B E R 



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B E R 



and assiduously, being sometime* for (even hours together 

 at Ins chisel. He did not interrupt his work for any strangers 

 who came to visit hit study, whether princes or cardinals ; 

 they stepped softly in, and tat down to look at him in silence. 

 Under the pontificate of Innocent X., who succeeded Urban 

 VIII., Bernini made the (Treat fountain in the Piazia Na- 

 vona, and he alto began the palace of Monte Citorio. By 

 Alexander VII. he was commissioned to execute the great 

 work of the piaxia before St. Peter's ; he made the splendid 

 colonnade and alto the great staircase leading from the 

 portico of the church to the Vatican palace. He next made 

 the Cattedra, or great chair of St. Pettfr's, of gilt bronze. 

 The palace Bracciano at Snnti ApostoK Is also one of Ins 

 works, though not among the best. The elegant church of 

 Sant' Andrea ;\ Monte Cavallo is likewise 1>\ him. 



Louis XIV. wrote to Bernini in 1664, urgently in- 

 viting him to come to Paris, in order to superintend some of 

 his buildings, and especially that of the Ixiuvre. Tin- French 

 ambassador at the court of Home, Duke of Crcqui, applied 

 to Pope Alexander in his master's name to the same effect. 

 Bernini hesitated a while, but at last set off. Hi* journey 

 was a triumphal procession : he made his public entrance 

 into Florence, and was received by the Grand Duke with 

 the greatest honours. He met with a similar recaption at 

 Turin, at Lyons, and every where on the road. The Nunzio 

 went out of 'Paris to meet him. He was received at the court 

 of Louis as a man whose presence honoured France. \Y !;:> 

 Bernini however saw the front of the Louvre, which looks 

 toward the church of St. Germain, and which was then K-mi: 

 executed after the design of Claude Perrault, he candidly 

 said, that a country which hod architects of that stamp stood 

 in no need of him, and accordingly he did nothing at Paris 

 in the way of architecture. He remained for about eitjlil 

 months in that capital, and was employed in several works of 

 sculpture, among others a bust of Louis XIV.. for which he 

 wag most splendidly remunerated. On his return to Rome, 

 in token of gratitude, he made an equestrian statue of 

 Louis XIV., which was afterwards placed at Versailles. 

 Clement IX., who succeeded Alexander VII., employed 

 Bernini in several works, among others, the balustrades on 

 the bridge of Sant' Angelo, the Villa Rospigliosl near 

 Pistoja, and the altar of the Rospigliosi Chapel at Pistoja. 

 When eighty years of age, Bernini executed a Christ in 

 marble, and presented it to Queen Christina of Sweden, 

 who had been his constant patroness, but she declined to 

 accept it, saying that she was not rich enough to pay for 

 it as it deserved. Bernini however bequeathed the statue 

 to her by his will. He died at Rome in 1680, eighty-two 

 years of age, honoured and regretted by all. and was buried 

 in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore. He left a property 

 of about 400,000 scudi, nearly 100,0001. sterling. He was 

 one of the most successful and best remunerated artists that 

 has ever lived. 



Bernini was hasty and naturally passionate, but warm- 

 hearted, charitable, and an enemy to envy and slander. 

 Ho was of a lively disposition, and fond of theatrical per- 

 formances, in which he sometimes acted a part. He was 

 a painter as well as sculptor, and left about 150 paint- 

 ings, most of which were purchased for the galleries of Bar- 

 berini and Ghigi. Of his works of sculpture and archi- 

 tecture, which arc very numerous, Milizia gives a list in his 

 life of Bemini. (Milizia, Vitt degli Architelti.) The mau- 

 soleums of Alexander VII., of Urban VIII., and of the 

 Countess Matilda, in St Peter's Church, are by him. Soft- 

 ness and finish of execution are the characteristics of Ber- 

 nini's sculpture: he did not succeed so well in beauty of de- 

 sign and form. In his likenesses he is said to have been 

 very successful. With regard to architecture his works arc 

 elegant and pleasing in their general effect, though often 

 faulty in some of their parts. He multiplied ornaments ; he 

 did not always maintain the character of the respective styles; 

 he intermixed curved with straight lines; in short, instead 

 cf simplicity, he often followed his own elegant caprice. 

