Chapter 12

See L. A. Warnkönig,Flandrische Staats- und Rechtsgeschichte bis 1305(3 vols., Tübingen, 1835-1842), and Gueldorf,Hist. de Gand, translated from Warnkönig, with corrections and additions (Brussels, 1846); F. de Potter,Gent van den oudsten tijd tot heden(6 vols., Ghent, 1883-1891); Van Duyse,Gand monumental et pittoresque(Brussels, 1886); de Vlaminck,Les Origines de la ville de Gand(Brussels, 1891);Annales Gandenses, ed. G. Funck-Brentano (Paris, 1895); Vuylsteke,Oorkondenboek der stad Gent(Ghent, 1900, &c.); Karl Hegel,Städte und Gilden(Leipzig, 1891), vol. ii. p. 175, where further authorities are cited. For a comprehensive bibliography, including monographs and published documents, see Ulysse Chevalier,Répertoire des sources hist. Topo-bibliogr., s.v. “Gand.”

1Bavo, or Allowin (c.589-c.653), patron saint of Ghent, was a nobleman converted by St Amandus, the apostle of Flanders. He lived first as an anchorite in the forest of Mendonk, and afterwards in the monastery founded with his assistance by Amandus at Ghent.

GHETTO,formerly the street or quarter of a city in which Jews were compelled to live, enclosed by walls and gates which were locked each night. The term is now used loosely of any locality in a city or country where Jews congregate. The derivation of the word is doubtful. In documents of the 11th century the Jew-quarters in Venice and Salerno are styled “Judaca” or “Judacaria.” At Capua in 1375 there was a place called San Nicolo ad Judaicam, and later elsewhere a quarter San Martino ad Judaicam. Hence it has been suggested Judaicam became Italian Giudeica and thence became corrupted into ghetto. Another theory traces it to “gietto,” the common foundry at Venice near which was the first Jews’ quarters of that city. More probably the word is an abbreviation of Italianborghettodiminutive ofborgoa “borough.”

The earliest regular ghettos were established in Italy in the 11th century, though Prague is said to have had one in the previous century. The ghetto at Rome was instituted by Paul IV. in 1556. It lay between the Via del Pianto and Ponte del Quattro Capi, and comprised a few narrow and filthy streets. It lay so low that it was yearly flooded by the Tiber. The Jews had to sue annually for permission to live there, and paid a yearly tax for the privilege. This formality and tax survived till 1850. During three centuries there were constant changes in the oppressive regulations imposed upon the Jews by the popes. In 1814 Pius VII. allowed a few Jews to live outside the ghetto, and in 1847 Pius IX. decided to destroy the gates and walls, but public opinion hindered him from carrying out his plans. In 1870 the Jews petitioned Pius IX. to abolish the ghetto; but it was to Victor Emmanuel that this reform was finally due. The walls remained until 1885.

During the middle ages the Jews were forbidden to leave the ghetto after sunset when the gates were locked, and they were also imprisoned on Sundays and all Christian holy days. Where the ghetto was too small for the carrying on of their trades, a site beyond its wall was granted them as a market,e.g.the JewishTandelmarktat Prague. Within their ghettos the Jews were left much to their own devices, and the more important ghettos, such as that at Prague, formed cities within cities, having their own town halls and civic officials, hospitals, schools and rabbinical courts. Fires were common in ghettos and, owing to the narrowness of the streets, generally very destructive, especially as from fear of plunder the Jews themselves closed their gates on such occasions and refused assistance. On the 14th of June 1711 a fire, the largest ever known in Germany, destroyed within twenty-four hours the ghetto at Frankfort-on-Main. Other notable ghetto fires are that of Bari in 1030 and Nikolsburg in 1719. The Jews were frequently expelled from their ghettos, the most notable expulsions being those of Vienna (1670) and Prague (1744-1745). This latter exile was during the war of the Austrian Succession, when Maria Theresa, on the ground that “they were fallen into disgrace,” ordered Jews to leave Bohemia. The empress was, however, induced by the protests of the powers, especially of England and Holland, to revoke the decree. Meantime the Jews, ignorant of the revocation, petitioned to be allowed to return in payment of a yearly tax. This tax the Bohemian Jews paid until 1846. The most important ghettos were those at Venice, Frankfort, Prague and Trieste. By the middle of the 19th century the ghetto systemwas moribund, and with the disappearance of the ghetto at Rome in 1870 it became obsolete.

See D. Philipson,Old European Jewries(Philadelphia, 1894); Israel Abrahams,Jewish Life in the Middle Ages(1896); S. Kahn, article “Ghetto” inJewish Encyclopedia, v. 652.

