Huguenots, justifying himself on the ground that their non-episcopal ordination had not been of their own seeking, and at the Savoy conference in 1661 he tried hard to effect a reconciliation with the Presbyterians. He differed from the majority of his colleagues in his strict attitude towards Sunday observance and in favouring, in the case of adultery, both divorce and the re-marriage of the innocent party. He was a genial companion, frank and outspoken, and a good man of business.
Among his writings (most of which were published posthumously) are a Historia Transubstantiationis Papalis (1675), Notes and Collections on the Book of Common Prayer (1710) and A Scholastical History of the Canon of Holy Scripture (1657). A collected edition of his works, forming 5 vols. of the Oxford Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology, was published between 1843 and 1855; and his Correspondence (2 vols.) was edited by Canon Ornsby for the Surtees Society (1868–1870).
COSMAS, of Alexandria, surnamed from his maritime experiences Indicopleustes, merchant and traveller, flourished during the 6th century A.D. The surname is inaccurate, since he never reached India proper; further, it is doubtful whether Cosmas is a family name, or merely refers to his reputation as a cosmographer. In his earlier days he had sailed on the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, visiting Abyssinia and Socotra and apparently also the Persian Gulf, western India and Ceylon. He subsequently became a monk, and about 548, in the retirement of a Sinai cloister, wrote a work called Topographia Christiana. Its chief object is to denounce the false and heathen doctrine of the rotundity of the earth, and to vindicate the scriptural account of the world. Photius, who had read it, calls it a “commentary on the Octateuch” (meaning the eight books of Ptolemy’s great geographical work; according to some, the first eight books of the Old Testament). According to Cosmas the earth is a rectangular plane, covered by the vaulted roof of the firmament, above which lies heaven. In the centre of the plane is the inhabited earth, surrounded by ocean, beyond which lies the paradise of Adam. The sun revolves round a conical mountain to the north—round the summit in summer, round the base in winter, which accounts for the difference in the length of the day. Cosmas is supposed by some to have been a Nestorian. Although not to be commended from a theological standpoint, the Topographia contains some curious information. Especially to be noticed is the description of a marble seat discovered by him at Adulis (Zula) in Abyssinia, with two inscriptions recounting the heroic deeds and military successes of Ptolemy Euergetes and an Axumitic king. It also contains in all probability the oldest Christian maps. From allusions in the Topographia Cosmas seems to have been the author of a larger cosmography, a treatise on the motions of the stars, and commentaries on the Psalms and Canticles. Photius (Cod. 36) speaks contemptuously of the style and language of Cosmas, and throws doubt upon his truthfulness. But the author himself expressly disclaims any claims to literary elegance, which in fact he considers unsuited to a Christian circle of readers, and the accuracy of his statements has been confirmed by later travellers.
The Topographia will be found in Migne, Patrologia Graeca, lxxxviii.; an edition by G. Siefert is promised in the Teubner series. See H. Gelzer, “Kosmas der Indienfahrer,” in Jahrbücher für protestantische Theologie, ix. (1883) and C. R. Beazley, The Dawn of Modern Geography, i. (1897). There is an English translation, with introduction and notes, by J. W. McCrindle (1897), published by the Hakluyt society.
COSMAS, of Prague (1045–1125), dean of the cathedral and the earliest Bohemian historian. His Chronicae Bohemorum libri iii., which contains the history and traditions of Bohemia up to nearly the time of his death, has earned him the title of the Herodotus of his country. This work, which his continuators brought down to the year 1283, is of the highest value to historians in spite of the fact that its reputation for disingenuousness and credibility has been greatly affected by the critical attacks of J. Loserth (Studien zu Cosmas von Prag, Vienna, 1880, &c.).
