THEODOR

NOLDEKE (1836— )  , German Semitic scholar, was born at Harburg on the 2nd of March 1836, and studied at Gottingen, Vienna, Leiden and Berlin . In 1859 his history of the Koran won for him the prize of the French Academie des Inscriptions, and in the following year he rewrote it in German (Geschichte des Korans) and published it with additions at Gottingen . In 1861 he began to lecture at the university of this town, where three years later he was appointed extraordinary professor . In 1868 he became ordinary professor at Kiel, and in 1872 was appointed to the chair of Oriental languages at Strassburg, which he resigned in 1906 . Noldeke's range of studies has been wide and varied, but in the main his work has followed the two lines already indicated by his prize essay, Semitic languages, and the history and civilization of Islam . While a great deal of his work (e.g. his Grammatik der neusyrischen Sprache, 1868, his Manddische Grammatik, 1874, and his translations from the Arabian of Tabari, 1881—1882) is meant for specialists, many of his books are of interest to the general reader . Several of his essays first appeared in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and his article on the Koran, with some others, was republished in a volume called Oriental Sketches . The articles dealing with Persia were republished in a German volume, Aufsdtze zur persischen Geschichte (Leipzig, 1887) . Among his best-known works are: Das Leben Mohammeds (1863); Beitrage zur Kenntnis der Poesie der alten Araber (1864) ; Die alttestamentliche Literatur (1868) ; Untersuchungen zur Kritik des Allen Testaments (1869); Zur Grammatik des klassischen Arabisch (1896); Funf Mo'allaqat, iibersetzt and erkldrt (1899—1901); and Beitrage zur semitischen Sprachwissenschaft (19o4) . He has contributed frequently to the Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenldndischen Gesellschaft, the Gottingische gelehrte Anzeigen and the Expositor . NOLI; a coast village of Liguria, Italy, in the province of Genoa, from which it is 36 m . S.W. by rail, 13 ft. above sea-level .

Pop . (19o1) 1985 . It is a town of considerable antiquity, now decayed, and has an

ancient church of S . Paragorio, once the cathedral, a Romanesque basilica dating from the 11th century, with interesting works of art . The diocese has been united with that of Savona . See A. d'Andrade, Relazione dell' Ufficio Regionale per la conservazione dei monumenti del Piemonte e delta Liguria (Turin, 1899), loo seq . on the 11th of August 1737 in Dean Street, Soho, London, where his father, a native of Antwerp, the " old Nollekens " of Horace Walpole, was a painter of some repute . In his thirteenth year he entered the studio of the sculptor Peter Scheemakers, and practised drawing and modelling with great assiduity, ultimately gaining various prizes offered by the Society of Arts . In 176o he went to Rome, and he executed a marble bas-relief, " Timoclea before Alexander," which obtained a prize of fifty guineas from that society in 1762 . Garrick and Sterne were among the first English visitors who sat to him for busts; among his larger pieces belonging to this early period perhaps the most important is the " Mercury and Venus chiding Cupid." Having returned to England in 1770, he was admitted an associate of the Royal Academy in 1771, and elected a member in 1772, the year in which he married Mary, the second daughter of Saunders Welch . By this time he had become known to George III., whose bust he shortly afterwards executed, and henceforward, until about 1816, he was the most fashionable portrait sculptor of his day . He himself thought highly of his early portrait of Sterne .

Among many others may be specially named those of

Pitt, Fox, the prince of Wales (afterwards George IV.), Canning, Perceval, Benjamin West and Lords Castlereagh, Aberdeen, Erskine, Egremont and Liverpool . He elaborated a number of marble groups and statues, amongst which may be mentioned those of " Bacchus," " Venus taking off her Sandal," " Hope leaning on an Urn, Juno," " Paetus and Arria," " Cupid and Psyche " and (his own favourite performance) " Venus anointing Herself "; all, however, although remarkable for delicacy of workmanship, are deficient in vigour and originality, and the drapery is peculiarly weak . The most prominent personal characteristic of Nollekens seems to have been his frugality, which ultimately developed into absolute miserliness . Mrs Nollekens died in 1817, and the sculptor himself died in London on the 23rd of April 1823, leaving a large fortune .