Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/90

Rh 74 ACADEMY was a sieve ; its motto, &quot; II piu bel fior ne coglie,&quot; it collects the finest flour of it ; its principal object the. puri fication of the language. Its great work was the Vocabu- lario della Crusca, the first edition of which was published 1613. It was composed avowedly on Tuscan principles, and regarded the 14th century as the Augustan period of the language. Beni assailed it in his Anti-Crusca, and this exclusive Tuscan spirit has disappeared in subsequent editions. The Accademia della Crusca is now incorporated with two older societies the Accademia degli Apatici (the Impartials) and the Accademia Fiorentiiia. Among the numerous other literary academies of Italy we may mention the Academy of Naples, founded about 1440 by Alfonso, the king; the Academy of Florence, founded 1540, to illustrate and perfect the Tuscan tongue, especially by a close study of Petrarch ; the Tntronati of Siena, 1525; the Infiammati of Padua, 1534; the Rozzi of Siena, sup pressed by Cosmo, 1568. The Academy of Humourists, Umoristi, had its origin at Rome in the marriage of Lorenzo Marcini, a Roman gentle man, at which several persons of rank were guests. It was carnival time, and so to give the ladies some diversion, they betook themselves to the reciting of verses, sonnets, speeches, first &quot; extempore, and afterwards premeditately, which gave them the denomination of Belli Humori. After some experience, and coming more and more into the taste of these exercises, they resolved to form an academy of belles lettres, and changed the title of Belli Humori for that of Ilumoristi. In 1690 the Academy or Society of Arcadians was established at Rome, for the purpose of reviving the study of poetry. The founder Crescimbeni is the author of a well-known history of Italian poetry. It numbered among its members many princes, cardinals, and other ecclesias tics ; and, to avoid disputes about pre-eminence, all appeared masked after the manner of Arcadian shepherds. Within ten years from its first establishment the number of academicians amounted to 600. The Royal Academy of Savoy dates from 1719, and was made a royal academy by Charles Felix in 1848. Its emblem is a gold orange tree full of flowers and fruit; its motto &quot; Flores fructusque perennes,&quot; being the same as those of the famous Florimentane Academy, founded at Annecy by St Francis de Sales. It has published valuable memoirs on the history and antiquities of Savoy. Germany. Of the German literary academies, the most celebrated was Die Fruchtbringende Gesdlschaft, the Fruitful Society, established at Weimar 1617. Five princes enrolled their names among the original members. The object was to purify the mother tongue. The German academies copied those of Italy in their quaint titles and petty ceremonials, and exercised little permanent influence on the language or literature of the country. France. The French Academy was established by order of the king in the year 1635, but in its original form it came into existence some four or five years earlier. About the year 1629 certain literary friends in Paris agreed to meet weekly at the house of one of their number. These meet ings were quite informal, but the conversation turned mostly on literary topics; and when, as was often the case, one of the number had composed some work, he read it to the rest, and they gave their opinions upon it. The place of meeting was the house of M. Conrard, which was chosen as being the most central. The fame of these meetings, though the members were bound over to secrecy, reached at length the ears of Cardinal Richelieu, who conceived so high an opinion of them, that he at once promised them his protection, and offered to incorporate them by letters patent. Nearly all the members would have preferred the charms of privacy, but, considering the risk they would run in incurring the cardinal s displeasure, and that by the letter of the law all meetings of any sort or kind were prohibited, they expressed their gratitude for the high honour the cardinal thought fit to confer on them. They proceeded at once to organise their body, settle their laws and consti^u- tion, appoint officers, and choose their name. Their officers consisted of a director and a chancellor, both chosen by lot, and a permanent secretary, chosen by votes. They elected besides a publisher, not a member of the body. The director presided at the meetings, being considered as priimis inter pares, and performing much the same part as the speaker in the English House of Commons. The chancellor kept the seals, and sealed all the official docu ments of the academy. The office of the secretary explains itself. The cardinal was ex officio protector. The meet ings were weekly as before. The letters patent were at once granted by the king, but it was only after violent opposition and long delay that the president, who was jealous of the cardinal s authority, con sented to grant the verification required by the old con stitution of France. The object for which the academy was founded, as set forth in its statutes, was the purification of the French language. &quot; The principal function of the academy shall be to labour with all care and diligence to give certain rules to our language, and to render it pure, eloquent, and capable of treating the arts and sciences &quot; (Art. 24). They proposed &quot; to cleanse the language from the impurities it has con tracted in the mouths of the common people, from the jargon of the lawyers, from the misusages of ignorant courtiers, and the abuses of the pulpit.&quot; Letter of Academy to Cardinal Richelieu. Their numbers were fixed at fortv. The original members who formed the nucleus of the body were eight, and it was not till 1639 that the full number was completed. Their first undertaking consisted of essays written by all the members in rotation. To judge by the titles and speci mens which have come down to us, these possessed no special originality or merit, but resembled the eViSeieis of the Greek rhetoricians. They next, at the instance of Cardinal Richelieu, undertook a criticism of Corneille s Cid, the most popular work of the day. It was a rule of the academy that no work could be criticised except at the author s request. It was only the fear of incurring the cardinal s displeasure which wrung from Corneille an un willing consent. The critique of the academy was re written several times before it met with the cardinal s approbation. After six months of elaboration, it was pub lished under the title, Sentiments de I Academic Franchise sur le Cid. This judgment did not satisfy Corneille, as a saying attributed to him on the occasion shows. &quot; Ilora- tius&quot; he said, referring to his last play, &quot; was condemned by the Duumviri, but he was absolved by the people.&quot; But the croAvning labour of the academy, commenced in 1639, was a dictionary of the French language. By the twenty-sixth article of their statutes, they were pledged to compose a dictionary, a grammar, a treatise on rhetoric, and one on poetry. M. Chapelain, one of the original members and leading spirits of the academy, pointed out that the dictionary would naturally be the first of these works to be undertaken, and drew up a plan of the work, which was to a great extent carried out. A catalogue was to be made of all the most approved authors, prose and verse : these were to be distributed among the members, and all words and phrases of which they approved to be marked by them in order to be incorporated in the dictionary. For this they resolved themselves into two committees, which sat on other than the regular days. M. de Vaugelas 1 1 A Ion mot of his is worth recording. When returning thanks for
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