mat and Bourdin. He wrote, 1. "Un Traité de Perspective," fol. 2." Traité des Sections Coniques, 8vo. 3. "La Pratique du Trait," 8vo. 4." Traité de la coupe des Pierres," 8vo, an excellent work on stone-cutting. 5. “Maniere de poser l'essieu aux cadrans solaires." 6. "Maniere de graver en taille douce, et a l'eau forte." All these treatises are said to be written with precision, and in a better style than might have been expected from his time. 1

ARGYROPYLUS (JOHN) was one of the first of those learned persons who fled into Italy upon the taking of Constantinople by Mahomet II. in 1453, and contributed to the revival of Greek learning in the west. Cosmo de Medicis, duke of Tuscany, made him professor of Greek at Florence, and appointed him preceptor to his son Peter, and to his grandson Lorenzo. He had several illustrious pupils at Florence, to whom he read lectures in the Greek language and philosophy; and amongst the rest Angelus Politianus, Acciaioli, and Reuchlinus. In 1456, he went into France, to ask the assistance of Charles VII. in behalf of some friends and relations, whom he wanted to redeem from Turkish slavery. He continued many years in his professorship at Florence; but, the plague at length obliging him to quit it, he went to Rome, where he publicly read lectures upon the Greek text of Aristotle. He died of an autumnal fever, which was brought on by an intemperate eating of melons, in the 70th year of his age, and (as is believed) soon after his settlement in Rome; but the time of his death is uncertain, yet it must have been after 1478, because he survived Theodorus Gaza, who died in that year. He was allowed to be very learned, but learning does not seem to have civilized or softened his manners, for he is represented as having been very capricious and very morose. He affirmed, that Cicero understood neither the Greek language nor philosophy, and is supposed to have conceived this peculiar prejudice against Cicero for saying, that the Greek was a language verborum inops, poor and scanty in words. He was also a notorious epicure, and spent all his salaries, though very considerable, in the luxuries of the table. He was not so serious about his latter end, but that he bequeathed his debts in form to his richer friends, almost in the very act of dying. He trans

1 Moreri. Dict. Hist.

lated several pieces of Aristotle into Latin, which language he also understood very well.'

ARIUS MONTANUS. See MONTANUS.

ARIEH. See LEO.

ARIOSTI (ATTILIO), a celebrated musical performer and composer in the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century, was a native of Bologna, and was diverted from the concerns of the church, to which his parents had intended to educate him, by an early passion. for music. He became an opera-composer at Bologna and Venice, and, passing into Germany, was made maestro di capella to the electoral princess of Brandenburgh, for whom he had composed the opera of " Attis.” Both there and in Italy he continued in high estimation as a composer, and as a performer on the violincello, and particularly on the viol d'amore, which he either invented, or brought into notice. In 1716 he visited England, and performed on this instrument, which was a novelty in this country, but went again abroad until 1720, when, at the establishment of the Royal Academy of Music, he was invited to return, and was employed to compose several operas. Handel and Bononcini were his contemporaries. After some stay in this country, during which he probably dissipated what he got, he was obliged to publish a book of cantatas by subscription, and then he left England. The place and date of his death are not known.

ARIOSTO (LUDOVICO), one of the most eminent Italian poets, was born Sept. 8, 1474. His father, while he was in the government of Rheggio, in Lombardy, espoused Daria de Malaguzzi, a lady of wealth and family, descended from one of the first houses in Rheggio, and by her had five sons, Ludovico, Gabriele, Carlo, Galasso, and Alessandro; and the same number of daughters. These sons were all well accomplished, and, for their many excellent qualities, patronised by several princes. Gabriele gave himself up to literary pursuits, and is said to have arrived at great excellence in Latin poetry, but to have been too close an imitator of Statius: he died at Ferrara. Carlo, who was of a disposition more inclined to dissipation and gaiety, led the life of a courtier, and died at the court of Naples. Galasso embraced the profession of the church,

1 Gen. Diet. Roscoe's Lorenzo.—Gresswell's Politian.—Brucker.—Saxii Onemasticon.-Hodius de Græc. illustribus.

2 Hawkins and Burney's Histories of Music.

was employed in several important offices, and, at last, ended his days, ambassador from the duke of Ferrara, at the court of Charles V. Alessandro, who was of an inquisitive and enterprising genius, having spent great part of his time in visiting foreign countries, at last finished his life in Ferrara.

