369 



HUB AT, JOACHIM. 



MURATORI, LUDOVICO ANTONIO. 



Murad being now of age, and having concluded peace with the 

 Emperor Ferdinand II., turned all his attention towards Persia, anil 

 laid siege to Baghdad, where the Persians had a garrison. Meantime 

 the Janissaries having broken out into insurrection, llurnd showed 

 great spirit, and succeeded in/ restoring obedience. In 1635 he 

 repaired in person to the army against Persia, but was obliged to 

 rttire. In 1637, having made great preparations, ha again took the 

 field in person, and in the following year captured Baghdad after 

 an obstinate defence, when he ordered the whole population, with- 

 out distinction of age or sex, to be massacred. In 1639 he returned 

 to Constantinople, and made peace with Persia, Baghdad remaining 

 in the possession of the Turks. In 1640 Murad died of a debauch 

 in drinking, to which he was much addicted. His severity repressed 

 the disorderly spirit of the soldiers, and the rebellious of the pashas 

 during his reign, which was upon the whole a successful one : but 

 his cruelty and debauchery have marked his diameter aa one of the 

 worst princes of the Ottomans. 



MUKAT, JOACHIM, one of the most celebrated of the French 

 imperial marrhuls, and by Napoleon I. created king of Naples, w:is 

 born at a village in Perigord, in 1T67. His father was a country 

 innkeeper, who had ben a steward to the great family of the Talley- 

 rands, and through their interest young Joachim was placed at the 

 college of Cahurs, and destined for the church ; but his disposition 

 and conduct little fitted him for the eacred profession, and an amour 

 led him to discard the ecclesiastical habit and enlist into a regiment 

 of chasseurs, from which he was soon after dismissed for insubordina- 

 tion. Returning to hU native village, be took charge of his father's 

 horses until the breaking out of the Revolution, when he obtained his 

 enrolment into the constitutional guard of Louis XVI., from which 

 he paused as a sub-lieutenant into a regiment of chasseurs. During 

 the reign of terror he professed himself an enthusiastic champion of 

 liberty and equality, and rose rapidly to the rank of colonel; but his 

 Jacobin predilections did not prevent him from making himself useful 

 to I'uijuparte in the affair of the Sections in 17'J5 ; and he was rewarded 

 by being placed on the personal staff of the future emperor in his 

 brilliaiit Italian campaign of 1796. 



From that hour the fortunes of Murat closely followed those of his 

 i. The fiery valour which the ' handsome swordsman " (beau 

 ir), as he was called, showed in a hundred fights, the splendid 

 though somewhat fantastic costume in which he delighted to figure, 

 and the love of daring achievement which threw an air of ancient 

 romance over all hia actions, invested him. in the eyes of his admiring 

 fellow-soldiers, with the renown of some paladin of old ; and his t- nter- 

 M-i-iir,' taleuti in the field obtained for him the graver distinction, 

 in the cool judgment of Napoleon himself, of " the beat cavalry 

 officer in Europe. 1 ' He commanded that arm in the campaigns uf 

 Kgypt, Italy, Au-tria, and Prussia ; and in all, at Aboukir, Alarengo, 

 Auaterlitz, Jena, Kylau, and Friedland, his services were brilliantly 

 conspicuous. 



After the Egyptian campaign, he obtained the hand of Caroline, 

 youngest sister of Napoleon I. ; and in 1806 was raised to the dignity 

 of a sovereign prince, and recognised by the continental powers as 

 grand-dnke of Berg and Cleves. 



