Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 04.djvu/845

CILICIA. 745 CIMAROSA. and Alexander the Great entered the country. The chief city was Tarsus. The early inhabitants of Cilicia appear to have been of Semitic stock. At the time of the rise of the Persian monarchy, the country was ruled by the native dynasty of Sycnncsis. The Cilician princes becamevassals of the Persian Icings. In the period of Greek rule in the East, Cilicia be- came the scat of dreaded pirates. Haviiij; car- ried on their depredations too close to the shores of Italy, the Roman arms were turned a<;ainst them, and they were subdued by Pompeius (b.c, 67 ) . and Cilicia was made a Roman province, though the mountainous western portion was never thoroujrhly subjugated. CILICIAN (sl-lish'nu) GATES. The an- cient name of a pass through the Taurus from Cappadocia to Cilicia, referred to by Xenophon as exceedingly diflicult. The city of Tyana was situated at the northern foot of the Taurus, at the Cappadocian opening of the pass. CHiLI, tsilli-. The capital of a district in Styria, Austria, picturesquely situated amid hilly scenerj- on the Sann, 38 miles northeast of Lei- bach (Map: Austria, D .3). The towTi is of great antiquity, and with the remains of its forti- fied walls and castle, gabled houses, a Roman- esque church, Gothic chapel, and fourteenth-cen- tury parish church, retains a mediaeval aspect. The municipal nuiscum contains numerous Ro- man antiquities and relics of the to«Ti's early historj'. It is an increasingly popular summer resort, owing to its warm river baths. Coal and iron mines, smelting furnaces, and chemical works are among its chief industrial establish- ments, and there is an extensive trade carried on in coal, iron, timber, cereals, cattle, leather, and ■wine. The Roman Claudia Celeja, mentioned by Pliny the Elder, was taken by the Emperor Claudius B.C. 15, and subsequently formed part of .quileia. It was the capital of the Slavonian District of Zellia from 1146 to 13.31, and from 1339 to 1450 of the coimtv of Cilli. Popula- tion, in 1890, 6264; in 1900, 6743. CIMA, che'ma, Giovanni Battista, called DA Co.NEGLiANO (c.1460-1517 ) . An Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. He is supposed to have been a pupil of Giovanni Bellini, and his pictures have the same religious feeling and serenity. His favorite subject was the 'Ma- donna,' with saints. .■lthoigh a serious and conscientious artist, and the t)Ost draughtsman of the Bellini school, liis work lacks originality. the types being taken from his master's. CIMABUE, che'mi-boo'a, Giovaxj«i (c.1240- C.1302I. I'lic lirsl great ])ainler of the Revival in Italy. He was born in Florence and belonged to a noble family, but of his studies nothing definite is known, Vasari believes that he learned painting of some Byzantine artists established in Florence. While he certainly felt the Byzan- tine influence, then paramount in Italy, it has recently been discovered that he resided for a while in Rome (1272), which wa.s the centre of an Italian artistic revival. (See Cosmati.) Ci- mabue was the first Italian — at least, the first Tuscan — to give individual life, grace, and move- ment to his fisurcs; to soften the lines of drap- ery, while maintaining a dignity and religious feeling often absent from the work of his suc- ces.sor, Giotto. Two remarkable pictures in Florence are usually attributed to him, both of them representing the Madonna and Child en- throned, attended by angels; one at Santa Maria Novella, the other in the Belle Arti. Vasari re- lates that the former excited so much admira- tion that King Cliarles of Anjou visited the artist's studio and the picture was carried in triumphal procession to the church. The Na- tional Gallery in London has a picture, and the Louvre in Paris has another, attributed credibly to this master; but they are not so important as those in Florence, or as the fifth ])icture of the same subject (a fresco) in Assisi. It was in his extensive series of frescoes in Saint Fran- cis, .'ssisi, that Cimabue developed his powers to their fullest, having left behind him his stiff early manner of the Belle Arti work, and even his second Sienese manner of the Sant^v !Maria Novella picture, for the softer and mure classic style learned in Rome from such works as the San Clemente and other later frescoes. The Church of Saint Francis was the Mecca of early Italian painters. It is there that we can study the l)eginning of the Revival: the best Roman, Umbrian, and Tuscan painters of the second half of the thirteenth century covered both the Upper and Lower churches with an unjiaralleled cycle of religious compositions. Here Cimabue left his best works, in the L'pper Church, Ac- cording to Vasari, Cimabue was Giotto's master; but this, like so many of his statements about early artists, cannot be relied upon. Consult: Strzygowski, Cimabue und Rom (Vienna, 1888) ; Forbes-Robertson, "Cimabue" in Great Painters of Christendom (London, IS77). CIMAROSA, che'ma-ro'za, Domenico (1749- 1801). An Italian composer of operas, born as the son of a poor mason, at Aversa, near Naples. He stiulied music at the Conservatory of Santa Maria di Loreto, under Manna. Sacchini. Fena- roli, and Piccinni. His first opera, Le stravaganze del r.onte (1772), achieved fair success, and in two years he had a reputation in all the leading theatres of Italy, having composed half a dozen operas, and surpassing in popularity all com- ])0sers then living, Paisiello and Mozart among them. In 1779 his L'ltaliana in Londra was given in Rome, and other operas followed in rapid succession. He accepted a call to go to Saint Petersburg as composer, and conductor of the Italian opera, but the severe climate compelled him to leave this lucrative post after three years (1789-92). Vienna received him with distin- guished honors, and II matrimonio segreto, pro- duced there, had remarkable success. In Naples it had an unprecedented run of sixty-seven nights in 1793. Of the operas written subsequently, the most famous was ie a«(M2ie fcmiHi7i (1794). In 1799 he joined a secret revolutionary society in Naples; the plot was discovered, and Ciraarosa was sentenced to death, but this decree was com- nmted to exile. He died suddenly in Venice, and his friends accused the Govermnent of jpoisoning him. However, an autopsy proved the allegation unfounded. In all, he WTote about eighty operas, of which number 11 matrimonio still holds the stage. Th« greater number are comic operas, which picture the light-heartedness and gayety of life of the last quarter of the eighteenth century. In his serious operas, such as flli Orazi e Curinzi and Artaserse. Cimarosp, displays some power of characterization, coupled with oriirinal orchestral eflfects, masterly handling