Chapter 17

(M. N. T.)

LEONTIASIS OSSEA,a rare disease characterized by an overgrowth of the facial and cranial bones. The common form is that in which one or other maxilla is affected, its size progressively increasing both regularly and irregularly, and thus encroaching on the cavities of the orbit, the mouth, the nose and its accessory sinuses. Exophthalmos gradually develops, going on later to a complete loss of sight due to compression of the optic nerve by the overgrowth of bone. There may also be interference with the nasal respiration and with the taking of food. In the somewhat less common form of this rare disease the overgrowth of bone affects all the cranial bones as well as those of the face, the senses being lost one by one and death finally resulting from cerebral pressure. There is no treatment other than exposing the overgrown bone, and chipping away pieces, or excising entirely where possible.

LEONTINI(mod.Lentini), an ancient town in the south-east of Sicily, 22 m. N.N.W. of Syracuse direct, founded by Chalcidians from Naxos in 729B.C.It is almost the only Greek settlement not on the coast, from which it is 6 m. distant. The site, originally held by the Sicels, was seized by the Greeks owing to its command of the fertile plain on the north. It was reduced to subjection in 498B.C.by Hippocrates of Gela, and in 476 Hieron of Syracuse established here the inhabitants of Catana and Naxos. Later on Leontini regained its independence, but in its efforts to retain it, the intervention of Athens was more than once invoked. It was mainly the eloquence of Gorgias (q.v.) of Leontini which led to the abortive Athenian expedition of 427. In 422 Syracuse supported the oligarchs against the people and received them as citizens, Leontini itself being forsaken. This led to renewed Athenian intervention, at first mainly diplomatic; but the exiles of Leontini joined the envoys of Segesta in persuading Athens to undertake the great expedition of 415. After its failure, Leontini became subject to Syracuse once more (see Strabo vi. 272). Its independence was guaranteed by the treaty of 405 between Dionysius and the Carthaginians, but it very soon lost it again. It was finally stormed by M. Claudius Marcellus in 214B.C.In Roman times it seems to have been of small importance. It was destroyed by the SaracensA.D.848, and almost totally ruined by the earthquake of 1698. The ancient city is described by Polybius (vii. 6) as lying in a bottom between two hills, and facing north. On the western side of this bottom ran a river with a row of houses on its western bank under the hill. At each end was a gate, the northern leading to the plain, the southern, at the upper end, to Syracuse. There was an acropolis on each side of the valley, which lies between precipitous hills with flat tops, over which buildings had extended. The eastern hill1still has considerable remains of a strongly fortified medieval castle, in which some writers are inclined (though wrongly) to recognize portions of Greek masonry. See G. M. Columba, inArcheologia di Leontinoi(Palermo, 1891), reprinted fromArchivio Storico Siciliano, xi.; P. Orsi inRömische Mitteilungen(1900), 61 seq. Excavations were made in 1899 in one of the ravines in a Sicel necropolis of the third period; explorations in the various Greek cemeteries resulted in the discovery of some fine bronzes, notably a fine bronzelebes, now in the Berlin museum.

(T. As.)

1As a fact there are two flat valleys, up both of which the modern Lentini extends; and hence there is difficulty in fitting Polybius’s account to the site.

LEONTIUS,theological writer, born at Byzantium, flourished during the 6th century. He is variously styledByzantinus,Hierosolymitanus(as an inmate of the monastery of St Saba near Jerusalem) andScholasticus(the first “schoolman,” as the introducer of the Aristotelian definitions into theology; according to others, he had been an advocate, a special meaning of the wordscholasticus). He himself states that in his early years he belonged to a Nestorian community. Nothing else is known of his life; he is frequently confused with others of the same name, and it is uncertain which of the works bearing the name Leontius are really by him. Most scholars regard as genuine the polemical treatisesContra Nestorianos et Eutychianos,Contra Nestorianos,Contra Monophysitas,Contra Severum(patriarch of Antioch); and theΣχόλια, generally calledDe Sectis. An essayAdversus fraudes Apollinaristarumand two homilies are referred to other hands, the homilies to a Leontius, presbyter of Constantinople.

Collected works in J. P. Migne,Patrologia Graeca, lxxxvi.; for the various questions connected with Leontius see F. Loops,Das Leben und die polemischen Werke des Leontios von Byzanz(Leipzig, 1887); W. Rügamer,Leontius von Byzanz(1894); V. Ermoni,De Leontio Byzantino(Paris, 1895); C. Krumbacher,Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur(1897); J. P. Junglas,Leontius von Byzanz(1908). For other persons of the name see Fabricius,Bibliotheca Graeca(ed. Harles), viii. 323.

