Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/791

 J U A 757 inherent in this choice of Latin, when Italian had gained the day, but more to his own untrustworthy and shallow character, Giovio takes a lower rank as historian than the bulk and prestige of his writings would seem to warrant. He professed himself a flatterer and a lampooner. The old story that he said he kept a golden and an iron pen, to use according as people paid htm, condenses the truth in epigram. He had the faults of the elder humanists, in com bination with that literary cynicism which reached its height in Aretino ; and therefore his histories and biographical essays are not to be used as authorities, without corrobora- tion. Yet Giovio s works, taken in their entirety and with proper reservation, have real value. To the student of Italy they yield a lively picture of the manners and the feeling of the times in which he lived, and in which he played no obscure part. They abound in vivid sketches, telling anecdotes, fugitive comments, which unite a certain charm of autobiographical romance with the worldly wis dom of an experienced courtier. A flavour of personality makes them not unpleasant reading. While we learn to despise and mistrust the man in Giovio, we appreciate the litterateur. It would not be too far-fetched to describe him as a sort of 16th century Horace Walpole. Bibliography. The sources of Giovio s biography are his own works ; Tiraboschi s History of Italian Literature; Litta s Genealogy of Illustrious Italian Families ; and Giov. Batt. Giovio s Uomini illustri della Dioccsi Comasca, Modena, 1784. Cicogna, in his Delle Inscrizioni Vcncziane Raccolta (Venice, 1830), gives a list of Giovio s works, from which the following notices are extracted : 1. Works in Latin: (1) Pauli Jovii Historiarum sui tcmporis, Florence, 1550-52, the same translated into Italian by L. Domenichi, and first published at Florence, 1551, afterwards at Venice; (2) Leonis X., Hadriani VI., Pompeii Columnee Card., Vitse,, Florence, .1548, translated by Domenichi, Florence, 1549 ; (3) Vitse, XII. Vicccomitu /n Mcdiolani principum, Paris, 1549, translated by Domenichi, Venice, 1549 ; (4) Vita Sfortise clariss. ducis, Rome, 1549, translated by Domenichi, Florence, 1549 ; (5) Vita Fr. Ferd. Davali, Florence, 1549, translated by Domenichi, ibid., 1551 ; (6) Vita magni Consalvi, ibid., 1549, translated by Dome nichi, ibid., 1550; (7) Alfonsi Atcstcnsi, &c., ibid., 1550, Italian translation by Giov. Batt. Gelli, Florence, 1553; (8) Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium, ibid., 1551, translated by Domenichi, ibid., 1554; (9) Elogia clarorum virorum, &c., Venice, 1546 (these are biographies of men of letters), translated by Hippolito Orio of Ferrara, Florence, 1552; (10) Libcllusde Icgatione Basilii Magni Principis Moscovise, Rome, 1525; (11) Deseriptio Larii Locus, Venice, 1559; (12) Deseriptio Britanniae, &c., Venice, 1548; (13) De Romania Piscibus, Rome, 1524. 2. Works in Italian: (1) Dialogo dclle Imprcse militari ct amorose, Rome, 1555 ; (2) Lettere Volgari, Venice, 1560. Some minor works and numerous reprints of those cited have been omitted from this list ; and it should also be mentioned that some of the lives, with additional matter, are included in the Vitse Illustrium Virorum, Basel, 1576. (J. A. S.) JUANES, or JOANES, VICENTE (1523-1579), head of the Valencian school of painters, and often called &quot;the Spanish Raphael,&quot; was born at Fuente de la Higuera in the province of Valencia in 1523. Of his biography practically no authentic facts have been preserved. He is said to have studied his art for some time in Rome, with which school his affinities are closest, but the greater part of his profes sional life was spent in the city of Valencia, where most of the extant examples of his work are now to be found. All relate to religious subjects, and are characterized by dignity of conception, accuracy of drawing, truth and beauty of colour, and minuteness of finish. The best known are the Entombment, the Nativity, the Burial of a Monk, and the Martyrdom of St Agnes. His style is also seen to full advantage in the series on the life of St Stephen, originally painted for the church of San Esteban