221 



MEZZOFANTI, JOSEPH CASPAR. 



MICAH. 



1831, he was induced by the pope to settle permanently in Rome, 

 and to accept a prebend in the church of St. Mary Major, which 

 was soon after exchanged for a canonry in St. Peter's ; and, on 

 the promotion of the celebrated Angelo Mai, then keeper of the 

 Vatican Library, to the secretaryship of the Propaganda, Mezzo- 

 fanti was appointed to succeed him in the important charge of the 

 Vatican. He held this office till 1838, in which year, conjointly 

 with Mai, he was elevated to the cardiualate. His residence in a great 

 centre of languages, such as Rome, and especially the facilities of 

 intercourse with the various races represented in the college of the 

 Propaganda, gave a new impulse to Mezzofanti's linguistic studies. 

 The reports of his visitors at Rome are still more marvellous than 

 those of the Bolognese period. An eminent German scholar, Herr 

 Guido Gbrres, who had much intercourse with him in the year 1841, 

 writes thug : " He is familiar with all the European languages ; and 

 by this 1 understand not only the ancient classical tongues, and the 

 modern ones of the first clas=, such as the Greek and Latin, or the 

 Italian, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and English his 

 knowledge extends also to the languages of the second class, viz., 

 the Dutch, Danish, and Swedish to the whole Slavonic family, 

 Russian, Polish, Bohemian, or Czechish to the Servian, the Hun- 

 garian, the Turkish ; and even to those of the third and fourth classes, 

 the Iri.-h, the Welsh, the Wallachian, the Albanian, the Bulgarian, 

 and the Illyrian. Even the Roman! of the Alps and the Lettish are 

 not unknown to him; nay, he has made himself acquainted with 

 Lappish. He is master of the languages which fall within the Indo- 

 Germanic family, the Sanscrit and Persian, the Koordish, the Georgian, 

 the Armenian ; he is familiar with all the members of the Semitic 

 family the Hebrew, the Arabic, the Syriac, the Samaritan, the 

 Chaldee, the Sabaic nay, even with the Chinese, which he not only 

 reads, but speaks. Among the Hamitic languages, he knows Coptic, 

 Ethiopia, Abjssinian, Amharic, and Angolese." 



What is especially notable in this marvellous gift possessed by 

 Hezzofanti is, that his knowledge of each among this vast variety of 

 languages was almost as perfect as though his attention had been 

 devoted to that language exclusively. The reports of the representa- 

 tives of all the great families of language concur in describing him 

 s speaking in each always with the precision, and in most cases with 

 the fluency, of a native. His pronunciation, his idiom, his vocabu- 

 bulary, were alike unexceptionable. Even the familiar words of 

 every day life, and the delicate turn* of conversational language, were 

 at his command ; and in each language he was master of all the 

 leading dialects, and even of the provincial peculiarities of idiom, of 

 pronunciation, or of expression. In French, he was equally at homo 

 in the pure Parisian of the Faubourg-St. -Germain or in the Proven9al 

 of Toulouse, lie could accommodate himself in German to the rude 

 jargon of the Black Forest, or to the classic vocabulary of Dresden ; 

 and he often amused his English visitors by specimens of the pro- 

 vincialisms of Yorkshire, Lancashire, or Somersetshire. With the 

 literature of these various countries too he was well acquainted. He 

 loved to talk with his visitors of the great authors in their respective 

 languages ; and his remarks are described as invariably sound and 

 judicious, and exhibiting careful and various reading, often extending 

 to department* with which it would never be supposed that a foreigner 

 could be familiar. A Dutch traveller, for instance, Dr. Wap, was 

 surprised to find him well acquainted with his own national poets, 

 Vondel and Cats ; a Dane, with the philological works of Kaak ; a 

 Swede, with the poetry of Ochsenstjerna ; to a Sicilian he would 

 repeat whole pages of the poetry of Meli ; and an English gentle 

 man was astounded to hear him discuss and criticise Hudibras, 

 of all English writers the least attractive as well as the least intelli- 

 gible to a foreigner. He was in the habit too of amusing himself by 

 metrical compositions in the various languages which he cultivated, 

 and often wrote for his visitors a couplet or two in their native 

 language as a little memento of their interview. Dr. Wap, the Dutch 

 traveller jiut referred to, speaks in high praise of some extempore 

 lines in Dutch by which Mezzofanti replied to a sonnet which Dr. Wap 

 had cddressed to him ; and the well-known Orientalist, Dr. Tholuck, 

 having asked Mezzofanti for some memorial of his visit, received from 

 him a Persian couplet after the manner of Hafiz, which he composed 

 (although not without some delay) during Dr. Tholuck's visit. 



After his removal to Home, although he had already passed his 

 fiftieth year, he added largely to his stock of languages. His most 

 notal.fe acquisition during this period was Chinese, which he acquired 

 (partly at the Chinese College in Naples, partly among the Chinese 

 tudenta of the Propaganda) in such perfection as to be able not only 

 to write and converse freely in it, but even to preach to the young 

 Chinese ecclesiastics. During the game period he acquired the Abys- 

 tinian, the Califoruian, tome of the North American Indian languages, 

 and even the ' impossible ' Basque. And it was in Rome, and espe- 

 cially in the Propaganda, that ho displayed in its greatest perfection 

 his singular power of instantaneously pasting in conversation from 

 one language to another, without the slightest mixture or confusion, 

 whether of words or of pronunciation. 



Mezzofanti, as cardinal, was a member of many ecclesiastical congre 

 gatiuns in Koine, but he never held any office of state. He died on 

 the 15th of March 1849, and wag buried in the church of St. Onofrio, 

 beside the grave of Torquato Tasso. 



