[1] Daunou, "Memoires pour servir a l'hist. de la Convention
Nationale," p. 409, vol. xii. of M. Fr. Barriere, _Bibl. des mem. rel
a l'hist. de la France_, &c. (Paris, 1863).
GIRTIN, THOMAS (1775-1802), English painter and etcher, was the son of a
well-to-do cordage maker in Southwark, London. His father died while
Thomas was a child, and his widow married Mr Vaughan, a
pattern-draughtsman. Girtin learnt drawing as a boy, and was apprenticed
to Edward Doyes (1763-1804), the mezzotint engraver, and he soon made J.
M. W. Turner's acquaintance. His architectural and topographical
sketches and drawings soon established his reputation, his use of
water-colour for landscapes being such as to give him the credit of
having created modern water-colour painting, as opposed to mere
"tinting." His etchings also were characteristic of his artistic genius.
His early death from consumption (9th of November 1802) led indeed to
Turner saying that "had Tom Girtin lived I should have starved." From
1794 to his death he was an exhibitor at the Royal Academy; and some
fine examples of his work have been bequeathed by private owners to the
British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
GIRVAN, a police burgh, market and fishing town of Ayrshire, Scotland,
at the mouth of the Girvan, 21 m. S.W. of Ayr, and 63 m. S.W. of Glasgow
by the Glasgow & South-Western railway. Pop. (1901) 4024. The principal
industry was weaving, but the substitution of the power-loom for the
hand-loom nearly put an end to it. The herring fishery has developed to
considerable proportions, the harbour having been enlarged and protected
by piers and a breakwater. Moreover, the town has grown in repute as a
health and holiday resort, its situation being one of the finest in the
west of Scotland. There is excellent sea-bathing, and a good
golf-course. The vale of Girvan, one of the most fertile tracts in the
shire, is made so by the Water of Girvan, which rises in the loch of
Girvan Eye, pursues a very tortuous course of 36 m. and empties into the
sea. Girvan is the point of communication with Ailsa Craig. About 13 m.
S.W. at the mouth of the Stinchar is the fishing village of Ballantrae
(pop. 511).
GIRY (JEAN MARIE JOSEPH), ARTHUR (1848-1899), French historian, was born
at Trevoux (Ain) on the 29th of February 1848. After rapidly completing
his classical studies at the _lycee_ at Chartres, he spent some time in
the administrative service and in journalism. He then entered the Ecole
des Chartes, where, under the influence of J. Quicherat, he developed a
strong inclination to the study of the middle ages. The lectures at the
Ecole des Hautes Etudes, which he attended from its foundation in 1868,
revealed his true bent; and henceforth he devoted himself almost
entirely to scholarship. He began modestly by the study of the municipal
charters of St Omer. Having been appointed assistant lecturer and
afterwards full lecturer at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes, it was to the
town of St Omer that he devoted his first lectures and his first
important work, _Histoire de la ville de Saint-Omer et de ses
institutions jusqu'au XIV^e siecle_ (1877). He, however, soon realized
that the charters of one town can only be understood by comparing them
with those of other towns, and he was gradually led to continue the work
which Augustin Thierry had broadly outlined in his studies on the _Tiers
Etat_. A minute knowledge of printed books and a methodical examination
of departmental and communal archives furnished him with material for a
long course of successful lectures, which gave rise to some important
works on municipal history and led to a great revival of interest in the
origins and significance of the urban communities in France. Giry
himself published _Les Etablissements de Rouen_ (1883-1885), a study,
based on very minute researches, of the charter granted to the capital
of Normandy by Henry II., king of England, and of the diffusion of
similar charters throughout the French dominions of the Plantagenets; a
collection of _Documents sur les relations de la royaute avec les
villes de France de 1180 a 1314_ (1885); and _Etude sur les origines de
la commune de Saint-Quentin_ (1887).
