gaping wounds.—Celsus speaks of the fibula as to be used when the wound was so patent as not easily to admit of being sewed. (Op. lib. vii. cap. 25. apud fin.).

Antiquity, was a sort of button, buckle, or clasp, made use of by the Greeks and Romans for keeping clothe or tying up some part of their clothes. They are of various forms, and often adorned with precious stones. Men and women wore them in their hair and at their shoes. Players and musicians, by way of preserving the voices of children put under their care to learn their arts, used to keep close the prepuce with a fibula, lest they should have commerce with women.

Ficinus, Marsilius, a celebrated Italian, was born at Florence in 1433, and educated at the expense of Lawrence de Medicis. He attained a perfect knowledge of the Greek and Latin tongues, and became a great philosopher, a great physician, and a great divine. He was in the highest favour with Laurence and Cosmo de Medicis, who made him a canon of the cathedral church of Florence. He applied himself intensely to the study of philosophy; and while others were striving who should be the deepest read in Aristotle, who was then the philosopher in fashion, he devoted himself wholly to Plato. He was indeed the first who restored the Platonic philosophy in the west; for the better effecting of which, he translated into Latin the whole works of Plato. There goes a story, but we know not how true it is, that when he had finished his translation, he communicated it to his friend Marcus Musurus, to have his approbation of it; but, that Musurus disliking it, he did it all over again. He next translated Plotinus; and afterwards the works, or part of them at least, of Proclus, Jamblicus, Porphyrius, and other celebrated Platonists.—In his younger years, Ficinus lived like a philosopher; and too much so, as is said, to the neglect of piety. However, Savonarola coming to Florence, Ficinus went with everybody else to hear his sermons; and while he attended them for the sake of the preacher's eloquence, he imbibed a strong sense of religion, and devoted himself henceforward more especially to the duties of it. He died at Correggio in 1499; and as Boronius affirms us upon the testimony of what he calls credible authors, appeared immediately after his death to his friend Michael Mercatus: to whom, it seems, he had promised to appear, in order to confirm what he had taught concerning the immortality of the soul. His writings, sacred and profane, which are very numerous, were collected and printed at Venice, in 1566, at Basil in 1561 and 1576, and at Paris 1641, in two vols folio. Twelve books of his Epistles, among which are many treatises, were printed separately in folio at Venice 1495, and at Nuremberg, 1497, in 4to.