BIBACULUS, M. Furius, a satiric writer, a native of Cremona, lived about 30 years b.c. Some have placed him in the same rank as Catullus and Horace, but they must be very acute critics indeed, to raise such a splendid edifice on so frail a foundation. We have absolutely nothing of his but a few hearsay fragments, consisting of a passage cited by Suetonius, two miserable epigrams, and one hexameter quoted by the scholiast on Juvenal. If to these we add Horace's well-known line, "Furius pingui tentas omaso," attributed by some to this same Furius, we have all that is known of him. He is said not to have been on good terms with Horace.—J. G.
BIBAGO, Rabbi Abraham, ben Shem Tob, a writer on philosophy, flourished in Aragon in the fifteenth century.—T. T.
BIBARS, fourth sultan of the dynasty of the Mameluke Baharytes, lived in the thirteenth century. He rose by his courage and ability to the highest dignity of the empire, but revolted on the accession of Aibek. He was, by his own confession, one of the murderers of the sultan Kothonz. He was a successful warrior, and had many struggles with the Tartars, whom he eventually overcame. He subsequently penetrated with his armies as far as Nubia. An eclipse of the moon, which occurred when he was in Egypt, was the occasion of his death. It had been predicted by the astrologers that some great person should die at the time of that phenomenon, and Bibars thinking to turn aside that prediction from himself, administered poison to a prince of the house of Saladin, but with a view to obviate all suspicion, he drank himself what remained in the fatal cup, under the mistaken idea that there was not enough left to cause his death. Bibars has been surnamed Aboul Foutouh or Father of Victories. He was remarkable for his charity to the poor, and made an annual distribution among them of a hundred measures of wheat. He also took under his care the widows and children of soldiers who had fallen in battle. He erected a college in Cairo, and constructed a magnificent bridge over the Nile.—G. M.
BIBARS, twelfth sultan of the dynasty of the Mameluke Baharytes, died in 1310. He was of Circassian origin, and was at first the slave of Kalaou, but was raised by that prince, and by his son, Khalyl-el-Mohammed, to the highest dignities of the state. In 1309 he was forced by the Mameluke Bordjytes to accept the crown, but having offended his army by his lenity to Salar, governor of Egypt, who had espoused the cause of the fallen prince, the officers abandoned him, and the troops deserted. He then took to flight with seven hundred Mamelukes, nearly all of whom also deserted. He was at length arrested near Ghaza, by the partisans of Mohammed, and being taken to Cairo, was brought into the presence of his competitors, who ordered him to be strangled.—G. M.
BIBBIENA, Angelo Dovizio, nephew of Cardinal Bibbiena, apostolical prothonotary, and afterwards secretary of Cosmo I., duke of Florence, lived in the second half of the sixteenth century. He wrote "Sommario delle cose degne di memoria, successe nella guerra di Algieri dall'anno 1541 fino, al giugno del 1553," and a canto entitled "Trionfo della dea Minerva."
BIBBIENA, Bernard, called also Bernard di Tarlatti and Dovizi or Dovizio, an Italian cardinal, author, and diplomatist, born at Bibbiena, August 4, 1470; died November 9, 1520. He was placed by his family in the service of John di Medici, secretary to Lorenzo the Magnificent, and shared the fortunes of that illustrious house. With the cardinal, John, he went to Rome after the death of Alexander VI., and succeeded in gaining the favour of Julius II., by whom he was employed in negotiations. On the death of Julius in 1513, John di Medici ascended the pontifical throne under the name of Leo X., and in the same year bestowed a cardinal's hat on Bibbiena, appointing him legate and commander-in-chief of the pontifical army in the war with the duke of Urbino. In 1518 the cardinal was sent to France for the purpose of engaging Francis I. in a war against the Turks, but returned to Rome the following year without effecting the purpose of his mission—probably on account of the distrust of the pope himself, who was jealous of French influence. He died in November, 1520, not altogether without suspicion of having been poisoned by his old friend and master the pope, although the historian of Leo rejects the insinuation. It would appear that Bibbiena made so favourable an impression on Francis, that the free-hearted monarch promised his support for the next occasion on which the tiara should be vacant, and that Leo was highly enraged at the circumstance. Whether Leo was or was not implicated in a transaction, which for the period and the personages would excite no great surprise, it is impossible now to determine; but it must be confessed that Bibbiena disappeared at an inconvenient time for Leo's reputation. Bibbiena was not only an able diplomatist and negotiator, but a friend of art and literature, and especially the drama. He wrote comedies full of pleasantry, and induced the young men of good family to play them in the Vatican. His comedy, "La Calandria," obtained considerable renown. It was printed at Sienna in 1521, at Rome in 1524, and at Venice in 1522 and 1562, and was also represented before Henry II. and Catherine de Medicis. It resembles the plays of Plautus, and is written in prose, because, as the author justly observes in the prologue, men speak in prose and not in verse. Licentious in design, it is not without merit of form, and by some has been considered the earliest comedy of modern times.—P. E. D.