About this time personal considerations induced Giry to devote the
greater part of his activity to the study of diplomatic, which had been
much neglected at the Ecole des Chartes, but had made great strides in
Germany. As assistant (1883) and successor (1885) to Louis de Mas
Latrie, Giry restored the study of diplomatic, which had been founded in
France by Dom Jean Mabillon, to its legitimate importance. In 1894 he
published his _Manuel de diplomatique_, a monument of lucid and
well-arranged erudition, which contained the fruits of his long
experience of archives, original documents and textual criticism; and
his pupils, especially those at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes, soon caught
his enthusiasm. With their collaboration he undertook the preparation of
an inventory and, subsequently, of a critical edition of the Carolingian
diplomas. By arrangement with E. Muhlbacher and the editors of the
_Monumenta Germaniae historica_, this part of the joint work was
reserved for Giry. Simultaneously with this work he carried on the
publication of the annals of the Carolingian epoch on the model of the
German _Jahrbucher_, reserving for himself the reign of Charles the
Bald. Of this series his pupils produced in his lifetime _Les Derniers
Carolingiens_ (by F. Lot, 1891), _Eudes, comte de Paris et roi de
France_ (by E. Favre, 1893), and _Charles le Simple_ (by Eckel, 1899).
The biographies of Louis IV. and Hugh Capet and the history of the
kingdom of Provence were not published until after his death, and his
own unfinished history of Charles the Bald was left to be completed by
his pupils. The preliminary work on the Carolingian diplomas involved
such lengthy and costly researches that the Academie des Inscriptions et
Belles-Lettres took over the expenses after Giry's death.
In the midst of these multifarious labours Giry found time for extensive
archaeological researches, and made a special study of the medieval
treatises dealing with the technical processes employed in the arts and
industries. He prepared a new edition of the monk Theophilus's
celebrated treatise, _Diversarum artium schedula_, and for several years
devoted his Saturday mornings to laboratory research with the chemist
Aime Girard at the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, the results of
which were utilized by Marcellin Berthelot in the first volume (1894) of
his _Chimie au moyen age_. Giry took an energetic part in the
_Collection de textes relatifs a l'histoire du moyen age_, which was due
in great measure to his initiative. He was appointed director of the
section of French history in _La Grande Encyclopedie_, and contributed
more than a hundred articles, many of which, e.g. "Archives" and
"Diplomatique," were original works. In collaboration with his pupil
Andre Reville, he wrote the chapters on "L'Emancipation des villes, les
communes et les bourgeoisies" and "Le Commerce et l'industrie au moyen
age" for the _Histoire generale_ of Lavisse and Rambaud. Giry took a
keen interest in politics, joining the republican party and writing
numerous articles in the republican newspapers, mainly on historical
subjects. He was intensely interested in the Dreyfus case, but his
robust constitution was undermined by the anxieties and disappointments
occasioned by the Zola trial and the Rennes court-martial, and he died
in Paris on the 13th of November 1899.
For details of Giry's life and works see the funeral orations
published in the _Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Chartes_, and afterwards
in a pamphlet (1899). See also the biography by Ferdinand Lot in the
_Annuaire de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes_ for 1901; and the bibliography
of his works by Henry Maistre in the _Correspondance historique et
archeologique_ (1899 and 1900).
GISBORNE, a seaport of New Zealand, in Cook county, provincial district
of Auckland, on Poverty Bay of the east coast of North Island. Pop.
(1901) 2733; (1906) 5664. Wool, frozen mutton and agricultural produce
are exported from the rich district surrounding. Petroleum has been
discovered in the neighbourhood, and about 40 m. from the town there are
warm medicinal springs. Near the site of Gisborne Captain Cook landed in
1769, and gave Poverty Bay its name from his inability to obtain
supplies owing to the hostility of the natives. Young Nick's Head, the
southern horn of the bay, was named from Nicholas Young, his ship's boy,
who first observed it.
