576 



GUEUCINO GUERICKE. 



Li the eleventh century. Azzo, of the family of Este 

 in Italy, lord of Milan, Genoa, and other cities of 

 Lombardy (died in 1097), acquired some of these 

 estates by his marriage with Cuniguiule, the heiress 

 of the Guelfs. His son, Gnelf I. (died 110J), became 

 duke of Bavaria, and inherited the estates of the other 

 Giielf lines. The son of Guelf I. acquired, by mar- 

 i iauc, the estates in Saxony which belonged to his 

 wile's father, duke Magnus. The emperor Lotliaire 

 gave (1137) the duchy of Saxony to his son-in-law, 

 Henry the Generous, grandson of Guelf I. This 

 Henry, on the death ot Lotliaire, opposed Conrad 

 III., of the house of Hohenstuufen, who had been 

 elected emperor, was put under the ban of the em- 

 pire, and most of his vast possessions confiscated. 

 After his death, his son, the famous Henry the Lion, 

 received, in 1139, only the duchy of Saxony, and his 

 hereditary estates in this country, the Bavarian fiefs 

 having been given to his uncle Wolf. In 1140, war 

 having broken out between Wolf and Frederic, bro- 

 ther to the emperor Conrad, the words fVelf and 

 /I'aiblingen became the war-cries of the respective 

 parties in the battle at Weinsberg. Waiblingen, in 

 the present kingdom of Wurtemberg, was an estate 

 of the house of Hohenstaufen to which Conrad be- 

 longed, and the Italians afterwards changed the word 

 (as to is often clianged into g,) into Ghibellini. The 

 contest, which, in the beginning, was merely between 

 the two families, spread, at length, more and more 

 widely, and became an obstinate struggle between 

 two political parties. This contest was not a mere 

 family quarrel, like many of the disputes of the 

 middle ages. It was a strife of opinions, involving 

 important interests, conducted, it is true, in many 

 instances, with a senseless disregard both of justice 

 and expediency, owing to the crude notions of the 

 period respecting the rights and wellbeing of nations, 

 but still having great objects in view. The wars of the 

 Guelfs and Ghibelines became the struggle between 

 the spiritual and secular power, through which it was 

 necessary that western Europe should pass, to shake 

 o!F the dominion of the popes, which was now on the 

 point of crushing all national independence, after 

 having completed its proper work of raising Europe 

 from a state of barbarism. (See Gregory VII.} The 

 popes, who endeavoured to reduce the German 

 emperors to acknowledge their supremacy, and the 

 cities of Italy, struggling for independence, and 

 deliverance from the oppressive yoke of these same 

 emperors, formed the party of the Guelfs. Those 

 who favoured the emperors were called Ghibelines. 

 Italy underwent great sufferings during this contest, 

 as did Germany also, which sent army after army to 

 be swallowed up in this lion's cave whence none 

 returned, as a German emperor called it. There is 

 little doubt that the inconsiderable progress of Ger- 

 many in public law and political wellbeing was, in a 

 great measure, owing to this struggle, which con- 

 sumed her strength and engrossed her attention. 

 The contest continued, with bitterness, for almost 

 300 years. These parties appeared in Italy under 

 many different names, as the bianchi and neri (white 

 and black), in Florence, &c. History shows no in- 

 stance of a more untiring and cruel party spirit. 



GUERCINO; (GIOVANNI FRANCISCO BARBIERI 

 DA CENTO), called Guercino from a squint in his 

 eyes ; was born at Cento, in the duchy of Ferrara, 

 in 1590, and studied at first under Cremonini and 

 Benedetto Gennair ; but latterly in the school of the 

 Caraccis, at Bologna. He adopted three different 

 manners of painting, the first in imitation of Caravag- 

 gio, which being very dark, he quitted for that of 

 the Caraccis, and latterly for a style still more light 

 and sketchy ; but his middle style is his best. His 

 chief pictures are at Rome, particularly that of 



Aurora in a saloon of the Villa Lodovisi, and the 

 Martyrdom of saint Petronilla, which has been 

 copied in mosaic to adorn one of the pannels in 

 saint Peter's, between the transfiguration by Raffa- 

 elle, and the communion of St Jerome, by Domeni- 

 chino. During his lifetime he enjoyed a very high 

 reputation, and amassed a large fortune, which he 

 employed in assisting his parents and friends, in 

 giving his nephews and nieces a good education, and 

 settling the former in the church, and the latter 

 advantageously in marriage. He was extremely 

 pious, and built several chapels and oratories. He 

 died in 1667, aged seventy-seven years. 



A vigorous style of colouring, but which is rather 

 red and monotonous, and with a blackish and violet 

 tinge, and a daring sort of handling full of fire and 

 truth, are the leading characters of his originality. 

 He belongs to that class of painters who constantly 

 finished every object from nature, and copied their 

 living models, exactly as if they had been making 

 their portraits, without paying sufficient attention to 

 the action of the piece in wliich they are made per- 

 formers ; so that he must be placed amongst those, 

 in whose works we recognise rather the actors than 

 the personages represented. Still his pictures have 

 an aspect very different from those of Michael 

 Angelo, Caravaggio, Spagnoletti, or Valentin, or 

 Alexander Veronese ; although all these artists 

 seem to have painted much in the like manner. He 

 composed rather with great facility than much sub- 

 limity, and made rather a display of the rules of his 

 art, than of his feeling or enthusiasm. So that what- 

 ever there may be of fire in his manner of executing, 

 there seems to be but little of it in his conceptions. 

 Nevertheless, his devotional subjects frequently dis- 

 play dignity, and much of the zeal and pious turn of 

 their author. Sometimes, too, there is an expression 

 mingled with dignity and loftiness of character ; but 

 these are not the most striking features of their 

 character, nor do they seem to have been those 

 which were uppermost in his mind at the time of 

 their production. For the whole energy of the 

 painter seems to have been expended in the imitation 

 of nature. Still, with all his faults, it must be con- 

 fessed that he stands amongst the first-rate painters 

 of Italy. Jacob Frey, Sir Robert Strange, and 

 Bartalozzi, have engraved many of his best works, 

 and there are two folio volumes of his drawings 

 engraved by the last named artist, which are exceed- 

 ingly beautiful. 



GUERICKE, OTTO VON, burgomaster of Magde- 

 burg, was one of the most distinguished experimen- 

 tal philosophers of the seventeenth century. He 

 was born at Magdeburg, November 20, 1602 ; 

 studied law at Leipsic, Helmstadt, and Jena ; ma- 

 thematics, and particularly geometry and mechanics, 

 at Leyden ; travelled in France and England ; acted 

 as chief engineer at Erfurt ; became, in 1627, coun- 

 sellor at Magdeburg ; and in 1646, burgomaster, 

 and counsellor of the elector of Brandenburg, but 

 resigned his office five years before his death, and 

 repaired to his sons at Hamburg, where he died 

 May 11, 1686. In 1650, he invented the air-i>unii>, 

 about the time tliat a similar idea occurred to Robert 

 Boyle, in England. This discovery changed the 

 whole aspect of natural philosophy, and gave rise to 

 a more intimate acquaintance with the nature and 

 effects of air. In 1654, he made the first public 

 experiments with his machine, at the diet at Ratis 

 bon, before the emperor Ferdinand III., his son 

 Ferdinand IV., king of Rome, several electors, and 

 other estates of the empire. The first air-pump, 

 with which Guericke almost exhausted the air from 

 two hemispheres, is preserved in the royal library at 

 Berlin. Guericke also invented an air-balance, and 



