INGHIRAMI, the name of an Italian noble family of Volterra. The following are its most important members:
Tommaso Inghirami (1470-1516), a humanist, is best known for his Latin orations, seven of which were published in 1777. His success in the part of Phaedra in a presentation of Seneca’s Hippolytus (or Phaedra) led to his being generally known as Fedra. He received high honours from Alexander VI., Leo X. and Maximilian I.
Francesco Inghirami (1772-1846), a distinguished archaeologist, fought in the French wars (1799), and afterwards devoted himself especially to the study of Etruscan antiquities. He founded a college at Fiesole and collected, though without critical insight, a mass of valuable material in his Monumenti etruschi (10 vols., 1820-1827), Galleria omerica (3 vols., 1829-1851), Pitture di vasi fittili (1831-1837), Museo etrusco chiusino (2 vols., 1833), and the incomplete Storia della Toscana (1841-1845): these works were elaborately illustrated.
His brother, Giovanni Inghirami (1779-1851), was an astronomer of repute. He was professor of astronomy at the Institute founded by Ximenes in Florence and published beside a number of text-books Effemeridi dell’ occultazione delle piccole stelle sotto la luna (1809-1830); Effemeridi di Venese e Giove all’ uso de’ naviganti (1821-1824); Tavole astronomichi universali portatili (1811); Base trigonometrica misurata in Toscana (1818); Carta topografica e geometrica della Toscana (1830).
INGLEBY, CLEMENT MANSFIELD (1823-1886), English Shakespearian scholar, was born at Edgbaston, Birmingham, on the 29th of October 1823, the son of a solicitor. After taking his degree at Trinity College, Cambridge, he entered his father’s office, eventually becoming a partner. In 1859 he abandoned the law and left Birmingham to live near London. He contributed articles on literary, scientific and other subjects to various magazines, but from 1874 devoted himself almost entirely to Shakespearian literature. His first work in this field had been an exposure of the manipulations of John Payne Collier, entitled The Shakespeare Fabrications (1859); his work as a commentator began with The Still Lion (1874), enlarged in the following year into Shakespeare Hermeneutics. In this book many of the then existing difficulties of Shakespeare’s text were explained. In the same year (1875) he published the Centurie of Prayse, a collection of references to Shakespeare and his works between 1592 and 1692. His Shakespeare: the Man and the Book was published in 1877-1881; he also wrote Shakespeare’s Bones (1882), in which he suggested the disinterment of Shakespeare’s bones and an examination of his skull. This suggestion, though not due to vulgar curiosity, was regarded, however, by public opinion as sacrilegious. He died on the 26th of September 1886, at Ilford, Essex. Although Ingleby’s reputation now rests solely on his works on Shakespeare, he wrote on many other subjects. He was the author of hand-books on metaphysic and logic, and made some contributions to the study of natural science. He was at one time vice-president of the New Shakspere Society, and one of the original trustees of the “Birthplace.”
INGLEFIELD, SIR EDWARD AUGUSTUS (1820-1894), British admiral and explorer, was born at Cheltenham, on the 27th of March 1820, and educated at the Royal Naval College, Portsmouth. His father was Rear-Admiral Samuel Hood Inglefield (1783-1848), and his grandfather Captain John Nicholson Inglefield (1748-1828), who served with Lord Hood against the French. The boy went to sea when fourteen, took part in the naval operations on the Syrian Coast in 1840, and in 1845 was promoted to the rank of commander for gallant conduct at Obligado. In 1852 he commanded Lady Franklin’s yacht “Isabel” on her cruise to Smith Sound, and his narrative of the expedition was published under the title of A Summer Search for Sir John Franklin (1853). He received the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society on his return and was given command of the “Phoenix,” in which he made three trips to the Arctic, bringing home part of the Belcher Arctic expedition in 1854. In that year he was again sent out on the last attempt made by the Admirally to find Sir John Franklin.
In the Crimean War Captain Inglefield took part in the siege of Sevastopol. He was knighted in 1877, and nominated a Knight Commander of the Bath ten years later. He was promoted admiral in 1879. Besides being an excellent marine artist, he was the inventor of the hydraulic steering gear and the Inglefield anchor. He died on the 5th of September 1894. His son, Captain Edward Fitzmaurice Inglefield (b. 1861), became secretary of Lloyds in 1906. Sir Edward Inglefield’s brother, Rear-Admiral V. O. Inglefield, was the father of Rear-Admiral Frederick Samuel Inglefield (b. 1854), director of naval intelligence in 1902-1904, and of two other sons distinguished as soldiers.