Buxtorf, Johannes (I)
(1564-1629) German Hebrew scholar
The son of a Protestant minister, Buxtorf was born at and studied at Marburg and later at Geneva and Basle under beza. For 38 years from 1591 he occupied the chair of Hebrew at Basle, rejecting attractive offers from Saumur and Leyden. To the study of Hebrew Buxtorf brought rabbinical learning acquired from the many scholarly Jews whom he befriended. His main works had an educational purpose: a number of elementary grammars and readers, a Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon (1607), and a Hebrew reference grammar (1609). He also produced an edition of the Bible with rabbinic commentary and the Chaldean paraphrases (1618-19). His son, Johannes II (1599-1664), followed him as professor of Hebrew at Basle and completed his father’s Lexicon Chaldaicum Talmudicum et rabbinicum (1639), which provided a scientific basis for the study of postbiblical Jewish writings.
Byrd, William
(1543-1623) English composer Although possibly born in Lincoln, Byrd at an early age became a pupil of tallis in London. He was organist and master of the choristers at Lincoln cathedral (1563-72) and became a gentleman of the Chapel Royal in 1570. In London Byrd’s patrons included the earls of Worcester and Northumberland. With Tallis, Byrd was granted a crown patent for the printing and selling of part music and lined music paper; together they issued Cantiones, quae ab argu-mento sacrae vocantur (1575), which comprised Latin motets by both composers and was dedicated to the queen. In the 1580s, as a known recusant (see recusancy), Byrd suffered considerable yearly fines, though he was granted certain concessions, probably because the queen favored his music. In 1587, after the death of Tallis, Byrd was left in sole possession of their patent, and with the printer East dominated English music printing until the expiration of the patent nine years later. Among Byrd’s publications at this time were Psalmes, Sonets and Songs (1588), Songs of Sundrie Natures (1589), and Cantiones sacrae (1589). In the 1590s and 1600s Byrd wrote music for Catholic services; notable from this period are his three mass settings and the two-volume Grad-ualia (1605, 1607). He died at Stondon Massey, Essex, where he had spent the last 30 years of his life.
Byrd is chiefly remembered for his church music, notably his verse anthems (a form that he may have invented) and music for the Anglican service. Byrd’s Latin motets, frequently with words lamenting a captive people, may have been composed as a solace to the persecuted Catholic community. The three-, four-, and five-part Masses are in a simple style with little word repetition and a restricted use of polyphony. Byrd was also well regarded for his keyboard music, including grounds, descriptive pieces, variations, pavans, and galliards. His best-known collection is the manuscript "My Ladye Nevells Booke" (1591).
Cabbala
A body of Jewish mystical literature, the name of which derives from the Hebrew kabbalah, with the literal meaning "that which is received by tradition." Originally an esoteric doctrine, it spread throughout Europe with the expulsion (1492) of the jews from Spain.
The Cabbala is based on a number of texts, the two most important being the Sefer yetzirah (Book of creation; third-sixth centuries ce) and the Zohar (Splendor; c. 1300) of Moses de Leon of Granada. Though ignored by Marsilio ficino, the Cabbala was introduced to Renaissance Italy by pico della mirandola in his 72 Con-clusiones cabalisticae (1486). Cabbalistic ideas were further expounded by Johann reuchlin in his De verbo mirifico (1494) and the De arte cabalistica (1517), the first full-length work on the subject by a non-Jew. Thereafter the ideas became part of the general Neoplatonic intellectual background of the more scholarly Renaissance magus.
At the heart of the system are the 10 sephiroth, the divine attributes extending from kether to malkuth and relating God to the universe. Each of these is linked with one of the 10 spheres of the heavens and, in an ever-widening system of correspondences, with all other aspects of nature. The divine names, suitably expressed in the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, yielded power over their appropriate sphere of influence. At its crudest the Cabbala involved no more than the attempt to gain power over angels and demons through possession of their names, and was the camouflage adopted by the charlatan to impose on the gullible. To the Neoplatonist, however, it offered the means to apprehend a transcendent God and to understand the harmonies which so clearly existed in nature. As such, it ceased to exercise any serious influence in Western thought after the rise of the mechanistic philosophy in the 17th century.
