Columbia Encyclopedia

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medal

(Encyclopedia)medal, a piece of metal, cast or struck, often coin-shaped. The obverse and reverse bear bas-relief and inscription. Commemorative medals are issued in memory of a notable person or event. Civil and m...

Botticelli, Sandro

(Encyclopedia)Botticelli, Sandro älĕssänˈdrō dē märēäˈnō fēlēpāˈpē [key]. He was apprenticed to Fra Filippo Lippi, whose delicate coloring can be seen in such early works as the Adoration of the Kin...

Henry the Navigator

(Encyclopedia)Henry the Navigator, 1394–1460, prince of Portugal, patron of exploration. Because he fought with extraordinary valor in the Portuguese conquest of Ceuta (1415), he was created duke of Viseu by his ...

Abravanel, Judah

(Encyclopedia)Abravanel or Abarbanel, Judah, c.1460–c.1523, Jewish philosopher, physician, and poet, son of Isaac Abravanel, b. Lisbon; he is also known as Leone Ebreo. He fled (1483) from Portugal to Spain with ...

Liberia

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Liberia lībērˈēə [key] [New Lat.,=place of freedom], officially Republic of Liberia, republic (2015 est. pop. 4,500,000), 43,000 sq mi (111,370 sq km), W Africa. Liberia fronts on the Atla...

pidgin

(Encyclopedia)pidgin pĭjˈən [key], a lingua franca that is not the mother tongue of anyone using it and that has a simplified grammar and a restricted, often polyglot vocabulary. The earliest documented pidgin i...

Guinea, country, Africa

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Guinea gĭnˈē [key], officially Republic of Guinea, republic (2015 est. pop. 12,092,000), 94,925 sq mi (245,856 sq km), W Africa. It is bounded on the north by Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, and Mal...

orders of architecture

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Orders of architecture orders of architecture. In classical tyles of architecture the various columnar types fall, in general, into the five so-called classical orders, which are named Doric, ...

Renaissance

(Encyclopedia)Renaissance rĕnəsänsˈ, –zänsˈ [key] [Fr.,=rebirth], term used to describe the development of Western civilization that marked the transition from medieval to modern times. This article is conc...

Ebola virus

(Encyclopedia)Ebola virus ēbōˈlə [key], a virus of the genus Ebolavirus, which belongs to a family (Filoviridae) of RNA viruses that cause hemorrhagic fevers. The viruses, named for a river in Congo (Kinshasa) ...