GHIBERTI, LORENZO(1378-1455), Italian sculptor, was born at Florence in 1378. He learned the trade of a goldsmith under his father Ugoccione, commonly called Cione, and his stepfather Bartoluccio; but the goldsmith’s art at that time included all varieties of plastic arts, and required from those who devoted themselves to its higher branches a general and profound knowledge of design and colouring. In the early stage of his artistic career Ghiberti was best known as a painter in fresco, and when Florence was visited by the plague he repaired to Rimini, where he executed a highly prized fresco in the palace of the sovereign Pandolfo Malatesta. He was recalled from Rimini to his native city by the urgent entreaties of his stepfather Bartoluccio, who informed him that a competition was to be opened for designs of a second bronze gate in the baptistery, and that he would do wisely to return to Florence and take part in this great artistic contest. The subject for the artists was the sacrifice of Isaac; and the competitors were required to observe in their work a certain conformity to the first bronze gate of the baptistery, executed by Andrea Pisano about 100 years previously. Of the six designs presented by different Italian artists, those of Donatello, Brunelleschi and Ghiberti were pronounced the best, and of the three Brunelleschi’s and Ghiberti’s superior to the third, and of such equal merit that the thirty-four judges with whom the decision was left entrusted the execution of the work to the joint labour of the two friends. Brunelleschi, however, withdrew from the contest. The first of his two bronze gates for the baptistery occupied Ghiberti twenty years.

Ghiberti brought to his task a deep religious feeling and the striving after a high poetical ideal which are not to be found in the works of Donatello, though in power of characterization the second sculptor often stands above the first. Like Donatello, he seized every opportunity of studying the remains of ancient art; but he sought and found purer models for imitation than Donatello, through his excavations and studies in Rome, had been able to secure. The council of Florence, which met during the most active period of Ghiberti’s artistic career, not only secured him the patronage of the pontiff, who took part in the council, but enabled him, through the important connexions which he then formed with the Greek prelates and magnates assembled in Florence, to obtain from many quarters of the Byzantine empire the precious memorials of old Greek art, which he studied with untiring zeal. The unbounded admiration called forth by Ghiberti’s first bronze gate led to his receiving from the chiefs of the Florentine gilds the order for the second, of which the subjects were likewise taken from the Old Testament. The Florentines gazed with especial pride on these magnificent creations, which must still have shone with all the brightness of their original gilding when, a century later, Michelangelo pronounced them worthy to be the gates of paradise. Next to the gates of the baptistery Ghiberti’s chief works still in existence are his three statues of St John the Baptist, St Matthew and St Stephen, executed for the church of Or San Michele. In the bas-relief of the coffin of St Zenobius, in the Florence cathedral, Ghiberti put forth much of his peculiar talent, and though he did not, as is commonly stated, execute entirely the painted glass windows in that edifice, he furnished several of the designs, and did the same service for a painted glass window in the church of Or San Michele. He died at the age of 77.

We are better acquainted with Ghiberti’s theories of art than with those of most of his contemporaries, for he left behind him a commentary, in which, besides his notices of art, he gives much insight into his own personal character and views. Every page attests the religious spirit in which he lived and worked. Not only does he aim at faithfully reflecting Christian truths in his creations, he regards the old Greek statues with a kindred feeling, as setting forth the highest intellectual and moral attributes of human nature. He appears to have cared as little as Donatello for money.

Benvenuto Cellini’s criticism on Ghiberti that in his creations of plastic art he was more successful in small than in large figures, and that he always exhibited in his works the peculiar excellences of the goldsmith’s quite as much as those of the sculptor’s art, is after all no valid censure, for it merely affirms that Ghiberti faithfully complied with the peculiar conditions of the task imposed upon him. More frequent have been the discussions as to the part played by perspective in his representations of natural scenery. These acquired a fresh importance since the discovery of the data, from which it appeared that Paolo Uccello, who had commonly been regarded as the first great master of perspective, worked for several years in the studio or workshop of Ghiberti, so that it became difficult to determine to what extent Uccello’s successful innovations in perspective were due to Ghiberti’s teaching.

Cicognara’s criticism on Ghiberti, in hisHistory of Sculpture, has supplied the chief materials for the illustrative text of Lasinio’s series of engravings of the three bronze gates of the baptistery. They consist of 42 plates in folio, and were published at Florence by Bardi in 1821. Still more vivid representations are the reproductions on a very large scale by the photographic establishment of Alinari. Both C. C. Perkins, in hisHistory of Tuscan Sculpture(1864), and A. F. Rio, in hisArt chrétien(1861-1867), have treated Ghiberti’s works with much fulness, and in a spirit of sound appreciation. See also the chapter expressly devoted to the history of the competition for the baptistery gates in Hans Semper,Donatello(1887); the articles by Adolf Rosemberg in Dohme’sKunst und Künstler des Mittelalters(Leipzig, 1877); Leader Scott,Ghiberti and Donatello(1882). In theSammlung ausgewählter Biographien Vasari, ed. Carl Frey, vol. iii. (1886), is given Ghiberti’s commentary on art.

GHICA,GhikaorGhyka, a family which played a great part in the modern development of Rumania, many of its members being princes of Moldavia and Walachia. According to Rumanian historians the Ghicas were of very humble origin, and came from Kiupru in Albania.

1. George or Gheorghe (c.1600-1664), the founder of the family, is said to have been a playmate of another Albanian known in history as Küpruli Aga, the famous vizier, who recognized George while he was selling melons in the streets of Constantinople, and helped him on to high positions. George became prince of Moldavia in 1658 and prince of Walachia in 1659-1660. He moved the capital from Tîrgovishtea to Bucharest. From him are derived the numerous branches of the family which became so conspicuous in the history of Moldavia and Walachia.

