M 



RAZZI, CAVALIERE GIOVANNI ANTONIO. 



REAUMUR, RENE-ANTOINE FERCHAULT DE. 40 



executioner, and ordered the author to be arrested and his property 

 sequestrated, but his friends in office gave him timely notice to quit 

 France and to place his property in safety. Raynal repaired to Spa, 

 where a young Belgian addressed to him a laudatory epistle, ' La 

 Nymphe de Spa a 1'Abbe" Raynal,' which drew upon the author 

 the censure of the prince bishop of Liege, the sovereign of the county. 

 Raynal replied by another letter, in which he abused the clergy, and 

 bishops in particular, in the most virulent manner. He had long 

 since openly renounced his priestly character, and spoke of him- 

 self as "having been once a priest." From Spa he repaired to 

 Saxe-Gotha, and from thence to Berlin, where he with some difficulty 

 obtained an audience of Frederick the Great, who was displeased at 

 some passages of his work which reflected upon himself. Frederick 

 afterwards wrote to D'Alembert concerning his interview with Raynal, 

 who, he said, spoke much about the wealth, the resources, and the 

 power of nations, and in so positive a manner, " that, in listening to 

 him, I almost fancied that I was listening to the voice of Providence." 

 In 1787, Raynal was allowed to return to France, but not to Paris. 

 His friend Malouet, who was intendant-general of the navy at Toulon, 

 received him hospitably in his house. Raynal marked his residence 

 in the south of France by several acts of beneficence and philanthropy, 

 as he had done previously during a journey in Switzerland. 



When the first symptoms of the French revolution showed 

 themselves, Raynal was elected by the city of Marseille as their 

 representative in the states-general. He declined the honour on the 

 plea of old age ; but the fact was that his opinions had undergone a 

 great change. In December 1790, a letter appeared in the papers, 

 purporting to be addressed by Raynal to the National Assembly, 

 expressive of his altered sentiments on political subjects. This how- 

 ever was disavowed by Raynal's friends ; but 011 the 31st of May, 1791, 

 Raynal did address an eloquent letter to Bureau de Puzy, president of 

 the National Assembly, in which, after drawing a gloomy sketch of 

 the state of France, of the persecutions of the clergy, of the inquisito- 

 rial power exercised against opinions, of the disorders and violence 

 of every sort which were daily perpetrated by mobs with impunity, 

 and all in the name of liberty, he stated his regret that " he was 

 one of those who, by expressing in his works a generous indignation 

 against arbitrary power, had perhaps been the means of putting 

 weapons into the hands of licentiousness and anarchy." This letter, 

 being read publicly by the president, occasioned a violent storm in 

 the Assembly. Roederer called the president to order for reading 

 the letter. ('Moniteur,' 31st of May, 1791.) Journals and pamphlets 

 vied with each other in abusing Raynal as a renegade and a dotard. 

 Rayual however remained quiet in the neighbourhood of Paris ; he 

 passed unmolested through the period of terror; and he died in 

 March, 1796, at the house of a friend at Chaillot. Just before his 

 death the Directory had named him member of the National Institute, 

 and his ' e"loge ' was read by Lebreton at one of the first sittings of 

 that body. 



A new edition of Raynal's ' History ' was published at Paris in 11 

 vols. 8vo, 1820-21, with a biographical notice and reflections on the 

 works of Raynal, by M. A. Jay. The following works have been 

 erroneously attributed to Raynal : 1, ' Inconve'nientB du Celibat des 

 Pietres ' (by the Abb<5 Gaudin) ; 2, ' Des Assassinats et des Vols Poli- 

 tiques sous le Nc-m de Proscription et de Confiscations ' (by Servan). 



RAZZI, CAVALIERE GIOVANNI ANTONIO, called IL SODOMA, 

 an eminent painter, was born about the year 1479, according to some 

 at Verceil in Piedmont, and as stated by others at Vergelli, a village 

 near Siena, of which place he had certainly received the right of 

 citizenship. He was instructed, according to Vasari, by Giacoaio 

 dalle Fronte, but he chiefly formed his principles by an attentive 

 study of the works of Leonardo da Vinci. Among his earliest per- 

 formances were the pictures he painted in 1502, at Monte Oliveto, 

 representing the history of S. Benedetto. He was employed at Rome, 

 in the pontificate of Julius II., to decorate part of the Vatican ; but 

 his works, with those of some other artists, were removed to make 

 way for the frescoes of Raffaelle. Some grotesques however from his 

 hands were preserved. In the Chigi Palace, now called the Farnesina, 

 are some of his pictures, representing the history of Alexander the 

 Great, the most noted of which is the ' Marriage of Roxana,' which 

 were executed by order of Agostino Chigi, and which Fuseli con- 

 sidered to possess much of the chiaroscuro, though not the dignity and 

 grace, of Leonardo da Vinci, and to be remarkable for beauties of per- 

 spective and playful imagery. At Siena he painted many works. The 

 ' Adoration of the Magi,' which is in the church of S. Agostino, 

 resembles the stylo of Leonardo da Vinci; but his chef-d'oeuvre is the 

 'Scourging of Christ,' which is in the convent of S.Francisco; the 

 'Swoon of St. Catharine of Sienna,' painted in fresco, in one of the 

 chapels of S. Domenico, is another fine work. The ' St Sebastian,' in 

 the gallery at Florence, is supposed to be painted from an antique 

 torso. The ' Sacrifice of Abraham,' painted for the cathedral of Pisa, 

 was in the Louvre in 181 i, where it excited much admiration : it was 

 returned to Tuscany in 1815. 