Cabezon, Antonio de
(1510-1566) Spanish composer Cabezon was born in Castrillo de Matajudios, near Burgos, and he was blind from a young age. He studied organ music at Palencia with Garcia de Breza before becoming (1526) organist and clavichordist to the empress Isabella of Portugal, wife of Charles V After her death (1539) he worked for her children, mainly Prince Philip who later became King philip ii and who was Cabezon’s sole employer after 1548. At the royal court he met the composer Thomas de Santa Maria and the vihuelist Luis de Narvaez. He traveled with the choir of the royal chapel to Italy, the Netherlands, and Germany (1548-51) and to England and the Netherlands (1554-56), where he influenced the English virginal composers as well as the organ music of the Low Countries, including, later, the work of Jan Pietersz. sweelinck.
Some of Cabezon’s extant music was published in Luis Venegas de Henestrosa’s Libro de cifira nueva (Book of new tablature; 1557), which includes works by other composers. Far more of his compositions were published posthumously by his son Hernando in Obras de nuisica-para tecla, arpa y vihuela de Antonio de Cabezon (1578), which includes instructions on keyboard playing. Cabezon was one of the first composers to write instrumental music specifically for the keyboard, although his compositions can also be played on the vihuela and the harp. His large output of works for organ and stringed keyboard instruments includes diferencias (sets of variations on secular melodies and popular dances), glosas (compositions based on works by other, usually non-Spanish, composers), tientos (fantasias), and fabordones (embellishments of hymns and plainsong). Among his best-known works are the variations on the song "Canto del caballero." Cabezon’s works were highly influential in the development of keyboard music throughout Europe.
Cabinets
(Italian studioli, German Wunderkammern, French cabinets de curiosites) Collections of rarities of art and nature through which the Renaissance originated the idea of the museum. The term "cabinets," it should be noted, refers to the collections themselves or to the rooms housing them, not to the cupboards in which they might be stored or displayed. Several present-day European museums can indeed trace their origins directly to such collections.
During the 16th and 17th centuries the European’s conception of the world he or she lived in was constantly assailed. New territories populated by undreamt-of peoples, animals, and plants were discovered; scientific advances inconceivable in the medieval period were made at an ever-increasing rate. Cabinets encapsulated the products and apparatus of these discoveries, making them at once more tangible and more comprehensible. Within his or her cabinet the collector confronted the mysteries of the universe.
Universality was the theme common to almost all such collections: their ambitious aim was no less than the re-creation of the world in microcosm. Although this quest could result in an amazingly heterogeneous range of material, both natural and man made, most collectors were content to seek a purely symbolic completeness, in which certain items or categories of exhibit stood emblematically for each of the continents, for each of the elements, or for scientific, historical, mythological, or magical themes.
To the Renaissance grandee a cabinet was as indispensable as a library: the two served complementary philosophical purposes and frequently occupied adjacent chambers. In Italy almost every princely household had its studio, that of Francesco I de’ Medici (1541-87) being the most perfectly realized. Further north the Hapsburgs and other noble dynasties populated Austria and Germany with numerous Kunst-und Wunderkammern: the collection of Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol still exists at Schloss Am-bras, near Innsbruck, and elements of other princely cabinets survive in Stuttgart, Munich, Berlin, Dresden, and elsewhere. Frederick III established one Kunstkammer in Denmark and Gustavus Adolphus another in Sweden. In France the ducal collections of Montmorency (14931567) and Orleans (1608-60) preceded the founding of the cabinet du roi in the 17th century. Their invariable purpose was for the personal recreation of their owners.
