536 



r.RIMALDI GRIMM. 



tury. Before he obtained these high dignities, Pins 

 V. intrusted to him the supervision of the galleys of 

 the States of the Church; and Grinmldi, though 

 already bishop, was present at the naval battle of 

 Lepanto (1571), on which occasion he is said to have 

 distinguished himself by his courage. The annals of 

 the Roman church also relate of this warlike prelate, 

 that he succeeded in totally extirpating the poison of 

 heresy from his diocese. He died in 1592, and left 

 behind a volume of letters relative to the events in 

 which he had been engaged. 



5. Geronimo Grimaldi, born at Genoa in 1597, 

 was appointed, in his twenty-eighth year, vice-legate 

 of Romagna, and afterwards bishop of Albano, and 

 governor of Rome. Urban VIII. sent him as nuncio 

 to Germany and France ; and the services which he 

 rendered the Roman court were rewarded, in 1643, 

 by a cardinal's hat. After the death of Urban, Gri- 

 maldi, from gratitude, protected his family, and thus 

 incurred the displeasure of Innocent, who refused, 

 during his whole life, to sign the bull, constituting 

 Grimaldi archbishop of Aix. Not till Alexander 

 VII. succeeded Innocent, was he able to enter on his 

 new office (1655). He endeavoured to reform the 

 manners of the clergy of his diocese, for which pur- 

 pose he established an ecclesiastical seminary ; he 

 likewise founded an hospital for the poor, and annu- 

 ally distributed 100,000 livres of his vast property in 

 alms. He contributed much to the election of Inno- 

 cent XL, whose virtues he revered. Although he 

 was subsequently appointed dean of the holy college 

 in Rome, he could not resolve to abandon the con- 

 gregation intrusted to him. He died at Aix, in 1685, 

 ninety years of age. 



6. Nicholas Grimaldi, born in 1645, was invested 

 with the Roman purple by Clement XI., in 1706. 

 He died in 1717, leaving immense wealth. 



7. Another Geronimo, born in 1674, was honoured 

 with a cardinal's hat. He had previously been the 

 nuncio of the Roman court at Avignon, and after- 

 wards at Brussels, in Poland, and Germany. He was 

 subsequently appointed cardinal legate of Bologna. 

 He died in 1733. 



Besides these Grimaldis, we find others of this 

 name, conspicuous in science and art. 



1. Giacomo, a writer of the sixteenth century, 

 whom Tiraboschi mentions with great praise. He 

 was born at Bologna, embraced the clerical profes- 

 sion, and, as superintendent of the archives of the 

 church of St Peter in Rome, rendered an important 

 service by arranging the whole of this valuable col- 

 lection. He also attempted to explain the ancient 

 inscriptions, discovered during the pontificate of Paul 

 V., by illustrative remarks. A list of his antiquarian 

 and philological writings may be found in the fourth 

 volume of Scriptor. Bolognesi. He died in 1623. 



2. Giovanni Francesco, called Bolognese, from his 

 having been born in that city, lived in the seven- 

 teenth century, and was an eminent painter, archi- 

 tect, and engraver. In the first mentioned art, he 

 took the Carracci for his model; he also studied 

 some time with Albano. Having been invited to 

 Paris by cardinal Mazarin, he painted several frescos 

 in the Louvre. As an architect, he was no less dis- 

 tinguished ; and his engravings are highly esteemed. 

 Innocent X. employed him to execute the frescos in 

 the Vatican and the Quirinal. Several of his best 

 paintings are to be found in the church Sta. Maria 

 del Monte in Rome ; the museum at Paris also con- 

 tains some of his best productions. He died in 1680, 

 seventy-four years of age. Alexander, a son of his, 

 is likewise known as a painter. 



3. Francesco Maria, a Jesuit, was born in Bologna 

 in 1613, and was distinguished as a mathematician. 

