GOLDONI 



3589 



GOLDSMITH 



Goldoni, CAKLO (1707-93). Ita- 

 lian dramatist. Born at Venice, 

 Feb. 25, 1707, the son of a physi- 

 cian, and in- 

 tended for the 

 law, he took to 

 pi ay -writing, 

 and in a quick 

 succession o f 

 comedies revo- 

 lutionised the 

 Italian stage. 

 Facile in com- 



ItaUan dramatist * n . invention, 

 with a gift 



for writing animated dialogue, and 

 an abounding sense of humour, 

 he wrote many works more re- 

 markable for their wit than their 

 morality, such as The Twins of 

 Venice, The Weak-Headed Lady, 

 The Lady of Merit, The Obedient 

 Daughter, and The Landlady ; 

 comedies that, at least, reflected 

 much of the lighter life of his 

 time. A dispute with his rival, 

 Count Gozzi, who provoked him by 

 parody, led Goldoni to leave Italy 

 for Paris, where he became attached 

 to the court. He died Feb. 6, 

 1793. See Italy : Literature ; con- 

 sult also Memoires, 1787; Goldoni 

 and the Venice of his Times, J. S. 

 Kennard, 1920. 



Gold Point. In financial circles, 

 the point at which it pays bankers 

 in one country to export gold to 

 another in discharge of their liabili- 

 ties. Usually foreign payments are 

 made by bills of exchange, but if 

 the price of these bills passes a 

 certain point it will be more econo- 

 mical to ship gold than to purchase 

 bills. See Exchange. 



Golds. Primitive tribe on the 

 banks of the lower Amur, Sungari, 

 and Usuri rivers, E. Siberia. Allied 

 to the Tungus in race and speech, 

 and preserving primitive Altaian 

 characters and shamanism, they 

 and their swine and dogs subsist 

 mainly on river fishes. They prac- 

 tise a skilful decorative art. 



Gold Salts. Gold unites directly 

 with chlorine to form gold di- 

 chloride, which when brought in 

 contact with water is decomposed 

 into aurous chloride (AuCl) and 

 auric chloride (AuCl 3 ). Auric 

 chloride or gold trichloride is, how- 

 ever, usually made by dissolving 

 gold in aqua regia, a mixture of 

 four parts of hydrochloric acid, and 

 one part of nitric acid. Gold tri- 

 chloride is used in photography for 

 toning silver prints, a process 

 which replaces the silver of the 

 photography by metallic gold. 



The oxides of gold are prepared 

 from the chloride, and from gold 

 trihydroxide is made the form of 

 metallic gold used in miniature 

 painting. See Gold. 



Goldschmidt, MEIER ADOLF C the son of a clergyman, the greater 

 (1819-87). Danish author. He part of his boyhood was spent at 

 began his career as contributor to 

 Nestved Ugeblad, later Corsaren, 

 the Danish Punch. His first novel, 

 The Jew, 1845, provided him with 



a theme that he made his own 

 among Danish novelists, and to 

 which he returns in many of his 

 Tales, 1846, and later books. He 

 started two journals : North and 

 South, 1847, a monthly magazine 

 written entirely by himself ; and 



At Home 

 which 



and 



Abroad, 1861, to 

 tributed brilliant 

 articles on life 

 and politics. 

 Among his 

 novels may be 

 mentioned 

 Homeless, 

 1853-57, Eng. 

 trans, by the 

 author 1861 ; 

 T he Heir, 

 865; 



liaven, 

 1867; Avrohmche Nattegal, 1871. 



Goldsmith. One who works in 

 gold. The term is also applied to 

 workers in precious metals gener- 

 ally and to dealers in gold and 

 silver plate. Goldsmiths were 

 among the earliest of the great 

 craftsmen. They are referred to in 

 the O.T. (Neh. iii, 8 and 31 ; Isaiah 

 xl, 19 ; xli, 7 ; xlvi, 6). 



The craft was brought to a high 

 perfection in Italy, France, and 

 Germany. In England more atten- 

 tion was paid to silver plate,though 

 the goldsmith's craft was not neg- 

 lected. Owing to the great value 

 of gold, artists chose bronze for the 

 bulk of their grander conceptions, 

 but many of the greatest painters 

 and sculptors began their art edu- 

 cation in the goldsmith's shop. 



Francia was a goldsmith and 

 signed several of his pictures 

 " Francia thegoldsmith." Domenico 

 Ghirlandaio, Michelangelo's teacher, 

 was goldsmith as well as painter. 

 Andrea Verrocchio, the master* of 

 Leonardo da Vinci, practised the art, 

 and Lorenzo Ghiberti acquired as 

 goldsmith the skill which enabled 

 him to beat out the two bronze 

 gates for the baptistery at Flor- 

 ence which Michelangelo declared 

 were worthy of Paradise. (See 

 Door, illus). Goldsmiths were also 

 bankers. Sev Banking ; Goldsmiths' 

 Company ; Hall Mark ; Jewelry ; 

 consult also The Art of the Gold- 

 smith and Jeweller, T. B. Wigley, 

 1898; English Goldsmiths and 

 Their Marks, C. J. Jackson, 1905 ; 

 Goldsmiths' and Silversmiths' 

 Work, N. Dawson, 1907. 



Goldsmith, OLIVER (1728-74). 

 Irish writer. Born at Pallas, co. 

 Longford, Ireland, Nov. 10, 1728, 



the little village of Lissoy, in West 

 Meath, the Sweet Auburn of The 

 Deserted Village. Neither at school 

 nor at Trinity College, Dublin, 

 where he went in 1744, did Gold- 

 smith give promise of future great- 

 ness. Successive attempts to get 

 him into the Church and the legal 

 profession having failed, Gold- 

 smith's relatives sent him to Edin- 

 burgh to study medicine in 1752, 

 with equally unsatisfactory re- 

 sults. -From 1754-56 his life was 

 that of a wanderer. He visited 

 Holland, ostensibly studying at 

 Leiden, Belgium, France, Switzer- 

 land, Italy, and Germany, journey- 

 ing on foot from place to place. 

 Sometimes he enjoyed the hospi- 

 tality of universities which wel- 

 comed peripatetic scholars to their 

 disputations, more often he was 

 dependent for food and lodging on 

 some humble wayside cottage 

 whose inmates he repaid for their 

 kindness by a tune on his flute. 



from the portrait by Reynolds in the 

 National Portrait Gallery 



Goldsmith's experiences during 

 these years are reflected in his 

 poem The Traveller. 



Settling in London in 1756, Gold- 

 smith tried many ways of earning 

 a living, including acting and teach- 

 ing, but always without success. 

 Failing to pass the examination for 

 surgeon's mate in the navy, he de- 

 termined to settle down as a book- 

 seller's hack, writing on an amaz- 

 ing variety of subjects of which he 

 had no particular knowledge. This 

 class of work he continued more or 

 less all the rest of his life. A book 

 on Natural History and histories 

 of England and Rome are the most 

 notable of his hack productions. 



His first real contribution to 

 English classics was the Letters of 

 a Citizen of the World, published in 



