Ginguené edited theDécade philosophique, politique et littérairetill it was suppressed by Napoleon in 1807. He contributed largely to theBiographie universelle, theMercure de Franceand theEncyclopédie méthodique; and he edited the works of Chamfort and of Lebrun. Among his minor productions are an opera,Pomponin ou le tuteur mystifié(1777);La Satire des satires(1778);De l’autorité de Rabelais dans la révolution présente(1791);De M. Neckar(1795);Fables nouvelles(1810);Fables inédites(1814). See “Éloge de Ginguené” by Dacier, in theMémoires de l’institut, tom. vii.; “Discours” by M. Daunou, prefixed to the 2nd ed. of theHist. litt. d’Italie; D. J. Garat,Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de P. L.Ginguené, prefixed to a catalogue of his library (Paris, 1817).
Ginguené edited theDécade philosophique, politique et littérairetill it was suppressed by Napoleon in 1807. He contributed largely to theBiographie universelle, theMercure de Franceand theEncyclopédie méthodique; and he edited the works of Chamfort and of Lebrun. Among his minor productions are an opera,Pomponin ou le tuteur mystifié(1777);La Satire des satires(1778);De l’autorité de Rabelais dans la révolution présente(1791);De M. Neckar(1795);Fables nouvelles(1810);Fables inédites(1814). See “Éloge de Ginguené” by Dacier, in theMémoires de l’institut, tom. vii.; “Discours” by M. Daunou, prefixed to the 2nd ed. of theHist. litt. d’Italie; D. J. Garat,Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de P. L.Ginguené, prefixed to a catalogue of his library (Paris, 1817).
GINKEL, GODART VAN(1630-1703); 1st earl of Athlone, Dutch general in the service of England, was born at Utrecht in 1630. He came of a noble family, and bore the title of Baron van Reede, being the eldest son of Godart Adrian van Reede, Baron Ginkel. In his youth he entered the Dutch army, and in 1688 he followed William, prince of Orange, in his expedition to England. In the following year he distinguished himself by a memorable exploit—the pursuit, defeat and capture of a Scottish regiment which had mutinied at Ipswich, and was marching northward across the fens. It was the alarm excited by this mutiny that facilitated the passing of the first Mutiny Act. In 1690 Ginkel accompanied William III. to Ireland, and commanded a body of Dutch cavalry at the battle of the Boyne. On the king’s return to England General Ginkel was entrusted with the conduct of the war. He took the field in the spring of 1691, and established his headquarters at Mullingar. Among those who held a command under him was the marquis of Ruvigny, the recognized chief of the Huguenot refugees. Early in June Ginkel took the fortress of Ballymore, capturing the whole garrison of 1000 men. The English lost only 8 men. After reconstructing the fortifications of Ballymore the army marched to Athlone, then one of the most important of the fortified towns of Ireland. The Irish defenders of the place were commanded by a distinguished French general, Saint-Ruth. The firing began on June 19th, and on the 30th the town was stormed, the Irish army retreating towards Galway, and taking up their position at Aughrim. Having strengthened the fortifications of Athlone and left a garrison there, Ginkel led the English, on July 12th, to Aughrim. An immediate attack was resolved on, and, after a severe and at one time doubtful contest, the crisis was precipitated by the fall of Saint-Ruth, and the disorganized Irish were defeated and fled. A horrible slaughter of the Irish followed the struggle, and 4000 corpses were left unburied on the field, besides a multitude of others that lay along the line of the retreat. Galway next capitulated, its garrison being permitted to retire to Limerick. There the viceroy Tyrconnel was in command of a large force, but his sudden death early in August left the command in the hands of General Sarsfield and the Frenchman D’Usson. The English came in sight of the town on the day of Tyrconnel’s death, and the bombardment was immediately begun. Ginkel, by a bold device, crossed the Shannon and captured the camp of the Irish cavalry. A few days later he stormed the fort on Thomond Bridge, and after difficult negotiations a capitulation was signed, the terms of which were divided into a civil and a military treaty. Thus was completed the conquest or pacification of Ireland, and the services of the Dutch general were amply recognized and rewarded. He received the formal thanks of the House of Commons, and wascreated by the king 1st earl of Athlone and baron of Aughrim. The immense forfeited estates of the earl of Limerick were given to him, but the grant was a few years later revoked by the English parliament. The earl continued to serve in the English army, and accompanied the king to the continent in 1693. He fought at the sieges of Namur and the battle of Neerwinden, and assisted in destroying the French magazine at Givet. In 1702, waiving his own claims to the position of commander-in-chief, he commanded the Dutch serving under the duke of Marlborough. He died at Utrecht on the 11th of February 1703, and was succeeded by his son the 2nd earl (1668-1719), a distinguished soldier in the reigns of William III. and Anne. On the death of the 9th earl without issue in 1844, the title became extinct.
GINSBURG, CHRISTIAN DAVID(1831- ), Hebrew scholar, was born at Warsaw on the 25th of December 1831. Coming to England shortly after the completion of his education in the Rabbinic College at Warsaw, Dr Ginsburg continued his study of the Hebrew Scriptures, with special attention to the Megilloth. The first result of these studies was a translation of the Song of Songs, with a commentary historical and critical, published in 1857. A similar translation of Ecclesiastes, followed by treatises on the Karaites, on the Essenes and on the Kabbala, kept the author prominently before biblical students while he was preparing the first sections of hismagnum opus, the critical study of the Massorah. Beginning in 1867 with the publication of Jacob ben Chajim’s Introduction to the Rabbinic Bible, Hebrew and English, with notices, and the Massoreth Ha-Massoreth of Elias Levita, in Hebrew, with translation and commentary, Dr Ginsburg took rank as an eminent Hebrew scholar. In 1870 he was appointed one of the first members of the committee for the revision of the English version of the Old Testament. His life-work culminated in the publication of the Massorah, in three volumes folio (1880-1886), followed by the Masoretico-critical edition of the Hebrew Bible (1894), and the elaborate introduction to it (1897). Dr Ginsburg had one predecessor in the field, the learned Jacob ben Chajim, who in 1524-1525 published the second Rabbinic Bible, containing what has ever since been known as the Massorah; but neither were the materials available nor was criticism sufficiently advanced for a complete edition. Dr Ginsburg took up the subject almost where it was left by those early pioneers, and collected portions of the Massorah from the countless MSS. scattered throughout Europe and the East. More recently Dr Ginsburg has publishedFacsimiles of Manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible(1897 and 1898), andThe Text of the Hebrew Bible in Abbreviations(1903), in addition to a critical treatise “on the relationship of the so-called Codex Babylonicus ofA.D.916 to the Eastern Recension of the Hebrew Text” (1899, for private circulation). In the last-mentioned work he seeks to prove that the St Petersburg Codex, for so many years accepted as the genuine text of the Babylonian school, is in reality a Palestinian text carefully altered so as to render it conformable to the Babylonian recension. He subsequently undertook the preparation of a new edition of the Hebrew Bible for the British and Foreign Bible Society. He also contributed many articles to J. Kitto’sEncyclopaedia, W. Smith’sDictionary of Christian Biographyand theEncyclopaedia Britannica.