GISLEBERT (or GILBERT) OF MONS (c. 1150-1225), Flemish chronicler,
became a clerk, and obtained the positions of provost of the churches of
St Germanus at Mons and St Alban at Namur, in addition to several other
ecclesiastical appointments. In official documents he is described as
chaplain, chancellor or notary, of Baldwin V., count of Hainaut (d.
1195), who employed him on important business. After 1200 Gislebert
wrote the _Chronicon Hanoniense_, a history of Hainaut and the
neighbouring lands from about 1050 to 1195, which is specially valuable
for the latter part of the 12th century, and for the life and times of
Baldwin V.
The chronicle is published in Band xxi. of the _Monumenta Germaniae
historica_ (Hanover, 1826 fol.); and separately with introduction by
W. Arndt (Hanover, 1869). Another edition has been published by L.
Vanderkindere in the _Recueil de textes pour servir a l'etude de
l'histoire de Belgique_ (Brussels, 1904); and there is a French
translation by G. Menilglaise (Tournai, 1874).
See W. Meyer, _Das Werk des Kanzlers Gislebert von Mons als
verfassungsgeschichtliche Quelle_ (Konigsberg, 1888); K. Huygens, _Sur
la valeur historique de la chronique Gislebert de Mons_ (Ghent, 1889);
and W. Wattenbach, _Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen_, Band ii. (Berlin,
1894).
GISORS, a town of France, in the department of Eure, situated in the
pleasant valley of the Epte, 44. m. N.W. of Paris on the railway to
Dieppe. Pop. (1906) 4345. Gisors is dominated by a feudal stronghold
built chiefly by the kings of England in the 11th and 12th centuries.
The outer enceinte, to which is attached a cylindrical donjon erected by
Philip Augustus, king of France, embraces an area of over 7 acres. On a
mound in the centre of this space rises an older donjon, octagonal in
shape, protected by another enceinte. The outer ramparts and the ground
they enclose have been converted into promenades. The church of St
Gervais dates in its oldest parts--the central tower, the choir and
parts of the aisles--from the middle of the 13th century, when it was
founded by Blanche of Castile. The rest of the church belongs to the
Renaissance period. The Gothic and Renaissance styles mingle in the west
facade, which, like the interior of the building, is adorned with a
profusion of sculptures; the fine carving on the wooden doors of the
north and west portals is particularly noticeable. The less interesting
buildings of the town include a wooden house of the Renaissance era, an
old convent now used as an hotel de ville, and a handsome modern
hospital. There is a statue of General de Blanmont, born at Gisors in
1770. Among the industries of Gisors are felt manufacture, bleaching,
dyeing and leather-dressing.
In the middle ages Gisors was capital of the Vexin. Its position on the
frontier of Normandy caused its possession to be hotly contested by the
kings of England and France during the 12th century, at the end of which
it and the dependent fortresses of Neaufles and Dangu were ceded by
Richard Coeur de Lion to Philip Augustus. During the wars of religion of
the 16th century it was occupied by the duke of Mayenne on behalf of the
League, and in the 17th century, during the Fronde, by the duke of
Longueville. Gisors was given to Charles Auguste Fouquet in 1718 in
exchange for Belle-Ile-en-Mer and made a duchy in 1742. It afterwards
came into the possession of the count of Eu and the duke of Penthievre.
