431 



VITALIS. 



VITRUVIUS POLLIO, MARCUS. 



422 



Maurus, archbishop of Ravenna, who refused to acknowledge the 

 supremacy of the see of Rome, and to receive the pallium from the 

 hands of its bishop. Vitalianus summoned Maurus to Rome under 

 pain of excommunication, and the archbishop retorted by sending him 

 a letter, in which he anathematized Vitalianus. Both Vitalianus and 

 Maurus appealed to the Emperor Constans, who by a diploma, dated 

 Syracuse, on the Calends of March, in the year xxv. of Constantino 

 the Elder, emperor, decreed " that the Church of Ravenna should be 

 ever after independent of every other ecclesiastical authority, and 

 especially of that of the patriarch of old Rome, and should enjoy the 

 privilege of being autocephalos ;" and he informed the archbishop of 

 his having written to that purpose to the exarch Gregory. Muratori 

 quotes this diploma, which he found in the library of Modena. 



In the year 668 Vitalianus consecrated Theodore of Tarsus as arch- 

 bishop of Canterbury, and sent him to England with instructions to 

 establish and enforce unity of discipline in the churches of Britain, an 

 object which Theodore effected, though not without much difficulty, 

 at the council of Hertford, A.D. 673. 



Vitalianus died at Rome in the year 672, and was succeeded by 

 Deodatus or Deusdedit II. 



VITALIS. [SJOBEHQ.] 



VITE'LLIUS, AULUS, a Roman emperor, whose reign lasted little 

 more than ten months, A.D. 69. He was of a noble family, and his 

 father Lucius Vitellius had been honoured several times with the 

 consulship (A.D. 34, 43, and 47), and afterwards appointed praefect of 

 Syria. He was a man of effeminate and luxurious habits, and his son 

 Aulus inherited these qualities from his father; he was also pro- 

 digiously fond of the pleasures of the table. His manners were proba- 

 bly pleasing, as he enjoyed the favour of three successive emperors, 

 Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. He was first made consul in A.D. 48. 

 After Galba had been elevated to the imperial dignity in A.D. 68, he 

 ordered Fonteius Capito, the commander of the legions in Germany, 

 to be put to death, and appointed Aulus Vitellius in his stead. Galba 

 was unpopular with the soldiers, as he did not attempt to win their 

 favour by rich donatives ; Vitellius, on the other hand, was the idol 

 of his troops, whom he attached to himself by liberal gifts and by still 

 more liberal promises ; and at the beginning of the year A.D. 69, 

 Vitellius was proclaimed emperor. On the arrival of this news at 

 Rome, Galba adopted L. Piso Licinianus, a noble and unassuming 

 youth ; but the praetorians were discontented wih Galba's stinginess, 

 and a conspiracy was formed against him, which was headed by L. 

 Salvius Otho Titianus, who was himself proclaimed emperor by the 

 soldiers, and ordered Galba and his friends to be put to death (Jan. 15, 

 A.D. 69). The Roman empire had now two emperors, whose rival 

 claims could only be settled by the sword. Vitellius sent two of his 

 generals to occupy the Pennine Alps and the part of Italy north of 

 the Po (Gallia Transpadana). Otho marched against them, and met 

 the enemy near Bedriacum ; but his army being defeated, he despaired 

 of success, and put an end to his life about the middle of April. His 

 army recognised Vitellius as emperor, who now came to Rome. He 

 had scarcely arrived there, when Flavius Vespasianus, who was then 

 engaged in the war against the Jews, was urged by his friends to 

 assume the imperial dignity, and was actually proclaimed emperor on 

 the 1st of July, at Alexandria, by Tiberius Alexander, the prsefect of 

 Egypt. Vespasian was immediately recognised by the legions in 

 Judsea and Syria, and soon afterwards also by those of Mcesia and 

 Panuonia. Autonius Primus, the commander of the latter, marched 

 into Italy without waiting for the commands of Vespasian. The 

 defensive plans of Vitellius were betrayed by his own general, Caecina ; 