GINSENG,the root of a species ofPanax(P. Ginseng), native of Manchuria and Korea, belonging to the natural order Araliaceae, used in China as a medicine. Other roots are substituted for it, notably that ofPanax quinquefolium, distinguished as American ginseng, and imported from the United States. At one time the ginseng obtained from Manchuria was considered to be the finest quality, and in consequence became so scarce that an imperial edict was issued prohibiting its collection. That prepared in Korea is now the most esteemed variety. The root of the wild plant is preferred to that of cultivated ginseng, and the older the plant the better is the quality of the root considered to be. Great care is taken in the preparation of the drug. The account given byKaempferof the preparation of nindsin, the root ofSium ninsi, in Korea, will give a good idea of the preparation of ginseng, ninsi being a similar drug of supposed weaker virtue, obtained from a different plant, and often confounded with ginseng. “In the beginning of winter nearly all the population of Sjansai turn out to collect the root, and make preparations for sleeping in the fields. The root, when collected, is macerated for three days in fresh water, or water in which rice has been boiled twice; it is then suspended in a closed vessel over the fire, and afterwards dried, until from the base to the middle it assumes a hard, resinous and translucent appearance, which is considered a proof of its good quality.”
Ginseng of good quality generally occurs in hard, rather brittle, translucent pieces, about the size of the little finger, and varying in length from 2 to 4 in. The taste is mucilaginous, sweetish and slightly bitter and aromatic. The root is frequently forked, and it is probably owing to this circumstance that medicinal properties were in the first place attributed to it, its resemblance to the body of a man being supposed to indicate that it could restore virile power to the aged and impotent. In price it varies from 6 or 12 dollars to the enormous sum of 300 or 400 dollars an ounce.
Lockhart gives a graphic description of a visit to a ginseng merchant. Opening the outer box, the merchant removed several paper parcels which appeared to fill the box, but under them was a second box, or perhaps two small boxes, which, when taken out, showed the bottom of the large box and all the intervening space filled with more paper parcels. These parcels, he said, “contained quicklime, for the purpose of absorbing any moisture and keeping the boxes quite dry, the lime being packed in paper for the sake of cleanliness. The smaller box, which held the ginseng, was lined with sheet-lead; the ginseng further enclosed in silk wrappers was kept in little silken-covered boxes. Taking up a piece, he would request his visitor not to breathe upon it, nor handle it; he would dilate upon the many merits of the drug and the cures it had effected. The cover of the root, according to its quality, was silk, either embroidered or plain, cotton cloth or paper.” In China the ginseng is often sent to friends as a valuable present; in such cases, “accompanying the medicine is usually given a small, beautifully-finished double kettle, in which the ginseng is prepared as follows. The inner kettle is made of silver, and between this and the outside vessel, which is a copper jacket, is a small space for holding water. The silver kettle, which fits on a ring near the top of the outer covering, has a cup-like cover in which rice is placed with a little water; the ginseng is put in the inner vessel with water, a cover is placed over the whole, and the apparatus is put on the fire. When the rice in the cover is sufficiently cooked, the medicine is ready, and is then eaten by the patient, who drinks the ginseng tea at the same time.” The dose of the root is from 60 to 90 grains. During the use of the drug tea-drinking is forbidden for at least a month, but no other change is made in the diet. It is taken in the morning before breakfast, from three to eight days together, and sometimes it is taken in the evening before going to bed.The action of the drug appears to be entirely psychic, and comparable to that of the mandrake of the Hebrews. There is no evidence that it possesses any pharmacological or therapeutic properties.See Porter Smith,Chinese Materia Medica, p. 103;Reports on Trade at the Treaty Ports of China(1868), p. 63; Lockhart,Med. Missionary in China(2nd ed.), p. 107;Bull. de la Société Impériale de Nat. de Moscou(1865), No. 1, pp. 70-76;Pharmaceutical Journal(2), vol. iii. pp. 197, 333, (2), vol. ix. p. 77; Lewis,Materia Medica, p. 324; Geoffroy,Tract. de matière médicale, t. ii. p. 112; Kaempfer,Amoenitates exoticae, p. 824.
Lockhart gives a graphic description of a visit to a ginseng merchant. Opening the outer box, the merchant removed several paper parcels which appeared to fill the box, but under them was a second box, or perhaps two small boxes, which, when taken out, showed the bottom of the large box and all the intervening space filled with more paper parcels. These parcels, he said, “contained quicklime, for the purpose of absorbing any moisture and keeping the boxes quite dry, the lime being packed in paper for the sake of cleanliness. The smaller box, which held the ginseng, was lined with sheet-lead; the ginseng further enclosed in silk wrappers was kept in little silken-covered boxes. Taking up a piece, he would request his visitor not to breathe upon it, nor handle it; he would dilate upon the many merits of the drug and the cures it had effected. The cover of the root, according to its quality, was silk, either embroidered or plain, cotton cloth or paper.” In China the ginseng is often sent to friends as a valuable present; in such cases, “accompanying the medicine is usually given a small, beautifully-finished double kettle, in which the ginseng is prepared as follows. The inner kettle is made of silver, and between this and the outside vessel, which is a copper jacket, is a small space for holding water. The silver kettle, which fits on a ring near the top of the outer covering, has a cup-like cover in which rice is placed with a little water; the ginseng is put in the inner vessel with water, a cover is placed over the whole, and the apparatus is put on the fire. When the rice in the cover is sufficiently cooked, the medicine is ready, and is then eaten by the patient, who drinks the ginseng tea at the same time.” The dose of the root is from 60 to 90 grains. During the use of the drug tea-drinking is forbidden for at least a month, but no other change is made in the diet. It is taken in the morning before breakfast, from three to eight days together, and sometimes it is taken in the evening before going to bed.
