Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/247

Rh V I G V I G 225 baptized him, sent him with letters to Paulinas of Nola, where he met with a friendly reception. On his return to Severus in Gaul he was ordained ; and, having soon after wards inherited means through the death of his father, he set out for Palestine, where he was received with great respect by Jerome at Bethlehem. The stay of Vigilantius lasted for some time ; but, as was almost inevitable, he was dragged into the dispute then raging about Origen, in which he did not see fit wholly to adopt Jerome s attitude. On his return to the West he was the bearer of a letter from Jerome to Paulinus, and at various places where he stopped on the way he appears to have expressed himself about Jerome in a manner that when reported gave great offence to that father, and provoked him to write a reply (Ep., 61). Vigilantius now settled for some time in Gaul, and is said by one authority (Gennadius) to have after wards held a charge in the diocese of Barcelona. About 403, some years after his return from the East, Yigilantius wrote his celebrated work against superstitious practices, in which he argued against relic worship, as also against the vigils in the basilicas of the martyrs, then so common, the sending of alms to Jerusalem, and the attribution of special virtue to the unmarried state, especially in the case of the clergy. All that is known of this work is through Jerome s treatise Contra Vigilantium, or, as that con troversialist would seem to prefer saying, &quot; Contra l)ormi- tantium.&quot; Notwithstanding Jerome s exceedingly un favourable opinion, there is no reason to believe that the tract of Vigilantius was exceptionally illiterate, or that the views it advocated were different from those now held on the subjects with which it deals by most educated men outside the Roman Catholic Church, or even by many within its pale. Soon, however, the great influence of Jerome in the Western Church caused its leaders to espouse all his quarrels, and Vigilantius gradually came to be ranked in popular opinion among heretics. The year of his death is unknown. VIGILIUS, pope from 537 to 555, succeeded Silverius and was followed by Pelagius I. He was ordained by order of Belisarius while SILVERIUS (q.v.) was still alive; his elevation was due to Theodora, who, by an appeal at once to his ambition and, it is said, to his covetousness, had induced him to promise to disallow the council of (Jhalcedon, in connexion with the &quot;three chapters&quot; con troversy (see vol. xiii. p. 796). When, however, the time came for the fulfilment of his bargain, Vigilius de clined to give his assent to the condemnation of that council involved in the imperial edict against the three chapters, and for this act of disobedience he was per emptorily summoned to Constantinople, which he reached in 547. Shortly after his arrival there he issued a docu ment known to history as his Judicatum (548), in which lie condemned indeed the three chapters, but expressly disavowed any intentions thereby to disparage the council of Chalcedon. After a good deal of trimming (for he desired to stand well with his own clergy, who were strongly orthodox, as well as with the court) he prepared another document, the Constitution ad Impemtorem, which was laid before the so-called fifth &quot; oecumenical &quot; council in 553, and led to his condemnation by the heterodox majority of that body, some say, even to his banishment. Ulti mately, however, he was induced to assent to and confirm the decrees of the council, and was allowed after an enforced absence of seven years to set out for Rome. He died, however, before he reached his destination, most probably in the beginning of 555. VIGNA, PIETRO DE LA, or PETRUS DE VINEA (c. 1 1 90- 1249), the emperor Frederick II. s minister, was born at Capua probably about 1190. From his own letters he would seem to have been of obscure parentage, though one of his correspondents refers to his nobilitas. He was per haps educated at Bologna ; but he certainly studied in a strange city and not at his own expense, though it is not till after his death that we find the story which makes him beg his bread in the streets. His name does not appear affixed to any judicial act before July 1225, at which time he was judex maynae curise, ; and this continued to be his official title till April 1247, when his style was changed for that of protonotary and logothete. In 1232 he was at Rome on a mission to Gregory IX., and in 1234-35 he was in England negotiating the marriage of his master with Henry III. 3 sister Isabella, after which time he seems to have kept up a friendly communication with the king, and on one occasion even begs to be reckoned &quot;as a son and citizen of the realm.&quot; In March 1239 he was with Frederick II. at Padua when the news came of the em peror s excommunication, with reference to which he was ordered to address the people. In 1247 he was at the very height of his power and regarded as the emperor s alter ego. But from this height of prosperity Peter suddenly fell very early in 1249, and all kinds of stories have been invented to explain an event that puzzled his contemporaries as well as succeeding ages. He was thrown into prison and blinded, after which he was led about from place to place as a public example, &quot; the master-councillor of the emperor, who was lord of his law and betrayed him to the pope.&quot; His death must have taken place about April 1249. There seems to be some truth in the tale that makes him die a suicide s death at Pisa. It is among the suicides that Dante meets his shade in hell. Pietro de la Vigna s writings consist of (I) Letters and (2) a Latin poem on the twelve months of the year. A Latin satire directed against the Dominicans and Franciscans is also perhaps his. Besides these, many poems in the common speech are attributed to him. It is difficult to pronounce a definite opinion on his relation to the new religion or new church which it was perhaps the ambition of Frederick s most enthusiastic adherents to inaugurate. The Letters were first printed at Basel in 1566. See Huillard-Breholles, Vie ct Correspondance de P. de la Vignc, Paris, 1864. VIGNOLA. See BAROCCHIO. VIGNY, ALFRED DE (1799-1863), a French poet of exceptionally refined and original faculty, which was kept from voluminous production by a fastidiousness perhaps verging on affectation, was born at Loches (Indre-et-Loire) on 27th March 1799. Sainte-Beuve, in the rather ill- natured essay which he devoted to Vigny after his death, expresses a doubt whether the title of count which the poet bore was very well authenticated, and hints that no very ancient proofs of the nobility of the family were forthcoming ; but it is certain that in the 1 8th century persons of the name occupied positions which were not open to any but men of noble birth. For generations the ancestors of Alfred de Vigny had been soldiers, and he himself joined the army at the age of sixteen. But the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars were over, and after twelve years of life in barracks he- retired, preserving, however, a very high estimate of the duties and career of the soldier. While still serving he had made his mark by the publication in 1822 of a volume of poems, and in 1826 by another, together with the famous prose romance of Cinq-Mars. Sainte-Beuve asserts that the poet antedated some of his most remarkable work. This may or may not be the case ; he certainly did not and could not antedate the publication, and it so happens that some of his most celebrated books Eloa, Dolorida,Mo ise, appeared before the work of younger members of the Romantic school whose productions strongly resemble these poems. It is quite certain that the other Alfred Alfred de Musset felt the influence of his elder namesake, and an impartial critic might discern no insignificant marks of the same effect in the work of Hugo himself. Even Lamartine, XXIV. --29