Di ZENI. 



Rinuccini, who may bo said to have created the Italian melodrama, 

 that species of dramatic composition had partaken of the vicious 

 taste of the seiceutisti, or 17th century school. Apostolo Zeno was 

 the reformer and renovator of the genuine melodrama as a poetical 

 composition, in which he was followed by his successor Metastasio, aud 

 afterwards by Sograffi, Barbieri, Bomani, and others. 



Zeno, in the midst of his poetical occupations, did not neglect graver 

 studies. He was possessed of sound critical discernment, and had col- 

 lected an ample store of literary knowledge. In 1710 he began to 

 publish his ' Qiornale dei Letterati,' which was afterwards continued 

 by his brother Pier Caterino Zeno, making altogether a series of forty 

 volumes, full of important literary and biographical information. 

 Having noticed many omissions and inaccuracies in the work 'De 

 Historicis Latinis ' of G. J. Voss, especially concerning the Italian 

 historians who had written in Latin, Zeno undertook to supply the 

 deficiency by his ' Dissertazioni Vossiane,' which were scattered about 

 his Journal; they were collected aud published after his death, in 

 2 vols. 4to, 1752, a work which is much valued. He likewise wrote a 

 running commentary to the ' Biblioteca dell' Eloquenza Italiana ' of 

 Fontanini, which commentary is much more important and instructive 

 than the text ; it is written with much critical skill, and in somewhat 

 a sarcastic vein. It was published also after Zeno's death, together 

 with Fontanini's text, in 2 vols. 4to. 



In 1717 Zeno was invited to Vienna by the Emperor Charles VI., 

 with the offer of the situation of court poet, to which was afterwards 

 added that of historiographer to his imperial majesty, accompanied 

 with liberal emoluments. Zeno, having obtained leave of the state 

 inquisitors, accepted the offer, and proceeded to Vienna in 1718. In 

 crossing the Alps his coach was upset, and he broke his leg ; but 

 having recovered from the accident, he arrived at Vienna, where he 

 was received by Charles in the kindest manner. He wrote dramas for 

 the imperial opera, and oratorios for the imperial chapel till 1729, 

 when his advanced years and the state of his health made him 

 desirous of returning to Italy to end his days in his native country. 

 Having obtained the consent of the emperor, and proposed young 

 Metastasio to succeed him in his office of court poet, he returned to 

 Venice, where he occupied himself in collecting books and medals, 

 and in preparing his works for the press. The death of the Emperor 

 Charles VI., and the war of the Austrian Succession which followed, 

 deprived Zeno of the liberal emolument which he had continued to 

 enjoy even after he left Vienna ; but the Empress Maria Theresa soon 

 after granted him an annual pension of 1000 florins, with the con- 

 tinuation of the title of poet and historiographer to the imperial court. 

 In 1747 Zeno sold his cabinet of medals for 20,000 florins to the abbot 

 of the Regular Canons of St. Florian in Upper Austria. His rich 

 library he bequeathed by will to the convent of the Dominicans of 

 Le Zattere, near Venice, whence the greater part has been since trans- 

 ferred to the library of St. Mark. Zeno died in November 1750, being 

 then eighty-two years of age. 



