Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/500

Rh 478 M I N M I N and tomb of Bishop Salutati, executed about 1464. In the Badia of Florence are some of Mino s most important sculptures an altarpiece, and the tombs of Bernardo Giugni, 1466, and the Margrave Hugo, 1481 all sculp tured in white marble, with beautiful life-sized recumbent effigies and attendant angels. The pulpit in Prato cathedral, finished in 1473, is very delicately sculptured, with bas-reliefs of great minuteness, but somewhat weakly designed. Soon after the completion of this work Mino paid a visit of some years to Rome, where he executed several fine pieces of sculpture, such as the tomb of Pope Paul II. (now in the crypt of St Peter s), the tomb of Francesco Tornabuoni in S. Maria Sopra Minerva, and a beautiful little marble tabernacle for the holy oils in S. Maria in Trastevere. There can be little doubt that he was also the sculptor of several of the very lovely monu ments in S. Maria del Popolo, especially those in the sacristy of Bishop Gomiel and Archbishop Rocca, 1482, and the marble reredos, also in the sacristy, given by Pope Alexander VI. Some of Mino s portrait busts and delicate profile bas-reliefs are preserved in the Bargello at Florence ; they are full of life and expression, though without the extreme realism of Verrocchio and other sculptors of his time. He died in 1486. See Vasari, Milanesi s eel., 1878-82; Perkins, Italian Sculptors; Winckelmann and D Agincourt, Storia della Scultura, 1813. MINOR. See INFANT. MINORCA. See BALEARIC ISLANDS. MINORITES. See FRANCISCANS. MINOS, a legendary king of Crete, in whom both historical and religious elements are united. The historical element lies in the fact that an early civilization and mari time power had its seat in Crete. The Phoenician inter course played a great part in developing this island state, and Minos is sometimes called a Phoenician. The name Minoa is often found where Phoenician influence was strongest, e.g., at Megara. The laws and constitution which existed from a very early time in Crete were attributed to Minos, to whom they were revealed by Zeus. After his death he became the judge of the dead ; he is one of the forms assumed by the old conception of the first man, who is after death king and god among the dead. It is therefore highly probable that the name Minos is the Greek form of the original Manva, i.e., &quot; endowed with thinking,&quot; which is seen in the Hindu Manu and the Germanic Mann. As in all other heroized forms of the god of the dead, there is both a terrible and a wise and beneficent side in the character of Minos. Cretan legends described him as the wild huntsman of the forests and mountains, the lover of the nymphs, though his love means death to them. His death is localized in the far west, in the land of sunset ; his grave was shown at Camicus near Agrigentum, attached to a temple of Aphrodite. He pursued Daedalus thither, and the daughters of Cocalus, the king of Agrigentum, killed him by pouring boiling water over him in the bath, an obvious myth of the sun dying in the sea. Minos, the god of the dead, is, according to the usual rule, the sun-god, who goes to illumine the dead when he dies on the earth. His wife is Pasiphae, the moon-goddess, who had an oracle by dreams at Thalamee in Laconia. The union of the sun and the moon, the bull and the cow, gave rise to many quaint and ugly legends : Pasiphae loved the bull of Minos, was aided by the stratagem of Daedalus, and gave birth to the Minotaur, half bull and half man. The Minotaur is one of those monstrous forms Avhich were suggested to the Greek fancy by the quaint animals common in Oriental art. It was shut up in the LABYRINTH (q.v.), which was constructed by the skilled artist Daedalus. Now a son of Minos named Androgeus had been killed by the Athenians, and Minos as a punishment required that seven Athenian youths and seven maidens should be sent every ninth year and given up to the Minotaur to be devoured. When this sacrifice took place for the third time Theseus came as one of the hostages, and slew the Minotaur with the help of Ariadne. Throughout these legends we see the close relation of Minos to the Phoenician sun-god Melkarth, and perceive the way in which different places where Phoenician influence can be traced, Athens, Sicily, &c., are brought together in religious myths. MINOTAUR. See MINOS. MINSK, a western government of Russia, is bounded by Vilna, Vitebsk, and Moghileff on the N. and E., and by Tchernigoff, Kieff, Volhynia, and Grodno on the S. and W., and has an area of 35,175 square miles. The surface is undulating and hilly in the north-west, where a narrow plateau and a range of hills of the Tertiary forma tion runs to the north-east, separating the basin of the Niemen, which flows into the Baltic, from that of the Dnieper, which sends its waters into the Black Sea. The range, which averages from 800 to 1000 feet, culminates in Lysaya Gora (1129 feet). The remainder of the province is flat, 450 to 650 feet above the sea-level, covered with sands and clays of the glacial and post-glacial periods. Two broad shallow depressions, drained by the Berezina and the Pripet, cross the province from north to south and from west to east ; and these, as well as the triangular space between them, are covered with immense marshes (often occupying 200 to 600 square miles), numberless ponds and small lakes, peat-bogs, downs, and moving sands, as well as with dense forests. This country, and especially its south-western part, is usually known under the name of Polyesie (&quot;The Woods&quot;). Altogether, marshes take up 15 per cent, and marshy forests no less than 55 per cent, of the entire area of the province (60 to 71 per cent, in several districts). The forests, however, consist of full- grown trees in the higher districts of the north-west only, those which occupy the marshy ground consisting of small and stunted pine, birch, and aspen. The climate of the Polyesie is harsh and extremely unhealthy ; malarias and an endemic disease of the bulbs of the hair (koltun. plica Polonica) are the plagues of these tracts, the evil being intensified by the dreadful poverty of the popula tion. Communication is very difficult. The railway from Poland to Moscow has, so far as Minsk is concerned, taken advantage of the plateau above mentioned ; but still it has to cross the broad marshy depression of the Berezina. A successful attempt was recently made to drain the marshes, of the Polyesie by a system of canals, and more than 4,500,000 acres have thus been rendered suitable for pasture and agriculture. Two great tributaries of the Dnieper, the Berezina and the Pripet, both navigable, with numberless subtributaries, many of which are also navigable, are the natural outlets for the marshes of the province. The Dnieper flows along its south-eastern border for 160 miles, and the Niemen on the north-western for 130 miles. The affluents of the Baltic, the Duna (Dwina), and the Vistula are connected by three canals with tributaries of the Dnieper. The population of the province (1,183,200 in 1873) may be estimated at about 1,350,000, mostly White Russians (67 per cent.); there are also Poles (about 11 per cent.), especially in the western districts, Jews (more than 10 per cent.), Little Russians (5 per cent.), and Russians (2 per cent.). About 70,000 are considered to be Lithuanians : there are also 4000 Tartars, whose presence can be traced to the raids of their ancestors on Lithuania in the 13th century, and about 2000 German agriculturists who settled in last century The chief occupation of the inhabitants is agriculture, which is, however, very unproductive in the lowlands ; in the Polyesie the peasants rarely have pure bread to eat. Only 23 8 per cent, of th*