Varoli, Constantius

, an able anatomist, was horn at Bologna in 1542. He taught surgery in his native place, until pope Gregory XIII. soon after his elevation to the pontificate in 1572, invited him to Rome, and appointed him his first physician. Here he lectured on anatomy, and acquired very great reputation, not only for his discoveries in that branch, but for his skill in lithotomy and other surgical operations; and he promised to have attained the highest rank in his profession, when a premature death deprived the world of his services. He died in 1575, at the age of thirty-two. The Pons Varolii, which still perpetuates his name, and his other discoveries in the ceconomy of the brain and nerves, are contained in his “Anatomise, sive de resolutione corporis hurnani, libri quatuor,” Padua, 1573, 8vo, and “De Nervis opticis Epistola,” ibid. ²