[1] A parallel case is that of the Bashkir soldiers of Orenburg, who
formed part of the Russian army sent to put down the Hungarian revolt
of 1848, and who recognized their Ugrian kinsmen in the Zeklars and
other Magyars settled in the Danube basin.
BOTORI, a Japanese game played at the naval, military and other schools,
by two sides of equal number, usually about one hundred, each of which
defends a pole about 8 ft. high firmly set in the ground, the poles
being about 200 yds. distant from each other. The object of each party
is to overthrow the adversaries' pole while keeping their own upright.
Pulling, hauling and wrestling are allowed, but no striking or kicking.
The players resort to all kinds of massed formations to arrive at the
enemies' pole, and frequently succeed in passing over their heads and
shoulders one or more comrades, who are thus enabled to reach the pole
and bear it down unless pulled off in time by its defenders. A game
similar in character is played by the Sophomore and Freshman classes of
Amherst College (Massachusetts), called the "Flag-rush." It was
instituted at the instance of the faculty to take the place of the
traditional "Cane-rush," a general _melee_ between the two classes for
the ultimate possession of a stout walking-stick, which became so rough
that students were frequently seriously injured. In the "Flag-rush" a
small flag is set upon a padded post about 6 ft. high, and is defended
by one class while the other endeavours, as at Botori, to overthrow it.
If the flag is not captured or torn down within a certain time the
defending side wins.
BOTOSHANI (_Botosani_), the capital of the department of Botoshani,
Rumania; on a small tributary of the river Jijia, and in one of the
richest agricultural and pastoral regions of the north Moldavian hills.
Pop. (1900) 32,193. Botoshani is commercially important as the town
through which goods from Poland and Galicia pass in transit for the
south; being situated on a branch railway between Dorohoi and on the
main line from Czernowitz to Galatz. It has extensive starch and flour
mills; and Botoshani flour is highly prized in Rumania, besides being
largely exported to Turkey and the United Kingdom. Botoshani owes its
name to a Tatar chief, Batus or Batu Khan, grandson of Jenghiz Khan, who
occupied the country in the 13th century. There are large colonies of
Armenians and Jews.
BO-TREE, or BODHI-TREE, the name given by the Buddhists of India and
Ceylon to the Pipul or sacred wild fig (_Ficus religiosa_). It is
regarded as sacred, and one at least is planted near each temple. These
are traditionally supposed to be derived from the original one, the
Bodhi-tree of Buddhist annals, beneath which the Buddha is traditionally
supposed to have attained perfect knowledge. The Bo-tree at the ruined
city of Anuradhapura, 80 m. north of Kandy, grown from a branch of the
parent-tree sent to Ceylon from India by King Asoka in the 3rd century
B.C., is said to have been planted in 288 B.C., and is to this day
worshipped by throngs of pilgrims who come long distances to pray before
it. Usually a bo-tree is planted on the graves of the Kandy priests.
BOTRYTIS, a minute fungus which appears as a brownish-grey mould on
decaying vegetation or on damaged fruits. Under a hand-lens it is seen
to consist of tiny, upright, brown stalks which are branched at the
tips, each branchlet being crowned with a naked head of pale-coloured
spores. It is a very common fungus, growing everywhere in the open or in
greenhouses, and can be found at almost any season. It has also a bad
record as a plant disease. If it once gains entrance into one of the
higher plants, it spreads rapidly, killing the tissues and reducing them
to a rotten condition. Seedling pines, lilies and many other cultivated
plants are subject to attack by _Botrytis_, Some of the species exist in
two other growth-forms, so different in appearance from the _Botrytis_
that they have been regarded as distinct plants:--a sclerotium, which is
a hard compact mass of fungal filaments, or mycelium, that can retain
its vitality for a considerable time in a resting condition; and a
stalked _Peziza_, or cup-fungus, which grows out of the sclerotium. The
latter is the perfect form of fruit. The _Botrytis_ mould is known as
the conidial form.
BOTTA, CARLO GIUSEPPE GUGLIELMO (1766-1837), Italian historian, was born
at San Giorgio Canavese in Piedmont. He studied medicine at the
university of Turin, and obtained his doctor's degree when about twenty
years of age. Having rendered himself obnoxious to the government during
the political commotions that followed the French Revolution, he was
imprisoned for over a year; and on his release in 1795 he withdrew to
France, only to return to his native country as a surgeon in the French
army, whose progress he followed as far as Venice. Here he joined the
expedition to Corfu, from which he did not return to Italy till 1798. At
first he favoured French policy in Italy, contributed to the annexation
of Piedmont by France in 1799, and was an admirer of Napoleon; but he
afterwards changed his views, realizing the necessity for the union of
all Italians and for their freedom from foreign control. After the
separation of Piedmont from France in 1814 he retired into private life,
but, fearing persecution at home, became a French citizen. In 1817 he
was appointed rector of the university of Rouen, but in 1822 was removed
owing to clerical influence. Amid all the vicissitudes of his early
manhood Botta had never allowed his pen to be long idle, and in the
political quiet that followed 1816 he naturally devoted himself more
exclusively to literature. In 1824 he published a history of Italy from
1789 to 1814 (4 vols.), on which his fame principally rests; he himself
had been an eyewitness of many of the events described. His continuation
of Guicciardini, which he was afterwards encouraged to undertake, is a
careful and laborious work, but is not based on original authorities and
is of small value. Though living in Paris he was in both these works the
ardent exponent of that recoil against everything French which took
place throughout Europe. A careful exclusion of all Gallicisms, as a
reaction against the French influences of the day, is one of the marked
features of his style, which is not infrequently impassioned and
eloquent, though at the same time cumbrous, involved and ornate. Botta
died at Paris in August 1837, in comparative poverty, but in the
enjoyment of an extensive and well-earned reputation.
His son, Paul Emile Botta (1802-1870), was a distinguished traveller and
Assyrian archaeologist, whose excavations at Khorsabad (1843) were among
the first efforts in the line of investigation afterwards pursued by
Layard.
The works of Carlo Botta are _Storia naturale e medica dell' Isola di
Corfu_ (1798); an Italian translation of Born's _Joannis Physiophili
specimen monachologiae_ (1801); _Souvenirs d'un voyage en Dalmatie_
(1802); _Storia della guerra dell' Independenza d'America_ (1809);
_Camillo_, a poem (1815); _Storia d'Italia dal 1789 al 1814_ (1824,
new ed., Prato, 1862); _Storia d'ltalia in continuazione al
Guicciardini_ (1832, new ed., Milan, 1878). See C. Dionisiotti, _Vita
di Carlo Botta_ (Turin, 1867); C. Pavesio, _Carlo Botta e le sue opere
storiche_ (Florence, 1874); Scipione Botta, _Vita privata di Carlo
Botta_ (Florence, 1877); A. d'Ancona c O. Bacci, _Manuela della
Letteratura Italiana_ (Florence, 1894), vol. v. pp. 245 seq.
BOTTESINI, GIOVANNI (1823-1889), Italian contrabassist and musical
composer, was born at Crema in Lombardy on the 24th of December 1823. He
studied music at the Milan Conservatoire, devoting himself especially to
the double-bass, an instrument with which his name is principally
associated. On leaving Milan he spent some time in America and also
occupied the position of principal double-bass in the theatre at Havana.
