Page:EB1911 - Volume 05.djvu/803

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CESAREVICH—CESNOLA
767

on the other hand, unwisely cut down the naval estimates. When in 1898 the Spanish-American War (q.v.) broke out, he was chosen to command a squadron composed of four first-class cruisers, the “Maria Theresa,” his flagship, “Oquendo,” “Vizcaya,” and “Columbus,” and several destroyers. This ill-fated squadron only started upon its reckless cruise across the ocean after its gallant commander had repeatedly warned both the minister of marine and the prime minister, Sagasta, in despatches from Cadiz and from the Canary and Cape Verde Islands, that the ships were insufficiently provided with coal and ammunition. Some of them, indeed, even lacked proper guns. In compliance with the instructions of the government, Admiral Cervera made for the landlocked harbour of Santiago de Cuba, where he co-operated in the defence, landing some guns and a naval brigade. In spite of his energetic representations, Cervera received an order from Madrid, dictated by political considerations, to sally forth. It meant certain destruction. The gallant squadron met forces trebly superior to it, and was totally destroyed. The admiral, three of his captains, and 1800 sailors and marines were taken by the victors to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, U.S.A. After the war, Cervera and his captains were tried before the supreme naval and military court of the realm, which honourably acquitted them all. In 1901 he became vice-admiral, in 1902 was appointed chief of staff of the Spanish navy, and in 1903 was made life senator. He died at Puerto Real on the 3rd of April 1909.


CESAREVICH, or more properly Tsesarevich, the title of the heir-apparent to the Russian throne. The full official title is Nasliednik Tsesarevich, i.e. “heir of Caesar,” and in Russia the heir to the throne is commonly called simply Nasliednik, the word Tsesarevich never being used alone. Tsarevich, a form now much used in England, means simply any “king’s son”; it is an antiquated term now out of use in Russia, and was last borne as heir to the throne by the unfortunate Alexius, son of Peter the Great. The style of the wife of the tsesarevich is Tsesarevna. The Cesarewitch handicap race at Newmarket, founded in 1839, was named after the prince who was afterwards Alexander II. of Russia, who paid a state visit to England that year.


CESARI, GIUSEPPE, called Il Cavaliere d’ Arpino (born in or about 1568 and created a “Cavaliere di Cristo” by Pope Clement VIII.), also named Il Giuseppino, an Italian painter, much encouraged at Rome and munificently rewarded. His father had been a native of Arpino, but Giuseppe himself was born in Rome. Cesari is stigmatized by Lanzi as not less the corrupter of taste in painting than Marino was in poetry; indeed, another of the nicknames of Cesari is “Il Marino de’ Pittori” (the pictorial Marino). There was spirit in Cesari’s heads of men and horses, and his frescoes in the Capitol (story of Romulus and Remus, &c.), which occupied him at intervals during forty years, are well coloured; but he drew the human form ill. His perspective is faulty, his extremities monotonous, and his chiaroscuro defective. He died in 1640, at the age of seventy-two, or perhaps of eighty, at Rome. Cesari ranks as the head of the “Idealists” of his period, as opposed to the “Naturalists,” of whom Michelangelo da Caravaggio was the leading champion,—the so-called “idealism” consisting more in reckless facility, and disregard of the common facts and common-sense of nature, than in anything to which so lofty a name could be properly accorded. He was a man of touchy and irascible character, and rose from penury to the height of opulence. His brother Bernardino assisted in many of his works.


