Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/135

 MANTEGtfA MANTEUFFEL 127 liers, and the skill and energy with which they have governed their vast dominions since 1644, when they took possession of the throne, show them to be possessed of high qualities. During the same period they have greatly im- proved the condition of their own original coun- try. When the Mantchoos conquered China, they imposed upon the subject people a portion of their dress and many of their usages. The mode of arranging the hair in a tail now in use by the Chinese was forced upon them by the Mantchoos, to whom it had long been familiar. On the other hand, they have adopted many of the customs of the Chinese. They began to be conspicuous in eastern Asia about the begin- ning of the 17th century, when after a long series of internal wars their tribes were united into one nation under a chieftain named Tien- ming, who in 1618 declared war against China, then ruled by the Ming dynasty. He overran and devastated the N. E. provinces, but died about 1 627, leaving the prosecution of his design of conquest to his son Tien-tsung, who made alliances with rebels whose leaders pretended to be rightful heirs to the throne. With their aid he made himself master of Peking, and the last of the Chinese emperors, Hwai-tsung, hav- ing committed suicide in 1643, the Mantchoo chief took possession of the government. He died in 1644, and his son and successor Shun- chi is regarded as the first emperor of the Mantchoo dynasty which still holds the throne. (See CHINA.) An account of the country, by the archimandrite Palladius of Peking, was communicated to the British royal geographical society in 1872. (See TURANIAN KACES AND LANGUAGES.) MANTEGNA, Andrea, an Italian artist, born near Padua in 1431, died in Mantua, Sept. 13, 1506. When quite young he was placed under the instruction of Francesco Squarcione. At the age of 17 he painted an altarpiece, and soon afterward the four evangelists for the church of St. Sophia at Padua. The works and reputation of the young artist induced the painter Jacopo Bellini to give him his daugh- ter, Nicolasa, in marriage. His frescoes in the church degli Eremitani, representing the life of St. James and the legend of St. Chris- topher, and his St. Mark in the church of St. Giustina, were among his next works in Padua. He was invited about 1468 by Ludovico Gon- zaga to Mantua. Between 1485 and 1490 he visited Rome at the invitation of Innocent VIII., and painted with almost miniature-like delicacy a series of frescoes in a chapel in the Belvedere, all of which however perished when Pius VI. destroyed the chapel toward the close of the last century to make room for his new museum. Of his works extant, the principal is the celebrated series representing in nine compartments the triumph of Julius Csesar after his conquest of Gaul, originally painted for Ludovico Gonzaga, and which upon the downfall of that family were purchased by Charles I. of England. They were sold by 530 VOL. xi. 9 parliament with the rest of Charles's pictures, but were repurchased on the return of Charles II., and placed in Hampton court. They were engraved by the painter, and were copied in chiaroscuro by Andrea Andreani. Of his easel pictures the most famous is the Madonna delta Vittoria, now in the Louvre, painted in com- memoration of the victory gained by Gonzaga over Charles VIII. of France in 1495. Many other pictures by him are to be found in Italy and the large galleries of central Europe. Mantegna, according to Lanzi, engraved up- ward of 50 of his own designs, of which about 30 are known to collectors. MANTELL, Gideon Algernon, an English geolo- gist, born in Lewes, Sussex, in 1790, died in London, Nov. 10, 1852. He was educated as a surgeon, and attained a lucrative practice in his native town. Inclination, however, led him to devote much time to geological re- searches, and in a few years his discoveries in the Wealden formation, the extraordinary fos- siliferous richness of which had been previous- ly little known, gave him a high rank among living palaeontologists. To his labors science is indebted for the discovery of four out of five of the genera of extinct dinosaurian rep- tiles, viz. : the igvanodon, the hylceosaurus, the pelorosaurus, and the regnosaurus ; and his valuable museum collected from the Wealden and chalk formations, and which was purchased in 1839 for 5,000 by the trustees of the Brit- ish museum, contains well preserved fossils of these, and also of many extinct fishes, insects, and plants. His geological drawings were be- queathed to Yale college, from which institu- tion he received the degree of LL. D. in 1844. In 1825 he was elected a member of the royal society; in 1835 he received the W T ollaston medal of the geological society, and in 1849 the royal medal of the royal society. In 1839 he removed to London, where he continued his medical practice and geological researches, and was remarkably successful as a lecturer. His chief scientific work separately published is " Fossils of the South Downs, or Illustrations of the Geology of Sussex " (4to, London, 1822). He is also the author of two popular treatises of great merit, " The Wonders of Geology " (2 vols., London, 1838), and "The Medals of Creation, or First Lessons in Geology " (2 vols., 1844), both of which have been translated into German, and of a number of other works illus- trating the geology of the British isles and his own discoveries, including a " Pictorial Atlas of Fossil Ptemains" (4to, 1850). In Agassiz and Strickland's BibliograpJiia Zoologies et Ge- ologice, 67 works and memoirs by Dr. Mantell are cited, besides which he wrote several pa- pers on antiquarian and professional subjects. MANTEIIFFEL. I. Otto Theodor, baron, a Prus- sian statesman, born at Lubben, Feb. 3, 1805. He entered the civil service at an early age. In 1844 he was made a member of the council of state, and in 1847, in the first united diet, he was conspicuous as an ultra conservative.