The Accademia della Cruscaor Furfuratorum is an Italian academy founded in Florence in 1582 by the writer Antonio Francesco Grazzini. It aimed at purifying and cultivating Italian language and literature, and its Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca (first published in 1612) is still a model for works of the kind. The French Academy was modelled on this one. Research Accademia della Cruscaor Furfuratorum
A comet is a small body orbiting the sun on an elliptical path with a long tail of dust and ice.
Some comets are only visible by the aid of the telescope, while others can be seen by the naked eye. In the latter case they usually appear like stars accompanied with a train of light, sometimes short and sometimes extending over half the sky, mostly single and more or less curved, but sometimes forked. In a comet which appeared in 1744 the train was divided into several branches, spreading out from the head like a fan. The train is not stationary relatively to the head, but is subject to remarkable movements. The direction in which it points is always opposite to the sun, and as the , comet passes its perihelion the train changes its apparent position with extraordinary velocity. The head of the comet is itself of different degrees of luminosity, there being usually a central core, called the nucleus, of greater brilliancy than the surrounding envelope, called the coma.
Comets were long regarded as supernatural objects, and usually as portents of impending calamity. Tycho Brahe was the first who expressed a rational opinion on the subject, coming to the conclusion that the comet of 1577 was a heavenly body at a greater distance from the earth than that of the moon. The general law of the motion of bodies, as well as his own observations on the comet of 1680, led Isaac Newton to conclude that the orbits of the comets must, like those of the planets, be ellipses, having the sun in one focus, but far more eccentric; and having their aphelions, or greater distances from the sun, far remote in the regions of space.
This idea was taken up by Halley, who collated the observations which had been made of all the twenty-four comets of which notice had been taken previous to 1680. The results were very interesting. With but few exceptions the comets had passed within less than the earth's shortest distance from the sun, some of them within less than one-third of it, and the average about one-half. Out of the number, too, nearly two-thirds had had their motions retrograde, or moved in the opposite direction to the planets. While Halley was engaged on these comparisons and deductions the comet of 1682 made its appearance, and he found that there was a wonderful resemblance between it and three other comets that he found recorded - the comets of 1456, of 1531, and of 1607. The times of the appearance of these comets had been at very nearly regular intervals, the average period being between seventy-five and seventy-six years. Their distances from the sun, when in perihelion, or when nearest to that luminary, had been nearly the same, being nearly six-tenths of that of the earth, and not varying more than one-sixtieth from each other.
The inclination of their orbits to that of the earth had also been nearly the same, between 17 degrees and 18 degrees; and their motions had all been retrograde. Putting these facts together, Halley concluded that the comets of 1456, 1531,1607, and 1682 were reappearances of one and the same comet, which revolved in an elliptic orbit round the sun, performing its circuit in a period varying from a little more than seventy-six years to a little less than seventy-five; or having, as far as the observations had been carried, a variation of about fifteen months in the absolute duration of its year, measured according to that of the earth. For this variation in the time of its revolution Halley accounted upon the supposition that the form of its orbit had been altered by the attraction of the remote planets Jupiter and Saturn as it passed near to them; and thence he concluded that the period of its next appearance would be lengthened, but that it would certainly reappear in 1758 or early in 1759. As the time of its expected reappearance approached, Clairaut calculated that it would be retarded 100 days by the attraction of Saturn, and 518 by that of Jupiter, so that it would not come to the perihelion, or point of its orbit nearest the 500 sun, until the 13th of April, 1759.
It actually reached its perihelion on the 13th of March, 1759, being thirty days earlier than he had calculated. Along with the period of this comet and its perihelion distance, the magnitude and form of its path were also calculated. Estimating the mean distance of the earth from the sun at 95,000,000 miles (the number which was at that time considered as the true one), the mean distance of the comet was calculated to be 1,705,250,000 miles; its greatest distance from the sun, 3,355,400,000; its least distance, 55,100,000; and the transverse or largest diameter of its orbit, 3,410,500,000. This comet, therefore, is a body belonging to the solar system, and quite beyond the attraction of any body which does not belong to that system; and as this is determined of one comet, analogy points it out as being the case with them all. In 1835 it again returned, being first seen at Rome, on August the 5th, and from that time continued to be observed until the end of the year in Europe, and through a great part of spring 1836 in the southern hemisphere.
