Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIV.djvu/660

 636 SARTI SASKATCHEWAN SARTI, Giuseppe, an Italian composer, born in Faenza, Dec. 28, 1729, died in Berlin, July 28, 1802. He studied counterpoint under Padre* Martini, and his first opera, Pompeo in Armenia, was produced at Faenza in 1752. He was for a short time chapelmaster at Co- penhagen, and in 1779 at Milan. About 1785 he became imperial chapelmaster and director of the conservatory in St. Petersburg. He re- mained in Russia till 1801, when he went to Berlin for his health. He composed operas and church music, and invented a machine to measure the vibrations of tones. SARTO, Andrea Vannrrhi del, commonly called Andrea del Sarto, an Italian painter, born in Florence about 1488, died there in 1530. Af- ter passing some time in the workshop of a goldsmith, he took lessons in drawing from one Giovanni Barile, and subsequently studied under Pietro di Cosimo. But his real instruc- tors were the cartoons and frescoes of Michel Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Masaccio, and Ghirlandaio. Having executed some oil and fresco paintings in conjunction with his friend Francesco Bigio in Florence, he painted in 1509, for the convent of the Servites, a series of frescoes from the life of St. Filippo Benizzi, and in 1514 the pictures of the "Epiphany" and the " Birth of the Virgin," which exhibit delicacy of sentiment and masterly execution, but lack dignity and grandeur of conception. His coloring is distinguished by sweetness and freshness of tone. His reliefs are singularly bold, and he was a thorough master of chi- aroscuro. His illustrations of the life of St. John, which he began in 1514 for the Com- pagnia dello Scaho, are in chiaroscuro, and were not completed before 1526. For Francis I. of Franco he executed the Pietd, or " Dead Christ," with the Virgin, St. John, and Mary Magdalen. The king invited him to Paris, and the picture of "Charity," which he painted there, is now at the Louvre. In 1525 he painted in the cloisters of the Servites one of his most celebrated frescoes, the Madonna del Sacco, so called from the sack of grain on which St. Joseph leans, which was admirably engraved by Raphael Morghen as a companion to Raphael's "Transfiguration." His princi- pal picture of 1528, the u Madonna with the Saints," in the Berlin museum, has been injured by a clumsy attempt to restore it ; and his " Sacrifice of Abraham," painted in 1529, is at Dresden. Ho possessed also an extraordinary talent for copying the works of other masters, and his copy of Raphael's Leo X. in the mu- seum of Naples is invariably taken for the original. He was not always well paid for his pictures, but might have been prosperous, as he had many powerful and rich patrons, had he not yielded to the caprices of an extrava- gant wife. He returned from Paris with a considerable amount of money given him by the king to be invested on the royal account in rare works of art. Instead of appropriating this money to the prescribed use, Andrea squan- dered it in riotous living; and thenceforth, says Vasari, " from an eminent position he sank to the very lowest, merely working for a live- lihood, and passing his time as best he could." SARI M, OM, an extinct city of Wiltshire, England, 2 m. N. of Salisbury. It was an im- portant settlement of the early Britons, after- ward a Roman station, and the residence of the West Saxon kings. It was fortified by Alfred, and was made a bishop's see in the llth century; but the cathedral having been removed to the present site of Salisbury or New Sarum in the reign of Henry III., in con- sequence of a local quarrel, the place was de- serted, and has not now a single habitation, though traces remain of its walls, castle, and cathedral. It was endowed by Edward III. with the privilege of sending two members to the house of commons ; the franchise accom- panied the estate, and the proprietor, after it had lost all its inhabitants, continued to re- turn the two members regularly until the pass- ing of the reform act in 1832. SASKATCHEWAN, a river of British North America, in the Northwest territories, the up- per course consisting of two branches. The North branch, issuing from Glacier lake on the E. slope of the Rocky mountains, in lat. 51 54' N., Ion. 117 30' W., flows E. past the base of Mt. Murchison, and then generally E. N. E. to its junction with the South branch near Ion. 105, 12 m. above Fort a la Come. The latter branch, formed by the junction of the Bow and Belly rivers from the Rocky mountains in lat. 49 40', Ion. 111 40', flows N. E. to Chesterfield, where it receives the Red Deer river, then E. N. E. to the junction with the North branch. The main river thus formed, called by the Crees Kisiskachewan (swift current), flows N. E. to the bend on the parallel of 54, then S. E. to Cedar lake, from which it flows E. to the N. W. extrem- ity of Lake Winnipeg. The area of the entire basin is 240,000 sq. m. From the source of the North branch to the junction the distance is about 550 m., and the length of the main river is about 200 m. The basins of both branches are generally too wild and mountain- ous, and the climate is too rigorous, to ad- mit of much cultivation ; but S. of the North branch is a fertile belt, to portions of which the Hudson Bay company reserves its rights since its surrender of territorial and govern- mental privileges in 1869. The mountains are heavily timbered. On both branches coal and iron are found. Bisons, rapidly disappearing in the Northwest territories, are now chiefly found on the North branch. The valley of the main river, except along its lower course, presents the best agricultural region with good grazing land. The river is frozen from the middle of November to the middle of April, and in summer is navigable by the Hudson Bay company's boats, though the North branch has a rapid current and shallow channel ob- structed by bowlders. The settlements and