when Attila with his army was threatening the city, she persuaded the inhabitants to remain on the island and encouraged them by an assurance, justified by subsequent events, that the attack would come to nothing (451). She is also said to have had great influence over Childeric, father of Clovis, and in 460 to have caused a church to be built over the tomb of St Denis. Her death occurred about 512 and she was buried in the church of the Holy Apostles, popularly known as the church of St Geneviève. In 1793 the body was taken from the new church, built in her honour by Louis XV., when it became the Panthéon, and burnt on the Place de Grève; but the relics were enshrined in a chapel of the neighbouring church of St Étienne du Mont, where they still attract pilgrims; her festival is celebrated with great pomp on the 3rd of January. The frescoes of the Panthéon by Puvis de Chavannes are based upon the legend of the saint.
Bibliography.—The main source is the anonymous Vita s. Genovefae virginis Parisiorum, published in 1687 by D. P. Charpentier. The genuineness of this life was attacked by B. Krusch (Neues Archiv, 1893 and 1894) and defended by L. Duchesne, Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes (1893), Bulletin critique (1897), p. 473. Krusch continued to hold that the life was an 8th-century forgery (Scriptores rer. Merov. iii. 204-238). See A. Potthast, Bibliotheca medii aevi (1331, 1332), and G. Kurth, Clovis, ii. 249-254. The legends and miracles are given in the Bollandists’ Acta Sanctorum, January 1st; there is a short sketch by Henri Lesetre, Ste Geneviève, in “Les Saints” series (Paris, 1900).
GENEVIÈVE, Genoveva or Genovefa, OF BRABANT,
heroine of medieval legend. Her story is a typical example of the
widespread tale of the chaste wife falsely accused and repudiated,
generally on the word of a rejected suitor. Genovefa of Brabant
was said to be the wife of the palatine Siegfried of Treves, and was
falsely accused by the majordomo Golo. Sentenced to death she
was spared by the executioner, and lived for six years with her
son in a cave in the Ardennes nourished by a roe. Siegfried, who
had meanwhile found out Golo’s treachery, was chasing the roe
when he discovered her hiding-place, and reinstated her in her
former honour. Her story is said to rest on the history of Marie
of Brabant, wife of Louis II., duke of Bavaria, and count-palatine
of the Rhine, who was tried by her husband and beheaded on the
18th of January 1256, for supposed infidelity, a crime for which
Louis afterwards had to do penance. The change in name may
have been due to the cult of St Geneviève, patroness of Paris.
The tale first obtained wide popularity in L’Innocence reconnue, ou
vie de Sainte Geneviève de Brabant (pr. 1638) by the Jesuit René de
Cérisier (1603–1662), and was a frequent subject for dramatic
representation in Germany. With Genovefa’s history may be
compared the Scandinavian ballads of Ravengaard og Memering,
which exist in many recensions. These deal with the history of
Gunild, who married Henry, duke of Brunswick and Schleswig.
When Duke Henry went to the wars he left his wife in charge of
Ravengaard, who accused her of infidelity. Gunild is cleared
by the victory of her champion Memering, the “smallest of
Christian men.” The Scottish ballad of Sir Aldingar is a version
of the same story. The heroine Gunhilda is said to have been the
daughter of Canute the Great and Emma. She married in 1036
King Henry, afterwards the emperor Henry III., and there was
nothing in her domestic history to warrant the legend, which is
given as authentic history by William of Malmesbury (De gestis
regum Anglorum, lib. ii. § 188). She was called Cunigund after her
marriage, and perhaps was confused with St Cunigund, the wife
of the emperor Henry II. In the Karlamagnus-saga the innocent
wife is Oliva, sister of Charlemagne and wife of King Hugo, and in
the French Carolingian cycle the emperor’s wife Sibille (La Reine
Sibille) or Blanchefleur (Macaire). Other forms of the legend are
to be found in the story of Doolin’s mother in Doon de Mayence,
the English romance of Sir Triamour, in the story of the mother of
Octavian in Octavian the Emperor, in the German folk book
Historie von der geduldigen Königin Crescentia, based on a
12th-century poem to be found in the Kaiserchronik; and the English
Erl of Toulouse (c. 1400). In the last-named romance it has been
suggested that the story gives the relations between Bernard I.
count of Toulouse, son of the Guillaume d’Orange of the
Carolingian romances, and the empress Judith, second wife of Louis
the Pious.
