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ZINGARELLI, NICOLO. 



ZINZENDORF, COUNT VON. 



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ihmkurz vor eeinem ToJe' 8 vo, Leipzig 1783, and 'Fragmente iiber 

 Frie'lrich den Grosscn,' 3 vola. Svo, Leipzig, 1790, which created the 

 greatest sensation in Germany, and involved the author in disputes 

 which ended only with his life. These works pretend to give an 

 account of the king, derived from sources to which no one had had 

 access before. They contained attacks on men of unblemished 

 character, and Zimmermann charged them with things which had no 

 existence except in his own imagination. Truth itself seemed no 

 longer to be sacred to him, and various calumnious reports respecting 

 the private life of Frederic the Great and other eminent men were set 

 forth as new discoveries, and that in so coarse a manner as to offend the 

 good feeling of the public. The cause of this change in his conduct 

 must be looked for in his discontented disposition, and the desire to 

 shino in a new sphere for which he was not fitted politics and con- 

 temporary hifltory. The peculiar state of his own mind prevented his 

 gaining a clear perception of things, and made him see in the political 

 changes of the time nothing but conspiracies to upset religion and all 

 social order. The opposition he met with, especially on the part of 

 the freethinker Dr. Bahrdt, and A. Hoffmann, only increased those 

 feelings. He now devoted all his time to the combating of the 

 monsters which his own imagination raised up, with the exception of 

 two hours every day, which he gave to his patients. His diseased 

 imagination represented to him Jacobins. Illuminati, and the promoters 

 of improvements of every kind, as persons animated by the same evil 

 spirit, and he denounced them all as criminals who ought to be put to 

 death by the hangman. In order to secure the assistance of all 

 governments against them, he drew up a memorial, which he sent to 

 the Emperor Leopold, and which bore the following title : ' Ueber 

 den Wahnwitz unseres Zeitalters uud iiber die kriiftigsten Hiilfsmittel 

 gegen die Mordbrenner, die uns auffkliiren wollen, und gegen die 

 Untergrabuug und Vernichtung der Christlichen Religion und der 

 Fiirstengewalt.' It consisted of 370 quarto pages. The emperor 

 intended to place it before the princes' diet at llegensburg, and to 

 call xipon the princes of the empire to put an end to the proceedings 

 of the Illuminati. But the death of the emperor, who had testified 

 his gratitude to Zimmermann by a handsome present, prevented this 

 plan being carried into effect. Zimmermann however continued his 

 exertions till the year 1794, when his physical as well as mental 

 powers began to decline, and he was obliged to give up all his occupa- 

 tions. His melancholy rose to a deplorable height. The French 

 revolution was making rapid progress, and be fancied that the French 

 were hunting him out and intending to put him to a cruel death as an 

 aristocrat ; he even thought of taking to flight, and as his physician 

 believed that a change of place might be beneficial, Zimmermann went 

 to Eutin in Holstein. But no means were of avail, and, after an 

 absence of three months, he returned to Hanover in a worse condition 

 than he had left it. His fear of his enemies was at last increased by 

 the dread of poverty and starvation, a monomania which the most 

 substantial proofs of the contrary were unable to destroy. Wherever 

 he went he fancied that he was diffusing the miasma of the plague ; in 

 short his mind was completely deranged, and after months of severe 

 Buffering, both real and imaginary, he died on the 7th of October 

 1795, iu the sixty-seventh year of his age. 