Here his first opera, _Cristoforo Colombo_, was produced in 1847. In
1849 he made his first appearance in England, playing double-bass solos
at one of the Musical Union concerts. After this he made frequent visits
to England, and his extraordinary command of his unwieldy instrument
gained him great popularity in London and the provinces. Apart from his
triumphs as an executant, Bottesini was a conductor of European
reputation, and earned some success as a composer, though his work had
not sufficient individuality to survive the changes of taste and
fashion. He was conductor at the Theatre des Italiens in Paris from 1855
to 1857, where his second opera, _L'Assedio di Firenze_, was produced
in 1856. In 1861 and 1862 he conducted at Palermo, supervising the
production of his opera _Marion Delorme_ in 1862, and in 1863 at
Barcelona. During these years he diversified the toils of conducting by
repeated concert tours through the principal countries of Europe. In
1871 he conducted a season of Italian opera at the Lyceum theatre in
London, during which his opera _Ali Baba_ was produced, and at the close
of the year he was chosen by Verdi to conduct the first performance of
_Aida_, which took place at Cairo on 27th December 1871. Bottesini wrote
three operas besides those already mentioned: _Il Diavolo della Notte_
(Milan, 1859); _Vinciguerra_ (Paris, 1870); and _Ero e Leandro_ (Turin,
1880), the last named to a libretto by Arrigo Boito, which was
subsequently set by Mancinelli. He also wrote _The Garden of Olivet_, a
devotional oratorio (libretto by Joseph Bennett), which was produced at
the Norwich festival in 1887, a concerto for the double-bass, and
numerous songs, and minor instrumental pieces. Bottesini died at Parma
on the 7th of July 1889.
BOTTICELLI, SANDRO, properly ALESSANDRO DI MARIANO DEI FILIPEPI
(1444-1510). Florentine painter, was born at Florence in 1444, in a
house in the Via Nuova, Borg' Ognissanti. This was the home of his
father, Mariano di Vanni dei Filipepi, a struggling tanner. Sandro, the
youngest child but one of his parents, derived the name Botticelli, by
which he was commonly known, not, as related by Vasari, from a goldsmith
to whom he was apprenticed, but from his eldest brother Giovanni, a
prosperous broker, who seems to have taken charge of the boy, and who
for some reason bore the nickname _Botticello_ or Little Barrel. A
return made in 1457 by his father describes Sandro as aged thirteen,
weak in health, and still at school (if the words _sta al legare_ are to
be taken as a misspelling of _sta al leggere_, otherwise they might
perhaps mean that he was apprenticed either to a jeweller or a
bookbinder). One of his elder brothers, Antonio, who afterwards became a
bookseller, was at this time in business as a goldsmith and
gold-leaf-beater, and with him Sandro was very probably first put to
work. Having shown an irrepressible bent towards painting, he was
apprenticed in 1458-1459 to Fra Filippo Lippi, in whose workshop he
remained as an assistant apparently until 1467, when the master went to
carry out a commission for the decoration with frescoes of the cathedral
church of Spoleto. During his apprentice years Sandro was no doubt
employed with other pupils upon the great series of frescoes in the
choir of the Pieve at Prato upon which his master was for long
intermittently engaged. The later among these frescoes in many respects
anticipate, by charm of sentiment, animation of movement and rhythmic
flutter of draperies, some of the prevailing characteristics of Sandro's
own style. One of Sandro's earliest extant pictures, the oblong
"Adoration of the Magi" at the National Gallery, London (No. 592, long
ascribed in error to Filippino), shows him almost entirely under the
influence of his first master. Left in Florence on Fra Filippo's
departure to Spoleto, he can be traced gradually developing his
individuality under various influences, among which that of the
realistic school of the Pollaiuoli is for some time the strongest. From
that school he acquired a knowledge of bodily structure and movement,
and a searching and expressive precision of linear draughtsmanship,
which he could never have learnt from his first master. The Pollaiuolo
influence dominates, with some slight admixture of that of Verrocchio,
in the fine figure of Fortitude, now in the Uffizi, which was painted by
Botticelli for the Mercanzia about 1470; this is one of a series of the
seven Virtues, of which the other six, it seems, were executed by Piero
Pollaiuolo from the designs of his brother Antonio. The same influence
is again very manifest in the two brilliant little pictures at the
Uffizi in which the youthful Botticelli has illustrated the story of
Judith and Holofernes; in his injured portrait of a man holding a medal
of Cosimo de' Medici, No. 1286 at the Uffizi; and in his life-sized "St
Sebastian" at Berlin, which we know to have been painted for the church
of Sta Maria Maggiore in 1473. Tradition and internal evidence seem also
to point to Botticelli's having occasionally helped, in his earliest or
Pollaiuolo period, to furnish designs to the school of engravings in
Florence which had been founded by the goldsmith Maso Finiguerra.
Some authorities hold that he must have attended for a while the
much-frequented workshop of Verrocchio. But the "Fortitude" is the only
authenticated early picture in which the Verrocchio influence is really
much apparent; the various other pictures on which this opinion is
founded, chiefly Madonnas dispersed among the museums of Naples,
Florence, Paris and elsewhere, have been shown to be in all probability
the work not of Sandro himself, but of an anonymous artist, influenced
partly by him and partly by Verrocchio, whose individuality it has been
endeavoured to reconstruct under the provisional name of Amico di
Sandro. At the same time we know that the young Botticelli stood in
friendly relations with some of the pupils in Verrocchio's workshop,
particularly with Leonardo da Vinci. Among the many "Madonnas" which
bear Botticelli's name in galleries public and private, the earliest
which carries the unmistakable stamp of his own hand and invention is
that which passed from the Chigi collection at Rome to that of Mrs
Gardner at Boston. At the beginning of 1474 he entered into an agreement
to work at Pisa, both in the Campo Santo and in the chapel of the
Incoronata in the Duomo, but after spending some months in that city
abandoned the task, we know not why. Next in the order of his preserved
works comes probably the much-injured round of the "Adoration of the
Magi" in the National Gallery (No. 1033), long ascribed in error, like
the earlier oblong panel of the same subject, to Filippino Lippi. (To
about this date is assigned by some the well-known "Assumption of the
Virgin surrounded with the heavenly hierarchies," formerly at Hamilton
Palace and now in the National Gallery [No. 1126]; but recent criticism
has proved that the tradition is mistaken which since Vasari's time has
ascribed this picture to Botticelli, and that it is in reality the work
of a subordinate painter somewhat similarly named, Francesco Botticini.)
A more mature and more celebrated "Adoration of the Magi" than either of
those in the National Gallery is that now in the Uffizi, which
Botticelli painted for Giovanni Lami, probably in 1477, and which was
originally placed over an altar against the front wall of the church of
Sta Maria Novella to the right inside the main entrance. The scene is
here less crowded than in some other of the master's representations of
the subject, the conception entirely sane and masculine, with none of
those elements of bizarre fantasy and over-strained sentiment to which
he was sometimes addicted and which his imitators so much exaggerated;
the execution vigorous and masterly. The picture has, moreover, special
interest as containing lifelike portraits of some of the chief members
of the Medici family. Like other leading artists of his time in
Florence, Botticelli had already begun to profit by the patronage of
this family. For the house of Lorenzo Il Magnifico in the Via Larga he
painted a decorative piece of Pallas with lance and shield (not to be
confounded with the banner painted with a similar allegoric device of
Pallas by Verrocchio, to be carried by Giuliano de' Medici in the famous
tournament in 1475 in which he wore the favour of La Bella Simonetta,
the wife of his friend Marco Vespucci). This Pallas by Botticelli is now
lost, as are several other decorative works in fresco and panel recorded
to have been done by him for Lorenzo Il Magnifico between 1475 and
Lorenzo's death in 1492. But Sandro's more especial patron, for whom
were executed several of his most important still extant works, was
another Lorenzo, the son of Pierfrancesco de' Medici, grandson of a
natural brother of Cosimo _Pater Patriae_, and inheritor of a vast share
of the family estates and interests. For the villa of this younger
Lorenzo at Castello Botticelli painted about 1477-1478 the famous
picture of "Primavera" or Spring now in the Academy at Florence. The
design, inspired by Poliziano's poem the "Giostra," with reminiscences
of Lucretius and of Horace (perhaps also, as has lately been suggested,
of the late Latin "Mythologikon" of Fulgentius) thrown in, is of an
enchanting fantasy, and breathes the finest and most essential spirit of
the early Renaissance at Florence. Venus fancifully draped, with Cupid
hovering above her, stands in a grove of orange and myrtle and welcomes
the approach of Spring, who enters heralded by Mercury, with Flora and
Zephyrus gently urging her on. In pictures like this and in the later
"Birth of Venus," the Florentine genius, brooding with passion on the
little that it really yet knew of the antique, and using frankly and
freshly the much that it was daily learning of the truths of bodily
structure and action, creates a style wholly new, in which something of
the strained and pining mysticism of the middle ages is intimately and
exquisitely blended with the newly awakened spirit of naturalism and the
revived pagan delight in bodily form and movement and richness of linear
rhythm. In connexion with this and other classic and allegoric pictures
by the master, much romantic speculation has been idly spent on the
supposition that the chief personages were figured in the likeness of
Giuliano de' Medici and Simonetta Vespucci. Simonetta in point of fact
died in 1476, Giuliano was murdered in 1478; the web of romance which
has been spun about their names in modern days is quite unsubstantial;
and there is no reason whatever why Botticelli should have introduced
the likenesses of these two supposed lovers (for it is not even certain
that they were lovers at all) in pictures all of which were demonstrably
painted after the death of one and most of them after the death of both.
