B F I. 



19T, 



B K I. 



a small feeler of the Rhone, flows a short distance west of 

 the town. 



The bishopric formerly extended into Savoy. At present 

 it includes the department of Ain. Population in 1832, 

 .1-16,030. The bishop is a suffragan of the archbishop of 

 Besancon. 



BELU'NT. JACOPO. was born in Venice. He was 

 one of the earliest practitioners in oil painting, and his 

 works have considerable merit, considering the age in 

 which they were executed. He adorned the public edifices 

 of Venice with a great number of pictures, the principal of 

 which were a series of subjects from the New Testament 

 in the church of St. John the Evangelist. He was distin- 

 Uuished in portrait-painting, and among many other eminent 

 persons who sate to him were Lusignano, King of Cyprus, 

 and the Dope Cornaro. This artist died in 1470. 



BE 1,1,1 N I. GENTILE, was the eldest son of the pre- 

 ceding, and born at Venice in 1421. He studied under 

 his father, and acted for some time as his assistant, but 

 subsequently pained such reputation by his original works 

 that he was employed, in conjunction with his brother, 

 Giovanni, to decorate the great council-chamber of the 

 Venetian senate house. His other principal works are the 

 Histories of the Holy Cross at San Giovanni, and the 

 Preaching of St. Mark, at the college of that saint : this 

 latter work vies in colouring and effect with the pictures of 

 Paris Bordone, which hang near it, a proof that Bellini had 

 made immense improvement on his original style ; in other 

 respects, the picture is marked by the barbarity of early 

 art ; the figures, which arc numerous, are introduced with- 

 out discrimination, the maimed, halt, and deformed, being 

 among them, all painted with rigid regard to nature, but 

 exhibiting ridiculous anachronisms, their costume being 

 that of Turks or Venetians. His Presentation of the In- 

 fant Jesus at the Temple, in the Palazzo Barberigo, is a 

 highly-esteemed performance. Some of Bellini's pictures 

 were taken by commercial speculators to Constantinople, 

 where, having been seen hy the sultan, Mohammed II., 

 that monarch sent an invitation to the artist to make a visit 

 to hi* court. This proposal was accepted by Bellini ; he 

 was courteously received by the sultan, who sat to him for 

 his portrait, and commissioned him to paint various his- 

 torical works. Among the rest was the subject of the De- 

 collation of St. John : this picture being completed was 

 greatly admired by Mohammed, who pointed out, never- 

 theless, some inaccuracy in the marking of the dissevered 

 neck ; and in order to prove the justice of his criticism, he 

 ordered the head of a slave to be struck off in the presence 

 of the astonished artist. From this moment Bellini never 

 enjoyed an hour's tranquillity until he had obtained leave 

 to return to Venice. Mohammed dismissed him with many 

 marks of favour, placing a gold chain round his neck, anil 

 giving him letters to the Venetian senate expressive of his 



tiiction. During his residence in Constantinople he 

 struck a medallion of the sultan. He was engaged in 

 various public works after his return to Venice, for which 

 he was requited by the republic with an honourable pension 

 for life, and the order of St. Mark. He died in 1501, aged 

 eighty. 



BBLLINI, GIOVANNI, the son of Jocopo, and the 

 brother of Gentile Bellini, was born at Venice in 1422. He 

 was the best artist of his family, and contributed, perhaps, 

 more than any painter of his time to emancipate art from 

 the dry Gothic manner of his predecessors. His first public 

 works were those in the Venetian senate-house, in the 



ration of which he was associated with his brother. 

 Gentile. It is asserted by some authorities that the invi- 

 tation of Mohammed II. was sent to Giovanni, but thai the 

 senate induced Gentile to go in his stead, being unwilling 

 to lose the services of their most distinguished artist. 



mm ornamented the public edifices and churches ol 

 \ cnicc and other cities of Italy with a prodigious number 

 of paintings, and continued his labours to a very advanced 

 age. Among hii most distinguished works are altar-pieces 

 in the Sacristy of the Convenluali and at San Zaccaria at 

 Venice ; and in the monastery of the Capuchins in that 



is a picture of the Infant Jesus slumbering in the lap 

 ot'tliu Madonna and attended by angels, a work conspicuous 

 for its grace, beauty, and expression. To these may bo 

 mddcid a Virgin in the cathedral of Bergamo, a Baptism of 

 our Ixml at Santa Corona, at Viconza, and Christ and the 

 \V -man of Samaria at the Well, in the Schiarra Palace ;il 

 Rome. In all th-e works the elements of a finer style are 



more visible than had been practised either by Perugino. 

 niiirlandaio, or any of bin immediate contemporaries. Bel- 

 ini introduced a more ample stjle of drapery, he gene- 

 ralized his colour, and gave breadth to his masses; and 

 although he fell short of the excellence which was soon 

 after attained by Giorgione und Titian, he claims the honour 

 of having given the first hints of that admirable style which 

 was perfected by those great masters. Some of ins small 

 pictures are in England : hut it is only by hit large works 

 in Italy that an adequate idea of his powers can be formed. 

