[278] Esquisse Historique sur le Cardinal Mezzofanti. Par A. Manavit. Paris, 1853, p. 15.
[279] See the Memorie di Religione, vol. XV., where an interesting biography of the Abate Ranzani will be found.
[280] Manavit, “Esquisse Historique,” p. 9.
[281] Ibid, p. 12.
[282] Manavit assigns a much later date, 1791. But the short memoir by Signor Stoltz, [Biografia del Cardinal Mezzofanti; Scritta dall’ Avvocato G. Stoltz, Roma 1851,] founded upon information supplied by the Cardinal’s family, which states that he had completed his philosophy when he was but fifteen, (p. 6,) is much more reconcilable with facts otherwise ascertained. His philosophical course occupied three years. (See De Josepho Mezzofantio, Sermones Duo auctore Ant. Santagata, published in the acts of the Institute of Bologna, vol. V. p. 169, et seq.) His theological course (probably of four,) was completed in 1796, or at farthest early in 1797. This would clearly have been impossible in the interval assigned by Manavit.
[283] One of these, Reflessioni sul Manuale dei Teofilantropi, is directed against the singular half-religious, half-social confederation, entitled “Theophilanthropists,” founded in 1795, by La Reveillere-Lepéaux, one of the directors of the French Republic. These treatises are noticed in the Memorie di Religione, 1822, 1823, and 1824. Joseph Voglio is not to be confounded with the physiologist of the same name, (John Hyacinth,) who was also professor in Bologna, but in the previous generation.
[284] “De Josepho Mezzofantio Sermones Duo,” p. 172.
[285] Manavit, p. 13.
[286] Santagata’s “Sermones Duo,” p. 173.
[287] Elementi della Lingua Greca, per uso delle Scuole di Bologna. Bologna 1807.