Cirillo, Dominick

, nephew to Nicolas Cirillo, a Neapolitan physician of considerable eminence, was born at Naples in 1730, and liberally educated. His principal study was medicine, as a profession but his inclination led him more particularly to natural history and at the age of thirty he was appointed botanical professor at Naples. In 1761, he published his “Introductio ad Botanicam,” which in the then state of botany was considered as a useful book. In the mean time, his knowledge of the English language made him be consulted by all visitors from that nation, and among others by lady Walpole, who engaged him to accompany her to England, as her travelling physician; and here he attended Dr. Hunter’s, and probably other medical lectures. On his return he published his “Nosologiae methodicse rudimenta,” 1780; and in 1784 another work, “De essentialibus nonnullarum plantarum characteribus,” which was followed by other botanical treatises, learned, but badly written, his Latin and Italian style being both ungrammatical and uncouth. His most splendid work was an account of the “Papyrus,” printed by Bodoni in 1796, and this was his last. He soon caught the delusion of French liberty; and when the French army entered Naples, he not only joined them, |

but was appointed a functionary, for which treasoiij on the restoration of the lawful government, he was executed in 1799. ¹