RIBEIRA. a town of north-western Spain, in the province of Corunna, on the extreme south-west of the peninsula formed between the river of Muros y Noya and Arosa Bay. Pop. (1900) 12,218. Ribeira is in a hilly country, abounding in wheat, wine, fruit, fish and game. Its port is Santa Eugenia de Ribeira, on Arosa Bay. The population is chiefly occupied in agriculture, cattle-breeding and fisheries.
RIBEIRO, BERNARDIM (1482-1552), the father of bucolic
prose and verse in Portugal, was a native of Torrao in the
Alemtejo. His father, Damiao Ribeiro, was implicated in the
conspiracy against King John II. in 1484, and had to Hee to
Castile, whereupon young Bernardim and his mother took refuge
with their relations Antonio Zagalo and D. Ignez Zagalo at
the-Quinta dos Lobos, near Cintra. When King>Manoel came
to the throne in 1495, he rehabilitated the families persecuted
by his predecessor, and Ribeiro was able to leave his retreat and
return to Torrao. Meanwhile D. Ignez had married a rich
landowner of Estremoz, and in 1503 she was summoned to
court and appointed one of the attendants to the Infanta D.
Beatriz. Ribeiro' accompanied her, and through her influence
the, king took him under his protection and sent him to the
university of Lisbon, where he studied from 1506 to 1512. When
he obtained his degree in law, the king showed him further favour
by appointing him to the post of Escrivdo da Camara, or secretary,
and later by bestowing on him the habit of the military order
by Sao Thiago. Ribeiro's poetic career commenced with his
coming to court, and his early verses are to be found in the
Cancioneiro Geral of Garcia de Resende (q.v.). He took part in
the historic Senies do Pa§ o, or palace evening entertainments,
which largely consisted of poetical improvisations; there he met,
and earned the friendship of the poets sa de Miranda (q.v.)
and Christovao Falcao (q.v.), who became his literary comrades
and the confidants of his romance, in which hope deferred and
bitter disappointment ended in tragedy. Ribeiro had early.
conceived a violent passion for his cousin, D. Ioanna Zagalo,
the daughter of his protectress, D. Ignez; but, though she seems
to have returned it, her family opposed her marriage to a singer
and dreamer with small means and prospects, and finally
compelled her to wed a rich man, one Pero Gato. When the
latter met a violent death shortly afterwards, D. Ioanna retired
to a house in the country, and it is alleged that Ribeiro visited
her, and that their amour resulted in the birth of a child. All we
know positively, however, is that in 1521 the lady Went into
seclusion in the convent of St Clare at Estremoz, where she fell
a victim to a violent form of insanity, and that she died there
some years later. It is further alleged that Ribeiro's conduct
had caused a scandal which led the king to deprive him of his
office and exile him. But the loss of position and income can
have added very little to the poignant grief of such a true lover
and profound idealist as Bernardim Ribeiro. He had poured
out his heart in five beautiful eclogues, the earliest in Portuguese, written in the popular octosyllabic Verse; and now, hopeless of the future and broken in spirit, he decided to go to Italy, for a poet the land of promise. He started early in 1522, and travelled widely in the peninsula, and during his stay he wrote his moving knightly and pastoral romance Menina e Moga, in which he related the story of his unfortunate passion, personifying himself under the anagram of “Bimnarder," and D. Ignez under that of “Aonia.” When he returned home in 1524, the new king, John III., restored, him to his former post, and it is said that he paid a last visit to his love at St Clare's convent and found her in a fit of raving madness. This no doubt preyed on a mind already unhinged by trouble, and hastened the decline of his mental powers, which had already commenced. }About 1534 a long illness supervened, and the years that elapsed between that year and his death may be described as the night of his soul. He was quite unable to fulfil the duties of his office, and in 1549 the king bestowed upon him a pension for his support; but he did not live long to enjoy it, for in 1552 he died insane in All Saints Hospital in Lisbon.
