301 



SCARLATTI, ALESSANDRO AND DOMENlCO. 



SCARRON, PAUL. 



302 



sale of tho 'Thesaurus' was of course greatly diminished by the 

 publication of an abridgement, and Stephens, who had spent almost 

 all that he possessed upon his work, became involved in considerable 

 difficulties. Scapula did not even acknowledge what he had done ; on 

 the contrary, he constantly endeavoured to conceal the source from 

 which he had drawn. Some of his biographers have asserted that 

 Scapula published his dictionary while the ' Thesaurus ' was printing, 

 an assertion which is wholly unfounded, for there is no edition earlier 

 than that of 1579. Though Scapula injured Stephens, he did a great 

 service to those students who could not afford to buy the expensive 

 work of Stephens. 



The dictionary of Scapula lias frequently been reprinted. He him- 

 self published a second edition at Basel in 1589. Other reprints 

 appeared in 1594, 1598, 1606, 1611, 1627, 1637. The Elzevirs of 

 Amsterdam published, in 1652, a Brie edition in fol. which was reprinted, 

 in 1665, at Basel. The last editions are those of Glasgow, 2 vols. 4to, 

 1816, and of London, 4to, 1820, edited by Major. Another work of 

 Scapula, 'Primogeniso Voces, seu Radices Linguae Latinse,' was pub- 

 lish td at Paris, in 1612, 8vo. 



SCARLATTI, ALESSANDRO and DOMENlCO, father and son, 

 persons of great celebrity in musical history, who flourished from the 

 hitter part of the 17th century till the middle of the 18th. 



ALESSANDRO, founder of the Neapolitan school of music, was born 

 at Naples in 1650, and though it is not known from whom he derived 

 his early instruction, it is certain that he completed his studies under 

 Carissiuii, to whose notice he introduced himself, and whose favour he 

 obtained by his performance on the harp, which was of the most finished 

 kind. This acquaintance was formed at Rome, in which city, and also 

 at Venice, Alessandro produced many compositions, both for the 

 church and theatre, with uniform success. After passing some years 

 in various parts of Italy, he finally settled in his native city, and 

 devoted himself to his art, the improvement of which was his most 

 anxious wish, and engaged a large share of his time. He at first 

 turned his attention to the operatic overture, and soon gave a dramatic 

 character to what till then had been without design and wretchedly 

 meagre. He also is supposed to have originated violin accompani- 

 ments to airs, and likewise those symphonies, or ritornels, which afford 

 variety and relieve the singer. The recitative ' obbligato ' is also in- 

 debted to him for vast improvement; and the 'da capo,' or repetition 

 of the first portipn of an air, is ascribed to him, and continued long in 

 use; though modern taste has abolished what, very frequently in 

 vocal music, led to a gross violation of common sense. 



The elder Scarlatti, we are told, produced two hundred masses, a 

 hundred operas, and three thousand cantatas. He was, Dr. Burney 

 says, author of the words of many of the last. The same writer adds, 

 that he "found part of his (Scarlatti's) property among the stolen 

 goods of all the best compositions of the first forty or fifty years of 

 the last century." Very little of this amazing quantity was ever 

 printed, and a still smaller portion is known, even to musical anti- 

 quaries, at the present day. Some of the cantatas were arranged as 

 duets by Durante, his pupil. [DURANTE, FRANCISCO.] A clever ma- 

 drigal for four sopranos and an alto is published in the second part of 

 Martini's 'Sasrgio di Coutrapunto; ' and a fugue of hia composition, in 

 F minor, which, for scientific contrivance and beauty of effect, has few 

 rivals, appears among the Harpsichord Lessons of his son. He was 

 knighted at Rome by Christina, queen of Sweden, and there died in 

 1725. 



DOMENICO SCARLATTI, was born in 1683. He inherited the prudence 

 as well as the talent of his father ; and as the parent had profited 

 much by his connection with so great a master as Carissimi, so the son 

 derived at least equal advantages from his acquaintance with the first 

 of musicians, Handel, whose friendship he acquired while both were 

 residing at Venice. So much attached was the young Italian to the 

 celebrated Saxon, that he followed him to Rome, and only quitted his 

 friend on receiving an appointment in the service of the king of Por- 

 tugal. He afterwards returned to the papal city ; but on the death 

 of his father, proceeded to Naples, where he formed an intimacy, bene- 

 ficial to both, with Hasse, an opera composer of the first rank. [HASSE, 

 ADOLPH,] He finally, in 1735, accepted an invitation to Madrid, as 

 master of the royal chapel and teacher to the queen, who had been his 

 pupil at Lisbon. He died in that city in 1751. 



Domenico left many operas and other compositions ; but his 42 

 ' Suites de Pieces pour le Clavecin ' is the work by which he is now 

 known, and on which his reputation solely rests. To execute these 

 was, during nearly half a century, the object at which all ambitious 

 harpsichord players aimed : to perform them well was considered a 

 decisive proof of practical excellence; and even now it requires a 

 nimble and brilliant finger to do them justice, though in point of style 

 they are thoroughly obsolete, are quite unsuited to the nature of the 

 pianoforte, and, indeed, are considered rather as musical curiosities 

 than as fit subjects for study, even for the professional musician. We 

 must however except the two fugues forming part of the work, which, 

 for every good quality that distinguishes the kind of composition, 

 have never yet been surpassed, and must always be admired by those 

 who have acquired a taste for this elaborate species of harmony. 

