See C. Giulietti, Casteggio, notizie storiche II. Avanzi di antichità (Voghera, 1893).
CLAUBERG, JOHANN (1622-1665), German philosopher, was born at Solingen, in Westphalia, on the 24th of February 1622. After travelling in France and England, he studied the Cartesian philosophy under John Raey at Leiden. He became (1649) professor of philosophy and theology at Herborn, but subsequently (1651), in consequence of the jealousy of his colleagues, accepted an invitation to a similar post at Duisburg, where he died on the 31st of January 1665. Clauberg was one of the earliest teachers of the new doctrines in Germany and an exact and methodical commentator on his master’s writings. His theory of the connexion between the soul and the body is in some respects analogous to that of Malebranche; but he is not therefore to be regarded as a true forerunner of Occasionalism, as he uses “Occasion” for the stimulus which directly produces a mental phenomenon, without postulating the intervention of God (H. Müller, J. Clauberg und seine Stellung im Cartesianismus). His view of the relation of God to his creatures is held to foreshadow the pantheism of Spinoza. All creatures exist only through the continuous creative energy of the Divine Being, and are no more independent of his will than are our thoughts independent of us,—or rather less, for there are thoughts which force themselves upon us whether we will or not. For metaphysics Clauberg suggested the names ontosophy or ontology, the latter being afterwards adopted by Wolff. He also devoted considerable attention to the German languages, and his researches in this direction attracted the favourable notice of Leibnitz. His chief works are: De conjunctione animae et corporis humani; Exercitationes centum de cognitione Dei et nostri; Logica vetus et nova; Initiatio philosophi, seu Dubitatio Cartesiana; a commentary on Descartes’ Meditations; and Ars etymologica Teutonum.
A collected edition of his philosophical works was published at Amsterdam (1691), with life by H.C. Hennin; see also E. Zeller, Geschichte der deutschen Philosophie seit Leibnitz (1873).
CLAUDE, JEAN (1619-1687), French Protestant divine, was born at La Sauvetat-du-Dropt near Agen. After studying at Montauban, he entered the ministry in 1645. He was for eight years professor of theology in the Protestant college of Nîmes; but in 1661, having successfully opposed a scheme for re-uniting Catholics and Protestants, he was forbidden to preach in Lower Languedoc. In 1662 he obtained a post at Montauban similar to that which he had lost; but after four years he was removed from this also. He next became pastor at Charenton near Paris, where he engaged in controversies with Pierre Nicole (Réponse aux deux traités intitulés la perpétuité de la foi, 1665), Antoine Arnauld (Réponse au livre de M. Arnauld, 1670), and J.B. Bossuet (Réponse au livre de M. l’évêque de Meaux, 1683). On the revocation of the edict of Nantes he fled to Holland, and received a pension from William of Orange, who commissioned him to write an account of the persecuted Huguenots (Plaintes des protestants cruellement opprimés dans le royaume de France, 1686). The book was translated into English, but by order of James II, both the translation and the original were publicly burnt by the common hangman on the 5th of May 1686, as containing “expressions scandalous to His Majesty the king of France.” Other works by him were Réponse au livre de P. Nouet sur l’eucharistie (1668); Œuvres posthumes (Amsterdam, 1688), containing the Traité de la composition d’un sermon, translated into English in 1778.
See biographies by J.P. Nicéron and Abel Rotholf de la Devèze; E. Haag, La France protestante, vol. iv. (1884, new edition).
CLAUDE OF LORRAINE, or Claude Gelée (1600-1682), French landscape-painter, was born of very poor parents at the village of Chamagne in Lorraine. When it was discovered that he made no progress at school, he was apprenticed, it is commonly said, to a pastry-cook, but this is extremely dubious. At the age of twelve, being left an orphan, he went to live at Freiburg on the Rhine with an elder brother, Jean Gelée, a wood-carver of moderate merit, and under him he designed arabesques and foliage. He afterwards rambled to Rome to seek a livelihood; but from his clownishness and ignorance of the language, he failed to obtain permanent employment. He next went to Naples, to study landscape painting under Godfrey Waals, a painter of much repute. With him he remained two years; then he returned to Rome, and was domesticated until April 1625 with another landscape-painter, Augustin Tassi, who hired him to grind his colours and to do all the household drudgery.
His master, hoping to make Claude serviceable in some of his greatest works, advanced him in the rules of perspective and the elements of design. Under his tuition the mind of Claude began to expand, and he devoted himself to artistic study with great eagerness. He exerted his utmost industry to explore the true principles of painting by an incessant examination of nature; and for this purpose he made his studies in the open fields, where he very frequently remained from sunrise till sunset, watching the effect of the shifting light upon the landscape. He generally sketched whatever he thought beautiful or striking, marking every tinge of light with a similar colour; from these sketches he perfected his landscapes. Leaving Tassi, he made a tour in Italy, France and a part of Germany, including his native Lorraine, suffering numerous misadventures by the way. Karl Dervent, painter to the duke of Lorraine, kept him as assistant for a year; and he painted at Nancy the architectural subjects on the ceiling of the Carmelite church. He did not, however, relish this employment, and in 1627 returned to Rome. Here, painting two landscapes for Cardinal Bentivoglio, he earned the protection of Pope Urban VIII, and from about 1637 he rapidly rose into celebrity. Claude was acquainted not only with the facts, but also with the laws of nature; and the German painter Joachim von Sandrart relates that he used to explain, as they walked together through the fields, the causes of the different appearances of the same landscape at different hours of the day, from the reflections or refractions of light, or from the morning and evening dews or vapours, with all the precision of a natural philosopher. He elaborated his pictures with great care; and if any performance fell short of his ideal, he altered, erased and repainted it several times over.