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 when Attila with his army was threatening the city, she persuaded the inhabitants to remain on the island and encouraged them by an assurance, justified by subsequent events, that the attack would come to nothing (451). She is also said to have had great influence over Childeric, father of Clovis, and in 460 to have caused a church to be built over the tomb of St Denis. Her death occurred about 512 and she was buried in the church of the Holy Apostles, popularly known as the church of St Geneviève. In 1793 the body was taken from the new church, built in her honour by Louis XV., when it became the Panthéon, and burnt on the Place de Grève; but the relics were enshrined in a chapel of the neighbouring church of St Étienne du Mont, where they still attract pilgrims; her festival is celebrated with great pomp on the 3rd of January. The frescoes of the Panthéon by Puvis de Chavannes are based upon the legend of the saint.

GENEVIÈVE, or, OF BRABANT, heroine of medieval legend. Her story is a typical example of the widespread tale of the chaste wife falsely accused and repudiated, generally on the word of a rejected suitor. Genovefa of Brabant was said to be the wife of the palatine Siegfried of Treves, and was falsely accused by the majordomo Golo. Sentenced to death she was spared by the executioner, and lived for six years with her son in a cave in the Ardennes nourished by a roe. Siegfried, who had meanwhile found out Golo’s treachery, was chasing the roe when he discovered her hiding-place, and reinstated her in her former honour. Her story is said to rest on the history of Marie of Brabant, wife of Louis II., duke of Bavaria, and count-palatine of the Rhine, who was tried by her husband and beheaded on the 18th of January 1256, for supposed infidelity, a crime for which Louis afterwards had to do penance. The change in name may have been due to the cult of St Geneviève, patroness of Paris. The tale first obtained wide popularity in L’Innocence reconnue, ou vie de Sainte Geneviève de Brabant (pr. 1638) by the Jesuit René de Cérisier (1603–1662), and was a frequent subject for dramatic representation in Germany. With Genovefa’s history may be compared the Scandinavian ballads of Ravengaard og Memering, which exist in many recensions. These deal with the history of Gunild, who married Henry, duke of Brunswick and Schleswig. When Duke Henry went to the wars he left his wife in charge of Ravengaard, who accused her of infidelity. Gunild is cleared by the victory of her champion Memering, the “smallest of Christian men.” The Scottish ballad of Sir Aldingar is a version of the same story. The heroine Gunhilda is said to have been the daughter of Canute the Great and Emma. She married in 1036 King Henry, afterwards the emperor Henry III., and there was nothing in her domestic history to warrant the legend, which is given as authentic history by William of Malmesbury (De gestis regum Anglorum, lib. ii. § 188). She was called Cunigund after her marriage, and perhaps was confused with St Cunigund, the wife of the emperor Henry II. In the Karlamagnus-saga the innocent wife is Oliva, sister of Charlemagne and wife of King Hugo, and in the French Carolingian cycle the emperor’s wife Sibille (La Reine Sibille) or Blanchefleur (Macaire). Other forms of the legend are to be found in the story of Doolin’s mother in Doon de Mayence, the English romance of Sir Triamour, in the story of the mother of Octavian in Octavian the Emperor, in the German folk book Historie von der geduldigen Königin Crescentia, based on a 12th-century poem to be found in the Kaiserchronik; and the English Erl of Toulouse (c. 1400). In the last-named romance it has been suggested that the story gives the relations between Bernard I. count of Toulouse, son of the Guillaume d’Orange of the Carolingian romances, and the empress Judith, second wife of Louis the Pious.

GENGA, GIROLAMO (c. 1476–1551), Italian painter and architect, was born in Urbino about 1476. At the age of ten he was apprenticed to the woollen trade, but showed so much inclination for drawing that he was sent to study under an obscure painter, and at thirteen under Luca Signorelli, with whom he remained a considerable while, frequently painting the accessories of his pictures. He was afterwards for three years with Pietro Perugino, in company with Raphael. He next worked in Florence and Siena, along with Timoteo della Vite; and in the latter city he painted various compositions for Pandolfo Petrucci, the leading local statesman. Returning to Urbino, he was employed by Duke Guidobaldo in the decorations of his palace, and showed extraordinary aptitude for theatrical adornments. Thence he went to Rome; and in the church of S. Caterina da Siena, in that capital, is one of his most distinguished works, “The Resurrection,” remarkable both for design and for colouring. He studied the Roman antiquities with zeal, and measured a number of edifices; this practice, combining with his previous mastery of perspective, qualified him to shine as an architect. Francesco Maria della Rovere, the reigning duke of Urbino, recalled Genga, and commissioned him to execute works in connexion with his marriage-festivities. This prince being soon afterwards expelled by Pope Leo X., Genga followed him to Mantua, whence he went for a time to Pesaro. The duke of Urbino was eventually restored to his dominions; he took Genga with him, and appointed him the ducal architect. As he neared the close of his career, Genga retired to a house in the vicinity of Urbino, continuing still to produce designs in pencil; one, of the “Conversion of St Paul,” was particularly admired. Here he died on the 11th of July 1551. Genga was a sculptor and musician as well as painter and architect. He was jovial, an excellent talker, and kindly to his friends. His principal pupil was Francesco Menzocchi. His own son Bartolommeo (1518–1558) became an architect of celebrity. In Genga’s paintings there is a great deal of freedom, and a certain peculiarity of character consonant with his versatile, lively and social temperament. One of his leading works is in the church of S. Agostino in Cesena—a triptych in oil-colours, representing the “Annunciation,” “God the Father in Glory,” and the “Madonna and Child.” Among his architectural labours are the church of San Giovanni Battista in Pesaro; the bishop’s palace at Sinigaglia; the façade of the cathedral of Mantua, ranking high among the productions of the 16th century; and a new palace for the duke of Urbino, built on the Monte Imperiale. He was also concerned in the fortifications of Pesaro.

GENISTA, in botany, a genus of about eighty species of shrubs belonging to the natural order Leguminosae, and natives of Europe, western Asia and North Africa. Three are native in Britain. G. anglica is the needle-furze or petty whin, found on heaths and moist moors, a spinous plant with slender spreading branches 1 to 2 ft. long, very small leaves and short racemes of small yellow papilionaceous flowers. The pollen is emitted in a shower when an insect alights on it. G. tinctoria, dyer’s green-weed, the flowers of which yield a yellow dye, has no spines. Other species are grown on rock-work or as greenhouse plants.

GENIUS (from Lat. genere, gignere), a term which originally meant, in Roman mythology, a generative and protecting spirit, who has no exact parallel in Greek religion, and at least in his earlier aspect is of purely Italian origin as one of the deities of family or household. Every man has his genius, who is not his creator, but only comes into being with him and is allotted to him at his birth. As a creative principle the genius is restricted