FRA BARTOLOMMEO. See Baccio de la Porta.

FRA DIAVOLO is the popular name given by his countrymen to the most notorious and dreaded of modem Italian brigands; and the name, associated during his lifetime with the political revolutions of southern Italy, has acquired a world-wide celebrity since it became the title of a favourite French opera. His real name was Michele Pezza. It would be as hopeless to fix the precise dates in his career as to determine those in the lives of Rob Roy or Jonathan Wild. He is stated, however, to have been born at ItrL His crimes became invested with a more general and political interest in 1799. At that time, from the frequency and audacity of his robberies and murders along the frontier of the Terra di Lavoro, he became known as Fra Diavolo, the popular superstition investing him with the blended attributes of a monk and a demon. When the kingdom of Naples was overrun by the troops of the French Republic, Fra Diavolo, acting in concert with the head of the Bourbon partisans, Cardinal Ruffo, waged a fierce aud untiring war against the French soldiers, whenever his superior knowledge of the localities afforded the prospect of his being able to do so with effect. He continued for a considerable period in absolute possession of the line of communication from the Garigliano to Portello, falling upon and massacring the French Government couriers, and all whom he suspected of conveying information to the military or civil functionaries of the Republic. At one moment he succeeded in completely interrupting all communication between Naples and Rome. Like his fellow agents under Cardinal Ruffo—like Mammone, Pronio, Sciarpa Guar-riglia—he styled himself “the faithful servant and subject of his Sicilian Majesty.” As the turning point in Fra Diavolo’s career must be regarded the ...

FRAAS, Karl Nikolas (1810-1875), a German botanist and agriculturist, was born at Stettelsdorf, near Bamberg, 8th September 1810. After receiving his preliminary education at the gymnasium of Bamberg, he in 1830 entered the university of Munich, where he took his doctor’s degree in 1834. Having devoted great attention to the study of botany, he went to Athens in 1835 as inspector of the court garden; and in April 1836 he became professor of botany at the university. In 1842 he returned to Germany and became teacher at the central agricultural school at Schleissheim. In 1847 he was appointed professor of agriculture at Munich, and in 1851 director of the central veterinary college. For many years he was secretary of the Agricultural Society of Bavaria, but resigned in 1861. He died at his estate of Neufreimann near Munich, 9th November 1875. Besides his important contributions to the sciences of botany and agriculture, Fraas devoted much of his effort to improve the condition of the peasants.

His principal works are—∑τo<χ∈7α τηs Boτavικηs, Athens, 1835; Synopsis florae classicae, Munich, 1845; Klima und Pflanzenwelt in der Zeit, Landsh., 1847; Histor-cncyklopäd. Grundriss der Land- vñrthschaftslehre, Stuttgart, 1848; Geschichte der Landicirthschaft, Prague, 1851; Die Schule des Landbaues, Munich, 1852; ßaierns Rinderrassen, Munich, 1853; Die Künstliche Fischerzeugung, Munich, 1854; Die Natur der Landwirthschaft, Munich, 1857; Buch der Natur für Landwirthe, Munich, 1860; Die Ackerbaukrisen und ihre Heilmittel, Munich, 1866; Das IFurzcllcbenderCzilturytflanzen, Berlin, 1872; and Geschichte der Landbau und Forstwissenschaft seit dem 16 tera Jahrh., Munich, 1865. He also founded and edited a weekly agricultural paper, the Schranne.

FRACASTORIO, Hieronymo (1483-1553), a learned physician and poet, was born at Verona in 1483. It is related of him that at his birth his lips adhered so closely that a surgeon was obliged to divide them with his incision knife, and that during his infancy his mother was killed by lightning, while he, though in her arms at the moment, escaped unhurt. Fracastorio became eminently skilled, not only in medicine and belles-lettres, but in most arts and sciences. It was by his advice that Pope Paul III., on account of the prevalence of a contagious distemper, removed the council of Trent to Bologna. He was the author of many works, both poetical and medical, and was intimately acquainted with Cardinal Bembo, Julius Scaliger, and most of the great men of his time. He died of apoplexy at Casi, near Verona, on the 8th of August 1553; and in 1559 the town of Verona erected a statue in his honour.

The principal work of Fracastorio is a kind of medical poem entitled Syphilidis, sive Morbi Gallici, libri tres, Verona, 1530, which has been often reprinted, and also translated into French and Italian. Among his other works (all published at Venice) are De Vini Temperatura, 1534; Homocentricorum, 1535; De Sympathy et Antipathia Rerum, 1546; and Dc Contagionibus, 1546. His complete works were published at Venice in 1555, and his poetical productions were collected and printed at Padua in 1728.