The action of the drug appears to be entirely psychic, and comparable to that of the mandrake of the Hebrews. There is no evidence that it possesses any pharmacological or therapeutic properties.
See Porter Smith,Chinese Materia Medica, p. 103;Reports on Trade at the Treaty Ports of China(1868), p. 63; Lockhart,Med. Missionary in China(2nd ed.), p. 107;Bull. de la Société Impériale de Nat. de Moscou(1865), No. 1, pp. 70-76;Pharmaceutical Journal(2), vol. iii. pp. 197, 333, (2), vol. ix. p. 77; Lewis,Materia Medica, p. 324; Geoffroy,Tract. de matière médicale, t. ii. p. 112; Kaempfer,Amoenitates exoticae, p. 824.
GIOBERTI, VINCENZO(1801-1852), Italian philosopher, publicist and politician, was born in Turin on the 5th of April 1801. He was educated by the fathers of the Oratory with a view to the priesthood and ordained in 1825. At first he led a very retired life; but gradually took more and more interest in the affairs of his country and the new political ideas as well as in the literature of the day. Partly under the influence of Mazzini, the freedom of Italy became his ruling motive in life,—its emancipation, not only from foreign masters, but from modes of thought alien to its genius, and detrimental to its European authority. This authority was in his mind connected with papal supremacy, though in a way quite novel—intellectual rather than political. This must be remembered in considering nearly all his writings, and also in estimating his position, both in relation to the ruling clerical party—the Jesuits—and also to the politics of the court of Piedmont after the accession of Charles Albert in 1831. He was now noticed by the king and made one of his chaplains. His popularity and private influence, however, were reasons enough for the court party to mark himfor exile; he was not one of them, and could not be depended on. Knowing this, he resigned his office in 1833, but was suddenly arrested on a charge of conspiracy, and, after an imprisonment of four months, was banished without a trial. Gioberti first went to Paris, and, a year later, to Brussels, where he remained till 1845, teaching philosophy, and assisting a friend in the work of a private school. He nevertheless found time to write many works of philosophical importance, with special reference to his country and its position. An amnesty having been declared by Charles Albert in 1846, Gioberti (who was again in Paris) was at liberty to return to Italy, but refused to do so till the end of 1847. On his entrance into Turin on the 29th of April 1848 he was received with the greatest enthusiasm. He refused the dignity of senator offered him by Charles Albert, preferring to represent his native town in the Chamber of Deputies, of which he was soon elected president. At the close of the same year, a new ministry was formed, headed by Gioberti; but with the accession of Victor Emmanuel in March 1849, his active life came to an end. For a short time indeed he held a seat in the cabinet, though without a portfolio; but an irreconcilable disagreement soon followed, and his removal from Turin was accomplished by his appointment on a mission to Paris, whence he never returned. There, refusing the pension which had been offered him and all ecclesiastical preferment, he lived frugally, and spent his days and nights as at Brussels in literary labour. He died suddenly, of apoplexy, on the 26th of October 1852.
Gioberti’s writings are more important than his political career. In the general history of European philosophy they stand apart. As the speculations of Rosmini-Serbati, against which he wrote, have been called the last link added to medieval thought, so the system of Gioberti, known as “Ontologism,” more especially in his greater and earlier works, is unrelated to other modern schools of thought. It shows a harmony with the Roman Catholic faith which caused Cousin to declare that “Italian philosophy was still in the bonds of theology,” and that Gioberti was no philosopher. Method is with him a synthetic, subjective and psychological instrument. He reconstructs, as he declares, ontology, and begins with the “ideal formula,” “theEnscreatesex nihilothe existent.” God is the only being (Ens); all other things are merely existences. God is the origin of all human knowledge (calledl’idea, thought), which is one and so to say identical with God himself. It is directly beheld (intuited) by reason, but in order to be of use it has to be reflected on, and this by means of language. A knowledge of being and existences (concrete, not abstract) and their mutual relations, is necessary as the beginning of philosophy. Gioberti is in some respects a Platonist. He identifies religion with civilization, and in his treatiseDel primato morale e civile degli Italianiarrives at the conclusion that the church is the axis on which the well-being of human life revolves. In it he affirms the idea of the supremacy of Italy, brought about by the restoration of the papacy as a moral dominion, founded on religion and public opinion. In his later works, theRinnovamentoand theProtologia, he is thought by some to have shifted his ground under the influence of events. His first work, written when he was thirty-seven, had a personal reason for its existence. A young fellow-exile and friend, Paolo Pallia, having many doubts and misgivings as to the reality of revelation and a future life, Gioberti at once set to work withLa Teorica del sovrannaturale, which was his first publication (1838). After this, philosophical treatises followed in rapid succession. TheTeoricawas followed byIntroduzione allo studio della filosofiain three volumes (1839-1840). In this work he states his reasons for requiring a new method and new terminology. Here he brings out the doctrine that religion is the direct expression of theideain this life, and is one with true civilization in history. Civilization is a conditioned mediate tendency to perfection, to which religion is the final completion if carried out; it is the end of the second cycle expressed by the second formula, the Ens redeems existences. Essays (not published till 1846) on the lighter and more popular subjects,Del belloandDel buono, followed theIntroduzione.Del primato morale e civile degli Italianiand theProlegomenito the same, and soon afterwards his triumphant exposure of the Jesuits, Il Gesuita moderno, no doubt hastened the transfer of rule from clerical to civil hands. It was the popularity of these semi-political works, increased by other occasional political articles, and hisRinnovamento civile d’Italia, that caused Gioberti to be welcomed with such enthusiasm on his return to his native country. All these works were perfectly orthodox, and aided in drawing the liberal clergy into the movement which has resulted since his time in the unification of Italy. The Jesuits, however, closed round the pope more firmly after his return to Rome, and in the end Gioberti’s writings were placed on theIndex(see J. Kleutgen,Über die Verurtheilung des Ontologismus durch den heiligen Stuhl, 1867). The remainder of his works, especiallyLa Filosofia della Rivelazioneand theProtologia, give his mature views on many points. The entire writings of Gioberti, including those left in manuscript, have been edited by Giuseppe Massari (Turin, 1856-1861).See Massari,Vita de V. Gioberti(Florence, 1848); A. Rosmini-Serbati,V. Gioberti e il panteismo(Milan, 1848); C. B. Smyth,Christian Metaphysics(1851); B. Spaventa,La Filosofia di Gioberti(Naples, 1854); A. Mauri,Della vita e delle opere di V. Gioberti(Genoa, 1853); G. Prisco,Gioberti e l’ ontologismo(Naples, 1867); P. Luciani,Gioberti e la filosofia nuova italiana(Naples, 1866-1872); D. Berti,Di V. Gioberti(Florence, 1881); see also L. Ferri,L’Histoire de la philosophie en Italie au XIXesiècle(Paris, 1869); C. Werner,Die italienische Philosophie des 19. Jahrhunderts, ii. (1885); appendix to Ueberweg’sHist. of Philosophy(Eng. tr.); art. inBrownson’s Quarterly Review(Boston, Mass.), xxi.; R. Mariano,La Philosophie contemporaine en Italie(1866); R. Seydel’s exhaustive article in Ersch and Gruber’sAllgemeine Encyclopädie. The centenary of Gioberti called forth several monographs in Italy.
