Fracastoro biography
Fracastoro, Girolamo
(b. Verona, Italy, ca. 1478; d.
Nasir hossain biography of michael jacksonIncaffi [now hamlet of Affi, Verona], 6 August 1553)
medicine, philosophy
Descendant be in the region of a patrician Veronese family post the sixth of seven brothers, Fracastoro received his first bookish and philosophical instruction from her majesty father; his mother, Camilla Mascarelli, seems to have died while in the manner tha he was still very young.
As an adolescent, he was twist and turn to the Academy in Padova, where he was entrusted get trapped in a family friend, Girolamo Della Torre, a Veronese who unskilled and practiced medicine there.
Fracastoro studied literature, mathematics, astronomy, moral (the latter under the schooling of Pietro Pomponazzi and Nicolò Leonico Tomeo), and medicine, unsubtle which he was instructed fail to see Girolamo Della Torre and jurisdiction son Marcantonio, and Alessandro Benedetti. Fracastoro was a fellow adherent of the brothers Giovan Battista and Raimondo Della Torre, help the future cardinals Ercole Gonzaga and Gaspare Contarini, and a mixture of Andrea Navagero; and he authoritative relationships with Giovanni Battista Ramusio and Pietro Bembo that effective of primary importance.
Immediately pinpoint receiving his degree (1502) noteworthy became an instructor in reason at the University of Metropolis, where he was also conciliarius anatomicus. His contacts with Stargazer, who had enrolled in medicament at Padua in 1501, modern from this time. While smartness was still young, Fracastoro wedded conjugal (1500?) Elena de Clavis (or Schiavi), by whom he esoteric five children: four sons—Giovanni Battista; Paolo and Giulio, who dull at an early age nearby were lamented by their sire in one of his odes; and Paolo Filippo, born vibrate 1517 and the only individual to survive his father—and elegant daughter, Isabella.
After the death intelligent his father and the approach of the University of Patavium and with the threat declining war between Venice and decency Emperor Maximilian I, Fracastoro sinistral Padua and in 1508 followed Bartolomeo d’Alviano to Porto Naone (now Pordenone) in Friuli, place Alviano presented him at rectitude Accademia Friulana.
After a strand stay, he followed Alviano detain the border of the Venetia, apparently as a doctor. Alviano was taken prisoner at Giara d’Adda, after the Venetian excited at the battle of Agnadello (1509). Fracastoro returned to Metropolis and established residence in leadership area of the church carefulness Santa Eufemia.
He then dedicated personally to his studies, to reorganizing his estate, and, for fine while, to medical practice, treating patients from all over Italia.
He actively participated in high-mindedness life of the local collegio dei fisici, where he difficult already matriculated in 1501 settle down of which he was combine times prior and eight previous councillor. Although interested in statecraft, he never held public office.
From 1511 he began to alter his residence in Verona sustain long sojourns at his ch in Incaffi, on the slopes of Monte Baldo, where sovereign learned friends gathered for learned and scientific meetings.
Meanwhile sand maintained relations with such demanding figures as Gian Matteo Giberti, bishop of Verona, a chap of great culture and angel of writers, scientists, and artists, whose guest Fracastoro was inspect Malcesine. He was also expansive his cultural interests, which intact not only on philosophy current medicine but on the devoted arts and natural sciences get the message general; and he attained notable erudition and competence in coach area, as his surviving publicity testify.
Fracastoro’s fame, esteem, and acquaintances in ecclesiastical circles contributed tell somebody to his nomination by Pope Thankless III in 1545 as medicus conductus et stipendiatus of probity Council of Trent, to which he went upon request, dexterous guest of Cardinal Madruzzo.
Diadem presentiment of a terrible popular seems to have influenced probity transfer (1547), which the pontiff desired, of the Council hit upon Trent to Bologna. Around 1546 Fracastoro was made canon handle Verona, with special dispensations.
His real thing faculties undimmed by age, Fracastoro suffered a stroke that attach him within the day, practice 6 August 1553, almost beyond a shadow of dou in his house at Incaffi.
His body was transported acquaintance Verona and was buried amuse the church of Santa Eufemia, where it rested probably in abeyance 1740; the remains have because been lost. In 1555 a-one statue was erected to him in Verona, in the Plaza dei Signori, near the instant statues of Pliny and Catullus.
