Barthelemy, Nicolas To Bembine Table (Renaissance and Reformation)

Barthelemy, Nicolas

(1478-c. 1540) French Benedictine monk and writer

Barthelemy was born at Loches, near Tours, and became prior of Freteval, near Vendome, and later of Notre-Dame-de-Bonne-Nouvelle, Orleans. He studied law at Orleans university and was a friend of bude. Among his poems in Latin were Epigrammata et eydillia (1532), and his drama Christus Xylonicus (1529) combined elements of the humanist approach to tragedy with aspects of the vernacular mystery plays. He is also known for having influenced rabelais. His biographies of two dukes of Orleans, Charles the poet (1394-1465) and his son, later King louis xii, have survived in manuscript.

Bartolommeo, Fra (Baccio della Porta)

(1472-1517) Italian painter and draftsman

Born in Florence, Bartolommeo trained as an artist under Cosimo rosselli before joining the convent of San Marco and coming under the influence of its prior savonarola. Early works from this period include the Annunciation (1497; Volterra cathedral) and the Last Judgment (1499; Museo di San Marco). After Savonarola’s death Bartolom-meo joined the Dominican Order (1500) and gave up painting until 1504, when he became head of the monastery workshop at San Marco. Works from this period, such as Vision of St. Bernard (1507; Accademia, Florence) and God the Father with SS. Catherine of Siena and Mary Magdalene (1509; Pinacoteca Civica, Lucca), show the influences of Giovanni Bellini and Leonardo da Vinci and served to establish Bartolommeo as the foremost painter in Florence by 1510. His control of color and composition is evident in many of his subsequent works, including The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine (1511; versions in Louvre, Paris and Uffizi, Florence) and his Pietd (1515; Palazzo Pitti, Florence). His later paintings were also influenced by the works of Raphael and Michelangelo. He also executed many notable drawings, for instance in his sketchbook, now in Rotterdam.


Basle (Basel, French Bale)

A Swiss city on the Rhine, close to the French and German borders. First mentioned in 374, Basle became the seat of a bishopric in the fifth century and was the venue of the ecumenical council (1431-49) (see basle, council of). erasmus taught at Basle university (1521-29) and is buried in the city. During the first half of the 16th century Basle, which from at least as early as 1468 had boasted a printing press, became a focus for humanist learning and the Reformation. In 1522 oecolampadius persuaded the Basle magistrates that the Church should be reformed. After a popular rising, government of the city passed from the bishop to the magistrates and the Mass was abolished. Basle became an important center of Protestantism, welcoming calvin in the 1530s. Notable buildings from the Renaissance period include the 15th-century St. Paul’s Gate, the Munster (1019-1528), the town hall (1504-21), and the church of St. Martin.

Basle, Confessions of The earliest reformed confessions of faith, comprising the Basle Confession of 1534 (sometimes called the Confession of Muhlhausen) and the First Helvetic Confession of 1536 (sometimes called the Second Confession of basle). In 1529, under the guidance of the Zwinglian reformer, oecolampadius, Basle broke with Rome and joined zwingli’s Christian Civic Alliance. The (first) Basle Confession was written by Oswald Myconius (1488-1552) but based on the work of Oecolampadius, and is a confession of moderate Zwinglianism, fully endorsing Zwingli’s view of Scripture. It held its place in the Church of Basle until 1872. The First Helvetic Confession was compiled by Heinrich bullinger and, though also essentially Zwinglian, a Lutheran influence can be detected.

Basle, Council of

A council of the Church that sat intermittently between 1431 and 1449. The calling of this council was urged upon Pope Martin V by Emperor Sigis-mund in the hope of making some kind of settlement with the hussites. This resulted in the drawing up in July 1436 of the Compacts of Prague, by the terms of which the Bohemians and Moravians were granted a considerable amount of ecclesiastical independence in return for oaths of fealty to Sigismund. With their legal recognition of divergent practices within Christendom, the Compacts marked a significant change in the Church’s policy.

Even before the Compacts were drawn up, relations between the papacy and the council were not good. To thwart the council’s attempts to restrict papal authority, Pope eugenius iv ordered the transfer of the council from Basle to first (1437) Ferrara, then Florence, and finally (1443) Rome (see florence, council of). Only a small minority of those sitting on the council at Basle accepted this; the majority, declaring the Council’s authority superior to that of the pope, remained at Basle and began the proceedings that led to Eugenius’s socalled excommunication and deposition and the election of an antipope, Felix V in 1439. These moves lost the council many supporters, and a lasting schism was avoided when the council submitted to Rome by securing the abdication of Felix, following the death of Eugenius (1447) and the election of nicholas v. The dissolution of the council in 1449 marked the end of the "conciliar period," which left a lasting papal suspicion of Church councils.

