Page:Imperialdictiona02eadi Brandeis.pdf/669

GIO Millefiori, in the neighbourhood of Turin, on the 14th of September, 1834.—J. A. W.  GIOBERTI,, born at Turin on the 5th of April, 1801. He studied at the university of his native city, and entered the church, taking the degree of D.D. in 1823. He obtained a chaplaincy at the court, and became the adviser of Charles Albert up to the year 1833, when, the retrograde party having succeeded in estranging the king from Gioberti, he was imprisoned, and shortly after exiled from Piedmont. The Italian patriot repaired to Paris, where he hoped to find a compensation for the loss of his country in the magnificent libraries of that city; but still pursued by his enemies, and unable to obtain permission to visit without any restraint these mines of knowledge, he left for Brussels, where his friend Gaggia called him to the chair of philosophy in the royal gymnasium. It was to the students in that establishment Gioberti dedicated in 1839 his first scientific work, an Introduction to the study of Philosophy. Having become intimately acquainted with Quetelet, the royal director of the Brussels observatory, Gioberti obtained, through that eminent savant, free access to all the Belgian libraries, from which he collected all the materials he required for writing his works, "Del Bello e del Buono," and "Errori Filosofici di Antonio Rosmini," 1842, a confutation of Lamenais' and Rosmini's pantheistic doctrines. These works obtained a great circulation, and opened the minds of the Italians to a just appreciation of the intellectual powers of their author. Encouraged by his first success, Gioberti soon brought out, in 1843, "Il Primato degl' Italiani," a classical work, in which he counsels the supreme pontiff to enter at once on the path of political reforms that must again lead Italy to that primacy amongst nations which she twice held in history. The time and circumstances of this publication were unfavourable to Gioberti's political creed, and therefore it remained almost totally ignored in Italy, where the antiliberal tendencies of the ruling classes were in the ascendant. Strongly opposed by the clerical party, Gioberti published in 1845 his "Prolegomeni," a work that brought on him the scurrilous attacks of the jesuits, Curci, Pellico, and Bresciani. To this unprincipled opposition we owe, perhaps, Gioberti's best literary production, "Il Gesuita Moderno," 1847, in which he displays an immense power of argumentation in language unsurpassed by any modern writer. This work, a powerful denunciation of that order, caused a moral revolution in Italy, and the expulsion of the jesuits was forced by public opinion on almost all the states of Italy, even on the government of Rome. The sudden downfall of that order prepared the events of 1848, and Gioberti being recalled from his exile, visited all the principal towns in the north of Italy, meeting everywhere with the most enthusiastic reception. Wherever he went, in his addresses to the people, he displayed the greatest oratorical ability, and succeeded in convincing the masses of the necessity of unity in the impending struggle for independence. At Turin, Gioberti was intrusted in 1848 with the portfolio of public instruction, and soon after he became president of the council, and secretary of state for foreign affairs. Whilst in that responsible post, fearing the opposition of the allied powers, Gioberti proposed the restoration of the pope, and of the grand-duke of Tuscany, guaranteeing, however, the constitutions spontaneously granted by these potentates to their subjects. Accused of reactionary tendencies, even by those whom he had raised to power, Gioberti lost his majority in the parliament, and his ministry fell. It was then that he founded a political journal, Il Saggiatore, by which he endeavoured to rally the nation to his political creed—the unity of Italy, a confederacy of the various states, with but one army, and one parliament, under the honorary presidency of the pope. After the defeat of Charles Albert, and the fatal treaty of General Salasso at Milan, Gioberti was recalled to the ministry, and Victor Emmanuel, after his father's abdication, appointed him one of his privy council under Delauny and Pinelli's administration. Soon, however, the political opponents of Gioberti compelled the king to dispense with his services at home, and he was sent as ambassador to the French capital. There profiting by the leisure which his office, almost a sinecure, left him, he wrote and published in 1851 his work entitled "Rinnovamento civile dell' Italia," in which the principal causes of the political abasement of the Italians, and the best means of giving to the nation that unity which alone could save Italy from