Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/45

Rh V A I V A L 31 ful and graceful arabesque-work, sculptural and architec tural details in short, whatever came to hand. Among the principal works are the War between the Gods and Giants, Horatius Codes Defending the Bridge, and the Fortitude of Mutius Scaevola. The most important work of all, the Shipwreck of ^neas, is no longer extant. Perino was particularly good in the technique and colouring of fresco, and his stucco-work was no less highly prized than his pictures ; his Genoese paintings are, however, very in ferior to those of Raphael in finish, as in other higher qualities, and his style in the nude tends rather towards Michelangelo. The Doria work is moreover extremely unequal. From Genoa Perino twice visited Pisa, and began some painting in the cathedral. Finally he returned to Rome, where Paul III. allowed him a regular salary till the painter s death. He retouched many of the works of Raphael, and laboured hard on his own account, under taking all sorts of jobs, important or trivial. Working for any price, he made large gains, but fell into mechanical negligence. Perino was engaged in the general decoration of the Sala Reale, begun by Paul III., when his health, undermined by constant work and as constant irregulari ties, gave way, and he fell down dead on 19th October 1547. He is buried in the Pantheon. Perino, though his character and habits of life were not such as to inspire respect, seems to have been generally liked in a certain way ; he was, however, jealous of rivals, particularly of Titian when in Rome, and grudging in the instruction of his pupils. He produced some excellent portraits, and his smaller oil pictures com bine with the manner of Raphael something of that of Andrea del Sarto. Many of his works were engraved, even in his own lifetime. Daniele da Volterra, Girolamo Siciolante da Sermoneta, Luzio Romano, and Marcello Venusti (Mantovano) were among his prin cipal assistants. VAIR, GUILLAUME DU (1556-1621), one of the fathers of French prose, and at the same time one of the most brilliant ornaments of the great school of French lawyers in the 16th and 17th centuries, was born at Paris on 7th March 1556. Du Vair was in orders, and, though during the greater part of his life he exercised only legal func tions, he in 1617 accepted the see of Lisieux and died bishop thereof. His reputation, however, is that of a lawyer, a statesman, and a man of letters. He was for a considerable time a member (councillor) of the parlement of Paris, and it was in this capacity that he pronounced his most famous politico -legal discourse, an argument nominally for the Salic Law, but in reality directed against the alienation of the crown of France to the Spanish infanta, which was advocated by the extreme Leaguers. It was also during his tenure of the same post that he published (in 1595) a Traite de V Eloquence Fran^aise, which both advocates and exhibits a great improvement on the ordinary prose style of the day. In 1599 he be came first president of the parlement of Provence (Aix), and in order not to give up this position he refused the see of Marseilles. In 1616 he received the highest pro motion open to a French lawyer and became keeper of the seals. His death took place at Tonneins (Lot-et-Garonne) on 3d August 1621. Both as speaker and writer he holds a very high rank, and his character was equal to his abilities. Like other political lawyers of the time, Du Vair busied himself not a little in the study of philosophy (of a Christian stoical cast) and in that of classical an tiquity, translating Cicero, Demosthenes, and Epictetus, and writing various treatises, on which Charron, a general plagiarist, is held to have drawn freely. Du Vair s works were published in folio at Paris in 1641. VALAIS (Germ., Wallis), one of the Swiss cantons, rank ing as twentieth in the Confederation. Its name has been explained to mean the &quot; Welsh land,&quot; as the Teutons called all non-Teutonic lands ; but it is far more probably derived from &quot;vallis,&quot; for Valais is simply the &quot; Vallis Pcenina,&quot; or valley of the Rhone, from its source to the gorge of St Maurice, together with some villages south of the Simplon Pass, and Monthey, Val d llliez, and Bouveret beyond St Maurice, on the left bank of the river. The total area of the canton is 2026 3 square miles, which