ASCANIO, Giovanni d', an Italian painter of the last half of the fourteenth century, continued the series of sacred pictures begun by his master, Berna of Sienna, in the church of St. Gimignano, and also executed some works at Florence for the palace of the Medicis.
ASCANIO, Salvator, a learned and dogmatic Dominican monk of Spain, confessor to the bishop of Malaga, and visitor of the churches in Naples and Sicily. Died at Pisa, 1706.
ASCANIUS, the son of Æneas by Creusa, his first wife, appears to have lived about the year 1188 b.c. According to Livy, he was the founder of Alba Longa.
ASCANIUS, Peter, a Swedish naturalist, who lived in the middle of the eighteenth century. He was skilled in every department of natural history, particularly mineralogy, and was for many years inspector of the mines of Norway. In 1767 he published in Danish a work, entitled "Figures enluminées d'Histoire Naturelle." He was author besides of a variety of papers on natural history, one of which is preserved in the forty-ninth volume of the "Philosophical Transactions," and another in the "Transactions of the Royal Academy of Stockholm."—G. M.
ASCARELLI or ASCARIEL, Deborah, a Jewess, born at Rome in the latter part of the sixteenth century. She was well acquainted with Hebrew and Italian literature, and published some translations from the Hebrew in Italian verse.
ASCARUS of Thebes, a Greek brass-caster, living about 500 b.c. according to Pausanias, executed a votive statue of Jupiter for the temple of Olympia.
ASCELIN or ANSELME, Nicolas, a Dominican, and a native of Lombardy, sent by Innocent IV., in 1245, on a mission to the Mongols of Persia.
ASCENSIONE, Giacinto Agostino dell', an Italian surgeon, who lived in the latter half of the 17th century; was author of a surgical treatise published at Messina in 1693.
ASCH, George Thomas von (Baron Yegor Pheodorovitch), was born at Petersburg in 1729, and died there in 1807. He was a graduate of the university of Göttingen, and served for many years as general staff-surgeon in the Russian army.
ASCH, Peter Ernst von, one of the most eminent physicians of his time in Moscow, and brother of the above. His only known work is entitled, "De Natura Spermatis Observationibus Microscopicis Indagata," published at Göttingen in 1756.
ASCHAM, Anthony, vicar of Burniston, in Yorkshire, lived about the middle of the sixteenth century. He published a number of works on astronomy, besides certain almanacs or prognostications, in which he pretended to much secret and profound knowledge derived from the study of the stars.
ASCHAM, Anthony, a political writer of the seventeenth century, was born at Boston, in Lincolnshire, and educated at Eton College, from which, in 1633 or 1634, he was elected to King's College, Cambridge, where he obtained the degree of A.M. About the commencement of the civil war he joined the Presbyterians, and became an influential member of the Long Parliament. He is said to have been employed in drawing up the king's trial. After the execution of Charles, he was sent by the new government as ambassador to Spain, and was assassinated at Madrid by some English officers who had served in the Spanish army. Ascham was author of several works, partly political and partly religious.—G. M.
ASCHAM, Margaret, married in 1554 to Roger Ascham. She published her husband's work, entitled "The Schoolmaster," in 1570, and lies buried in St. Sepulchre's church, London.
ASCHAM, Roger, born in the year 1515 at Kirbywiske, in Yorkshire. He was the third son of John and Margaret Ascham. His father was house-steward in the noble family of Scroop; his mother was connected with some families of distinction. It is told of his parents, that having lived for forty-seven years together, they died on the same day, and nearly at the same hour. Some time before his father's death, Roger was taken into the family of Sir Anthony Wingfield, and educated together with his patron's sons. In the year 1530 he was sent, at Sir Anthony's expense, to St. John's, Cambridge. His tutor was Hugh Fitzherbert. On the 20th of Feb., 1538-39, Ascham obtained the degree of B.A., and in the March following was elected Fellow.
