[263] 1 vol. 12mo, printed at Strawberry Hill, 1758, and re-printed in Dodsley’s Collections, 1761.
[264] This name was afterwards the subject of a punning epigram. Mezzofanti is a compound word, (like the names Mezzaharba, Mezzavacca. Mezzomorto, &c.,) and means half-child, [Mezzo-Fante.] Hence the following distich:—
Dimidium Fantis jam nunc supereminct omnes!
Quid, credis, fieret, si integer ipse foret?
[265] In the Via Malcontenti. The house still exists, but has been entirely remodelled. An inscription for the apartment in which Mezzofanti was born was composed by D. Vincenzo Mignani:—
Heic Mezzofantus natus, notissimus Orbi,
Unus qui linguas calluit omnigenas.
Some years later Francis Mezzofanti removed to a house on the opposite side of the same street, in which he thenceforward continued to reside. This house also is still in existence, but has been modernized. In the early part of the year 1800, Mezzofanti established himself, together with the family of his sister, Signora Minarelli, in a separate house, situated however in the same street: but, from the time of his appointment as Librarian, in 1815, till his final removal to Rome, he occupied the Librarian’s apartments in the Palazzo Dell’ Università.
[266] There has been some diversity of statement as to the year. The Enciclopedia Popolare (Turin 1851, supp. p. 299,) hesitates between 1774 and 1771. But there can be no doubt that it was the former.
[267] He merely learned to read and write.