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 MUSUROS

669

MTTTIS

the inhabitants Musticenses or Mustitani; the latter name is also used by St. Augustine. In 411, at the time of the Carthage conference, Musti had besides two Donatist bishops (Felicianus and Cresconius) two Catholic bishops (Victorianus and Leontius). Anto- nianus was one of the bishops exiled by Huneric in 482. Musti was then included in Proconsular Nu- midia. In 046 Bishop Januarius signed the letter of the bishops of Proconsular Africa to Paul, Patriarch of Constantinople, against the Monothelites.

ToDLOTTE, Oeogr. de V A/Hque chretienne, Proconsutaire (Rennes, 1892), 21-1-217; Smith, Diet, of Greek and Roman Geogr., s. v. S. PETRIDi:S.

Musuros, Markos, learned Greek humanist, b. 1470 at Rot uno, Crete; d. 1517 at Rome. The .son of a rich merchant, he went, when quite young, to Italy, where he studied Greek at Florence, under the cele- brated John Lascaris, whom he afterwards almost equalled in classical scholarship. In 150.3 he became professor of Greek at Padua, where he taught with great success. Later at Venice, he lectured on Greek, at the expense of the republic, and became a member of the Aldine Academy of Hellenists. Musuros ren- dered valuable assistance to Aldus Manutius in the preparation of the earliest printed editions of the Greek authors, and his handwriting formed the model of Aldus's Greek type. He contributed greatly in giving to the Aldine editions the accuracy that made them famous, while his reputation as a teacher was such that pupils came from all countries to hear him lecture. Erasmus, who had attended his lectures at Padua, testifies to his wonderful knowledge of Latin. To his profound scholarship the editions of Aristo- phanes, Plato, Pindar, Hesychinus, Athenjeus, and Pausanias owed their critical correctness. In 1499 he edited the first Latin and Greek lexicon, "Etymolo- gicum Magnum", printed by Zacharias Callierges of Crete. In 1516 he was invited by Leo X to Rome, where he lectured in the pope's gymnasium and es- tablished a Greek printing-press. In recognition of the beautiful Greek poem prefixed to the editio prin- ceps of Plato, Pope Leo appointed him Bishop of Mal- vasia (Monemvasia) in the Morea, but Musuros died before starting for his distant diocese. Besides nu- merous editions of different authors he wrote several Greek epigrams which with the elegy on Plato pub- lished in the Aldine edition (Venice, 1513) are about his only extant writings.

Sandys, Ilialnry of classical Scholarship. II (Cambridge. 1908); Leghand. Bibliographie helUnique, I (Paris, 188.5); DiDOT, Aide Manuce (Paria, 1875).

Edmund Burke.

Mutis, Jose Celestino, eminent naturalist and scientist in South America, b. at Cadiz, Spain, 6 April, 1732; d. at Bogotd, Colombia, 2 Sept., 1808. Mutis studied medicine at Seville and Madrid and, from 1757, practised as a physician at Madrid, where he applied himself to botany. Soon afterwards he went to South America as physician-in-ordinary to the newly-appointed Viceroy of New Granada, Mesia de la Cerda (Marqu6s de la Vega). In November, 1760, he landed in Cartagena, and remained in New Granada for five decades. By his great zeal for - science and his untiring and versatile activity, he became more and more the soul of all scientific under- takings in Spanish South America. Although he at first taught mathematics and, about the end of his life, founded an observatory in Bogotd, and directed the same as astronomer, he devoted his energies almost wholly to researches in the natural history of New Granada, even continuing this work, when, in 1772, he became a cleric (priest?) and canon at the cathedral of Bogotd. During the fiirst years of his life at Bogotd, he had planned the botanical explora- tion of the whole country, intending to write a book on the flora of New Granada. For his researches he

maintained substations at Cdcota and La Montuosa, which Linn^ supposed to be situated in Mexico. He settled in Mariquita after he had been appointed in 1783 by Charles III, under the viceroy and Archbishop Gongora, leader of the "Expedici6n botdnica del Nueva Reino de Granada", which was founded by the State. Here, as Alexander von Humboldt, an eye- witness, relates, Mutis laid out a plantation of cin- chona. Mutis was obliged to train his whole staff of assistants (collectors, painters, engravers, etc.); he also taught several native botanists, e. g., Zea, Caldas, and Restrepo, furthermore his nephew and successor, Sinforoso Mutis. At that time, Mutis was widely known; Linn^, who received from him South American plants and corresponded frequently with him, calls him "phytologorum americanorum prin- ceps". Linni's son defined the genus Mutisia in 1781. The Spanish botanist Cavanilles lauded him in 1791 as "botanicorum facile princeps". At Bogo- ta, where he spent the last ten years of his life, the famous explorers Humboklt and Bonpland stayed with him for two months in 1801, filled with admira- tion for his rich collections. Their famous work, "Plantes equinoctiales" (1818), is adorned with a beautiful portrait of Mutis, and Humboldt erected a glorious monument to the American investigator by writing his biography (" Biographie universelle, XXX, Paris, 1821).

Subsequent generations were perhaps justified in judging Mutis less favourably, but it is unjust on the part of some critics to seek to degrade Mutis to the position of an unimportant amateur or to abuse him. Mutis committed the fault that he never ended his researches, and thus published almost nothing during his life-time. He, furthermore, had the misfortune to have his scientific legacy at first remain totally unnoticed in consequence of the political disorders of that time. His museum consisted of 24,000 dried plants, 5000 drawings of plants by his pupils, and a collection of woods, shells, resins, minerals, and skins. These treasures arrived safely at Madrid in 105 boxes, and the plants, manuscripts, and drawings were sent to the botanical gardens, where they were buried in a tool -house. Mutis's cinchona investigations render his work of lasting importance. While he was not the first to discover the genuine cinchona for New Granada — as became known with certainty only after his death — he rendered important services by his study of the cinchonas, their geographical dis- tribution in Colombia, their species and varieties, and their utilization for medicine. This is shown by the trade, which developed in such a manner that (e. g.) the seaport of Cartagena alone exported from New Granada 1,200,000 pounds of cinchona bark in 1806, while previous to 1776 this country pro- duced no quinquina at all. This is furthermore shown by Mutis's writings, which, however, were not printed in full until 1870. Mutis himself published in 1793 and 1794 a short monograph on cinchonas in "Diario de Santa Fe de Bogotd". A year later ap- peared "Observaeiones y conocimientos de la quina" (in 4 numbers, 608-11, of "Mercurio Peruano de Lima", 1795). The above-mentioned Zea published sometime later "Mcmoria sobre la quina segun los principios del Seiior Mutis" ("Anales de Historia Natural", Madrid, 1800). Mutis sent his chief work "El arcano de la quina" in manuscript to Madrid, but the war with France prevented its publication; in 1828 the Spanish physician Hcrndndez de Gre- gorio edited the first three parts of this work with Mutis's portrait ("El arcano de la quina. Discurso que contiene la parte m6dica de las cuatro especies de quinas oficinalis", Madrid, 1828, 263 pages). The manuscript of the botanical-scientific part was dis- covered by Clements R. Markham in a shed in the botanical gardens of Madrid; he published it under the title: "Tabula synoptica ad specierum generis Chin-