Cabinets were not solely the prerogative of noble households; many of the most influential were developed by scholars as resources for scientific study rather than for philosophical diversion. Such purposefulness can be detected in the cabinets of men like Ulisse aldrovandi and Ferrante Imperato (1550-1631) in Italy, of Konrad gesner (1516-65) in Zurich, of Bernard Paludanus (1550-1633) in the Netherlands, and Olaus Worm (1588-1654) in Denmark. Men like these systemized and classified the wonders of the world, while their publications described not only the contents of their cabinets but also the greater world which they represented. An indication of how widespread the practice of assembling a cabinet of curiosities had become by the mid-16th century can be seen in the list of nearly 1000 names compiled by the Flemish print-maker and collector Hubert Goltz (or Goltzius; 1526-83), who between 1556 and 1560 journeyed around the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and France visiting every place at which such a collection existed; among the collectors named by Goltz were lawyers, doctors, monks, poets, and artists, as well as the more predictable grandees such as the pope, the emperor, and other princes.
From the early 17th century the numbers of private citizens of lesser means who founded collections began to increase. Some bourgeois collectors, such as Pierre Borel (1620-71) of Castres, emulated their social superiors in forming cabinets as a basis for romantic contemplation. Others, such as Manfredo Settala (1600-80) of Milan, pursued more scientific goals. The John Tradescants at Lambeth, London (the elder died 1638; the younger 1608-62) were of a more practical bent, opening their collection to the public and deriving income from it. As the numbers of collectors increased, the universal nature of the prototype cabinets was abandoned in favor of collections specializing in specific aspects of natural history, art, or antiquity.
Academic institutions also began to recognize the practical value of cabinets. That of the anatomy school at Leyden was perhaps the most famous, having opened its doors to the public from the early 1600s. At Oxford several smaller collections within the university were overshadowed by the founding (1683) of the Ashmolean Museum. Within the Royal Society in London, which received its charter in 1662, the aim of founding a museum with a precisely defined collecting program, designed to produce comprehensive and systematic collections (particularly of natural history specimens), clearly demonstrates the extent to which the original concept of the cabinet of curiosities had become outmoded.
Cabot, John (Giovanni Caboto)
(1450-1498) Italian navigator and explorer
Born in Genoa, Cabot moved to Venice in 1461. His trading voyages around the Mediterranean made him an expert navigator. In 1484 he moved to London, and then on to Bristol. The move was probably inspired by Britain’s Atlantic position and status as a trading nation, encouraging Cabot’s vision of a northwest passage to Asia.
In 1496 Henry VII commissioned Cabot and his sons to colonize any territories they discovered for England; in return Cabot was to enjoy trading rights. On May 2, 1497 the Matthew sailed west for Asia with Cabot and 18 sailors aboard. He landed on Cape Breton Island off the coast of Canada on June 24 and claimed it for England. Convinced he had discovered Asia, Cabot returned to Bristol, where he easily found backing for a five-ship expedition. This sailed in May 1498. Cabot hugged the east coast of Greenland at first but later may have gone south along the east coast of America as far as Chesapeake Bay. Lack of supplies caused a mutiny, and Cabot was forced to return to England, where he died in obscure circumstances.
Cabot, Sebastian
(1476-1557) Italian navigator Probably born in Venice, then raised in England, Cabot was the son of John cabot, on whose northwestern voyages he began his career. In 1512 henry viii employed him as cartographer, an occupation he continued for King Ferdinand II of Aragon. Ferdinand’s successor, Charles V, promoted Cabot to pilot major (1519). In 1525 he was sent to develop commercial relations with the Orient, but was distracted by fabulous tales of South America’s wealth. For five years he explored the navigable rivers of the continent, before returning to a furious Charles V who banished him to Africa. In 1533 he was pardoned and reappointed pilot major. In 1548 Cabot returned to England where he ended his days as governor of the Merchant Adventurers. His 1544 world map shows details of his own and his father’s American discoveries.
Cabral, Pedro Alvares
(c. 1467-c. 1520) Portuguese explorer
Born in Belmonte of the lesser nobility, Cabral was appointed by King Manuel I to command a fleet of 13 ships and 1200 men bound for the East Indies. He set sail on March 9, 1500. He soon drifted westwards a long way off course, a mistake which some authorities suspect was premeditated. He became caught in the Atlantic’s westerly currents, and made landfall in Brazil, which he claimed for Portugal. After 10 days in Brazil, Cabral sent one ship home with news of his discovery, and sailed east for India with the rest. During the voyage seven vessels sank. Bartholomeu diaz was among the dead. After founding a factory at Calicut, Cabral returned to Portugal and retired.
