, a Neapolitan gentleman, who made himself famous by his application
, a Neapolitan gentleman, who
made himself famous by his application to letters and to
science, particularly mathematics, medicine, and natural
history, was born in 1445, and becoming eminent for his
knowledge, held a kind of literary assembly at his house,
in which, according to the notions of those times, they
treated occasionally on the secrets of magic. The court
of Rome on this account forbad these meetings; but his
house was always the resort of literary men, foreign as
well as Neapolitan. He not only established private schools
for particular sciences, but to the utmost of his power
promoted public academies. He had no small share in
establishing the academy at Gli Ozioni, at Naples; and that
in his own house, called de Secret!, was accessible only
to such as had made some new discoveries in nature. He
composed dramas, both tragic and comic, which had some
success at the time, but are not now extant. He died in
1515. The chief of his works now extant are, 1. “De
Magia naturali,
” Amsterdam, De
Physiognomia,
” printed at Leyden in quarto, De occultis literarumnotis
” in which he treats of the modes of writing in cypher
which he does with great copiousness and diligence. 4.
“Phytognomica,
” a pretended method of knowing the inward virtues of things by inspection, Naples, 1583, folio.
5. “De Distillationibus,
” Rome, quarto. To him is attributed
the invention of the Camera Obscura, which was perfected
by s’Gravesande. He is said to have formed the plan of
an Encyclopaedia.