Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/790

BRE implored succour from the Romans, and the senate sent an embassy to Brennus to remonstrate with him on his unprovoked attack upon the allies of the Roman state. When asked what business the Gauls had in Etruria, the haughty chief replied that "might is right," and that "everything belongs to the brave." The Roman deputies took part in the conflict which followed, and the Gauls, indignant at this violation of international law, marched against Rome sixty thousand strong. They encountered a Roman army of forty thousand men rear the confluence of the Allia with the Tiber, who fled without striking a blow. On reaching the city, the Gauls found it deserted and the gates standing open. After some hesitation they entered, and perceived a number of aged senators seated each at his own door, arrayed in their robes of office, and calmly awaiting their fate. The ferocious invaders massacred the whole, and then set fire to the city. They next endeavoured, but without success, to storm the capitol, into which a handful of the Romans had thrown themselves, with the determination to defend it to the last extremity. An attempt to surprise it by night was equally unsuccessful. Some geese that were kept in the temple of Juno gave the alarm, while the Gauls were silently scrambling up an unguarded part of the rock on which the capitol stood, and aroused the garrison, who killed a great number of the assailants, and put the rest to flight. After a siege of seven months, the defenders were reduced to such extremities by famine that they were obliged to capitulate, and to pay to Brennus, by way of ransom, the enormous sum of one thousand pounds' weight of gold. The tribune Sulpicius complained that the weights used by the Gauls were not correct, on which Brennus threw his sword into the scale, and exclaimed, in words which have become proverbial—"Alas for the vanquished." On their return homewards, the victorious Gauls, according to Diodorus, were waylaid by the people of Cære, and cut off to a man. Livy, however, states that Camillus, the dictator, refused to ratify the capitulation made with Brennus by the garrison of the capitol, and attacked and destroyed nearly the whole army of the Gauls; but this is generally regarded as a fiction, invented by the Romans to conceal their defeat.—(Titus Livius, lib. v., cap. 34-49.)

There was another Gallic leader of this name who invaded Macedonia and Greece about 280 ., and plundered and laid waste the country, inflicting every species of outrage upon the inhabitants. He met with a severe defeat at Delphi, and ultimately destroyed himself by drinking, to drown his feelings of shame at the ruin of his enterprise.—J. T.  BRENT,, the translator into English and Latin of the Italian history of the council of Trent by Paul Sarpi, was born at Little Woolford, Warwickshire, in 1573. He studied at Merton college, Oxford, took his master's degree in 1598, and entered on the study of law. He married the niece of Dr. Abbott, archbishop of Canterbury, by whom he was sent to Venice to procure a copy of the history which he afterwards translated, and to whom he owed his preferments as a lawyer. He was at first an adherent of Charles I., by whom he was knighted in 1629, but he afterwards sided with Abbott and the puritans against Laud and his party. He died in 1652.—J. B.  BRENTANA,, a Venetian historical painter, born about 1656. He resided chiefly at the great amphitheatred city Verona, He imitated the fire and whirlwind of Tintoretto, mixing it with a little of the sobering dignity of the more tranquil Roman school. His pictures are scarce, being painted chiefly for palaces and churches. His finest work was a "St. Sebastian being crowned by an Angel."—W. T.  BRENTIUS, BRENTZEN, or BRENTZ, a German reformer of the age of Luther, born at Weil in Suabia in 1499; died at Stuttgart in 1570. Adopting the reformed doctrines after a perusal of some of Luther's writings, he took his doctor's degree in his eighteenth year, and five years afterwards became pastor at Halle. In 1530 he took part in the proceedings of the diet of Augsburg, and four years later, on the invitation of Ulric, prince of Wirtemberg, undertook, conjointly with Camerarius, the direction of the university of Tübingen. In 1547 Charles V. threatened to destroy the town of Halle if the reformer were not given up to him; but he effected his escape in disguise, and wandering about as a fugitive from place to place, derived, as he afterwards related, a consolation from the psalms, which only one in his circumstances could have experienced. In 1553 the successor of Ulric gave him an asylum at Stuttgart, where he drew up the "Confession of Wirtemberg." He attended the diet of Worms in 1557. His works, the doctrinal system of which nearly coincides with that of Luther, were published at Tubingen in 1576-90, in 8 vols. fol.