8!) 



TIRIDATES. 



TISCHBEIN, JOHN HENRY. 



M 



tinopoli ;' 7, 'Elogio Storico di Rambaldo de Conti Azzoni Avo- 

 garo;' besides other minor writings, especially in answer to the 

 critics of his ' History of Italian Literature ' He left unpublished : 1, 

 'Dizionario Topografico degli Stati Estensi,' published since atModena, 

 1824-5 ; 2, ' Catalogo ragionato del Libri del gia Collegio del Gesuiti 

 di Brera ; ' 3, ' Lettera sulla Venuta di Gustavo Adolfo in Italia ; ' 

 4, ' Vita di Giannaridrea Barotti Ferrarese ; ' 5, 'Notizie sulla Zeccadi 

 Brescello, isopra alcuni Luoghi del Modencse, ed Albero della casa 

 Montecuccoli;' besides several dissertations and orations. His volu- 

 minous correspondence is preserved in the Modena Library. 



Tiraboschi died at Modeiia, in June 1794, of a disease brought on by 

 sedentary life and constant application. He was buried in the church 

 of SS. Faustino e Giovita, outside of the city, and a Latin inscription 

 was placed on his tomb, written by Father Pozzetti, who succeeded 

 him as librarian, commemorative of his labours and his virtues, among 

 which modesty and charity were most conspicuous. 



(Eloyio di Girolamo Tiraboschi, by Pozzetti, prefixed to the later 

 editions of the 'Histoire of Italian Literature;' Ugoni, Storia della 

 Letteratura Italiana nella seconda meta del Secolo X VIII. ; Lombardi, 

 Storia della Letteratura Italiana nel Secolo XVIII.) 



TIRIDA'TES, prince of Media, and afterwards king of Armenia, 

 was the brother of Vologeses, king of the Parthians, that is, of Media. 

 He first appears in history in A.D. 53, in the first war of Corbulo 

 against Vologeses (Tacitus, 'Hist.,' xii. 50), who was compelled to 

 desist from his schemes upon Armenia in 54. In 58 however the 

 Parthians attain overran Armenia, having been invited by the inhabit- 

 ants of that country, and Vologeses ceded his conquest to his brother 

 Tiridates, who thus became king of Armenia. As the Romans would 

 not allow this country to become a possession of the Parthians, Cor- 

 bulo directed his forces against the royal brothers, knowing that 

 Vologeses was prevented from employing his army against him in 

 consequence of an insurrection of the province of Hyrcania. Corbulo 

 therefore soon persuaded Tiridates to submit to the emperor Nero, 

 and to prefer a moderate dependence to an uncertain and dangerous 

 independence. When they were about to meet, in order to settle the 

 conditions of the peace, Tiridates suddenly became afraid of some 

 treacherous design on the part of the Romans, and he therefore 

 broke off the negociations and renewed the war. Corbulo however 

 defeated him at Artaxata on the Araxee, took and destroyed this old 

 capital of Armenia, and forced the new capital, Tigranocerta, to sur- 

 render after a short siege. (Tacitus, ' Hist./ xiv. 24 ; Frontinus, 

 ' Stratag.,' ii. 9, exempl. 5.) 