GISSING, GEORGE ROBERT (1857-1903), English novelist, was born at
Wakefield on the 22nd of November 1857. He was educated at the Quaker
boarding-school of Alderley Edge and at Owens College, Manchester. His
life, especially its earlier period, was spent in great poverty, mainly
in London, though he was for a time also in the United States,
supporting himself chiefly by private teaching. He published his first
novel, _Workers in the Dawn_, in 1880. _The Unclassed_ (1884) and
_Isabel Clarendon_ (1886) followed. _Demos_ (1886), a novel dealing with
socialistic ideas, was, however, the first to attract attention. It was
followed by a series of novels remarkable for their pictures of lower
middle class life. Gissing's own experiences had preoccupied him with
poverty and its brutalizing effects on character. He made no attempt at
popular writing, and for a long time the sincerity of his work was
appreciated only by a limited public. Among his more characteristic
novels were: _Thyrza_ (1887), _A Life's Morning_ (1888), _The Nether
World_ (1889), _New Grub Street_ (1891), _Born in Exile_ (1892), _The
Odd Women_ (1893), _In the Year of Jubilee_ (1894), _The Whirlpool_
(1897). Others, e.g. _The Town Traveller_ (1901), indicate a humorous
faculty, but the prevailing note of his novels is that of the struggling
life of the shabby-genteel and lower classes and the conflict between
education and circumstances. The quasi-autobiographical _Private Papers
of Henry Ryecroft_ (1903) reflects throughout Gissing's studious and
retiring tastes. He was a good classical scholar and had a minute
acquaintance with the late Latin historians, and with Italian
antiquities; and his posthumous _Veranilda_ (1904), a historical romance
of Italy in the time of Theodoric the Goth, was the outcome of his
favourite studies. Gissing's powers as a literary critic are shown in
his admirable study on Charles Dickens (1898). A book of travel, _By the
Ionian Sea_, appeared in 1901. He died at St Jean de Luz in the Pyrenees
on the 28th of December 1903.
See also the introductory essay by T. Seccombe to _The House of
Cobwebs_ (1906), a posthumous volume of Gissing's short stories.
GITSCHIN (Czech _Jicin_), a town of Bohemia, Austria, 65 m. N.E. of
Prague by rail. Pop. (1900) 9790, mostly Czech. The parish church was
begun by Wallenstein after the model of the pilgrims' church of Santiago
de Compostela in Spain, but not completed till 1655. The castle, which
stands next to the church, was built by Wallenstein and finished in
1630. It was here that the emperor Francis I. of Austria signed the
treaty of 1813 by which he threw in his lot with the Allies against
Napoleon. Wallenstein was interred at the neighbouring Carthusian
monastery, but in 1639 the head and right hand were taken by General
Baner to Sweden, and in 1702 the other remains were removed by Count
Vincent of Waldstein to his hereditary burying ground at Munchengratz.
Gitschin was originally the village of Zidineves and received its
present name when it was raised to the dignity of a town by Wenceslaus
II. in 1302. The place belonged to various noble Bohemian families, and
in the 17th century came into the hands of Wallenstein, who made it the
capital of the duchy of Friedland and did much to improve and extend it.
His murder, and the miseries of the Thirty Years' War, brought it very
low; and it passed through several hands before it was bought by Prince
Trauttmannsdorf, to whose family it still belongs. On the 29th of June
1866 the Prussians gained here a great victory over the Austrians. This
victory made possible the junction of the first and second Prussian army
corps, and had as an ultimate result the Austrian defeat at Koniggratz.
GIUDICI, PAOLO EMILIANO (1812-1872), Italian writer, was born in Sicily.
His _History of Italian Literature_ (1844) brought him to the front, and
in 1848 he became professor of Italian literature at Pisa, but after a
few months was deprived of the chair on account of his liberal views in
politics. On the re-establishment of the Italian kingdom he became
professor of aesthetics (resigning 1862) and secretary of the Academy of
Fine Arts at Florence, and in 1867 was elected to the chamber of
deputies. He held a prominent place as an historian, his works including
a _Storia del teatro_ (1860), and _Storia dei comuni italiani_ (1861),
besides a translation of Macaulay's _History of England_ (1856). He died
at Tonbridge in England, on the 8th of September 1872.
A _Life_ appeared at Florence in 1874.
