(J. A. S.)
See Rosini’s edition oí theStoria d’ Italia(10 vols., Pisa, 1819), and theOpere inedite, in 10 vols., published at Florence, 1857. A complete and initial edition of Guicciardini’s works is now in preparation in the hands of Alessandro Gherardi of the Florence archives. Among the many studies on Guicciardini we may mention Agostino Rossi’sFrancesco Guicciardini e il governo Fiorentino(2 vols., Bologna, 1896), based on many new documents; F. de Sanctis’s essay “L’Uomo del Guicciardini,” in hisNuovi Saggi critici(Naples, 1879), and many passages in Professor P. Villari’sMachiavelli(Eng. trans., 1892); E. Benoist’sGuichardin, historien et homme d’état italien an XVIesiècle(Paris, 1862), and C. Gioda’sFrancesco Guicciardini e le sue opere inedite(Bologna, 1880) are not without value, but the authors had not had access to many important documents since published. See also Geoffrey’s article “Une Autobiographie de Guichardin d’après ses œuvres inédites,” in theRevue des deux mondes(1st of February 1874).
See Rosini’s edition oí theStoria d’ Italia(10 vols., Pisa, 1819), and theOpere inedite, in 10 vols., published at Florence, 1857. A complete and initial edition of Guicciardini’s works is now in preparation in the hands of Alessandro Gherardi of the Florence archives. Among the many studies on Guicciardini we may mention Agostino Rossi’sFrancesco Guicciardini e il governo Fiorentino(2 vols., Bologna, 1896), based on many new documents; F. de Sanctis’s essay “L’Uomo del Guicciardini,” in hisNuovi Saggi critici(Naples, 1879), and many passages in Professor P. Villari’sMachiavelli(Eng. trans., 1892); E. Benoist’sGuichardin, historien et homme d’état italien an XVIesiècle(Paris, 1862), and C. Gioda’sFrancesco Guicciardini e le sue opere inedite(Bologna, 1880) are not without value, but the authors had not had access to many important documents since published. See also Geoffrey’s article “Une Autobiographie de Guichardin d’après ses œuvres inédites,” in theRevue des deux mondes(1st of February 1874).
GUICHARD, KARL GOTTLIEB(1724-1775), soldier and military writer, known asQuintus Icilius, was born at Magdeburg in 1724, of a family of French refugees. He was educated for the Church, and at Leiden actually preached a sermon as a candidate for the pastorate. But he abandoned theology for more secular studies, especially that of ancient history, in which his learning attracted the notice of the prince of Orange, who promised him a vacant professorship at Utrecht. On his arrival, however, he found that another scholar had been elected by the local authorities, and he thereupon sought and obtained a commission in the Dutch army. He made the campaigns of 1747-48 in the Low Countries. In the peace which followed, his combined military and classical training turned his thoughts in the direction of ancient military history. His notes on this subject grew into a treatise, and in 1754 he went over to England in order to consult various libraries. In 1757 hisMémoires militaires sur les Grecs et les Romainsappeared at the Hague, and when Carlyle wrote hisFrederick the Greatit had reached its fifth edition. Coming back, with English introductions, to the Continent, he sought service with Ferdinand of Brunswick, who sent him on to Frederick the Great, whom he joined in January 1758 at Breslau. The king was very favourably impressed with Guichard and his works, and he remained for nearly 18 months in the royal suite. His Prussian official name of Quintus Icilius was the outcome of a friendly dispute with the king (see Nikolai,Anekdoten, vi. 129-145; Carlyle,Frederick the Great, viii. 113-114). Frederick in discussing the battle of Pharsalia spoke of a centurion Quintus Caecilius as Q. Icilius. Guichard ventured to correct him, whereupon the king said, “Youshall be Quintus Icilius,” and as Major Quintus Icilius he was forthwith gazetted to the command of a free battalion. This corps he commanded throughout the later stages of the Seven Years’ War, his battalion, as time went on, becoming a regiment of three battalions, and Quintus himself recruited seven more battalions of the same kind of troops. His command was almost always with the king’s own army in these campaigns, but for a short time it fought in the western theatre under Prince Henry. When not on the march he was always at the royal headquarters, and it was he who brought about the famous interview between the king and Gellert (see Carlyle,Frederick the Great, ix. 109; Gellert,Briefwechsel mit Demoiselle Lucius, ed. Ebert, Leipzig, 1823, pp. 629-631) on the subject of national German literature. On 22nd January 1761 Quintus was ordered to sack the castle of Hubertusburg (a task which Major-General Saldern had point-blank refused to undertake, from motives of conscience), and carried out his task, it is said, to his own very considerable profit. The place cannot have been seriously injured, as it was soon afterwards the meeting-place of the diplomatists whose work ended in the peace of Hubertusburg, but the king never ceased to banter Quintus on his supposed depredations. The very day of Frederick’s triumphant return from the war saw the disbanding of most of the free battalions, including that of Quintus, but the major to the end of his life remained with the king. He was made lieutenant-colonel in 1765, and in 1773, in recognition of his workMémoires critiques et historiques sur plusieurs points d’antiquités militaires, dealing mainly with Caesar’s campaigns in Spain (Berlin, 1773), was promoted colonel. He died at Potsdam, 1775.