 ami his army, though far superior in numbers to that of the enemy, 

 was routed in an engagement which took place during the night 

 between Bedriacum and Cremona. His camp near Cremona was taken 

 by the enemy, the soldiers surrendered, and Cremona was burnt. The 

 victorious army slowly advanced towards Rome; the garrisons sta- 

 tioned in the various towns on their road surrendered at the approach 

 of Antonius, and Vitellius at Rome, wavering between fear and hope, 

 could not come to any resolution, but allowed his adherents to act as 

 they pleased. On the arrival of the hostile army in the city, and 

 during the civil bloodshed which ensued, Vitellius concealed himself; 

 but he was dragged from his hiding-place and murdered, at the age of 

 fifty-seven. His body was thrown into the Tiber. This was about 

 the end of December, A.D. 69. His brother Lucius Vitellius was like- 

 wise put to death, and the rest of his adherents surrendered. 



(Suetonius, A. Vitellius; Tacitus, Historic; S. Aurelius-Victor, 

 De CcBsar. 8 ; Eutropius, vii. 12.) 



VITELLO (commonly, but incorrectly, VITELLIO), was a native 

 of Poland, and was commonly thought to have lived in the 10th 

 century, till it was shown, from his own work, that he lived in the 

 13tb. He wrote his work on optics near Cracow, as is supposed ; but 

 it appears that he had lived some time in Italy. Nothing more is 

 known of him except some unimportant facts relative to his family. 



There are said to be works of Vitellio remaining in manuscript, but 

 the only one which has been printed is that on optics, which has had 

 three editions. The first was ' Vitellionis Perspectivae Libri Decem,' 

 in folio, Nurnberg, 1533, edited by Tanstetter and Apian; the second, 

 ' Vitellionis Mathematici Doctissimi de Optica/ &c., folio, Nurnberg, 

 1551; the third, ' Optice Thesaurus Alhazeni, &c. Item, Vitellionis 

 Thuringo-Poloni Libri Decem,' folio, Basel, 1572, edited by Risner. 



This work is admitted, by all who have consulted it, to show a pro- 

 found knowledge of the ancient geometry. Moutucla and also Libes 

 say that in optics it is little more than a translation of Alhazen ; this 

 is wholly denied by the writer of the Life in the ' Biographic Uni- 

 verselle,' who does not however give any information on the points in 

 which the two works differ, and does not precisely specify the points 

 in which he considers Vitellio to have augmented the existing know- 

 ledge of optics. But Libes asserts that Vitellio distinctly attributes 

 the rainbow to combined reflection and refraction ; as also that he 

 accounts for the luminous rings which are seen round the sun arid 

 moon by the refraction of light in haze or vapour, and for parhelia, 

 &c. by reflection from clouds. Dr. Young states his theory of re- 

 fraction to be more correct than that of Alhazen, and refers to him 

 as the constructor of an original table of refractive powers. 



VITRINGA, CAMPE'GIUS, an eminent Dutch theologian, was 

 born on the 16th of May 1659, at Leeuwarden, in Friesland. Ho 

 studied at Franecker and Leyden, and after having obtained in the 

 latter place the degree of doctor of divinity at the unusually early age 

 of twenty, he was appointed in 1681 professor of Oriental literature at 

 Franecker. Two years later he obtained the chair of theology, and in 

 1693 that of sacred history also. In 1698 he was invited to a pro- 

 fessorship in the university of Utrecht, with the high salary of 2000 

 thalers, but he modestly declined the offer, in consequence of which 

 his salary was raised at Franecker to the same amount, and he remained 

 in that place until his death on the 21st of March 1722. He left two 

 sons, Campegiua and Horatius, the former of whom likewise acquired 

 some reputation as a theological writer, though he was much inferior 

 to his father. 



