Encyclopaedia Britannica Volume 2, Part 1 Part 3

Theology by Ewald, Schultz, Smend, Kayser-Marti, &c.; and of N.T. Theology by Weiss, and in van Oosterzee's _Dogmatics_. Also commentaries on special pa.s.sages, especially Driver and Bevan on _Daniel_, and G.A. Smith, _Minor Prophets_, ii. 310 ff.; and articles _s.v._ "Angel" in Hastings' _Bible Dictionary_, and the _Encyclopaedia Biblica_.

(W.H. BE.)

ANGEL, a gold coin, first used in France (_angelot, ange_) in 1340, and introduced into England by Edward IV. in 1465 as a new issue of the "n.o.ble," and so at first called the "angel-n.o.ble." It varied in value between that period and the time of Charles I. (when it was last coined) from 6s. 8d. to 10s. The name was derived from the representation it bore of St. Michael and the dragon. The angel was the coin given to those who came to be touched for the disease known as king's evil; after it was no longer coined, medals, called touch-pieces, with the same device, were given instead.

ANGELICA, a genus of plants of the natural order _Umbelliferae_, represented in Britain by one species, _A. sylvestris_, a tall perennial herb with large bipinnate leaves and large compound umbels of white or purple flowers. The name Angelica is popularly given to a plant of an allied genus, _Archangelica officinalis_, the tender shoots of which are used in making certain kinds of aromatic sweetmeats. _Angelica balsam_ is obtained by extracting the roots with alcohol, evaporating and extracting the residue with ether. It is of a dark brown colour and contains angelica oil, angelica wax and angelicin, C_{18}_H_{30}_O. The essential oil of the roots of _Angelica archangelica_ contains -terebangelene, C_{10}_H_{16}, and other terpenes; the oil of the seeds also contains -terebangelene, together with methylethylacetic acid and hydroxymyristic acid.

The angelica tree is a member of the order _Avaliaceae_, a species of _Aralia (A. spinosa_), a native of North America; it grows 8 to 12 ft.

high, has a simple p.r.i.c.kle-bearing stem forming an umbrella-like head, and much divided leaves.

ANGELICO, FRA (1387-1455), Italian painter. Il Beato Fra Giovanni Angelico da Fiesole is the name given to a far-famed painter-friar of the Florentine state in the 15th century, the representative, beyond all other men, of pietistic painting. He is often, but not accurately, termed simply "Fiesole," which is merely the name of the town where he first took the vows; more often Fra Angelico. If we turn his compound designation into English, it runs thus--"the Beatified Friar John the Angelic of Fiesole." In his lifetime he was known no doubt simply as Fra Giovanni or Friar John; "The Angelic" is a laudatory term which was a.s.signed to him at an early date,--we find it in use within thirty years after his death; and, at some period which is not defined in our authorities, he was beatified by due ecclesiastical process. His baptismal name was Guido, Giovanni being only his name in religion. He was born at Vicchio, in the Tuscan province of Mugello, of unknown but seemingly well-to-do parentage, in 1387 (not 1390 as sometimes stated); in 1407 he became a novice in the convent of S. Domenico at Fiesole, and in 1408 he took the vows and entered the Dominican order.

Whether he had previously been a painter by profession is not certain, but may be p.r.o.nounced probable. The painter named Lorenzo Monaco may have contributed to his art-training, and the influence of the Sienese school is discernible in his work.