GUICHEN, LUC URBAIN DE BOUËXIC,Comte de(1712-1790), French admiral, entered the navy in 1730 as “garde de la Marine,” the first rank in the corps of royal officers. His promotion was not rapid. It was not till 1748 that he became “lieutenant de vaisseau,” which was, however, a somewhat higher rank than the lieutenant in the British navy, since it carried with it the right to command a frigate. He was “capitaine de vaisseau,” or post captain, in 1756. But his reputation must have been good, for he was made chevalier de Saint Louis in 1748. In 1775 he was appointed to the frigate “Terpsichore,” attached to the training squadron, in which the duc de Chartres, afterwards notorious as the duc d’Orléans and as Philippe Égalité, was entered as volunteer. In the next year he was promoted chef d’escadre, or rear-admiral. When France had become the ally of the Americans in the War of Independence, he hoisted his flag in the Channel fleet, and was present at the battle of Ushant on the 27th of July 1779. In March of the following year he was sent to the West Indies with a strong squadron and was there opposed to Sir George Rodney. In the first meeting between them on the 17th of April to leeward of Martinique, Guichen escaped disaster only through the clumsy manner in which Sir George’s orders were executed by his captains. Seeing that he had to deal with a formidable opponent, Guichen acted with extreme caution, and by keeping the weather gauge afforded the British admiral no chance of bringing him to close action. When the hurricane months approached (July to September) he left the West Indies, and his squadron, being in a bad state from want of repairs, returned home, reaching Brest in September. Throughout all this campaign Guichen had shown himself very skilful in handling a fleet, and if he had not gained any marked success, he had prevented the British admiral from doing any harm to the French islands in the Antilles. In December 1781 the comte de Guichen was chosen to command the force which was entrusted with the duty of carrying stores and reinforcements to the West Indies. On the 12th Admiral Kempenfelt, who had been sent out by the British Government with an unduly weak force to intercept him, sighted the French admiral in the Bay of Biscay through a temporary clearance in a fog, at a moment when Guichen’s warships were to leeward of the convoy, and attacked the transports at once. The French admiral could not prevent his enemy from capturing twenty of the transports, and driving the others into a panic-stricken flight. They returned to port, and the mission entrusted to Guichen was entirely defeated. He therefore returned to port also. He had no opportunity to gain any counterbalancing success during the short remainder of the war, but he was present at the final relief of Gibraltar by Lord Howe. His death occurred on the 13th of January 1790. The comte de Guichen was, by the testimony of his contemporaries, a most accomplished and high-minded gentleman. It is probable that he had more scientific knowledge than any of his English contemporaries and opponents. But as a commander in war he was notable chiefly for his skill in directing the orderly movements of a fleet, and seems to have been satisfied with formal operations, which were possibly elegant but could lead to no substantial result. He had none of the combative instincts of his countryman Suffren, or of the average British admiral.
See vicomte de Noailles,Marins et soldats français en Amérique(1903); and E. Chevalier,Histoire de la marine française pendant la guerre de l’indépendence américaine(1877).
See vicomte de Noailles,Marins et soldats français en Amérique(1903); and E. Chevalier,Histoire de la marine française pendant la guerre de l’indépendence américaine(1877).
(D. H.)
GUIDE(in Mid. Eng.gyde, from the Fr.guide; the earlier French form wasguie, English “guy,” thedwas due to the Italian formguida; the ultimate origin is probably Teutonic, the word being connected with the base seen in O. Eng.witan, to know), an agency for directing or showing the way, specifically a person who leads or directs a stranger over unknown or unmapped country, or conducts travellers and tourists through a town, or over buildings of interest. In European wars up to the time of the French Revolution, the absence of large scale detailed maps made local guides almost essential to the direction of military operations, and in the 18th century the general tendency to the stricter organization of military resources led in various countries to the special training of guide officers (calledFeldjäger, and considered as general staff officers in the Prussian army), whose chief duty it was to find, and if necessary establish, routes across country for those parts of the army that had to move parallel to the main road and as nearly as possible at deploying interval from each other, for in those days armies were rarely spread out so far as to have the use of two or more made roads. But the necessity for such precautions died away when adequate surveys (in which guide officers were, at any rate in Prussia, freely employed) were carried out, and, as a definite term of military organization to-day, “guide” possesses no more essential peculiarity than fusilier, grenadier or rifleman. The genesis of the modern “Guide” regiments is perhaps to be found in a short-lived Corps of Guides formed by Napoleon in Italy in 1796, which appears to have been a personal escort or body guard composed of men who knew the country. In the Belgian army of to-day the Guide regiments correspond almost to the Guard cavalry of other nations; in the Swiss army the squadrons of “Guides” act as divisional cavalry, and in this role doubtless are called upon on occasion to lead columns. The “Queen’s own Corps of Guides” of the Indian army consists of infantry companies and cavalry squadrons. In drill, a “guide” is an officer or non-commissioned officer told off to regulate the direction and pace of movements, the remainder of the unit maintaining their alignment and distances by him.
A particular class of guides are those employed in mountaineering; these are not merely to show the way but stand in the position of professional climbers with an expert knowledge of rock and snowcraft, which they impart to the amateur, at the same time assuring the safety of the climbing party in dangerous expeditions. This professional class of guides arose in the middle of the 19th century when Alpine climbing became recognized as a sport (seeMountaineering). It is thus natural to find that the Alpine guides have been requisitioned for mountaineering expeditions all over the world. In climbing in Switzerland, the central committee of the Swiss Alpine Club issues a guides’ tariff which fixes the charges for guides and porters; there are three sections, for the Valais and Vaudois Alps, for the Bernese Oberland, and for central and eastern Switzerland. The names of many of the great guides have become historical. In Chamonix a statue has been raised to Jacques Balmat, who was the first to climb Mont Blanc in 1786. Of the more famous guides since the beginning of Alpine climbing may be mentioned Auguste Balmat, Michel Cros, Maquignay, J. A. Carrel, who went with E. Whymper to the Andes, the brothers Lauener, Christian Almer and Jakob and Melchior Anderegg.
“Guide” is also applied to a book, in the sense of an elementary primer on some subject, or of one giving full information for travellers of a country, district or town. In mechanical usage, the term “guide” is of wide application, being used of anything which steadies or directs the motion of an object, as of the “leading” screw of a screw-cutting lathe, of a loose pulley used to steady a driving-belt, or of the bars or rods in a steam-engine which keep the sliding blocks moving in a straight line. The doublet “guy” is thus used of a rope which steadies a sail when it is being raised or lowered, or of a rope, chain or stay supporting a funnel, mast, derrick, &c.