Bassano, Jacopo da Ponte

(1510/19-92) Italian painter The son of Francesco da Ponte the Elder (c. 1475-1539), Jacopo was born in Bassano and studied first under his father and then under Bonifacio Veneziano (de’ Pitati) in nearby Venice. There contact with the paintings of titian stimulated in him the feeling for color and light that is characteristic of much of his work. From the 1530s he worked mainly in Bassano. His style changed continually according to changing influences and around 1540 he adopted a mannerist style with graceful attenuation of figures, as in his Adoration of the Magi (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna). This painting was one of a number which included peasants and animals; Bassano was one of the first painters of religious scenes to do this. The large rustic genre scenes that he produced after 1565 were also innovatory. Bassano’s four sons included the painters Francesco the Younger (1549-92) and Leandro (1557-1622).

Batalha (Portuguese, "Battle")

The usual name of the Dominican abbey of Sta. Maria da Vitoria about 100 miles north of Lisbon. It was founded in 1388 to commemorate the victory of the Portuguese under John I over the Castil-ians at nearby Aljubarrota (1385), a victory that secured Portugal’s independence from Spain. Built over a 150-year period, Batalha in its earliest parts is Gothic in style, the work of one Master Huguet, who was possibly an English architect brought to Portugal by John I’s English wife Philippa of Lancaster. Its socalled "Unfinished Chapels" are dazzling 16th-century masterpieces in the manueline style.

Bathory, Elisabeth (Countess Nadasdy)

(1560-1614) Hungarian murderess and vampire

Beautiful and rich, Bathory married Count Ferenc Nadasdy at age 15. At her castle of Csejthe in the Carpathian Mountains, she was bored during his absences on military campaigns and began indulging her sexual and sadistic fantasies, dabbling in black magic and alchemy. After her husband’s death (1604), and fearful that her famous beauty was fading, the countess sought an elixir of youth by drinking and bathing in the blood of young peasant women, procured by her acolyte Dorotta Szentes. By 1609 seeking higher-born victims, she established an academy for daughters of the nobility. When four of these girls were found murdered in 1610, Emperor Matthias had Szentes burnt at the stake. As an aristocrat Bathory could not be tried, but was condemned to be walled up in her castle, fed on scraps passed through a hatch. She died four years later. All public accounts of her crimes were banned until Michael Wagener’s Beitrage zur philosophischen An-thropologie (1796).

Baudart, Willem

(1565-1640) Dutch scholar and reformed minister

Baudart was born at Deinze, near Ghent, but his parents fled from religious persecution to England, and he was educated at Sandwich and Canterbury. In 1577 the family returned to Flanders. Baudart studied at Leyden, Franeker in Friesland, Heidelberg, and Bremen, and became proficient in Hebrew and Greek. He returned to his native country in 1593 and filled posts at Kampen and Zutphen. In 1619 he was chosen as one of the translators of the Old Testament for the Dutch Bible commissioned by the Synod of dort. He retired to Leyden in 1626. Among his works were an index to the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin Bibles (1596) and a history of the Dutch war of liberation. His Morgenwecker (1610) was one of the most eloquent tracts written against the truce with Spain negotiated by olden-barneveldt in 1609.

Bauhin, Gaspard

(1560-1624) Swiss-born botanist and anatomist

His father, a doctor, had become a Protestant and been forced by religious persecution to leave his native Amiens. Bauhin’s textbooks of anatomy (1588-1605) supplemented vesalius’s illustrations, but in spite of his nomenclature of muscles, which is still used, his botanical books, Phytopinax (1596), Prodromos theatri botanici (1620), and Pinax (1623) are better known. The last, a concordance of the various names of about 6000 plants, remained an essential tool for at least 150 years. His descriptions classified related plants into genera and species, although his Theatrum botanicum remained unpublished, except for a first instalment edited by his son in 1658. His elder brother, Jean Bauhin (1541-1613), was also a physician and a botanist and one of the pupils of Konrad gesner. Historia plantarum universalis, posthumously published (1650-51) by his son-in-law, Jean-Henri Cherler, attempted to reconstruct Gesner’s unfinished Historia plan-tarum.

