COSTA, LORENZO (1460-1535), Italian painter, was born at Ferrara, but went in early life to Bologna and ranks with the Bolognese school. In 1438 he painted his famous “Madonna and Child with the Bentivoglio family,” and other frescoes, on the walls of the Bentivoglio chapel in San Giacomo Maggiore, and he followed this with many other works. He was a great friend of Francia, who was much influenced by him. In 1509 he went to Mantua, where his patron was the Marquis Francesco Gonzaga, and he eventually died there. His “Madonna and Child enthroned” is in the National Gallery, London, but his chief works are at Bologna. His sons, Ippolito (1506-1561) and Girolamo, were also painters, and so was Girolamo’s son Lorenzo the younger (1537-1583).
COSTA, SIR MICHAEL ANDREW AGNUS (1808-1884), British musical conductor and composer, the son of Cavalière Pasquale Costa, a Spaniard, was born at Naples on the 14th of February 1808. Here he became at an early age a scholar at the Royal College of Music. His cantata L’Immagine was composed when he was fifteen. In 1826 he wrote his first opera Il Delitto Punito; in 1827 another opera Il sospetto funesto. To this period belong also his oratorio La Passione, a grand Mass for four voices, a Dixit Dominus, and three symphonies. The opera Il Carcere d’Ildegonda was composed in 1828 for the Teatro Nuovo, and in 1829 Costa wrote his Malvina for Barbaja, the impresario of San Carlo. In this latter year he visited Birmingham to conduct Zingarelli’s Cantata Sacra, a setting of some verses from Isaiah ch. xii. Instead, however, of conducting, he sang the tenor part. In 1830 he settled in London, having a connexion with the King’s theatre. His ballet Kenilworth was written in 1831, the ballet Une Heure à Naples in 1832, and the ballet Sir Huon (composed for Taglioni) in 1833. In this latter year he wrote his famous quartet Ecco quel fiero istante. Malek Adhel, an opera, was produced in Paris in 1837. In 1842 he wrote the ballet music of Alma for Cerito, and in 1844 his opera Don Carlos was produced in London. Costa became a naturalized Englishman and received the honour of knighthood in 1869. He conducted the opera at Her Majesty’s from 1832 till 1846, when he seceded to the Italian Opera at Covent Garden; he was conductor of the Philharmonic Society from 1846 to 1854, of the Sacred Harmonic Society from 1848, and of the Birmingham festival from 1849. In 1855 Costa wrote Eli, and in 1864 Naaman, both for Birmingham. Meanwhile he had conducted the Bradford (1853) and Handel festivals (1857-1880), and the Leeds festivals from 1874 to 1880. On the 29th of April 1884 he died at Brighton. Costa was the great conductor of his day, but both his musical and his human sympathies were somewhat limited; his compositions have passed into oblivion, with the exception of the least admirable of them—his arrangement of the national anthem.
COSTAKI, ANTHOPOULOS (1835-1902), Turkish pasha, was born in 1835. He became a professor at the Turkish naval college; then entered the legal branch of the Turkish service, rising to the post of procureur impérial at the court of cassation. He was governor-general of Crete; and in 1895 was appointed Ottoman ambassador in London, a post which he continued to hold until his death at Constantinople in 1902. He bore throughout his career the reputation of an intelligent and upright public servant.
COSTANZO, ANGELO DI (c 1507-1591), Italian historian and poet, was born at Naples about 1507. He lived in a literary circle, and fell in love with the beautiful Vittoria Colonna. His great work, Le Istorie del regno di Napoli dal 1250 fino al 1498, first appeared at Naples in 1572, and was the fruit of thirty or forty years’ labour; but nine more years were devoted to the task before it was issued in its final form at Aquila (1581). It is still one of the best histories of Naples, and the style is distinguished by clearness, simplicity and elegance. The Rime of di Costanzo are remarkable for finical taste, for polish and frequent beauty of expression, and for strict obedience to the poetical canons of his time.
See G. Tiraboschi, Storia della letteratura italiana, vol. vii. (Florence, 1812).
COSTA RICA, a republic of Central America, bounded on the N. by Nicaragua, E. by the Caribbean Sea, S.E. and S. by Panama, S.W., W. and N.W. by the Pacific Ocean. (For map, see [Central America].) The territory thus enclosed has an area of about 18,500 sq. m., and may be roughly described as an elevated tableland, intersected by lofty mountain ranges, with their main axis trending from N.W. to S.E. It is fringed, along the coasts, by low-lying marshes and lagoons, alternating with tracts of rich soil and wastes of sand.