041 



ZISKA. 



ZOtiGA, GEORG. 



042 



men, and Pope Martin V. endeavoured to increase his adherents by 

 preaching a crusade against the Hussites. Encouraged by some 

 advantages over Zizka, the emperor behaved with cruelty to the 

 Hussite priests, who were burnt alive by his order wherever they fell 

 into the hands of the Imperialists. But the party of the Hussites 

 grew daily more dangerous, and Zizka not only disciplined their 

 troops, but secured them against sudden attacks by building fortresses 

 in proper situations. His principal fortification was near Bechin. A 

 short distance from this town the Moldau winds round a craggy hill, 

 and forms a spacious peninsula, the neck of which is scarcely forty 

 feet wide, and on that side only is the peninsula accessible. The hill 

 was fortified with great skill, and a strong body of Hussites encamped 

 there in tents ; but the tents soon became houses, in the midst of 

 which stood the palace of Zizka. The name of the hill was Tabor, 

 and hence the Hussites called themselves Taborites, by which name 

 they afterwards distinguished themselves from some sects which 

 sprung up among them, as the Calixtines, the Or.ebites, and the Orpha- 

 nites. Zizka began his victories with the conquest of Prague, except 

 the castle ; and he took up a fortified position on Mount Wittkow in 

 order to protect the town against Siegmund, who approached with 

 30,000 men : Zizka had only 4000. When he was attacked, on the 

 14th of July 1420, he not only drove the Imperialists back, but entirely 

 routed them. That mountain is still called the Zizka-mountain. The 

 emperor having been obliged to retreat from Bohemia, Zizka laid siege 

 to the castle of Prague, which he took in 1421, and there found four 

 canuous, the first which he had in his army. But he soon increased 

 his artillery, and he procured a great quantity of small fire-arms, which 

 had hitherto been very little used in warfare. He gave fire-arms to a 

 considerable part of his army, and from this time they gradually 

 became the common arms of the infantry of all nations. Zizka was 

 also very deficient in cavalry, and, in order to protect his infantry 

 against the attacks of cavalry, he invented, or rather introduced again, 

 an ancient kind of barricado, made of baggage-carts, which is known 

 by the German name of ' Wagenburg ' (cart-fort). These were not 

 the sole inventions of Zizka, whose name will ever be conspicuous, 

 not only as a general, but also as an engineer. In the same year 

 (1421) Zizka lost his other eye by an arrow during the siege of the 

 castle of llaby ; but he nevertheless continued to head his troops, in 

 front of whom he was carried in a cart, and he arranged the order of 

 battle according to the description of the ground made by his officers. 

 In this difficult business he was greatly supported by his excellent 

 memory and his complete geographical knowledge of Bohemia. 

 Meanwhile Siegmund had levied a new army in Germany, the flower 

 of which was a body of 15,000 Hungarian horse, who were considered 

 the best in Europe, and were commanded by an Italian officer of great 

 experience. A pitched battle was fought on the 18th of January 

 1422. Historians speak of the onset of Zizka's troops as a shock 

 beyond all credibility, and it appears that they have not exaggerated 

 it. "The imperial infantry made no stand at all, and the horse took 

 to flight after a feeble resistance : they were beaten by terror rather 

 than by the sword. They retreated towards Moravia, and were so 

 hard pressed by Zizka that they crossed the frozen Igla in large bodies, 

 and, as the ice broke, about 2000 of them were drowned. In the 

 same year Zizka obtained a decisive victory at Aussig, over a Saxon 

 army commanded by the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg. The 

 Saxons however were excellent soldiers, and on their first onset the 

 Hussites were so well received that they retired in confusion, and 

 then stood still facing their enemy with silent amazement. They had 

 never met with such resistance, and they believed that nobody could 

 resist them. Upon this Zizka approached on his cart and said: 

 " Well, my brethren, I thank you for all your past services : if you 

 have now done your utmost, let us retire." This noble rebuke roused 

 their fanatical courage, and in a second attack the Saxons were routed 

 and left 9000 dead on the field. Siegmund now saw that he could 

 never conquer Bohemia, and he proposed an arrangement, to which he 

 was the more inclined as some of the Bohemian states had offered the 

 crown to Witold, grand-duke of Lithuania, who accepted it, and sent 

 Prince Korybut to Prague as his viceroy. But Korybut, being only 

 supported by part of the Hussites, could not maintain himself, and 

 was compelled to return to Lithuania. On the other hand there were 

 good reasons for Zizka making peace, for although his own authority 

 was never shaken, the animosity between the minor sects of the 

 Hussites was too great to allow the prospect of a lasting political 

 union among them. Siegmund promised to grant full religious liberty 

 to the Hussites, and to appoint Zizka governor of Bohemia and her 

 dependencies, with great power and privileges. But Zizka did not 

 live to complete the treaty, which was ready to be concluded after an 

 interview had taken place between him and the emperor, with whom 

 the blind general treated on terms of equality and with the confidence 

 of a sovereign king. Hostilities were continued during the negocia- 

 tions : Zizka laid siege to the castle of Przibislaw, in the district of 

 Czaslau ; and a kind of plague having broken out, he was seized, and 

 died on the 12th of October 1424. Zizka was victorious in thirteen 

 pitched battles and more than one hundred engagements and sieges : 

 he was only once beaten in the open field, at Kremsir in Moravia ; 

 but he retreated in such good order that his defeat was not followed 

 by any bad consequences for him. 