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According to Vasari, the first paintings of this artist were in the Certosa of Florence; none such exist there now. His earliest extant performances, in considerable number, are at Cortona, whither he was sent during his novitiate, and here apparently he spent all the opening years of his monastic life. His first works executed in fresco were probably those, now destroyed, which he painted in the convent of S. Domenico in this city; as a fresco-painter, he may have worked under, or as a follower of, Gherardo Starnina. From 1418 to 1436 he was back at Fiesole; in 1436 he was transferred to the Dominican convent of S. Marco in Florence, and in 1438 undertook to paint the altarpiece for the choir, followed by many other works; he may have studied about this time the renowned frescoes in the Brancacci chapel in the Florentine church of the Carmine and also the paintings of Orcagna. In or about 1445 he was invited by the pope to Rome. The pope who reigned from 1431 to 1447 was Eugenius IV., and he it was who in 1445 appointed another Dominican friar, a colleague of Angelico, to be archbishop of Florence. If the story (first told by Vasari) is true--that this appointment was made at the suggestion of Angelico only after the archbishopric had been offered to himself, and by him declined on the ground of his inapt.i.tude for so elevated and responsible a station--Eugenius, and not (as stated by Vasari) his successor Nicholas V., must have been the pope who sent the invitation and made the offer to Fra Giovanni, for Nicholas only succeeded in 1447. The whole statement lacks authentication, though in itself credible enough. Certain it is that Angelico was staying in Rome in the first half of 1447; and he painted in the Vatican the Cappella del Sacramento, which was afterwards demolished by Paul III. In June 1447 he proceeded to Orvieto, to paint in the Cappella Nuova of the cathedral, with the co-operation of his pupil Benozzo Gozzoli. He afterwards returned to Rome to paint the chapel of Nicholas V. In this capital he died in 1455, and he lies buried in the church of the Minerva.

According to all the accounts which have reached us, few men on whom the distinction of beatification has been conferred could have deserved it more n.o.bly than Fra Giovanni. He led a holy and self-denying life, shunning all advancement, and was a brother to the poor; no man ever saw him angered. He painted with unceasing diligence, treating none but sacred subjects; he never retouched or altered his work, probably with a religious feeling that such as divine providence allowed the thing to come, such it should remain. He was wont to say that he who ill.u.s.trates the acts of Christ should be with Christ. It is averred that he never handled a brush without fervent prayer and he wept when he painted a Crucifixion. The Last Judgment and the Annunciation were two of the subjects he most frequently treated.

Bearing in mind the details already given as to the dates of Fra Giovanni's sojournings in various localities, the reader will be able to trace approximately the sequence of the works which we now proceed to name as among his most important productions. In Florence, in the convent of S. Marco (now converted into a national museum), a series of frescoes, beginning towards 1443; in the first cloister is the Crucifixion with St. Dominic kneeling; and the same treatment recurs on a wall near the dormitory; in the chapterhouse is a third Crucifixion, with the Virgin swooning, a composition of twenty life-sized figures--the red background, which has a strange and harsh effect, is the misdoing of some restorer; an "Annunciation," the figures of about three-fourths of life-size, in a dormitory; in the adjoining pa.s.sage, the "Virgin enthroned," with four saints; on the wall of a cell, the "Coronation of the Virgin," with Saints Paul, Thomas Aquinas, Benedict, Dominic, Francis and Peter Martyr; two Dominicans welcoming Jesus, habited as a pilgrim; an "Adoration of the Magi"; the "Marys at the Sepulchre." All these works are later than the altarpiece which Angelico painted (as before mentioned) for the choir connected with this convent, and which is now in the academy of Florence; it represents the Virgin with Saints Cosmas and Damian (the patrons of the Medici family), Dominic, Peter, Francis, Mark, John Evangelist and Stephen; the pediment ill.u.s.trated the lives of Cosmas and Damian, but it has long been severed from the main subject. In the Uffizi gallery, an altarpiece, the Virgin (life-sized) enthroned, with the Infant and twelve angels. In S. Domenico, Fiesole, a few frescoes, less fine than those in S. Marco; also an altarpiece in tempera of the Virgin and Child between Saints Peter, Thomas Aquinas, Dominic and Peter Martyr, now much destroyed. The subject which originally formed the predella of this picture has, since 1860, been in the National Gallery, London, and worthily represents there the hand of the saintly painter. The subject is a Glory, Christ with the banner of the Resurrection, and a mult.i.tude of saints, including, at the extremities, the saints or beati of the Dominican order; here are no fewer than 266 figures or portions of figures, many of them having names inscribed. This predella was highly lauded by Vasari; still more highly another picture which used to form an altarpiece in Fiesole, and which now obtains world-wide celebrity in the Louvre--the "Coronation of the Virgin," with eight predella subjects of the miracles of St. Dominic.

