Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/533

BEN Ducange and M. Goubaux) of "Thirty Years, or the Life of a Gambler," Paris, 1827-8."  BENDLOWES,, was born in the year 1613. He was the author of several poetical pieces not very remarkable for talent, and was esteemed in his younger days, a great patron of the poets, especially Quarles, Davenant, and Payne. Some dedicated books to his honour, and others wrote epigrams and poems on him. Reduced through his own indiscretion to great want, he died at Oxford, December 18, 1686.—T. J.  BENDONSKY, , known as the Polish Theocritus, and by the Latin cognomen of Simonides, was born in Galicia in 1557. He was an elegant writer, both in Latin and Polish: in the former language he approached closely to the poets of the best days of Italy, and yet he is now better known by his pastorals in his own tongue. He died in 1629.—J. F. W.  BENECKE,, a distinguished philologist, was born at Monchsrode, in the then principality of Göttingen, 10th January, 1762. He attended the gymnasia of Nördlingen and Augsburg, studied at Göttingen, where he was patronized by Heyne, and in due course obtained a professorship. In 1829 he was appointed keeper of the library. He principally devoted himself to the study of the German language and literature in the earlier stages of their history. His principal works are his "Middle-German Dictionary," completed by W. Müller, and his "Contributions to the Knowledge of the Old-German Language and Literature," in 2 vols. He died at Göttingen on the 21st of August, 1844.—K. E.  BENEDETTI,, an historical painter, born in Piedmont in 1610, studied at Naples under Santafede, and at Rome under that uncertain master, Guido. He died in 1678, after having decorated many of the Neapolitan churches, and became known chiefly by his "Pictorial History of the Virgin."  BENEDETTI,, an Italian physician of the first half of the eighteenth century, was professor of anatomy at Venice, and in 1748 became prior of the college of physicians in that city. He wrote several books on medicine, some of them in Latin and Italian verse, and also two dramatic works, of which one, entitled "Il Temistocle in Persia," was performed in 1732, and the other, "La Moda," in 1754.—W. S. D.  BENEDETTI,, an Italian mathematician, born at Venice; died in 1590. His claims as a discoverer in mathematical science, although of the weightiest character, have been singularly overlooked, even in his native country. He was a pupil of Tartaglia, and at an early age gave evidence of remarkable aptitude for scientific pursuits. In his twenty-third year he published an ingenious work, "De resolutione omnium Euclidis Problematum," which led to his being appointed mathematician to the duke of Savoy. After an interval of thirty years, devoted to studious research, he produced a volume of what he called speculations ("J. B. Benedicti patritii Veneti diversarum speculationum," Turin, 1585,) not a few of which it is surprising to meet with in a work of the sixteenth century. Theoretical arithmetic, perspective, mechanics, proportion, dialectics, and various subjects of physical science, are respectively treated of in this remarkable production, with a skill of fence in assailing old opinions, and with an amount of courage and ingenuity in advancing new ones, which leave us to wonder at the comparative obscurity in which its author's reputation has so long fallen. For a full account of the work, the reader is referred to Libri's History of Mathematical Science in Italy.—J. S., G.  BENEDETTI,, an Italian physician and professor of medicine at Rome, was born at Aquila in the kingdom of Naples, and died in 1656. He left several works on medical subjects, of which the earliest—"De Pepasmo sen Coctione"—was published at Aquila in 1636; the second, "De Loco in Pleuritide;" the third, "Epistolarum Medicinalium libri decem," at Rome in 1644 and 1649; and the fourth, "Consultationum Medicinalium Opus," at Venice, in 1650. <section end="533H" /> <section begin="533I" />BENEDETTI,, a painter of Reggio, disciple of Talami, and follower of the Caracci. He lived about the year 1702. He painted chiefly fresco.