137 



MASACCIO. 



MASERES, FRANCIS. 



133 



sizes. She executed also an equestrian statue of Joan of Arc. There 

 is also a email model by her of the ' Death of the Chevalier Bayard ; * 

 and in a chapel at Foutainebleau there are some windows painted 

 after her designs. 



MASA'CCIO, called MASO DA SAN GIOVANNI, one of the 

 earliest painters of the Florentine school, was born at San Giovanni 

 in Val d'Arno, in the year 1401. He was a disciple of Masollno da 

 Pauicali, to whom he proved as much superior as his master was to 

 all his contemporaries. He had great readiness of invention, with 

 unusual truth and elegance of design. He made nature his constant 

 study ; and he gave in his works examples of that beauty which arises 

 from a judicious and pleasing choice of attitudes, accompanied with 

 spirit, boldness, and relief. Ha was the first who studied to give more 

 dignity to his draperies, by designing them with greater breadth and 

 fulness, and omitting the multitude of small folds. He was also the 

 first who endeavoured to adapt the colour of his draperies to the tints 

 of his carnations, so that they might harmonica with each other. 



He was remarkably well skilled in perspective, which he was taught 

 by P. Brunelleschi. His works procured him great reputation, but 

 excited the envy of his competitors. He died in 1443, not without 

 strong suspicious of having been poisoned. Fuseli says of him 

 " Masaccio was a genius, and the head of an epoch in the art. He 

 may be considered as the precursor of Raffaelle, who imitated his 

 principles, and sometimes transcribed his figures. He had seen what 

 could be seen of the antique in his time at Rome, but his most perfect 

 works are the frescoes of S. Pietro del Carmine at Florence, where 

 vigour of conception, truth and vivacity of expression, correctness of 

 design, and breadth of manner are supported by truth and surprising 

 harmony of colour." 



MASANIKLLO. [AuiEixo, TOMMASO.] 



MASCAGNI, PAUL, was born in 1752. He studied medicine in 

 the University of Siena, and in 1774 succeeded his master, Tabarani, 

 in the professorship of anatomy in that institution. He is chiefly 

 celebrated for his admirable work on the absorbent system, and the 

 beauty of his anatomical preparations, of which the greater part are 

 preserved in the Anatomical Museum of Florence. An outline of his 

 great work was published in 1784 in French, under the title 'Prodrome 

 d'un Ouvrage sur le Systeme des Vai-seaux Lymphatiques,' and was 

 sent to the Academic des Sciences in competition for a prize offered 

 for the best essay on the subject. In 17s7 the more complete work, 

 ' Vasoruni Lympliaticorum Corporis Humani Historic et Ichnographia,' 

 was publishel in folio at Siena. It contains 27 large plate.*, finished 

 and in outline, of the lymphatics in different parts of the body, 

 engraved with extreme delicacy by Cyro Sancti. It was dedicated to 

 the reigning Duke of Tuscany, under whose patronage Mascagni after- 

 wards rapidly advanced in reputation. In 1800 he left the University 

 of Siena for that of Pisa, and the year after went to that of Florence. 

 He died in 1815. 



After his death two large works were published from his papers 

 'Anatomia per uso degli Studiosi di Scultura e Pittura,' Florence, 

 1816; and ' Prodromo delta Grande Anatomia,' Florence, 1819, by 

 Antotumarchi. Maacagni also published works of some celebrity on 

 the lagunes and hot-springs of Tuscany, and on the cultivation of the 

 potato and other branches of agriculture, to which he devoted all his 

 leisure time. 



MASCHERO'NI, LORENZO, an Italian mathematician, was born 

 at Bergamo in 1750. His studies were at first directed to the lan- 

 guages and literature of Greece and Rome, and to these subjects 

 he applied himself with unwearied diligence. At eighteen years of 

 e he WHS appointed professor of humanity in the university of his 

 Dative city, and he attracted some notice at that time by a poetical 

 dissertation on what he called the false eloquence of the pulpit. He 

 afterwards became professor of Greek in the University of Pavia ; 

 and, having taken orders in the church, he acquired the title of 

 Abbe*. 



It was not till he was twenty-seven years of age that he began the 

 study of mathematics ; but he rapidly acquired a taste for the sciences, 

 which indue- d him to abandon his classical pursuits, and so great was 

 bis progress in this branch of learning that he was appointed professor of 

 geometry in the college Mariano at Bergamo. When the Revolution 

 took place in the north of Italy, on the invasion of the country by the 

 French, Maacheroui was chosen a member of the legislative body in 

 the Cisalpine Republic ; and soon afterwards he was sent to Paris to 

 assist* in the formation of the new system of weights and measures. 

 He was at one time also engaged at Uologua, with other mathemati- 

 cians, in the performance of experiments with a view of proving the 

 rotation of the earth on its axis by the place at which a body struck 

 the ground when let fall from the upper part of a lofty building. 



