Page:Imperialdictiona03eadi Brandeis Vol3a.pdf/782

POR  classics. Indeed, neatness of handiwork had characterized him from his earliest years; for when in his boyhood his mother set him to spin wool, he produced far finer thread than any of his brothers or sisters. It is amazing that, with a limited income and so many drawbacks, he was able to gather so large a library. After his death one portion of it, including his collection of critical notes and his MSS., was bought by Trinity college for a thousand guineas, and the other, sold by auction, brought a similar sum. As before mentioned, his friends raised a sum for him when he was first thrown upon London, the interest only of which he would take. The trustees after his death handed over the money to the university of Cambridge, and with it was founded first a Porson university prize, and afterwards a Person university scholarship, the first one being awarded in 1855.—(Imperfect  Outline of Porson's Life, by Kidd, prefixed to Tracts; Life, by Watson, 1861; Porsoniana, in Roger's Table Talk; Defence of  the Literary Character of Porson, in reply to Bishop Burgess, by Crito Cantabrigiensis—Dr. Turton, Bishop of Ely; Barker's Literary Anecdotes.—J. E.  PORTA,, or Bartholomew of the Gate of San Pietro Gattolini, near which he lived, but better known as , was born at Savignano near Florence in 1469, and entered the school of Cosimo Rosselli, and was the most distinguished painter at Florence at the close of the fifteenth century, just before the return of Leonardo da Vinci from Milan. Bartolommeo was much influenced by Leonardo, and he also became distinguished for his skilful and effective chiaroscuro. In 1504 he formed an intimate friendship with Raphael, and has the reputation of having first turned the attention of that great painter to the study of chiaroscuro. He had only just then returned to his art; he had joined the party of Savonarola, and was so much influenced by him that, in the conflagration of profane works ordered by that enthusiastic monk in 1497, Bartolommeo contributed some of his own pictures, condemned for their nudity, to the common bonfire. And when Savonarola was put to death in 1498, Bartolommeo took it so much to heart that he forsook his profession, joined the dominicans at Prato, and turned monk. He remained in seclusion in the convent of St. Mark for about six years. After his restoration to his profession and his friendship with Raphael he greatly enlarged his style, having evidently much benefited by his association with the rising young painter of Urbino. His noble colossal figure of St. Mark, now in the Pitti palace of Florence, is in the largest manner of the Cinquecento, bordering closely on the style of Raphael's last period; it has also much of the grandeur of the prophets and sibyls painted by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel at Rome. Among the masterpieces of Fra Bartolommeo are also the "Madonna della Misericordia" at Lucca, and the "Presentation in the Temple" at Vienna. The last, of which there is a beautiful print by Rahl, was painted in 1516, the year before his death. He died at Florence in the convent of St. Mark, October 6, 1517, at the early age of forty-seven. He left several unfinished works, some of which were completed by his friend and scholar, Mariotto Albertinelli. Fra Bartolommeo was sometimes careless in his execution, or left several works only half-finished, which must have been left in their unfinished state; the large picture in the salon carrè of the Louvre appears to be one of these, but it is at best one of the painter's inferior works. Fra Bartolommeo is said to have been the first painter who used the wooden lay figure for the purpose of studying drapery.—(Vasari, Vite del Pittori, &c.)—R. N. W.  PORTA,, an eminent Italian architect, a native of Milan, was born in the early part of the sixteenth century, but the year does not appear to be known. He is said by Milizia and others to have been a worker in stucco, and to have studied architecture under Vignola; but this last is plainly impossible, if the Serlupi palace erected in 1526 be rightly attributed to him, since Vignola was then only nineteen, and had not yet begun to practise as an architect; no other work of Della Porta's, however, is of nearly so early a date. Della Porta's most famous structure is the cupola of St. Peter's, which he in conjunction with Fontana erected by order of Sixtus V., after the death of Michelangelo. He also continued the buildings of the Campidoglio after Michelangelo's designs. His other works in the capitol include the Collegio della Sapienza (1576); the churches of Sta. Caterina de' Funari, Sta. Maria, Madonna de' Monti, San Luigi, the Greek church, &c.; the palazzi Ercolani, Nicolini, Spada, Marescotti; and the Popolo, the Campidoglio, and other fountains. He also designed the Aldobrandini palace at Frascati, commenced in 1598, about which time his death appears to have taken place, it having happened suddenly from eating too much melon and ice on his return to Rome from Frascati with Cardinal Aldobrandini. The buildings of Delia Porta, though not free from faults, display much grandeur of style, and are admirable for the employment and distribution of sculpture.