3G6 



BACCHYLIDES BACCIOCCHI. 



and saved the gods from impending ruin. According 

 to some, he escaped the dangers which surrounded 

 him in this conflict, by transforming himself into a 

 lion. During the rejoicings for victory, Jupiter joy- 

 fully cried to him, " Evan, ewe!" (Well done, my 

 son !) with which words Bacchus was afterwards 

 usually saluted. \\Y find him represented with the 

 round, soft, and graceful form of a maiden, rather 

 than with that of a young man. An ornament pecu- 

 liar to him is the tiara. His long, waving hair, is 

 knitted behind in a knot, and wreathed with sprigs 

 of i\j and vine-leaves. He is usually naked ; some- 

 times he has an ample mantle hung negligently 

 round his shoulders; sometimes a fawn skin nan ffs 

 across his breast. The bearded Bacchus is properly 

 of Indian or Egyptian origin. The golden horns 

 (the symbol of invincible force) upon his head, were 

 hidden by the Greek sculptors, or shown but little. 



The feasts consecrated to Bacchus were termed 

 Bacchanalia, Dionysia, or, in general, Orgia. They 

 were celebrated with particular solemnity in Athens, 

 where the years were universally reckoned by them. 

 During their continuance, the least violence towards 

 a citizen was a capital crime. The great Dionysia 

 were celebrated in spring. The most important part 

 of the celebration was a procession, representing the 

 triumph of Bacchus. This was composed of the 

 above-mentioned train of Bacchantes, of both sexes, 

 who, inspired by real or feigned intoxication, wan- 

 dered about, rioting and dancing, and gave them- 

 selves up to the most extravagant licentiousness. 

 They were masked, clothed in fawn skins, crowned 

 with ivy, and bore in their hands drinking cups and 

 spears entwined with ivy (thyrsi). Amidst this mad 

 crowd marched, in beautiful order, the delegated 

 bodies of the Phratia (corporations of citizens). They 

 bore upon their heads consecrated baskets, which 

 contained first-fruits of every kind, cakes of different 

 sliape, and various mysterious symbols. This pro- 

 cession was usually in the night-time. The day was 

 devoted to spectacles and other recreations. At a 

 very early hour, they went to the theatre of Bacchus, 

 where musical or dramatical performances were ex- 

 hibited. All over Athens reigned licentiousness and 

 revelry. These feasts passed from the Greeks to the 

 Romans, who celebrated them with still greater dis- 

 soluteness, till the senate abolished them, B. C. 187. 

 (On the worship of Bacchus, the Dionysiaca, &c., 

 see the prize essay of P. N. Rolle, Recherches svr i e 

 CuUe de Bacchus, Paris, 1824, 3 vols.) 



BACCHYUDES ; born in lolus, a city of the island 

 Cos ; the last of the ten great lyric poets of Greece, 

 whom the Alexandrine canon declared classical. 

 The nephew of Simonides, and a contemporary of 

 Pindar, he is placed as a poet beside them. Hiero, 

 at whose court he lived, esteemed him very highly, 

 and preferred him even to Pindar. Of his odes, 

 hymns, paeans, triumphal songs, the few fragments 

 which remain are collected in some editions of Pin- 

 dar, and in the Analecta of Brunck : there are many 

 traces of him in the odes of Horace. Without 

 having the impetuous eagle-flight of Pindar, he was 

 neither destitute of fire and energy, nor of grace 

 and richness. 



BACCIO DELLA PORTA, Francisco Bartolomeo ; a cele- 

 brated painter, better known under the name of Fra 

 Bartolomeo di San Marco* was born in 1469, at Sa- 

 vignano, near Prato in, Tuscany. He learned in 

 Florence, the first principles of painting from Cosimo 

 Roselli, made rapid progress, and acquired, by study- 

 Ing the works of Leonardo da Vinci, that beauty and 



Fra U the abbreriation of frate (brother; and is often 

 put before the name* of monks. 



grandeur of style, that vigour of colouring and out. 

 line, by which his later productions are distinguished. 