2. The Walachian branch starts afresh from the great ban Demetrius or Dumitru Ghica (1718-1803), who was twice married and had fourteen children (seeRumania:History). One of these, Gregory (Grigorie), prince of Walachia 1822-1828, starts a new era of civilization, by breaking with the traditions of the Phanariot (Greek) period and assisting in the development of a truly national Rumanian literature. His brother, Prince Alexander Ghica, appointed jointly by Turkey and Russia (1834-1842) as hospodar of Walachia, died in 1862. Under him the so-calledrèglement organiquehad been promulgated; an attempt was made to codify the laws in conformity with the institutions of the country and to secure better administration of justice. Prince Demetrius Ghica, who died as president of the Rumanian senate in 1897, was the son of the Walachian prince Gregory.

3. Another Gregory Ghica, prince of Moldavia from 1775 to 1777, paid with his life for the opposition he offered when the Turks ceded the province of Bukovina to Austria.

4. Michael (Michail) (1794-1850) was the father of Elena (1827-1888), a well-known novelist, who wrote under the name of Dora d’Istria. Brought up, as was customary at the time, under Greek influences, she showed premature intelligence and literary power. She continued her education in Germany and married a Russian prince, Koltsov Mazalskiy, in 1849, but the marriage was an unhappy one, and in 1855 she left St Petersburg for Florence, where she died in 1888. In that city she developed her literary talent and published a number of works characterized by lightness of touch and brilliance of description, such asPèlerinage au tombeau de Dante, La Vie monastique dans les églises orientales(1844),La Suisse allemande, &c. One of her last works was devoted to the history of her own family,Gli Albanesi in Roumenia: Storia dei Principi Ghika nei secoli XVII-XIX(Florence, 1873). Her sister was Sophia, Countess O’Rourke.

5. Scarlat Ghica (1750-1802) was twice prince of Walachia. His grandson John (Ioan) Ghica (1817-1897), a lifelong friend of Turkey, was educated in Bucharest and in the West, and studied engineering and mathematics in Paris from 1837 to 1840; returning to Moldavia he was involved in the conspiracy of 1841, which was intended to bring about the union of Walachia and Moldavia under one native prince (Michael Sturdza). The conspiracy failed and John Ghica became a lecturer on mathematics at the university which was founded by Prince Sturdza in Jassy. In 1848 he joined the party of revolution and in the name of a provisional government then established in Bucharest went to Constantinople to approach the Turkish government. Whilst there he was appointed Bey of Samos (1853-1859), where he extirpated piracy, rampant in that island. In 1859 after the union of Moldavia and Walachia had been effected Prince Cuza induced John Ghica to return. He was the first prime minister under Prince (afterwards King) Charles of Hohenzollern. His restless nature made him join the anti-dynastic movement of 1870-1871. In 1881 he was appointed Rumanian minister in London and retained this office until 1889. He died on the 7th of May 1897 in Gherghani. Besides his political distinction John Ghica earned a literary reputation by his “Letters to Alexandri” (2nd edition, 1887), his lifelong friend, written from London and describing the ancient state of Rumanian society, fast fading away. He was also the author ofAmintiri din pribegie, “Recollections of Exile in 1848” (Bucharest, 1890) and ofConvorbiri Economice, discussions on economic questions (Bucharest, 1866-1873). He was the first to advocate the establishment of national industry and commerce, and also, to a certain extent, principles of “exclusive dealing.”

(M. G.)

GHILZAI,a large and widespread Afghan tribe, who extend from Kalat-i-Ghilzai on the S. to the Kabul river on the N., and from the Gul Koh range on the W. to the Indian border on the E., in many places overflowing these boundaries. The popular theory of the origin of the Ghilzais traces them to the Turkish tribe of Kilji, once occupying districts bordering the upper course of the Syr Darya (Jaxartes), and affirms that they were brought into Afghanistan by the Turk Sabuktagin in the 10th century. However that may be, the Ghilzai clans now rank collectively as second to none in strength of military and commercial enterprise. They are a fine, manly race of people, and it is from some of their most influential clans (Suliman Khel, Nasir Khel, Kharotis, &c.) that the main body of povindah merchants is derived.

GHIRLANDAJO, DOMENICO(1449-1494), Florentine painter. His full name is given as Domenico di Tommaso Curradi di Doffo Bigordi; it appears therefore that his father’s surname was Curradi, and his grandfather’s Bigordi. The painter is generally termed Domenico Bigordi, but some authors give him, and apparently with reason, the paternal surname Curradi. Ghirlandajo (garland-maker) was only a nickname, coming to Domenico from the employment of his father (or else of his earliest instructor), who was renowned for fashioning the metallic garlands worn by Florentine damsels; he was not, however, as some have said, the inventor of them. Tommaso was by vocation a jeweller on the Ponte Vecchio, or perhaps a broker. Domenico, the eldest of eight children, was at first apprenticed to a jeweller or goldsmith, probably enough his own father; in his shop he was continually making portraits of the passers-by, and it was thought expedient to place him with Alessio Baldovinetti to study painting and mosaic. His youthful years were, however, entirely undistinguished, and at the age of thirty-one he had not a fixed abode of his own. This is remarkable, as immediately afterwards, from 1480 onwards to his death at a comparatively early age in 1494, he became the most proficient painter of his time, incessantly employed, and condensing into that brief period of fourteen years fully as large an amount of excellent work as any other artist that could be named; indeed, we should properly say eleven years, for nothing of his is known of a later date than 1491.