in Valencia, and now in the Museo at Madrid. He died at Bocairente (near Jativa) while engaged upon an altarpiece in the church there, on 21st December 1579. JUAN FERNANDEZ, a small island in the South Pacific in 34 S. lat., 400 miles west of Valparaiso. The Spaniards also designate it Mas-a-Tierra, &quot;more to land,&quot; to distinguish it from a smaller island, Mas-a-Fuera, &quot; more to sea,&quot; 9 miles farther west. The aspect of Juan Fernandez is beautiful and striking; only 13 miles in length by 4 in width, it consists of a series of precipitous rocks rudely piled into irregular blocks and pinnacles. The highest of these masses (about 3000 feet), a fine object from the anchorage, is called, from its massive form, El Yunque, the Anvil ; it appears to be inaccessible. Any attempt to scale the higher peaks of the island is dangerous ; the soil is very light and shallow, and the vegetation mostly a shrubby under growth, and on any attempt to pull oneself up by the help of this, the whole is apt to give way, and climber and shrubs are precipitated together down the cliffs. The rocks are trap-tuffs, basalts, and green stones, and the island seems to date back to the older trappean series. There is a doubtful story of light having been seen emanating from one of the higher peaks ; but it seems likely that, if Juan Fernandez was ever a subaerial volcanic cone, its fires have been long extinguished. Small , indentations are found all round the island, but Cumber land Bay on the north side is the only good anchorage, and even there, from the great depth of water, there is some difficulty and risk. A wide valley collecting streams from several of the ravines on the north side of the island opens into Cumber land Bay, and is partially enclosed and cultivated ; and the settlement, consisting of some thirty or forty dilapidated Chilian huts, faces the anchorage. As seen from the bay the mountains seem covered with foliage to the sky-line, except where precipitous faces of rock basalt and green stone form a beautiful contrast to the luxuriant some what pale vegetation so characteristic of an island in the warmer temperate zone. The flora and fauna of Juan Fernandez are in most respects Chilian, the opportunities of immigration from any other direction being specially difficult, for nearly con stant currents set from the south-west, a direction in which there is no land nearer than the antarctic continent. There are few trees on the island, and these are chiefly in inac cessible situations, the timber near the shore having been almost entirely cut down for fire-wood. Most of the valuable indigenous trees have been exterminated ; the sandal-wood, which the earlier navigators found one of the most valuable products of the island, is now confined to almost inacces sible places, while the other prominent indigenous forms, a native palm (Ceroxylon aiistrale) and two tree-ferns, may be counted on the fingers as they raise their feathery heads over some overhanging crag or precipitous ravine. The steep paths up the hills are bordered by a thicket of flower ing shrubs and herbs chiefly of South American origin. One of the most prominent of the latter (Gunnera chilensis) expands its gigantic rhubarb-like leaves to an enormous size, while the procumbent rhizomes creep along the ground, throwing up leaf-stalks 8 and 10 feet in height, and forming with the leaves, which frequently measure 15 feet across, a canopy under which one can ride easily on the small Chilian horses. There are twenty-four species of ferns on the island, and of these four are special to it ; so great a prevalence of ferns gives quite a character to the island flora. The fauna of Juan Fernandez is likewise fairly rich and very special. There are no indigenous land mammals on the island. Pigs, which have long since become wild and numerous, were left by the earlier navigators, and wild goats imported in the same fashion are now abundant, and their flesh is excellent, Sea-elephants and fur-seals were at one time plentiful upon Juan Fernandez, and are still found in some numbers at Mas-a-Fuera. There are, besides the Accipitres and the Natatores, four land birds on Juan Fernandez (and four somewhat different on Mas-a-Fuera).