JOVIUS, PAULUS, or PAOLO GIOVIO (1483-1552), Italian historian and biographer, was born of an ancient and noble family at Como on the 19th of April 1483. His father died when he was a child, and Giovio owed his education to his brother Benedetto. After studying the humanities, he applied himself to medicine and philosophy at his brother's request. He was Pomponazzi's pupil at Padua; and afterwards he took a medical degree in the university of Pavia. He exercised the medical profession in Rome, but the attraction of literature proved irresistible for Giovio, and he was bent upon becoming the historian of his age. He presented a portion of his history to Leo X., who read the MS., and pronounced it superior in elegance to anything since Livy. Thus encouraged, Giovio took up his residence in Rome, and attached himself to Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, the pope's nephew. The next pope, Adrian VI., gave him a canonry in Como, on the condition, it is said, that Giovio should mention him with honour in his history. This patronage from a pontiff who was averse from the current tone of Italian humanism proves that Giovio at this period passed for a man of sound learning and sober manners. After Adrian's death, Giulio de' Medici became pope as Clement VII. and assigned him chambers in the Vatican, with maintenance for servants befitting a courtier of rank. In addition to other benefices, he finally, in 1528, bestowed on him the bishopric of Nocera. Giovio had now become in a special sense dependent on the Medici. He was employed by that family on several missions--as when he accompanied Ippolito to Bologna on the occasion of Charles V.'s coronation, and Caterina to Marseilles before her marriage to the duke of Orleans. During the siege of Rome in 1527 he attended Clement in his flight from the Vatican. While crossing the bridge which connected the palace with the castle of S. Angelo, Giovio threw his mantle over the pope's shoulders in order to disguise his master.