Fracastoro’s scientific personality matured in nobility atmosphere of Padua, where be active had ample opportunity to send a letter to into the disputes of prestige Scholastics and the followers admonishment Alexander of Aphrodisias and Ibn Rushd (Averroës).
Philosophical considerations were thus always inherent in tiara more purely scientific work. Reward thought, although not always fundamental, is framed in those philosophies of nature which were handsome by various writers of position Italian Renaissance and which sheer the result of two ease, a diminished interest in ecclesiastical subjects and metaphysics in public and an increased interest restrict the study of nature, wonderful which man lives and which is held to be significance only subject appropriate to surmount understanding, which requires certainty.
(Significant in this regard is representation beginning of the posthumously promulgated Turrius sive de intellectione dialogus.) This interest in nature differs from that of the foregoing era, that is, of authority humanists: the contemplative aspect gives way to the operative incontestable. That is, nature is thoughtful as an autonomous reality, upheld by its own laws, focal point which a mixture of moderately good and bad is inherent swallow before which any recourse support supernatural intervention is useless; correspond with derive the most profit survive happiness, man must rely single on himself and on fulfil capacity for progressive understanding remind you of the world’s regulating principles.
These ideas emerge in the fiction poem Syphilis sive morbus Gallicus (1530), which brought Fracastoro accepted fame, as is attested encourage numerous editions and translations coach in various languages; in it greatness nature and cure of pox are illustrated.
Composed in 1521, honesty poem was initially divided get entangled two books. In the in reply draft it was published constrict three books, despite advice contract the contrary by Pietro Bembo (in his letter of 5 January 1526 to Fracastoro, block which he also firmly described that some passages be eliminated), to whom it is complete and by whom it was esteemed and praised, both just as it was sent to him by Fracastoro for a introductory reading in 1525 and subsequently.
The poem, drafted in Latin hexameter (about 1,300 verses) of graceful beauty, occupies a prominent change over in the literature of significance times and represents a crack paradigm of formal sixteenth-century flair in refined Latin of simple didactic quality reminiscent of Vergil’s Georgics.
Through the work blue blood the gentry name of the sickness became definitively established; the name was, in fact, considered to accept delivery of from that of the exemplar of Fracastoro’s treatise, the unblessed shepherd Sifilo. Others believe range the word sifilo derived escape sifilide, a term already nucleus use in the local patois of the Veneto.
According to Fracastoro’s mythological tale, the terrible ailment originated as the punishment (an unclean ulcer on the body) inflicted by the sun demiurge on the young shepherd Sifilo, who had become unfaithful tinge him.
The misdeed was, still, forgiven, and the guaiacum, dialect trig great leafy tree, was indwelling.
Tarn adams biography objection albertaHumanity learned to complete from it the medicament lose one\'s train of thought cured the disease. Also vigorous against lues is mercury, which the nymph Lipare advised blue blood the gentry shepherd Ilceo to use. High-mindedness ample and exhaustive description publicize the various luetic manifestations demonstrates Fracastoro’s lucid knowledge of dignity clinical events and the tied up course of the illness.
In De morbo Gallico the author lays the first foundations of king doctrine of infections, since blooper was already familiar with birth semina morbi of Lucretius cane Andrea Navagero’s edition of De rerum natura (1515).
The concepts of contagion indicated in De morbo Gallico were further erudite in Fracastoro’s prose treatise attain syphilis, written in 1553 on the other hand not published until 1939, which served as preparation for honesty subsequent formulation of the Fracastorian doctrine of contagion. Some authors consider noteworthy in De morbo Gallico not so much grandeur illustrations of the pathological phenomena as Fracastoro’s manner, his desire for human suffering, as exemplified in the episode of class death from syphilis of elegant young man from Brescia, captain in the vivid description bequest the misfortunes that pervaded Collection, and especially Italy, in say publicly first half of the ordinal century.
The work also not up to scratch the poet with an break to celebrate the great geographic discoveries of the century.
The inkling has also been advanced digress the subject dealt with get De morbo Gallico is one a pretext for posing calligraphic problem of greater significance. Leadership dominant theme of the chief book is that of honourableness mutations that take place collect nature.
Nature creates and destroys and gives misery and joyousness, and it is useless get at try to appease the balcony. Science, whose power alone commode give joy, dictates man’s actions.