GIULIO ROMANO, or GIULIO PIPPI (c. 1492-1546), the head of the Roman
school of painting in succession to Raphael. This prolific painter,
modeller, architect and engineer receives his common appellation from
the place of his birth--Rome, in the Macello de' Corbi. His name in full
was Giulio di Pietro de Filippo de' Giannuzzi--Giannuzzi being the true
family name, and Pippi (which has practically superseded Giannuzzi)
being an abbreviation from the name of his grandfather Filippo. The date
of Giulio's birth is a little uncertain. Vasari (who knew him
personally) speaks of him as fifty-four years old at the date of his
death, 1st November 1546; thus he would have been born in 1492. Other
accounts assign 1498 as the date of birth. This would make Giulio young
indeed in the early and in such case most precocious stages of his
artistic career, and would show him as dying, after an infinity of hard
work, at the comparatively early age of forty-eight.
Giulio must at all events have been quite youthful when he first became
the pupil of Raphael, and at Raphael's death in 1520 he was at the
utmost twenty-eight years of age. Raphael had loved him as a son, and
had employed him in some leading works, especially in the Loggie of the
Vatican; the series there popularly termed "Raphael's Bible" is done in
large measure by Giulio,--as for instance the subjects of the "Creation
of Adam and Eve," "Noah's Ark," and "Moses in the Bulrushes." In the
saloon of the "Incendio del Borgo," also, the figures of "Benefactors of
the Church" (Charlemagne, &c.) are Giulio's handiwork. It would appear
that in subjects of this kind Raphael simply furnished the design, and
committed the execution of it to some assistant, such as Giulio,--taking
heed, however, to bring it up, by final retouching, to his own standard
of style and type. Giulio at a later date followed out exactly the same
plan; so that in both instances inferiorities of method, in the general
blocking-out and even in the details of the work, are not to be
precisely charged upon the _caposcuola_. Amid the multitude of Raphael's
pupils, Giulio was eminent in pursuing his style, and showed universal
aptitude; he did, among other things, a large amount of architectural
planning for his chief. Raphael bequeathed to Giulio, and to his
fellow-pupil Gianfrancesco Penni ("Il Fattore"), his implements and
works of art; and upon them it devolved to bring to completion the vast
fresco-work of the "Hall of Constantine" in the Vatican--consisting,
along with much minor matter, of the four large subjects, the "Battle of
Constantine," the "Apparition of the Cross," the "Baptism of
Constantine" and the "Donation of Rome to the Pope." The two former
compositions were executed by Pippi, the two latter by Penni. The whole
of this onerous undertaking was completed within a period of only three
years,--which is the more remarkable as, during some part of the
interval since Raphael's decease, the Fleming, Adrian VI., had been
pope, and his anti-aesthetic pontificate had left art and artists almost
in a state of inanition. Clement VII. had now, however, succeeded to the
popedom. By this time Giulio was regarded as the first painter in Rome;
but his Roman career was fated to have no further sequel.
Towards the end of 1524 his friend the celebrated writer Baldassar
Castiglione seconded with success the urgent request of the duke of
Mantua, Federigo Gonzaga, that Giulio should migrate to that city, and
enter the duke's service for the purpose of carrying out his projects in
architecture and pictorial decoration. These projects were already
considerable, and under Giulio's management they became far more
extensive still. The duke treated his painter munificently as to house,
table, horses and whatever was in request; and soon a very cordial
attachment sprang up between them. In Pippi's multifarious work in
Mantua three principal undertakings should be noted. (1) In the Castello
he painted the "History of Troy," along with other subjects. (2) In the
suburban ducal residence named the Palazzo del Te (this designation
being apparently derived from the form of the roads which led towards
the edifice) he rapidly carried out a rebuilding on a vastly enlarged
scale,--the materials being brick and terra-cotta, as there is no local
stone,--and decorated the rooms with his most celebrated works in oil
and fresco painting--the story of Psyche, Icarus, the fall of the
Titans, and the portraits of the ducal horses and hounds. The foreground
figures of Titans are from 12 to 14 ft. high; the room, even in its
structural details, is made to subserve the general artistic purpose,
and many of its architectural features are distorted accordingly.
