the Alps, where a new growth of erudition, on a basis different from that of the Italian Renaissance, had begun.
See Renouard’s Annales de l’imprimerie des Aldes (Paris, 1834); Didot’s Alde Manuce (Paris, 1873); Omont’s Catalogue of Aldine publications (Paris, 1892). (J. A. S.)
MANWARING, ROBERT, English 18th-century furniture
designer and cabinet maker. The dates of his birth and death
are unknown. He was a contemporary and imitator of Chippendale,
and not the least considerable of his rivals. He prided
himself upon work which he described as “genteel,” and his
speciality was chairs. He manifests the same surprising variations
of quality that are noticed in the work of nearly all the
English cabinet-makers of the second half of the 18th century,
and while his best had an undeniable elegance his worst was
exceedingly bad—squat, ill-proportioned and confused. Some
of his chairbacks are so nearly identical with Chippendale’s that
it is difficult to suppose that the one did not copy from the other,
and most of the designs of the greater man enjoyed priority
of date. During a portion of his career Manwaring was a
devotee of the Chinese taste; he likewise practised in the Gothic
manner. He appears to have introduced the small bracket
between the front rail of the seat and the top of the chair leg,
or at all events to have made such constant use of it that it
has come to be regarded as characteristic of his work. Manwaring
described certain of his own work as “elegant and
superb,” and as possessing “grandeur and magnificence.” He
did not confine himself to furniture but produced many designs
for rustic gates and railings, often very extravagant. One of
his most absurd rural chairs has rock-work with a waterfall
in the back.
Among Manwaring’s writings were The Cabinet and Chair Makers’ Real Friend and Companion, or the Whole System of Chairmaking Made Plain and Easy (1765); The Carpenters’ Compleat Guide to Gothic Railing (1765); and The Chair-makers’ Guide (1766).
MANYCH, a river and depression in S. Russia, stretching
between the lower river Don and the Caspian Sea, through
the Don Cossacks territory and between the government
of Astrakhan on the N. and that of Stavropol on the S.
During the greater part of the year it is either dry or occupied
in part by a string of saline lakes (limans or ilmens); but in
spring when the streams swell which empty into it, the water
flows in two opposite directions from the highest point (near
Shara-Khulusun). The western stream flows westwards, with
an inclination northwards, until it reaches the Don, though
when the latter river is running high, its water penetrates some
60 miles up the Manych. The eastern stream dies away in
the sandy steppe about 25 miles from the Caspian, though it
is said sometimes to reach the Kuma through the Huiduk, a
tributary of the Kuma. Total length of the depression, 330 m.
For its significance as a former (geologic) connexion between
the Sea of Azov and the Caspian Sea, see Caspian Sea. By
some authorities the Manych depression is taken as part of
the boundary between Europe and Asia.
MANYEMA (Una-Ma-Nyema, eaters of flesh), a powerful
and warlike Bantu-Negroid people in the south-east of the
Congo basin. Physically they are of a light colour, with well
formed noses and not over-full lips, the women being described
as singularly pretty and graceful. Manyemaland was for the
greater part of the 19th century an Eldorado of the Arab slave
raiders.
MANZANARES, a town of Spain, in the province of Ciudad
Real, on the river Azuer, a large sub-tributary of the Záncara,
and on the railways from Madrid to Ciudad Real and Lináres.
Pop. (1900), 11,229. Manzanares is one of the chief towns
of La Mancha, and thus in the centre of the district described
by Cervantes in Don Quixote. Its citadel was founded as a
Christian fortress after the defeat of the Moors at Las Navas
de Tolosa (1212). Bull-fights were formerly held in the main
plaza, where galleries to accommodate spectators were built
between the buttresses of an ancient parish church. Manzanares
has manufactures of soap, bricks and pottery, and an active
trade in wheat, wine, spirits, aniseed and saffron.
