Of his collegiate career little is recorded, except an incident which occurred at the taking of his degree in philosophy. His master in this study was Joseph Voglio, a professor of considerable reputation, and author of several works on the philosophical controversies of the period.[283] It is usual in the Italian universities for the candidate for a philosophical degree, to defend publicly a series of propositions selected from the whole body of philosophy. Mezzofanti, at the time that he maintained his theses, was still little more than a child; and it would seem that, his self-possession having given way under the public ordeal, he had a narrow escape from the mortification of a complete failure. One of the witnesses of his “Disputation,” Dr. Santagata, in the Discourse already referred to, delivered at the Institute of Bologna, gives an interesting account of the occurrence. “For a time,” says Dr. Santagata, “the boy’s success was most marked. Each new objection, among the many subtle ones that were proposed, only afforded him a fresh opportunity of exhibiting the acuteness of his intellect, and the ease, fluency, and elegance of his Latinity; and the admiring murmurs of assent, and other unequivocal tokens of applause which it elicited from the audience, of which I myself was one, seemed to promise a triumphant conclusion of the exercise. But all at once the young candidate was observed to grow pale, to become suddenly silent, and at length to fall back upon his seat and almost faint away. The auditors were deeply grieved at this untoward interruption of a performance hitherto so successful; but they were soon relieved to see him, as if by one powerful effort, shake off his emotion, recover his self-possession, and resume his answering with even greater acuteness and solidity than before. He was greeted with the loud and repeated plaudits of the crowded assembly.”[284] About this period, soon after Mezzofanti had completed his fifteenth year, his health gave way under this long and intense application; and his constitution for a time was so debilitated, that, at the termination of his course of philosophy, he was compelled to interrupt his studies;[285] nor was it until about 1793, that he entered upon the theological course, under the direction of the Canon Joachim Ambrosi. One of his class-fellows, the Abate Monti, the venerable arch-priest of Bagni di Poreta, in the archdiocese of Bologna, still survives and speaks in high terms of the ability which he exhibited. He describes him as a youth of most engaging manners and amiable dispositions—one who, from his habitually serious and recollected air, might perhaps be noted by strangers For his grave looks, too thoughtful for his years,