Caccini, Francesca
(1587-after 1641) Italian composer and court singer
The daughter of Giulio caccini, she was born into a talented family of professional musicians; her sister Settimia Caccini was also a singer. At home, she learned to play the guitar, harp, and keyboard and also wrote poetry. She was a singer at the wedding of Marie de’ Medici and Henry VI of France in Florence in 1600. In 1607, the year she married court singer Giovanni Battista Signorini, she herself entered Medici service as singer (of both sacred and secular works), singing teacher to the duke’s daughters, and composer. Her first publicly performed work was music for a carnival in 1607; during her 20 years at the Medici court she became its highest paid musician, contributing compositions to 13 musical entertainments, as well as writing operas. Only one of these, La liberazione di Rug-giero, first performed in 1625 to honor the visit of a Polish prince, has survived. She toured Italy, performing with her husband in 1617. An anthology of her songs, Il primo libro delle musiche (1618), includes duets, arias, motets, and hymns, many from Latin sacred texts.
Caccini, Giulio
(c. 1545-1618) Italian composer and singer
Probably born in Tivoli or Rome, Caccini was taken to Florence by cosimo i de’ medici around 1565; his singing made a great impression there, and his fame spread throughout Italy. Caccini was among the musicians and intellectuals who frequented Count Giovanni bardi’s salon in Florence, and was acclaimed as the inventor of a new style of song, the stile recitativo, which was evolved there. Caccini’s first mention as a composer was in 1589 when he contributed music for the marriage of Grand Duke Ferdi-nando I. In 1600 he was made musical director at the Medici court, remaining in the family’s service until his death. His Euridice (1600) was the first published opera; it was written to rival Jacopo Peri’s opera of the same name. His two songbooks, Le nuove musiche (1602, 1614), are collections for solo voice and figured bass. In the first there is a preface on the new style of singing and composition that Caccini had adopted; in the actual music, embellishments, which were normally improvised, are written out in full. Caccini’s declamatory monody sought to capture the spirit of ancient Greek music, but is not noted for its lyricism.
Ca’ da Mosto, Alvise da
(c. 1430-1483) Venetian nobleman and traveler
Sailing for England in 1454, he put in by chance at Cape St. Vincent, Portugal, and gained permission to accompany one of henry the navigator’s expeditions down the west coast of Africa. On a second voyage (1456) he possibly reached the Cape Verde Islands. After returning to Venice (1464) he held various official positions in the Venetian state, but his fame rests on his accounts of his two West African voyages, two manuscript versions of which (neither Ca’ da Mosto’s own) survive in Venice’s Marciana Library. The first printed edition was in Fracan-zano Montalboddo’s collection Paesi nouamente retrovati (1507), which was soon translated into several languages (Latin and German in 1508, French in 1515).
Cadiz, Raid on
(April 1587) The naval raid by Sir Francis drake on Cadiz, where philip ii of Spain was gathering a fleet for the invasion of England. Taking advantage of ambiguous instructions from elizabeth i, Drake forced his way into the harbor, destroyed over 30 ships, and captured four vessels loaded with provisions. This raid cost Spain over 300,000 crowns and 13,000 tons of shipping, forcing Philip to delay the spanish armada until summer 1588.
Cadiz, Sack of (June 1596)
An attack on Cadiz led by Robert Devereux, earl of essex, Lord Howard of Effing-ham, and Sir Walter raleigh. After defeating the Spanish fleet, Essex took 3000 men ashore and fought his way into the town, which surrendered. On his return to England with considerable booty he was greeted as a popular hero.
