the pupil of Porpora for the four years preceding the death of that esteemed master in 1767. Corri came to London in 1774, where he produced an opera, "Alessandro nell Indie," at the king's theatre, which had little success. He obtained great repute as a teacher of singing, and printed a treatise on the art. Several of his English songs, of which he published a great number, became very popular. He produced also two collections of pianoforte sonatas, and the English opera of "The Travellers," which was his most successful work. His daughter, who appeared in public as a singer and a harpist, and obtained much distinction in the latter capacity, married the famous Dussek. In 1797 Corri opened a music warehouse in the Haymarket, in partnership with his son-in-law, who was at the time at the height of his career as a pianist and composer, and Corri, too, was well known to the public; but their publishing speculation did not prosper. Corri had three sons, who all followed his profession—Antonio, who settled in America; Montague, born in Edinburgh in 1785, who obtained some considerable note in London as a composer of small pieces for the theatres; and Haydn, who resided as a teacher in Dublin, and whose son, Henry, has come before the public as a singer. Natale Corri was the brother of Dominico; he was a teacher of singing and a composer, and lived at Edinburgh, where his daughter, Frances, afterwards known as Madame Corri-Paltoni, was born in 1801, whose reputation was high among the Italian vocalists of her time.—G. A. M.
CORT, Cornelius, a celebrated engraver, born at Horn in Holland in 1536. After engraving a number of plates from the Dutch and Flemish masters, he set out for Italy. In Venice he was cordially received by Titian, who gave him a residence in his house. He afterwards visited Rome, and instituted there a school of engraving. It is said, but apparently without much foundation, to have been under this distinguished artist that Agostino Caracci first studied the art of engraving. The plates of Cort are entirely executed with the graver, in a vigorous and masterly manner. He died at Rome.—W. T.
CORTESI, Jacopo, or rather Jacques Curtois, called Il Borgognone. This celebrated painter was born in 1621, at St. Hippolite in Burgundy. His father was a painter of sacred subjects, who attained but little success in his profession. On the persuasion of a French officer, Jacopo deserted the studio of his father and entered the army, in which he remained three years. This period was not entirely lost to the future painter, for he made drawings of every skirmish, attack, and military manœuvre in which he was engaged. After relinquishing the trade of a soldier, he went to Bologna, and there formed the acquaintance of Albano and Guido, which was of much service to him. Borgognone resided some years at Florence tinder the patronage of Prince Mathias, whose military achievements in Germany and Italy he recorded in a historical gallery of paintings. At Rome he produced some sacred works, the "Magdalen at the feet of Christ," in the church of S. Marta, &c. But his real excellence consisted in his battle landscapes. "He imparted a wonderful air of beauty to his compositions," says Lanzi; "his combatants appear before us courageously contending for honour or for life, and we seem to hear the cries of the wounded, the blast of the trumpet, and the neighing of the horses." The original brilliance of colour has departed from the greater number of his works. His four finest works probably are in the Palazzo Pitti at Florence. In the height of his fame he was suddenly driven from the world by a malevolent rumour that he had poisoned his wife. He retired to a monastery of the jesuits, and became one of their body. He was held in high esteem by his fellow-monks, so much so that they dispensed with the second year of his noviciate. He died of apoplexy at Rome, on the 14th November, 1676. He etched a few plates of battle-pieces, very masterly in execution and powerful in their effects of light and shade.—W. T.
