CHIABRERA, Gabrīello (1552-1637), the Italian Pindar, as he is sometimes called, was of patrician descent, and was born at Savona, a little town in the domain of the Genoese republic, twenty-eight years after the birth of Ronsard, with whom he has far more in common than with the great Greek whose echo he sought to make himself. As he has told in the pleasant fragment of autobiography prefixed to his works, in which, like Caesar, he speaks of himself in the third person, he was a posthumous child; he went to Rome at the age of nine years, under the care of his uncle Giovanni. There he read with a private tutor, suffered severely from two fevers in succession, and was sent at last, for the sake of society, to the Jesuits’ College, where he remained till his twentieth year, studying philosophy, as he says, “più per trattenimento ehe per appren-dere,”—rather for occupation than for learning’s sake. Losing his uncle about this time, Chiabrera returned to Savona, “again to see his own and be seen by them.” In a little while, however, he returned to Rome, and entered the household of a Cardinal Camerlingo, where he remained for several years, frequenting the society of Paulus Mauritius and of Sperone Speroni, the dramatist and critic of Tasso, and attending the lectures-ami hearing the conversation of Mureto. His revenge of an insult offered him obliged him to betake himself once more to Savona, where, to amuse himself, he read poetry, and particularly Greek. The poets of his choice were Pindar and Anacreon, and these he studied till it grew to be his ambition to reproduce in his own tongue their rhythms and structures, and so to enrich his country with a new form of verse,—in his own words, “like his countryman, Columbus, to find a new world or drown.” ...

CHIARAMONTE, a town of Sicily, in the province of Syracuse, and 32 miles west from the city of that name. It is regularly built, with broad and straight streets. The view from the Capuchin convent is one of the finest in Sicily; and there is a well-preserved castle. The environs produce excellent wine. Population, 9300.

CHIARI, an ancient walled town of Italy, in the province of Brescia, and 12 miles west of the city of that name, near the left bank of the Oglio. It has several churches, a hospital, and a public library, and manufactures silk, cotton, and leather. In 1701 it was the scene of the victory of the Austrians under Prince Eugene over the Spaniards and French. Population, 9479.

CHIAVENNA, or Olafen, a small town of Italy, in the province of Sondrio, in a deep valley on the right bank of the Maira, and about seven miles from its entrance into the Lake of Como. From its situation at the junction of the great roads over the Splügen and Septimer. between Germany and Italy, it is a place of considerable trade, especially in the wines of the Valtelline, and the pottery manufactured in the vicinity. Its principal manufacture is silk, and its beer is reckoned the best in Northern Italy. Its most remarkable church is San Lorenzo, with a carved font of the 12th century; and on a neighbouring height are extensive ruins of an ancient castle. The town was known to the Romans as Clavenna, and probably was of some importance from its position. In the Middle Ages it was an independent imperial countship, till it was at last seized by the dukes of Milan, and bestowed on the Balbioni family. For a long time it was an object of contest between the bishops of Coire and the canton of the Grisons; and at last it fell to the latter in 1512. Incorporated with the Cisalpine republic in 1797, it passed in 1814 to Lombardy, and thus in 1859 to the kingdom of Italy, Population, 3900.