57 



MAIKOV, BASIL INANOVITCH. 



MAIMONIDKS. 



were uncovered by Benedetto before the king, a great part of the 

 inlaid-work, owiug to the effect of the moisture on the glue, fell to 

 pieces, to the great dismay of the king and the horror of the artist, 

 and had to be remade. Benedetto felt that an art in which the 

 works were subject to destruction by so slight a cause, was unworthy 

 the attention of superior abilities, and he thenceforth applied himself 

 exclusively to sculpture in marble and to architecture. 



Benedetto's marble works however were also of an ornamental or 

 decorative class, consisting of fonts, pulpits, and tombs. His fonts 

 and pulpits were of a most elaborate character, being loaded with 

 beautifully executed small figures, besides other decorations. One of 

 his master-pieces is the marble pulpit of Sai.ta Croce, which is still in 

 good preservation : the sculptures represent the life of San Francesco 

 and the establishment of his order, in five compartments; with the 

 figures also of Faith, Hope, Charity, Fortitude, and Justice. The 

 whole has been beautifully engraved by Gio. Paolo Lasinio, and was 

 published with letter-press description in 1823 'II Pergamo scolpito 

 in marmo da Beued. da Majano nella Chiesa di Santa Croce in Firenze.' 

 Benedetto made also the crucifix over the altar of the cathedral of 

 Florence ; and he finished the Magdalen hi Santa Trinita, which was 

 left imperfect by Desiderio da Satignano. In architecture he did 

 very little : he built the portico of the church of the Madonna delle 

 Grazie near Arezzo ; a chapel for himself on his own estate near 

 Prato ; and he is said to have designed the Palazzo Strozzi. He died 

 rich in 1493, aged only fifty-four, and was buried in San Lorenzo at 

 Florence. He left the reversion of his property to the brotherhood 

 of the Bigallo. 



GIULIANO DI NAZDO DA MAIANO, the uncle of Benedetto, was like- 

 wise a distinguished artist, aud in similar works as Benedetto. He 

 was intrusted with several important charges in Florence, in Pisa, in 

 Loreto, in Naples, aud in Rome. He succeeded Brunelleachi as the 

 architect of the cathedral of Florence iu 1446. At Naples he built 

 the palace of Poggio lUale, and executed the sculptures of the Porta 

 Capuaoa, also the triumphal arch, and the reliefs of the Castello 

 Nuovo (now the Arsenal). At Home he built of Travertine stone the 

 loggie of one of the courts of the Vatican ; aud the church and palace 

 of Han Marco for Pope Paul II. in the same material ; and a report 

 was long in circulation that part of the Colosseum was pulled down 

 for the atones, but more charitable persons have presumed that the 

 pope used only such stones as had already fallen. Giuliano com- 

 menced also, in 1464, a new nave to the church of the Madonna at 

 Loreto, which was completed by his nephew Benedetto. Giuliano 

 was still living in Florence in 1471, a fact clearly ascertained by 

 Rumohr ; Vasari's account therefore that he died at Naples, in the 

 reign of Alfonso I. (1435-58) is erroneous; this statement is also 

 evidently incorrect from the fact of Giuliano being employed by 

 Paul II., who was pope from 1464 to 1471. 



(Vasari, Vile de J'illori, Ac., and the Notes to the German transla- 

 tion by Schorn ; Cicognara, Storia delta Sculiura ; Rumohr, Italieniidie 

 Fortchungen.) 



