Menyanthes and a few allied aquatic or marsh genera, where they are alternate or radical. Several genera, chiefly American, are saprophytes, forming slender low-growing herbs, containing little or no chlorophyll and with leaves reduced to scales; such are Voyria and Leiphaimos, mainly tropical American. The inflorescence is generally cymose, often dichasial, recalling that of Caryophyllaceae, the lateral branches often becoming monochasial; it is sometimes reduced to a few flowers or one only, as in some gentians. The flowers are hermaphrodite, and regular with parts in 4’s and 5’s, with reduction to 2 in the pistil; in Chlora there are 6 to 8 members in each whorl. The calyx generally forms a tube with teeth or segments which usually overlap in the bud. The corolla shows great variety in form; thus among the British genera it is rotate in
Chlora, funnel-shaped in Erythraea, and cylindrical, bell-shaped,
funnel-shaped or salver-shaped in Gentiana; the segments are
generally twisted to
the right in the bud;
the throat is often
fimbriate or bears
scales. The stamens,
as many as, and
alternating with, the
corolla-segments, are
inserted at very different
heights on the
corolla-tube; the filaments
are slender,
the anthers are
usually attached dorsally, are versatile,
and dehisce by two
longitudinal slits;
after escape of the
pollen they sometimes
become spirally
twisted as in
Erythraea. Dimorphic
flowers are
frequent, as in the
bog-bean (Menyanthes).
There is
considerable variation
in the size, shape
and external markings
of the pollen
grains, and a division of the order
into tribes and sub-tribes based primarily on pollen
characters has been
proposed. The form
of the honey-secreting developments of
the disk at the base
of the ovary also
shows considerable
variety. The superior
ovary is generally
one-chambered, with
two variously developed
parietal placentas,
which occasionally
meet, forming
two chambers;
the ovules are generally
very numerous
and anatropous or
half-anatropous in
form. The style,
which varies much
in length, is simple, with an undivided or bilobed or bipartite
stigma. The fruit is generally a membranous or leathery capsule,
splitting septicidally into two valves; the seeds are small and
numerous, and contain a small embryo in a copious endosperm.
The brilliant colour of the flowers, often occurring in large numbers (as in the alpine gentians), the presence of honey-glands and the frequency of dimorphy and dichogamy, are adaptations for pollination by insect visitors. In the true gentians (Gentiana) the flowers of different species are adapted for widely differing types of insect visitors. Thus Gentiana lutea, with a rotate yellow corolla and freely exposed honey, is adapted to short-tongued insect visitors; G. Pneumonanthe, with a long-tubed, bright blue corolla, is visited by bumble bees; and G. verna, with a still longer narrower tube, is visited by Lepidoptera.
Gentiana, the largest genus, contains nearly three hundred species, distributed over Europe (including arctic), five being British, the mountains of Asia, south-east Australia and New Zealand, the whole of North America and along the Andes to Cape Horn; it does not occur in Africa. Bitter principles are general in the vegetative parts, especially in the rhizomes and roots, and have given a medicinal value to many species, e.g. Gentiana lutea and others.
GENTILE, in the English Bible, the term generally applied to those who were not of the Jewish race. It is an adaptation of the Lat. gentilis, of or belonging to the same gens, the clan or family; as defined in Paulus ex Festo “gentilis dicitur et ex eodem genere ortus et is qui simili nomine; ut ait Cincius, gentiles mihi sunt, qui meo nomine appellantur.” In post-Augustan Latin gentilis became wider in meaning, following the usage of gens, in the sense of race, nation, and meant “national,” belonging to the same race. Later still the word came to mean “foreign,” i.e. other than Roman, and was so used in the Vulgate, with gentes, to translate the Hebrew goyyim, nations, LXX. ἔθνη, the non-Israelitish peoples (see further Jews).
GENTILE DA FABRIANO (c. 1370–c. 1450), Italian painter, was born at Fabriano about 1370. He is said to have been a pupil of Allegretto di Nuzio, and has been supposed to have received most of his early instruction from Fra Angelico, to whose manner his bears in some respects a close similarity. About 1411 he went to Venice, where by order of the doge and senate he was engaged to adorn the great hall of the ducal palace with frescoes from the life of Barbarossa. He executed this work so entirely to the satisfaction of his employers that they granted him a pension for life, and accorded him the privilege
of wearing the habit of a Venetian noble. About 1422 he went to Florence, where in 1423 he painted an “Adoration of the Magi” for the church of Santa Trinita, which is preserved in the Florence Accademia; this painting is considered his best work now extant. To the same period belongs a “Madonna and Child,” which is now in the Berlin Museum. He had by this time attained a wide reputation, and was engaged to paint pictures for various churches, more particularly Siena, Perugia, Gubbio and Fabriano. About 1426 he was called to Rome by Martin V. to adorn the church of St John Lateran with frescoes from the life of John the Baptist. He also executed a portrait of the pope attended by ten cardinals, and in the church of St Francesco Romano a painting of the “Virgin and Child attended by St Benedict and St Joseph,” which was much esteemed by Michelangelo, but is no longer in existence. Gentile da Fabriano died about 1450. Michelangelo said of him that his works resembled his name, meaning noble or refined. They are full of a quiet and serene joyousness, and he has a naïve and innocent delight in splendour and in gold ornaments, with which, however, his pictures are not overloaded.
GENTILESCHI, ARTEMISIA and ORAZIO DE’, Italian painters.
Orazio (c. 1565–1646) is generally named Orazio Lomi de’ Gentileschi; it appears that De’ Gentileschi was his correct surname, Lomi being the surname which his mother had borne during her first marriage. He was born at Pisa, and studied under his half-brother Aurelio Lomi, whom in course of time he surpassed. He afterwards went to Rome, and was associated with the landscape-painter Agostino Tasi, executing the figures for the landscape backgrounds of this artist in the Palazzo Rospigliosi, and it is said in the great hall of the Quirinal Palace, although by some authorities the figures in the last-named building are ascribed to Lanfranco. His best works are “Saints Cecilia and Valerian,” in the Palazzo Borghese, Rome; “David after the death of Goliath,” in the Palazzo Doria, Genoa; and some works in the royal palace, Turin, noticeable for vivid and uncommon colouring. At an advanced age Gentileschi went to England at the invitation of Charles I., and he was employed in the palace at Greenwich. Vandyck included him in his portraits of a hundred illustrious men. His works generally are strong in shadow and positive in colour. He died in England in 1646.
Artemisia (1590–1642), Orazio’s daughter, studied first under Guido, acquired much renown for portrait-painting, and considerably excelled her father’s fame. She was a beautiful and elegant woman; her likeness, limned by her own hand, is to be seen in Hampton Court. Her most celebrated composition is “Judith and Holofernes,” in the Uffizi Gallery; certainly a work of singular energy, and giving ample proof of executive faculty,
