colouring and shadows
employed by Caravaggio made a deep impression on his mind, and for a
considerable period his productions showed evident traces of that painter's
influence. Some of his latest pieces approach rather to the manner of his
great contemporary Guido, and are painted with more lightness and
clearness. Guercino was esteemed very highly in his lifetime, not only by
the nobles and princes of Italy, but by his brother artists, who placed him
in the first rank of painters. He was remarkable for the extreme rapidity
of his execution; he completed no fewer than 106 large altar-pieces for
churches, and his other paintings amount to about 144. His most famous
piece is thought to be the St Petronilla, which was painted at Rome for
Gregory XV. and is now in the Capitol. In 1626 he began his frescoes in the
Duomo at Piacenza. Guercino continued to paint and teach up to the time of
his death in 1666. He had amassed a handsome fortune by his labours. His
life, by J. A. Calvi, appeared at Bologna in 1808.

His brother, PAOLO ANTONIO BARBIERI (1603-1649), was a celebrated painter
of still life and animals. He chose for his subjects fruits, flowers,
insects and animals, which he painted after nature with a lively tint of
colour, great tenderness of pencil, and a strong character of truth and
life.

BARBITON, or BARBITOS (Gr. [Greek: barbiton] or [Greek: barbitos]; Lat.
_barbitus_; Pers. _barbat_, _barbud_), an ancient stringed instrument known
to us from the Greek and Roman classics, but derived from Persia.
Theocritus (xvi. 45), the Sicilian poet, calls it an instrument of many
strings, _i.e._ more than seven, which was by the Hellenes accounted the
perfect number, as in the cithara of the best period. Anacreon,[1] (a
native of Teos in Asia Minor) sings that his barbitos only gives out erotic
tones. Pollux (_Onomasticon_ iv. chap. 8, s. 59) calls the instrument
barbiton or barymite (from [Greek: barus], heavy and [Greek: mitos], a
string), an instrument producing deep sounds; the strings were twice as
long as those of the pectis and sounded an octave lower. Pindar (in Athen.
xiv. p. 635), in the same line wherein he attributes the introduction of
the instrument into Greece to Terpander, tells us one could magadize,
_i.e._ play in two parts at an interval of an octave on the two
instruments. The word barbiton was frequently used for the lyre itself.
Although in use in Asia Minor, Italy, [v.03 p.0388] Sicily, and Greece, i