 (Milizia, Vita del Bernini.) Some of his disciples and 

 imitators carried his faults farther than their master. Ber- 

 nini however never fell into the extravagant vagaries of his 

 contemporary Borromini. Mattia de' Rossi was Bernini's fa- 

 vourite pupil. Carlo Fontana was also one of his disciples. 



BERNOULLI, the name of a family which is known 

 in the history of matheraatic* by the services of eight of it* 

 members. These am not all of equal, or nearly equal cele- 

 brity ; but it is necessary to notice each, not only to enable 

 the reader to avoid the confusion which so largo a number of 



similar names has introduced into historical writings, but 

 also because a moderate degree of reputation becomes re- 

 markable, when it forms part of so conspicuous a mass. 

 The Casiiiim (of whom four are well known in astronomj) 

 present a similar phenomenon in the history of knowledge. 



The family of the Bernoullis is said to have originally 

 belonged to Antwerp, and to have emigrated in Frankfurt to 

 avoid the religious persecution under the Duke of Alva: it 

 finally settled at Basle. Nicolas Bernoulli, tin 

 ancestor of the subjects of this noti'-c, hold a high station in 

 that republic, and wa's succeeded in it by a son, now un- 

 known. He had eleven children, of whom two are the 

 most distinguished of the eight Bernoullis, and another, 

 whose name we cannot find, was the father of a third. But 

 the whole connexion will l>e better understood by the follow- 

 ing genealogical diagram, which includes the common an- 

 cestor and the eight descendants in question. The years of 

 birth and death arc added : 



NlCCI.Ai. 



However distinguished these men m ay he. tin- events of 

 their lives arc of comparatively little ii con- 



nected with the history of the sciences which they culti- 

 vated ; and of their works it would be impossible to treat to 

 an extent corresponding to their reputation or utility, with- 

 out writing the history of mathematics for a century. \\V 

 shall, therefore, here confine ourselves 1. To the principal 

 events of their lives. 2. To the mention of such of their 

 researches as are most connected with their personal cha- 

 racters. 3. To a very short account of the position which 

 their labours occupy in the chain of inve.-tisiatii.n. 



JAMES BERNOULLI I., was born sit Basle. December 

 27th, 1(55-1. His father intended tlu.t he should be a divine, 

 and had him taught the classics and scholastic philosophy, 

 but no mathematics. Accident threw geometrical luniks in 

 his way, and he studied them with ardour, in spite of the 

 opposition of his father. He took for his device Ph. 

 driving the chariot of the Sun, with the motto. Invitn 

 patre sidera verso. At the age of twenty-two he travelled 

 to Geneva, and from thence to France. It is recur. 

 him that at the former place he taught a blind pirl to 

 write, and that at Bordeaux he prepared gnomonical tallies. 

 At his return, in 1680, he began to study the philosophy of 

 Descartes. 



The comet of 1680 drew from him his Canamen Novi 

 Systematis, <J-c., an attempt to explain the phenomena of 

 those bodies. He imagined that they were satellites of a 

 planet too distant to be visible, and thence conjectured that 

 their returns might be calculated. With regard to the 

 question of their predictive faculties, he supples that the 

 head of the comet, being durable, denotes nothing, but that 

 the tail, being accidental, may be a symbol of the an;.' 

 heaven. M. Fontenellc, as became the writer of an < 

 calls this a minagement pour t opinion populaire ; but we 

 cannot follow him in viewing it as such. 



In 1682 he published his treatise De Gravitate /Ethcris, 

 now of little note. His lasting fame dates from the year 

 1684, in which Leibnitz published his first essays on "the 

 Differential Calculus in the Leipzig AcU. From this time 

 ho and his brother John applied themselves to the' n< w 

 science with a success and to an extent which made Leib- 

 nitz declare that it was as much theirs as 1 



In 1687 he was elected prole^-or "f mathematics at the 

 University of Basic. His celebrity attracted many foreigners 

 to that place, and his researches on the theory of series were 

 investigations undertaken as official 



The integral calculus was first inquired into by James 

 Bernoulli, in two essays published in 1691. His future 

 labours were, in a great measure, developments of the i 

 haustible method of investigation just named. Of that part 

 which concerns his brother as well as himself we shall pre- 

 sently speak. He died at Basle of a glow fever, August 16, 

 1 70i, in his fifty-first year. After the example of Archi- 

 medes, he ordered that one of hi* discoveries should be en- 



