G.

GABBIANI (ANTONY DOMENICK), an Italian artist, born at Florence in 1652, was successively the pupil of Subtermans and Vincenzo Dandini, and studied under Ciro Ferri at Rome, and after the best colourists at Venice. He was a ready and correct designer. His colour, though sometimes languid, is generally true, juicy, and well united in the flesh-tints. The greatest flaw of his style lies in the choice, the hues, and the execution of his draperies. He excels in "pretty" subjects; his Gambols of Genii and Children in the palace Pitti, and elsewhere, are little inferior to those of Baciccio. His greatest and most famed work in fresco, is the vast cupola of Cestello, which was not wholly terminated. His altar-pieces are unequal: the best is that of S. Filippo in the church of the fathers Dell' Oratorio. In easel-pictures he holds his place even in princely galleries. He died in 1726, in consequence of a fall from the scaffold on which he was painting the cupola of Cestello. '

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GABIA (JOIN BAPTIST), one of those scholars who promoted the revival of literature, was a native of Verona, and a professor of Greek at Rome in the sixteenth century, but we have no dated particulars of his life. It is said he was eminent for his knowledge of the learned languages, and of philosophy and mathematics, and had even studied. theology. He translated from Greek into Latin, the Commentaries of Theodoret bishop of Cyarus, on Daniel and Ezekiel, which translation was printed at Rome, 1563, fol. and was afterwards adopted by father Sirmond in his edition of Theodoret. He translated also the history of Scylitzes Curopalates; printed in 1570, along with the original, which is thought to be more complete than the Paris edition of 1648. About 1543 he published the first Latin translation of Sophocles, with scholia. Maffei says

Pilkington, by Fuseli.

that he also translated Zozimus, and the Hebrew Psalms, and translated into Greek the Gregorian Kalendar, with Santi's tables, and an introductory epistle in Greek by himself. This was published at Rome in 1583.1

GABRIEL (JAMES), an eminent royal architect of France, built the palace at Choisy, and undertook the royal bridge at Paris, but died in 1686, before he had completed this work, which was finished by his son James and Frere Romain. James was born at Paris 1667, became a pupil of the celebrated Mansart, and acquired so great a reputation as to be appointed overseer-general of buildings, gardens, arts and manufactures; first architect, and engineer of bridges and banks through the kingdom, and knight of St. Michael. He planned the common sewer, and many public buildings, among which are the hotel de Ville, and the presidial court of Paris, &c. He died in that city 1742, leaving a son, first architect to the king, who long supported the reputation of his ancestors, and died in 1782.2

GABRIEL SIONITA, a learned Maronite, who died in 1648, was professor of oriental languages at Rome, from whence he was invited to Paris, to assist in M. le Jay's Polyglott, and carried with him some Syriac and Arabic bibles, which he had transcribed with his own hand from MS copies at Rome; these bibles were first printed in Jay's Polyglott, with vowel points, and a Latin version; and afterwards in the English Polyglott. Gabriel Sionita translated also the Arabian Geography, entitled "Geographia Nubiensis," 1619, 4to, and some other works. He had some disagreement with M. le Jay, who sent to Rome for Abraham Ecchellensis to supply his place.

GABRINI (NICH.) See RIENZI.

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GABRINI (THOMAS MARIA), of the order of the clerks minor, was born at Rome in 1726, and boasted of being the descendant of Nicolas Gabrini, better known by the name RIENZI. Having been appointed Greek professor at Pesaro, he acquired great reputation for his critical knowledge of that language. He afterwards was invited to be philosophy professor at Rome, and had a cure of souls which he held for twenty-seven years, with the character of an excellent pastor. After other preferments in the ecclesiastical order to which he belonged, he was at last 1 Moreri.-Maffei Verona Illustrata. ? Dict. Hist. Moreri.-Dict. Hist.

made general, and while in this station was frequently consulted by congregations, bishops, and popes, who had a very high esteem for his judgment. He died very advanced, on Nov. 16, 1807. Besides some tracts published in defence of his ancestor RIENZI, he published "A Dissertation on the 20th proposition of the first book of Euclid," Pesaro, 1752, 8vo, which went through several editions, and many dissertations, memoirs, and letters in the literary journals, on the origin of mountains, petrifactions, and other objects of natural history; medals, obelisks, inscriptions, and classical and ecclesiastical antiquities. He left also some valuable manuscripts on similar subjects. 1