—W. T. <section end="533I" /> <section begin="533J" />BENEDETTO DA MAJANO, a Florentine architect of the fifteenth century, who designed the Strozzi palace at Florence, begun by him in 1450, but completed by Cronaca about 1500. <section end="533J" /> <section begin="533K" />BENEDICT,. This illustrious monk, the father of Western monachism, was born in 480 of a rich but plebeian family, settled at Nursia, a town in the duchy of Spoleto. Indebted to pious parents for the advantage of early and profound instruction in the duties of religion, the exercise of these during the period of his literary and juristic studies at Rome, nourished the activity, as well as formed the chief occupation, of a spirit for which the barren philosophy of the period had no considerable attractions. In his seventeenth year, resigning himself to impulses of piety, which had been strengthened rather than enfeebled by contact with the effete paganism and scandalous vices of Roman society, he withdrew to a solitary cave near Sublacum (Subiago). Here he passed three years in solitude so guarded, that his existence was only known to the person who brought him the scanty fare on which he subsisted. His retreat was at length discovered by some herdsmen, and soon became a place of pilgrimage to which many curious as well as many devout people of the neighbourhood resorted. The enthusiasm of these rustic visitors drew him from a life of mere penance and contemplation, as irresistibly as he had been driven to it by disgust at the baseness of thought and manners in the imperial city. He began to dispense to them religious instruction, and the greatest success following his ministrations, his renown rapidly spread, and with it the veneration for his name entertained by his immediate disciples. He was chosen abbot of a monastery in the neighbourhood, one of the disorderly religious establishments which, imperfectly following the rule of Pachomius or that of Basil, were then endeavouring, but by reason of their want of proper discipline endeavouring in vain, to attain a popularity in the West similar to that enjoyed by monastic institutions in the East; with great reluctance, arising from apprehensions that his views of monastic rule would prove extremely distasteful to the fraternity, he accepted the offered dignity. A short time sufficed to convince him that these apprehensions were correct, and that without being a tyrant he could not be a reformer and an abbot. An attempt to poison him, it is said, was the occasion of his withdrawal from a society which had derived no profit from his government, but the insubordination of which had taught him his mission, that of reforming, or rather establishing on a new basis, the monastic system. About the year 520, he again drew about him by his preaching numbers of devout persons, and selecting from among them those most likely to second his views, formed them into a community consisting of twelve houses, each having twelve monks and an abbot. The prosperity of this colony aroused the jealousy of a priest of the neighbourhood, who exerted himself by every means to defame its chief and to thwart his labours. The effect of this persecution was at length to expel Benedict and his brethren from their settlement at Sublacum. They removed to Mount Cassino, about seventy miles from Rome, in the year 528, and founded there a monastery, which, as the prototype of almost all the monastic establishments of Western Europe, was destined to rival in celebrity the noblest foundations of ancient or modern times. All the biographers of St. Benedict remark, that at the date of his removal to Mount Cassino a temple and a grove of Apollo stood on its slope, and claimed the reverence of the surrounding population—so long did paganism linger in the rural districts of Italy after the cities had made havoc of its shrines. The date of his death has been variously assigned to the years 542 and 543. The history of the order which bears his name is an important part of the history of European civilization. From the period when he impressed on monastic life that character of activity in arts and letters, and that simplicity in matters of devotion, which at the outset of his career contrasted so forcibly with what was known of monkish manners in Italy and elsewhere, monasteries became equally the refuge of learning and piety. Admiring that result of his labours, men of all creeds unite in reverencing the name of St. Benedict.—J. S., G. <section end="533K" /> <section begin="533Zcontin" />BENEDICT,, an Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastic of the seventh century, descended of a noble family. He was for some years in the service of Oswy, king of Northumberland; but in 653 he determined to devote himself to a religious life, and set out on a pilgrimage to Rome. After having made repeated journeys to the continent, bringing with him on his return to Britain knowledge of ecclesiastical discipline, as well as many books and relics, and after having been settled for two years in the abbey of St. Peter's in the south, he at length found his way back to his native Northumbria. He was heartily welcomed by Egfrid, the successor of his former master, who, delighted with the treasures he had brought, granted him in 674 a tract of land at the mouth of the Wear, where he founded a Benedictine monastery. He adorned and furnished the church at great <section end="533Zcontin" />