The tragedy of Giuliano's assassination by the Pazzi conspirators in
1478 was a public event which certainly brought employment to
Botticelli. After the capture and execution of the criminals he was
commissioned to paint their effigies hanging by the neck on the walls of
the Palazzo del Podesta, above the entrance of what was formerly the
Dogana. In the course of Florentine history public buildings had on
several previous occasions received a similar grim decoration: the last
had been when Andrea del Castagno painted in 1434 the effigies, hanging
by the heels, of the chief citizens outlawed and expelled on the return
of Cosimo de' Medici. Perhaps from the time of this Pazzi commission may
be dated the evidences which are found in some of Botticelli's work of a
closer study than heretofore of the virile methods and energetic types
of Castagno. His frescoes of the hanged conspirators held their place
for sixteen years only, and were destroyed in 1494 in consequence of
another revolution in the city's politics. Two years later (1480) he
painted in rivalry with Ghirlandaio a grand figure of St Augustine on
the choir screen of the Ognissanti; now removed to another part of the
church. About the same time we find clear evidence of his contributing
designs to the workshops of the "fine-manner" engravers in the shape of
a beautiful print of the triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne adapted from an
antique sarcophagus (the only example known is in the British Museum),
as well as in nineteen small cuts executed for the edition of Dante with
the commentary of Landino printed at Florence in 1481 by Lorenzo della
Magna. This series of prints was discontinued after canto xix., perhaps
because of the material difficulties involved by the use of line
engravings for the decoration of a printed page, perhaps because the
artist was at this time called away to Rome to undertake the most
important commission of his life. Due possibly to the same call is the
unfinished condition of a much-damaged, crowded "Adoration of the Magi"
by Botticelli preserved in the Uffizi, the design of which seems to have
influenced Leonardo da Vinci in his own Adoration (which in like manner
remains unfinished) of nearly the same date, also at the Uffizi.
The task with which Botticelli was charged at Rome was to take part with
other leading artists of the time (Ghirlandaio, Cosimo Rosselli,
Perugino and Pinturicchio) in the decoration of Sixtus IV.'s chapel at
the Vatican, the ceiling of which was afterwards destined to be the
field of Michelangelo's noblest labours. Internal evidence shows that
Sandro and his assistants bore a chief share in the series of papal
portraits which decorate the niches between the windows. His share in
the decoration of the walls with subjects from the Old and the New
Testament consists of three frescoes, one illustrating the history of
Moses (several episodes of his early life arranged in a single
composition); another the destruction of Korah, Dathan and Abiram; a
third the temptation of Christ by Satan (in this case the main theme is
relegated to the background, while the foreground is filled with an
animated scene representing the ritual for the purification of a
leper). On these three frescoes Botticelli laboured for about a year and
a half at the height of his powers, and they may be taken as the central
and most important productions of his career, though they are far from
being the best-known, and from their situation on the dimmed and stained
walls of the chapel are by no means easy of inspection. Skill in the
interlinking of complicated groups; in the principal actors energy of
dramatic action and expression not yet overstrained, as it came to be in
the artist's later work; an incisive vigour of portraiture in the
personages of the male bystanders; in the faces and figures of the women
an equally vital grasp of the model, combined with that peculiar strain
of haunting and melancholy grace which is this artist's own; the most
expressive care and skill in linear draughtsmanship, the richest and
most inventive charm in fanciful costume and decorative colouring, all
combine to distinguish them. During this time of his stay in Rome
(1481-1482) Botticelli is recorded also to have painted another
"Adoration of the Magi," his fifth or sixth embodiment of the same
subject; this has been identified, no doubt rightly, with a picture now
in the Hermitage gallery at St Petersburg.
Returning to Florence towards the end of 1482, Botticelli worked there
for the next ten years, until the death of Lorenzo Il Magnifico in 1492,
with but slight variations in manner and sentiment, in the now formed
manner of his middle life. Some of the recorded works of this time have
perished; but a good many have been preserved, and except in the few
cases where the dates of commission and payment can be established by
existing records, their sequence can only be conjectured from internal
evidence. A scheme of work which he was to have undertaken with other
artists in the Sala dei Gigli in the Palazzo Pubblico came to nothing
(1483); a set of important mythologic frescoes carried out by him in the
vestibule of a villa of Lorenzo Il Magnifico at Spedaletto near Volterra
in 1484 has been destroyed by the effects first of damp and then of
fire. To 1482-1483 belongs the fine altar-piece of San Barnabo (a
Madonna and Child with six saints and four angels), now in the academy
at Florence. Very nearly of the same time must be the most popular and
most often copied, though very far from the best-preserved, of his
works, the round picture of the Madonna with singing angels in the
Uffizi, known, from the text written in the open choir-book, as the
"Magnificat." Somewhere near this must be placed the beautiful and
highly finished drawing of "Abundance," which has passed through the
Rogers, Morris Moore and Malcolm collections into the British Museum, as
well as a small Madonna in the Poldi-Pezzoli collection at Milan, and
the fine full-faced portrait of a young man, probably some pupil or
apprentice in the studio, at the National Gallery (No. 626). For the
marriage of Antonio Pucci to Lucrezia Dini in 1483 Botticelli designed,
and his pupils or assistants carried out, the interesting and dramatic
set of four panels illustrating Boccaccio's tale of Nastagio
degl'Onesti, which were formerly in the collection of Mr Barker and are
now dispersed. His magnificent and perfectly preserved altar-piece of
the Madonna between the two saints John, now in the Berlin gallery, was
painted for the Bardi chapel in the church of San Spirito in 1486. In
the same year he helped to celebrate the marriage of Lorenzo Tornabuoni
with Giovanna degli Albizzi by an exquisite pair of symbolical frescoes,
the remains of which, after they had been brought to light from under a
coat of whitewash on the walls of the Villa Lemmi, were removed in 1882
to the Louvre. Within a few years of the same date (1485-1488) should
apparently be placed that second masterpiece of fanciful classicism done
for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco's villa at Castello, the "Birth of Venus,"
now in the Uffizi, the design of which seems to have been chiefly
inspired by the "Stanze" of Poliziano, perhaps also by the _Pervigilium
Veneris_; together with the scarcely less admirable "Mars and Venus" of
the National Gallery, conceived in the master's peculiar vein of virile
sanity mingled with exquisite caprice; and the most beautiful and
characteristic of all his Madonnas, the round of the "Virgin with the
Pomegranate" (Uffizi). The fine picture of "Pallas and the Centaur,"
rediscovered after an occultation of many years in the private
apartments of the Pitti Palace, would seem to belong to about 1488, and
to celebrate the security of Florentine affairs and the quelling of the
spirit of tumult in the last years of the power of the great Lorenzo
(1488-1490). "The Annunciation" from the convent of Cestello, now in the
Uffizi, shows a design adapted from Donatello, and expressive, in its
bending movements and vehement gestures, of that agitation of spirit the
signs of which become increasingly perceptible in Botticelli's work from
about this time until the end. The great altar-piece at San Marco with
its _predelle_, commissioned by the Arte della Seta in 1488 and finished
in 1490, with the incomparable ring of dancing and quiring angels
encircling the crowned Virgin in the upper sky, is the last of
Botticelli's altar-pieces on a great scale. To nearly the same date
probably belongs his deeply felt and beautifully preserved small
painting of the "Last Communion of St Jerome" belonging to the Marchese
Farinola.
