BONONIA (mod. BOLOGNA), an important town of Gallia Cispadana (see AEMILIA VIA), in Italy. It was said by classical writers to be of Etruscan origin, and to have been founded, under the name Felsina, from Perusia by Aucnus or Ocnus. Excavations have shown that the site of Bologna was previously occupied by several (perhaps four) isolated hamlets of the Villanova culture (Io50-50o B.e.), the cemeteries of which have been found on all sides of the city. About Soo B.C. the Etruscans founded the city of Felsina, and several large Etruscan cemeteries have been found. It was, indeed, their most important city north of the Apennines. In 196 B.C. it was in the possession of the Boii, and had probably by this time changed its name of Bononia; and in 189 B.C. it became a Roman colony. After the conquest of the mountain tribes, its importance was assured by its position on the Via Aemilia, by which it was connected in 187 B.C. with Ariminum and Placentia, and on the road, constructed in the same year, to Arre tium; while another road was made, perhaps in 175 B.c., to Aquileia. It thus became the centre of the road system of north Italy. In 90 B.C. it acquired Roman citizenship. In 43 B.C. it was used as his base of operations against Decimus Brutus by Mark Antony, who settled colonists here; Augustus added others later, constructing a new aqueduct from the Letta, a tributary of the Renus, which was restored to use in 188i. After a fire in A.D. 53 the emperor Claudius made a subvention of io million sesterces (Iloo,000). It was able to resist Alaric in 410 and afterwards belonged to the Greek exarchate of Ravenna. Of remains of the Roman period, however, there are none above ground, though various discoveries have been made from time to time within the city walls, the modern streets corresponding closely with the ancient lines. Remains of the bridge of the Via Aemilia over the Renus have also been found—and also of a massive prolongation of it, of late date, in the construction of which a large number of Roman tombstones were used, the river itself having moved to the west.
See D. Randall Maclver, Villanovans and Early Etruscans (Oxford, 1924) 1-37 for the archaeology of the early periods; and his art. VILLANOVANS.
(tray-stone) is the Japanese art of creating a landscape on a tray with stone and sand. Its origin in Japan is traced to the reign of the empress Suiko (593-628) when stones of rare shapes were presented to the court from China. Placed on a board or tray, the stone was admired on account of its beautiful lines or shape that might, perhaps, suggest a stately mountain or a tremendous precipice. Furthermore, the people appreciated it for its own qualities—its solid reality, its unchanging and lasting virtues which they believed to have a power of "softening the hardened hearts of men." Later, sand was used in conjunction with the stones to suggest mountains and water, and the art of arranging them came to be known by the name bon-zan (tray mountain). A further development led to its use to represent sentiments of poems or to reproduce famous scenes in all their complicated phases, showing distant ranges of mountains as well as nearer hills, with villages, temples and pagodas overlooking a shimmering lake or sea, with sailing boats and flying geese, etc., all portrayed by means of stones, pebbles and sand. When the art attained this stage of development it was for a time called bon-kei (q.v.) by some. That name was soon dropped, however, for the original name bon-seki, bon-kei being given to another branch of the art, a development of hako-niwa (q.v.), in which earth, or its substitutes, and living vegetation were used to make a landscape on a tray.
In bon-seki, it is needless to say, the selection of the stone is of greatest importance. One that resembles a mountain or a range of mountains, an island or a chain of isles, is highly valued. How ever well shaped it may be, if it has been chiselled to get the desired form it is despised as a "dead stone" ; it must be natural, and those found in mountain streams are considered to be the best. Greenish stones are used for a spring landscape to suggest a fresh verdure; black ones for summer, indicative of dark shad ows; reddish ones for autumn, suggestive of tinted hill-sides; whitish ones for winter, to denote snow. Black stones, however, from the provinces of Kii, Satsuma and Echigo are most com monly used for all scenes, irrespective of seasons, as they go well with the white sand. The desirable size of the principal stone is considered to be about 7 or 8in. long, and 4 or 5in. high, though a considerable latitude is allowed in practice. Stones of smaller sizes are also necessary to get variation and perspective. The bottom of the stone is usually sawn flat for stability and is covered with silk so that it may not scratch the surface of the lacquered tray. Besides the principal stones there are soye-ishi (auxiliary stones), sute-ishi (thrown-away stones), sacrificed to emphasize the more important ones, and ashirai (small stones for creating details of the scene). Agate, ruby, serpentine and rock crystals of various shades are also used, though very rarely, for f orming islands or as ashirai.