GUIDI, CARLO ALESSANDRO(1650-1712), Italian lyric poet, was born at Pavia in 1650. As chief founder of the well-known Roman academy called “L’Arcadia,” he had a considerable share in the reform of Italian poetry, corrupted at that time by the extravagance and bad taste of the poets Marini and Achillini and their school. The poet Guidi and the critic and jurisconsult Gravina checked this evil by their influence and example. The genius of Guidi was lyric in the highest degree; his songs are written with singular force, and charm the reader, in spite of touches of bombast. His most celebrated song is that entitledAlla Fortuna(To Fortune), which certainly is one of the most beautiful pieces of poetry of the 17th century. Guidi was squint-eyed, humpbacked, and of a delicate constitution, but possessed undoubted literary ability. His poems were printed at Parma in 1671, and at Rome in 1704. In 1681 he published at Parma his lyric tragedyAmalasunta in Italy, and two pastoral dramasDaphneandEndymion. The last had the honour of being mentioned as a model by the critic Gravina, in his treatise on poetry. Less fortunate was Guidi’s poetical version of the six homilies of Pope Clement XI., first as having been severely criticized by the satirist Settano, and next as having proved to be the indirect cause of the author’s death. A splendid edition of this version had been printed in 1712, and, the pope being then in San Gandolfo, Guidi went there to present him with a copy. On the way he found out a serious typographical error, which he took so much to heart that he was seized with an apoplectic fit at Frascati and died on the spot. Guidi was honoured with the special protection of Ranuccio II., duke of Parma, and of Queen Christina of Sweden.
GUIDICCIONI, GIOVANNI(1480-1541), Italian poet, was born at Lucca in 1480, and died at Macerata in 1541. He occupied a high position, being bishop of Fossombrone and president of Romagna. The latter office nearly cost him his life; a murderer attempted to kill him, and had already touched his breast with his dagger when, conquered by the resolute calmness of the prelate, he threw away the weapon and fell at his feet, asking forgiveness. TheRimeandLettersof Guidiccioni are models of elegant and natural Italian style. The best editions are those of Genoa (1749), Bergamo (1753) and Florence (1878).
GUIDO OF AREZZO(possibly to be identified with Guido de St Maur des Fosses), a musician who lived in the 11th century. He has by many been called the father of modern music, and a portrait of him in the refectory of the monastery of Avellana bears the inscriptionBeatus Guido, inventor musicae. Of his life little is known, and that little is chiefly derived from the dedicatory letters prefixed to two of his treatises and addressed respectively to Bishop Theodald (not Theobald, as Burney writes the name) of Arezzo, and Michael, a monk of Pomposa and Guido’s pupil and friend. Occasional references to the celebrated musician in the works of his contemporaries are, however, by no means rare, and from these it may be conjectured with all but absolute certainty that Guido was born in the last decade of the 10th century. The place of his birth is uncertain in spite of some evidence pointing to Arezzo; on the title-page of all his works he is styledGuido Aretinus, or simplyAretinus. At his first appearance in history Guido was a monk in the Benedictine monastery of Pomposa, and it was there that he taught singing and invented his educational method, by means of which, according to his own statement, a pupil might learn within five months what formerly it would have taken him ten years to acquire. Envy and jealousy, however, were his only reward, and by these he was compelled to leave his monastery—“inde est, quod me vides prolixis finibus exulatum,” as he says himself in the second of the letters above referred to. According to one account, he travelled as far as Bremen, called there by Archbishop Hermann in order to reform the musical service. But this statement has been doubted. Certain it is that not long after his flight from Pomposa Guido was living at Arezzo, and it was here that, about 1030, he received an invitation to Rome from Pope John XIV. He obeyed the summons, and thepope himself became his first and apparently one of his most proficient pupils. But in spite of his success Guido could not be induced to remain in Rome, the insalubrious air of which seems to have affected his health. In Rome he met again his former superior, the abbot of Pomposa, who seems to have repented of his conduct, and to have induced Guido to return to Pomposa; and here all authentic records of Guido’s life cease. We only know that he died, on the 17th of May 1050, as prior of Avellana, a monastery of the Camaldulians; such at least is the statement of the chroniclers of that order. It ought, however, to be added that the Camaldulians claim the celebrated musician as wholly their own, and altogether deny his connexion with the Benedictines.
The documents discovered by Dom Germain Morin, the Belgian Benedictine, about 1888, point to the conclusion that Guido was a Frenchman and lived from his youth upwards in the Benedictine monastery of St Maur des Fosses where he invented his novel system of notation and taught the brothers to sing by it. In codex 763 of the British Museum the composer of the “Micrologus” and other works by Guido of Arezzo is always described as Guido de Sancto Mauro.
There is no doubt that Guido’s method shows considerable progress in the evolution of modern notation. It was he who for the first time systematically used the lines of the staff, and the intervals orspatiabetween them. There is also little doubt that the names of the first six notes of the scale,ut,re,mi,fa,sol,la, still in use among Romance nations, were introduced by Guido, although he seems to have used them in a relative rather than in an absolute sense. It is well known that these words are the first syllables of six lines of a hymn addressed to St John the Baptist, which may be given here:—
In addition to this Guido is generally credited with the introduction of the F clef. But more important than all this, perhaps, is the thoroughly practical tone which Guido assumes in his theoretical writings, and which differs greatly from the clumsy scholasticism of his contemporaries and predecessors.
The most important of Guido’s treatises, and those which are generally acknowledged to be authentic, areMicrologus Guidonis de disciplina artis musicae, dedicated to Bishop Theodald of Arezzo, and comprising a complete theory of music, in 20 chapters;Musicae Guidonis regulae rhythmicae in antiphonarii sui prologum prolatae, written in trochaic decasyllabics of anything but classical structure;Aliae Guidonis regulae de ignoto cantu, identidem in antiphonarii sui prologum prolatae; and theEpistola Guidonis Michaeli monacho de ignoto cantu, already referred to. These are published in the second volume of Gerbert’sScriptores ecclesiastici de musica sacra. A very important manuscript unknown to Gerbert (theCodex bibliothecae Uticensis, in the Paris library) contains, besides minor treatises, an antiphonarium and gradual undoubtedly belonging to Guido.See also L. Angeloni,G. d’Arezzo(1811); Kiesewetter,Guido von Arezzo(1840); Kornmüller, “Leben und Werken Guidos von Arezzo,” in Habert’sJahrb.(1876); Antonio Brandi,G. Aretino(1882); G. B. Ristori,Biografia di Guido monaco d’Arezzo(1868).
