Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/136

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ALI
112
ALI

afrançesado, and accepted office under the usurper. This obliged him subsequently to take refuge in France, where he published an account of his travels. He afterwards set out for Syria under the name of "Ali Othman," but died rather mysteriously at Aleppo, where his papers were seized by the pasha. His researches were published at Paris in 1814.—J. W. S.

ALI, nabob of Oude, succeeded Assaf-Ed-Dowlah in 1797. Showing symptoms of hostility towards the English government in India, he was deposed in 1798, when, after procuring the assassination of Mr. Charry, the English resident, he fled, but falling into the hands of justice, spent the rest of his life a close prisoner at Fort-William. Born 1781; died 1817.—A. M.

ALI-PACHA, vizier of the pachalic of Janina or Joannina in Epirus, born in 1741, or, according to another account, in 1750; died in 1822. The life of this man, whose ambition and capacity caused his career to be at one time invested in the eyes of European statesmen with an extraordinary importance, remarkably illustrates the social and political condition of the Ottoman empire in modern times. His father was a pacha of two tails, an insignificant rank in the administrative hierarchy of Turkey, and died when Ali was thirteen years old. His native place was Tepellene, a town in the north of Epirus. His mother Kamco seems to have been a woman of fiendish character, and to have instilled into the mind of her hopeful son lessons of immorality and cruelty, which he faithfully acted upon during the long course of his after life. His career resembles, in many respects, that of a marauding baron in the middle ages. He started in life—so he was accustomed to boast—with "sixty paras and a musket;" gradually he made himself master of a number of villages round Tepellene, until he found himself in a position to buy a pachalic from the sultan. After a time he obtained possession of Joannina, and was confirmed as the pacha of that district by Selim III. Mr. Hobhouse, who visited Albania in 1809, gives a graphic account of the place and of its master. Joannina stands on the western shore of a beautiful lake, ten miles long; a chain of mountains, nearly always capped with clouds, and forming part of the great Pindus range, rises immediately from the eastern or opposite shore of the lake, while to the west and south extends for many miles a green and fertile plain. A few miles to the north, among hills and oak forests, lies the supposed site of the ancient oracle of Dodona. Not finding Ali in his capital, Mr. Hobhouse followed him to Tepellene, where he found him busily prosecuting a little war against the pacha of Berat. At the moment he arrived, he was keeping feudal state in his castle of Tepellene, the court-yard of which was thronged with soldiers and retainers. Mr. Hobhouse describes him as a short man, about five feet five inches in height, very fat, with a round agreeable face, and blue quick eyes. Though totally illiterate, the questions which he put to the English travellers evinced much intelligence; but the predominant qualities in his mind were cruelty and avarice, to the latter of which vices he became so completely a slave, that it ultimately caused his ruin. His revenue in 1809 was about six million piastres; but large and indefinite additions were annually made to this in the shape of sums paid for protection by towns and villages. He paid his tribute regularly to the Porte, and duly furnished his contingent of troops, when called upon, to the Turkish armies; but he would never trust himself at Constantinople, in spite of repeated solicitations from the Turkish government. With such a reputation for wealth and ability, his head, he knew well, would not have been safe on his shoulders if he had ventured to court. Instances of his atrocious cruelty might be given which would fill a volume; a single one may suffice, related by Hobhouse, who on the whole is inclined to judge leniently of All rather than otherwise. Visiting one day the wife of his eldest son, Monetar Pacha, he found her in tears; on being pressed to explain the reason, she alleged that her husband was unfaithful to her. Ali, with whom she was a great favourite, was very indignant, and demanded the names of the guilty parties. She named fifteen of the most beautiful and highborn ladies of Joannina, Christian as well as Mussulman. Ali immediately had these unfortunate ladies seized by his satellites, put in sacks, and drowned in the lake. Over the hideous licentiousness of the tyrant it is necessary to draw a veil. Yet Ali zealously observed the outward forms of his religion, at least in his later years; he duly kept the Ramazan, and entertained several dervishes at his court. Ali's abilities appear to have been overrated by European statesmen; in the declining and distracted state of the Ottoman empire, he was looked upon as a man capable of erecting a powerful independent sovereignty, if not of seizing upon the throne of his master, and both France and England accordingly paid court to him; but the event belied these expectations. In 1820, Sultan Mahmoud, who coveted his riches, placed him under the ban of the empire, and sent a large force to invade his territories. A judicious use of his hoarded wealth would probably have enabled Ali to make an effectual resistance; but such was his avarice, that he could not bring himself to take this step. His troops, therefore, ill paid, abandoned him, and he was besieged in the fortress of Joannina. For eighteen months he bravely resisted the assaults of the Ottoman army, but at last he was left with only fifty followers, and obliged to treat for a surrender with Khorchid Pacha, the Ottoman general. Finding that his life would not be spared, he defended himself bravely to the last; but after killing one and wounding another of his assailants, he was shot down by a ball in the chest. This was on the 5th February, 1822. His head was cut off and sent to Constantinople.—T. A.

