Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/564

BER of Jaxthausen, Kingdom of Wurtemberg, about 1480, and died 32d July, 1562. He took a prominent part in the civil wars and feuds of his time, and was generally esteemed for his valorous and truly chivalrous conduct. After having lost his right hand in the siege of Landshut, he wore an iron one, which is still shown at Jaxthausen. In 1525 he was one of the chiefs of the rebellious peasants, and after their defeat by the Suabian league, was kept a prisoner in his own castle for eleven years. He left a highly interesting autobiography, edited by Pistorius, Nurnberg, 1713, and by Gessert, 1843, and is the subject of Goethe's celebrated drama, which has been translated into English by Sir Walter Scott.—(See Mechel Die eiserne Hand des tapfern Ritters Götz von Berlichingen, Berlin, 1815.)—K. E.  BERLICHINGEN,, of Tyrnau in Hungary, was adjutant to Prince George of Mechlenberg in 1784; afterwards served under the banner of Austria against the Turks, rose to distinction at the court of the king of Wirtemberg. He published a translation of Goethe's Hermann and Dorothea in Latin verse.—W. B.  BERLINGHIERI,, an Italian historical painter, surnamed N. He studied under Bononi, and died at Ferrara in 1625. The Ferrara churches are stored with his art.—W. T.  BERLINGHIERI,, a celebrated Italian surgeon, born at Pisa in 1772. At the age of seventeen he went to Paris, where he studied anatomy under Dessault, whom he also accompanied on a tour through Holland. He afterwards came to London, to attend the lectures of John Hunter and of Benjamin Bell, and on his return to Pisa in 1791, was admitted doctor of medicine. Shortly afterwards he published his "Observations on the Treatise on Surgery of Benjamin Bell." The uncertainty of the practice of physic having disgusted him, he resolved to devote himself entirely to surgery; and the work just mentioned, with some courses of lectures which he delivered at the same time, laid the foundation of a reputation, which his great skill as an operator rapidly increased. In 1799 Berlinghieri again visited Paris, and resumed his studies with the same ardour that he had manifested ten years before, obtaining, according to his own avowal, great advantages in regard to practice, without adding much to his theoretical knowledge. He was nominated a member of the Medical Society of Emulation, at which he read two interesting memoirs—one on fractures of the ribs, the other on the structure of the peritoneum. At the end of 1799 he returned to Pisa, when he was first appointed to assist his father in the course of lectures on surgery delivered by the latter in that university, and three years afterwards was placed at the head of the newly-formed clinical school of Pisa, which has ever since attracted so many pupils from all parts of Italy. In consequence of the death of his father, his brothers, and some of his children, Berlinghieri removed to a place in the neighbourhood of Pisa, where he was exposed to an unhealthy atmosphere, which, acting upon a frame already shaken by grief, gave rise to a malady which carried him off on the 7th September, 1826, after an illness of only a few days. Operative surgery is indebted to Berlinghieri for many useful instruments, and for improvements in some surgical processes. Amongst the former are his machine for the compression of aneurisms of the popliteal artery, and instruments for trichiasis, for lithotomy in the male, and for œsophagotomy. He also improved the bistouri for trichiasis, and that of Thomas for lithotomy in the female—modified Dessault's processes for the treatment of fistula lacrymalis, and of fracture of the neck of the femur, and that of Sanson for recto-vesical incision, of which he was a warm partisan. A new method of treating trichiasis is also to be attributed to him. The writings of Berlinghieri are rather numerous. Besides the memoirs above mentioned, as having been read before the Society of Emulation in Paris, and his "Riflessioni" on the surgery of Benjamin Bell, he published at Pisa, in 1803, the "History of an Aneurism of the Popliteal Artery," which was treated unsuccessfully according to the method of Hunter; in 1819, a "Memoir on the Ligature of Arteries;" in 1820, a treatise on "Œsophagotomy," explaining the use of an instrument which he introduced into the œsophagus, so as to distend that canal, force it outwards to the left, and facilitate its being opened; in 1823, a "History of a ligature of the exterior iliac artery, and reflections on the temporary ligature of the large arteries;" in 1821, a "Memoir on the extraction of stone from the bladder by way of the intestinum rectum" followed, in 1822 and 1823, by a second and third memoir on the same subject; and in 1825 by a fourth, "On Lithotomy in the two sexes." In 1825 he also published a paper on a "New method of curing Trichiasis," which was inserted in the Annali Universali di Medicina di Omodei.