on these are the works of the most distinguished Indian astronomers,
viz. Āryabhaṭa,[1] probably born in 476; Varāha-mihira,[2] probably
505-587; Brahma-gupta, who completed his Brahma-siddhānta in
628; Bhaṭṭa Utpala (10th century), distinguished especially as
commentator of Varāha-mihira; and Bhāskara Āchārya, who, born in 1114,
finished his great course of astronomy, the Siddhānta-śiromaṇi, in
1150. In the works of several of these writers, from Āryabhaṭa
onwards, special attention is paid to mathematical (especially
arithmetical and algebraic) computations; and the respective chapters
of Bhāskara’s compendium, viz. the Līlāvatī and Vīja-gaṇita,[3] still
form favourite text-books of these subjects. The question whether
Āryabhaṭa was acquainted with the researches of the Greek algebraist
Diophantus (c. A.D. 360) remains still unsettled, but, even if this
was the case, algebraic science seems to have been carried by him
beyond the point attained by the Greeks.
On Sanskrit literature generally may be consulted Max Müller, History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature; A. Weber, History of Indian Literature; A. A. Macdonell, History of Sanskrit Literature. (J. E.)
SANSON, CHARLES HENRI (b. 1739), public executioner of Paris from 1788 to 1795, was the son of Charles Sanson or Longval, who received in 1688 the office of exécuteur des hautes œuvres de Paris, which became hereditary in his family. Sanson’s brothers exercised the same trade in other towns. In the last days of 1789 Gorsas in the Courrier de Paris accused Sanson of harbouring a Royalist press in his house. Sanson was brought to trial, but acquitted, and Gorsas withdrew the accusation. After the execution of Louis XVI., a statement by Sanson was inserted in the Thermomètre politique (13th February 1793) in contradiction of the false statements made in respect of the king’s behaviour when confronted with death. He surrendered his office in 1795 to his son Henri, who had been his deputy for some time, and held his father’s office till his death in 1840. There is no record of the elder Sanson’s death. Henri’s son Clément Henri was the last of the family to hold the office.
The romantic tales told of C. H. Sanson have their origin in the apocryphal Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de la Révolution Française par Sanson (2 vols., 1829; another ed., 1831), of which a few pages of introduction emanate from Balzac, and some other matter from Lhéritier de l’Ain. Other Mémoires of Sanson, edited by A. Grégoire (ps. for V. Lombard) in 1830, and by M. d’Olbreuze (6 vols., 1862–1863) are equally fictitious. The few facts definitely ascertainable are collected by G. Lenôtre in La Guillotine pendant la Révolution (1893). Cf. M. Tourneux, Bibliographie de l’histoire de Paris . . . (1890, &c.), vol. i. Nos. 3963-3965, and vol. iv., s.v. “Sanson.”
SANSON, NICOLAS (1600–1667), French cartographer, wrongly termed by some the creator of French geography, was born of an old Picardy family of Scottish descent, at Abbeville, on the 20th (or 31st) of December 1600, and was educated by the Jesuits at Amiens. In 1627 he attracted the attention of Richelieu by a map of Gaul which he had constructed (or at least begun) while only eighteen. He gave lessons in geography both to Louis XIII. and to Louis XIV.; and when Louis XIII., it is said, came to Abbeville, he preferred to be the guest of Sanson (then employed on the fortifications), instead of occupying the lodgings provided by the town. At the conclusion of this visit the king made Sanson a councillor of state. In 1647 Sanson accused the Jesuit Labbe of plagiarizing him in his Pharus Galliae Antiquae; in 1648 he lost his eldest son Nicolas, killed during the Fronde. Among the friends of his later years was the great Condé. He died at Paris on the 7th of July 1667. Two younger sons, Adrien (d. 1708) and Guillaume (d. 1703), succeeded him as geographers to the king.
Sanson’s principal works are: Galliae antiquae descriptio geographica (1627); Graeciae antiquae descriptio (1636); L’Empire romain (1637); Britannia, ou recherche de l’antiquité d’Abbeville (1638), in which he seeks to identify Strabo’s Britannia with Abbeville; La France (1644); Tables méthodiques pour les divisions des Gaules . . . (1644); L’Angleterre, l’Espagne, l’Italie et l’Allemagne (1644); Le Cours du Rhin (1646); In Pharum Galliae antiquae Philippi Labbe disquisitiones (1647–1648); Remarques sur la carte de l’ancienne Gaule de César (1651); L’Asie (1652); Index geographicus (1653); Geographia sacra (1653); L’Afrique (1656). In 1692 Hubert Jaillot collected Sanson’s maps in an Atlas nouveau. See also Niceron, Mémoires, vols. xiii. and xx.; the 18th-century editions of some of Sanson’s works on Delamarche under the titles of Atlas de géographie ancienne and Atlas britannique; and the Catalogue des cartes et livres de géographie de Sanson (1702).
