KICAUT, SIR PAUL. 



RICCIOLI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA. 



the whole subject. The only remaining work of Mr. Ricardo was 

 found among his papers after his death, having been the latest matter 

 of a public character that occupied his attention. This was his 

 pamphlet in recommendation of a national bank, which was soon 

 afterwards published by his family, in the exact state in which he left 

 it probably only a few days before his death. 



RICAUT, SIR PAUL. [RYCATJT.] 



RICCI or RIZZI, SEBAbTI'ANO, a painter, born at Cividal di 

 Belluno, near Trevisano, in the Venetian state, in 1659 or 1660. He 

 was placed early under the tuition of Frederigo Cervelli, at Venice. 

 He accompanied his preceptor to Milan, and afterwards went to 

 Bologna and Venice, to study the master-pieces of those two schools. 

 He resided for some years at Florence and Rome, and ultimately made 

 a tour of the whole of Italy, executing pictures at any price, wherever 

 he obtained commissions, and leaving behind him a reputation almost 

 universal. He afterwards travelled into Germany, England, and 

 Flanders, completing his style from a careful study of the works of 

 other artists, and especially improving in his mode of colouring. At 

 Vienna he executed many works for the court, particularly eome 

 paintings on the walls of the imperial palace of Schbnbrunn, and 

 thence he returned to Florence, where he was employed to decorate 

 several of the apartments in the palace of the grand-duke. Being 

 invited to England by Queen Anne, he travelled through France, 

 and at Paris was made a member of the Academy of Painting. 

 In the cupola of Chelsea Hospital he represented the Ascension, 

 and he also decorated the staircase of Montague- House, afterwards the 

 British Museum, and now pulled down. He likewise painted the 

 chapel at Bulstrode, for the Duke of Portland, in the altar-piece of 

 which, representing the Last Supper, he has introduced his own 

 portrait in a modern habit. The hall and some of the ceilings of 

 Burlington-House, London, are also by him. During his residence in 

 England, which lasted ten years, he was most extensively employed, 

 and his departure is said by Walpole to have been caused by disgust 

 that Sir James Thornhill should have been selected to paint the dome 

 of St. Paul's Cathedral. 



On quitting this country he returned to Venice, where he was con- 

 stantly occupied on pictures for France, Spain, Portugal, and Sardinia. 

 lUcci, in common with Lxica Giordano, possessed the power of imitating 

 with considerable facility the style of the great masters who preceded 

 him. Some of his pictures appear at first sight as if painted by 

 Bassano or Paul Veronese, and one of his Madonnas, exhibited at 

 Dresden, was for some time attributed to Coreggio. Sebastiano is in 

 fact rather an imitator than a plagiarist, as in the Last Supper, in the 

 church of Santa Giustina, at Padua, which greatly resembles the 

 cupola of San Giovanni at Parma, by Coreggio ; and his San Gregorio, 

 at San Alessaudro in Bergamo, recals to mind the work of Guerciuo 

 at Bologna. The same may be observed of his scripture histories, 

 painted for S. Cosmo and S. Damiano, at Venice, which are pre- 

 ferred to any others that he executed for that place. Ricci's figures 

 exhibit much beauty and grace, like those of Paul Veronese; his 

 attitudes are natural and varied, and his composition is managed with 

 judgment. His colouring is distinguished by a beautiful azure, which 

 remains in his fresco works, but in his pictures in oil, from the bad- 

 ness of the grounds, that as well as the other tints has faded. In 

 many of his works he was assisted by his nephew Marco Ricci, who 

 resided with him in England. 



Sebastiano died at Venice, on the 5th of May 1734. Amongst the 

 most noted of his productions may be enumerated the Massacre of the 

 Innocents, at Venice ; the Rape of the Sabines at Rome ; at Bergamo, 

 Saint Gregory supplicating the Virgin in favour of the Souls in Pur- 

 gatory, before referred to j at Vienna, several ceilings of the imperial 

 palace, and an Assumption of the Virgin, at the church of St. Charles. 



RICCIAKELLI, DANIELE, generally called DANIELE DI VOLTERRA, 

 from the place of his nativity, was bom in 1509. He appears to have 

 first studied at Siena, under Antonio Razzi, called II Sodoma, and 

 afterwards under Baldassare Peruzzi. In the expectation of receiving 

 greater encouragement at Rome, he repaired to that city, where he 

 was first employed as an assistant to Pierino del Vaga in the Vatican, 

 and in the Capella Massimi, in the church of the Trinita- del Monte. 

 He was chiefly indebted for the reputation which ho subsequently 

 acquired to the friendship and instruction of Michel Angelo, who gave 

 him designs for the works which he executed in the Faruesina, and 

 for others of his most celebrated performances. The principal monu- 

 ment of his fame was the series of frescoes in the church of La Trinith 

 del Monte, representing the History of the Cross, on which he was 

 employed seven years. Of these frescoes, the most remarkable was 

 the famous Descent from the Cross, which was universally esteemed 

 as one of the three finest pictures at Rome; the other two being the 

 Transfiguration by Raffaelle, and the Communion of St. Jerome, by 

 Domenichino. It has been affirmed that Michel Angelo not only 

 assisted him by his advice, superintendence, and corrections, in the 

 composition of this sublime performance, but that the figure of the 

 Saviour and that of the Virgin Mary must have been the work of his 

 master-hand. Unhappily we are unable to judge of the probability of 

 this assertion ; for the French, in their eagerness to possess so fine 

 a work, barbarously attempted to detach the plaster from the wall, 

 and broke it all to pieces. We have no means of judging of the 

 grandeur of the composition but from the fine engraving of it by 



Dorigny. On the death of Pierino del Vaga, in 1547, Ricciarelli was 

 recommended by Michel Angelo to Pope Paul III. as superintendent 

 of the works in the Vatican, of which, and of his pension, he was 

 deprived by Julius III. Pope Paul IV., conceiving that the nudity of 

 several figures in the Last Judgment was unsuitable to the sanctity of 

 the place, had determined to destroy that great work ; when Daniele 

 undertook, and, according to a tradition which appears to be authentic, 

 with Michel Angelo's own consent, to clothe the offensive figures. He 

 was probably induced to do this, in order to save the picture from 

 destruction, for which however he was ever afterwards called in ridicule 

 Braghetone. He died at Rome, 1566. 



