great Stone of Foundation layd therein of Judgement and Righteousness and of holy Priesthood, and spiritual Oblation through Jesus Christ brought forth through the Lord's elected minister Henry Nicholas.’ This was reprinted and answered, paragraph by paragraph, by Rogers in his ‘Answere vnto a wicked and infamous Libel made by Christopher Vitels, one of the chiefe English Elders of the pretended Family of Loue’ [1578], 8vo; another ed. 1579.
The result of Vitells's translation was a proclamation issued in 1580 by Archbishop Grindal against the ‘family’ and all their writings (Wilkins, Concilia, iv. 297). There is no authentic record of Vitells's later life.
[Strype's Annals, vol. ii. pt. i. p. 487, pt. ii. p. 284; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. p. 738; Bateman's Doome warning all Men to Judgements, 1581, 4to, p. 414; Pagitt's Heresiography, 6th edit., 1661, p. 109; John Rogers's books above mentioned, and Thomas Rogers's Faith, Doctrine, and Religion, reprinted (1854) by the Parker Society as the Catholic Doctrine of the Church of England, pp. 135, 163, 202; Wilkinson's Confutation of certain Articles, 1579.]
VITELLI, CORNELIO (fl. 1489), scholar, was born of a noble family at Corneto in the Romagna. He was the earliest teacher of Greek at Oxford. In or before 1475 Vitelli accepted an invitation from Thomas Chaundler, warden of New College, to become prælector. His first lecture was answered by the warden. It is supposed that William Grocyn [q. v.] and Thomas Linacre [q. v.] were among his pupils. Erasmus (Opp. i. 1010) speaks somewhat slightingly of his Latin. Polydore Vergil (Hist. Angl. 1603, p. 1566), after styling him ‘vir optimus gratiosusque,’ says ‘omnium primus Oxonii bonas literas docuerat’ (cf. Knight, Colet, p. 106, where the passage is inaccurately rendered). He taught at New College till 1489, when he was summoned to Paris by Charles VIII, who appointed him, with Publius Faustus Andrelinus, to teach there; but, owing to the jealousy of the logicians, he seems to have returned to Oxford, and perhaps lodged in Exeter College in 1491. He had probably died or again left England before 1509, as no mention of him occurs in the ‘Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII.’
Vitelli was the author of various classical commentaries. His ‘Annotationes in Cornucopiæ N. Perotti libellum’ were printed with Perottus's book at Venice in 1499, fol. (Aldus), and reprinted in 1513, 1521, 1522, and 1527; they also appear in ‘In C. Plinium Prælectio’ by Marinus Becichemus (Basel, 1519, fol.). His ‘Epistola in Defensionem Plinii et Domitii Calderini contra Georgium Merulam Alexandrinum’ was first printed about 1490 in quarto, and was reprinted in Badius's ‘Annotationes Doctorum Virorum,’ Paris, 1511, fol., and in Gruter's ‘Lampas sive Fax Artium Liberalium,’ 1602 (i. 583–648).
[Oxford Hist. Soc. Collectanea, ii. 339; Hallam's Lit. of Europe, i. 230, and authorities there cited; Wood's Annals of Oxford, an. 1488 (inaccurate); Budinszky's Die Universität Paris, p. 186; Boase's Reg. of Rectors, &c., of Exeter College, p. xviii; Lyte's Hist. of Univ. of Oxford, p. 387; Harpsfield's Hist. Angl. 1622, p. 651, refers to him as ‘illud ex Italia lumen;’ works in Brit. Mus. Libr.]
VIVARES, FRANÇOIS (1709–1780), landscape-engraver, was born at St. Jean-de-Bruel, near Montpellier, France, on 11 July 1709, and brought up at Geneva. At the age of eighteen he came to London, where, according to Strutt, he obtained instruction from John Baptist Claude Chatelaine [q. v.]; but as that engraver was his junior, this is somewhat improbable. Vivares was an artist of great genius, and is regarded as one of the founders of the school of landscape-engraving in this country, of which William Woollett [q. v.] was the most distinguished member. Of his plates, which number about 160, and were largely published by Boydell, the most important are from pictures by the old masters, Claude, Gaspar Poussin, Il Bolognese, Vanderneer, and Cuyp; but a large proportion of them are views of English scenery after Gainsborough, Wootton, Smith of Derby, the Smiths of Chichester, and others. He particularly excelled in translating the works of Claude, and his ‘Morning,’ ‘Evening,’ ‘View of Naples,’ and ‘Enchanted Castle,’ after that painter, are masterpieces of the art. The last-mentioned plate he left unfinished at his death, and it was completed by Woollett. Vivares exhibited engravings with the Incorporated Society of Artists in 1766 and 1768. During the last thirty years of his life he resided in Great Newport Street, where he kept a print-shop. There he died on 28 Nov. 1780, and was buried in Paddington churchyard. He was thrice married, and had thirty-one children. There is a portrait of Vivares, engraved by himself and James Caldwall.
Thomas Vivares (fl. 1770–1790), a son of François, worked as assistant to his father, and in 1764 gained a premium from the Society of Arts for two engravings. He afterwards executed a few landscapes after J. Vernet, Zuccarelli, A. Zingg, and others, but these possess little merit. His name
