Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Tonson, Jacob

(Encyclopedia)Tonson, Jacob tŏnˈsən [key], 1656?–1736, English publisher. He and his brother Richard purchased the publication rights to Milton's Paradise Lost, a transaction later claimed as the firm's most p...

Borgia, Cesare

(Encyclopedia)Borgia, Cesare or Caesar bōrˈjä [key], 1476–1507, Italian soldier and politician, younger son of Pope Alexander VI and an outstanding figure of the Italian Renaissance. Throughout his pontificat...

Saint Peter's Church

(Encyclopedia)Saint Peter's Church, Vatican City, principal and one of the largest churches of the Christian world. The present structure was built mainly between 1506 and 1626 on the original site of the Vatican c...

Eleanor of Aquitaine

(Encyclopedia)Eleanor of Aquitaine ăkwĭtānˈ, ăkˈwĭtān [key], 1122?–1204, queen consort first of Louis VII of France and then of Henry II of England. Daughter and heiress of William X, duke of Aquitaine, s...

Thomas à Becket, Saint

(Encyclopedia)Thomas à Becket, Saint, or Saint Thomas Becket, 1118–70, English martyr, archbishop of Canterbury, b. London. He is called St. Thomas of Canterbury and occasionally St. Thomas of London. In exi...

Amalric of Bena

(Encyclopedia)Amalric of Bena bēˈnə [key], d. 1207?, French professor of philosophy. He taught heretical precepts concerning God, a pantheistic universe, and a progressive Trinity. Before he died, he publicly re...

Elsheimer, Adam

(Encyclopedia)Elsheimer, Adam äˈdäm ĕlsˈhīmər [key], 1578–1610?, German painter. After studying in Frankfurt, Munich, and Venice, he settled in Rome and worked for Pope Paul V. He painted small pictures on...

Frederick III, elector of Saxony

(Encyclopedia)Frederick III or Frederick the Wise, 1463–1525, elector of Saxony (1486–1525). At Wittenberg he founded (1502) the university where Martin Luther and Melanchthon taught. At a crucial period for th...

epitaph

(Encyclopedia)epitaph, strictly, an inscription on a tomb; by extension, a statement, usually in verse, commemorating the dead. The earliest such inscriptions are those found on Egyptian sarcophagi. In England epit...

missal

(Encyclopedia)missal [Lat.,=of the mass], in the Roman Catholic Church, liturgical book containing all directions and texts necessary for the performance of Mass throughout the year. The Roman Missal (Missale Roman...