Bibliography.—The main source is the anonymous Vita s. Genovefae virginis Parisiorum, published in 1687 by D.P. Charpentier. The genuineness of this life was attacked by B. Krusch (Neues Archiv, 1893 and 1894) and defended by L. Duchesne, Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes (1893), Bulletin critique (1897), p. 473. Krusch continued to hold that the life was an 8th-century forgery (Scriptores rer. Merov. iii. 204-238). See A. Potthast, Bibliotheca medii aevi (1331, 1332), and G. Kurth, Clovis, ii. 249-254. The legends and miracles are given in the Bollandists’ Acta Sanctorum, January 1st; there is a short sketch by Henri Lesetre, Ste Geneviève, in “Les Saints” series (Paris, 1900).
GENEVIÈVE, Genoveva or Genovefa, OF BRABANT, heroine of medieval legend. Her story is a typical example of the widespread tale of the chaste wife falsely accused and repudiated, generally on the word of a rejected suitor. Genovefa of Brabant was said to be the wife of the palatine Siegfried of Treves, and was falsely accused by the majordomo Golo. Sentenced to death she was spared by the executioner, and lived for six years with her son in a cave in the Ardennes nourished by a roe. Siegfried, who had meanwhile found out Golo’s treachery, was chasing the roe when he discovered her hiding-place, and reinstated her in her former honour. Her story is said to rest on the history of Marie of Brabant, wife of Louis II., duke of Bavaria, and count-palatine of the Rhine, who was tried by her husband and beheaded on the 18th of January 1256, for supposed infidelity, a crime for which Louis afterwards had to do penance. The change in name may have been due to the cult of St Geneviève, patroness of Paris. The tale first obtained wide popularity in L’Innocence reconnue, ou vie de Sainte Geneviève de Brabant (pr. 1638) by the Jesuit René de Cérisier (1603-1662), and was a frequent subject for dramatic representation in Germany. With Genovefa’s history may be compared the Scandinavian ballads of Ravengaard og Memering, which exist in many recensions. These deal with the history of Gunild, who married Henry, duke of Brunswick and Schleswig. When Duke Henry went to the wars he left his wife in charge of Ravengaard, who accused her of infidelity. Gunild is cleared by the victory of her champion Memering, the “smallest of Christian men.” The Scottish ballad of Sir Aldingar is a version of the same story. The heroine Gunhilda is said to have been the daughter of Canute the Great and Emma. She married in 1036 King Henry, afterwards the emperor Henry III., and there was nothing in her domestic history to warrant the legend, which is given as authentic history by William of Malmesbury (De gestis regum Anglorum, lib. ii. § 188). She was called Cunigund after her marriage, and perhaps was confused with St Cunigund, the wife of the emperor Henry II. In the Karlamagnus-saga the innocent wife is Oliva, sister of Charlemagne and wife of King Hugo, and in the French Carolingian cycle the emperor’s wife Sibille (La Reine Sibille) or Blanchefleur (Macaire). Other forms of the legend are to be found in the story of Doolin’s mother in Doon de Mayence, the English romance of Sir Triamour, in the story of the mother of Octavian in Octavian the Emperor, in the German folk book Historie von der geduldigen Königin Crescentia, based on a 12th-century poem to be found in the Kaiserchronik; and the English Erl of Toulouse (c. 1400). In the last-named romance it has been suggested that the story gives the relations between Bernard I. count of Toulouse, son of the Guillaume d’Orange of the Carolingian romances, and the empress Judith, second wife of Louis the Pious.
See F.J. Child, English and Scottish Popular Ballads, vol. ii. (1886), art. “Sir Aldingar”; S. Grundtvig, Danske Kaempeviser (Copenhagen, 1867); “Sir Triamore,” in Bishop Percy’s Folio MS., ed. Hales and Furnivall, vol. ii. (London, 1868); The Romance of Octavian, ed. E.M. Goldsmid (Aungervyle Soc., Edinburgh, 1882); The Erl of Toulous and the Emperes of Almayn, ed. G. Lüdtke (Berlin, 1881); B. Seuffert, Die Legende von der Pfalzgräfin Genovefa (Würzburg, 1877); B. Golz, Pfalzgräfin Genovefa in der deutschen Dichtung (Leipzig, 1897); R. Köhler, “Die deutschen Volksbücher von der Pfalzgräfin Genovefa,” in Zeitschr. für deutsche Philologie (1874).