In 1480 Ghirlandajo painted a “St Jerome” and other frescoes in the church of Ognissanti, Florence, and a life-sized “Last Supper” in its refectory, noticeable for individual action and expression. From 1481 to 1485 he was employed upon frescoes in the Sala dell’ Orologio in the Palazzo Vecchio; he painted the apotheosis of St Zenobius, a work beyond the size of life, with much architectural framework, figures of Roman heroes and other detail, striking in perspective and structural propriety. While still occupied here, he was summoned to Rome by Pope Sixtus IV. to paint in the Sixtine chapel; he went thither in 1483. In the Sixtine he executed, probably before 1484, a fresco which has few rivals in that series, “Christ calling Peter and Andrew to their Apostleship,”—a work which, though somewhat deficient in colour, has greatness of method and much excellence of finish. The landscape background, in especial, is very superior to anything to be found in the works, which had no doubt been zealously studied by Ghirlandajo, of Masaccio and others in the Brancacci chapel. He also did some other works in Rome, now perished. Before 1485 he had likewise produced his frescoes in the chapel of S. Fina, in the Tuscan town of S. Gimignano, remarkable for grandeur and grace,—two pictures of Fina, dying and dead, with some accessory work. Sebastian Mainardi assisted him in these productions in Rome and in S. Gimignano; and Ghirlandajo was so well pleased with his co-operation that he gave him his sister in marriage.

He now returned to Florence, and undertook in the church of the Trinita, and afterwards in S. Maria Novella, the works which have set the seal on his celebrity. The frescoes in the Sassetti chapel of S. Trinita are six subjects from the life of St Francis, along with some classical accessories, dated 1485. Three of the principal incidents are “St Francis obtaining from Pope Honorius the approval of the Rules of his Order”; his “Death and Obsequies,” and the Resuscitation, by the interposition of the beatified saint, of a child of the Spini family, who had been killed by falling out of a window. In the first work is a portrait of Lorenzo de’ Medici; and in the third the painter’s own likeness, which he introduced also into one of the pictures in S. Maria Novella, and in the “Adoration of the Magi” in the hospital of the Innocenti. The altar-piece of the Sassetti chapel, the “Adoration of the Shepherds,” is now in the Florentine Academy. Immediately after disposing of this commission, Ghirlandajo was asked to renew the frescoes in the choir of S. Maria Novella. This choir formed the chapel of the Ricci family, but the Tornabuoni and Tornaquinci families, then much more opulent than the Ricci, undertook the cost of the restoration, under conditions, as to preserving the arms of the Ricci, which gave rise in the end to some amusing incidents of litigation. The frescoes, in the execution of which Domenico had many assistants, are in four courses along the three walls,—the leading subjects being the lives of the Madonna and of the Baptist. Besides their general richness and dignity of art, these works are particularly interesting as containing many historical portraits—a method of treatment in which Ghirlandajo was pre-eminently skilled.

There are no less than twenty-one portraits of the Tornabuoni and Tornaquinci families; in the subject of the “Angel appearing to Zacharias,” those of Politian, Marsilio Ficino and others; in the “Salutation of Anna and Elizabeth,” the beautiful Ginevra de’ Benci; in the “Expulsion of Joachim from the Temple,” Mainardi and Baldovinetti (or the latter figure may perhaps be Ghirlandajo’s father). The Ricci chapel was reopened and completed in 1490; the altar-piece, now removed from the chapel, was probably executed with the assistance of Domenico’s brothers, David and Benedetto, painters of ordinary calibre; the painted window was from Domenico’s own design. Other distinguished works from his hand are an altar-piece in tempera of the “Virgin adored by Sts Zenobius, Justus and others,” painted for the church of St Justus, but now in the Uffizi gallery, a remarkable masterpiece; “Christ in glory with Romuald andother Saints,” in the Badia of Volterra; the “Adoration of the Magi,” in the church of the Innocenti (already mentioned), perhaps his finest panel-picture (1488); and the “Visitation,” in the Louvre, bearing the latest ascertained date (1491) of all his works. Ghirlandajo did not often attempt the nude; one of his pictures of this character, “Vulcan and his Assistants forging Thunderbolts,” was painted for Lo Spedaletto, but (like several others specified by Vasari) it exists no longer. Two portraits by him are in the National Gallery, London. The mosaics which he produced date before 1491; one, of especial celebrity, is the “Annunciation,” on a portal of the cathedral of Florence.