The most important of Guido’s treatises, and those which are generally acknowledged to be authentic, areMicrologus Guidonis de disciplina artis musicae, dedicated to Bishop Theodald of Arezzo, and comprising a complete theory of music, in 20 chapters;Musicae Guidonis regulae rhythmicae in antiphonarii sui prologum prolatae, written in trochaic decasyllabics of anything but classical structure;Aliae Guidonis regulae de ignoto cantu, identidem in antiphonarii sui prologum prolatae; and theEpistola Guidonis Michaeli monacho de ignoto cantu, already referred to. These are published in the second volume of Gerbert’sScriptores ecclesiastici de musica sacra. A very important manuscript unknown to Gerbert (theCodex bibliothecae Uticensis, in the Paris library) contains, besides minor treatises, an antiphonarium and gradual undoubtedly belonging to Guido.
See also L. Angeloni,G. d’Arezzo(1811); Kiesewetter,Guido von Arezzo(1840); Kornmüller, “Leben und Werken Guidos von Arezzo,” in Habert’sJahrb.(1876); Antonio Brandi,G. Aretino(1882); G. B. Ristori,Biografia di Guido monaco d’Arezzo(1868).
GUIDO OF SIENA.The name of this Italian painter is of considerable interest in the history of art, on the ground that, if certain assumptions regarding him could be accepted as true, he would be entitled to share with Cimabue, or rather indeed to supersede him in, the honour of having given the first onward impulse to the art of painting. The case stands thus. In the church of S. Domenico in Siena is a large painting of the “Virgin and Child Enthroned,” with six angels above, and in the Benedictine convent of the same city is a triangular pinnacle, once a portion of the same composition, representing the Saviour in benediction, with two angels; the entire work was originally a triptych, but is not so now. The principal section of this picture has a rhymed Latin inscription, giving the painter’s name as Gu ... o de Senis, with the date 1221: the genuineness of the inscription is not, however, free from doubt, and especially it is maintained that the date really reads as 1281. In the general treatment of the picture there is nothing to distinguish it particularly from other work of the same early period; but the heads of the Virgin and Child are indisputably very superior, in natural character and graceful dignity, to anything to be found anterior to Cimabue. The question therefore arises, Are these heads really the work of a man who painted in 1221? Crowe and Cavalcaselle pronounce in the negative, concluding that the heads are repainted, and are, as they now stand, due to some artist of the 14th century, perhaps Ugolino da Siena; thus the claims of Cimabue would remain undisturbed and in their pristine vigour. Beyond this, little is known of Guido da Siena. There is in the Academy of Siena a picture assigned to him, a half-figure of the “Virgin and Child,” with two angels, dating probably between 1250 and 1300; also in the church of S. Bernardino in the same city a Madonna dated 1262. Milanesi thinks that the work in S. Domenico is due to Guido Graziani, of whom no other record remains earlier than 1278, when he is mentioned as the painter of a banner. Guido da Siena appears always to have painted on panel, not in fresco on the wall. He has been termed, very dubiously, a pupil of Pietrolino, and the master of “Diotisalvi,” Mino da Turrita and Berlinghieri da Lucca.
GUIDO RENI(1575-1642), a prime master in the Bolognese school of painting, and one of the most admired artists of the period of incipient decadence in Italy, was born at Calvenzano near Bologna on the 4th of November 1575. His father was a musician of repute, a player on the flageolet; he wished to bring the lad up to perform on the harpsichord. At a very childish age, however, Guido displayed a determined bent towards the art of form, scribbling some attempt at a drawing here, there and everywhere. He was only nine years of age when Denis Calvart took notice of him, received him into his academy of design by the father’s permission, and rapidly brought him forward, so that by the age of thirteen Guido had already attained marked proficiency. Albani and Domenichino became soon afterwards pupils in the same academy. With Albani Guido was very intimate up to the earlier period of manhood, but they afterwards became rivals, both as painters and as heads of ateliers, with a good deal of asperity on Albani’s part; Domenichino was also pitted against Reni by the policy of Annibale Caracci. Guido was still in the academy of Calvart when he began frequenting the opposition school kept by Lodovico Caracci, whose style, far in advance of that of the Flemish painter, he dallied with. This exasperated Calvart. Him Guido, not yet twenty years of age, cheerfully quitted, transferring himself openly to the Caracci academy, in which he soon became prominent, being equally skilful and ambitious. He had not been a year with the Caracci when a work of his excited the wonder of Agostino and the jealousy of Annibale. Lodovico cherished him, and frequently painted him as an angel, for the youthful Reni was extremely handsome. After a while, however, Lodovico also felt himself nettled, and he patronized the competing talents of Giovanni Barbiere. On one occasion Guido had made a copy of Annibale’s “Descent from the Cross”; Annibale was asked to retouch it, and, finding nothing to do, exclaimed pettishly, “He knows more than enough” (“Costui ne sa troppo”). On another occasion Lodovico, consulted as umpire, lowered a price which Reni asked for an early picture. This slight determined the young man to be a pupil no more. He left the Caracci, and started on his own account as a competitor in the race for patronage and fame. A renowned work, the story of “Callisto and Diana,” had been completed before he left.
Guido was faithful to the eclectic principle of the Bolognese school of painting. He had appropriated something from Calvart, much more from Lodovico Caracci; he studied with much zest after Albert Dürer; he adopted the massive, sombre and partly uncouth manner of Caravaggio. One day Annibale Caracci made the remark that a style might be formed reversing that of Caravaggio in such matters as the ponderous shadows and the gross common forms; this observation germinated in Guido’s mind, and he endeavoured after some such style, aiming constantly at suavity. Towards 1602 he went to Rome with Albani, and Rome remained his headquarters for twenty years.Here, in the pontificate of Paul V. (Borghese), he was greatly noted and distinguished. In the garden-house of the Rospigliosi Palace he painted the vast fresco which is justly regarded as his masterpiece—“Phoebus and the Hours preceded by Aurora.” This exhibits his second manner, in which he had deviated far indeed from the promptings of Caravaggio. He founded now chiefly upon the antique, more especially the Niobe group and the “Venus de’ Medici,” modified by suggestions from Raphael, Correggio, Parmigiano and Paul Veronese. Of this last painter, although on the whole he did not get much from him, Guido was a particular admirer; he used to say that he would rather have been Paul Veronese than any other master—Paul was more nature than art. The “Aurora” is beyond doubt a work of pre-eminent beauty and attainment; it is stamped with pleasurable dignity, and, without being effeminate, has a more uniform aim after graceful selectness than can readily be traced in previous painters, greatly superior though some of them had been in impulse and personal fervour of genius. The pontifical chapel of Montecavallo was assigned to Reni to paint; but, being straitened in payments by the ministers, the artist made off to Bologna. He was fetched back by Paul V. with ceremonious éclat, and lodging, living and equipage were supplied to him. At another time he migrated from Rome to Naples, having received a commission to paint the chapel of S. Gennaro. The notorious cabal of three painters resident in Naples—Corenzio, Caracciolo and Ribera—offered, however, as stiff an opposition to Guido as to some other interlopers who preceded and succeeded him. They gave his servant a beating by the hands of two unknown bullies, and sent by him a message to his master to depart or prepare for death; Guido waited for no second warning, and departed. He now returned to Rome; but he finally left that city abruptly, in the pontificate of Urban VIII., in consequence of an offensive reprimand administered to him by Cardinal Spinola. He had received an advance of 400 scudi on account of an altarpiece for St Peter’s, but after some lapse of years had made no beginning with the work. A broad reminder from the cardinal put Reni on his mettle; he returned the 400 scudi, quitted Rome within a few days, and steadily resisted all attempts at recall. He now resettled in Bologna. He had taught as well as painted in Rome, and he left pupils behind him; but on the whole he did not stamp any great mark upon the Roman school of painting, apart from his own numerous works in the papal city.