 He assisted Riccioli in his mathematical labours, and 



afterwards published a work on the spots on the 

 moon. He also wrote Physico-mathests dc Litmine 

 Coloribus et Iride, aliisque annexis (Bologna, 1665, 

 4to). This learned Jesuit died in his native city, in 

 1663. 



4. Francesco, who likewise lived in the seventeenth 

 century, and was born in the kingdom of Naples, 

 joined the Jesuits, and is distinguished as a Latin 

 poet. U e have several bucolic and dramatic poems 

 from him, which evince his talents. He died while 

 professor of rhetoric in the college of the Jesuits, in 

 Rome, in 1738, about sixty years of age. 



5. Peter Grimaldi, likewise a Jesuit, was born in 

 Civita-Vecchia, lived in the eighteenth century, and 

 was, for a long time, a missionary in the East Indies. 

 There is a story of him, that, on his return to Eu- 

 rope, he invented a machine, by means of which 

 (1751) he passed through the air from Calais to Dover 

 in an hour. It is mentioned by Pingeron, in his 

 translation of the work of Milizia, and by Fontenai, 

 in his Dictionnaire des Artistes. Since they give no 

 more explicit account of the afl'air, and as this previ- 

 ous experiment is not quoted in the treatises that 

 appeared at the time of the invention of the air- 

 balloon (1784), we must entertain some doubt of tlie 

 truth of the aerial journey ascribed to Peter Grimaldi. 



6. Constantine, born at Naples, in 1667, died there 

 in 1750, was a jurist, and was distinguished for his 

 knowledge of history, medicine, and theology. He 

 is, however, principally known for his controversy 

 with Benedictis, a blind advocate of the philosophy 

 of Aristotle, who was then publishing his Letters 

 apologeticlie, in which he made a furious attack on 

 Descartes and his followers. Grimaldi defended the 

 Cartesians, and, in a severe reply, reduced the father 

 ad absurdum. 



7. Francesco Antonio (who died in Naples in 1784) 

 was the author of some good historical works on 

 Naples, and the constitution of that country. 



GRIMM, FREDERIC MELCHFOR, baron of; counsel- 

 lor of state of the Russian empire, grand cross of the or- 

 der of Wladimir; a man of letters, whose great reputa- 

 tion has arisen from posthumous publications. He 

 was born in 1723, at Ratisbon, of poor parents, who, 

 however, bestowed on him a good education. His 

 taste for literature manifested itself in his youth, 

 when he wrote a tragedy. Having finished his stu- 

 dies, he went to Paris as governor to the children of 

 the count of Schomberg. Soon after, he was appoint- 

 ed reader to the duke of Saxe-Gotha. At this period, 

 he became acquainted with Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 

 who introduced him to Diderot, D'Alembert, D 'Hoi- 

 bach, and other Parisian philosophers ; a piece of 

 service which, according to Jean-Jacques (Confes- 

 sions, 8), he repaid with ingratitude. The count de 

 Friese made him his secretary, with appointments 

 which rendered his circumstances agreeable, and left 

 him at liberty to pursue his inclinations. His vanity 

 induced him to give himself the airs of a man of gal- 

 lantry ; and, as he attempted to repair the ravages of 

 time by means of cosmetics, the Parisians bestowed 

 on him the sobriquet of tyran le Blanc. The arrival 

 of a company of Italian bouffons in Paris having di- 

 vided all the musical connoisseurs into two parties, 

 Grimm declared for the Italian music, and was at the 

 head of the coin de la reine,& party so called because 

 they used to sit in the pit, under the queen's box, 

 whilst the friends of Rameau and the French music 

 formed the coin duroi. Grimm wrote on this occa- 

 sion a pamphlet, full of wit and taste, Le petit Pro- 

 phete de Bb'mischbroda, and, when his adversaries at- 

 tempted to answer it, completely confuted them by 

 his Lettre sur la Musique Francaise. These pamph- 

 lets irritated so many persons against him, that they 

 talked of exile, the Bastile, &c.; but when the ex- 



