Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/225

 F I N F I N 215 FINGAL, the name of the chief hero in the English prose epics called the Poems of Ossian, written in the last century by James Macpherson, and based to a certain extent upon poems and prose tales to be found in manuscripts written in Irish the literary language common to both Ireland and Gaelic Scotland, or still preserved in memory by the Celtic-speaking people of both countries. The Finn iia Jlaiscni, or Find Mac Cumhaill, of those poems and tales was, according to all Irish and Scottish traditions, the Itig, or king for that word was one of wider application than in modern times of the Leinster Fiaits or Fenians (see FENIANS) in the time of the monarch Cormac son of Art ; and he resided at a Dun, or fort, at Almhain, now the Hill of Allen, in the county of Kildare, whence has come the name of Bog of Allen given to the great central bogs of Ireland. Grainne, daughter of Cormac Mac Airt, was betrothed to Find; but she having eloped with a celebrated warrior of the Fians Diarmait ua Duibhne her father offered him another daughter, Ailbhe, distinguished for her wisdom. The elopement of Diarmait and Grainne and their pursuit by Find is the subject of one of the most important of the Irish Fenian tales. Find s courtship of Ailbhe is also the subject of a curious tale. Find is said to have been killed in the year 283 A.D., at a place called Ath Urea, on the river Boyne, by a fisherman who thought to distinguish himself thereby. Find s sons Fergus Finn- liheoil, or the Eloquent, and Oisin (the Little Deer) were poets, and some poems attributed to them still exist. Oscar, the celebrated son of Oisin, was killed at the battle of Gabhra, which broke the Fenian organization and power ; but Oisin and a few others survived that battle, and accord ing to popular tradition lived down to the time of St Patrick. The Fenian period, though not strictly within the historic period, is so close upon its threshold, that Find may have been a real personage. Much that is told of himself and of his father, Cumuli son of Trenmor, might have happened. None of the poems attributed to Find himself, or his sons Oisin and Fergus, though some are in a manuscript of the 12th century, belong, at least in their present form, to the supposed time of the poets. But even if we admit that Find and the other Fenians were real personages, they have become, like Art and his son Cormac, the centres of a luxuriant growth of legend, Find himself having grown into a powerful giant. In taking Find as the hero of his new epic, Macpherson changed his name, apparently for euphony sake, to Fingal, and made him king of a fictitious petty kingdom of Morven, corresponding apparently with the deanery of that name in the mediaeval diocese of Argyle. The name Fingal is not, however, of his own coinage. A large number of Irish personal names end in the same letters, e.g., an (Abban, Aedan, &c.), nail (Domhnall, Seachnall, &amp;lt;fcc.), gen, gan (Cellgen, Corrgen, &c.), gns (Fergus, Oingus, Snedgus, &c.), gal or ffhal (Fergal, Aedhghal, &c.). The same stem, by the addition of different suffixes, gives a series of names, e.g., Ferbaeth, Fergal, Fergus, &c. The stems are often the names of colours, e.g., Donngal, Dubhgal, Gormgal, Fingal, brown, black, blue, fair. According to the Annals of the Four Masters, there was an abbot of Lismore in Ireland named Fingal, who died in 741 A.D. The suffix gal has been assumed to mean stranger or foreigner, so that Fingal would be the fair stranger. This is, however, a mere guess. The meaning of the stems are equally uncertain ; fair, brown, black, are designations which might be applied with propriety to the person, but what shall v;e say of blue, unless the person first called Gormgal painted himself blue with woad after the manner of the ancient Britons. There is even a better justification than mere euphony for the change of Finn or Find into Fingal. Barbour, in his Bruce, written in 1375. has the following interesting passage (The Jlrus, xix. p. 49, Spalding Club edition) proving the ancient use of the form Fingal : &quot; He said, Muthink, Martliokis sono, Kit-lit as Golmakmorn was wone To haf fra Fingal his menylie, liicht sa all his fra us has he. &quot; In transferring his hero Fingal to Morven, Macpherson was also justified, for that district has an old Fenian topography of its own. Kirke in his Psalter, published in 1G84, actually calls the districts from Morvaren to Glenelg and the Isles the land of the Fian or Fenians. These and the neigh bouring districts are also intimately associated with the legends of the heroic period of Cuchulaind, FINI. See MASOLINO. FINIGUERHA, MASO (contraction for TOMMASO), a Florentine goldsmith, is distinguished as the inventor of the method of taking impressions from engraved plates. The date of his birth is not ascertained, and conjectures vary from 1 400 to 1 426. He was one of the best workers iu niello, a form of decorative art then very much in vogue in Italy, which, however, in the next century fell into neglect. He is said to have been a pupil of the famous sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti, and to have assisted him in the execution of the beautiful bronze gates of the baptistery of Florence ; but whether the first or second pair of gates is not stated. Baldinucci makes him a pupil of Masaccio; but it appears probable that he was rather one of those art students who were powerfully influenced by the new style, noble in simplicity, of Masaccio s works, than a personal disciple of the painter. One indisputably genuine work of Finiguerra is still extant, a silver Pax on which is wrought in niello a representation of the Coronation of the Virgin. By some writers it is called an Assumption. It was executed for the church of San Giovanni Battista at Florence, and is still preserved there. It is in height a little more than 4 inches, and in breadth about 3 inches; and within this small space is a composition of more than forty figures, marvellous for accuracy of drawing and minute finish. The date of its completion is fixed by an entry in the city archives, under the year 1452. During the progress of the work the artist, according to the custom, took casts in sulphur from the plate, and also impressions upon damped paper. For these impressions he made use of a smooth roller, which passed over the paper on the plate, and pro duced impressions that looked like pen drawings. This method was followed by other workers ; and thus copper plate engraving and printing soon became generally prac tised in Italy. The title of Finiguerra to the discovery was long disputed, especially on the ground that while prints by early German masters were in existence bearing earlier dates than any Italian engravings, not a single print by Finiguerra could be produced in support of his claim. The question was settled by Zani s discovery in 1797, in the National Cabinet of Paris, of the identical impression taken by the artist himself from the silver Pax of San Giovanni. This print is believed to have been executed as early as 1440. Zani s account of his discovery (see Ottley s History of Engraving, vol. i. pp. 306-312) is a singularly fascinating narrative, breathing an enthusiasm as intense and a joy as devout as those of a Columbus who first sights a long-sought world. The date of Maso s death is not known. Zani places it about 1460, others about 1475. FINISTKRE, or FINISTEKRE, the most western depart ment of France, forming part of the old province of Bretagne or Brittany, is bounded on the N.W. and S. by the ocean, and on the E. by the departments of Cotes-du-Nord and Morbihan. It extends from 47 44 to 48 47 N. lat., and from 3 22 to 4 50 W. long., being 78 miles in length from north to south by 63 in width, and having an area of 666,705 hectares, or 2574 square miles. Two