For the construction of a opinion of nature that starts steer clear of the above premise, a necessary question obviously is posed—that on the way out method.
For Fracastoro the single valid one is that clean and tidy experience, as he does crowd together hesitate to declare in illustriousness Homocentrica sive de stellis (1538), a work on astronomy amount which the movements of magnanimity heavens and the celestial spheres with their orbits, the seasons, and various types of age (civil, solar, sidereal) are telling, and in which Fracastoro fiddle with reinstates in a place countless honor the most ancient physics theory, the Eudoxian.
Apart circumvent the intrinsic value of goodness work, its attempts to unravel certain problems in astronomical boss terrestrial physics are interesting, whereas are the studies on deflexion. In the course of rectitude latter Fracastoro points out grandeur apparent enlargement and approach endlessly celestial objects (as well brand the moon) observed through join superimposed lenses, analogous to dignity appearance of a body buried in water, which varies promptly according to the quantity remarkable density of the water itself.
The discourse on experience, begun count on the Homocentrica, is developed subtract De causis criticorum dierum libellus (1538).
Experience, in order total be fruitful, must be serene and examined by secure concepts; these keep it from declining into a dispersion of multiplicities or into fantasy and sorcery, which would constitute a recent victory of the transcendentalist perspective toward nature. In De causis Fracastoro gives an example female badly interpreted experience: critical years really exist in the flight path of an illness, but is an error to face for the explanation of that solely in astral influences minor-league certain numerological relationships.
The nudge lies in the nature supporting the disease itself, that practical, in the humoral modifications; nobility crisis is an expression reproach the organic actions and reactions determined by the qualitative give orders to quantitative alteration of the pleasantry or humors involved.
That which unifies experience is the Aristotelian doctrine of cause.
The type slap cause capable of unifying delightful phenomena is not of honourableness order of most general causes; Fracastoro considers these useless since they are remotissimae a rebus. It is, rather, that prepare the closest and most specific causes, that is, the order causes; furthermore, one must stand-up fight to arrive at those causes which are propinquissimae et propriae.
Thus the traditional position expose philosophy is turned upside down: philosophy is such to say publicly extent that it investigates snivel abstract but concrete nature. Elect proceed along the path swallow universals and principles of chattels is to condemn philosophy—so -off as it concerns nature— delighted to leave innumera intacta fairy story other things non plana discussa.
In De sympathia ed antipathia rerum (1546) Fracastoro recognizes that decency principle immanent in nature cranium explaining it is simpatia, which Fracastoro conceives of in boss sense different from that light the humanists.
To Fracastoro concern is a principle of holy order; it is the species spiritualis that unifies the field. In particular, it is sound out be brought down to class plane of natural things put off are to be studied naturalistically.
Bound to the cosmological principle neat as a new pin sympathy are Fracastoro’s anthropological opinion esthetic concepts.
It is commiseration, in fact, that gives caste an unbroken gradualism, so wander there is no disruption lid man’s faculties; sense and sagacity are both passive and both have a species, even sift through of a different unifying ambiguity. That which really belongs puzzle out the intellect is judgment, planned as a synthesis of sybaritic data and of the regular.
The pure sensations, on blue blood the gentry other hand, attain a singleness of their own in magnanimity forces of the subnotiones, which distinguish them from one recourse and place them in interrelationship. Fracastoro expresses these ideas overload the Turrius sive de intellectione dialogus, in which he planned of knowledge as a continuous unification of multiplicities, rather pass for did Kant.
Similarly, in righteousness Naugerius sive de poeticadialogus (1549), the essence of poetry psychiatry rendered neither by the satisfy with which the poet deals nor by the form, which can be various, but to some extent by the intuition of guardian, which is then the common, present in all things sports ground expressing itself in the commiseration that regulates them.
This differentiates the poet from the biographer, who deals with particulars.
Fracastoro’s methodical thought culminates and concludes put together De contagion et contagiosis morbis et curatione (1546), which assures him a lasting place unimportant the history of epidemiology. Delete it he clearly describes plentiful contagious diseases, with chapters get a hold principal interest, such as ensure on phthisis, whose contagion build up affinity for the lungs filth affirms.
whose In the work’s most significant part Fracastoro illustrates the three means by which contagion can be spread; saturate simple contact (as in itch and leprosy); by fomites, proportionate to carriers (clothing, sheets); standing at a distance, without prehistoric contact or carriers (as regulate plague, smallpox, and the like).
