Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/845

Rh DANNECKER, (1758-1841), one of the best German sculptors. He was born at Stuttgart, where his father was employed in the stables of the duke of Wiirtemberg, 15th October 1758. The boy was entered in the military school at the age of thirteen, and continued there two years, when, his bias and his talent having manifested themselves, he was allowed to take his own way, although there had been some idea of making him a dancer. Once freed from his juvenile difficulties his success was pretty secure, and we find him at once associating with the young sculptors Scheffauer and Le Jeune, the painters Guibal and Harper, and also with Schiller, and the much-admired musician Zumsteeg. His busts of some of these are good ; that of Schiller is well known. In his eighteenth year he carried off the prize at the Concours with his model of Milo of Crotona, the strong man who died by having his hand caught in the rent stump of a tree, a favourite subject with young sculptors. On this the duke made him sculptor to the palace (1780), and for some time he was employed on child-angels and caryatides for the decoration of the reception rooms. This work did not please him very much, and in 1783, in his twenty-fourth year, he left for Paris with Scheffauer, and placed himself under Pajoufor a time. His Mars, a sitting figure sent home to Stuttgart, marks this period ; and we next find him, still travelling with his friend, at Rome in 1785, where he settled down to work hard for five years, during which his position in the future art history of his native land was securely made. Goethe and Herder were then in Rome and became his friends, as well as Canova, who was the hero of the day, and who had undoubtedly a great authoritative influence on his style. His marble statues of Ceres and Bacchus were done at this time. These are now to be seen in the Residenz-schloss, at Stuttgart. While in Rome his study of the antique was very careful and intelligent, although Canova was so much admired by him, and on his return to Stuttgart, which he never after wards quitted except for short trips to Paris, Vienna, and Zurich, the double influence of these opposite forces is apparent in his works. We may mention some of these. The first was a Girl Lamenting her Dead Bird, which pretty light motive was much admired. Afterwards, Sappho, in marble for the Lustschloss, and two Offering-bearers for the Jagdschloss ; Hector, now in the museum, not in marble ; the Complaint of Ceres, from Schiller s poem ; a statue of Christ, worthy of mention for its nobility, which has been skilfully engraved by Amsler ; Psyche ; Kneeling Water Nymph ; Love, a favourite he had to repeat. These stock subjects with sculptors had freshness of treatment ; and the Ariadne, done a little later, especially had a charm of novelty which has made it a European favourite in a reduced size. It is perhaps the contrast between the deli cacy of the female human form and the subdued rude force of the panther she rides that attracts our admiration ; but it is probable that this group, like Canova s Graces, will always retain its popularity. It was repeated for the banker Von Bethman in Frankfort, where it now appears the ornament of the Platz. Many of the illustrious men of the time were modelled by him. The original marble of Schiller is now at Weimar ; after the poet s death it was again modelled in colossal size. Lavater, Metternich, Countess Stephanie of Baden, General Benkendorf, and others are much prized. Dannecker was director of the Gal lery of Stuttgart, and received many academic and other dis tinctions. So far his life had been prosperous, but as the evening drew on his mind became troubled and at last obscured. His health had suffered while working very closely on a large monumental statue, and long before his final year he was altogether prostrated. During this sad period he rallied, but his memory and power of observation faded again, and his death was long expected. This took place at last in 1841, in his eighty-third year.   DANTE. Dante (or Durante) Alighieri (–) was born at Florence about the middle of May. He was descended from an ancient family, but not one of the highest rank. His biographers have attempted on very slight grounds to deduce his origin from the Frangipani, one of the oldest senatorial families of Rome. We can affirm with greater certainty that he was connected with the Elisei who took part in the building of Florence under Charles the Great. Dante himself does not, with the exception of a few obscure and scattered allusions, carry his ancestry beyond the warrior Cacciaguida, whom he met in the sphere of Mars (Par. xv. 87, foil.) Cacciaguida there tells his descendant that he was born in the year, that he married an Aldighieri from the valley of the Po, that he had two brothers, Moronte and Eliseo, and that he accompanied the Emperor Conrad III. upon his crusade into the Holy Land, where he died among the infidels. From Eliseo was descended the branch of the Elisei ; from Aldighiero, son of Cacciaguida, the branch of the Alighieri. Bellincione, son of Aldighiero, was the grandfather of Dante. His father was a second Aldighiero, a lawyer of some reputation. By his first wife, Lapa di Chiarissimo Cialuffi, this Aldighiero had a son Francesco ; by his second, Donna Bella, whose family name is not known, Dante and a daughter. Thus the family of Dante held a most respectable position among the citizens of his beloved city ; but had it been reckoned in the very first rank they could not have remained in Florence after the defeat of the Guelfs at Montaperti in. It is clear, however, that Dante s mother at least did so remain, for Dante was born in Florence in. The heads of the Guelf party did not return till.

Dante was born under the sign of the twins, &quot; the glorious stars pregnant with virtue, to whom he owes his genius such as it is.&quot; Astrologers considered this constella tion as favourable to literature and science, and Brunetto Latini, his instructor, tells him in the Inferno (xv. 25, foil.) that, if he follows its guidance, he cannot fail to reach the harbour of fame. Boccaccio relates that before his birth his mother dreamed that she lay under a very lofty laurel, growing in a green meadow, by a very clear fountain, when she felt the pangs of childbirth, that her child, feeding on the berries which fell from the laurel, and on the waters of the fountain, in a very short time became a shepherd, and attempted to reach the leaves of the laurel, the fruit of which had nurtured him, that, trying to obtain them he fell, and rose up, no longer a man, but in the guise of a peacock. We know little of Dante s boyhood except that he was a hard student and a pupil of Brunetto Latini. Boccaccio tells us that he became very familiar with Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Statius, and all other famous poets ; and that, &quot;taken by the sweetness of knowing the truth of the things concealed in heaven, and finding no other pleasure dearer to him in life, he left all other worldly care and gave himself to this alone, and, that no part of philosophy might remain unseen by him, he plunged with acute intellect into the deepest recesses of theology, and so far succeeded in his design that, caring nothing for heat or cold, or watchings or fastings, or any other bodily discomforts, by assiduous study he came to know of the divine essence and of the other separate intelligences all that the human intellect can comprehend.&quot; Leonardo Bruni says that &quot; by study of philosophy, of theology, astrology, arithmetic, and geometry, by reading of history, by the turning over many curious books, watching and sweating in his studies, he acquired the science which he was to adorn and explain in his verses.&quot; Of his teacher Brunetto Latini, of whom he speaks with the most loving 