In Bologna Guido lived in great splendour, and established a celebrated school, numbering more than two hundred scholars. He himself drew in it, even down to his latest years. On first returning to this city, he charged about £21 for a full-length figure (mere portraits are not here in question), half this sum for a half-length, and £5 for a head. These prices must be regarded as handsome, when we consider that Domenichino about the same time received only £10, 10s. for his very large and celebrated picture, the “Last Communion of St Jerome.” But Guido’s reputation was still on the increase, and in process of time he quintupled his prices. He now left Bologna hardly at all; in one instance, however, he went off to Ravenna, and, along with three pupils, he painted the chapel in the cathedral with his admired picture of the “Israelites gathering Manna.” His shining prosperity was not to last till the end. Guido was dissipated, generously but indiscriminately profuse, and an inveterate gambler. The gambling propensity had been his from youth, but until he became elderly it did not noticeably damage his fortunes. It grew upon him, and in a couple of evenings he lost the enormous sum of 14,400 scudi. The vice told still more ruinously on his art than on his character. In his decline he sold his time at so much per hour to certain picture dealers; one of them, the Shylock of his craft, would stand by, watch in hand, and see him work. Half-heartedness, half-performance, blighted his product: self-repetition and mere mannerism, with affectation for sentiment and vapidity for beauty, became the art of Guido. Some of these trade-works, heads or half-figures, were turned out in three hours or even less. It is said that, tardily wise, Reni left off gambling for nearly two years; at last he relapsed, and his relapse was followed not long afterwards by his death, caused by malignant fever. This event took place in Bologna on the 18th of August 1642; he died in debt, but was buried with great pomp in the church of S. Domenico.
Guido was personally modest, although he valued himself on his position in the art, and would tolerate no slight in that relation; he was extremely upright, temperate in diet, nice in his person and his dress. He was fond of stately houses, but could feel also the charm of solitude. In his temper there was a large amount of suspiciousness; and the jealousy which his abilities and his successes excited, now from the Caracci, now from Albani, now from the monopolizing league of Neapolitan painters, may naturally have kept this feeling in active exercise. Of his numerous scholars, Simone Cantarini, named II Pesarese, counts as the most distinguished; he painted an admirable head of Reni, now in the Bolognese Gallery. The portrait in the Uffizi Gallery of Florence is from Reni’s own hand. Two other good scholars were Giacomo Semenza and Francesco Gessi.The character of Guido’s art is so well known as hardly to call for detailed analysis, beyond what we have already intimated. His most characteristic style exhibits a prepense ideal, of form rather than character, with a slight mode of handling, and silvery, somewhat cold, colour. In working from the nude he aimed at perfection of form, especially marked in the hands and feet. But he was far from always going to choice nature for his model; he transmutedad libitum, and painted, it is averred, a Magdalene of demonstrative charms from a vulgar-looking colour-grinder. His best works have beauty, great amenity, artistic feeling and high accomplishment of manner, all alloyed by a certain core of commonplace; in the worst pictures the commonplace swamps everything, and Guido has flooded European galleries with trashy and empty pretentiousness, all the more noxious in that its apparent grace of sentiment and form misleads the unwary into approval, and the dilettante dabbler into cheap raptures. Both in Rome and wherever else he worked he introduced increased softness of style, which was then designated as the modern method. His pictures are mostly Scriptural or mythologic in subject, and between two and three hundred of them are to be found in various European collections—more than a hundred of these containing life-sized figures. The portraits which he executed are few—those of Sixtus V., Cardinal Spada and the so-called Beatrice Cenci being among the most noticeable. The identity of the last-named portrait is very dubious; it certainly cannot have been painted direct from Beatrice, who had been executed in Rome before Guido ever resided there. Many etchings are attributed to him—some from his own works, and some after other masters; they are spirited, but rather negligent.Of other works not already noticed, the following should be named:—in Rome (the Vatican), the “Crucifixion of St Peter,” an example of the painter’s earlier manner; in S. Lorenzo in Lucina, “Christ Crucified”; in Forlì, the “Conception”; in Bologna, the “Alms of St Roch” (early), the “Massacre of the Innocents,” and the “Pietà, or Lament over the Body of Christ” (in the church of the Mendicanti), which is by many regarded as Guido’s prime executive work; in the Dresden Gallery, an “Ecce Homo”; in Milan (Brera Gallery), “Saints Peter and Paul”; in Genoa (church of S. Ambrogio), the “Assumption of the Virgin”; in Berlin, “St Paul the Hermit and St Anthony in the Wilderness.” The celebrated picture of “Fortune” (in the Capitol) is one of Reni’s finest treatments of female form; as a specimen of male form, the “Samson Drinking from the Jawbone of an Ass” might be named beside it. One of his latest works of mark is the “Ariadne,” which used to be in the Gallery of the Capitol. The Louvre contains twenty of his pictures, the National Gallery of London seven, and others were once there, now removed to other public collections. The most interesting of the seven is the small “Coronation of the Virgin,” painted on copper, an elegantly finished work, more pretty than beautiful. It was probably painted before the master quitted Bologna for Rome.For the life and works of Guido Reni, see Bolognini,Vita di Guido Reni(1839); Passeri,Vite de’ pittori; and Malvasia,Felsina Pittrice; also Lanzi,Storia pitiorica.
