Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Boker, George Henry

(Encyclopedia)Boker, George Henry bōˈkər [key], 1823–90, American poet and playwright, b. Philadelphia, grad. Princeton, 1842. He is best remembered for his romantic and heroic tragedies, written in the manner...

Carpaccio, Vittore

(Encyclopedia)Carpaccio, Vittore vēt-tôˈrā kärpätˈchō [key], c.1450–1522, Venetian painter, influenced by Gentile and Giovanni Bellini. His delightful narrative paintings reflect the pageantry of 15th-cen...

Guimarães

(Encyclopedia)Guimarães gēməräNshˈ [key], city (1991 est. pop. 48,200), Braga dist., NW Portugal, in Minho. It has textile and cutlery manufactures, but its main importance is historical. The town was the seat...

Lorenzo di Credi

(Encyclopedia)Lorenzo di Credi lōrĕnˈtsō dē krĕˈdē [key], 1459–1537, Florentine painter. He spent his early years in the workshop of Verrocchio, whom he assisted in the painting of an altarpiece at the Ca...

Neruda, Jan

(Encyclopedia)Neruda, Jan yän nĕˈro͝odä [key], 1834–91, Czech essayist and poet, b. Prague. His popular Stories from Malá Strana (1878), tales drawn from his childhood in Prague and satiric portraits of mem...

Wiesel, Torsten Nils

(Encyclopedia)Wiesel, Torsten Nils, 1924–, Swedish neurobiologist, b. Uppsala, Sweden. After earning a degree in medicine from Karolinska Univ., Stockholm (1954), he took a research position at Johns Hopkins, whe...

Bergognone

(Encyclopedia)Bergognone bôr– [key], fl. 1450–1523, Italian painter, known also as Ambrogio Stefani da Fossano. His most important works are the frescoes in the Certosa of Pavia. His luminous and often charmin...

Sperry, Roger Wolcott

(Encyclopedia)Sperry, Roger Wolcott, 1913–94, American biologist, b. Hartford, Conn., Ph.D. Univ. of Chicago, 1941. He studied zoology before teaching biology at the Univ. of Chicago (1946–52) and the Californi...

Albuquerque, Afonso de

(Encyclopedia)Albuquerque, Afonso de əfôNˈzō dĭ əlbo͞okĕrˈkə, –də älˌbəkĕrˈkə [key], 1453–1515, Portuguese admiral, the effective founder of the Portuguese Empire in the East. He first went to ...

Malatesta

(Encyclopedia)Malatesta mälätĕˈstä [key], Italian family, ruling Rimini and nearby cities for almost 300 years from the 13th to 16th cent. Malatesta da Verucchio (d. 1312), a powerful Guelph leader, became (12...