417 



VISCONTI, ENNIO QUIRING. 



VISCONTI, LOUIS JOACHIM. 



413 



command of his troops. The result was, that Bussone recovered for 

 the duke Lodi, Crema, Vigevano, Bergamo, Brescia, Parina, and also 

 took Genoa, which had thrown off the yoke of the Visconti ever since 

 1356. Francesco Maria afterwards quarrelled with his general, who 

 went into the Venetian service. [CARMAGNOLA, FRANCESCO BUSSONE 

 Di.] But a worse act of ingratitude was perpetrated by Filippo Maria 

 against his wife Beatrice, the maker of his fortune, who was much 

 older than himself, and whom, upon some most improbable charge of 

 infidelity, he caused to be beheaded, in September 1418. After this 

 Duke Filippo Maria lived until the time of his death with Agnese del 

 Maino, a Milanese woman, by whom he had one daughter, Bianca, 

 whom he gave in marriage to Francesco Sforza. 



After the defection of Carmagnola, Filippo Maria remained shut up 

 in his ducal residence in the castle of Milan, unseen by his subjects, 

 of whom he was afraid, and surrounded by abject and wily favourites. 

 He had however the discernment to employ able commanders, though 

 not equal to Carmagnola, at the head of his troops, and thus he 

 managed to preserve the greater part of his dominions against the 

 attacks of the Venetians and the Florentines. On one occasion the 

 duke behaved with unexpected magnanimity to Alfonso of Aragon 

 and Naples, who happened to be his prisoner in 1435, and whom he 

 released with presents and even assisted in the recovery of his king- 

 dom of Naples. [ALFONSO V. OP ARAGON, vol. i. col. 139.] There 

 was some political shrewdness in the character of Filippo Maria, who 

 seems to have had that kind of circumspection and penetration, joined 

 with utter want of principle, for which Italian statesmen were begin- 

 ning to be noted, and which has been vulgarly styled Machiavellism, 

 because Machiavelli happened to expound the common policy which 

 he saw practised in his lifetime and which had been in practice for a 

 century before him. 



Filippo Maria reigned thirty-five years. He died at Milan in the 

 year 1447. The events of the latter years of his life are briefly 

 noticed under SFORZA, FRANCESCO, his son-in-law, who succeeded him 

 as Duke of Milan. The dynasty of the Visconti, which may be con- 

 sidered as having begun with Matteo, in 1288, ended with Filippo 

 Maria, and it constituted one of the most powerful Italian princi- 

 palities of the middle ages. 



(Verri, Storia di Milano ; Muratori, Annali d' Italia.) 



