MANTICA, FRANCESCO. — Cardinal, born at Ventone (Friuli) in 1534 to Andrea and Fontana di Fontanabona, died in Rome on 29 January 1614. He earned his law degree at Padua in 1558 and began teaching civil law there in 1560.
His treatise *De coniecturis ultimarum voluntatum*, published in 1580 and reprinted several times thereafter, brought him renown. Called to Rome by Sixtus V as auditor of the Rota for the Venetian Republic on 18 January 1586, he was created cardinal of S. Adriano by Clement VIII on 5 June 1596. In 1609 he published another treatise, *De tacitis et ambiguis conventionibus*, which was highly esteemed in his day. His nephew Germanico M., bishop first of Famagusta and then of Adria (d. February 1639), published M.’s *Decisiones Rotae Romanae*.