1017 



BUONINSEGNA. 



BURCKHARDT, JOHN LEWIS. 



1018 



' La Fiera ' is a series of five comedies, of five acts each, forming 

 altogether a connected exhibition of characters (it cannot be called 

 a dramatic fable, or interwoven series of events) in twenty-five acts. 

 It was written especially for the use of the Academy of La Crusca in 

 the composition of the first edition of their great ' Voeabulario," or 

 dictionary of the Italian language. The number and variety of 

 characters exhibited in ' La Fiera ' is so great as not to be easily 

 counted ; they are of all grades of society, and of all professions and 

 trades, besides numerous allegorical characters, which give the work as 

 much the appearance of a series of masques as of comedies. In its 

 style of composition it is more poetical than ' La Tancia,' with many 

 choruses and lengthened lyrical dialogues, and has altogether less of 

 dramatic interest and animation. In the purity of the terms selected, 

 as well as of the idiom, the work is of high repute. 



' La Fiera ' was first performed in the Carnival of 1618 in the theatre 

 of the great Hall of the Offices (Sala tlegli Ufizj) iu Florence. It was 

 not printed till 1726, when 'La Fiera' and 'La Tancia' were pub- 

 lished in folio, with copious explanatory and philological notes by 

 Salvini. 



Two other dramatic pieces by Michel-Agnolo the Younger, ' II Natale 

 d'Krcole' and ' II Giudicio di Paride,' have been printed ; they are of 

 the class called masquea. The 'Cicolate' is printed in the 'Prose 

 Florentine.' He also was the first publisher of the poetry of his uncle, 

 ' Rime di Michel-Agnolo Buonarruoti, raccolte da Michel-Agnolo suo 

 Nipote,' Firenze, 4to, 1623. Many other works in manuscript are said 

 to be in the possession of the descendants of his family. 



(Life, annexed to Salvini's edition of ' La Fiera ' and ' La Tancia.') 

 JUONINSEGNA. [Dcccio DI BUONINSEGNA.] 



BU'PALUS, an early Greek sculptor of the island of Chios, and of 

 a family long celebrated as statuaries, was the son of Anthermus, or 

 Archeu'.-us, as Sillig proposes to read the name, and the brother of 

 Atheiii-i, and lived about the sixtieth Olympiad, or B.C. 540. Ho is 

 better known for the enmity between him and the poet Hipponax than 

 for I>U works, though both Pliuy and Pausanias notice several of them. 

 The quarrel between, Bupalus and Hipponax is supposed to have 

 originated in the sculptor refusing to give his daughter in marriage to 

 the poet, who accordingly used his well-known satirical weapons 

 against him ; upon which the sculptor retaliated by executing a 

 ridiculous statue of Hipponax, who it seems, from some peculiarities 

 of his person, was easily made ridiculous. This plastic satire was 

 revenged by the poet by some satirical iambics upon Bupalus of so 

 pungent a nature, according to a report no doubt false, as to make 

 the sculptor hang himself. The story seems to have been common 

 centuries after the time of Bupalus, for Horace (' Epod.,' ode vi.) has 

 the words " Acer hostia Bupalo," as a sufficient indication of Hipponax. 

 Pliny (' Hist. Nat.,' xxxvi. 5) speaks of works by the brothers Bupalus 

 and Athenis at Chios, Lesbos, Delos, and at Rome. Upon some of 

 their works at Delos they wrote, "Chios is not to be celebrated for its 

 vines only, but also for the works of the sons of Authermus." There 

 is a sitting naked Venus in the Vatican, with BouiroAos iiroli i on the 

 base ; but it ia evidently, from its fully-developed style, of a much 

 later period than that of the subject of thn notice. (' Museo Pio 

 Clementine,' i. tab. 10.) 



(Junius, CatalogiuArtificum; Sillig, Cataloyus Arlificum ; Thiersch, 

 Epochen der ildenden-_Kunst, <c.) 



