“ghostly man” for a clergyman (cf. the Ger. Geistlicher) is an archaism the use of which could only be justified by poetic licence, as in Tennyson’s Elaine (1842). The word “ghost,” from the shadowy and unsubstantial quality attributed to the apparitions of the dead, has come also to be commonly used to emphasize the want of force or substance generally, in such phrases as “not the ghost of a chance,” “not the ghost of an idea.” It is also applied to those literary and artistic “hacks” who are paid to do work for which others get the credit.
GHOST DANCE, an American-Indian ritual dance, sometimes
called the Spirit Dance, the dancers wearing a white cloak. It is
connected with the doctrine of a Messiah, which arose in Nevada
among the Paiute Indians in 1888 and spread to other tribes.
A young Paiute Indian medicine-man, known as Wovoka, and
called Jack Wilson by the whites, proclaimed that he had had
a revelation, and that, if this ghost dance and other ceremonies
were duly performed, the Indians would be rid of the white men.
The movement led to a sort of craze among the Indian tribes,
and in 1890 it was one of the causes of the Sioux outbreak.
See J. Mooney, 14th Report (1896) of Bureau of American Ethnology.
GIACOMETTI, PAOLO (1816–1882), Italian dramatist, born at
Novi Ligure, was educated in law at Genoa, but at the age of
twenty had some success with his play Rosilda and then devoted
himself to the stage. Depressed circumstances made him attach
himself as author to various touring Italian companies,
and his output was considerable; moreover, such actors as
Ristori, Rossi and Salvini made many of these plays great
successes. Among the best of them were La Donna (1850),
La Donna in seconde nozze (1851), Giuditta (1857), Sofocle (1860),
La Morte civile (1880). A collection of his works was published at
Milan in eight volumes (1859 et seq.).
GIAMBELLI (or Gianibelli), FEDERIGO, Italian military
engineer, was born at Mantua about the middle of the 16th
century. Having had some experience as a military engineer
in Italy, he went to Spain to offer his services to Philip II. His
proposals were, however, lukewarmly received, and as he could
obtain from the king no immediate employment, he took up his
residence at Antwerp, where he soon gained considerable reputation
for his knowledge in various departments of science. He
is said to have vowed to be revenged for his rebuff at the
Spanish court; and when Antwerp was besieged by the duke
of Parma in 1584, he put himself in communication with Queen
Elizabeth, who, having satisfied herself of his abilities, engaged
him to aid by his counsels in its defence. His plans for provisioning
the town were rejected by the senate, but they agreed to a
modification of his scheme for destroying the famous bridge
which closed the entrance to the town from the side of the sea,
by the conversion of two ships of 60 and 70 tons into infernal
machines. One of these exploded, and, besides destroying
more than 1000 soldiers, effected a breach in the structure of
more than 200 ft. in width, by which, but for the hesitation
of Admiral Jacobzoon, the town might at once have been relieved.
After the surrender of Antwerp Giambelli went to England,
where he was engaged for some time in fortifying the river
Thames; and when the Spanish Armada was attacked by fireships
in the Calais roads, the panic which ensued was very
largely due to the conviction among the Spaniards that the fireships
were infernal machines constructed by Giambelli. He is
said to have died in London, but the year of his death is unknown.
See Motley’s History of the United Netherlands, vols. i. and ii.