The comet denominated Encke's comet, which has made repeated appearances, was first observed in 1818, and was identified with a comet observed in 1786, also with a comet discovered in 1795 by Miss Herschel in the constellation Cygnus, and with another seen in 1805. Its orbit is an ellipse of comparatively small dimensions, wholly within the orbit of Jupiter; its period is 1260 days, or about three years and three-tenths. It has been frequently observed since.
Another comet, the history of which is of the utmost importance in the latest theories regarding the connection of these bodies and the periodic showers of shooting-stars, is one known as Biela's comet, discovered in 1826. It revolved about the sun in about 6.75 years, and was identified as the same comet which was observed in 1772 and in 1806. Its returns were noted in 1832, 1839, and 1845. In 1846 it divided into two, returned double in 1852, but has not since been seen, the Supposition being that it has been dissipated, and that it was represented by a great shower of meteors that were seen in November 1872. One of the most remarkable comets of recent times was that known as Donati's, discovered by Dr. Donati of Florence in 1858. It was very brilliant in England in the autumn of that year, and on the 18th of October was near coming into collision with Venus, The year 1881 was remarkable for the number of comets recorded. During that year no fewer than seven comets, including the well-known short-period comet Encke's, were observed. Research Comet
Along with that of Ferrara, the council of Florence was a continuation of the Council of Basel. At Florence its sessions continued at intervals from 1439 to 1442. Its object was a reunion of the eastern and western churches; but the seeming agreement come to was soon after repudiated by a council at Constantinople (Istanbul). Research Council of Florence
Dellia Robbia Ware is a form of terra-cotta bas-reliefs thickly enamelled with tin-glaze; made at Florence chiefly in 1450 to 1530 and in France between 1530 and 1567. They are so called from the name of the Italian artist, Lucca Della Robbia who used the technique. Research Dellia Robbia Ware
Engraving is the art of representing objects and depicting characters on metal, wood, precious stones, etc, by means of incisions made with instruments variously adapted to the substances operated upon and the description of work intended.
Impressions from metal plates are named engravings, prints, or plates those printed from wood being called indifferently wood engravings and wood-cuts. While, however, these impressions are not altogether dissimilar in appearance, the processes are distinct. In plates the lines intended to print are incised, and in order to take an impression the plate is daubed over with a thick ink which fills all the lines. The surface is then wiped perfectly clean, leaving only the incised lines filled with ink. A piece of damp paper is now laid on the face of the plate, and both are passed through the press, which causes the ink to pass from the plate to the paper. This operation needs to be repeated for every impression, for the wood block, on the contrary, the spaces between the lines of the drawing are cut out, leaving the lines standing up like type, the printing being from the inked surface of the raised lines, and effected much more rapidly than plate printing.
Engraving on wood, intended for printing or taking impressing from, long preceded engraving on metals. The art is of eastern origin, and at least as early as the 10th century engraving and printing from wood blocks was common in China. We first hear of wood engraving being cultivated in Europe by the Italians and Germans in the 13th century. For a hundred and fifty years, however, there is small indication of the practice of the art, which was at first confined to the production of block-books, playing cards, and religious prints. In the 15th century the art of printing from engraved plates was discovered in Florence by Maso Finiguerra.
Engraving had long been used as a means of decorating armour, metal vessels, etc, the engravers generally securing duplicates of their works before laying in the niello (a species of metallic enamel) by filling the lines with dark colour, and taking casts of them in sulphur. The discovery of the practicability of taking impressions upon paper led to engraving upon copper plates for the purpose of printing from.
The date of the earliest known niello proof upon paper is 1452. The work of the Florentine engravers, however, was almost at once surpassed in Venice and elsewhere in North Italy by Andrea Mantegna, Girolamo Mocetto, Giovanni Batista del Porto, and others. In Marc Antonio Raimondi, who wrought under the guidance of Raphael, and reproduced many of his works, the art reached its highest point of the earlier period, and Rome became the centre of a new school, which included Marco da Ravenna, Giulio Bonasone, and Agostino de Musis.
In the meantime, in Germany the progress of the art had been not less rapid. Of the oldest school the most important engraver is Martin Schongauer. He was, however, surpassed a generation later by Albert Durer who excelled both in copper and wood engraving, especially in the latter. Among his most famous contemporaries and successors were Burgkmair and Lucas Cranach. The Dutch and Flemish schools, of which Durer's contemporary Lucas van Leyden was the head, did much to enlarge the scope of the art, either by paying increased attention to the rendering of light and shade, and the expression of local colour, as in the case of Cornelius Cort and Bloemart; or by developing freedom and expression of line, as in the case of Goltzius and his pupils.
