Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/391

A I S A 375 and he died in 1204. He was one of the weakest and most vicious princes that ever occupied the Byzantine throne. His father had been censured as a general for cowardice, and Isaac II. seems to have inherited a full share of the paternal failing, which his connexion on the mother s side with the Comnenian family had not counter acted. He was vain, superstitious, and sensual ; and, while he neglected the duties of his lofty position, he abandoned himself to all the pleasures which it commanded. Surrounded by a crowd of slaves, mistresses, and flatterers, he permitted his empire to be administered by unworthy favourites, while he squandered the vast sums of money wrung from his unhappy provinces on costly buildings and expensive gifts to the churches of his metropolis. It is little to be wondered at that his cowardice and vice stirred up numerous rivals, who sought to emulate the ease with which a creature so worthless had obtained an empire. ISABELLA (1451-1504), surnamed la Catolica, "the Catholic," queen of Castile from 1474, was the second child and only daughter of John IT. of Castile by his second wife Isabella, granddaughter of John I. of Portugal (thus being through both parents a descendant of the famous John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster), and was born at Madrigal on April 22, 1451. On the death of her father, who was succeeded by her brother Henry IV. (1454), she was withdrawn by her mother to Arevalo, where her early education was conducted in the deepest seclusion ; in 1462, however, after the birth of Joanna " Beltraneja," she was, along with her uterine brother Alphonso, removed by Henry to the court, where she showed a remarkable example of staidness and sobriety. Already more than one suitor had made application for her hand, Ferdinand of Aragon, who ultimately became her husband, being among the number ; for some little time she was engaged to his elder brother Carlos, who died in 1461. When in her thirteenth year her brother promised her in marriage to Alphonso of Portugal, but to this union she firmly refused to consent ; her resistance seemed less likely to be effectual in the case of the marquis of Villena, the grand master of the order of Calatrava, to whom she was next affianced, when she was delivered from her fears by the sudden death of the bride groom while on his way to the nuptials (1466). After an offer of the crown of Castile, made by the revolutionary leaders in the civil war, had been declined by her, she was in 1468 formally recognized by her brother as lawful heir, after himself, to the united crowns of Castile and Leon. New candidates for her hand now appeared in the persons of a brother of Edward IV. of England (probably Richard, duke of Gloucester), and of the duke of Guienne, brother of Louis XL, and heir presumptive of the French monarchy. Finally, however, in face of very great difficulties, she was married to Ferdinand of Aragon at Valladolid on October 19, 1469. Thenceforward the fortunes of the two spouses were inseparably blended (see FERDINAND, vol. viii. p. 81). For some time they held a humble court at Duefias, and afterwards they resided at Segovia, where on the death of Henry she was proclaimed queen of Castile and Leon (December 13, 1474). The first months of her reign were fully employed in coping with domestic disaffection and in repelling invasion from Portugal ; but peace was soon secured on a basis of such firmness and permanence as rendered possible that successful policy the main features of which have already been sketched elsewhere. Spain undoubtedly owed to Isabella s clear intellect, resolute energy, and unselfish patriotism much of that greatness which for the first time it acquired under "the Catholic sovereigns." The moral influence of the queen s personal character over the Castilian court was incalculably great ; from the debasement and degradation of the preceding reign she raised it to being " the nursery of virtue and of generous ambition." The very sincerity of her piety and strength of her religious convictions led her more than once, however, into great errors of state policy, which have never since been repaired, and into more than one act which, offends the moral sense of a more refined age ; her efforts for the introduction of the Inquisition into Castile, and for the proscription of the Jews, are outstanding evidences of what can only be called her bigotry. But not even the briefest sketch of the facts of her life can omit to notice that happy instinct or intuition which led her, when all others had heard with incredulity the scheme of Columbus, to recall the wanderer to her presence with the words " I will assume the undertaking for my own crown of Castile, and am ready to pawn my jewels to defray the expenses of it, if the funds in the treasury should be found inadequate." She died at Medina del Campo on November 24, 1504, and was succesded by her daughter Joanna "la loca" (the " Crazy ") with Ferdinand as regent. See Prescott r //{story of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, where the original authorities are exhaustively enumerated. ISABEY, JEAN BAPTISTE (1767-1855), was born at Nancy on the llth April 1767. At nineteen, after some lessons from Dumont, miniature painter to Marie Antoin ette, he became a pupil of David. Employed at Versailles on portraits of the dukes of Angouleme and Berry, he was given a commission by the queen, which opens the long list of those which he received, up to the date of his death in 1855, from th.3 successive rulers of France. Patronized by Josephine and Napoleon, he arranged the ceremonies of their coronation and prepared drawings for the publication intended as its official commemoration, a work for which he was paid by Louis XVIIL, whose portrait (engraved, Debucourt) he executed in 1814. Although Isabey did homage to Napoleon on his return from Elba, he continued to enjoy the favour of the Restoration, and took part in arrangements for the coronation of Charles X. The mon archy of July conferred on him an important post in connexion with the royal collections, and Napoleon III. granted him a pension, and the cross of commander of the Legion of Honour. Review of Troops by the First Consul was one of his most important compositions, and Isabey s Boat, a charming drawing of himself and family pro duced at a time when he was much occupied with litho graphy had an immense success at the Salon of 1820 (engraved, Landon, Annales, vol. i. p. 125). His portrait of Napoleon at Malmaison is held to be the best ever exe cuted, and even his tiny head of the king of Rome, painted for a breast-pin, is distinguished by a decision and breadtk which evidence the hand of a master. A. biography of Isabey was published by M. E. Taigny in 1859, and M. C. Lenormant s article, written for Michaud s Biog. Univ., is founded on facts furnished by Isabey s family. IS^EUS owes his place in the decade of the Attic orators to his mastery of forensic argument ; but his literary significance, in relation to the historical develop ment of Attic prose, is not inferior to that of any other name in the series. The chronological limits of his ex tant work fall between the years 390-353 B.C. ; and his birth may with probability be placed about 420 B.C. The* Plutarchic life describes him as a Chalcidian ; Suiclas, whom Dionysius follows, as an Athenian. The accounts have been reconciled by supposing that his family sprang from the settlement (i<Xr)povxia) of Athenian citizens among whom the lands of the Chalcidian hippobotse (knights) had been divided about 509 B.C. In 411 B.C. Eubcea (except Oreos) revolted from Athens ; and it would not have been strange if residents of Athenian origin had then migrated from the hostile island to Attica. Such a connexion with Eubcea would explain the non-Athenian name Diagoras which is borne by the father of Isneus, while the latter is