Who's Who in Europe 1450-1750

Henry Kamen

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781134755479
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Negocios y empresa
• Categoría: Biografías de negocios

Between 1450 and 1750 Europe underwent tremendous political, religious and cultural change - change which laid the foundations for the Europe we know today. Henry Kamen has compiled an accessible biographical guide to Europe in this most exciting of periods - the time of the Renaissance and the Reformation, the time of da Vinci and Erasmus, Elizabeth I and Oliver Cromwell.
In over a thousand entries, which cover the whole of Europe and include politics, culture, religion and science, Professor Kamen and his international contributors, all experts in their field, shed new light on the key players in this extraordinarily rich and formative period of history.

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Cabot, John (Giovanni Caboto) (c.1450-C.99) Italian navigator. Born in Genoa, he became a Venetian citizen in 1476 and eventually settled in England around 1496. Commissioned by a group of Bristol merchants in 1496 to find a westward sea route to Asia, he seems to have made landfall in 1497 near Newfoundland. He made a second journey in 1498 but disappeared during it.

Cabot, Sebastian(c.1476–1557) The son of John Cabot, he was born in Venice. He apparently took part in the 1497 expedition, and on a subsequent voyage may have found the entrance to Hudson Bay (1508–9). He later entered the service of Spain (1512), and was appointed to various posts by king FERDINAND II OF TRASTÁMARA, but returned to England on the king’s death. From 1519 he was again in Spain, contracted by CHARLES V, and in 1526–30 he led a Spanish expedition to south America, which was unsuccessful, leading to his imprisonment for a year on his return. From 1533, however, he was working again in Seville, where he served for the next eleven years in the Casa de Contratación (House of Trade) and drew up a famous map of the world (1544). In 1547 he returned to England. In 1551 the Company of Merchant Adventurers was formed, with the objective of discovering a north-east passage for trade to Asia; he was appointed governor for life. He was also first governor of the Muscovy Company (1555).

Cajetan (Gaetano), Tommaso de Vio, cardinal(1469–1534) Italian theologian. Born in Gaeta, he entered the Dominican order in 1484, taught theology at Rome (1501–8), and rose to become general of the order in 1508, cardinal in 1517 and bishop of Gaeta two years later. As papal legate to the diet of Augsburg in 1518, he tried in vain to win Luther over, and helped to draft the bull Exsurge Domine, condemning him (1520). From 1523–4 he was papal legate in Hungary, Poland and Bohemia, but retired to Gaeta in 1527. Cajetan’s literary fame rests chiefly on his commentary on the Summa of Aquinas. He also wrote commentaries on Aristotle, and many lesser works.

Calderón de la Barca, Pedro (1600–81) The best known dramatist of the Spanish Golden Age after LOPE DE VEGA. In contrast to Lope he led a quiet life, a pupil of the Jesuits, a soldier then later on a priest (1651), dubbed by order of PHILIP IV a knight of the order of Santiago. Calderón stylised and heightened the tone of Lope’s drama through tighter control, denser poetic texture, singing, dancing and scenic design. His approach to drama was significantly affected by the establishment of a permanent theatre for the Madrid court at the palace of the Buen Retiro, where visiting Italian specialists produced spectacular stage effects. Calderón often reworked earlier dramas, hut in his own work the protagonists are given to debate, monologue and analysis of current themes of the age, like free-will, grace and predestination. This is dramatic literature in the service of a Christian stoicism, often defined as desengaño and exemplified in his most famous play La vida es sueño (Life is a Dream), 1635. His output was not as great as Lope’s, some 200 pieces, just as varied hut more formally controlled. The sub-genre by which he is best known and of which he is the true perfector is the Auto sacramental, to which he dedicated himself exclusively in his final years. This species of liturgical drama is contrived to illustrate in allegorical form the meaning of the Eucharist, and was meant to be performed at church festivals on stages set up on carts in the streets. The meaning was enhanced and made more explicit by voice, song and visual effects for an audience of varying education. The comedias by which he is best known are El alcalde de Zalamea (The Mayor of Zalamea) (1642?), El médico de su honra (Doctor to his Own Honour) (1635), El mágico prodigioso (The Extraordinary Magician) (1635), and of the autos, El gran teatro del mundo (The Great Theatre of the World) and La cena de Baltasar (Belshazzar’s Feast).

