V E S 



aflbciate in the empire, with the titles of Casfar and Auguftus, 

 and other appendages of imperial authority ; confolidating 

 the union by marrying his daughter Lucilla to Verus ; nor 

 was the new emperor infenfible of the condefcenfion and 

 kindnefs of his father-in-law. Upon an invafion of Arme- 

 nia and Syria by Vologefes, king of Parthia, Aurelius, 

 with a view of refcuing Verus from the temptations of 

 the capital, appointed him to the command of an army 

 which marched againft this formidable foe. His attachment 

 to licentious pleafure and diffipating amufements difqualiiied 

 him for a fervice fo important ; his march was flow ; and 

 on reaching the voluptuous capital, Antioch, in the year 

 162, he totally neglefted all military operations, and for four 

 years devoted himfelf to almoll every fpecies of licentious 

 gratification and idle amufement. At the conclufion of 

 the war, rendered fuccefsful by fubordiaate Roman com- 

 manders, he returned to Rome, and partook of a triumph 

 with Aurelius. Such, however, was the pernicious effeft 

 of the courfe he purfued in Syria, that he addifted himfelf, 

 without reftraint, to all the follies and excefTes which have 

 difgraced the moil profligate and contemptible of the 

 Roman emperors. Cruelty excepted, he vied in vice and 

 folly with Nero and Caligula, or any of the imperial monfters 

 that had preceded him. His virtuous colleague beheld his 

 condutl with regret, and ufed every effort which wifdom 

 coidd fugged for reftraining and reforming him. With 

 this view, he took Verus with him in the war againft. the 

 Marcomanni, which commenced in the year 1 66. The two 

 emperors wintered together at Aquileia ; but Verus was 

 foon tired of the war, and when the frontiers were fecured 

 from the barbarians, he determined to return to Rome. 

 But upon their route from Aquileia, in the year 169, he was 

 feized with an apople£lic fit, which terminated his life in 

 three days, in the 39th year of his age, and the ninth of his 

 partnerfhip in the empire. Aurelius interred liim with 

 magnificence, and culpably la^ifhed all kinds of divine ho- 

 nours upon his memory, whilfl in his fpeech to the fenate 

 he expreffed his fatisfa£tion that death had removed an im- 

 pediment to his defigns and efforts for promoting the public 

 welfare. Crevier. 



VERY Lord and Very Tenant, are thofe that are im- 

 mediate lord and tenant to one another. See Lord and 

 Tevaxt. 



VERZELLINO, in Ornithology, the name of a bird 

 common in Italy, and kept in cages for its fiuging, called 

 by authors citrinella, and thraupis. 



VERZINO, in Geography, a town of Naples, in Calabria 

 Citra ; 3 miles S.W. of Umbriatico. 



VERZUOLO, a town of Piedmont, late France, in the 

 department of the Stara, fituated in a fruitful foil and falu- 

 brious air, near the Vratia. The country about it feems an 

 agreeable garden, covered with fruit-trees, vines, puKe, Sec. 

 It is furrounded with an ancient wall, and flanked with 

 towers. It has two parifh-churches, befides feveral chapels 

 and religious houfes. It has alfo a caftle or palace ; 2 miles 

 S. of Saluzzo. 



VERZY, a town of France, in the department of the 

 Marne ; 9 miles S.E. of Rheims. 



