CERTOSA DI PAVIA 



< I. UV ANTES 



73 



but since the institution of the Court 



< ', iinm.-il Appeal it is necessary to show cause, 

 as in a civil rose from the county courts, and to 

 gi\ e security. 



In the United States, certiorari is generally pro- 

 \ itled for l>y statute, hut where no such provision is 

 made, or no ut In-r mode of review of the. proceedings 

 nt an interior court has heen provided uy statute, 

 uperior eourt exercising conunoii law jurisdic- 

 tion has an inherent right to issue this writ. It is 

 ii-cd in l>otli civil and criminal cases to bring the 

 whole record of the inferior tribunal before a 

 Miperior court, to determine whether the former 

 h;is proceeded within its jurisdiction, and also to 

 snable sulwtantial justice to be done whenever an 

 inferior tribunal has failed to proceed according to 

 the requirements of the law. It is used as an 

 original process to remove a cause, and change 

 venue, only where the superior court is satisfied 

 that an impartial trial will not otherwise be had. 



Certo'sa di 1'avi a. a celebrated Carthusian 

 monastery. ."> miles N. of Pavia, was founded in 

 l.'i'.tii by Giovanni Galeazzo Visconti, first Duke of 

 Milan, in atonement for the murder of his uncle. 

 The church is a splendid structure in the form of a 

 Latin cross, the ground-plan being 252 feet long 

 by 177 feet broad. The richly sculptured fa9ade, 

 by Borgognone, was commenced in 1473. 

 The building is made up of various styles, but the 

 'ointed prevails in the interior, which is decorated 

 .itli frescoes, paintings, &c., and contains a gor- 

 high-altar, the mausoleum of the founder, 

 id several monuments. After the battle of Pavia 

 ; l.V2.~>), Francis I. was for three days a prisoner at 

 k he Certosa, which, since the dissolution of the 

 lonasteries, has been constituted a national 

 lonument. The name certosa is a form of Car- 

 nisi;in (q.v. ), and is used of other monasteries 

 " the order, as that to the south of Florence. 



Ceru'men is ear- wax, the yellow waxy matter 

 irhich is secreted by certain glands lying in the 

 isage that leads from the external opening of the 

 to the membrane of the tympanum, ft lubri- 

 ites the passage and entangles particles of dust 

 nd small insects, preventing them from getting 

 irther in. See EAR. 



Cervantes Saavedra, MIGUEL DE, the 



ithor of Don Quixote, was born at Alcald de 

 lenares in 1547. His birthday is unknown, but 



was baptised on the 9th of October. He was a 

 lescendant of a family that traced its origin back 

 the 10th century through a line of Castilian 

 lobles, of whom one was the renowned warrior 

 Juno Alfonso, whose grandson took the surname 



Cervantes from the old castle of San Servando, 

 Cervantes, near Toledo. It was borne with 



mour by many church dignitaries, soldiers, and 

 magistrates of the 14th and 15th centuries, but at 

 the birth of the man who gave it immortality it 

 had ceased to be one of the prominent names of 

 Spain. The name of Saavedra came into the poet's 

 branch of the family by marriage in the 15th 

 century. Of Cervantes personally we know little 

 or nothing beyond what he himself tells us, but of 

 the events of his life there is a tolerably complete 

 record. The story of his having studied at Sala- 

 manca is improbable; all we Know of his edu- 

 cation is that Juan Lopez de Hoyos, a professor 

 of belles-lettres at Madrid, calls him his 'dearly 

 beloved pupil.' The first known productions of 

 his pen appeared in 1569 in a collection of pieces 

 on the death of the queen, edited by the pro- 

 fessor. Early in the same year he passed over into 

 Italy in the service of Cardinal Giulio Acquaviva, 

 but shortly afterwards enlisted as a soldier under 

 the command, it would appear, of Marc Antony 

 Colonna. At the battle of Lepanto he was in 



the thick of the fight, and received three severe 

 gunshot wounds, by one of which his left hand and 

 arm were permanently disabled. After having MM 

 some further service against the Turks in Tunis, 

 he was returning to Spain in l.")7."> with letters 

 of recommendation to the king from Don John of 

 Austria and the Viceroy of Sicily, when the galley 

 he sailed in was captured by Algerine corsairs, 

 and with his brother liodrigo and several others 

 he was carried into Algiers. He remained in 

 captivity five years, during which he made four 

 daring attempts to escape, and lived in almost 

 daily expectation of death or torture. It was not 

 for himself alone that he sought freedom. No 

 nobler story of unselfish heroism has ever l>een 

 told than that in the depositions of his fellow 

 captives at Algiers, where they testify to his self- 

 devotion, his dauntless spirit, and his generosity, 

 and with touching earnestness strive to give ex- 

 pression to their own gratitude, love, and admira- 

 tion. In 1580 he was ransomed by the charity 

 of the RedemptionLst Fathers and by the devo- 

 tion of his family which reduced itself to poverty 

 to provide the sum required ; and rejoining In.- 

 old regiment in Portugal, he served in the expe- 

 dition to the Azores under the Marquis of Santa 

 Cruz. The story of a liaison with a Portuguese 

 lady is an invention of the biographers to account 

 for a certain Isabel de Saavedra mentioned in 

 an official document of 1605 as his natural 

 daughter. There is no other evidence of her 

 existence, and if this is to be relied upon she 

 was born after his marriage, and nearly two years 

 after his return from Portugal. At the close 

 of the war he retired from military life and 

 turned his attention to literature. His first work 

 was the Galatea, a pastoral romance of the same 

 class as the Diana of Montemayor and the Filida 

 of his friend Montalvo. It was printed at Alcald 

 in 1585 not, as is commonly said, Madrid, 1584. 

 While it was passing through the press he married, 

 and for two or three years strove to gain a liveli- 

 hood by writing for the stage. He produced between 

 twenty and thirty plays, of which two only, the 

 Numaneia and the Trato de Argel, have survived ; 

 but from his own account it is plain that, though 

 not ill received, they failed to attract, and that 

 he was driven to seek some other employment. 

 In 1587 he migrated to Seville, where he obtained 

 the post of deputy-purveyor to the fleet. In 1594 

 he was appointed a collector of revenues for the 

 kingdom of Granada ; but in 1597, failing to make 

 up the sum due to the treasury, he was sent to 

 prison at Seville. He was released, however, on 

 giving security for the balance, but not reinstated ; 

 nor can the government be charged with undue 

 harshness, for though no stain attaches to his 

 integrity, it is clear that as a business-like official 

 he was not faultless. He remained some time 

 longer at Seville, but nothing is known of his 

 movements from 1599 to 1603. Local tradition 

 maintains that he wrote Don Quixote in prison 

 at Argamasilla in La Mancha ; but it has nothing 

 to support it save the fact that Argamasilla is 

 Don Quixote's village. In 1603 he was living at 

 Valladolid ; in September 1604 leave was granted 

 to print the first part of Don Quixote, and earlv 

 in January 1605 the book came out at Madrid. 

 It is commonly asserted that its reception was cold ; 

 but the truth is that it leaped into popularity at 

 once. Within a month two pirated editions were 

 in the press at Lislmn ; by the autumn five editions 

 had been published ; and Don Quixote and Sancho 

 Panza paraded the streets as familiar characters 

 in the pageants at Valladolid that spring. By a 

 minority, nowever, it was not welcomed. Lope 

 de Vega wrote sneeringly of it and ite author 

 months before it was printed for it had a pre- 



