GENOVESI, ANTONIO (1712-1769), Italian writer on philosophy and political economy, was born at Castiglione, near Salerno, on the 1st of November 1712. He was educated for the church, and, after some hesitation, took orders in 1736 at Salerno, where he was appointed professor of eloquence at the theological seminary. During this period of his life he began the study of philosophy, being especially attracted by Locke. Dissatisfied with ecclesiastical life, Genovesi resigned his post, and qualified as an advocate at Rome. Finding law as distasteful as theology, he devoted himself entirely to philosophy, of which he was appointed extraordinary professor in the university of Naples. His first works were Elementa Metaphysicae (1743 et seq.) and Logica (1745). The former is divided into four parts, Ontosophy, Cosmosophy, Theosophy, Psychosophy, supplemented by a treatise on ethics and a dissertation on first causes. The Logic, an eminently practical work, written from the point of view of Locke, is in five parts, dealing with (1) the nature of the human mind, its faculties and operations; (2) ideas and their kinds; (3) the true and the false, and the various degrees of knowledge; (4) reasoning and argumentation; (5) method and the ordering of our thoughts. If Genovesi does not take a high rank in philosophy, he deserves the credit of having introduced the new order of ideas into Italy, at the same time preserving a just mean between the two extremes of sensualism and idealism. Although bitterly opposed by the partisans of scholastic routine, Genovesi found influential patrons, amongst them Bartolomeo Intieri, a Florentine, who in 1754 founded the first Italian or European chair of political economy (commerce and mechanics), on condition that Genovesi should be the first professor, and that it should never be held by an ecclesiastic. The fruit of Genovesi’s professorial labours was the Lezioni di Commercio, the first complete and systematic work in Italian on economics. On the whole he belongs to the “Mercantile” school, though he does not regard money as the only form of wealth. Specially noteworthy in the Lezioni are the sections on human wants as the foundation of economical theory, on labour as the source of wealth, on personal services as economic factors, and on the united working of the great industrial functions. He advocated freedom of the corn trade, reduction of the number of religious communities, and deprecated regulation of the interest on loans. In the spirit of his age he denounced the relics of medieval institutions, such as entails and tenures in mortmain. Gioja’s more important treatise owes much to Genovesi’s lectures. Genovesi died on the 22nd of September 1769.
See C. Ugoni, Della letteratura italiana nella seconda metà del secolo XVIII (1820-1822); A. Fabroni, Vitae Italorum doctrina excellentium (1778-1799); R. Bobba, Commemorazione di A. Genovesi (Benevento, 1867).
GENSONNÉ, ARMAND (1758-1793), French politician, the son of a military surgeon, was born at Bordeaux on the 10th of August 1758. He studied law, and at the outbreak of the Revolution was an advocate of the parlement of Bordeaux. In 1790 he became procureur of the Commune, and in July 1791 was elected by the newly created department of the Gironde a member of the court of appeal. In the same year he was elected deputy for the department to the Legislative Assembly. As reporter of the diplomatic committee, in which he supported the policy of Brissot, he proposed two of the most revolutionary measures passed by the Assembly: the decree of accusation against the king’s brothers (January 1, 1792), and the declaration of war against the king of Bohemia and Hungary (April 20, 1792). He was vigorous in his denunciations of the intrigues of the court and of the “Austrian committee”; but the violence of the extreme democrats, culminating in the events of the 10th of August, alarmed him; and when he was returned to the National Convention, he attacked the Commune of Paris (October 24 and 25). At the trial of Louis XVI. he supported an appeal to the people, but voted for the death sentence. As a member of the Committee of General Defence, and as president of the Convention (March 7-21, 1793), he shared in the bitter attacks of the Girondists on the Mountain; and on the fatal day of the 2nd of June his name was among the first of those inscribed on the prosecution list. He was tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal on the 24th of October 1793, condemned to death and guillotined on the 31st of the month, displaying on the scaffold a stoic fortitude. Gensonné was accounted one of the most brilliant of the little band of brilliant orators from the Gironde, though his eloquence was somewhat cold and he always read his speeches.
GENTIAN, botanically Gentiana, a large genus of herbaceous plants belonging to the natural order Gentianaceae. The genus comprises about 300 species,—most of them perennial plants with tufted growth, growing in hilly or mountainous districts, chiefly in the northern hemisphere, some of the blue-flowered species ascending to a height of 16,000 ft. in the Himalaya Mountains. The leaves are opposite, entire and smooth, and often strongly ribbed. The flowers have a persistent 4- to 5-lobed calyx and a 4- to 5-lobed tubular corolla; the stamens are equal in number to the lobes of the corolla. The ovary is one-celled, with two stigmas, either separate and rolled back or contiguous and funnel-shaped. The fruit when ripe separates into two valves, and contains numerous small seeds. The majority of the genus are remarkable for the deep or brilliant blue colour of their blossoms, comparatively few having yellow, white, or more rarely red flowers; the last are almost exclusively found in the Andes.