See F. J. Child, English and Scottish Popular Ballads, vol. ii. (1886), art. “Sir Aldingar”; S. Grundtvig, Danske Kaempeviser (Copenhagen, 1867); “Sir Triamore,” in Bishop Percy’s Folio MS., ed. Hales and Furnivall, vol. ii. (London, 1868); The Romance of Octavian, ed. E. M. Goldsmid (Aungervyle Soc., Edinburgh, 1882); The Erl of Toulous and the Emperes of Almayn, ed. G. Lüdtke (Berlin, 1881); B. Seuffert, Die Legende von der Pfalzgräfin Genovefa (Würzburg, 1877); B. Golz, Pfalzgräfin Genovefa in der deutschen Dichtung (Leipzig, 1897); R. Köhler, “Die deutschen Volksbücher von der Pfalzgräfin Genovefa,” in Zeitschr. für deutsche Philologie (1874).
GENGA, GIROLAMO (c. 1476–1551), Italian painter and
architect, was born in Urbino about 1476. At the age of ten
he was apprenticed to the woollen trade, but showed so much
inclination for drawing that he was sent to study under an
obscure painter, and at thirteen under Luca Signorelli, with
whom he remained a considerable while, frequently painting
the accessories of his pictures. He was afterwards for three
years with Pietro Perugino, in company with Raphael. He
next worked in Florence and Siena, along with Timoteo della
Vite; and in the latter city he painted various compositions
for Pandolfo Petrucci, the leading local statesman. Returning
to Urbino, he was employed by Duke Guidobaldo in the decorations
of his palace, and showed extraordinary aptitude for
theatrical adornments. Thence he went to Rome; and in the
church of S. Caterina da Siena, in that capital, is one of his most
distinguished works, “The Resurrection,” remarkable both for
design and for colouring. He studied the Roman antiquities
with zeal, and measured a number of edifices; this practice,
combining with his previous mastery of perspective, qualified
him to shine as an architect. Francesco Maria della Rovere,
the reigning duke of Urbino, recalled Genga, and commissioned
him to execute works in connexion with his marriage-festivities.
This prince being soon afterwards expelled by Pope Leo X.,
Genga followed him to Mantua, whence he went for a time to
Pesaro. The duke of Urbino was eventually restored to his
dominions; he took Genga with him, and appointed him the
ducal architect. As he neared the close of his career, Genga
retired to a house in the vicinity of Urbino, continuing still to
produce designs in pencil; one, of the “Conversion of St Paul,”
was particularly admired. Here he died on the 11th of July
1551. Genga was a sculptor and musician as well as painter
and architect. He was jovial, an excellent talker, and kindly to his
friends. His principal pupil was Francesco Menzocchi. His
own son Bartolommeo (1518–1558) became an architect of
celebrity. In Genga’s paintings there is a great deal of freedom,
and a certain peculiarity of character consonant with his versatile,
lively and social temperament. One of his leading works is
in the church of S. Agostino in Cesena—a triptych in oil-colours,
representing the “Annunciation,” “God the Father in Glory,”
and the “Madonna and Child.” Among his architectural
labours are the church of San Giovanni Battista in Pesaro;
the bishop’s palace at Sinigaglia; the façade of the cathedral
of Mantua, ranking high among the productions of the 16th
century; and a new palace for the duke of Urbino, built on the
Monte Imperiale. He was also concerned in the fortifications
of Pesaro.
GENISTA, in botany, a genus of about eighty species of shrubs
belonging to the natural order Leguminosae, and natives of
Europe, western Asia and North Africa. Three are native in
Britain. G. anglica is the needle-furze or petty whin, found
on heaths and moist moors, a spinous plant with slender
spreading branches 1 to 2 ft. long, very small leaves and short
racemes of small yellow papilionaceous flowers. The pollen is
emitted in a shower when an insect alights on it. G. tinctoria,
dyer’s green-weed, the flowers of which yield a yellow dye, has
no spines. Other species are grown on rock-work or as greenhouse
plants.
GENIUS (from Lat. genere, gignere), a term which originally
meant, in Roman mythology, a generative and protecting spirit,
who has no exact parallel in Greek religion, and at least in his
earlier aspect is of purely Italian origin as one of the deities of
family or household. Every man has his genius, who is not his
creator, but only comes into being with him and is allotted to
him at his birth. As a creative principle the genius is restricted
