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VAN born at Antwerp about 1576. He visited this country in the time of James I., and met with great success here. He died in London, and was buried in St. Martin's-in-the-Fields on the 5th of January, 1621. There are pictures by him at Windsor and at Hampton court.—R. N. W.  VAN TROMP. See.  VANVITELLI,, one of the most distinguished Italian architects of the eighteenth century, was born at Naples in 1700. Though an Italian by birth he was of Flemish descent; his father being a native of Utrecht, named Gaspar Van Witel, who went early to Italy, married an Italian lady, and, under the Italianized name of Gasparo Vanvitelli, acquired reputation as a landscape and architectural painter: he was born in 1647, and died at Rome in 1736. Luigi was taught painting by his father, and when six years old is said to have painted from nature. At the age of twenty he decorated a chapel in Sta Cecilia in fresco, besides painting various other works. At the same time he was studying architecture under Ivara. He was employed by the Cardinal San Clemente to restore the Albani palace at Urbino; and he built there the churches of S. Domenico and S. Francesco. These works brought him so much reputation that, though only twenty-six, he was appointed architect of St. Peters. Vanvitelli was the first to point out the insecurity of the dome of St. Peter's, and put the great iron hoops round it. His chief architectural works at Rome were the convent of S. Agostino, and additions to the library of the Roman college. He was one of the architects who competed for the façade of St. John Lateran, and his design is said to have been chosen along with one of Salvi's by the judges; but the pope gave the commission to his own countryman, A. Galilei. To Vanvitelli was awarded the gate of Ancona. At Ancona he constructed an extensive pentagonal bastion, and made the designs for the chapel of S. Ciriaco. He also rebuilt or repaired several churches at Ancona, Perugia, Pesaro, Macerata, &c. In 1745 he went to Milan, where he built a new ducal palace, and prepared designs for the façade of the duomo, but the wars prevented its execution. He soon found, however, a new field for his exertions. The king of Naples, afterwards Charles III. of Spain, had resolved to build himself a palace, which he was desirous should not be surpassed in magnificence by any in Europe. To Vanvitelli, as the chief living architect of Italy, was intrusted its erection. The building, which was commenced in 1752, surpassed in magnitude and richness of decoration, at least, any palace erected in Italy for centuries. The Caserta, as it is called from its site, consists of a vast rectangle seven hundred and sixty-six feet long, six hundred wide, and one hundred and twenty-five high, with large and high square pavilions at the angles, and a central dome. The exterior is regular in its arrangement throughout, consisting of a rustic basement of two stories, above which is an Ionic order of pilasters with two series of windows, and a mezzanine in the cornice—an arrangement heavy, monotonous, and inartistic to the last degree, yet possessing from the extent and scale a certain grandeur of effect. Internally the rectangle is divided into four large courts. To supply the palace with water, Vanvitelli constructed ranges of lofty aqueducts of sufficient length to unite the Tifati mountains, and carry the water thence to the palace and its grounds; the whole extending over many miles, and forming one of the greatest works of the kind constructed in recent times. Vanvitelli erected besides a cavalry barracks, three churches, and various other buildings in Naples, and several elsewhere. The only drawback to his good fortune occurred shortly before his death, when he was fined five thousand crowns by the Roman judges for having estimated the repairs of an aqueduct at Felice to cost two thousand crowns, whereas they actually cost twenty thousand: it is well for our English architects and engineers, that no such practice prevails here. Vanvitelli died March 1, 1773.—J. T—e.  * VAPEREAU,, a French author, was born on the 4th April, 1819, at Orleans, where he received his preliminary education. He studied afterwards at the normal school, Paris, and in 1842 became private secretary to Victor Cousin, to whom he rendered great assistance in preparing his valuable edition of the Pensées de Pascal. In the following year he lectured on philosophy in the college de Tours. His work, entitled "De Caractère libéral, moral et religieux de la philosophie moderne," Tours, 1844, and aimed at the clerical opposition—at that time so violent—to the liberal teaching of the universities, drew down on him a host of attacks. Vapereau, however, maintained his academical position in spite of the rage and jealousy of a bigoted priesthood. In 1852, however, he resigned his chair; and returning to Paris prepared himself for the bar, to which he was called in 1854. It was about this time that he engaged with the enterprising publishers, L. Hachette et Cie., to edit the Dictionnaire Universel des Contemporains, a publication which is indebted for its extraordinary accuracy and comprehensiveness principally to the talents and untiring activity of the editor. Vapereau has also contributed some valuable papers on social and philosophical subjects to several of the contemporary periodical publications.—R. M., A.  VARAGINE or VORAGINE,, a celebrated Dominican, was born at Varragio in Genoa about the year 1230. Having gained a great reputation both as a preacher and professor, he was at length chosen provincial of his order in Lombardy. He was subsequently raised to the bishopric of Bologna, from which he was, in 1292, promoted to the archiepiscopal see of Genoa, where he died in the year 1298. Varagine laboured hard to reform the manners and morals of the clergy. He was author of a work commonly known as the Golden Legend, "Historia Lombardina, sen Legenda Sancta;" a collection of lives of the saints, displaying great credulity and superstition. He also translated the scriptures into his native tongue.—R. M., A.  VARCHI,, historian, born in or near Florence in 1503; died of apoplexy in the same city, 18th of December, 1566. With the Strozzi he quitted Florence, but after some years he was recalled by Cosmo I., and desired to compose a history of the recent political convulsions of his native city, his services being recompensed by a fixed stipend. This history, covering the period 1527-38, is voluminous and diffuse; it has been criticised by some as adulatory of the Medici family, in whose pay it was written. Another judgment characterizes it as free from this fault. Varchi has also left sonnets and other poems; "Lezioni," delivered in the Florentine Academy; a comedy; a dialogue entitled "L'Ercolano;" &c.—C. G. R.  VARDAN or VARTAN, a learned Armenian of the thirteenth century. He was a theologian, geographer, fabulist, poet, and commentator, and regarded as one of the greatest lights of the Armenian church. The Abbé de Villefroi has described the following works of Vartan in his treatise on the Armenian books in the Bibliothéque du Roi—"A treatise on geography, with a particular description of Armenia;" "Commentary on the Song of Solomon;" "Explanation of several passages of scripture, made at the request of the pious King Hethom;" a volume of poems; "One hundred and sixty-eight fables or apologues;" "Reply to the letter sent to King Hethom by Innocent IV. in 1250;" "Admonition to the Armenians," principally on matters of doctrine, and with special reference to the errors and usurpations of Rome; "On the advent of Jesus Christ, and the day of judgment." This last book is in verse.—R M., A.  VARENIUS,, a Dutch physician and philosopher, was a native of Ulzen in Lüneburg. No particulars of his parentage, time of birth, or early education, are known, and nothing of his life except such scanty information as may be gleaned from the dedications and prefaces prefixed to his works. In 1642 he published at Hamburg a thesis, entitled "Musarum Philosophicarum Primitiæ." Its subject is Aristotle's definition of motion, which Varenius undertakes to defend in a public disputation before the professor of physics in the gymnasium of Hamburg. In 1649 he printed at Leyden a medical inaugural thesis, "De Febri in genere," which he undertakes to defend, on the 22nd of June, before graduating as doctor of medicine. Immediately after receiving his degree there appeared at Amsterdam his description of Japan, a compilation which formed the last of a series of essays on existing states, published by the Elzevirs. This book is dedicated to the burgomasters and senators of Hamburg, in acknowledgment of the education he had received in the gymnasium of that city. In his preface he tells the reader that, on the completion of his medical studies, he had deferred commencing practice on account of the small prospect he had of establishing himself. Whilst unemployed he devoted himself to the study of philosophy and the natural sciences, and had composed a work on conic sections, which, however, he found no publisher ready to undertake. At last he had obtained what he believed was an opportunity, although a limited one, for the practice of his profession, and henceforth he intended to devote himself to medicine, geometry, and physics. Varenius' great work, the systematic geography, "Geographia generalis," was <section end="492Zcontin" />