BEL 



197 



BEL 



gttinis, febribuf, &c., Bononiac, 1683. His works have 

 been collected and published in two volumes, 4to., Opera 

 Omnia, Venetiis, 1708, and reprinted 1732. 



Bellini possessed a taste for music and poetry, and was 

 the author of a poem called Bucchereide, which was pub- 

 lished after his death at Florence in 1729. 



(See Sprengel, L'Histmre de la Medicine ; Haller, Bi- 

 lliotheca Median ce Practicce, \o\.ii\. p. 124 ; Fabroni Vitce 

 Italorum, vol. iv.) 



BELLINZO'NA, one of the three towns of the Canton 

 Ticino in Italian Switzerland: Lugano and Locarno are 

 the other two, which are by turns the seat of the cantonal 

 government. It is situated in a pleasant valley on both 

 banks of the Ticino, eight miles above its entrance into the 

 Lago Maggiore, and on the road from Switzerland to Milan 

 by the St. Gothard. The valley is very narrow at Bellin- 

 zona, and the town, with its three castles, completely shuts 

 up the pass. Another road branches off three miles north 

 of Bellmzona, eastwards, and along the Val Misocco into 

 the canton of the Orisons, and over Mount Bernardin to 

 Coire and the banks of the lake of Constance. This road puts 

 eastern Switzerland and central Germany in direct commu- 

 nication with the Sardinian states which border the western 

 bank of the Lago Maggiore, and thus the Austrian territories 

 are avoided ; goods from the port of Genoa are sent into 

 Bavaria and Wiirtemberg, while German manufactures arc 

 gent down to Turin or Genoa. This useful road has been 

 constructed since the last peace at the joint expense of the 

 Grisons, the Canton Ticino, and the king of Sardinia. The 

 following inscription is placed on Mount Bernardin : ' Jam 

 via palet ho.tibus et amicis; cavete Rhaeti ! Simplicitas 

 iiuiruiii et unio servabunt avitam libertatem.' The traveller 

 who descends either the St. Gothard or the Bernardin finds 

 at Bellinzona the climate and the productions of Italy : the 

 vine, the laurel, the mulberry and fig trees thrive there, and 

 even the orange and lemon are trained against the walls. 

 The neighbouring mountains are covered with large chestnut 

 trees. Chestnuts and the polenta, or pudding made of the 

 Hour of Indian corn, constitute here, as in other parts of 

 Northern Italy, the common food of the peasantry. The 

 people of Canton Ticino are Catholics. [See TICINO.] The 

 population of Bellinzona is about 1300. (Carta, Manuale 

 di Geografia, Milan, 1826.) Bellinzona is seventy-five miles 

 S.S.E. of the Hospice of the St. Gothard, fourteen miles 

 north of Lugano, and thirty miles from Como, the first 

 town of the Austrian territories on the road to Milan. 

 (Kasthofer, Vnyage dan* les petits Cantons et dans leg 

 Alpm Rhitiennei ; Walsh, Voyage en Suisse, en Lombardie, 

 et en Piemvnt ; Ebel's Manual.) 



BELLMANX, CHARLES MICHEL, a Swedish poet, 

 who is justly entitled to the fame of originality above all 

 his Swedish contemporaries, was horn at Stockholm in 

 1741, and died in 1796. He studied at the University 

 of Upsala, and after he had left it was enabled to devote 

 himself entirely to his favourite pursuits of poetry and 

 literature by the liberality of Gustavus III., who appointed 

 him to a nominal office, with a competent income, and the 

 title of secretary of the court. The king had already fa- 

 vourably noticed Bellmann's earliest productions, which were 

 a metrical translation from the German of Schweidnitz's 

 'Evangelical Dying Thoughts' {' Evangelische Todesge- 

 danken ). published when he was only sixteen ; and a poem 

 entitled ' Zion's Hiigtid' (the ' Festival of Zion'); to which 

 some years afterwards were added : ' Bachi Tempel ' (the 

 ' Temple of Bacchus'), the most important of his poems ; 

 Friedmann's ' Epistler og Songer ;' and a Swedish transla- 

 tion from the German of Gellert's ' Fables.' His posthu- 

 mous works, ' Skaldestykken' (' Poems'), and Friedmann's 

 Handskrifter' (Friedmann's 'Manuscripts'), were pub- 

 lished; the first at Stockholm, 2 volumes, 1812, and the 

 second at Upsala, 1813. Bellmann's poetical pictures gene- 

 rally represent scenes of the lowest life in Sweden; but they 

 re so chaste, so true, so full of imagination, and their 

 colours arc so lively, that the reader forgets the scenes of 

 vulgarity to which he is introduced, and finds himself sud- 

 denly transported from low tap-rooms to cheerful habita- 

 tions of joy and song. To enter, however, fully into the 

 spirit of Bellmann's lyrical productions, it is necessary, not 

 only to read them, but also to hear them sung to the tunes 

 which were composed expressly for them. Bellmann had 

 a heart open to friendship, he was a cheerful companion, 

 and bore a good moral character. (See Ersch and Gruber's 

 Encyclopedia.) 