 At this time, he undertook his famous fresco in the 

 church-yard of the hospital Santa Maria Nuova, re- 

 presenting the last judgment, which was finished by 

 his friend Albertinelli. Seduced by the preaching 

 of the fanatical Savonarola, he abandoned every 

 thing to follow him, and shut himself up, with a great 

 number of his followers, in the monastery of San 

 Marco, when this turbulent preacher of sedition was 

 pursued by the officers of justice. The monastery 

 was besieged, and B. made a vow to become a monk. 

 if he should happily escape this peril. In conse- 

 quence of this vow, he took the Dominican habit in 

 the same monastery, 1500, and assumed the name of 

 Fra Bartolomeo. This event agitated him so much, 

 that, for the space of four years, he did not toiirh 

 his pencil, and employed it afterwards only on devo- 

 tional subjects. The pictures which he executed at 

 this period are superior to his earlier productions. 

 Raphael visited Florence in 1504, and contributed to 

 the brilliant success of Fra Bartolomeo. The latter 

 learned perspective from his friend, and gave him, in 

 return instruction in colouring. Some years after- 

 wards, he visited Michael Angelo and Raphael at 

 Rome, and had the rare modesty to do homage to 

 their great talents by confessing his own inferiority. 

 After nis return to Florence, he executed several re- 

 ligious pictures, among which were a saint Mark and 

 saint Sebastian, two compositions which obtain the 

 admiration of every connoisseur. His style is severe 

 and elevated, but, at the same time, very graceful in 

 youthful figures ; his colouring possesses vigour and 

 brilliancy and comes near to that of Titian and Gior- 

 gione. But he particularly excels in drapery, which 

 none before him represented with equal truth, ful- 

 ness and ease. He died in 1517. His disciples 

 were Cecchino del Frate Benedetto, Ciamtanini, 

 Gabriel Rustucci, and Fra Paolo of Pistoia, who in- 

 herited his designs. His excellent pictures are pre- 

 served in the gallery of the grand duke at Florence 

 and in the palace of Pitti. 



BACCIOCCHI, Felix Pascal, formerly prince of Lucca 

 and Piombino, husband of Elisa Bonaparte, sister of 

 Napoleon, born May 18, 1762, in Corsica, of a noble 

 but poor family, entered the army as a cadet, and 

 was a captain when Bonaparte commanded the army 

 in Italy. At this time his marriage took place, in 

 consequence of which he was made colonel of the 

 twenty-sixth regiment of light infantry, afterwards 

 president of the electoral college of Ardennes, and, 

 in 1804, a senator, without having distinguished 

 himself, either from want of ability or of op- 

 portunity. In 1805, he received the title of 

 prince, from the principality of Lucca and Piom- 

 Dino, assigned to his wife, whom, after the revo- 

 lution of 1814 and 1815, he accompanied into banish- 

 ment. From that time he lived with her and his son, 

 under the surveillance of the Austrian government 

 at Trieste. 



His wife, Maria Anne Eliza Bonaparte, born at 

 Ajaccio, Jan. 8, 1777, and educated in the royal in- 

 stitution for noble ladies at St Cyr, had lived with her 

 mother at Marseilles, during the revolution. In 

 1797, she married captain Bacciocchi, according to 

 the wish of her mother, but without the consent of 

 her brother, who was then general-in-chief. In 1799 

 she went to Paris, and resided there with her brother 

 Lucien, who awakened in her a taste for poetry and 

 the fine arts. She collected around her the most 

 accomplished men of the capital, among whom were 

 the chevalier de Boufflers, Laharpe, the viscount 

 Chateaubriand, and the marquis de Fontanes. Ge- 

 nerous as she ever was towards distinguished talent, 

 she conferred particular obligations on the two la.su 



