FORKEL

forkel, johann nikolaus (1749-1818), german musician, was born on the 22nd of february 1749 at meeder in coburg. he was the son of a cobbler, and as a practical musician, especially as a pianoforte player, achieved some eminence; but his claims to a more abiding name rest chiefly upon his literary skill and deep research as an historian of musical science and literature. he was an enthusiastic admirer of j.s. bach, whose music he did much to popularize. his library, which was accumulated with care and discrimination at a time when rare books were cheap, forms a valuable portion of the royal library in berlin and also of the library of the koniglicher institut fur kirchenmusik. he was organist to the university church of gottingen, obtained the degree of doctor of philosophy, and in 1778 became musical director of the university. he died at gottingen on the 20th of march 1818. the following is a list of his principal works: _uber die theorie der musik_ (gottingen, 1777); _musikalisch kritische bibliothek_ (gotha, 1778); _allgemeine geschichte der musik_ (leipzig, 1788). the last is his most important work. he also wrote a _dictionary of musical literature_, which is full of valuable material. to his musical compositions, which are numerous, little interest is to-day to be attached. but it is worth noting that he wrote variations on the english national anthem "god save the king" for the clavichord, and that abt vogler wrote a sharp criticism on them, which appeared at frankfort in 1793 together with a set of variations as he conceived they ought to be written. forli (anc. _forum livii_), a town and episcopal see of emilia, italy, the capital of the province of forli, 40 m. s.e. of bologna by rail, 108 ft. above sea-level. pop. (1901) 15,461 (town); 43,321 (commune). forli is situated on the railway between bologna and rimini. it is connected by steam tramways with ravenna and meldola, and by a road through the apennines with pontassieve. the church of s. mercuriale stands in the principal square, and contains, besides paintings, some good carved and inlaid choir stalls by alessandro dei bigni. the facade has been considerably altered, but the campanile, erected in 1178-1180, still exists; it is 252 ft. in height, square and built of brickwork, and is one of the finest of lombard campanili. the pictures in this church are the work of marco palmezzano (1456-1537) and others; s. biagio and the municipal picture gallery also contain works by him. the latter has other interesting pictures, including a fresco representing an apprentice with pestle and mortar (pestapepe), the only authentic work in forli of melozzo da forli (1438-1494), an eminent master whose style was formed under the influence of piero della francesca, and who was the master of palmezzano; the frescoes in the sforza chapel in ss. biagio e girolamo are from the former's designs, though executed by the latter. the church also contains the fine tomb (1466) of barbara manfredi. the cathedral (santa croce) has been almost entirely rebuilt since 1844. the palazzo del podesta, now a private house, is a brick building of the 15th century. the citadel (rocca ravaldina), constructed about 1360-1370, and later rebuilt, is now used as a prison. flavio biondo, the first renaissance writer on the topography of ancient rome (1388-1463), was a native of forli. of the ancient forum livii, which lay on the via aemilia, hardly anything is known. in the 12th century we find forli in league with ravenna, and in the 13th the imperial count of the province of romagna resided there. in 1275 forli defeated bologna with great loss. martin iv. sent an army to besiege it in 1282, which was driven out after severe fighting in the streets; but the town soon afterwards surrendered. in the 14th and 15th centuries it was under the government of the ordelaffi; and in 1500 was taken by caesar borgia, despite a determined resistance by caterina sforza, widow of girolamo riario. forli finally became a part of the papal state in 1504. (t. as.) forlimpopoli (anc. _forum popillii_), a village of emilia, italy, in the province of forli, from which it is 5 m. s.e. by rail, 105 ft. above sea-level. pop. (1901) 2299 (town); 5795 (commune). the ancient forum popillii, a station on the via aemilia, was destroyed by grimuald in 672. whether its site is occupied by the present town is not certain; the former should perhaps be sought a mile or so farther to the s.e., where were found most of the inscriptions of which the place of discovery is certain. forlimpopoli was again destroyed by cardinal albornoz in 1360, and rebuilt by sinibaldo ordelaffi, who constructed the well-preserved medieval castle (1380), rectangular with four circular towers at the corners. (t. as.) forlorn hope (through dutch _verloren hoop_, from ger. _verlorene haufe_ = "lost troop"; _haufe_, "heap," being equivalent in the 17th century to "body of troops"; the french equivalent is _enfants perdus_), a military term (sometimes shortened to "forlorn"), used in the 16th and 17th centuries for a body of troops thrown out in front of the line of battle to engage the hostile line, somewhat after the fashion of skirmishers, though they were always solid closed bodies. these troops ran great risks, because they were often trapped between the two lines of battle as the latter closed upon one another, and fired upon or ridden down by