Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 14.djvu/517

 TARSICIUS

4G1

TARTAGLIA

tes, and was the first to ( oniply with the decrcca of the Council of Trent. In 1S5S Archbishop Costa y Bor- rds built a fourth wing. Benito Villamitjana built a new seminary behind the cathedral in 18S6, in the courtyard of which stands the old chapel of San Pablo. Leo XIII raised this to the rank of a pon- tifical university. In the district of Montblanc, in this archdiocese, is the ancient monastery of Poblet, founded in 11.51 by Ram6n Berenguer IV, which waa the pantheon of the kings of Aragon.

PiFERRER. EsfHiaa. su^ moHume/Uos: Catatufia (Barcelona, 1884); Fl6rez. Esp. Sagrada, XXIV. XXV (iVIadrid. 1859); FnLoo6lo, Crdnim general de Esp.: Tarragona {Madrid. 1870); AgustiN, Catdlogo de lo$ prelados larraconenses (1586).

Ram6n Ruiz Amado.

Tarsicius, Saint, martyr. The only positive in- formation concerning this Roman martyr is found in the poem composed in his honour by Pope Damasua ("Damasi epigrammata", ed. Ihm, 14). In these lines Damasus compares Tarsicius to the protomartjT Stephen: just as the latter was stoned by the people of Judeaso Tarsicius, carrying the Blessed Sacrament, waj- attacked by a heathen rabble, and he suffered death rather ''than surrender the Sacred Body [of Christ) to the raging dogs". This tradition so posi- tively asserted by Dam:isus is undoubtedly historical. Nothing definite is known concerning the personality of this martyr of the Eucharist. He may have been a deacon, as Damasus compares. him to Stephen. An addition to the si.xth-century legend of the martyrdom of Pope St, Stephen makes Tarsicius, for some un- known reason, an acolyte; this addition, however, is based on the poem of Damasus. It is evident that the death of this martyr occurred in one of the perse- cutions that took place between the middle of the third century and the beginning of the fourth. He was buried in the Catacomb of St. Callistus, and the inscription by Damasus was placed later on his tomb. In the seventh century his remains rested in the same grave as those of Pope Zephyrinus; according to Wil- pert they lay in the burial vault above ground (cella Irichora) which was situated towards the west over the Catacomb of St. Callistus. The feast of the saint is obser\-ed on 1.5 August.

WiLPERT, Die Papstgrdber u. die Cdciliengruftinder Katakombe des hi. Kalli.'tlus (Freiburg, 1909), 91 sq., there is in the same work a note liy Fr.^nchi de' Cavaueri, 96-98; Marucchi, La cdla tricora di S. Sfitere ed il gruppo topografico di Marco- Marcellifino e Damaso in A'uor.. Bulletlino di arch, crist. (1908), 157 sq. (1910), 205 sq., opposes Wilpert's opinion concerning the grave of Tar- sicius; Lambert. Etude historique et critique sur .St. Tarsicius (Rome, 1890): Allard, Hist, des persecutions. III, 71 sq.

J. P. KiBSCH.

Tarsus, a metropolitan see of Cilicia Prima. It appears to have been of Semitic origin and is men- tioned several times in the campaigns of Salmanasar and .Sennacherib. The Greek legend connects it with the memory of Sardanapalus, still preserved in the Du- nuk-Tach, called tomb of Sardanapalus, a monument of unknown origin. When in the year 401 B. c, the younger Cyrus marched against Babylon, the city was governed by King Syennesis in the name of the Persian monarch. Tarsus was already Greek and had a tendency to become more and more hellenizcd. Alexanflcr the Great came near meeting his death there after a bath in the Cydnus, the modern Tarsus- Irm.ak. By its literary schools, Tarstis rivalled .Athens and .\lex:indria. It was then comprised in the kingdom of the Selcucides, took the name of Antioch, and the Bible (II Mach., iv, 30) records its revolt against .\ntiochus IV Epiphanes, about 171 B. c. Pompey subjected it to Rome. To flatter Ciesar it took the name of .luliopolis; it was there that Cle<ipatra and Ant hony met, and it w-a-s t he scene of t he celebrat ed feasts which they gave during the construction of their fleet. Tarsus was already the caput Cili- ciiT, the metropolis, where the governor resided. When the province waa divided it remained the civil and religiouB metropolis of Cilicia Prima. The great-