In 1808 he commanded the French army in Napoleon's unprin- 

 cipled invasion of Spain ; from which country be was recalled and rent 

 to Naples to ascend the throne of that kingdom, vacated by the 

 elevation of Joseph Bonaparte to the Spanish crown. In 1812 he 

 accompanied Napoleon on the expedition to Kussia, in the command 

 of the cavalry of the grand army the moat numerous and splendid 

 body of horse perhaps winch the world has ever seen arrayed in the 

 ages of civilised warfare. During the advance to Moscow, Murat 

 displayed his accustomed prodigies of personal valour; but the reverses 

 of the retreat disgusted him; repi caches which passed between Napo- 

 leon and himielf aggravated the recollection of some former slights 

 and wrongs of which he deemed that his brother-in-law had been 

 guilty to him; and although he again served the emperor in the 

 campaign of 1813, he finally, after the disastrous battle of Leipzig, 

 deserted his waning fortunes, and allied himself with his enemies. 

 By this defection he for a time saved his own throne ; but the delay 

 of the Congress of Vienna to recognise his regal title alarmed his 

 suspicions, and hurried him, on the re-appearance of Napoleon in 

 Frauce, in IM.'i, into hostilities against the allied powers. lu an 

 attempt to induce the Italians to arm fur their national independence, 

 ho signally failed ; he wa* compelled to dee from his kingdom ; and 

 desperately landing again in arms on the coasts of Calabria with a few 

 flluwra, he vna captured, and shot by the base sentence of a 

 Neapolitan court-martial. As a sovereign Murat had shown himself 

 mild, liberal, and merciful; as a politician he was weak, vacillating, 

 and faithleas ; in the field the " best cavalry officer in Europe " was 

 assuredly no general; as a mau he had many warm and noble feelings; 

 but of fixed principle, either in private or public life, he was utterly 

 destitute. HU wife, CAROLINA MARIA ANNUNZIATA BONAI-AKTK, sister 

 of Napoleon I., was born at Ajaccio, in 172. She married in 1802 

 General Mnrat, then aide-de-camp to the First Consul, and became 

 Grand Duchess of Berg, and afterwards Queen of Naples in 180S. She 

 was the only sister of Napoleon who became a queen. She took a 

 considi ruble part iu the public affairs in the kingdom of Naples, and 

 was several times regent in the absence of her husLan-l, who was 



obliged to follow Napoleon in his never-ending wars. She displayed 

 much ability, prudence, and firmness; she encouraged education and 

 learning, and founded several useful institutions, amon? others one for 

 the education of young ladies at Naples, which still remains. At 

 various times she had a difficult task in acting the part of a conciliator 

 between her spirited but imprudent husband and her imperious 

 brother. After seven years of reign, she was obliged, through the 

 reverses of her husband in 1 8 1 5, to leave Naples on board of an English 

 man-of-war, and to retire to Austria, where she lived for many years 

 under the title of Countess of Lipano (the anagram of 'Napoli'). 

 After the tragical death of her husband, she busied herself with the 

 education of her four children. In course of time the two sons went 

 to settle in America, one daughter married the Italian Count Rasponi, 

 and the other Count Pepoli of Bologna. Madame Murat made a 

 journey to Paris after 1830 for some family interests, and was well 

 received by Louis-Philippe and his family. She afterwards went to 

 Italy, and died at Florence, in May 1839. Napoleon had a very favour- 

 able opinion of his sister Caroline. The elder of the two sons of Murat, 

 Napoleon Achille, died in 1847. Lucieu Charles Joseph Fra^ois 

 Napoleon, the second son, after the declaration of a republic in France 

 in 1848, was elected a representative of the National Assembly for the 

 department of Lot By some parties his name was put forward during 

 the revolutionary excitement in Italy as having hereditary claims to 

 leadership in that country, and he himself was led to publish a sort 

 of manifesto, stating that he held himself ready if Italy called him to 

 serve her; but the appeal appears to have excited little sympathy. 



