most prolific
modern designer of chimneypieces was J.B. Piranesi, who in 1765
published a large series, on which at a later date the Empire style in
France was based. In France the finest work of the early Renaissance
period is to be found in the chimneypieces, which are of infinite
variety of design.

The English chimneypieces of the early 17th century, when the purer
Italian style was introduced by Inigo Jones, were extremely simple in
design, sometimes consisting only of the ordinary mantelpiece, with
classic architraves and shelf, the upper part of the chimney breast
being panelled like the rest of the room. In the latter part of the
century the classic architrave was abandoned in favour of a much
bolder and more effective moulding, as in the chimneypieces at Hampton
Court, and the shelf was omitted.

In the 18th century the architects returned to the Inigo Jones classic
type, but influenced by the French work of Louis XIV. and XV. Figure
sculpture, generally represented by graceful figures on each side,
which assisted to carry the shelf, was introduced, and the overmantel
developed into an elaborate frame for the family portrait over the
chimneypiece. Towards the close of the 18th century the designs of the
brothers Adam superseded all others, and a century later they came
again into fashion. The Adam mantels are in wood enriched with
ornament, cast in moulds, sometimes copied from the carved wood
decoration of old times. (R. P. S.)

CHIMPANZEE (_Chimpanzi_), the vernacular name of the highest species of
the man-like apes, forming the typical representatives of the genus
_Anthropopithecus_. Chimpanzees, of which there appear to be at least
two species, range through the tropical forest-zone of Africa from the
west coast to Uganda. The typical _A. troglodytes_ has been long known
to European science, Dr Tyson, a celebrated surgeon and anatomist of his
time, having dissected a young individual, and described it, as a pigmy
or _Homo sylvestris_, in a book published in 1699. Of this baby
chimpanzee the skeleton may be seen in the Natural History branch of the
British Museum alongside the volume in which it is described. It was
not, however, till 1788 that the chimpanzee received what is now
recognized as a scientific name, having been christened in that year
_Simia troglodytes_ by the naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin. In his
classification it was included in