VISCONTI, E'NNIO QUIRI'NO, was born at Rome in 1751. He 

 was the eldest son of Giovanni Batista Visconti, a native of Sarzana, 

 who, beiug settled at Rome, where he married a lady of noble birth, 

 became a great proficient in the science of archaeology, and succeeded 

 Wiuckelmann as prefect of the antiquities of Rome. He was com- 

 missioned by Clement XIV. to collect works of ancient art for the 

 new museum of the Vatican, an office in which he was confirmed by 

 Pius VI. Giovanni Batista intended his eldest son, who gave very 

 precocious evidence of extraordinary talents, for the church, in which 

 he was sure of patronage ; and he made him study the law, in which 

 young Visconti took a doctor's degree in 1771. The pope appointed 

 Enuio Visconti to an honorary situation in his household, and made 

 him sub-librarian of the Vatican. The young man however felt no 

 inclination for a life of celibacy, as he had conceived an attachment 

 for a young lady of the name of Doria. His father was greatly disap- 

 pointed at this, and, in order to conquer his son's opposition, he 

 induced the pope to remove him from the office of sub-librarian, and 

 deprive him also of a pension which he had granted him. Young 

 Visconti however bore this without complaint, while Prince Sigis- 

 mondo Chigi, who had become acquainted with him, appointed him 

 his own librarian, and gave him board and lodging in his palace. It 

 was Ennio Visconti who recommended to the prince, for the post of 

 under-librariau, Carlo Fea, who became afterwards a distinguished 

 antiquarian. In 1778 the elder Visconti was commissioned to write 

 the text or letterpress which was to accompany the series of engrav- 

 ings of the Museum of the Vatican, or 'Museo Pio Clementine,' as it 

 was called, in honour of the two popes who contributed to form that 

 splendid collection. Giovanni Batista, being old and infirm, found 

 himself insufficient for the task, and he called his son Ennio to his 

 assistance. The first volume of the series of the 'Museo Pio Cle- 

 mentiuo' appeared in 1782. In 1784 the elder Visconti died, and his 

 son edited alone the second volume. He was then made by the pope 

 Conservator of the Capitoline Museum, his pension was restored to 

 him, and in January 1785, he married his betrothed, Angela Doria. 

 He continued afterwards to publish in succession the other volumes 

 of the ' Museo Pio Clementine,' the seventh and last of which appeared 

 in 1807. In the mean time he wrote many other treatises and disqui- 

 sitions on ancient art, such as a dissertation on the sepulchral monu- 

 ments of the Scipio family, a description of the museum of Thomas 

 Jenkins, a dissertation on the mutilated statue vulgarly called Pas- 

 quino, another on a fine cameo representing Jupiter .^Egiochos, found 

 at Smyrna, and an illustration of two Greek inscriptions belonging to 

 a temple and sepulchral enclosure built by Herodes Atticus at a place 

 called Triopium, a few miles out of Rome, on an estate of his wife, 

 Annia Attilia Regilla ' Iscrizioni Triopee, ora Borghesiane, con ver- 

 sioni ecc.,' Rome, fol., 1794. f HERODES, TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS ATTICUS.] 

 He afterwards wrote illustrations of the monuments found among the 

 ruins of Gabii, which were discovered by Prince Marcantonio Borghese, 

 and placed in his villa on the Pincian Mount ' Monumenti Gabini della 

 Villa Pinciana, descritti da Ennio Quirino Visconti,' 8vo, Rome, 1797.1 



BIOS. DIV. VOL. VI. 



When the French entered Rome, in February 1798, and abolished 

 the papal authority, Vieconti was made a member of the provisional 

 government ; and when a republican constitution was proclaimed, he 

 was appointed one of the five consuls of the republic. As usual in 

 such cases, he was censured by some for having accepted a revolu- 

 tionary office, whilst the more violent demagogues accused him of 

 being too moderate in the exercise of his official functions. After a 

 few months however the French military authorities appointed new 

 consuls, and Visconti was glad to return to his favourite studies. 

 When the Neapolitan army entered Rome, in November 1799, 

 Visconti, having filled an office under the republic, was obliged to 

 emigrate to France, where his reputation as one of the first archaeo- 

 logists of his age had preceded him. He was appointed one of the 

 administrators of the Museum of the Louvre, and professor of archae- 

 ology. There he found himself again among his familiar acquaintance, 

 the masterpieces of the Vatican, which had been transferred to Paris, 

 and he made a catalogue raisonnd of the new museum, which was 

 often reprinted with fresh additions. In 1804 Napoleon commissioned 

 him to select and publish a series of portraits of distinguished men 

 of Greece and Rome, such as might be considered sufficiently 

 authentic, with illustrations. This, perhaps the greatest work of 

 Visconti, was published in two series : ' Iconographie Grecque,' 3 

 vols. 4to, 1808; and 'Iconographie Romaine,' 1 vol. 4to, 1817. 