CESAROTTI, MELCHIORE (1730–1808), Italian poet, was born at Padua in 1730, of a noble but impoverished family. At the university of his native place his literary progress procured for him at a very early age the chair of rhetoric, and in 1768 the professorship of Greek and Hebrew. On the invasion of Italy by the French, he gave his pen to their cause, received a pension, and was made knight of the iron crown by Napoleon I., to whom, in consequence, he addressed a bombastic and extravagantly flattering poem called Pronea. Cesarotti is best known as the translator of Homer and Ossian. Much praise cannot be given to his version of the Iliad, for he has not scrupled to add, omit and modernize. Ossian, which he held to be the finest of poems, he has, on the other hand, considerably improved in translation; and the appearance of his version attracted much attention in Italy and France, and raised up many imitators of the Ossianic style. Cesarotti also produced a number of works in prose, including a Course of Greek Literature, and essays On the Origin and Progress of the Poetic Art, On the Sources of the Pleasure derived from Tragedy, On the Philosophy of Language and On the Philosophy of Taste, the last being a defence of his own great eccentricities in criticism. His weakness was a straining after novelty. His style is forcible, but full of Gallicisms.

A complete edition of his works, in 42 vols. 8vo, began to appear at Pisa in 1800, and was completed in 1813, after his death. See Memoirs, by Barbieri (Padua, 1810), and Un Filosofo delle lettere, by Alemanni (Turin, 1894).


CESENA (anc. Caesena), a town and episcopal see of Emilia, Italy, in the province of Forlì, 12 m. S.E. by rail from the town of Forlì, on the line between Bologna and Rimini, 144 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1905) 12,245 (town); 43,468 (commune). The town is picturesquely situated at the foot of the slopes of the Apennines, and is crowned by a medieval fortress (Rocca), begun by the emperor Frederick I. (Barbarossa) probably, but altered and added to later. The cathedral has two fine marble altars by the Lombardi of Venice (or their school). The library, built for Domenico Malatesta in 1452 by Matteo Nuzio, is a fine early Renaissance building, and its internal arrangements, with the original desks to which the books are still chained, are especially well preserved (see J. W. Clark, The Care of Books, Cambridge, 1901, p. 199). In it are valuable MSS., many of which were used by Aldus Manutius. It also contains a picture gallery with a good “Presentation in the Temple” by Francesco Francia. There are some fine palaces in the town. Three-quarters of a mile south-east on the hill stands the handsome church of S. Maria del Monte, after the style of Bramante, with carved stalls of the 16th century. Wine, hemp and silk are the main articles of trade. About the ancient Caesena little is said in classical authors: it is mentioned as a station on the Via Aemilia and as a fortress in the wars of Theodoric and Narses. During the middle ages it was at first independent. In 1357 it was unsuccessfully defended by the wife of Francesco Ordelaffi, lord of Forlì, against the papal troops under Albornoz. In 1377 it was sacked by Cardinal Robert of Geneva (afterwards Clement VII., antipope). It was then held by the Malatesta of Rimini until 1465, when it came under the dominion of the church. Both Pius VI. (1717) and Pius VII. (1742) were born at Cesena.  (T. As.) 


CESNOLA, LUIGI PALMA DI (1832–1904), Italian-American soldier and archaeologist, was born near Turin on the 29th of July 1832. Having served in the Austrian and Crimean Wars, in 1860 he went to New York, where he taught Italian and French and founded a military school for officers. He took part in the American Civil War as colonel of a cavalry regiment, and at Aldie (June 1863) was wounded and taken prisoner. He was released from Libby prison early in 1864, served in the Wilderness and Petersburg campaigns (1864–65) as a brigadier of cavalry, and at the close of the war was breveted brigadier-general. He was then appointed United States consul at Larnaca in Cyprus (1865–1877). During his stay in the island he carried on excavations, which resulted in the discovery of a large number of antiquities. The collection was purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of New York, and Cesnola became director in 1879. Doubt having been thrown by Gaston L. Feuerdant, in an article in the New York Herald (August 1880), upon the genuineness of his restorations, the matter was referred to a special committee, which pronounced in his favour.[1] He is the author of Cyprus, its ancient Cities, Tombs and Temples (1877), an interesting book of travel and of considerable service to the practical antiquary; and of a Descriptive Atlas of the Cesnola Collection of Cypriote Antiquities (3 vols., 1884–6). He died in New York on the 21st of November 1904. He was a

  1. For the Cesnola controversy see C. D. Cobham’s Attempt at a Bibliography of Cyprus (4th ed., 1900). See also article Cyprus.