MANZOLI (MANZOLLI), PIER ANGELO DELLA STELLATA

MANZOLI (MANZOLLI), PIER ANGELO della STELLATA. – Poet, born at La Stellata, near Ferrara, around 1500 and died around 1543. Known under the pseudonym Marcellus Palingenius Stellatus, an anagram of his name identified in the eighteenth century on documents that have remained unknown, by Facciolati (v. BIBLICA).

He was perhaps a physician; during the time of Leo X he went to Rome, probably for study; in 1530 he was in Verrucchio near S. Marino. Between 1520 and 1534 he composed the Zodiacus vitae (Venice 1535; more than 60 eds. in countries

(protestant countries), an allegorical-didactic poem in hexameters divided into 12 books, corresponding to the signs of the zodiac, dealing with the Supreme Good according to Platonic doctrine, in opposition to Aristotelian principles. Not infrequently, the design of the poem is lost amid philosophical and pedagogical problems. Although M. did not belong to Lutheran sects, and in the dedication to Ercole II d’Este humbly professed himself subject to the Church, he espoused heterodox doctrines (metempsychosis; the world created by God ab aeterno, and not for man; sin does not offend God, etc.) and possessed knowledge of and practical acquaintance with the occult sciences. His mortal remains were exhumed and burned. Pastor (v. BIBLICA) considers M. a “crypto-Protestant.”