Gioberti’s writings are more important than his political career. In the general history of European philosophy they stand apart. As the speculations of Rosmini-Serbati, against which he wrote, have been called the last link added to medieval thought, so the system of Gioberti, known as “Ontologism,” more especially in his greater and earlier works, is unrelated to other modern schools of thought. It shows a harmony with the Roman Catholic faith which caused Cousin to declare that “Italian philosophy was still in the bonds of theology,” and that Gioberti was no philosopher. Method is with him a synthetic, subjective and psychological instrument. He reconstructs, as he declares, ontology, and begins with the “ideal formula,” “theEnscreatesex nihilothe existent.” God is the only being (Ens); all other things are merely existences. God is the origin of all human knowledge (calledl’idea, thought), which is one and so to say identical with God himself. It is directly beheld (intuited) by reason, but in order to be of use it has to be reflected on, and this by means of language. A knowledge of being and existences (concrete, not abstract) and their mutual relations, is necessary as the beginning of philosophy. Gioberti is in some respects a Platonist. He identifies religion with civilization, and in his treatiseDel primato morale e civile degli Italianiarrives at the conclusion that the church is the axis on which the well-being of human life revolves. In it he affirms the idea of the supremacy of Italy, brought about by the restoration of the papacy as a moral dominion, founded on religion and public opinion. In his later works, theRinnovamentoand theProtologia, he is thought by some to have shifted his ground under the influence of events. His first work, written when he was thirty-seven, had a personal reason for its existence. A young fellow-exile and friend, Paolo Pallia, having many doubts and misgivings as to the reality of revelation and a future life, Gioberti at once set to work withLa Teorica del sovrannaturale, which was his first publication (1838). After this, philosophical treatises followed in rapid succession. TheTeoricawas followed byIntroduzione allo studio della filosofiain three volumes (1839-1840). In this work he states his reasons for requiring a new method and new terminology. Here he brings out the doctrine that religion is the direct expression of theideain this life, and is one with true civilization in history. Civilization is a conditioned mediate tendency to perfection, to which religion is the final completion if carried out; it is the end of the second cycle expressed by the second formula, the Ens redeems existences. Essays (not published till 1846) on the lighter and more popular subjects,Del belloandDel buono, followed theIntroduzione.Del primato morale e civile degli Italianiand theProlegomenito the same, and soon afterwards his triumphant exposure of the Jesuits, Il Gesuita moderno, no doubt hastened the transfer of rule from clerical to civil hands. It was the popularity of these semi-political works, increased by other occasional political articles, and hisRinnovamento civile d’Italia, that caused Gioberti to be welcomed with such enthusiasm on his return to his native country. All these works were perfectly orthodox, and aided in drawing the liberal clergy into the movement which has resulted since his time in the unification of Italy. The Jesuits, however, closed round the pope more firmly after his return to Rome, and in the end Gioberti’s writings were placed on theIndex(see J. Kleutgen,Über die Verurtheilung des Ontologismus durch den heiligen Stuhl, 1867). The remainder of his works, especiallyLa Filosofia della Rivelazioneand theProtologia, give his mature views on many points. The entire writings of Gioberti, including those left in manuscript, have been edited by Giuseppe Massari (Turin, 1856-1861).
See Massari,Vita de V. Gioberti(Florence, 1848); A. Rosmini-Serbati,V. Gioberti e il panteismo(Milan, 1848); C. B. Smyth,Christian Metaphysics(1851); B. Spaventa,La Filosofia di Gioberti(Naples, 1854); A. Mauri,Della vita e delle opere di V. Gioberti(Genoa, 1853); G. Prisco,Gioberti e l’ ontologismo(Naples, 1867); P. Luciani,Gioberti e la filosofia nuova italiana(Naples, 1866-1872); D. Berti,Di V. Gioberti(Florence, 1881); see also L. Ferri,L’Histoire de la philosophie en Italie au XIXesiècle(Paris, 1869); C. Werner,Die italienische Philosophie des 19. Jahrhunderts, ii. (1885); appendix to Ueberweg’sHist. of Philosophy(Eng. tr.); art. inBrownson’s Quarterly Review(Boston, Mass.), xxi.; R. Mariano,La Philosophie contemporaine en Italie(1866); R. Seydel’s exhaustive article in Ersch and Gruber’sAllgemeine Encyclopädie. The centenary of Gioberti called forth several monographs in Italy.
GIOIOSA-IONICA,a town of Calabria, Italy, in the province of Reggio Calabria, from which it is 65 m. N.E. by rail, and 38 m. direct, 492 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) town, 9072; commune, 11,200. Near the station, which is on the E. coast of Calabria 3 m. below the town to the S.E., the remains of a theatre belonging to the Roman period were discovered in 1883; the orchestra was 46 ft. in diameter (Notizie degli scavi, 1883, p. 423). The ruins of an ancient building called the Naviglio, the nature of which does not seem clear, are described (ib.1884, p. 252).