Greatly admired though these pre-eminent works have always been, and at
most times even more than can now be fully ratified, they have suffered
severely at the hands of restorers, and modern eyes see them only
through a dull and deadening fog of renovation. The whole of the work on
the Palazzo del Te, which is of the Doric order of architecture,
occupied about five years. (3) Pippi recast and almost rebuilt the
cathedral of Mantua; erected his own mansion, replete with numerous
antiques and other articles of vertu; reconstructed the street
architecture to a very large extent, and made the city, sapped as it is
by the shallows of the Mincio, comparatively healthy; and at Marmiruolo,
some 5 m. distant from Mantua, he worked out other important buildings
and paintings. He was in fact, for nearly a quarter of a century, a sort
of Demiurgus of the arts of design in the Mantuan territory.
Giulio's activity was interrupted but not terminated by the death of
Duke Federigo. The duke's brother, a cardinal who became regent,
retained him in full employment. For a while he went to Bologna, and
constructed the facade of the church of S. Petronio in that city. He was
afterwards invited to succeed Antonio Sangallo as architect of St
Peter's in Rome,--a splendid appointment, which, notwithstanding the
strenuous opposition of his wife and of the cardinal regent, he had
almost resolved to accept, when a fever overtook him, and, acting upon a
constitution somewhat enfeebled by worry and labour, caused his death on
the 1st of November 1546. He was buried in the church of S. Barnaba in
Mantua. At the time of his death Giulio enjoyed an annual income of more
than 1000 ducats, accruing from the liberalities of his patrons. He left
a widow, and a son and daughter. The son, named Raffaello, studied
painting, but died before he could produce any work of importance; the
daughter, Virginia, married Ercole Malatesta.
Wide and solid knowledge of design, combined with a promptitude of
composition that was never at fault, formed the chief motive power and
merit of Giulio Romano's art. Whatever was wanted, he produced it at
once, throwing off, as Vasari says, a large design in an hour; and he
may in that sense, though not equally so when an imaginative or ideal
test is applied, be called a great inventor. It would be difficult to
name any other artist who, working as an architect, and as the plastic
and pictorial embellisher of his architecture, produced a total of work
so fully and homogeneously his own; hence he has been named "the prince
of decorators." He had great knowledge of the human frame, and
represented it with force and truth, though sometimes with an excess of
movement; he was also learned in other matters, especially in medals,
and in the plans of ancient buildings. In design he was more strong and
emphatic than graceful, and worked a great deal from his accumulated
stores of knowledge, without consulting nature direct. As a general
rule, his designs are finer and freer than his paintings, whether in
fresco or in oil--his easel pictures being comparatively few, and some
of them the reverse of decent; his colouring is marked by an excess of
blackish and heavy tints.
Giulio Romano introduced the style of Raphael into Mantua, and
established there a considerable school of art, which surpassed in
development that of his predecessor Mantegna, and almost rivalled that
of Rome. Very many engravings--more than three hundred are
mentioned--were made contemporaneously from his works; and this not only
in Italy, but in France and Flanders as well. His plan of entrusting
principally to assistants the pictorial execution of his cartoons has
already been referred to; Primaticcio was one of the leading coadjutors.
Rinaldo Mantovano, a man of great ability who died young, was the chief
executant of the "Fall of the Giants"; he also co-operated with
Benedetto Pagni da Pescia in painting the remarkable series of horses
and hounds, and the story of Psyche. Another pupil was Fermo Guisoni,
who remained settled in Mantua. The oil pictures of Giulio Romano are
not generally of high importance; two leading ones are the "Martyrdom of
Stephen," in the church of that saint in Genoa, and a "Holy Family" in
the Dresden Gallery. Among his architectural works not already mentioned
is the Villa Madama in Rome, with a fresco of Polyphemus, and boys and
satyrs; the Ionic facade of this building may have been sketched out by
Raphael.
