DURAN, Augustin (1789-1862), one of the leaders of the literary movement in Spain during the present century, was born at Madrid, where his father held the post of court physician. He lost his mother in childhood, and, instead of being educated in the capital, was sent to the seminary at Vergara, rather to gain strength and health than such mathematics and Latin as his clerical teachers could supply. Thence he returned a firm believer in ghosts, and erudite in the traditions of Spanish romance. In 1817 he joined the university of Seville for the study of philosophy and law, and in due course was admitted an advocate at Valladolid. From 1821 to 1823 he held a post in the direccion general de estudios at Madrid; but in the latter year he was discarded on account of his political opinions, and it was not till 1834 that he received a new appointment as secretary of the board for the censorship of the press, shortly afterwards supplemented by a post in the National Library at Madrid. The revolution of 1840 again led to his dismissal; but he recovered his position in 1843, and in 1854 attained the rank of director of the library. Next year, however, he retired, and the rest of his life was devoted to his literary work. He died in 1862. It was in 1828, shortly after his first discharge from office, that he published his discourse on the influence which modern criticism had exercised on the ancient Spanish theatre {Discorso sobre il influjo que ha teηido la critica moderna en la decadeηcia del ieatro antiguo) ; and, though the work was anonymous, it produced a marvellous effect on the tendencies of the national drama. He next endeavoured to make better known to his fellow-countrymen those half-forgotten treasures of their literature, in the collection of which he had spared...neither money nor toil. Five volumes of a Romancero general appeared from 1828 to 1832 (republished, with considerable additions and improvements, in 2 vols. 1849-1851), and Talia espailola, or a collection of old Spanish comedies, in 3 vols., in 1834. As an original poet the author is best known by a poem in imitation of the style of the 15th century, entitled Las très toronjas del vergel de amor., or “The Three Citron Trees of the Orchard of Love.”
9th ed. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 7, p. 552 [395 words — estimated reading time: 3 minutes]
DURANDUS, WiLHELMUs (1237-1296), otherwise Durantis or Duranti, was born at Puimisson, sometimes written Puimoisson, a small town in the diocese of Beziers, in Languedoc, whence he is sometimes described as a native of Provence. He studied law under Bernardus of Parma, in the university of Bologna, where he was promoted to the degree of doctor. He shortly afterwards migrated to the university of Modena, where he became so famous by his lectures on the canon law that he attracted the notice of Pope Clement I V., who appointed him auditor of the palace, and subsequently subdeacon and chaplain. In 1274 he accompanied Pope Gregory X. as his secretary to the Council of Lyons, which is reckoned as the fourteenth general council, and under the pontificates of several subsequent popes filled many highly responsible offices. He was appointed in 1277 spiritual and temporal legate of the patrimony of St Peter under Pope Nicholas III., and in 1278 took possession, in the name of the same Pope, of the provinces of Bologna and Romagna. In 1281 Pope Martin IV. named him vicar spiritual, and in 1283 governor of the temporalities of the two provinces, in which office he had the direction of the war against the rebellious province of Romagna. The town of Castrum Riparum Urbanatium having been burnt down during the war, he rebuilt it, and renamed it Castrum Durantis. Pope Urban VIII. subsequently gave to this town the name of Urbania, which it bears in the present day. Pope Honorius IV. retained Durandus in the same offices until the end of 1286, when his election to the bishopric of Meude, in Languedoc, was the occasion of his retiring for a short time from the conduct of civil affairs. Duraudus, however, appears to have remained in Italy, and to have revised at this time several of his ...works. He refused in 1295 the archbishopric of Ravenna, which was offered to him by Pope Boniface VIII., and accepted in preference the more arduous office of governor of the province of Romagna and of the march of Ancona. The party of the Ghibellines, however, carried on hostilities against the Holy See with so much vigour that he found his strength unequal to the exigencies of government; and, having resigned his office, he retired to Rome, where he died on 1st November 1296.
Durandus was the author of several very learned rvorks. The most famous of them is his Speαdum Judiciale. This work is entitled in the juin ted copies, the earliest of which was published at home in folio in 1474, as Speculum Juris ; but all the MSS. have the title of Speadum Judiciale ; and Durandus himself, in his epistle dedicatory to Cardinal Ottobonus Fiesco, afterwards Pope Adrian V., describes it under this latter title. It is a practical treatise on civil and canon law, and it earned for its author, when young, the surname of the Father of Practice. Durandus is said to have completed it in 1271, at the age of thirty-four, and he revised it some time between 1287 and 1291. It has since his death acquired much celebrity as one of the best sources of the dogmatic history of law, and the canonists are accustomed to cite Durandus under the bye-name of “the Speculator.” The original work has been enriched by additions from the pen of John Andreae in 1346, and by further additions from the pen of Baldus. An alphabetic table of its contents (Inventorium) was drawn up by Cardinal Beranger in 1306, and the Speculum passed through thirty-eight editions between 1474 and 1678. The next important work of Durandus is his Repertorium Aureum or Breviarium, which is dedicated to Cardinal Matthaeus; Durandus himself in his preface designates this work by the name of Breviarium, but it is described by him in the Preface to the Specιdum by the title of Repertorium Aureum, under which title it is more generally known. It is supposed to have been composed by Durandus in the interval between the first completion and the revision of the Speculum. His Commentarius in Concilium Lugdunense is a work of much interest, as Durandus himself drew up the Decretals, which after his death were inserted in the Sextus. Durandus also wrote a commentary on the decretals of Pope Nicholas 111., which is only known to us from the epitaph on his tomb, as preserved by Sarti, and which enumerates all his chief writings, amongst which may be mentioned his Speculum Legatorum, inserted in the Specιdum Judiciale, his Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, which has passed through many editions, the earliest of which was printed at Mayence in 1459, and a copy of which is stated by the Abbé Pascal to ha·ve been sold for 2700 francs. A manuscript of his Pontificale Patrum, being a treatise on the duties of bishops, is preserved in the National Library of Paris. Durandus the Speculator is sometimes confounded with Durandus of Santo Porciano, bishop of Meaux, who died in 1332, and was the author of two treatises, De Jurisdictioni and De Legebus, and·withWilhelmus Durandus, his own nephew, who was the author of a work entitled De modo celebrandi Consilii, and who died in Cyprus in 1328.
