Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/855

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OF CELEBRATED WOMEN.
839

VIGRI (BEATA CATERINA),

A most diligent painter, both in oils and miniature; born at Bologna, 1413, where she introduced the order of St. Chiesa, in the noble monastery of Corpus Domini, which was founded there: amongst other fine paintings, one is much esteemed, of Our Saviour, when an infant. She died in 1463, having lived so that she was venerated by all her acquaintance.

Abec. Pitt.



VIEN (MADAME DE), a French Lady of the Time of Louis XVth,

Whose history pieces have no inconsiderable merit; her imagination was warm and active, and her colours lively and pleasing.




VILLARS, (the Marchioness de), Mother to the celebrated Duke de Villars, was Marie de Bellefonds, a Lady as remarkable for the Beauty of her Person, as for her Wit and Conversation.

She accompanied her husband, the Marquis de Villars, into Spain, when he was appointed ambassador to that court, at the time Charles the IId. married Marie-Louisa d'Orleans, niece to Louis XIV. who was particularly attached to Mademoiselle de Villars, though the punctilious manners of the Spanish court, and the jealousy Charles entertained of the French nation, which could hardly bear she should converse with any of them, embittered the friendship that amiable princess entertained for her. During her stay at Madrid, she wrote many letters to her friends, particularly to Mademoiselle de Couiange, most of which have been preserved; they are writ-

ten