216 



GINKELL 



GIORGIONE 



yield a wholesome oil. Tlie Japanese esteemed the 

 tree as sacred, and planted it round their temples. 

 Being a free-grower, and having been introduced 

 in the 18th century, large trees are now not uncom- 

 mon in Europe, nor in America, where they were 

 introduced in 1784. The tree is dioscious, but the 

 Chinese sometimes plant several male and female 

 trees close together, so that male and female flowers 

 appear to arise on the same tree. 



Giiikell. See GINCKELL. 



Ginseng, a root highly esteemed in China as a 

 medicine, being universally regarded as possessing 

 the most extraordinary virtues, and as a remedy for 

 almost all diseases, but particularly for exhaustion 

 of body or mind. It is the root of a species of 

 Panax (order Araliaee;ie ), appropriately so called 

 since so typical a panacea. P. Ginseng of Chinese 

 Tartary is, however, scarcely distinct from P. quin- 

 quefolium of North America, Avhich is exported to 

 China to the amount of about 500,000 Ib. annually, 

 but fetches a lower price. The ginseng of Corea is 

 most valued, and is carefully cultivated in that 

 country. It is raised from seed ; the seedlings are 

 planted out, and frequently transplanted, and it 

 is not till the fifth year that the plant reaches 

 maturity. Ordinary ginseng is prepared by simply 

 drying the root over a charcoal hre ; the red or 

 clarified ginseng is steamed in earthenware vessels 

 with holes. The root is mucilaginous, sweetish, 

 also slightly bitter and aromatic. It has been 

 regarded as a very elixir of life all over the East, 

 but especially in China and Japan. Western 

 medical practitioners, however, have as yet failed 

 to confirm or explain its extraordinary reputation 

 among the Chinese. The export from Corea, 

 amounting to 27,000 Ib. in a good year, is a strict 

 monopoly. The wild ginseng of Corea has fre- 

 quently fetched twenty times its weight in silver 

 in China. P. fruticosus and cochleatus of the 

 Moluccas are fragrant aromatics used in Indian 

 native medicine. 



Gioberti, VINCENZO, an Italian philosopher and 

 political writer, was born 5th April 1801, at Turin. 

 Educated for the church, he was ordained to the 

 priesthood in 1825, and on the accession of Charles 

 Albert to the throne of Sardinia was selected as 

 cliaplain to the court. But, his liberal views being 

 obnoxious to the clerical party, he was two years 

 later suddenly arrested, and after four months' im- 

 prisonment sent out of the country. After a short 

 stay at Paris, the exile went on (1834) to Brussels, 

 where he spent eleven years as private tutor in an 

 academy, pursuing in his leisure hours his favourite 

 studies. These were at first of a philosophic nature, 

 the fruits of his labours appearing in Introduzione 

 allo Studio della Filosofia (1839), Del Bello 

 ( 1841 ), and Del Buono ( 1842 ). Towards the end of 

 his period of exile in Brussels he began to write on 

 the state of Italy. A devout Catholic, Gioberti 

 looked upon the papacy as the divinely appointed 

 agency for the elevation of Italy among the nations. 

