121 



TORELLI, GIUSEPPE. 



TORENO, DON JOSft, COUNT OF. 



122 



the Baltic for the purpose of intercepting transports with frqsh 

 supplies of troops for Charles XII., then in Pomerania. 



On the 7th of August 1716, off the island of Riigen, he came in 

 sight of the Swedish fleet commanded by Wachtmeister. Charles XII. 

 himself stood on an eminence on the island to see the victory of his 

 flag, as to which there could scarcely be a doubt, as the Swedish fleet 

 amounted to more than, double the number of ships of Tordenskiold's 

 squadron. But better acquainted with the bearings and the ground 

 he was on, and much more skilful in seamanship, Tordenskiold soon 

 gained the weather-sido of the enemy, and then kept up his fire with 

 such precision and rapidity, that in an. hour three of the Swedish 

 ships of the line and two frigates had struck ; and the Swedish loss in 

 killed and wounded, besides one vice-admiral, amounted to more than 

 three times that of the Danes. A gold medal was struck in comme- 

 moration of this victory, which the king permitted him to wear sus- 

 pended by the blue ribbon of the Order of the Elephant, a distinction 

 only twice grauted before. 



In the battle of Dyneskiln, July 17, 1717, and in that of Stroem- 

 stacdt, he fought with the same gallantry and success. In December 

 1717 the king raised him to noble rank by the name of Tordenskiold 

 (shield against thunder). The immediate cause of this new honour 

 was characteristic. On a very cold day Tordenskiold went on shore 

 with a party of officers to dine with the king. By a sudden pitch of 

 the boat he lost a golden snuff-box, with the king's portrait set in 

 diamonds, and presented to him by his majesty. He immediately ex- 

 claimed, "Rather die than lose that which my sovereign has given me ! " 

 and before his friends could prevent it, he threw himself overboard, 

 and dived several times after it, till he at last was taken up senseless. 



On the 26th of July 1717 he took Marstrand, one of the most 

 important Swedish fortifications in the Kattegat. The peace of 

 Fredriksborg having been signed (July 23, 1720), Tordenskiold had a 

 great desire to visit foreign countries. King Frederick gave hia con- 

 sent very reluctantly. At Hamburg, where he was received with 

 princely honours, his travelling companion, a wealthy young man 

 from Copenhagen, lost large sums at play to a Swedish colonel, De 

 Stahl ; and after his ready cash was exhausted, gave drafts upon his 

 father to the amount of 30,000 crowns. Tordenskiold, upon being 

 informed of it, declared his intention to call the gambler to a strict 

 account; but the colonel having left Hamburg, Tordenskiold went to 

 Hanover to be presented to George II. There, th '^y alter hia 

 arrival, he met Colonel Stahl at a dinner-party with one of the 

 ministers. He immediately expressed his indignation and reluctance 

 to dine at the same table with him. A violent quarrel ensued, and a 

 hostile meeting was appointed for the following day at a place some 

 miles distant from the capital. Tordenskiold went without a second, 

 and only armed with a light dress-sword. Colonel Stahl used a heavy 

 sword, with which he shivered his adversary's blade at the first onset, 

 and then ran him through the heart. Tordenskiold expired in a few 

 minutes, recommending his soul to Heaven, and charging his faithful 

 valet to take his body to Copenhagen, where it was deposited in a 

 chapel of " the navy church (Holmens Kirke) : the king himself 

 attended the funeral. The general impression in Denmark at the 

 time was that foul play had been practised by instigation from a 

 higher quarter. 



(Peter Tordenskiolds Liv, og Levnet, 3 vols. 4to, Kib'benhavn, 1747 ; 

 Peter Suhm's Historic af Dannemarlc, Norge, &c., 1 vol. 8vo, Kioben- 

 haven, 1787 ; Histoirede Dannemarc, par M. P. H. Mallet, 9 vols. 8vo, 

 Paris and Geneva, 1788.) " 



TORELLI, GIUSEPPE, an Italian mathematician, was born at 

 Verona, in 1721. Having received the rudiments of education in that 

 city, he was sent to the University of Padua, where he distinguished 

 himself by his assiduity in cultivating both literature and science, and 

 where he obtained a Doctor's degree. Engaging in no profession, he 

 prosecuted the study of the ancient and modern languages, and at the 

 same time he applied himself particularly to the writings of the Greek 

 geometers. He is chiefly distinguished by his edition in Greek and 

 Latin of all the works of Archimedes, in the preparation of which he 

 was engaged during the greater part of his life, and for which his 

 talents as a mathematician, as well as the extent of his classical attain- 

 ments, particularly qualified him : he had not however the satisfaction 

 of enjoying the fruits of his labours, for he died in 1781, almost at 

 the moment of the completion of the work. The manuscript was 

 sold after his death to the University of Oxford, and, under the 

 superintendence of Dr. Abram Robertson, the work was published in 

 1792 by the curators of the Clarendon Press. This splendid edition 

 contains the notes of the ancient commentators, and the observations 

 of Torclli himself on the tract ' De Conoidibus et Spheroidibus ;' and 

 to these are added the various readings which occur in the manuscript 

 copies of Archimedes in Paris and Florence, together with a commen- 

 tary by the Oxford editor on the tract relating to floating bodies. 



TORELLI, LAELIO, was born at Fano, on the 28th of October 

 1489. His family was noble, and had settled in that town about the 

 beginning of the 14th century. While yet a mere boy he was 

 entrusted to the care of his maternal uncle, Jacopo Costanzi, a pro- 

 fessor in the University of Ferrara, under whom he made a respectable 

 progress in the Greek and Latin languages. He subsequently studied 

 law in the University of Perugia, and obtained the degree of Doctor in 

 his twenty-second year. 



