MENENDEZ
63
MINO
olironicle compilod by Abbot, Burton we see that the
abbey was hardly ever free from litigation; three times
the monks were forced to disperse thniUKh jioverty;
once, in the year 1349, four-fifths of I lie monks were
carried off by the ])estilence; and once by incniriinf!;
the anger of a king they barely escajied dissolution.
Richard Draper, the last abbot, signed the surrender
of the abbey, and received a pension from Henry VIII.
Chronica monasleriide Mehainin Rolls Scries, XLIII; DroDALE,
Afonasticon, V (1846), 388; Janauscbek, Orig. Cislerc. I (1877),
124-5.
Paul Brookfield.
Menendez y Pelayo, Marcelino, poet, historian and literarv critic, b. at Santander, Spain, in 18.56; d. at Santander in 1912. After having made his first studies in his native town, he went in 1871 to the University of Barcelona, where he passed two years and won the admiration of his fellow-students, his teachers and of the Government, by which he was given exten- sive means for making Uterary, critical, and historical researches. At the age of twenty-two he was appointed to the chair of literature in the University of Madrid, and three years later was received into the Spanish Academy. In 1876 he pubhshed his "Estudios criticos sobre poetas ISIontaneses" and in 1880 his " Heterodo.xos Espanoles". This work, which is a proof of the writer's incomparable knowledge and skill, deals with the poUtical and literary history of Spain in its relation to the Catholic Church from the time of Priscilian down to our age. A new phase of his genius was displaj-ed in "Horacio en Espaiia". Himself a lyric poet of no mean abiUty, as his "Oda & Horacio" and "La galerna del sdbado de gloria" bear witness, he was fitted to undertake the task of collecting and criticizing the numerous Spanish trans- lations and imitations of Horace.
His extensive "Historia de las ideas est^ticas en Espana" includes not only a complete exposition of the sesthetic ideas of Spanish writers but also an elaborate and finished treatise on aesthetic ideas in Europe. Four volumes have been pubhshed on "Los origines de la nov'ela en Espana", a treatise on the origin of the Spanish novel. This is one of the most learned and original of Mendndez y Pclayo's works. From a national as well as from a CathoUc viewpoint the "Ciencia espanola" (1887) is one of the most valuable pubUcations of this writer. The work is chiefly a collection of letters and essays which demonstrate that Spain is one of the richest nations in original and sound philosophy and is endowed with many scientists of remarkable genius. Here also he proves that the Inquisition did not hinder culture in Spain, but fostered it. Other works of Menendez y Pelayo are: "Obras completas de Lope de Vega", "Antologia de poetas llricos castellanos", "Critica Uteraria" and " Poetas hispano-americanos". In the five volumes contained in the "Critica liter- aria" are published his essays on the "Mystic poetry of Spain", "Saint Isidore", "History considered asan Art", "Tirso de Mohna", etc. Menendez y Pelayo was the president of the Academia Heal de la Histona, director of the "Revista de archivos", "BibUotecas y museos", editor of the "Nueva biblioteca de autores castellanos", and member of countless lit- erary and scientific societies both in Spain and in the other European countries.
In point of style Mendndez y Pelayo is regarded as the superior of all writers who have flourished since the Golden Age of Spain. His first essays as well as his last works are composed with all his youthful enthusiasm and poetic taste. Every page of his writings reveals a wealth of strong common sense, clear perception, and a vein of wonderful and ever varying erudition. Thoroughly Catholic in spirit, he found his greatest dehght, he declared, in devoting all his work to the glory of God and the exaltation of the name of Jesus.
GarcIa Romero, Apuntes para la biografia de D. M. Menhuiel
V Pelayo (Madrid. 1879); Pidal y Mon, Discursos y artlculos
literarios (Madrid, isstl; Vm.kka. Ilominnjf :d Sr. Mmhlitez y
PcJai/o (Madrid. '^'" I ,i,ir...l>;. ,, ,.i,„,,, i l;, i-., . , ( iARcfA.
