Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/598

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

578 BERNIER BERNOULLI with additional verses of his own. At the sack of Rome in 1527 he lost all that he possessed and retired to Florence, where he lived as canon, enjoying the favor of the Medici. IM'UMIK. Fruifois, a French traveller and philosopher, born in Anjou about 1625, died in Paris, Sept. 22, 1688. He first studied med- icine, but his taste for travelling led him to Syria, to Egypt, and afterward to India, where he resided for twelve years, during eight of which he was physician to the emperor Aurung- zebe. Under the protection of this prince and his ministers he was enabled to visit countries hitherto inaccessible to Europeans. Upon his return from his travels his society was much courted at Paris, and he was called, on account of the elegance of his person and of his man- ners, the joli philosophe. He published sev- eral volumes describing his travels, which have frequently been reprinted under the general title of Voyages de Sernier, contenant la de- scription des fitats du Grand Mogol, and were translated into English (London, 1671 -'5). He wrote an Abrege de la Philosophic de Gassendi (8 vols., Lyons, 1678), and aided Boileau in the composition of the Arret burlesque, which saved the works of Aristotle from being con- demned by the parliament of Paris. If KRMVA, a peak of the Rhastian Alps, in the canton of Orisons, Switzerland, 36 m. S. E. of Chur, 13,294 feet in height. It gives its name to the range of mountains that separate the valleys of the Engadine and Bregaglia from the Valteline. The Bernina pass, 7,672 feet above the sea, connects the Valtelline with the upper Engadine valley. BERNINI, Giovanni Lorenzo, an Italian sculptor and architect, born in Naples in 1598, died in Rome, Nov. 28, 1680. Having been presented by his father at an early age to Paul V., he drew the head of St. Paul in a manner which excited the admiration of the pope, and he recommended him to Cardinal Barberini. At the age of 18 he made a group of "Apollo and Daphne," which may still be seen at the villa Borghese. After Barberini became pope under the name of Urban VIII. (1623) Bernini was employed for nine years upon the bronze canopy over the tomb of St. Peter. He then built the niches in the four pillars that sup- port the dome, and executed the statue of St. Longinus that stands in one of them. He afterward built the palazzo Barberini and exe- cuted the group of St. Theresa with the angel. Under Innocent X. he constructed the foun- tain in the piazza Navona and the palace of Monte Citorio. Among the many works he executed for Alexander VII. was the colon- nade in front of St. Peter's. His fame spread throughout Europe. Louis XIV. in an auto- graph letter (April 11, 1665) invited him to take charge of the completion of the Louvre. His journey to France was a triumphal proces- sion; but his plans involved the destruction of all of the Louvre that' had already been built, and were never carried out. He re- turned to Italy in the spring of 1666 loaded with honors and with gifts. Upon his death at the age of 82 he left a large fortune. BERNIS, Franfois Joachim de Pierres de, a French cardinal and statesman, born May 22, 1715, at St. Marcel, department of Ardeehe, died in Rome, Nov. 1, 1794. He was of a noble and ancient, but not wealthy family, and was des- tined from childhood for the church. He went to Paris, and after passing several years at the seminary of St. Sulpice entered society with the title of abbe 1 , and by his personal appear- ance, graceful manners, and talent for making verses made a favorable impression. He was received into the French academy in 1744. Cardinal Fleury, a friend of his father, dis- approved of his gay life; but after the death of the cardinal, through the favor of Madame Pompadour, he was appointed minister to Venice. While in that city (1751-'5), a differ- ence having arisen between the republic and the pope, the abb6 Bernis mediated between them. After his return to France he was made minister of foreign affairs and cardinal. As minister he negotiated, at the opening of the seven years' war, the alliance between Austria and France against England and Prussia. The war having led to the disastrous defeat of Ross- bach, Cardinal de Bernis was compelled to send in his resignation as minister, and was exiled in 1758 to Soissons, where he remained till 1764, when he was recalled and made arch- bishop of Albi. Five years afterward he was sent as ambassador to Rome with instructions to labor for the suppression of the order of Jesuits. At Rome he distinguished himself in the conclaves of 1769 and 1774. He lived there in great magnificence until the French revolution deprived him of his revenues, after which he received till his death an allowance from the court of Spain. His letters to Paris- Duvernay and a small volume of (Einres melees en prose et en ten have been published. BERNOULLI, or Bernoulli!, a celebrated family of mathematicians and savants, originally of Antwerp, driven thence by Alva, settled first in Frankfort, and in 1622 in Basel, Switzer- land. I. James, born in Basel, Dec. 25, 1654, died there, Aug. 16, 1705. He was destined by his father for the ministry, but accident having thrown some geometrical books in his way, he took for his device Phaethon driving the chariot of the sun, with the motto, Imito patre, sidera verso, and devoted himself to the study of mathematics. In 1676 he visited Geneva, where he taught a blind girl to write, and thence travelled into France, where he constructed gnomical tables, and returned home in 1680. The appearance of a comet in that year led to his publishing an essay en- titled Conamen novi Systematis Cometarum, in which he contended that the orbits of comets might be calculated. He again travelled in various countries, and at London made the ac- quaintance of Bayle. After his return to Basel in 1682 he tried experiments in physical and