—J. S., G.  BREQUIGNY,, a French historian and antiquary, born at Granville in 1716, and died at Paris in 1795. As the result of three years' labour in deciphering and arranging the documents relative to the history of France in the tower of London, and of the toil of a quarter of a century in interpreting and illustrating them, he published in 1791, "Diplomata, Chartæ, Epistolæ, et alia Monumenta ad res Francicas spectantia." He continued also, in conjunction with Villevaut, the "Collection des lois et ordonnances des rois de la troisieme race," and, in conjunction with Mouchet, published in three volumes a "Table Chronique," of public titles, charters, and other documents referred to by historians, but not previously printed. In conjunction with the same Mouchet, he added to these enormous labours that of continuing the "Memoires sur les Chinois" of Amiot, Bourgeois, &c. 1776-89.—J. S., G.  BRERA,, a celebrated Italian surgeon and writer, born at Pavia on the 15th December, 1772. His medical writings are very numerous, and many of them of great importance. Amongst them we may mention his "Sylloge opusculorum select. ad praxin, præcipue medicam, spectantium," Pavia, 1797-1811; his "Annotagioni medico-pratiche sulle diverse malattie, trattate nella clinica med. dell'univ. di Pavia dell'anno 1796-98," Pavia, 1798; "Legioni med. prat. sopra i principali vermi del carpo umano," published at Cremona in 1802, and since translated into several languages; and "Memorie fisico-med.," on the same subject, at Cremona in 1811; Giornale di Medicina, of which twelve volumes appeared at Padua in the years 1812-17, and which has since been continued by Brera in conjunction with Caldani and Bruggieri, under the title of "Nuovi comment. di medic, e di chirurg.," and "Commentarie Clinico per la cura della idrofobia."—W. S. D.  BREREWOOD,, a mathematician and antiquary born at Chester in 1565. Having been educated at Oxford, he was in 1596 chosen first professor of astronomy in Gresham college, which office he held till his death in 1613. His works were published after his death. Of these we mention—"De ponderibus et pretiis veterum nummorum, eorumque cum recentioribus collatione;" "Enquiries touching the Diversity of Languages and Religious Thoughts in the chief parts of the World;" "Tractatus duo, quorum primus est de meteoris, secundus de oculo;" "Commentarii in Ethica Aristotelis," written when the author was only twenty-one years of age.—J. B.  BRÈS,, the name of two French physicians, uncle and nephew, who enjoyed some little literary celebrity in the first half of the current century—the first a novelist, whose pretentious works have passed into total oblivion, and the second a miscellaneous writer, whose style still finds admirers. The uncle died in 1816, and the nephew in 1832. <section end="790H" /> <section begin="790I" />BRESCIA,, a painter, born at Brescia about 1460. He was originally a goldsmith, and then a painter and engraver. After thus running the whole cycle of the arts, he became a Carmelite, and painted under the quiet shadow of his monastery, where he slept in 1510. His frescos were stories of Elias and Elisha; his plates frail compounds of Marc Antonio and Andrea Mantegna. His brother, , studied engraving in Mantegna's school, finished well, but drew badly. , of a different family, flourished at Ferrara about 1530.—W. T. <section end="790I" /> <section begin="790J" />BRESSANI,, born at Treviso in 1703, was educated among the fathers of the congregation, and afterwards at Padova, where he took the degree of LL.D. The bent of his mind was towards metaphysical rather than theological studies. He preferred the philosophical systems of Plato and Aristotle to that of modern philosophers, Galileo not excepted. In defence of this preference he wrote a treatise, in which he compares Galileo's doctrines with those of the two ancient philosophers. Bressani's principal works are, "Il modo di filosofare introdotto dal Galileo," and "Discorsi sopra le obiezioni fatte dal Galileo alla dottrina d'Aristotile." He died at Padova in 1771.—A. C. M. <section end="790J" /> <section begin="790Zcontin" />BRETAGNE, kings and dukes of. A few of the more ancient and less-known sovereigns of Bretagne are here noticed. The rest will be found under their respective names of Jean, Arthur, &c.— or, fourth king of Bretagne, son of Salomon I., succeeded to the throne in 445, and died in 464; a <section end="790Zcontin" />