Pèlerinage au tombeau de Dante, La Vie monastique dans les églises orientales (1844), La Suisse allemande, &c. One of her last works was devoted to the history of her own family, Gli Albanesi in Roumenia: Storia dei Principi Ghika nei secoli XVII-XIX (Florence, 1873). Her sister was Sophia, Countess O’Rourke.
5. Scarlat Ghica (1750–1802) was twice prince of Walachia. His grandson John (Ioan) Ghica (1817–1897), a lifelong friend of Turkey, was educated in Bucharest and in the West, and studied engineering and mathematics in Paris from 1837 to 1840; returning to Moldavia he was involved in the conspiracy of 1841, which was intended to bring about the union of Walachia and Moldavia under one native prince (Michael Sturdza). The conspiracy failed and John Ghica became a lecturer on mathematics at the university which was founded by Prince Sturdza in Jassy. In 1848 he joined the party of revolution and in the name of a provisional government then established in Bucharest went to Constantinople to approach the Turkish government. Whilst there he was appointed Bey of Samos (1853–1859), where he extirpated piracy, rampant in that island. In 1859 after the union of Moldavia and Walachia had been effected Prince Cuza induced John Ghica to return. He was the first prime minister under Prince (afterwards King) Charles of Hohenzollern. His restless nature made him join the anti-dynastic movement of 1870–1871. In 1881 he was appointed Rumanian minister in London and retained this office until 1889. He died on the 7th of May 1897 in Gherghani. Besides his political distinction John Ghica earned a literary reputation by his “Letters to Alexandri” (2nd edition, 1887), his lifelong friend, written from London and describing the ancient state of Rumanian society, fast fading away. He was also the author of Amintiri din pribegie, “Recollections of Exile in 1848” (Bucharest, 1890) and of Convorbiri Economice, discussions on economic questions (Bucharest, 1866–1873). He was the first to advocate the establishment of national industry and commerce, and also, to a certain extent, principles of “exclusive dealing.” (M. G.)
GHILZAI, a large and widespread Afghan tribe, who extend
from Kalat-i-Ghilzai on the S. to the Kabul river on the
N., and from the Gul Koh range on the W. to the Indian border
on the E., in many places overflowing these boundaries. The
popular theory of the origin of the Ghilzais traces them to the
Turkish tribe of Kilji, once occupying districts bordering the
upper course of the Syr Darya (Jaxartes), and affirms that
they were brought into Afghanistan by the Turk Sabuktagin
in the 10th century. However that may be, the Ghilzai clans
now rank collectively as second to none in strength of military
and commercial enterprise. They are a fine, manly race of
people, and it is from some of their most influential clans
(Suliman Khel, Nasir Khel, Kharotis, &c.) that the main body
of povindah merchants is derived.
GHIRLANDAJO, DOMENICO (1449–1494), Florentine painter.
His full name is given as Domenico di Tommaso Curradi di Doffo Bigordi; it appears therefore that his father’s surname was Curradi, and his grandfather’s Bigordi. The painter is generally termed Domenico Bigordi, but some authors give him, and apparently with reason, the paternal surname Curradi. Ghirlandajo (garland-maker) was only a nickname, coming to Domenico from the employment of his father (or else of his earliest instructor), who was renowned for fashioning the metallic garlands worn by Florentine damsels; he was not, however, as some have said, the inventor of them. Tommaso was by vocation a jeweller on the Ponte Vecchio, or perhaps a broker. Domenico, the eldest of eight children, was at first apprenticed
to a jeweller or goldsmith, probably enough his own father; in his shop he was continually making portraits of the passers-by, and it was thought expedient to place him with Alessio Baldovinetti to study painting and mosaic. His youthful years were,
however, entirely undistinguished, and at the age of thirty-one
he had not a fixed abode of his own. This is remarkable, as
immediately afterwards, from 1480 onwards to his death at a
comparatively early age in 1494, he became the most proficient
painter of his time, incessantly employed, and condensing into
that brief period of fourteen years fully as large an amount of
excellent work as any other artist that could be named; indeed,
we should properly say eleven years, for nothing of his is known
of a later date than 1491.
