story of Darius, and versified the Pharsalia. In 1679 he received the degree of doctor of laws, and in 1680 he removed again to Rome. The study of Filicaja and Leonico having convinced him that he and all his contemporaries were working in a wrong direction, he resolved to attempt a general reform. In 1690, in conjunction with fourteen others, he founded the celebrated academy of the Arcadians, and began the contest against false taste and its adherents. The academy was most successful; branch societies were opened in all the principal cities of Italy; and the influence of Marini, opposed by the simplicity and elegance of such models as Costanzo, soon died away. Crescimbeni officiated as secretary to the Arcadians for thirty-eight years. In 1705 he was made canon of Santa Maria; in 1715 he obtained the chief curacy attached to the same church; and about two months before he died (1728) he was admitted a member of the order of Jesus.
His principal work is the Istoria della volgar poesia (Rome, 1698), an estimate of all the poets of Italy, past and contemporary, which may yet be consulted with advantage. The most important of his numerous other publications are the Commentarij (5 vols., Rome, 1702–1711), and La Bellezza della volgar poezia (Rome, 1700).
CRESILAS, a Cretan sculptor of Cydonia. He was a contemporary of Pheidias, and one of the sculptors who vied in producing statues of amazons at Ephesus (see Greek Art) about 450 B.C. As his amazon was wounded (volnerata; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxiv. 75), we may safely identify it with the figure, of which several copies are extant, who is carefully removing her blood-stained garment from a wound under the right breast. Another work of Cresilas of which copies survive is the portrait of Pericles, the earliest Greek portrait which has been with certainty identified, and which fully confirms the statement of ancient critics that Cresilas was an artist who idealized and added nobility to men of noble type. An extant portrait of Anacreon is also derived from Cresilas.
CRESOLS or Methyl Phenols, C7H8O or C6H4·CH3·OH. The three isomeric cresols are found in the tar obtained in the destructive distillation of coal, beech-wood and pine. The crude cresol obtained from tar cannot be separated into its different constituents by fractional distillation, since the boiling points of the three isomers are very close together. The pure substances are best obtained by fusion of the corresponding toluene sulphonic acids with potash.
Ortho-cresol, CH3(1)·C6H4·OH(2), occurs as sulphate in the urine of the horse. It may be prepared by fusion of ortho-toluene sulphonic acid with potash; by the action of phosphorus pentoxide on carvacrol; or by the action of zinc chloride on camphor. It is a crystalline solid, which melts at 30° C. and boils at 190.8° C. Fusion with alkalis converts it into salicylic acid.
Meta-cresol, CH3(1)·C6H4·OH(3), is formed when thymol (para-isopropyl-meta-cresol) is heated with phosphorus pentoxide. Propylene is liberated during the reaction, and the phosphoric acid ester of meta-cresol which is formed is then fused with potash. It can also be prepared by distilling meta-oxyuvitic acid with lime, or by the action of air on boiling toluene in the presence of aluminium chloride (C. Friedel and J. M. Crafts, Ann. Chim. Phys., 1888 [6], 14, p. 436). It solidifies in a freezing mixture, on the addition of a crystal of phenol, and then melts at 3°-4° C. It boils at 202°.8 C. Its aqueous solution is coloured bluish-violet by ferric chloride.
Para-cresol, CH3(1)·C6H4·OH(4), occurs as sulphate in the urine of the horse. It is also found in horse’s liver, being one of the putrefaction products of tyrosine. It may be prepared by the fusion of para-toluene sulphonic acid with potash; by the action of nitrous acid on para-toluidine; or by heating para-oxyphenyl acetic acid with lime. It crystallizes in prisms which melt at 36° C. and boil at 201°.8 C. It is soluble in water, and the aqueous solution gives a blue coloration with ferric chloride. When treated with hydrochloric acid and potassium chlorate, no chlorinated quinones are obtained (M. S. Southworth, Ann. (1873), 168, p. 271), a behaviour which distinguishes it from ortho- and meta-cresol.