In 1490 Botticelli was called to take part with other artists in a
consultation as to the completion of the facade of the Duomo, and to
bear a share with Alessio Baldovinetti and others in the mosaic
decorations of the chapel of San Zenobio in the same church. The death
of Lorenzo Il Magnifico in 1492, and the accession to chief power of his
worthless son Piero, soon plunged Florence into political troubles, to
which were by and by added the profound spiritual agitation consequent
upon the preaching and influence of Savonarola. Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco
de' Medici, who with his brother Giovanni was in a position of political
rivalry against their cousin Piero, continued his patronage of
Botticelli; and it was for him, apparently chiefly between the years
1492 and 1495, that the master undertook to execute a set of drawings in
illustration of Dante on a far more elaborate and ambitious plan than
the little designs for the engraver which had been interrupted in 1481.
Eighty-five of these drawings are in the famous manuscript acquired for
the Berlin museum at the sale of the Hamilton Palace collection in 1882,
and eleven more in the Vatican library at Rome. The series is one of the
most interesting that has been preserved by any ancient master;
revealing an intimate knowledge of and profound sympathy with the text;
full of Botticelli's characteristic poetic yearning and vehemence of
expression, his half-childish intensity of vision; exquisite in
lightness of touch and in swaying, rhythmical grace of linear
composition and design. These gifts were less suited on the whole to the
illustration of the Hell than of the later parts of the poem, and in the
fiercer episodes there is often some puerility and inadequacy of
invention. Throughout the Hell and Purgatory Botticelli maintains a
careful adherence to the text, illustrating the several progressive
incidents of each canto on a single page in the old-fashioned way. In
the Paradise he gives a freer rein to his invention, and his designs
become less a literal illustration of the text than an imaginative
commentary on it. Almost all interest is centred on the persons of Dante
and Beatrice, who are shown us again and again in various phases of
ascending progress and rapt contemplation, often with little more than a
bare symbolical suggestion of the beatific visions presented to them.
Most of the drawings remain in pen outline only over a light preliminary
sketch with the lead stylus; all were probably intended to be finished
in colour, as a few actually are. To the period of these drawings
(1492-1497) would seem to belong the fine and finely preserved small
round of the "Virgin and Child with Angels" at the Ambrosiana, Milan,
and the famous "Calumny of Apelles" at the Uffizi, inspired no doubt by
some contemporary translation of the text by Lucian, and equally
remarkable by a certain feverish energy in its sentiment and
composition, and by its exquisite finish and richness of execution and
detail. Probably the small "St Augustine" in the Uffizi, the injured
"Judith with the head of Holofernes" in the Kaufmann collection at
Berlin, and the "Virgin and Child with St John," belonging to Mr
Heseltine in London, are works of the same period.
Simone di Mariano, a brother of Botticelli long resident at Naples,
returned to Florence in 1493 and shared Sandro's home in the Via Nuova.
He soon became a devoted follower of Savonarola, and has left a
manuscript chronicle which is one of the best sources for the history of
the friar and of his movement. Sandro himself seems to have remained
aloof from the movement almost until the date of the execution of
Savonarola and his two followers in 1498. At least there is clear
evidence of his being in the confidence and employ of Lorenzo di
Pierfrancesco so late as 1496 and 1497, which he could not possibly have
been had he then been an avowed member of the party of the Piagnoni. It
was probably the enforced departure of Lorenzo from Florence in 1497
that brought to a premature end the master's great undertaking on the
illustration of Dante. After Lorenzo's return, following on the
overthrow and death of Savonarola in 1498, we find no trace of any
further relations between him and Botticelli, who by that time would
seem to have become a declared devotee of the friar's memory and an
adherent, like his brother, of the defeated side. During these years of
swift political and spiritual revolution in Florence, documents give
some glimpses of him: in 1497 as painting in the monastery of Monticelli
a fresco of St Francis which has perished; in the winter of the same
year as bound over to keep the peace with, a neighbour living next to
the small suburban villa which Sandro held jointly with his brother
Simone in the parish of San Sepolcro; in 1499 as paying belated
matriculation fees to the gild of doctors and druggists (of which the
painters were a branch); and again in 1499 as carrying out some
decorative paintings for a member of the Vespucci family. It has been
suggested, probably with reason, that portions of these decorations are
to be recognized in two panels of dramatic scenes from Roman history,
one illustrating the story of Virginia, which has passed with the
collection of Senatore Morelli into the gallery at Bergamo, the other a
history of Lucretia formerly belonging to Lord Ashburnham, which passed
into Mrs Gardner's collection at Boston. These and the few works still
remaining to be mentioned are all strongly marked by the strained
vehemence of design and feeling characteristic of the master's later
years, when he dramatizes his own high-strung emotions in figures flung
forward and swaying out of all balance in the vehemence of action, with
looks cast agonizingly earthward or heavenward, and gestures of wild
yearning or appeal. These characters prevail still more in a small Pieta
at the Poldi-Pezzoli gallery, probably a contemporary copy of one which
the master is recorded to have painted for the Panciatichi chapel in the
church of Sta Maria Maggiore; they are present to a degree even of
caricature in the larger and coarser painting of the same subject which
bears the master's name in the Munich gallery, but is probably only a
work of his school. The mystic vein of religious and political
speculation into which Botticelli had by this time fallen has its finest
illustration in the beautiful symbolic "Nativity" which passed in
succession from the Aldobrandini, the Ottley, and the Fuller Maitland
collections into the National Gallery in 1882, with the apocalyptic
inscription in Greek which the master has added to make his meaning
clear (No. 1034). In a kindred vein is a much-injured symbolic
"Magdalene at the foot of the Cross" in private possession at Lyons.
Among extant pictures those which from internal evidence we must put
latest in the master's career are three panels illustrating the story of
St Zenobius, of which one is at Dresden and the other two in the
collection of Dr Mond in London. The documentary notices of him after
1500 are few. In 1502 he is mentioned in the correspondence of Isabella
d'Este, marchioness of Gonzaga, and in a poem by Ugolino Verino. In
1503-1504 he served on the committee of artists appointed to decide
where the colossal David of Michelangelo should be placed. In these and
the following years we find him paying fees to the company of St Luke,
and the next thing recorded of him is his death, followed by his burial
in the Ortaccio or garden burial-ground of the Ognissanti, in May 1510.
The strong vein of poetical fantasy and mystical imagination in
Botticelli, to which many of his paintings testify, and the capacity for
religious conviction and emotional conversion which made of him an
ardent, if belated, disciple of Savonarola, coexisted in him, according
to all records, with a strong vein of the laughing humour and love of
rough practical and verbal jesting which belonged to the Florentine
character in his age. His studio in the Via Nuova is said to have been
the resort, not only of pupils and assistants, of whom a number seem to
have been at all times working for him, but of a company of more or less
idle gossips with brains full of rumour and tongues always wagging.
Vasari's account of the straits into which he was led by his absorption
in the study of Dante and his adhesion to the sect of Savonarola are
evidently much exaggerated, since there is proof that he lived and died,
not rich indeed, but possessed of property enough to keep him from any
real pinch of distress. The story of his work and life, after having
been the subject in recent years of much half-informed study and
speculation, has at length been fully elucidated in the work of Mr H.P.
Horne cited below,--a masterpiece of documentary research and critical
exposition.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Vasari, _Le Opere_ (ed. Milanesi), vol. iii.;
Crowe-Cavalcaselle, _Hist. of Painting in Italy_, vol. ii.; Fr.