LEOPARD,1PardorPanther(Felis pardus), the largest spotted true cat of the Old World, with the exception of the snow-leopard, which is, however, inferior in point of size to the largest leopard. (SeeCarnivoraandSnow-Leopard.) Leopards, known in India ascheeta(chita), are characterized by the rosette-like form of the black spots on the greater part of the body, and the absence of a central spot from each rosette. Towards the head and on the limbs the spots tend to become solid, but there is great local variation in regard to their form and arrangement. In the Indian leopard, the trueFelis pardus, the spots are large and rosette-like, and the same is the case with the long-haired Persian leopard (F. pardus tulliana). On the other hand the heavily built and thick-haired ManchurianF. p. villosahas more consolidated spots. African leopards, again, to one of which the nameF. p. leopardusis applicable, show a decided tendency to a breaking-up of the spots; West African animals being much darker-coloured than those from the east side of the continent.

Both as regards structure and habits, the leopard may be reckoned as one of the more typical representatives of the genusFelis, belonging to that section in which the hyoid bone is loosely connected with the skull, owing to imperfect ossification of its anterior arch, and the pupil of the eye when contracted under the influence of light is circular, not linear as in the smaller cats.

The size of leopards varies greatly, the head and body usually measuring from 3½ to 4½ ft. in length, and the tail from 2½ to 3 ft., but some specimens exceed these limits, while the Somali leopard (F. p. nanopardus) falls considerably short of them. The ground-colour of the fur varies from a pale fawn to a rufous buff, graduating in the Indian race into pure white on the under-parts and inside of the limbs. Generally speaking, the spots on the under parts and limbs are simple and blacker than those on the other parts of the body. The bases of the ears behind are black, the tips buff. The upper side of the tail is buff, spotted with broken rings like the back, its under surface white with simple spots. The hair of the cubs is longer than that of the adults, its ground-colour less bright, and its spots less distinct. Perfectly black leopards, which in certain lights show the characteristic markings on the fur, are not uncommon, and are examples ofmelanism, occurring as individual variations, sometimes in one cub out of a litter of which the rest are normally coloured, and therefore not indicating a distinct race, much less a species. These are met with chiefly in southern Asia; melanism among African leopards taking the form of an excessive breaking-up of the spots, which finally show a tendency to coalesce.

In habits the leopard resembles the other large cat-like animals, yielding to none in the ferocity of its disposition. It is exceedingly quick in its movements, but seizes its prey by waiting in ambush or stealthily approaching to within springing distance, when it suddenly rushes upon it and tears it to ground with its powerful claws and teeth. It preys upon almost any animal it can overcome, such as antelopes, deer, sheep, goats, monkeys, peafowl, and has a special liking for dogs. It not unfrequently attacks human beings in India, chiefly children and old women, but instances have been known of a leopard becoming a regular “man-eater.” When favourable opportunities occur, it often kills many more victims than it can devour at once, either to gratify its propensity for killing or for the sake of their fresh blood. It generally inhabits woody districts, and can climb trees with facility when hunted, but usually lives on or near the ground, among rocks, bushes and roots and low branches of large trees.

The geographical range of the leopard embraces practically all Africa, and Asia from Palestine to China and Manchuria, inclusive of Ceylon and the great Malay Islands as far as Java. Fossil bones and teeth, indistinguishable from those of existing leopards, have been found in cave-deposits of Pleistocene age in Spain, France, Germany and England.

(R. L.*; W. H. F.)

1The name (Late Lat.leopardus, Late Gr.λεόπαρδος) was given by the ancients to an animal supposed to have been a cross between a lion (Lat.leo, Gr.λὲων) and a pard (Gr.πάρδος, Pers.pars) or panther. Medieval heralds made no distinction in shape between a lion and a leopard, but marked the difference by drawing the leopard showing the full face (seeHeraldry: §Beasts and Birds).