In general artistic attainment Ghirlandajo may fairly be regarded as exceeding all his precursors or competitors; though the names of a few, particularly Giotto, Masaccio, Lippo Lippi and Botticelli, stand higher for originating power. His scheme of composition is grand and decorous; his chiaroscuro excellent, and especially his perspectives, which he would design on a very elaborate scale by the eye alone; his colour is more open to criticism, but this remark applies much less to the frescoes than the tempera-pictures, which are sometimes too broadly and crudely bright. He worked in these two methods alone—never in oils; and his frescoes are what the Italians term “buon fresco,” without any finishing in tempera. A certain hardness of outline, not unlike the character of bronze sculpture, may attest his early training in metal work. He first introduced into Florentine art that mixture of the sacred and the profane which had already been practised in Siena. His types in figures of Christ, the Virgin and angels are not of the highest order; and a defect of drawing, which has been often pointed out, is the meagreness of his hands and feet. It was one of his maxims that “painting is designing.” Ghirlandajo was an insatiate worker, and expressed a wish that he had the entire circuit of the walls of Florence to paint upon. He told his shop-assistants not to refuse any commission that might offer, were it even for a lady’s petticoat-panniers: if they would not execute such work, he would. Not that he was in any way grasping or sordid in money-matters, as is proved by the anecdote of the readiness with which he gave up a bonus upon the stipulated price of the Ricci chapel frescoes, offered by the wealthy Tornabuoni in the first instance, but afterwards begrudged. Vasari says that Ghirlandajo was the first to abandon in great part the use of gilding in his pictures, representing by genuine painting any objects supposed to be gilded; yet this does not hold good without some considerable exceptions—the high lights of the landscape, for instance, in the “Adoration of the Shepherds,” now in the Florence Academy, being put in in gold. Many drawings and sketches by this painter are in the Uffizi gallery, remarkable for vigour of outline. One of the great glories of Ghirlandajo is that he gave some early art-education to Michelangelo, who cannot, however, have remained with him long. F. Granacci was another of his pupils.

This renowned artist died of pestilential fever on the 11th of January 1494, and was buried in S. Maria Novella. He had been twice married, and left six children, three of them being sons. He had a long and honourable line of descendants, which came to a close in the 17th century, when the last members of the race entered monasteries. It is probable that Domenico died poor; he appears to have been gentle, honourable and conscientious, as well as energetically diligent.

The biography of Ghirlandajo is carefully worked out in Crowe and Cavalcaselle’s book. A recent German work on the subject is that of Ernst Steinmann (1897). See alsoCodex Escurialensis, ein Skizzenbuch aus der Werkstatt Domenico Ghirlandaios(texts and plates), by Chr. Hülsen, Adolf Michaelis and Hermann Egger in theSonderschriften des österr. archäol. Instituts in Wien(2 vols., 1906), and cf. T. Ashby inClassical Quarterly(April 1909).

(W. M. R.)

GHIRLANDAJO, RIDOLFO(1483-1560), son of Domenico Ghirlandajo, Florentine painter, was born on the 14th of February 1483, and, being less than eleven years old when his father died, was brought up by his uncle David. To this second-rate artist he owed less in the way of professional training than to Granacci, Piero di Cosimo and perhaps Cosimo Rosselli. It has been said that Ridolfo studied also under Fra Bartolommeo, but this is not clearly ascertained. He was certainly one of the earliest students of the famous cartoons of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. His works between the dates 1504 and 1508 show a marked influence from Fra Bartolommeo and Raphael, with the latter of whom he was on terms of familiar friendship; hence he progressed in selection of form and in the modelling and relief of his figures. Raphael, on reaching Rome in 1508, wished Ridolfo to join him; but the Florentine painter was of a particularly home-keeping humour, and he neglected the opportunity. He soon rose to the head of the Florentine oil-painters of his time; and, like his father, accepted all sorts of commissions, of whatever kind. He was prominent in the execution of vast scenic canvases for various public occasions, such as the wedding of Giuliano de’ Medici, and the entry of Leo X. into Florence in 1515. In his prime he was honest and conscientious as an artist; but from about 1527 he declined, having already accumulated a handsome property, more than sufficient for maintaining in affluence his large family of fifteen children, and his works became comparatively mannered and self-repeating. His sons traded in France and in Ferrara; he himself took a part in commercial affairs, and began paying some attention to mosaic work, but it seems that, after completing one mosaic, the “Annunciation” over the door of the Annunziata, patience failed him for continuing such minute labours. In his old age Ridolfo was greatly disabled by gout. He appears to have been of a kindly, easy-going character, much regarded by his friends and patrons.

The following are some of his leading works, the great majority of them being oil-pictures:—

“Christ and the Maries on the road to Calvary,” now in the Palazzo Antinori, Florence, an early example, with figures of half life-size. An “Annunciation” in the Abbey of Montoliveto near Florence, Leonardesque in style. In 1504, the “Coronation of the Virgin,” now in the Louvre. A “Nativity,” very carefully executed, now in the Hermitage, St Petersburg, and ascribed in the catalogue to Granacci. A “Predella,” in the oratory of the Bigallo, Florence, five panels, representing the Nativity and other subjects, charmingly finished. In 1514, on the ceiling of the chapel of St Bernard in the Palazzo Pubblico, Florence, a fresco of the “Trinity,” with heads of the twelve apostles and other accessories, and the “Annunciation”; also the “Assumption of the Virgin, who bestows her girdle on St Thomas,” in the choir loft of Prato cathedral. Towards the same date, a picture showing his highest skill, replete with expression, vigorous life, and firm accomplished pictorial method, now in the gallery of the Uffizi, “St Zenobius resuscitating a child”; also the translation of the remains of the same Saint. The “Virgin and various saints,” at S. Pier Maggiore, Pistoja. In 1521, the “Pietà,” at S. Agostino, Colle di Valdelsa, life-sized. Towards 1526, the “Assumption,” now in the Berlin Museum, containing the painter’s own portrait. An excellent portrait of “Cosimo de’ Medici” (the Great) in youth. In 1543, a series of frescoes in the monastery of the Angeli. In the National Gallery, London, is “The Procession to Calvary.” A great number of altar-pieces were executed by Ghirlandajo, with the assistance of his favourite pupil, currently named Michele di Ridolfo. Another of his pupils was Mariano da Pescia.