Guido was personally modest, although he valued himself on his position in the art, and would tolerate no slight in that relation; he was extremely upright, temperate in diet, nice in his person and his dress. He was fond of stately houses, but could feel also the charm of solitude. In his temper there was a large amount of suspiciousness; and the jealousy which his abilities and his successes excited, now from the Caracci, now from Albani, now from the monopolizing league of Neapolitan painters, may naturally have kept this feeling in active exercise. Of his numerous scholars, Simone Cantarini, named II Pesarese, counts as the most distinguished; he painted an admirable head of Reni, now in the Bolognese Gallery. The portrait in the Uffizi Gallery of Florence is from Reni’s own hand. Two other good scholars were Giacomo Semenza and Francesco Gessi.
The character of Guido’s art is so well known as hardly to call for detailed analysis, beyond what we have already intimated. His most characteristic style exhibits a prepense ideal, of form rather than character, with a slight mode of handling, and silvery, somewhat cold, colour. In working from the nude he aimed at perfection of form, especially marked in the hands and feet. But he was far from always going to choice nature for his model; he transmutedad libitum, and painted, it is averred, a Magdalene of demonstrative charms from a vulgar-looking colour-grinder. His best works have beauty, great amenity, artistic feeling and high accomplishment of manner, all alloyed by a certain core of commonplace; in the worst pictures the commonplace swamps everything, and Guido has flooded European galleries with trashy and empty pretentiousness, all the more noxious in that its apparent grace of sentiment and form misleads the unwary into approval, and the dilettante dabbler into cheap raptures. Both in Rome and wherever else he worked he introduced increased softness of style, which was then designated as the modern method. His pictures are mostly Scriptural or mythologic in subject, and between two and three hundred of them are to be found in various European collections—more than a hundred of these containing life-sized figures. The portraits which he executed are few—those of Sixtus V., Cardinal Spada and the so-called Beatrice Cenci being among the most noticeable. The identity of the last-named portrait is very dubious; it certainly cannot have been painted direct from Beatrice, who had been executed in Rome before Guido ever resided there. Many etchings are attributed to him—some from his own works, and some after other masters; they are spirited, but rather negligent.
Of other works not already noticed, the following should be named:—in Rome (the Vatican), the “Crucifixion of St Peter,” an example of the painter’s earlier manner; in S. Lorenzo in Lucina, “Christ Crucified”; in Forlì, the “Conception”; in Bologna, the “Alms of St Roch” (early), the “Massacre of the Innocents,” and the “Pietà, or Lament over the Body of Christ” (in the church of the Mendicanti), which is by many regarded as Guido’s prime executive work; in the Dresden Gallery, an “Ecce Homo”; in Milan (Brera Gallery), “Saints Peter and Paul”; in Genoa (church of S. Ambrogio), the “Assumption of the Virgin”; in Berlin, “St Paul the Hermit and St Anthony in the Wilderness.” The celebrated picture of “Fortune” (in the Capitol) is one of Reni’s finest treatments of female form; as a specimen of male form, the “Samson Drinking from the Jawbone of an Ass” might be named beside it. One of his latest works of mark is the “Ariadne,” which used to be in the Gallery of the Capitol. The Louvre contains twenty of his pictures, the National Gallery of London seven, and others were once there, now removed to other public collections. The most interesting of the seven is the small “Coronation of the Virgin,” painted on copper, an elegantly finished work, more pretty than beautiful. It was probably painted before the master quitted Bologna for Rome.
For the life and works of Guido Reni, see Bolognini,Vita di Guido Reni(1839); Passeri,Vite de’ pittori; and Malvasia,Felsina Pittrice; also Lanzi,Storia pitiorica.
(W. M. R.)
GUIENNE,an old French province which corresponded roughly to theAquitania Secundaof the Romans and the archbishopric of Bordeaux. In the 12th century it formed with Gascony the duchy of Aquitaine, which passed under the dominion of the kings of England by the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine to Henry II.; but in the 13th, through the conquests of Philip Augustus, Louis VIII. and Louis IX., it was confined within the narrower limits fixed by the treaty of Paris (1259). It is at this point that Guienne becomes distinct from Aquitaine. It then comprised the Bordelais (the old countship of Bordeaux), the Bazadais, part of Périgord, Limousin, Quercy and Rouergue, the Agenais ceded by Philip III. (the Bold) to Edward I. (1279), and (still united with Gascony) formed aduchy extending from the Charente to the Pyrenees. This duchy was held on the terms of homage to the French kings, an onerous obligation; and both in 1296 and 1324 it was confiscated by the kings of France on the ground that there had been a failure in the feudal duties. At the treaty of Brétigny (1360) Edward III. acquired the full sovereignty of the duchy of Guienne, together with Aunis, Saintonge, Angoumois and Poitou. The victories of du Guesclin and Gaston Phœbus, count of Foix, restored the duchy soon after to its 13th-century limits. In 1451 it was conquered and finally united to the French crown by Charles VII. In 1469 Louis XI. gave it in exchange for Champagne and Brie to his brother Charles, duke of Berry, after whose death in 1472 it was again united to the royal dominion. Guienne then formed a government which from the 17th century onwards was united with Gascony. The government of Guienne and Gascony, with its capital at Bordeaux, lasted till the end of theancien régime. Under the Revolution the departments formed from Guienne proper were those of Gironde, Lot-et-Garonne, Dordogne, Lot, Aveyron and the chief part of Tarn-et-Garonne.
