Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/272

258 Certain it is that not long after his flight from Pomposa Guido was living at Arezzo, and it was here that, about , he received an invitation to Rome from Pope John XIX. He obeyed the summons, and the pope himself became his first and apparently one of his most proficient pupils. But in spite of his success Guido could not be induced to remain in Rome, the insalubrious air of which seems to have affected his health. In Rome he met again his former superior, the abbot of Pomposa, who seems to have repented of his conduct towards Guido, and to have induced him to return to Pomposa; and here all authentic records of Guido’s life cease. We only know that he died, on May 17,, as prior of Avellana, a monastery of the Camaldulians; such at least is the statement of the chroniclers of that order. It ought, however, to be added that the Samaldulians claim the celebrated musician as wholly their own, and altogether deny his connexion with the Benedictines. Itis quite in accordance with the semi-mythical character of Guido’s life that a great many inventions belonging to earlier as well as to latertimes have been attributed to him, in the same way as Charlemagne, Arthur, and Roland have been made responsible for the deeds and exploits of other kings and heroes. His eulogists declare that before him church music was in a state of utter barbarism, wholly ignoring the achievements of Gregory the Great, Huebald, and others. The notation of music by means of the neumae also, althouzh very imperfect for practical purposes, at any rate served to give permanence to the composer’s thoughts. There is, however, no doubt that in the latter respect Guido’s method shows an enormous progress. It was he who invented, or at least for the first time systematically used, the lines of the staff, and the intervals or spatia between them, and thus fixed the principle of modern notation; and the value of this innovation for educational and general artistic parposes cannot be overrated. There is also little doubt that the names of the first six notes of the scale, ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, still in use among Romance nations, were introluced by Guido, although he seems to have used them in a relative rather than in an absolute sense. It is well known that these words are the first syllables of six lines of a hymn addressed to St John the Baptist, which may be given here:—

Ut queant laxis Mira gestorum = famuli tuoru:z, Solve polluti fabii reatum, Sancte Joaunes.

In addition to this Guido is generally credited with the introduction of the F clef. But perhaps more important than all this is the thoroughly practical tone which Guido assumes in his theoretical writings, and which differs greatly from the clumsy scholasticism of his contemporaries and predecessors.

1em  GUIDO RENI. See.  GUIDO OF SIENA. The name of this painter is of cousiderable interest in the history of art, on the ground that, if certain assumptions regarding him could be accepted as true, he would be entitled to share with Cimabue, or rather indeed to supersede liim in, the honour of having given the first onward impulse to the art of painting. The case stands thus. In the church of 8. Domenico in Siena is a large painting of the Virgin and Child erthroned, with six angels above, aud in the Benedictine convent of the same city 1s a triangular pinnacle, once a portion of the same coni- position, representing the Saviour in benediction, with two angels; the entire work was originally a triptych, but is not so now. The principal section of this picture has a rhymed Latin inscription, giving the painter’s name as Gu. . . o de Senis, with : the genuineness of the inscription is not, however, free from doubt. In the general treatment of the picture there is nothing to distinguish it particularly from other work of the same early period; but the heads of the Virgin and Child are iudis- putably very superior, in natural character and graceful dignity, to anything to be found anterior to Cimabue. The question therefore arises, Are these heads really the work of a man who painted in ? The best informed connoisseurship of recent years (see especially the discussion of the matter in Messrs Crowe and Cavalcaselle’s work, vel. i.) pronounces in the negative, concluding that the heads are repainted, and are, as they now stand, due to some artist of the, perhaps Ugolino da Siena ; thus the claims of Cimabue would remain undisturbed and in their pristine vigour. Beyond this, ttle is known of Guido da Siena. There is in the Academy of Siena a pictme assigned to him, a half-figure of the Virgin and Child, with two angels, dating probably between and ; also in the church of 8. Bernardino in the same city a Madcenna . Milanesi thinks that the work in 8. Domenico is due to Guido Graziani, of whom no other record remains earlier than, when he is mentioned as the painter of a banner, Guido da Siena appears always to have painted on panel, not in fresco on the wall. He has been termed, very dubiously, a pupil of Pietrolino, and the masterof Diotisalvi, Mino da Turrita, and Berlinghieri da Lucca.  GUIENNE, an old French province, whose name until the was Aquitania, and whose history until it came into the possession of England in is given under the heading. It was bounded by the Pyrenees, Languedoc, Auvergne, Angoumois, Saintonge, and the sea of Gascony ; and out of it are now formed the departments of Gironde, Dordogne, Lot, Aveyron, Lot-et-Garunne, Tarn, Landes, Gers, Upper Pyrenees, Ari¢ge, and Lower Pyrences. The chief town was Bordeaux. Soon after it was joined to the English crown the nobles twice revolted, but were each time subdued, and in Henry IL. of England bequeathed it to his son Richard (Cour de Lion), who after quelling all symptoms of revolt added in and  Toulouse and Rochelle to his French possessions. In he bequeathed it to his nephew Otto of Brunswick, but he resumed its possession in, when Otto was chosen king of Germany, After the death of Richard in, his mother Eleanor retained possession of it during her lifetime. It was recon- quered by the French in the reign of Edward J. of England, but at the peace of it was again ceded to the English, with whom it remained till, when it was conquered and finally united to France by Charles VII. In Louis IX. gave it in exchange for Champagne and Brie to his brother the duke of Perri, after whose death in it was again united to the French crown.  GUIGNES, (1721–1800), a French Orien- talist, born at Pontoise October 19, 1721, became in his fifteenth year a student of Oriental languages, and especially of Chinese, at the Collége Royal under the celebrated