large rustic genre scenes that he produced after 1565 were
also innovatory. Bassano’s four sons included the paint-
ers Francesco the Younger (1549–92) and Leandro
(1557–1622).
Batalha (Portuguese, “Battle”) The usual name of the Do-
minican abbey of Sta. Maria da Vitória about 100 miles
north of Lisbon. It was founded in 1388 to commemorate
the victory of the Portuguese under John I over the Castil-
ians at nearby Aljubarrota (1385), a victory that secured
Portugal’s independence from Spain. Built over a 150-year
period, Batalha in its earliest parts is Gothic in style, the
work of one Master Huguet, who was possibly an English
architect brought to Portugal by John I’s English wife
Philippa of Lancaster. Its socalled “Unfinished Chapels”
are dazzling 16th-century masterpieces in the MANUELINE
STYLE.
Báthory, Elisabeth (Countess Nadasdy) (1560–1614)
Hungarian murderess and vampire
Beautiful and rich, Báthory married Count Ferenc
Nadasdy at age 15. At her castle of Csejthe in the
Carpathian Mountains, she was bored during his absences
on military campaigns and began indulging her sexual and
sadistic fantasies, dabbling in black magic and alchemy.
After her husband’s death (1604), and fearful that her fa-
mous beauty was fading, the countess sought an elixir of
youth by drinking and bathing in the blood of young peas-
ant women, procured by her acolyte Dorotta Szentes. By
1609 seeking higher-born victims, she established an
academy for daughters of the nobility. When four of these
girls were found murdered in 1610, Emperor Matthias had
Szentes burnt at the stake. As an aristocrat Báthory could
not be tried, but was condemned to be walled up in her
castle, fed on scraps passed through a hatch. She died four
years later. All public accounts of her crimes were banned
until Michael Wagener’s Beiträge zur philosophischen An-
thropologie (1796).
Baudart, Willem (1565–1640) Dutch scholar and
reformed minister
Baudart was born at Deinze, near Ghent, but his parents
fled from religious persecution to England, and he was ed-
ucated at Sandwich and Canterbury. In 1577 the family re-
turned to Flanders. Baudart studied at Leyden, Franeker
in Friesland, Heidelberg, and Bremen, and became profi-
cient in Hebrew and Greek. He returned to his native
country in 1593 and filled posts at Kampen and Zutphen.
In 1619 he was chosen as one of the translators of the Old
Testament for the Dutch Bible commissioned by the Synod
of DORT. He retired to Leyden in 1626. Among his works
were an index to the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin Bibles
(1596) and a history of the Dutch war of liberation. His
Morgenwecker (1610) was one of the most eloquent tracts
written against the truce with Spain negotiated by OLDEN-
BARNEVELDTin 1609.Bauhin, Gaspard (1560–1624) Swiss-born botanist and
anatomist
His father, a doctor, had become a Protestant and been
forced by religious persecution to leave his native Amiens.
Bauhin’s textbooks of anatomy (1588–1605) supple-
mented VESALIUS’s illustrations, but in spite of his nomen-
clature of muscles, which is still used, his botanical books,
Phytopinax (1596), Prodromos theatri botanici (1620), and
Pinax (1623) are better known. The last, a concordance of
the various names of about 6000 plants, remained an es-
sential tool for at least 150 years. His descriptions classi-
fied related plants into genera and species, although his
Theatrum botanicum remained unpublished, except for a
first instalment edited by his son in 1658. His elder
brother, Jean Bauhin (1541–1613), was also a physician
and a botanist and one of the pupils of Konrad GESNER.
Historia plantarum universalis, posthumously published
(1650–51) by his son-in-law, Jean-Henri Cherler, at-
tempted to reconstruct Gesner’s unfinished Historia plan-
tarum. The book includes concise descriptions of over
5000 plants, mostly European, with a few from the Far
East or America, and reflects Jean Bauhin’s visits to
BOTANIC GARDENSat Padua and Bologna, as well as his
connection with a similar garden at Lyons.Bayer, Johann (1572–1625) German astronomer
A Protestant lawyer from Augsburg, Bayer made a lasting
contribution to ASTRONOMYin his Uranometria (1603), in
which he identified stars by assigning letters of the Greek
alphabet to them, in order of brightness. Under this sys-
tem Aldebaran, previously described as the star in the
southern eye of Taurus, became αTauri. He was, however,
less successful with his attempts to reform the names of
constellations. His posthumously published Coelum stella-
tum christianum (1627) proposed replacing their heathen
names with biblical ones, but scholars continued to prefer
such traditional names as Cassiopeia and Argo to his sug-
gested Mary Magdalen and Noah’s Ark.Beaufort, Lady Margaret (1443–1509) Countess of
Richmond and Derby; English noblewoman, translator, and
patron of printers
Herself descended from Edward III, she was, by her first
marriage (to Edmund Tudor), mother of Henry VII of
England, to whom she gave birth at age 14. After Henry,
with her support, obtained the throne in 1485, Lady Mar-
garet retired to a life of study and charitable work. She es-
tablished the Lady Margaret professorships of divinity at
Oxford and Cambridge universities (1501), supported the
foundation of Christ’s College, Cambridge (begun 1505),
and left an endowment to the newly founded St. John’s
College. Highly intelligent and an avid reader, she studied4488 BBaattaallhhaa