LEOPARDI, GIACOMO,Count(1798-1837), Italian poet, was born at Recanati in the March of Ancona, on the 29th of June 1798. All the circumstances of his parentage and education conspired to foster his precocious and sensitive genius at the expense of his physical and mental health. His family was ancient and patrician, but so deeply embarrassed as to be only rescued from ruin by the energy of his mother, who had taken the control of business matters entirely into her own hands, and whose engrossing devotion to her undertaking seems to have almost dried up the springs of maternal tenderness. Count Monaldo Leopardi, the father, a mere nullity in his own household, secluded himself in his extensive library, to which his nervous, sickly and deformed son had free access, and which absorbed him exclusively in the absence of any intelligent sympathy from his parents, any companionship except that of his brothers and sister, or any recreation in the dullest of Italian towns. The lad spent his days over grammars and dictionaries, learning Latin with little assistance, and Greek and the principal modern languages with none at all. Any ordinarily clever boy would have emerged from this discipline a mere pedant andbookworm. Leopardi came forth a Hellene, not merely a consummate Greek scholar, but penetrated with the classical conception of life, and a master of antique form and style. At sixteen he composed a Latin treatise on the Roman rhetoricians of the 2nd century, a commentary on Porphyry’s life of Plotinus and a history of astronomy; at seventeen he wrote on the popular errors of the ancients, citing more than four hundred authors. A little later he imposed upon the first scholars of Italy by two odes in the manner of Anacreon. At eighteen he produced a poem of considerable length, theAppressamento alla Morte, which, after being lost for many years, was discovered and published by Zanino Volta. It is a vision of the omnipotence of death, modelled upon Petrarch, but more truly inspired by Dante, and in its conception, machinery and general tone offering a remarkable resemblance to Shelley’sTriumph of Life(1822), of which Leopardi probably never heard. This juvenile work was succeeded (1819) by two lyrical compositions which at once placed the author upon the height which he maintained ever afterwards. The ode to Italy, and that on the monument to Dante erected at Florence, gave voice to the dismay and affliction with which Italy, aroused by the French Revolution from the torpor of the 17th and 18th centuries, contemplated her forlorn and degraded condition, her political impotence, her degeneracy in arts and arms and the frivolity or stagnation of her intellectual life. They were the outcry of a student who had found an ideal of national existence in his books, and to whose disappointment everything in his own circumstances lent additional poignancy. But there is nothing unmanly or morbid in the expression of these sentiments, and the odes are surprisingly exempt from the failings characteristic of young poets. They are remarkably chaste in diction, close and nervous in style, sparing in fancy and almost destitute of simile and metaphor, antique in spirit, yet pervaded by modern ideas, combining Landor’s dignity with a considerable infusion of the passion of Byron. These qualities continued to characterize Leopardi’s poetical writings throughout his life. A third ode, on Cardinal Mai’s discoveries of ancient MSS., lamented in the same spirit of indignant sorrow the decadence of Italian literature. The publication of these pieces widened the breach between Leopardi and his father, a well-meaning but apparently dull and apathetic man, who had lived into the 19th century without imbibing any of its spirit, and who provoked his son’s contempt by a superstition unpardonable in a scholar of real learning. Very probably from a mistaken idea of duty to his son, very probably, too, from his own entire dependence in pecuniary matters upon his wife, he for a long time obstinately refused Leopardi funds, recreation, change of scene, everything that could have contributed to combat the growing pessimism which eventually became nothing less than monomaniacal. The affection of his brothers and sister afforded him some consolation, and he found intellectual sympathy in the eminent scholar and patriot Pietro Giordani, with whom he assiduously corresponded at this period, partly on the ways and means of escaping from “this hermitage, or rather seraglio, where the delights of civil society and the advantages of solitary life are alike wanting.” This forms the keynote of numerous letters of complaint and lamentation, as touching but as effeminate in their pathos as those of the banished Ovid. It must be remembered in fairness that the weakness of Leopardi’s eyesight frequently deprived him for months together of the resource of study. At length (1822) his father allowed him to repair to Rome, where, though cheered by the encouragement of C. C. J. Bunsen and Niebuhr, he found little satisfaction in the trifling pedantry that passed for philology and archaeology, while his sceptical opinions prevented his taking orders, the indispensable condition of public employment in the Papal States. Dispirited and with exhausted means, he returned to Recanati, where he spent three miserable years, brightened only by the production of several lyrical masterpieces, which appeared in 1824. The most remarkable is perhaps theBruto Minore, the condensation of his philosophy of despair. In 1825 he accepted an engagement to edit Cicero and Petrarch for the publisher Stella at Milan, and took up his residence at Bologna, where his life was for a time made almost cheerful by the friendship of the countess Malvezzi. In 1827 appeared theOperette Morali, consisting principally of dialogues and his imaginary biography of Filippo Ottonieri, which have given Leopardi a fame as a prose writer hardly inferior to his celebrity as a poet. Modern literature has few productions so eminently classical in form and spirit, so symmetrical in construction and faultless in style. Lucian is evidently the model; but the wit and irony which were playthings to Lucian are terribly earnest with Leopardi. Leopardi’s invention is equal to Lucian’s and his only drawback in comparison with his exemplar is that, while the latter’s campaign against pretence and imposture commands hearty sympathy, Leopardi’s philosophical creed is a repulsive hedonism in the disguise of austere stoicism. The chief interlocutors in his dialogues all profess the same unmitigated pessimism, claim emancipation from every illusion that renders life tolerable to the vulgar, and assert or imply a vast moral and intellectual superiority over unenlightened mankind. When, however, we come to inquire what renders them miserable, we find it is nothing but the privation of pleasurable sensation, fame, fortune or some other external thing which a lofty code of ethics would deny to be either indefeasibly due to man or essential to his felicity. A page ofSartor Resartusscatters Leopardi’s sophistry to the winds, and leaves nothing of his dialogues but the consummate literary skill that would render the least fragment precious. As works of art they are a possession for ever, as contributions to moral philosophy they are worthless, and apart from their literary qualities can only escape condemnation if regarded as lyrical expressions of emotion, the wail extorted from a diseased mind by a diseased body.Filippo Ottonieriis a portrait of an imaginary philosopher, imitated from the biography of a real sage in Lucian’sDemonax. Lucian has shown us the philosopher he wished to copy, Leopardi has truly depicted the philosopher he was. Nothing can be more striking or more tragical than the picture of the man superior to his fellows in every quality of head and heart, and yet condemned to sterility and impotence because he has, as he imagines, gone a step too far on the road to truth, and illusions exist for him no more. The little tract is full of remarks on life and character of surprising depth and justice, manifesting what powers of observation as well as reflection were possessed by the sickly youth who had seen so little of the world.