Lippmann, _Botticellis Zeichnungen zu Dantes Gottlicher Komodie_; Dr
Karl Woermann, "Sandro Botticelli" (in Dohme, _Kunst u. Kunstler_); Dr
Hermann Ulmann, _Sandro Botticelli_; Dr E. Steinmann, _Sandro
Botticelli_ (in Knackfuss series, valuable for the author's
elucidation of the Sixtine frescoes); I.B. Supino, _Sandro
Botticelli_; Bernhard Berenson, _The Drawings of Florentine Painters;
The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance_ (2nd ed.); _The Study and
Criticism of Italian Art_; papers in the _Burlington Magazine_, the
_Gazette des Beaux-Arts_ (to this critic is due the first systematic
attempt to discriminate between the original work of Botticelli and
that of his various pupils); J. Mesnil, _Miscellanea d'Arte_ and
papers in the _Rivista d'Arte_, &c.; W. Warburg, _Sandro Botticelli's
"Geburt der Venus" and "Fruhling"_; Julia Cartwright (Mrs Ady), _The
Life and Art of Sandro Botticelli_ (1904); F. Wickhoff in the
_Jahrbuch der k. Preussischen Kunstsammlungen_ (1906); Herbert P.
Horne, _Alessandro Filipepi commonly called Sandro Botticelli_ (1908);
this last authority practically supersedes all others. (S. C.)
BOTTIGER, KARL AUGUST (1760-1835), German archaeologist, was born at
Reichenbach on the 8th of June 1760. He was educated at the school of
Pforta, and the university of Leipzig. After holding minor educational
posts, he obtained in 1791, through the influence of Herder, the
appointment of rector of the gymnasium at Weimar, where he entered into
a circle of literary men, including Wieland, Schiller, and Goethe. He
published in 1803 a learned work, _Sabina, oder Morgenszenen im
Putzzimmer einer reichen Romerin_, a description of a wealthy Roman
lady's toilette, and a work on ancient art, _Griechische Vasengemalde_.
At the same time he assisted in editing the _Journal des Luxus und der
Moden_, the _Deutsche Merkur_, and the _London and Paris_. In 1804 he
was called to Dresden as superintendent of the studies of the court
pages, and received the rank of privy councillor. In 1814 he was made
director of studies at the court academy, and inspector of the Museum of
Antiquities. He died at Dresden on the 17th of November 1835. His chief
works are:--_Ideen zur Archaologie der Malerei_, i. (1811) (no more
published); _Kunstmythologie_ (1811); _Vorlesungen und Aufsatze zur
Alterthumskunde_ (1817); _Amalthea_ (1821-1825); _Ideen zur
Kunstmythologie_ (1826-1836). The _Opuscula et Carmina Latina_ were
published separately in 1837; with a collection of his smaller pieces,
_Kleine Schriften_ (1837-1838), including a complete list of his works
(56 pages). His biography was written by his son Karl Wilhelm Bottiger
(1790-1862), for some time professor of history at Erlangen, and author
of several valuable histories (_History of Germany_, _History of
Saxony_, _History of Bavaria_, _Universal History of Biographies_).
BOTTLE (Fr. bouteille, from a diminutive of the Lat. _butta_, a flask;
cf. Eng. "butt"), a vessel for containing liquids, generally as opposed
to one for drinking from (though this probably is not excluded), and
with a narrow neck to facilitate closing and pouring. The first bottles
were probably made of the skins of animals. In the _Iliad_ (iii. 247)
the attendants are represented as bearing wine for use in a bottle made
of goat's skin. The ancient Egyptians used skins for this purpose, and
from the language employed by Herodotus (ii. 121), it appears that a
bottle was formed by sewing up the skin and leaving the projection of
the leg and foot to serve as a vent, which was hence termed [Greek:
podeon]. The aperture was closed with a plug or a string. Skin bottles
of various forms occur on Egyptian monuments. The Greeks and Romans also
were accustomed to use bottles made of skins; and in the southern parts
Europe they are still used for the transport of wine. The first of
explicit reference to bottles of skin in Scripture occurs in Joshua (ix.
4), where it is said that the Gibeonites took "old sacks upon their
asses, and wine-bottles _old and rent and bound up_." The objection to
putting "new wine into old bottles" (Matt. ix. 17) is that the skin,
already stretched and weakened by use, is liable to burst under the
pressure of the gas from new wine. Skins are still most extensively used
throughout western Asia for the conveyance and storage of water. It is
an error to represent the bottles of the ancient Hebrews as being made
exclusively of skins. In Jer. xix. 1 the prophet speaks of "a potter's
earthen vessel." The Egyptians (see EGYPT: _Art and Archaeology_)
possessed vases and bottles of hard stone, alabaster, glass, ivory,
bone, porcelain, bronze, silver and gold, and also of glazed pottery or
common earthenware. In modern times bottles are usually made of glass
(q.v.), or occasionally of earthenware. The glass bottle industry has
attained enormous dimensions, whether for wine, beer, &c., or mineral
waters; and labour-saving machinery for filling the bottles has been
introduced, as well as for corking or stoppering, for labelling and for
washing them.
[Illustration: Roman Skin Bottles, from specimens at Pompeii and
Herculaneum.]
BOTTLE-BRUSH PLANTS, a genus of Australian plants, known botanically as
_Callistemon_, and belongiug to the myrtle family (Myrtaceae). They take
their name from the resemblance of the head of flowers to a
bottle-brush. They are well known in cultivation as greenhouse shrubs;
the flower owes its beauty to the numerous long thread-like stamens
which far exceed the small petals. _Callistemon salignus_ is a valuable
hard wood.
BOTTLENOSE WHALE (_Hyperoodon rostratus_), a member of the sperm-whale
family, which is an inhabitant of the North Atlantic, passing the summer
in the Spitzbergen seas and going farther south in winter. It resembles
the sperm-whale in possessing a large store of oil in the upper part of
the head, which yields spermaceti when refined; on this account, and
also for the sake of the blubber, which supplies an oil almost
indistinguishable from sperm-oil, this whale became the object of a
regular chase in the latter half of the 19th century. In length these
whales vary between 20 ft. and 30 ft.; and in colour from black on the
upper surface in the young to light brown in old animals, the
under-parts being greyish white. There is no notch between the flukes,
as in other whales, but the hinder part of the tail is rounded.
Bottlenoses feed on cuttle-fishes and squills, and are practically
toothless; the only teeth which exist in the adult being a small pair at
the front of the lower jaw, concealed beneath the gum during life.
Examples have frequently been recorded on the British coasts. In
November 1904 a female, 24 ft. long, and a calf 15 ft. long were driven
ashore at Whitstable. (See CETACEA.)
BOTTOMRY, a maritime contract by which a ship (or bottom) is
hypothecated in security for money borrowed for expenses incurred in the
course of her voyage, under the condition that if she arrive at her
destination the ship shall be liable for repayment of the loan, together
with such premium thereon as may have been agreed for; but that if the
ship be lost, the lender shall have no claim against the borrower either
for the sum advanced or for the premium. The freight may be pledged as
well as the ship, and, if necessary, the cargo also. In some cases the
personal obligation of the shipmaster is also included. When money is
borrowed on the security of the cargo alone, it is said to be taken up
at _respondentia_; but it is now only in rare and exceptional cases
that it could be competent to the shipmaster to pledge the cargo, except
under a general bottomry obligation, along with the ship and freight. In
consideration of the risks assumed by the lender, the bottomry premium
(sometimes termed _maritime interest_) is usually high, varying of
course with the nature of the risk and the difficulty of procuring
funds.
A bottomry contract may be written out in any form which sufficiently
shows the conditions agreed on between the parties; but it is usually
drawn up in the form of a _bond_ which confers a maritime lien (q.v.).
