Cheke, Sir John
(1514-1557) English humanist Cheke was born in Cambridge, where he became a fellow of St. John’s College (1529) and took his MA in 1533. He became first Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge (1540), a canon of Christ Church, Oxford (1544), and tutor in Latin and Greek to King Edward VI. He was knighted in 1552, but, as a Protestant, he was imprisoned and then driven into exile (1554) on the accession of the Catholic Mary I. English agents captured him near Brussels (1556), and he was brought back to England where he was forced to make a humiliating public abjuration of his faith. Consumed with remorse for his recantation, he died in London the following year. A renowned scholar, Cheke made a number of translations of Greek texts into Latin. He also took part in the controversy surrounding the pronunciation of Greek (see greek studies), his letters opposing Stephen gardiner on the subject being published in Basle in 1555. This study of phonetics led him to evolve a reformed spelling for English which he used in gospel translations that he made around 1550 and in his letter to Sir Thomas hoby, published in the latter’s translation of Castiglione (1561).
Chenonceaux, Chateau de
A chateau in central France, southwest of Paris, bridging the River Cher. Incorporating a single tower from an earlier building of the 15th century, the chateau was begun in 1513 by Thomas Bohier, the financial minister of Normandy, but was subsequently confiscated by Francis I and became a royal residence (1535). Noted for its combination of Gothic and Renaissance features, the chateau was inherited by Henry II who presented it to his mistress diane de poitiers. She added an arched bridge spanning the Cher, designed by Philibert delorme. When the chateau passed to Catherine de’ Medici this wing was enlarged (1570-78) by Jean bullant as the Grande Galerie.
Chiaroscuro
A term describing the handling of light and dark in the visual arts, particularly with regard to painting. Derived from the Italian words chiaro (lightness) and os-curo (darkness), chiaroscuro was first developed by artists during the 14th century as a means of heightening atmospheric qualities and achieving three-dimensional effects. The use of contrast of light and dark was also applied to manuscript illustration and, by ugo da carpi and parmi-gianino, to woodcuts. Also referred to as tenebrismo, the effect was employed by numerous artists of the Renaissance, such as caravaggio (whose followers were sometimes called "tenebristi"), and reached its greatest heights in the 17th-century works of Rembrandt.
Chigi, Agostino
(1465-1520) Italian banker and patron of the arts
Also known as "Il Magnifico," Chigi was a member of a noted Sienese family and the founder of a major banking house in Rome (1485). As leasor (1500) of the papal alum mines and treasurer to the Church he exerted financial influence in several European countries and was in an ideal position to become acquainted with the foremost artists of his day. Peruzzi’s masterpiece, the Villa farnesina, was built for Chigi near Rome and decorated by raphael, the most distinguished of the many artists who enjoyed his patronage. He was also a patron of scholarship and literature, under whose auspices the Cretan Zacharias Callier-gis (c. 1473-c. 1524) set up the first Greek press in Rome and published an important edition of Pindar (1515).
Christian IV
(1577-1648) King of Denmark and Norway (1596-1648)
Despite his ambitious endeavors to broaden the influence of his country, the status of Denmark as a great power in Europe was weakened during his reign. He embarked upon a series of wars against Sweden including the Kalmar War (1611-13), which Denmark won, and the Torstensson Feud (1643-49), which it lost and as a result of which parts of the kingdom were ceded to Sweden. His intervention in the Thirty Years’ War from 1625 to 1629 against Emperor Ferdinand II resulted in the occupation of Jutland by German troops from 1627 to 1629. He erected a number of buildings in Copenhagen, including the Gothic-style Rosenborg Palace (1608-17).
Christian Majesty, His Most (Latin Rex Christianis-simus) A title accorded to the kings of France, especially in papal correspondence of the 15th century onward.
Christine de Pisan
(c. 1364-c. 1430) Venetian-born French poet and prose writer
Christine de Pisan grew up at the court of Charles V of France, where her father was astrologer and physician to the king. Widowed with three children at age 25, she began to write poetry to support her family: the success of her early love ballads encouraged her to embark on more serious works in defence of women, such as Epitre au dieu d’amour (1399), Cite des dames (1405; translated as The Book of the City of Ladies, 1982), and Livre des trois vertus (1406). She vigorously countered the prevalent view (based on Aristotle’s De generatione animalium) that women were intrinsically inferior to men, illustrating her argument with examples of outstanding women from antiquity to more recent times. Socially conservative, she supported the institution of marriage and a hierarchical society, but argued that women by exercising virtue and moral responsibility were as important as men in maintaining the fabric of society and that they should be educated and respected accordingly. Her treatise on the education of princes, Le Livre du Corps de Policie (1407) was translated into Middle English as The Bodye of Polycye. Her other writings include a biography of Charles V, Livre des faits et bonnes moeurs du roi Charles V (1404), and a number of patriotic stories, notably Ditie de Jeanne d’Arc. After the French defeat at Agincourt (1415) Christine took refuge in a convent, where she spent the latter years of her life.
