Page:1902 Encyclopædia Britannica - Volume 26 - AUS-CHI.pdf/321

B O I T O — B O K H A R A 287 to compete, and he composed a monograph which was work of any importance, although he was said to be at work instantly recognized as a masterpiece, not only of learning, in 1901 upon an opera on the subject of Hero, the libretto of but of grace. In 1861 he received the responsible appoint- which has already been published. His energies have been ment of professor of Latin oratory at the College de France, chiefly devoted to the composition of libretti, of which the and he became a pillar of the Revue des Deux Mondes. principal ai*e Otello and Falstaff, set to music by Verdi ■ In 1866 he published what remains the most popular of La Gioconda, set by Ponchielli; Amleto, set by Faccio ; and his works, Ciceron et ses Amis, which has enjoyed a success Lro e Leandre, set by Bottesini and Mancinelli. These such as rarely falls to the lot of a Avork of erudition and Avoiks display a rare knowledge of the requirements of research. In studying the manners of ancient Rome dramatic poetry, together with uncommon literary value. M. Gaston Boissier had learned to recreate its society, and Boito has also published a book of poems and a novel, to reproduce its characteristics with the most exquisite L Alfier Meno. The degree of Doctor of Music was vivacity. His next work of importance was 1? Opposition conferred upon him in 1893 by the University of Camsous les Cesars, in which he drew a remarkable picture of bridge. the political decadence of Rome under the early successors Bokhara, or Bukhara, a khanate of Central Asia, of Augustus, and showed by an examination of the state of feeling in the successive strata of Roman society how now in a. state of vassalage to Russia. It occupies a low the sentiment of republican liberty had sunk. In broad strip of land on the right bank of the middle 1875 M. Boissier published La religion Romaine d’Auguste Amu-daria, between 37° and 41° N., 62° and 72° E., aux Antonins, in which he analysed the elements which and is limited by the Russian Turkestan provinces of produced the great religious movement of antiquity that Amu-daria, Samarkand, and Fergana in the N.E., the preceded the acceptance of Christianity. Through so Russian Pamir in the E., Afghanistan in the S., and the many solid contributions to literature, M. Boissier had by Russian Transcaspian territory and Khiva in the W. Its this time drawn to himself the universal respect of scholars south-eastern frontier on the Pamirs is quite undetermined and men of letters, nor did he lack admirers in the polite except Avhere it touches the Russian dominions, there Avorld. He was manifestly destined for the French being a mountainous unpopulated territory Avhich is Academy, and on the death of Batin, in 1876, he was visited alternatively by nearly quite independent Kirappropriately elected to fill the vacant place. He was ghiz and by Afghan patrols. With the khanates of received on the 21st of December 1876 by M. Ernest Karateghin and Darvaz, as also those of Roshan and Legouve, and his reply — his discours de reception — is Shugnan, the area would be about 95,650 square miles j a finished essay on the study of ancient society in the without the two latter, which have fallen under Afghan literatures of Greece and Rome. In 1880 M. Gaston influence, about 75,600 square miles. Bokhara may be divided into three parts. The western part Boissier published Promenades arch'eologiques: Rome et crossed now by the railway, is a plain, watered by the Zeratshan Pompei, of which a second series appeared in 1886. In and by countless irrigation canals drawn from it. It has in the 1895, on the death of Camille Doucet, he was elected to east the Karnak-chul prairie, covered Avith grass in early summer succeed him as perpetual secretary to the French Academy. only, and in the north an intrusion of the Kara-kum sand desert. M. Boissier is a representative example of the French talent Land suitable for culture is only found in oases, where it is covered with irrigation canals, but these oases are very fertile. The cotton for lucidity and elegance applied with entire seriousness and mulberry trees are cultivated, as also all sorts of corn, including to weighty matters of literature. He is a scholar of the rice, and the vine. The middle portion is occupied by high plains, highest attainments, but his learning seems cast about his about 4000 feet in altitude, sloping from the Tian Shan, and intershoulders with the elegance and decorum of a toga about sected by numerous rivers (Surkhan, Kafirnagan, Waksh, and many smaller ones) flowing towards the Amu. This region, very those of a Roman senator. M. Boissier has not written fertile in the valleys and enjoying a cooler and damper climate very much, and he has never strayed from his single than the lower plains, is densely populated, and agriculture and theme, the reconstruction of the elements of Roman cattle-breeding are carried on extensively. Here are the toAvns of Karshi, Kitab, Shaar, Chirakchi, and Guzar. As to the eastern society. portion, it is covered Avith high mountains and plateaus. The Hissar range, Avhich separates the Zerafshan from the large Boitoy Arrigo (1842 —), Italian poet and tributaries of the Amu—the Surkhan, Kafirnagan, and Yaksh musical composer, was born at Padua on the 24th (Surkhab)—is generally represented as running west to east, and February 1842. He studied music at the Milan Con- ending in the west by the group Hazret-sultan ; but it may perhaps servatoire, but even in those early days he devoted as be continued in reality to the south-west, ending in the Haja Mahmud mountains. In the east it is continued by the Alai much of his time to literature as to music, forecasting mountains. Its length is about 200 miles, and its passes, lying the divided allegiance which was to be the chief Irom 1000 to 3000 feet below the surrounding peaks, are at altitudes characteristic of his life’s history. While at the ot from 12,000 to 14,000 feet. The highest peaks are at the headwaters of the Yagnob (Great and Small Barzenghi, Rostovtseffs Conservatoire he wrote and composed, in collaboration pass), where large glaciers are found. Numerous spurs run from Avith Franco Faccio, a cantata, Le tiorelle d’Italia, which it to the south and south-west, and there seems to exist a parallel was performed with success but has never been published. lange, Zigdi. Granites, gneisses, diabases, various porphyries, as On completing his studies Boito travelled for some years, also mica, clay, and silica, slates, limestones, conglomerates, and and after his return to Italy settled down in Milan, sandstones, enter into its composition. Numbers of rivers pierce or flow in wild gorges between its spurs. Its southern foot-hills, dividing his time between journalism and music. In 1866 covered with loess, make the fertile valleys of Hissar and the he fought under Garibaldi, and in 1868 conducted the v aksh. The climate is so dry, and the rains are so scarce, that an first performance of his opera Mefistofele at the Scala absence ol forests and Alpine meadows is characteristic of the Iheatre, Milan. The work failed completely, and was ridge ; but Avhen great rain comes during the melting of the snow the mountains, the devastations of the torrents are terrible. Avithdrawn after a second performance. It was revived in in The main glaciers (12) are on the north slope, at the sources of 18/5 at Bologna in a much altered and abbreviated form, the Yagnob and the Namrut; but none of them creeps below the when its success was beyond question. It was performed 10,000 to 12,000 feet level. The passes across this ridge are in London in 1880 Avith success, but in spite of frequent extremely difficult. Peter the Great range, or Periokh-tau, in Karateghin, south revivals has never succeeded in firmly establishing itself of The the valley of the Yaksh, runs west-south-west to east-northin popular favour. Boito treats the Faust legend in a east for about 130 miles, and is still higher. It is pierced in its wider spirit than Gounod, but, in spite of many isolated south-west part by the Obi-khingou. From the meridian of Garni beauties, his opera lacks cohesion and dramatic interest, it rises above the snow-line, attaining at least 18,000 feet in the Sary-kaudal peak, and 20,000 feet farther east where it joins the femce writing Mejistofele Boito has produced no musical snow-clad Darvaz range, and Avhere the group Sandal, adorned