CORTEZ, Hernando, the Spanish conqueror of Mexico, was born at Medellin in Estremadura in 1485, and was thus a boy of seven when Columbus discovered America. His early youth was a stormy one, and at the age of nineteen he quitted Spain for a career of adventure in what was then "the far west." His destination was Hispaniola, of which the unworthy successor of Columbus, Ovando, was governor, and from him Cortez received a concession of land, and some slight official dignity. Seven years later, he was associated with Velasquez in the conquest of Cuba, an enterprise which brought out his soldierly qualities. Another seven years elapsed, and Cortez was summoned from his lucrative occupancy of a Cuban estate, to follow up the discoveries of Juan de Grijalva on the Mexican coast. Velasquez designated Cortez chief of the expedition; and though he subsequently revoked the appointment, fearing the ambition of his turbulent subordinate, Cortez succeeded in making good his new position. Towards the close of 1518, Cortez set sail with a little squadron which had been partly fitted out at his own expense. The army with which he went forth to the conquest of Mexico, scarcely numbered five hundred Europeans. His first encounter with the natives was at Tabasco, which he took after severe fighting, and he proceeded thence to San Juan de Ulloa, where he heard, from the friendly natives, of the Mexican empire, and their dependency on it. Landing in the early spring of 1519 at the site of the present Vera Cruz, Cortez met with a friendly reception from the native cacique, who transmitted to the Aztec emperor, Montezuma, the expression of the Spanish visitor's wish to be allowed to repair to Mexico, the capital. Montezuma refused his permission. Cortez then prepared to march on Mexico; and being harassed by plots among his followers, he destroyed his ships, leaving them no alternative but to accompany him, since their return to Cuba was thus impossible. In the August of 1519 he began his march, his army being somewhat augmented by Indian auxiliaries. Part of his policy, indeed, was to represent himself to the natives as their deliverer from the Aztec yoke. The army of Tlascala, an independent republic, opposed his progress. With his little force he defeated, in a pitched battle, 30,000 Tlascalans, and formed an alliance with the vanquished foe. Montezuma was frightened when he heard the tidings, and received the Spaniards in his capital, not as enemies, but as friends. But the people were hostile though the monarch was friendly, and Cortez, nothing loath, took advantage of the feeling to accuse the peaceful and timid Montezuma of treachery, and to make him first a prisoner, and then a puppet in his hands. The Mexicans, naturally irritated, especially at the profanation of their temples, were cultivating a mood of mind very dangerous to the Spaniards, when Cortez was recalled from the capital to front another adversary. An army had landed, sent by Velasquez, to bring back his rebellious subordinate. With promptitude, vigour, and success, Cortez marched against the Spanish force, surprised it, took its leader prisoner, and, as formerly with the Tlascalans, so now with his own countrymen, he converted the foe into a friend, and returned to Mexico the commander of the very army which had been despatched to depose him. The cruelties of his lieutenant at this capital had caused the insurrection to explode, and when Cortez reached Mexico he found, after much hard fighting, that he was outnumbered, and he resolved to evacuate the city. During the retreat the Spaniards were nearly cut to pieces, and it was almost by a miracle that Cortez, with his diminished forces, gained, on the 8th of July, 1520, the battle of Otumba, which decided the fate of Mexico. The lapse of six months found him on his way to invest Mexico with a reinforced and reorganized army, of which the Indian portion was very numerous. The siege of Mexico lasted three months, and it was only after a very narrow escape from destruction that the Spaniards found themselves in possession of its ruins, intermingled with the innumerable corpses of its defenders. This was on the 13th of August, 1521. Confirmed by the Emperor Charles V. in his self-conferred dignity of captain-general, Cortez governed the country well—pursuing towards the natives a policy on the whole conciliatory and just. Nevertheless, in 1526, the conqueror of Mexico found himself summoned to Spain, to answer charges brought against him by accusers and enemies at home. It was not, however, until 1528 that he arrived in his native country. In spite of the cause of his recall, he was received with the utmost enthusiasm by the population, and the emperor bestowed on him every possible honour but one—that of reinstatement in the civil governorship of Mexico. Returning in 1530 to America, he made, among other important discoveries, that of California; but when he heard of the arrival of a new viceroy of Mexico, he resolved to return to Spain and assert his claims. His reception was not the same as on the occasion of his first return. The conquest of Peru seemed to have effaced, both with people and prince, the memory of the conquest of Mexico. Cortez was treated with coldness by Charles V. He took part in the disastrous expedition of the emperor against Algiers in 1541, and might perhaps have given
