Drayton, Michael
(1563-1631) English poet Born at Hartshill, Warwickshire, Drayton spent his youth in the household of the local Goodere family, before moving to London in about 1591. There he published the pastoral poems Idea, The Shepheard’s Garland (1593) and the fine sonnet sequence Ideas Mirrour (1594). The lady celebrated in these poems, Anne Goodere, remained the object of his poetic devotion for many years, though Drayton apparently died a bachelor. Drayton was both prolific and versatile as a poet. In 1596 he published the historical poem Mortimeriados, which he later recast in ottava rima as The Barrons Warres (1603). England’s Heroical Epistles (1597), letters in rhyming couplets between famous English lovers such as King Henry II and Rosamond, were modeled on Ovid’s Heroides; they were very popular and are among Drayton’s best work. Around this time he was also writing for the stage, and in 1607 was associated with the Children of the King’s Revels at the Whitefriars theater. Drayton’s patriotism is stirringly expressed in his fine "Ballad of Agincourt" (c. 1605) and he devoted many years to his principal work, the topographical epic Poly-Olbion (1622), written in hexameter couplets and divided into 30 "Songs" celebrating British landscape and history. Numerous editions of his poems appeared throughout the early 1600s and the Muses Elizium (1630) is the latest expression of the Elizabethan pastoral tradition.
Drebbel, Cornelis
(1572-1633) Dutch inventor and alchemist
A native of Alkmaar, Drebbel trained as an engraver under his brother-in-law Hendrick goltzius, but subsequently turned his hand to hydraulic engineering. In the early 1600s he migrated to England, where he tried to attract James I’s patronage by presenting him with a supposed perpetuum mobile. Drebbel was later involved in plans to drain fenland in East Anglia and was famous as the inventor of a scarlet dye which he and his sons-in-law exploited at their dyeworks in Bow, London. Among his many inventions was a submarine, which he demonstrated in the River Thames, apparently having found means of supplying the rowers with fresh air while the craft was under water.
Du Bartas, Guillaume de Salluste, Seigneur
(1544-1590) French poet
A Huguenot gentleman born at Montfort, near Auch, Du Bartas entered the service of Henry of Navarre, for whom he accomplished a number of diplomatic missions, including a visit to the court of King James VI of Scotland. His poetry was influenced in style by the techniques developed by the pleiade and in content by his Protestant faith; early works include the epics Judith and Le Triomphe de la foi (1574). Du Bartas’s most significant achievement was La Semaine ou la Creation du monde (1578), a didactic account of the creation of the world in seven cantos, which was highly acclaimed in France on publication but was subsequently criticized on stylistic grounds; it was well received in England, however, in translation (see sylvester, joshua). The Seconde Semaine, a continuation of the Old Testament story leading to a complete history of mankind, remained unfinished at Du Bartas’s death.
Du Bellay, Joachim
(1522-1560) French poet Born at Lire of noble parentage, Du Bellay was the cousin of the cardinal and diplomat Jean Du Bellay (c. 14931560) and the general and writer Guillaume Du Bellay (1491-1543). After studying law at Poitiers he went to Paris, where he made the acquaintance of ronsard and joined him at the College de Coqueret. He became a member of the pleiade, and his early sonnets, notably LOlive (1549), the first French sonnet sequence, were heavily influenced by petrarch; the Pleiade’s manifesto, La Defense et illustration de la langue fran^aise (1549; translated as Defence and Illustration of the French Language, 1939), was his other major work of this period. In 1553 Du Bellay accompanied his cousin Jean on a mission to Rome, a four-year exile that was to inspire some of his finest poetry: Les Antiquites de Rome (1558) is a melancholy contemplation of the grandeur and decadence of the ancient city; Les Regrets (1558) reflects his disillusionment with life at the Vatican and his homesickness for France. Du Bellay’s other works include a collection of Latin poems and Divers jeux rustiques, both also published in 1558, after the poet’s return to his native country.
Dubroeucq, Jacques
(1500/10-1584) Flemish sculptor and architect
Dubroeucq, who was born near Mons, became acquainted with the ideals of the Italian Renaissance while traveling in Italy sometime before 1535; there he studied the works of Ghiberti, Michelangelo, Sansovino, and others. He executed his best works, a series of carvings for the cathedral of Ste. Waldetrude at Mons (1535-48), after his return to the Netherlands—although much of this decoration was destroyed during the French Revolution. In 1545 he was honored by the appellation of "master artist of the emperor" (Charles V) and for Charles’s sister mary of hungary, regent of the Netherlands, he built and decorated the castles of Binche and Mariemont. Dubroeucq was also notable as the teacher of the sculptor giambologna.