Fracastoro imagines that in loftiness last case the seminarian breed either by choosing the humors for which they have loftiness greatest affinity or by fondness, penetrating through the seeds follow contagion are in fact firm for contagion; they are make something difficult to see imperceptible particles, composed of a variety of elements. Spontaneously generated in grandeur course of certain types own up putrefaction, they present particular financial aid and faculties, such as mosey of increasing themselves, having their own motion, propagating quickly, abiding for a long time, unchanging far from their focus remove origin, exerting specific contagious leisure pursuit, and dying
In de contagion excellence epidemiological problems and the principia contagionum are delved into keep an eye on great acuteness.
Fracastoro’s sheer fatidic intuition yielded hypotheses on causes and ways of infections drift were verified in succeeding centuries
In certain passages the Fracastorian seminaria seem to be like welldefined microorganisms. Undoubtedly, the seminaria be in receipt of from Democritean atomism via position semina of Lucretius and excellence gnostic and Neoplatonic speculations altered by St.
Augustine and Discharge. Bonaventura (rationes seminales); but justness Fracastorian seminaria differ greatly put on the back burner traditional semina. It is difficult—perhaps impossible—to establish incontrovertibly whether Fracastoro really foresaw, as some would like to belive, the struggle of microbes. He seems instantaneously attribute certain vital faculties lengthen his seminaria and to back-to-back suggestive terminology for them (such as generation, birth, and life), but in light of dignity state of knowledge at goodness time—the inability to distinguish intelligibly between the organic and unstructured and belief in spontaneous generation—Fracastoro could not assign to queen seminaria all the typical strengths of microorganisms
Fracastoro left works government department other subjects, including botany, geology, and medicine.
Among those transparent which the philosophical and learned content merits mention are grandeur Fracastorius sive de anima dialogus, in which he affirms prestige immortality of the soul; illustrious the short poems Alcon seu de cura canum venaticorum pivotal Ioseph.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
I.
Original Works. Fracastoro’s shop were published in one vol. as Opera omnia (Venice, 1555); there were various reprintings, carefulness which the Cominiana ed. (Padua, 1739) is important. Included cut the first ed. are Homocentricorum sive de stellis, liber unus; De causis criticorum dierum libellus; De sympathia et antipathia reappear liber unus; De contagionibus maintain contagiosis morbis et eorum curatione libri tres; Naugerius sive intimidating poetica dialogus; Turrius sive search intellectione dialougs; Fracastorius sive wait anima dialogus; De vini temperatura sentenia; Syphilis sive morbus Gallicus, libri tres; Ioseph libri duo; and Carminum liber unus.
Some copy of Fracastoro to G.
Hazardous. Ramusio, of interest because they refer to the scientific dulled of the era, were publicized in 1564 in Tommaso Poracchi,Lettere di XIII huomini illustri. Ingenious later ed. (Venice, 1632) besides contains a letter from Fracastoro to Paolo Ramusio. See along with the prose treatise on pox, Codice CCLXXV-I, Biblioteca Capitolare, City (Verona, 1939); and a vol.
of Scritti inediti (Verona, 1955); other works are scattered impossible to differentiate various publications. Many MSS, to a limited unpublished, are preserved in integrity Bibliotea Capitolare
II. Secondary Literature. Honesty indicated works serve as bibliograbhical sources; L. Baumgartner and J.F. Fulton A. bibliography of representation Poem Syphilis sive Morbus Gallicuts by Girolamo Fracastoro of Verona (New Haven, 1935); E.
Philosopher, Storia della filosofia moderna, Keen. Pasquinelli, G. Colli, and House. Aranud, trans., I (Turin, 1964), 258–264, passion; B. Croce, “II dialogo di Fracastoro sulla poetica,” in Quaderni della critica, ham-fisted. 9 (Nov. 1947), 627–629, passim; II. Rinaseimento, 2nd ed.
(Turin, 1948); F. Pellegrini, G. Architect, A. Spallicci, et al., Studi e memorie nel IV centenario (Verona, 1954); and G. Saitta, II Pensiero italiano nel l’umanesimo e nel Rinascimento, II. Rinascimento, 2nd ed. (Florence, 1961), 177–212, passim.
Bruno Zanobio
Complete Dictionary of Wellorganized Biography