MANZOLI (MANZOLI), PIER ANGELO della STELLATA. – Poet, born at La Stellata, near Ferrara, ca. 1500; died ca. 1543. Known under the pseudonym Marcellus Palingenius Stellatus, an anagram of his name identified in the 18th century from unknown documents by Facciolati (v. BIBLICA).
He may have been a physician; during the time of Leo X he went to Rome, probably for study; in 1530 he was at Verrucchio near San Marino. Between 1520 and 1534 he composed the *Zodiacus vitae* (Venice 1535; over 60 editions in Protestant countries), an allegorical-didactic poem in hexameters divided into 12 books corresponding to the signs of the zodiac, in which the Supreme Good is treated according to Platonic doctrine, in opposition to Aristotelian principles. The design of the poem often loses its way amid philosophical and pedagogical problems. Although Manzoli did not belong to Lutheran sects, and in the dedication to Ercole II d'Este he humbly professed himself subject to the Church, he professed heterodox doctrines (metempsychosis; the world created by God *ab aeterno*, and not for man; sin does not offend God, etc.) and had knowledge and practice of occult sciences. His mortal remains were exhumed and burned. Pastor (v. BIBLICA) considers Manzoli a “crypto-Protestant.”