Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/1123

CLE events in England caused the pope, Francis I. menaced Italy with a fresh invasion, affirming that he had the pope's oral approbation of the project. The emperor pressed on the reluctant Clement the necessity of convoking a council; domestic troubles embittered his mind, his two nephews falling out about the sovereignty of Florence. He died September 25, 1534. Though his judgment was good, he wanted decision and firmness of character. His covetousness, dissimulation, and faithlessness created distrust of his policy and contempt of his character.

A conclave of cardinals who had suffered from the severity of Urban VI., set up as his rival Cardinal Robert of Geneva, under the name of Clement VII., in 1378. He took up his residence at Avignon, and was looked upon as one of the regular French popes. He died in 1394.—S. D.  CLEMENT VIII. , was elected pope in 1592. Falling between the long period of European warfare, which was terminated by the peace of Chateau Cambresis in 1559, and that which opened in 1618 at the commencement of the Thirty Years' war, the pontificate of Clement presents the holy see in the light of an important arbitrating and reconciling power in the affairs of the south and centre of Europe In 1598 the papal forces took possession of the territory and city of Ferrara, dispossessing the house of Este. In 1599 occurred at Rome the frightful tragedy of Beatrice Cenci, which has been dramatized by Shelley. Under this pope commenced the long controversy on the doctrines of grace and free will, originated by the writings of the jesuit, Molina. The dominicans opposed Molina, and the matter was referred in 1604 to Clement, who, though leaning to the side of the dominicans, did not live long enough to pronounce a decision. This able pope died in March, 1605.—T. A.  CLEMENT IX. , succeeded Alexander VII. in June, 1667. He was a wise and moderate pontiff. He continued the proceedings commenced by his predecessor against the four French bishops who had refused to give an unqualified adhesion to the decision of the holy see upon the famous five propositions of Jansenius. The news of the loss of Candia, taken by the Turks from the Venetians in 1669, is said to have hastened the pope's death, which occurred in December of that year. He was succeeded by  CLEMENT X., then in his eightieth year. His pontificate is remarkably barren of interest. He died in 1676.—T. A.  CLEMENT XI. was elected in 1700. He was then in the vigour of life, and wore the tiara for twenty years, during a most eventful period of European history. The war of the Spanish succession broke out in 1702, and the pope espoused the cause of the French aspirant, Philip V., a younger son of Louis XIV. In eastern Europe, Clement, true to the traditions of the papacy, brought about a successful combination against the Turks. The result was the great victory of Peterwaradin, gained by Prince Eugene in 1716, which was followed up by other successes, and led for the time to the complete humiliation of the Turkish power. Clement assisted with money the pretender, the son of James II, in his abortive attempt in 1715. In 1713 he issued the famous bull Unigenitus, condemning certain Jansenistic propositions extracted from the writings of Pére Quesnel. The personal character of Clement was almost without a blemish. He died in 1720.—T. A.  CLEMENT XII. succeeded Benedict XIII. in 1730. This pontiff was a dilettante in the fine arts, and a lover of show and magnificence; his personal bearing was gentle and noble. He died in 1740, at the age of eighty-eight.—T. A.  CLEMENT XIII. , a noble Venetian, was elected on the demise of Benedict XIV. in 1758. He was one of the most excellent of men; in Padua he had passed by no other name than "the Saint." The eleven years of his pontificate were one long struggle against the growing influence of the infidel philosophy of France. The great question of the day was that of the suppression of the jesuits. Clement did not cease to defend by word and act the persecuted society. Nor did he scruple to become in his turn the assailant; he condemned the monstrous production of Helvetius, entitled De l'Esprit, and also censured the Encyclopèdie of D'Alembert and Diderot, "as pernicious alike to religion and morality." Clement died in 1769.—T. A.  CLEMENT XIV. was elected in 1769 on the death of the foregoing pope. By slow and cautious steps he proceeded to that consummation which he well knew was expected from him—the abolition of the Society of Jesus. On the 23rd July, 1773, having nearly a year before shut up the jesuit seminary at Rome, he signed the bull beginning Dominus ac Redemptor noster, by which the order was ipso facto abolished in every part of the catholic world. Clement XIV. died in September, 1774.—T. A. <section end="1123H" /> <section begin="1123Zcontin" />CLEMENTI,, the eminent pianist and composer for his instrument, was born at Rome in 1752, and died in London 10th March, 1832. His father, a worker in gold and silver, was chiefly occupied in making ornamental vessels for churches. He was a great lover of music, and was delighted, therefore, when he observed the manifestation of a natural talent for this art in his son; and he was sedulous to procure him the best opportunity for developing his ability. Antonio Baroni, mæstro di capella at one of the ecclesiastical establishments in Rome, was a relation of the family; and to his instruction young Clementi was confided when but six years old. The year following, he began to study harmony under a master of some repute named Cordicelli. In 1761 he gained a prize at a public competition by his efficiency for the requirements of an organist, playing fluently from the figured basses of Corelli, and transposing music at sight. He was now placed under Santerelli to learn singing, and he acquired some repute for his voice and his manner. In his twelfth year he became a pupil for composition of the famous Carpini, who was as noted in his own circle for his roughness of manner, as distinguished throughout Europe for the depth of his contrapuntal knowledge. Unknown to his rigid master, Clementi wrote a mass for four voices, and found an occasion to have it publicly executed; Carpini attended the performance, and, though he rebuked his scholar for not having shown him the work, he could not withhold his commendation of its merit.

Peter Beckford, a brother of the eccentric author of Vathek, and a participator with him of their father's riches, spent the winter of 1765-66 in Rome, and there made acquaintance with the already remarkable powers of young Clementi. Charmed with these, he took the boy under his special care to England, engaging to make provision for him until he should be of an age to enter upon the world. At this gentleman's seat in Dorsetshire, besides ardently pursuing his musical studies, Clementi cultivated a knowledge of the classics, in the languages of which he became as great a proficient, as his subsequent residence in different countries made him in those of modern Europe. He remained in this retirement until 1770, prior to which he wrote several of the compositions which, when afterwards published, drew upon him the attentive admiration of the best musicians of the time; among others were the six sonatas, op. 2, which are accredited as the origin of this form of writing for the pianoforte; they were printed in 1773, and their merit was at once acknowledged. On leaving Mr. Beckford, Clementi came to London, where he obtained the appointment, now obsolete, of accompanyist on the harpsichord at the opera. In 1780 he went to Paris, where the eulogies lavished on his very remarkable playing might well have intoxicated a less genuine artist, whose love of applause had been greater than his ambition to deserve it. Thence he proceeded, in the next year, to Vienna, making a short stay at Strasburg and at Munich. In the Austrian capital he played, nightly, together with Mozart, before the emperor, referring to which occasions a letter of Mozart to his father speaks of Clementi's executive excellence, but denies in him the power of expression, for which he is most particularly reputed. One cannot pass unnoticed this direct opposition of the opinion of the man most qualified to form one, to the verdict of the whole world; but it must be borne in mind, that Mozart's was a private letter, not a public declaration, and that in writing to his father, his object would rather be to quiet any apprehensions in the worthy Leopold, of immediate danger to himself from his new and powerful rival, than to give a faithful criticism of the talents of Clementi, which should be openly discussed in after ages.

Clementi returned to London in 1782, and here remained, except during a short visit to Paris in 1784, for twenty years. So great was his esteem as a teacher, that at the terms of a guinea per lesson, then more exorbitant than in the present day, he was continually compelled to refuse pupils by the want of time to attend to them. Great as was this golden temptation, he never suffered it to allure him from his truthful devotion to <section end="1123Zcontin" />