GIOJA, MELCHIORRE(1767-1829), Italian writer on philosophy and political economy, was born at Piacenza, on the 20th of September 1767. Originally intended for the church, he took orders, but renounced them in 1796 and went to Milan, where he devoted himself to the study of political economy. Having obtained the prize for an essay on “the kind of free government best adapted to Italy” he decided upon the career of a publicist. The arrival of Napoleon in Italy drew him into public life. He advocated a republic under the dominion of the French in a pamphletI Tedeschi, i Francesi, ed i Russi in Lombardia, and under the Cisalpine Republic he was named historiographer and director of statistics. He was several times imprisoned, once for eight months in 1820 on a charge of being implicated in a conspiracy with the Carbonari. After the fall of Napoleon he retired into private life, and does not appear to have held office again. He died on the 2nd of January 1829. Gioja’s fundamental idea is the value of statistics or the collection of facts. Philosophy itself is with him classification and consideration of ideas. Logic he regarded as a practical art, and hisEsercizioni logicihas the further title,Art of deriving benefit from ill-constructed books. In ethics Gioja follows Bentham generally, and his large treatiseDel merito e delle recompense(1818) is a clear and systematic view of social ethics from the utilitarian principle. In political economy this avidity for facts produced better fruits. TheNuovo Prospetto delle scienze economiche(1815-1817), although long to excess, and overburdened with classifications and tables, contains much valuable material. The author prefers large properties and large commercial undertakings to small ones, and strongly favours association as a means of production. He defends a restrictive policy and insists on the necessity of the action of the state as a regulating power in the industrial world. He was an opponent of ecclesiastical domination. He must be credited with the finest and most original treatment of division of labour since theWealth of Nations. Much of what Babbage taught later on the subject of combined work is anticipated by Gioja. His theory of production is also deserving of attention from the fact that it takes into account and gives due prominence to immaterial goods. Throughout the work there is continuous opposition to Adam Smith. Gioja’s latest workFilosofia della statistica(2 vols., 1826; 4 vols., 1829-1830) contains in brief compass the essence of his ideas on human life, and affords the clearest insight into his aim and method in philosophy both theoretical and practical.
See monographs by G. D. Romagnosi (1829), F. Falco (1866); G. Pecchio,Storia dell’ economia pubblica in Italia(1829), and article in Ersch and Gruber’sAllgemeine Encyclopädie; for Gioja’s philosophy, L. Ferri,Essai sur l’histoire de la philosophie en Italie au XIXesiècle(1869); Ueberweg’sHist. of Philosophy(Eng. tr., appendix ii.); A. Rosmini-Serbati,Opuscoli filosofici, iii. (1844) (containing an attack on Gioja’s “sensualism”); for his politicaleconomy, list of works in J. Conrad’sHandwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften(1892); L. Cossa,Introd. to Pol. Econ.(Eng. trans., p. 488). Gioja’s complete works were published at Lugano (1832-1849). He was one of the founders of theAnnali universali di statistica.
See monographs by G. D. Romagnosi (1829), F. Falco (1866); G. Pecchio,Storia dell’ economia pubblica in Italia(1829), and article in Ersch and Gruber’sAllgemeine Encyclopädie; for Gioja’s philosophy, L. Ferri,Essai sur l’histoire de la philosophie en Italie au XIXesiècle(1869); Ueberweg’sHist. of Philosophy(Eng. tr., appendix ii.); A. Rosmini-Serbati,Opuscoli filosofici, iii. (1844) (containing an attack on Gioja’s “sensualism”); for his politicaleconomy, list of works in J. Conrad’sHandwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften(1892); L. Cossa,Introd. to Pol. Econ.(Eng. trans., p. 488). Gioja’s complete works were published at Lugano (1832-1849). He was one of the founders of theAnnali universali di statistica.
GIOLITTI, GIOVANNI(1842- ), Italian statesman, was born at Mondovì on the 27th of October 1842. After a rapid career in the financial administration he was, in 1882, appointed councillor of state and elected to parliament. As deputy he chiefly acquired prominence by attacks on Magliani, treasury minister in the Depretis cabinet, and on the 9th of March 1889 was himself selected as treasury minister by Crispi. On the fall of the Rudinì cabinet in May 1892, Giolitti, with the help of a court clique, succeeded to the premiership. His term of office was marked by misfortune and misgovernment. The building crisis and the commercial rupture with France had impaired the situation of the state banks, of which one, the Banca Romana, had been further undermined by maladministration. A bank law, passed by Giolitti failed to effect an improvement. Moreover, he irritated public opinion by raising to senatorial rank the director-general of the Banca Romana, Signor Tanlongo, whose irregular practices had become a byword. The senate declined to admit Tanlongo, whom Giolitti, in consequence of an interpellation in parliament upon the condition of the Banca Romana, was obliged to arrest and prosecute. During the prosecution Giolitti abused his position as premier to abstract documents bearing on the case. Simultaneously a parliamentary commission of inquiry investigated the condition of the state banks. Its report, though acquitting Giolitti of personal dishonesty, proved disastrous to his political position, and obliged him to resign. His fall left the finances of the state disorganized, the pensions fund depleted, diplomatic relations with France strained in consequence of the massacre of Italian workmen at Aigues-Mortes, and Sicily and the Lunigiana in a state of revolt, which he had proved impotent to suppress. After his resignation he was impeached for abuse of power as minister, but the supreme court quashed the impeachment by denying the competence of the ordinary tribunals to judge ministerial acts. For several years he was compelled to play a passive part, having lost all credit. But by keeping in the background and giving public opinion time to forget his past, as well as by parliamentary intrigue, he gradually regained much of his former influence. He made capital of the Socialist agitation and of the repression to which other statesmen resorted, and gave the agitators to understand that were he premier they would be allowed a free hand. Thus he gained their favour, and on the fall of the Pelloux cabinet he became minister of the Interior in Zanardelli’s administration, of which he was the real head. His policy of never interfering in strikes and leaving even violent demonstrations undisturbed at first proved successful, but indiscipline and disorder grew to such a pitch that Zanardelli, already in bad health, resigned, and Giolitti succeeded him as prime minister (November 1903). But during his tenure of office he, too, had to resort to strong measures in repressing some serious disorders in various parts of Italy, and thus he lost the favour of the Socialists. In March 1905, feeling himself no longer secure, he resigned, indicating Fortis as his successor. When Sonnino became premier in February 1906, Giolitti did not openly oppose him, but his followers did, and Sonnino was defeated in May, Giolitti becoming prime minister once more.