Mascheroni published in quarto a work entitled ' Sulle Curve che 

 servono a delineare le Ore ineguali degli Antichi nelle superficie Plane,' 

 Bergamo, 1784 ; and in the following year, at the same place, a tract, 

 also in Italian, on the Equilibrium of Vaults, 4to. In this tract the 

 higher branches of analysis are employed, and the investigations are 

 extended to subjects Ixnond those which are treated in the works of 

 the earlier writers on the applications of science to practical engineer- 

 log. In 1795 he published at Milan, in 8vo, a work entitled ' Geo- 

 metric del Compasso,' in which are ingenious solutions of several 

 geometrical propositions by means of a pair of compasses only ; that 



is, by the intersection of circular arcs, without the assistance of a 

 ruler. Among these propositions is one in which it is required to 

 find between or beyond two given points, and in the direction of a 

 straight line joining them, other points whose distances from the 

 former are in any assigned proportions. There are given in the work 

 methods of finding points in lines perpendicular or parallel to, or 

 making given angles with, a line joining two points whose positions 

 are assigned ; of determining a mean proportional between, and third, 

 fourth, &c., proportionals to two given lines ; and of inscribing poly- 

 gons in circles. There are also approximative solutions of problems, 

 such as the duplication or multiplication of a cube, and the trisection 

 of an angle, which require, in the usual method of operating, applica- 

 tions of the conic sections or other curves. 



Besides the mathematical works just mentioned, and a tract containing 

 notes on Euler's ' Institutiones Calculi Differentialis," Mascheroui pub- 

 lished some verses which were addressed to the Countess Grisinondi, 

 an elegy on the death <5f Borda, and a poem entitled ' Invito di Dafni 

 a Lesbia,' in which he introduced a precise description of the objects 

 contained in the museums of natural history and philosophy at 

 Pavia. . 



He died in July 1808, in consequence, it is said, of too close 

 application to his scientific studies, leaving several manuscripts, and 

 among them one on ' Pyramidometry,' a subject which La Grange had 

 previously investigated, but which Mascheroui had the merit of placing 

 in a new light. 



MASCLKF, FRANCIS, was born at Amiens in the year 1662. He 

 very early devoted himself to the study of Oriental languages, in 

 which he attained an extraordinary degree of proficiency. Having 

 been brought up to the Church, he became first a curate in the diocese 

 of Amiens, and afterwards obtained the confidence of De Brou, bishop 

 of Amiens, who placed him at the head of the theological seminary of 

 the district, and mads him a canon. De Brou died in 1706, aud 

 Masclef, whose opinions on the Jausenist controversy were not in 

 accordance with those of the new prelate Sabbatier, was compelled to 

 resign his place in the theological seminary aud to retire from public 

 life. From this time he devoted him.-elf to study with such close 

 application as to bring on a disease, of which he died, on the 24th of 

 November 1728, at the age of sixty-six. Though austere in his habits, 

 he was amiable and pious. 



MascUf s chief work is the 'Grammatica.Hebraica, a punctis aliiaque 

 iuveutU Massorethicis libera,' in which he embodied au elaborate 

 argument against the u.-e of the vow 1 points. The first edition was 

 published in 1713, aud speedily called forth a defence of the points 

 from the Abbe* Guarin, a learned Benedictine monk. In the year 

 1731 a second edition of Masclef' s work was published at Paris, con- 

 taming an answer to Guariu's objections, with the addition of gram- 

 mars of the Syriac, Chaldee, and Samaritan languages. This work 

 still ranks as the best Hebrew grammar without points. The other 

 works of Masclef were, ' Ecclesiastical Conferences of the Diocese of 

 Amiens;' 'Catechism of Amiens;' and in manuscript, 'Courses of 

 Philosophy and Divinity.' The last-mentioned work was not printed, 

 on account of its being thought to contain Jansenint opinions. 



MASERES, FRANCIS, was born iu London, December 15, 1731. 

 His father was a physician, descended from a family which was driven 

 out of France by the revocation of tue Edict of Nantes. He was 

 educated at Clare Hall, Cambridge, and took the degree of B.A. in 

 1752, obtaining the highest place both in classics and mathematics. 

 He then (having first obtained a fellowship in his college) removed to 

 the Temple, was in due time called to tue bar, and went the western 

 circuit for some years with little success. He was then appointed 

 attorney-general for Canada, in which province he remained till 1773, 

 distinguished " by his loyalty during the American contest, aud his 

 zeal tor the interests of the province." On his return in 1773 he was 

 appointed cursitor baron of the Exchequer, which office he held till 

 his death. He was also at different times deputy recorder of London 

 and senior judge of the sheriffs' court. He died May 19, 1824, at 

 lieigate, in the ninety-third year of bis age. 



Baron Masdres (as ho was commonly called) has left behind him a 

 celebrity arising partly from his own writings and partly from the. 

 munificence with which he devoted a part of his income to reprinting 

 such works as he thought useful, either in illustration of mathematical 

 history or of that of his own country. These were the objects of his 

 private studies; aud a peculiarity of his mathematical views which 

 tinctured the whole of his writings, as well as his selection of works. 

 to be reprinted, requires some explanation. 



It is well known that the art of algebra grew faster than the science, 

 and that, at the time when Masbres began his studies, a branch of 

 knowledge which is essentially distinct from arithmetic, or rather of 

 which arithmetic is one particular case, had been pushed beyond the 

 simple science of numbers in its methods, reasonings, and results, while 

 its fundamental definitions were allowed to be expressed in arithmetical 

 language, and restricted by arithmetical conceptions. Tue consequence 

 was, that the algebraiacal books were anything but logical; auJ while 

 those who could make for themselves the requisite generalisation at 

 the proper time were more likely to employ themselves iu extending 

 the boundary of the science than iu writing elementary works, all 

 other students had to take a large part of algobra on trust, tueir faith- 

 being built partly on. authority, partly on, continually seeing verifiable 