Christus, Petrus
(c. 1410-72/73) Netherlands painter Born in Baerle, Christus became in 1444 a citizen of Bruges, which remained his base for the rest of his life. His style was directly conditioned by that of Jan van eyck, who was probably his master, and his early works such as the Exeter Madonna (Berlin) and a pair of triptych wings of 1452 (Berlin) are derived from Eyckian compositions. Christus’s Frankfurt Madonna and Child (1457) reveals an early mastery of one-point perspective, which may have been learned in Italy. The latter hypothesis remains un-proven, although Christus’s work was appreciated in Italy shortly after his death and it seems likely that he influenced antonello da messina. Christus’s style was essentially a simplification and systemization of Jan van Eyck’s, which nevertheless perpetuated his mentor’s influence during a period when most Netherlands painters sought inspiration in the work of Rogier van der weyden.
Chrysoloras, Manuel
(1350-1415) Greek diplomat and teacher of Greek
Chrysoloras was born in Constantinople and was a pupil of plethon. In 1393 he was sent by Emperor Manuel Palaeologus to seek aid from the Italian states against the Turks. He returned to Constantinople but was invited in 1395 to Florence, where he became professor of Greek; his pupils included Poggio bracciolini, Leonardo bruni, and Francesco Barbaro; he also translated Homer and Plato into Latin during his stay there. Chrysoloras then (1400) moved to Milan, Pavia, and Venice, remaining in the last for several years. He then went to Rome and in 1408 was sent to Paris as the Greek emperor’s representative. In 1413 he served on the embassy that prepared the way for the Council of constance. He died en route for the council to represent the Greek Church. His Erotemata (printed 1484) was the first Greek grammar used in the West. His influence was important in introducing a more critical approach to literature based on a close study of language.
Cicero, Marcus Tullius
(106-43 bce) Roman statesman and orator. Cicero was important to the Renaissance on two grounds: the morals that could be drawn from his writings and his private and public life and the example set by his prose style. The former first made him an object of interest to petrarch, who as a philosopher and moralist himself was struggling to reconcile the counterclaims of the active and the contemplative life. Coluccio salutati was more swayed by admiration for Cicero’s important career in public life, and his view of the Roman statesman generally prevailed among the Florentine humanists and was transmitted through them to later Renaissance moralists. It was Petrarch and a little later Poggio bracciolini who were responsible for discovering and preserving almost half the writings of Cicero that we still possess, including the letters to Atticus and a number of his most famous orations.
Cicero’s status as a model for humanist prose writers struggling to free themselves from medieval Latin style likewise stemmed from Petrarch and grew virtually unchecked, with the backing of men such as Lorenzo valla and the educationist guarino da verona, for over a century. The powerful rhetoric of his orations, the easy familiarity of his letters, the lucid Latin of his philosophical treatises were all enthusiastically imitated. Inevitably there was a reaction; writers such as politian, rebuked for using un-Ciceronian vocabulary, defended their right to go beyond its limits in pursuit of self-expression, and erasmus wrote his Ciceronianus (1528) as a withering attack on the pedants who carried Ciceronianism to absurd extremes. Nevertheless, Cicero continued to be a major influence on Renaissance prose, not only in terms of style but also on account of his philosophy, since many writers found his Stoicism comparatively easy to reconcile with their Christianity. His dialogues on friendship (De amici-tia) and old age (De senectute) were often imitated, and the dialogue form was also carried over into philosophical or didactic works in the vernacular.
Ciconia, Johannes
(c. 1373-1411) Franco-Flemish composer
He received his earliest musical education as a choirboy at St. Jean l’Evangeliste, Liege, around 1385. Before 1400 he went to Padua where he became magister and a canon at the cathedral, posts which he retained until his death. Mass sections, motets, and secular works, including bal-late, survive. An advanced approach to imitation is evident in his motets, some of which are ceremonial, occasional works. These date largely from his time in Padua, and include two isorhythmic pieces in honor of the city’s bishop.
