early English charters. Thorpe died at Chiswick on the 19th of July 1870. The value of his work was recognized by the grant to him, in 1835, of a civil list pension.
THORPE [or Thorp], JOHN (fl. 1570–1618), English architect. Little is known of his life, and his work is dubiously inferred, rather than accurately known, from a folio of drawings in the
Soane Museum, to which Horace Walpole called attention, in
1780, in his Anecdotes of Painting; but how far these were his
own is uncertain. He was engaged on a number of important
English houses of his time, and several, such as Longleat, have
been attributed to him on grounds which cannot be sustained.
He was probably the designer of Kirby Hall, Northamptonshire;
the original Longford Castle, Wiltshire; and the original Holland
House, Kensington; and he is said to have been engaged on
Rushton Hall, Northamptonshire, and Audley End, Essex (with
Bernard Janssens).
See J. A. Gotch, Architecture of the Renaissance in England (1891–1894).
THORWALDSEN, BERTEL (1770–1844) Danish sculptor,
the son of an Icelander who had settled in Denmark, and there
carried on the trade of a wood-carver, was born in Copenhagen
on the 19th of November 1770. While very young he learnt
to assist his father; at the age of deven he entered the Copenhagen
school of art, and soon began to show his exceptional
talents. In 1792 he won the highest prize, the travelling studentship,
and in 1796 he started for Italy in a Danish man-of-war.
On the 8th of March 1797 he arrived in Rome, where Canova
was at the height of his popularity. Thorwaldsen’s first success
was the model for a statue of Jason, which was highly praised
by Canova, and he received the commission to execute it in
marble from Thomas Hope, a wealthy English art-patron. From
that lime Thorwaldsen’s success was assured, and he did not
leave Italy for twenty-three years. In 1819 he returned to Denmark,
where he was commissioned to make the colossal series
of statues of Christ and the twelve apostles which are now in the
Fruenkirche in Copenhagen. These were executed after his
return to Rome, and were not completed till 1838, when Thorwaldsen
again returned to Denmark. He died suddenly in the
Copenhagen theatre on the 24th of March 2844 and bequeathed
a great part of his fortune for the building and endowment of a
museum in Copenhagen, and also left to fill it all his collection
of works of art and the models for all his sculpture—a very
large collection, exhibited to the greatest possible advantage.
Tbonraldsea is buried in the courtyard of this museum, under
a bed of roses, by his own special wish.
On the whole Thorwaldsen was the most successful of all the imitators of classical sculpture, and many of his statues of pagan deities are modelled with much of the antique feeling for breadth and purity of design. His attempts at Christian sculpture, such as the tomb of Pius VII. in St Peter’s and the “Christ and Apostles” at Copenhagen, are less successful, and were not in accordance with the sculptor’s real sympathies, which were purely dassic. Thorwaldsen worked sometimes with feverish eagerness; at other times he was idle for many months together. A great number of his best works exist in private collections in England. His not very successful statue of Lord Byron, after being ref osed a place in Westminster Abbey, was finally deposited in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. The most widely popular among Thorwaldsen’s works have been some of his bas-reliefs, such as the “Night” and the “Morning,” which he is said to have modelled in one day.
See Eugène Plon. Thorwaldsen, sa vie, &c. (Paris, 1880); Andersen, B. Thorwaldsen (Berlin. 1845): Killerup. Thorwaldsen’s Arbeiten, &c (Copenhagen, 1852): Thieie, Thormaldsen’s Leben (Leipzig. 1852–1856): C A. Rosenberg. Thorwaldsen . . . mit 146 Abbildungen (1896: "Künstlermonographien." No. 16): S. Trier, Thorvaldsen (1903); A. Wilde, Erindringer om Jerickau og Thorvaldsen (1884).
