Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/148

Rh 130 S A C S A C Founded by Basque or Spanish sailors, Sables was the first place in Poitou invaded by the Normans in 817. Louis XI., who went there in 1472, granted the inhabitants various privileges, improved the harbour, and fortified the entrance. Captured and recaptured during the Wars of Religion, the town afterwards became a nursery of hardy sailors and privateers, who harassed the Spaniards and afterwards the English. In 1696 Sables was bombarded by the combined fleets of England and Holland. Hurricanes have more than once caused grievous damage to town and harbour. SACCATOO. See SOKOTA. SACCHETT1, FRANCO (c. 1335-c. 1400), Italian novel- ist, was the son of Benci di Uguccione, surnamed "Buono," of the noble and ancient Florentine family of the Sacchetti (comp. Dante, Par., c. xvi.), and was born at Florence about the year 1 335. While still a young man he achieved repute as a poet, and he appears to have travelled on affairs of more or less importance as far as to Genoa, Milan, and " Is- chiavonia." When a sentence of banishment was passed upon the rest of the house of Sacchetti by the Florentine authorities in 1380 it appears that Franco was expressly exempted, "per esser tanto uomo buono," and in 1383 he was one of the "eight," discharging the office of "prior" for the months of March and April. In 1385 he was chosen ambassador to Genoa, but preferred to go as podesta to Bibbiena in Casentino. In 1392 he was podesta of San Miniato, and in 1396 he held a similar office at Faenza. In 1398 he received from his fellow-citizens the post of captain of their then province of Romagna, having his residence at Portico. The date of his death is un- known; most probably it occurred about 1400, though some writers place it as late as 1410. Sacchetti left a considerable number of sonnetti, canzoni, ballate, madrigali, &c., which have never been printed, but which are still extant in at least one MS. in the Laurentian library of Florence. His Novelle were first printed in 1724, from the MS. in the same collection, which, however, is far from complete. They were ori- ginally 300 in number, but only 258 in whole or in part now sur- vive. They are written in pure and elegant Tuscan, and, based as they are for the most part on real incidents in the public and domestic life of Florence, they are valuable for the light they throw on the manners of that age, and occasionally also for the biograph- ical facts preserved in them. But in no other respect do they come up to the corresponding compositions of his friend Boccaccio. Some of them, it need hardly be said, are very coarse a feature not com- pensated for by the moralizings almost invariably appended and many more are dull and pointless, leaving the impression, as Sis- niondi has remarked, that in that century of artistic advance the art of conversation had remained far behind the others. SACCHI, ANDREA (c. 1600-1661), a leading painter of the later Roman school, was born in Rome in 1600, or perhaps as early as 1598. His father, Benedetto, a painter of undistinguished position, gave him his earliest instruc- tion in the art; Andrea then passed into the studio of Albani, of whom he was the last and the most eminent pupil, and under Albani he made his reputation early. The painter of Sacchi's predilection was Raphael; he was the jealous opponent of Pietro da Cortona, and more especially of Bernini. In process of time he became one of the most learned designers and one of the soundest colour- ists of the Roman school. He went to Venice and to Lom- bardy to study Venetian colour and the style of Correggio ; but he found the last-named master unadaptable for his own proper methods in art, and he returned to Rome. Sacchi was strong in artistic theory, and in practice slow and fasti- dious; it was his axiom that the merit of a painter consists in producing, not many middling pictures, but a few and perfect ones. His works have dignity, repose, elevated yet natural forms, severe but not the less pleasing colour, a learned treatment of architecture and perspective ; he is thus a painter of the correct and laudable academic order, admired by connoisseurs rather than by ambitious students or the large public. His principal painting, often spoken of as the fourth best easel-picture in Rome in the Vatican Gallery is St Romuald relating his Vision to Five Monks of his Order. The pictorial crux of dealing with these figures, who are all in the white garb of their order, has often been remarked upon ; and as often the ingenuity and judgment of Sacchi have been praised in varying the tints of these habits according to the light and shade cast by a neighbouring tree. The Vatican Gallery contains also an early painting of the master, the Miracle of St Gregory, executed in 1624 ; a mosaic of it was made in 1771 and placed in St Peter's. Other leading examples are the Death of St Anna, in S. Carlo ai Catinari ; St Andrew, in the Quirinal ; St Joseph, at Capo alle Case ; also, in fresco, a ceiling in the Palazzo Barberini Divine Wisdom reckoned superior in expression and selection to the rival work of Pietro da Cortona. There are likewise altar-pieces in Perugia, Foligno, and Camerino. Sacchi, who worked almost always in Rome, left few pictures visible in private galleries : one, of St Bruno, is in Gros- venor House. He had a flourishing school : Nicholas Poussin and Carlo Maratta were his most eminent scholars ; Luigi Garzi and Francesco Lauri were others, and Sacchi's own son Giuseppe, who died young, after giving very high hopes. This must have been an illegitimate son, for Andrea died unmarried. This event took place in Rome in 1661. SACCHINI, ANTONIO MARIA GASPARE (1734-1786), musical composer, of the Italian school, was born at Pozzuoli, 23d July 1734, and educated under Durante at the Conser- vatorio di San Onofrio at Naples. His first serious opera was produced at Rome in 1762, and was followed by many others, nearly all of which were successful. In 1769 he removed to Venice; and in 1772 he visited London, where, notwithstanding a cruel cabal formed against him, he achieved a brilliant success, especially in his four new operas, Tamerlano, Lucio Vero, Nitetti e Perseo, and // Gran Cid. Ten years later he met with an equally enthu- siastic reception in Paris, where his Rinaldo was produced under the immediate patronage of Queen Marie Antoinette, to whom he had been recommended by the emperor Joseph II. But neither in England nor in France did his reputation continue to the end of his visit. He seems to have been everywhere the victim of bitter jealousy. Even Marie Antoinette was not able to support his cause in the face of the general outcry against the favour shown to foreigners ; and by her command, most unwill- ingly given, his last opera and undoubted masterpiece, (Edipe d, Colone, was set aside in 1786 to make room for Lemoine's Phedre, a circumstance which so preyed upon his mind that he died of chagrin, 7th October 1786. Sacchini's style was rather graceful than elevated, and he was deficient both in creative power and originality. But the dramatic truth of his operas, more especially the later ones, is above all praise, and he never fails to write with the care and finish of a thorough and accomplished musician. (Edipe was extremely successful after his death, and has since been performed at the Academic nearly 600 times. The last performance of which any record has reached us took place in 1844. SACHEVERELL, HENRY (1674-1724), an English church and state politician of extreme views, was born in 1674, the son of Joshua Sacheverell, rector of St Peter's, Marlborough, who at his death left a large family in poverty. Henry Sacheverell matriculated at Magdalen College, Oxford, 28th August 1689, and was demy of his college from 1689 to 1701 and fellow from 1701 to 1713. Addison, another Wiltshire lad, entered at the same college two years earlier, but was also elected a demy in 1689 ; he inscribed to Sacheverell in 1694 his account of the greatest English poets. Sacheverell took his degree of B.A. in 1693, and became M.A. in 1696 and D.D. in 1708. His first preferment was the small vicarage of Cannock in Staffordshire ; but he leapt into notice when holding a preachership at St Saviour's, Southwark. His famous sermons on the church in danger from the neglect of the Whig ministry to keep guard over its interests