(W. M. R.)

GHOR,orGhur, an ancient kingdom of Afghanistan. The name of Ghor was in the middle ages, and indeed locally still is, applied to the highlands east of Herat, extending eastward to the upper Helmund valley, or nearly so. Ghor is the southern portion of that great peninsula of strong mountain country which forms the western part of modern Afghanistan. The northern portion of the peninsula was in the middle ages comprehended under the names ofGharjistān(on the west), andJuzjānā(on the east), whilst the basin of the Herat river, and all south of it, constituted Ghor. The name as now used does not include the valley of the Herat river; on the south the limit seems to be the declivity of the higher mountains dominating the descent to the lower Helmund, and the road from Farah to Kandahar. It is in Ghor that rise all those affluents of the closed basin of Seistan, the Hari-rud, the Farah-rud, the Khash-rud, besides other considerable streams joining the Helmund above Girishk.

Ghor is mentioned in the Shahnama of Firdousi (A.D.1010), and in the Arab geographers of that time, though these latter fail in details almost as much as we moderns, thus indicating how little accessible the country has been through all ages. Ibn Hauḳal’s map of Khorasan (c.976) showsJibāl-al-Ghūr, “thehill-country of Ghor,” as a circle ring-fenced with mountains. His brief description speaks of it as a land fruitful in crops, cattle and flocks, inhabited by infidels, except a few who passed for Mahommedans, and indicates that, like other pagan countries surrounded by Moslem populations, it was regarded as a store of slaves for the faithful. The boundary of Ghor in ascending the valley of the Hari-rud was six and a half easy marches from Herat, at Chist, two marches above Obeh.

The chief part of the present population of Ghor are Taimanis, belonging to the class of nomad or semi-nomad clans called Aimāk, intermingled with Zuris and Tajiks.

The people and princes of Ghor first become known to us in connexion with the Ghaznevid dynasty, and the early medieval histories of Ghor and Ghazni are so intertwined that little need be added on that subject to what will be found underGhazni(q.v.). What we read of Ghor shows it as a country of lofty mountains and fruitful valleys, and of numerous strongholds held by a variety of hill-chieftains ruling warlike clans whose habits were rife with feuds and turbulence,—indeed, in character strongly resembling the tribes of modern Afghanistan, though there seems no good reason to believe that they were of Afghan race. It is probable that they were of old Persian blood, like the older of those tribes which still occupy the country. It is possibly a corroboration of this that, in the 14th century, when one of the Ghori kings, of the Kurt dynasty reigning in Herat, had taken to himself some of the insignia of independent sovereignty, an incensed Mongol prince is said to have reviled him as “an insolentTajik.” Sabuktagin of Ghazni, and his famous son Mahmud, repeatedly invaded the mountain country which so nearly adjoined their capital, subduing its chiefs for the moment, and exacting tribute; but when the immediate pressure was withdrawn, the yoke was thrown off and the tribute withheld. In 1020 Masa‘ud, the son of Mahmud, being then governor of Khorasan, made a systematic invasion of Ghor from the side of Herat, laying siege to its strongholds one after the other, and subduing the country more effectually than ever before. About a century later one of the princely families of Ghor, deriving the appellation of Shansabi, or Shansabaniah, from a certain ancestor Shansab, of local fame, and of alleged descent from Zohak, acquired predominance in all the country, and at the time mentioned Malik ‘Izzuddin al Hosain of this family came to be recognized as lord of Ghor. He was known afterwards as “the Father of Kings,” from the further honour to which several of his seven sons rose. Three of these were—(1) Amir Kutbuddin Mahommed, called the lord of the Jibal or mountains; (2) Sultan Saifuddin Suri, for a brief period master of Ghazni,—both of whom were put to death by Bahram the Ghaznevid; and (3) Sultan Alauddin Jahansoz, who wreaked such terrible vengeance upon Ghazni. Alauddin began the conquests which were afterwards immensely extended both in India and in the west by his nephews Ghiyasuddin Mahommed b. Sam and Mahommed Ghori (Muizuddin b. Sam or Shahabuddin b. Sam), and for a brief period during their rule it was boasted, with no great exaggeration, that the public prayer was read in the name of the Ghori from the extremity of India to the borders of Babylonia, and from the Oxus to the Straits of Ormus. After the death of Mahommed Ghori, Mahmud the son of Ghiyasuddin was proclaimed sovereign (1200) throughout the territories of Ghor, Ghazni and Hindustan. But the Indian dominion, from his uncle’s death, became entirely independent, and his actual authority was confined to Ghor, Seistan and Herat. The whole kingdom fell to pieces before the power of Mahommed Shah of Khwarizm and his son Jelaluddin (c.1214-1215), a power in its turn to be speedily shattered by the Mongol flood.

