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GIA GIAFAR, DJAFAR, or GAFAAR. See.  GIAHEDH or DJAHEDH (the Large-eyed) is the surname by which the learned Mussulman doctor, Abu Othman Amud, or Amru Ben Mahbub, is best known. A native of Bassora, he removed from thence to Bagdad. He was chief of the sect called the Motazales, who were famed for their subtilty in scholastic theology. He studied with great care the Greek writings on philosophy, and was himself the author of some treatises on subjects of a kindred nature. The large-eyed doctor died at Bagdad in 840.—W. J. P.  GIANNI,, an Italian improvisatore, was born at Rome in 1759. He was originally a tailor. His singular gift introduced him to the notice of Napoleon, who bestowed on him many marks of his favour, ultimately appointing him imperial improvisatore. Many of his compositions, especially those in which he celebrated Napoleon's victories, were translated into French, and went through several editions. He was appointed a member of the legislative council of the Cisalpine republic. In 1815 Gianni fixed his residence at Paris, where he died in 1822.—A. C. M.  GIANNONE,, a distinguished historian, was born at Ischitella, a village near Naples, on the 7th of May, 1676. Having completed his university curriculum at Naples, he studied law, and took the degree of LL.D. in 1701. His great success as an advocate soon gave him independence, and enabled him to devote his time to the composition of his "History of the Kingdom of Naples," a work which cost him twenty years' study and research. Its publication roused against him the enmity of the church; the love of freedom pervading the work was stigmatized as infidelity; and its author was denounced as a foe to the catholic religion and clergy. The archbishop of Naples took up the quarrel of his clergy; the historian was excommunicated for exposing the pseudo-miracle of San Gennaro's blood; and finally, when the cause of the church was taken up by a rabble of Neapolitans, he had to seek safety in flight. Having gone to Vienna and presented himself at the court of the emperor, Charles VI., to whom he had dedicated his history, Giannone was at first coolly received; but, having succeeded in dispelling the prejudices artfully raised against him by his enemies, he was taken under the protection of that prince, who granted him a life pension of 1000 florins. During his stay at Vienna he wrote his celebrated "Apology," and conducted many causes intrusted to him both by native and foreign clients. By his advice a monk was induced to publish a pamphlet entitled Moral and Theological Thoughts on Giannone's Civil History of Naples, to which Giannone replied in a poem entitled "Profession of Faith, and doubts about Father Sanfelice's morals." The kingdom of Naples having regained its independence, Giannone quitted Vienna with the intention of offering his services to the new government, but he could not proceed farther than Venice, where his passport for Naples was refused him on account of a cabal formed against him by some friars. Giannone was therefore compelled to assume another name, and to leave incognito for Modena and Milan. He afterwards repaired to Turin, where the then ruling sovereign was negotiating a reconciliation with the papal court, and therefore could not entertain the persecuted historian. Giannone thereupon turned his steps to Geneva, where he had been invited by the publisher Bousquet, who undertook the publication of all his works, promising the author a very liberal remuneration. It was in that city Giannone revised his "Triregno," a work divided into three books, in which he treats of the worldly, heavenly, and papal kingdoms, criticising in the most important dogmas of the catholic faith, and pronouncing in favour of Calvinistic views on auricular confession and on transubstantiation. Entrapped by Joseph Guastaldi, a courtier, into spending the Easter holidays with him at his villa in Savoy, he was seized by the police, and confined, first in the fortress of Miolans, then in the citadel at Turin, where he died on the 17th of March, 1748.—A. C. M.  