GOZO GRAAL 135 t the streets are regularly laid out, although ill paved. Most of the houses are built with mud walls. The principal edifices are the gov- ernor's palace, the house of legislation, the prison, and the municipal slaughter house. One of the churches has a fine exterior. The river is here crossed by two handsome bridges. There is very little trade. The climate is sa- lubrious, but in summer the heat is excessive. The town was founded in 1736, and was then called Santa Anna. It was incorporated as a city in 1739, when it received its present name Goyaz, or, in full, Villa Boa de Goyaz. GOZO. See MALTA. GOZZI, Carlo, count, an Italian dramatist, born in Venice about 1720, died April 4, 1806. He early published some poetry, but was obliged to enlist in the army owing to pecuni- ary embarrassment. After three years he re- turned to Venice, and became the most witty member of the Granalleschi society, which was devoted to learning and also to convivial and burlesque purposes. He began to ridicule the plays of the abbate Cliiari, and ended by attacking those of Goldoni, against whom he directed his satire La tartana degli influssi per Tanno Mssestile 1757, which made him famous. His dramatic pieces, based on fairy tales, were for a time exceedingly popular, es- pecially Turandote, which Schiller adapted to the German stage. He afterward wrote trage- dies. He published a complete edition of his plays in 12 vols. (Venice, 1791). Werthes trans- lated his plays into German (5 vols., Bern, 1795), and Streckfuss prepared a German ver- sion of his fairy tales (Berlin, 1805). He face- tiously gave to his autobiography the title of Memorie inutili della vita di Carlo Gozzi (3 vols., Venice, 1797). His brother GASPARO (1713-'86) was a voluminous writer in prose and verse, but is best remembered as the author of the Osservatore veneto (published periodical- ly), Sermoni, and other humorously critical pro- ductions. His works, including his Difesa di Dante, were collected in 16 vols. (1818). GRAAF, Regnier de, a Dutch physician, born at Schoonhoven in 1641, died in Delft, Aug. 17, 1673. He was especially distinguished for hav- ing originated the discovery that reproduction takes place in the viviparous as well as in the oviparous animals by means of ovarian eggs, and that all animals are therefore essentially oviparous. The "Graafian vesicles" of the mammalian ovary were discovered and de- scribed by him, although he mistook their ex- act nature and considered, them as true eggs, while they have since been shown to be only the receptacles within which the microscopic egg is contained. He also acquired a wide reputation by his investigations on the pancre- atic juice. His works are : Disputatio Medica de Natura et Usu Sued Pancreatid (Ley den, 1664); De Virorum Organis Generationi in- sermentibus, &c. (1668); Epistola de nonnullis circa Partes Genitales novis invcntis (1668) ; Tractatus Anatomico-Medicus de Sued Pancre- atid Natura et Usu (1671) ; and De Mulierum Organis Generationi insermentibus (1672). GRAAL, or Grail, the Holy (in old French, san greal; in old English, sancgreall; either from Fr. saint, holy, and the Celtic greall, Provencal grazal, and mediaeval Latin gradalis, a vase or cup, or from the French sang real^ the "real blood " of Christ), one of the leading themes of mediaeval romance, fabled to have been the cup or chalice used by Christ in the last supper, and in which he changed the wine into his blood. This chalice, preserved by Joseph of Arimathea, had also received the blood which flowed from the side of Christ on the cross. So says the apocryphal gospel of Nicodemus; but no early mention is made of it by either profane or ecclesiastical writers'. In the 12th century, at the dawn of romantic literature, it reappeared as the central subject of the prophe- cies of Merlin, and the object of the adventurous quest of the knights of the round table. Eo- mance mixed it up with the struggles in Spain between Moors and Christians, and with the foundation of the order of templars in Pales- tine. In the Arthurian romances Joseph of Arimathea (sometimes confounded with a bish- op named Joseph sent by St. Augustine from Africa to England), on his arrival in Britain, consecrated his son first bishop of the island, and made his Christian relatives kings instead of the British pagan kings. Kept in prison by the Jews during the 50 years which imme- diately followed the death of Christ, he had been preserved from the approaches of old age by the possession of the holy graal, and was released by the Saviour in person, who taught him the words of the mass, and bade him re- new daily the sacrament of the last supper. The holy graal lay thus at the foundation of the Christian priesthood. St. Joseph of Ari- mathea, in some forms of the legend, was the ever-living possessor of the precious relic ; in others he died after the lapse of several centu- ries, bestowing his authority and the holy graal on his son, who in his turn died after conse- crating one of his relatives as his successor. .The last possessor, a contemporary of King Ar- thur, unmindful of his holy trust, sinned, and forthwith the holy vessel disappeared and was lost. The knights of the round table undertook the task of recovering it; but it baffled the seekers, as no one could see it who was not a virgin in body. Lancelot of the lake had arrived at the door of the chamber where the holy graal was ; warned to depart, he neverthe- less ventured to look in, " and saw a table of silver and the holy vessel covered with red samite, and many angels about it, whereof one of them held a candell of wax burning, and the other held a crosse and the ornaments of the alter." Having dared to enter, a blast of fire smote him to the ground, where he lay " twen- ty-four days and as many nights as a dead man." It was reserved to Sir Galahad, who was possessed of perfect purity, to behold it peacefully before his death. Immediately after