BURBAGE, or HURBADGE, RICHARD, the original performer 

 of the principal tragic characters of Shakspere, was the son of James 

 Burbage or Burbadge, also an actor, and it is presumed a native of the 

 same county as Shakspere, and to whom, with four others, Queen 

 Elizabeth granted, in 1574, the first royal patent conceded in this 

 country to performers of plays. James Burbadge built the Blackfriars 

 Theatre in 1576; in 1588, Richard was a member of his father's 

 company; and in 1589 we find his name immediately following that 

 of his father's, in a list of sixteen actors, one of whom wns William 

 Shakspere, appended to a petition to the Privy Council, that their per- 

 formances might not be interrupted. In 1596 he is again united with 

 Shakspere in a petition to the Lord Chamberlain. In 1603 "Richard 

 Burbage" ia one of the actors included in the licence granted by Kiug 

 James I. to Lawrence Fletcher, William Shakspere, and others. In 

 March 1615, we find him and other "stage players" summoned to 

 appear before the privy council for disobeying a special order of the 

 Lord Chamberlain, prohibiting the acting of plays during Lent. In 

 1619 his name is mentioned in the grant of a new patent by King 

 James licensing his " well-beloved servants to act, not only at the 

 Globe, on the Bankside, but at their private house situate in the 

 precincts of the Blackfriars." The patent bears date the 27th March ; 

 but Richard Burbage was beyond the reach of royal favour. He died 

 before the date of the patent, and was buried on the ICth March in 

 the church of St. Leonard, Shoreditch, having resided in Holywell- 

 treet in that parish from the year 1600. By his wife, Winifred, he 

 had four daughters, two of whom were christened "Juliet," his 

 partiality for that name arising, it hns been supposed, from his having 

 been the original performer of Romeo, and he had a son born in 1616, 

 about six months after the death of Shakspere, who was baptized 

 William, probably in remembrance of Burbage's illustrious friend. 

 Richard Burbage is introduced in person in an old play called the 

 ' Returne from Parnassus,' and instructs a Cambridge scholar how to 

 nut the part of Richard III., in which character he appears to have 



been greatly admired. Bishop Corbet, ill his ' Iter Boreale,' speaking 

 of his host at Leicester, says, 



" When he would have said Kins Kiohard died, 

 And called ' a horse, a horse,' ho Burbage cried." 



In the 'Gentleman's Mag.' for 1825 there is an elegy on the death 

 of R. Burbage, long preserved in manuscript, and Mr. Payne Collier, 

 in his 'Annals of the Stage,' quotes another copy, subsequently found 

 with the important addition of some Hues naming four of the parts in 

 which Burbage especially excelled, namely, Hamlet, Jeronimo, Lear, 

 aud probably Othello. The constant allusions to the small stature of 

 Jeronimo, would imply that the actor was below the heroic size. 



Flecknoe, in his short discourse of the English stage, 1654, calls 

 him " a delightful Proteus." Sir Richard Baker, in his ' Chronicle' 

 says, " Richard Burbage and Edward Alleyn were two such actors as 

 no age must ever look to see the like." 



Burbage is said to have possessed also considerable talent as a 

 painter; in which union of two modes of art, the great tragedian, 

 Betterton, also excelled. The portrait of Shakspere (commonly called 

 the Felton), is, from the circumstance of the initials R. B. on the 

 back of it; supposed to be his painting. It may be reasonably doubted 

 whether his technical mastery of the art was so complete as to have 

 produced this portrait, but that he was a painter is unquestioned. 

 William Cartwright, an actor, bequeathed, in 1687, a portrait to 

 Dulwich College, which he thus describes: "A woman's head on a 

 board, done by Mr. Burbage, the actor in an old gilt frame." 



(J. P. Collier, Annals of the Stays, New Particulars, and Memoirs 

 of the principal Actors in the Plays of Shakespeare.) 