Caius, John
(1510-1573) English physician and humanist He was born at Norwich and educated at Gonville Hall, Cambridge, and Padua University, where he studied under vesalius. Caius returned to Cambridge in the 1540s. In 1557 he received permission to renovate his old college; he became master in 1559, and ever since the college has been known as Gonville and Caius. Despite his munificence, his tenure was unhappy; suspected of wishing to introduce Catholicism into the college, Caius found himself involved in lawsuits, with dissension and expulsions being the order of the day. Much of his own time was spent editing a number of Hippocratic and Galenic texts (see galenism, renaissance). He also produced A Boke or Counseill against.. .the Sweatyng Sicknesse (1552), a prime account of the mysterious epidemic which swept through 16th-century Britain, and involved himself with controversies over the pronunciation of Greek and the relative antiquity of Oxford and Cambridge.
Cajetan, Thomas de Vio (Gaetano)
(1469-1534) Italian theologian
His name derived from his birthplace of Gaeta. Cajetan entered the Dominican Order in 1484 and taught philosophy and theology at Padua, Paris, and Rome. He was general of the order (1508-18), and was appointed a cardinal in 1517 and bishop of Gaeta in 1518. He spoke for reform at the Lateran Council of 1512-17 and disputed with luther in 1518. The elections of Charles V as king in Germany (1519) and of Pope Adrian VI (1522) were partly his doing. He opposed the divorce of henry viii from Catherine of Aragon. Cajetan was a prolific writer, and his commentary (1507-22) on the Summa theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas remains an important contribution to Thomist philosophy. Although he was antagonistic toward humanism and Protestantism, his approach to critical problems was remarkably modern.
Calcar, Jan Steven van
(1499-1546/50) German painter and woodcut designer
Jan Steven was born at Kalkar and probably trained in the northern Netherlands. By 1536/37 he had moved to Venice, where he fell deeply under the influence of titian. In 1545 vasari met him in Naples, where he died. His oeu-vre is much confused with that of Titian and his workshop, but one of the best documented examples of his style is the portrait of Melchior von Brauweiler of Cologne, dated 1540, in the Louvre, Paris. Steven’s chief claim to fame is his woodcut illustrations to vesalius’s De humani corporis fabrica (1543). This remarkable anatomical textbook, of considerable significance for the development of both medical science and figure painting, includes prints of dissected cadavers in dramatic action, reproducing the gestures and poses of living beings (see illustration p. 491).
Calendar
A system for structuring years, determining their beginnings, and ordering their subdivisions. Julius Caesar, aided by Sosigenes, an Alexandrian astronomer, restructured the 355-day calendar of republican Rome. Ten days were added, together with, every fourth year, an extra day. The Julian year thus averaged 365.25 days, a close approximation to the 365.243 days of the tropical year. Though undetectable over short periods of time the discrepancy became evident with the passage of centuries. For example, by the 16th century, the vernal equinox, crucial to the calculation of Easter, had slipped from March 21 to March 11. The slippage had begun to be the subject of proposals for reform in the 13th century, and by the 15th century ways to remedy it were being actively discussed, with regiomontanus among those to put forward ideas. luther remarked on the discrepancy but considered it to be a matter for secular rather than ecclesiastical intervention (see also calendar, church). However, it was the papacy that ultimately proved to have the resources and determination to carry through the necessary adjustments. To tackle the problem, Pope gregory xiii in 1578 summoned to Rome astronomers, mathematicians, and theologians to advise him on calendrical reform. It was decided to cancel 10 days: that October 4, 1582 would be followed by October 15, 1582. In addition, only cen-turial years exactly divisible by 400 (1600 and 2000 for example) would be leap years. The effect would be to shorten the calendar year to 365.2425 days and so keep the vernal equinox tied much more closely to March 21. The architect of the reform was Aloisio Lillo (1510-76), a physician at Perugia university. Though accepted immediately by Catholic states, the Gregorian calendar was ignored by most Protestant countries, and it was not until 1752 that Britain belatedly adopted the new system.
Calendar, Church
The annual cycle of feasts and fasts that begins in the Western Church with Advent Sunday. In both Roman Catholic and reformed Churches there are two preeminent feasts in the Church calendar to which most of the rest are related: Christmas, which is based on the solar calendar, and Easter, determined by the lunar. Advent and Lent are the seasons of fasting before Christmas and Easter respectively. During the Middle Ages, in addition to these major events and those linked to them, the Church observed a large number of other feasts, very often on saints’ days. These in turn were often linked with traditional calendar lore, for example in the English saying about the weather on Candlemas Day (the feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary; February 2), which is now adapted to American Groundhog Day: "If Candlemas Day be sunny and bright, winter will have another flight; if Candlemas day be cloudy with rain, winter has gone and will not come again."