Want of means soon drove Leopardi back to Recanati, where, deaf, half-blind, sleepless, tortured by incessant pain, at war with himself and every one around him except his sister, he spent the two most unhappy years of his unhappy life. In May 1831 he escaped to Florence, where he formed the acquaintance of a young Swiss philologist, M. de Sinner. To him he confided his unpublished philological writings, with a view to their appearance in Germany. A selection appeared under the titleExcerpta ex schedis criticis J. Leopardi(Bonn, 1834). The remaining MSS. were purchased after Sinner’s death by the Italian government, and, together with Leopardi’s correspondence with the Swiss philologist, were partially edited by Aulard. In 1831 appeared a new edition of Leopardi’s poems, comprising several new pieces of the highest merit. These are in general less austerely classical than his earlier compositions, and evince a greater tendency to description, and a keener interest in the works and ways of ordinary mankind.The Resurrection, composed on occasion of his unexpected recovery, is a model of concentrated energy of diction, andThe Song of the Wandering Shepherd in Asiais one of the highest flights of modern lyric poetry. The range of the author’s ideas is still restricted, but his style and melody are unsurpassable. Shortly after the publication of these pieces (October 1831) Leopardi was driven from Florence to Rome by an unhappy attachment. His feelings are powerfully expressed in two poems,To HimselfandAspasia, which seem to breathe wounded pride at least as much as wounded love. In 1832 Leopardi returned to Florence, and there formed acquaintance with a young Neapolitan, Antonio Ranieri, himself an author of merit, and destined to enact towards him the part performed by Severn towards Keats, an enviable title to renownif Ranieri had not in his old age tarnished it by assuming the relation of Trelawny to the dead Byron. Leopardi accompanied Ranieri and his sister to Naples, and under their care enjoyed four years of comparative tranquillity. He made the acquaintance of the German poet Platen, his sole modern rival in the classical perfection of form, and composedLa Ginestra, the most consummate of all his lyrical masterpieces, strongly resembling Shelley’sMont Blanc, but more perfect in expression. He also wrote at NaplesThe Sequel to the Battle of the Frogs and Mice, a satire inottava rimaon the abortive Neapolitan revolution of 1820, clever and humorous, but obscure from the local character of the allusions. The more painful details of his Neapolitan residence may be found by those who care to seek for them in the deplorable publication of Ranieri’s peevish old age (Sette anni di sodalizio). The decay of Leopardi’s constitution continued; he became dropsical; and a sudden crisis of his malady, unanticipated by himself alone, put an end to his life-long sufferings on the 15th of June 1837.

The poems which constitute Leopardi’s principal title to immortality are only forty-one in number, and some of these are merely fragmentary. They may for the most part be described as odes, meditative soliloquies, or impassioned addresses, generally couched in a lyrical form, although a few are in magnificent blank verse. Some idea of the style and spirit of the former might be obtained by imagining the thoughts of the last book of Spenser’sFaerie Queenein the metre of hisEpithalamium. They were first edited complete by Ranieri at Florence in 1845, forming, along with theOperette Morali, the first volume of an edition of Leopardi’s works, which does not, however, includeThe Sequel to the Battle of the Frogs and Mice, first printed at Paris in 1842, nor the afterwards discovered writings. Vols. ii.-iv. contain the philological essays and translations, with some letters, and vols. v. and vi. the remainder of the correspondence. Later editions are those of G. Chiarini and G. Mestica. The juvenile essays preserved in his father’s library at Recanati were edited by Cugnoni (Opere inedite) in 1879, with the consent of the family. See Cappelleti,Bibliografia Leopardiana(Parma, 1882). Leopardi’s biography is mainly in his letters (Epistolario, 1st ed., 1849, 5th ed., 1892), to which his later biographers (Brandes, Bouché-Leclercq, Rosa) have merely added criticisms, excellent in their way, more particularly Brandes’s, but generally over-rating Leopardi’s significance in the history of human thought. W. E. Gladstone’s essay (Quart. Rev., 1850), reprinted in vol. ii. of the author’sGleanings, is too much pervaded by the theological spirit, but is in the main a pattern of generous and discriminating eulogy. There are excellent German translations of the poems by Heyse and Brandes. An English translation of the essays and dialogues by C. Edwards appeared in 1882, and most of the dialogues were translated with extraordinary felicity by James Thomson, author ofThe City of Dreadful Night, and originally published in theNational Reformer.

