e great Renaissance physicians of Italy.
The almost equally famous John Battista Elisio dedicated to him his
work _De Praesagiis Sapientum,_ On the Prognosis of the Wise. Some of
Adrian's physicians were among the most widely known members of the
medical profession at this time. To one of them, Giovanni Antracino,
John De Vigo dedicated his treatise _De Morbo Gallico_ in words of the
highest praise. Latin dedications lend themselves to flattery, but
with even all due discount for this, Vigo's expressions show how much
Antracino must have been appreciated at the time. He praises him for
"his singular wisdom, marvellous perspicacity, rightness of judgment
and serious purpose," and recalls that in many consultations where
they had been present together Antracino had excelled not only in
medical theory, but in medical practice.

Another of the physicians of Pope Adrian VI was Francesco Fusconi,
whose name is sometimes wrongly given as Frasconi. Amato Lusitano
calls him "a most famous physician," and Marsilio Cagnati in his work
_De Aeris Romani Salubritate_ notes that Francesco was the first to
recognize that starving a fever and especially the malarial fevers of
the neighborhood of Rome, though it had been the custom for a long
time for physicians to advise it, did much more harm than good. He
insisted that the ailing should be more richly nourished and that
above all they should be fed on chopped meats which would make it
easier for them to ingest such quantities as would be good for them.
Cagnati says that many Roman physicians followed this teaching and
saved much {444} suffering and many lives. Fusconi is the physician
whom Benvenuto Cellini praises for having saved his life. The famous
sculptor was taken with a very severe fever and the "first physicians"
of Rome were called to see him, among them Master Francesco (Fusconi)
Da Norcia, who was a very old man, but of great reputation. The fever
increased to such a degree that the professors held the disease for
desperate, but not Norcia. He took charge of the case and by the most
careful treatment succeeded in freeing Benvenuto from an illness which
did not seem as though it could possibly come to an end without fatal
issue.

Clement VII (1523-34), who was of the Medici family, had a number of
physicians and on one occasion when ill no less than eight were in
attendance on him. This gave occasion to the satiric poet Berni to
declare in verse that when the Pope aft