Tiridates fled to his brother, who had taken the field against the 

 Hyrcanians, and. who entrusted him with the command of a new army, 

 with which Tiridates hoped to expel the Romans from Armenia. He 

 attacked them oji the side of Mesopotamia, but the strong position 

 which the Romans kept at Tigranocerta, aud the care which they 

 showed in watching the passages of the Euphrates, prevented him 

 from either penetrating into the valley of the Upper Tigris, or from 

 invading Syria, a manoeuvre by which Corbulo would have been 

 obliged to hasten to the relief of this province, and to leave Armenia 

 to the incursions of Vologeses. Tiridates therefore listened once 

 more to the pacific proposals of the Romans, who were anxious to 

 avoid any war with the Parthians if they could do so on conditions 

 which would secure their influence over Armenia. Their intention 

 was not to make a Roman province of Armenia, Ambassadors from 

 Tiridates arrived in the camp of Corbulo, and they declared, in the 

 name of Tiridates and his brother Vologeses, that Tiridates was ready 

 to submit to Nero, as a vassal-king, and that Vologeses would keep in 

 future a better understanding with the Romans than before. In order 

 to settle the peace, a day was fixed on which Tiridates was to appear 

 in the camp of Corbulo, who sent Tiberius Alexander [TiBERics 

 ALEXANDER] and his son-in-law Vivianua Annius as hostages into the 

 camp of Tiridates (A.D. 63). When Tiridates entered the tent of 

 Corbulo, he took off his royal diadem, and placed it at the foot of a 

 portrait of the emperor Nero, taking an oath that he would not exer- 

 cise any right of sovereignty in Armenia till he had again received the 

 same diadem from the hands of the emperor in Rome. (Tacitus, 

 ' Hist.,' xv. 28, 29.) Tiridates arrived in Rome in 66, and when he 

 approached the city a great number of people came out from the 

 gates to behold the entrance of an oriental king descended from the 

 mighty sovereigns of the Parthians. In Zumpt, 'Annales veterum 

 Regnorum et Populorum, imprimis Romanorum,' the Armenian king 

 who entered Rome in 66 is called Tigranes, but this is a typographical 

 error. (Tacitus, ' Hist.,' xvi. 23.) The latter circumstances of the 

 life of Tiridates are unknown. 



TISCHBEIN, JOHN HENRY, called the Elder, one of the most 

 celebrated painters of the 18th century, was the fifth son of a baker 

 of Hayna, near Gotha, where he was born in 1722. He was first 

 apprenticed to an uncle on the mother'.s side, who was a locksmith ; 

 but he displayed so much talent in drawing, that an elder brother, 

 John Valentine, took him away from his uncle and placed him, in his 

 fourteenth year, with a paper-stainer and decorator in Cassel of the 

 name of Zimmermann. He received also some instruction from Van 

 Freese, the court painter at Cassel, and soon gave proof of his ability. 

 Tischbein met with an early and a valuable patron in Count Stadion, 

 through whose assistance he was enabled, in 1743, to visit Paris, 

 where he remained five years with Charles Vanloo, and acquired his 



style of painting. From Paris he went to Venice, and there studied 

 eight months with Piazzetta. From Venice he went to Rome, where 

 he remained two years. He again visited Piazzetta in Venice, and 

 after a short time, in 1751, he returned to Cassel, where, in 1752, he 

 was appointed cabinet painter to the landgrave. 



Tischbein excelled in historical and mythological subjects, in which 

 lines are his best pictures, painted from about 1762 until 1785. He 

 died in 1789, as director of the Academy of Cassel, and a member of 

 the Academy of Bologna. A biographical notice of Tiachbein, with 

 criticisms upon his works, was published in Niirnberg in 1797, eight 

 years after his death, by J. F. Engelschall, entitled ' J. H. Tiachbein, 

 ala Mensch und Kiinstler dargestellt.' In that work there is a list of 

 144 historical pieces by Tischbein, of which the following have been 

 considered the best : the Resurrection of Christ, very large figures, 

 painted in 1763, for the altar of St. Michael's church at Hamburg; 

 the Transfiguration, in the Lutheran church at Cassel, 1765 ; Her- 

 mann's Trophies after his Victory over Varus in the year 9, in the 

 palace of Pyrmont, 1768 ; ten pictures of the life of Cleopatra, painted 

 in the palace of Weissenstein, 1769-70 ; sixteen from the Life of 

 Telemachus, in the palace of Wilhelmathal ; an Ecce Homo, in the 

 Roman Catholic chapel at Cassel, 1778 ; a Deposition from the Cross, 

 and an Ascension, altar-pieces in the principal church of Straltmnd, 

 1787; Christ on the Mount of Olives, an altar piece presented by 

 him to the church of his native place, Hayna, 1788 ; the Death of 

 Alcestis, 1780; and the Restoration of Alcestis to her Husband by 

 Hercules, 1777. 