Cieza de Leon, Pedro
(c. 1529-1554) Spanish conquistador and chronicler of the conquest of Peru Born in Extremadura, he spent the years 1535-50 in the New World taking part in the conquest of the northern Andes area (modern Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia). This personal experience, augmented by interviews with Indians and Spaniards, formed the basis of his ambitious Cronica del Peru describing the encounter between the conquistadores and the Incas. Only the first part, a geographical and ethnographical survey of the Andean provinces, which he presented to Philip II in 1552, was published in Cieza’s lifetime (1553).
Cigoli, Lodovico Cardi da
(1559-1613) Italian painter Born at Cigoli in Tuscany and brought up in the tradition of Florentine mannerism, he was a pupil of Alessandro al-lori and santi di tito but was more influenced by the works of michelangelo, pontormo, and andrea del sarto. After traveling in Lombardy he returned to Florence, where he painted a series of works for the Palazzo Pitti at the request of the grand duke and frescoes for the church of Sta. Maria Novella (1581-84); the latter mark the transition from Mannerism to the baroque. His best-known work is the very fine painting for St. Peter’s in Rome, St. Peter Healing the Lame Man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple. His pictures all comprise fervent ascetic treatments of religious subjects, especially saints. Cigoli died in Rome.
Cimabue (Cenni di Peppi)
(c. 1240-c. 1302) Italian artist and mosaicist
Known by his nickname (meaning "bullheaded"), Cimabue was trained in the Byzantine style but was recognized by later scholars, including ghiberti and vasari— the latter began his Lives with an account of Cimabue’s career—as marking the divide between the art of the Middle Ages and that of the Renaissance.
Although little is known of his life, Cimabue was in Rome in 1272, where he may have been influenced by the developing realism of sculptural art, and in Pisa in 1302. The only surviving work certainly attributed to Cimabue is Christ in Glory, part of a large mosaic of St. John in the apse of Pisa cathedral (c. 1302); other works probably by him include the badly deteriorated frescoes in the upper basilica at Assisi (c. 1290), the Sta. Trinitd Madonna (c. 1290; Uffizi, Florence), and the Madonna with Angels (c. 1290-95; Louvre, Paris). These pieces are notable for their combination of traditional Byzantine forms and a new naturalism, seen particularly in his handling of human figures. Another work, the Crucifix (c. 1290; Sta. Croce, Florence), was badly damaged in the floods of 1966. Cimabue’s approach was subsequently reflected in and indeed eclipsed by the revolutionary paintings of giotto, who may have been Cimabue’s pupil, as evidenced by dante in his Divine Comedy, in which the writer berates Cimabue for his pride and comments that "now Giotto hath the cry." Nonetheless, Cimabue is now generally recognized as the first herald of the ideals of the Renaissance and the most important artist in Italy before Giotto.
Cima da Conegliano, Giovanni Battista
(c. 14601518) Italian painter
Born at Conegliano near Venice, Cima probably trained under Bartolommeo montagna and later came under the influence of the style of Giovanni bellini. His earliest authenticated picture, an altarpiece now in the museum at Vicenza (1489), demonstrates his control of color and landscape; later works include paintings of the Madonna, the Incredulity of St. Thomas (1504; National Gallery, London), and an altarpiece (1493) for the cathedral of Conegliano. Typical of his contemplative paintings is the Madonna with Six Saints (c. 1496-99; Accademia, Venice).
Cinquecento
(Italian, "five hundred") The period of artistic and cultural development in Italy during the 16th century. This period witnessed the culmination of the humanist movement in Renaissance Italy and the spread of mannerist ideals (see mannerism) from such cultural centers as Venice, Ferrara, Mantua, and Rome under the patronage of the medici, este, gonzaga, and farnese families, among others. Leading Italian figures of the century included ariosto, machiavelli, and castiglione in literature, leonardo da vinci, raphael, michelangelo, giorgione, titian, and correggio in painting, Michelangelo in sculpture, palestrina in music, and Michelangelo, Raphael, palladio, vasari, bramante, and peruzzi in architecture.
Cinthio (Giambattista Giraldi)
(1504-1573) Italian dramatist, critic, and writer
Cinthio (an epithet adopted in some of his verses) received a humanist education and taught rhetoric at the university of his native Ferrara (1541-62) until he fell from favor with Ferrara’s Este rulers after a lengthy literary feud. He then taught in Pavia, returning to Ferrara shortly before his death. His Orbecche (1541), the first performance of tragedy in Italian, is important for introducing the Senecan model (see seneca) in the Renaissance: its main features are a five-act structure, emphasis on the horror of events, and a moralizing style. Three further tragedies, Didone, Cleopatra, and Altile (c. 1543), were followed by the pastoral Egle (1545). Later plays look forward to the genre of tragicomedy. Cinthio’s collection of novelle, Hecatommithi (One Hundred Tales; 1565) provided plots for his own plays and those of other dramatists, including Shakespeare (Measure for Measure and Othello). The theory of his dramatic practice was expounded in the discourse Intorno al comporre delle commedie e delle tragedie (1543) and a defense of the romance epic, such as arlosto’s Orlando furioso, was argued in Intorno al comporre dei romanzi (1548).