On the composition of commercial cresylic acid see A. H. Allen, Jour. Soc. Chem. Industry (1890), 9, p. 141. See also Creosote.
CRESPI, DANIELE (1590–1630), Italian historical painter, was born near Milan, and studied under Giovanni Battista Crespi and Giulio Procaccini. He was an excellent colourist; his drawing was correct and vigorous, and he grouped his compositions with much ability. His best work, a series of pictures from the life of Saint Bruno, is in the monastery of the Carthusians at Milan. Among the most famous of his paintings is a “Stoning of St Stephen” at Brera, and there are several excellent examples of his work in the city of his birth and at Pavia.
CRESPI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1557–1663), called Il Cerano, Italian painter, sculptor, and architect, was born at Cerano in the Milanese. He was a scholar of considerable attainments, and held a position of dignity in his native city. He was head of the Milanese Academy founded by Cardinal Frederigo Borromeo, and he was the teacher of Guercino. He is most famous as a painter; and, though his figures are neither natural nor graceful, his colouring is good, and his designs full of ideal beauty.
CRESPI, GIUSEPPE MARIA (1665–1747), Italian painter, called “Lo Spagnuolo” from his fondness for rich apparel, was born at Bologna, and was trained under Angelo Toni, Domenico Canuti and Carlo Cignani. He then went through a course of copying from Correggio and Barocci; this he followed up with a journey to Venice for the sake of Titian and Paul Veronese; and late in life he proclaimed himself a follower of Guercino and Pietro da Cortona. He was a good colourist and a facile executant, and was wont to employ the camera obscura with great success in the treatment of light and shadow; but he was careless and unconscientious. He was a clever portrait-painter and a brilliant caricaturist; and his etchings after Rembrandt and Salvator are in some demand. His greatest work, a “Massacre of the Innocents,” is at Bologna; but the Dresden gallery possesses twelve examples of him, among which is his celebrated series of the Seven Sacraments.
CRESS, in botany. “Garden Cress” (Lepidium sativum) is an annual plant (nat. ord. Cruciferae), known as a cultivated plant at the present day in Europe, North Africa, western Asia and India, but its origin is obscure. Alphonse de Candolle (L’Origine des plantes cultivées) says its cultivation must date from ancient times and be widely diffused, for very different names for it exist in the Arab, Persian, Albanian, Hindustani and Bengali tongues. He considered the plant to be of Persian origin, whence it may have spread after the Sanskrit epoch (there is no Sanskrit name for it) into the gardens of India, Syria, Greece and North Africa. It is used in salads, the young plants being cut and eaten while still in the seed-leaf, forming, along with plants of the white mustard in the same stage of growth, what is commonly called “small salad.” The seeds should be sown thickly broadcast or in rows in succession every ten or fourteen days, according to the demand. The sowings may be made in the open ground from March till October, the earliest under hand-glasses, and the summer ones in a cool moist situation, where water from trees, shrubs, walls, &c., cannot fall on or near them. The grit thrown up by falling water pierces the tender tissues of the cress, and cannot be thoroughly removed by washing. During winter they must be raised on a slight hotbed, or in shallow boxes or pans placed in any of the glass-houses where there is a temperature of 60° or 65°. Cress is subject to the attack of a fungus (Pythium debaryanum) if kept too close and moist. The pest very quickly infects a whole sowing. There is no cure for it; preventive measures should therefore be taken by keeping the sowings fairly dry and well ventilated. The seed should be sown on new soil, and should not be covered.
The “Golden” or “Australian” cress is a dwarf, yellowish-green, mild-flavoured sort, which is cut and eaten when a little more advanced in growth but while still young and tender. It should be sown at intervals of a month from March onwards, the autumn sowing, for winter and spring use, being made in a sheltered situation.
The “curled” or “Normandy” cress is a very hardy sort, of good flavour. In this, which is allowed to grow like parsley, the leaves are picked for use while young; and, being finely cut