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Calixtus III (Alfonso Borgia, 1378–1458) pope 1455–8. He was a canon lawyer in the service of the House of Aragon who founded the family’s fortunes in Italy. Made bishop of Valencia by Martin V in 1429, he reconciled Alfonso the Magnanimous and Martin. He was made cardinal by Eugenius IV in the year after Alfonso’s conquest of Naples. He appointed his nephew Roderigo (1431–1503) vice-chancellor of the Church in 1457, a power base that eventually led to the papacy thirty-five years later as ALEXANDER VI (1492–1503).

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Calvin, John (Cauvin, Jean) (1509–64) French religious reformer. Born at Noyon, on the Somme, son of a local official, from 1523 he was educated at the university of Paris under distinguished teachers, then studied at Orléans and Bourges. In 1533 he experienced a conversion to the cause of the Reformation, and after the 1534 ‘affair of the Placards’ in Paris which induced the authorities to act against Protestants, felt it safer to leave the capital, settling eventually at Basel, where he published the first edition of his Institutes (1536) in Latin (translated by him into French, 1541). That same year he was invited by FAREL to help introduce the Reformation into Geneva, which he now (after a short exile in 1538–41 forced on him and Farei by political opponents in the city) made his home. Geneva under Calvin was transformed into a centre of reformed religion, with a carefully defined relationship between the ruling magistrates and the clergy. Some notoriety was caused in 1554 by the execution, at Calvin’s instigation, of Servetus. There were also conflicts (1555) with a section of the magistracy, who were dubbed ‘libertines’. By 1559, when Calvin founded his influential Academy, Geneva was wholly under his control. Calvin’s religious views emphasised the majesty of God and the worthlessness of man; salvation by faith in Christ was a gift of God, granted through divine predestination. The influence of Calvinism spread rapidly; it became the dominant form of Protestantism in France, Scotland and the Netherlands. Its official tenets were soon modified by events: Calvin’s emphasis on non-resistance to oppressors was overtaken by the active rebellion of Calvinist nobles against Catholic sovereigns, and his doctrine of predestination was later questioned by Calvinists in France and the Netherlands. In the twentieth century the Calvinist ethic of self-discipline was seen by the sociologist Max Weber in 1905 as a formative influence in the growth of capitalism; hut most later scholars have rejected the thesis.

Camoens, Luis Vaz de (?1524–80) The major versifier of Portuguese literature, a dramatist and a fine lyric poet in both Castilian and his own tongue, he is best known as the author of the national epic Os Lusiads, (1572) (The Sons of Lusus, i.e. of the demi-god who is associated with Portugal). Little is known of his early life, but it is possible that he was born into a modest noble family in Lisbon, studying later with a relative in Coimbra. It also seems possible that on his return to the capital he was involved in some stormy liaisons. He then appears as a soldier in Ceuta, north Africa, where he lost an eye. In 1553 he went off to India where he held several minor official posts in the Portuguese colonies including Macau. It is known that he was already engaged in writing and producing dramas, but his years there, he claims, were marked by deceptions and little reward. He was shipwrecked in the Mekong delta, losing all but his poetry. On his way back home in 1567 he was beached in Mozambique and robbed of some of his major literary works. Two years later he embarked for Lisbon where he lived in near poverty sustained by an irregularly paid royal pension. He lived to see the publication of his epic which, as he affirms, surpasses the classical epics because the central theme, the voyage of exploration by Vasco da Gama to India and the creation of the overseas Portuguese empire, was truth itself and not a fiction. The Lusiads is a long narrative poem in ten books embodying the pageant of Portuguese history pivoted on a single issue of the voyage, registering the birth of a nation, its mission and its possible future, all intertwined within a supernatural conflict between the rival powers of Juno and Bacchus, the deities of west and east, with Venus as a protecting power for the Portuguese crew. Camoens was determined to absorb Virgil as Virgil had absorbed Homer, and carry forward the panoply of Graeco-Roman culture into Christian Europe of the Renaissance, thereby creating out of a very idiosyncratic synthesis the only successful European literary epic dealing with a contemporary theme.