Duccio di Buoninsegna
(c. 1260-c. 1318) Italian painter
As the first great Sienese artist Duccio’s influence in Siena is comparable with giotto’s in Florence. Whereas Giotto’s art was revolutionary in its pursuit ofnaturalism, Duccio kept his ritualistic art within the Byzantine framework, yet brought to it a new narrative power in his use of facial expression, his rich and subtle colors, and dramatic arrangement of scenery. Little is known of his life except that, despite several probably political clashes with the Sienese government, Duccio achieved a position of wealth and influence. His first known commission (1285) was a Madonna for the Florentine church of Sta. Maria Novella. It is generally agreed that this is the imposing Rucellai Madonna (Uffizi, Florence).
The only work that can certainly be attributed to Duc-cio, however, is the double-sided Maestd, which he was commissioned to paint in 1308 for the high altar of Siena cathedral. It was completed and carried there in procession in 1311, but was dismembered in 1771 and while much remains in the Museo dell’ Opera in Siena, other panels are scattered abroad or lost. The Madonna and
Child are noted for their depth of character and solidity of form, while 60 other panels depicting the life of Christ and the saints illustrate Duccio’s narrative power and the new infusion of emotion into old Byzantine models. Like the small Madonna of the Franciscans (1290; Pinacoteca, Siena), usually ascribed to him, the Maestd was remarkable also for its exquisite use of color and of gold as both decoration and an essential feature of the composition. Duccio stood for the transition from Byzantine to Gothic, influencing Sienese painters including Simone martini and the lorenzetti brothers well into the 15th century, and his sense of composition and drama heralds even later Renaissance developments.
Ducerceau family (Du Cerceau family)
A French family of architects and designers, who were active from the mid-16th century to the mid-17th century. Jacques Androuet (c. 1520-c. 1585) established the family’s reputation with his collections of architectural and decorative engravings, including Les plus excellents bastiments de France (1576, 1579), which bear witness to the influence of Italian works, with which he became acquainted during visits to that country early in his career. His patrons included the French royal family and he worked on several chateaux, although nothing now remains of these buildings. His engravings are valuable evidence for works now lost or severely damaged, such as rosso fiorentino’s, primatic-cio’s, and Leonard Thiry’s at fontainebleau. His son Bap-tiste Androuet (1545-90) succeeded him as a leading architect; his only surviving work is the Pont-Neuf in Paris, begun in 1578. In 1584 Henry III made him supervisor of the royal office of works and he may have been employed on the Hotel d’Angouleme and the Hotel de Lamoignon (1584) in Paris. Two other sons, Jacques (c. 1550-1614) and Charles (died 1606), were also active as architects. Baptiste’s son Jean (1585-1649) was a notable designer of private houses under Louis XIII, producing the Hotel de Sully (1624-29) and the Hotel de Bretonvillieurs (1637-43) as well as the horseshoe stairs at Fontainebleau (c. 1630).
Dufay, Guillaume
(c. 1400-1474) French composer Dufay was probably born in Cambrai, where he sang in the cathedral choir as a boy. Some of his compositions from the early 1420s were written for the Malatesta family in Pesaro. By 1426 he seems to have been back in France and by 1430 he held benefices at Laon cathedral, Nou-vion-les-Vineux, and St. Gery in Cambrai. In 1428 Dufay joined the papal choir. By the time he left the choir in 1433 he was one of the most famous musicians in Europe. Dufay had close associations with two famous families, the este and the house of savoy. A notable occasion to which he contributed music was the marriage in 1434 of Louis, son of Duke Amadeus VIII of Savoy. In 1436, back in the papal choir, Dufay wrote one of his most famous works, Nuper rosarum flores, for the dedication of brunelleschi’s dome of Florence cathedral. From 1440 Dufay was again in Cambrai as a canon at the cathedral, and apart from seven years in Savoy from around 1451, he spent the rest of his life there.
Dufay was no great innovator, but a master of the established techniques of composition. His secular works consist mainly of rondeaux; he also composed in the standard ballade and virelai form of his day. His sacred works show more development of style; the early Masses are in single and paired movements, where the later ones, such as the Missa sine nomine, are in cyclical, musically unified forms, as found in English Masses of the period. The motets were written for special occasions and are extraordinary in their complexity. The leading composer of his day, he greatly influenced his contemporaries, and his works were copied and performed throughout Europe.
Du Guillet, Pernette
(c. 1520-1545) French poet Few facts are known about her life: she was born and lived in Lyons and married in 1538 but remained childless. A skilled musician and linguist, Du Guillet belonged to the Lyons school of writers, which formed a link between France and the poetry of the Italian Renaissance, and she enjoyed considerable popularity in this regional center of intellectual and academic excellence. She was an admirer of Maurice sceve, whom she had met in 1536 and with whom she exchanged verses. Her creative work, which dates from 1537, took the form of elegies and chansons, as well as more satirical letter-poems and dialogues. Seventy of her poems about love and friendship were published in 1545 as Rimes de gentille et vertueuse Dame Pernette du Guillet. She is thought to have died of the plague. Although widely read in her lifetime, her work fell rapidly into neglect, and it was not rediscovered and republished until the 19th century.