is exceeded only by that of Grisons (Graubiinden) and of Bern. Of this 930 4 square miles are classed as productive, forests cover ing 243 2 and vineyards 9 ; of the remainder 375 1 square miles consist of snow and ice. The highest point of the canton is Monte Rosa (15,217 feet), and within its borders rises the Dom (14,942 feet), the loftiest peak entirely in Swiss territory. The population in 1880 was 100,216 (males predominating), an increase of 3329 since 1870. French is the native tongue of 67,214 and German of 31,962, the former dwelling (roughly speaking) west and the latter east of a line drawn north and south across the valley of the Rhone between Sierre and Leuk. The bulk (99,316) of the inhabitants are staunch Roman Catholics. The canton forms the diocese of Sion (founded in 4th cen tury), which before 1513 was in the ecclesiastical province of Moutiers-en-Tarentaise (Savoy), and since then has been immediately dependent on the pope. In the canton there are three famous houses of Austin canons regular St Maurice (founded as a Benedictine monastery, as distinct from the see, in 515 by Sigismund of Burgundy), the hos pice on the Great St Bernard (first mentioned in 1125), and that on the Simplon Pass (first mentioned in 1235). Ecclesiastical affairs are managed without any control or interference on the part of the state, though the cantonal legislative assembly selects as bishop one of four candi dates nominated by the chapter of Sion. The only town of any size is the capital, Sion or Sitten (4871 inhabitants in 1880). The population are mainly engaged in agricul tural pursuits, and great efforts have been made to improve matters lately, while the Rhone has been embanked to prevent disastrous floods. Much wine (e.g., Muscat and Vin du Glacier) and a vast quantity of grapes are exported. Education is compulsory and free, but very backward. A railway runs from Brieg to Bouveret. The mineral waters of Leukerbad and Saxon are well known, and in summer the canton is a favourite haunt of tourists. The Vallis Prenina was won by the Romans after a great fight at Octodurus (Martigny) in 57 B.C., and was so thoroughly Roman ized that the Celtic aboriginal inhabitants and the Teutonic Bur- gundian invaders (5th cent.) became Romance -speaking peoples. According to a tradition which can be traced back to the middle of the 8th century, the &quot;Theban legion&quot; was martyred at St Maurice about 285. Valais formed part of the kingdom of Transjurane Burgundy (888), which fell to the empire in 1032, and later of the duchy of Burgundia Minor, which was held from the emperors by the house of Ziiringen (extinct 1218). In 999 Rudolph III. of Burgundy gave all temporal rights and privileges to the bishop of Sion, who was later styled &quot;prrefect and count of the Valais,&quot; and is still a prince of the Holy Roman empire; the pretended donation of Charlemagne is not genuine. The bishops had much to do in keeping back the Zaringen, and later the counts of Savoy. The latter, however, succeeded in winning most of the land west of Sion, while in the upper part of the valley there were many feudal lords (such as the lords of Raron and the counts of Visp). About the middle of the 13th century we find independent communities or &quot; tithings&quot; (&quot; dizains &quot; or &quot; zehnten &quot;) growing up. In the same century the upper part of the valley was colonized by Germans from Hasli (Bern), who thoroughly Teutonized it, though many Romance local names still remain. In 1354 the liberties of the seven &quot;tithings&quot; (Sion, Sierre, Lcuk, Rarou, Visp, Brieg, and Conches) were confirmed by the emperor Charles IV. A little later the influence of Savoy became predominant, and the count secured to his family the bishopric of Sion, of which he was already the suzerain. His progress was resisted by the tithings, which in 1388 utterly defeated the forces of the bishop, the count, and the nobles at Visp, this being a victory of the Teutonic over the Romance ele ment in the land. From 1384 the Morge stream (a little below Sion) was recognized as the boundary between Savoyard or Lower Valais and episcopal or Upper Valais. For the connexion of the latter with the Yal d Ossola, see SWITZERLAND, vol. xxii. p. 785. By the election of AValther von Supersax of Conches as bishop in 1457 the Teutonic element finally won the supremacy. On the out-