Mezzofanti, Giuseppe, cardinal and linguist, born at Bologna; celebrated for the number of languages he knew, some 58 in all; lived chiefly in Rome, and was keeper of the Vatican library; Byron called him “a walking polyglot” (1771‒1848).
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Meyerbeer * Mezzotint