Ludovico was the first-born of his father's children, and is reported to have surpassed the rest in the endowments of the mind; giving, from his tender years, uncommon. presage of a future genius. Being yet in his rudiments, he composed a kind of tragedy from the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, which he caused to be represented by his brothers and sisters. He applied himself very early to the study of the Latin, in which he made greater progress than almost any one of his age; and, in the very beginning of his studies, he composed and recited an elegant Latin oration, which gave the highest expectations of him. Tito Strozza, a man of great learning and consummate knowledge, took particular delight to hear him, and to propose difficult questions for his solution; often encouraging a dispute, on literary subjects, between him and Hercules his son, a youth whose age and studies agreed with Ariosto. But his father Nicolo, having little taste for literature, was desirous, that, as his eldest-born, he should pursue some lucrative profession, and sent him to Padua, to study the civil law, under Angelo Castrinse and Il Maino; in which employment he spent five years, highly disagreeable to one of his disposition; which circumstance he laments in one of his satires addressed to Bembo. But although Ariosto durst not openly disobey his father, he could not so far conquer his inclinations as to desist from perusing French and Spanish romances, with which languages he was wellacquainted, having translated two or three of these authors himself into his native tongue; and availed himself, in his future works, of every beauty that occurred in these wild productions of imagination. Nicolo, at last, perceiving the aversion his son had to the profession of the law, and the little progress he made therein, permitted him to obey the strong propensity of genius, and is said to have been, in a great degree, influenced by Pandolfo Ariosto, a youth of excellent endowments, and a near kinsman to Ludovico.

Ludovico, being now left at liberty, put himself, at the age of twenty, under the tuition of Gregorio de Spoleti, a person of admirable taste, and well versed in the Latin and

Greek tongues, who then resided in the family of Rinaldo of Este, at Ferrara. Gregorio, observing the avidity with which Ariosto applied himself to study, took every possible care to cultivate his genius; and, by his instructions, his pupil soon made himself master of the most excellent Latin authors, particularly the poets, among whom Horace appears to have been his favourite, He explained many difficult and obscure parts in that author, which were never before understood. His intention was, to have also gone through a course of Greek literature; but he suddenly lost his preceptor Gregorio, who was constrained to take a journey into France, where he soon after died, to the inexpressible grief of Ariosto. About the same time died Nicolo Ariosto, the father of Ludovico, leaving behind him a numerous offspring. Ariosto, then only twenty-four years of age, found himself at once involved in the cares of a family, and obliged to take upon himself the management of domestic concerns, to introduce his brothers into the world, provide fortunes for his sisters, and, in every respect, supply to them the place of a father, who had left them but a very slender patrimony.

These multiplied cares obliged him not only to give over his intended prosecution of the Greek language, but almost to abandon the Latin, which he had but lately recovered, had not Pandolfo Ariosto so far stimulated him, that he still continued, in some degree, his studies, till death deprived him of so pleasing a companion. Yet all these disappointments did not much damp the vigour of his poetical genius. In his twenty-ninth year, he acquired an uncommon reputation for his Latin verses, and numerous poems and sonnets full of spirit and imagination. His conversation was coveted by men of the greatest learning and abilities; and cardinal Hippolito of Este, whose court was a receptacle for the most admired personages of the age, received him into his service, where he continued fifteen years; during which time he formed a design of writing a poem of the romance kind; in which no one had yet written with the dignity of which the subject was capable. The happy versatility of his genius was such, that he could equally adapt himself to every species of poetry; and an Italian writer of his life observes, that whatever he wrote, seemed, at the time, to be his particular study.

At about thirty years of age he began his Orlando; and cardinal Bembo, to whom he communicated his design,

would have dissuaded him from writing in Italian, advising him to cultivate the Latin; to which Ariosto answered, that he would rather be the first among the Tuscan writers, than scarcely the second among the Latin. At the same. time, it fortunately happened, that he had already written some stanzas of his Orlando, in which he met with such encouragement, that he determined vigorously to prosecute his design. He chose the subject of Boyardo, which was very popular; and by adopting the fictions of Boyardo, Ariosto had not only an opportunity of bringing the romance of the count to a conclusion, but of celebrating, under the person of Rogero, the family of his patron.

Ariosto had proposed to write a poem in terza rima (like Dante), in praise of the house of Este, different from the Furioso; but not being satisfied with the work, he laid it aside, and pursued the design of his Furioso, in ottava rima. In order to pursue his studies with less interruption, he chose the situation of Rheggio, retiring to a pleasant villa, belonging to Sigismundo Malaguzzi, his kinsman, where he spent his leisure in the prosecution of his principal design.

While he was busied in these literary pursuits, Alphonso duke of Ferrara, having occasion to send ambassadors to Rome, in order to appease the anger of pope Julius II. who prepared to make war against him, was, by his brother the cardinal, recommended to Ariosto, as a proper person to be entrusted with such a negotiation, and he acquitted himself so well in his commission, that he returned with an answer much more favourable than was expected. However, the pope, still continuing at enmity with the duke, made a league with the Venetians, and collected a powerful army against Ferrara; but was defeated at the battle of Ravenna. Part of a fleet was sent up the Po, against Ferrara, and met with a repulse from the duke's party. In this engagement, Ariosto, who was present, behaved with great courage, and took one of the largest of the enemy's vessels, filled with stores and ammunition. The papal army being dispersed, Alphonso thought it advisable to send an ambassador again to Rome, and dispatched Ludovico a second time, who found his holiness so incensed against the duke, that his indignation was very near showing itself to the ambassador; and it was not without difficulty that Ariosto escaped with life to Ferrara. The duke's affairs being established, Ariosto returned to his