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Campanella, Tommaso (1568–1639) natural philosopher, theologian and political theorist. Son of an illiterate Calabrian shoemaker, he became a Dominican in 1583 with the religious name of Tommaso. He rejected the dominant Aristotelian tradition in favour of the teachings of his fellow Calabrian, Bernardino Telesio, whom he defended in Philosophy Demonstrated by the Senses (1591). Written in Naples where he studied at San Domenico Maggiore and frequented the scientific circle of Giambattista della Porta, it led to his first arrest and trial. In defiance of the sentence to return to Calabria, he made his way to Padua where in 1592 he was falsely accused of sodomy but had the charge dismissed, and conversed with Galileo GALILEI and Delia Porta also in self-exile there. In 1594 the Venetian Inquisition arrested and detained him for almost two years for debating the faith with a Jew. Released in Rome, he was soon accused anew in 1597 for heresy, adjured, and returned to Calabria. In his home town of Stilo in 1599 he participated in an abortive millennial uprising, which caused his arrest and imprisonment in Naples for heresy and sedition from 1599 to 1626. He avoided execution by feigning madness, renewed his orthodoxy, and spent his imprisonment writing poetry, letters, and books - the most famous, a Platonic utopia, The City of the Sun (1602). His writing encompassed his polymath interests - anti-Aristotle, anti-MA-CHIAVELLI, magic and astrology, nature and natural phenomena, Galileo - and focused on the great themes for reform in a new, modem scientific age - a universal monarchy, an ecclesiastical state and naturalist religion. His work The Spanish Monarchy (1600), which argued that peace would he best achieved under a universal Spanish monarchy, albeit one subjected ultimately to control by the pope, was published from 1620 onwards, but with many passages inserted into it by the publisher, from the works of BOTERO. After release from prison, he worked in Rome from 1626 to 1634, but fled to France in 1634, where many of his unpublished works were printed as he continued his studies and writing until his death.

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Campillo, José del (1694–1744) Spanish politician. Asturian by origin, he was educated in Córdoba and entered the service of the Intendant of Andalucía in Seville, through whose patronage he entered the administrative service of the crown, served briefly (1736) with the army in Italy and in 1738 became Intendant general of Aragon. His outstanding work resulted in his being called to Madrid as secretary for finances; in 1741, he rose to become secretary of state for the marine, war and America, in effect the most important minister of the crown. An indefatigable proponent of reforms, he wrote many tracts on the theme, of which perhaps the best known is his Lo que hay de más y de menos en España (The Plus and Minus of Spain) (1741). was betrayed and arrested in 1581, judged on false evidence to be a traitor and executed at Tyburn. He was beatified in 1886.

Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal) (1697–1768) Venetian painter and etcher. The son of a painter of theatrical scenery, he became the most important Italian artist specialising in vedute (‘views’). He first painted sets for Venetian productions of VIVALDI operas, then accompanied his father to Rome in 1719 to create scenery for SCARLATTI’S Tito Sempronio Gracco and Turno Aricino. According to his biographer, however, he ‘couldn’t work with theatre people’, and consequently switched to easel pictures - fantasy views and landscapes at first, then (c.1720–40) actual cityscapes of Venice many of which were sold to English tourists, as were his etched Capriccios of the 1740s, which were largely marketed by his agent Joseph Smith, the future British consul. He worked for a decade in England (1746-55) painting views of the Thames. His many imitators and copyists included his nephew, Bernardo Bellotto, and the English painter Samuel Scott. The largest single collection of his early work was acquired in 1762 by George III. Due to the low esteem in which landscape painting was held, however, he was not elected to the Venetian Academy until 1763, when he was sixty six years old.

