Farfa, one of the three most celebrated Italian mon- asteries of the Middle Ages (Montecassino, Nonantula, and Farfa), situated on the little river Farfa, in Cen- tral Italy. It was in existence before the invasion of the Langobardians, by whom it was destroyed, togeth- er with a number of other monasteries. It was re-es- tablished in G81 by the priest Thomas of Maurienna, who, on his return from the H0I3' Land, came to Farfa. It soon became celebrated, and received numerous pres- ents and privileges from popes and kings. The mon- astery was so strongly fortified that abbo/ Peter, at the close of the 9th century, was able for nine j^ears to resist a siege bj^ the Saracens, though he was finally compelled to depart with the monks and the treasures of the monastery. Having remained abandoned and desolate for 48 years, it was re-established about the middle of the 10th ccnturj' by king Hugo, but it after- ward became the seat of frightful disorders. Several abbots were assassinated and poisoned; and the monks, without restraint and disguise, defied all the laws of the Church and the state. At the iiegiuning of the 11th century a stop was put to these disorders, and the reformation of Clugny was carried through at Farfa. Since then the historj' of the monastery ]iresents no points of special interest. A work of considerable im- portance for the history of Italy, called after the mon- asteiy, Ckronicon Farfense. was compiled at the close of the 11th century hy Gregory, a monk and lil)rarian of Farfa (died 1100). After many vicissitudes, the monastery is still in existence. — Wetzer und Welte, Kirchen-Lex. iii, 904. (A. J. S.)
Parindoii, Anthony, an eminent divine of the Church of England, was born at Sunning, in Berk- shire, England, in 159fi ; was admitted scholar of Trin- ity College, in Oxford, in 1G12, and was elected fellow in 1G17. He took his M.A. degree in 1G20, and, enter- ing into holy orders, he became a tutor in his college. In 1G34, being then B.D., he was called to be vicar of Bray, in Berkshire, and soon was made divinity-read- er in the king's chapel at Windsor. During tlie Civil War he was ejected for conformity to the Church of England, and was reduced to such extremities as to be verjr near starving. Sir John Robinson, alderman of London, and some of the parishioners of ISIilk Street, London, invited him to be pastor of St. ^lary Magda- len there, "whicli invitation he gladly accepted, and preached to the great liking of the royal party. In the j-ear 1G57 he published a folio volume of these ser- mons, and dedicated them to his kind patron Robinson, 'as a witness or manifesto,' says he to him, 'of my deep apprehension of your many noble favors, and great charity to mc and mine, when the sharpness of the weather and the roughness of the times had blown
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all from us, and wcll-nii;h left us naked.' " He died at his laouse in }>U\k Street in September, 1G58. Three postlninums volumes of liis sermons (folio) were pub- lished (1(!58 l(i7o) in Idtio, a second folio volume of his sermons containing forty, and a third in 1G73 con- taining tifty. He also left in manuscript several me- morials of the life of Hales (q. v.) of Eton, his intimate friend. A new edition of his Sermoiis, uilh a Life of the A iithor by F. Jaclvson, appeared in London in 1849 (4 vols. 8vo). Tliey afford a " tine specimen of ster- ling Englisli, and of rich and varied eloquence." See A\'ood, AiheiKf Oxonienses ; Hoolv, Ecclesiastical Biogva- jyhy, V, 57; Jackson, Life of Fariiidon, prefixed to the uew edition of his sermons.
Faiissol or Peritzol, Abrahaje bex-Mordecai, a French liabbi, distinguished alike in geography, po- lemics, and exegesis, was born at Avignon about the middle of the loth century. In 1472 he went to Fer- rara as minister to a Jewish congregation, and while there gave most of his time and attention to the study of the sacred writings. He published in 1500 a com- mentar}' on the Pentateuch, entitled D'^S'^ri'J '^H'lQ (the Jlincer of lilies), which, according to De Eossi, was begun in 1408. Next followed an apologetic and polemic work, CfTi^S; ".'•Q (tlie shield of Abraham), consisting of tliree parts, of wliich the first is an apology for Judaism, tlie second an attack on Mo- hammedanism, and the third against Christianitj'. About 1517 he published a scholarly commentarj' on Job, i'^'^X hv Vli^^iS, printed in the Venetian Rab- l>inical Bible (1517, fol.), and in the Amsterdam Ral>r binical Bible (edited by Frankfurter, 1727-1728). In 1524 he published his famous cosmograph}', T^SN fisi;' n"r!"iX, itinera Mundi (Venice, 1587, Svo, ver}' rare ; reprinted Offenbach, 1720 ; and again with a Latin translation and elaborate notes by the English Orientalist, Thomas Hyde, Oxford, 1691). In this last- named work Farissol descri!)es the abodes of the ten tribes, the Sambation [Eldad], and the garden of Eden, which he ])laces in the mountains of Nubia (ch. xviii and xxx). A j'ear later Farissol completed a Com- mentary on the book of Ecclcsiastes, ^^20 C^"iS T'tip, wliich has, however, never been printed. He died about the end of 1528, shortly after his return to Avignon. — Jost, Gf-sch. des Judenthums u. s. Sekten, iii, 1-22 ; Ethcridge, Introd. to Heb. Liter, p. 453 ; Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, xxxix, 614 ; Kitto, Cycloxxedia, ii, 4 ; Furst, Bib. Jud. i, 276. (J. H. W.)