(R. G.)

LEOPARDO, ALESSANDRO(d.c.1512), Italian sculptor, was born and died at Venice. His first known work is the imposing mausoleum of the doge Andrea Vendramini, now in the church of San Giovanni e Paolo; in this he had the co-operation of Tullio Lombardo, but the finest parts are Leopardo’s. Some of the figures have been taken away, and two in the Berlin museum are considered to be certainly his work. He was exiled on a charge of fraud in 1487, and recalled in 1490 by the senate to finish Verrocchio’s colossal statue of Bartolommeo Colleoni. He worked between 1503 and 1505 on the tomb of Cardinal Zeno at St Mark’s, which was finished in 1515 by Pietro Lombardo; and in 1505 he designed and cast the bronze sockets for the three flagstaffs in the square of St Mark’s, the antique character of the decorations suggesting some Greek model. (SeeVenice.)

LEOPOLD(M.H. Ger.Liupolt, O.H. Ger.Liupald, fromliut, Mod. Ger.Leute, “people,” andpald, “bold,”i.e.“bold for the people”), the name which has been that of several European sovereigns.

LEOPOLD I.(1640-1705), Roman emperor, the second son of the emperor Ferdinand III. and his first wife Maria Anna, daughter of Philip III. of Spain, was born on the 9th of June 1640. Intended for the Church, he received a good education, but his prospects were changed by the death of his elder brother, the German king Ferdinand IV., in July 1654, when he became his father’s heir. In 1655 he was chosen king of Hungary and in 1656 king of Bohemia, and in July 1658, more than a year after his father’s death, he was elected emperor at Frankfort, in spite of the intrigues of Cardinal Mazarin, who wished to place on the imperial throne Ferdinand, elector of Bavaria, or some other prince whose elevation would break the Habsburg succession. Mazarin, however, obtained a promise from the new emperor that he would not send assistance to Spain, then at war with France, and, by joining a confederation of German princes, called the league of the Rhine, France secured a certain influence in the internal affairs of Germany. Leopold’s long reign covers one of the most important periods of European history; for nearly the whole of its forty-seven years he was pitted against Louis XIV. of France, whose dominant personality completely overshadowed Leopold. The emperor was a man of peace and never led his troops in person; yet the greater part of his public life was spent in arranging and directing wars. The first was with Sweden, whose king Charles X. found a useful ally in the prince of Transylvania, George II. Rakocky, a rebellious vassal of the Hungarian crown. This war, a legacy of the last reign, was waged by Leopold as the ally of Poland until peace was made at Oliva in 1660. A more dangerous foe next entered the lists. The Turks interfered in the affairs of Transylvania, always an unruly district, and this interference brought on a war with the Empire, which after some desultory operations really began in 1663. By a personal appeal to the diet at Regensburg Leopold induced the princes to send assistance for the campaign; troops were also sent by France, and in August 1664 the great imperialist general, Montecucculi, gained a notable victory at St Gotthard. By the peace of Vasvar the emperor made a twenty years’ truce with the sultan, granting more generous terms than his recent victory seemed to render necessary.

After a few years of peace began the first of three wars between France and the Empire. The aggressive policy pursued by Louis XIV. towards Holland had aroused the serious attention of Europe, and steps had been taken to check it. Although the French king had sought the alliance of several German princes and encouraged the Turks in their attacks on Austria the emperor at first took no part in this movement. He was on friendly terms with Louis, to whom he was closely related and with whom he had already discussed the partition of the lands of the Spanish monarchy; moreover, in 1671 he arranged with him a treaty of neutrality. In 1672, however, he was forced to take action. He entered into an alliance for the defence of Holland and war broke out; then, after this league had collapsed owing to the defection of the elector of Brandenburg, another and more durable alliance was formed for the same purpose, including, besides the emperor, the king of Spain and several German princes, and the war was renewed. At this time, twenty-five years after the peace of Westphalia, the Empire was virtually a confederation of independent princes, and it was very difficult for its head to conduct any war with vigour and success, some of its members being in alliance with the enemy and others being only lukewarm in their support of the imperial interests. Thus this struggle, which lasted until the end of 1678, was on the whole unfavourable to Germany, and the advantages of the treaty of Nijmwegen (February 1679) were with France.

