Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 3, Athens-BOI

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brotliers followed, from which, however, Bohemond was
speedily diverted by the Crusades, which opened up a
wider field for his ambition. Accompanied by his cousin
Tancred, he led an army of 10,000 cavalry and 20,000
infantry, with which he would have besieged Constantinople
had he been able to persuade Godfrey of Bouillon to join
him. He took a leading part in the battle of Dorylaeum
(1097), and the other engagements of the campaign in
Asia Minor. A year later he besieged and captured
Antioch, of which he assumed the principality. In 1101
he was defeated and taken prisoner by the Turks. Released,
after a captivity of two years, on the payment of a very
heavy ransom, he returned to Europe to collect troops. In
1106 he visited France, and married Constance, a daughter
of Philip I. With an army levied in France, in right of
his marriage, he renewed war with Alexius, but being
unsuccessful in the siege of Durazzo he was obliged to con¬
clude a peace in 1108. He died at Canossa in Apulia in
1111. (See Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, c. Iviii., lx.; and
Michaud’s Histoirede Groisades.)
BOIARDO, Count Matteo Maria, of a noble and
illustrious house established at Ferrara, but originally from
Reggio, was born at Scandiano, one of the seignoral estates
of his family, near Reggio di Modena, about the year 1431,
according to Tiraboschi, or 1420 according to Mazzuchelli.
At an early age he entered the University of Ferrara, where
he acquired a good knowledge of Greek and Latin, and
even of the Oriental languages, and was in due time admitted
doctor in philosophy and in law. At the court of Ferrara,
where he enjoyed the favour of Duke Borso d’Este and his
successor Hercules,he was entrusted with several honourable
employments, and in particular was named governor of Reg¬
gio, an appointment which he held in the year 1478. Three
years afterwards he was elected captain of Modena, and
reappointed governor of the town and citadel of Reggio,
where he died in the year 1494, though in what month is
uncertain. Almost all his works, and especially his great
poem of the Orlando Inamorato, were composed for the
amusement of Duke Hercules and his court, though not
written within its precincts. His practice, it is said, was
to retire to Scandiano or some other of his estates, and
there to devote himself to composition ; and Castelvetro,
Vallisnieri, Mazzuchelli, and Tiraboschi, all unite in stating
that he took care to insert in the descriptions of his poem
those of the agreeable environs of his chateau, and that the
greater part of the names of his heroes, as Mandricardo,
Gradasse, Sacripant, Agramant, and others, were merely the
names of some of his peasants, which, from their uncouth¬
ness, appeared to him proper to be given to Saracen
warriors. Be this as it may, the Orlando Inamorato
deserves to be considered as one of the most important
poems in Italian literature, since it forms the first example
of the romantic epic worthy to serve as a model, and, as
such, undoubtedly produced the Orlando Furioso. Gravina
and Mazzuchelli have said, and succeeding writers have
repeated on their authority, that Boiardo proposed to
himself as his model the Iliad of Homer; that Paris is
besieged like the city of Troy; that Angelica holds the place
of Helen; and that, in short, the one poem is a sort of
reflex image of the other. In point of fact, however, the
subject-matter of the poem is derived from the Fabulous
Chronicle of the pseudo-Turpin; though, with the exception
of the names of Charlemagne, Roland, Oliver, and some
other principal warriors, who necessarily figure as important
characters in the various scenes, there is little resemblance
between the detailed plot of the one and that of the other.
The poem, which Boiardo did not live to finish, was printed
at Scandiano the year after his death, under the superintend¬
ence of his son Count Camillo. The title of the book is
without date; but a Latin letter from Antonia Caraffa di
-B O I
Reggio, prefixed to the poem, is dated the kalends of June
1495. A second edition, also without date, but which
must have been printed before the year 1500, appeared at
Venice; and the poem was twice reprinted there durino-
the first twenty years of the 16th century. These editions
are the more curious and valuable, that they contain
nothing but the text of the author, which is comprised in
three books, divided into cantos, the third book being
incomplete. But Niccolo degli Agostini, an indifferent poet,
had the courage to continue the work commenced by
Boiardo, adding to it three books, which were printed at
Venice in 1526-1531, in 4to ; and since that time no
edition of the Orlando has been printed without the con¬
tinuation of Agostini, wretched as it unquestionably is.
Boiardo’s poem suffers from the incurable defect of a
laboured and heavy style. His story is skilfully con¬
structed, the characters are well drawn and sustained
throughout; many of the incidents show a power and
fertility of imagination not inferior to that of Ariosto, but
the perfect workmanship indispensable for a great work of
art is wanting. The poem in its original shape was not
popular, and has been completely superseded by the
Rifacimento of Francesco Berni. See Berni.
The other works of Boiardo are—1. II Timone, a comedy,
Scandiano, 1500, 4to ; 2. Sonnetti e Canzoni, Reggio, 1499,
4to ; 3. Carmen Bucolicon, Reggio, 1500, 4to; 4. Cinque
Capitoli in terza rima, Venice, 1523 or 1533; 5. Apulejo
delV Asino d'Oro, Venice, 1516, 1518 ; 6. Asino d’Oro de
Luciano tradotto in volgare, Venice, 1523, 8vo; 7. Erodoto
Alicarnasseo istorico, tradotto di Greco in Lingua Italiana,
Venice, 1533 and 1538, 8vo; 8. Rerum Italicarum
Scriptores. (See Panizzi’s Boiardo, 1830-31.)
BOIELDIEU, Francois-Adrien, is the chief representa¬
tive of the national school of comic opera in France, a branch
of art in which everything that is most lovable and at the
same time most national in the French character has found
its full expression. He was born at Rouen in 1775, and
received his first musical education from M. Broche, the
organist of the cathedral of that city. It is said that, when
quite a youth, in order to escape the punishment of a
severe master for a slight offence, he went off to Paris on
foot, but was discovered and brought back by his parents.
He began composing songs and chamber music at a very
early age,—his first opera, La Famille Suisse, being produced
on the stage of Rouen in 1795, where it met with an enthu¬
siastic reception. Not satisfied with his local success he
turned his eyes to that loadstar of youthful ambition,
Paris. He went to the capital .in 1795, full of hope and
expectation. The score of his opera was submitted to the
leading musicians of the day, such as Cherubini, M6hul,
and others, but met with little approbation. Altogether
the time was not favourable for the comic muse. The
heroic passions roused by the revolutionary events of the
preceding years required commensurate efforts of musical
art; the grand opera was the order of the day. Boieldieu
had to fall back on his talent as a pianoforte-player for a
livelihood, and to wait for a chance of higher success in the
meantime. This success came at last from a source whence
it was little expected, and, perhaps, less desired. Garat, a
fashionable singer of the period, admired Boieldieu’s touch
on the piano, and made him his accompanyist. He also
sung in the drawing-rooms of the Directoire the charming
songs and ballads with which the young composer supplied
him but too willingly. In this manner Boieldieu’s reputa¬
tion gradually extended to wider circles. In 1797 his above-
mentioned opera appeared for the first time on a Paris
stage, and was well received. Several others followed in
rapid succession, of which only the last, Le Calif e de Bagdad
(1799), has escaped oblivion. It tends to show Boieldieu’s
true artistic vocation, that, after the enormous success of