237 



MIGLURA, GIOVANNI. 



MILIZIA, FRANCESCO. 



238 



perforraaiice of this kind was Rinaldo asleep on the lap of Armida, sur- 

 rounded by the Loves and Graces, which was so highly admired, that 

 he was prevailed upon to paint three repetitions of the same subject. 

 He likewise painted landscapes and animals ; and was so admirable a 

 modeller iu clay, that it has been said he might be ranked among 

 eminent sculptors. He was inferior to hU father in design, grouping, 

 and effect : nor has he the same exquUite touch. His finishing is 

 delicate, and almost over-careful. He died in 1747, at the age of 

 eighty-five, equally esteemed as a man and an artist. 



MIGLIAUA, GIOVANNI, a very distinguished modern Italian 

 artist, who invested architectural painting with a species of interest 

 which it had not before possessed even in the ablest hands. He was 

 born at Alessandria in Piedmont, October 15th, 1785, of poor parents, 

 who placed him with Luigi Zuccoli of Milan, to learn wood-engraving, 

 but on discovering his strong and peculiar talent, Zuccoli sent him to 

 study architecture and perspective, under Albertolli and Levati, at the 

 academy of the Brera. So prepared, he next studied scene-painting 

 under (jaliari, and practised that branch of art for which Milan was 

 then celebrated beyond any other place in Europe about eight years, 

 1802-10, sharing in the fame reaped by Galiari, Perego, Landriani, and 

 Sanquirico. This eminently successful career, one moreover which he 

 pur.-ued with such devotedness, was all at once arrested by a long and 

 dangerous illness, occasioned partly by over-exertion, and partly by a 

 pulmonary attack in consequence of cold caught while working in a damp 

 place. This perhaps eventually proved a great advantage both to him- 

 self and to art, inasmuch as it compelled him to relinquish painting for 

 the stage, and led him to produce works that are now treasured up 

 for admiration in galleries. At the time however his illness was a 

 serious calamity, fur his family was reduced to very great distress. 

 Owing to the care of a most affectionate wife, he recovered ; and no 

 sooner did he begin to recover, and was abla to sit up in bed, than 

 he employed himself in making pictures on a small scale of the various 

 scenes amounting to about a hundred which he had painted for 

 the theatres. Produced through necessity, as the only means of 

 earning subsistence for himself and family, these subjects not only 

 found purchasers, but there became even a demand for them. Thus 

 encouraged he determined thenceforth to paint architectural scenery 

 " in small," and also to combine the dramatist with the scene-painter, 

 peopling his canvass not with mere figures as accessories, but with 

 episodical groups of actors, either illustrating popular and local 

 manners, or recording some historic incident ; and among his nume- 

 rous pieces of the latter class may be mentioned hU ' Ildegonda,' 

 ' Adelaide dying in a souterraiu of the Trappists,' the ' Condemnation 

 of a Templar,' the ' Duchesse de la Valliere,' and ' Charles V. at a 

 Convent.' In depicting the personages and manners of familiar and 

 every-day life, he displayed a vein of strong humour; and his convent- 

 kitchens and refectories, and incidents taken from Porta's dialect 

 poems, rendered him an especial favourite with the public. Inde- 

 pendently of the figures and stories the great attraction for the 

 many with which he baited his productions he converted architectural 

 pniuting itself, from mere actual portraiture of buildings into real pic- 

 ture, by the united mastery of perspective, chiaroscuro, and colouring. 

 His pictures give the impression and sentiment of the edifices themselves, 

 and are stamped by illusive yet anything but prosaic reality. Such 

 was the reputation he acquired, that not only the King of Sardinia 

 bestowed upon him the Order of Merit, but his native city of Ales- 

 sandria struck a medal in honour of him, in 1829. Honoured and 

 prosperous iu his profession while only iu the meridian of lifu x he 

 might, not unreasonably, look forward for years of uninterrupted 

 happiness, when he was carried off very suddenly in about halt' an 

 hour after being seized by it by an attack of his former pulmonary 

 complaint, April 18tb, 1837. He was followed to the tomb by the 

 academicians, artists, and others to the number of upwards of three 

 hundred ; and his lait work, his unfinished ' Interior of the Basilica of 

 San Marco,' was borne iu the procession. His daughter Teoliuda 

 painted subjects of the same kiud as her father. 



(Giuseppe Saochi, in Tipaldo'a Hiografia; Westminster Rev., vol. xxxv.) 

 M.IGNAKU, PETER (called tha Roman), was born at Troyes in 

 1610. His name was properly More; but his father, who was of 

 English origin, took the name of Mignard. He wag at first intended 

 for the medical profession ; but as he manifested a decided talent for 

 painting, his father placed him in the school of Jeau Boucher, at 

 Bourges, and afterwards in that of the celebrated Vouet. Having 

 seen seme capital paintings of the Italian masters, he left Vouet and 

 went to Rouie, iu 10:, ;, t., ; nfter Kaffaelle, Michel Angelo, and 

 A. Caracci. He spent twenty-two years at Rome, during which time 

 he painted many historical pictures and portraits, among which those 

 of popes Urban VIII. and Alexander VII. were the finest. In 1658 he 

 was invited to Paris at the suggestion of Colbert, and, on his way 

 through Italy, had the honour of painting the portraits of several of 

 the Italian princes and their families. In France he acquired the 

 favour of Louis XIV., who sat to him for his portrait ten times, and 

 gave him a patent of nobility; and after the death of Le Brun, 

 appointed him principal painter, director of the Royal collections of 

 thu Academy of Painting, and of the Gobelin manufactory. Mignard 

 executed ouu of the greatest works in fresco iu France, the cupola of 

 Val da Grace. He also adorned the great hall at St. Cloud with 

 mythological subjects, undertook several work* at Versailles, and 



painted numerous portraits. Though Jliguard was far inferior to the 

 great models that he studied at Rome, in invention, elevation, depth 

 of feeling, and originality, his pictures, especially his Madonnas, have 

 much delicacy and grace ; his compositions are rich; his colouring, iu 

 general, is brilliant and harmonious ; and he unquestionably is iu the 

 first rank of the painters of the French school. He died in 1695, at 

 the age of eighty-five. 



