INTRODUCTION xlvii

Joseph and his brethren. Faithful to his interest in maferia
medica, he says that Joseph sent among his presents to his
father, liquid styrax, gums etc., from Egypt. Joseph is to
be found in certain collections of Hymns, and was quaintly
translated into English, or rather paraphrased, by Sylvester
in 1620.

After the interruption, certainly unwelcome to him, of his
appointment to the Counecil of Trent, Fracastorius lived at his
villa, and as he often says, devoted himself mainly to the Muses.
When in 1550, Julius III became Pope, he hastened to write a
long Latin Eclogue in imitation of the Fourth Eclogue of Virgil,
in which he prophesies that Julius will defeat the Turks and
bring back the Golden Age to Italy. Symonds cannot forgive
his fulsome flatteries, and ealls this Eclogue **inconceivably
uncouth'.

With him, at the villa, lived his only surviving son, Paolo
Filippo, the latter's wife Angiola, and their children, to whom he
taught astronomy in the evenings as they strolled on the slopes of
Monte Baldo.  His son did not inherit his father!s literary and
scientific tastes, but devoted himself to country life and especi—
ally to training hunting dogs of which he had a famous breed.
Fracastorius sent two of these dogs, with a poem, to Cardinal
Farnese. Alcon, On the Træinüng of Hunting Dogs, & poem,
has been included in the collections of his Works that appeared
later than the 16th century. Barbarani shows good reasons
for rejecting it as spuriocus, of which the most weighty is that
when, in 1555, Rannusio collected and published all the poems
that could be found, for many had perished, he did not include
Alcon.

Death

On August 6th, 1553, Fracastorius returned in the intense heat,
perhaps from a walk, to the villa at Incafh. He arrived exhaust—
ed, and soon after, while at dinner, became speechless.  The
rest of the family happened to be absent. He made signs that
remedies were to be applied, and kept putting his hand to his
head, but the frightened servants in vain brought one thing
after another.  Later, it was supposed that he had desired them
to apply a cupping—glass, with which he had relieved a patient
of his, a nun at Verona, in a similar case.  When he found that
he was misunderstood he desisted, and, towards evening, with—