Faber, Johann (1478–1541) German theologian
Faber was born at Leutkirch near Memmingen and stud-
ied at Tübingen and Fribourg. In 1518 he joined the
diocesan bureaucracy of the bishop of Constance. At first
he sympathized with the reformers, especially with his
friend ERASMUS, but later he became a strong supporter of
the old order; his knowledge of philosophy and science
was valuable to his side in the debate. His treatise Malleus
in haeresim Lutheranam (1524) earned him the nickname
of “hammer of the heretics.” Among his diplomatic mis-
sions was the occasion when the future Emperor Ferdi-
nand I sent him to England to enlist the support of HENRY
VIIIagainst the Turks. From 1530 Faber was bishop of
Vienna.
Faber Stapulensis See LEFÈVRE D’ÉTAPLES, JACQUES
Fabricius, Girolamo (Fabricius ab Aquapendente)
(1537–1619) Italian anatomist
A student of FALLOPPIOat Padua, Fabricius followed him
as professor of anatomy in 1565. He is best known for his
De venarum ostiolis (On the valves of veins; 1603) in
which he published the first description of these valves.
The work had a profound influence on his most famous
pupil, William HARVEY, the discoverer of the circulation of
the blood. Fabricius also worked extensively in the field of
embryology, paying particular attention in his De formato
foetu (1600) to evidence derived from a wide variety of
species. He remained nonetheless an Aristotelian, con-
cerned predominantly with the analysis of embryological
development in terms of material, efficient, formal, and
final causes. It was consequently within this framework
that Fabricius, in his De formatione ovi et pulli (On the for-
mation of the egg and chick; 1612), sought to understand
the embryology of the chick.
facetiae (Latin, “jests”) Humorous, often indecent, anec-
dotes and stories, akin to the medieval fabliaux, which cir-
culated in Latin among the humanist scholars of the
Renaissance. Poggio BRACCIOLINI’s Facetiae or Liber face-
tiarum, the chief butts of which were the monastic orders
and the secular clergy, was the first and one of the most
popular books in the genre. Although facetiae were pre-
dominantly a neo-Latin genre, they also occur in German
as Fazetien, and a bilingual Latin-German collection was
published in 1486.
faenza (French faïence) The type of MAJOLICAthat takes
its name from the Italian town of Faenza, midway between
Bologna and Rimini, which between 1450 and 1520 had
about 40 active potteries. The most famous of these was
the Ca’ Pirota. Faenza products were reputed for excellent
painting and the use of a fine red color. Arabesques,
grotesques, and trophies en camaieu on blue or yellow
grounds are usual. Plate backs carry concentric circles or
spirals in lapis blue on pale blue.
Faerie Queene, The An epic poem by Edmund SPENSER.
Probably begun shortly before 1580, it was left incomplete
at the poet’s death, with only six books and a fragment of
a seventh, out of a projected 12, having been written. The
first three books appeared in 1590, the second three in
- The poem is composed in a nine-line stanza with a
demanding rhyme scheme, the so-called Spenserian
stanza. Spenser’s language is notable for its archaisms. The
poem is dedicated to Queen Elizabeth and in one sense is
117722
F