For the church of Santa Trinita, Florence, Angelico executed a "Deposition from the Cross," and for the church of the Angeli, a "Last Judgment," both now in the Florentine academy; for S. Maria Novella, a "Coronation of the Virgin," with a predella in three sections, now in the Uffizi,--this again is one of his masterpieces. In Orvieto cathedral he painted three triangular divisions of the ceiling, portraying respectively Christ in a glory of angels, sixteen saints and prophets, and the virgin and apostles: all these are now much repainted and damaged. In Rome, in the Chapel of Nicholas V., the acts of Saints Stephen and Lawrence; also various figures of saints, and on the ceiling the four evangelists. These works of the painter's advanced age, which have suffered somewhat from restorations, show vigour superior to that of his youth, along with a more adequate treatment of the architectural perspectives. Naturally, there are a number of works currently attributed to Angelico, but not really his; for instance, a "St Thomas with the Madonna's girdle," in the Lateran museum, and a "Virgin enthroned," in the church of S. Girolamo, Fiesole. It has often been said that he commenced and frequently practised as an illuminator; this is dubious and a presumption arises that illuminations executed by Giovanni's brother, Benedetto, also a Dominican, who died in 1448, have been ascribed to the more famous artist. Benedetto may perhaps have a.s.sisted Giovanni in the frescoes at S. Marco, but nothing of the kind is distinctly traceable. A folio series of engravings from these paintings was published in Florence, in 1852. Along with Gozzoli already mentioned, Zan.o.bi Strozzi and Gentile da Fabriano are named as pupils of the Beato.

We have spoken of Angelico's art as "pietistic"; this is in fact its predominant character. His visages have an air of rapt suavity, devotional fervency and beaming esoteric consciousness, which is intensely attractive to some minds and realizes beyond rivalry a particular ideal--that of ecclesiastical saintliness and detachment from secular fret and turmoil. It should not be denied that he did not always escape the pitfalls of such a method of treatment, the faces becoming sleek and prim, with a smirk of s.e.xless religiosity which hardly eludes the artificial or even the hypocritical; on other minds, therefore, and these some of the most masculine and resolute, he produces little genuine impression. After allowing for this, Angelico should nevertheless be accepted beyond cavil as an exalted typical painter according to his own range of conceptions, consonant with his monastic calling, unsullied purity of life and exceeding devoutness.

Exquisite as he is in his special mode of execution, he undoubtedly falls far short, not only of his great naturalist contemporaries such as Masaccio and Lippo Lippi, but even of so distant a precursor as Giotto, in all that pertains to bold or life-like invention of a subject or the realization of ordinary appearances, expressions and actions--the facts of nature, as distinguished from the aspirations or contemplations of the spirit. Technically speaking, he had much finish and harmony of composition and colour, without corresponding mastery of light and shade, and his knowledge of the human frame was restricted. The brilliancy and fair light scale of his tints is constantly remarkable, combined with a free use of gilding; this conduces materially to that celestial character which so pre-eminently distinguishes his pictured visions of the divine persons, the hierarchy of heaven and the glory of the redeemed.

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Books regarding Fra Angelico are numerous. We may mention those by S.

Beissel, 1895; V.M. Crawford, 1900; R.L. Douglas, 1900; I.B. Supino, 1901; D. Tumiati, 1897; G. Williamson, 1901.

(W.M.R.)

ANGELL, GEORGE THORNDIKE (1823-1909), American philanthropist, was born at Southbridge, Ma.s.sachusetts, on the 5th of June 1823. He graduated at Dartmouth in 1846, studied law at the Harvard Law School, and in 1851 was admitted to the bar in Boston, where he practised for many years. In 1868 he founded and became president of the Ma.s.sachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, in the same year establishing and becoming editor of _Our Dumb Animals_, a journal for the promotion of organized effort in securing the humane treatment of animals. For many years he was active in the organization of humane societies in England and America. In 1882 he initiated the movement for the establishment of Bands of Mercy (for the promotion of humane treatment of animals), of which in 1908 there were more than 72,000 in active existence. In 1889 he founded and became president of the American Humane Education Society. He became well known as a criminologist and also as an advocate of laws for the safeguarding of the public health and against adulteration of food. He died at Boston on the 16th of March 1909.