 Meantime he undertook, at the desire of Napoleon, to contribute 

 several important papers to the great collection entitled ' Musee 

 Napoleon.' He also wrote a number of separate dissertations upon 

 particular objects of ancient art. In 1815 Visconti came to London 

 for the purpose of giving his opinion on the merit and the value of 

 the sculptures of the Parthenon, known by the name of the ' Elgin 

 Marbles.' He fixed the price at which he estimated that those works 

 of art might be fairly purchased by the nation. After his return to 

 Paris he wrote a Memoir in explanation of the meaning of those 

 celebrated sculptures. He next completed a series of notices of the 

 works of art in the Borghese collection, which he had begun at Rome 

 many years before, and which were published after his death : ' Illus- 

 trazioni di Monumenti scelti Borghesiani,' Rome, 1821. 



In 1816 Viscouti began to feel the symptoms of an organic disease, 

 which brought him to the grave in February 1818. His death was 

 mourned by the learned all over Europe, and his funeral was attended 

 by distinguished men from various countries. He was no mere anti- 

 quarian, but was deeply versed in the history, the languages, the 

 mythology, and the manners of the classical ages, and he had a keen 

 discernment and a delicate taste for the works of ancient art. A 

 worthy successor of Winkelmann, his judgment was more precise and 

 his views were more extensive than those of his predecessor. A col- 

 lection of all Visconti's works was begun at Milan in 1818, but has 

 never been completed. Labus edited, in 1827, a selection of his 

 minor works in 4 vols. 8vo. 



(' Elogio d'Ennio Quirino Visconti, scritto dall' Abate G. B. Zannoni, 

 R. Antiquario della Galleria di Firenze,' in No. XVIII. of the Anto- 

 logia of Florence; Tipaldo, Biografia degli Italiani Illustri; Maffei, 

 Storia della Letteratura Italiana.) 



VISCONTI, FILIPPO AURELIO, younger brother of Ennio 

 Quirino, was appointed by Pius VI., in 1782, to succeed his father 

 Giovanni Batista, as superintendent of the antiquities of Rome. 

 During the French occupation of Rome, 1809-14, he was made pre- 

 sident of the commission of antiquities and fine arts, and was also one 

 of the deputies appointed to superintend the preservation of the 

 numerous churches of Rome. After the restoration of the Papal 

 government he was appointed, in 1816, secretary of the commission of 

 the fine arts. He edited the ' Museo Chiaramonti,' being a description 

 of the collection formed in the Vatican by Pius VII., and which forms 

 a sequel to the 'Museo Pio Clementine.' He also published several 

 dissertations concerning works of ancient art in Rome and in its 

 territories. He applied himself especially to the study of numis- 

 matics. He edited an improved edition of the 'Roma* of Venuti. 

 He died at Rome in 1830. (Tipaldo, Biografia degli Italiani Illustri.) 



VISCONTI, LOUIS JOACHIM, son of Ennio Quirino Vieconti, was 

 born at Rome in 1797. His father was compelled at the close of 1799 

 [VISCONTI, E. Q.] to remove with his family to Paris, and there the 

 young Visconti was carefully educated. Having selected architecture 

 as his profession, his father, as soon as he was of sufficient age, placed 

 him with the architect Percier [PERCIER, CHARLES], so well known by 

 his works on the Louvre, a building with which the name of the pupil 

 was to become still more intimately associated. Under Percier, Vis- 

 conti made a distinguished progress, carrying off at the Architectural 

 School five medals, and a second prize for the plan of a library. 

 Shortly after the termination of his pupilage, he obtained an appoint- 

 ment as inspector of public buildings ; and subsequently that of 

 architect and surveyor of the third and eighth arrondissements of 

 Paris, an office he held for above a quarter of a century. He was 

 further, in 1825, appointed architect of the Bibliothe'qiie Royale, and 

 he is said to have made no less than twenty-nine plans and elevations 

 in the hope of being directed to give to that building an architectural 

 character equal to the grandeur of its contents, but his ambition was 

 not gratified. Although not called upon to construct any important 

 edifice, M. Visconti found ample employment in connection with the 

 offices he held : and to him was entrusted some of the public monu- 



2E 



