Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/708

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MODENA sal marbles, are those of San Vincenzo, Sant' Agostino, and San Francesco. The former ducal (now royal) palace in the great square is a fine edifice, and contains a large collection of paintings by Guido Reni, the Carracci, An- drea del Sarto, Carlo Dolce, and Guercino, Po- maranzio's " Crucifixion," and other remark- able works. It has a recumbent Cleopatra by Canova, and the ceiling of the gallery is paint- ed in fresco by Francesconi. The library, brought from Ferrara by Cesare d'Este, and hence known as the biblioteca Estense, has about 100,000 volumes, and is rich in manu- scripts, coins, and medals. The other public buildings of Modena are the university, one of the most famous in Italy, the museo Lapidario, the theatre, the post office, and the archiepis- copal palace. There are many educational in- stitutions and an academy of sciences and fine arts. Modena is the seat of an archbishop. The university in 1873 had 42 professors and 315 students. The ancient Mutina is supposed to have been of Etruscan origin. According to Livy, the territory in which it was situated had been taken from the Boians, and after the final defeat of the latter it was made a Roman colony (183 B. C.). It was a strong place in the time of Sulla, and subsequently became celebrated by the siege which it sustained and the battles fought between Decimus Brutus and Mark Antony, a campaign known as the ~belluin Mutinense (43). Afterward it suffered much from the general calamities of the em- pire, and toward the end of the 4th century, according to St. Ambrose, it was in a deplo- rable condition. In the middle of the 5th cen- tury it endured the still more terrible ravages of Attila. Under the Lombard kings Mutina Modena. became the frontier city of their dominions toward the exarchate. At the close of the 6th century it was taken by the Greek emperor Mauricius. Subsequently it was restored to the Lombard kingdom, but according to Mu- ratori nearly the whole city was reduced for several centuries to a morass, chiefly owing to inundations. It was governed by Frankish counts for some time after the 9th century, in the llth by its bishops, and at its close by the countess Matilda of Tuscany. Subsequently it formed part of the Lombard league ; and after suffering from the feuds which distracted for a long period the cities of northern Italy, it passed along with Ferrara into the posses- sion of the Torrelli family, and at the end of the 13th century the house of Este became the rulers of the city and its territory. The titles of duke of Modena and Reggio and count of Rovigo were conferred upon Borso of Este in 1452 by the emperor Frederick III. of Ger- many, and that of duke of Ferrara by Pope Paul II. in 1471. (See ESTE.) The duchies of Modena and Reggio remained in the Este fam- ily till 1797, when Napoleon took them from Ercole III. (who died in 1803), and annexed them to the Cisalpine republic. His daughter Maria Beatrice married the Austrian archduke Ferdinand, and their son Francis IV., who in- herited Massa-Carrara, was reinstated as duke of Modena in 1814, and was succeeded in 1846 by his son Francis V., whose elder sister is the wife of the count de Chambord, and his young- er sister of the younger son of Don Carlos, the first Spanish pretender of that name, and mother of the present pretender. (See CAR- LOS.) Even more autocratic than his predeces- sors, he was obliged to invoke the assistance of Austria at the end of 1847 to maintain his authority, and he fled in March, 1848, while