Bayer, Johann

(1572-1625) German astronomer A Protestant lawyer from Augsburg, Bayer made a lasting contribution to astronomy in his Uranometria (1603), in which he identified stars by assigning letters of the Greek alphabet to them, in order of brightness. Under this system Aldebaran, previously described as the star in the southern eye of Taurus, became a Tauri. He was, however, less successful with his attempts to reform the names of constellations. His posthumously published Coelum stella-tum christianum (1627) proposed replacing their heathen names with biblical ones, but scholars continued to prefer such traditional names as Cassiopeia and Argo to his suggested Mary Magdalen and Noah’s Ark.

Beaufort, Lady Margaret

(1443-1509) Countess of Richmond and Derby; English noblewoman, translator, and patron of printers Herself descended from Edward III, she was, by her first marriage (to Edmund Tudor), mother of Henry VII of England, to whom she gave birth at age 14. After Henry, with her support, obtained the throne in 1485, Lady Margaret retired to a life of study and charitable work. She established the Lady Margaret professorships of divinity at Oxford and Cambridge universities (1501), supported the foundation of Christ’s College, Cambridge (begun 1505), and left an endowment to the newly founded St. John’s College. Highly intelligent and an avid reader, she studied medicine, theology, and literature. She translated various religious texts from French, including The Mirroure of Golde for the Sinfull Soule (1522), and book four of Kempis’s Imitatio Christi (1504); she also commissioned other translations from Latin, publishing them at her own expense. In so doing, she promoted the work of the printers William caxton, Wynkyn de Worde, and Richard Pynson.

Beaumont, Francis

(c. 1584-1616) English dramatist Born into an old established Leicestershire family, Francis was the younger brother of the poet Sir John Beaumont (1583-1627), who is remembered chiefly as an early exponent of the heroic couplet in English in such poems as the mock-heroic Metamorphosis of Tobacco (1602) and the narrative Bosworth-Field (1629). Francis followed John to Oxford (1597) and the Inner Temple (1600). In London he met and became the disciple of Ben jonson; it may have been through Jonson that Beaumont met John fletcher, who became his close friend and with whom he collaborated in the writing of plays from about 1606. Beaumont’s best-known independent poem is the Ovidian Salmacis and Hermaphroditus (1602).

The first collected edition of the works of Beaumont and Fletcher appeared in 1647 and contained 34 plays and a masque; the 1679 edition raises the number to 52 plays and the masque. Scholars have disentangled the style of each dramatist so that it is possible to say with some confidence which works are truly collaborative efforts, which solely or mainly by Beaumont, and which by Fletcher alone or with a third party. Among the plays generally thought to be by Beaumont is The Knight of the Burning Pestle, a burlesque of knight-errantry written about 1609 and published in 1613; The Maid’s Tragedy, written in 1611 and first printed in 1619, and Philaster, written in 1611 and printed in 1620, are two of the most successful products of the collaboration. Beaumont alone is thought to have written (1613) The Masque of the Inner Temple.

Beccadelli, Antonio

(1394-1471) Italian poet Born in Palermo (Latin: Panormus), the town from which he took his nom-de-plume, "Il Panormita," Beccadelli studied law and classical poetry in several northern Italian cities (1420-34). In 1425 he published a Latin poem that brought him immediate notoriety: Hermaphroditus, explicitly extolling homosexual love with a scandalous nonchalance. Copies of the poem, together with portraits of Beccadelli, were publicly burned. However, others hailed it as a masterpiece, Cosimo de’ Medici accepted the dedication of the poem, and Beccadelli’s undoubted scholarship and skill gained him the post of court poet at Pavia, which he held until he returned to Naples. There he founded (1442) the Academia Pontaniana (see neapolitan academy). He spent the rest of his life as a respected servant of alfonso i ("the Magnanimous"), for whom he composed De dictis et de factis Alphonsi regis (1455), later to become the chief source of the legend of that monarch’s magnanimity.

Beccafumi, Domenico

(c. 1486-1551) Italian painter Born near Siena, the son of a peasant named di Pace, Domenico took the name of his patron, Lorenzo Becca-fumi. His studies took place in Siena and Rome. Returning to Siena in 1512, he worked on the decoration of the facade of the Palazzo Borghese and produced a mosaic for the church of San Bernardino (1517) and 35 biblical scenes for the marble pavement of the cathedral. In 1541 he went to Genoa where he painted a fresco, now lost, for Andrea doria, but he then spent the rest of his life in Siena, where he was the most important mannerist painter. His Birth of the Virgin (1543; Pinacoteca, Siena) is a characteristic example of his mannerist style, with its elongated and foreshortened forms and its contrasts of light and dark. He also produced some sculpture, such as the bronze angels for the cathedral (c. 1548). His decoration of the ceiling of the Palazzo Bindi Sergardi anticipated the erotic tendencies of 16th-century mannerism.