—J. T—e.  PORTA, (commonly called Baptista Porta), a Neapolitan physicist, was born at Naples of a noble family in 1538, and died there on the 4th of February, 1615. He travelled much, and was a member of various learned academies. He possessed a thorough mastery of the mechanical and physical knowledge of the age, and probably added to it by his own labours, though to what extent he did so is uncertain. It is, however, certain that he contributed much to the introduction and extension of the experimental method of seeking natural knowledge. He wrote a highly-esteemed book entitled "Magia Naturalis," being a miscellaneous collection of such physical principles, experiments, and contrivances as he had learned or discovered. Amongst them are the magic lantern, and an apparatus for raising water through the expansion of air by heat. The first edition, now very scarce, appeared at Naples in 1558, and was a comparatively small work; the second, much enlarged, was published, at Naples also, in 1589; it was reprinted at Antwerp in 1660-61.—W. J. M. R.  PORTA,, Italian sculptor, son and scholar of Guglielmo, was born at Porlizza in 1542. He executed for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese busts of the twelve Cæsars; a statue of St. John for the baptistery of Sta. Croce, &c. Among his more celebrated works area colossal marble statue of S. Domenico for the church of Sta. Maria Maggiore at Rome; a colossal St. Peter, &c. He died at Rome in 1597.—J. T—e.  PORTA,, an eminent Italian sculptor, was born about 1512. he is said by Vasari to have studied closely the works of L. da Vinci, and to have worked for his relative Giacomo della Porta the architect. In 1537 he went to Rome, and became the favourite scholar and assistant of Michelangelo, and eventually his most successful imitator. Guglielmo's masterpiece was the sepulchre of Paul III., one of the very finest works of its kind extant, and of which the recumbent nude female figures of Justice and Prudence—since Guglielmo's time partly draped—have always been particularly admired. His figures of the Prophets in the first arch, and others on the altars of St. Peter's, are very excellent. Vasari mentions a series of fourteen rilievi illustrative of the life of Christ, which would be surpassingly beautiful if finished and cast in bronze; but he adds that Fra Guglielmo has finished nothing since he received the office of leaden-seal to the pope in 1547 to the present year, 1567, "it being the peculiarity of this office that it renders him who fills it fat and lazy." He does not seem to have done much afterwards. He died about 1577.—J. T—e.  PORTALIS,, Count, French minister of public worship under the first Napoleon, was born in Provence in 1745. Before the Revolution he was a prominent member of the bar of Aix, and pleaded there successfully against the fiery orator in person the cause of Mirabeau's wife, when she claimed a separation from her husband. In another famous lawsuit, that between Goezmann and Beaumarchais, Portalis was also opposed to the celebrity. At the close of the Reign of Terror he was elected a member of the council of Five Hundred, and distinguished himself as an able speaker and jurist, gradually becoming anti-revolutionary in his politics. After the coup d'êtat of the 18th Brumaire, he was employed by Napoleon in the compilation of the code civil, and in the important negotiations which terminated in the concordat with the pope and the re-establishment of Catholicism in France. He became minister of public worship, and died in 1807, leaving a work, published in 1820 by his son, "L'usage et l'abus de l'esprit philosophique pendant le 18me siècle."—F. E.  PORTER,, the gifted sister of Jane and Sir Robert Porter, was born in 1780, a few months before the death of her father. She was educated at a day school in Edinburgh; and on the removal of the family to London, the sisters became distinguished in the literary world, while their private lives were models for imitation. Cherished by an enthusiastic love for the beautiful in nature, and for everything pure and noble in life, <section end="782Zcontin" />