NICHOLAS MIQXAKD, Peter's brother, two years older, was a very 

 respectable artist : he studied two years at Rome with Peter. He 

 died at Paris in 1668, where he was director of the Royal Academy of 

 Painting. 



* MIGNET, FRANCOI3-AUQUSTE-ALEXIS, a celebrated French 

 historian, was born at Aix on the 6th of May 1796, and after receiviog 

 his preliminary education at Avignon, devoted himself to the study 

 of law at Aix. Here he had M. Thiers for his fellow-student. He 

 had been called to the bar, and had obtained the prize for an Essay 

 on Charles VII. offered by the Academy of Aix, when he removed to 

 Paris and lived in the same lodging with M. Thiers. In 1822 he 

 published a dissertation on feudalism and the legislation of St.-Louis, 

 that subject having been prescribed as a prize-subject by the Acadi-uiie 

 des Inscriptions. Iu 1824, at the age of twenty-eight, he published 

 his well-known 'Histoire de la Revolution Frangaise depuis 1789 

 jusqu'au 1814,' a work very carefully written, and which, notwith- 

 standing the many histories of the revolution that have since appeared 

 to compete with it, still retains a high reputation for judgment and 

 trustworthiness. Till 1830, M. Miguet, like his friend Thiers, was 

 conspicuous for his attachment to the principles of the extreme 

 opposition; he gave expression to these principles as a journalist in 

 the ' Courrier Fraucaia;' and in 1830 he associated himself with 

 Armand Carrel and Thiers in the conduct of the ' National." Ha 

 was one of the journalists who signed the protest against the decrees 

 of Charles X. affecting the French press. After the revolution of 

 July, he was appointed director of the archives in the department 

 of the foreign ministry ; in 1832 he was nominated an extraordinary 

 councillor of state; aud in the same year he was elected to the 

 Institute, as a member of the section of moral and political science. 

 Of this section he became afterwards secretary, which situation he 

 still holds. In 1837 he became a member of the Academy. His 

 occupation as director of tha archives of the foreign office seems to 

 have determined the nature of most of his works since his History of 

 the Revolution. He has published ' Negotiations relatives a la Suc- 

 cession d'Espagne sous Louis XIV.,' forming four volumes of the 

 ' Collection de Documents inedits," published by the French govern- 

 ment (1835-42) ; 'A. Perez et Philippe II.' (2ud edition, 1846); ' Vie 

 de Franklin' (1848), included iu a series of small treatises published 

 by the Academy of Moral and Political Science ; ' Histoire de Marie 

 Stuart* (1851); and lastly, 'Charles-Quint: son abdication, son 

 sejour, et sa mort au Monastere de Yuste' (1854). Ho has also 

 written many scattered papers in journals, aud collections of ' Trans- 

 actions;' and, as secretary of the section of moral aud political 

 science and member of the Academy, he has read many biographical 

 papers, some of which have been published under the title of ' Notices 

 et Me"moires Historiques" (1843). Migaet's political principles under 

 Louis Philippe having been very much those of his friend M. Thiers, 

 the revolution of 1848 rather impaired than promoted his fortunes; 

 and on the accession of M. da Lainartine to the foreign ministry of 

 the Republic, he was removed from his directorship of the archives. 

 Under the government of Napoleon III. Mignet's reputation is that of 

 a moderate liberal of the old school. 



MILI'ZIA, FRANCESCO. According to the autobiographical 

 sketch which he has left us, Milizia was born at Oria, a small town 

 of the province of Otranto, in the kingdom of Naples, in 1725, and 

 was of a noble and wealthy family. When nine years old, he was 

 placed under the charge of his maternal uncle, who practised medicine 

 at Padua. With him he remained about seven years, when he ran 

 away from him and joined his father, who was then at Rome, and who 

 sent him to Naples, where he studied logic and metaphysics under tlie 

 celebrated Genovesi, and physics and geometry under the Padre Orlandi. 

 He was more anxious however to study the world, and set out from 

 Naples with the intention of going to France, but his finances would 

 carry him no farther than Leghorn. After this he was obliged to 

 content himself with leading a half studious, half i ndolent life at 

 Oria. At the age of twenty-five he married a young lady of family at 

 Gallipoli, and having obtained a handsome allowance from his father, 

 went to Rome, where he ultimately settled with his wife iu 1761. 

 It was here that he began to apply himself diligently to the study of 

 architecture, aud published his ' Vite degli Architetti piu celebri,' or 

 ' Lives of the Architect^,' in 1768, whioli was followed by his treatise 

 'Del Teatro,' in 1772, a production that excited so much scandal on 

 account of certain observations in it, that it was suppressed by with- 

 drawing all the copies ; yet was soon afterwards re published at Venice. 

 His 'Principles of Civil Architecture,' first published iu 3 vols. 8-vo, in 

 1781, and considerably improved in the third edition at Bassauo, 1785, 

 greatly extended his literary reputation, being, at the time of its appear- 

 ance, almost the first attempt to base the art on rational principles, 

 and to expose the pedantry with which it had been taught. It is more- 

 over written in an attractive style, and is seasoned with not a little 

 mordacity and causticity in some of the remarks, On this latter 



