Avantio, John Maria

, or Avanzi Giammarie, a celebrated Italian lawyer, was born Aug. 23, 1564. He was educated with great care, and discovered so much taste for polite literature, that Riccoboni, his master, said, he was the only youth he had ever known who seemed to be born a poet and orator. His father wished him to study medicine, but his own inclination led him to study law, in which he soon became distinguished. At Ferrara he acquired an intimacy with Tasso, Guarini, Cremonini, and other eminent characters of that time. He afterwards retired to Rovigo, and practised as a lawyer, but was singularly unfortunate in his personal affairs, not only losing a considerable part of his property by being security for some persons who violated their engagements, but having his life attempted by assassins who attacked him one day | and left him for dead with eighteen wounds. He recovered, however, but his brother being soon after assassinated, and having lost his wife, he retired, in 1606, to Padua, where he died, March 2, 1622, leaving several children, of whom Charles, his second son, became a learned physician and botanist. Avanzi wrote a poem “Il Satiro Favola Pastorale,” Venice, 1587, and dedicated it to the emperor Ferdinand, who rewarded him amply, and wished to bring him to his court, by the offer of the place of counsellor of state. He left in manuscript, a church history, “Historia Ecclesiastica a Lutheri apostasia;” and “Concilia de rebus civilibus et criminalibus.” ¹