Ciompi
The low-paid day-laborers in Florence’s wool industry. In July 1378 the ciompi rebeled against their low wages and their subjection to their employers and the wool guild. They armed themselves and seized power with the help of artisans and shopkeepers. Having overthrown the oligarchy, they then forced through radical and democratic legislation. Their extremism and the worsening economic situation alarmed their allies, many of whom deserted them. The guilds were able to regain control late in August 1378 and to restore oligarchy to Florence.
Civitali, Matteo
(1436-1501) Italian architect and sculptor in marble
Civitali was born and died in Lucca, and most of his work remains in the city or its environs. The cathedral at Lucca contains tombs by Civitali, a pulpit (1494-98), and the Tempietto del Volto Santo (1484), an octagonal marble shrine housing a wooden image of Christ believed to have been the work of Nicodemus. Civitali was the original architect of Lucca’s Palazzo Pretorio (1492) and his statue stands in the portico there. Outside Lucca, Civitali has a lectern and candelabra in the cathedral at Pisa and statues of Old Testament figures in Genoa cathedral.
Clavius, Christopher (Christoph Klau)
(1537-1612) German mathematician and astronomer
Born at Bamberg, Clavius became a leading Jesuit and professor of mathematics at the Collegio Romano. His views were often sought by the Vatican on controversial scientific matters; thus, between 1588 and 1603, he wrote no fewer than five separate works defending the calendrical reforms of Pope gregory xiii in 1582. Clavius was again called upon in 1611 to advise the Vatican authorities upon the reliability and seriousness of galileo’s telescopic observations. While responding sympathetically to Galileo’s work, he advised, nonetheless, that the observations did not constitute a convincing proof of the copernican system. The lunar mountains described by Galileo were covered, Clavius said, with a smooth but transparent crystalline surface. As a mathematician Clavius was known as the author of Epitome arithmeticae (1583) and Algebra (1608), widely used textbooks of arithmetic and algebra, and he also wrote a major treatise on gnomonics (1581).
Clemens (non Papa), Jacobus
(c. 1510-55/56) Franco-Flemish composer
Clemens was succentor at Bruges cathedral (1544-45), and in late 1550 was at ‘s-Hertogenbosch. It is known that he spent some time in Ypres, but he also had links with Leyden and Dort. The reason for the "non Papa" (not the pope) in his name is uncertain, though it was probably coined as a joke, for Pope Clement VII died in 1534, and the name was not used in a publication until 1545. Clemens was a prolific composer known chiefly for his sacred works. He also wrote many chansons, and his Mass settings are, with one exception, parody settings on chansons and motets by contemporary composers. He is most remembered for his settings of souterliedekens, the Dutch psalms. These three-voice pieces were the first polyphonic settings of the psalms in Dutch, with the use of popular song melodies as cantus firmi.
Clement VII
(1478-1534) Pope (1523-34) Clement was born Giulio de’ Medici at Florence, a bastard nephew of Lorenzo the Magnificent. During the Medici exile from Florence (1494-1512) he traveled extensively in Europe, gaining valuable experience. He took an active part in the Lateran Council of 1512-17, being made archbishop of Florence and a cardinal in 1513, and became political counselor to his cousin, Pope Leo X. He was a candidate for the papacy in 1521 and was elected pope in 1523. His policy was shifty and weak. He attempted to control Italy by supporting alternately Emperor charles v and Francis I of France. After the Sack of Rome in 1527 by imperial troops, he was imprisoned in the Castel Sant’ An-gelo for several months. In 1530 he crowned Charles (already German king) as Holy Roman Emperor at Bologna. In 1533 he officiated at the wedding of his niece catherine de’ medici to the future Henry II of France. Clement’s vacillations over henry vlll’s petition for a divorce from Catherine of Aragon were one of the causes of the king’s repudiation of papal authority. His attempts to deal with luther’s revolt were also unsuccessful, and he failed to effect any reforms within the Roman Church. Clement VII was a worldly figure, concerned for the advancement of his family and his own posthumous fame. He was a patron of such eminent artists as Raphael, Michelangelo, Ben-venuto Cellini, and Sebastiano del Piombo (see Plate XIV), and of Machiavelli and Copernicus.
