Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/221

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

DUC


181


DUCCIO


Statistics. — OflBcial reports for 1908 give these figures: 222 diocesan and 9 regular priests; 165 par- ish churches; 63 mission churches; 50 chapels (in re- ligious institutions); 1 college for men with 380 stu- dents; 25 academies for the higher education of young women, attended by 4000; 90 parochial schools, with 25,000 pupils; 1 orphanage with 225 inmates; 7 hos- pitals each accommodating from 30 to 150 patients; one industrial home with 50 inmates; one home of the Good Shepherd. Catholic population, 111,112 in a total of 693,400. About 650 sisters of religious com- munities are engaged in teaching, and about 130 are in hospitals and other charitable work.

Shea, History of Catholic Church in U. S. (New York, 1S89- 1892); DE Cailly, Life of Bishop Loras (New York, 1897); Kempker, History of Catholics in Iowa (Iowa City, 1887); Souvenir Volume of Silver Jubilee of Archbishop Hennessy; Souvenir Volume of Installation of Archbishop Keane; Reuss, Biographical Cyclopedia of the Catfiolic Hierarchy of the U. S. (Milwaukee, 1898).

J. C. Stuart.

Due, Fronton du (called in Latin Duceus), a French theologian and Jesuit, b. at Bordeaux in 1558; d. at Paris, 25 September, 1624. At first he taught in various colleges of the Society and wrote for the dramatic representations encouraged by the Jesuits the "Histoire tragique de la pucelle de Domremy, autrement d'Orleans" (Nancy, 1581), which was acted at Pont^a-Mousson before Charles III, Duke of Lorraine. At a later date he took part in the theo- logical discussions of the age and is tlie author of " Inventaires des faultes, contradictions, faulses all<5- gations du Sieur du Plessis, remarquees en son hvre de la Sainte Eucharistie, par les theologiens de Bor- deaux" (Bordeaux, 1599-1601). This is one of the many refutations of the treatise on the Eucharist issued in 1598 by the Huguenot theologian Du Plessis- Mornay. The Protestant publicist made a reply to which Fronton du Due rejoined in 1602.

At the suggestion of Casaubon, Henry IV con- templated tlie publication of manuscripts of the royal library. The clergy of France decided to confide the revision of the Greek Fathers to the Jesuits, and Fronton du Due was chosen by the Society to labour on this project. Accordingly he published the works of St. John Chrysostom (Paris, 1609-24) and a "Bib- liotheca veterum Patrura" (Paris, 1624, 2 vols, in folio). The " Bibliotheca " contains a large number of the Greek Blathers with Latin translations (see the list in Sommervogel, III, 245), and serves as a supple- ment to the great collection of Margarin de la Eigne known as "Sacra Bibliotheca Sanctorum Patrum". After the death of Fronton du Due there was issued an edition of Nicephorus Callistus (Paris, 1630, 2 vols, in folio) which he had undertaken. This edition follows a Vienna manuscript tliat had belonged to the library of Matthias Corvinus; its publication had lieen de- layed by a series of curious complications in which the political schemes of Richelieu were involved. Fronton du Due had also occupied himself with the Greek texts of the Bible and had begun a revision of the text, but this was not completed. Librarian from 1604 of the College de Clermont at Paris, he reorgan- ized the library, which had been scattered during the period in which the Jesuits had been obliged to aban- don the school. While holding this position he also taught (1618-23) positive theology.

OuDiN, in NicERON', Memoires pour servir h Vhistoire des hommes illustres de la republique des lettres (Paris, 1737), XXXVIII, 10.3; SoMMERvoGEi,, Bibliothigue de la c. de J. (Paris, 1897), III, 233-49.

Paul Lejay.

