The Renaissance scientist and dramatist Giambattista della Porta (1535-1615) is noted for his biological index of personality tendencies. He wrote 17 plays.

In the course of his writings Giambattista della Porta made misstatements about his age, presumably because he enjoyed posing as a man of mystery or perhaps because, in making himself younger than he was, he would become known as a child prodigy. In spite of his own misrepresentation, the year of his birth has been reliably established as 1535. He came from minor Neapolitan nobility.

In the spirit of the Renaissance his father's house was a kind of academy where young della Porta and his two brothers were introduced to the arts and sciences. Giambattista was tutored by an uncle. Along with the humanism of the Renaissance, his program of studies emphasized the sciences, pure and applied. In his youth he got his first taste of drama, and...