sent to Venice, to Avignon and to the princes of western Europe, to obtain help against the Saracens, who now threatened the kingdom of Cyprus. His efforts were in vain; even Pope Urban V. advised peace with the sultan. Mézières remained for some time at Avignon, seeking recruits for his order, and writing his Vita S. Petri Thomasii (Antwerp, 1659), which is invaluable for the history of the Alexandrian expedition. The Prefacio and Epistola, which form the first draft of his work on the projected order of the Passion, were written at this time.
Mézières returned to Cyprus in 1368, but was still at Venice when Peter was assassinated at Nicosia at the beginning of 1369, and he remained there until 1372, when he went to the court of the new pope Gregory XI. at Avignon. He occupied himself with trying to establish in the west of Europe the feast of the Presentation of the Virgin, the office of which he translated from Greek into Latin. In 1373 he was in Paris, and he was thenceforward one of the trusted counsellors of Charles V., although this king had refused to be dragged into a crusade. He was tutor to his son, the future Charles VI., but after the death of Charles V. he was compelled, with the other counsellors of the late king, to go into retirement. He lived thenceforward in the convent of the Celestines in Paris, but nevertheless continued to exert an influence on public affairs, and to his close alliance with Louis of Orleans may be put down the calumnies with which the Burgundian historians covered his name. When Charles VI. freed himself from the domination of his uncles the power of Mézières increased. To this period of his life belong most of his writings. Two devotional treatises, the Contemplatio horae mortis and the Soliloquium peccatoris, belong to 1386–1387. In 1389 he wrote his Songe du vieil pélerin, an elaborate allegorical voyage in which he described the customs of Europe and the near East, and advocated peace with England and the pursuit of the Crusade. His Oratio tragedica, largely autobiographical, was written with similar aims. In 1395 he addressed to Richard II. of England an Épistre pressing his marriage with Isabella of France. The Crusade of 1396 inspired Mézières with no enthusiasm. The disaster of Nicopolis on the 28th of September 1396 justified his fears and was the occasion of his last work, the Épistre lamentable et consolatoire, in which he put forward once more the principles of his order as a remedy against future disasters. Mézières died in Paris on the 29th of May 1405.
Some of his letters were printed in the Revue historique (vol. xlix.); the two épistres just mentioned in Kervyn de Lettenhove’s edition of Froissart’s Chroniques (vols. xv. and xvi.). The Songe du vergier or Somnium viridarii, written about 1376, is sometimes attributed to him, but without definite proofs.
See Antoine Becquet, Gallicae coelestinorum congregationis monasteria, fundationes . . . . (1719); the Abbé Jean Lebeuf’s Mémoires in the Mémoires of the Academy of Inscriptions, vols. xvi. and xvii. (1752 and 1753); J. Delaville le Roulx, La France en Orient au xiv. siècle (1886–1890); A. Molinier, Manuel de bibliographie historique vol. iv. (1904); and especially the researches of N. Jorga, published in the Bibliothèque de l’ecole des hautes études vol. 110 (Paris 1896); and the same writer’s Philippe de Mézières, et la croisade au xiv. siècle (1896). Jorga gives a list of his works and of the MSS. in which they are preserved, and analyses many of them. On the Songe du vergier, see P. Paris, in Mémoires vol. xv. (1843) of the Academy of Inscriptions.
MÉZIÈRES, a town of northern France, capital of the
department of Ardennes, 55 m. N.E. of Reims by the Eastern
railway. Pop. (1906), town, 7007; commune, 9393. The
town itself, the streets of which are narrow and irregular,
is situated on the neck of a peninsula formed by a loop
of the Meuse. The river separates it from its suburb of
Arches and the town of Charleville on the north and from
the suburb of Pierre on the south. Adjoining Pierre is
Mohon (pop. 5874), with metallurgical works. The fortifications
of Mézières, as well as the citadel still dominating
the town on the east, were built under Vauban’s direction,
but were dismantled in 1885 and 1886. Immediately to the
east of the citadel runs a canal, which provides river-traffic with
a short cut across the isthmus. The parish church (16th cent.)
contains inscriptions commemorating the raising of the siege of
Mézières in 1521 and the marriage of Charles IX. with the
daughter of the emperor Maximilian II. (1570). The north and
south portals, the Renaissance tower at the west end, and the lofty
vaultings, are worthy of remark. The church, which suffered
severely in 1870–71, has since been restored. The prefecture
and the hôtel de ville, which contains several interesting pictures
relating to the history of the town, belong to the 18th century.