ANGEL-LIGHTS, in architecture, the outer upper lights in a perpendicular window, next to the springing; probably a corruption of the word angle-lights, as they are nearly triangular.

ANGELUS, a Roman Catholic devotion in memory of the Annunciation.

It has its name from the opening words, _Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae_. It consists of three texts describing the mystery, recited as versicle and response alternately with the salutation "Hail, Mary!"

This devotion is recited in the Catholic Church three times daily, about 6 A.M., noon and 6 P.M. At these hours a bell known as the Angelus bell is rung. This is still rung in some English country churches, and has often been mistaken for and alleged to be a survival of the curfew bell. The inst.i.tution of the Angelus is by some ascribed to Pope Urban II., by some to John XXII. The triple recitation is ascribed to Louis XI. of France, who in 1472 ordered it to be thrice said daily.

ANGELUS SILESIUS (1624-1677), German religious poet, was born in 1624 at Breslau. His family name was Johann Scheffler, but he is generally known by the pseudonym Angelus Silesius, under which he published his poems and which marks the country of his birth. Brought up a Lutheran, and at first physician to the duke of Wurttemberg-Oels, he joined in 1652 the Roman Catholic Church, in 1661 took orders as a priest, and became coadjutor to the prince bishop of Breslau. He died at Breslau on the 9th of July 1677. In 1657 Silesius published under the t.i.tle _Heilige Seelenl.u.s.t, oder geistliche Hirtenlieder der in ihren Jesum verliebten Psyche_ (1657), a collection of 205 hymns, the most beautiful of which, such as, _Liebe, die du mich zum Bilde deiner Gottheit hast gemacht_ and _Mir nach, spricht Christus, unser Held_, have been adopted in the German Protestant hymnal. More remarkable, however, is his _Geistreiche Sinn-und Schluss-reime_ (1657), afterwards called _Cherubinischer Wandersmann_ (1674). This is a collection of "Reimspruche" or rhymed distichs embodying a strange mystical pantheism drawn mainly from the writings of Jakob Bohme and his followers. Silesius delighted specially in the subtle paradoxes of mysticism. The essence of G.o.d, for instance, he held to be love; G.o.d, he said, can love nothing inferior to himself; but he cannot be an object of love to himself without going out, so to speak, of himself, without manifesting his infinity in a finite form; in other words, by becoming man. G.o.d and man are therefore essentially one.

A complete edition of Scheffler's works (_Samtliche poetische Werke_) was published by D.A. Rosenthal, 2 vols. (Regensburg, 1862). Both the _Cherubinischer Wandersmann_ and _Heilige Seelenl.u.s.t_ have been republished by G. Ellinger (1895 and 1901); a selection from the former work by O.E. Hartleben (1896). For further notices of Silesius'

life and work, see Hoffmann von Fallersleben in _Weimarisches Jahrbuch I_. (Hanover, 1854); A. Kahlert, _Angelus Silesius_ (1853); C.

Seltmann, _Angelus Silesius und seine Mystik_ (1896), and a biog. by H. Mahn (Dresden, 1896).

ANGERMuNDE, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Brandenburg, on Lake Munde, 43 m. from Berlin by the Berlin-Stettin railway, and at the junction of lines to Prenzlau, Freien-walde and Schwedt. Pop. (1900) 7465. It has three Protestant churches, a grammar school and court of law. Its industries embrace iron founding and enamel working. In 1420 the elector Frederick I. of Brandenburg gained here a signal victory over the Pomeranians.

ANGERONA, or ANGERONIA, an old Roman G.o.ddess, whose name and functions are variously explained. According to ancient authorities, she was a G.o.ddess who relieved men from pain and sorrow, or delivered the Romans and their flocks from _angina_ (quinsy); or she was the protecting G.o.ddess of Rome and the keeper of the sacred name of the city, which might not be p.r.o.nounced lest it should be revealed to her enemies; it was even thought that Angerona itself was this name. Modern scholars regard her as a G.o.ddess akin to Ops, Acca Larentia and Dea Dia; or as the G.o.ddess of the new year and the returning sun (according to Mommsen, _ab angerendo_= [Greek: apo tou anapheresthai. ton haelion).]

