Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/241

Rh V I D V I E 219 residence, and a few other conspicuous buildings. The surrounding district grows much rice, sugar, and manioc, which with other produce are here shipped, chiefly for the neighbouring coast towns. Victoria, originally Espirito Santo, is one of the oldest Portuguese settlements on the Brazilian coast, having been founded in 1535 by Vasco Fernando Continho at a little distance from its present site, on the south side and nearer to the entrance of the bay. It took the name of Victoria in 1558 to commemorate the crushing defeat inflicted by Fernando de Sa on the allied Indian tribes of the Aimores, Tapininguins, and Goitacazes in that year. The original site is still occupied by a group of houses and buildings commonly known as the Villa Velha or &quot; Old Town,&quot; which is separated from A ictoria by the Rio Santa Maria flowing to the south-west corner of the bay. VIDA, MARCO GIROLAMO (c. 1489-1566), one of the most eminent Latin poets and scholars of the age of Leo X., was born at Cremona shortly before the year 1490. He received the name of Marcantonio in baptism, but changed this to Marco Girolamo when he entered the order of the Canonici Regolari Lateranensi. During his early manhood he acquired considerable fame by the composition of two didactic poems in the Latin tongue, on the Game of Chess and on the Silkworm. This reputation induced him to seek the papal court in Rome, which was rapidly becoming the headquarters of polite learning, the place where students might expect advancement through their literary talents. Vida reached Rome in the last years of the pontificate of Julius II. Leo X., on succeeding to the papal chair (1513), treated him with marked favour, be stowed on him the priory of St Sylvester at Frascati, and bade him compose a heroic Latin poem on the life of Christ. Such was the origin of the Christiad, Vida s most cele brated, if not his best, performance. It did not, however, see the light in Leo s lifetime. Between the years 1520 and 1527 Vida produced the second of his masterpieces in Latin hexameters, a didactic poem on the Art of Poetry. Clement VII. raised him to the rank of apostolic proto- notary, and in 1532 conferred on him the bishopric of Alba. It is probable that he took up his residence in this town soon after the death of Clement ; and here he spent the greater portion of his remaining years. Vida attended the council of Trent, where he enjoyed the society of Cardinals Cervini, Pole, and Del Monte, together with his friend the poet Flaminio. A record of their conversations may be .studied in Vida s Latin dialogue De Republica. Among his other writings should be mentioned three eloquent ora tions in defence of Cremona against Pavia, composed upon the occasion of some dispute as to precedency between those two cities. Vida died at Alba on 27th September 1566. Vida s fame rests almost wholly on his Latin poems. These are more remarkable for their purity and grace of style than for quali ties of imagination or powerful thinking. His contemporaries were of opinion that Vida approached more nearly to the ancients in majesty and gravity of diction than his rivals. Indeed, the Poetica can still be read with both pleasure and instruction. Though we miss the poetic glow of Poliziano s and Pontano s Latin compositions, and the exquisite workmanship of Flaminio a lyrics, there is in Vida so facile a command of the Latin language and metre that we might fancy ourselves listening to a writer of the Augustan age. The following lines will give a fair notion of his powers : Dii Roinae indigetes, Trqjae tuque auctor, Apollo, Undo genus nostrum cceli se tollit ad astra, Ilanc saltern auferri tandem prohibete Latinis : Artibu.s emtneat semper studiisque Minerva; Italia, et gentes doceat pulchen ima Roma ; Quandoquidem armorum penitus fortuna recessit, Tanta Italos inter crevit discordia reges ; Ipsi nos inter ssevos destringinms enses, Nee patriam pudet externis aperire tyrannis. This pious prayer was not granted in the age which followed the council of Trent. Vida s poems were collected and printed at Oxford in 1722, and an enlarged edition appeared in 1*31. For an account of his works, see Symonds s Renais sance in Italy, vol. ii. VIEN, JOSEPH MARIE (1716-1809), French painter, was not only the master but the forerunner of David, and the author of the classic movement which, inaugurated under Louis XVI., ran itself out under the first empire. He was born at Montpellier, 18th June 1716. Protected by Comte de Caylus, he entered at an early age the studio of Natoire, and obtained the great prize in 1745. He used his time at Rome in applying to the study of nature and the development of his own powers all that he gleaned from the masterpieces around him ; but his tendencies were so foreign to the reigning taste that on his return to Paris he owed his admission to the academy for his picture Daedalus and Icarus (Louvre) solely to the indignant pro tests of Boucher. When in 1776, at the height of his established reputation, he became director of the school of France at Rome, he took David with him amongst his pupils. After his return, five years later, his fortunes were wrecked by the Revolution ; but he undauntedly set to work, and at the age of eighty (1796) carried off the prize in an open Government competition. Bonaparte acknowledged his merit by making him a senator. He died at Paris on 27th March 1809, leaving behind him several brilliant pupils, amongst whom were Vincent, Regnault, Suvee, Menageot, Taillasson, and others of high merit ; nor should the name of his wife, Marie Therese Reboul (1728-1805), herself a member of the academy, be omitted from this list. Their son, Marie Joseph, born in 1761, also distinguished himself as a painter. VIENNA (Germ. Wien), the capital and largest city of the Austrian-Hungarian empire, is situated on the right bank of the Danube, in 48 13 N. lat. and 16 23 E. long., at a height of about 550 feet above the level of the sea. It lies at the base of the last outlying spurs of the eastern Alps (the Wiener Wald), at the beginning of a plain which stretches eastwards to the Carpathians. The main channel of the Danube passes to the north of Vienna; but an arm of the river, the Danube Canal, passes through the city, dividing it into two unequal parts. Into this arm, on the east side of Vienna, flows the dirty and gener ally insignificant stream called the Wien, which gives its name to the city. 1 Vienna is the principal residence of the emperor, the see of an archbishop, the seat of the im perial and Cisleithan (Austrian) ministries, the meeting- place of the Austrian diet, and also the meeting-place, alternately with Buda-Pesth, of the delegations (compare AUSTRIA). Vienna is now officially divided into the fol lowing ten municipal districts, the inner town (Innere Stadt) or old city of Vienna, Leopoldstadt, Landstrasse, Wieden, Margarethen, Mariahilf, Neubau, Josefstadt, Alser- grund, and Favoriten. The inner town, which lies almost exactly in the centre of the others, is, unlike the older parts of most European towns, still the most aristocratic quarter, containing the palaces of the emperor and of many of the nobility, the Government offices, many of the embassies and legations, the opera house, and the principal hotels. Leopoldstadt, which is the only district on the left bank of the Danube Canal, is the chief commercial quarter, and is inhabited to a great extent by Jews. Mariahilf, Neubau, and Margarethen are the chief seats of manufacturing industry. Landstrasse may be described as the district of officialism ; there too are the British and German embassies. Alsergrund, with the enormous general hospital, the military hospital, and the municipal asylum for the insane, is the medical quarter. The inner city, or Vienna proper, was formerly separated from the other dis tricts by a circle of fortifications, consisting of a rampart, fosse, and glacis. These, however, were removed in 1858- 1860, and the place of the glacis has been taken by a hand some boulevard (Ring-Strasse), 2 miles in length and about 150 feet in average width. A series of external 1 Some authorities connect the name of Vienna with Vindobona (see p. 222 below).