interior of a fort, bastion or other defence, so as to fire over the main parapet without interfering with the fire of the latter. A greater volume of fire can thus be obtained, but the great height of the cavalier makes it an easy target for a besieger’s guns.
CAVALIERE, EMILIO DEL, 16th-century Italian musical composer, was born in Rome about 1550 of a noble family. He held a post at the court of Ferdinand I. of Tuscany from 1588 to 1597, and during his residence at Florence was on terms of intimacy with J. Peri, O. Rinuccini, G. Caccini and the rest of the Bardi circle. In 1597 he returned to Rome, and became connected with the Congregation of the Oratory founded by St Philip Neri. Here in 1600 was performed Cavaliere’s contribution to the musical reformation initiated by his circle of friends in Florence—La Rappresentazione di Anima e di Corpo, a sacred drama, which is regarded as the first example of what is now called oratorio. It is generally supposed that he was no longer living when the work was performed, but some authorities assign 1602 as the date of his death.
Cavaliere’s style is more facile than that of Peri and Caccini, but he is inferior to them in depth of musical expression. He is, however, important as being the first to apply the new monodic style to sacred music, and as the founder of the Roman school of the 17th century which included Mazzocchi, Carissimi and Alessandro Scarlatti.
See also H. Goldschmidt, Studien zur Geschichte der italienischen Oper im 17. Jahrhundert, Band i.
CAVALLI, FRANCESCO (1599?–1676), Italian musical composer, was born at Crema in 1599 or 1600. His real name was Pier Francesco Caletti-Bruni, but he is better known by that of Cavalli, the name of his patron, a Venetian nobleman. He became a singer at St Mark’s in Venice in 1617, second organist in 1639, first organist in 1665, and in 1668 maestro di cappella. He is, however, chiefly important for his operas. He began to write for the stage in 1639 (Le Nozze di Teti e di Peleo), and soon established so great a reputation that he was summoned to Paris in 1660 to produce an opera (Serse) at the Louvre in honour of the marriage of Louis XIV. He visited Paris again in 1662, bringing out his Ercole Amante. His death occurred in Venice on the 14th of January 1676. Twenty-seven operas of Cavalli are still extant, most of them being preserved in the library of St Mark at Venice. Monteverde had found opera a musico-literary experiment, and left it a magnificent dramatic spectacle. Cavalli succeeded in making opera a popular entertainment. He reduced Monteverde’s extravagant orchestra to more practical limits, introduced melodious arias into his music and popular types into his libretti. His operas have all the characteristic exaggerations and absurdities of the 17th century, but they have also a remarkably strong sense of dramatic effect as well as a great musical facility, and a grotesque humour which was characteristic of Italian grand opera down to the death of Alessandro Scarlatti.
CAVALLINI, PIETRO (c. 1259–1344), Italian painter, born in Rome, was an artist of the earliest epoch of the modern Roman school, and was taught painting and mosaic by Giotto while employed at Rome; it is believed that he assisted his master in the mosaic of the Navicella or ship of St Peter, in the porch of the church of that saint. He also studied under the Cosmati. Lanzi describes him as an adept in both arts, and mentions with approbation his grand fresco of a Crucifixion at Assisi, still in tolerable preservation; he was, moreover, versed in architecture and in sculpture. According to George Vertue, it is highly probable that Cavallini executed, in 1279, the mosaics and other ornaments of the tomb of Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey. He would thus be the “Petrus Civis Romanus” whose name is inscribed on the shrine; but a comparison of dates invalidates this surmise. He died in 1344, at the age of eighty-five, in the odour of sanctity, having in his later years been a man of eminent piety. He is said to have carved for the Basilica of San Paolo fuori le Mura, close to Rome, a crucifix which spoke in 1370 to a female saint. Some highly important works by Cavallini in the church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome, have been recently discovered.
CAVALLO, TIBERIUS (1749–1809), Anglo-Italian electrician and natural philosopher, was born on the 30th of March 1749 at Naples, where his father was a physician. In 1771 he came to England with the intention of pursuing a mercantile career, but he soon turned his attention to scientific work. Although he made several ingenious improvements in scientific instruments, his mind was rather imitative and critical than creative. He published numerous works on different branches of physics, including A Complete Treatise on Electricity (1777), Treatise on the Nature and Properties of Air and other permanently Elastic Fluids (1781), History and Practice of Aerostation (1785), Treatise on Magnetism (1787), Elements of Natural and Experimental Philosophy (1803), Theory and Practice of Medical Electricity (1780), and Medical Properties of Factitious Air (1798). He died in London on the 21st of December 1809.
CAVALLOTTI, FELICE (1842–1898), Italian politician, poet and dramatic author, was born at Milan on the 6th of November 1842. In 1860 and 1866 he fought with the Garibaldian Corps, but first attained notoriety by his anti-monarchical lampoons in the Gazzetta di Milano and in the Gazzettina Rosa between 1866 and 1872. Elected to parliament as deputy for Corteolona in the latter year, he took the oath of allegiance after having publicly impugned its validity. Eloquence and turbulent, combativeness in and out of parliament secured for him the leadership of the extreme Left on the death of Bertani in 1886. During his twelve years’ leadership his party increased in number from twenty to seventy, and at the time of his death his parliamentary influence was greater than ever before. Though ambitious and addicted to defamatory methods of personal attack which sometimes savoured of political blackmail, Cavallotti’s eloquent advocacy of democratic reform, and apparent generosity of sentiment, secured for him a popularity surpassed by that of no contemporary save Crispi. Services rendered in the cholera epidemic of 1885, his numerous lawsuits and thirty-three duels, his bitter campaign against Crispi, and his championship of French interests, combined to enhance his notoriety and to increase his political influence. By skilful alliances with the marquis di Rudini he more than once obtained practical control of the Italian government, and exacted notable concessions to Radical demands. He was killed on the 6th of March 1898 in a duel with Count Macola, editor of the conservative Gazetta di Venezia, whom he had assailed with characteristic intemperance of language. By his death the house of Savoy lost a relentless foe, and the revolutionary elements in Italy a gifted, if not entirely trustworthy, leader. (H. W. S.)
CAVALRY (Fr. cavalerie, Ger. Kavallerie or Reiterei, derived ultimately from late Lat. caballus, horse), a word which came into use in military literature about the middle of the 16th century as applied to mounted men of all kinds employed for combatant purposes, whether intended primarily for charging in masses, in small bodies, or for dismounted fighting. By degrees, as greater refinement of terminology has become desirable, the idea has been narrowed down until it includes only “horsemen trained to achieve the purpose of their commander by the combined action of man and horse,” and this definition will be found to cover the whole field of cavalry activity, from the tasks entrusted to the cavalry “corps” of 10,000 sabres down to the missions devolving on isolated squadrons and even troops.
History—The evolution of the cavalry arm has never been uniform at any one time over the surface of the globe, but has always been locally modified by the conditions of each community and the stage ofEarly
use of
mounted
warriors. intellectual development to which at any given moment each had attained. The first condition for the existence of the arm being the existence of the horse itself, its relative scarcity or the reverse and its adaptability to its environment in each particular district have always exercised a preponderating influence on the development of cavalry organization and tactics. The indigenous horses of Europe and Asia being very small, the first application of their capabilities for war purposes seems everywhere to have been as draught animals for chariots, the construction of which implies not only the