Histori<i lie la 111' r ^ ilsni),
III; Boris dk I - : i ■ / ' ' I 'aria,
1902): DEL Vali.k I;i 1.- / .Mi'iii.l, l'iii:i); DE
Vassal, Menendez v /'Wi, i " ' .' i ni Etudes. VXXXll (Paris. 20 Aug.. 1912), 452-1, , \I,m \ asquez Mella, Mar- •riNEZ, Discursos sobre Meu,^ , / ( .Madrid, 1912) ; Razdn
y Fe, XXXIII (Madrid. 3nt\. I'M.', 277-318 contains four studies on Men6ndez y Ppl;i\o: VtnKz Goyena, Biografia de DonM.yP.: Portillo, Obras de M. y P.: Astrain, M. y P.: examen critico de sus obrag; EgcIa Ruiz, ^ M. y P. poeta?
William Furlong.
Menestrier, Claude-F^an^ois, antiquarian, b. at Lyons, 9 March, 1631; d. at Paris, 21 Jan., 170.5. He inherited a taste for antiquities, his great-uncle Claude Menestrier having been employed by Cardinal Barberini (Urban VIII) as librarian to coUect art ob- jects and medals. A pupil of the CoUege of the Trinity, Lyons, which was in charge of the Jesuits, he entered the Society there, and at the age of fifteen was professor of rhetoric; in this capacity he composed the ballets "Destinies de Lyon" and "L'autel de Lyon" and arranged the plays which were performed before Louis XIV when he visited Lyons in 16.58. He also directed the festivities which took place at the time of the marriage of Fran^oise d'Orldans and Charles Em- manuel, Duke of Savoy, as also of the solemnities wherewith the Visitandines of Chambdry celebrated the canonization of St. Francis de Sales. But he was more than an organizer of spectacles; he issued im- portant, imbhcations on heraldry which led him into violent disputes with Claude le Laboureur, provost of L'ile Barbe; he also made a study of emblems and mottoes. Stationed at Paris from 1670, he preached successfully for twenty-five years in the principal towns, during which time he also composed Latin in- scriptions for LeBrun's prints, for the battle pictures of Van der Meulen, as well as supervising the decora- tions for Turenne's obsequies and writing, among other important books, "Histoire de Louis le Grand par les m6dailles, devises, inscriptions et armoiries" (1689) and "Histoire civile on consulaire de la ville de Lyon" (1696). He had planned a vast synthesis of knowledge, the "Philosophic des images", in which were to be included his numerous and strangely varied volumes. In 1682 he had discovered in the Cister- cian abbey at ViUiers the tomb of Queen Anne or Agnes of Russia, second wife of Henry I. In 1770, in the second edition of the "GaUia Christiana", he was accused of falsehood in this connexion, but the dis- covery by Prince Labanofi' in 182.5 of a diploma bear- ing the seal of this queen vindicated Menestrier's memory. The bibliography of Menestrier's works is so considerable that it disconcerts bibliophiles.
ALLtrr, Rcchcrrhes sur la vie et sur les auvres du P. Claude-Fran- cois Menestrier (Lyons, 1856): Renard, Catalogue des ceuvres im- primies de Claude-Franfois Menestrier (Lyons, 1883); Sommer- VOGEL, BibliotMque de la C. de J., V. (Paris, 1894), 905-45; Le Bulletin du bibliophile (1898).
Georges Goyau.
Mino di Giovaimi, called da Fiesole, b. 1431 ; d. 14,S4. He is inscribed in the "Libro della Matri- cola" of the Florentine masters of stone and wood- work as "Minus Johannis Mini de Pupio", whence some have concluded he was born at Poppi, Casen- tino; elsewhere he is "Mino di Giovanni di Mino da Firenze". As a sculptor he is noted for the delicate fineness and finish of his handicraft. A large number of portraits and subjects in low-relief are attributed to him : the circular Madonna and Child on a bracket (Bargello, Florence) ; the busts of Piero and Giovanni de'Medici (Bargello); that of Rinaldo della Luna, dated 1461; a remarkable portrait of Isotta da Rimini (Camposanto, Pisa) ; an open-air relief of the Madonna and Child (Via Zannetti, Florence). Two important works are in the cathedral at Fiesole: an altar-piece with figures of the Madonna and Child, an infant St.
