Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/455

M I N M I N 437 minerals, Paris (many editions ) ; Mace", Guide attx ViUes dJEaur, <fec., Paris, 1881; Joanne and Lc Plleur, Lt s Bains d Europe, Paris. 3. Swiss : Meyer Ahrens, Ileitquellen der Schireitt, /Uriel), 1807 ; Gsell Fels, Die Sutler uml Kurort e der St-htceitz, Ziirich, 1880. 4. Italian: G. Jervis, Guida alle Acque Mineiali rf 7/rt/ta, Turin, 1S7G. <fcc.; E. F. Harless, Die Ileilquellen undKurbader Italient, Berlin, 1848. 5. Spanish: Kubio, Tratado de las Fuentes Minerales de EipaHa, Madrid, 1853; Don J. de Antelo y Sanchez has recently published a work on Spnntlh waters. t>. English : T. Short, History of the Mint rat Waters, London, 1734; J. Kutty, Methodical Synopsis of Mineral Waters, London, 1757; Granville, Spas of England, 1841; E. Lee, Mineral Springs of England, London, 1841; J. Macphcr- son, Our Baths and Wells, 1871 ; Id., Baths and Wells of Europe, 1873 ; and II. Weber s English edition of Hrann, London, 1875. A great portion of the literature is to be found in monographs on paiticular places. 7. American: J. Bell, The Mineral and Thermal Springs of the United States and Canada, 1855; Moorman, The Mineral Waters of the United Slates and Canada, 1867; Chandler, Lecture on Water, 1871; Walton, The Mineral Springs of the United States and Canada, 1875. (J. M. A. U. L.) MINERVA (i.e., menes-va, endowed with mind) was the Roman goddess who presided over all handicrafts, inven tions, arts, and sciences. She was probably an Etruscan deity, but her character was modified on Roman soil through her identification with the Greek Pallas Athena (see ATHENA). No legend of her birth is recorded ; the Roman deities were abstractions, not distinct persons with an individual history. Her chief worship in Rome was in the temple built by Tarquin on the Capitol, where she was worshipped side by side with Jupiter and Juno. This foundation may be assigned to Etruscan influence. She had also an old temple on the Aventine, which was a regular meeting-place for dramatic poets and actors. The dedi cation day of the temple and birthday of the goddess was March 19, and this day was the great festival of Minerva, called quinquatrus because it fell on the fifth day after the Ides. The number five was sacred to the goddess. All the schools had holidays at this time, and the pupils on reassembling brought a fee (minervat) to the teachers. In every house also the quinquatrus was a holiday, for Minerva Avas patron of the women s weaving and spinning and the workmen s craft. At a later time the festival was extended over five days, and games were celebrated. This feature is evidently due to the Graecizing conception of Minerva as the goddess of war. To this same Graecizing tendency we must attribute the lectistemium to Minerva and Neptune conjointly after the battle of the Trasimene Lake. The 23d had always been the day of the tubilustrium, or purification of the trumpets, so that the ceremony came to be on the last day of Minerva s festival. Trumpets were used in many religious ceremonies ; and it is very doubtful whether the tubilustrium was really con nected with Minerva. There was another temple of Minerva on the Cselian Hill, and a festival called the lesser quin- quatrus was celebrated there on June 13-15, chiefly by the flute-players. Minerva of the Ctelian temple was called Capta; June 19 was the foundation day of this temple and the birthday of the goddess. The palladium, an archaic image of Pallas, was brought from Troy to Lavinium, and thence to Rome by the family of the Nautii ; it was preserved in the temple of Vesta as a pledge of the safety of the city. There are some traces of an identification of Minerva with the Italian goddess Nerio, wife of Mars; it is probable that March 19 was originally a feast of Mars. Besides Preller, Rom. Myth., and Hartung, Relig. d. Riimer, &c., see Jordan, Ephem. Epigraph., i. 238; Mommsen, C. I. L., i. 388; Usener, Rhein. Mm., xxx. 222. MINGRELIA, a former principality of Transcaucasia, which became subject to Russia in 1804, and since 1867 has constituted three circles of the government of Kutais Letchgum, Senakh, and Zugdidi. The country corresponds to the ancient Colchis ; and Izgaur or Iskuriah on the Black Sea coast, which was the capital during the period of Mingrelian independence under the Dadian dynasty, is to be identified with the ancient Dioscurias, a colony of Miletus. The Mingrelians (still almost exclusively confined to the Mingrelian territory, and numbering 197,000) are closely akin to the Georgians. See CAUCASUS, vol. v. p. 257, and GEORGIA. MINIATURE is a term which by common usage has come to be applied to two different branches of painting. Derived from the Latin word minium, the red pigment used in the primitive decoration of MSS., in the first place it is the technical word employed to describe a painting in a MS. ; and, from the fact of such pictures being executed on a reduced scale, it has its secondary and modern signifi cation of a small, or miniature, portrait. In the latter sense it belongs to the general subject of painting. Here it is proposed to trace the development of the miniature in MSS. of the different schools of Europe. The rise of the art of ILLUMINATION, in which the miniature plays so important -a part, has been described under that heading ; and something has been said in that place about the earliest extant specimens of miniature painting. Unfortunately we cannot with any certainty reach farther back than the 4th century for the most ancient of them ; and all remaining examples between that period and the 7th century in Greek and Latin MSS. can be counted on the fingers. The two famous codices of Virgil in the Vatican Library stand pre-eminent as the most ancient Latin MSS. decorated with paintings. The miniatures in the first of them, the Codex Romanus, are large and roughly yet boldly executed paintings, which have no pretension to beauty, and are simply illustra tions ; but they are as old as the 4th century, and are of the highest value in enabling us to appreciate the debased style to Avhich classical art had descended, and which no doubt was more largely employed than we might think. The second MS., the Schedx Vatican^, which may also be assigned to the 4th century, is far more artistic and retains a good deal of the grace of classic art. Of the same kind, but of rather later date, are the fragments of the Iliad in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, the miniatures of which are generally of excellent design. Next comes the Dioscorides of the Imperial Library at Vienna, with its semiclassical portrait-miniatures executed at the beginning of the 6th century. Of a rather later period are the paintings which illustrate the Greek MS. of Genesis in the same library. A far finer and older MS. of the same book of the Pentateuch once existed in the Cottonian Library, but was almost totally destroyed by fire. The few fragments of the miniatures which once filled this volume, and which were of the 5th century, are sufficient to show what excellent work could be done in the capital of the eastern empire, from whence the MSS. most probably came. The late interesting discovery of an illus trated MS. of the Gospels in Greek, of the latter part of the 6th century, at Rossano in southern Italy, adds another number to our scanty list of early volumes of this class, which is closed by the Latin Pentateuch in the library of the earl of Ashburnham. This last MS., however, is not older than the 7th century. It was executed in Italy, and is adorned with many large miniatures, not of high artistic merit, but of great interest for the history of painting and of costume. Coeval with the MSS. which have just been enumerated are the beautiful mosaics and wall-paintings which are seen at Rome, Ravenna, and in other parts of Italy, serving as standards of comparison and carrying on the history of art where MSS. fail us. The strong and ever-increasing Byzantine element which appears in these works prepares us to find the predominance of the same influence when we again pick up the broken thread of the history of miniature painting. We may then, at this point, turn for a moment to the east of Europe and state briefly what remains of Greek art in MSS. Of Greek miniatures there are still many fine examples extant, but, excepting those which have been noticed above, there are few which are earlier than the llth century. At this period the miniature appears in the set form which it retained for the next two

or three hundred years; and the connexion between its