Almost immediately after the conclusion of peace Louis renewed his aggressions on the German frontier. Engaged in a serious struggle with Turkey, the emperor was again slow to move, and although he joined a league against France in 1682 he was glad to make a truce at Regensburg two years later. In 1686 the league of Augsburg was formed by the emperor and the imperial princes, to preserve the terms of the treaties of Westphalia and of Nijmwegen. The whole European position was now bound up with events in England, and the tension lasted until 1688, when William of Orange won the English crown and Louis invaded Germany. In May 1689 the grand alliance was formed, including the emperor, the kings of England, Spain and Denmark, the elector of Brandenburg and others, and a fierce struggle against France was waged throughout almost the whole of western Europe. In general the several campaigns were favourable to the allies, and in September 1697 England and Holland made peace with Louis at Ryswick.To this treaty Leopold refused to assent, as he considered that his allies had somewhat neglected his interests, but in the following month he came to terms and a number of places were transferred from France to Germany. The peace with France lasted for about four years and then Europe was involved in the War of the Spanish Succession. The king of Spain, Charles II., was a Habsburg by descent and was related by marriage to the Austrian branch, while a similar tie bound him to the royal house of France. He was feeble and childless, and attempts had been made by the European powers to arrange for a peaceable division of his extensive kingdom. Leopold refused to consent to any partition, and when in November 1700 Charles died, leaving his crown to Philip, duke of Anjou, a grandson of Louis XIV., all hopes of a peaceable settlement vanished. Under the guidance of William III. a powerful league, the grand alliance, was formed against France; of this the emperor was a prominent member, and in 1703 he transferred his claim on the Spanish monarchy to his second son, the archduke Charles. The early course of the war was not favourable to the imperialists, but the tide of defeat had been rolled back by the great victory of Blenheim before Leopold died on the 5th of May 1705.

In governing his own lands Leopold found his chief difficulties in Hungary, where unrest was caused partly by his desire to crush Protestantism. A rising was suppressed in 1671 and for some years Hungary was treated with great severity. In 1681, after another rising, some grievances were removed and a less repressive policy was adopted, but this did not deter the Hungarians from revolting again. Espousing the cause of the rebels the sultan sent an enormous army into Austria early in 1683; this advanced almost unchecked to Vienna, which was besieged from July to September, while Leopold took refuge at Passau. Realizing the gravity of the situation somewhat tardily, some of the German princes, among them the electors of Saxony and Bavaria, led their contingents to the imperial army which was commanded by the emperor’s brother-in-law, Charles, duke of Lorraine, but the most redoubtable of Leopold’s allies was the king of Poland, John Sobieski, who was already dreaded by the Turks. On the 12th of September 1683 the allied army fell upon the enemy, who was completely routed, and Vienna was saved. The imperialists, among whom Prince Eugene of Savoy was rapidly becoming prominent, followed up the victory with others, notably one near Mohacz in 1687 and another at Zenta in 1697, and in January 1699 the sultan signed the treaty of Karlowitz by which he admitted the sovereign rights of the house of Habsburg over nearly the whole of Hungary. Before the conclusion of the war, however, Leopold had taken measures to strengthen his hold upon this country. In 1687 at the diet of Pressburg the constitution was changed, the right of the Habsburgs to succeed to the throne without election was admitted and the emperor’s elder son Joseph was crowned hereditary king of Hungary.

During this reign some important changes were made in the constitution of the Empire. In 1663 the imperial diet entered upon the last stage of its existence, and became a body permanently in session at Regensburg; in 1692 the duke of Hanover was raised to the rank of an elector, becoming the ninth member of the electoral college; and in 1700 Leopold, greatly in need of help for the impending war with France, granted the title of king of Prussia to the elector of Brandenburg. The net result of these and similar changes was to weaken the authority of the emperor over the members of the Empire, and to compel him to rely more and more upon his position as ruler of the Austrian archduchies and of Hungary and Bohemia, and Leopold was the first who really appears to have realized this altered state of affairs and to have acted in accordance therewith.

The emperor was married three times. His first wife was Margaret Theresa (d. 1673), daughter of Philip IV. of Spain; his second Claudia Felicitas (d. 1676), the heiress of Tirol; and his third Eleanora, a princess of the Palatinate. By his first two wives he had no sons, but his third wife bore him two, Joseph and Charles, both of whom became emperors. He had also four daughters.

