xviii INTRODUCTION

on whose death in 1551 he wrote a complimentary epigram in
which he says that Montanus had snatched many from Orcus
(Hades).' Three men were regarded as in the first rank as
physicians at Verona at this time, A. Fumanelli, Fracastorius
and Montanus. Chiocco, De CoWeguü Veronensis illustribus
medicis, Verona, 1623, says that, for an illness of Cardinal R.
Farnese at Rome, all three were consulted as the foremost men
alive, and that the advice of Fracastorius was subfilüer scrip—
tum et theoretica doctrina refertum, '^written with acuteness
and filled with erudition!; that of Fumanelli was *based on
exact information and aeccuraecy acquired in his practice"; that
of Montanus, **weighty and very accurate". f

De Vini Temperatura

In 1534, Fumanelli had a long and heated controversy with
another doctor, B. Gaiono, as to the temperature of wine, and
Fracastorius reluctantly (invifus, coacfusque) consented to act
as arbitrator in this dispute as to an 'essential quality'. His
decision was given in his essay De Vint Temperatura, published
at Venice, September, 1534. 'The disputants agreed that wine
is dry, per se, but Gaiono maintained that, in so far as it is an
aliment (quafenus alimentum), it is moist. Fracastorius dis—
cusses the nature of an aliment and hovw it differs from a medicine
in its action on the body, and decides in favor of Fumanelli
that wine is hot and dry ssimpJicWer. He and his contempora—
ries loved to debate such questions, and there is extant at Verona
an unpublished fragment by him on the qualities, dryness and
moisture.

Homocentrica

In 1538 his Homocentfrica sive de Stellis, dedicated to Pope
Paul III,^ was published at Venice. His friend G. B. della

: Panvinius, Anfiquitatum Veronensium, Läbri viii, Verona, 1648,
says: ^Montanus first, as all admit". Cervetto, G. da Mowrie e
della medicina, Verona, 1839, p. 120, says that he saw at Verona,
on the wall of the Palazzo Murari, 'full—length portraits of Fra—
castorius and Montanus side by side; but time has injured them,
and we can only just read the names'. I know of no other refer—
ence to this monument; it is not extant.

:'The word Homocentrica means *"having the same centre,! i. e.
concentric with another sphere or circle, or with the earth. In
his Preface he tells the Pope that he had finished the work in