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Peter Damian, Saint

(Encyclopedia)Peter Damian, Saint dāˈmēən [key], Ital. Pietro Damiani, 1007?–1072, Italian reformer, Doctor of the Church, b. Ravenna. He became a Camaldolese monk at Fonte-Avellino (near Gubbio) and because ...

Visigoths

(Encyclopedia)Visigoths (West Goths), division of the Goths, one of the most important groups of Germans. Having settled in the region W of the Black Sea in the 3d cent. a.d., the Goths soon split into two division...

Valla, Lorenzo

(Encyclopedia)Valla, Lorenzo lōrānˈtsō välˈlä [key], c.1407–57, Italian humanist. Valla knew Greek and Latin well and was chosen by Pope Nicholas V to translate Herodotus and Thucydides into Latin. From hi...

Visconti

(Encyclopedia)Visconti vēskônˈtē [key], Italian family that ruled Milan from the 13th cent. until 1447. In the 12th cent. members of the family received the title of viscount, from which the name is derived. Ot...

Papinian

(Encyclopedia)Papinian (Aemilius Papinianus) pəpĭnˈēən [key], d. 212, Roman jurist. He was a close friend of the Roman emperor Septimius Severus, under whom he was libellorum magister [master of the rolls] and...

Guelphs

(Encyclopedia)Guelphs gwĕlfs [key], European dynasty tracing its descent from the Swabian count Guelph or Welf (9th cent.), whose daughter Judith married the Frankish emperor Louis I. Guelph III (d. 1055) was made...

Bavarian Succession, War of the

(Encyclopedia)Bavarian Succession, War of the, between Austria and Prussia, 1778–79. With the extinction of the Bavarian line of the house of Wittelsbach on the death of Elector Maximilian Joseph in 1777, the duc...

Wallenstein, Albrecht Wenzel Eusebius von

(Encyclopedia)Wallenstein or Waldstein, Albrecht Wenzel Eusebius von wälˈənstīn, Ger. älˈbrĕkht vĕnˈtsəl oizāˈbēo͝os fən välˈənshtīn, vältˈshtīn [key], 1583–1634, imperial general in the Thi...

Ferdinand I, king of Aragón and Sicily

(Encyclopedia)Ferdinand I, 1379?–1416, king of Aragón and Sicily and count of Barcelona (1412–16), second son of John I of Castile; nephew and successor of Martin of Aragón. In 1406, Ferdinand became regent o...

Hubertusburg, Peace of

(Encyclopedia)Hubertusburg, Peace of ho͞obĕrˈto͝osbo͝orkh [key], 1763, treaty signed on Feb. 15 between Austria and Prussia at the end of the Seven Years War. It was signed at Hubertusburg, Saxony (in present-...