GIANNONE, PIETRO (1676–1748), was born at Ischitella, in the province of Capitanata, on the 7th of May 1676. Arriving in Naples at the age of eighteen, he devoted himself to the study of law, but his legal pursuits were much surpassed in importance by his literary labours. He devoted twenty years to the composition of his great work, the Storia civile del regno di Napoli, which was ultimately published in 1723. Here in his account of the rise and progress of the Neapolitan laws and government, he warmly espoused the side of the civil power in its conflicts with the Roman Catholic hierarchy. His merit lies in the fact that he was the first to deal systematically with the question of Church and State, and the position thus taken up by him, and the manner in which that position was assumed, gave rise to a lifelong conflict between Giannone and the Church; and in spite of his retractation in prison at Turin, he deserves the palm—as he certainly endured the sufferings—of a confessor and martyr in the cause of what he deemed historical truth. Hooted by the mob of Naples, and excommunicated by the archbishop’s court, he was forced to leave Naples and repair to Vienna. Meanwhile the Inquisition had attested after its own fashion the value of his history by putting it on the Index. At Vienna the favour of the emperor Charles VI. and of many leading personages at the Austrian court obtained for him a pension and other facilities for the prosecution of his historical studies. Of these the most important result was Il Triregno, ossia del regno del cielo, della terra, e del papa. On the transfer of the Neapolitan crown to Charles of Bourbon, Giannone lost his Austrian pension and was compelled to remove to Venice. There he was at first most favourably received. The post of consulting lawyer to the republic, in which he might have continued the special work of Fra Paolo Sarpi, was offered to him, as well as that of professor of public law in Padua; but he declined both offers. Unhappily there arose a suspicion that his views on maritime law were not favourable to the pretensions of Venice, and this suspicion, notwithstanding all his efforts to dissipate it, together with clerical intrigues, led to his expulsion from the state. On the 23rd of September 1735 he was seized and conveyed to Ferrara. After wandering under an assumed name for three months through Modena, Milan and Turin, he at last reached Geneva, where he enjoyed the friendship of the most distinguished citizens, and was on excellent terms with the great publishing firms. But in an evil hour he was induced to visit a Catholic village within Sardinian territory in order to hear mass on Easter day, where he was kidnapped by the agents of the Sardinian government, conveyed to the castle of Miolans and thence successively transferred to Ceva and Turin. In the fortress of Turin he remained immured during the last twelve years of his life, although part of his time was spent in composing a defence of the Sardinian interests as opposed to those of the papal court, and he was led to sign a retractation of the statements in his history most obnoxious to the Vatican (1738). But after his recantation his detention was made less severe and he was allowed many alleviations. He died on the 7th of March 1748, in his seventy-second year.
Giannone’s style as an Italian writer has been pronounced to be below a severe classical model; he is often inaccurate as to the facts, for he did not always work from original authorities (see A. Manzoni, Storia della colonna infame), and he was sometimes guilty of unblushing plagiarism. But his very ease and freedom have helped to make his volumes more popular than many works of greater classical renown. In England the just appreciation of his labours by Gibbon, and the ample use made of them in the later volumes of The Decline and Fall, early secured him his rightful place in the estimation of English scholars.
The story of his life has been recorded in the Vita by L. Panzini, which is based on Giannone’s unpublished Autobiografia and printed in the Milan edition of the historian’s works (1823); whilst a more complete estimate of his literary and political importance may be formed by the perusal of the collected edition of the works written by him in his Turin prison, published in Turin in 1859—under the care of the distinguished statesman Pasquale Stanislao Mancini, universally recognized as one of the first authorities in Italy on questions relating to the history of his native Naples, and especially of the conflicts between the civil power and the Church. See also R. Mariano, “Giannone e Vico,” in the Rivista contemporanea (1869); G. Ferrari, La Mente di Pietro Giannone (1868). G. Bonacci’s Saggio sulla Storia civile del Giannone (Florence, 1903) is a bitter attack on Giannone, and although the writer’s remarks on the plagiarisms in the Storia civile are justified, the charge of servility is greatly exaggerated.
GIANNUTRI (Gr. Ἀρτεμίσιον, Lat. Dianium), an island of Italy, about 1 sq. m. in total area, 10 m. S.E. of Giglio and about 10 m. S. of the promontory of Monte Argentario (see Orbetello). The highest point is 305 ft. above sea-level. It contains the ruins of a large Roman villa, near the Cala Maestra on the E. coast of the island. The buildings may be divided into five groups: (1) a large cistern in five compartments, each measuring 39 by 17 ft.; (2) habitations both for the owners and for slaves, and