He is said by Lanzi to have frequently painted in a hurried manner, 

 without any preparatory study, especially in his old age, when, 

 reduced to poverty at Siena, he sought emplojmeut at Pisa, Volterra, 

 and Lucca ; but still, though careless of excellence, Razzi never 

 painted badly. Vasari seems to have been a systematic opponent oi 



Razzi, and generally styles him a buffoon, " but," says Lanzi, " Giovio 

 las written of Razzi in a different manner ; when speaking of the 

 death of Raffaelle, he subjoins, ' plures pari pene gloria, certantes artem 

 exceperunt, et in his Sodomas Vercellensis.' He who objects to the 

 testimony of this eminent scholar, will receive that of a celebrated 

 painter : Annibale Caracci, passing through Siena said, ' Razzi appears 

 i master of the very highest eminence and of the greatest taste, and 

 (speaking of his best works at Siena) few such pictures are to be seen.'" 

 Razzi died in 1554. He seems to have had many pupils; the prin- 

 cipal one was Bartolommeo Neroni, generally called Maestro Riccio. 



REAUMUR, RENE-ANTOINE FERCHAULT DE, was born at 

 Rochelle in 1683. He was brought up to the law; but being much 

 attached to scientific pursuits, and possessing an independent fortune, 

 be gave up his profession and went to Paris in 1703, where he deter- 

 mined to devote his life to his favourite studies. In 1708 he read 

 some geometrical observations before the Academy of Sciences, which 

 were so well received that he was admitted a member at the age of 

 twenty -four. He belonged to that learned body for fifty years, and 

 contributed a vast number of interesting papers to their ' Memoirs.' 



The chief objects of his attention were the improvement of the arts 

 and manufactures of his country, and natural history. In 1711 he 

 made some experiments relative to the manufacture of cordage, and 

 he proved that the strength of a cord is less than the sum of the 

 strengths of the threads of which it consists ; whence it follows that 

 the less a rope is twisted the stronger it is. In 1715, while examining 

 the process of colouring artificial pearls, he discovered the nature of 

 the singular substance which gives the brilliancy to the scales of fishes, 

 and he investigated the mode of formation and growth of these scales. 

 He also made some researches of a similar kind on the development of 

 the shells of testaceous animals. AVhen describing in 1715 the mines 

 of (occidental) turquoise, which he discovered in Languedoc, and the 

 means which are employed to colour these stones, he found that the 

 substances of which these gems consist are portions of the fossil teeth 

 of an extinct animal. The most important of Reaumur's labours in 

 the department of the arts were the experiments which he made on 

 the manufacture of iron and steel. He published his researches on 

 this subject in a separate work (those which we have before men- 

 tioned appeared in the 'Memoirs' of the Academy), entitled ' Traitrf 

 sur 1'Art de convertir le Fer en Acier, et d'adoucir le Fer Fondu.' 

 He here described the process of making steel, which was then 

 unknown in France (that metal being solely obtained from abroad), 

 and he made his discovery public, for which national benefit the 

 Regent Duke of Orleans settled on him a pension of 12,000 livres. 

 He also discovered the art of tinning iron, which was likewise 

 unknown in France. During his experiments on metals Reaumur 

 first observed that these substances in passing from a fluid into a solid 

 state have a tendency to assume certain definite crystalline forms. 

 Among his other useful labours he greatly improved the manufacture 

 of porcelain in France. He also made a number of experiments on 

 artificial incubation, which has been practised from time immemorial 

 in Egypt. He endeavoured to introduce the art into common use in 

 France, but was not successful, owing principally to the greater cold- 

 ness of the climate than in Egypt. In 1711 he discovered a species of 

 mollusk from which a purple dye might be prepared, analogous to the 

 purple of the ancients. 



In general physics the name of Rdaumur is celebrated from the 

 thermometer which he invented in 1731. He took the freezing and 

 boiling points of water as two fixed points, and then divided the 

 interval into 80 degrees, the freezing point being zero. The centigrade 

 thermometer now in more general use in France was only an improve- 

 ment on Reaumur's, the interval between the freezing and boiling 

 points being divided into 100 instead of 80 degrees. 



Though many of the researches which we have mentioned (most of 

 which will be found in the ' Memoirs ' of the Academy, together with 

 many papers on other subjects by the same author) were very useful 

 and important, yet his labours in the field of natural history were 

 much more novel and interesting. In 1710 he described the means 

 by which many shell-fish, echinodermata (sea-stars), and other mol- 

 lusks and zoophytes, execute their progressive movements ; and in 1 7 1 2 

 he observed the curious phenomena of the reproduction of the claws 

 of lobsters and crabs. 



Of all the works of Reaumur, " the most remarkable," as Cuvier 

 says, " and these which cannot fail to be studied with the most vivid 

 interest by those who wish to have just ideas of nature, and of the 

 marvellous variety of means which she employs to preserve the most 

 fragile of her productions, and those which are in appearance the least 

 capable of resistance," are his ' Me"moires pour servir a 1'Histoire des 

 Insectes,' of which 6 vols. 4to appeared between 1734 and 1742. 

 Cuvier adds " The author here carries to the highest point his acute- 

 ness of observation in the discovery of those instincts, so complicated 

 and so constant in each species, which maintain these feeble creatures. 

 He unceasingly excites our curiosity by new and singular details. His 

 style is a little diffuse, but clear, and the facts which he relates may 

 always be depended on." While collecting materials for this work we 

 find it recorded that he kept numerous insects of all kinds in his 

 garden, for the purpose of observing their habits and instincts. 

 Unfortunately this work is riot finished ; and the seventh volume, 

 which came into the hands of the Academy of Sciences after the death 