Rubens influenced engraving through the two Bolswerts, Vorstermann, Pontius, and de Jode, who engraved many of his works on a large size. Towards the end of the 17th century etching, which had before been rarely used, became more common, and was practised with great success by Rembrandt and other painters of that period. In France Noel Garnier founded a school of engraving about the middle of the 16th century; but it produced no work of any high distinction until the reign of Louis XIV, when Nanteuil's pupil Gerard Edelinck and Gerard Audran flourished. The former was skilled in using his graver to produce colour effects, the latter is famed for his engravings from Nicolas Poussin and Le Brun. But these were all surpassed about the middle of the 18th century by Wille, a German resident in Paris.
Before the middle of the 17th century England produced little noteworthy work, availing herself principally of the work of foreign engravers, of whom many took up temporary and even permanent residence. The first English engraver of marked importance was William Hogarth, whose works are distinguished for character and expression. Vivares, a Frenchman by birth, laid the foundation of the English school of landscape-engraving, which was still further developed by William Woollet, who was also an excellent engraver of the human figure.
In historical engraving a not less remarkable advance was made by Sir Robert Strange, and Richard Earlom produced some admirable works in mezzotint. In succession to these came William Sharp, James Bazire, Bartolozzi, James Heath, Bromley, Raimbach, and others.
The substitution of steel for copper plates around 1820 to 1830 gave the power of producing a much larger number of fine impressions, and opened new possibilities for highly-finished work.
During the closing years of the 18th century line engraving attained a depth of colour and fulness of tone in which earlier works generally are deficient, and during the following century it reached a perfectness of finish which it had not previously attained. A picture, whether figure or Landscuape, may be translated by line engraving with all its depth of colour, delicacy of tone, and effect of light and shade; the various textures, whether of naked flesh, silk, satin, woollen, or velvet, all successfully rendered by ingenious modes of laying the lines and combinations of lines of varying strength, width, and depth. Among engraverswho have produced historical works of large size and in the line manner the names of Raphael Mrghen, Longhi, Anderloni, Garavaglia, and Toschi, in Italy; of Forster, Henriquel-Dupont, Bridoux, and Blanchard, in France; of John Burnet, J H Robinson, Doo, J H Watt, and Lumb Stocks, in England, stand pre-eminent.
Among historical and portrait engravers in the stipple or dotted manner the names of H T Ryall, Henry Robinson, William Holl and Francis Holl, may well be mentioned.
In the period 1820 to 1860 landscape engraving attained a perfection in Great Britain which it had not attained in any other country, or at any other time. Among landscape engravers the names of George Gooke, William Miller, E Goodall, J Cousen, K Brandard, and William Forrest hold the foremost places. In mezzotinto engraving Samuel Cousins is unrivalled.
In the period 1830 to 1845 various publications called Annuals, composed of light literature in prose and verse, and illustrated by highly-finished engravings in steel, were very popular. The engravings were necessarily of small size, and are generally of great excellence. A number of them both figure and landscape are executed with such finish and completeness as to be esteemed perfect works. The unrivalled illustrations of Rogers' Poems and Rogers' Italy after Turner and Stothard belong to this period. Many of the originals of the engravings in the Annuals were finished pictures of large size.
A great part of the difficulty in engraving on a small scale from a large picture, consists in determining what details can be left out, and still preserve the full effect and character of the original. The most noted engravers for work of small size are Charles Heath, Charles Bolls, W Finden, E Finden, E. Portbury, J Goodyear, F Engleheart, Henry Le Keux, E Goodall, and W Miller.
After 1870 many plates were produced by a combination of etching and dry point, a comparatively cheap and rapid process. Such works were fashionable and very popular with collectors. But while some of them have been excellent of their kind, the process is of limited resource, and the best works in this manner will not stand comparison with the masterpieces of line engraving. Through lack of encouragement, change of fashion, and the adoption of other methods of reproduction such as photography, line engraving rapidly becoming a lost art in Great Britain. The men who made line engraving famous died, and there was no sufficient inducement for younger men to pursue that art. In France and in Germany some able line engravers were still in practice at the start of the 20th century.