Her festival, called Divalia or Angeronalia, was celebrated on the 21st of December. The priests offered sacrifice in the temple of Volupia, the G.o.ddess of pleasure, in which stood a statue of Angerona, with a finger on her mouth, which was bound and closed (Macrobius i. 10; Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ iii. 9; Varro, _L. L._ vi. 23). She was worshipped as Ancharia at Faesulae, where an altar belonging to her has been recently discovered. (See FAESULAE.)

ANGERS, a city of western France, capital of the department of Maine-et-Loire, 191 m. S.W. of Paris by the Western railway to Nantes.

Pop. (1906) 73,585. It occupies rising ground on both banks of the Maine, which are united by three bridges. The surrounding district is famous for its flourishing nurseries and market gardens. Pierced with wide, straight streets, well provided with public gardens, and surrounded by ample, tree-lined boulevards, beyond which lie new suburbs, Angers is one of the pleasantest towns in France. Of its numerous medieval buildings the most important is the cathedral of St. Maurice, dating in the main from the 12th and 13th centuries.

Between the two flanking towers of the west facade, the spires of which are of the 16th century, rises a central tower of the same period. The most prominent feature of the facade is the series of eight warriors carved on the base of this tower. The vaulting of the nave takes the form of a series of cupolas, and that of the choir and transept is similar. The chief treasures of the church are its rich stained gla.s.s (12th, 13th and 15th centuries) and valuable tapestry (14th to 18th centuries). The bishop's palace which adjoins the cathedral contains a fine synodal hall of the 12th century. Of the other churches of Angers, the princ.i.p.al are St. Serge, an abbey-church of the 12th and 15th centuries, and La Trinite (12th century). The prefecture occupies the buildings of the famous abbey of St. Aubin; in its courtyard are elaborately sculptured arcades of the 11th and 12th centuries, from which period dates the tower, the only survival of the splendid abbey-church. Ruins of the old churches of Toussaint (13th century) and Notre-Dame du Ronceray (11th century) are also to be seen. The castle of Angers, an imposing building girt with towers and a moat, dates from the 13th century and is now used as an armoury.

The ancient hospital of St. Jean (12th century) is occupied by an archaeological museum; and the Logis Barrault, a mansion built about 1500, contains the public library, the munic.i.p.al museum, which has a large collection of pictures and sculptures, and the Musee David, containing works by the famous sculptor David d'Angers, who was a native of the town. One of his masterpieces, a bronze statue of Rene of Anjou, stands close by the castle. The Hotel de Pince or d'Anjou (1523-1530) is the finest of the stone mansions of Angers; there are also many curious wooden houses of the 15th and 16th centuries. The palais de justice, the Catholic inst.i.tute, a fine theatre, and a hospital with 1500 beds are the more remarkable of the modern buildings of the town. Angers is the seat of a bishopric, dating from the 3rd century, a prefecture, a court of appeal and a court of a.s.sizes. It has a tribunal of first instance, a tribunal of commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators, a chamber of commerce, a branch of the Bank of France and several learned societies. Its educational inst.i.tutions include ecclesiastical seminaries, a lycee, a preparatory school of medicine and pharmacy, a university with free faculties (_facultes libres_) of theology, law, letters and science, a higher school of agriculture, training colleges, a school of arts and handicrafts and a school of fine art. The prosperity of the town is largely due to the great slate-quarries of the vicinity, but the distillation of liqueurs from fruit, cable, rope and thread-making, and the manufacture of boots and shoes, umbrellas and parasols are leading industries. The weaving of sail-cloth and woollen and other fabrics, machine construction, wire-drawing, and manufacture of sparkling wines and preserved fruits are also carried on. The chief articles of commerce, besides slate and manufactured goods, are hemp, early vegetables, fruit, flowers and live-stock.

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Angers, capital of the Gallic tribe of the Andecavi, was under the Romans called Juliomagus. During the 9th century it became the seat of the counts of Anjou (_q.v._). It suffered severely from the invasions of the Northmen in 845 and the succeeding years, and of the English in the 12th and 15th centuries; the Huguenots took it in 1585, and the Vendean royalists were repulsed near it in 1793. Till the Revolution, Angers was the seat of a celebrated university founded in the 14th century.