BIBBIENA, Jean Gallie, a French romancist, born at Nancy about 1709; died about 1779; author of "La Nouvelle Italic," a heroic comedy, in which one portion of the actors spoke French and another Italian, produced with success at the Italian theatre in 1762.
BIBIENA, Ferdinando Galli, was born at Bologna in 1657. His father was a pupil of Albano. He studied under Cignani, painted architectural and eclectic subjects for the duke of Parma, the Duke Francesco Farnese, and received a chain and medal from the emperor, as a mark of honour. His tone was fine, and his perspective artful. He had a brother, Francesco, who died 1743. Ferdinando left two sons, Giuseppe and Antonio; the first painted at Dresden and Berlin, and died 1756; the latter at Mantua, between 1770 and 1780. Giuseppe left a son. Carlo, a theatrical painter; he became renowned for the painting of triumphal arches, and trophies for fetes after victories; either side, whichever it was, French or Germans,—so the money came, his genius was ready. The elder Bibiena's works adorn half the churches in Bologna.—W. T.
BIBLIANDER, Theodor, one of the most learned divines and Hebraists of the Reformation, and a distinguished ornament of the Helvetic church, was born at Bischoffzell in Thurgau, in Switzerland, early in the sixteenth century; his original name was Buchmann. After the completion of his university course, he became an assistant in the school of Oswald Myconius, at Zurich; and in 1532 his rare attainments in learning procured him the honour of succeeding to the theological chair vacated by the death of Zwingle. In this office he continued till 1560, when he retired as Emeritus; he survived till 1564, when he died of the pest. His Hebrew and other Oriental learning gave peculiar weight and value to his expositions of the Old Testament, which were attended not only by the young students of Zurich, but also by Bullinger, Pellican, and other learned ministers and professors of that city. He was a proficient in the Arabic tongue, and published in 1553 an edition, in folio, of the Koran, in which he corrected the text by a collation of Arabic and Latin MSS—adding a life of Mahomet and his successors and marginal notes, in which he pointed out and refuted the absurdities taught in the text. His other publications were numerous, but many of his writings remained in MS., and are still preserved in that form in the public library of Zurich. One of the most useful applications of his learning was the part he took in completing the translation of the scriptures left unfinished by Leo Juda. Bibliander translated the last forty-eight Psalms, the last eight chapters of Ezekiel, and the whole of Daniel, Job, Ecclesiastes, and Canticles. The translation was published in 1543, and goes by the name of the Zurich Bible. Bibliander was the only Zurich theologian who did not receive the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination; on that subject he continued all his life to hold the views of Erasmus. It was not, however, till Peter Martyr succeeded to the chair of Pellican in Zurich, in 1556, and began to expound the Genevan doctrine in its strictest form, that he publicly opposed himself to it; and it was no doubt the warmth with which he expressed himself on the disputed doctrine, which led to his retirement in 1560. He became subject in his later life to fits of excitement and temper, which compromised his comfortable relations with his colleagues; and several years before his final retirement, Bullinger had great difficulty in persuading him to give up a resolution which, in a moment of irritation, he had suddenly formed, to throw up his chair, and start upon a mission to the Orientals.—P. L.
BIBULUS, Calpurnius, the name of two of the sons of