 Domenico Scarlatti left a son, QIDSEPPE, born at Naples in 1718, who 

 composed some harpsichord music, and many Italian operas, all of 

 which were popular in their day ; and some of the latter were pro- 



duced at the King's Theatre in London ; but not a single piece of h,ia 

 music ever came under our view. He died at Vienna in 1776. 



SCARLETT, JAMEH. [ABINQEB, LOUD.] 



SCARPA, ANTONIO, was born at La Motta, a small village of 

 Friuli, in 1748. His parents were persons in humble life, and he was 

 indebted to a distant relation for the means of commencing hia studies, 

 while yet very young, at the University of Padua. The death of his 

 early benefactor soon left him dependent on his own resources ; but 

 he continued to pursue his studies with such diligence that he became 

 distinguished above his fellows, and was honoured with the esteem and 

 friendship of the illustrious MorgagnL 



In the year 1772 Scarpa's acquirements had become so well known, 

 that he was selected as the most fit person to fill the chair of anatomy 

 in the university of Modena, which was then re-established. Here he 

 published his first work a treatise on the structure of the internal ear. 

 The grand-duke of Modena, Francis III., to whom this book had been 

 dedicated, nominated Scarpa in the same year to the post of surgeoa- 

 in-chief to the military hospital in his capital. Success abated nothing 

 of Scarpa's habits of diligence. Having published another work, on 

 the structure of the nerves, he set out on a journey to France, Holland, 

 and England, during which he made the acquaintance of many eminent 

 men. During his stay in Paris the offer of the anatomical chair in the 

 university of Pavia was made to him by the Emperor Joseph II. A 

 feeling of gratitude to his early patron induced Scarpa to decline this 

 flattering offer until he was urged to accept it by the Duke of Modena 

 himself. He was eventually installed in his chair at Pavia in the year 

 1783. His researches into the anatomy of the organs of smell and 

 hearing, and his treatises on the nerves of the heart, and on the minute 

 anatomy of bone, followed each other in rapid succession, and showed 

 his unwearied assiduity. These works, and especially that on the 

 nerves of the heart, which decided in the affirmative the long-disputed 

 question whether the heart is supplied with nerves, had procured for 

 Scarpa before the end of the 18th century a European reputation. But 

 he still continued those labours to which he was so much devoted. lu 

 1801 he published a valuable treatise on the diseases of the eye ; and 

 in 1804 his observations on the cure of aneurism appeared, to which a 

 question proposed some years previously by the Parisian Academy of 

 Medicine had given occasion. In 1809 he published a splendid work 

 on hernia, which raised his reputation to the highest point. Three 

 years afterwards he gave up the labour of public teaching, but received 

 in 1814 the honourable appointment of Director of the Medical Faculty 

 of Pavia. His suggestions for an improved system of medical educa- 

 tion were not attended to, and disgust led him to resign this post, and 

 about the same time he retired from practice. He followed his old 

 pursuits however with undiininished energy in retirement, and it 

 is to this period of his life that we owe some most valuable remarks 

 on the operation for stone, as well as many other surgical tracts. The 

 collection of these minor treatises was one of the last labours of his 

 life. He pursued it, though suffering for some years under almost 

 total blindness, and the publication of the third and concluding volume 

 in 1832 preceded his death by only a few months. 



In addition to his profound knowledge as an anatomist, Scarpa pos- 

 sessed unrivalled skill as a draughtsman a talent that contributed 

 greatly to the success of his works. His industry was indefatigable, 

 and a bare enumeration of the titles of his works would occupy nearly 

 a column of this Cyclopaedia. All that he wrote had a definite practi- 

 cal aim, and hence no lapse of time will render his labours useless or 

 cause his name to be forgotten. In point of industry he has been 

 compared to Cuvier, and, like him, he did not confine his investigations 

 to one department of science. Even medicine and the kindred sciences 

 did not engross all of Scarpa's time. He was an elegant scholar, a man 

 of groat taste jn the fine arts, as well as thoroughly skilled in agricul- 

 ture, and a passionate lover of the chace. He was a member of the 

 Institute of France, and of most of the learned societies of Europe ; 

 and he was honoured even by Napoleon I., who seems to have respected 

 his devoted loyalty to the Austrian family, as well as by the house of 

 Austria itself. 



In person Scarpa was about the middle size, of very gentlemanly 

 deportment, though not without a degree of reserve and austerity 

 towards strangers, but of a disposition so amiable that he made friends 

 of all who knew him. After several years of severe suffering from a 

 calculous disorder, which terminated fatally, by inducing inflammation 

 of the bladder, Scarpa died at Pavia on the 30th of October 1832. 



A list of Scarpa's works, many of which have been translated into 

 English, is appended to a sketch of his life in the ' Archives Ge'ne'rales 

 deMe"decine' for March 1833. A fuller biography is given in the 

 ' Annali Universali di Medicina' for November 1832. 



SCARRON, PAUL, a celebrated French burlesque writer, was born 

 at Paris in or about 1610 of an ancient family, and to the inheritance 

 of wealth, until an artful stepmother supplanted him in his father's 

 affections, and finally deprived him of his inheritance and reduced him 

 to poverty. Exiled from home, young Scarron purchased his restoration 

 to favour by entering upon an ecclesiastical life, for which his character 

 and habits were ill suited, and in which he never proceeded beyond 

 the introductory degrees. For some years he indulged in gross and 

 scandalous debauchery, in which at the age of twenty-seven he was 

 stopped by the results of a singular extravagance. Being at Mans, 

 where he held a canonry, during the Carnival, and desirous of sharing 