BUROKHARDT, JOHN LEWIS, was born at Lausanne, in Switzer- 

 land, about 1784. His father who was of an ancient family of Basel, 

 being obliged to leave Switzerland in 1798 in consequence of the 

 French invasion, entered a Swiss corps then serving in Germany in the 

 pay of England. In the year 1800 young Burckhardt went to study 

 at Leipzig, whence he afterwards removed to Gottingen. Having 

 left Gottingen he came to England in 1806, with recommendations to 

 Sir Joseph Banks, then an active member of the committee of the 

 African Association. The association having lost all hopes of receiving 

 intelligence from Mr. Hornemann, who had attempted to penetrate 

 into Central Africa by the way of Fezzan, resolved to send another 

 traveller in the same direction. Burckhardt made an offer of his 

 services, and his offer was accepted iu 1808. Meantime he had been 

 preparing himself by studying Arabic and attending lectures on 

 chemistry, astronomy, medicine, and surgery. In January 1809 he 

 received his instructions from the committee : he was to proceed first 

 to Syria, there to remain two years to perfect himself in the Arabic, 

 and afterwards to proceed by Cairo to Mourzook in Fezzan, whence 

 he was to cross the great desert to Soudan. He arrived at Malta in 

 April 1809, and reached Aleppo in September, having first assumed 

 the eastern dress and the name of Ibrahim. From Aleppo he made 

 aeveral journeys to Damascus and Palmyra, aud into the Haouran, 

 and among a tribe of Turkmans who live to the north-west of Aleppo. 

 He also gained much information concerning the Bedouin tribes of 

 Syria and Arabia, and concerning the Wahabees, who were then 

 making incursions near to the gates of Damascus. After remaining 

 two years and a half iu Syria, Burckhardt proceeded towards Egypt 

 by Palestine and the country east of the Dead Sea, and then by the 

 great valley of Ghor or Araba, which extends from the southern shore 

 of the Dead Sea to Akaba on the Elauitic gulf of the Red Sea. This 

 interesting valley and the neighbouring monuments of Wadi Mousa 

 had been unexplored by former travellers. Burckhardt did not go as 

 far as Akaba, but struck across the desert to Suez, and thence to 

 Cairo, where he arrived at the beginning of September 1812. As 

 there was no favourable opportunity of proceeding to Fezzan for i/he 

 present, Burckhardt set off for Upper Egypt and went into Nubia, 

 where no European traveller had ever been beyond Derr. He left 

 Assouan towards the end of February 1813, aud passing the cataract 

 of Wadi Haifa, went as far as Tinareh in, the country of Mahass, and 

 on his return visited the temples of Abousambul, Dandour, Gyrshe, 

 Kalabshe, &c. He passed the rest of that year in Upper Egypt, and 

 on the 1st of March 1814, set off from Daraou with a caravan which 

 was proceeding to Upper Nubia across the desert east of the Nile. 

 In this journey he followed nearly the same truck as Bruce on his 

 return from Abyssinia. After suffering much through the desert, he 

 arrived in the country of Berber, and thence went to Shendi. At 

 Shendi he set off with a caravan for Suakin on the Red Sea. After 

 having forded the Atbara (the Abyssinian Tacazze) above its junction, 

 with the Mogren, a river that rises in the mountains of the Bishar,een, 

 and which after its confluence with the. Atbara gives its name to the 

 united stream which flows into the Nile, he proceeded to Taka, a 

 remarkably fertile and populous district in the midst of the desert. 

 Taka was the most southern point of Burckhardt's travels. He thenco 

 proceeded north-east, aud crossing the Langay Mountains, arrived at 

 Suakin towards the end of June. From Suakin he sailed for Jidda, 

 where he arrived in July 1814. 



These two Nubian journeys of Burckhardt, the journals of which 

 were published together iu one volume, furnished much interesting 

 and for the most part novel information. The appendix contains also 

 many valuable notices on Borgo, Uornou, and other countries of Soudan 



