Page:Imperialdictiona02eadi Brandeis.pdf/741

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
GRA
701
GRA

GRANACCI, Francesco, an Italian painter, born at Florence in 1469. He was the fellow-pupil of Michelangelo with Ghirlandajo, and became his constant friend and imitator, enthusiastically adopting the new and vigorous style of form introduced by the great Florentine. In an Assumption of the Virgin formerly in San Pietro Maggiore, now in the Rucellai palace, the style of Michelangelo is very closely followed. The three public galleries of Florence possess many good works by Granacci. He died in 1544.—(Vasari; Gaye.)—R. N. W.

GRANADA, Luis de, one of the most eloquent preachers of his day, was born at Granada in 1505 of poor parents, and was educated by the governor of the Alhambra along with his own children. He joined the dominican order of monks, and entered a convent in his native city, from which he proceeded to the college of St. Gregory in Valladolid. Having finished his theological studies, he was named prior of a convent, and immediately began to exercise his talents as a preacher. He soon acquired great celebrity, and afterwards founded a monastery at Badajoz. His fame having reached Cardinal Henry, infanta of Portugal and archbishop of Evora, he was called to that city in 1555, and was afterwards made provincial of Portugal, and confessor and counsellor to the queen-regent. In 1561, when his term of office as provincial expired, he refused the archbishopric of Braga, and retired to a dominican convent at Lisbon, where he spent the rest of his days. Gregory XIII. wrote him an encouraging letter; and Sixtus V. is said to have contemplated making him a cardinal, when he died in 1588 at the advanced age of eighty-four. He continued to the last in the active and laborious discharge of his apostolical duties, spending his days in preaching and writing, and the greater part of his nights in prayer, study, and meditation, in which he delighted. His works, which are numerous, and are chiefly of a devotional character, were translated into most European languages. The best and most popular is his "Guida de Pecadores," or Sinners' Guide.—G. BL.

GRANBY, Marquis of. See Manners.

GRAND, Louis le, a French engraver, flourished about the middle of the last century. His vignettes from the designs of C. Eisen, Gravelot, &c., are much admired; they include a series from Ovid's Metamorphoses, with views in the environs of Paris, and other landscapes. He died at Paris in 1780.—His son, Auguste-Claude-Simon, born at Paris in 1765, also attained considerable distinction as an engraver. Among his best known plates are a folio portrait of Louis XVIII.; vignettes illustrative of Paul and Virginia; and others, after Fragonard, Schall, Boilly, &c. Some of them are executed in the dotted manner. He died in 1808.—A. C. le Grand must not be confounded with a contemporary, Paul le Grand, who engraved several of the views in the Voyage Pittoresque: Sicily; nor with P. F. le Grand, whose name is affixed to many prints after Le Roy, Girardon, &c.—J. T—e.

GRANDI, Ercole, commonly called Ercole da Ferrara, where he was born about 1462. He was one of the principal of the Ferrarese painters; he has been called the pupil of Lorenzo Costa, but his age is against this; Costa and Ercole were friends, but it is most probable that Francesco Cossa was his master. Grandi's chief works were the frescoes of the Garganelli chapel in San Pietro Martire in Bologna, where he chiefly resided. These frescoes were nearly all destroyed with the chapel in 1605; some portions which were preserved in the Tanari palace, are now in the academy of Bologna. There are also a few specimens by him in the Costabili gallery at Ferrara; and there is one unimportant specimen in the national gallery, London. He died in 1531.—(Laderchi.)—R. N. W.