 A confederation of states subject to papal arbitra- 

 tion, and having in the king of Sardinia a military 

 protector, was the scheme he devised for the unity 

 and regeneration of his country. These views he 

 elaborately developed in Del Primato Civile e Morale 

 degli Italiani. Its publication in Paris in* 1843 was 

 hailed with the utmost enthusiasm in Italy, and his 

 fame was still further enhanced by his work // 

 Gesuita Moderno (1846-47), directed against the 

 Jesuit order. On his return to Italy in 1848 he 

 was received with universal ovations from all classes 

 of the people, was chosen by both Turin and 

 Genoa as their representative in parliament, was 

 appointed senator by the king, and subsequently 

 elected president of the chamber of deputies, and 

 finally prime-minister. As a statesman, however, 



he was not successful, and after a few weeks' tenure 

 of office he resigned. Being shortly afterwards 

 despatched to Paris on a political mission, he finally 

 settled there and devoted himself exclusively to 

 literary pursuits. He died at Paris of apoplexy, 

 26th October 1852. His chief writings besides those 

 mentioned are Teorica del Soprannaturale (1838), 

 a work against what he regarded as the philo- 

 sophical errors of his countryman Rosmini (1842), 

 Del Rinnovamento Civile d'ltalia ( 1851 ), La Filoso- 

 fia della Rivelazione (1856), and Della Protologia 

 (1857). In philosophy he stood somewhat apart 

 from most schools, though cherishing Platonic 

 sympathies ; his works, though Christian and re- 

 ligiously orthodox, were placed on the Index. In 

 1856-63 Massari published in 11 vols. the Opere 

 Inedite of Gioberti. See Massari, Vita di Gioberti 

 (1848) ; Spaventa, La Filosofia di Gioberti (1864 ); 

 and Berti, Gioberti ( 1881 ). 



Gioja del Colle, a town of Italy, 33 miles by 

 rail S. of Bari, has a trade in corn, wine, and oil, 

 and 16,573 inhabitants. 



Giordano, LUCA, an Italian painter, was born 

 at Naples, about 1632, studied under Ribera in that 

 town, and afterwards under Cortona at Rome. 

 Subsequently he visited the principal centres of 

 painting in Italy. Giordano acquired the power of 

 Avorking with extreme rapidity (whence his nick- 

 name Fa-Presto, ' Make- haste '), and of imitating 

 the style of most of the great masters. Conse- 

 quently much of his work is hurried and superficial. 

 In 1692 he proceeded to Madrid, at the request of 

 Charles II. of Spain, who desired his assistance in 

 the embellishment of the Escorial. On the death 

 of Charles in 1700 Giordano returned to Naples, 

 where he died, 12th January 1705. His finest fres- 

 coes are to be found in the Treasury of the Certosa, 

 near Pavia, and in the church of San Lorenzo, in 

 the Escorial ; his best pictures are ' Christ ex- 

 pelling the Traders ' and ' Francis Xavier ' ( Naples ), 

 a Nativity (Madrid), the 'Judgment of Paris' 

 (Berlin), and several in the gallery at Dresden. 



Giorgione (i.e. 'Great George'), the name 

 conferred, by reason of his stature and his artistic 

 eminence, on Giorgio Barbarella, who was born 

 about 1477, near Castelfranco, in the Vene- 

 tian province of Treviso, the illegitimate son, 

 as it is believed, of a member of the Barbarella 

 family by a peasant girl of Vedelago. At an early 

 age he came to Venice, and studied painting under 

 Giovanni Bellini, where Titian was his fellow-pupil. 

 He soon attained fame as a painter, developing a 

 manner freer and larger in handling arid design 

 than that of his master, and characterised by 

 intense poetic feeling, by great beauty and rich- 

 ness of colouring, and by a constant reference to 

 nature, as is very visible in the landscape back- 

 grounds of his figure-pieces, in which he intro- 

 duced the scenery that surrounded his birthplace. 

 While still young he executed portraits of Goiizalvo 

 of Cordova, of the Doges Agostino Barbarigo and 

 Leonardo Loredano, and of Queen Coi'naro of 

 Cyprus, who then resided at Asolo, not far from 

 Castelfranco ; but these works have disappeared. 

 One of the earliest of his productions that have 

 survived is an ' Enthroned Madonna with SS. 

 Francis and Liberale,' an altarpiece commissioned, 

 probably in 1504, by Tuzio Costanzo for the church 

 of Castelfranco where Giorgione also executed 

 frescoes. These latter perished when the edifice 

 was destroyed, but the altarpiece is still preserved 

 in the new church. It has been reproduced by the 

 Arundel Society, and the oil study for its figure of 

 S. Liberale is in the National Gallery, London. In 

 Venice also Giorgione was extensively employed in 

 fresco-painting, decorating in this manner the 

 exterior of his own house in the Campo di San 



