of Pavia was fought, and that, seeing the disaster he had caused, he courted and found death heroically in the fight. In spite of his failures as a general and diplomatist, his handsome face and brilliant wit enabled him to retain throughout his life the intimacy and confidence of his king. He was a man of licentious life. According to Brantôme he was the successful rival of the king for the favours of Madame de Châteaubriand, and if we may believe him to have been—as is very probable—the hero of the fourth story of the Heptameron, Marguerite d’Angoulême had occasion to resist his importunities.
Authorities.—Bonnivet’s correspondence in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; memoirs of the time; complete works of Brantôme, vol. iii., published by Ludovic Lalanne for the Société de l’Histoire de France (1864 seq.). See also Ernest Lavisse, Histoire de France, vol. v., by H. Lemonnier (1903–1904).
BONOMI, GIUSEPPI (1739–1808), English architect, was
born at Rome on the 19th of January 1739. After attaining
a considerable reputation in Italy, he came in 1767 to England,
and finally settled in practice there. He was the innocent cause
of the retirement of Sir Joshua Reynolds from the presidency
of the Royal Academy. Sir Joshua wished him to become a
full Academician, regarding him as a fitting occupant of the then
vacant chair of perspective. But the majority of the Academicians
were opposed to this suggestion, and Bonomi was elected
an associate only, and that merely by the president’s casting
vote. Bonomi was largely responsible for the revival of classical
architecture in England. His most famous work was the Italian
villa at Roseneath, Dumbartonshire, designed for the duke of
Argyll. In 1804 he was appointed honorary architect to St Peter’s
at Rome. He died in London on the 9th of March 1808.
His son, Giuseppi Bonomi (1796–1878), studied art in London at the Royal Academy, and became a sculptor, but is best known as an illustrator of the leading Egyptological publications of his day. From 1824 to 1832 he was in Egypt, making drawings of the monuments in the company of Burton, Lane and Wilkinson. In 1833 he visited the mosque of Omar, returning with detailed drawings, and from 1842 to 1844 was again in Egypt, attached to the Prussian government exploration expedition under Lepsius. He assisted in the arrangement of the Egyptian court at the Crystal Palace in 1853, and in 1861 was appointed curator of the Soane Museum. He died on the 3rd of March 1878.
BONONCINI (or Buononcini), GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1672?–1750?),
Italian musical composer, was the son of the composer
Giovanni Maria Bononcini, best known as the author of a treatise
entitled Il Musico Prattico (Bologna, 1673), and brother of the
composer Marc’ Antonio Bononcini, with whom he has often
been confused. He is said to have been born at Modena in
1672, but the date of his birth must probably be placed some
ten years earlier. He was a pupil of his father and of Colonna,
and produced his first operas, Tullo Ostilio and Serse, at Rome
in 1694. In 1696 he was at the court of Berlin, and between
1700 and 1720 divided his time between Vienna and Italy.
In 1720 he was summoned to London by the Royal Academy
of Music, and produced several operas, enjoying the protection
of the Marlborough family. About 1731 it was discovered
that he had a few years previously palmed off a madrigal by
Lotti as his own work, and after a long correspondence he was
obliged to leave the country. He remained for several years in
France, and in 1748 was summoned to Vienna to compose music
in honour of the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. He then went to
Venice as a composer of operas, and nothing more is known of
his life.
Bononcini’s rivalry with Handel will always ensure him immortality, but he was in himself a musician of considerable merit, and seems to have influenced the style, not only of Handel but even of Alessandro Scarlatti. Either he or his brother (our knowledge of the two composers’ lives is at present not sufficient to distinguish their works clearly) was the inventor of that sharply rhythmical style conspicuous in Il Trionfo di Camilla (1697), the success of which at Naples probably induced Scarlatti to adopt a similar type of melody. It is noticeable in the once popular air of Bononcini, L’esperto nocchiero, and in the air Vado ben spesso, long attributed to Salvator Rosa, but really by Bononcini.