Vasari gives a pleasing impression of the character of Giulio. He was
very loving to his friends, genial, affable, well-bred, temperate in the
pleasures of the table, but liking fine apparel and a handsome scale of
living. He was good-looking, of middle height, with black curly hair and
dark eyes, and an ample beard; his portrait, painted by himself, is in
the Louvre.
Besides Vasari, Lanzi and other historians of art, the following works
may be mentioned: C. D. Arco, _Vita di G. Pippi_ (1828); G. C. von
Murr, _Notice sur les estampes gravees apres dessins de Jules Romain_
(1865); R. Sanzio, two works on _Etchings and Paintings_ (1800, 1836).
(W. M. R.)
GIUNTA PISANO, the earliest Italian painter whose name is found
inscribed on an extant work. He is said to have exercised his art from
1202 to 1236. He may perhaps have been born towards 1180 in Pisa, and
died in or soon after 1236; but other accounts give 1202 as the date of
his birth, and 1258 or thereabouts for his death. There is some ground
for thinking that his family name was Capiteno. The inscribed work above
referred to, one of his earliest, is a "Crucifix," long in the kitchen
of the convent of St Anne in Pisa. Other Pisan works of like date are
very barbarous, and some of them may be also from the hand of Giunta. It
is said that he painted in the upper church of Assisi,--in especial a
"Crucifixion" dated 1236, with a figure of Father Elias, the general of
the Franciscans, embracing the foot of the cross. In the sacristy is a
portrait of St Francis, also ascribed to Giunta; but it more probably
belongs to the close of the 13th century. He was in the practice of
painting upon cloth stretched on wood, and prepared with plaster.
GIURGEVO (_Giurgiu_), the capital of the department of Vlashca, Rumania;
situated amid mud-flats and marshes on the left bank of the Danube. Pop.
(1900) 13,977. Three small islands face the town, and a larger one
shelters its port, Smarda, 2-1/2 m. E. The rich corn-lands on the north
are traversed by a railway to Bucharest, the first line opened in
Rumania, which was built in 1869 and afterwards extended to Smarda.
Steamers ply to Rustchuk, 2-1/2 m. S.W. on the Bulgarian shore, linking
the Rumanian railway system to the chief Bulgarian line north of the
Balkans (Rustchuk-Varna). Thus Giurgevo, besides having a considerable
trade with the home ports lower down the Danube, is the headquarters of
commerce between Bulgaria and Rumania. It exports timber, grain, salt
and petroleum; importing coal, iron and textiles. There are also large
saw-mills.
Giurgevo occupies the site of Theodorapolis, a city built by the Roman
emperor Justinian (A.D. 483-565). It was founded in the 14th century by
Genoese merchant adventurers, who established a bank, and a trade in
silks and velvets. They called the town, after the patron saint of
Genoa, San Giorgio (St George); and hence comes its present name. As a
fortified town, Giurgevo figured often in the wars for the conquest of
the lower Danube; especially in the struggle of Michael the Brave
(1593-1601) against the Turks, and in the later Russo-Turkish Wars. It
was burned in 1659. In 1829, its fortifications were finally razed, the
only defence left being a castle on the island of Slobosia, united to
the shore by a bridge.
GIUSTI, GIUSEPPE (1809-1850), Tuscan satirical poet, was born at
Monsummano, a small village of the Valdinievole, on the 12th of May
1809. His father, a cultivated and rich man, accustomed his son from
childhood to study, and himself taught him, among other subjects, the
first rudiments of music. Afterwards, in order to curb his too vivacious
disposition, he placed the boy under the charge of a priest near the
village, whose severity did perhaps more evil than good. At twelve
Giusti was sent to school at Florence, and afterwards to Pistoia and to
Lucca; and during those years he wrote his first verses. In 1826 he went
to study law at Pisa; but, disliking the study, he spent eight years in
the course, instead of the customary four. He lived gaily, however,
though his father kept him short of money, and learned to know the
world, seeing the vices of society, and the folly of certain laws and
customs from which his country was suffering. The experience thus gained
he turned to good account in the use he made of it in his satire.