Line Engraving, as implied by the term, is executed entirely in lines. The tools are few and simple. They consist of the graver or burin, the point, the scraper, and the burnisher; an oil-stone or hone, dividers, a parallel square, a magnifying lens; a bridge on which to rest the hand; a blind or shade of tissue paper, to make the light fall equally on the plate, callipers for levelling important erasures, a small steelanvil, a small pointed hammer, and punches. In etching, the following articles are required: a resinous mixture called etching-ground, capable, when spread very thinly over the plate, of resisting the action of the acids used; a dauber for laying the ground equally; a hand-vice; some hair-pencils of different sizes, and bordering wax, made of burgundy-pitch, bees'-wax, and a little oil.
In engraving, the plate, which is highly polished and must be free from all scratches, is first prepared by spreading over it a thin layer of ground. The surface is then smoked, and the outline of the picture transferred to it by pressure from the paper on which it has been drawn in fine outlines by a black-lead pencil. The picture is then drawn on the ground with the etching-needle, which removes the ground in every form produced by it, and leaves the bright metal exposed. A bank of wax is then put round the plate and diluted acid poured on it, which eats out the metal from the lines from which the ground has been removed, but leaves the rest of the plate untouched. The plate is then gone over with the graver, the etched lines clearly defuned, broken lines connected, new lines added, etc. Sometimes the plate is rebitten more than once, those parts which are sufficiently bitten in the first treatment being stopped with varnish, and only the selected parts exposed to after-biting. Finally the burnisher is brought into play alternately with the graver and point to give perfectness and finish.
Such is the process for landscape engraving. In historical and portrait engraving of the highest class, the lines are first drawn on the metal with a fine point and then cut in by the graver, first making a fine line and afterwards entering and re-entering till the desired width and depth of lines is attained. Much of the excellence of such engravings depends on the mode in which the lines are laid, their relative thickness, and the manner in which they cross each other. In historical engraving etching is but little used, and then only for accessories and the less important parts.
In Soft-ground Etching the ground, made by mixing lard with common etching-ground, is laid on the plate and smoked as before, but its extreme softness renders it very liable to injury. The outline of the subject is drawn on a piece of rough paper larger than the plate. The paper is then damped, and laid gently over the ground face upwards, and the margins folded over and pasted down on the back of the plate. When the paper is dry and tightly stretched the bridge is laid across, and with a hardish pencil and firm pressure the drawing is completed in the usual manner. The pressure makes the ground adhere to the back of the paper at all parts touched by the pencil, and on. the paper being lifted carefully off, these parts of the ground are lifted with it, and the corresponding parts of the plate thus left bare are exposed to the subsequent action of the acid. The granulated surface of the paper, causing similar granulations in the touches on the ground, gives the character of a chalk-drawing. The biting-in is effected in the same manner as already described, and the subject is finished by re-biting and dotting with the graver.
Stipple, or Chalk Engraving, in its pure state, is exclusively composed of dots, varying in size and form as the nature of the subject demands, but few stipple plates are now produced without a large admixture of line in all parts, flesh excepted. A great advance, however, was made in stipple engraving by the introduction of large and varied forms of dotting in the draperies, the results almost rivalling line engraving in richness and power.
The Mixed Style is based on mezzotinto, which, still forming the great mass of shading, is in this method combined with etching in the darker, and stipple in the more delicate parts. By this combination a plate will produce a larger number of good impressions than were it done entirely in mezzotinto.
The wood best adapted for engraving is box. It is cut across the grain in thicknesses equal to the height of type, these slices being subjected to a lengthened process of seasoning, and then smoothed for use. Every wood engraving is the representative of a finished drawing previously made on the block; the unshaded parts being cut away, and the lines giving form, shading, texture, etc, left standing in relief by excavations of varied size and character, made between them by gravers of different forms. Drawings on wood are made either with black-lead pencil alone or with pencil and indian ink, the latter being employed for the broader and darker masses. It is now much the practice to photograph drawings made in black and white upon the wood instead of making the drawing on the wood block. When the drawing is put on the wood by washes or by photography instead of being entirely done by pencil lines, the engraver has to devise the width and style of lines to be employed instead of cutting in facsimile, as is the case when the drawing is made entirely in lines. The tools required for wood engraving are similar but more numerous than those of the engraver on copper or steel. Research Engraving
A Florence flask is a globular, long-necked flask of thin glass, of the kind that Florence oil (that is olive-oil) and Tuscanwine were traditionally contained in. Research Florence Flask
Florentine Work is a kind of mosaic work, consisting of precious stones and pieces of white and coloured marble, which has long been produced in Florence. It is applied to jewellery, and used for table tops, etc. Research Florentine Work
In the first ages of Christianity numerous churches were founded by the apostles and their successors in Greek-speaking countries; in Greece itself, in Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, Thrace, and Macedonia. These were subsequently called Greek, in contradistinction to the churches, in which the Latintongue prevailed. The removal of the seat of empire by Constantine to Constantinople (Istanbul), and the subsequent separation of the eastern and western empires afforded the opportunity for diversities of language, modes of thinking, and customs to manifest themselves, and added political causes to the grounds of separation. During the earliest period the chief seats of influence in the Eastern Church were Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria, the seat of that mystical philosophy, by which the orientalchurch was distinguished. In 341, soon after the synod of Antioch, the rivalry between the Bishop of -Rome and the Bishop of Constantinople began to assume importance, and before 400 differences of doctrine with respect to the procession of the Holy Spirit appeared. The council of Chalcedon in 451 accorded to the eastern bishop the same honours and privileges in his own diocese as those of the Bishop of Rome, and in 484 each bishop excommunicated the other.
