Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/96

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88 FARNESE FARNHAH 1586 he inherited the duchy, but did not even visit his dominions. In 1588 he was put in command of the armada which Philip II. of Spain sent against England ; but being shut up with his army in Antwerp by the Dutch flo- tilla, he was only a spectator of its disastrous failure. In 1590 he invaded France at the head of the Spanish army and relieved Paris, which was then besieged by Henry IV. In 1592 he marched into Normandy, and obliged Biron to raise the siege of Eouen, one of the principal cities held by the leaguers; but he received here a wound which afterward proved fatal. Being attacked by Henry IV., who hemmed in his army between the Seine and the English channel, he foiled the efforts of his opponent, and succeeded in landing his troops on the opposite bank of the river, when they returned to the Netherlands. As for himself, he was unable to proceed further than Arras, where he breathed his last. He was a man of consummate military and diplomatic genius. A bronze equestrian statue of him by John of Bologna adorns the principal public square at Piacenza. His successor was his son by the princess Mary of Portugal, RANUZIO I. (1569- 1622). He was a lover of science and art, but notorious for his ferocity against noble families, a number of whom he had executed, confis- cating their property for alleged conspiracy. He married a niece of Pope Clement VIII. His son and successor ODOAEDO (1612-'46) was fond of magnificence and lavish in the expen- diture of money, and possessed various accom- plishments. But, insatiable in his ambition, he entered into an alliance with France against Spain and Austria in 1633, by which he nearly lost his duchies. In 1639 Pope Urban VIII. deprived him of the duchy of Castro, upon which Odoardo had raised money which he was unable to pay. After five years of wran- gling Castro was restored to him through the intervention of France and Venice. RANUZIO II., his son and successor, was the fattest of a family noted for obesity. He died in 1694, and was succeeded by his son FKANCESCO, who died in 1727, and was followed on the throne by his brother ANTONIO. This prince, born in 1670, was likewise exceedingly corpulent, and cared for little besides eating and sleeping. Leaving no issue, he designated as his succes- sor Don Carlos, son of Philip V. of Spain and of his niece Elizabeth Farnese. The Farnese family became extinct with him in 1731, and the rule of Parma and Piacenza passed into the hands of the infante of Spain, consequent upon a convention signed in Vienna in the same year. The Farnese palace in Rome, now belonging by inheritance to the deposed king of Naples, was finished under the di- rection of Michel Angelo, who designed the whole upper part of the building with its imposing entablature. It is regarded as the finest piece of architecture in Rome, and was constructed of blocks of travertine which were taken by the nephews of Pope Paul III. from the theatre of Marcellus and the Colosseum. The grounds are adorned by two fountains, whose granite basins, 17 ft. long and 4 ft. wide, were taken from the baths of Caracalla. The most celebrated statuary has been removed to the museum of Naples, including the torso Farnese, or Farnese bull, and the Farnese Hercules, or the Hercules of Glycon. Among the few monuments which remain in the pal- ace is a colossal one representing Alessandro Farnese crowned by Victory, sculptured out of a column taken from the basilica of Con- stantine. The most exquisite paintings are the frescoes of Annibale Carracci and his pupils in the gallery on the upper floor. The villa Farnesina, in the Lungara of the Trastevere, opposite the Corsini palace, was designed by Baldassare Peruzzi for Agosti- no Chigi (1506), who gave here in 1518 an extravagant entertainment in honor of Leo X. ; the plate, on being removed from the table, was thrown into the Tiber. This palace, mainly celebrated for its frescoes by Raphael and his pupils, became the property of the Farnese family, and passed with its other possessions to the Neapolitan Bourbons. The kings of Naples supported here an academy of painting, and eventually sold the palace to the Spanish duke Ripalda, who still owns it. The Farnese gardens (Orti Farnesianf) occupy the whole northwestern summit of the Palatine hill, and contain interesting ruins of the pal- aces of the Caesars. Napoleon III. purchased these grounds in 1861 from the king of Naples for 250,000 francs, and spent 750,000 francs on the excavations alone, designed to aid in hia work on Julius Caesar. In 1870 he sold them for 650,000 francs to the city authorities of Rome, on condition of their continuing the excavations under the direction of Pietro Rosa. FiRNHAM, Eliza W., an American philanthro- pist and author, born at Rensselaerville, Al- bany co., N. Y., Nov. 17, 1815, died in New York, Dec. 15, 1864. Her maiden name was Burhans. In 1835 she went to Illinois, and in 1836 married Thomas J. Farnham. In 1841 she returned to New York, where she visited prisons and lectured to women till the spring of 1844, when she became matron of the fe- male department of the state prison at Sing Sing, hoping to govern such an institution by kindness alone. She remained four years, and while there published " Life in Prairie Land," and edited an edition of Sampson's "Criminal Jurisprudence." In 1848 she removed to Bos- ton, and was connected for some time with the institution for the blind in that city. In 1849 she went to California, and in 1856 re- turned to New York, and published " Califor- nia Indoors and Out." For the next two years she studied medicine. In 1859 she or- ganized a society to aid and protect destitute women in emigrating to the west, and went at different times to the western states with large numbers of such persons. The same year she published "My Early Days." She