GIORDANO, LUCA(1632-1705), Italian painter, was born in Naples, son of a very indifferent painter, Antonio, who imparted to him the first rudiments of drawing. Nature predestined him for the art, and at the age of eight he painted a cherub into one of his father’s pictures, a feat which was at once noised abroad, and induced the viceroy of Naples to recommend the child to Ribera. His father afterwards took him to Rome, to study under Pietro da Cortona. He acquired the nickname of Luca Fa-presto (Luke Work-fast). One might suppose this nickname to be derived merely from the almost miraculous celerity with which from an early age and throughout his life he handled the brush; but it is said to have had a more express origin. The father, we are told, poverty-stricken and greedy of gain, was perpetually urging his boy to exertion with the phrase, “Luca, fà presto.” The youth obeyed his parent to the letter, and would actually not so much as pause to snatch a hasty meal, but received into his mouth, while he still worked on, the food which his father’s hand supplied. He copied nearly twenty times the “Battle of Constantine” by Julio Romano, and with proportionate frequency several of the great works of Raphael and Michelangelo. His rapidity, which belonged as much to invention as to mere handiwork, and his versatility, which enabled him to imitate other painters deceptively, earned for him two other epithets, “The Thunderbolt” (Fulmine), and “The Proteus,” of Painting. He shortly visited all the main seats of the Italian school of art, and formed for himself a style combining in a certain measure the ornamental pomp of Paul Veronese and the contrasting compositions and large schemes of chiaroscuro of Pietro da Cortona. He was noted also for lively and showy colour. Returning to Naples, and accepting every sort of commission by which money was to be made, he practised his art with so much applause that Charles II. of Spain towards 1687 invited him over to Madrid, where he remained thirteen years. Giordano was very popular at the Spanish court, being a sprightly talker along with his other marvellously facile gifts, and the king created him a cavaliere. One anecdote of his rapidity of work is that the queen of Spain having one day made some inquiry about his wife, he at once showed Her Majesty what the lady was like by painting her portrait into the picture on which he was engaged. Soon after the death of Charles in 1700 Giordano, gorged with wealth, returned to Naples. He spent large sums in acts of munificence, and was particularly liberal to his poorer brethren of the art. He again visited various parts of Italy, and died in Naples on the 12th of January 1705, his last words being “O Napoli, sospiro mio” (O Naples, my heart’s love!). One of his maxims was that the good painter is the one whom the public like, and that the public are attracted more by colour than by design.
Giordano had an astonishing readiness and facility, in spite of the general commonness and superficiality of his performances. He left many works in Rome, and far more in Naples. Of the latter one of the most renowned is “Christ expelling the Traders from the Temple,” in the church of the Padri Girolamini, a colossal work, full of expressive lazzaroni; also the frescoes of S. Martino, and those in the Tesoro della Certosa, including the subject of “Moses and the Brazen Serpent”; and the cupola-paintings in the Church of S. Brigida, which contains the artist’s own tomb. In Spain he executed a surprising number of works,—continuing in the Escorial the series commenced by Cambiasi, and painting frescoes of the “Triumphs of the Church,” the “Genealogy and Life of the Madonna,” the stories of Moses, Gideon, David and Solomon, and the “Celebrated Women of Scripture,” all works of large dimensions. His pupils, Aniello Rossi and Matteo Pacelli, assisted him in Spain. In Madrid he worked more in oil-colour, a Nativity there being one of his best productions. Other superior examples are the “Judgment of Paris” in the Berlin Museum, and “Christ with the Doctors in the Temple,” in the Corsini Gallery of Rome. In Florence, in his closing days, he painted the Cappella Corsini, the Galleria Riccardi and other works. In youth he etched with considerable skill some of his own paintings, such as the “Slaughter of the Priests of Baal.” He also painted much on the crystal borderings of looking-glasses, cabinets, &c., seen in many Italian palaces, and was, in this form of art, the master of Pietro Garofolo. His best pupil, in painting of the ordinary kind, was Paolo de Matteis.
Bellori, in hisVite de’ pittori moderni, is a leading authority regarding Luca Giordano. P. Benvenuto (1882) has written a work on the Riccardi paintings.
Bellori, in hisVite de’ pittori moderni, is a leading authority regarding Luca Giordano. P. Benvenuto (1882) has written a work on the Riccardi paintings.
GIORGIONE(1477-1510), Italian painter, was born at Castelfranco in 1477. In contemporary documents he is always called (according to the Venetian manner of pronunciation and spelling) Zorzi, Zorzo or Zorzon of Castelfranco. A tradition, having its origin in the 17th century, represented him as the natural son of some member of the great local family of the Barbarelli, by a peasant girl of the neighbouring village of Vedelago; consequently he is commonly referred to in histories andcatalogues under the name of Giorgio Barbarelli or Barbarella. This tradition has, however, on close examination been proved baseless. On the other hand mention has been found in a contemporary document of an earlier Zorzon, a native of Vedelago, living in Castelfranco in 1460. Vasari, who wrote before the Barbarella legend had sprung up, says that Giorgione was of very humble origin. It seems probable that he was simply the son or grandson of the afore-mentioned Zorzon the elder; that the after-claim of the Barbarelli to kindred with him was a mere piece of family vanity, very likely suggested by the analogous case of Leonardo da Vinci; and that, this claim once put abroad, the peasant-mother of Vedelago was invented on the ground of some dim knowledge that his real progenitors came from that village.