His father had in the meantime changed his place of abode to Pescia; but
Giuseppe did worse there, and in November 1832, his father having paid
his debts, he returned to study at Pisa, seriously enamoured of a woman
whom he could not marry, but now commencing to write in real earnest in
behalf of his country. With the poem called _La Ghigliottina_ (the
guillotine), Giusti began to strike out a path for himself, and thus
revealed his great genius. From this time he showed himself the Italian
Beranger, and even surpassed the Frenchman in richness of language,
refinement of humour and depth of satirical conception. In Beranger
there is more feeling for what is needed for popular poetry. His poetry
is less studied, its vivacity perhaps more boisterous, more spontaneous;
but Giusti, in both manner and conception, is perhaps more elegant, more
refined, more penetrating. In 1834 Giusti, having at last entered the
legal profession, left Pisa to go to Florence, nominally to practise
with the advocate Capoquadri, but really to enjoy life in the capital of
Tuscany. He fell seriously in love a second time, and as before was
abandoned by his love. It was then he wrote his finest verses, by means
of which, although his poetry was not yet collected in a volume, but for
some years passed from hand to hand, his name gradually became famous.
The greater part of his poems were published clandestinely at Lugano, at
no little risk, as the work was destined to undermine the Austrian rule
in Italy. After the publication of a volume of verses at Bastia, Giusti
thoroughly established his fame by his _Gingillino_, the best in moral
tone as well as the most vigorous and effective of his poems. The poet
sets himself to represent the vileness of the treasury officials, and
the base means they used to conceal the necessities of the state. The
_Gingillino_ has all the character of a classic satire. When first
issued in Tuscany, it struck all as too impassioned and personal. Giusti
entered heart and soul into the political movements of 1847 and 1848,
served in the national guard, sat in the parliament for Tuscany; but
finding that there was more talk than action, that to the tyranny of
princes had succeeded the tyranny of demagogues, he began to fear, and
to express the fear, that for Italy evil rather than good had resulted.
He fell, in consequence, from the high position he had held in public
estimation, and in 1848 was regarded as a reactionary. His friendship
for the marquis Gino Capponi, who had taken him into his house during
the last years of his life, and who published after Giusti's death a
volume of illustrated proverbs, was enough to compromise him in the eyes
of such men as Guerrazzi, Montanelli and Niccolini. On the 31st of May
1850 he died at Florence in the palace of his friend.
The poetry of Giusti, under a light trivial aspect, has a lofty
civilizing significance. The type of his satire is entirely original,
and it had also the great merit of appearing at the right moment, of
wounding judiciously, of sustaining the part of the comedy that
"castigat ridendo mores." Hence his verse, apparently jovial, was
received by the scholars and politicians of Italy in all seriousness.
Alexander Manzoni in some of his letters showed a hearty admiration of
the genius of Giusti; and the weak Austrian and Bourbon governments
regarded them as of the gravest importance.
His poems have often been reprinted, the best editions being those of
Le Monnier, Carducci (1859; 3rd ed., 1879), Fioretti (1876) and Bragi
(1890). Besides the poems and the proverbs already mentioned, we have
a volume of select letters, full of vigour and written in the best
Tuscan language, and a fine critical discourse on Giuseppe Parini, the
satirical poet. In some of his compositions the elegiac rather than
the satirical poet is seen. Many of his verses have been excellently
translated into German by Paul Heyse. Good English translations were
published in the _Athenaeum_ by Mrs T. A. Trollope, and some by W. D.
Howells are in his _Modern Italian Poets_ (1887).
GIUSTINIANI, the name of a prominent Italian family which originally
belonged to Venice, but established itself subsequently in Genoa also,
and at various times had representatives in Naples, Corsica and several
of the islands of the Archipelago.