 The only stain on his character was his cruelty. He believed him- 



self the instrument of divine vengeance, and he called the cries and 

 lamentations of the- monks and priests who were burnt by his order 

 the bridal song of hia sister. He was buried iu a church at Czaslau, 

 and his iron war-club, with which he is represented in many engravings, 

 was hung up over his tomb. When the Emperor Ferdinand I. went 

 to Czaslau, in 1554, and saw the tomb, he asked who was buried there, 

 and being informed that it was Zizka, ho cried out in Latin, " Phui, 

 phui, mala bestia, quae mortua etiam post centum annos terret vivoci !" 

 (Lo, the wicked beast, one hundred years dead, and still frightens the 

 living !) The emperor it is said was so frightened that he left the 

 church immediately, and {would not stay the night at Czaslau, but 

 proceeded on his journey : but it may be believed that he had some 

 better reasons for continuing his journey than dread of the long buried 

 Zizka. There is another idle tale that Zizka on his death-bed ordered 

 his skin to be tanned, and put over a drum in order to frighten hia 

 enemies after death ; and it is also said that the Hussites used that 

 drum in many a battle : all this is fabulous. 



After Zizka's death the negociations with the emperor were broken 

 off : the Taborites chose Procop the Holy for their leader ; the Ore- 

 bites, Krussina ; and the Orphanites, Procop the Little, who continued 

 that awful war for eleven years more, till it was finished by the treaty 

 of Prague, in 1435, in consequence of which Siegmund was acknow- 

 ledged king of Bohemia. 



(Millauer, Diplomatisch-historische Aufsdtze uber Johann Zizka von 

 Trocznow, Prague, 1824; Koelerus, Eulogium Joh. de Trocznow cog- 

 nomento Ziskce, Gottingen, 1742; The Life of Zizka, in Gilpin, The 

 Lives of John Wicliff and of the most eminent of his Disciples, Lord 

 Cobham, John Huss, Jerome of Prague, and Zizka.) 



ZOBEL, BENJAMIN, was born in 1762, at Memmingen in Bavaria. 

 He received his education at the government school t>f that city, and 

 acquired the rudiments of drawing from one of the monks belonging 

 to the convent of Ottobeuern. In 1781 he went to Amsterdam, 

 where he resided for two years, occupying himself chiefly in portrait- 

 painting. In 1783 he came to London, where he formed acquaintance 

 with Morland and Schweickhardt, the latter of whom was employed 

 at Windsor Castle by George lll.'s 'table-decker.' It was then the 

 custom to ornament the royal dinner-table by having a silver plateau 

 extending along the centre, on which were strewed various coloured 

 sands or marble dust, in fanciful designs of fruit, flowers, arabesque- 

 work, &c. For this an artist of some talent and great freedom of 

 hand was required. On the retirement of Schweickhardt, Zobel 

 was appointed; and he continued to fill the office for a considerable 

 period. Ornamenting the royal table in the manner just described 

 was a daily occupation, the sands not being cemented by any sub- 

 stance. From this occupation arose the idea in the mind of Zobel 

 of producing a finished and permanent picture, by the use of some 

 substance by which the sands might be fixed. After various experi- 

 ments, a composition (iu which gum-arabic and spirits of wine formed 

 the chief ingredients) was found to answer the best. The subject of 

 the picture having been designed either on panuel or milled board, 

 a coating of the glutinous substance was spread over it ; the different 

 coloured sands were then used in a similar manner as that employed 

 in decking the royal table, viz., by strewing them from a piece of card 

 held at various elevations, according to the strength or softness of the 

 tint required. Thus was formed a picture, not subject to decay, and 

 permanent iu all its parts, and this was called by the inventor, Marmo- 

 tinto. Some of the best specimens of this peculiar art were formerly 

 in the possession of the late Duke of York, but were sold, at his 

 death, at Oatlands. Several are still among the collections of paintings 

 belonging to the Duke of Northumberland and Sir Willoughby 

 Gordon. Painting on gold and silver grounds in transparent colours 

 for the representation of cabinets of humming-birds, &c., was also 

 practised with eminent success by Zobel. He died in 1831. 



ZOEGA, GEORG, was the eldest of the three sons of a Lutheran 

 clergyman of Jutland, said to have been of Italian descent, and was born 

 the 25th of December 1755, at the village of Dahlen in the county of 

 Schackenburg and the diocese of Ripen, where his father was tlien 

 minister, although he soon after removed to the parish of Moegelton- 

 dern, near the town of Tondern in the same county. After having 

 been carefully educated at home, under the eye of his father, Zoe'ga 

 was sent, in 1772, to the gymnasium of Altona, whence the next year 

 he proceeded to the university of Gottingen. 



On finishing his academic course, in 1776, Zoe'ga set out on a tour 

 through Germany and Switzerland, which he was eventually led to 

 extend to Italy, and he did not return to his native country till he 

 had visited both Venice and , Rome. He then passed a winter at the 

 university of Leipzig ; after returning home from which he spent 

 some time in the office of a brother of his father, who held a post 

 under the government at Copenhagen ; but at last, in October 1778, 

 he accepted the situation of a family tutor in the little town of Kier- 

 teminde, on the eastern coast of the isle of Fiinen. After a few 

 mouths however he was offered the appointment of travelling tutor 

 to a young gentleman who proposed to make the tour of Germany, 

 Italy, France and England ; this scheme exactly suited the taste of 

 Zoe'ga, who was already devoted to the study of the fine arts. After 

 a year's residence with his pupil at Gottingen, where he renewed his 

 intimacy with his old professor Heyne, with whom he had been 

 always a favourite, they set out together in March 1780, and after 