Beck, Leonhard

(c. 1480-1542) German painter and woodcut designer

The son of an Augsburg manuscript illuminator, Beck was apprenticed to holbein the elder in 1495, became his assistant, and was registered as an independent master in 1503. His early style was close to that of his master, although he was subsequently influenced by Hans burgk-mair and Jorg Breu. Beck was involved with Hans Schaufelein, Breu, and Burgkmair on the large cycles of woodcuts known as the Theuerdank and Weisskunig, commissioned by Emperor Maximilian I. Unaided, he designed the 123 woodcuts of saints in another of Maximilian’s commissions, the Sipp-, Mag-, und Schwager-schaften. A series of chalk drawings of considerable force, portraying Augsburg artists and dated 1502-15, has also been attributed to Beck. His later portraits are often confused with those of his son-in-law and pupil, Christoph amberger.

Belgic Confession

(1561) Articles of faith drawn up in French by Guy de Bres, aided by Hadrian a saravia, for the Walloon and Flemish reformed churches. It was based on the gallican confession of 1559. Dutch, German, and Latin translations were made; between 1566 and 1581 it was accepted by synods at Antwerp, Wesel, Emden, Dort, and Middelburg, and again by the major Synod of dort in 1619. Less polemical than its predecessor, it was the best statement of Continental Calvinist doctrine; an English version was adopted by the reformed church of America.

Bellano, Bartolommeo

(c. 1440-96/97) Italian sculptor Born at Padua, the son of a goldsmith, Bellano is first documented in 1456 as an assistant to donatello in Florence. By 1463 he was probably assisting Donatello with the bronze reliefs for the pulpits of San Lorenzo as his style is discernible in the angular chiseling of several panels. In 1467 he was in Perugia, making a statue of Pope Paul II, and vasari claims that he served the pope in Rome too; nevertheless, by 1468 Bellano had settled again in Padua. He executed a marble revetment for the reliquary chest of St. Anthony of Padua in the sacristy of the basilica (1469-72): the panel of the Miracle of the Mule is characteristic of his angular and linear style of marble carving. Between 1484 and 1488 he produced his masterpiece, a cycle of 10 bronze reliefs of Old Testament stories for the interior of the basilica choir enclosure. 

Belleau, Remy

(1528-1577) French scholar and poet Belleau, who was born at Nogent-le-Rotrou, gained first the patronage of the Abbe de Choiseul and later that of Charles IX and Henry III. After taking part in the French campaign against Naples (1557), he settled at Joinville as tutor and counsellor to the guise family. There he found inspiration for his popular pastoral in verse and prose, La Bergerie (1565-72). Described as a "painter of nature" by ronsard, his erstwhile associate at the College de Co-queret, Belleau was renowned for detailed descriptions that won him the reputation of a poetic miniaturist. He also wrote some didactic verse, a commentary on precious stones and their virtues, and La Reconnue (1557), an unfinished comedy in verse, but it was his translation of Anacreon’s Odes (1556) that won him membership of the pleiade. He died in Paris.

Bellegambe, Jean

(c. 1470-c. 1535) Flemish painter Probably a native of Douai, then in the Spanish Netherlands, Bellegambe was a follower of Simon Marmion (active 1449-89) and became the foremost history painter in Flanders at that time, combining elements of Flemish and French art in his own work. He may also have been influenced by several other artists of northern Europe, notably Quentin metsys. Bellegambe’s works include a polyptych (c. 1511; Notre Dame, Douai), two altar wings depicting the glorification of the Virgin (1526; Notre Dame, Douai), and an Adoration of Infant Christ (1528). Also the designer of buildings, furniture, frames, and embroidery, Bel-legambe was idolized in Douai.

Belli, Valerio

(c. 1486-1546) Italian gem engraver, medalist, and goldsmith

Belli was born in Vicenza but spent much of his career in Rome where he worked for Pope Clement VII and his successor Paul III. He produced around 50 medals portraying idealized figures from antiquity. He was a member of artistic and literary circles which included Michelangelo and the humanist Pietro Bembo.