Besides the works already mentioned, Zeno wrote also 1, ' Mappa- 

 mondo Istorico, Continuazione dell' Opera del P. Forest!,' 4 vols. 4to, 

 Venice, 1702-3; 2, 'Vita di Paolo Paruta;' 3, 'Note alia Vita del 

 Cardinal Bembo : ' these two biographical works, as well as a Life of 

 Sabellico in Latin, also by Zeno, are inserted in the collection of the 

 historians of Venice, for which Zeno wrote also a ' Prefazione,' or 

 introductory discourse ; 4, Memorie Istoriche della Famiglia e Vita 

 di Enrico Caterin Davila,' prefixed to the edition of Davila's ' Storie 

 di Francia,' Venice, 1733; 5, 'Compendio della Storia della Repubblica 

 di Venezia;' 6, 'Vita di Giambatista Guarino;' 7, ' Vita di G. G. Tris- 

 sino;' 8, * Notizie Letterarie intorno ai Manuzii, Stampatori, e alia 

 loro Famiglia/ prefixed to the Italian translation of Cicero's Epistles 

 by Aldo Manuzio, published at Venice in 1736 ; 9, ' Note e giunte alia 

 Vita del Guicciardini scritta dal Manni,' prefixed to the edition of 

 Guicciardini, in 2 vols. fol., Venice, 1738. Zeno's dramas have been 

 published in 10 vols. 8vo, Venice, 1744. A selection of his letters was 

 published in 3 vols. 8vo, 1752 ; but a more ample selection has been 

 made by Morelli, in 6 vols. 8vo, Venice, 1785. Zeno left many other 

 works unfinished or unpublished. 



(Corniani, / Secoli delta Letteratura Italiana; Tipaldi, Bwgrafia 

 degli lllustri Italiani ; Lombard!, Storia della Letteratura Italiana nel 

 Secolo XVIII.) 



PIETRO CATERING ZENO, elder brother of Apostolo, was born on 

 the 26th of July 1666. He took the monastic vows in his twenty- 

 second year, and was soon after appointed to teach rhetoric in his 

 order's seminary at Murano ; thence he was promoted to the chair of 

 philosophy at Venice. When Apostolo quitted Venice, in 1718, he 

 confided the task of editing the ' Giornale de' Letterati ' to his brother, 

 who continued to discharge it till 1728, when he was obliged to resign 

 on account of ill health. He died on the 17th of June 1732, worn out 

 by the excessive rigour with which he performed his devotional exer- 

 cises. _ Besides his contributions to the 'Giornale de' Letterati,' Pietro 

 Caterino Zeno published a translation of Arnauld's Logic, and transla- 

 tions of some of Bourdaloue's Sermons. He likewise published anony- 

 mously remarks on the poetry of Delia Casa, and contributed the 

 biographies of Baptisto Nani and Michel e Foscari to his brother's 

 ' Lives of Venetian Historians.' 



(Dei Commentarii del Viaygio in Persia di M. Caterino Zeno il R. e 

 dellc Guerre fatte nell Imperio Persiano, dal Tempo di Ussun-Cassano 



ZENO. 



020 



in qua, libri due ; e dello Scoprimento dell' isole Frislanda, <tc., falto 

 sotto il Polo Artico da due frate/li Zeni, libro uno : in Venezia, 1558 ; 

 Di Marco Polo e degli altri Viagrjiateri Veneziani piu illustri Disaerta~ 

 zioni del P. Ab. D. Placida Zurla, in Venetia, 1818 ; Fabroni, Vitce 

 Italorum ; Giornale de' Letterati, vol. xxxviii. ; Journal of the Royal 

 Geographical Society of London, vol. ix. ; Biographic UniverseUe.) 



ZENO (Z4)vwv), of Elea in Italy, was a pupil of Parmenides. Accord- 

 ing to the vague expression (^/Cyuo^e) used by Diogenes Laertius, he 

 was enjoying his greatest celebrity about B.C. 464. He visited Athens 

 in company with Parmenides, and they were present at the Great 

 Panathensca. Parmenides is described by Plato as at this time a man 

 advanced in years, with his hair quite white, but of a handsome and 

 pleasing person : he was then about sixty-five years of age. Zeno, who 

 was then near forty, is spoken of as a tall and comely personage. If 

 we place this visit to Athens, with Clinton, in B.C. 454, in the fifteenth 

 year of Socrates, Zeno was born about B.C. 494. The authority for the 

 visit to Athens is the ' Parmenides ' of Plato, which, so far as relates 

 to this historical fact, is generally admitted to be sufficient authority. 



Strabo is of opinion that Zeno, as well as Parmenides, was employed 

 in legislating for Elea. He probably lived till the commencement of 

 the Peloponnesian War, or at least to B.c. 435. According to Plutarch 

 ('Pericles,' 4) he was one of the masters of Pericles. The circum- 

 stances of his death are reported with much diversity. He is said to 

 have conspired against a tyrant of Elea, who is variously named, aud, 

 on the discovery of the conspiracy, to have been put to death in a 

 cruel manner. 



