MANTICA, FRANCESCO. - Cardinal, born at Venzone (Friuli) in 1534 to Andrea and Fontana di Fontanabona, died at Rome on 29 Jan. 1614. Having graduated in law at Padua in 1558, he began teaching civil law there in 1560.
His treatise De coniecturis ultimarum voluntatum, published in 1580 and several times thereafter, made him famous. Summoned to Rome by Sixtus V as auditor of the Rota for the Venetian Republic on 18 Jan. 1586, he was created cardinal of S. Adriano by Clement VIII on 5 June 1596. In 1609 he published his other treatise, De tacitis et ambiguis conventionibus, highly esteemed in its time. His nephew Germanico M., bishop of Famagosta and later of Adria (died in Feb. 1639), published his Decisiones Rotae Romanae.
BIBL.: G. G. Liruti, Notizie dei letterati del Friuli, III, Udine 1780, p. 412 ff.; M. D. Pettoello, Un giureconsulto udinese del sec. XVI, in Bollettino civ. Biblioteca e Museo (Udine), 3 (1909), pp. 79-89. Pio Paschini