The work was first published at Hanover in 1602, from the imperfect Strassburg codex. A perfected edition was brought out at the same place in 1607; this was reprinted, with notes by C. G. Schwarz in I. B. Menckenius, Scriptores rer. Germ. (3 vols., Lips., 1728–1730). It is included in Pelzel and Dobrowsky, Script. rer. Bohem. i. pp. 1-282, after collation with Dresden MS., edited very fully by R. Köpke in Mon. Germ. Hist. Scrip. ix. 1-132, and repeated in Migne, Patrol. lat. clxvi. pp. 55-388, and in Fontes rer. Bohem. ii. (1874), 1-370 (Latin and Czech), by W. Wl. Tomek. See A. Potthast, Bibliotheca Hist. Med. Aevi.
COSMATI, the name of a Roman family, seven members of which, for four generations, were skilful architects, sculptors and workers in mosaic. The following are the names and dates known from existing inscriptions:—
| Lorenzo (born in the second half of the 12th century). | |||||||
| Jacopo (dated works 1205 and 1210). | |||||||
| Cosimo (dated” works” 1210–1235). | |||||||
| Luca (1231 and 1235). |
Jacopo (1231–1293). |
Adeodato (1294). |
Giovanni (1296 and 1303). | ||||
Their principal works in Rome are: ambones of S. Maria in Ara Coeli (Lorenzo); door of S. Saba, 1205, and door with mosaics of S. Tommaso in Formis (Jacopo); chapel of the Sancta Sanctorum, by the Lateran (Cosimo); pavement of S. Jacopo alla Lungara, and (probably) the magnificent episcopal throne and choir-screen in S. Lorenzo fuori le Mura, of 1254 (Jacopo the younger); baldacchino of the Lateran and of S. Maria in Cosmedin, c. 1294 (Adeodato); tombs in S. Maria sopra Minerva (c. 1296), in S. Maria Maggiore, and in S. Balbina (Giovanni). The chief signed works by Jacopo the younger and his brother Luca are at Anagni and Subiaco. A large number of other works by members and pupils of the same family, but unsigned, exist in Rome. These are mainly altars and baldacchini, choir-screens, paschal candlesticks, ambones, tombs and the like, all enriched with sculpture and glass mosaic of great brilliance and decorative effect.
Besides the more mechanical sort of work, such as mosaic patterns and architectural decoration, they also produced mosaic pictures and sculpture of very high merit, especially the recumbent effigies, with angels standing at the head and foot, in the tombs of Ara Coeli, S. Maria Maggiore and elsewhere. One of their finest works is in S. Cesareo; this is a marble altar richly decorated with mosaic in sculptured panels, and (below) two angels drawing back a curtain (all in marble) so as to expose the open grating of the confessio. The magnificent cloisters of S. Paolo fuori le Mura, built about 1285 by Giovanni, the youngest of the Cosmati, are one of the most beautiful works of this school. The baldacchino of the same basilica is a signed work of the Florentine Arnolfo del Cambio, 1285, “cum suo socio Petro,” probably a pupil of the Cosmati. Other works of Arnolfo, such as the Braye tomb at Orvieto (q.v.), show an intimate artistic alliance between him and the Cosmati. The equally magnificent cloisters of the Lateran, of about the same date, are very similar in design; both these triumphs of the sculptor-architect’s and mosaicist’s work have slender marble columns, twisted or straight, richly inlaid with bands of glass mosaic in delicate and brilliant patterns. The shrine of the Confessor at Westminster is a work of this school, executed about 1268. The general style of works of the Cosmati school is Gothic in its main lines, especially in the elaborate altar-canopies, with their pierced geometrical tracery. In detail, however, they differ widely from the purer Gothic of northern countries. The richness of effect which the English or French architect obtained by elaborate and carefully worked mouldings was produced in Italy by the beauty of polished marbles and jewel-like mosaics—the details being mostly rather coarse and often carelessly executed.
An excellent account of the Cosmati is given by Boito, Architettura del media evo (Milan, 1880), pp. 117-182.
COSMIC (from Gr. κόσμος, order or universe), pertaining to the universe, universal or orderly. In ancient astronomy, the word “cosmical” means occurring at sunrise, and designates especially the rising or setting of the stars at that time. “Cosmical physics” is a term broadly applied to the totality of those branches of science which treat of cosmical phenomena