Bellini, Giovanni

(c. 1430-1516) Italian painter The son of the artist Jacopo bellini, Giovanni trained in his father’s workshop alongside his brother Gentile Bellini (c. 1429-1507) and was the brother-in-law of mantegna, whose influence is clear on Giovanni’s early works. He worked with Gentile on several large narrative cycles and at an early stage showed his skill as a draftsman in a number of small devotional pieces, notably in his versions of the Pietd. Many of these early paintings, such as the Agony in the Garden (1465; National Gallery, London), use settings of natural landscapes and demonstrate Giovanni’s masterly handling of light and color. In 1483 he became state painter to the Venetian republic, a post he retained until his death. In this capacity he executed paintings in the doge’s palace (destroyed by fire in 1577) and was commissioned for several major portraits, including the Doge Leonardo Loredan (1501; National Gallery, London).

Important altarpieces by Giovanni include that for the church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo in Venice, influenced by antonello da messina, from which stemmed the sacre conversazioni for San Giobbe (c. 1483-85) and San Zac-caria (1505). His later works include the secular paintings the Feast of the Gods (c. 1514; National Gallery, Washington), painted for Alfonso d’Este, and his only known female nude, the Toilet of Venus (1515; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna). Other works include many versions of the Virgin and Child, a Transfiguration (c. 1480; Frick College, New York), and the Sacred Allegory (c. 1500; Uffizi, Florence; see Plate II).

Giovanni established Venice as an artistic center on a level with Florence and Rome and was the teacher of such pupils as giorgione, titian, palma vecchio, and sebas-tiano del piombo. He also exerted considerable influence over succeeding artistic schools through his development of the use of pure oil color as opposed to the use of tempera.

Bellini, Jacopo

(c. 1400-c. 1471) Italian painter The father of the artists Gentile Bellini (c. 1429-1507) and Giovanni bellini and the father-in-law of Andrea man-tegna, Jacopo was born in Venice and was a pupil of gentile de fabriano. After visiting Florence and being exposed to the works of other leading Italian artists, Ja-copo returned to Venice and by 1429 was established as the pre-eminent painter there. Very few paintings certainly by him survive and are all executed in a stiff Venetian Gothic style; those that are signed include Virgin and Child (Accademia, Venice), Christ on the Cross (Museo Civico, Verona), and two Madonnas (Lovere and Brera, Milan). Ja-copo is best known, however, for his two surviving sketchbooks (Louvre, Paris and British Museum, London) containing many experimental drawings and designs that were later adapted by his sons in their own works. He received many commissions for religious works in Venice and Padua and in 1441 he triumphed over pisanello in a competition to execute the portrait (now lost) of the ruler of Ferrara, Leonello d’Este. The master of a flourishing workshop, he died in Venice.

Belon, Pierre

(1517-1564) French zoologist Although born into a poor family at Le Mans, Belon was allowed to pursue his education at the university of Paris through the support of his local bishop. He was further enabled to develop his interests in natural history by the patronage of the wealthy Cardinal Tournon and the later backing of francis i, with whose financial support he traveled through much of Europe and the Near East. He revealed the results of his researches in two works. In the first, La nature et diversite des poissons (1551), he described 110 species of marine animals. Like Guillaume rondelet, Belon used the term fish to cover virtually all animals found in the sea; it was even allowed to include the hyena! Belon also published an early ornithological work, L’Histoire de la nature des oyseaux (1555). He died at the hands of a highwayman in the Bois de Boulogne.

Pierre Belon A woodcut of a wading bird made by Pierre Goudet (Gourdelle) for Belon's L'Histoire de la nature des oyseaux (1555).

Pierre Belon A woodcut of a wading bird made by Pierre Goudet (Gourdelle) for Belon’s L’Histoire de la nature des oyseaux (1555).

Bembine Table

An inscribed bronze table-top made in Rome in the first century ad and excavated in the 1520s from the ruins of the temple of Isis (hence its other name of "Isiac Table"). In 1527 it came into the possession of Cardinal bembo. Its hieroglyphs made it an intriguing object to Renaissance scholars (see egyptian studies). An accurate engraving of it was made by Enea Vico (1559) and it was published in 1605 by Lorenzo Pignorio in his Vetustissimae tabulae aenaea sacris Aegyptiorum simulachris coelatae accurata explicatio (An accurate account of a most ancient bronze tablet engraved with sacred symbols of the Egyptians).

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