Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 20.djvu/119

* VEEPLANCK. 87 VEBROCCHIO. VEBPLANCK', Guliait Cbommelin (1786- 1870). Au Aiuei-ican scholar and essayist, born in New York City. He graduated at Columbia in 1801, studied law, practiced in New York, spent several years in European travel, was ac- tive in State polities, and from 1821 to 1825 was professor of the evidences of revealed re- ligion in the General Theological Seminary, New York. He was then a member of Congress (1825- 33), State Senator (1838-41), and vice-chancel- lor of tire State University (1855-70). He was also pi-esident of the Board of Kmigration ( 184G- 61). His chief books are: Evidences of Revealed Religion (1824) ; Essay on the Doctrinv of Con- tracts ( 1825 ) ; Discourses and Addresses on American Bistort), Arts, and Literalure (1833) ; and an edition of Shakespeare's Plays, (3 vols., 1844-46). With Bryant and R. C. Sands, he edited the Talisman (1828-30), an annual. As a critic and a Shakespearean scholar he filled in his daj' a deservedly high place. VER'RALL^ Arthur Woolgar (1851—). An English classical philologist, born at Brighton, England. He received his education at Wellington School and at Trinity College, Cambridge, of which latter he was appointed fellow in 1874. He was the author of many papers in English philological journals; also of Euripides the Rationalist (1895). He also edited Euripides's iledea (1881), ^Esehylus's Seven Against Thehes (1887), Agamemnon (1889), and ChoepJwri (1893). VERRAZANO, ver'a-tsa'no, Giovanni da ( 1480'M527?). A Florentine navigator. Little is known with certainty of his career. The year of his birth is doubtful. He journeyed widely in the East, and in 1521 is reputed to have been sailing as a French corsair under the name of Juan Florentin or Florin, Spanish commerce be- ing his prey. His first voyage of discovery, under commission from Francis I., was apparently in 1523, though it is nuich confused with the doings of .Juan Florin in that year against the Span- iards. His notable voyage to America was made in 1524 and he seems to have touched the coast of North Carolina near Cape Fear. He ap- parently coasted south and then north, probably as far as Cape Breton. The chief evidence of this interesting voyage is a letter of Verrazano to Francis I,, the authenticity of which is ques- tioned. After his return he fought in the battle of Pavia. February 24, 1525. and was temporarily a prisoner of the Spaniards. If Verrazano was Juan Florin he was captured again at sea in 1527 and hanged, but some later documents in- dicate that he was at a later time in the year in Paris, preparing another expedition for Amer- ica. Consult: H. C. Murphy, The Voyage of Vei-razano (Albany, 1875), the most complete presentation of the argument against the aiithen- ticity of the account of the voyage: also, on the other side, B. F. De Costa, Ten-atrrno the Ex- plorer (New York. 1880), With a full bibliog- raphy: Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America, vol. iv. (Boston), for a critical dis- cussion of authorities, VERRES, ver'rez. A Roman politician. He was elected pr.T?tor in n.c. 74. and by lot became prwtor urhaniis. At the expiration of his term of office he went as Governor (propraetor) to Sicily, the richest province of the Republic. Here he was guilty of op])ression and extortion, and was accused by the Sicilians. Cicero man- aged the prosecution, and llorlensius the defense. Cicero had prepared six orations, but at the close of the first so clear was the guilt of Verres that, without awaiting his sentence, he ficd to Mas- silia (Marseilles), remaining in exile 27 years. VER'RILL, AiinisoN Emory (1839—). An American :^oiilogist, born at (Jrcenwood, Maine; graduated at Harvard College in 1802 and was appointed to the chair of zoology at Yale College in 1864; from 1807 to 1870 he was a professor in the University of Wisconsin. From 1800 Verrill, investigated the invertebrate fauna of the At- lantic Coast, with especial reference to the polyps, echinoderms, worms, and mollusks, and became the chief authority on the living cepha- lopods, especially the colossal squids of the North Atlantic. His Report upon the fnrcrlvhrate Ani- mals of Vineyard Sound (with S. I. Smith, 1874) is a slamlard manual of the marine zoology of Southern New England, His collections were de- posited in the Peabody Jluseum of Yale Univer- sity. In later life he explored with his students the geology and marine animals of the Bermuda Islands, and published The Bermuda Islands (1903). Besides many memoirs and artiides he wrote: Revision of the Polypi of the 'Eastern Coast of the United States (1866) ; The Cephalo- pods of the Northeastern Coast of Jtmerica (1879-82). VERROCCHIO, ver-rdlce-i'i, Andrea del ( 1435- 88). A celclirated Florentine sculptor, painter and goldsmith. His father, ilichelc di Clone, having died while the lad was young, Andrea assumed the name of the goldsmith Giuliano de' Verrocchio, to whom he was apprenticed. From this training he acquired his mastery of the technique of bronze casting and the high finish of his plastic productions, The only surviving ex- ample of his goldsmith work is a relief in silver of the "Beheading of John the Baptist," in the Cathedral Museum at Florence, In sculpture his real master was Donatello, if indeed he did not actually study under him. One of his earliest works was the completion of that mas- ter's charming marble fountain in the Sacristy of San Lorenzo, The most important of Verrocchio's commis- sions in Florence were for the Medici, In San Lorenzo he designed the bronze sepulchral slab of Cosimo de' Medici (d, 1404), and carved the beautiful marble tomb of Giovanni and Piero, a decorative masterpiece of most original con- ception, finished in 1472. Frtr Lorenzo the itag- nificent he also designed a bronze statue of the "Youthful David" (1476, Museo Nazionale), an admirable rendering of the transition of the human figure from youth to manhood, -as natural- istic as it is graceful in position and form. His "Boy with a Fish," a charming fountain-piece, still adorns the court of the Palazzo Vecehio. The marble group of the "Incredulity of Thomas," in Orsanmichele, Florence, survives as one of the finest of the Renaissance, both in technical execution and in the beauty and majesty of the figures. His last work, the equestrian statue of "Bartolommeo Colleoni," at Venice, is his most celebrated. In this the martial bearing of the rider is as admirable as the anatomical perfection of the striding steed. Upon his death in 1488, he had completed the model of horse and rider,