397 



CORTESI, JACOPO. 



COSMO I. 



398 



Indignant at the ingratitude of Charles V., who listened to his 

 enemies. Cortes returned to Spain in 1528 to face his accusers. He 

 was received with much respect, and made Marquis of the rich Valle 

 de Oajaca; but in 1530 had to return to Mexico, divested of civil 

 power. Being anxious, after his military exploits, to extend his fame 

 by maritime discovery, particularly in the opening of a passage from 

 the Atlantic to the Pacific, he fitted out at his own expense different 

 expeditions, one of which discovered California in 1535, and he himself 

 coasted next year both sides of the gulf of that name, then called the 

 Sea of Cortes. He returned to Spain in 1540, when he was received 

 by Charles V. with cold civility, and by his ministers with insolent 

 neglect. He accompanied however this prince in 1541 as a volunteer 

 in the disastrous expedition to Algiers, and his advice, had it been 

 listened to, would have saved the Spanish arms from disgrace, and 

 delivered Europe three centuries earlier from maritime barbarians. 

 Knvied and ill-requited by the court, Cortes withdrew from it, leaving 

 sycophants and intriguers to reap the fruits of his labours and his 

 genius. He died however in affluence near Seville, on the 2nd of 

 December 1547, in the sixty-third year of his age. Cortes, with all 

 his reckless cruelty, was unquestionably a man of remarkable genius 

 one of the heroes of Old Spain. The destruction of his fleet at Vera 

 Cruz, with the object of compelling bis followers to conquer or die 

 his fearless entry into Mexico the still bolder seizure of Montezuma 

 in his own palace his defeat of Narvaez his victory of Otumba 

 and his magnanimity in the siege of Mexico are deeds which read 

 more like romance than reality. 



Robertson has estimated tbe character of Cortes at least as highly 

 as his own covutrymen Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Gomara, Herrera, 

 Solis, Lorenzana (who published in 1770 a 'History of New Spain,' 

 founded on the only writings of Cortes, which consist of four letters 

 to Charles V.), and Trueba. The valuable ' History of the Conquest 

 of Mexico,' by Prescott, will supply tbe general reader with sufficient 

 materials to estimate fairly the character and genius of Cortes. 



CORTESI, JACOPO. [BOROOONOXE.] 



CORTO'NA, PIE'TRO BERRKTTTNI, called Pief.ro da Cortona, 

 was born on November 1, 1596, at Cortona. His first master was 

 Antonio Commodi, but he afterwards studied under Ciarpi at Rome. 

 Being employed by a gilder to make some little figures, his skill 

 attracted the notice of the Marquis of Sacchetti,. who visited the 

 work-hop, and Pietro wag induced to show some of his paintings. 

 The marquis took him at once under his protection, and procured 

 him numerous commissions, and among them an order to paint some 

 rooms in the palace of the reigning Pope Urban, in the Piazza Barberini. 

 Cortona afterwards travelled, and executed various pictures by the 

 way. He was employed by Ferdinand II. to paint some pictures in 

 thi I'itti palace, and stayed some time in Florence ; but he left it in 

 disgust, because the grand duke had listened to certain detractors, 

 who had accused Cortona of palming his own pictures upon the prince 

 in place of some of Titian's which Ferdinand desired to purchase of 

 him. He settled finally at Rome, and enjoyed the patronage of suc- 

 cessive pontiffs, until Alexander III. made him a knight. He died, 

 oppressed with years and the gout, May 16, 1669, full of wealth and 

 honour. 



Pietro da Cortona studied the works of Raffaclle, Michel Angelo, and 

 especially those of Polidoro da Carravaggio, from whom he learned to 

 imitate tbe style of the later antiques, taking for his immediate moHel 

 the sculpture of Trajan's column. His style of drawing is free, bold, 

 and vigorous, and even coarse ; seldom finished in any except the 

 most conspicuous parts. In design he is learned and masterly, though 

 somewhat mannered and over-charged. His colour is sober and har- 

 monious. His principal works are at Rome, in the Barberini and in 

 the Sacchetti palaces ; and at Florence, in the Pitti palace. 



Cortona practised architecture as well as painting. He was buried 

 in the church of San Murtin at Rome, which is considered his best 

 architectural work ; and at his death he bequeathed to it a hundred 

 thousand crowns. Cortona had many famous pupils ; among them were 

 Ciro Fern, Romanelli, Giordani, Borgognone, and Testa. (Pascoli.) 



CORYAT, THOMAS, "the Odcombian leg-stretcher," as he was 

 Wont to call himself, was the son of the Rev. George Coryat, rector of 

 Odcombe, in Somersetshire, and prebendary of York cathedral. 

 Thomas, or, as he was usually styled, Tom Coryat, was born at 

 Odcombe rectory in 1577, anil wag educated at Westminster School, 

 and afterwards at Gloucester Hall, Oxford, where he remained three 

 years, and acquired some skill in logic, and more in Greek and Latin. 

 He seems, on leaving the university, to have obtained a post in the 

 household of Prince Henry ; but his eccentricity had probably already 

 become marked, as he is spoken of as holding in the prince's establish- 

 ment a position somewh\t analogous to that of court-jester. 