Besides the thrones of Ghor and Ghazni, the Shansabaniah family, in the person of Fakhruddin, the eldest of the seven sons of Malik ‘Izzuddin, founded a kingdom in the Oxus basin, having its seat atBamian(q.v.), which endured for two or three generations, till extinguished by the power of Khwarizm (1214). And the great Mussulman empire of Delhi was based on the conquests of Muizuddin the Ghorian, carried out and consolidated by his Turki freedmen, Kutbuddin Aibak and his successors. The princes of Ghor experienced, about the middle of the 13th century, a revival of power, which endured for 140 years. This later dynasty bore the name of Kurt or Kărt. The first of historical prominence was Malik Shamsuddin Kurt, descended by his mother from the great king Ghiyasuddin Ghori, whilst his other grandfather was that prince’s favourite minister. In 1245 Shamsuddin held the lordship of Ghor in some kind of alliance with, or subordination to, the Mongols, who had not yet definitively established themselves in Persia; and in 1248 he received from the Great Khan Mangu an investiture of all the provinces from Merv to the Indus, including by name Sijistan (or Seistan), Kabul, Tirah (adjoining the Khyber pass), and Afghanistan (a very early occurrence of this name), which he ruled from Herat. He stood well with Hulagu, and for a long time with his son Abaka, but at last incurred the latter’s jealousy, and was poisoned when on a visit to the court at Tabriz (1276). His son Ruknuddin Kurt was, however, invested with the government of Khorasan (1278), but after some years, mistrusting his Tatar suzerains, he withdrew into Ghor, and abode in his strong fortress of Kaissar till his death there in 1305. The family held on through a succession of eight kings in all, sometimes submissive to the Mongol, sometimes aiming at independence, sometimes for a series of prosperous years adding to the strength and splendour of Herat, and sometimes sorely buffeted by the hosts of masterless Tatar brigands that tore Khorasan and Persia in the decline of the dynasties of Hulagu and Jagatai. It is possible that the Kurts might have established a lasting Tajik kingdom at Herat, but in the time of the last of the dynasty, Ghiyasuddin Pir-’Ali, Tatardom, reorganized and re-embodied in the person of Timur, came against Herat, and carried away the king and the treasures of his dynasty (1380). A revolt and massacre of his garrison provoked Timur’s vengeance; he put the captive king to death, came against the city a second time, and showed it no mercy (1383). Ghor has since been obscure in history.

The capital of the kingdom of Ghor, when its princes were rising to dominion in the 12th century, was Firoz Koh, where a city and fortress were founded by Saifuddin Suri. The exact position of Firoz Koh is difficult to determine, unless it be represented by the ruins of one or other of the ancient cities in the upper Murghab valley, the habitat of the Firoz Kohi section of the Chahar Aimāk, which were visited by the surveyors of the Russo-Afghan boundary delimitation of 1884-1885. Extensive ruins were also found at Taiwara on one of the main affluents of the Farah Rud, where walls and terraces still existing supported the local tradition that this place was the ancient capital of Ghor. The valleys of the Taimani tribes though narrow are fertile and well cultivated, and there are many walled villages and forts about Parjuman and Zarni in the south-eastern districts. The peak of “Chalap Dalan” (described by Ferrier as “one of the highest in the world”) is the Koh-i-Kaisar, which is a trifle over 13,000 ft. in height. All the country now known as Ghor was mapped during the progress of the Russo-Afghan boundary delimitation.

See the “Tabakát-i-Násiri,” in theBibl. Indica, transl. by Raverty;Journal asiatique, ser. v. tom. xvii.; “Ibn Haukal,” inJ. As. Soc. Beng.vol. xxii.; Ferrier’sCaravan Journeys; Hammer’sIlkhans, &c.

GHOST(a word common to the W. Teutonic languages; O.E.gæst, Dutch,geest, Ger.Geist), in the sense now prevailing, the spirit of a dead person considered as appearing in some visible or sensible form to the living (seeApparitions;Psychical Research, “Phantasms of the Dead”;Spiritualism). In the earlier and wider sense of spirit in general, or of the principle of life, the word is practically obsolete. The language of the Authorized Version of the Bible, however, has preserved the phrase “to give up the ghost,” still sometimes used of dying. The Spirit of God, too, the third person of the Trinity, is still called, not in the technical language of theology only, the Holy Ghost. The adjective “ghostly” is still occasionally used for “spiritual” (cf. the Ger.geistlich) as contrasted with “bodily,” especially in such combinations as “ghostly counsel,” “ghostly comfort.” We may even speak of a “ghostly adviser,” though not without a touch of affectation; on the other hand, the phrase“ghostly man” for a clergyman (cf. the Ger.Geistlicher) is an archaism the use of which could only be justified by poetic licence, as in Tennyson’sElaine(1842). The word “ghost,” from the shadowy and unsubstantial quality attributed to the apparitions of the dead, has come also to be commonly used to emphasize the want of force or substance generally, in such phrases as “not the ghost of a chance,” “not the ghost of an idea.” It is also applied to those literary and artistic “hacks” who are paid to do work for which others get the credit.

GHOST DANCE,an American-Indian ritual dance, sometimes called the Spirit Dance, the dancers wearing a white cloak. It is connected with the doctrine of a Messiah, which arose in Nevada among the Paiute Indians in 1888 and spread to other tribes. A young Paiute Indian medicine-man, known as Wovoka, and called Jack Wilson by the whites, proclaimed that he had had a revelation, and that, if this ghost dance and other ceremonies were duly performed, the Indians would be rid of the white men. The movement led to a sort of craze among the Indian tribes, and in 1890 it was one of the causes of the Sioux outbreak.

