BLANDRATA, or BIANDRATA, GIORGIO (c. 1515-1588)  , Italian physician and polemic, who came of the De Blandrate family, powerful from the early part of the 13th century, was born at Saluzzo, the youngest son of Bernardino Blandrata . He graduated in arts and medicine at Montpellier in 1533, and specialized in the functional and nervous disorders of women . In 1544 he made his first acquaintance with Transylvania; in 1553 he was with Alciati in the Grisons; in 1557 he spent a year at Geneva, in constant intercourse with Calvin, who distrusted him . He attended the English wife (Jane Stafford) of Count Celso Massimiliano Martinengo, preacher of the Italian church at Geneva, and fostered anti-trinitarian opinions in that church . In 1558 he found it expedient to remove to Poland, where he became a leader of the heretical party at the synods of Pinczow (1558) and Ksionzh (156o and 1562) . His point was the suppression of extremes of opinion, on the basis of a confession literally drawn from Scripture . He obtained the position of court physician to the queen dowager, the Milanese Bona Sforza . She had been instrumental in the burning (1539) of Catharine Weygel, at the age of eighty, for anti-trinitarian opinions; but the writings of Ochino had altered her views, which were now anti-Catholic . In 1563 Blandrata transferred his services to the Transylvanian court, where the daughters of his patroness were married to ruling princes . He revisited Poland (1576) in the train of Stephen Bathory, whose tolerance permitted the propagation of heresies; and when (1579) Christopher Bathory introduced the Jesuits into Transylvania, Blandrata found means of conciliating them . Throughout his career he was accompanied by his two brothers, Ludovico and Alphonso, the former being canon of Saluzzo . In Transylvania, Blandrata co-operated with Francis David (d .

1579), the antitrinitarian

bishop, but in 1578 two circumstances broke the connexion . Blandrata was charged with "Italian vice "; David renounced the worship of Christ . To influence David, Blandrata sent for Faustus Socinus from Basel . Socinus was David's guest, but the discussion between them led to no result . At the instance of Blandrata, David was tried and condemned to prison at Deva (in which he died) on the charge of innovation . Having amassed a fortune, Blandrata returned to the communion of Rome . His end is obscure . According to the Jesuit, Jacob Wujek, he was strangled by a nephew (Giorgio, son of Alphonso) in May 1588 . He published a few polemical writings, some in conjunction with David . See Malacarne, Commentario delle Opere e delle Vicende di G . Biandrata (Padova, 1814) ; Wallace, Anti-trinitarian Biography, vol. ii . (185o) .

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