9th ed. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 7, p. 552 [873 words — estimated reading time: 5 minutes]
DURANGO, a town of Spain, in the province of Biscay 16 miles south-east of Bilbao, at the confluence of the Durango and the Manaria. As a military position of some importance it is often mentioned in history; its church of San Pedro de Tavira is one of the earliest in the Biscayan district; and that of Santa Ana has some interesting altars constructed by Ventura Rodriguez in 1774. The inhabitants, who number about 2600, are partly engaged in the manufacture of iron and steel, and carry on a trade with Hamburg in chestnuts. The foundation of the town is ascribed to the early kings of Navarre, and in 1153 it obtained the rank of a countship. The decree by which Don Carlos in 1839 ordered all foreigners taken in arms against him to be shot was issued from Durango....
DURANGO, sometimes called Ciudad de Victoria, or Guadiana, a city of Mexico, the capital of the state of Durango, lies near the foot of the south-eastern slope of the Sierra Madre, at a height of 6847 feet above the sea, in 24° 25' N. lat. and 105° 55' W. long. It is the centre of a Roman Catholic bishopric, and possesses a cathedral, ten parish churches, a hospital, Government-buildings, a penitentiary, a state prison, a bull-ring, and a large cock-pit. Formerly the seat of a Jesuit college, it still maintains an episcopal seminary, and an institute with literary, legal, and scientific departments. It is well supplied with water by thermal and other springs, which not only satisfy the demands of nine public baths, but also fill considerable channels along the streets. Trade is carried on with the northern and northwestern states; and, besides a mint, a gold refinery, and other offices connected with the mining operations, there are glass works, printing-presses, and factories for cotton and woollen goods, leather, and tobacco. Durango was founded in 1559 or 1560 by Alonso Pacheco, an officer of the Viceroy Velasco, as a military post for the control of the Chichimecas. It was soon after made an episcopal see, but did not attain any great importance till the discovery of the rich deposits of Guarisamey; and most of its public buildings were erected at the expense of Zambrano, the owner of the mines. In 1783 it had no more than 8000 inhabitants; about 1850 they were estimated at 30,000 or 40,000; in 1868 they were reduced to 12,449.
9th ed. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 7, p. 552 [140 words — estimated reading time: 1 minute]
DURANTE, Francesco, a celebrated Italian oomposer, and one of the founders of the so-called Neapolitan school of music, was born at Frattamaggiore, in the kingdom of Naples, and not, as has been erroneously stated, in the city of that name. The date of his birth is generally given nine years too late. In reality he was born on March 15, 1684. At an early age he entered the Conservatorio dei poveri di Gesiι Cristo, at Naples, where he received lessons from Gaetano Greco; But soon he attracted the attention of the celebrated Alessandro Scarlatti, at that time the head and ornament of another great music school of Naples, the Conservatory of St Onofrio. Under him Durante studied for a considerable time, and left him only to go to Rome, where, during further five years, he completed his vocal studies under Pitoni. On his return to Naples he obtained the position of chapel-master at the school of St Onofrio, which he occupied till 1742, when he succeeded Porpora as head of the Conservatorio Sante Maria di Loretto, also at Naples. This post he held for thirteen years, till his death in 1755. His fame as a teacher was all but unrivalled, and the most celebrated masters of the earlier school of Italian opera are amongst his pupils. Only Jomelli, Paesiello, Pergolesi, Piccini, and Vinci may be mentioned here. Under him the Neapolitan school of music reached its climax of celebrity, and it was in this school that the great traditions of Italian vocal art were established, the last remnants of which are rapidly disappearing from the modern stage. As a composer Durante adhered to the severe style of the early Italian masters. The structure of his choral pieces is surpassed by Handel alone amongst his contemporaries. His instrumentation also shows many new and beautiful effects. A ...complete collection of Durante’s works, consisting all but exclusively of sacred compositions, was presented by Selvaggi, a Neapolitan lover of art, to the Paris library. A catalogue of it may be fo ,1 ∏d in Fétis’s Biographie Universelle. The imperial library of Vienna also preserves a valuable collection of Durante’s manuscripts. Two requiems, several masses (one of which, a most original work, is the Pastoral Mass for four voices), and the Lamentations of the Prophet Jeremiah are amongst his mo⅛t important settings.
9th ed. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 7, p. 553 [394 words — estimated reading time: 3 minutes]
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