Leopold was a man of industry and education, and during his later years he showed some political ability. Extremely tenacious of his rights, and regarding himself as an absolute sovereign, he was also very intolerant and was greatly influenced by the Jesuits. In person he was short, but strong and healthy. Although he had no inclination for a military life he loved exercises in the open air, such as hunting and riding; he had also a taste for music.

Leopold’s letters to Marco d’Aviano from 1680 to 1699 were edited by O. Klopp and published at Graz in 1888. Other letters are found in theFontes rerum Austriacarum, Bände 56 and 57 (Vienna, 1903-1904). See also F. Krones,Handbuch der Geschichte Österreichs(Berlin, 1876-1879); R. Baumstark,Kaiser Leopold I.(1873); and A. F. Pribram,Zur Wahl Leopolds I.(Vienna, 1888).

(A. W. H.*)

LEOPOLD II.(1747-1792), Roman emperor, and grand-duke of Tuscany, son of the empress Maria Theresa and her husband, Francis I., was born in Vienna on the 5th of May 1747. He was a third son, and was at first educated for the priesthood, but the theological studies to which he was forced to apply himself are believed to have influenced his mind in a way unfavourable to the Church. On the death of his elder brother Charles in 1761 it was decided that he should succeed to his father’s grand duchy of Tuscany, which was erected into a “secundogeniture” or apanage for a second son. This settlement was the condition of his marriage on the 5th of August 1764 with Maria Louisa, daughter of Charles III. of Spain, and on the death of his father Francis I. (13th August 1765) he succeeded to the grand duchy. For five years he exercised little more than nominal authority under the supervision of counsellors appointed by his mother. In 1770 he made a journey to Vienna to secure the removal of this vexatious guardianship, and returned to Florence with a free hand. During the twenty years which elapsed between his return to Florence and the death of his eldest brother Joseph II. in 1790 he was employed in reforming the administration of his small state. The reformation was carried out by the removal of the ruinous restrictions on industry and personal freedom imposed by his predecessors of the house of Medici, and left untouched during his father’s life; by the introduction of a rational system of taxation; and by the execution of profitable public works, such as the drainage of the Val di Chiana. As he had no army to maintain, and as he suppressed the small naval force kept up by the Medici, the whole of his revenue was left free for the improvement of his state. Leopold was never popular with his Italian subjects. His disposition was cold and retiring. His habits were simple to the verge of sordidness, though he could display splendour on occasion, and he could not help offending those of his subjects who had profited by the abuses of the Medicean régime. But his steady, consistent and intelligent administration, which advanced step by step, making the second only when the first had been justified by results, brought the grand duchy to a high level of material prosperity. His ecclesiastical policy, which disturbed the deeply rooted convictions of his people, and brought him into collision with the pope, was not successful. He was unable to secularize the property of the religious houses, or to put the clergy entirely under the control of the lay power.

During the last few years of his rule in Tuscany Leopold had begun to be frightened by the increasing disorders in the German and Hungarian dominions of his family, which were the direct result of his brother’s headlong methods. He and Joseph II. were tenderly attached to one another, and met frequently both before and after the death of their mother, while the portrait by Pompeo Baltoni in which they appear together shows that they bore a strong personal resemblance to one another. But it may be said of Leopold, as of Fontenelle, that his heart was made of brains. He knew that he must succeed his childless eldest brother in Austria, and he was unwilling to inherit his unpopularity. When, therefore, in 1789 Joseph, who knew himself to be dying, asked him to come to Vienna, and become co-regent, Leopold coldly evaded the request. He was still in Florence when Joseph II. died at Vienna on the 20th of February 1790, and he did not leave his Italian capital till the3rd of March. Leopold, during his government in Tuscany, had shown a speculative tendency to grant his subjects a constitution. When he succeeded to the Austrian lands he began by making large concessions to the interests offended by his brother’s innovations. He recognized the Estates of his different dominions as “the pillars of the monarchy,” pacified the Hungarians and divided the Belgian insurgents by concessions. When these failed to restore order, he marched troops into the country, and re-established at the same time his own authority, and the historic franchises of the Flemings. Yet he did not surrender any part that could be retained of what Maria Theresa and Joseph had done to strengthen the hands of the state. He continued, for instance, to insist that no papal bull could be published in his dominions without his consent (placetum regium).

