SIDONIUS, Caius Sollius Apollinaris, poet and bishop, was born in 430. Having received a liberal education in his native town of Lyons, where he exhibited his skill in poetic composition, he removed to Rome, and married Papianilla, the daughter of the Emperor Avitus, whose accession to the purple he had celebrated in a panegyric. For this he was rewarded by a brass statue in the portico of Trajan. On the elevation of Majorian to the throne, Sidonius was made prisoner at Lyons, but he conciliated his new master by a congratulatory ode, and negotiated for him a treaty with Theodoric, king of the Visigoths. During the reign of Severus Ricimer he successfully defended Auvergne against the inroads of the barbarians; and when Anthemius came into power, he was promoted to the dignity of a patrician. In 472 he resigned his secular offices, and entered into orders. Upon siege being laid to Clermont, he was for a time ordered to vacate the see, but was restored; but shortly afterwards his death, which some have called a martyrdom, in 487, arose out of the disturbance caused in his bishopric by two factious priests. Of the writings of Sidonius, there are still extant twenty-four pieces in verse and nine books of epistles. The best editions are those of Savoron, 1609, and Sirmard, 1652.—W. J. P.
SIEBENKEES, Johann Philipp, a German antiquary, was born at Nuremberg, 14th October, 1759. He devoted himself to classical learning in the university of Altdorf, and then became tutor to the family of a merchant at Venice. During 1768 he stayed at Rome, and after his return home was appointed professor at Altdorf, where he died 25th June, 1796. He is best known by his edition of Strabo, which after his death was completed by Tschukke. But his histories of "Bianca Capello," and of the "State Inquisition at Venice," deserve an equally honourable mention.—K. E.
SIEBOLD, Philipp Franz von, a German naturalist and traveller, was born at Wartzburg on 17th February, 1796. He was educated in his native town, and in 1820 he took the degree of M.D. In 1822 he went to Java as officer of health. He was appointed physician and naturalist to the diplomatic and scientific mission sent by the government of the Netherlands to Japan, and made extensive travels in that country, collecting a large number of important ethnological documents, as well as specimens of natural history. In 1828 he was arrested by the Japan government, and detained for some time. He reached Europe on 7th July, 1830, and took up his residence at Bonn. He made donations of specimens to the museum at Leyden. Among his works are—"Epitome linguæ Japonicæ;" "Atlas of the Empire of Japan, and description of it;" "Fauna et Flora Japonica;" "Bibliotheca Japonica," &c.—J. H. B.
SIEGEN, Ludwig von, the inventor of mezzotinto engraving, was born at Utrecht in 1609. His father was German; his mother was of Spanish origin. After his mother's death, Ludwig was taken by his father, Johan von Siegen of Sechten, to Cassel, where he was educated. He remained at Cassel till 1626, when the inhabitants were dispersed by the plague. Ludwig then entered the military profession, and in 1637 we find him in the service of William VI., landgrave of Hesse, as a page or kammerjunker; and it was during the abundant leisure afforded by such service that Siegen discovered his new method of engraving. In 1641-42 he made a journey to Amsterdam, and from that city sent, on the 19th of August, 1642, a portrait of the landgrave's mother, Amalia Elizabeth of Hanau, the first mezzotint engraving. The letter accompanying the print is still in the library at Cassel; and a small copy of the mezzotint is given by De Laborde in his History of Mezzotinto Engraving. It is a bust portrait, rounded at the top, seventeen inches high, by twelve and three-fourths inches wide. After the termination of the Thirty Years' war, in 1648, Siegen left Holland, and entered the military service of the duke of Wolfenbüttel, and shortly afterwards married the daughter of Michael Call, the bailiff of Hildesheim, by whom he had a family. In 1654 he returned to Holland, and after his father's death in 1655, having inherited his property, assumed the style of Siegen von Sechten from the estate near Cologne. He now removed to Brussels, where he became acquainted with the English Prince Rupert, and Siegen communicated to the prince his new method of engraving. Prince Rupert, with the assistance of the painter Wallerant Valliant, executed some plates himself. This was in the years 1656-58; and as one of his own sons had also communicated the method at Mainz, the discovery was soon published throughout Europe, especially in England, after the Restoration in 1660, when