Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/880

862 brothers followed, from which, however, Bohemond was speedily diverted by the Crusades, which opened up a wider field for his ambition. Accompanied by his cousin Tancred, he led an army of 10,000 cavalry and 20,000 infantry, with which he would have besieged Constantinople had he been able to persuade Godfrey of Bouillon to join him. He took a leading part in the battle of Dorylseum (1097), and the other engagements of the campaign in Asia Minor. A year later he besieged and captured Antioch, of which he assumed the principality. In 1101 he was defeated and taken prisoner by the Turks. Released, after a captivity of two years, on the payment of a very heavy ransom, he returned to Europe to collect troops. In HOG he visited France, and married Constance, a daughter of Philip I. With an army levied in France, in right of his marriage, he renewed war with Alexius, but being unsuccessful in the siege of Durazzo he was obliged to con clude a peace in 1108. He died at Canossa in Apulia in 1111. (See Gibbon s Decline and Fall, c. Iviii., lx.; and Michaud s Histoirede Croisadcs.)  BOIARDO,, of a noble and illustrious house established at Ferrara, but originally from Reggie, was born at Scandiano, one of the seignoral estates of his family, near Reggio di Modena, about the year 1434, according to Tiraboschi, or 1 420 according to Mazzuchelli. At an early age he entered the University of Ferrara, where he acquired a good knowledge of Greek and Latin, and even of the Oriental languages, and was in due time admitted doctor in philosophy and in law. At the court of Ferrara, where he enjoyed the favour of Duke Borso d Este and his successor Hercules,he was entrusted with several honourable employments, and in particular was named governor of Reg gio, an appointment which he held in the year 1478. Three years afterwards he was elected captain of Modena, and reappointed governor of the town and citadel of Reggio, where he died in the year 1494, though in what month is uncertain. Almost all his works, and especially his great poem of the Orlando Inamorato, were composed for the amusement of Duke Hercules and his court, though not written within its precincts. His practice, it is said, was to retire to Scandiano or some other of his estates, and there to devote himself to composition ; and Castelvetro, Yallisnieri, Mazzuchelli, and Tiraboschi, all unite in stating that he took care to insert in the descriptions of his poem those of the agreeable environs of his chateau, and that the greater part of the names of his heroes, as Mandricardo, Gradasse, Sacripant, Agramant, and others, were merely the names of some of his peasants, which, from their uncouth- ness, appeared to him proper to be given to Saracen warriors. Be this as it may, the Orlando Inamorato deserves to be considered as one of the most important poems in Italian literature, since it forms the first example of the romantic epic worthy to serve as a model, and, as such, undoubtedly produced the Orlando Furioso. Gravina and Mazzuchelli have said, and succeeding writers have repeated on their authority, that Boiardo proposed to himself as his model the Iliad of Homer ; that Paris is besieged like the city of Troy; that Angelica holds the place of Helen; and that, in short, the one poem is a sort of reflex image of the other. In point of fact, however, the subject-matter of the poem is derived from the Fabulous Chronicle of the pseudo-Turpin; though, with the exception of the names of Charlemagne, Roland, Oliver, and some other principal warriors, who necessarily figure as important characters in the various scenes, there is little resemblance between the detailed plot of the one and that of the other. The poem, which Boiardo did not live to finish, was printed at Scandiano the year after his death, under the superintend ence of his son Count Camillo The title of the book is without date : but a Latin letter from Antonia Caraffa di Reggio, prefixed to the poem, is dated the kalends of June 1495. A second edition, also without date, but which must have been printed before the year 1500, appeared at Venice ; and the poem was twice reprinted there during the first twenty years of the 1 6th century. These editions are the more curious and valuable, that they contain nothing but the text of the author, which is comprised in three books, divided into cantos, the third book being incomplete. But Niccolo degli Agostini, an indifferent poet, had the courage to continue the work commenced by Boiardo, adding to it three books, which were printed at Venice in 1526-1531, in 4to ; and since that time no edition of the Orlando has been printed without the con tinuation of Agostini, wretched as it unquestionably is. Boiardo s poem suffers from the incurable defect of a laboured and heavy style. His story is skilfully con structed, the characters are well drawn and sustained throughout ; many of the incidents show a power and fertility of imagination not inferior to that of Ariosto, but the perfect workmanship indispensable for a great work of art is wanting. The poem in its original shape was not popular, and has been completely superseded by the Rifacimento of Francesco Berni. See. The other works of Boiardo are 1. II Timone, a comedy, Scandiano, 1500, 4to ; 2. Sonnetti e Canzoni, Reggio, 1499, 4to ; 3. Carmen Bucolicon, Reggio, 1500, 4to; 4. Cinquj Capitoli in terza rima, Venice, 1523 or 1533 ; 5. Apulejo dell Asino d Oro, Venice, 1516, 1518 ; 6. Asino d Oro de Luciano tradotto in volgare, Venice, 1523, 8vo ; 7. Erodoto Alicarnasseo istorico, tradotto di Greco in Lingua Italiana, Venice, 1533 and. 1538, 8vo ; 8. Rerum Italicarum Scriptores. (See Panizzi s Boiardo, 1830-31.)  BOIELDIEU,, is the chief representative of the national school of comic opera in France, a branch of art in which everything that is most lovable and at the same time most national in the French character has found its full expression. He was born at Rouen in 1775, and received his first musical education from M. Broche, the organist of the cathedral of that city. It is said that, when quite a youth, in order to escape the punishment of a severe master for a slight offence, he went off to Paris on foot, but was discovered and brought back by his parents. He began composing songs and chamber music at a very early age, his first opera, La Famille Suisse, being produced on the stage of Rouen in 1795, where it met with an enthu siastic reception. Not satisfied with his local success ho turned his eyes to that loadstar of youthful ambition, Paris. He went to the capital in 1795, full of hope and expectation. The score of his opera was submitted to the leading musicians of the day, such as Cherubini, Me hul, and others, but met with little approbation. Altogether the time was not favourable for the comic muse. Tha heroic passions roused by the revolutionary events of the preceding years required commensurate efforts of musical art ; the grand opera was the order of the day. Boieldieu had to fall back on his talent as a pianoforte-player for a livelihood, and to wait for a chance of higher success in the meantime. This success came at last from a source whence it was little expected, and, perhaps, less desired. Garat, a fashionable singer of the period, admired Boieldieu s touch on the piano, and made him his accompanyist. He also sung in the drawing-rooms of the Directoire the charming songs and ballads with which the young composer supplied him but too willingly. In this manner Boieldieu s reputa tion gradually extended to wider circles. In 1797 his above- mentioned opera appeared for the first time on a Paris stage, and was well received. Several others followed in rapid succession, of which only the last, Le Calif e de Bagdad (1799), has escaped oblivion. It tends to show Boieldieu s true artistic vocation, that, after the enormous success of 