than sufficient for maintaining in affluence his large family of fifteen children, and his works became comparatively mannered and self-repeating. His sons traded in France and 1 Ferrara; he himself took a part in commercial affairs, and began paying some attention to mosaic work, but it seems that, after completing one mosaic, the Annunciation over the door of the Nunziata, patience failed him for continuing such minute labours. In his old age Ridolfo was greatly disabled by gout. He appears to have been of a kindly, easy-going character, much regarded by his friends
and patrons.
The following are some of his leading works, the great majority of them being oil-pictures:—
Christ and the Maries on the road to Calvary, now in the I’alazzo Antinori, Florence, an early example, with figures of half life-size. An Annunciation in the Abbey of Montoliveto near Florence, Leonardesque in style. In 1504, the Coronation of the Virgin, now in the Louvre. A Nativity, very carefully executed, now in the Hermitage, St Pctersburg, and ascribed in the catalogue to tirauaeei. A l’redella, in the oratory of the Bigallo, Florence, five panels, representing the Nativity and other subjects, charmingly finished. In 1514. on the ceiling of the chapel of St Bernard in the l‘alazzo Pubblieo, Florence, a fresco of the Trinity, with heads of the twelVe apostles and other accessories, and the Annunciation ; also the Assumption of the Virgin, who bestows her girdle on St Thomas, in the choir loft of I’rato cathedral. Towards the same date, a picture showing his highest skill, replete with expression, vigorous life, and firm accomplished pictorial method, now in the gallery of the I'llizi, St Zenobius resuscitating a. child; also the Translation of the remains of the same Saint. The Virgin and various saints, at S. Pier Maggiore, Pistoja. In 1521, the I’icta, at S. Agostiuo, Colle di Valdelsa, life-sized. Towards 1526, the Assumption, now in the Berlin Museum, containing the painter's own portrait. An exeellcnt portrait of Cosmo dc' Medici (the Great) in youth. In 1543, a series of frcseos in the monastery of the Angeli. A great number of altar-pieces were executed by Ghirlandajo, with the assistance of his favourite pupil, currently named Michele di Itidolfo. Another of his pupils was Mariano da Pescia.
(w. m. r.)
GHIZNI. See Ghazni.
GHOORKAS. See Nepal.
GHÚR (Ghor, Ghoor, Gour, &c.) is the name of a territory in Asia, and Ghúri (Ghori, Ghoory &c.) that of a dynasty deriving its origin from that territory.
The name of Glu’u‘ was, in the Middle Ages, and, indeed, locally still is, applied to the highlands east of Herat, and extending eastward to the upper Helmand valley, or nearly so. There is hardly any region of Asia regarding which we continue to be more in the dark than about this. Ghi’ir is the southern portion of that great peninsula of strong mountain country which forms the western part of modern Afghanistan, and which may be taken in a general way to represent the Paropamisus of the ancients. The northern portion of the said peninsula was in the Middle Ages com- prehended under the names of Gluujl'slcin, (on the west), and Jug/22nd (on the east), whilst the basin of the Herat river, and all south of it, constituted (Hair. The name as now used does not perhaps include the valley of the Herat river ; on the south the limit seems to be the deelivity of the higher mountains (about 32° 45' N. lat.) dominating the descent to the lower Helmand, and the road from Farrah to Kandahar. It is in Ghl’u‘ that rise all those affluents of the closed basin of Seistz’in, the Hari’it, the Farrah-rial, the Khash-rud (see Afghanistan), besides other considerable streams joining the Helmaud above Girishk.
Ghur is mentioned in the Shahnamah of Firdousi (1010 a.d.), and in the Arab geographers of that time, though these latter fail in details almost as much as we moderns, thus indicating how little accessible the country has been through all ages. Ibn I'laukal’s map of Khorasau (c. 976) shows Jibdl al-Gluir, “ the hill-country of Ghur,” as a circle ring- fcnced with mountains. His brief description speaks of it as a land fruitful in crops, cattle, and flocks, inhabited by infidels, except a few who passed for Mahometans, and indicates that, like other pagan countries surrounded by Moslein populations, it was regarded as a store of slaves for the faithful. The boundary of (that in ascending the valley of the Hari-rt'td was six and a half easy marches from Herat, at Chist, two marches above Obah (both of which are still in our maps).