VESALIUS, Andrew, in Biography, a very eminent 

 anatomift, was born at BrufTels in 15 13 or 1514; purfued 

 his claflical ftudies at Louvani, and with a view to medicine 

 and anatomy, frequented the fchools of Cologn, Montpellier, 

 and Paris, attending, in the lall-mentioned capital, the lec- 

 tures of Gunther and James Sylvius. Upon occafion of 

 the war between Francis I. and Charles V. he was obliged 

 to quit Paris, and in the Low Countries he ferved as 

 phyfician and furgeon in the imperial troops from 1535 to 



V E S 



1537. In the latter year he removed to Padua, and taught 

 anatomy there with great applaufe till the year 1543. He 

 after^vards dehvered ledlures in the fchools of Bologna and 

 Pifa, and in the beginning of 1544, he became phyfician to 

 Charles V., and refided chiefly at the imperial court. In 

 the midft of his career of profeffional reputation, a fingular 

 circumllance occurred. Being fummoned to examine by dif- 

 feftion the body of a Spanifli gentleman who died in 1564, 

 and too precipitately commencing the operation, a palpi- 

 tation was obferved in the heart of the fubjeft. This inci- 

 dent being known to the family, Vefalius was accufed be- 

 fore the Inquifition, and in order to avert fome dreadful 

 fentence, Philip II. interpofed, and procured injunftion of 

 a pUgrimage to the Holy Land as an expiatory penance. 

 Accordingly the unfortunate anatomiil went firft to Cyprus, 

 and from thence to Jerufalem. During his abode in that 

 city, he received an invitation to occupy the chair of ana- 

 tomy at Padua. Ha\-ing, as it is fuppofed, accepted this 

 invitation, the vefTel in which he was returning to Europe 

 was wrecked on the coail of Zante, on which ifland he died 

 in 1564, about the 50th year of his age. A jeweller of 

 the idand procured an honourable interment for his remains 

 in the church of the Holy Virgin at Zante. 



Vefalius has been repreiented as the firft perfon who ref- 

 cued anatomical fcience from the flavery impofed upon it 

 by deference to ancient opinions, and who led the way to 

 modern improvements. His firft publication of note was a 

 fet of anatomical tables, entitled " Suorum de Corporis 

 Humani Anatome Librorum Epitome," Bafil, 1542, fol. 

 max. The plates were for the moft part given again in his 

 great work, " De Corporis Humani Fabrica, Lib. VII." 

 BafJ, 1543, fol. which has been frequently reprinted in 

 feveral countries. He is moft correft, fays one of his bio- 

 graphers, in the bones, mufcles, and vifcera ; the mufcles, fays 

 Haller, he defcribes more accurately than any other writer, 

 to the time of Window. The earlieft impreffions of the 

 plates ai;e confidered as the moft valuable ; but the author 

 corrected his explanations in the fecond Bafil edition, 1555. 

 His treatife " De Radicis Chinx ufu Epiftola," pubhihed 

 in 1546, contains a fevere critique on the anatomy of 

 Galen, and a correftion of his errors ; and his reply to the 

 defence of Galen by Fallopio is the fubjeft of his " Anato- 

 micarum Gabrielis Fallopii Obfervationum Examen," ic6i. 

 The medical and chirurgical writings of Vefalius are held 

 in no high eftimation. His paraphrafe on the 9th book of 

 Rhaze% publifhed in 1537, is a compendium of medical 

 praftice. After his death, his difciple, Borgarucci, pub- 

 lifhed " Chirurgia Magna" under his name, a work fcarcely I 

 worthy of its alleged author. An edition of all the anato- ■ 

 mical and chirurgical works of Vefalius, with fine plates, I 

 was publifhed under the care of Boerhaave and Albinus at 

 Leyden, 1725, 2 vols. foho. Haller. Tirabofchi. Eloy. 

 Gen. Biog. M 



VESBOLA, in Ancient Geography, a town of Italy, in \ 

 the vicinity of the Ceraunian mountains, about 60 fladia 

 from Trebula, and 40 from Surta, attributed by Dionyfius 

 Halicarnaffus to the Aborigines. 



VESCAVATO, in Geography, a town of the ifland of 

 Corfica ; 9 miles N.E. of La Porta. 



VESCi, in Ancient Geography, a town of Hifpania, in 

 the interior of Betica, at the foot of mount lUipula, be- 

 longing to the Turduli. 



VESCIA, a town of Italy, in Aufonia. Steph. Byz. 

 Livy mentions this town and its territory-. 



VESCIS, a port of Hifpania Citerior. 



VESCONTE, in Geography, a town of Naples, in Cala- 

 bria Ultra ; 3 miles N.W. of St. Sevcrina. 



VESCO- 