Sand is indispensable to bon-seki. White sand from the prov inces of Bizen and Bingo has been popular, but now-a-days crushed calcareous spar is most generally used. It is generally prepared in ten different grades. Grades from to 5 are used to add details to the scenery, the 6th, 7th and 8th grades for making promontories and seashore, the 9th for streams and waves, and the loth, the finest, for mists, snow or clouds. Not only cal careous spar, but also agate and corals are granulated and used as sand, though rarely, except the red coral for the rising sun to distinguish it from the moon.
Black lacquered trays are generally preferred, either oval (with extreme length and width of about 16 and loin. respectively) or fan-shaped in a smaller size, with low borders, or rectangular, without any border.
Brushes are used very effectively by some masters of this art, but plumes are indispensable. Feathers of hawks, cranes, swans and herons are employed for various purposes. One kind is used to sweep the sand together or remove unnecessary sand from the tray, another, with the aid of a small ruler, to make mists. Still another is required to mark streams and waves of different varieties, for each season has its characteristic waves; for spring they are peacefully long and continuous near the beach and higher off the shore; for summer, ripples cover the calm sea ; for autumn, they are rough, intermingled with more peaceful ones; for winter waves, the feather is brushed roughly to right and left, making a choppy sea with roaring surges. The directions of wind peculiar to each season must not be overlooked; the front of the principal stone is always considered as facing south. Other paraphernalia required in bon-seki include sieves to sift different grades of sand, a metal spoon and a tube for the sand, a pair of chop-sticks to manage small pebbles, forms for making crescent or full moon, and miniature models in silver or bronze bridges, temples, pagodas, etc.
Bon-seki has had a long history, for it was already in vogue at the time of Ashikaga Yoshimasa (1436-9o) and the period that followed, when clia-no-yu, commonly known as ceremonial tea, being "a cult founded upon the adoration of the beautiful amidst sordid facts of everyday life," flourished. As in other branches of Japanese art, there arose different styles or "schools," some of the more prominent being Takeya-ryu, Kiyohara-ryu, TOzan ryu, Hosho-ryu, Ikuta-ryu, Uda-ryu, Sekishyu-Toyama-ryu, Kano ryu and Hosokawa-ryu. The last-mentioned school is most active at present, having for its chief master Katsuno Hakuyen, of Nagoya, who revived the school with his rare talent, and estab lished branches all over Japan and her colonies.
There is a special kind of bon-seki called kake-gaku (hanging picture) or tome-ye (fastened painting). The sand is mixed with powdered paste and the completed picture steamed, so that it sticks to the tray. Usually a fine grade of sand is used for this purpose, though recently some masters have contrived to stick even stones by means of gum arabic. There is a similar art known as bon-ga (tray-pictures), an evolution of suna-ye (sand-paint ing), which men on the street were accustomed to practise at various times in Japanese history, record showing that the custom existed in the era of An-ei (1772-81). Sands, not only of natural colours, but artificially dyed, are used in depicting almost any subject : trees and houses, flowers and birds, natural scenes and historical events—a pictorial art in sand. Bon-ga is distinct from bon-seki, though the latter sometimes appropriates for itself what is practised in the former, and the former does not enjoy either the artistic prestige or the popularity of the latter. Still another branch of art in which sand is used is suijo-sunaye (sand-pictures on-water), or sui-ga (water-picture) for short. Using wax-coated sand of different colours, the artist draws pictures on the water contained in a tray. In order to prevent the rippling of the water, which would prevent the sand from floating, pulverized white cowpeas and alum are previously stirred in. This art was in vogue in the era of Bunkwa 0804-18), but is now seldom practised.
Apart from bon-seki, there still prevails among the Japanese their ancient custom of enjoying rare stones by themselves. While some of them are too large, others may be used in bon-seki as well. They call these stones ki-seki (rare or strange stones), or merely ishi (stone), and some are among heirlooms of ancient families. Provided with individual wooden stands, they are placed on one's writing desk or in tokonoma (alcoves in the guest room), that the gazer may be led into reveries by the fancies their shapes suggest, such as mountains, immense cliffs or some natural phenomena. A stone with a white streak or vein may suggest a waterfall, the sound of which may be heard, or rather felt, in the momentary solitude of one's room, for "heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter." Some stones are placed on a tray with low-growing grass or bamboo in order to emphasize the immensity of nature suggested by the stone. Another way of enjoying them, which has been for centuries and still is popular among the Japanese, is known as sui-seki (water-stone). A natural stone of desirable shape is placed in a porcelain or bronze tray or dish with sand and water. Months and years of patient watering and care may, according to the kind of stone used, bring forth a thin coating of moss, enlivening the stone with a verdure like a mountain or an island with forest and meadows. (J. HAR.)