RICCIO, DOME'NICO, called IL BRUSASORCI, a celebrated Venetian 

 painter, was born at Verona in 1494. He was the pupil of Giolfino, 

 and is supposed also to have studied under Titian, in Venice, where 

 he at least studied his worka and those of Giorgione. He is called the 

 Titian of the Veronese painters. His name of Erusa Sorci (rat-burner) 

 was acquired from his father Giacomo Riccio, who invented a rat-trap, 

 and had what he caught in his own house burnt, whence he was com- 

 monly called by his neighbours Brusasorci, a name which descended 

 to his children and grandchildren. Among Domenico's first and 

 principal works in Verona were the frescoes of the Palazzo do" Murari, 

 near the Ponte Nuovo, which he decorated exteriorly in chiaroscuro 

 with scenes from the fable of Cupid and Psyche, and the marriage 

 festival of Benacus (the Lago di Garda) with the nymph Charis repre- 

 sented by Garda ; he painted numerous nymphs, with Hymen, as he is 

 described by Catullus (' Carmen ' 61-62), and all the .characteristics of 

 rural and sylvan life, poetical and real ; and also in distinct compart- 

 ments extensive groups of marine deities, and other corresponding 

 mythic creations, for all of which he received only forty ducats. lu 

 the Palazzo Ridolfi he painted tho celebrated cavalcade of Clement VII. 

 and Charles V., at Bologna, on the consecration of the emperor, in 

 which he introduced many portraits ; these frescoes are still in preser- 

 vation. _ Riccio painted also many excellent works in oil, including 

 several large altar-pieces for some of the principal churches in and 

 near Verona, and other works in the ducal palace at Mantua. Venuses 

 and nymphs were also favourite subjects with him ; and such pictures 

 frequently occur in picture galleries. He died in 1567. 



FELICE RICCIO, or BRUSASORCI, his son, was also a distinguished 

 painter ; but having studied under Ligozzi at Florence, he painted in 

 a different style from his father : more delicate, but with less power ; 

 he was a good portrait painter. He died in 1605, aged sixty-five. His 

 sister Cecilia Brusasorci was also an excellent painter of portraits. 

 Giovanni Battista Brusasorci, another son of Dornenico, was painter to 

 one of the German emperors, and died in Germany. 



RICCIO'LI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA, was born at Ferrara in 1593, 

 and became one of the principal cultivators of astronomy in Italy 

 during the greater part of the 17th century. He entered into the 

 Society of the Jesuits in 1614, and having diligently cultivated all the 

 different branches of learning as they were taught iu that age, he was 

 chosen teacher of philosophy, rhetoric, poetry, and theology in the 

 colleges of their order at Parma and Bologna ; but his inclination 

 leading him to the study of geography and astronomy, he gave up his 

 appointments, and applied himself wholly to the prosecution of those 

 sciences. His first published work was the ' Almagestum novum ' 

 (1653), which constitutes a treatise on astronomy. In it he mentions 

 the origin of the science, and gives a list of those who had cultivated 

 it : he also describes his method of measuring a degree of the earth's 

 surface, and a pendulum of his own invention. He computes the 

 obliquity of the ecliptic, the length of the tropical year, and the 

 elements of the orbits of the sun, moon, and planets ; he also treats of 

 eclipses, and gives a long list of such as had been observed from the 

 earliest time. The work contains a treatise on parallaxes, and some 

 ideas of the writer concerning the body of the moon. 



The learned world was then divided between the followers of 

 Aristotle and the disciples of Copernicus in their opinions respecting 

 the system of the universe. In the ' Almagestum,' Riccioli, having 

 explained the ideas of Copernicus concerning the movement of the 

 earth, offers a long series of objections to them, which, with a brief 

 reply to each, may be seen in Delambre (' Histoire de 1'Astron. Mod.,' 

 torn. i. p. 672, &c.). He acknowledges however that the more we 

 examine the hypothesis of the earth's several motions, the more we 

 must admire the genius and sagacity of Copernicus, who had been 

 able to explain so simply the phenomena of the heavens; and he 

 expresses his regret that the fruits of a brilliant imagination should 

 be set forth as realities. The admiration constantly expressed for 

 Copernicus, and even the manner in which the objections to his theory 

 are stated, have led to a belief that this learned Jesuit was a Coper- 

 nicaii in his heart ; and from a passage in the work, it appears that 

 the Aristotelians and theologians of that day, in their opposition, were 

 more afraid of the consequences of making concessions in favour of a 

 theory which seemed to them to be at variance with the letter of the 

 Scriptures, than inimical to the theory itself. The 'Almagestum' 

 contains many passages which betray the prejudices of the age. As a 

 reason for the necessity of reforming the calendar, Riccioli asserts 

 that the blood of St. Januarius continued to liquefy on the 19th of 

 September, though the time of the exquinoxes had been anticipated 

 by ten days : he finds several causes for the supposed eclipse of the 

 sun which took place at the death of Christ, and he dwells at some 



