Villalpandi spent no little learning and ingenuity in elaborating the details of a representation of it, both in description and diagram. He also edited the Tractatus of St. Remi on the epistles of Paul. Died at Rome, 23rd May, 1608.—J. E.
VILLAMEDIANA, Count de, a Spanish nobleman, courtier, and poet, was born in the latter half of the sixteenth century. He was a man of very brilliant accomplishments, a wit, and one of the highest favourites in the court circles. But his gallantry proved his ruin. His admiration of the queen of Philip III., who was a daughter of Henry IV. of France, became quite notorious. He had even at a tournament, it is said, covered his person with silver reals, and taken the punning motto—"Mis amores son reales." One day in the year 1621, when her majesty was passing through a gallery of the palace, some one came behind her and put his hands over her eyes. "What is that for, count?" she exclaimed. But unhappily it was the king, and no count. Villamediana immediately received a friendly hint to be on his guard, as his life was in danger. He, however, passed the matter over lightly, and was assassinated the same evening. The story of the count's unhappy fate, which created an immense sensation in all the European courts, may be found in Mad. d'Aulnoy's Voyage d'Espagne, 1693; and in the duke of Riva's Romances Historicos, Paris, 1841. Villamediana was author of two or three hundred sonnets, and of some other miscellaneous poems. These were collected and published, after his death, at Saragossa in 1629, and again at Madrid in 1634. The poems in the earlier part of his life are in a simple and unaffected style, but his later productions are deeply tainted with the Gongorism, as it is styled, which was at that time vitiating the national taste.—R. M., A.
VILLANI, Filippo, author, flourished in the fourteenth century, and is supposed to have died early in the fifteenth. He augmented the Istorie Fiorentine of his uncle, Giovanni Villani by forty-two chapters, thus continuing the narrative to the year 1364. In 1401 and 1404 he delivered some lectures on Dante. He also wrote lives of illustrious Florentines.—C. G. R.
VILLANI, Giovanni, Florentine chronicler, born of a noble family in the latter half of the thirteenth century; died of the plague in 1348. In 1300, at the jubilee, he visited Rome, and by the sight of its declining grandeur was incited to undertake the composition of those vast "Istorie Fiorentine" which were to celebrate the rising glory of Florence, to trace her origin up to patriarchal times, and to group around her history the events of other cities and states. It was to be expected that his chronicle would contain much of the fabulous element, considering the epoch at which he wrote. The charge of unacknowledged plagiarism brought against him by Muratori and Tiraboschi is of a graver nature. The latter critic also disputes the fact of our author having been, as he professes, an eye-witness of events in the Flemish war; but other writers decide the question in favour of Villani, whose narrative of much that appertains to his own day bears the stamp of simplicity, accuracy, and candour though a strong Guelphic bias may sometimes have warped his own appreciation of facts. The chronicle extends not merely to the year of his death, but even to the breaking out of that pestilence which cut short his life; and it was subsequently carried on by his brother Matteo and his nephew Filippo. Giovanni Villani was a prominent citizen of Florence. Three times he held office as prior; he witnessed the rise of the Bianchi and Neri factions, and the proscription of Dante; bore arms against Castruccio Castracani; was consigned as one of the Florentine hostages to Ferrara, and there honourably received by the Marquis Obizzo, natural son of Mastin della Scala. He found a name for the new fortress of Firenzuola; in a scarcity he ministered successfully to his distressed countrymen; and being for a while employed in the mint, he helped to produce an exact register of the Florentine coinage issued both during the time of his own service and at a previous period.—C. G. R.
