INTRODUCTION li

Character

All agree that Fracastorius was of an equable temper but
extraordinarily taciturn, so much so that he never spoke unless
directly addressed, very dignified and serious; he was "*cheerful
and pleasant when he consented to converse", but was considered
too austere by all but his intimates or patients. Perhaps it
was this air of austerity that tempted the malicious and irrever—
ent poet Berni (1497—1535) to read to a company assembled
near Verona at the Castello di Montorio, where the Venetian
commander Fregoso was host, an Italian poem addressed to
Messer Ieronimo Fracastoro.

Berni

It describes how, in attendance on his strict and uncongenial
patron, Bishop Giberti, Berni, with Adamo Fumani, spent a
night in the wretched hovel of a priest, in the village Povigliano.
The priest bored them with literary criticisms, and wanted to
discuss Homer and Virgil, Sannazaro and Fracastoro. The
wine was bad: "Vou would not give it to a man suffering from
il morbo o le petecchie", (syphilis or typhus). But the bed in
which Berni tried in vain to sleep is the main theme of the poem,
and must be the locus classicus in literature for & night spent in
conflicts with every kind of vermin, a ^night in Hades".  Fi—
nally, he implores Fracastorius, if he should be called in to doctor
the priest, to avenge him by administering "a& clyster of ink??.
This amusing but unpleasant poem' was read to the guests by
Berni after one of them had delivered a discourse on the first
ten Books of Livy. Neither this 'Capitolo', nor Berni's jocular
poems on the plague, can have been agreeable to Fracastorius,
who took everything very seriously, and though the conven—
tions of the time probably demanded a response from him, he
ignored Berni.

Poetic Tributes to Fracastorius

The death of & humanist in Italy was always the signal for
& competition of the poets, who laid complimentary epigrams
on the tomb as profusely as we lay flowers.  Mencke has collect—

: It is Capitolo I, in Opere di Francesco Berni, Sonzogno, Milan
(no date). Berni died at Florence in 1535; it is said that he was
poisoned by Cardinal Cibo, whom he had offended.