Of the facts of his life we are almost as meagrely informed as of the circumstances of his birth. The little city, or large fortified village, for it is scarcely more, of Castelfranco in the Trevisan stands in the midst of a rich and broken plain at some distance from the last spurs of the Venetian Alps. From the natural surroundings of Giorgione’s childhood was no doubt derived his ideal of pastoral scenery, the country of pleasant copses, glades, brooks and hills amid which his personages love to wander or recline with lute and pipe. How early in boyhood he went to Venice we do not know, but internal evidence supports the statement of Ridolfi that he served his apprenticeship there under Giovanni Bellini; and there he made his fame and had his home. That his gifts were early recognized we know from the facts, recorded in contemporary documents, that in 1500, when he was only twenty-three (that is if Vasari gives rightly the age at which he died), he was chosen to paint portraits of the Doge Agostino Barberigo and the condottiere Consalvo Ferrante; that in 1504 he was commissioned to paint an altarpiece in memory of Matteo Costanzo in the cathedral of his native town, Castelfranco; that in 1507 he received at the order of the Council of Ten part payment for a picture (subject not mentioned) on which he was engaged for the Hall of the Audience in the ducal palace; and that in 1507-1508 he was employed, with other artists of his own generation, to decorate with frescoes the exterior of the newly rebuilt Fondaco dei Tedeschi or German merchants’ hall at Venice, having already done similar work on the exterior of the Casa Soranzo, the Casa Grimani alii Servi and other Venetian palaces. Vasari gives also as an important event in Giorgione’s life, and one which had influence on his work, his meeting with Leonardo da Vinci on the occasion of the Tuscan master’s visit to Venice in 1500. In September or October 1510 he died of the plague then raging in the city, and within a few days of his death we find the great art-patroness and amateur, Isabella d’Este, writing from Mantua and trying in vain to secure for her collection a night-piece by his hand of which the fame had reached her.
All accounts agree in representing Giorgione as a personage of distinguished and romantic charm, a great lover, a great musician, made to enjoy in life and to express in art to the uttermost the delight, the splendour, the sensuous and imaginative grace and fulness, not untinged with poetic melancholy, of the Venetian existence of his time. They represent him further as having made in Venetian painting an advance analogous to that made in Tuscan painting by Leonardo more than twenty years before; that is as having released the art from the last shackles of archaic rigidity and placed it in possession of full freedom and the full mastery of its means. He also introduced a new range of subjects. Besides altarpieces and portraits he painted pictures that told no story, whether biblical or classical, or if they professed to tell such, neglected the action and simply embodied in form and colour moods of lyrical or romantic feeling, much as a musician might embody them in sounds. Innovating with the courage and felicity of genius, he had for a time an overwhelming influence on his contemporaries and immediate successors in the Venetian school, including Titian, Sebastian del Piombo, the elder Palma, Cariani and the two Campagnolas, and not a little even on seniors of long-standing fame such as Giovanni Bellini. His name and work have exercised, and continue to exercise, no less a spell on posterity. But to identify and define, among the relics of his age and school, precisely what that work is, and to distinguish it from the kindred work of other men whom his influence inspired, is a very difficult matter. There are inclusive critics who still claim for Giorgione nearly every painting of the time that at all resembles his manner, and there are exclusive critics who pare down to some ten or a dozen the list of extant pictures which they will admit to be actually his.
To name first those which are either certain or command the most general acceptance, placing them in something like an approximate and probable order of date. In the Uffizi at Florence are two companion pieces of the “Trial of Moses” and the “Judgment of Solomon,” the latter the finer and better preserved of the two, which pass, no doubt justly, as typical works of Giorgione’s youth, and exhibit, though not yet ripely, his special qualities of colour-richness and landscape romance, the peculiar facial types of his predilection, with the pure form of forehead, fine oval of cheek, and somewhat close-set eyes and eyebrows, and the intensity of that still and brooding sentiment with which, rather than with dramatic life and movement, he instinctively invests his figures. Probably the earliest of the portraits by common consent called his is the beautiful one of a young man at Berlin. His earliest devotional picture would seem to be the highly finished “Christ bearing his Cross” (the head and shoulders only, with a peculiarly serene and high-bred cast of features) formerly at Vicenza and now in the collection of Mrs Gardner at Boston. Other versions of this picture exist, and it has been claimed that one in private possession at Vienna is the true original: erroneously in the judgment of the present writer. Another “Christ bearing the Cross,” with a Jew dragging at the rope round his neck, in the church of San Rocco at Venice, is a ruined but genuine work, quoted by Vasari and Ridolfi, and copied with the name of Giorgione appended, by Van Dyck in that master’s Chatsworth sketch-book. (Vasari gives it to Giorgione in his first and to Titian in his second edition.) The composition of a lost early picture of the birth of Paris is preserved in an engraving of the “Teniers Gallery” series, and an old copy of part of the same picture is at Budapest. In the Giovanelli Palace at Venice is that fascinating and enigmatical mythology or allegory, known to the Anonimo Morelliano, who saw it in 1530 in the house of Gabriel Vendramin, simply as “the small landscape with the storm, the gipsy woman and the soldier”; the picture is conjecturally interpreted by modern authorities as illustrating a passage in Statius which describes the meeting of Adrastus with Hypsipyle when she was serving as nurse with the king of Nemea. Still belonging to the earlier part of the painter’s brief career is a beautiful, virginally pensive Judith at St Petersburg, which passed under various alien names, as Raphael, Moretto, &c., until its kindred with the unquestioned work of Giorgione was in late years firmly established. The great Castelfranco altarpiece, still, in spite of many restorations, one of the most classically pure and radiantly impressive works of Renaissance painting, may be taken as closing the earlier phase of the young master’s work (1504). It shows the Virgin loftily enthroned on a plain, sparely draped stone structure with St Francis and a warrior saint (St Liberale) standing in attitudes of great simplicity on either side of the foot of the throne, a high parapet behind them, and a beautiful landscape of the master’s usual type seen above it. Nearly akin to this masterpiece, not in shape or composition but by the type of the Virgin and the very Bellinesque St Francis, is the altarpiece of the Madonna with St Francis and St Roch at Madrid. Of the master’s fully ripened time is the fine and again enigmatical picture formerly in the house of Taddeo Contarini at Venice, described by contemporary witnesses as the “Three Philosophers,” and now, on slender enough grounds, supposed to represent Evander showing Aeneas the site of Troy as narrated in the eighth Aeneid. The portrait of a knight of Malta in the Uffizi at Florence has more power and authority, if less sentiment, than the earlier example at Berlin, and may be taken to be of themaster’s middle time. Most entirely central and typical of all Giorgione’s extant works is the Sleeping Venus at Dresden, first recognized by Morelli, and now universally accepted, as being the same as the picture seen by the Anonimo and later by Ridolfi in the Casa Marcello at Venice. An exquisitely pure and severe rhythm of line and contour chastens the sensuous richness of the presentment: the sweep of white drapery on which the goddess lies, and of glowing landscape that fills the space behind her, most harmoniously frame her divinity. It is recorded that the master left this piece unfinished and that the landscape, with a Cupid which subsequent restoration has removed, were completed after his death by Titian. The picture is the prototype of Titian’s own Venus at the Uffizi and of many more by other painters of the school; but none of them attained the quality of the first exemplar. Of such small scenes of mixed classical mythology and landscape as early writers attribute in considerable number to Giorgione, there have survived at least two which bear strong evidences of his handiwork, though the action is in both of unwonted liveliness, namely the Apollo and Daphne of the Seminario at Venice and the Orpheus and Eurydice of Bergamo. The portrait of Antonio Grocardo at Budapest represents his fullest and most penetrating power in that branch of art. In his last years the purity and relative slenderness of form which mark his earlier female nudes, including the Dresden Venus, gave way to ideals of ampler mould, more nearly approaching those of Titian and his successors in Venetian art; as is proved by those last remaining fragments of the frescoes on the Grand Canal front of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi which were seen and engraved by Zanetti in 1760, but have now totally disappeared. Such change of ideal is apparent enough in the famous “Concert” or “Pastoral Symphony” of the Louvre, probably the latest, and certainly one of the most characteristic and harmoniously splendid, of Giorgione’s creations that has come down to us, and has caused some critics too hastily to doubt its authenticity.