MANZANILLO, a town and port on the Pacific coast of
Mexico, in the state of Colima, 52 m. by rail W.S.W. of the city
of that name. It is situated on a large harbour partly formed
and sheltered by a long island extending southwards parallel
with the coast. Southward also, and in the vicinity of the
town, is the large stagnant, shallow lagoon of Cayutlán which
renders the town unhealthy. Manzanillo is a commercial
town of comparatively recent creation. Its new harbour works,
the construction of which was begun in 1899, and its railway
connexion with central Mexico, promise to make it one of the
chief Pacific ports of the republic. These works include a
breakwater 1300 ft. long, with a depth of 12 to 70 ft. and a
maximum breadth of 320 ft. at the base and 25 ft. on top, and
all the necessary berthing and mechanical facilities for the
handling of cargoes. A narrow-gauge railway was built between
Colima and Manzanillo toward the end of the nineteenth century,
but the traffic was only sufficient for a tri-weekly service up
to 1908, when the gauge was widened and the railway became
part of the Mexican Central branch, completed in that year from
Irapuato through Guadalajara to Colima. The exports include
hides and skins, palm leaf hats, Indian corn, coffee, palm oil,
fruit, lumber and minerals.
MANZANILLO, an important commercial city of Cuba, in
Santiago province, on the gulf of Guacanabo, about 17 m. S.
of the mouth of the Rio Cauto, on the shore of Manzanillo Bay.
Pop. (1907), 15,819. It is shut off to the east and south by the
Sierra Maestra. Besides the Cauto, the rivers Yara and Buey
are near the city. Manzanillo is the only coast town of importance
between Trinidad and Santiago. It exports large quantities of
sugar, hides, tobacco, and bees-wax; also some cedar and
mahogany. The history of the settlement begins in 1784,
but the port was already important at that time for a trade
in woods and fruits; French and English corsairs resorted
thither for ship-building woods. The settlement was sacked
by the French in 1792, and in the following year a fort was
built for its protection. In 1833 it received an ayuntamiento
(council) and in 1837, for its “loyalty” in not following the
lead of Santiago in proclaiming the Spanish Constitution,
received from the crown the title of Fiel. In 1827 the port
was opened to commerce, national and foreign.
MANZOLLI, PIER ANGELO, Italian author, was born about
the end of the fifteenth century at La Stellata, near Ferrara.
He wrote a poem entitled Zodiacus vitae, published at Basel
in 1543, and dedicated to Hercules II. of Ferrara. The poem is
full of didactic writing on the subject of human happiness in
connexion with scientific knowledge, and combines metaphysical
speculation with satirical attacks on ecclesiastical hypocrisy,
and especially on the Pope and on Luther. It was translated
into several languages, but fell under the ban of the Inquisition
on the ground of its rationalizing tendencies.
MANZONI, ALESSANDRO FRANCESCO TOMMASO ANTONIO
(1785–1873), Italian poet and novelist, was born at Milan on the 7th of March 1785. Don Pietro, his father, then about fifty, represented an old family settled near Lecco, but originally feudal lords of Barzio, in the Valsassina, where the memory of their violence is still perpetuated in a local proverb, comparing it to that of the mountain torrent. The poet’s maternal grandfather, Cesare Beccaria, was a well-known author, and his mother Giulia a woman of some literary ability. Manzoni’s intellect was slow in maturing, and at the various colleges where his school days were passed he ranked among the dunces. At fifteen, however, he developed a passion for poetry, and wrote two sonnets of considerable merit. On the death of his father in 1805, he joined his mother at Auteuil, and spent two years there, mixing in the literary set of the so-called “ideologues,” philosophers of the 18th century school, among whom he made many friends, notably Claude Fauriel. There too he imbibed the negative creed of Voltairianism, and only after his marriage, and under the influence of his wife, did he exchange it for that fervent Catholicism which coloured his later life. In 1806–1807, while at Auteuil, he first appeared before the public as a poet, with two pieces, one entitled Urania,