 He died at the age of ninety, in 1312. (Vasari ; Lanzi ; 

 Kodolfl ; IV Piles.) 



BKLLI'NI, LAURENTIO, descended from a res) 

 able family, was born at Florence in 1643. After receiving 

 in his native place the elements of a classical education, he 

 proceeded to Pisa, to enjoy the advantages which the Grand 

 Duke Ferdinand II. granted to those who were disposed to 

 study the sciences. At this time the doctrines adopted in 

 order to explain the functions of the human body wen- th- 

 rived from tin- sect of mathematical physicians, who ascribed 

 them to mechanical principles. The leader of this si-ct was 

 Borelli, then professor of mechanics and anatomy at ! 

 Under him, and also under Alexander Marchetti, pro!' 

 of mathematics, Bellini studied, and imbibed their opinions. 

 He made such rapid progress, that, when only twenty years 

 of age, he was appointed professor of philosophy at l'i-:i. 

 Shortly afterwards he was made professor of anatomy, and 

 was frequently honoured with the attendance of the grand 

 duke at his lectures. He continued to teach anatomy and to 

 practise medicine at Pisa, with great success, for thirty jear- , 

 when he was invited to Florence, and made chief ph\ - 

 to the Grand Duke Cosmo III. At the recommendation it 

 Lancisi, physician to Pope Clement XI., he was nominated 

 senior consulting physician to that pontiff. His reputation 

 was also extended to foreign countries both by his writings 

 and pupils, one of the most distinguished of whom was 

 Dr. Archibald Pitcairn, successively professor at Lejden 

 and Edinburgh, who introduced and maintained the doc- 

 trines of his master in these celebrated schools, where they 

 held sway for a considerable time. Bellini died on the 8th 

 of January, 1704. 



Borelli and his pupil Bellini having likened the body to a 

 collection of tubes, forming an hydraulic machine, calcu- 

 lated the force of the circulation of the blood and other 

 fluids through them, making allowance for the diminished 

 velocity of their course arising from the friction along tin- 

 sides of the vessels, the angles nt which the branches of the 

 arteries were given off from the main trunk, the curves 

 which were formed by the vessels, and the diminished 

 calibre of these as they proceeded to their terminations. 

 The moving or propelling force was not, in their opinion, 

 solely mechanical, but arose from a fermentation in the 

 blood, by which certain animal or vital spirits were disen- 

 gaged, which forced the blood along the channels of the 

 blood-vessel?. So far, therefore, a unanimity of views c\ 

 isted between the chemical and mathematical sect of phy 

 sicians. To give an example of Bellini's opinions, we may 

 select his explanation of the alternate contractions and 

 dilations of the auricles and ventricles of the heart : accord 

 ing to him, when the blood fills the ventricles, it compresses 

 the nerves of the auricles, and so prevents the influence cf 

 the vital spirits, and causes the auricles to be distended. 



His theory of respiration was of a similar kind. In his 

 estimation, the sole object of respiration was to push the 

 blood into the capillary or extreme vessels with a suitable 

 degree of force. His views respecting secretion and inflam 

 m.ition are more important, as they had much influence 

 upon practice, both during his own life and for nearly a 

 century afterwards. The doublings and windings of the 

 capillaries in the glands was the chief cause, in his view ol 

 the subject, of the different secretions, and an accumulation 

 or prolonged stay of the blood in these vessels was the cause 

 of inflammations and fevers. These opinions formed the 

 basis of the doctrines of nh.s/rurlinn and lentnr, which being 

 adopted by Boerhaave in his eclectic system of medicine, 

 wen- extended by him and his pupils to most of the medical 

 schools of Europe. Their importance has greatly declined 

 since the writings of Ilaller and John Hunter. 



The writings of Belhni are now little read. The best is 

 the treatise <;n\tiis Orgnnum nnritrimt deprchentum, 

 Bononio?, IM,;,. in which he pointed out the papilla- of the 

 tonirne to be the essential organ of tasto. The next most 

 important is entitled De Urints, Pulsibiu, Missinne sail- 