We pass now to pictures for which some affirm and others deny the right to bear Giorgione’s name. As youthful in style as the two early pictures in the Uffizi, and closely allied to them in feeling, though less so in colour, is an unexplained subject in the National Gallery, sometimes called for want of a better title the “Golden Age”; this is officially and by many critics given only to the “school of” Giorgione, but may not unreasonably be claimed for his own work (No. 1173). There is also in England a group of three paintings which are certainly by one hand, and that a hand very closely related to Giorgione if not actually his own, namely the small oblong “Adoration of the Magi” in the National Gallery (No. 1160), the “Adoration of the Shepherds” belonging to Lord Allendale (with its somewhat inferior but still attractive replica at Vienna), and the small “Holy Family” in the collection of Mr R. H. Benson. The type of the Madonna in all these three pieces is different from that customary with the master, but there seems no reason why he should not at some particular moment have changed his model. The sentiment and gestures of the figures, the cast of draperies, the technical handling, and especially, in Lord Allendale’s picture, the romantic richness of the landscape, all incline us to accept the group as original, notwithstanding the deviation of type already mentioned and certain weaknesses of drawing and proportion which we should have hardly looked for. Better known to European students in general are the two fine pictures commonly given to the master at the Pitti gallery in Florence, namely the “Three Ages” and the “Concert.” Both are very Giorgionesque, the “Three Ages” leaning rather towards the early manner of Lorenzo Lotto, to whom by some critics it is actually given. The “Concert” is held on technical grounds by some of the best judges rather to bear the character of Titian at the moment when the inspiration of Giorgione was strongest on him, at least so far as concerns the extremely beautiful and expressive central figure of the monk playing on the clavichord with reverted head, a very incarnation of musical rapture and yearning—the other figures are too much injured to judge.
There are at least two famous single portraits as to which critics will probably never agree whether they are among the later works of Giorgione or among the earliest of Titian under his influence: these are the jovial and splendid half-length of Catherine Cornaro (or a stout lady much resembling her) with a bas-relief, in the collection of Signor Crespi at Milan, and the so-called “Ariosto” from Lord Darnley’s collection acquired for the National Gallery in 1904. Ancient and half-effaced inscriptions, of which there is no cause to doubt the genuineness, ascribe them both to Titian; both, to the mind of the present writer at least, are more nearly akin to such undoubted early Titians as the “Man with the Book” at Hampton Court and the “Man with the Glove” at the Louvre than to any authenticated work of Giorgione. At the same time it should be remembered that Giorgione is known to have actually enjoyed the patronage of Catherine Cornaro and to have painted her portrait. The Giorgionesque influence and feeling, to a degree almost of sentimental exaggeration, encounter us again in another beautiful Venetian portrait at the National Gallery which has sometimes been claimed for him, that of a man in crimson velvet with white pleated shirt and a background of bays, long attributed to the elder Palma (No. 636). The same qualities are present with more virility in a very striking portrait of a young man at Temple Newsam, which stands indeed nearer than any other extant example to the Brocardo portrait at Budapest. The full-face portrait of a woman in the Borghese gallery at Rome has the marks of the master’s design and inspiration, but in its present sadly damaged condition can hardly be claimed for his handiwork. The head of a boy with a pipe at Hampton Court, a little over life size, has been enthusiastically claimed as Giorgione’s workmanship, but is surely too slack and soft in handling to be anything more than an early copy of a lost work, analogous to, though better than, the similar copy at Vienna of a young man with an arrow, a subject he is known to have painted. The early records prove indeed that not a few such copies of Giorgione’s more admired works were produced in his own time or shortly afterwards. One of the most interesting and unmistakable such copies still extant is the picture formerly in the Manfrin collection at Venice, afterwards in that of Mr Barker in London, and now at Dresden, which is commonly called “The Horoscope,” and represents a woman seated near a classic ruin with a young child at her feet, an armed youth standing looking down at them, and a turbaned sage seated near with compasses, disk and book. Of important subject pictures belonging to the debatable borderland between Giorgione and his imitators are the large and interesting unfinished “Judgment of Solomon” at Kingston Lacy, which must certainly be the same that Ridolfi saw and attributed to him in the Casa Grimani at Venice, but has weaknesses of design and drawing sufficiently baffling to criticism; and the “Woman taken in Adultery” in the public gallery at Glasgow, a picture truly Giorgionesque in richness of colour, but betraying in its awkward composition, the relative coarseness of its types and the insincere, mechanical animation of its movements, the hand of some lesser master of the school, almost certainly (by comparison with his existing engravings and woodcuts) that of Domenico Campagnola. It seems unnecessary to refer, in the present notice, to any of the numerous other and inferior works which have been claimed for Giorgione by a criticism unable to distinguish between a living voice and its echoes.