See L.M. Thorode, _Notice de la ville d'Angers_ (Angers, 1897).

ANGERSTEIN, JOHN JULIUS (1735-1822), London merchant, and patron of the fine arts, was born at St. Petersburg and settled in London about 1749. His collection of paintings, consisting of about forty of the most exquisite specimens of the art, purchased by the British government, on his death, formed the nucleus of the National Gallery.

ANGILBERT (d. 814), Frankish Latin poet, and minister of Charlemagne, was of n.o.ble Frankish parentage, and educated at the palace school under Alcuin. As the friend and adviser of the emperor's son, Pippin, he a.s.sisted for a while in the government of Italy, and was later sent on three important emba.s.sies to the pope, in 792, 794 and 796.

Although he was the father of two children by Charlemagne's daughter, Bertha, one of them named Nithard, we have no authentic account of his marriage, and from 790 he was abbot of St. Riquier, where his brilliant rule gained for him later the renown of a saint. Angilbert, however, was little like the true medieval saint; his poems reveal rather the culture and tastes of a man of the world, enjoying the closest intimacy with the imperial family. He accompanied Charlemagne to Rome in 800 and was one of the witnesses to his will in 814.

Angilbert was the Homer of the emperor's literary circle, and was the probable author of an epic, of which the fragment which has been preserved describes the life at the palace and the meeting between Charlemagne and Leo III. It is a mosaic from Virgil, Ovid, Lucan and Fortunatus, composed in the manner of Einhard's use of Suetonius, and exhibits a true poetic gift. Of the shorter poems, besides the greeting to Pippin on his return from the campaign against the Avars (796), an epistle to David (Charlemagne) incidentally reveals a delightful picture of the poet living with his children in a house surrounded by pleasant gardens near the emperor's palace. The reference to Bertha, however, is distant and respectful, her name occurring merely on the list of princesses to whom he sends his salutation.

Angilbert's poems have been published by E. Dummler in the _Monumenta Germaniae Historica_. For criticisms of this edition see Traube in Roederer's _Schriften fur germanische Philologie_ (1888). See also A.

Molinier, _Les Sources de l'histoire de France._

ANGINA PECTORIS (Latin for "pain of the chest"), a term applied to a violent paroxysm of pain, arising almost invariably in connexion with disease of the coronary arteries, a lesion causing progressive degeneration of the heart muscle (see HEART: _Disease_). An attack of angina pectoris usually comes on with a sudden seizure of pain, felt at first over the region of the heart, but radiating through the chest in various directions, and frequently extending down the left arm.

A feeling of constriction and of suffocation accompanies the pain, although there is seldom actual difficulty in breathing. When the attack comes on, as it often does, in the course of some bodily exertion, the sufferer is at once brought to rest, and during the continuance of the paroxysm experiences the most intense agony. The countenance becomes pale, the surface of the body cold, the pulse feeble, and death appears to be imminent, when suddenly the attack subsides and complete relief is obtained. The duration of a paroxysm rarely exceeds two or three minutes, but it may last for a longer period. The attacks are apt to recur on slight exertion, and even in aggravated cases without any such exciting cause. Occasionally the first seizure proves fatal; but more commonly death takes place as the result of repeated attacks. Angina pectoris is extremely rare under middle life, and is much more common in males than in females. It must always be regarded as a disorder of a very serious nature. In the treatment of the paroxysm, nitrite of amyl has now replaced all other remedies. It can be carried by the patient in the form of nitrite of amyl pearls, each pearl containing the dose prescribed by the physician. Kept in this way the drug does not lose strength. As soon as the pain begins the patient crushes a pearl in his handkerchief and holds it to his mouth and nose. The relief given in this way is marvellous and usually takes place within a very few seconds. In the rare cases where this drug does not relieve, hypodermic injections of morphia are used. But on account of the well-known dangers of this drug, it should only be administered by a medical man. To prevent recurrence of the attacks something may be done by scrupulous attention to the general health, and by the avoidance of mental and physical strain. But the most important preventive of all is "bed,"