Prince Rupert communicated the method to Evelyn, apparently as his own, or at least without sufficient explanation as to its origin: from which circumstance that writer inadvertently proclaimed the prince the inventor of the art, and thus established an error which has been only recently corrected. Siegen was still in the service of the duke of Wolfenbüttel in 1674, when he attained the rank of major; and he was still living in 1676, but he appears to have given up engraving long before that time. He died at Wolfenbüttel; the date of his death is not known. De Laborde describes seven plates by Siegen, three of which exist in two states—Amelia Elisabetha, D. G. Hassiæ Landgravia, &c., signed L. à. S., 1642; Eleanora de Gonzalgue, wife of the Emperor Ferdinand III., and known as the queen of Bohemia, signed L. à Siegen, inventor, fecit, 1643; Prince William of Nassau, and his wife Augusta Maria, both signed L. à Siegen, inventor, fecit, 1644; the Emperor Ferdinand III., signed Lud. Siegen in Sechten, &c., a se invento modo sculpsit, 1654; Saint Bruno, signed L. à S. in S., 1654; and a Holy Family, after Annibale Carracci, signed Ludovicq à S. novo suo modo lusit, in the second state, bearing the date 1657.—(See details in full in Leon de Laborde, Histoire de la Gravure en maniere Noire, royal 8vo, Paris, 1839.)—R. N. W.
SIENA, Matteo di Giovanni da, an early Sienese painter, who was active between 1462 and 1491, and is sometimes called the Masaccio of his school: that is, he very decidedly forsook the old traditional ways for a style comparatively conspicuous for its originality, in Siena; yet compared with the great quattrocento painters of Florence or Venice, such as Pollajuolo, Ghirlandajo, or Bellini, he was infinitely inferior. Matteo was some time at Naples, where he also contributed to the progress of the art. There is a "Massacre of the Innocents" by him in the Royal gallery there; this was a favourite subject with him; he has introduced it in the portion of the famous chiaroscuro pavement of the cathedral of Siena, which was partly executed by him, in a manner invented by himself.—A Guido da Siena painted there in 1221; he is the oldest master of this school.—There was also an Ugolino da Siena who painted in 1339, in the Byzantine style and taste.—(Lanzi, Storia Pittorica, &c.; Rumohr, Italienische Forschungen.)—R. N. W.
SIEYES, Emmanuel Joseph, Count, more generally known as the Abbé Sieyes, was born at Frejus on the 3rd May, 1748. He was trained for the ecclesiastical profession, and studied at the university of Paris; but he early imbibed the doctrines of the philosophers and political reformers, then so potent in French intellectual society. He received notwithstanding promotion in the church, having been appointed vicar-general to the bishop of Chartres, a canon of the cathedral, and chancellor of the diocese. Zealously advocating the principles that found full development in the revolution of 1789, he rose to the highest popularity by his pamphlet "Qu'est ce que le Tiers Etat" (What is the Third Estate)? in which, answering his own query, the author said it was everything; that it had hitherto been nothing, but that it now wanted to become something. The ideas of Sieyes ere long became accomplished facts. Henceforward, as member of the states-general and the national assembly, he took a prominent part in the most stirring events of that memorable time. In the convention of 1792 he was chosen one of the deputies; but, beginning now to dread the extreme results in which his own theories had culminated, he spoke as seldom as possible, and wisely contented himself with simple votes, as, for example, at the king's trial, where he gave his voice for sentence of death, in the two words, "La mort;" not "La mort sans phrase" (Death without phrases), as has been long erroneously reported. When Robespierre and the Terror were all-powerful, he retired to the country for a time; but in 1795 again began actively to participate in public affairs, being named a member of the committee of public safety. Next year he was appointed a member of the directory. Coalescing with Bonaparte, their alliance bore fruit in the Revolution of the 18th Brumaire (9th November, 1799), when Napoleon, Sieyes, and Roger Ducos became first consuls. But in Bonaparte Sieyes had found his master. The two differed about the new constitution; and Sieyes, unwilling to play a subordinate part, and unable to cope with his greater colleague, quitted public life. He subsequently accepted the title of count, was exiled at the Restoration, and did not return to France until after the Revolution of 1830. He died at Paris on the 20th June, 1836. Sieyes is famous for
