See Huefer, Der Rastadtergesandtenmord (Bonn, 1896).
BONNIVET, GUILLAUME GOUFFIER, Seigneur de (c. 1488-1525), French soldier, was the younger brother of Artus Gouffier, seigneur de Boisy, tutor of Francis I. of France. Bonnivet was brought up with Francis, and after the young king’s accession he became one of the most powerful of the royal favourites. In 1515 he was made admiral of France. In the imperial election of 1519 he superintended the candidature of Francis, and spent vast sums of money in his efforts to secure the votes of the electors, but without success. He was the implacable enemy of the constable de Bourbon and contributed to his downfall. In command of the army of Navarre in 1521, he occupied Fuenterrabia and was probably responsible for its non-restoration and for the consequent renewal of hostilities. He succeeded Marshal Lautrec in 1523 in the command of the army of Italy and entered the Milanese, but was defeated and forced to effect a disastrous retreat, in which the chevalier Bayard perished. He was one of the principal commanders of the army which Francis led into Italy at the end of 1524, and died at the battle of Pavia on the 24th of February 1525. Brantôme says that it was at Bonnivet’s suggestion that the battle of Pavia was fought, and that, seeing the disaster he had caused, he courted and found death heroically in the fight. In spite of his failures as a general and diplomatist, his handsome face and brilliant wit enabled him to retain throughout his life the intimacy and confidence of his king. He was a man of licentious life. According to Brantôme he was the successful rival of the king for the favours of Madame de Châteaubriand, and if we may believe him to have been—as is very probable—the hero of the fourth story of the Heptameron, Marguerite d’Angoulême had occasion to resist his importunities.
Authorities.—Bonnivet’s correspondence in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; memoirs of the time; complete works of Brantôme, vol. iii., published by Ludovic Lalanne for the Société de l’Histoire de France (1864 seq.). See also Ernest Lavisse, Histoire de France, vol. v., by H. Lemonnier (1903-1904).
BONOMI, GIUSEPPI (1739-1808), English architect, was born at Rome on the 19th of January 1739. After attaining a considerable reputation in Italy, he came in 1767 to England, and finally settled in practice there. He was the innocent cause of the retirement of Sir Joshua Reynolds from the presidency of the Royal Academy. Sir Joshua wished him to become a full Academician, regarding him as a fitting occupant of the then vacant chair of perspective. But the majority of the Academicians were opposed to this suggestion, and Bonomi was elected an associate only, and that merely by the president’s casting vote. Bonomi was largely responsible for the revival of classical architecture in England. His most famous work was the Italian villa at Roseneath, Dumbartonshire, designed for the duke of Argyll. In 1804 he was appointed honorary architect to St Peter’s at Rome. He died in London on the 9th of March 1808.
His son, Giuseppi Bonomi (1796-1878), studied art in London at the Royal Academy, and became a sculptor, but is best known as an illustrator of the leading Egyptological publications of his day. From 1824 to 1832 he was in Egypt, making drawings of the monuments in the company of Burton, Lane and Wilkinson. In 1833 he visited the mosque of Omar, returning with detailed drawings, and from 1842 to 1844 was again in Egypt, attached to the Prussian government exploration expedition under Lepsius. He assisted in the arrangement of the Egyptian court at the Crystal Palace in 1853, and in 1861 was appointed curator of the Soane Museum. He died on the 3rd of March 1878.
BONONCINI (or Buononcini), GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1672?-1750?), Italian musical composer, was the son of the composer Giovanni Maria Bononcini, best known as the author of a treatise entitled Il Musico Prattico (Bologna, 1673), and brother of the composer Marc’ Antonio Bononcini, with whom he has often been confused. He is said to have been born at Modena in 1672, but the date of his birth must probably be placed some ten years earlier. He was a pupil of his father and of Colonna, and produced his first operas, Tullo Ostilio and Serse, at Rome in 1694. In 1696 he was at the court of Berlin, and between 1700 and 1720 divided his time between Vienna and Italy. In 1720 he was summoned to London by the Royal Academy of Music, and produced several operas, enjoying the protection of the Marlborough family. About 1731 it was discovered that he had a few years previously palmed off a madrigal by Lotti as his own work, and after a long correspondence he was obliged to leave the country. He remained for several years in France, and in 1748 was summoned to Vienna to compose music in honour of the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. He then went to Venice as a composer of operas, and nothing more is known of his life.
Bononcini’s rivalry with Handel will always ensure him immortality, but he was in himself a musician of considerable merit, and seems to have influenced the style, not only of Handel but even of Alessandro Scarlatti. Either he or his brother (our knowledge of the two composers’ lives is at present not sufficient to distinguish their works clearly) was the inventor of that sharply rhythmical style conspicuous in Il Trionfo di Camilla (1697), the success of which at Naples probably induced Scarlatti to adopt a similar type of melody. It is noticeable in the once popular air of Bononcini, L’esperto nocchiero, and in the air Vado ben spesso, long attributed to Salvator Rosa, but really by Bononcini.