It is difficult to determine with accuracy the number of languages 

 mown by Mezzofanti, and still more so to ascertain how many of 

 ihese he spoke, and with what degree of fluency in each. During his 

 ifetime, as we have seen, report varied considerably at different times ; 

 nor was he himself believed to have made any very precise statement on 

 ;he subject. To a Russian traveller, who visited him before the year 

 1846, and who begged of him a list of all the languages and dialects in 

 which he was able to express himself, he sent a paper in his own hand 

 containing the name of God in fifty-six languages. The author of a 

 memoir which appeared soon after the cardinal's death in a Roman 

 journal, the 'Civilta Catolica' (who is now known to be Father 

 Bresciani, a Roman Jesuit), states that, in the year 1846, Mezzofanti 

 himself informed him that he was able to express himself in seventy- 

 eight languages. Marvellous as these statements may appear, they 

 seem fully borne out by inquiries (with a view to the preparation of a 

 biography) which have been made since the death of the cardinal. 

 Reports have been received from a vast number of individuals, natives 

 of different countries, whose collective testimony, founded on their 

 own personal knowledge of Mezzofanti, places beyond all question the 

 fact of his having spoken fluently considerably more than fifty different 

 languages. There are others among the languages ascribed to him, 

 regarding which it is difficult to institute any direct inquiry ; but, 

 judging from analogy, and relying on the well-known modesty and 

 truthfulness of Mezzofanti, we need not hesitate to accept his own 

 statement as reported by F. Bresciani; the more so, as among his 

 papers now in the possession of his family is a list, drawn up from 

 memoranda contained therein, of no less than a hundred and twenty 

 languages with which he possessed some acquaintance, unaccompanied 

 however by any note specifying those among the number which he 

 spoke, or the degree of his knowledge of each. 



In general learning Mezzofanti's attainments were highly respect- 

 able. He was a well-informed theologian and canonist, and an 

 impressive though not eloquent preacher. M. Libri, the historian 

 of mathematical science in Italy, found him well acquainted with 

 algebra, and reports an interesting conversation which he had with 

 him on the Bija Gannita (the algebra of the Hindoos), as well as on 

 the general subject of Indian history and antiquities. Other travellers 

 describe him as entering freely into the history as well as the literature 

 of their several countries. But as an author he is almost unknown. 

 He occasionally read papers at various literary and scientific societies 

 in Bologna and Rome; but his only known publication ia a short 

 memoir of his friend and brother professor, Father Emmanuel Apoute, 

 which was printed at Bologna in 1820 ; and he leaves no monu- 

 ment for posterity beyond the tradition that he was incomparably the 

 greatest linguist the world has ever seen. 



MIAZZI, GIOVANNI, an Italian architect of the 18th century, 

 was born at Bergamo, in 1699, and was originally brought up to his 

 father's trade of carpenter. He was almost entirely self-educated in 

 the profession which ho afterwards followed ; for it was not till he 

 was forty that he availed himself of the instructions of Preti, who 

 was his junior by two years. He had however previously built a 

 small theatre in his native town, and the church of La Trinita in the 

 Borgo of Angarano. One of his later and best works is the church 

 of San Giambattista at Baesano, in which he successfully overcame 

 the numerous obstacles arising out of the site and the conditions 

 he was obliged to comply with. He also built the collegiate church 

 at Schio, that at Valdagno, another at San Vito, and a fourth at 

 Simouzo, besides that at the convent of Monte Gargano, in Puglia. 

 The Spineda Palace, at Venegazza, in the Trevegiano, excited much 

 admiration for the elegance of its design, which has since been 

 greatly impaired by the demolition of the chapel and corresponding 

 wing, and the arcades uniting them to the central edifice. The beau- 

 tiful theatre at Treviso is another of his works ; for although the 

 original design proceeded from Bibbieua, he greatly improved it; 

 and tha fa9acie, the vestibule, and many of the internal arrangements 

 are entirely his own. Miazzi died about 1780, and, notwithstanding 

 his age, continued vigorous and active almost to the last. 



MICAH, one of the twelve minor Hebrew prophets, is called in the 

 title to his prophecy the Morasthite, and thus he is distinguished 

 from Micaiah, the son of Imlah, who prophesied the death of Ahab, 

 about B.C. 897. (1 Kings xxii. 8-28.) This appellation was probably 

 derived from his birth-place, Moresheth-Gath (Micah i. 14), or 

 Mareshah, a city of the tribe of Judah. (Micah i. 15 ; Josh. xi. 44; 

 2 Chron. xi. 8 ; xiv. 9-10.) 



From the title to the book of Micah we learn that ho prophesied in 

 the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, or from 

 B.c. 759 to 699. The kings of Israel during this period were Pekah 

 and Hoshea. Thus Micah was contemporary with the latter part of 

 Hosea's prophetical ministry, and with Isaiah. This date is confirmed 

 by a reference made to the prophet by Jeremiah (xxvi. 18. 19), who 

 quotes his prophecy respecting the destruction of Jerusalem (Micah, 

 iii. 12),and says that it was uttered by Micah in the days of Hezekiah. 

 He must have delivered his prophecy before the sixth year of 

 Hezekiah (B.O. 722), in which the kingdom of Israel was destroyed, 

 for ho speaks of that calamity as a future event. (Micah i. 6, &c.) 



I l.ii-tmium contends that Micah prophesied after the fourteenth year 

 of Hezekiah, and that the book which bears his name is a collection of 

 different prophecies made during the Babylonish captivity, some of 