—W. S. D.  * BERLIOZ,, a musical composer and critic, was born at Cote Saint André, a small town in the department of l'Isere, December 11, 1803. His father, who was a surgeon, designed Hector for his own profession, to prepare him for which, he was at the age of nineteen, sent to Paris. He had never till then been able to indulge his predilection for music, but, away from parental supervision, he deserted the schools of medicine for the Conservatoire. He entered the class of Reicha for composition, and was also assisted by the advice of Lesueur. Anxious to assert his creative power, Berlioz very soon wrote an opera, "Estelle et Nemorin," which, however, was not produced. He had better fortune with a mass, which was publicly performed at the church of St. Roch, when he was greatly encouraged by the praises of the wife of the composer, le Brun, whose opinion had considerable authority. He then paid a visit to his father, who was so disgusted at the neglect of his clinical studies, that he discontinued the allowance for his maintenance, and Berlioz returned to Paris with no resource but the art to which he had disobediently devoted himself. He gave lessons on the flute and the guitar, which, as he had little practical facility, yielded him a scanty harvest. To improve this, he took an engagement as chorus singer at one of the minor theatres, and so supplied his slender necessities. In 1827 his highly romantic character experienced an influence which, if it induced not the peculiar tenor of his artistic career, may well be supposed to have found expression in his productions. An English dramatic company was engaged at one of the Parisian theatres, amongst whom Miss Smithson—a lady whose graceful person had been her only qualification for the stage in London, and who, with this advantage, had here only filled the most trifling parts—held a prominent position. Berlioz witnessed her performance of Ophelia, immediately invested the actress with all the idealism of the poet's creation, and was seized with a passion for her as ardent as it was enduring. He embodied the long train of feelings of which this connection was the source, in some of his most important works; in speaking of these, occasional reference must again be made to it; let suffice for the present, that, in 1834, he married the lady, who, after a long period of mental aberration, died a few years since. It was about the time when Berlioz first saw Miss Smithson, that his artistic aspiration received a most genial stimulus in the kindness of some friends, by whose exertions he was enabled to give a concert at the theatre Italien, and so to bring the first of his remarkable productions before the world. At this were performed the overture "Les Francs Juges," the scene "Heroique Grecque," the "Mort d'Orphée," and the "Overture to Waverley."

The next event of importance that has to be recorded, is his gaining a prize for composition at the Conservatoire, by his cantata of "Sardanapale." This work was subsequently given at one of the concerts of the Conservatoire (a series of performances analogous with our Philharmonic, which have no connection with the music school), but it has not been printed; on the same occasion was produced the "Episode de la vie d'un Artiste, Symphonie Fantastique," which is the first acknowledged outpouring of his romantic passion. Berlioz spent the year 1830 in Italy, where he composed the sequel to the "Symphonie Fantastique," in which the same poetical purpose is continued; this portion of the work is called "Lelio ou le Retour a la vie;" it is a mono-drama interspersed with choruses, and comprises the following divisions:—"La Ballade du Pécheur;" "Le Chœur des Ombres;" "La Chansor des Brigands;" "La Harpe Éolienne;" "Le Chant de bonheur;" "Fantaisie dramatique sur la Tempéte de Shakspere." It was in Italy that Berlioz first met Mendelssohn, and where he professes to have made this wonderful musician first sensible of the genius of Gluck, his own idol of especial adoration Paganini had suggested to Berlioz the composition of a work with an important part for the viola, and he carried out this proposition in his "Harold en Italie," which he wrote on his return to Paris, embodying in it the impressions of his Italian sojourn. Immediately after the first performance of this extraordinary symphony, Paganini, who was little less remarkable as a miser than renowned as a violinist, wrote the composer a letter of eulogy, inclosing him a draft for 20,000 francs, in acknowledgment of his admiration of the work. In 