Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/385

BAL occupied the same chair at Prague. Here he entered the church, and Ladislaus, king of Hungary, intrusted him with the education of his children. He was elected provost of the college of Presburg; and afterwards ambassador to Pope Clement VII. He died in 1535, having left many works.—A. C. M.  BALBI,, confidante of Louis XVIII., born in 1753; died about 1836. In 1770 she married the comte de Balbi, whom she managed to interdict as a lunatic. With a view to support her unlimited extravagance, she ensnared by her charms the comte de Provence, whom she often reduced to embarrassment by her prodigalities. After the outbreak of the Revolution she accompanied Madame to Mons, whither Monsieur immediately followed. She then retired with Monsieur to Coblentz, but soon losing her power over him she withdrew to Holland, where, in consequence of the rumour of her amours, she was excluded from court. She next proceeded to England, where she remained until the time when Napoleon was named first consul, and then taking advantage of the decree authorizing the return of the emigrants, she went back to France. In 1815 she, with much difficulty, obtained a particular audience of the king; and from that time until her death she remained at Paris in the strictest retirement.—G. M.  BALBILUS, C., governor of Egypt in the reign of Nero, . 55. He was a Roman senator, and a man of great learning. He wrote a work on Egypt, and a narrative of his travels.  BALBIN,, a Roman emperor, died at Rome in 238. He was of an ancient and illustrious patrician family, a man of talent and liberal education, an able orator, and one of the first poets of his time. He is first noticed in history as a Roman senator, and afterwards, on two different occasions, as consul. As the sequel to one of those military revolutions which were of such frequent occurrence in ancient Rome, he was, in conjunction with Maximmius Pupienus, raised to the purple, and permitted to assume the title of Augustus. They were at the same time declared to be the saviours of their country; the one by his wisdom, the other by his courage. After a turbulent reign, embittered towards its close by mutual jealousies and dissensions, they were put to death by the pretorian guards.—G. M.  BALBINUS, a Roman consul about thirty years before the Christian era. He had been proscribed by the triumvirate in the year 43 ., but was restored about four years afterwards.  BALBIS,, an Italian botanist, was born at Moretta in Piedmont in 1765, and died on 13th February, 1834. He prosecuted his medical studies at the university of Turin, and applied himself especially to botany under the direction of Allioni. He became a member of the provisional government after the conquest of Piedmont in 1798. He was subsequently elected professor of botany at Turin after the death of Allioni. He afterwards retired to Padua, and assisted Nocca in the publication of his Flora Ticinensis; and finally, in 1819, he became professor of botany and director of the botanic garden at Lyons. He published works on materia medica, and on officinal plants, the Flora of Turin and of Lyons, besides miscellaneous botanical works and memoirs, some of which were published in the transactions of the Turin academy.—J. H. B.  BALBO,, born at Turin in 1789. At the age of eighteen, the young count was nominated auditor of the council of state by Napoleon I., and went to Paris in that capacity. He afterwards entered the army, and served in the campaign of Grenoble. On the fall of Napoleon, he returned to Italy, and commenced his literary and political career. When the simultaneous revolutions in the various states of Italy, in 1848, compelled her absolutist princes to grant constitutions to their subjects, Balbo, already known from his writings as a devoted servant of the House of Savoy, was a member of the Piedmontese cabinet. He is chiefly remarkable from the fact that his first important work, "Le Speranze d'ltalia," published in 1844, may be regarded as having given the programme of the so-called "Moderates" of Italy, and as having, together with the writings of d'Azeglio, Durando, and others, created the monarchical Piedmontese party, as opposed to the national party, composed chiefly of Republicans, and represented by Joseph Mazzini. Balbo also wrote a summary of Italian history, a translation of Tacitus, a life of Dante, and other less important works. He died in June, 1853. His five sons fought in the Lombard campaign in 1848; and one of them, Ferdinand, died bravely at the fatal battle of Novara in 1849.—E. A. H.  