BELLO'NA, the goddess of war among the Romans, 

 corresponding in some measure with Enyo of the Greeks ; 

 but much confusion has arisen in the study of antient my- 

 thology from the habit of looking upon the names of the 

 Greek and Roman deities as convertible with one another. 

 Where there are some points of resemblance, there are often 

 still more of dissimilarity, especially as regards those deities 

 which were the objects of religious honour among the Ro- 

 mans before the introduction of Greek and Asiatic forms of 

 worship. The Saturn of the Romans, for example, is far from 

 identical with the Kionos of the Greeks; Minerva, again, 

 differs much from PUlas, and Diana from Artemis. The 

 greater part of the deities strictly belonging to the Romans 

 have names which have grown out of the language itself. 

 This cannot be said of the Greek deities. Thus Bellona 

 is properly a feminine adjective, which with the noun dea 

 signifies the goddess of war (from bello, war) ; so Pomona, 

 the goddess of fruit (porno) ; Portunus, or Portumnus, 

 the god of harbours (portu) ; Vertumnus, of change (versu, 

 antiently vertu) ; Silvanus, of woods (silva) ; Luna, or 

 Lucina, the goddess of light (luc, and perhaps luci) ; For- 

 tuna, the goddess of chance (fort, or more probably from 

 an obsolete nounfortu) ; Dianus, afterwards Janus, the god 

 of light, until the Greek Apollo usurped this character; 

 Diana, or Jana (a name actually used), the goddess of light 

 or moon (die, day). On the same principle, no doubt, are 

 formed the names of Vulcanus (compare fulgeo, ^Xsyw, 

 shine, blaze), Neptunus (compare viirria, wash, and nympha, 

 a goddess of water), Saturnus (compare satur, full), Picum- 

 nus, Pilumnus, Faunus ; and we might perhaps look upon 

 Auctumnus (from auctu, increase) as a deity. 



Another principle which pervades the Roman mythology 

 is the division of each object of fear or desire between deities 

 of either sex. (Niebuhr, Roman Hist.) We have already 

 seen Dianus and Diana. Besides these, there occur Saturnus, 

 the god of plenty ; Ops, the goddess of plenty ; Vulcanus 

 and Vesta, the god and goddess of fire ; Tellumo and Tellus, 

 of earth; Neptunus and Nympha (Nimfa would be a more 

 correct Latin form), of water; Jupiter, or rather Jove, and 

 Juno, of air. In the same way they had Mavors (or Gra- 

 divus), together with Bellona, to preside over war. 



The temple of Bellona was founded, according to Pliny 

 (xxxv. 3), in the year 259 of Rome, by App. Claudius, the 

 colleague of P. Scrvilius Priscus. Livy, however (x. 19), 

 refers the foundation to AppT Claudius Ciccus, the colleague 

 of L. V'olumnius, in the year of Rome 456 ; and the latter 

 is confirmed by an inscription in Gruter (389. 4). Both 

 accounts will be substantially true, if the latter only rebuilt 

 the temple. When any Roman family had once connected 

 its name with a public work, those who afterwards bore the 

 name had a pride in keeping up the connexion. The temple 

 was situated in the ninth region, between the Carmental 

 Gate and the Flaminian Circus, and consequently without 

 the walls of Servius. It was on this account the place 

 usually selected by the Roman senate and consuls for the 

 reception of embassies from hostile powers, and also of their 

 own generals, especially when these came to claim a tri- 

 umph ; for the imperium, or supreme military authority, 

 was at once annulled by an entrance into the city, and with 

 it all claim to a triumph. Near the temple was a column, 

 over which a spear was hurled as a declaration of war against 

 any foreign state. (Ovid, Fasti, vi. 201.) This rite was 

 introduced to supply the place of another. According to 

 the original ceremony, a herald, or fecial, proceeded to the 

 frontiers, and hurled a spear of defiance into the hostile 

 territory ; but as the limits of the empire were extended, 

 this became impracticable. 



The goddess was usually represented as wearing a hel- 

 met, and bearing a shield in one hand, in the other a fire- 

 brand, a spear, or a lash. Sometimes she was blowing a 

 trumpet, or uttering a war-cry and rushing to the combat. 

 Her image is seen on the coins of the Bruttii, or Brettii. 

 (Montfaucon, Ant. Ex. i. 126.) 



The wildest extravagance marked her worship. Her 

 priests (Bellonarii), like those of Cybele and Bacchus, af- 

 fected insanity (Juvenal, iv. 123), whirling their heads round 

 with fearful rapidity, and shrieking out words of pretended 

 prophecy. On the 24th of March, which was appropriately 

 called the day of blood, they exhibited their zeal by making 

 incisions in their arms, and sprinkling all around with their 

 blood. The more prudent among her followers, however, 

 contrived to produce the appearance of wounds without any 

 eelf-torture, a laxity which the Emperor Commodus cor- 