Zimmermann was one of the most remarkable men of the last 

 century, both as a physician and a philosopher. He possessed an 

 inexhaustible imagination, great sagacity and judgment, and most 

 extensive knowledge not only of medicine, but also of philosophy, 

 history, and the whole range of ancient and modern literature. The 

 great works which he wrote previous to 1786 are masterly productions 

 of their kind. During the latter period of bis life his nervous sensi- 

 bility and hia hypochondriac disposition had ruined his mental powers, 

 and for all he did during that period he perhaps deserves more to be 

 pitied tban to be censured. Besides the works which we have already 

 noticed, and a number of essays in literary and scientific journals, the 

 following deserve to be mentioned : 1, ' Leben des Herrn von Haller, 

 8vo, Zurich, 1755; 2, ' Vertheidigung Friedrichs des Grossen gegen 

 den Grafen von Mirabeau,' 8vo, Hanover, 1787; 3, 'Versuchin anmu 

 thigen und lehrreicheu Krzahlungen, launigteu Eiufiillen und Philoao 

 phischen Remarquen iiber allerlei Gegeustande,' 8vo, Gottingen, 1779 

 this is a collection of essays which Zimmermann had contributed from 

 time to time to a Hanoverian periodical, and were published in one 

 volume by an anonymous editor ; 4, ' Zerstreute Blatter vermischten 

 Inhalts,' edited by a friend of Zimmermann after his death (8vo 

 1799); 5, 'Die Zerstomng von Lissabon,' 4to, Zurich, 1756 : this is 

 an epic poem of no great value, which some friends of the author go 

 published without his knowledge. 



The number of works on the life and writings of Zimmermann is 

 very great; the following are the best among them : S. A. D. Tissot 

 Vie de M. Zimmermann, 8vo, Lausanne, 1797 ; J. E. Wichmann, /. G 

 Zimmermann' s Kr anker geschichtc, ein Bioyraphisches Fragment, 8vo 

 Hanover, 1796 : Zimmcrmanri's Verhaltnisse mit der Kaiserin Catha 

 rina II., und mit dcm Jlerrn Weikard, &c., Svo, Bremen, 1803 

 Dbring's Zimmermann, in the Zeitgenossen, third series, No. 6; Zim 

 mermann's Brief e an einige seiner Freunde in der Schweiz, Svo, Aarau 

 1830. 



ZINGAHELLI, NICOLO, a celebrated Italian composer, was born 

 at Naples in 1752. After receiving a complete musical education from 

 some of the greatest masters of that day, he betook himself to dra 



matic composition, and produced several operas for the theatres of 

 s'aples, Milan, and Venice. He visited Paris in 1789, when his opera 

 f ' Antigone/ of which the poem was written for him by Marmontel, 

 ras performed at the Acaddmie Royale do Musique ; but the storms 

 f the Revolution drove him from France, and he returned to Italy. 

 lis operas were successful, but are now forgotten. Like most of the 

 talian dramatic music of that day, they gave way to the more brilliant 

 tyle introduced by Rossiui and his followers ; and moreover, Zinga- 

 elli's genius and inclination led him to the cultivation of sacred music, 



the study of which, on his return to Italy, he entirely devoted him- 

 elf. He was elected maestro di capella in the cathedral of Milan, and 

 )u the death of Gugliolmi in 1S06 he succeeded that master iu tho 

 hapel of the Vatican. He remained at Rome till 1811, when, having 

 efused to comply with an order of tho Emperor Napoleon to compose 



1 To Deum for the birth of the King of Rome, he was sent to Paris a 

 risoner under an escort of gendarmes. This strong measure, it seema, 



was taken without the sanction of the emperor, who ordered the com- 

 loser to be immediucely released, and compensation to be made him 

 or the injury he had suffered ; and Murat, then king of Naples, placed 

 iim at the head of the Conservatory of that city, then one of the 

 greatest schools of music in Europe. This ofBce he continued to hold 

 ill his death in 1837. Zingarelli's sacred works consist of oratorios, 

 cantatas, and masses. His principal oratorio, ' La Distruztono di 

 ^erusalemme,' is a masterpiece of the grand and simple but profound 

 Italian style, which is now extinct ; and its reproduction, by the con- 

 ductors of some of our sacred concerts, would be an act of good taste, 

 ,nd probably good policy. As the head of the great Neapolitan Con- 

 servatory, Zingarelli was the instructor of several of the most eminent 

 composers of the day, and in particular of his countryman Costa, now 

 i naturalised Englishman, whose noble oratorio, ' Eli,' produced at the 

 ast Birmingham Festival, and since repeatedly performed at Exeter 

 3all, does honour to the master under whom he studied. 