The document must show, either by express terms or from its general
tenor, that the risk of loss is assumed by the lender,--this being the
consideration for which the high premium is conceded. The lender may
transfer the bond by indorsation, in the same manner as a bill of
exchange or bill of lading, and the right to recover its value becomes
vested in the indorsees. (See BOND.)
According to the law of England, a bottomry contract remains in force so
long as the ship exists _in the form of a ship_, whatever amount of
damage she may have sustained. Consequently, the "constructive total
loss" which is recognized in marine insurance, when the ship is damaged
to such an extent that she is not worth repairing, is not recognized in
reference to bottomry, and will not absolve the borrower from his
obligation. But if the ship go to pieces, the borrower is freed from all
liability under the bottomry contract; and the lender is not entitled to
receive any share of the proceeds of such of the ship's stores or
materials as may have been saved from the wreck. Money advanced on
bottomry is not liable in England for general average losses. If the
ship should _deviate_ from the voyage for which the funds were advanced,
her subsequent loss will not discharge the obligation of the borrower
under the bottomry contract. If she should not proceed at all on her
intended voyage, the lender is not entitled to recover the bottomry
premium in addition to his advance, but only the ordinary rate of
interest for the temporary loan. As the bottomry premium is presumed, in
every case, to cover the risks incurred by the lender, he is not
entitled to charge the borrower with the premium which he may pay for
_insurance_ of the sum advanced, in addition to that stipulated in the
bond.
The contract of bottomry seems to have arisen from the custom of
permitting the master of a ship, when in a foreign country, to pledge
the ship in order to raise money for repairs, or other extraordinary
expenditures rendered necessary in the course of the voyage.
Circumstances often arise, in which, without the exercise of this power
on the part of the master, it would be impossible to provide means for
accomplishing the voyage; and it is better that the master should have
authority to burden the ship, and, if necessary, the freight and cargo
also, in security for the money which has become requisite, than that
the adventure should be defeated by inability to proceed. But the right
of the master to pledge the ship or goods must always be created by
necessity; if exercised without necessity the contract will be void.
Accordingly, the master of a British ship has no power to grant a
bottomry bond at a British port, or at any foreign port where he might
raise funds on the personal credit of the shipowners. Neither has he any
power to pledge the ship or goods for private debts of his own, but only
for such supplies as are indispensable for the purposes of the voyage.
And in all cases he ought, if possible, to communicate with the owners
of the ship, and with the proprietor of the cargo before pledging their
property ("The Bonaparte," 1853, 8 Moo. P.C. 473; "The Staffordshire,"
1872, L.R. 4 P.C. 194). Increased facility of communication, by
telegraph and otherwise, has given additional stringency to this rule,
and caused a decline in the practice of giving bottomry bonds.
The bottomry lender must use reasonable diligence to ascertain that a
real necessity exists for the loan; but he is not bound to see to the
application of the money advanced. If the lender has originally advanced
the funds on the personal credit of the owner he is not entitled to
require a bottomry obligation. A bond procured from the shipmaster by
improper compulsion would be void.
The power of the master to pledge the cargo depends upon there being
some reasonable prospect of benefit to it by his so doing. He has no
such power except in virtue of circumstances which may oblige him to
assume the character of _agent for the cargo_, in the absence of any
other party authorized to act on its behalf. Under ordinary
circumstances he is not at liberty to pledge the cargo for repairs to
the ship. If indeed the goods be of a perishable nature, and if it be
impossible to get the ship repaired in sufficient time to obviate
serious loss on them by delay, without including them under the bottomry
contract, he has power to do so, because it may fairly be assumed, in
the case supposed, that the cargo will be benefited by this procedure.
The general principle is, that the master must act for the cargo, with a
reasonable view to the interests of its proprietors, under the whole
circumstances of the case. When he does this his proceedings will be
sustained; but should he manifestly prejudice the interests of the cargo
by including it under bottomry for the mere purpose of relieving the
ship, or of earning the freight, the owners of the cargo will not be
bound by the bottomry contract. Any bottomry or respondentia bond may be
good in part or bad in part, according as the master may have acted
_within_ or _beyond_ the scope of his legitimate authority in granting
it. If two or more bottomry bonds have been granted at different stages
of the voyage, and the value of the property be insufficient to
discharge them all, the last-dated bond has the priority of payment, as
having furnished the means of preserving the ship, and thereby
preventing the total loss of the security for the previous bonds.
When the sum due under a bottomry bond over ship, freight and cargo is
not paid at the stipulated time, proceedings may be taken by the
bondholder for recovery of the freight and for the sale of the ship; and
should the proceeds of these be insufficient to discharge the claim, a
judicial sale of the cargo may be resorted to. As a general rule the
value of the ship and freight must be exhausted before recourse can be
taken against the cargo. A bottomry bond gives no remedy to the lenders
against the owners of the ship or cargo personally. The whole liability
under it may be met by the surrender of the property pledged, whether
the value so surrendered covers the amount of the bond or not. But the
owners of the ship, though not liable to the bondholder for more than
the value of the ship and freight, may be further liable to the
proprietors of the cargo for any sum in excess of the cargo's proper
share of the expenses, taken by the bondholder out of the proceeds of
the cargo to satisfy the bond after the ship and freight have been
exhausted.
The bottomry premium must be ultimately paid by the parties for whose
benefit the advances were obtained, as ascertained on the final
adjustment of the average expenditures at the port of destination.
The practice of pledging property subject to maritime risks was common
among the ancient Greeks, being known as [Greek: ekdosis] or [Greek:
daneion] (see Demosthenes' speeches _Pro Phormione, Contra Lacritum_
and _In Dionysodorum_); it passed into Roman law as _foenus nauticum_
or _usura maritima_.
See also LIEN: _Maritime_; and generally Abbott on _Shipping_ (14th
ed., 1901).
BOTZARIS [BOZZARIS], MARCO (c. 1788-1823), leader in the War of Greek
Independence, born at Suli in Albania, was the second son of Kitzo
Botzaris, murdered at Arta in 1809 by order of Ali of Iannina. In 1803,
after the capture of Suli by Ali Pasha, Marco, with the remnant of the
Suliots, crossed over to the Ionian Islands, where he ultimately took
service in an Albanian regiment in French pay. In 1814 he joined the
Greek patriotic society known as the _Hetairia Philike_, and in 1820,
with other Suliots, made common cause with Ali of Iannina against the
Ottomans. On the outbreak of the Greek revolt, he distinguished himself
by his courage, tenacity and skill as a partisan leader in the fighting
in western Hellas, and was conspicuous in the defence of Missolonghi
during the first siege (1822-1823). On the night of the 21st of August
1823 he led the celebrated attack at Karpenisi of 350 Suliots on 4000
Albanians who formed the vanguard of the army with which Mustai Pasha
was advancing to reinforce the besiegers. The rout of the Turks was
complete; but Botzaris himself fell. His memory is still celebrated in
popular ballads in Greece. Marco Botzaris's brother Kosta (Constantine),
who fought at Karpenisi and completed the victory, lived to become a
general and senator in the Greek kingdom. He died at Athens on the 13th
of November 1853. Marco's son, Dimitri Botzaris, born in 1813, was three
times minister of war under the kings Otho and George. He died at Athens
on the 17th of August 1870.
BOTZEN, or BOZEN (Ital. _Bolzano_), a town in the Austrian province of
Tirol, situated at the confluence of the Talfer with the Eisak, and a
short way above the junction of the latter with the Adige or Etsch. It
is built at a height of 869 ft., and is a station on the Brenner
railway, being 58 m. S. of that pass and 35 m. N. of Trent. In 1900 it
had a population of 13,632, Romanist and mainly German-speaking, though
the Italian element is said to be increasing. Botzen is a Teutonic town
amid Italian surroundings. It is well built, and boasts of a fine old
Gothic parish church, dating from the 14th and 15th centuries, opposite
which a statue was erected in 1889 to the memory of the famous
_Minnesanger_, Walther von der Vogelweide, who, according to some
accounts, was born (c. 1170) at a farm above Waidbruck, to the north of
Botzen. Botzen is the busiest commercial town in the German-speaking
portion of Tirol, being admirably situated at the junction of the
Brenner route from Germany to Italy with that from Switzerland down the
Upper Adige valley or the Vintschgau. Hence the transit trade has always
been very considerable (it has four large fairs annually), while the
local wine is mentioned as early as the 7th century. Lately its
prosperity has been increased by the rise into favour as a winter resort
of the village of Gries, on the other bank of the Talfer, and now
practically a suburb of Botzen.