See J. Mooney,14th Report(1896)of Bureau of American Ethnology.

GIACOMETTI, PAOLO(1816-1882), Italian dramatist, born at Novi Ligure, was educated in law at Genoa, but at the age of twenty had some success with his playRosildaand then devoted himself to the stage. Depressed circumstances made him attach himself as author to various touring Italian companies, and his output was considerable; moreover, such actors as Ristori, Rossi and Salvini made many of these plays great successes. Among the best of them wereLa Donna(1850),La Donna in seconde nozze(1851),Giuditta(1857),Sofocle(1860),La Morte civile(1880). A collection of his works was published at Milan in eight volumes (1859 et seq.).

GIAMBELLI(orGianibelli),FEDERIGO,Italian military engineer, was born at Mantua about the middle of the 16th century. Having had some experience as a military engineer in Italy, he went to Spain to offer his services to Philip II. His proposals were, however, lukewarmly received, and as he could obtain from the king no immediate employment, he took up his residence at Antwerp, where he soon gained considerable reputation for his knowledge in various departments of science. He is said to have vowed to be revenged for his rebuff at the Spanish court; and when Antwerp was besieged by the duke of Parma in 1584, he put himself in communication with Queen Elizabeth, who, having satisfied herself of his abilities, engaged him to aid by his counsels in its defence. His plans for provisioning the town were rejected by the senate, but they agreed to a modification of his scheme for destroying the famous bridge which closed the entrance to the town from the side of the sea, by the conversion of two ships of 60 and 70 tons into infernal machines. One of these exploded, and, besides destroying more than 1000 soldiers, effected a breach in the structure of more than 200 ft. in width, by which, but for the hesitation of Admiral Jacobzoon, the town might at once have been relieved. After the surrender of Antwerp Giambelli went to England, where he was engaged for some time in fortifying the river Thames; and when the Spanish Armada was attacked by fireships in the Calais roads, the panic which ensued was very largely due to the conviction among the Spaniards that the fireships were infernal machines constructed by Giambelli. He is said to have died in London, but the year of his death is unknown.

See Motley’sHistory of the United Netherlands, vols. i. and ii.

GIANNONE, PIETRO(1676-1748), was born at Ischitella, in the province of Capitanata, on the 7th of May 1676. Arriving in Naples at the age of eighteen, he devoted himself to the study of law, but his legal pursuits were much surpassed in importance by his literary labours. He devoted twenty years to the composition of his great work, theStoria civile del regno di Napoli, which was ultimately published in 1723. Here in his account of the rise and progress of the Neapolitan laws and government, he warmly espoused the side of the civil power in its conflicts with the Roman Catholic hierarchy. His merit lies in the fact that he was the first to deal systematically with the question of Church and State, and the position thus taken up by him, and the manner in which that position was assumed, gave rise to a lifelong conflict between Giannone and the Church; and in spite of his retractation in prison at Turin, he deserves the palm—as he certainly endured the sufferings—of a confessor and martyr in the cause of what he deemed historical truth. Hooted by the mob of Naples, and excommunicated by the archbishop’s court, he was forced to leave Naples and repair to Vienna. Meanwhile the Inquisition had attested after its own fashion the value of his history by putting it on theIndex. At Vienna the favour of the emperor Charles VI. and of many leading personages at the Austrian court obtained for him a pension and other facilities for the prosecution of his historical studies. Of these the most important result wasIl Triregno, ossia del regno del cielo, della terra, e del papa. On the transfer of the Neapolitan crown to Charles of Bourbon, Giannone lost his Austrian pension and was compelled to remove to Venice. There he was at first most favourably received. The post of consulting lawyer to the republic, in which he might have continued the special work of Fra Paolo Sarpi, was offered to him, as well as that of professor of public law in Padua; but he declined both offers. Unhappily there arose a suspicion that his views on maritime law were not favourable to the pretensions of Venice, and this suspicion, notwithstanding all his efforts to dissipate it, together with clerical intrigues, led to his expulsion from the state. On the 23rd of September 1735 he was seized and conveyed to Ferrara. After wandering under an assumed name for three months through Modena, Milan and Turin, he at last reached Geneva, where he enjoyed the friendship of the most distinguished citizens, and was on excellent terms with the great publishing firms. But in an evil hour he was induced to visit a Catholic village within Sardinian territory in order to hear mass on Easter day, where he was kidnapped by the agents of the Sardinian government, conveyed to the castle of Miolans and thence successively transferred to Ceva and Turin. In the fortress of Turin he remained immured during the last twelve years of his life, although part of his time was spent in composing a defence of the Sardinian interests as opposed to those of the papal court, and he was led to sign a retractation of the statements in his history most obnoxious to the Vatican (1738). But after his recantation his detention was made less severe and he was allowed many alleviations. He died on the 7th of March 1748, in his seventy-second year.

Giannone’s style as an Italian writer has been pronounced to be below a severe classical model; he is often inaccurate as to the facts, for he did not always work from original authorities (see A. Manzoni,Storia della colonna infame), and he was sometimes guilty of unblushing plagiarism. But his very ease and freedom have helped to make his volumes more popular than many works of greater classical renown. In England the just appreciation of his labours by Gibbon, and the ample use made of them in the later volumes ofThe Decline and Fall, early secured him his rightful place in the estimation of English scholars.

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