utter ruin, are ably pointed out to the crowned champion who since has shown himself so worthy of the confidence Italy has placed in his honesty as a king, and his courage as a soldier. All Gioberti's works are written in the most classic language; Manzoni and Leopardi, indeed, claim for the author of "Il Primato degl' Italiani" the highest place among the philosophers and prose-writers of modern Italy. His life was a continued example of self-denial and humility. When an exile, his time was spent in study and acts of charity towards his fellow-countrymen; when raised to the highest dignities of the state, he kept the same even tenor of life; he gave the whole of his emoluments for the relief of the Venetian sufferers, and he had the modesty to refuse even those honorary distinctions which were offered him by his king and country. Gioberti was writing his last work, "La Prosologia," when he died suddenly at Paris on the 25th of October, 1851. In the Piazza Carignano at Turin a magnificent marble statue has been erected to his memory by his grateful country.—A. C. M.  GIOCCHI. See III.  GIOCONDO,, a celebrated Italian architect and engineer of Verona, who succeeded Bramante as one of the architects of St. Peter's. He was as much distinguished as a theologian, philosopher, and scholar, as for his scientific acquirements. J. C. Scaliger was his pupil in the Greek and Latin languages. He seems to have been born between 1430-40. Vasari's account of him is vague, but the following interesting passage relating to him occurs in a letter written by Raphael to his uncle, Simone Ciarla, dated July 1, 1514, published by Richardson and others:—"He (the pope) has given me a companion, a very learned old friar, who is upwards of eighty years of age; and as the pope sees that he cannot live long, and as he has the reputation of great knowledge, his holiness has given him to me as an assistant, that I may learn of him, and discover any great secret he may have in architecture, and thus perfect myself in the art. He is called Fra Giocondo." The frate's appointment was worth to him three hundred golden ducats per annum. Raphael, and Giuliano da San Gallo, likewise engaged as one of the architects of St. Peters, received the same salary. Fra Giocondo does not appear to have been much occupied in the continuation of St. Peters; he is said to have improved the foundations, but he was then too old for anything but consultation; he was, however, still living in 1521. He did great service in his own country in the earlier part of his career, especially at Venice, where he turned the waters of the Brenta to Brontology in the south, thus keeping the Venetian lagoons clear from the immense quantities of mud brought down from the Alps by the Brenta; and this channel, known as the Brenta Nuovissima, still exists. He built also the bridge at Verona, known as the Ponte della Pietra; and the Pont Nôtre Dame at Paris. Vasari says that Fra Giocondo built two bridges over the Seine when in the service of Louis XII. in France. He was also in the service of the Emperor Maximilian in Germany. Among his literary services are the discovery of some of the letters of the younger Pliny in an old library at Paris, and an illustrated edition of Vitruvius, published at Venice in 1511. The religious order to which he belonged is not known, but he is supposed to have been a Franciscan.—(Vasari.)—R. N. W.  GIOENI,, an eminent Sicilian naturalist, born at Catania in 1747, distinguished for his investigations into the geology of his native island. His great work on the mineralogy of Ætna, and generally on volcanic phenomena, acquired a European reputation, both for the importance of the observations and for the method and clearness of the exposition. He was on terms of intimacy with the great British naturalist, Hamilton, and with the French Dolomieu, and worked with them on their scientific visits to Sicily. He died in 1822, leaving a fine museum of natural history.—A. S., O.  GIOJA,, a celebrated Neapolitan navigator and mathematician, born about the commencement of the fourteenth century at the little village of Pasitano, near Amalfi. The invention of the mariners' compass has been attributed to him. Klaproth and others have, however, established the claim of the Chinese to that distinction; but it is by no means improbable that Flavio Gioja may have ascertained the existence of such an instrument from the Arabian mariners, who then traded to the east, and though not the discoverer of the compass, he may have been the first to introduce the knowledge of it into Europe. The royal family of Naples, being connected with the then reigning family of France, and bearing their arms, conferred on the district of Pasitano the armorial ensign of the 