Gentile,** a Venetian painter, born in the year 1421. He was employed by the republic of Venice; and to him and his brother that state is indebted for the noble works which are to be found in its council-hall. Mahomed II, having seen some of his performances, was so struck with them that he wrote to the republic, entreating that the artist might be sent to him. Bellini accordingly proceeded to Constantinople, where he painted a number of pieces, among which was the decollation of St John the Baptist, whom the Turks revere as a great prophet. Mahomed admired the proportion and shading of the work; but remarking a defect in regard to the skin of the neck, from which the head was separated, the sultan, to prove the truth of his observation, sent for a slave and ordered his head to be struck off. The painter by no means relished this capital style of instruction, and, anxious to place his own head beyond the reach of experiment, earnestly solicited his dismission, which the grand seignior granted, at the same time making him a present of a gold chain. The republic settled a pension upon him at his return, and made him a knight of St Mark. He died in 1501, in the eightieth year of his age. John Bellini, his brother, who died in 1512, aged ninety, painted with more art and sweetness than Gentile.

**Bellini, Laurence,** an eminent physician, born at Florence in the year 1643. After having finished his studies in general literature, he went to Pisa, where, assisted by the generosity of the grand duke Ferdinand II, he studied under two of the most learned men of that age, Oliva and Borelli, the former of whom instructed him in natural philosophy, and the latter taught him mathematics. At the early age of twenty he was chosen professor of philosophy at Pisa, but did not long continue in this office; for he had acquired such a reputation for skill in anatomy, that the grand duke procured him a professorship in that science. This prince often attended his lectures, and expressed himself highly satisfied with his abilities and performances. Bellini wrote the following books in Latin: 1. An Anatomical Discourse on the Structure and Use of the Kidneys; 2. A Speech by way of Thanks to the serene Duke of Tuscany; 3. Some Anatomical Observations, and a Proposition in Mechanics; 4. Of the Urine and Pulse, of Blood-letting, Fevers, and Diseases of the Head and Breasts; 5. Several Tracts concerning Urine, the motion of the Heart, and Bile, &c. He died in January 1703, in the sixtieth year of his age. The works of Bellini were read and explained publicly during his life, by our countryman Dr Pitcairn, professor of physic in Leyden.

**BELLON,** a distemper common among persons employed in smelting lead-ore. It is attended with languor, intolerable pains and sensations of gripings in the belly, and generally with costiveness.

**BELLONA,** in *Pagan Mythology,* the goddess of war, is generally reckoned the sister of Mars, but some represent her as both his sister and wife. This goddess is described as of a cruel and savage disposition, delighting in bloodshed and slaughter; as not only the attendant of Mars, but as taking a pleasure in sharing his dangers. Hence she is commonly represented in an attitude expressive of fury and distraction, with her hair composed of snakes clotted with gore, and her garments stained with blood; sometimes she is depicted driving the chariot of Mars, with a bloody whip in her hand, sometimes with a lighted torch or brand, and a trumpet. Bellona had a temple at Rome, near the Circus Flaminius.

**BELLONARI,** in *Antiquity,* priests of Bellona, the goddess of wars and battles. The bellonari pretended to cut and mangle their bodies with knives and daggers in order to pacify the deity; offering their own blood, not that of other creatures, in sacrifice. In the fury and enthusiasm with which they were seized on these occasions, they ran about raving, uttering prophecies, and foretelling blood and slaughter, devastations of cities and revolutions of states; whence Martial calls them *turba enthœata Bellona.* But Lampridius tells us that the emperor Commodus turned the farce into a tragedy, by obliging these priests to cut and mangle their bodies in good earnest.