Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/597

 BERNEES BERNI 577 the Elbe, 20 m. W. of Dessau; pop. in 1871, 15,716. It has an ancient castle with a fine garden, theatre, &c., adjoining, a town hall, hos- pitals, and schools of different grades. Sugar, paper, and iron castings are manufactured. BERBERS, or Barnes, Lady Juliana, an English author, born at Rodney Berners, Essex, about 1388, died after 1460. She is said to have been a lady of rank and of great spirit and beauty, and was the prioress of the Sopewell nunnery near St. Albans, upon the abbey of which place the nunnery was dependent. A celebrated book on hawking, hunting, fishing, and coat armor is attributed to her. According to some accounts, the first edition of this book was printed at St. Albans in 1481. In the earliest extant edition, dated 1486, the work is entitled " The Bokys of Hawking and Hunting, and also of Cootarinuries." In some editions it is enti- tled "The Boke of St. Albans." It continued to be the most popular manual of field sports until the 18th century. A folio edition was printed by Wynkin de "Worde in 1496, in which first appeared the part on fishing. A facsimile of this was printed in 1810 by Ilazle- wood, who subsequently investigated the claims of the author to be considered the first female writer in the English language. An edition of the " Treatise of Fysshynge " was printed by Baskerville in 1827. BERNERS, John Boarthier, baron, an English statesman, born in 1474, died in 1532. He was the eldest son of Sir Humphrey Bourchier, and was descended from the duke of Gloucester, the youngest child of Edward III. He was a member of parliament from 1495 to 1529, took an active part in putting down the insurrection in Cornwall in 1497, was appointed by Henry VIII. chancellor of the exchequer in 1515, and in 1518 was associated with John Kite, arch- bishop of Armagh, in an embassy to Spain. Soon afterward he was appointed governor of Calais, and retained that office till his death. He wrote a translation of Froissart's Chronicles by the king's command ; the first volume was published in 1523 and the second in 1525. He also translated other works from the French and Spanish, and wrote a comedy entitled Re in Vineam meam, which was usually acted in the great church at Calais after vespers. BERNETTI, Tommaso, an Italian cardinal and statesman, born in Fermo, Dec. 29, 1779, died there, March 21, 1852. In 1808 he followed Cardinal Brancadoro to France, and in 1810 to his exile at Rheims, whither Brancadoro was sent as one of the 13 "black cardinals" who refused to assist at the marriage of Napoleon and Maria Louisa. In 1814' he returned to Rome with Pius VII., and was appointed as- sessor of the committee of war, intrusted with the reorganization of the military service. Af- terward he was sent as ambassador to St. Petersburg (1826), and as legate to Ravenna and Bologna. In 1827 he became a cardinal, and in 1828 was made secretary of state. Af- ter the accession of Gregory XVI. he under- took to create a militia which might obviate the necessity of employing Austrian troops. This led to remonstrances from the Austrian government, and to his being deprived of his office in 1836. He was then made vice chan- cellor of the Roman church. When Pius IX. left Rome in 1848 Bernetti joined him at Ga- eta, and from that place went to Fermo. BERNHARU, duke of Saxe- Weimar, born in Weimar, Aug. 6, 1604, died in Neuburg on the Rhine, July 8, 1639. He joined Gustavus Adolphus in 1631, and after the king's death in the battle of Lutzen took the command and secured the victory. In 1633 he was made commander of half the Swedish army and in- vested with the dukedom of Franconia, which he lost the next year in consequence of his great defeat by the imperialists at Nordlingen. Not receiving, as he thought, proper support from Sweden, he formed a separate treaty with France at St. Germain-en-Laye, Oct. 17, 1635. In 1636, as commander-in-chief of the French auxiliaries and German troops, he achieved many victories in Lorraine, Bur- gundy, and Alsace, and in June, 1637, de- feated the emperor's troops under Charles, duke of Lorraine. In 1688, cutting loose from the French alliance, he took Breisach, after having defeated three armies sent to its relief, and against the wishes of Richelieu occupied it with German troops. With a view to the es- tablishment of an independent principality in Germany, he had entered into negotiations for a marriage between himself and Amelia, land- gravine of Hesse, had continued his conquests in Burgundy, and was projecting the invasion of Bavaria, when he was seized with the dis- ease which put a sudden end to his career, and which he attributed to poison administered by a hireling of Cardinal Richelieu. Upon his death Breisach passed with Alsace into the hands of the French. BERNHARD, Karl, the pseudonyme of a Da- nish novelist named SAINT AUBIN, born about 1800, died in Copenhagen, Nov. 24, 1865. Among his works are: "Pictures of Life in Denmark," "Christian VII. and his Court," " Christian II. and his Times," and the "Chron- icles of the Time of King Eric of Pomerania." Bernhard excelled in sketches of domestic life, and in delineations of Danish society. Two complete editions of his works have been pub- lished in German at Leipsic. BERNI, Francesco, an Italian poet, born at Lamporecchio in Tuscany about 1490, died July 26, 1536. At the age of 19 he went to Rome and entered the service of Cardinal Bibiena, and subsequently obtained the situation of pri- vate secretary to Giberti, bishop of Verona. He assumed also the habit of an ecclesiastic, but the austerity of the bishop's household was not to his taste, and he sought the society of some young ecclesiastics who devoted them- selves to wine, pleasure, and poetry. His prin- cipal works are the* Rime burlesche and a new version of the Orlando Innamorato of Boiardo,