frequently used to decorate the very beautiful personal ornaments of which so many specimens enrich the museums of Europe. The British Museum possesses a fine fibula of silver decorated with a simple pattern in niello and thin plates of repousse gold This, though very similar in design to many fibulae from Scandinavia and Britain, was found in a tomb at Kerch (Panticapaeum). Several interesting gold rings of Saxon workmanship have been found at different times, on which the owner’s name and ornamental
Gold and Niello Ring.
patterns are formed in gold with a background of niello. One with the name of Ethelwulf, king of Wessex (836–838), is now in the British Museum (see figure). Another in the Victoria and Albert Museum has the name of Alhstan, who was bishop of Sherborne from 823 to 867. The metal-workers of Ireland, whose skill was quite unrivalled, practised largely the art of niello from the 10th to the 12th century, and possibly even earlier. Fine croziers, shrines, fibulae, and other objects of Irish workmanship, most skilfully enriched with elaborate niello-work, exist in considerable numbers. From the 13th to the 16th century but little niello-work appears to have been produced in England. Two specimens have been found, one at Matlask, Norfolk, and the other at Devizes, which from the character of the design appear to be English. They are both of gold, and seem to be the covering plates of small pendant reliquaries about 1 in. long, dating about the end of the 15th century. One has a crucifix between St John the Baptist and a bishop; the other, that found at Devizes, has the two latter figures, but no crucifix.[1] It is, however, in Italy that the art of niello-work was brought to greatest perfection. During the whole medieval period it was much used to decorate church plate, silver altar-frontals, and the like: The magnificent frontals of Pistoia cathedral and the Florence baptistery are notable instances of this. During the 15th century, especially at Florence, the art of niello-work was practised by almost all the great artist-goldsmiths of that period. Apart from the beauty of the works they produced, this art had a special importance and interest from its having led the way to the invention of printing from engravings on metal plates (see Line-engraving). Vasari’s account of this invention, given in his lives of Pollaiuolo and Maso Finiguerra, is very interesting, but he is wrong in asserting that Maso was the first worker in niello who took proofs or impressions of his plates. An important work of this sort, described at length by Vasari and wrongly ascribed by him to Maso Finiguerra (q.v.), still exists in the Opera del Duomo at Florence. It is a pax with a very rich and delicate niello picture of the coronation of the Virgin; the composition is very full, and the work almost microscopic in minuteness; it was made in 1452. Impressions from it are preserved in the British Museum, the Louvre and other collections. The British Museum possesses the finest existing example of 15th-century German niello. It is a silver beaker, covered with graceful scroll-work, forming medallions, in which are figures of cupids employed in various occupations (see Shaw’s Dresses and Decorations of the Middle Ages, 1858, vol. ii.).
Authorities.—The Archaeological Journal of 1862 (vol. xix. p. 323) has an excellent monograph on the subject, see also vol. xii. p. 79 and vol. iv. p. 247; Archaeologia, xxxi. 404; Merrifield, Ancient Practice of Painting, vol. i. (1849) (gives MSS. of Eraclius and other early writers); Catalogue of Museum of Royal Irish Academy; Les Nielles à la cath. d'Aix-la-Chapelle (Paris, 1859); Alvin, Nielles de la bibliothèque roy. de Belgique (1857); Duchesne, Nielles des orfèvres florentins (1826); Passavant, Le Peintre-graveur (1860–1864); Ottley, History of Engraving (1816) and Collection of Facsimiles of Prints (1826); Cicognara, Storia della scultura, iii. p. 168 (Prato, 1823), and Storia della calcografia (Prato, 1831); Lanzi, Storia pittorica, ep. i. sec. iii. (1809); Baldinucci, Professori del disegno (1681–1728) and L’Arte di intagliare in rame (1686); Zani, Origine dell’ incisione in rame (1802); Labarte, Arts of the Middle Ages (1855); Texier, Dictionnaire de l’orfèvrerie p. 1822 (Paris, 1. 1857); Bartsch, Le Peintre-graveur, xiii. 1-35; Rumohr, Untersuchung der Gründe für die Annahme, &c. (Leipzig, 1841); Lessing, Collectaneen zur Literatur (vol. xii. art. “Niellum”); C. Davenport, in Journal of Soc. of Arts (1901), vol. xlviii. (J. H. M.)