Only a few species occur in Britain. G. amarella (felwort) and G. campestris are small annual species growing on chalky or calcareous hills, and bear in autumn somewhat tubular pale purple flowers; the latter is most easily distinguished by having two of the lobes of the calyx larger than the other two, while the former has the parts of the calyx in fives, and equal in size. Some intermediate forms between these two species occur, although rarely, in England; one of these, G. germanica, has larger flowers of a bluer tint, spreading branches, and a stouter stem. Some of these forms flower in spring. G. pneumonanthe, the Calathian violet, is a rather rare perennial species, growing in moist heathy places from Cumberland to Dorsetshire. Its average height is from 6 to 9 in. It has linear leaves, and a bright blue corolla 1½ in. long, marked externally with five greenish bands, is without hairs in its throat, and is found in perfection about the end of August. It is the handsomest of the British species; two varieties of it are known in cultivation, one with spotted and the other with white flowers. G. verna and G. nivalis are small species with brilliant blue flowers and small leaves. The former is a rare and local perennial, occurring, however, in Teesdale and the county of Clare in Ireland in tolerable abundance. It has a tufted habit of growth, and each stem bears only one flower. It is sometimes cultivated as an edging for flower borders. G. nivalis in Britain occurs only on a few of the loftiest Scottish mountains. It differs from the last in being an annual, and having a more isolated habit of growth, and in the stem bearing several flowers. On the Swiss mountains these beautiful little plants are very abundant; and the splendid blue colour of masses of gentian in flower is a sight which, when once seen, can never be forgotten. For ornamental purposes several species are cultivated. The great difficulty of growing them successfully renders them, however, less common than would otherwise be the case; although very hardy when once established, they are very impatient of removal, and rarely flower well until the third year after planting. Of the ornamental species found in British gardens some of the prettiest are G. acaulis, G. verna, G. pyrenaica, G. bavarica, G. septemfida and G. gelida. Perhaps the handsomest and most easily grown is the first named, often called Gentianella, which produces its large intensely blue flowers early in the spring.
All the species of the genus are remarkable for possessing an intense but pure bitter taste and tonic properties. About forty species are used in medicine in different parts of the world. The name of felwort given to G. amarella, but occasionally applied to the whole genus, is stated by Dr Prior to be given in allusion to these properties—fel meaning gall, and wort a plant. In the same way the Chinese call G. asclepiadea, and the Japanese G. Buergeri, “dragon’s gall plants,” in common with several other very bitter plants whose roots they use in medicine. G. campestris is sometimes used in Sweden and other northern countries as a substitute for hops.
By far the most important of the species used in medicine is G. lutea, a large handsome plant 3 or 4 ft. high, growing in open grassy places on the Alps, Apennines and Pyrenees, as well as on some of the mountainous ranges of France and Germany, extending as far east as Bosnia and the Danubian principalities. It has large oval strongly-ribbed leaves and dense whorls of conspicuous yellow flowers. Its use in medicine is of very ancient date. Pliny and Dioscorides mention that the plant was noticed by Gentius, a king of the Illyrians, living 180-167 B.C., from whom the name Gentiana is supposed to be derived. During the middle ages it was much employed in the cure of disease, and as an ingredient in counter-poisons. In 1552 Hieronymus Bock (Tragus) (1498-1554), a German priest, physician and botanist, mentions the use of the root as a means of dilating wounds.
The root, which is the part used in medicine, is tough and flexible, scarcely branched, and of a brownish colour and spongy texture. It has a pure bitter taste and faint distinctive odour. The bitter principle, known as gentianin, is a glucoside, soluble in water and alcohol. It can be decomposed into glucose and gentiopicrin by the action of dilute mineral acids. It is not precipitated by tannin or subacetate of lead. A solution of caustic potash or soda forms with gentianin a yellow solution, and the tincture of the root to which either of these alkalis has been added loses its bitterness in a few days. Gentian root also contains gentianic acid (C14H10O5), which is inert and tasteless. It forms pale yellow silky crystals, very slightly soluble in water or ether, but soluble in hot strong alcohol and in aqueous alkaline solutions. This substance is also called gentianin, gentisin and gentisic acid.