Mézières is the seat of a prefect and of a court of assizes, and
there are manufactures of bicycles, and iron and steel castings
for motors, railway-carriages, &c.
Founded in the 9th century, Mézières was at first only a stronghold belonging to the bishops of Reims, which afterwards became the property of the counts of Rethel. The town was increased by successive immigrations of the people of Liége, flying first from the emperor Otto, and afterwards from Charles the Bold; and also by concessions from the counts of Rethel. Walls were built in the 13th century, and in 1521 it was defended against the Imperialists by the Chevalier Bayard, to whom a statue was erected in 1893. The anniversary of the deliverance is still observed yearly on the 27th of September. In 1815 the Germans were kept at bay for six weeks, and in 1871 the town only capitulated after a bombardment during which the greater part of it was destroyed.
MEZÖTÚR, a town of Hungary, in the county of
Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok, 88 m. S.E. of Budapest by rail. Pop. (1900), 25,367. It possesses important potteries. Large herds of cattle are reared on the communal lands, which are productive also of wheat, rapeseed and maize. Several well-attended fairs are held here annually.
MEZZANINE (It. mezzano; Fr. entresol; Ger. Zwischengeschoss), in architecture, a storey of small height introduced between two lofty storeys, or sometimes employed to allow of the introduction of two storeys equal together in height to lofty rooms on the same floor.
MEZZOFANTI, GIUSEPPE CASPAR (1774–1849), Italian
cardinal and linguist, was born on the 17th of September 1774,
at Bologna, and educated there. He was ordained priest in 1797,
and in the same year became professor of Arabic in the university,
but shortly afterwards was deprived for refusing to take the
oath of allegiance to the Cisalpine Republic. In 1803 he was
appointed assistant librarian of the institute of Bologna, and soon
afterwards was reinstated as professor of oriental languages and
of Greek. The chair was suppressed by the viceroy in 1808, but
again rehabilitated on the restoration of Pius VII. in 1814, and
continued to be held by Mezzofanti until his removal from
Bologna to Rome in 1831, as a member of the congregation de
propaganda fide. In 1833 he succeeded Angelo Mai as chief keeper
of the Vatican library, and in 1838 was made cardinal and director
of studies in the Congregation. He died at Rome on the 15th of
March 1849. His peculiar talent, comparable in many respects
to that of the so-called “calculating boys,” was not combined
with any exceptional measure of intellectual power, and
produced nothing of permanent value. It seems certain, however,
that he spoke with considerable fluency, and in some cases even
with attention to dialectic peculiarities, some fifty or sixty
languages of the most widely separated families, besides having
a less perfect acquaintance with many others.
See Russell, Life of the Cardinal Mezzofanti (London, 1857); A. Bellesheim, Giuseppe Cardinal Mezzofanti (Würzburg, 1880).
MEZZOTINT. During the 19th century two revolutions
occurred in the British art of mezzotinto engraving—“la manière anglaise.” The original defect of the method was the incapacity of the mezzotint “burr” on copper to yield as many fine impressions as other forms of engraving. To this defect was attributable the introduction, in 1823, of steel instead of the soft copper previously used—a change which, with the endeavour to avoid technical difficulties, led to the “mixed style,” or combination of mezzotint with etching, and a general departure from the traditional form of the art, “pure mezzotint” on copper. The affinity of the method to painting in black and white which differentiates it from other kinds of engraving, and was the distinguishing charm of the mezzotints of the 17th and 18th centuries, was for a time lost, but a revival of pure mezzotint on
