DELIUS, NIKOLAUS (1813-1888), German philologist and Shakespearean scholar, was born at Bremen on the 19th of September 1813. He was educated at Bonn and Berlin, and took the degree of doctor in philosophy in 1838. After travelling for some time in England, France and Germany, he returned to Bonn in 1846, where in 1855 he was appointed professor of Sanskrit, Provençal and English literature, a post he held until his death, which took place at Bonn on the 18th of November 1888. His greatest literary achievement was his scholarly edition of Shakespeare (1854-1861). He also edited Wace’s St Nicholas (1850), a volume of Provençal songs (1853), and published a Shakspere-Lexikon (1852). His original works include: Über das englische Theaterwesen zu Shaksperes Zeit (1853), Gedichte (1853), Der sardinische Dialekt des dreizehnten Jahrhunderts (1868), and Abhandlungen zu Shakspere (two series, 1878 and 1888). As a critic of Shakespeare’s text he stands in the first rank.
See the biographical notice by J. Schipper in Englische Studien, vol. 14.
DELLA BELLA, STEFANO (1610-1664), Italian engraver, was born at Florence. He was apprenticed to a goldsmith; but some prints of Callot having fallen into his hands, he began to turn his attention entirely towards engraving, and studied the art under Canta Gallina, who had also been the instructor of Callot. By the liberality of Lorenzo de’ Medici he was enabled to spend three years in study at Rome. In 1642 he went to Paris, where Cardinal Richelieu engaged him to go to Arras and make drawings of the siege and taking of that town by the royal army. After residing a considerable time at Paris he returned to Florence, where he obtained a pension from the grand duke, whose son, Cosmo, he instructed in drawing. His productions were very numerous, amounting to over 1400 separate pieces.
DELLA CASA, GIOVANNI (1503-1556), Italian poet, was born at Mugillo, in Tuscany, in 1503. He studied at Bologna, Florence and Rome, and by his learning attracted the patronage of Alexander Farnese, who, as Pope Paul III., made him nuncio to Florence, where he received the honour of being elected a member of the celebrated academy, and then to Naples, where his oratorical ability brought him considerable success. His reward was the archbishopric of Benevento, and it was believed that it was only his openly licentious poem, Capitoli del forno, and the fact that the French court seemed to desire his elevation, which prevented him from being raised to a still higher dignity. He died in 1556. Casa is chiefly remarkable as the leader of a reaction in lyric poetry against the universal imitation of Petrarch, and as the originator of a style, which, if less soft and elegant, was more nervous and majestic than that which it replaced. His prose writings gained great reputation in their own day, and long afterwards, but are disfigured by apparent straining after effect, and by frequent puerility and circumlocution. The principal are—in Italian, the famous Il Galateo (1558), a treatise of manners, which has been translated into several languages, and in Latin, De officiis, and translations from Thucydides, Plato and Aristotle.
A complete edition of his works was published at Florence in 1707, to which is prefixed a life by Casotti. The best edition is that of Venice, 1752.
DELLA COLLE, RAFFAELLINO, Italian painter, was born at Colle, near Borgo San Sepolcro, in Tuscany, about 1490. A pupil of Raphael, whom he is held to have assisted in the Farnesina and the Vatican, Della Colle, after his master’s death, was the assistant of his chief scholar, Giulio Romano, at Rome and afterwards at Mantua. In 1536, on the occasion of the entry of Charles V. into Florence, he took service in that city under Vasari. In his later years Della Colle resided at Borgo San Sepolcro, where he kept a school of design; among his many pupils of note may be mentioned Gherardi and Vecchi. His works, which are to be found at Urbino, at Perugia, at Pesaro and at Gubbio, are fine examples of the Roman school of Raphael. The best are a painting of the Almighty supported by angels, a Resurrection and an Assumption, all preserved in churches at Borgo San Sepolcro.