was charmingly located at the foot of Monte Incaffi, midway between the Adige River and the Lake of Garda. Here it was that Fracastoro did a large part of his literary work, for he was a poet as well as a physician. Pope Paul the Third appointed him to the position of Physician-in-Ordinary to the Council of Trent, and it was by his advice that, upon the appearance of the Plague in that city, the sittings of the Council were thereafter held for a short season at Bologna. Later, still other honors fell to his lot. He enjoyed the esteem of the Emperor Charles the Fifth and of Francis the First, King of France; and the latter's highly cultivated sister, Margaret of Navarre, offered him every inducement to settle at her Court, but the attractions of his own home made it easy for him to decline all these offers. He died at his villa on August 6, 1553, and six years later the city of Verona erected in his honor a marble memorial tablet.
Fossel, in his biographical sketch of Fracastoro, says that the most popular of his poetical writings was that entitled, "Syphilis sive morbus Gallicus." It was published in several successive editions, and was translated into nearly all the languages of European countries. I shall have occasion to refer to it again in a later chapter.
Giovanni Maria Lancisi was born at Rome on October 26, 1654. Like Boerhaave he began his university studies under the service of the Church, but, as time went on, his leaning toward the profession of medicine became more and more pronounced, and he soon took up in earnest the study of that science at the University of Sapienza, devoting a large share of his time to dissecting and to clinical work in the hospitals. In 1672, when he was only eighteen years old, he was given the degree of Doctor of Medicine; and four years later, after a competitive examination, he was appointed an assistant at the Hospital of the Holy Ghost. In 1678 he was permitted, as a special honor, to enrol himself as a student in the Collége de Saint-Sauveur. During the following five years he enjoyed at this institution exceptional facilities for studying medical literature, and was thus able to accumulate an immense