His father died in 1606, and Tom felt himself at liberty to indulge 

 a " very burning desire," which he says had long " itched in him, to 

 surv-y ami contemplate some of the choicest parts of this goodly 

 fabric of tlie world." Accordingly, in May 1608, he embarked at 

 Dover, and travelled through France and as far as Venice, returning 

 by way of Germany. Travelling on the continent was in those days 

 at best somewhat laborious, but Coryat's was a more than usually 

 arduous journey, for he went as far as possible on foot, and carried 

 rcry little money in his pocket. lie reckoned that in the five months 

 he was absent be had travelled 1 977 miles, of which he had walked 



900, and the same pair of shoes sufficed for the whole journey. On 

 hia return he hung up his shoes for a memorial in Odcombe church, 

 where they remained till 1702. Coryat waa a diligent observer of all 

 that he saw new to him in his travels, and an insatiable inquirer; and 

 he made notes of everything which struck him as noteworthy. These 

 notes he set himself on his return to arrange; and in 1611 he pub- 

 lished them in a bulky quarto volume, with this strange title : ' Coryat's 

 Crudities, hastily gobbled up in five months' Travels in France, Savoy, 

 Italy, Rhetia, commonly called the Orison's Country, Helvetia, alias 

 Switzerland, some parts of High Germany, and the Netherlands ; 

 newly digested in the hungry air of Odcombe in the county of Somer- 

 set, and now dispersed to the nourishment of the travelling members 

 of this kingdom.' Appended to the volume were some sixty sets of 

 verses, written, among others, by Ben Jonson, Chapman, Drayton, 

 Donne, Sir John Harrington, Inigo Jones, and Lawrence Whitaker. 

 They are written in Greek, Latin, Spanish, Italian, French, Welsh, Irish, 

 ' Macaronic," and ' Utopian,' and are all very quizzical, some coarsely so. 

 As might be expected, these verses proved the most attractive part 

 of the volume, and they were reprinted in a separate form under the 

 title of ' The Odcombian Banquet,' with an advertisement prefixed, 

 intended more evidently than were the verses themselves to render 

 poor Coryat ridiculous. Chalmers and others hare supposed this 

 volume to have been published by Coryat himself, and have expressed 

 a good deal of surprise at the excess of his simplicity. So far how- 

 ever from writing the ' advertisement,' or even sanctioning the repub- 

 lication, Coryat in the ' Second Course ' of his ' Crudities,' the ' Cramb, 

 or Colwort twice Sodden,' makes in his way an energetic attack upon 

 it. But the verses themselves were not attached to his book by his 

 own free will. He expressly states that he was commanded to print 

 them by Prince Henry, and he shows that he was quite aware of their 

 real purpose. Poor Coryat was in fact evidently made the butt of the 

 cleverer men with whom he was weak enough to desire to associate, 

 and he was treated with as little generosity as the wits have in all ages 

 treated their butts. Coryat's ' Crudities ' are, as may be supposed, of 

 little or no value for their descriptions of buildings and cities the 

 bulk of the book ; but they contain many curious illustrations of the 

 state of society in that time, and in them many odd scraps of informa- 

 tion on many unexpected matters will be found stored up. 



In 1612, the year following the publication of the 'Crudities, 

 Coryat departed on a more extended journey: his object being to 

 visit the Holy Land, and walk from there to the East Indies, leaving 

 the actual limits of his travels to be determined by circumstances. 

 Having made a brief stay in Constantinople, he visited various parts of 

 Greece and went to explore the vestiges of Troy, with which he was 

 much delighted. He th.en went to Jerusalem, and among others of 

 the sacred localities visited all he could discover of the Seven Churches. 

 Thence ho started to Aleppo, and so through Persia to Agra, where 

 was the Mogul's court, spending, he says, in his "journey betwixt 

 Jerusalem and the Mogul's court fifteen months and odd days, all of 

 which way I traversed afoot . . . the total distance being 2700 English 

 miles," and in ten months of this journey he only expended " betwiit 

 Aleppo and the Mogul's court but three pounds sterling, yet fared 

 reasonable well every way." Coryat had always a considerable apti- 

 tude for acquiring languages, and in this journey he had learnt to use 

 colloquially Italian, Arabic, Turkish, and Persian, his attainments in 

 which uo doubt contributed to his easy and economic progress. From 

 Agra he sent to his friends in London some brief notices of what he 

 had seen on his way, with a description of the Mogul's court, which 

 were published, with a portrait prefixed, representing him riding on 

 an elephant. 



At Agra he stayed some little while, being taken much notice of 

 by the Mogul and by Sir Thomas Rowe, the English ambassador 

 there. Of his future proceedings all that is known is told in the 

 voyage of the Rev. Thomas Terry, chaplain to the ambassador. 

 Terry says that Coryat, having stayed long enough to acquire "a 

 great mastery in the Indostan, or more vulgar language," resolv. d to 

 continue his journey, he having now BO extended his plan as to propose 

 to prolong his wanderings for at least ten years, in which time ha 

 hoped to be able to explore " Tartaria in the vast plains thereof, with 

 as much as he could of China, and those other lar^a places and pro- 

 vinces interposed betwixt East India and China," after which he 

 intended not only to search for Prester John in Ethiopia, but to " cast 

 his eyes upon many other places." But his journeyings were nearly 

 ended. He set out for Surat, though ill before starting, and full of 

 fear that he should die on the road. He lived to reach Surat, 300 

 miles distant, but died there of a dysentery a few days after his 

 arrival, December 1617. Coryat made full notes during this journey, 

 but they were -all lost. The ' Crudities ' has become a very rare 

 volume, and fetches a high price at the book-sales. 



COSMO THE ELDER. [MEDICI.] 



COSMO I., duke of Floreuce, and afterwards grand-duko of Tuscany, . 

 was the son of Giovanni de Meilici, a celebrated condottiers of tho 

 15th century, who was descended in a direct line from Lorenzo, the 

 younger brother of the elder Cosmo. This line formed a collateral 

 branch of the first house of Medici, and its members remained in a 

 private station as wealthy citizens of Florence during the lives of 

 Cosmo, Pietro, Lorenzo the Magnificent, and Leo X., inking littlo part 

 in the civil broils which agitated the republic under the administration 