MURATO'RI, LUDOVI'CO ANTONIO, born in 1672, at Vignola, 

 the birthplace of the architect Barocci, in the Modenese territory, 

 studied at Modena, and showed an early aptitude for historical and 

 philological studies. He entered holy orders, and at the age of three- 

 and-twcnty he was appointed one of the librarians of the Ambrosian 

 Library at Milan. In that collection he discovered several inedited 

 manuscripts, from which he made extracts, which he published with 

 notes and comments, under the titles of 'Anecdota Latina,' and 

 ' Anecdota Graeea." Some years after he was recalled to Modena by 

 the Duke Rinaldo, who gave him the situation of librarian of the rich 

 libmry of the house of Este, a place which he retained for the rest of 

 his life. 



After this appointment Muratori devoted himself entirely to the 

 study of the Italian records of the middle ages; and after many 

 years of assiduous labour he produced his great work, ' Rerum Itali- 

 Ciirum Scriptores, ab anno sera Christiana! quingentesimo ad millesi- 

 mum quiugentesimum,' 28 vols. fol. The first volume of this immense 

 collection was published in 1723, and the last appeared in 1751. 

 Several princes and noblemen defrayed the expenses of the publi- 

 cation ; sixteen of them contributed 4000 dollars each. In this 

 collection Muraton has inserted all the chronicles of Italy during the 

 middle ages which he could discover, most of which were iuedited, 

 and has accompanied them with valuable commentaries. Some of tho 

 texts had been already published by Grsevius in his ' Thesaurus 

 Antiquitatum et Histoi iarum Italia;,' but they were mostly confined 

 to the hut century or two of the period of a thousand years embraced 

 by Muratori. In seeking after the historical records of the middle 

 ages, Muratori collected also a vast number of documents concerning 

 the social, civil, intellectual, and political condition of Italy during 

 that long period, which he transcribed and commented upon, and he 

 published the whole in seventy-five dissertations : ' Antiquitates Italics 

 medii icvi, sive Dissertationes de moribus Italici populi, ab inclinatione 

 Komaui Imperii usque ad annum 1500,' 6 vols. fol., 1738-42. " I have 

 treated first," says the author in his preface, " of the kings, dukes, 

 marquises, counts, and other magistrates of the Italian kingdom ; after 

 which I have investigated the various forms of the political govern- 

 ment, aud also the manners of the private citizens ; the freedom and 

 franchises of some classes aud the servitude of others ; the laws, the 

 judicial forms, the military system ; the arts, sciences, and education : 

 the progress of trade and industry ; and other matters of social and 

 civil history." 



Muratori has been truly called the ' Father of the history of the 

 middle ages.' Subsequent historians, such as Sismoudi aud others, 

 are greatly indebted to Muratori, without whose previous labours they 

 could not have undertaken or completed their works. Muratori wrote 

 an abridgement of his Dissertations in Italian, which was published 

 after his death : ' Diasertazioiii sopra le Antichith, Italiane,' 3 vols. 4to, 

 1766. He also wrote in Italian, ' Annali d'ltalia dal principle dell' era 

 volgare sino all' anno 1750,' 12 vols. 4to, 1762. It is the first general 

 history of Italy that was published, and is a useful book of reference. 

 It has been continued by Coppi down to our own times: 'Aunali 

 d'ltalia in continuazione di quelli del Muratori, dal 1750 al 1819,' 4 vols. 

 8vo, Home, 1829. Another work of Muratori is his 'Novus Thesaurus 

 vcterum Inscriptionum,' 4 vols. fol., 1739, in which he has inserted 

 many inscriptions unknown to Gruter, Spon, Fabretti, and other 

 archaeologists who had preceded him. 



His work entitled 'Antichita Kstensi,' in 2 vols. fol., Modena, 1710- 

 40, is the Fasti of the house of Kste in its various branches. He also 

 wrote several historico-political treatises in support of the rights of 

 his sovereign the Duke of Modena over the towns of Ferrara and 

 Couiacchio, which had been seized by the court of Rome : ' Question! 

 Comacchicsi,' Modena 1711 ; 'Plena esposizione dci Diritti drlla Ca=a 



