Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 3.djvu/432

CARRERA the king as court painter (pintor de cámara), a posi- tion he retained under the next king, Charles II. He was a man of particularly happy, peaceable dis- position, full of generosity, and an immense favourite with his pupils and friends. His work is tender, suave, and of pure, fresh colouring, and in his par- ticular method he is only surpassed by Murillo. Un- fortunately, he was too much given to imitating the work of Velazquez, and, although his portraits are powerful and truthful likenesses, their resemblance in general pose to those of the master force them to challenge the incomparable works of Velazquez, to the obvious detriment of Carreno. His strongest portrait is that of Prince Pedro Ivanovitz Potemkin, Ambassador from the Emperor of Russia to the Court of Spain, a full length figure in red, and he painted three portraits of Charles II, life-like representations of the child-king. He executed several etchings. His best paintings are to be seen at Madrid, St. Peters- burg, Pamplona. Valenciennes, and Vienna. Palo- mino gives a long account of his pictures in Alcala, Segovia, and Pamplona, but very little about the artist himself. He was responsible, with Francisco Ricci, for the decoration of the celebrated cupola of San Antonio de los Portugueses, and the same two artists collaborated in painting the " Magdalen in the Desert " for the Convent of Las Recogidas.

Cean Bermudez. Diccionario historico de los mas ilustres profesores de las Bellas Aries en Espana (Madrid, 1800); Baldinucci, Notizie de' Professori del disegno (Florence, 16881; Conca, Descrizione odeporica delta Spagna (Parma, 1793); Cossio. La Pudura espanola (Madrid, 1886); Mad- razo, Catalogo descripto e historicio de los cuadros del Museo del Prado (Madrid. 1872); OrLANDI, Abecedario pittorico (Naples, 1733); Pacheoo, Arte de la Pintura (Seville, 1649) ; Palomino de Castro y Velasco. Museo Pid'h-ico y Eseala Optica (Madrid, 1715); Id-, El Par nam espanol pintoresco laureado (Madrid, 1724); Stirling, Annals of the Artists of Spain (London, 1848); Smith. Painting. Spanish and French (London, 1884); Hartley, Spanish Painting (Lon- don, 1904); Zarco del Valle, Documentos ineditos para la Historia de las Bellas Artes en Espa/la (Madrid, 1870).

George Charles Williamson.

Carrera, Rafael, b.at Guatemala, Central America, 24 October, 1814; d. there 14 April, 1865, one of the most remarkable men that Central America has pro- duced. A mestizo, he had no opportunity to secure an education, and learned to sign his name only after he had already risen to power. The judgment usually passed upon him is most unfavourable. He is de- scribed as a cruel, bloodthirsty upstart from the lowest walks of life, opposed to liberty and progress and even to order. The last is certainly not true, since it was Carrera who, in the end, brought order into the bloody chaos in which political factions had plunged Guatemala for decades. Two factions were then opposing each other in Central America: the Cen- tralists, who clung to Spanish colonial traditions, and the Federalists, who dreamt of a federation of the Central American States in imitation of the United States of North America. Strife had been bitter and bloody, at least since 1824, and on both sides terrible excesses were committed. The Federal- ists or Liberals had forcibly abolished the convents and monastic orders, driven away the clergy in general, levying contributions right and left on the Church, making forced loans to gratify the rapacity of unscrupulous and profligate office-holders under pretext of supporting the Government. To this kind of "liberty" Carrera was opposed. His opposi- tion was intuitive, not from principle or reasoning. Like the Indians, he clung to the Church from tradi- tion and habit. In 1829 he was an obscure drummer- boy in one of the bands thai fought and pillaged for the Centralist party. General Morazan was the leader of the Liberals and captured the city of

Guatemala in the same year, putting the Federalist

faction in power again. Carrera abandoned the

military careei for the time and became a humble swineherd. Hut when, in ls:i7, the cholera made

its appearance in Guatemala, the Indians, attri- buting its ravages to the poisoning of the water by the Federalist authorities, rose in arms against them.

The uprising was put down by force, called forth by the usual cruelties perpetrated by Indians on such occasions. Carrera s wife was outraged by Liberals. He vowed revenge and kept his vow. On a later occasion his aged mother was also ill- treated, which still further increased his wrath. He gathered a band of followers and began a merci- less warfare. Extermination of the Liberal faction was thereafter his aim. No pity had been shown to those he most loved, and he felt no compassion for those under whose orders they had been wronged. Against the trained soldiers of Morazan he could not for a long time prevail, but his incessant harassing told upon the enemy in the end and, after Morazan had recaptured the city of Guatemala in 1839, that leader found himself entrapped. In 1S40 Carrera was absolute master of Guatemala. Until then he had been concerned only with war; now he faced the task of reorganization, for which he was little or not at all prepared. He re-established the clergy, the convents, and recalled the Jesuits, thus laying the foundation of a new life. He proved himself wiser than the Centralists, who opposed all progress, more practical than the Liberals, who refused to take into account the historical development of the people and their actual condition, striving by force to impose changes for which the people were not prepared and which they could not understand.

In 1847 Carrera was, by a kind of election, made President of (luatemala, and seven years later he became dictator, that is, president, for life with the right to designate his successor. In 1862 he attacked San Salvador and took its capital. Towards the end of his life he had to repress attempts at insurrec- tion. But no outbreak could succeed; he was too firmly master of the situation, and his influence over the Indians (who form three-fourths of the population) was too powerful.

Stephens, Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan (London, 1842); Bancroft, lli+tnni of the Pacific St„l.s (San Francisco, 1S82>; Frobel, Seven Years' Travel in

Central America (Lund 1859); Squier, The Slates of Central

America (New York, 1858).

Ad. F. Bandelier.

Carrhas, a titular see of Mesopotamia. Carrlue is the Haran of the Bible. It is frequently mentioned in Assyrian monuments under the name Harranu, which means "Road". It was the centre of the worship of the goddess Sin (the Moon), and was in- habited by Sabeans. Abraham came thither from Ur, in Chaldea (Gen., xi, 31), with his family, which remained there (xxvii, 43) while he went on to Ca- naan (xii, 1). Rebecca was born there (xxiv, 4), and Jacob lived there during fourteen years with his uncle Laban (xxviii, 2; xxxi, 3). Under King Heze- kiahit was taken by the Assyrians (IV K., xix, 12; Is., xxxvii. 12). Ezechiel (xxvii, 23) says it had com- mercial relations with Tyrus. In the neighbouring plain Crassus was defeated and killed by the Par- thians (53 B. a); Emperor Galerius was defeated on the same site (a. d. 296).

Christianity did not make rapid progress at Carrhae. Julian the Apostate, before his expedition against the Persians, resided there in preference to Edessa, a Christian city; under Justinian most of its inhabi- tants were yet heathen (Procop. De bel. Pers., II, 13). In time, however, it became a suffragan of Edessa in Osrhoene. Lequien (II, 973) mentions from the fourth to the sixth century eleven bishops; among them are: Vitus, the friend of St. Basil, St. Protogenes, and St. Abrahamius. The latter died at Constantinople. Emperor Theodosi us II was so im- pressed by his saintly life that he chose to wear his poor tunic. From the sixth century the Jacobites