Dunstable, John
(c. 1390-1453) English composer There are no certain details of Dunstable’s career, but it is probable that he served John, Duke of Bedford; the church where he is buried, St. Stephen’s, Walbrook, in London, belonged to the duke until 1432. Dunstable’s importance as a composer was recognized by contemporaries both in England and on the Continent. Much of his work survives in Italian and German manuscripts. The overwhelming majority of Dunstable’s surviving works are sacred and for three voices. Many use plainsong as a basis, and complex isorhythmic techniques are frequent. Some pieces are more declamatory, and here the clear presentation of the text becomes paramount. Dunstable’s style was dubbed the contenance angloise (English sweetness) among Continental musicians, but he cannot be regarded as an innovator. He wrote two complete Mass settings, often regarded as the earliest musically unified approaches to the genre. Though the song "O rosa bella" is well known, secular music hardly figures in his output, in which votive an-tiphons and motets predominate.
Duperron, Jacques Davy
(1556-1618) Swiss-born churchman and statesman
Duperron was born at Berne, the son of French Huguenot refugees. In 1573 he went to Paris, and studied the Fathers of the Church, the schoolmen, and Roman Catholic theologians. He was received into the Roman Church by the Jesuits (c. 1578). He became a friend of King Henry III and after the king’s death (1589), he supported first Cardinal de Bourbon, then the Protestant Henry IV, whose conversion he effected in 1593. In 1595 he obtained papal absolution for the king. Duperron took part in the conference at Nantes, and in 1600 he had the advantage in a theological disputation with the Protestant du plessis-mornay. Since 1591 he had been bishop of Evreux, and he was made cardinal in 1604 (when he went to Rome as the king’s charge d’affaires) and archbishop of Sens in 1606. In 1607 he reconciled Pope Paul V and the Venetians, whom the pope had placed under an interdict on account of their defiant assertion of secular control in matters affecting the property and buildings of the Church. Duperron was a defender of ultramontanism (the doctrine of centralized papal authority) and corresponded with James I on the question of the true church.
Du Plessis-Mornay, Philippe
(1549-1623) French politician and religious leader
Born at Buhi in the Vexin into one of France’s most distinguished families, he was converted by his mother to Calvinism and after study in Germany he became attached to the Huguenot leader coligny. The massacre of st. bartholomew forced him to take refuge in England. On returning to France, he became an adviser to Henry of Navarre and wrote extensively in favor of the Huguenots and religious toleration; these works included his Traite de la verite de la religion chretienne (1581). He was employed in many official roles—ambassador to Spain and Flanders, governor of Saumur—and after Henry’s coronation as henry iv he acted as mediator between the Huguenots and the king, being instrumental in the promulgation of the Edict of nantes. He lost favor after the publication of De l’institution, usage, et doctrine du saint sacrement de l’eucharistie en l’Eglise ancienne (1598). In 1611 he published an overt attack on the Catholic Church. After
Henry’s death Marie de’ Medici restored him to favor because of his efforts to avert religious war, but following the Huguenot uprising of 1620 he fell once more from grace. His standing can be gauged from his nickname, "the Pope of the Huguenots."
Durer, Albrecht
(1471-1528) German painter, draftsman, print maker, and art theorist
Durer was born at Nuremberg and initially trained as a goldsmith under his father. However, he probably never executed metalwork independently, and he began (1486) a second apprenticeship with the Nuremberg painter and woodcut designer Michael wolgemut. Durer had early experience of printing through his godfather, Anton Koberger, who printed illustrated books in collaboration with Wolgemut. In 1490 Durer traveled on the Upper Rhine, becoming familiar with the work of the Housebook Master, and in subsequent years worked, primarily as a woodcut designer, in Strasbourg and Basle. In 1494 he returned home, married, and set up on his own account. Copying engravings by mantegna seems to have motivated him to visit Venice, via the Tyrol, before the year’s end.
In Italy Durer strengthened his acquaintance with Mantegna’s work, studied the paintings of bellini, and encountered works by artists from other regions of Italy, including pollaiuolo. His alpine views, executed in 1494-95, are the earliest topographical watercolors in existence. Other early drawings, such as the Berlin Lobster (1495), reveal his interest in natural history. After his return to Nuremberg he executed the remarkable and expressive Apocalypse woodcuts (1498), the first book to be conceived, executed, printed, and published by an artist. This and later series of woodcuts, such as the Large Passion (1510), the Small Passion (1511), and The Life of the Virgin (1511), abandoned the primitive formality of earlier northern prints for new realms of naturalism. Between 1498 and about 1520, their example transformed the woodcut as an illustrative medium.