GIARDINI,, a celebrated violin performer and composer, was born at Turin in 1716. His musical education was received under Paladine, and subsequently, for the violin in particular, under Somis, one of the best scholars of Corelli. At the age of seventeen, animated by the hope of fame, he went to Rome, and afterwards to Naples. At the latter city he obtained, by the recommendation of Jomelli, a post far too humble for his large ambition, that of one of the ripieni, or make-weights, in the opera orchestra. Here his talents, nevertheless, began to appear, and he was accustomed to flourish and change passages much more frequently than he ought to have done. "However," said he himself, in relating the circumstance to Dr. Burney, "I acquired great reputation among the ignorant for my impertinence; till one night during the opera, Jomelli, who had composed it, came into the orchestra and seated himself close by me, when I determined to give the maestro a touch of my taste and execution; and in the symphony of the next song, which was in a pathetic style, I gave loose to my fingers and fancy; for which I was rewarded by the composer with—a violent slap in the face, which," added Giardini, "was the best lesson I ever received from a great master in my life." Jomelli after this was, however, very kind in a different and less indirect way to this young and talented musician. After a short continuance at Naples, followed by professional visits to the principal theatres in Italy, and by an enthusiastic reception at Berlin, Giardini came to England, and arrived in London in 1750. Here his performance on the violin, in which at that time he excelled every master in Europe, was heard, both in public and in private, with the most rapturous applause. His first public performance in London afforded a scene memorable among the triumphs of art. It was at a benefit concert for old Cuzzoni, who sang in it with a thin, cracked voice, which almost frightened out of the little theatre in the Haymarket the sons of those who had perhaps heard her at the great theatre of the same street with ecstasy supreme. But when Giardini came forward, and made a display of his powers in a solo and concerto, the applause was so long, loud, and furious, as nothing but that bestowed on Garrick had probably ever equalled. His tone, bowing, execution, and graceful carriage of himself and his instrument, formed a combination that filled with astonishment the English public, unaccustomed to hear better performers than Festing, Brown, and Collet. Such was the estimation accruing to Giardini from his talents, that in 1754 he was placed at the head of the opera orchestra. Two years afterwards he joined the female singer Mingotti in attempting that labyrinth of disaster, the management of the opera; but although they acquired much fame, their management was not attended with success. During this time Giardini composed several of the dramas which were performed. In leading the opera band he had the merit of introducing improved discipline, and a new style of playing much finer in itself, and more congenial with the poetry and music of Italy, than the level and languid manner of his predecessor, Festing, who had succeeded Castrucci, Hogarth's Enraged Musician. The losses that Giardini had sustained on that ready road to ruin, the Italian opera, drove him back to the resources of his own particular talent, and he entered upon the occupation of teaching in families of rank and fashion, at the same time continuing unrivalled as a leader, a solo-player, and a composer for his favourite instrument. He resided in England until the year 1784, when he went to Naples under the protection and patronage of Sir William Hamilton. There he continued five years, and then returned to this country; but his reception was not what it had formerly been. Fashion is a goddess of so gay a turn as cannot assort with infirmity; and an old favourite is but too likely to find that favour easily gets a divorce from age. The health of the Italian was greatly impaired, and sinking fast under a confirmed dropsy. With a dimmer eye, a feebler hand, and doubtless an aching heart, he found himself still doomed to the prosecution of his calling, when all his former excellence was lost. Instead of leading in all the most difficult parts, he now played in public only the tenor in quartetts that he had recently composed. After attempting unsuccessfully a burletta opera at the little theatre in the Haymarket, he was at length, in 1793, induced to go to St. Petersburg, and afterwards to Moscow, with his burletta performers. The most cruel disappointment attended him in each of these cities, in the latter of which he died at the age of eighty, in a state, as far as it could be discovered, of poverty and wretchedness.—E. F. R.  GIB,, a famous Scottish divine of last century, was born 14th April, 1714, at Easter Castleton, parish of Muckhart and county of Perth. After completing his literary and theological studies at Edinburgh, he was licensed as a preacher in 1740, and ordained over an important charge in Edinburgh in 1741, in connection with the party which had recently seceded from the Church of Scotland. He at once rose into prominence from his popular gifts and his great mental power and fearlessness. When the Pretender occupied Edinburgh, and many ministers of the establishment were mute and their churches shut up, he 