MAIKOV, BASIL IVANOVITCH, a Russian author who gained 

 lome distinction by his talent for comic poetry, was born at Jaroslav, 

 in 1725. Although he had received but a very moderate education, a 

 natural aptitude for writing verges and a turn for humorous satire 

 enabled him to distinguish himself by his 'Yelisei, or Bacchus 

 Enraged,' a burlesque poem in five cantos, the hero of which is a 

 yamshtshik, or carter, named Yelisei, whom Bacchus takes under his 

 protection. It is chiefly by this production that Maikov is now 

 remembered ; but the fiction itself is BO extravagant, and the narrative 

 in many parts so confused, as to detract considerably from the plea- 

 sure attorded by the humour displayed in many passages. He also 

 wrote two poems in a similar vein ; one entitled ' Igrok Lombera, or 

 the L'Hombre Player ; ' the other, ' The Most Shocking Fall of the 

 Poets ; ' each of which is in three cantos. His other works consist 

 of two tragedies and several tales and fables. To these last-mentioned 

 productions the epithet ' Moral,' prefixed to them by the author him- 

 self, can hardly be said to belong, for one of them at least is most 

 scandalously indecent. There is also considerable grossnesa in many 

 parts of ' Yelisei.' Maikov died at Moscow in 1773, but the first 

 entire collection of his poems did not appear till 1809, when they 

 were published in one volume, at St. Petersburg. 



MAILATH, JANOS NEPOMUK, an ingenious Hungarian poet and 

 historian, was born at Pesth on the 14th of October 1786, and was the 

 fourteenth child of a family of eighteen. He received an excellent 

 education at Erlau and Raab, and his father, Count Joseph, an 

 Austrian minister of state, introduced him into the came service, which 

 he was compelled to relinquish after ten years, from increasing weakness 

 of eye-sight. For two years he was forbidden to read and write, and 

 it was during this time that he resolved to devote himself to literature. 

 His works on poetry and history are numerous. Many of his poems 

 and one of his hiatories, that ' Of the Religious Dissensions in Hungary,' 

 are in the Hungarian language; most of the others are in German. 

 He translated with success into German the ' Himfy ' of Kisfaludy. 

 [KisFALUUY, SASDOR.] His ' History of the Magyars ' (5 vein., 1828-31), 

 and his ' History of the Austrian Empire' (5 vols., 1834-50), aie the 

 most important of his historical works: the latter contains the result 

 of his investigations during a period of eighteen years. Count Mailath, 

 who returned to the public service and held the office of a counsellor 



of the Hungarian Chancery and some others at Pesth, was a member 

 of the Hungarian Conservative party, and in his history mentions his 

 own name, along with that of Count Stephen Szechenyi, as those of 

 the only two magnates who opposed what he characterises as the 

 violent and oppressive proceedings of the Magyars in forcing their 

 language on the six-million inhabitants of the country, whose languages 

 were entirely different. The whole of his narrative of the conduct of 

 the Kossuth party ia Hungary before the outbreak is deserving of 

 attention, as a statement of one side of the question which is little 

 known in England. The results to unfortunate Mailath were most 

 disastrous. Deprived of the posts he hehl iu Hungary by the revo- 

 lution of 184S, he appears to have been unable to obtain a compensation 

 from the Austrian government. His literary labours did nat prove 

 remunerative, and his fortitude gave way under the combined afflic- 

 tions of poverty, exile, old age, and blindness. The old man, whose 

 productions have earned him a permanent and honourable place iu 

 the literature of both Hungary and Germany, was driven by the. 

 pressure of extreme destitution to drown himself iu the Lake of 

 Starnberg in Upper Bavaria, and with him his daughter, who had for 

 some time acted as his amanuensis. This most painful catastrophe 

 took place in the early part of January, 1855. 



MAIMBOURG, LOUIS, born in France in 1620, entered the order 

 of Jesuits, and studied theology at Rome. On his return to France 

 he was employed as a preacher. Having published in 1682 a work 

 in which he defended the principles of the Gallican Church, ' Trait<5 

 Historique de 1'Eglise de Rome,' the pope caused him to be expelled 

 from the order of Jesuits. Louis XIV. on this occasion gave him a 

 pension, and he retired to the abbey of St. Victor at Paris, where he 

 died in 1686. The four propositions which Maitnbourg, with the 

 greater part of the French clergy, maintained are : 1. That the pope 

 has no authority in temporal matters. 2. That the general councils 

 of the church are superior to the pope. 3. That the pope may err in 

 his decisions, which are subject to the approbation of the church. 

