the watches throughout the night.[1] Vegetius gives brief descriptions of the three instruments, which suffice to establish their identity; the tuba, he says, is straight; the buccina is of bronze bent in the form of a circle.[2]
 Fig. 2.—Busine, 14th century. (From MS. R. 10 E. IV. Brit. Mus.) |
 Fig. 3.—Busine, 14th century. (From MS. R. 10 E. IV. Brit. Mus.) |
The buccina, in respect of its technical construction and acoustic properties, was the ancestor of both trumpet and trombone; the connexion is further established by the derivation of the words Sackbut and Posaune (the German for trombone) from buccina. The relation was fully recognized in Germany during the 15th and 16th centuries, as two translations of Vegetius, published at Ulm in 1470, and at Augsburg in 1534, clearly demonstrate: “Bucina das ist die trumet oder pusan”[3] (“the bucina is the trumpet or trombone”) and (“Bucina ist die trummet die wirt ausz und eingezogen”[4] (“the bucina is the trumpet which is drawn out and in”). A French translation by Jean de Meung (Paris, 1488),[5] renders the passage (chap. iii. 5) thus: “Trompe est longue et droite; buisine est courte et reflechist en li meisme si comme partie de cercle.” On Trajan’s column[6] the tuba, the cornu and the buccina are distinguishable. Other illustrations of the buccina may be seen in François Mazois’ Les Ruines de Pompéi (Paris, 1824–1838), pt. iv, pl. xlviii. fig. 1, and in J. N. von Wilmowsky’s Eine römische Villa zu Nennig (Bonn, 1865), pl. xii. (mosaics), where the buccinator is accompanied on the hydraulus. The military buccina described is a much more advanced instrument than its prototype the buccina marina, a primitive trumpet in the shape of a conical shell, often having a spiral twist, which in poetry is often called concha. The buccina marina is frequently depicted in the hands of Tritons (Macrobius i. 8), or of sailors, as for instance on terra-cotta lamp shown by G. P. Bellori (Lucernae veterum sepulcrales iconicae, 1702, iii. 12). The highly imaginative writer of the apocryphal letter of St Jerome to Dardanus also has a word to say concerning the buccina among the Semitic races: “Bucca vocatur tuba apud Hebreos: deinde per diminutionem buccina dicitur.” After the fall of the Roman empire the art of bending metal tubes was gradually lost, and although the buccina survived in Europe both in name and in principle of construction during the middle ages, it lost for ever the characteristic curve like a “C” which it possessed in common with the cornu, an instrument having a conical bore of wider calibre. Although we regard the buccina as essentially Roman, an instrument of the same type, but probably straight and of kindred name, was widely known and used in the East, in Persia, Arabia and among the Semitic races. After a lapse of years during which records are almost wanting, the buccina reappeared all over Europe as the busine, buisine, pusin, busaun, pusun, posaun, busna (Slav), &c.; whether it was a Roman survival or a re-introduction through the Moors of Spain in the West and the Byzantine empire in the East, we have no records to show. An 11th-century mural painting representing the Last Judgment in the cathedral of S. Angelo in Formis (near Capua), shows the angels blowing the last trump on busines.[7]
There are two distinct forms of the busine which may be traced during the middle ages:—(1) a long straight tube (fig. 2) consisting of 3 to 5 joints of narrow cylindrical bore, the last joint alone being conical and ending in a pommel-shaped bell, precisely as in the curved buccina (fig. 1); (2) a long straight cylindrical tube of somewhat wider bore than the busine, ending in a wide bell curving out abruptly from the cylindrical tube (fig. 3).
The history of the development of the trumpet, the sackbut and the trombone from the buccina will be found more fully treated under those headings; for the part played by the buccina in the evolution of the French horn see Horn. (K. S.)
BUCCLEUCH, DUKES OF. The substantial origin of the ducal house of the Scotts of Buccleuch dates back to the large grants of lands in Scotland to Sir Walter Scott of Kirkurd and Buccleuch, a border chief, by James II., in consequence of the fall of the 8th earl of Douglas (1452); but the family traced their descent back to a Sir Richard le Scott (1240–1285). The estate of Buccleuch is in Selkirkshire. Sir Walter Scott of Branxholm and Buccleuch (d. 1552) distinguished himself at the battle of Pinkie (1547), and furnished material for his later namesake’s famous poem, The Lay of the Last Minstrel; and his great-grandson Sir Walter (1565–1611) was created Lord Scott of Buccleuch in 1606. An earldom followed in 1619. The second earl’s daughter Anne (1651–1732), who succeeded him as a countess in her own right, married in 1663 the famous duke of Monmouth (q.v.), who was then created 1st duke of Buccleuch; and her grandson Francis became 2nd duke. The latter’s son Henry (1746–1812) became 3rd duke, and in 1810 succeeded also, on the death of William Douglas, 4th duke of Queensberry, to that dukedom as well as its estates and other honours, according to the entail executed by his own great-grandfather, the 2nd duke of Queensberry, in 1706; he married the duke of Montagu’s daughter, and was famous for his generosity and benefactions. His son Charles William Henry (d. 1819), grandson Walter Francis Scott (1806–1884), and great-grandson William Henry Walter Montagu Douglas Scott (b. 1831), succeeded in turn as 4th, 5th and 6th dukes of Buccleuch and 6th, 7th, and 8th dukes of Queensberry. The 5th duke was lord privy seal 1842–1846, and president of the council 1846. It was he who at a cost of over £500,000 made the harbour at Granton, near Edinburgh. He was president of the Highland and Agricultural Society, the Society of Antiquaries and of the British Association. The 6th duke sat in the House of Commons as Conservative M.P. for Midlothian, 1853–1868 and 1874–1880; his wife, a daughter of the 1st duke of Abercorn, held the office of mistress of the robes.
See Sir W. Fraser, The Scotts of Buccleuch (1878).
BUCENTAUR (Ital. bucintoro), the state gallery of the doges of Venice, on which, every year on Ascension day up to 1789, they put into the Adriatic in order to perform the ceremony of “wedding the sea.” The name bucintoro is derived from the Ital. buzino d’ oro, “golden bark,” latinized in the middle ages as bucentaurus on the analogy of a supposed Gr. βουκένταυρος, ox-centaur (from βοῦς and Κένταυρος). This led to the explanation of the name as derived from the head of an ox having served as the galley’s figurehead. This derivation is, however, fanciful; the name bucentaurus is unknown in ancient mythology, and the figurehead of the bucentaurs, of which representations have come down to us, is the lion of St Mark.
- ↑ For another instance see Caesar, Comm. Bell. Civ. ii. 35.
- ↑ Vegetius, op. cit. iii. 5.
- ↑ Idem, ii. 7.
- ↑ Idem, iii. 5.
- ↑ A reprint edited by Ulysse Robert has been published by the Soc. des Anciens Textes Français (Paris, 1897).
- ↑ See Conrad Cichorius, Die Reliefs der Traiansaule, 3 vols. of text and 2 portfolios of heliogravures (Berlin, 1896, &c.), Bd. i. pl. x. buccina and tubae; pl. viii. buccina; pl. lxxvi. buccina and two cornua; pl. xx. cornu, &c.; or W. Froehner, La Colonne de Trajan (Paris, 1872), vol. i. pl. xxxii., xxxvi., li., tome ii. pl. lxvi., tome iii. pl. cxxxiv., &c.
- ↑ See F. X. Kraus, “Die Wandgemälde von San Angelo in Formis,” in Jahrbuch der kgl. preuss. Kunstsamml. (1893), pl. i.