SANSOVINO, ANDREA CONTUCCI DEL MONTE (1460–1529), Florentine sculptor, was the son of a shepherd called Niccolo di Domenico Contucci, and was born at Monte Sansavino near Arezzo, whence he took his name, which is usually softened to Sansovino. He was a pupil of Antonio Pollaiuolo, and at first worked in the purer style of 15th-century Florence. Hence his early works are by far the best, such as the terra-cotta altarpiece in Santa Chiara at Monte Sansavino, and the marble reliefs of the “Annunciation,” the “Coronation of the Virgin,” a “Pietà,” the “Last Supper,” and various statuettes in the Corbinelli chapel of S. Spirito at Florence, all executed between the years 1488 and 1492. From 1491 to 1500 Andrea worked in Portugal for the king, and some pieces of sculpture by him still exist in the monastic church of Coimbra. (See Raczinski, Les Arts en Portugal, Paris, 1846, p. 344.) These early reliefs show strongly the influence of Donatello. The beginning of a more pagan style is shown in the statues of “St John baptizing Christ” over the east door of the Florentine baptistery. This group was, however, finished by the weaker hand of Vincenzo Danti. In 1502 he executed the marble font at Volterra, with good reliefs of the “Four Virtues” and the “Baptism of Christ.” In 1505 Sansovino was invited to Rome by Julius II. to make the monuments of Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza and Cardinal Girolamo della Rovere for the retro-choir of S. Maria del Popolo. The architectural parts of these monuments and their sculptured foliage are extremely graceful and executed with the most minute delicacy, but the recumbent effigies show the beginning of a serious decline in taste. These tombs became models which for many years were copied by most later sculptors with increasing exaggerations of their defects. In 1512, while still in Rome, Sansovino executed a very beautiful group of the “Madonna and Child with St Anne,” now over one of the side altars in the church of S. Agostino. From 1513 to 1528 he was at Loreto, where he cased the outside of the Santa Casa in white marble, covered with reliefs and statuettes in niches between engaged columns; a small part of this sculpture was the work of Andrea, but the greater part was executed by Montelupo, Tribolo and others of his assistants and pupils. Though the general effect is rich and magnificent, the individual pieces of sculpture are both dull and feeble. The earlier reliefs, those by Sansovino himself, are the best.
SANSOVINO, JACOPO (1477–1570), Italian sculptor, was called Sansovino after his master Andrea, his family name being Tatti. He became a pupil of Andrea in 1500, and in 1510 accompanied him to Rome, devoting himself there to the study of antique sculpture. Julius II. employed him to restore damaged statues, and he made a full-sized copy of the Laocoon group, which was afterwards cast in bronze, and is now in the Uffizi at Florence. In 1511 he returned to Florence, and began the statue of St James the Elder, which is now in a niche in one of the great piers of the Duomo. He carved a nude figure of “Bacchus and Pan,” now in the Bargello, near the “Bacchus” of Michelangelo, from the contrast with which it suffers much. Soon afterwards Jacopo returned to Rome, and designed for his fellow-citizens the grand church of S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini, which was carried out by Antonio Sangallo the younger. A marble group of the “Madonna and Child,” heavy in style, now at the west of S. Agostino, was his next important work. In 1527 Jacopo fled from the sack of Rome to Venice, where he was welcomed by Titian and Pietro Aretino; henceforth till his death he was occupied in adorning Venice with magnificent buildings and many second-rate pieces of sculpture. Among the latter Jacopo’s poorest works are the colossal statues of “Neptune” and “Mars” on the grand staircase of the ducal palace. His best are the bronze doors of the sacristy of St Mark, cast in 1562; inferior to these are the series of six bronze reliefs round the choir of the same church. In 1565 he completed a small bronze gate with a graceful relief of “Christ surrounded by Angels”; this gate shuts off the altar of the Reserved Host in the choir of St Mark’s.
- ↑ The Āryabhaṭīya, edited by H. Kern (1874).
- ↑ The Bṛihat-saṃhitā and Yogayātrā, edited and translated by H. Kern; the Laghu-jātaka, edited by A. Weber and H. Jacobi.
- ↑ A translation of both treatises, as well as of the respective chapters of Brahma-gupta’s work, was published (1817) by H. T. Colebrooke, with an important “Dissertation on the Algebra of the Hindus,” reprinted in the Misc. Essays, ii. pp. 375 seq.
