SANTILLANA, INIGO LOPEZ DE MENDOZA, Marquis of (1398–1458), Castilian poet, was born at Carrion de los Condes in Old Castile on the 19th of August 1398. His father, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, grand admiral of Castile, having died in 1405, the boy was educated under the eye of his mother, Dona Leonor de la Vega, a woman of great strength of character. From his eighteenth year onwards he became an increasingly prominent figure at the court of Juan II. of Castile, distinguishing himself in both civil and military service; he was created marqués de Santillana and conde del Real de Manzanares for the part he took in the battle of Olmedo (19th of May 1455). In the struggle of the Castilian nobles against the influence of the constable Alvaro de Luna he showed great moderation, but in 1452 he joined the combination which effected the fall of the favourite in the following year. From the death of Juan II. in 1454 Mendoza took little part in public affairs, devoting himself mainly to the pursuits of literature and to pious meditation. He died at Guadalajara on the 25th of March 1458.
Mendoza shares with Juan de Villalpando the distinction of introducing the sonnet into Castile, but his productions in this class are conventional metrical exercises. He was much more successful in the serranilla and vagueira-highland pastorals after the Provengal manner. His rhymed collection of Proverbios de gloriosa doctrina é fructuosa ensenanza was prepared for the use of Don Enrique, the heir-apparent. To the same didactic category belong the hundred and eighty stanzas entitled Dialogo de Bias contra Fortuna, while the Doctrinal de Privados is a bitter denunciation of Alvaro de Luna. The Comedieta de Ponza is a Dantesque dream-dialogue, in octave stanzas (de arte mayor), founded on the disastrous sea-tight off Ponza in 1425, when the kings of Aragon and Navarre and the Infante Enrique were taken prisoners by the Genoese. The three last-named compositions are the best of Santi1lana's more ambitious poems, but they are deficient in the elegant simplicity of the serranillas. These unpretentious songs are in every Spanish anthology, and are familiar even to uneducated Spaniards.
Bibliography.—Obras, edited by Jose Amador de los Rios (Madrid, 1852); M. Menéndez y Pelayo, Antolagia de poetas liricas caste llanos (Madrid, 1894), vol. v. pp. 78-144; B. Sanvisenti, I Primi Injiussi di Dante, del Petrarca e del Boccaccio sulla letteratura spagnuola (Milan, 1902), pp. 127-186.
SANTINI, GIOVANNI (1787–1877), Italian astronomer, was born on the 30th of January 1787 at Caprese, in the province
of Arezzo. He was from 1813 professor of astronomy at the
university and director of the observatory at Padua. He
wrote Elementi di astronornia (2 vols. 1820, 2nd ed. 1830),
Teoria degli stromenti ottici (2 vols. 1828), and many scientific
memoirs and notices, among which are five catalogues of telescopic
stars between +10° and −15° declination, from observations
made at the Padua observatory. He died on the 26th
of June 1877.
See Astronomische Nachrichten, No. 90; Month. Not. Roy. Astr. Soc., No. 38.
SANTLEY, SIR CHARLES (1834–), English vocalist,
son of an organist at Liverpool, was born on the 28th of February
1834. He was given a thorough musical education, and having
determined to adopt the career of a singer, he went in 1855 to
Milan and studied under Gaetano Nava. He had a fine baritone
voice, and while in Italy he began singing small parts in
opera. In 1857 he returned to London, and on 16th November
made his first appearance in the part of Adam in The Creation
at St Martin's Hall. In 1858, after appearing in January in
The Creation, he sang the title-part in Elijah in March, both at
Exeter Hall. In 1859 he sang at Covent Garden as Hoel in the
opera Dinorah, and in 1862 he appeared in Italian opera in Il
Trovatore. He was then engaged by Mapleson for Her Majesty's,
and his regular connexion with the English operatic stage only
ceased in 1870, when he sang as Vanderdecken in The Flying
Dutchman. His last appearance in opera was in the same
part with the Carl Rosa Company at the Lyceum Theatre in
1876. Meanwhile, in 1861 he sang Elijah at the Birmingham
Festival, and in 1862 was engaged for the Handel Festival
at the Crystal Palace. At the musical festivals and on the
concert stage his success was immense. In such songs as “To
Anthea,” “Simon the Cellarer” or “Maid of Athens,” he was
unapproachable, and his oratorio singing carried on the finest
traditions of his art. He was knighted in 1907. In 1858 Santley
married Gertrude Kemble, and their daughter, Edith Santley,
had a great success as a concert singer.
