DOtTAI
138
DOUAI
romantic treatment, imaginative power, rich, bril-
liant, and often novel colouring. He and his brother
were frequently employed by .AJfonso I, Duke of Fer-
rara, and by liis successor, Ercole II. His greatest
work is the altar-piece, in the Ferrara Gallerj'. He
also painted the cartoons for the tapestry in the cathe-
dral of that city, for those in the church of San Fran-
cesco, and in the ducal palace at Modena. Many of
his frescoes still remain in the ducal palace at Ferrara
and his paintings can be studied in the cathedral and
churches of Modena, in the Lou\Te, and in the galleries
of Dresden, Berlin, Milan, and Vienna. He painted a
portrait of Ariosto and the poet enrolled his name, in
conjunction with those of Leonardo da Vinci, Michel-
angelo, Raphael, and Titian, in the poem of " Orlando
Furioso", but the portrait cannot now be identified,
although many other portraits by Dossi are still in
existence. The landscape backgrounds of his pic-
tures are marked by beauty of colouring and fine
imaginative quaUty. On his return from Venice he
appears to have settled down in Ferrara. His work
has a close kinship with that of the \'enetian School.
BARrFFALDi, The Lives of the Ferrarese Artists (MS. in Ferrara Library); Scannelli, U Microcosmo delta Pittura (Cesena, 1657); Brixton, The Renaissance in Italian Art (London, 1S98); KuGLER, Italian Schools of Painting (London, 1900).
George Chahles Wilu.vmson.
Douai (DouAT, Dowat) , To'wn and Universitt of. ■ — The town of Douai, in the department of Nord, France, is on the River Scarpe, some twenty miles south of LUle. It contains about 30,000 inhabitants and was formerly the seat of a university. It was strongl}' fortified, and the old ramparts have only been removed in recent years. The tow-n flourished in the Middle Ages, and the church of Notre-Dame dates from the twelfth century.
To English Catholics, the name Douai will always be bound up with the college founded by Cardinal Allen (q. v.) during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, where the majority of the clergy were educated in penal times, and to which the preservation of the Catholic religion in England was largely due. Several other British establishments were founded there — colleges for the Scots and the Irish, and Benedictine and Franciscan monasteries — and Douai became the chief centre for those who were exiled for the Faith. The University of Douai may be said to date from 31 July, 1559, when Philip II of Spain (in whose dominions it was then situated) obtained a Bull from Pope Paul IV, authorizing its establishment, the avowed object being the preservation of the purity of the Catholic Faith from the errors of the Reformation. Paul IV died before he had pronmlgated the Bull, which was, how- ever, confirmed bv his successor, Pius IV, 6 Januarj', 1560. The letters patent of Philip II, dated 19 Janii- arj-, 1501, authorized the establishment of a univer- sity with five faculties: theologj', canon law, civil law, medicine, and arts. The formal inauguration took place 5 October, 1562, when there was a public pro- cession of the Blessed Sacrament, and a sermon was preached in the market-place by the Bishop of Arras.
There were already a considerable number of Eng- lish Catholics li\'ing at Douai, and their influence made itself felt in the new university. In its early years several of the chief posts were held by English- men, mostly from Oxford. The first chancellor of the university was Dr. Richard Smith, formerly Fellow of Merton and regius professor of divinity at O.xford ; the regius professor of canon law at Douai for many years was Dr. Owen Lewis, Fellow of New College, who had held the corresponding post at O.xford ; the first prin- cipal of Marchiennes College was Richard White, formerly Fello\y of New College; while Allen himself, after taking his licentiate at Douai in 1.570, became regius jirofessor of divinity. It is reasonable to sup- pose that many of the traditions of Catholic Oxford were perpetuated at Douai. The university was,
however, far from being even predominantly English;
it was founded on the model of that of Louvain, from
which seat of learning the majority' of the first pro-
fessors were drawn. The two features already men-
tioned — that the university was founded during the
progress of the Reformation, to combat the errors of
Protestantism, and that it was to a considerable ex-
tent under English mfluences — explain the fact that
William Allen, when seeking a home for a projected
English college abroad, turned his eyes towards
Douai. The project arose from a conversation
which he had with Dr. Vendeville, then regius profes-
sor of canon law in the L'niversity of Douai, and
afterwards Bishop of Tournai, whom he accompanied
on a pilgrimage to Rome in the autumn of 1567; and
the foundation took definite shape when Allen made a
beginning in a hired house on Michaelmas Day, 1508.
His object was to gather some of the numerous body
of English Catholics who, having been forced to leave
England, were scattered in different countries on the
Continent, and to give them facilities for continuing
tTieir studies, so that when the time came for the re-
establishment of Catholicism, w'hich Allen was always
confident could not be far distant, there might be a
body of learned clergy ready to return to their country.
This was of course a very different thing from sending
missionaries over in defiance of the law while England
still remained in the hands of the Protestants. This
latter plan was an afterthought and a gradual grow'th
from the circumstances in which the college found
itself, though eventually it became its chief work.
Allen's personality and influence soon attracted a numerous band of scholars, and a few years after the foundation of the college the students numbered more than one hundred and fifty. A steady stream of con- troversial works issued from Douai, some by Allen himself, others by such men as Thomas Stapleton, Richard Bristowe, and others almost equally well known. The preparation of the Douay Bible (q. v.) was among their chief undertakings. It is estimated that before the end of the sixteenth century more than three hundred priests had been sent on the English mission, nearly a third of whom suffered martjTdom ; and almost as many had been banished. By the end of the persecution the college coimted more than one hundred and sixty martyrs. Allen had at first no regu- lar source of income, but depended on the generosity of a few friends, and especially upon the neighbouring monasteries of Saint- Vaast at Arr;is, Anchin, and Mar- chiennes, which, at the suggestion of Dr. Vendeville, had from time to time subscribed towards the work. Many private donations were also received from Eng- land. After a few years, seeing the extreme need of the college and the importance of the work it was doing, Allen applied to Pope Gregory XIII, who in 1575 granted a regular pension of one himdred gold crowns a month, which continued to be paid down to the time of the French Revolution. Allen himself gave his whole salary as regius professor of divinity. The work of the college was not allowed to proceed without opposition, which at one time became so strong that Allen's life was in danger, and in 1578 the English were all expelled from Douai. The college was established temporarily at Reims; but possession was retained of the house at Douai, and in 1593 it was found possible to retiu-n there. By this time Allen had been called to reside in Rome, where he died 16 Oct., 1594. LTnder his succes- sor. Dr. Richard Barrett, the work was extended to include a preparatory course in humanities, so that it became a school as well as a college. In 1603 under Dr. Worthington, the third president, a regular college was built, opposite the old parish church of St-Jacques, in the Rue des Morts, so called on account of the adjoining cemetery. The town at this time formed a single parish. In the eighteenth century it was divided into fovir parishes, and the present church of St-Jacques dates from that time.
