Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/908

CAL he had the misfortune of losing a valuable library by fire, by which also some of his own writings were destroyed. His principal works are—"Attila," or "De Gestis Attilæ," printed in Bonfini's Decades Rerum Hungaricarum, and some tracts on the relations of the Turks to christian Europe. Some works of his still remain in manuscript, among which are "Historia Peregrinationum Suarum" and "De Regibus Pannoniæ."  CALLINUS, a Greek orator, and the first it is said who invented elegiac poetry,. 776. Some of his verses, which are of great excellence, are preserved in Stobæus.  CALLIPPUS, an Athenian tyrant of Syracuse, died in the year 351. He assassinated Dion, with whom he had been on terms of intimate friendship, and seized on the government of Syracuse in 353.  CALLIPPUS or CALIPPUS, a Greek astronomer, was born at Cyzicus about 350 ., and is chiefly distinguished for his reform of the calendar. Meton, in the preceding century, had discovered that nineteen years nearly correspond with 235 lunar months, and, assuming the correspondence to be exact, had instituted a calendar repeating itself every nineteen years, which came into general use in Greece. Callippus approximated more nearly to the truth by deducting one day in every fourth period, i.e., in every seventy-six years, and his correction was adopted by the astronomers of the day. It appears from records left by Ptolemy, that the Callippic cycle commenced on the 18th of June, . 330. The length of the year, according to the calendar of Callippus, would be almost exactly 365¼ days.—J. D. E.  CALLISEN,, a Danish physician and surgeon, born in 1740. He was surgeon-in-chief of the Danish fleet, professor of surgery in the university of Copenhagen, took an active part in establishing the society of medicine in that city, and was in 1791 made professor of anatomy in the academy of surgery, of which he became director-general. He died in 1824. The most important of his numerous works is "Institutiones Chirurgiæ Hodiernæ," 1777.  CALLISTHENES, born at Olynthus about 365 ., was recommended by his relative and master, Aristotle, as the historian to attend Alexander in his Asiatic expedition, and write its history. He is said to have been bold in rebuking the conqueror for his pride and excesses, and to have on that account fallen into disfavour. He was accused of being privy to the conspiracy against the king headed by Hermolaus, was imprisoned for some months, and perished under the cruel treatment to which he was subjected. His account of Alexander's expedition has been lost, as well as his history of Greece and other works.—J. B.  CALLISTRATUS, a Roman jurist, of whose writings Justinian made use in compiling his Digest. He lived under Septimius Severus, who died in 211, and his son Antoninus.  CALLOIGNE,, a Flemish sculptor, born at Bruges in 1775. It was while apprentice to a potter that Calloigne resolved on becoming a sculptor. His father, pleased with the figures which he modelled in clay and wood, sent him to the academy, where he obtained a first prize. Soon after he gained a medal in a competition for the finest bust of Van Eyck. He died full of honours in 1830.—R. M., A. <section end="908H" /> <section begin="908I" />CALLOT,. This distinguished artist was born in 1593 at Nancy in Lorraine. His family was of Flemish origin, and Jean Callot, the father of Jacques, was king-at-arms of Lorraine. At the age of eight, Jacques was engaged in drawing armorial bearings and colouring escutcheons under the tuition of his father. But his fantastic genius refused to be trammelled by heraldic conventions; his free pencil played strange freaks with the genealogical papers. A difference with his parents probably ensuing, combined with an irrepressible longing to visit Rome, the head quarters of art, he quitted his father's roof, and joined a troop of gipsy mountebanks travelling southward. But at Turin he was arrested by some relatives, and sent back to Nancy—very wretched indeed at the failure of his project. Subsequently, however, moved by his son's entreaties, the father permitted his departure, and obtained for him an appointment in the embassy despatched to apprise the pontiff of the accession of Henry II. Jacques was then fifteen. He studied under many professors, especially with Giulio Parigii, but he was his own master, and formed his own style. Mind, eye, and hand, were ever restless—never idle. Soon he seems to have perceived that painting was not his forte. He threw away the palette, and seized the graver, working hard under Philip Thomassin, the old French engraver settled in Rome. Engraving had but few professors, was just becoming the