GUILMANT, FÉLIX-ALEXANDRE. — Organist and composer, b. at Boulogne-sur-Mer on 12 March 1837, d. at Mendon (Parigi) on 29 March 1911. With his father, organist at S. Niccolò, he studied the first elements of music, which he later completed at the school of Gustavo Carulli; in Brussels he perfected his study of the organ with Lemmens.
At the age of 20 he was chapel master at S. Niccolò and then organ teacher at the Conservatory. In 1871 he became organist at the Trinità in Paris, where he earned great appreciation. He travelled in Italy, Spain, England, and Russia, achieving excellent successes. A powerful and original performer, he was also a composer, revealing gifts as a contrapuntist and a profound and effective harmonist. A co-founder of the Schola cantorum in 1894, he served there as organ teacher. In 1896 he moved to the Conservatory. G. was also a great collector of organ music. The Archives des maîtres de l'orgue (with biographical studies by André Pirro) are a collection of French masters of the preceding centuries, while the Ecole classique d'Orgue (25 fascicles) ranges over a broader field. His original works include numerous organ pieces, Masses, psalms, hymns, and an oratorio.
G.’s aim was to restore French music to full vigour and, together with Franck, D'Indy, Bordes, and others, to create a French school of organ music.
Spanish Guinea likewise consists of a continental district enclosed within the territory of French Equatorial Africa, and of the islands of Fernando Po, Annobon, Corisco, and the two Elobey Islands in the Gulf of Guinea: 26,649 sq km in all, with 175,000 inhabitants (Bantu Blacks, 2,500 whites). It produces cocoa (F. Po), bananas, coffee, coconut palms, and timber (R. Muni). Its capital is S. Isabel, on the island of F. Po (8,000 inhabitants).
For maps of the ecclesiastical districts of Spanish Guinea, V. illustration: AFRICA, cols. 379–380; for those of French and Portuguese Guinea, V. ibid., cols. 381–388.
In 1462 Fr. Alfonso Bolano was appointed prefect of the mission of Guinea. History records the Baptism of two kings in 1489 and 1491. From 1532 Guinea depended on the diocese of Santiago of Cape Verde. The missions were confined to the places occupied by the Portuguese on the coast, especially Bissau, Cacheu, and Elmina. Other attempts to evangelize the peoples of Guinea were made in the 17th century. The Jesuits established themselves in Sierra Leone from 1604 to 1642; they were succeeded by the Spanish Capuchins from 1644 to 1688. The French Capuchins attempted, for a short time (from 1635 to 1644), to evangelize at Rufisque and on the Gold Coast, where the French had established
some trading posts. There were also missions of the Spanish Capuchins in the Kingdom of Arda (Dahomey) from 1659 to 1661 and in the Kingdoms of Benin and Owery from 1651 to 1695. At the end of the 17th century the Dominicans were found in the Kingdom of Isigni and the Augustinians in the Kingdom of Ouidah. But none of these attempts led to a stable mission. In the 18th century there remained only a few Portuguese stations visited by missionaries from the Cape Verde Islands and the new apostolic prefecture of Senegal, established in 1765 for the small French colonies of S. Louis of Senegal and Gorée. The present missions in Guinea arose through successive subdivisions of the apostolic vicariate of the Two Guineas, created by Gregory XVI in 1842.
Following a resolution of the American bishops at the Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1833, which had turned its attention to the Catholic Negroes of the colony of Liberia, the vicar general of the diocese of Philadelphia, Eduardo Barron (1801-54), accompanied by Fr. John Kelly and the catechist Pindar, left for Africa in 1841 and arrived at Cape Palmas in Feb. 1842. Having come to Europe to seek personnel, Barron was appointed apostolic vicar of the new vicariate of Upper and Lower Guinea and Sierra Leone, erected on 8 Oct. 1842 and commonly called the vicariate of the Two Guineas. Accompanied by seven fathers of the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary of Fr. Libermann, he returned to Africa on 30 Nov. 1843; but after the death of nearly all the missionaries, Barron resigned (1845). In 1846 the vicariate was entrusted to the aforementioned Congregation of Fr. Libermann. The apostolic vicariate of the Two Guineas comprised all of West Africa between the prefecture of Senegal and the Orange River, without precisely defined limits toward the interior, except for the rights of the bishop of Loanda. Successive subdivisions reduced the vicariate to the territory of Gabon, and the name Gabon was subsequently given to the apostolic vicariate of the Two Guineas.
The following were detached from the vicariate of the Two Guineas: 1. Fernando Po; 2. Sierra Leone, erected as an apostolic vicariate in 1858 and as a diocese in 1950 (v. FRETOWN e BO); 3. Dahomey; 4. Senegambia, erected as an apostolic vicariate in 1863 (v. DAKAR); 5. Gold Coast, erected as an apostolic vicariate in 1879; 6. Cinbebasia (v. WINDHOEK); 7. Upper Nigeria (v. JOS); 8. French Congo (v. POINTE NOIRE e BRAZAVILLE); 9. Lower Nigeria, erected as an apostolic prefecture in 1889 and elevated to a vicariate under the name of Southern Nigeria in 1920; in 1934, after the two apostolic prefectures of Benue and Calabar had been detached, it was given the name Onitsha-Owerri; from the prefecture of Calabar, an apostolic vicariate since 1947, the prefecture of Ogoja was detached in 1938; 10. Camerum (v. FOUMBAN); 11. From 1890 the former apostolic vicariate of the Two Guineas was restricted to the territory of Gabon and also received this name, which was changed in 1947 Libreville (v.). V. KANKAN, apostolic prefecture of, and KONAKRY, apostolic vicariate of.