Du Cange, Charles Dttfresne, historian and philologist, b. at Amiens, France, 18 Dec, 1610; d. at Paris, 1688. His father, who was a magistrate, had him educated by the Jesuits at Amiens, and the young man afterwards studied law at Orleans and was admit- ted to the Bar before the Parlement of Paris, 11 Au-


gust, 1631. But the legal professian failing to satisfy him, he returned to Amiens, married there in 1638 and in 1645 purchased the position of Treasurer of France held by his father-in-law. Obliged to leave Amiens in 1668 on account of the plague, he settled in Paris, where he died. Neither his official duties nor his fam- ily cares (he was the father of ten children) prevented him from following scholarly pursuits. Conversant with many languages, he was consulted on all sides, and he obtained much information through his corre- spondence. His imremitting energy was largely ex- pended on the history of France and that of Constan- tinople. To insure a solid basis for his researches, he began by mastering the languages of the texts and was unceasing in his efforts to increase his knowledge of Byzantine Greek and Low Latin.

Two great and useful works were the outcome of this preparation and even yet suffice to secure the scholarly reputation of their author; they were the " Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et infima? latinitatis " (Paris, 3 vols. fol. 1(378; new edition with addenda by Dom Carpentier, Paris, 7 vols., 4to, 1840-1850; 10 vols., 1882-1887), and the "Glossarium ad scriptores media; et infims grscitatis" (Paris, 2 vols, fol., 1688). Chief among his other works are: "Histoire de I'Em- pire de Constantinople sous les empereurs fran^ois" (Paris, 1657, 1 vol. fol.); "Traite historique du chef de Saint Jean-Baptiste " (Paris, 1666, 4to); "His- toire de Saint Louis" (Paris, 1668, 2 vols, fol.); the "Historia Byzantina" (Paris, 1080, 2 vols, fol.), edi- tions of the Byzantine historians, notably of Zonaras (Paris, 1686, 2 vols, fol.); and the "Chronicon Pas- chale" (Paris, 1689, fol.). He left many manuscripts which, after being widely scattered, were collected toward the middle of the eighteenth century by his grand-nephew Dufresne d'Aubigny and are now nearly all preserved in the National Library, Paris. From these have been comjjiled the " Histoire de la Ville d'Amiens (published by Hardouin at Amiens, 1840) and "Les families d'outre-mer" (published by Rey in the "Documents in^dits de I'histoire de France", Paris, 1869).

Baluze, Epistola de vitd et morte C. Du Cange ad Eiis. Renaudotum (Paris, 1688), reprinted a.s preface to the Chronicon Paschale; Nicero.v, Memoires pour servir d. I'histoire des fiommes illustres (Paris, 1727—1745), VIII; Notice des ouvrages Tnanus- crits de M. Du Cange in Journal des Savants (October-Decem- ber, 1749); and Dufresne D'ArBioNT, Memoire historique sur les manuscrits de M. Du Cange (Paris, 1752).

Paul Lejay.

Duccio di Buoninsegna, painter, and founder of the Sienese School, b. about 1255 or 1260, place not known; d. 3 August, 1319. About this time Siena was at the zenith of her political power. She had just defeated Florence on the field of Montaperti (4 Sep- tember, 1260), and an era of marvellous development followed this conquest. Then was begun the huge task of building the cathedral, where, in 1266, was commenced the incomparable pulpit sculptured by Nicholas of Pisa, and it was under these flourishing conditions that Duccio received his artistic education. However, he owed nothing to the Gothic style nor to the naturalistic renaissance of Nicholas of Pisa: he allied himself exclusively with Byzantine tradition. Duccio has been called the " Last of the Greeks", and his genius consisted in gi\^ng exquisite expression to the refined sentiment of the masters of Byzantium, discovering its original meaning despite the barbar- ous, hideous imitations made by a degenerate school.

Duccio is first mentioned in 1278, when he was en- gaged upon minor work, such as painting the coffers of the archives and the tablcUes (memorandum-books) of the Biccherna, one of them for the year 1293 now in the Industrial Museum of Berlin. But his great work at this time was the famous " Madonna de' Ruccellai" — one of the most illustrious specimens of Italian painting — preserved at Florence in a side-