GUIGNES, JOSEPH DE(1721-1800), French orientalist, was born at Pontoise on the 19th of October 1721. He succeeded Fourmont at the Royal Library as secretary interpreter of the Eastern languages. AMémoire historique sur l’origine des Huns et des Turcs, published by de Guignes in 1748, obtained his admission to the Royal Society of London in 1752, and he became an associate of the French Academy of Inscriptions in 1754. Two years later he began to publish his learned and laboriousHistoire générale des Huns, des Mongoles, des Turcs et des autres Tartares occidentaux(1756-1758); and in 1757 he was appointed to the chair of Syriac at the Collège de France. He maintained that the Chinese nation had originated in Egyptian colonization, an opinion to which, in spite of every argument, he obstinately clung. He died in Paris in 1800. TheHistoirehad been translated into German by Dähnert (1768-1771). De Guignes left a son, Christian Louis Joseph (1759-1845), who, after learning Chinese from his father, went as consul to Canton, where he spent seventeen years. On his return to France he was charged by the government with the work of preparing a Chinese-French-Latin dictionary (1813). He was also the author of a work of travels (Voyages à Pékin, Manille, et l’île de France, 1808).
See Quérard,La France littéraire, where a list of the memoirs contributed by de Guignes to theJournal des savantsis given.
See Quérard,La France littéraire, where a list of the memoirs contributed by de Guignes to theJournal des savantsis given.
GUILBERT, YVETTE(1869- ), Frenchdiseuse, was born in Paris. She served for two years until 1885 in the Magasin du Printemps, when, on the advice of the journalist, Edmond Stoullig, she trained for the stage under Landrol. She made her début at the Bouffes du Nord, then played at the Variétés, and in 1890 she received a regular engagement at the Eldorado to sing a couple of songs at the beginning of the performance. She also sang at the Ambassadeurs. She soon won an immense vogue by her rendering of songs drawn from Parisian lower-class life, or from the humours of the Latin Quarter, “Quatre z’étudiants” and the “Hôtel du numéro trois” being among her early triumphs. Her adoption of an habitual yellow dress and long black gloves, her studied simplicity of diction, and her ingenuous delivery of songs charged withrisquémeaning, made her famous. She owed something to M. Xanrof, who for a long time composed songs especially for her, and perhaps still more to Aristide Bruant, who wrote many of herargotsongs. She made successful tours in England, Germany and America, and was in great request as an entertainer in private houses. In 1895 she married Dr M. Schiller. In later years she discarded something of her earlier manner, and sang songs of the “pompadour” and the “crinoline” period in costume. She published the novelsLa VedetteandLes Demi-vieilles, both in 1902.
GUILDFORD,a market town and municipal borough, and the county town of Surrey, England, in the Guildford parliamentary division, 29 m. S.W. of London by the London and South Western railway; served also by the London, Brighton, and South Coast and the South Eastern and Chatham railways. Pop. (1901) 15,938. It is beautifully situated on an acclivity of the northern chalk Downs and on the river Wey. Its older streets contain a number of picturesque gabled houses, with quaint lattices and curious doorways. The ruins of a Norman castle stand finely above the town and are well preserved; while the ground about them is laid out as a public garden. Beneath the Angel Inn and a house in the vicinity are extensive vaults, apparently of Early English date, and traditionally connected with the castle. The church of St Mary is Norman and Early English, with later additions and considerably restored; its aisles retain their eastward apses and it contains many interesting details. The church of St Nicholas is a modern building on an ancient site, and that of Holy Trinity is a brick structure of 1763, with later additions, also on the site of an earlier church, from which some of the monuments are preserved, including that of Archbishop Abbot (1640). The town hall dates from 1683 and contains a number of interesting pictures. Other public buildings are the county hall, corn-market and institute with museum and library. Abbot’s Hospital, founded by Archbishop Abbot in 1619, is a beautiful Tudor brick building. The county hospital (1866) was erected as a memorial to Albert, Prince Consort. The Royal Free Grammar School, founded in 1509, and incorporated by Edward VI., is an important school for boys. At Cranleigh, 6 m. S.E., is a large middle-class county school. The town has flour mills, iron foundries and breweries, and a large trade in grain; while fairs are held for live stock. There is a manufacture of gunpowder in the neighbouring village of Chilworth. Guildford is a suffragan bishopric in the diocese of Winchester. The borough is under a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area, 2601 acres.
Guildford (Gyldeford, Geldeford), occurs among the possessions of King Alfred, and was a royal borough throughout the middle ages. It probably owed its rise to its position at the junction of trade routes. It is first mentioned as a borough in 1131. Henry III. granted a charter to the men of Guildford in 1256, by which they obtained freedom from toll throughout the kingdom, and the privilege of having the county court held always in their town. Edward III. granted charters to Guildford in 1340, 1346 and 1367; Henry VI. in 1423; Henry VII. in 1488. Elizabeth in 1580 confirmed earlier charters, and other charters were granted in 1603, 1626 and 1686. The borough was incorporated in 1486 under the title of the mayor and good men of Guildford. During the middle ages the government of the town rested with a powerful merchant gild. Two members for Guildford sat in the parliament of 1295, and the borough continued to return two representatives until 1867 when the number was reduced to one. By the Redistribution Act of 1885 Guildford became merged in the county for electoral purposes. Edward II. granted to the town the right of having two fairs, at the feast of St Matthew (21st of September) and at Trinity respectively. Henry VII. granted fairs on the feast of St Martin (11th of November) and St George (23rd of April). Fairs in May for the sale of sheep and in November for the sale of cattle are still held. The market rights date at least from 1276, and three weekly markets are still held for the sale of corn, cattle and vegetables respectively. The cloth trade which formed the staple industry at Guildford in the middle ages is now extinct.
GUILDHALL,the hall of the corporation of the city of London, England. It faces a courtyard opening out of Gresham Street. The date of its original foundation is not known. An ancient crypt remains, but the hall has otherwise undergone much alteration. It was rebuilt in 1411, beautified by the munificence of successive officials, damaged in the Great Fire of 1666, and restored in 1789 by George Dance; while the hall was again restored, with a new roof, in 1870. This fine chamber, 152 ft. in length, is the scene of the state banquets and entertainments of the corporation, and of the municipal meetings “in common hall.” The building also contains a council chamber and various court rooms, with a splendid library, open to the public, a museum and art gallery adjoining. The hall contains several monuments and two giant figures of wood,known as Gog and Magog. These were set up in 1708, but the appearance of giants in city pageants is of much earlier date.