GACON (FRANCIS), a French poet, well known by his satirical pieces against Bossuet, Rousseau, La Motte, and others, was the son of a merchant, and born at Lyons in 1667. He became a father of the Oratory; obtained the poetical prize at the French academy in 1717; and died in his priory of Baillon Nov. 15, 1725. Among his works are, "Le Poete sans fard," a satirical piece, which cost him some months of imprisonment; a French translation of "Anacreon," with notes, which was the best of his works; "L'Anti-Rousseau," an attack against J. Baptiste Rousseau, the poet; "L'Homere vengé,' "L'Homere vengé," against La Motte. Gacon also attacked La Motte, and turned him into ridicule, in a small piece entitled "Les Fables de M. de la Motte, traduites en vers Francois, par P. S. F. au Caffé du Mont Parnasse, &c." This poet's natural propensity to satire and criticism, led him to attack all sorts of writers, and involved him in all the literary quarrels of his times. The French academy acted with great impartiality, when they adjudged him the prize; for he had written in some shape or other against almost all the members of that illustrious body; and on this account it was, that he was not suffered to make his speech of thanks, as is usual on such occasions, the prize having been remitted to him by the hands of the abbé de Choisy. "Gacon," says Voltaire," is placed by father Niceron in the catalogue of illustrious men, though he has been famous only for bad satires.-Such authors cannot be cited but as examples to be detested." In fact, though he wrote with care, his style was heavy and diffuse in prose, and low in verse. 2

1 Dict. Hist.

Moreri,-Dict. Hist.Niceron, vol. XXXVIII.-Saxii Onom.

GADBURY (JOHN), one of the astrological impostors of the seventeenth century, was born at Wheatly near Oxford, Dec. 31, 1627. His father, William, was a farmer of that place, and his mother was a daughter of sir John Curzon of Waterperry, knt. Our conjuror was first put apprentice to Thomas Nicols, a taylor, in Oxford, but leaving his master in 1644, he went up to London, and became a pupil of the noted William Lilly, under whom he profited so far as to be soon enabled "to set up the trade of almanack-making and fortune-telling for himself." His pen was employed for many years on nativities, almanacks, and prodigies. There is, we believe, a complete collection of his printed works in the new catalogue of the British Museum, and we hope we shall be excused for not transcribing the list. Dodd, who has given an account of him, as a Roman catholic, says that some of his almanacks, reflecting upon the management of state affairs during the time of Oates's plot, brought him into trouble. While other astrologers were content to exercise their art for the benefit of their own country only, Gadbury extended his to a remote part of the globe, as, in 1674, he published his "West India, or Jamaica Almanack" for that year. He collected and published the works of his friend sir George Wharton in 1683, 8vo. His old master Lilly, who quarrelled with him, and against whom he wrote a book called "Anti-Merlinus Anglicus," says he was a "monster of ingratitude," and "a graceless fellow;" which is true, if, according to his account, he had two wives living at one time, and one of them two husbands. Lilly adds, that he went to sea with intention for Barbadoes, but died by the way in his voyage. When this happened, we are not told. Lilly died in 1681, and according to Wood, Gadbury was living in 1690. "The Black Life of John Gadbury" was written and published by Partridge in 1693, which might be about the time of his death, but his name, as was usual, appeared long after this in an almanack, similar to that published in his life-time. There was another astrologer, a Job Gadbury, who was taught his art by John, and probably succeeded him in the almanack, and who died in 1715.1

GADDESDEN (JOHN OF), an English physician, who lived in the early part of the fourteenth century, of very

1 Dodd's Ch. Hist. vol. III.—Granger.Tatler, 8vo edit, 1806, with notes, vol. II. p. 61, III, 537, IV, 257.—Lilly's Life and Times. edit. 1774, p. 52, 55..

extensive and lucrative practice, was the first Englishman who was employed as a physician at court, being appointed to that office by Edward II.: before his time the king's physicians had been exclusively foreigners. The ignorance, superstition, and low quackery, which appear throughout his practice, are painted with much life and humour by Dr. Freind. He came forward as an universal genius, was a philosopher, philologist, and poet, and undertook every thing that lay within the circle of physic and surgery, was skilled in manual operations, very expert in bone-setting, and a great oculist. He also acquaints us with his great skill in physiognomy; and designed to write a treatise of chiromancy. He was a great dealer in secrets, and some he had which were the most secret of secrets, and did miracles. But his chief strength lay in receipts, and without giving himself much trouble in forming a judgment respecting the nature of the case, he seemed to think that, if he could muster up a good number of these, he should be able to encounter any distemper. He seems to have neglected no stratagems, by which he might surprise and impose on the credulity of mankind, and to have been very artful in laying baits for the delicate, the ladies, and the rich. When he was employed in attending the king's son, in the small-pox, in order to shew his skill in inflammatory distempers, he, with a proper formality, and a countenance of much importance, ordered the patient to be wrapped up in scarlet, and every thing about the bed to be of the same colour. This, he says, made him recover without so much as leaving one mark in his face; and he commends it for an excellent mode of curing. Nevertheless this man was praised by Leland, Ovaringius, and others, as a profound philosopher, a skilful physician, and the brightest man of his age.

His only work, which he produced while resident at Merton college, Oxford, is the famous "Rosa Anglica," which comprises the whole practice of physic; collected indeed chiefly from the Arabians, and the moderns who had written in Latin just before him, but enlarged and interspersed with additions from his own experience. Its title is "Rosa Anglica quatuor Libris distincta, de morbis particularibus, de Febribus, de Chirurgia, de Pharmacopœa.' Dr. Freind observes, that John seems to have made a collection of all the receipts he had ever met with or heard of; and that this book affords us a complete history of

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