VILLARET, de Joyeuse Louis Thomas, a distinguished French admiral, the son of the governor of the Isle of France, was born in 1750. At an early age he had contracted a great fondness for the sea, but his family, who had destined him for the ecclesiastical profession, compelled him to enter the gendarmes of the palace. He had the misfortune, however, when only sixteen years of age to kill his antagonist in a duel, and was in consequence obliged to quit the corps. He was then allowed to indulge his inclinations for a seafaring life. He served for some time in the Indian ocean, and having rendered good service at the siege of Pondicherry, was appointed captain of a fire-ship. In 1781, when in command of the Noyade corvette of eighteen guns, he was captured by the British man-of-war the Sceptre, and taken to Madras, where he was treated with great respect. On his release he was raised to the rank of lieutenant, received the cross of St. Louis, and was appointed to the command of the Coventry frigate. In 1793 he was appointed to the command of the Trajan, and in 1794 was nominated vice-admiral by the committee of public safety, on the ground stated by the notorious Jean-Bon-St. Andre, that though Villaret was an aristocrat he was brave, and would do his duty. At this juncture a fleet of one hundred and sixty sail, laden with grain, was on its way from America to France, and Lord Howe was despatched to intercept this valuable convoy. On the other hand, as soon as this was known. Admiral Villaret sailed from Brest, resolved to hazard an engagement with the British fleet, for the sake of preserving the convoy. The force of the hostile fleets was nearly equal, and their first encounter (29th May, 1794), in which the French admiral displayed equal skill and courage, terminated in a drawn battle. The contest was renewed on the 1st of June, and, after a desperate struggle, six of the French ships were taken, and two sunk. But in the meantime, through the judicious measures adopted by Admiral Villaret, the convoy had succeeded in reaching safely its destined port. In the following year (2nd June) he had the misfortune to fall in with a greatly superior force under Lord Bridport, consisting of seventeen sail of the line, and four frigates, while he had under his command only twelve ships of the line and eleven frigates. Three of his ships of seventy-four guns were captured, but the rest of the fleet made their escape. Villaret refused to take part in the expedition against Ireland, the failure of which he predicted, and resigned his command. He was subsequently chosen a member of the council of Five Hundred; and having voted with the minority, excited the displeasure of the directory, who sentenced him in 1797 to be banished. He found an asylum in the Isle of Oleron, but was allowed to return home under the consulate. In 1801 he was appointed by Bonaparte to the command of the naval forces in the unfortunate expedition against St. Domingo, and in 1802 was nominated captain-general of St. Martinique and St. Lucia. In 1809 he was obliged to surrender the former to the British—a step which drew down upon him the displeasure of the government, and on his return to France he remained for some time in disgrace. In 1811, however, the emperor having investigated the affair, became satisfied with Admiral Villaret's conduct, and appointed him commander of a division, and governor-general of Venice. He died in 1812.—J. T.
VILLARS, Louis Hector, Duc de, one of the most illustrious soldiers of France, was born at Moulins in 1653. On quitting his studies at the college of Juilly, he obtained a place among the royal pages, and so greatly attracted by his spirit and activity the notice of Louis XIV., that at the early age of nineteen he was intrusted with a troop of horse. This was only the beginning of his good fortune. The skill and courage he evinced when subsequently engaged in active service under Turenne, insured his further promotion in 1674. From that period until 1678 he served in Alsatia and Flanders. Peace having been concluded in the latter year, he returned to court, and during the ten years that followed was diplomatically employed in Germany, with only partial success, yet to the satisfaction of Louis, who, unlike his minister Louvois, always favoured Villars. But the hostility of Louvois was at last subdued; and on the breaking out of the war in 1688, Villars was appointed to a cavalry command in Flanders. The following year he was created Marshal, and afterwards assisted Joyeuse on the Rhine until the peace of Ryswick in 1697. As ambassador at the court of Vienna, to which post he was appointed in 1699, and which he held for several years, he displayed a patient diplomatic genius, which could scarcely have been expected of one whose impetuous valour in the field had hitherto been the main feature that distinguished him. In 1702 began Villars' successful campaign in Germany, when for the first time he commanded in chief. His next achievement was the suppression of the revolt in the Cevennes, a task which he accomplished by the exercise of blended humanity and firmness, thus saving France from the misery of a civil war at the time she was engaged in hostilities with the whole of Europe. From 1705 to 1714 the life of Villars was spent in ceaseless military labours. During that period he displayed many of the highest quartiles of a general; but he was
