JOHN BAPTISTA PORTA. 



231 



applicant should have successfully prosecuted an original 

 research in medicine or philosophy. It is said that, be- 

 cause the participators called themselves the u Otiosi " (idle, 

 lazy), the people became aroused and denounced the organ- 



ization to the Pope as a gang of sorcerers; but it is a much 

 more reasonable assumption that the astonishing state- 

 ments in Porta's book, on such subjects, for example, as 

 the production of birds and frogs from decaying matter, 