their friends; further, their mission was to facilitate the attacks of their own main body by striking the first blow against or meeting the first shock of the fresh and unshaken enemy. in the following century (18th), when lines of masses were no longer employed, a thin line of skirmishers alone preceded the three-deep line of battle, but the term "forlorn hope" continued to be used for picked bodies of men entrusted with dangerous tasks, and in particular for the storming party at the assault of a fortress. in this last sense "forlorn hope" is often used at the present time. the misunderstanding of the word "hope" has led to various applications of "forlorn hope," such as to an enterprise offering little chance of success, or, further still from the original meaning, to the faint or desperate hope of such success. form (lat. _forma_), in general, the external shape, appearance, configuration of an object, in contradistinction to the matter of which it is composed; thus a speech may contain excellent arguments,--the _matter_ may be good, while the style, grammar, arrangement,--the _form_--is bad. the term, with its adjective "formal" and the derived nouns "formality" and "formalism," is hence contemptuously used for that which is superficial, unessential, hypocritical: chap. xxiii. of matthew's gospel is a classical instance of the distinction between the formalism of the pharisaic code and genuine religion. with this may be compared the popular phrases "good form" and "bad form" applied to behaviour in society: so "format" (from the french) is technically used of the shape and size, e.g. of a book (octavo, quarto, &c.) or of a cigarette. the word "form" is also applied to certain definite objects: in printing a body of type secured in a chase for printing at one impression ("form" or "forme"); a bench without a back, such as is used in schools (perhaps to be compared with o. fr. _s'asseoir en forme_, to sit in a row); a mould or shape on or in which an object is manufactured; the lair or nest of a hare. from its use in the sense of regulated order comes the application of the term to a class in a school ("sixth form," "fifth form," &c.); this sense has been explained without sufficient ground as due to the idea of all children in the same class sitting on a single form (bench). the word has been used technically in philosophy with various shades of meaning. thus it is used to translate the platonic [greek: idea], [greek: eidos], the permanent reality which makes a thing what it is, in contrast with the particulars which are finite and subject to change. whether plato understood these forms as actually existent apart from all the particular examples, or as being of the nature of immutable physical laws, is matter of discussion. for practical purposes aristotle was the first to distinguish between matter ([greek: hyle]) and form ([greek: eidos]). to aristotle matter is the undifferentiated primal element: it is rather that from which things develop ([greek: hypokeimenon], [greek: dynamis]) than a thing in itself ([greek: energeia]). the development of particular things from this germinal matter consists in differentiation, the acquiring of particular _forms_ of which the knowable universe consists (cf. causation for the aristotelian "formal cause"). the perfection of the form of a thing is its entelechy ([greek: entelecheia]) in virtue of which it attains its fullest realization of function (_de anima_, ii. 2, [greek: he men hyle dynamis to de eidos entelecheia]). thus the entelechy of the body is the soul. the origin of the differentiation process is to be sought in a "prime mover" ([greek: proton kinoun]), i.e. pure form entirely separate ([greek: choriston]) from all matter, eternal, unchangeable, operating not by its own activity but by the impulse which its own absolute existence excites in matter ([greek: hos eromenon], [greek: ou kinoumenon]). the aristotelian conception of form was nominally, though perhaps in most cases unintelligently, adopted by the scholastics, to whom, however, its origin in the observation of the physical universe was an entirely foreign idea. the most remarkable adaptation is probably that of aquinas, who distinguished the spiritual world with its "subsistent forms" (_formae separatae_) from the material with its "inherent forms" which exist only in combination with matter. bacon, returning to the physical standpoint, maintained that all true research must be devoted to the discovery of the real nature or essence of things. his induction searches for the true "form" of light, heat and so forth, analysing the external "form" given in perception into simpler "forms" and their "differences." thus he would collect all possible instances of hot things, and discover that which is present in all, excluding all those qualities which belong accidentally to one or more of the examples investigated: the "form" of heat is the residuum common to all. kant transferred the term from the objective to the subjective sphere. all perception is necessarily conditioned by pure "forms of sensibility," i.e. space and time: whatever is perceived is perceived as having spacial and temporal relations (see space and time; kant). these forms are not obtained by abstraction from sensible data, nor are they strictly speaking innate: they are obtained "by the very action of the mind from the co-ordination of its sensation."