est glory of Tarsus is ( hat it was t he birthplace of St. Paul (Acts, ix, 11; xxi, 39; xxii, 3), who took refuge there after his conversion (Acts, ix, 30), and was joined by Barnabas (Acts, xi, 25). It is probable th.at at this time a Christian community was estab- lished there, although the first bishop, Helenus, dates only from the third century; he went several times to Antioch in connexion with the dispute concerning Paul of Samosata(Eusebius, "Hist.cccl.", VI,xlvi; VII, v). Le Quien (Oriens christianus, II, 869-76) mcntiotis twenty-two of its bishops, of whom several are legend- ary. Among them are Lupus, present at the Council of Ancyra in 314; Theodorus, at that of Nica;a in 325; Helladius, condemned at Ephesus, and who appealed to the pope in 433; above all the celebrated exegetc Diodorus, teacher of Theodore of Mopsuestia and consequently one of the fathers of Nestorianisra. From the sixth century the metropolitan See of Tar- sus had seven suffragan bishoprics (Echos d'Orient, X, 145) ; the Greek archdiocese is again mentioned in the tenth century (op. cit., X, 98), and has existed down to the present day, being comprised in the Patri- archate of Antioch. Owing to the importance of Tar- sus many martyrs were put to death there, among them being St. Pelagia, St. Boniface, St. Marinus, St. Diomedus, and Sts. Cerycus and JuLtta; several Roman emperors were interred there — namely, Taci- tus, Maximinus Daza, and Julian the Apostate. The Arabs took possession of Tarsus from the seventh cen- tury and kept itr until 965, when Nicephorus Phocas annexed it again to the Byzantine Empire. The union continued for nearly a century. The crusa- ders captured it again from the Turks in 1097, and thtjn it was di.sputed between Latins, Greeks, and .Arme- nians of the Kingdomof Lesser Armenia; t hese hist be- came (leliiiitively masters until about 1350, when it was sold to the KgAi)tians. Since then Tarsus has be- longed to the Mussulmans, .'\bout the end of the tenth century, the Armenians established a diocese of their rite, which still exists; St. Nerses of Lambroun was its most distinguished representative in the twelfth century. Tarsus, which has preserved its name, is a caza of the vilayet of Adana on the rail- road from .\dana to Mersina; the city numbers about 18,000 inhabitants, of whom 10,000 are Mussulmans, the remainder are Greek or schismatic Armenian. Only a few Catholics are found there.

SxirrH, Diet, of Greek and Roman Geog., s. v.; Langlois, Voyage dans la Cilicie (Paris, 1861), 259-331 ; Conet, La Turquie d'Asie, II, 44-8; AusHAN, Sissouan (Venice, 1899), 305-21.

S. Vailhe.

Tartaglia (Tartalea), Nicolo, Italian mathema- tician, b. at Brescia, c. 1500; d. at Venice, 13 Decem- ber, 1557. His father, Michele Fontana, died in 1506, leaving his widow, two sons, and two daughters in poverty. As a result of a blow across the mouth in- flicted by some French soldiers at the sack of Brescia in 1512, Nicolo stammered in his speech, thus obtain- ing the nickname of Tartaglia, afterwards assumed by himself. He was self-taught. In 1521, he was teaching mathematics in Verona and in 1534 he went to Venice. By 1541, he had achieved the remark.able triumph of solving the cubic equation. In a m.athe- matical contest with .\ntonio del Fiore, held in 1535, he had shown the superiority of his methods to the method previously obtained by Scipionc^ del Ferro (d. 1526) and known at that time to del Fiore alone. The glorj' of giving these results to the world was not for Tartaglia, .as Cardan (q. v.) having in 15,39 ob- tained a knowledge of them imder the most solemn pledges of secrecy, inserted them, with some addit ions and with some mention of inclclilechicss. in his ".Ara Magna", publi.Hhcd in 1545. .\ long ;in(l bitter con- troversy ensued in which C:irdsn w:us supported by his pupil I''errari. In 1548 Tartaglia became pro- fes8f)r of Euclid at Brescia but returned, after eighteen months, to Venice, where he died. In his will he ex-