Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/564

548 splendour with solemnity ; they have the manful energy of Mantegna without his harshness, and the richness of Gior- gione without his luxury. Succeeding pictures show an increase of this richness, and a character more nearly tender. An altar piece, painted for the church of San Zaccaria, seems to indicate a transition, and that the venerable master is acquiring all the softer splendour and keeping pace with Uiorgione and Titian, the young pupils of the school. Nay, at the very close of his career, Bellini left the old devo tional cycle in which he had produced works so moving and august, and painted for Alphonso of Ferrara a myth ology in the most gorgeous manner of the ripe Venetian school. This is the Feast of the Gods, now at Alnwick Castle, a picture to which Titian set the finishing touches, and to which the companion, by Titian himself, is now at Madrid. Bellini died on the 29th of November 1516, full of years and honours. We have seen that he was associated with his brother in the decoration of the Great Hall of the Council in 1479. In 1483 he was appointed Pittore del Domiuio, and exempted from the charges of his guild. All the painters of the state at one time or another were associated with him or passed through his school. Among the most distinguished of his scholars and assistants who will not need separate mention, we may name Marco Basaiti and Vincenzo Catena, many of whose works pass for their master s. He was the honoured associate of statesmen and men of letters. In 1506, when Albert Diirer visited Venice, where he was subject to some annoy ances, he found the noble old man not only the most courteous of the Venetian artists in his reception of a stranger, but the best in his profession (&quot; der best im gemell &quot;). Many pictures in various galleries pass as portraits of one or other of the Bellini. But of those that are styled likenesses of Giovanni, none can be proved authentic, while the only certain portrait of Gentile is a medal by Camelio. (Vasari, ed. Lemonnier, vol. v. pp. 1-28; San- sovino, Ven. descr., 125, seq. ; Eidolfi, i. 90-99 ; Crowe and Cavalcaselle, History of Painting in North Italy, vol. i. pp. 100-193.)  BELLINI,, physician and anatomist, was born at Florence in 1643. After completing his studies in general literature he went to Pisa, where, assisted by the generosity of the grand duke Ferdinand II., he studied under two of the most learned men of that age, Oliva and Borelli, the former of whom instructed him in natural philosophy and the latter in mechanics. He likewise studied medicine under Bedi, and mathematics under Marchetti. At the early age of twenty he was chosen professor of philosophy at Pisa, but did not long continue in this office; for he had acquired such a reputation for skill in anatomy, that the grand duke procured him a professorship in that science, and was himself a frequent auditor at his lectures. After a long residence in Pisa, he was invited to Florence and appointed physician to the grand duke Cosmo. He was also made senior consulting physician to Pope Clement XI. Bellini died in 1703, in the sixtieth year of his age. His works were published in a collected form in 1708 (2 vols. 4to), and reprinted in 1732.  BELLINI,, one of the most celebrated operatic composers of the modern Italian school, was born at Catania in Sicily, November 3, 1802. He was descended from a family of musicians, both his father and grandfather having been composers of some reputation. After having received his preparatory musical education at home, he entered the conservatoire of Naples, where he studied sing ing and composition under Tritto and Zingarelli. He soon began to write pieces for various instruments, as well as a cantata and several masses and other sacred compositions. His first opera, Addson e Savina, was performed in 1824 at a small theatre of Naples ; his second dramatic work, Bidhca e Fernando, saw the light two years later at the San Carlo theatre of the same city, and made his name known in Italy. His next work, II Pirata, was written for the celebrated Scala theatre in Milan, to words by Felice Romano, with whom Bellini formed a union (if friendship to be severed only by his death. The splendid rendering of the music by Tamburini, Eubini, and other great Italian singers, contributed greatly to the success of the work, which at once established the European reputation of its composer. Almost every year of the short remainder of his life witnessed the production of a new operatic work, each of which was received with rapture by the audiences of France, Italy, Germany, and England, and some of which retain their place on the stage up to the present day. We mention the names and dates of four of Bellini s operas familiar to most lovers of modern Italian music, viz. : / Montecchi e Capuleti (1829), in which the part of Romeo has been a favourite with all the great contraltos of the last seventy years ; La Sonnambula (1831); Norma, Bel lini s best and most popular creation (1832), and / Puri- tani (1834), written for the Italian opera in Paris, and to some extent under the influence of French music. In 1833 Bellini had left his country to accompany to England the great singer Pasta, who had created the part of his Sonnambula. In 1834 he accepted an invitation to write an opera for the national Grand Opera in Paris. While he was carefully studying the French language and the cadence of French verse for the purpose, he was seized with a sudden illness and died at his villa in Puteaux near Paris, September 21, 1835. This unexpected interruption of a career so brilliant sheds, as it were, a gloom of sadness over the whole of Bellini s life, a sadness which, moreover, was foreshadowed by the character of his works. His operatic creations are throughout replete with a spirit of gentle melancholy, frequently monotonous and almost always undramatic, but at the same time irresistibly sweet, and almost disarming the stern demands of higher criticism which otherwise would be compelled to reprove the absence of both dramatic vigour and musical depth. To the feature just mentioned, combined with a rich flow of cantilena, Bellini s operas owe their popularity, and will owe it as long as the audiences of our large theatres are willing to tolerate outrages on rhyme and reason if sung by a beautiful voice to a pleasing tune. In so far, how ever, as the defects of Bellini s style are characteristic of the school to which he belongs, they fall to be con sidered in a general treatment of the whole subject. See .  BELLINZONA, or, one of the three towns which are the capital in turn of the Swiss canton of Tessin or Ticino. It is built on two hills, one on each side of the Ticino at the entrance of the Riviera valley, and is so situated as completely to bar the passage by that route between Italy and Germany. Its fortifications, which were of great strength during the Middle Ages, have been partially re stored. There are three castles, the Castello Grande, Cor- bario, and Di Mezzo, which belonged to the three cantons of Uri, Unterwalden, and Schwyz respectively; the first of these is now used as an armoury and prison. The abbey church is a fine building of the 16th century, and contains some paintings of value. The Augustinian convent is now used as a Government house. The inundations of the river are prevented from injuring the town by a large dyke, built by the French in the reign of Francis I. A considerable transit trade is carried on with Italy, and there is a famous manufacture of acqua di cedro from the blossom and rind of the orange. Bellinzona was in existence at least as early as 1242, when it was conquered by Otto Visconti. It was long an object of contest between the Swiss and the 