 4. That the rights, usages, and canons established in the Gallican 

 Church cannot be altered by the pope without the consent of the 

 clergy and the state. 



Maimbourg wrote several works on church history, the principal of 

 which are 1, ' Histoire du Pontificat de St. Gregoire ; ' 2, Histuire du 

 Pontifical de St. Ldon;' 3, 'Histoire du Calviuisme,' which has been 

 criticised by Bayle and others ; 4, ' Histoire de 1'Arianismo ; ' 5, ' His- 

 toire des Iconoclastes ; ' 6, ' Histoire du Luthe'ranisme,' in which he 

 defends indulgences in their fullest extent, as remitting not only the 

 temporal penalty, but the penalty hereafter, both to the living and 

 the dead; 7, ' Histoire de la Ligue.' Maimbourg is often prejudiced 

 and inexact, but his style is attractive; aud several of his works ara 

 not destitute of merit. Voltaire, no favourable judge, said of him 

 that " he had been too much praised at first, and too much neglected 

 afterwards/' 



MAIMO'NIDES, or more properly MOSES BEN MAIMON, one of 

 the most celebrated of the Jewish Rabbis, was born at Cordova in Spain, 

 about A.I). 1131 or 1133. He studied philosophy and medicine under 

 the celebrated Averroes, an Arabian physician and philosopher ; and 

 also paid great attention to mathematics and natural science, as far as 

 they were known at that time. In addition to a knowledge of Hebrew 

 and Arabic, he is also said to have been acquainted with Greek, and 

 to have studied the writings of the most celebrated Grecian philo- 

 sophers. In consequence of a violent persecution having arisen 

 against his master Averroes, Maimouides withdrew to Egypt, where he 

 is said to have gamed his livelihood at first by working at the trade of 

 a jeweller. His great merits afterwards introduced him to the Sultan 

 Alphadel, who appointed him physician to his own household, aud 

 treated him with distinguished honour. He died in Egypt at the ago 

 of seventy. 



The learning and abilities of Maimonides have been universally 

 acknowledged both by Jews and Christians, although the independent 

 mode of thinking which characterised most of his writings, as well as 

 his rejection of some of the favourite absurdities of the rabbis, 

 rendered him an object of suspicion and dislike among many of hia 

 contemporaries. The rabbis of Moutpelier iu particular attacked his 

 opinions with the greatest vehemence, and burned his writings ; but 

 their proceedings were censured by mo-t of the Spanish rabbis. The 

 controversy continued till about the year 1232, when the celebrated 

 David Kimchi was chosen by both parties as an arbiter of the dispute. 



[KlMCUI.j 



The most celebrated of the writings of Maimonides are !. 'Moreh 

 Nevochim,' or ' Teacher of the Perplexed,' originally written in Arabic, 

 and translated into Hebrew by his disciple Samuel Abeu Tybbon. 

 This is perhaps the must valuable work of Maimonides, it contains 

 an explanation of difficult passages in the Old Testament, as well as 

 of types, allegories, &c. The original Arabic has only been printed 

 quite recently, with a French translation, under the title of ' Le Guide 

 des Egares traits' de ThiSologie publiiS en Arabe avec traduction et 

 notes par S. Munk,' torn, i, royal 8vo, Paris, 1856. The Hebrew 

 translation has been published at various times ; the best edition is 

 by Salomon Maimon, Berlin, 1791. The 'Moreh Nevochim ' has been 

 also translated into Latin by Justinian, bishop of Nebio, Paris, 1520, 

 and by the younger Buxturf, Basel, 1629, with a preface, which con- 

 tains an account of the life of Maimonides. Dr. Townshend has 