Campegius Vitringa was one of the greatest divines of his time, and 

 in learning he was not inferior to any. His works, nearly all of which 

 are in Latin, are still valued very highly by theologians, but more 

 especially his commentaries on portions of the Scriptures, among 

 which that on Isaiah is one of the best that was ever written. The 

 following works still deserve the attention* of theological students : 

 1, ' Commentarius in Jesaiam,' 2 vols. folio ; 2, ' Anacrisis Apocalypseos 

 Johannis Apostoli,' 4to, 1719 ; 3, ' Commentarius in Zachariam Pro- 

 phetam ; ' 4, ' Typus Theologiae Practicae,' 8vo, 1 vol. ; 5, ' Observa- 

 tiones Sacrae,' 4to, 1711; 6, 'Doctrina Religionis Christianae per 

 Aphorismos descripta ; ' 7, ' Verklaring over de Evangelische Para- 

 bolen ;' and 8, ' Aenleiding tot het rechte Verstand van. den Tempel 

 Ezechielis.' 



(Vriemot, Series Professorum Franequeranorum ; Niceron, Memoires 

 des Hommes Illustres, vols. xxx. and xxxv.) 



VITRU'VIUS PO'LLIO, MARCUS, a Roman architect, well known 

 for his work on architecture, ' De Architectural," in ten books. The 

 history of Vitruvius is known only by what he casually says of him- 

 self in his treatise. He is noticed only by two ancient writers : by 

 Pliny, who enumerates him among the writers from whose works he 

 compiled ; and by Frontinus, in his treatise on aqueducts, 'De Aqusc- 

 ductibus,' who mentions him as the inventor of the Quinariau 

 measure. Neither the time nor place of his birth is known, but 

 he is generally suppossd to have been born at Formiae (Mola di Gaeta) 

 in Campania, from several inscriptions relating to the Vitruvian family 

 which have been found there. As he dedicated his work to the 

 Emperor Augustus when he was already old, and as it was written 

 before the theatres of Marcellus and Balbus were built, which was in 

 the year B.C. 13 (for when Vitruvius wrote, the theatre of Pompey was 

 the only stone theatre in Rome), it follows that he must have been 

 born about B.C. 80, or a little earlier. From what he says in the pre- 

 faces to his third and sixth books, it would seem that he was not very 

 successful in his profession ; he executed only one public work that 

 is mentioned, a basilica at Fanum. He was however, at the time that 

 he wrote, one of the superintendents of the engines of war, the others 

 being Marcus Aurelius, P. Numisius, and Cn. Cornelius : a place which 

 he had obtained through the recommendation of the emperor's sister; 

 and it was on account of this appointment, as he himself says, that 

 he dedicated his work to the emperor. He states that he had received 

 a good education, and was fond of literary and philosophic subjects ; 

 that riches were no object with him, and that he was possessed of 

 very little ; but that he hoped to acquire a reputation with posterity 

 for the treatise he was then writing. He mentions in the preface to 

 his seventh book the architectural writers to whom he was chiefly 

 indebted for information, namely, Agatharchus, Democritus and 

 Anaxagoras, Silenus, Theodoras, Ctesiphon and Metagenes, Phileos, 

 Ictinus and Carpion, Theodorus Phoceus, Philo, Hermogenes, Argelius, 

 and Satyrus and Phyteus. He mentions also many other writers who 

 wrote upon subjects more or less bearing upon architecture. 



Vitruvius treats of many things in his work besides architecture or 

 building, strictly speaking. The first book is divided into seven 

 chapters, as follows : Chapter 1 treats of the science of architecture 

 generally, and of the education of an architect ; and he mentions in 

 it the origin of Caryatides and the Persian order, in illustration that 

 a certain knowledge of history is requisite for an architect I 

 recommends also to architects, to a certain degree as almost indis- 

 pensable, the study of writing, drawing, geometry, arithmetic, the 

 principles of natural and moral philosophy, law, physic, music, and 

 astronomy : and he continues to show how far each may te applied : 

 chapter 2, on what architecture depends, or the various qualities which 