vogue, and Thomassin's respectable religious subjects had brought him a fortune. His young pupil's energy and fervid originality greatly swelled his gains. But the pupil tired of the graver, as he had weaned of the brush. He had not yet grasped the right art weapon for winning him renown. He found it at last in the etching needle. His connection with Thomassin ceased suddenly—the old artist was jealous of the pupil's attentions to the young and pretty Madame Thomassin. This love episode is the foundation of the well-known whimsical legend of Le Tableau Parlant. Callot made for Florence, and penniless and crestfallen, would have been utterly lost but for the genuine kindness of the grand duke, Cosmo II. He is stated to have occasionally resumed his brush at Florence, but with no marked success; while his etchings achieved for him a triumph, and he was rewarded with a gold medal and chain from the hands of the grand duke. He remained ten years at Florence, and received the patronage of Ferdinand, the successor of Cosmo. Subsequently he returned to Nancy, and was welcomed with ecstasy by his parents. He married a respectable widow, and received the protection of Henry, duke of Lorraine. In 1628 he proceeded to Paris to finish the engravings of the Rochelle expedition, which he had joined in the suite of Louis XIII. at the express command of the king. He returned to Nancy—his works completed. Afterwards his wrath was greatly excited by the fact of the king laying siege to Nancy; and being requested to commemorate the event by an etching, he answered indignantly—"Sire, I am a Lorrain. I would sooner cut off my thumb than perpetuate the disgrace of my country, or the dishonour of my king." The court awaited an explosion, and trembled as only courtiers can. "Monsieur Callot, your answer does you honour—I envy the duke of Lorraine such subjects," said the king benignly. After a prolonged illness, Callot expired on the 25th March, 1635, aged forty-two, and was buried in the cloister of the cordeliers, Nancy, in a magnificent tomb of black marble, by the side of the dukes of Lorraine. The works of Callot consist of nearly 1600 plates. Of these the least successful are his religious subjects. He worked with a wonderful facility—frequently finishing a plate in a single day. His drawing is singularly correct and elaborately finished, and yet without the slightest appearance of labour. The designs seem to have fallen from the point of the needle. In delicacy of workmanship he is almost unequalled. One of his critics states that many of his plates, but a crown piece in size, contain five or six leagues of country, and a multitude of figures, all in movement. His most renowned works are his "Temptation of St. Anthony;" "The Fair della Madonna Imprunetta;" "The Tortures;" "The Massacre of the Innocents;" and "The Horrors of War." But his fertile treatments of beggars, mountebanks, bullies, pierrots, and tatterdemalions of every description, have created his great fame. In these the grotesque and fanciful run riot. Rags are surrounded by diablerie that is wonderful in fascination and exhilarating influence; a beggar's carnival is celebrated, and raggamuffinism is dazzlingly rampant. Van Dyck exchanged portraits with Callot, as Raffaelle had previously done with Albert Durer. Not so great as either, still Callot is a happy link—a very pleasant stepping-stone between Durer and Rembrandt. He has not the earnestness of Durer, but he has much of his sardonic grimness. If Rembrandt gloried in shadow, Callot was eminent in outline. His paintings are by no means so highly estimated as his etchings, and there is much dispute in regard to their authenticity. Some attributed to him have grace and delicacy, but are weak in colour—a water colour Jerburg-look haunts them.—W. T. <section end="908I" /> <section begin="908J" />CALLY,, the first in France who avowed his adherence to the Cartesian philosophy. In 1675 he became principal of the college of arts, and afterwards curate of St. Martin's parish in Caen, where he was specially popular among the protestants, for whom he wrote his "Durand Commenté," 1700. In 1674 he published an introduction to philosophy, which he greatly enlarged and republished in 1695 under the title "Universæ Philosophiæ Institutio."—J. B. <section end="908J" /> <section begin="908Zcontin" />CALMET,, a learned French theologian and historian, was born near Commerci in Lorraine in 1672, and died in Paris in 1757. At an early age he assumed the habit of the Benedictines, and studied philosophy and theology in various abbeys of that learned order. In the abbey of Munster, a lucky accident threw in his way the Hebrew grammar of Buxtorf <section end="908Zcontin" />