1 -From 1511 to 1531 TorelJi remained in the civil service of the Roman 

 government. Soon after taking his degree he was appointed podeatk 

 of Fossombrone, and in a short time chief magistrate of his native 

 town. Scanderbeg Comnena, who had lost his hereditary states by 

 becoming a convert to the Rornish faith, received from the pope by 

 way of compensation the seignorage of Fano. By bis insolent abuse of 

 power he rendered himself odious to his new subjects, and was 

 expelled by a conspiracy, of which Laelio Torelli was the chief. 

 Clement VIII. was at first much irritated, regarding the rebellion as 

 directed against the papal government ; but Laelio, by explaining its 

 real object, succeeded in pacifying him, and was soon after appointed 

 governor of Benevento. This post he occupied for eighteen months, 

 at the end of which, returning to Fano, ho became involved in the con- 

 test between that town and the Malatesti family ; and about 1527 or 

 1528, found it advisable to seek an asylum in Florence. 



In 1531 he was appointed one of the five auditors of the Rota of 

 Florence, and he continued from that time till his death in the service 

 of the Medici family. During far the greater part of this time he was 

 attached to Cosmo, the first grand-duke of Tuscany, who became Duke 

 of Florence six years after the first appointment of Torelli, and died 

 only two years before him (in 1574). From being a member of the 

 Rota, Torelli rose to be podesta of Florence; he was subsequently 

 appointed chancellor by the grand-duke, and in 1546 his principal 

 secretary. His official duties did not entirely withdraw him from 

 literary pursuits. He was an active member of the Florentine Aca- 

 demy, and in 1557 was elected into its council. His reputation as a 

 statesman and man of letters procured him the honour of being 

 elected a senator : his name was inscribed in the register of the 

 patricians of Florence in 1576. He died in the same year, in the 

 month of March, having survived all his children. 



Torelli published, in 1545, three legal tracts, entitled 'Laelii Taurelli 

 Jurisconsult! Fanensis, ad Gallum et Legem Velleam, ad Catonem et 

 Paulum Enarrationes ; ejusdem de Militiis ex' casu, ad Ant. Augus- 

 tinum epistola," dedicated to his son Francesco. They were printed 

 at Lyon ; the Antonius Augustinus (bishop of Tarragona), to whom 

 the third is addressed, printed it in 1544 as an appendix to his 

 ' Emendationes ; ' and Zilettus included them in his great collection, 

 ' Tractatus Tractatuum ' (1633-42). A Latin eulogium of Duke 

 Alexander de' Medici, delivered by Laelio in 1536, and a panegyric of 

 Count Ugo, the founder of an abbey at Florence, in Italian, are said to 

 have been printed. But the work which has preserved the name of 

 Laelio Torelli is his edition of the Florentine manuscript of the Pan- 

 dects. It was printed at Florence by Lorenzo Torrentino, printer to 

 the grand-duke, in 1553. From the dedication to Cosmo I., which is 

 written by Francesco Torelli, we learn that the preparation of the 

 transcript and the supervision of the press had occupied all his own 

 and his father's leisure hours for the ten preceding years. Francesco 

 claims for his father the honour of projecting the edition, and gives 

 Cosmo the credit of defraying the expense of the sumptuous pub- 

 lication. The orthography and all the little peculiarities of the 

 manuscript are said to have been strictly adhered to. The Greek 

 passages were revised by Peter Victor. The translations of these 

 passages are taken from Antonius Augustus Haloander, and Her- 

 vagius. This edition is a fine specimen of typography, and worthy 

 of the important monument it was the means of rendering more 

 accessible to the public. The pope, the emperor, and the king of 

 France gave the printer letters of protection against any piracy of the 

 work for ten years, and Edward VI., the king of England, for seven. 

 With regard to the Florentine (or Pisan) manuscript, the inquiries of 

 Savigny, Blume, and others have established this to be the oldest 

 copy of the entire Pandects of Justinian that exists. Leaving out of 

 viewthe story of its discovery at Amalfi, the assertion of Odofredus 

 that it waa transmitted to Pisa by Justinian, and the statement of 

 Bartolus that it was "always" at Pisa (semper enim fuit totum volu- 

 men Pandectarum Pisis et adhuc est), established for this manuscript 

 of the Pandects an antiquity beyond what can be clakned for any 

 other. Borgo dal Borgo has produced evidence to the extraordinary 

 care taken for its preservation by the government of Pisa ; and the 

 government of Florence has watched no less anxiously for its safety 

 since it was transferred to that city in 1406, after the capture of Pisa 

 by the Florentines under Gino Caponi. The Florentine manuscript 

 must always remain one of the most important authorities for the 

 text of this portion of the Corpus Juris, and Torelli Appears to have 

 discharged the office of editor with a full sense of the importance 

 of his task. 



The contemporaries of Laelio Torelli are unanimous in their testi- 

 mony to the integrity and disinterestedness of his character. 



(Manni, Vita di L. Torelli ; Savigny, Geschichte des Homischen Rechts 

 im Mittdalter ; Laelii Taurelli Jurisconsulti .Fanensis, ad Oallum et 

 Legem Velleam, ad Catonem et Paulum Enarrationes; ejusdem de 

 Militiis ex casu, Lugduni, 1545 ; Digestorum, sen Pandectarum Libri 

 Quinquaginta ex Pandectis Florentinis reprcesentati : FlorenticR in 

 officina Laurentii Torrentini Ducalis Typographi, 1553.) 



TORENO, DON JOSE MARIA QUEIPO DE LL.^NO, COUNT OF, 

 a Spanish statesman and writer, was born at Oviedo on the 26th of 

 November 1786, of one of the first families of the Asturias. In 1797 

 his parents, of whom he was the only son, fixed their residence at 

 Madrid, where he received an excellent education of a character very 