GENGA, GIROLAMO (c. 1476-1551), Italian painter and architect, was born in Urbino about 1476. At the age of ten he was apprenticed to the woollen trade, but showed so much inclination for drawing that he was sent to study under an obscure painter, and at thirteen under Luca Signorelli, with whom he remained a considerable while, frequently painting the accessories of his pictures. He was afterwards for three years with Pietro Perugino, in company with Raphael. He next worked in Florence and Siena, along with Timoteo della Vite; and in the latter city he painted various compositions for Pandolfo Petrucci, the leading local statesman. Returning to Urbino, he was employed by Duke Guidobaldo in the decorations of his palace, and showed extraordinary aptitude for theatrical adornments. Thence he went to Rome; and in the church of S. Caterina da Siena, in that capital, is one of his most distinguished works, “The Resurrection,” remarkable both for design and for colouring. He studied the Roman antiquities with zeal, and measured a number of edifices; this practice, combining with his previous mastery of perspective, qualified him to shine as an architect. Francesco Maria della Rovere, the reigning duke of Urbino, recalled Genga, and commissioned him to execute works in connexion with his marriage-festivities. This prince being soon afterwards expelled by Pope Leo X., Genga followed him to Mantua, whence he went for a time to Pesaro. The duke of Urbino was eventually restored to his dominions; he took Genga with him, and appointed him the ducal architect. As he neared the close of his career, Genga retired to a house in the vicinity of Urbino, continuing still to produce designs in pencil; one, of the “Conversion of St Paul,” was particularly admired. Here he died on the 11th of July 1551. Genga was a sculptor and musician as well as painter and architect. He was jovial, an excellent talker, and kindly to his friends. His principal pupil was Francesco Menzocchi. His own son Bartolommeo (1518-1558) became an architect of celebrity. In Genga’s paintings there is a great deal of freedom, and a certain peculiarity of character consonant with his versatile, lively and social temperament. One of his leading works is in the church of S. Agostino in Cesena—a triptych in oil-colours, representing the “Annunciation,” “God the Father in Glory,” and the “Madonna and Child.” Among his architectural labours are the church of San Giovanni Battista in Pesaro; the bishop’s palace at Sinigaglia; the façade of the cathedral of Mantua, ranking high among the productions of the 16th century; and a new palace for the duke of Urbino, built on the Monte Imperiale. He was also concerned in the fortifications of Pesaro.
GENISTA, in botany, a genus of about eighty species of shrubs belonging to the natural order Leguminosae, and natives of Europe, western Asia and North Africa. Three are native in Britain. G. anglica is the needle-furze or petty whin, found on heaths and moist moors, a spinous plant with slender spreading branches 1 to 2 ft. long, very small leaves and short racemes of small yellow papilionaceous flowers. The pollen is emitted in a shower when an insect alights on it. G. tinctoria, dyer’s green-weed, the flowers of which yield a yellow dye, has no spines. Other species are grown on rock-work or as greenhouse plants.
GENIUS (from Lat. genere, gignere), a term which originally meant, in Roman mythology, a generative and protecting spirit, who has no exact parallel in Greek religion, and at least in his earlier aspect is of purely Italian origin as one of the deities of family or household. Every man has his genius, who is not his creator, but only comes into being with him and is allotted to him at his birth. As a creative principle the genius is restricted to man, his place being taken by a Juno (cp. Juno Lucina, the goddess of childbirth) in the case of women. The male and female spirit may thus be distinguished respectively as the protector of generation and of parturition (tutela generandi, pariendi), although the female appears less prominent. It is the genius of the paterfamilias that keeps the marriage bed, named after him lectus genialis and dedicated to him, under his special protection. The genius of a man, as his higher intellectual self, accompanies him from the cradle to the grave. In many ways he exercises a decisive influence on the man’s character and mode of life (Horace, Epistles, ii. 2. 187). The responsibility for happiness or unhappiness, good or bad fortune, lay with the genius; but this does not suppose the existence of two genii for man, the one good and the other bad (ἀγαθοδαίμων, κακοδαίμων), an idea borrowed from the Greek philosophers. The Roman genius, representing man’s natural optimism, always endeavoured to guide him to happiness; that man was intended to enjoy life is shown by the fact that the Roman spoke of indulging or cheating his genius of his due according as he enjoyed himself or failed to do so, when he had the opportunity. A man’s birthday was naturally a suitable occasion for honouring his genius, and on that occasion offerings of incense, wine, garlands, and cakes were made (Tibullus ii. 2; Ovid, Tristia, iii. 13. 18). As the representative of a man’s higher self and participating in a divine nature, the genius could be sworn by, and a person could take an oath by his own or some one else’s genius. When under Greek influence the Roman idea of the gods became more and more anthropomorphized, a genius was assigned to them, not however as a distinct personality. Thus we hear of the genius of Jupiter (Jovis Genio, C.I.L. i. 603), Mars, Juno, Pluto, Priapus. In a more extended sense the genius is also the generator and preserver of human society, as manifested in the family, corporate unions, the city, and the state generally. Thus, the genius publicus Populi Romani—probably distinct from the genius Urbis Romae, to whom an old shield on the Capitol was dedicated, with an inscription expressing doubt as to the sex (Genio ... sive mas sive femina)—stood in the forum near the temple of Concord, in the form of a bearded man, crowned with a diadem, and carrying a cornu copiae and sceptre. It frequently appears on the coins of Trajan and Hadrian. Sacrifice, not confined to bloodless offerings like those of the genius of the house, was offered to him annually on the 8th of October. There were genii of cities, colonies, and even of provinces; of artists, business people and craftsmen; of cooks, gladiators, standard-bearers, a legion, a century, and of the army generally (genius sanctus castrorum peregrinorum totiusque exercitus). In imperial times the genius of Augustus and of the reigning emperor, as part of the sacra of the imperial family, were publicly worshipped. It was a common practice (often compulsory) to swear by the genius of the emperor, and any one who swore falsely was flogged. Localities also, such as theatres, baths, stables, streets, and markets, had their own genius. The word thus gradually lost its original meaning; the nameless local genii became an expression for the universality of the divinum numen and were sometimes identified with the higher gods. The local genius was usually represented by a snake, the symbol of the fruitfulness of the earth and of perpetual youth. Hence snakes were usually kept in houses (Virgil, Aen. v. 95; Persius i. 113), their death in which was considered a bad omen. The personal genius usually appeared as a handsome youth in a toga, with head sometimes veiled and sometimes bare, carrying a drinking cup and cornu copiae, frequently in the position of one offering sacrifice.