NIEM [Nyem, or Nieheim], DIETRICH OF (c. 1345–1418), medieval historian, was born at Nieheim, a small town subject to the see of Paderborn. He became a notary of the papal court of the rota at Avignon, and in 1376 Went with the Curia to Rome. Urban VI. here took particular notice of him, made him an abbreviator to the papal chancery, and in 1383 took him with him on his visit to King Charles at Naples, an expedition which led to many unpleasant adventures, from which he escaped in 1385 by leaving the Curia. In 1387 he is again found among the abbreviators, and in 1395 Pope Boniface IX. appointed him to the bishopric of Verden. His attempt to take possession of the see, however, met with successful opposition; and he had to resume his work in the Chancery, where his name again appears in 1403. In the meantime he had helped to found a German hospice in Rome, which survives as the Instituto dell’ Anima, and had begun to write a chronicle, of which only fragments are extant. His chief importance, however, lies in the part he took in the controversies arising out of the Great Schism. He accompanied Gregory XII. to Lucca in May 1408, and, having in vain tried to make the pope listen to counsels of moderation, he joined the Roman and Avignonese cardinals at Pisa. He adhered to the pope elected by the council of Pisa (Alexander V.) and to his successor John XXIII., resuming his place at the Curia. In view of the increasing confusion in the Church, however, he became one of the most ardent advocates of the appeal to a general council. He was present at the council of Constance as adviser to the German “nation.” He died at Maastricht on the 22nd of March 1418.
Niem wrote about events in which he either had an intimate personal share or of which he was in an excellent position to obtain accurate information. His most important works are the Nemus unionis and the De schismate. Of these the first, compiled at Lucca after the breach with Gregory XII., is a collection of documents which had fallen into his hands during the negotiations for union: papal pronouncements, pamphlets, letters written and received by himself, and the like. The De schismate libri III., completed on the 25th of May 1410, describes the history of events since 1376 as Niem himself had seen them. It was continued in the Historia de vita Johannis XXIII. Other works are De bono regimine Rom. pontificis, dedicated to the new pope (John XXIII.); De modis uniendi ac reformandi ecclesiam and De difficultate reformationis in concilio universali, advocating the convocation of a council, to which the pope is to bow; Contra dampnatos Wiclivitas Pragae, against the Hussites; Jura ac privilegia imperii, a glorification of the empire in view of the convocation of the council of Constance; Avisamenta pulcherrima de unione et reformatione membrorum et capitis fienda, a programme of church reform based on his experiences of the evils of the papal system.
For bibliography see Potthast, Bibl. hist. medii aevi (2nd ed., Berlin, 1896), p. 1051, s.v. “Theodoricus de Niem”; and generally see the article on Niem by Theodor Lindner in Allgemeine deutsche Biographie (Leipzig, 1886); and Erler, Dietrich von Nieheim (Leipzig, 1887).
NIEMCEWICZ, JULIAN URSIN (1758–1841), Polish scholar, poet and statesman, was born in 1757 in Lithuania. In the earlier part of his life he acted as adjutant to Kosciusko, was taken prisoner with him at the fatal battle of Maciejowice (1794), and shared his captivity at St Petersburg. On his release he travelled for some time in America, where he married. After the Congress of Vienna he was secretary of state and president of the constitutional committee in Poland, but in 1830–1831 he was again driven into exile. He died in Paris on the 21st of April 1841. Niemcewicz tried many styles of composition. His comedy The Return of the Deputy (1790) enjoyed a great reputation, and his novel, John of Tenczyn (1825), in the style of Scott, gives a vigorous picture of old Polish days. He also wrote a History of the Reign of Sigismund III. (3 vols., 1819), and a collection of memoirs for ancient Polish history (6 vols., 1822–1823). But he is now best remembered by his Historical Songs of the Poles (Warsaw, 1816), a series of lyrical compositions in which the chief heroes are of the golden age of Sigismund I., and the reigns of Stephen Bathori and Sobieski.
His collected works were published in 12 vols. at Leipzig (1838–1840).
- ↑ See Proc. Norfolk Archaeo. Soc. iii. p. 97.