In 1480 Ghirlandajo painted a “St Jerome” and other frescoes in the church of Ognissanti, Florence, and a life-sized “Last Supper” in its refectory, noticeable for individual action and expression. From 1481 to 1485 he was employed upon frescoes in the Sala dell’ Orologio in the Palazzo Vecchio; he painted the apotheosis of St Zenobius, a work beyond the size of life, with much architectural framework, figures of Roman heroes and other detail, striking in perspective and structural propriety. While still occupied here, he was summoned to Rome by Pope Sixtus IV. to paint in the Sixtine chapel; he went thither in 1483. In the Sixtine he executed, probably before 1484, a fresco which has few rivals in that series, “Christ calling Peter and Andrew to their Apostleship,”—a work which, though somewhat deficient in colour, has greatness of method and much excellence of finish. The landscape background, in especial, is very superior to anything to be found in the works, which had no doubt been zealously studied by Ghirlandajo, of Masaccio and others in the Brancacci chapel. He also did some other works in Rome, now perished. Before 1485 he had likewise produced his frescoes in the chapel of S. Fina, in the Tuscan town of S. Gimignano, remarkable for grandeur and grace,—two pictures of Fina, dying and dead, with some accessory work. Sebastian Mainardi assisted him in these productions in Rome and in S. Gimignano; and Ghirlandajo was so well pleased with his co-operation that he gave him his sister in marriage.
He now returned to Florence, and undertook in the church of the Trinita, and afterwards in S. Maria Novella, the works which have set the seal on his celebrity. The frescoes in the Sassetti chapel of S. Trinita are six subjects from the life of St Francis, along with some classical accessories, dated 1485. Three of the principal incidents are “St Francis obtaining from Pope Honorius the approval of the Rules of his Order”; his “Death and Obsequies,” and the Resuscitation, by the interposition of the beatified saint, of a child of the Spini family, who had been killed by falling out of a window. In the first work is a portrait of Lorenzo de’ Medici; and in the third the painter’s own likeness, which he introduced also into one of the pictures in S. Maria Novella, and in the “Adoration of the Magi” in the hospital of the Innocenti. The altar-piece of the Sassetti chapel, the “Adoration of the Shepherds,” is now in the Florentine Academy. Immediately after disposing of this commission, Ghirlandajo was asked to renew the frescoes in the choir of S. Maria Novella. This choir formed the chapel of the Ricci family, but the Tornabuoni and Tornaquinci families, then much more opulent than the Ricci, undertook the cost of the restoration, under conditions, as to preserving the arms of the Ricci, which gave rise in the end to some amusing incidents of litigation. The frescoes, in the execution of which Domenico had many assistants, are in four courses along the three walls,—the leading subjects being the lives of the Madonna and of the Baptist. Besides their general richness and dignity of art, these works are particularly interesting as containing many historical portraits—a method of treatment in which Ghirlandajo was pre-eminently skilled.
There are no less than twenty-one portraits of the Tornabuoni and Tornaquinci families; in the subject of the “Angel appearing to Zacharias,” those of Politian, Marsilio Ficino and others; in the “Salutation of Anna and Elizabeth,” the beautiful Ginevra de’ Benci; in the “Expulsion of Joachim from the Temple,” Mainardi and Baldovinetti (or the latter figure may perhaps be Ghirlandajo’s father). The Ricci chapel was reopened and completed in 1490; the altar-piece, now removed from the chapel, was probably executed with the assistance of Domenico’s brothers, David and Benedetto, painters of ordinary calibre; the painted window was from Domenico’s own design. Other distinguished works from his hand are an altar-piece in tempera of the “Virgin adored by Sts Zenobius, Justus and others,” painted for the church of St Justus, but now in the Uffizi gallery, a remarkable masterpiece; “Christ in glory with Romuald and