The _pons Drusi_ (probably over the Adige, just below Botzen) is
mentioned in the 4th century by the _Peutinger Table_. In the 7th to 8th
centuries Botzen was held by a dynasty of Bavarian counts. But in 1027,
with the rest of the diocese of Trent, it was given by the emperor
Conrad II. to the bishop of Trent. From 1028 onwards it was ruled by
local counts, the vassals of the bishops, but after Tirol fell into the
hands of the Habsburgers (1363) their power grew at the expense of that
of the bishops. In 1381 Leopold granted to the citizens the privilege of
having a town council, while in 1462 the bishops resigned all rights of
jurisdiction over the town to the Habsburgers, so that its later history
is merged in that of Tirol. (W. A. B. C.)
BOUCHARDON, EDME (1698-1762), French sculptor, was esteemed in his day
the greatest sculptor of his time. Born at Chaumont, he became the pupil
of Guillaume Coustou and gained the _prix de Rome_ in 1722. Resisting
the tendency of the day he was classic in his taste, pure and chaste,
always correct, charming and distinguished, a great stickler for all the
finish that sand-paper could give. During the ten years he remained at
Rome, Bouchardon made a striking bust of Pope Benedict XIII. (1730). In
1746 he produced his first acclaimed masterpiece, "Cupid fashioning a
Bow out of the Club of Hercules," perfect in its grace, but cold in the
purity of its classic design. His two other leading _chefs-d'oeuvre_ are
the fountain in the rue de Grenelle, Paris, the first portions of which
had been finished and exhibited in 1740, and the equestrian statue of
Louis XV., a commission from the city of Paris. This superb work, which,
when the model was produced, was declared the finest work of its kind
ever produced in France, Bouchardon did not live to finish, but left its
completion to Pigalle. It was destroyed during the Revolution.
Among the chief books on the sculptor and his art are _Vie d'Edme
Bouchardon_, by le comte de Caylus (Paris, 1762); _Notice sur Edme
Bouchardon, sculpteur_, by E. Jolibois (Versailles, 1837); _Notice
historique sur Edme Bouchardon_, by J. Carnandet (Paris, 1855); and
_French Architects and Sculptors of the 18th Century_, by Lady Dilke
(London, 1900).
BOUCHER, FRANCOIS (1703-1770), French painter, was born in Paris, and at
first was employed by Jean Francois Cars (1670-1739), the engraver,
father of the engraver Laurent Cars (1699-1771), to make designs and
illustrations for books. In 1727, however, he went to Italy, and at
Rome became well known as a painter. He returned to Paris in 1731 and
soon became a favourite in society. His picture "Rinaldo and Armida"
(1734) is now in the Louvre. He was made inspector of the Gobelins
factory in 1755 and court painter in 1765, and was employed by Madame de
Pompadour both to paint her portrait and to execute various decorative
works. He died in 1770. His Watteau-like style and graceful
voluptuousness gave him the title of the Anacreon of painting, but his
repute declined until recent years. The Wallace collection, at Hertford
House, has some of his finest pictures, outside the Louvre. His etchings
were also numerous and masterly.
See Antoine Bret's notice in the _Necrologe des hommes celebres_ for
1771, and the monographs by the brothers de Goncourt and Paul Mantz.
BOUCHER, JONATHAN (1738-1804), English divine and philologist, was born
in the hamlet of Blencogo, near Wigton, Cumberland, on the 12th of March
1738. He was educated at the Wigton grammar school, and about 1754 went
to Virginia, where he became a private tutor in the families of Virginia
planters. Among his charges was John Parke Custis, the step-son of
George Washington, with whom he began a long and intimate friendship.
Returning to England, he was ordained by the bishop of London in March
1762, and at once sailed again for America, where he remained until 1775
as rector of various Virginia and Maryland parishes, including Hanover,
King George's county, Virginia, and St Anne's at Annapolis, Maryland. He
was widely known as an eloquent preacher, and his scholarly attainments
won for him the friendship and esteem of some of the ablest scholars in
the colonies. During his residence in Maryland he vigorously opposed the
"vestry act," by which the powers and emoluments of the Maryland pastors
were greatly diminished. When the struggle between the colonies and the
mother country began, although he felt much sympathy for the former, his
opposition to any form of obstruction to the Stamp Act and other
measures, and his denunciation of a resort to force created a breach
between him and his parish, and in a fiery farewell discourse preached
after the opening of hostilities he declared that no power on earth
should prevent him from praying and shouting "God save the King." In the
succeeding autumn he returned to England, where his loyalism was
rewarded by a government pension. In 1784 he became vicar of Epsom in
Surrey, where he continued until his death on the 27th of April 1804,
becoming known as one of the most eloquent preachers of his day. He was
an accomplished writer and scholar, contributed largely to William
Hutchinson's _History of the County of Cumberland_ (2 vols., 1704 seq.),
and published _A View of the Causes and Consequences of the American
Revolution_ (1797), dedicated to George Washington, and consisting of
thirteen discourses delivered in America between 1763 and 1775. His
philological studies, to which the last fourteen years of his life were
devoted, resulted in the compilation of "A Glossary of Provincial and
Archaic Words," intended as a supplement to Dr Johnson's _Dictionary_,
but never published except in part, which finally in 1831 passed into
the hands of the English compilers of Webster's _Dictionary_, by whom it
was utilized.
His son, BARTON BOUCHER (1794-1865), rector of Fonthill Bishops,
Wiltshire, in 1856, was well known as the author of religious tracts,
hymns and novels.
BOUCHER DE CREVCOEUR DE PERTHES, JACQUES (1788-1868), French geologist
and antiquary, was born on the 10th of September 1788 at Rethel,
Ardennes, France. He was the eldest son of Jules Armand Guillaume
Boucher de Crevecoeur, botanist and customs officer, and of
Etienne-Jeanne-Marie de Perthes (whose surname he was authorized by
royal decree in 1818 to assume in addition to his father's). In 1802 he
entered government employ as an officer of customs. His duties kept him
for six years in Italy, whence returning (in 1811) he found rapid
promotion at home, and finally was appointed (March 1825) to succeed his
father as director of the _douane_ at Abbeville, where he remained for
the rest of his life, being superannuated in January 1853, and dying on
the 5th of August 1868. His leisure was chiefly devoted to the study of
what was afterwards called the Stone Age, "antediluvian man," as he
expressed it. About the year 1830 he had found, in the gravels of the
Somme valley, flints which in his opinion bore evidence of human
handiwork; but not until many years afterwards did he make public the
important discovery of a worked flint implement with remains of
elephant, rhinoceros, &c., in the gravels of Menchecourt. This was in
1846. A few years later he commenced the issue of his monumental work,
_Antiquites celtiques et an ediluviennes_ (1847, 1857, 1864; 3 vols.), a
work in which he was the first to establish the existence of man in the
Pleistocene or early Quaternary period. His views met with little
approval, partly because he had previously propounded theories regarding
the antiquity of man without facts to support them, partly because the
figures in his book were badly executed and they included drawings of
flints which showed no clear sign of workmanship. In 1855 Dr Jean Paul
Rigollot (1810-1873), of Amiens, strongly advocated the authenticity of
the flint implements; but it was not until 1858 that Hugh Falconer
(q.v.) saw the collection at Abbeville and induced Prestwich (q.v.) in
the following year to visit the locality. Prestwich then definitely
agreed that the flint implements were the work of man, and that they
occurred in undisturbed ground in association with remains of extinct
mammalia. In 1863 his discovery of a human jaw, together with worked
flints, in a gravel-pit at Moulin-Quignon near Abbeville seemed to
vindicate Boucher de Perthes entirely; but doubt was thrown on the
antiquity of the human remains (owing to the possibility of interment),
though not on the good faith of the discoverer, who was the same year
made an officer of the Legion of Honour together with Quatrefages his
champion. Boucher de Perthes displayed activity in many other
directions. For more than thirty years he filled the presidential chair
of the Societe d'Emulation at Abbeville, to the publications of which he
contributed articles on a wide range of subjects. He was the author of
several tragedies, two books of fiction, several works of travel, and a
number of books on economic and philanthropic questions. To his
scientific books may be added _De l'homme antedilumen et de ses oeuvres_
(Paris, 1860).
