1 879-1 an & Perpetual Lamps. 721 
as usual, and the Rabbi gave his friendly guests an entrance ; 
but whenever impostors or persons of evil intent presented 
themselves at the door, the lamp grew visibly pale, and the 
Jew took care to fasten the door against the intruder. 
The latter half of the seventeenth century witnessed a 
considerable controversy on the subject of perpetual lamps. 
On the affirmative side of the question we fine the names of 
the Abbot Trithemius, already mentioned; John Baptist 
Porta, the eminent Italian physicist, the same who invented 
the camera obscura (“ Magise Naturalis,” Libri xx., 1558) ; 
the celebrated Italian engraver and painter, Pietro Santi 
Bartoli (“ Le antiche Lucerne, &c.,” Roma, 1691, fol.) ; the 
German antiquary, Lorenz Beger (“Lucerne, vet. sep. Berol.,” 
1702) ; the learned Jesuit, Martin Antoine Delrio (“ Essay 
on Magic,” 1599), who attributed the lamps to magic skill ; 
and Fortunius Licetus, the most credulous and erudite of 
all. On the negative side of the question are arrayed the 
names of Vigneul-Marville, a French Carthusian monk 
(1699); the learned Jesuit, Athanasius Kircher, whose 
“ Mundus Subterraneus ” has been already quoted; the 
Italian antiquary and Professor of Philosophy, Ottavio Fer- 
rari (“ Dissertatio de Veterum Lucernis,” Padua, 1684, 4to., 
in Grsevius’s “ Thesaurus Antiq. Ital.”) ; the Italian ecclesi- 
astic, Paolo Aresi, Bishop of Tortona (“ Sacred Emblems,” 
1613) ; the English naturalist and antiquary, Robert Plot 
(“Phil. Trans.,” Abr. III., p. 100, 1684; the German che- 
mist, Libavius (“ Comment. Alchem.,” Part II., Lib. ii., 
Cap. x., 1595) ; Buonamici, an Italian litterateur ; Fabricius; 
Montucla ; and many others. 
To detail all the points for and against the existence of 
perpetual lamps made by these writers does not come within 
the scope of this essay. One of the most earnest supporters 
of these fables, Fortunius Licetus, deserves a somewhat 
lengthier notice. 
Fortunius Licetus was born in the State of Genoa, 
October 3rd, 15 77. He was the son of a physician, and, 
having received a liberal education in medicine and philo- 
sophy, became professor of these departments of learning at 
the University of Padua. After holding these chairs for 
twenty-five years the rival University of Pisa secured his 
services by a tempting offer ; but nine years later, a vacancy 
occurring at Padua, he returned to his former position, and 
held it until his death in 1657. Licetus was a voluminous 
author, writing fifty treatises on medical, moral, philo- 
sophical, antiquarian, and historical subjects, which were 
distinguished for their erudition, though he displayed little 