ZINGG, ADRIAN, a very clever Swiss draughtsman, etcher, and 

 :opper-plate engraver, was born at St. Gallon in 1734. His father was 

 ikewise an engraver, and he instructed his son in his art ; but Adrian 

 Zingg went early to Ziirich, and continued the study of engraving with 

 Eludolph Holzhalb. He went afterwards to Bern in 1757, and became 

 the pupil of Aberli, with whom he became an excellent draughtsman 

 and etcher of landscapes. In 1759 Zingg went with Aberli to Paris, 

 and there studied several years with J. G. Wille, for whom he engraved 

 many plates, by which he established a reputation a3 an excellent 

 engraver. He was invited in 1766, while at Paris, by the Saxon 

 government to Dresden, where he was appointed engraver to the court, 

 and professor of engraving in the academy of Dresden ; he was like- 

 wise elected a member of the academies of Vienna and Berlin. He di' d 

 at Dresden in 1816, according to Heller. 



Zingg's works consist of some marine landscapes, many views in 

 Switzerland, some of the best landscapes in the Dresden Gallery, and 

 several prints from his own drawings, principally in the vicinity of 

 Dresden. He engraved an excellent print of the celebrated picture of 

 the ' Stag Hunt,' by Ruysdael, in the Dresden Gallery; he has engraved 

 also after Both, J. Veruet, Vander Neer, Dietrich, Agricola, Aberli, 

 Brand, and others. His plates after Dietrich are numerous, and he 

 engraved a considerable number after his own designs, which he drew 

 with a pen. 



ZINZENDORF, NICOLAUS LUDWIG, COUNT VON, the 

 founder (or rather restorer) of the sect of the Moravian Brothers, or 

 Herrnhutera, was the son of Count Georg Ludwig von Zinzendorf, 

 chamberlain and state-minister of Augustus II., elector of Saxony and 

 king of Poland. He was born on the 26th of May 1700. He lost his 

 father at an early age. His mother made a second marriage with the 

 Count Von Natzmer, a Prussian field-marshal ; and young Zinzeudorf 

 was educated under the care of his maternal grandmother, the widow 

 of Baron von Gersdor a pious and learned lady, who wrote some 

 hymns and treatises on religious subjects, and corresponded in Latin 

 with several distinguished divines and scholars. This lady lived on 

 her estate in Lusatia, where she was frequently visited by pious men : 

 the celebrated Jacob Spener was her most intimate frieud, and it was 

 the influence of this divine, who was considered the head of the 

 Pietists, which produced in the mind of young Zinzendorf that religious 

 tendency which made him noticed when a mere child, an<l in later 

 years led him to aim at reforming the Protestant faith. In 1710 

 Ziuzendorf was sent to the Paedagogiura at Halle, which was then 

 directed by Fraiicke, to whose particular care he was intrusted. In 

 that school Zinzeudorf remained six years, and as Pietism was tho 

 ruling principle there also, he abandoned himself entirely to religious 

 pursuits, and founded a mystical order among his fellow-pupils, which 

 he called Der Orden von Senfkorn, or the Order of the Grain of 

 Mustard-seed, in allusion to the passage in St. Matthew (xiii. 31, 32). 

 His family however was not pleased with the theological occupations 

 of a young nobleman, whom they wished to bring up as a statesman, 

 and not for the church, which had been deserted by the Prote-tant 

 nobility of Germany since the bishoprics and rich prebendaries had 

 been abolished by the zeal of the secular priuces. Zinzendorf was 

 accordingly sent to the university of Wittenberg (1716), where was a 

 spirit in religious matters quite opposite to the Pietism of Halle ; but 

 far from giving up his pursuits, he continued to hold religious meet- 

 ings in his house and elsewhere, and resolved to take orders and 