Many works were attributed to Zeno, which, says Diogenes, were 

 full of wisdom. One of his great works he is said to have read at 

 Athens, on which occasion Socrates was present. Though the ' Par- 

 menides ' of Plato, which is the authority for this reading at Athens, 

 cannot be taken to be literally true in all respects for Socrates, then 

 a very young man, is represented as discoursing with Zeno yet there 

 seems no reason to doubt the fact of Zeno having read his work at 

 Athens. The object of this work, which was divided into several 

 parts, was to show that it is impossible to conceive things as being 

 Many, and this conclusion was derived as a necessary consequence 

 from the supposition of things being Many ; for Zeno showed that if 

 we suppose things to be Many, then the same things are both like and 

 unlike. Now, it is impossible to conceive the same things to be both 

 like and unlike, and therefore it is impossible to conceive things to be 

 Many (OUKOW et aSvvarov ra re avo/j.ota, 0/j.ota. elpat /cal TO, ofMia. a.v6fj.oia., 

 otiwaTov Si) Ka.1 iro\\a tlvai. Plato, ' Parmenides '). Zeno is said to 

 have been the first who used the form of the dialogue in his philo- 

 sophical discussions. His object was to maintain the doctrines of 

 Parmenides, for he is said to have added little of his own to what hia 

 master did. His method was, to assume the truth of received opinions, 

 and then to show the contradictions to which they lead, and, accord- 

 ingly, Aristotle (as quoted by Diogenes) calls him the inventor of 

 Dialectic ; not of Logic, as some modern writers have it. 



Zeno's work in defence of the Doctrine of the One was, as Plato 

 makes him describe it, designed to support the opinion of Parmenides 

 against those who ridiculed it on the ground that if there is only One, 

 many absurd and inconsistent consequences must flow from the doc- 

 trine ; and, accordingly, his work is in opposition to those who say 

 that things are Many, and it has for its special object to show, that 

 many more absurd consequences will flow from their hypothesis of 

 things being Many, than from the hypothesis of the One, if a man 

 rightly follow them up. This is the key to the explanation of what 

 we know of the arguments of Zeno. 



Zeno asked Protagoras if a single grain of millet, or the ten-thou- 

 sandth part of a grain, would make a noise in falling. Protagoras 

 said it would not. He then asked if a medimnus of such grains 

 would make a noise in falling; and the answer was, Yes. Zeiio 

 further asked if there was not a ratio between the medimnus of grain 

 and a single grain, or the ten-thousandth part of a single grain. Prota- 

 goras admitted that there was. " Will there not, then," said Zeno, 

 " be the same ratio between the noise of the medimnus and of the 

 single grain, as there is between tho medimnus and the single grain ? 

 and consequently a single grain, or the ten-thousandth part of a grain, 

 will make a noise in falling." There is nothing peculiarly subtle in 

 this argument. If merely viewed as an instance that the senses do not 

 always lead to a safe conclusion, it is well enough for that purpose. 



Other arguments go deeper, and show more clearly the contradic- 

 tions that arise from the notion of Many. Zeno, it is said, seemed to 

 annihilate the notion of space, for his argument was this : If there is 

 space, it is in something, for everything that is, is in something ; but 

 that which is in something, is also in space. Space, then, must also 

 be in space, and so on infinitely : therefore there is no space. 



Again : he proves that if things are many, they are both finite in 

 number and infinite ; and he proceeds thus : If things are many, 

 they must be as many as they are, neither more nor less , they must, 

 therefore, be finite. On the other hand, if they are many, they must 

 be infinite ; for there are always other things between things, and 

 again, other things between these things, and consequently things are 

 infinite. In the latter part he evidently considers the spaces between 

 things as things, for things must have spaces between them; and 

 these spaces he considers as things, or the equivalents of magnitudes, 

 and as capable of endless subdivision. 



