Licetus, Fortunius

, a celebrated physician and philosopher, was born at Rapallo, in the state of Genoa, Oct. 3, 1577, where his father was also a physician. After completing his education at Bologna, in 15J9, he obtained the professorship of philosophy at Pisa, which he filled with so. much reputation that he was invited to the same chair in the university of Padua in 1609, and occupied it until 1636. He removed at that time to Bologna, in consequence of failing to obtain the professorship of medicine, when vacant by the death of Cremonini. But the Venetian states very soon acknowledged the loss which the university of Padua had sustained by the retirement of Licetus; and the same vacancy occurring in 1645, he was induced, by the pressing invitations which were made to him, to return to Padua, and held that professorship till his death in 1657. He was a very copious writer, having published upwards of fifty treatises upon medical, moral, | philosophical, antiquarian, and historical subjects; but they are no longer sufficiently interesting to require a detail of their titles, as, notwithstanding his erudition, he displays little acuteness in research or originality of conception. His treatise “De Monstrorum Causis, Natur&, et Differentiis,” which is best known, is replete with instances of credulity, and with the fables and superstitions of his predecessors, and contains a classification of the monsters which had been previously described, without any correction from his own observations. The best edition is that of Gerard Blasius, in 1668. ¹