CAMBER (derived through the Fr. from Lat. camera, vault), in architecture, the upward curvature given to a beam and provided for the depression or sagging, which it is liable to, before it has settled down to its bearings. A “camber arch” is a slight rise given to the straight-arch to correct an apparent sinking in the centre (see [Arch]).
CAMBERT, ROBERT (1628-1677), French operatic composer, was born in Paris in 1628. He was a pupil of Chambonnières. In 1655, after he had obtained the post of organist at the church of St Honoré, he married Marie du Moustier. He was musical superintendent to Queen Anne of Austria, mother of Louis XIV., and for a time held a post with the marquis de Sourdeac. His earlier works, the words of which were furnished by Pierre Perrin, continued to be performed before the court at Vincennes till the death of his patron Cardinal Mazarin. In 1669 Perrin received a patent for the founding of the Académie Nationale de musique, the germ of the Grand Opéra, and Cambert had a share in the administration until both he and Perrin were discarded in the interests of Lulli. Displeased at his subsequent neglect, and jealous of the favour shown to Lulli, who was musical superintendent to the king, he went in 1673 to London, where soon after his arrival he was appointed master of the band to Charles II. One at least of his operas, Pomone, was performed in London under his direction, but it did not suit the popular taste, and he is supposed to have killed himself in London in 1677. His other principal operas were Ariadne ou les amours de Bacchus and Les Peines et les plaisirs de l‘amour.
CAMBERWELL, a southern metropolitan borough of London, England, bounded N. by Southwark and Bermondsey, E. by Deptford and Lewisham, W. by Lambeth, and extending S. to the boundary of the county of London. Pop, (1901) 259,339. Area, 4480 acres. It appears in Domesday, but the derivation of the name is unknown. It includes the districts of Peckham and Nunhead, and Dulwich (q.v.) with its park, picture-gallery and schools. Camberwell is mainly residential, and there are many good houses, pleasantly situated in Dulwich and southward towards the high ground of Sydenham. Dulwich Park (72 acres) and Peckham Rye Common and Park (113 acres) are the largest of several public grounds, and Camberwell Green was once celebrated for its fairs. Immediately outside the southern boundary lies a well-known place of recreation, the Crystal Palace. Among institutions may be mentioned the Camberwell school of arts and crafts, Peckham Road. In Camberwell Road is Cambridge House, a university settlement, founded in 1897 and incorporating the earlier Trinity settlement. The parliamentary borough of Camberwell has three divisions, North, Peckham and Dulwich, each returning one member: but is not wholly coincident with the municipal borough, the Dulwich division extending to include Penge, outside the county of London. The borough council consists of a mayor, ten aldermen, and sixty councillors.
CAMBIASI, LUCA (1527-1585), Genoese painter, familiarly known as Lucchetto da Genova (his surname is written also Cambiaso or Cangiagio), was born at Moneglia in the Genoese state, the son of a painter named Giovanni Cambiasi. He took to drawing at a very early age, imitating his father, and developed great aptitude for foreshortening. At the age of fifteen he painted, along with his father, some subjects from Ovid’s Metamorphoses on the front of a house in Genoa, and afterwards, in conjunction with Marcantonio Calvi, a ceiling showing great daring of execution in the Palazzo Doria. He also formed an early friendship with Giambattista Castello; both artists painted together, with so much similarity of style that their works could hardly be told apart; from this friend Cambiasi learned much in the way of perspective and architecture. Luchetto’s best artistic period lasted for twelve years after his first successes; from that time he declined in power, though not at once in reputation, owing to the agitations and vexations brought upon him by a passion which he conceived for his sister-in-law. His wife having died, and the sister-in-law having taken charge of his house and children, he endeavoured to procure a papal dispensation for marrying her; but in this he was disappointed. In 1583 he accepted an invitation from Philip II. to continue in the Escorial a series of frescoes which had been begun by Castello, now deceased; and it is said that one principal reason for his closing with this offer was that he hoped to bring the royal influence to bear upon the pope, but in this again he failed. Worn out with his disquietudes, he died in the Escorial in the second year of his sojourn. Cambiasi had an ardent fancy, and was a bold designer in a Raphaelesque mode. His extreme facility astonished the Spanish painters; and it is said that Philip II., watching one day with pleasure the offhand zest with which Luchetto was painting a head of a laughing child, was allowed the further surprise of seeing the laugh changed, by a touch or two upon the lips, into a weeping expression. The artist painted sometimes with a brush in each hand, and with a certainty equalling or transcending that even of Tintoret. He made a vast number of drawings, and was also something of a sculptor, executing in this branch of art a figure of Faith. Altogether he ranks as one of the ablest artists of his day. In personal character, notwithstanding his executive energy, he is reported to have been timid and diffident. His son Orazio became likewise a painter, studying under Luchetto.
The best works of Cambiasi are to be seen in Genoa. In the church of S. Giorgio—the martyrdom of that saint; in the Palazzo Imperiali Terralba, a Genoese suburb—a fresco of the “Rape of the Sabines”; in S. Maria da Carignano—a “Pietà,” containing his own portrait and (according to tradition) that of his beloved sister-in-law. In the Escorial he executed several pictures; one is a Paradise on the vaulting of the church, with a multitude of figures. For this picture he received 12,000 ducats, probably the largest sum that had, up to that time, ever been given for a single work.
CAMBODIA[1] (called by the inhabitants Sroc Khmer and by the French Cambodge), a country of south-eastern Asia and a protectorate of France, forming part of French Indo-China.