He converted the ruler of Franconia and his subjects, but was killed by the sword by order of the ruler’s wife, whose repudiation Cilian had required because she was in the position of Herodias. The day of his martyrdom was 8 July. It is still kept in Würzburg, where his name is common both as a baptismal name and as a surname. The lives all make Cilian the son of a king of Ireland, but the local tradition does not, and as there are no signs of a dun or rath on the site of his father’s dwelling, it is probable that his father was not a great man, though of course related to the nearest king, as every tribesman was. The famous Codex Paulinus of Würzburg is a very ancient manuscript, but can hardly have belonged to Cilian, though its scribe may have lived within two centuries of his martyrdom.
[Bollandist Acta Sanctorum, Antwerp, 1721, July, vol. ii.; Baronius’s Annales Ecclesiastici, Lucæ, 1742, xii. 89; Stephen White’s Apologia pro Hibernia. ed. Kelly, Dublin, 1849, pp. 130, 151, &c.; H. Zimmer’s Glossæ Hibernicæ, Berlin, 1881. The isolated district of Cavan where Cilian was born retained much of Irish learning till a recent date. The exact tradition of the birthplace was related to the writer of this article by Patrick Connell, a carpenter and a scholar, and confirmed independently by James Connell of Fartha and Terence Osborne, farmers and scholars, all old men and pupils of the famous Irish schoolmaster of Mullagh, Matthew Monaghan.]
CIMELLIAUC (d. 927), bishop of Llandaff, is said by a late authority to have been consecrated bishop at Canterbury by Archbishop Æthelred (Diceto in Twysden, p. 451). This story may very likely be true, as King Ælfred certainly obtained a very decided hold over South Wales (Asser, De Rebus Gestis Ælfredi in M. H. B., p. 488), and there is no very great chronological difficulty involved, since Æthelred was archbishop between 870 and 889. Yet these dates would give Cimelliauc an unusually long episcopal career for his turbulent times, and the authority for the statement proceeds to claim Æthelred as the consecrator of a bishop whose consecration took place thirty-eight years after Æthelred’s death.
During Cimelliauc’s episcopate several grants were reputed to have been made to the church of Llandaff, which are recorded in the ‘Liber Landavensis’ (pp. 490-8). Several of these came from Brochmael [q. v.], king of Gwent, between whom and the bishop a dispute had arisen as to their title to certain estates. A synod was held to settle the matter. Brochmael and his household were afterwards synodically excommunicated by Cimelliauc for wrongs done to him and his household. In 918 a Viking fleet, under Jarls Ohtor and Hroald, devastated the northern coast of the Bristol Channel, and penetrated inland as far as Archenfield, the district round Ross, which then seems to have been subject to the bishops of Llandaff, though later in the diocese of Hereford. Here they took Cimelliauc prisoner, and with great rejoicings led him to their ships, where he was detained until King Eadward the elder ransomed him with forty pounds (English Chron. s. a. 918; Flor. Wig. s. a. 915; Hen. Hunt. s. a. 918). The almost contemporary MS. A of the ‘Annales Cambriæ’ puts Ohtor’s invasion in 913. Cimelliauc died in 927 (Lib. Land.)
The name is spelt Cimelliauc in the ‘Liber Landavensis,’ Cameleac in the ‘English Chronicle,’ Cymelgeac in ‘Florence of Worcester,’ and Camelegeac in ‘Henry of Huntingdon.’ Cyfeiliawg is the modern form. It is sometimes identified with Cyfelach. The bishop appears to have been canonised under the latter name, and the church of Llangyfelach, near Swansea, is sometimes said to have been dedicated to him (Rees, Welsh Saints, pp. 50 and 305). But the canonised Cyfelach may be the Bishop Cyfelach of Morganwg, said to have been slain at Hereford in 754 (Gwentian Brut, p. 7).
[Authorities given in the text; see also Haddan and Stubbs’s Councils, i. 207-8.]
CIPRIANI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1727–1785), historical painter and engraver, was born at Florence in 1727. His family was from Pistoja, and his first master was Ignazio Hugford, an Englishman, who settled early in life in Florence, and died in 1778. He also studied the works of Antonio Domenico Gabbiani, who flourished a few years before him. Cipriani’s first public works were two pictures executed for the abbey of St. Michael-on-the-Sea at Pelago, one representing St. Tesauro, and the other St. Gregory VII. In 1750 he went to Rome, where he lived three years, and there became acquainted with Sir William Chambers, architect, and Joseph Wilton, sculptor, whom, on their return to London, he accompanied in August 1755, and took up his residence in Mews Gate, Hedge Lane, near Charing Cross. In the spring of 1758 the Duke of Richmond opened a gratuitous school of design, allowing artists access to his gallery in Privy Garden, Whitehall, where numerous casts from the antique were exhibited, and offered premiums for the best drawings. The school of drawing was under the management of