If Leopold’s reign as emperor, and king of Hungary and Bohemia, had been prolonged during years of peace, it is probable that he would have repeated his successes as a reforming ruler in Tuscany on a far larger scale. But he lived for barely two years, and during that period he was hard pressed by peril from west and east alike. The growing revolutionary disorders in France endangered the life of his sister Marie Antoinette, the queen of Louis XVI., and also threatened his own dominions with the spread of a subversive agitation. His sister sent him passionate appeals for help, and he was pestered by the royalist emigrants, who were intriguing both to bring about an armed intervention in France, and against Louis XVI. From the east he was threatened by the aggressive ambition of Catherine II. of Russia, and by the unscrupulous policy of Prussia. Catherine would have been delighted to see Austria and Prussia embark on a crusade in the cause of kings against the Revolution. While they were busy beyond the Rhine, she would have annexed what remained of Poland, and would have made conquests in Turkey. Leopold II. had no difficulty in seeing through the rather transparent cunning of the Russian empress, and he refused to be misled. To his sister he gave good advice and promises of help if she and her husband could escape from Paris. The emigrants who followed him pertinaciously were refused audience, or when they forced themselves on him were peremptorily denied all help. Leopold was too purely a politician not to be secretly pleased at the destruction of the power of France and of her influence in Europe by her internal disorders. Within six weeks of his accession he displayed his contempt for her weakness by practically tearing up the treaty of alliance made by Maria Theresa in 1756 and opening negotiations with England to impose a check on Russia and Prussia. He was able to put pressure on England by threatening to cede his part of the Low Countries to France, and then, when secure of English support, he was in a position to baffle the intrigues of Prussia. A personal appeal to Frederick William II. led to a conference between them at Reichenbach in July 1790, and to an arrangement which was in fact a defeat for Prussia. Leopold’s coronation as king of Hungary on the 15th of November 1790, was preceded by a settlement with the diet in which he recognized the dominant position of the Magyars. He had already made an eight months’ truce with the Turks in September, which prepared the way for the termination of the war begun by Joseph II., the peace of Sistova being signed in August 1791. The pacification of his eastern dominions left Leopold free to re-establish order in Belgium and to confirm friendly relations with England and Holland.

During 1791 the emperor continued to be increasingly preoccupied with the affairs of France. In January he had to dismiss the count of Artois, afterwards Charles X., king of France, in a very peremptory way. His good sense was revolted by the folly of the French emigrants, and he did his utmost to avoid being entangled in the affairs of that country. The insults inflicted on Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, however, at the time of their attempted flight to Varennes in June, stirred his indignation, and he made a general appeal to the sovereigns of Europe to take common measures in view of events which “immediately compromised the honour of all sovereigns, and the security of all governments.” Yet he was most directly interested in the conference at Sistova, which in June led to a final peace with Turkey. On the 25th of August he met the king of Prussia at Pillnitz, near Dresden, and they drew up a declaration of their readiness to intervene in France if and when their assistance was called for by the other powers. The declaration was a mere formality, for, as Leopold knew, neither Russia nor England was prepared to act, and he endeavoured to guard against the use which he foresaw the emigrants would endeavour to make of it. In face of the agitation caused by the Pillnitz declaration in France, the intrigues of the emigrants, and the attacks made by the French revolutionists on the rights of the German princes in Alsace, Leopold continued to hope that intervention might not be required. When Louis XVI. swore to observe the constitution of September 1791, the emperor professed to think that a settlement had been reached in France. The attacks on the rights of the German princes on the left bank of the Rhine, and the increasing violence of the parties in Paris which were agitating to bring about war, soon showed, however, that this hope was vain. Leopold met the threatening language of the revolutionists with dignity and temper. His sudden death on the 1st of March 1792 was an irreparable loss to Austria.

Leopold had sixteen children, the eldest of his eight sons being his successor, the emperor Francis II. Some of his other sons were prominent personages in their day. Among them were: Ferdinand III., grand duke of Tuscany; the archduke Charles, a celebrated soldier; the archduke John, also a soldier; the archduke Joseph, palatine of Hungary; and the archduke Rainer, viceroy of Lombardy-Venetia.

Several volumes containing the emperor’s correspondence have been published. Among these are:Joseph II. und Leopold von Toskana. Ihr Briefwechsel 1781-1790(Vienna, 1872), andMarie Antoinette, Joseph II. und Leopold II. Ihr Briefwechsel(Vienna, 1866), both edited by A. Ritter von Arneth;Joseph II., Leopold II. und Kaunitz. Ihr Briefwechsel(Vienna, 1873); andLeopold II., Franz II. und Catharina. Ihre Correspondenz nebst einer Einleitung: Zur Geschichte der Politik Leopolds II.(Leipzig, 1874), both edited by A. Beer; andLeopold II. und Marie Christine. Ihrand Briefwechsel 1781-1792, edited by A. Wolf (Vienna, 1867). See also H. von Sybel,Über die Regierung Kaiser Leopolds II.(Munich, 1860); A. Schultze,Kaiser Leopold II. und die französische Revolution(Leipzig, 1899); and A. Wolf and H. von Zwiedeneck-Südenhorst,Österreich unter Maria Theresa, Joseph II. und Leopold II.(Berlin, 1882-1884).

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