See Alcius Ledien, _Boucher de Perthes; sa vie, ses oeuvres, sa
correspondence_ (Abbeville, 1885); Lady Prestwich, "Recollections of
M. Boucher de Perthes" (with portrait) in _Essays Descriptive and
Biographical_ (1901).
BOUCHES-DU-RHONE, a maritime department of south-eastern France situated
at the mouth of the Rhone. Area, 2026 sq. m. Pop. (1906) 765,918. Formed
in 1790 from western Provence, it is bounded N. by Vaucluse, from which
it is separated by the Durance, E. by Var, W. by Card, and S. by the
Mediterranean, along which its seaboard stretches for about 120 m. The
western portion consists of the Camargue (q.v.), a low and marshy plain
enclosed between the Rhone and the Petit-Rhone, and comprising the Rhone
delta. A large portion of its surface is covered by lagoons and pools
(etangs), the largest of which is the Etang de Vaccares; to the east of
the Camargue is situated the remarkable stretch of country called the
Crau, which is strewn with pebbles like the sea-beach; and farther east
and north there are various ranges of mountains of moderate elevation
belonging to the Alpine system. The Etang de Berre, a lagoon covering an
area of nearly 60 sq. m., is situated near the sea to the south-east of
the Crau. A few small tributaries of the Rhone and the Durance, a number
of streams, such as the Arc and the Touloubre, which flow into the Etang
de Berre, and the Huveaune, which finds its way directly to the sea, are
the only rivers that properly belong to the department.
Bouches-du-Rhone enjoys the beautiful climate of the Mediterranean
coast, the chief drawback being the mistral, the icy north-west wind
blowing from the central plateau of France. The proportion of arable
land is small, though the quantity has been considerably increased by
artificial irrigation and by the draining of marshland. Cereals, of
which wheat and oats are the commonest, are grown in the Camargue and
the plain of Aries, but they are of less importance than the olive-tree,
which is grown largely in the east of the department and supplies the
oil-works of Marseilles. The vine is also cultivated, the method of
submersion being used as a safeguard against phylloxera. In the cantons
of the north-west large quantities of early vegetables are produced. Of
live-stock, sheep alone are raised to any extent. Almonds, figs, capers,
mulberry trees and silkworms are sources of considerable profit. Iron is
worked, but the most important mines are those of lignite, in which
between 2000 and 3000 workmen are employed; the department also produces
bauxite, building-stone, lime, cement, gypsum, clay, sand and gravel and
marble. The salt marshes employ many workmen, and the amount of sea-salt
obtained exceeds in quantity the produce of any other department in
France. Marseilles, the capital, is by far the most important industrial
town. In its oil-works, soap-works, metallurgical works, shipbuilding
works, distilleries, flour-mills, chemical works, tanneries, engineering
and machinery works, brick and tile works, manufactories of preserved
foods and biscuits, and other industrial establishments, is concentrated
most of the manufacturing activity of the department. To these must be
added the potteries of the industrial town of Aubagne, the silk-works in
the north-west cantons, and various paper and cardboard manufactories,
while several of the industries of Marseilles, such as the distilling of
oil, metal-founding, shipbuilding and soap-making, are common to the
whole of Bouches-du-Rhone. Fishing is also an important industry.
Cereals, flour, silk, woollen and cotton goods, wine, brandy, oils,
soap, sugar and coffee are chief exports; cereals, oil-seeds, wine and
brandy, raw sugar, cattle, timber, silk, wool, cotton, coal, &c., are
imported. The foreign commerce of the department, which is principally
carried on in the Mediterranean basin, is for the most part concentrated
in the capital; the minor ports are Martigues, Cassis and La Ciotat.
Internal trade is facilitated by the canal from Aries to Port-de-Bouc
and two smaller canals, in all about 35 m. in length. The Rhone and the
Petit-Rhone are both navigable within the department.
Bouches-du-Rhone is divided into the three arrondissements of
Marseilles, Aix and Arles (33 cantons, 111 communes). It belongs to the
archiepiscopal province of Aix, to the region of the XV. army corps, the
headquarters of which are at Marseilles, and to the _academie_
(educational division) of Aix. Its court of appeal is at Aix.
Marseilles, Aix, Arles, La Ciotat, Martigues, Salon, Les Saintes-Maries,
St Remy, Les Baux and Tarascon, the principal places, are separately
noticed. Objects of interest elsewhere may be mentioned. Near
Saint-Chamas there is a remarkable Roman bridge over the Touloubre,
which probably dates from the 1st century B.C. and is thus the oldest in
France. It is supported on one semicircular span and has triumphal
arches at either end. At Vernegues there are remains of a Roman temple
known as the "Maison-Basse." The famous abbey of Montmajour, of which
the oldest parts are the Romanesque church and cloister, is 2-1/2 m.
from Arles. At Orgon there are the ruins of a chateau of the 15th
century, and near La Roque d'Antheron the church and other buildings of
the Cistercian abbey of Silvacane, founded in the 12th century.
BOUCHOR, MAURICE (1855- ), French poet, was born on the 15th of
December 1855 in Paris. He published in succession _Chansons joyeuses_
(1874), _Poemes de l'amour et de la mer_ (1875), _Le Faust moderne_
(1878) in prose and verse, and _Les Contes parisiens_ (1880) in verse.
His _Aurore_ (1883) showed a tendency to religious mysticism, which
reached its fullest expression in _Les Symboles_ (1888; new series,
1895), the most interesting of his works. Bouchor (whose brother, Joseph
Felix Bouchor, b. 1853, became well known as an artist) was a sculptor
as well as a poet, and he designed and worked the figures used in his
charming pieces as marionettes, the words being recited or chanted by
himself or his friends behind the scenes. These miniature dramas on
religious subjects, _Tobie_ (1889), _Noel_ (1890) and _Sainte Cecile_
(1892), were produced in Paris at the Theatre des Marionnettes. A
one-act verse drama by Bouchor, Conte de Noel, was played at the Theatre
Francais in 1895, but _Dieu le veut_ (1888) was not produced. In
conjunction with the musician Julien Tiersot (b. 1857), he made efforts
for the preservation of the French folk-songs, and published _Chants
populaires pour les ecoles_ (1897).
BOUCHOTTE, JEAN BAPTISTE NOEL (1754-1840), French minister, was born at
Metz on the 25th of December 1754. At the outbreak of the Revolution he
was a captain of cavalry, and his zeal led to his being made colonel and
given the command at Cambrai. When Dumouriez delivered up to the
Austrians the minister of war, the marquis de Beurnonville, in April
1793, Bouchotte, who had bravely defended Cambrai, was called by the
Convention to be minister of war, where he remained until the 31st of
March 1794. The predominant role of the Committee of Public Safety
during that period did not leave much scope for the new minister, yet he
rendered some services in the organization of the republican armies, and
chose his officers with insight, among them Kleber, Massena, Moreau and
Bonaparte. During the Thermidorian reaction, in spite of his
incontestable honesty, he was accused by the anti-revolutionists. He was
tried by the tribunal of the Eure-et-Loire and acquitted. Then he
withdrew from politics, and lived in retirement until his death on the
8th of June 1840.