The title of (Ecumenical Patriarch was assumed by John, Bishop of Constantinople, in 588, and in the following year the phrase 'Filioque' ('and the Son') was added by the Latins to the Nicene creed (which now read 'proceeding from the father and the son'), an addition to which the Greek Church was opposed.
In 648 PopeTheodore deposed Patriarch Paul II; but a reconciliation of the churches was effected at the Council of Rome in 680. The doctrines of the Greek Church were defined by John Damascenus in 730. The disruption was hastened by the banishment of Ignatius by Michael the Drunken and the consecration of Photius in 858. The PopeNicholas I and Photius excommunicated each other in 867. The schism was temporarily healed after the death of Photius, but Michael Cerularius reopened it by charging the Latins with heterodoxy. He was excommunicated by Leo IX in 1054, and in turn excommunicated the pope in the same year, since which the Greeks have been severed from the Roman communion, though the Russo-Greek Church was not separated until the 12th century.
The presence of the Crusaders in the East aggravated the quarrel; Latin patriarchates were established in Antioch and Jerusalem, and, though on the capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders a Latin patriarchate was set up there in 1204, the schism was revived there as soon as the Latinempire fell in 1262. .Reunion was proposed in 1273 by Patriarch Joseph, and effected, with the acknowledgment of the pope as primate, at the council of Lyons in 1274. The union, however, was annulled in 1282 by Emperor Andronicus II, and in 1283 and 1285 by synods of Constantinople. It was again effected under John Palasologus at Florence in 1439, but was repudiated in 1443 by the Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.
In 1453, when the patriarch fled from the Turks, a schismatic Gregory Scholarius was chosen in his place. In 1575 unsuccessful negotiations were commenced with a view to union with the Lutherans, and in 1723 the English bishops even proposed that the Greek and Anglican churches should unite, a proposal revived by the Archbishop of Moscow in 1866. The claims of the czar in 1853 to the protectorate of the Greek churches in Turkey was one of the causes of the Crimean War.
The Greek Church is the only church which holds that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father only; the Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches deriving the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son. Like the Roman Catholic Church it has seven sacraments - baptism; chrism; penance, preceded by confession; the eucharisfc; ordination;
marriage; and unction. Research Greek Church
The Guelfs and Ghibellines were two great Italian political parties in the 13th and 14th centuries. The names are derived from the Italian Guelfi and Ghibellini, which are corrupted from the German Welfen and Waiblingen. These latter words came to be used as party designations in Germany, in the war between Henry the Proud and Conrad of Hohenstaufen, to whom belonged the estate of Waiblingen in Wurtemberg. About the year 1200 the designations Guelf and Ghibelline came to be employed to denote respectively the Italian patriotic and papal party, and the party which supported the domination of the German emperors in Italy. After the fall of the Hohenstaufen the Ghibellines became the partisans of aristocracy, and the Guelfs the partisans of democracy and liberty; but the designations ultimately denoted mere communal and family feuds, and Dante, originally a Guelf, but subsequently a Ghibelline, asserted that the two parties were the cause of all the miseries of Italy. The contest continued with bitterness for almost 300 years. Corresponding parties appeared in Italy under many different names, as the bianchi and neri (white and black) in Florence, etc. Research Guelfs and Ghibellines
Marquetry is the art of veneering or inlaying with wood. The art was known in Egypt and the East two thousand years ago and was introduced from Persia into Venice during the 14th century, whence it spread to Florence, France, Germany and Holland. As intarsia it is conspicuous in church woodwork of the 15th century. Research Marquetry
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Accademia della Cruscaor Furfuratorum