From the beginning of his career, Durer painted portraits. His most famous self-portraits are those of 1498 (Madrid) and 1500 (Munich). After his return from Venice, Durer refined his Italian experiences in numerous drawings, prints, and paintings, but a work such as the Paumgartner altarpiece (c. 1500; Munich) remains essentially a northern triptych, despite incorporating deep perspective and Italianate figure types. In 1500 Durer became acquainted with the itinerant Venetian painter and print maker Jacopo de’ Barbari, then based in Nuremberg, and his researches took a major step forward. He devoted a series of studies to the nude, which culminated in the engraved Fall of Man (1504), the first northern work to embody the proportional theories of vitruvius. Between 1503 and 1505 Durer also became increasingly familiar with the work of leonardo da vinci, presumably via drawings made available to him through his friend Willibald pirckheimer. Durer’s engraved Small Horse (1505) utilizes Leonardo’s canon of equine proportions.
Albrecht Durer Self-portrait in oils on a wood panel (1500; Alte Pinakothek, Munich). The image bears a striking resemblance to contemporary depictions of Christ, a fact that has provoked much discussion.
Between 1505 and 1507 Durer was based in Venice where he worked upon the altarpiece of The Madonna of the Rosegarlands (Budapest) for German merchants resident in the city. He wrote an account of his stay in the form of letters to Pirckheimer. Durer was on good terms with the ageing Bellini, although he was ostracized by other Venetian artists, who presumably feared him as a competitor. Although painted after his return to Germany, his lost Heller altarpiece (1509) indicated that Durer encountered the works of raphael and Filippino lippi during this visit to Italy. Magnificent preparatory drawings for the Heller altarpiece survive, one of which, Praying Hands (Vienna), has become a popular symbol of faith throughout Christendom. Durer’s last major altarpiece was the Vienna Adoration of the Trinity (1511), the Italianate frame of which survives in Nuremberg. Thereafter, both artist and city turned increasingly towards Lutheranism and the market for large-scale religious works was considerably reduced.
Although Durer had practiced the engraver’s art with consummate skill since his youth, his finest engravings are the "Three Master Prints" of 1513-14: The Knight, Death, and the Devil, St. Jerome in his Study, and Melancholia I (see melancholia). Each displays Durer’s remarkable ability to render light and texture, which caused Erasmus to dub him "the Apelles of the Black Lines." From 1512 onwards Durer became increasingly involved with the decorative printing projects of Emperor Maximilian I, such as the Triumphal Arch and Triumphal Procession woodcut series. His 1520-21 visit to the Netherlands was ostensibly to ensure renewal of his imperial pension by the newly crowned charles v. Durer’s diary of the visit and numerous drawings which he made in the Netherlands provide a detailed account of the trip. While there he made the acquaintance of several important painters, was enthralled by Aztec treasures recently brought from Mexico, and acquired a set of prints after Raphael, with whom he had previously exchanged drawings.
During his last years Durer painted some of his finest small portraits, including those of Jacob Muffel and Hieronymus Holzschuher (both 1526; Berlin). From the same year dates his last large painting, the Munich Four Apostles diptych, which has a distinctly Lutheran iconography. Since 1512 he had been increasingly drawn towards theoretical studies, which culminated in the publication of his three illustrated books on geometry (1525), fortification (1527), and human proportions (1528). Durer’s publications, prints, and students, the last including aldegrever, baldung, and kulmbach, broadcast his influence throughout Europe. The most significant northern artist of the Renaissance, he was also probably the greatest print maker and the most important German artist of all time.
Dutch East India Company (Dutch Vereenigde Oost-indische Compagnie, VOC)
An amalgamation of over 60 rival trading companies which was granted a charter by the Netherlands states general in 1602. Formed to regulate and protect Dutch trade in the Far East, the company enjoyed considerable privileges, which included the power to make treaties and establish colonies, the right to maintain armed forces, a trade monopoly, and tax exemptions. The first Dutch fleet to follow the Portuguese sea route to the East had sailed in 1595 under Cornelis hout-man, and although it was a failure in terms of trade it demonstrated the possibilities that existed for encroaching on the Portuguese trading empire, and the books of Jan Huyghen van linschoten and Willem lodewycksz. helped fuel Dutch interest in South Asia. The following 50 years saw the company setting up bases in the Indonesian archipelago (in particular Java and the Moluccas), Ceylon (Sri Lanka), numerous South Indian ports, Taiwan, and the Cape of Good Hope. From its Jakarta base the company expelled its Portuguese rivals from Ceylon (1638-58) and Malacca (1641); in 1652 it established the Cape of Good Hope colony. The company had 150 trading vessels, 40 warships, and 10,000 soldiers by 1669, but soon declined due to English competition, waning Dutch power, and rising debts. It was disbanded in 1798.