ALIAMET, Jacques, a skilful French engraver, whose plates after Wouvermans, Berghem, and Vernet, are favourites with connoisseurs. Born 1728; died in 1788.

ALIBAUD, Louis, born at Nismes in 1810, was a man of violent political opinions, who, in June, 1836, fired upon Louis Philippe, for which he was guillotined the same year.

ALIBERTI, Giovanni Carlo, an Italian painter, some of whose pictures may be seen in the church of Asti, his native town. Born 1680; died about 1740.

ALIBERT, Jean-Louis, Baron, a French physician, celebrated for his knowledge of diseases of the skin, was born at Villefranche in 1766. He became professor of materia medica at the École de Medicine of Paris, and Louis XVIII. appointed him his physician in ordinary; but Alibert made his most important studies, and gave his most important instructions in his special department of skin diseases, at the hospital of St. Louis, where he taught for twenty years. His elaborate work "Traité Complet des Maladies de la Peau, Observées a l'Hopital Saint Louis," with plates, was published at Paris in 1806-1826; other works of Alibert's are: "Discours sur les rapports de la Médicine avec les Sciences Physiques et Morales," Paris, 1799; "Physiologie des Passions, ou Nouvelle Doctrine des Sentiments Moraux," Paris, 1825. Alibert died in 1837.—A. M.

ALIBRAND, Francesco, an Italian author, died in 1711. He was a jesuit, and among other things wrote a casuistical work entitled "Dell' Opinione Probabile," Messina, 1707.

ALIBRANDI, Girolamo, a Sicilian painter, sometimes called the "Raphael of Messina." He was a pupil of Leonardo da Vinci's about 1497.

ALICE of Champagne, a daughter of Thibaut IV., count of Champagne, lived in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. She became the wife of Louis VII. of France, and the mother of his son and successor, Philip Augustus. During the absence of the latter on a crusade, she held the regency of the kingdom with equal energy and prudence.—J. W. S.

ALIDOSI, Giovanni-Nicola-Pasquali, an antiquary who lived about the commencement of the 17th century in Bologna; his writings are among the archives of that city.

ALIGHIERI, an ancient family of Florence. See Dante.

ALIGHIERI, Giovanni, an Italian miniature painter and illuminator of considerable merit, who illustrated an ancient manuscript of Virgil's works about 1193.

ALIGNAN, Benoit d', bishop of Marseilles in 1229, has left several works, chiefly on theological and ecclesiastical subjects.

ALIGRE, Etienne d', chancellor of France, born at Chartres a.d. 1550; died in 1635.

ALIGRE, Etienne-François d', first president of the parliament of France in 1768. He distinguished himself by his political sagacity; but after many efforts to serve his country, he became an exile, and died in Brunswick in 1798.

ALIMENTUS, L. Cincius, an early Roman historian, who receives high praise from Niebuhr, for having examined the facts of Roman history in the right spirit of criticism. He was a man of high rank, acted as prætor in the second Punic war, and gained renown as a statesman.—J. D.

ALINARD or HALINARD, a learned Benedictine, born at Bourgogne, toward the end of the tenth century. His profound erudition and remarkable eloquence led to his preferment, and he became archbishop of Lyons in 1046. Died in 1052.