CESTI, MARC’ ANTONIO (1620?-1669?), Italian musical composer, was born at Florence about 1620. He was a pupil of Carissimi, and after holding a post somewhere in Florence as maestro di cappella entered the papal chapel in 1660. In 1666 he became Vice-Kapellmeister at Vienna, and died at Venice in 1669. Cesti is known principally as a composer of operas, the most celebrated of which were La Dori (Venice, 1663) and Il Pomo d’ oro (Vienna, 1668). He was also a composer of chamber-cantatas, and his operas are notable for the pure and delicate style of their airs, more suited to the chamber than to the stage.
CESTIUS, LUCIUS, surnamed Pius, Latin rhetorician, flourished during the reign of Augustus. He was a native of Smyrna, a Greek by birth. According to Jerome, he was teaching Latin at Rome in the year 13 B.C. He must have been living after A.D. 9, since we are told that he taunted the son of Quintilius Varus with his father’s defeat in the Teutoburgian forest (Seneca, Controv. i. 3, 10). Cestius was a man of great ability, but vain, quarrelsome and sarcastic. Before he left Asia, he was invited to dinner by Cicero’s son, then governor of the province. His host, being uncertain as to his identity, asked a slave who Cestius was; and on receiving the answer, “he is the man who said your father was illiterate,” ordered him to be flogged (Seneca, Suasoriae, vii. 13). As an orator in the schools Cestius enjoyed a great reputation, and was worshipped by his youthful pupils, one of whom imitated him so slavishly that he was nicknamed “my monkey” by his teacher (Seneca, Controv. ix. 3, 12). As a public orator, on the other hand, he was a failure. Although a Greek, he always used Latin in his declamations, and, although he was sometimes at a loss for Latin words, he never suffered from lack of ideas. Numerous specimens of his declamations will be found in the works of Seneca the rhetorician.
See the monograph De Lucio Cestio Pio, by F.G. Lindner (1858); T. Brzoska in Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopadie, iii. 2 (1899); Teuffel-Schwabe, Hist, of Roman Lit. (Eng. tr.), § 268, 6; M. Schanz, Geschichte der romischen Litteratur, ii.
CESTUI, CESTUY, an Anglo-French word, meaning “that person,” which appears in the legal phrases cestui que trust, use, or vie. It is usually pronounced as “cetty.” Cestui que trust means literally “the person for whose benefit the trust” is created. The cestui que trust is the person entitled to the equitable, as opposed to the legal, estate. Thus, if land be granted unto, and to the use of A. in trust for B., B. is cestui que trust, and A. trustee. The term, principally owing to its cumbersomeness, is being gradually superseded in modern law by that of “beneficiary.” Cestui que use (sometimes cestui à que use) means “the person for whose benefit a use” is created (see TRUST). Cestui que vie is “the person for whose life” lands are held by another (see [Remainder]).
CETACEA (from the Gr. κέτος, a whale), the name of the mammalian order represented by whales, dolphins, porpoises, &c. From their fish-like form, which is manifestly merely an adaptation to their purely aquatic life, these creatures are often regarded as fishes, although they are true mammals, with warm blood, and suckle their young.
The general form is essentially fish-like, the spindle-shaped body passing anteriorly into the head without any distinct neck, and posteriorly tapering gradually towards the extremity of the tail, which is provided with a pair of lateral, pointed expansions of skin supported by fibrous tissue, called “flukes,” forming a horizontal triangular propelling organ, notched behind in the middle line. The head is generally large, in some cases attaining more than one-third the entire length; and the mouth is wide, and bounded by stiff, immobile lips. The fore-limbs are reduced to flattened paddles, encased in a continuous skin, showing no external sign of division, and without trace of nails. There are no signs of hind-limbs visible externally. The surface of the skin is smooth and glistening, and devoid of hair, although in many species there are a few bristles in the neighbourhood of the mouth which may persist through life or be present only in the young state. Immediately beneath the skin is a thick layer of fat, held together by a mesh of tissue, constituting the “blubber,” which retains the heat of the body. In nearly all species a compressed dorsal fin is present. The eye is small, and not provided with a true lacrymal apparatus. The external ear is a minute aperture in the skin situated at a short distance behind the eye. The nostrils open separately or by a single crescentic aperture, near the vertex of the head.