Clement VIII
(1536-1605) Pope (1592-1605) He was born Ippolito Aldobrandini at Fano, near Pesaro, and studied law at Padua, Perugia, and Bologna. He held numerous offices in the Roman Curia, became a cardinal in 1585, and was elected pope in 1592. Clement reduced Spanish influence in the college of cardinals, and recognized Henry IV as king of France in 1593. In 1598 he annexed Ferrara to the Papal States, after the death of the last duke without legitimate heirs. He arranged the Treaty of Vervins between France and Spain in 1598, and tried to resolve the controversy between the Jesuits and Dominicans concerning grace and free will. He was responsible for a new standard edition of the Vulgate Bible (the Sis-tine-Clementine version) and for revisions of the missal, breviary, and pontifical.
Clitherow, Margaret
(c. 1556-1586) English Roman Catholic martyr
She married (1571) John Clitherow, a butcher, in her native city of York, whose family had Catholic connections, and in 1574 she converted to Catholicism. Her active zeal in her new faith caused her to undergo a lengthy period of imprisonment, during which time she learnt to read. On her release she set up a school in her house. In 1586 she was charged with harbouring Catholic priests and attending Mass. She refused to plead, and, despite the objections lodged on her behalf by a Puritan divine who had been sent to talk with her in prison, she was sentenced to die by peine forte et dure, that is, being crushed to death. She is one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales canonized in 1970.
clocks
Although the clock has been described by Lewis Mumford (Technics and Civilization) as "the key-machine of the modern industrial age," little of this significance can have been apparent in the turret clocks which first began to appear in the early 14th century. Driven by falling weights, located in towers, controlled by a verge and foliot escapement, and without hands, they served more as planetaria than clocks. In addition, however, to displaying such phenomena as the phases of the moon, and the motions of planets, they rang bells and, in this manner, marked out the liturgical day for monks and other clerics. Clocks soon, also, came to regulate the working day of many residents of the rapidly growing towns. Such early instruments were too massive and too expensive to make and maintain to be anything other than the property of princes or corporations.
After 1450 the turret clocks were joined by chamber clocks. A common early design was the drum clock, a squat cylinder with the dial on its uppermost surface. This advance was made possible by the invention of the spring drive. Springs, though portable, fail to deliver constant power as they unwind. The solution consisted of attaching the spring by a chain to a conically shaped fusee which acted as an equalizing force as the spring unwound. Improvements in this basic design, together with the use of more accurately produced parts, allowed clockmakers to introduce the minute hand sometime in the 1470s. The second hand followed almost a century later in the decade 1560-70. A more fundamental advance came with the pendulum clock; conceived by galileo in 1637, the first such clock actually constructed was the work of Christian Huygens in 1653. The improvement in time-keeping was astonishing: the best clocks had previously varied by about 15 minutes a day, but early pendulum clocks reduced this to no more than 15 seconds. See also: horology; watches
Clouet, Francois
(c. 1510-1572) French artist Born at Tours, the son of the Flemish-born painter Jean (or Janet) Clouet (c. 1485-1541), Francois Clouet inherited his father’s position as official painter to Francis I of France. Subsequently painter to Henry II and Charles IX, Clouet continued in the tradition established by his father, executing notable portraits of the Valois court and a number of genre paintings. His portraits include those of Diane de Poitiers (National Gallery, Washington), Pierre Quthe (1562; Louvre, Paris), Charles IX (1570; Kunsthis-torisches Museum, Vienna), and Lady in her Bath (c. 1570; National Gallery, Washington), which was probably modeled on Marie Touchet, mistress of Charles IX. Although his formal portraits were influenced by the works of his father, his more informal works bore the mark of Italian artists, while his genre paintings followed the style of the Netherlandish school. Clouet was also noted as a brilliant draftsman and many of his drawings survive in the Musee Conde in Chantilly.
Clovio, Giulio (Jure Clovil)
(1498-1578) Croatian-born painter
Clovio was born in Grizane, but lived in Italy after 1516 and probably studied under giulio romano in Rome. After the sack of Rome (1527), in which he was captured, Clovio escaped and took holy orders. He was renowned as a miniaturist, demonstrating his pre-eminence in this field in such sequences as his illustrations of the victories of Emperor Charles V (British Library, London) and those in the manuscript life of Federico, Duke of Urbino (Vatican Library). Other commissions included decorations in the Palazzo farnese and a Pietd (1553; Uffizi, Florence). Clovio also helped and encouraged the young El greco on his arrival in Rome.