BONONIA (mod. Bologna), the chief town of ancient Aemilia
(see Aemilia, Via), in Italy. It was said by classical writers
to be of Etruscan origin, and to have been founded, under the
name Felsina, from Perusia by Aucnus or Ocnus. Excavations
of recent years have, however, led to the discovery of some
600 ancient Italic (Ligurian?) huts, and of cemeteries of the
same and the succeeding (Umbrian) periods (800–600? B.C.),
of which the latter immediately preceded the Etruscan civilization
(c. 600–400 B.C.). An extensive Etruscan necropolis,
too, was discovered on the site of the modern cemetery (A.
Zannoni, Scavi della Certosa, Bologna, 1876), and others in the
public garden and on the Arnoaldi Veli property (Notizie degli
Scavi, indice 1876–1900, s.v. “Bologna”). In 196 B.C., when
the town first appears in history, it was already in the possession
of the Boii, and had probably by this time changed its name,
and in 189 B.C. it became a Roman colony. After the conquest
of the mountain tribes, its importance was assured by its position
on the Via Aemilia, by which it was connected in 187 B.C. with
Ariminum and Placentia, and on the road, constructed in the
same year, to Arretium; while another road was made, perhaps
in 175 B.C., to Aquilelia. It thus became the centre of the road
system of north Italy. In 90 B.C. it acquired Roman citizenship.
In 43 B.C. it was used as his base of operations against Decius
Brutus by Mark Antony, who settled colonists here; Augustus
added others later, constructing a new aqueduct from the Letta,
a tributary of the Rhenus, which was restored to use in 1881
(G. Gozzadini in Notizie degli Scavi, 1881, 162). After a fire in
A.D. 53 the emperor Claudius made a subvention of 10 million
sesterces (£1,087,500). Bononia seems, in fact, to have been
one of the most important cities of ancient Italy, as Bologna is
of modern Italy. It was able to resist Alaric in 410 and to
preserve its existence during the general ruin. It afterwards
belonged to the Greek exarchate of Ravenna. Of remains of
the Roman period, however, there are none above ground,
though various discoveries have been made from time to time
within the city walls, the modern streets corresponding more or
less, as it seems, with the ancient lines. Remains of the bridge
of the Via Aemilia over the Rhenus have also been found—consisting
of parts of the parapets on each side, in brick-faced
concrete which belong to a restoration, the original construction
(probably by Augustus in 2 B.C.) having been in blocks of
Veronese red marble—and also of a massive protecting wall
slightly above it, of late date, in the construction of which a large
number of Roman tombstones were used. The bed of the river
was found to have risen at least 20 ft. since the collapse of this
bridge (about A.D. 1000), the total length of which must have
been about 650 ft. and the width between the parapets 3812 ft.
See E. Brizio in Notizie degli Scavi (1896), 125, 450; (1897) 330; (1898) 465; (1902) 532. (T. As.)
BONPLAND, AIMÉ JACQUES ALEXANDRE (1773–1858),
French traveller and botanist, whose real name was Goujand,
was born at La Rochelle on the 22nd of August 1773. After
serving as a surgeon in the French army and studying under J. N.
Corvisart at Paris, he accompanied A. von Humboldt during
five years of travel in Mexico, Colombia and the districts bordering
on the Orinoco and Amazon. In these explorations he
collected and classified about 6000 plants till then mostly unknown
in Europe, which he afterwards described in Plantes équinoxiales, &c. (Paris, 1808–1816). On returning to Paris he
received a pension and the superintendence of the gardens at
Malmaison, and published Monographie des Mélastomées (1806),
and Description des plantes rares de Navarre (1813). In 1816
he set out, taking with him various European plants, for Buenos
Aires, where he was elected professor of natural history, an office
which he soon quitted in order to explore central South America.
While journeying to Bolivia he was arrested in 1821, by command
of Dr Francia, the dictator of Paraguay, who detained him until
1831. On regaining liberty he resided at San Borga in the province
of Corrientes, until his removal in 1853 to Santa Anna,
where he died on the 4th of May 1858.