BALBOA,, a Spanish missionary, author of a valuable history of Peru, published some years ago at Paris, lived in the second half of the sixteenth century. He settled at Santa Fe de Bogota in Spanish America, about the year 1566, and ten years afterwards removed to Quito, where, by the favour of his bishop, he enjoyed excellent advantage for prosecuting his historical labours.—J. S., G. <section end="385H" /> <section begin="385I" />BALBOA,, a celebrated Spanish adventurer, born at Xeres de los Cabelleros in 1475, died at Castile d'Or in 1517. He was descended of a noble though poor family; and when Rodrigo de Bastidas had formed his great mercantile enterprise, which was expected to be so useful to geographical science, he voluntarily engaged to take part in the expedition. On arriving at Haiti he at first established himself there as a cultivator of the soil, but, falling into debt, he quitted the island, and accompanied Enciso in his expedition to the continent. Though an adventurer in search of fortune, his great ambition seems to have been to extend the boundaries of geographical knowledge, and especially to be able to announce to Europe the splendours of another great ocean. He had hardly reached the continent when he began to manifest extraordinary sagacity and energy as a colonizer. Having constrained Fernandez Enciso, the legally recognized chief, to demit his authority and quit the colony, he, with a handful of Spaniards, and the assistance of a wonderful dog named Leoncillo, subjugated vast numbers of the native Indians, whom he had afterwards the art of attaching to his person, and reducing to a cheerful obedience to his rule. He made numerous expeditions into the regions which had been pointed out by tradition as rich in gold and silver; and accumulated a vast amount of treasure, which, on his return to the colony, he divided equally, not only among those who had been his companions in the expedition, but also among those whom he had left behind. He now turned his attention to the great object of discovery on which he had set his heart. On the 1st September, 1513, he commenced his perilous enterprise. Accompanied by a small band of followers, he began to thread the almost impenetrable forests of the Isthmus of Darien, and, guided by an Indian chief named Ponca, clambered up the ragged gorges of the mountains. At length, after a most toilsome and dangerous journey, they approached, on the 25th September, the summit of the mountain range, when Balboa, leaving his followers at a little distance behind, and advancing alone to the western declivity, was the first to see the vast unknown ocean; and, lifting his hands to heaven in token of admiration, his companions rushed forward to embrace their chief, and congratulate him on his important discovery. He afterwards took solemn possession of the ocean in the name of his sovereign. Surrounded by his followers he walked into the water, carrying in his right hand a naked sword, and in his left the banner of Castile, and declared the sea of the south, and all the regions whose shores it bathed, to belong to the crown of Castile and Leon. Meanwhile Enciso had returned to Europe, and represented the conduct of Balboa in so unfavourable a light, that the king superseded him in his office by sending out Don Pedrarias Davila as governor of the new colony, which has been named Castile d'Or. On the arrival of Pedrarias, Balboa, contrary to the urgent remonstrances of his followers, at once resigned his office; but neither the Spaniards nor the natives were inclined to submit to the government of Pedrarias. Balboa disinterestedly assisted him to establish his authority, and in gratitude for this important service Pedrarias bestowed on him the hand of his eldest daughter. The new governor had, notwithstanding, never ceased to regard Balboa as a rival, and at last, overcome by jealousy, ordered him to be beheaded.—G. M. <section end="385I" /> <section begin="385J" />BALBUENA,, born at Val de Penas, 1568. He is the author of an epic poem, "El Bernardo, a victoria do Roncesvalles." He died bishop of Porto Rico, South America, in the year 1527. <section end="385J" /> <section begin="385K" />BALBUS,, an Italian theologian, bishop of Tropea, died at Rome in 1479. He is the author of "Gregorii Nysenni Dialogus de Immortalitate Animæ." <section end="385K" /> <section begin="385Lnop" />BALBUS, surnamed, a Roman engineer of the time of Augustus. He was employed in the registry of that survey of all the provinces which the emperor caused to be executed about the middle of his reign. Balbus is cited by Frontinus as the author of some commentaries.—Another, to whom Lachmann attributes an "Expositio et Ratio Omnium Formarum" of all the provinces of the empire, was a military engineer in the service of Trajan.—J. S., G. <section end="385Lnop" />