It was a widespread practice to date events by the nearest festival of the Church: hence, in England, Christmas (December 25), the Annunciation (otherwise called Lady Day; March 25), the Nativity of St. John the Baptist (June 24), and Michaelmas (September 29) were the days designated as quarter days, when charges such as rents fell due. Some saints’ days were recognized throughout Christendom; others were purely of local or regional significance. To say that an event happened "in vigilia Sanctae Luciae" (on the vigil of St. Lucy, i.e. St. Lucy’s Eve) would have been widely understood as referring to December 12. Both feast days and ordinary Sundays were often referred to in the Middle Ages by the opening words of the Latin introit sung at Mass, a practice partially retained by the Lutheran Church.
The pre-Reformation Church calendar thus impinged upon ordinary people’s consciousnesses to a far greater extent than it does in modern times—with some exceptions. Roman Catholic countries, particularly in southern Europe, maintain some practices, such as the revelries of Carnival (literally, "farewell to meat") in the pre-Lenten period, that either never really took hold in England or were condemned by the reformers. In pre-Reformation times, virtually every day of the year was dedicated to one or more saints, but in line with their objections to relics and "superstition," the reformers jettisoned commemoration of saints’ days from their ecclesiastical year. The process is exemplified in England, where the pruning of traditional elements of the Roman Catholic year began in 1536; by the time the book of common prayer appeared in 1549 only Christmas, Easter, and Whitsun remained of the feasts, plus a few biblical saints’ days (St. Mary Magdalene, St. John the Baptist, the Apostles, and the Evangelists). The Reformation was thus responsible for setting in train a radical secularization of the calendar.
Calligraphy
The gothic, or black-letter, style of writing was used throughout western Europe in the later Middle Ages. There were local variations in the form of the letters, and Italian writing (littera rotunda) was less angular than that of northern Europe. In the 14th century, petrarch led the revival of interest in the classical Roman style. He was the chief of a group of humanists at Florence, who studied manuscripts of ancient authors and inscriptions on coins and monuments. The early manuscripts available to them mostly dated from the 10th and 11th centuries, with text in Carolingian minuscule script and display lines in monumental capitals. These became the basis of the Renaissance littera antica, which differs little from modern roman type.
Petrarch was followed by Coluccio salutati, chancellor of Florence, two of whose followers, Poggio bracci-olini and Niccolo niccoli, developed their styles on divergent lines. Poggio continued the formal Roman tradition; in 1403 he went to Rome and became secretary to the pope, and his hand influenced a number of scholars and artists from Verona and Padua, including Andrea Mantegna. Niccoli produced a more cursive script, with taller and narrower letters, differing less from the current gothic. This was the origin of the italic hand, which was used for less formal writing and for the more popular, small-format books. One form of italic, the cancellaresca, was developed for more rapid writing in government offices and for commercial and private use.
From the mid-16th century the italic style spread over the rest of western Europe, aided by popular copybooks, of which that by the papal scribe Lodovico degli Arrighi was the first (1523). In Italy and Spain and to some extent in France and in England, italic was used for the vernacular languages as well as Latin. In Germany and Scandinavia its use was more or less confined to Latin. In England the bastard running secretary hand (a mixture of gothic and italic, with many variant forms of letters), was in common use till the early 17th century, but thereafter the italic prevailed and was the origin of the copperplate style from which modern handwriting is derived.
Greek texts began to be copied in Italy in about 1400. At first a clear simple style, introduced by Manuel chrysoloras, was used. Later, a formal script, favored by Cretan scribes, was employed for liturgical texts, while a more mannered style, with extensive use of ligatures employed for the classics, influenced the printing of Aldus manutius. In the reign of Francis I some Cretans at Fontainebleau cultivated a simpler style, which is the basis of the Greek type used today.