Tischbein painted many pictures from the ancient poets, and some 

 from Tasso, several of which are now in the Picture-Gallery at Cassel. 

 He painted also a collection of female portraits, selected chiefly for 

 their beauty, which is now at the palace of Wilhelmsthal near Cassel. 

 He also frequently copied his own pictures. Nearly all his works 

 remain in his own country, on which account he is little known out of 

 it. It is remarkable that of all the great galleries of Germany, Munich 

 is the only one that possessts a specimen of his works, and that is only 

 a portrait. 



Tischbein painted very slowly, but he was very industrious : he was 

 generally at his easel by five in the morning in the summer time, and 

 he painted until four in the afternoon. He painted in the French 

 style ; his colouring was a mixture of the French and the Venetian, 

 and in large compositions very gaudy, but his drawing and chiar'- 

 oscuro were very good ; in costume however he was incorrect, and, 

 according to the critics, he generally contrived in his ancient pieces to 

 make his actors look much more like Frenchmen and Germans than 

 Greeks or Romans. In his religious pieces he was more successful : 

 he was no follower of Lessing's theory of beauty ; he considered 

 beauty of little consequence. He etched several plates after his own 

 pictures : Venus aud Cupid, Women Bathing, Hercules and 

 Omphale, Menelaus and Paris, Thetis and Achilles, and his great 

 picture of the Resurrection of Christ, at Hamburg. 



Ti^chbein's elder daughter Arnalia was a clever painter : she was 

 elected, in 1780, a member of the Academy of Cassel ; she used to 

 sit to her father for many of the females in his historical works. After 

 Tischbein's death, the Landgrave of Cassel purchased all the works 

 that were in his house, and placed them together in the palace of 

 Wilhelmshohe. 



(Meusel, Mtscellaneen Artistischen Inhalts; Fiissli, Allgemeines Kiinst~ 

 ler Lexicon ; &c.) 



TISCHBEIN, JOHN HENRY WILLIAM, called the Younger, the 

 youngest son of John Conrad Tischbein, and nephew of the preceding, 

 with whom he is sometimes confounded, was born at Hayna in 1751. 

 He was instructed by his uncle John Henry at Cassel in historical 

 painting, and he afterwards studied landscape painting three years 

 with his uncle John Jacob at Hamburg; in 1770 he went to Holland, 

 where he remained two years, and in 1772 returned to Cassel and 

 painted portraits and landscapes ; he visited also Hanover and Berlin, 

 and painted many portraits in both places. In 1779 he left Cassel, by 

 the desire of the Landgrave, for Italy, but he spent about two years 

 in Zurich, where he painted many portraits and made the design of 

 his celebrated picture of 'Conradin of Suabia, playing, after his 

 sentence to death, a game at draughts with Frederick of Austria.' In 

 1781 Tischbein arrived in Rome, and his first studies were some 

 copies in oil after Raffaelle and Guercino, and some drawings after 

 Raffaelle, Domenichino, and Lionardo da Vinci. His first original 

 picture was ' Hercules choosing between Vice and Virtue, after which 

 he painted his picture of Conrad in of Suabia, now in the palace of 

 Pyrmont. In 1787 he went to Naples, and the next year painted the 

 portrait of the crown-prince for the queen, who presented Tischbein 

 with a valuable snuff-box and 200 ducats, expressing her complete 

 satisfaction with the picture. In Naples he appears to have acquired 

 laurels rapidly, for in 1790 he was appointed director of the Academy 

 with a salary of 600 ducats per annum, which however he lost again 

 in 1799, at the breaking out of the revolution at Naples, but he 

 found no difficulty in obtaining permission from the French authori- 

 ties to return to Germany with what property he chose to take with 

 him. He accordingly embarked, with the painter Hackert and another, 

 for Leghorn, taking with him the plates of his illustrations to Homer, 

 his designs for Sir W. Hamilton's second collection of vases, and some 

 other works of art : but the ship was driven by a storm upon the 