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Campion, Edmund (1540–81) English Catholic martyr. After a brilliant career at Oxford, he abandoned the Anglican Church and England (1571), went to study at the English college at Douai, then travelled to Rome where he entered the Society of Jesus (1573). After a period of missionary work in Bohemia, he was ordained priest in Prague (1578), and sent back to England with Father PERSONS and others (1580). Constantly in hiding from government spies, he carried out his spiritual ministry to the Catholics, but

Canisius, Peter (1521–97) Dutch-born Jesuit. Born Pierre de Hondt in Nijmegen, during his career he Latinised his name (‘hound’) to Canisius. He entered the new Company of Jesus as its first Germanic member in 1543, took orders in 1546, and was appointed a representative at the Council of Trent on behalf of the bishop of Augsburg. In 1549 he became professor of theology at the university of Ingolstadt. In 1555 he published his Catechism, which became throughout Europe the most popular of all catechisms of the century. Appointed provincial of the Jesuits for southern Germany and Austria (1556–69), he began a tireless campaign to win the area hack for the Church, founding in the process Jesuit colleges in the major cities. After 1580 he retired to live in Switzerland. He was canonised in 1925.

Cano, Melchor (1509–60) Spanish theologian. He studied at Salamanca, where in 1533 he entered the Dominican order and first clashed, as a professor in the 1530s, with his life-long rival CARRANZA. A brilliant scholar and controversialist, he be-came professor of theology at Alcalá university (1543) and then at Salamanca (1547), attended the council of Trent on behalf of Spain, was nominated bishop of the Canary Islands in 1552 (a post from which he immediately resigned) and in 1558 became provincial of his order. A strong supporter of reform in the Church and a critic of papal pretensions, he was also an enemy of anti-semitism. But he was personally vindictive, was in large measure responsible for the persecution of his personal enemy archbishop CARRANZA, and violently opposed the Jesuits at every turn.

Capito (Köpfel), Wolfgang Faber (c.1478–1541) German religious reformer. Born in Haguenau in an artisan family, he was educated at Ingolstadt and Freiburg, then entered the Benedictine order. An enthusiast of humanist learning, he made contact while at Freiburg with Sebastian BRANT and others. In 1515 he was invited to Basel as cathedral preacher and professor at the university, and made the acquaintance of ERASMUS. He was one of the earliest supporters of Luther, persuading FROBEN to publish (1518) a Latin edition of Luther’s early works, and visiting Luther in Wittenberg in 1522, which confirmed him in his views. He was in Strasbourg in 1523, and in collaboration with BUCER and the preacher Matthäus Zell, began the reform of that city, in close association with the ruling élite.

Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi) (1573–1610) Italian painter active mainly in Rome and Naples. Born in the north Italian town of Caravaggio, the son of an architect, he may have been apprenticed to Simone Peterzano (1584). Arriving in Rome at twenty, he was commissioned by Cardinal del Monte to paint such homo-erotic works as the Amor Victorious (Berlin), the Musical Party (New York) and the Bacchus (Florence). Other important clients were Cardinal Scipione Borghese and Cardinal Matteo Barberini (the future pope URBAN vm). Revolutionary religious commissions included the Calling of St Matthew, for the memorial chapel of cardinal Matteo Contarelli (San Luigi dei Francesi) in which dramatic lighting was used for the first time as a determining factor in the construction of figures, the choice of lower-class models and costumes tellingly evoking the low-rent world of early Christianity. Equally sensational were his paintings of the martyrdoms of Saints Peter and Paul (Cerasi chapel, S.Maria del Popolo) - like San Luigi a ‘leftist’, French-sympathising institution opposed to the conservative policies of the Spanish clergy. His religious paintings were considered lacking in ‘decorum’, and soon were removed from their altars to find their way into private hands, (e.g. the Death of the Virgin, with its too-realistic cadaver). The fastidious were also offended by his slovenly personal hygiene and sociopathic behaviour. He was arrested eleven times (1600–5), for carrying an unlicensed weapon, assaulting a waiter with a plate of artichokes, and other misdemeanours. He murdered a man over a tennis match in 1606 and fled to Naples, where again his art mesmerised other artists, who abandoned Mannerism to follow his example, but where the clergy were less appreciative. Jailed during a brief stay in Malta (1607–8) for insulting a knight, he escaped by sea to Syracuse, painting altarpieces there and in Messina and Palermo. He returned to Naples in October 1609, when he was savagely beaten by men hired by the Maltese knight whom he had insulted. Sailing to Port’ Ercole, he was arrested by mistake, and died of fever in July 1610 while wandering on the beach in search of his belongings.