The Menina e Menga was not printed until after Ribeiro's death, and then first in Ferrara in 1554. On its appearance the book madesuch a sensation that its reading was forbidden, because, though it contai-ned nothing heterodox, it, disclosed a family tragedy which the allegory could not hide. It is divided into two parts, the first of which is certainly the work of Ribeiro, while as, to the second opinion is divided, though Dr Theophilo Braga considers it genuine and explains its progressive lack"of lucidity and order by the mental illness of the author.” 'The first part has been ably. edited by Dr ]osé Pessanha' (Opdrt0, 1801)~.' Ribeiro's verses, including 'his live eciogues, which for 'theiri sincerity of feeling, simple diction and chaste form are unsurpassed in Portuguese literature, were reprinted in a limited édition de luxe. by Dr Xavier da Cunha (Lisbon, 1886).
Authorities.—Visconde Sanches de Baena, Bemardim Ribeiro (Lisbon, 1895), ; Dr Theophilo Braga, Bemardfim Ribeiro e 0 Bucolfismo (Oporto, 1897), 'containing a fgll analysis of Ribeiro's novel (sometimes called the Saudades, though it is more commonly described, as here, by the initial words of the story, Menina e Moya).
RIBERA, GIUSEPPE (1588-1656), commonly called Lo Spagnoletto, or the Little Spaniard, a leading painter of the Neapolitan or partly of the Spanish school, was born near Valencia in Spain, at Xativa, 'now named S. Felipe, on 12th January 1588. His parents intended him for a literary or learned career; but he neglected the regular studies, and entered the school of the Spanish painter Francisco Ribalta. Fired with a longing to study art in Italy, he somehow made his way to Rome. Early in the 17th century a cardinal noticed him in the streets of Rome drawing from the frescoes on a palace facade; he took up the ragged stripling and housed him in his mansion. Artists had then already bestowed upon the alien student, who was perpetually copying all sorts of objects in art and in nature, the nickname of Lo Spagnoletto. In the cardinal's. household Ribera was comfortable but dissatisfied, and one day he decamped. He then betook himself to the famous painter Michelangelo da Caravaggio, the head of the naturalist school, called also the school of the Tenebrosi, or shadow-painters, owing to the excessive contrasts of light and shade which marked their style. The Italian master gave every encouragement to the Spaniard, but not for long, as he died in I6OQ. Ribera, who had in the first instance studied chiefly' from Raphael and the Caracci, had by this time acquired so much mastery over the tenebroso style that his performances were barely distinguishable from Caravaggio's own. He now went'to Parma, and worked after the frescoes of Correggio with great zeal and efficiency: in the museum of Madrid is his “ Jacob's Ladder, ” which is regarded as his chef-d'oeuvre in this manner. From Parma Spagnoletto returned to Rome, where he resumed the style of Caravaggio, and shortly afterwards he migrated to Naples, which became his permanent home. Ribera was as yet still poor and inconspicuous, but a rich picture-dealer in Naples soon discerned in him all the stuff of a successful painter, and gave him his daughter in marriage. This was the turning-point in the Spaniard's fortunes. He painted a “Martyrdom of St Bartholomew,” which the father in-law exhibited from his balcony to a rapidly increasing and admiring crowd. The popular excitement grew to so noisy a height as to attract the attention of the Spanish Viceroy, the Count de Monterey., From this nobleman and from the king of Spain, Philip IV., commissions now flowed in upon Ribera. With prosperity came grasping and jealous selfishness. Spagnoletto, chief in a triumvirate of greed, they “Cabal of Naples,” his abettors being a Greek painter, Belisario Corenzio, and a Neapolitan, Giambattista'Caracciolo, determined that Naples should be an artistic monopoly; by intrigue, terrorizing and personal violence on occasion they kept aloof all competitors. Annibale Caracci, the Cavalier d'Arpino, Guido, Domenichino, all of them successively invited to work in Naples, found the place too hot to hold them. The cabal ended at the time of Caracciolo's death in 1641.
The close of Ribera's triumphant career has been variously related. If we are to believe Dominici, the historian of Neapolitan art, he totally disappeared from Naples in 1648 and