SANTO DOMINGO [San Domingo, Dominican Republic, or
officially Republica Dominicana], a state in the West Indies.
It occupies two-thirds of the island of Haiti (q.v.) and has an
area of about 18,045 sq. m. The administration is in the hands
of three co-ordinate “ powers ”-the executive, the legislative
and the judicial. Under the constitution of 1844, modified in
1879, 188O, 1881, 1887, 1896, and 1908, the president is the head
of the executive. He is chosen by an electoral college and
serves for six years, and he is assisted by a cabinet of seven
ministers. The legislature, called the National Congress, consists
of a Senate of 12 members, and a Chamber of Deputies
of 24 members elected for four years by a limited suffrage.
The Supreme Court comprises a chief-justice, six justices
appointed by the Congress, and one justice appointed by the
president. The republic is divided into six provinces and six
maritime districts. Each province and district is administered
by a governor appointed by the Cabinet. There is a small army,
most of which is stationed at the City of Santo Domingo, and
military service is compulsory in the event of foreign war. The
navy consists of one small gun-boat. Primary education is
free and compulsory: elementary schools are supported largely
by the local authorities, and the higher, technical and normal
schools by the government. There is a professional school
with the character and functions of a university. The Roman
Catholic is the state religion, but all others are allowed under
certain restrictions. The monetary unit is a silver coin of the
value of a franc, called the dominicano, but in 1897 the United
States gold dollar was adopted as the standard of value. The
roads in the interior are primitive, but the government encourages
the construction of railways. A line runs between Sanchez
and La Vega, and another between Santiago and Porto Plata.
The republic joined the Postal Union in 188O. The exports
include tobacco, coffee, cacao, sugar, mahogany, logwood, cedar,
satinwood, hides, honey, gum and wax. The collection of the
customs and other revenues specially assigned to the securance
of bonds was in the hands of an American company
until 1899, when this defaulted in the payment of interest
and the government took over the collection. In 1905, to
forestall foreign intervention for securing payment of the State
debt, President Roosevelt made an agreement with Santo
Domingo, under which the United States undertook to adjust
the republic's foreign obligations, and to assume charge of the
customs houses. A treaty was ratified by the United States
Senate in 1907, and an American citizen is temporarily receiver
of customs. In June 1907 the debts amounted to $17,00<>, oo0.
Santo Domingo has the finest sugar lands in the West Indies;
tobacco and cacao flourish; the mountain regions are especially
suited to the culture of coffee, and tropical fruits will grow anywhere
with a minimum of attention. During the earlier years of the
Spanish occupation gold to the value of £90,000 was sent annually
to Spain, besides much silver. Platinum, manganese, iron, copper,
tin, antimony, opals and chalcedony are also found. In the Neyba
valley there are two remarkable hills, composed of pure rock salt.
Only an influx of capital and an energetic population are needed to
develop these resources.
Santo Domingo, the capital of the republic, is situated on the south coast. At a distance of 45 m. N. lies the town of Azua (pop. 1500) founded in 1504 by Diego Columbus. It stands in a plain, rich in salt and asphalt, which was the scene of the first planting of sugar in the West Indies. Santiago (pop. 12,000), the capital of the Vega Real, stands on the banks of the Yaqui river, 160 m. N.W. of the capital, in the richest agricultural district in the state. It controls the tobacco trade which is chiefly in German and Dutch hands. Its port, Porto Plata (pop. 15,000), is the outlet of the entire Vega Real district. La Vega, (perhaps the most beautiful city of Santo Domingo, lies in the midst o a lovely savanna, or plain, surrounded by well wooded hills, and has a magnificent old cathedral." Six miles away is the Cerro Santo, a hill 787 ft. in height, rising abruptly from the plain, on the summit of which Columbus planted a great cross on his first visit in 1493. Seybo (5000), Monti Cristi (3000) and Samaria (1500) are the only other towns of any size. The population of the republic is about 500,000. The people are mainly mulattoes of Spanish descent, but there are a considerable number of negroes and whites of both Creole and European origin. Politically the