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Carissimi, Giacomo (1605–74) Italian composer and the leading exponent of the Baroque oratorio. From 1629 until his death he was a chapelmaster at the prestigious Collegio Germanico of the Jesuits in Rome. His dozen or so Latin oratorios are mainly based on texts adapted from the Old Testament; e.g. Jephte, Jonas, Baltazar and Judicium sal-omonis. They comprise a wide variety of recitatives, arias and choruses, whose dramatic poignancy and profound affec-tivity are conveyed through relatively simple musical means. They were admired throughout Europe and left a significant mark on the style of younger contemporaries, notably on Charpentier and Handel. He also composed numerous cantatas and other liturgical works.

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Carlo Emanuele I the Great (1562–1630) duke of Savoy (1580–1630). Son of duke EMANUELE FILIBERTO, he attempted to give security and character to his duchy by reconstructing the capital, Turin, and securing territorial gains. He intervened militarily in the French civil wars in order to secure possession of the marquisate of Saluzzo, eventually ceded to him in 1601 (Treaty of Lyon), but had to cede other frontier areas (Bresse, Bugey). In subsequent years his ambition emboldened him to attack, without success, Geneva (1602) and the Spanish-held fortress of Montfer-rato (1617). He married in 1585 the Infanta Catalina, daughter of PHILIP II of Spain.

Carlos, Don (1545–68) infante of Spain, son of PHILIP II by his first wife, the Portuguese princess Maria. From childhood he suffered clear physical incapacities and showed signs of mental instability, but since he was the only surviving heir to the throne his father was obliged to include him in policy plans. He was considered as a possible governor for the Netherlands, and also as husband for princess Elizabeth of Valois, of France, to whom Philip himself got married in 1560. Don Carlos’ unstable conduct obliged his father to exclude him from consideration for any serious office of state. The prince’s increasingly violent temperament and attempts to plot against Philip, led the king to decide on his imprisonment in a room in the palace in Madrid (January 1568), where he died seven months later. The dramatic events gave birth to absurd allegations by the king’s enemies that he had murdered his son. The dramatist Schiller later drew on the story for a play (1787), and in his turn Verdi based his famous opera Don Carlo (1867) on Schiller’s text.

Carranza, Bartolomé(1503–76) archbishop of Toledo. Born in Navarre, when young he became a member of the Dominican order, and was educated at Salamanca and Valladolid. In 1545 he first went as a Spanish delegate to the Council of Trent, was later selected by PHILIP II as chaplain and accompanied the king to England (1554–7), where he collaborated with Marian bishops in the repression of Protestants. Appointed by the king to the see of Toledo (1557) and consecrated in Brussels, he was, on returning to Spain the following year, accused of heresy and imprisoned by the Inquisition (1559), on the basis of chance conversations and of ambiguous passages in his Commentaries on the Catechism (Antwerp, 1558). He was placed under house arrest. His case, which dragged on for seventeen years, was rendered prejudicial to him by the personal hostility of Melchor Cano and of the Inquisitor General VALDÉS. The papacy succeeded in having him sent to Rome, where a compromise verdict was issued by the pope, two weeks before Carranza’s death.

Carteret, John lord, 1st earl Granville (1690–1763) English politician. Eldest surviving son of...