Hieronymus, one of the most learned men of his time, was born at Verona in the year 1483. Two singular circumstances are related of him in his infancy; one that his lips adhered so closely when he came into the world, that a surgeon was obliged to divide them with his incision knife; and the other, that his mother was killed with lightning, whilst he, though in her arms at the moment, escaped unhurt. Fracastorio was a man of such admirable parts, and made so great progress in everything he undertook, that in time he became eminently skilled not only in the belles-lettres, but in most arts and sciences. He was a poet, a philosopher, a physician, an astronomer, and a mathematician; and he was also a man of consequence in his time, as appears from the fact of Paul III. having made use of his authority to remove the council of Trent to Bologna, under the pretext of a contagious distemper, which, as Fracastorio declared, made it no longer safe to continue at Trent. He was intimately acquainted with Cardinal Bembo, Julius Scaliger, and most of the great men of his time. Fracastorio died of apoplexy at Cesi, near Verona, on the 8th of August 1553; and in 1559 the town of Verona erected a statue in honour of him. Fracastorio was the author of many works, both as a poet and a physician; but no man was more disinterested in both capacities, for as a physician he practised without fees, and as a poet he was indifferent to fame. It is owing to this that we have so little of his poetry; and that his odes and epigrams, which were read in manuscript with admiration, have now been lost. His medical productions are as follow:

*Syllibitis, sive Morbi Gallici libri tres*, Verona, 1530, in 4to, afterwards frequently reprinted. *De Vini Temperaturae*, Venice, 1534, in 4to. *Homoeotricorum, sive de Stellis liber unus*, and *De Caustis Criticorum Dierum Sicilianus*, Venice, 1535, in 4to. *De Sympathia et Antipathia Rerum liber unus*, *De Contagionibus et Contagiosis Morbis, et eorum curatione, libri tres*, Venice, 1546, in 4to. All the poetical productions of Fracastorio were collected and printed at Padua, 1725. Even. His complete works appeared for the first time under the title of *Hieronymi Fracastorii Veronensis Opus Completum*, &c., anno proximo post illius mortem collecte, accuratissime Andreae Nougerii patricii Veneti Oratione dux, Carnalunque nonnulla. Venetiae apud Juntas, 1555, in 4to. Besides the works already mentioned, there are included in this collection the three following, which appeared for the first time, viz.:—*Nougerius, sive de Poetica dialogus; Tur- rius, sive de Intellectione dialogus, libri ii.; Alcon, sive de cura Canum Venaticorum. Fracastorius, sive de Anima dialogus.*