THOTH, the Greek name of the Egyptian god of letters,
invention and wisdom (e.g. Thowt, Zḥwty), the mouthpiece
and recorder of the gods, and arbiter of their disputes. Thoth
is found on the earliest monuments symbolized by an ibis (Ibis aethiopica, still not uncommon in Nubia), which bird was
sacred to him. In the Pyramid texts Thoth is already closely
associated with the Osiris myth, having aided the god by his
science and knowledge of magic, and demonstrated the justice
of his claims in the contest with Set. Thoth presided over
writing, measuring and calculation, and is prominent in the
scene of the weighing of the soul. He was often identified with
the moon as a divider of time, and in this connexion, during
the New Empire, the ape first appears as his sacred animal.
Thoth was identified by the Greeks with Hermes, and Hermes Trismegistus
(q.v.) is a late development of the Egyptian god.
Geographically the worship of Thoth in Lower Egypt centred
in the Hermopolite nome, contiguous to the Busirite and
Mendesian nomes. This was the district anciently called Zḥwt,
and the god’s name Zḥwty means simply “him of Zḥwt.” But
Hermopolis Magna in Upper Egypt, now Eshmunain, was a city
of greater political importance than Hermopolis in Lower Egypt.
See E. A. W. Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians; and specially Egypt: Ancient, § Religion. (F. Ll. G.)
THOU, JACQUES AUGUSTE DE [Thuanus] (1553–1617), French historian, was the grandson of Augustin de Thou, president of the parlement of Paris (d. 1544), younger son of Christophe de Thou, "first president" of the same parlement, who began to collect a number of books and notes for a history of France which he was never to write (d. 1582), and nephew of Nicolas de Thou, who was bishop of Chartres (1573–1598). In these family surroundings he imbibed a love of letters, a firm and orthodox, though enlightened and tolerant piety, and an attachment to the traditional power of the Crown. At the age of seventeen he began his studies in law, first at Orleans, later at Bourges, where he made the acquaintance of Hotman, and finally at Valence, where he had Cujas for his master and Scaliger as a friend. He was at first intended for the Church; he received the minor orders, and on the appointment of his uncle Nicolas to the episcopate succeeded him as a canon of Notre-Dame. But his tastes led him in a different direction; not content with a knowledge of books, he wished to know the
world and men. During a period of ten years he seized every opportunity for profitable travel. In 1573 he accompanied Paul de Foix on an embassy, which enabled him to visit most of the Italian courts; he formed a friendship with Arnaud d’Ossat (afterwards bishop of Rennes and Bayeux and cardinal, d. 1604), who was secretary to the ambassador. In the following year he formed part of the brilliant cortège which brought King Henry III. back to France, after his flight from his Polish kingdom. He also visited several parts of France, and at Bordeaux met Montaigne. On the death, however, of his elder brother Jean (April 5, 1579), who was maître des requêtes to the parlement,
his relations prevailed on him to leave the Church, and he entered
the parlement and married (1588). In the same year he was appointed conseiller d’état. He served faithfully both the effeminate, bigoted and cruel Henry III. and Henry IV., a sceptic and given to love-intrigues, because they were both the representatives of legitimate authority. He succeeded his uncle Augustin as président à mortier (1595), and used his new authority in the interests of religious peace, negotiating, on the one hand, the Edict of Nantes with the Protestants, while in the name of the principals of the Gallican Church he opposed the recognition of the Council of Trent. This attitude exposed him to the animosity, of the League party and of the Holy See, and to their persecution when the first edition of his history appeared. This history was the work of his whole life. In a letter of the 31st of March 1611 addressed to the president Jeannin, he himself describes his long labours in preparation of it. His materials for writing it were drawn from his rich library, which he established in the Rue des Poitevins in the year 1587, with the two brothers, Pierre and Jacques Dupuy, as librarians. His object was to produce a purely scientific and unbiassed work, and for this reason he wrote it in Latin, giving it as title Historia sui temporis. The first 18 books, embracing the period from 1545–1560, appeared in 1604 (1 vol. folio), and the work was at
once attacked by those whom the author himself calls les envieux et les factieux. The second part, dealing with the first wars of
religion (1560–1572), was put on the Index librorum prohibitorum