The period at which Ascham's Cambridge life commenced, was one of great excitement. An intellectual revolution may be described as having then commenced. The old scholastic studies still survived. The Reformation had everywhere leavened the public mind, but was not yet the religion of the state. The destruction of the Constantinopolitan empire had scattered many learned Greeks through every part of Europe, who brought with them their language and its literature. The doctrines taught by Luther were the subject of disputation in every school of learning. The new studies of Greek literature, and what were called the new tenets of religion, were making way in Cambridge. Ascham attached himself to both, and both were then regarded with distrust; as to Greek, every one who studied it became a heretic; and so little could be learned of it (such was the argument of those who opposed its introduction), that even, as to the pronunciation, there was not one of these strange characters that was not the subject of dispute as to the sound which it was intended to express. Disaffection to the old religion was still punished by exclusion from the natural and proper rewards of diligence; and Medcalf, the master of the college, was only enabled to secure Ascham's election to a fellowship by pretending to oppose it, and thus defeating a more formidable opposition.
Ascham took his master's degree in his twenty-first year. He soon became eminent as a writer of Latin and teacher of Greek. On the resignation of Sir John Cheke, appointed tutor to Prince Edward, Ascham was made Public Orator of the University, and all its formal and complimentary letters were written by him. Not merely was the language of the letters his, but his was the handwriting; and the admiration with which he is spoken of in reference to these academical exhibitions, has as often reference to one as the other. The beauty of his penmanship occasioned his first introduction to court; there, among his pupils in this art, were Prince Edward, the Princess Elizabeth, and the two sons of Brandon, duke of Suffolk. His pupil Grindal had been appointed tutor to the Princess Elizabeth, and, on his death, Ascham succeeded him.
In the year 1544, Ascham published his "Toxophilus the Schoolmaster, or Partitions of Shooting, in two books," dedicated to King Henry VIII., then setting out to invade France, and animated to the enterprise by the record of England's previous victories. The book is one, in many respects, of considerable interest. It is one of the monuments of a stage of English literature, at a period when few scholars condescended to write English. It is the work of a man, himself fond of archery, thoroughly acquainted with his subject, and even on this account valuable. At the time it was written, soldiers had not yet been armed with hand-guns; and the bow, in English hands, was a weapon which no foreign troops could resist. At the time Ascham wrote it was preferred to the musket, and, but for the long peace of King James's reign, it is not impossible that it might have kept its ground for a longer time than it did. Ascham received a pension, which Johnson, writing in the year 1761, regarded, when considered with reference to the comparative value of money, and to the modest wants of a student in Ascham's position, as equal to one hundred pounds a year.
In 1550 he visited Germany in attendance on Sir Richard Morissine, ambassador at the court of the Emperor Charles the Fifth. In addition to his ordinary duties as secretary, he acted as tutor to the ambassador. During this residence in Germany, which continued for three years, he wrote a rerious tract, in which he describes with some power the principal persons about the emperor's court. While he was still in Germany, his friends succeeded in getting him appointed Latin secretary to King Edward. The death of the young king, however, was the signal for his return to England. This event at first seemed likely to deprive him of his pension and his employment as secretary. However, without in any way compromising his opinions, he retained the good will of the persons about Mary's court, and Gardiner continued to employ him in writing official letters. The queen herself conversed with him often. His services were not inconsiderable, if it be true, as was quaintly said at the time, that he impeded some intended jobs, "hindering those who dined on the church from supping on the universities." On the queen's marriage with Philip, Ascham wrote within three days forty-seven letters to as many foreign princes, of whom the lowest in rank was a cardinal. In 1554, Roger himself married Margaret Howe, a lady of good family and some fortune. On Elizabeth's accession he filled the place of Latin secretary, and that of reader to the queen in the learned languages. He read with her for some hours each day. Ascham appears to have loved a court life, but he was a man who never asked a favour, which is ascribed sometimes to his indolence, sometimes to his disinterestedness. He was not, however, neglected. His offices were liberally rewarded, and he was given, in the year
