Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Roman roads

(Encyclopedia)Roman roads, ancient system of highways linking Rome with its provinces. Their primary purpose was military, but they also were of great commercial importance and brought the distant provinces in touc...

senate, Roman

(Encyclopedia)senate, Roman, governing council of the Roman republic. It was the outgrowth of the council of the kings. By the 3d cent. b.c. the senate was a group of 300 men with a high degree of political, legisl...

Broglie

(Encyclopedia)Broglie brôˈyə, brôglēˈ [key], French noble family of Piedmontese origin, who settled in France in the 17th cent. Victor Maurice, comte de Broglie, 1647–1727, was marshal of France and fought ...

Uladislaus II

(Encyclopedia)Uladislaus II o͞oˌläˈdĭslous [key], Hung. Ulászló II, c.1456–1516, king of Hungary (1490–1516) and, as Ladislaus II, king of Bohemia (1471–1516); son of Casimir IV of Poland. Designated b...

Lotharingia

(Encyclopedia)Lotharingia lŏthərĭnˈjə [key], name given to the northern portion of the lands assigned (843) to Emperor of the West Lothair I in the first division of the Carolingian empire (see Verdun, Treaty ...

Marsilius of Padua

(Encyclopedia)Marsilius of Padua märsĭlˈēəs, păˈdyo͞oə [key], d. c.1342, Italian political philosopher. He is satirically called Marsiglio. Little is known with certainty of his life except that he was rec...

Uri , canton, Switzerland

(Encyclopedia)Uri o͞oˈrē [key], canton (1993 pop. 35,500), 415 sq mi (1,075 sq km), central Switzerland, one of the Four Forest Cantons. Altdorf is the capital. The most sparsely populated of the Swiss cantons, ...

Padilla, Juan de

(Encyclopedia)Padilla, Juan de hwän dā päᵺēˈlyä [key], c.1490–1521, Spanish revolutionary leader in the war of the comuneros [municipalities] against Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Charles's conduct and hi...

Konstanz

(Encyclopedia)Konstanz kônˈstänts [key], Fr. Constance, city (1994 pop. 75,980), Baden-Württemberg, SW Germany, on the Rhine River at the western end of Lake Constance (Bodensee), and near the Swiss border. Its...

Browse by Subject