discourses at the church of St Jean de Beauvais in Paris on the relations between science and religion; but his utterances, especially on the question of divorce, were deemed suspicious by his superiors, and his intimacy with Claude Bernard the physiologist was disapproved. He was interdicted from preaching and sent into retirement at the convent of Corbara in Corsica. After eighteen months he emerged, and travelled in Germany, publishing an interesting work upon that country, entitled Les Allemands (English translation by R. Ledos de Beaufort, London, 1884). On his return to France in 1890 he produced his best known work, Jésus-Christ (2 vols., Paris), for which he had qualified himself by travel in the Holy Land. In the same year he became director of the Collège Albert-le-Grand at Arcueil, and founded three auxiliary institutions, École Lacordaire, École Laplace and École St Dominique. He wrote, in addition, several works on educational questions, and augmented his fame as an eloquent preacher by discourses preached during Lent and Advent. He died at Toulouse on the 13th of March 1900.
See the biographies by J. de Romano (1891), and A. de Coulanges (Paris, 1900); and especially the work of Stanislas Reynaud, entitled Le Père Didon, sa vie et son œuvre (Paris, 1904).
DIDOT, the name of a family of learned French printers and publishers. François Didot (1689–1757), founder of the family, was born at Paris. He began business as a bookseller and printer in 1713, and among his undertakings was a collection of the travels of his friend the Abbé Prévost, in twenty volumes (1747). It was remarkable for its typographical perfection, and was adorned with many engravings and maps. François Ambroise Didot (1730–1804), son of François, made important improvements in type-founding, and was the first to attempt printing on vellum paper. Among the works which he published was the famous collection of French classics prepared by order of Louis XVI. for the education of the Dauphin, and the folio edition of L’Art de vérifier les dates. Pierre François Didot (1732–1795), his brother, devoted much attention to the art of type-founding and to paper-making. Among the works which issued from his press was an edition in folio of the Imitatio Christi (1788). Henri Didot (1765–1852), son of Pierre François, is celebrated for his “microscopic” editions of various standard works, for which he engraved the type when nearly seventy years of age. He was also the engraver of the assignats issued by the Constituent and Legislative Assemblies and the Convention. Didot Saint-Léger, second son of Pierre François, was the inventor of the paper-making machine known in England as the Didot machine. Pierre Didot (1760–1853), eldest son of François Ambroise, is celebrated as the publisher of the beautiful “Louvre” editions of Virgil, Horace and Racine. The Racine, in three volumes folio, was pronounced in 1801 to be “the most perfect typographical production of all ages.” Firmin Didot (1764–1836), his brother, second son of François Ambroise, sustained the reputation of the family both as printer and type-founder. He revived (if he did not invent—a distinction which in order of time belongs to William Ged) the process of stereotyping, and coined its name, and he first used the process in his edition of Callet’s Tables of Logarithms (1795), in which he secured an accuracy till then unattainable. He published stereotyped editions of French, English and Italian classics at a very low price. He was the author of two tragedies—La Reine de Portugal and La Mort d’Annibal; and he wrote metrical translations from Virgil, Tyrtaeus and Theocritus. Ambroise Firmin Didot (1790–1876) was his eldest son. After receiving a classical education, he spent three years in Greece and in the East; and on the retirement of his father in 1827 he undertook, in conjunction with his brother Hyacinthe, the direction of the publishing business. Their greatest undertaking was a new edition of the Thesaurus Graecae linguae of Henri Estienne, under the editorial care of the brothers Dindorf and M. Hase (9 vols., 1855–1859). Among the numerous important works published by the brothers, the 200 volumes forming the Bibliothèque des auteurs grecs, Bibliothèque latine, and Bibliothèque française deserve special mention. Ambroise Firmin Didot was the first to propose (1823) a subscription in favour of the Greeks, then in insurrection against Turkish tyranny. Besides a translation of Thucydides (1833), he wrote the articles “Estienne” in the Nouvelle Biographie générale, and “Typographie” in the Ency. mod., as well as Observations sur l’orthographie française (1867), &c. In 1875 he published a very learned and elaborate monograph on Aldus Manutius. His collection of MSS., the richest in France, was said to have been worth, at the time of his death, not less than 2,000,000 francs.
DIDRON, ADOLPHE NAPOLÉON (1806–1867), French archaeologist, was born at Hautvillers, in the department of Marne, on the 13th of March 1806. At first a student of law, he began in 1830, by the advice of Victor Hugo, a study of the Christian archaeology of the middle ages. After visiting and examining the principal churches, first of Normandy, then of central and southern France, he was on his return appointed by Guizot secretary to the Historical Committee of Arts and Monuments (1835); and in the following years he delivered several courses of lectures on Christian iconography at the Bibliothèque Royale. In 1839 he visited Greece for the purpose of examining the art of the Eastern Church, both in its buildings and its manuscripts. In 1844 he originated the Annales archéologiques, a periodical devoted to his favourite subject, which he edited until his death. In 1845 he established at Paris a special archaeological library, and at the same time a manufactory of painted glass. In the same year he was admitted to the Legion of Honour. His most important work is the Iconographie chrétienne, of which, however, the first portion only, Histoire de Dieu (1843), was published. It was translated into English by E. J. Millington. Among his other works may be mentioned the Manuel d’iconographie chrétienne grecque et latine (1845), the Iconographie des chapiteaux du palais ducal de Venise (1857), and the Manuel des objets de bronze et d’orfèvrerie (1859). He died on the 13th of November 1867.
DIDYMI, or Didyma (mod. Hieronta), an ancient sanctuary of Apollo in Asia Minor situated in the territory of Miletus, from which it was distant about 10 m. S. and on the promontory Poseideion. It was sometimes called Branchidae from the name of its priestly caste which claimed descent from Branchus, a youth beloved by Apollo. As the seat of a famous oracle, the original temple attracted offerings from Pharaoh Necho (in whose army there was a contingent of Milesian mercenaries), and the Lydian Croesus, and was plundered by Darius of Persia. Xerxes finally sacked and burnt it (481 B.C.) and exiled the Branchidae to the far north-east of his empire. This exile was believed to be voluntary, the priests having betrayed their treasures to the Persian; and on this belief Alexander the Great acted 150 years later, when, finding the descendants of the Branchidae established in a city beyond the Oxus, he ordered them to be exterminated for the sin of their fathers (328). The celebrated cult-statue of Apollo by Canachus, familiar to us from reproductions on Milesian coins, was also carried to Persia, there to remain till restored by Seleucus I. in 295, and the oracle ceased to speak for a century and a half. The Milesians were not able to undertake the rebuilding till about 332 B.C., when the oracle revived at the bidding of Alexander. The work proved too costly, and despite a special effort made by the Asian province nearly 400 years later, at the bidding of the emperor Caligula, the structure was never quite finished: but even as it was, Strabo ranked the Didymeum the greatest of Greek temples and Pliny placed it among the four most splendid and second only to the Artemisium at Ephesus. In point of fact it was a little smaller than the Samian Heraeum and the temple of Cybele at Sardis, and almost exactly the same size as the Artemisium. The area covered by the platform measures roughly 360 × 160 ft.
When Cyriac of Ancona visited the spot in 1446, it seems that the temple was still standing in great part, although the cella had been converted into a fortress by the Byzantines: but when the next European visitor, the Englishman Dr Pickering, arrived in 1673, it had collapsed. It is conjectured that the cause was the great earthquake of 1493. The Society of Dilettanti sent two expeditions to explore the ruins, the first in 1764 under Richard Chandler, the second in 1812 under Sir Wm. Gell; and the French