The chief part of the present population of Gluir are Taimzinis belonging to the class of nomad or semi-nomad clans called Eimd/rs (see Afghanistan, vol. i. p. 233). There are also, according to Ferrier, Sch-is, who were formerly the main part of the population, apparently the same as the Zoorccs of Elphinstone (Cuubul, ii. 1204), another of the Eimak clans, and in the north of Ght’tr Ferrier mentions Mongols. Camels are kept in great numbers by the Eimaks, chiefly for their wool. Though the country is very mountainous, there are fruitful valleys of considerable width. But our knowledge is too slight for us to say more.
The people and princes of Glu'ir first become known to us in connexion with the Ghaznevid dynasty, and the early mediaeval histories of Ghur and Ghazni are so intertwined that little need be added on that subject to what will be found under Ghazni (q.v.). What we read of Ghur shows it as a country of lofty mountains and fruitful valleys, and of numerous strongholds held by a variety of hill-chieftains ruling warlike clans whose habits were rife with feuds and turbulence, indeed, in character strongly resembling the tribes of modern Afghanistan, though there seems no good reason to believe that they were of Afghan race. It is probable that they were of old Persian blood, like the oldcr of those tribes which still occupy the country. It is possibly a corroboration of this that, in the 14th century, when one of the Ghuri kings, of the Kurt dynasty reigning in Herat, had taken to himself some of the insignia of independent sovereignty, an incensed Mongol prince is said to have reviled him as “an insolent Tajl'k" (Journal Asiat., scr. v. tom. xvii. p. 509). Sabuktigin of Ghazni, and his famous son Mahmud, repeatedly invaded the mountain country which so nearly adjoined their capital, subduing its chiefs for the moment, and exacting tribute; but when the immediate pressure was withdrawn, the yoke was thrown off, and the tribute withheld. In 1020 Masa'ud, the son of Mahmud, being then governor of Khorasan, made a systematic invasiOn of Ghi'n' from the side of Herat, laying siege to its strongholds one after the other, and subduing the country more effectually than ever before. About a century later one of the princely families of Ghur, deriving the appellation of Shansabi, or Shansabainfah, from a certain ancestor Shansab, of local fame, and of alleged descent from Zohak, acquired predominance in all the country, and at the time mentioned Malik ’Izzuddin al Husain of this family came to be recognized as lord of Ghur. He was known afterwards as “the Father of Kings,” from the further honour to which several of his seven sons rose. Three of these (see Ghazni) were—(1) Aniir Kutbuddin Mahomnied, called the lord of the J ibal or mountains ; ('2) Sultan Saifuddin Sui-1', for a brief period master of Ghazni,——both of whom were put to death by Bahrain the Ghaznevid; and (3) Sultain Alauddin Jahansoz, who wreaked such terrible vengeance upon Ghazni. Alauddin began the conquests which were afterwards immensely extended both in India and in the west by his nephews Ghiyassuddiu Mahomnied 1bn Szim and Muizuddin Mahommed Saint (the Shahabuddi’n Ghuri of the historians), and fora brief period during their rule it was boasted, with no great exaggeration, that the public prayer was read in the name cf the Glu'u'i from the extremity of India to the borders of Babylonia and from the Oxns to the Straits of Ornius. After the death of Muizuddin (alias Shahabuddiu), Mahmud the son of Ghiyassuddi’n was proclaimed sovereign (1206) throughout the territories of Ghi'u', Ghazni, and Hindustan. But the Indian dominion, from his uncle’s death, became entirely independent, and his actual authority was confined to Glu'n', Seistan, and Herat. The whole kingdom fell to pieces before the power of Mahommed Shah of Khwarazm and his son Jalaluddin (c. 1214–1215), a power in its turn to be speedily shattered by the Mongol flood (see Ghazni).
Besides the thrones of Glu’n‘ and Ghazni, the Shansabaniah family, in the person of Fakhruddin, the eldest of the seven sons of Malek ’lzzuddin, founded a kingdom in the Oxns basin, having its seat at Bámián (q.v.), which endured for two or three generations, till extinguished by the power of Khwarazm (1214). And the great Mussulman empire of Delhi was based on the conquests of Muizuddin the Ghurian, carried out and consolidated by his Turkr freedmen, Kutbuddin Aibak and his successors. The princes ot Glu’xr experienced, about the middle of the 13th century, a revwal of power, which endured for 140 years. This lat-er dynasty bore the name of Kurt or Kart. The first of historical promlnenee was Malik Shamsuddin Kurt, dcscendedby his mother from the great king Ghiyassuddi'n Glniri, whilst Ills other grandfather was
