CASSANA

cassana, niccolo (1659-1714), often called nicoletto, italian painter, was born at venice, and became a disciple of his father, giovanni francesco cassana, a genoese, who had been taught the art of painting by bernardino strozzi ("il prete genovese"). having painted portraits of the florentine court, and also of some of the english nobility, nicoletto was invited to england, and introduced to queen anne, who sat to him for her likeness, and conferred on him many marks of favour. he died in london in 1714, having given way to drinking in his later years. cassana was a man of the most vehement temper, and would wallow on the ground if provoked with his work. one of his principal paintings is the "conspiracy of catiline," now in florence. cassander (c. 350-297 b.c.), king of macedonia, eldest son of antipater, first appears at the court of alexander at babylon, where he defended his father against the accusations of his enemies. having been passed over by his father in favour of polyperchon as his successor in the regency of macedonia, cassander allied himself with ptolemy soter and antigonus, and declared war against the regent. most of the greek states went over to him, and athens also surrendered. he further effected an alliance with eurydice, the ambitious wife of king philip arrhidaeus of macedon. both she and her husband, however, together with cassander's brother, nicanor, were soon after slain by olympias. cassander at once marched against olympias, and, having forced her to surrender in pydna, put her to death (316). in 310 or 309 he also murdered roxana and alexander, the wife and son of alexander the great, whose natural son heracles he bribed polyperchon to poison. he had already connected himself with the royal family by marriage with thessalonica, alexander the great's half-sister, and, having formed an alliance with seleucus, ptolemy and lysimachus, against antigonus, he became, on the defeat and death of antigonus in 301, undisputed sovereign of macedonia. he died of dropsy in 297. cassander was a man of literary taste, but violent and ambitious. he restored thebes after its destruction by alexander the great, transformed therma into thessalonica, and built the new city of cassandreia upon the ruins of potidaea. see diod. sic. xviii., xix., xx.; plutarch, _demetrius_, 18. 31, _phocion_, 31; also macedonian empire. cassander (or cassant), george (1513-1566), flemish theologian, born at pitthem near bruges, went at an early age to louvain and was teaching theology and literature in 1541 at bruges and shortly afterwards at ghent. about 1549 he removed to cologne, where, after a profound study of the points of difference between the catholic and reformed churches, he devoted himself to the project of reunion, thus anticipating the efforts of leibnitz. in 1561 he published anonymously _de officiis pii ac publicae tranquillitatis vere amantis viri in hoc dissidio religionis_ (basel), in which, while holding that no one, on account of abuses, has a right utterly to subvert the church, he does not disguise his dislike of those who exaggerated the papal claims. he takes his standpoint on scripture explained by tradition and the fathers of the first six centuries. at a time when controversy drowned the voice of reason, such a book pleased neither party; but as some of the german princes thought that he could heal the breach, the emperor ferdinand asked him to publish his _consultatio de articulis fidei inter catholicos et protestantes controversis_ (1565), in which, like newman at a later date, he tried to put a catholic interpretation upon protestant formularies. while never attacking dogma, and even favouring the roman church on the ground of authority, he criticizes the papal power and makes reflections on practices. the work, attacked violently by the louvain theologians on one side, and by calvin and beza on the other, was put on the roman index in 1617. he died at cologne on the 3rd of february 1566. the collected edition of his works was published in 1616 at paris. (e. tn.)