GRANDI, Francesco Luigi, afterwards called Guido, an Italian mathematician and engineer, was born at Cremona, of a good family, on the 1st of October, 1671, and died at Pisa on the 4th of July, 1742. In order to devote himself to study he became a monk, and founded a scientific society called Accademia dei Certanti. Having been appointed professor of philosophy at Florence, he attacked the physical and mechanical errors of the (so-called) Aristotelian schoolmen, cultivated the Cartesian geometry, and corresponded with Newton, Leibnitz, Bernoulli, and other eminent mathematicians of the time. His most remarkable investigations at this period were those upon the theory of arches. He was next appointed professor of philosophy, and afterwards of mathematics, at Pisa, by Cosmo III., grand-duke of Tuscany, and rose to be abbot of his convent. Having denied the authenticity of some of the legends of the order of monks to which he belonged, he was deposed by his brethren from the office of abbot, and expelled from the order; but the grand-duke interfering, caused him to be received back into his convent, and the pope reinstated him in the abbacy. His skill in hydraulics led to his receiving from the grand-duke the appointment of intendant-general of the water works of Tuscany, which he held until his death in 1742.—W. J. M. R.

GRANDIER, Urbain, a French priest, born at Rovère towards the close of the sixteenth century, was educated among the jesuits of Bordeaux, and held the curacy of Loudun in the diocese of Poitiers. He was also appointed a canon of the church of St. Croix in the same town; but his talents and eloquence were associated with a proud, satirical temper, which embittered those who envied his preferments. The monastic orders especially were offended by the freedom with which he expressed himself in asserting the superior claims of the parochial clergy, while the liberal spirit which he displayed towards the protestants, his assumption of ecclesiastical prerogatives pertaining to a higher office, and his undisguised fondness for female society, gave force to the suspicions entertained against his character. He was accused of licentious practices. The trial terminated in a conviction, and the bishop, besides imposing on him various penances, suspended him from his priestly functions for five years, with a permanent prohibition of their exercise in Loudun. On appeal, however, this sentence was reversed, and Grandier returned to his cure with a haughty exultation which is more easily accounted for than justified. He subsequently became a candidate for the office of director to a convent of Ursulines in Loudun; the election fell upon another; and in a short time reports of strange occurrences in the convent began to be circulated. Preternatural voices and spectral forms, it was said, terrified the inmates, and the demon being compelled by exorcism to declare the author of the visitation, uttered the name of Urbain Grandier. The archbishop instituted an inquiry, and endeavoured to hush the scandal; but it reached the ears of Louis XIII. and Richelieu. The prime minister issued special instructions under the royal seal that the case might be strictly investigated. Grandier was arrested; and though the examination of his papers detected nothing objectionable except a tract against the celibacy of the clergy, a number of witnesses were found ready to attest against him acts of adultery and magical practices. He was arraigned on the charge of sorcery in 1634, and condemned to be burnt at the stake. This cruel punishment he endured with much firmness, asserting to the last his innocence of the crime for which he suffered. The case naturally excited much interest and several works were published afterwards, some of which maintained, while others denied, the reality of the apparitions in the convent, and the guilt of the unfortunate priest to whose arts they were imputed. The Histoire des Diables de Loudun, published at Amsterdam in 1693, leaves no doubt that he was the victim of an infamous conspiracy.—W. B.

GRANDVILLE, Jean-Ignace-Isidore, an eminent French caricaturist and designer, was born at Nancy, September 3, 1803. The family name was Gérard, the pseudonym Grandville having been first assumed by the grandfather, who was an actor; but Grandville was the name always employed by the grandson. His father was a miniature-painter, and young Grandville at first practised that art. He went to Paris at the age of twenty, entered the studio of Lecomte, and painted some pictures. Still fortune did not smile, and he was driven to the designing of costumes and other booksellers' work. His first venture in the line in which he afterwards became so famous was in a series of lithographs illustrating the Sunday tribulations of a bon bourgeois. This made him known, and was followed, in 1828, by the first of his "Metamorphoses du Jour." In these extraordinary prints he continued to pour forth, week after week, with unflagging spirit, a succession of ludicrously felicitous appropriations of animals' heads to human forms, adapting the strange figures with rare adroitness to the social and political notabilities of the day; and burlesquing, not only persons and events, but current fashions and follies, with the keenest and most piquant satire, and yet with provoking whimsicality and good humour, though at times with an excess of license. The "Metamorphoses" met with almost unexampled success, and the fortune of their author was made. Latterly he turned with equal success to the illustration of classic authors, and designing original burlesques. In their way his book illustrations have never been surpassed. Not only