GUILFORD, BARONS AND EARLS OF.Francis North, 1st Baron Guilford (1637-1685), was the third son of the 4th Baron North (seeNorth, Barons), and was created Baron Guilford in 1683, after becoming lord keeper in succession to Lord Nottingham. He had been an eminent lawyer, solicitor-general (1671), attorney-general (1673), and chief-justice of the common pleas (1675), and in 1679 was made a member of the council of thirty and on its dissolution of the cabinet. He was a man of wide culture and a stanch royalist. In 1672 he married Lady Frances Pope, daughter and co-heiress of the earl of Downe, who inherited the Wroxton estate; and he was succeeded as 2nd baron by his son Francis (1673-1729), whose eldest son Francis (1704-1790), after inheriting first his father’s title as 3rd baron, and then (in 1734) the barony of North from his kinsman the 6th Baron North, was in 1752 created 1st earl of Guilford. His first wife was a daughter of the earl of Halifax, and his son and successor Frederick was the English prime minister, commonly known as Lord North, his courtesy title while the 1st earl was alive.
Frederick North, 2nd earl of Guilford, but better known by his courtesy title of Lord North (1732-1792), prime minister of England during the important years of the American War, was born on the 13th of April 1732, and after being educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, was sent to make the grand tour of the continent. On his return he was, though only twenty-two years of age, at once elected M.P. for Banbury, of which town his father was high steward; and he sat for the same town in parliament for nearly forty years. In 1759 he was chosen by the duke of Newcastle to be a lord of the treasury, and continued in the same office under Lord Bute and George Grenville till 1765. He had shown himself such a ready debater that on the fall of the first Rockingham ministry in 1766 he was sworn of the privy council, and made paymaster-general by the duke of Grafton. His reputation for ability grew so high that in December 1767, on the death of the brilliant Charles Townshend, he was made chancellor of the exchequer. His popularity with both the House of Commons and the people continued to increase, for his temper was never ruffled, and his quiet humour perpetually displayed; and, when the retirement of the duke of Grafton was necessitated by the hatred he inspired and the attacks of Junius, no better successor could be found for the premiership than the chancellor of the exchequer. Lord North succeeded the duke in March 1770, and continued in office for twelve of the most eventful years in English history. George III. had at last overthrown the ascendancy of the great Whig families, under which he had so long groaned, and determined to govern as well as rule. He knew that he could only govern by obtaining a majority in parliament to carry out his wishes, and this he had at last obtained by a great expenditure of money in buying seats and by a careful exercise of his patronage. But in addition to a majority he must have a minister who would consent to act as his lieutenant, and such a minister he found in Lord North. How a man of undoubted ability such as Lord North was could allow himself to be thus used as a mere instrument cannot be explained; but the confidential tone of the king’s letters seems to show that there was an unusual intimacy between them, which may account for North’s compliance. The path of the minister in parliament was a hard one; he had to defend measures which he had not designed, and of which he had not approved, and this too in a House of Commons in which all the oratorical ability of Burke and Fox was against him, and when he had only the purchased help of Thurlow and Wedderburne to aid him. The most important events of his ministry were those of the American War of Independence. He cannot be accused of causing it, but one of his first acts was the retention of the tea-duty, and he it was also who introduced the Boston Port Bill in 1774. When the war had broken out he earnestly counselled peace, and it was only the earnest solicitations of the king not to leave his sovereign again at the mercy of the Whigs that induced him to defend a war which from 1779 he knew to be both hopeless and impolitic. At last, in March 1782, he insisted on resigning after the news of Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown, and no man left office more blithely. He had been well rewarded for his assistance to the king: his children had good sinecures; his half-brother, Brownlow North (1741-1820), was bishop of Winchester; he himself was chancellor of the university of Oxford, lord-lieutenant of the county of Somerset, and had finally been made a knight of the Garter, an honour which has only been conferred on three other members of the House of Commons, Sir R. Walpole, Lord Castlereagh and Lord Palmerston. Lord North did not remain long out of office, but in April 1783 formed his famous coalition with his old subordinate, C. J. Fox (q.v.), and became secretary of state with him under the nominal premiership of the duke of Portland. He was probably urged to this coalition with his old opponent by a desire to show that he could act independently of the king, and was not a mere royal mouthpiece. The coalition ministry went out of office on Fox’s India Bill in December 1783, and Lord North, who was losing his sight, then finally gave up political ambition. He played, when quite blind, a somewhat important part in the debates on the Regency Bill in 1789, and in the next year succeeded his father as earl of Guilford. He did not long survive his elevation, and died peacefully on the 5th of August 1792. It is impossible to consider Lord North a great statesman, but he was a most good-tempered and humorous member of the House of Commons. In a time of unexampled party feeling he won the esteem and almost the love of his most bitter opponents. Burke finely sums up his character in hisLetter to a Noble Lord: “He was a man of admirable parts, of general knowledge, of a versatile understanding, fitted for every sort of business; of infinite wit and pleasantry, of a delightful temper, and with a mind most disinterested. But it would be only to degrade myself,” he continues, “by a weak adulation, and not to honour the memory of a great man, to deny that he wanted something of the vigilance and spirit of command which the times required.”
By his wife Anne (d. 1797), daughter of George Speke of White Lackington, Somerset, Guilford had four sons, the eldest of whom, George Augustus (1757-1802), became 3rd earl on his father’s death. This earl was a member of parliament from 1778 to 1792 and was a member of his father’s ministry and also of the royal household; he left no sons when he died on the 20th of April 1802 and was succeeded in the earldom by his brother Francis (1761-1817), who also left no sons. The youngest brother, Frederick (1766-1827), who now became 5th earl of Guilford, was remarkable for his great knowledge and love of Greece and of the Greek language. He had a good deal to do with the foundation of the Ionian university at Corfu, of which he was the first chancellor and to which he was very liberal. Guilford, who was governor of Ceylon from 1798 to 1805, died unmarried on the 14th of October 1827. His cousin, Francis (1772-1861), a son of Brownlow North, bishop of Winchester from 1781 to 1820, was the 6th earl, and the latter’s descendant, Frederick George (b. 1876), became 8th earl in 1886.
On the death of the 3rd earl of Guilford in 1802 the barony of North fell into abeyance between his three daughters, the survivor of whom, Susan (1797-1884). wife of John Sidney Doyle, who took the name of North, was declared by the House of Lords in 1841 to be Baroness North, and the title passed to her son, William Henry John North, the 11th baron (b. 1836) (seeNorth, Barons).