CORT, CORNELIS (1536-1578), Dutch engraver, was born at Horn in Holland, and studied engraving under Hieronymus Cockx of Antwerp. About 1565 he went to Venice, where Titian employed him to execute the well-known copperplates of St Jerome in the Desert, the Magdalen, Prometheus, Diana and Actaeon, and Diana and Calisto. From Italy he wandered back to the Netherlands, but he returned to Venice soon after 1567, proceeding thence to Bologna and Rome, where he produced engravings from all the great masters of the time. At Rome he founded the well-known school in which, as Bartsch tells us, the simple line of Marcantonio was modified by a brilliant touch of the burin, afterwards imitated and perfected by Agostino Caracci in Italy and Nicolas de Bruyn in the Netherlands. Before visiting Italy, Cort had been content to copy Michael Coxcie, F. Floris, Heemskerk, G. Mostaert, Bartholomäus Spranger and Stradan. In Italy he gave circulation to the works of Raphael, Titian, Polidoro da Caravaggio, Baroccio, Giulio Clovio, Muziano and the Zuccari. His connexion with Cockx and Titian is pleasantly illustrated in a letter addressed to the latter by Dominick Lampson of Liége in 1567. Cort is said to have engraved upwards of one hundred and fifty-one plates. In Italy he was known as Cornelio Fiammingo.
CORTE, a town of central Corsica, 52 m. N.E. of Ajaccio by the railway between that town and Bastia. Pop. (1906) 4839. The upper town is situated on a precipitous rock overhanging the confluence of the Tavignano and Restonica, the rest of the town lying below it on both banks of the rivers. On the summit of the rock stands a citadel built by Vincentello d’Istria (see [Corsica]). Other interesting buildings are the house in which Pasquale Paoli lived while Corte was the seat of his government (1755 to 1769), and the house of another patriot, Giampietro Gaffori, whose wife defended it from the Genoese in 1750. There are statues of Paoli, of General Gaffori, and of General Arrighi di Casanova, duke of Padua (d. 1853). Corte is capital of an arrondissement of the island, has a subprefecture, a tribunal of first instance and a communal college, and manufactures alimentary paste. There are marble quarries in the vicinity, and the town has trade in wine and timber. In the 18th century Corte was the centre of the resistance to the Genoese, and it was the seat of a university erected by Paoli.
CORTE-REAL, JERONYMO (1533-1588), Portuguese epic poet, came of a noble Portuguese stock. Of the same family were Gaspar Corte-Real, who in 1500 and 1501 sailed to Labrador and the Arctic seas; and his brothers Miguel and Vasco. Their voyages opened the way for important Portuguese fisheries on the Newfoundland coast (see Henry Harrisse, Les Corte-Real et leurs voyages au Nouveau-Monde, and Gasper Corte-Real: la date exacte de sa dernière expédition au Nouveau-Monde, Paris, 1883). In his youth Jeronymo fought in Africa and Asia according to the custom of noblemen in that age. There is a tradition that he was present at the affair of Tangier on the 18th of May 1553, when D. Pedro de Menezes met his death. Returning home, it is supposed about 1570, he spent the rest of his days in retirement. In 1578 he placed his sword at the disposal of King Sebastian for the fatal expedition to Africa, but the monarch dispensed him from the journey (it is said) on account of his age, and in 1586 we find him acting as provedor of the Misericordia of Evora. He married D. Luiza da Silva, but left no legitimate issue. Corte-Real was painter as well as soldier and poet, and one of his pictures is still preserved in the church of S. Antão at Evora. His poetical works are believed to have been composed in his old age at the mansion on his estate near Evora, known as “Valle de Palma.” O Segundo cerco de Diu, an epic in 21 cantos, deals with the historic siege of that Indian island-fortress of the Portuguese. First printed in 1574, it had a second edition in 1783, while a Spanish version appeared at Alcalá in 1597. Austriada, an epic in 15 cantos celebrating the victory of Don John of Austria over the Turks at Lepanto, was written in Spanish and published in 1578. King Philip II. accepted the dedication in flattering terms and visited the poet when he came to Portugal. Naufragio de Sepulveda, an epic in 17 cantos, describes the tragic shipwreck on the South African coast and the death of D. Manoel de Sepulveda with his beautiful wife and young children, a disaster which drew some feeling stanzas from Camoens (Lusiads, v. 46). The poem was published four years after the death of Corte-Real by his heirs, and had two later editions, while a Spanish version appeared in Madrid in 1624 and a French in Paris in 1844. Auto dos quatro novissimos do homem is a short poem printed in 1768. Except the Naufragio de Sepulveda, which is highly considered in Portugal, Corte-Real’s poetry has hardly stood the test of time, and critics of later generations have refused to ratify the estimate formed by contemporaries, who considered him the equal, if not the superior, of Camoens. His lengthy epics suffer from a want of sustained inspiration, and are marred by an abuse of epithet, though they contain episodes of considerable merit, vigorous and well-coloured descriptive passages, and exhibit a pure diction.
See Subsidios para a biographia do poeta Jeronymo Corte-Real (Evora, 1899); also Ernesto do Canto’s Memoir on the family in Nos. 23 and 24 of the Archivo dos Azores, and Dr Sousa Viterbo’s Trabalhos nauticos dos Portuguezes, ii. 153 et seq.
(E. Pr.)
CORTES, HERNAN or HERNANDO (1485-1547), Spanish soldier, the conqueror of Mexico, was born at Medellin, a small town of Estremadura, in 1485. He belonged to a noble family of decayed fortune, and, being destined for the law, was sent, at fourteen years of age, to the university of Salamanca; but study was distasteful to him, and he returned home in 1501, resolved to enter upon a life of adventure. He arranged to accompany Ovando, who had been appointed to the command of San Domingo, but was prevented from joining the expedition by an accident that happened to him in a love adventure. He next sought military service under the celebrated Gonsalvo de Córdoba, but a serious illness frustrated his purpose. At last, in 1504, he set out, according to his first plan, for San Domingo, where he was kindly received by Ovando. He was then only nineteen, and remarkable for a graceful physiognomy and amiable manners, as well as for skill and address in all military exercises. He remained in San Domingo, where Ovando had successively conferred upon him several lucrative and honourable employments, until 1511, when he accompanied Diego Velazquez in his expedition to the island of Cuba. Here he became alcalde of Santiago, and displayed great ability on several trying occasions.