Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Pius VI

(Encyclopedia)Pius VI, 1717–99, pope (1775–99), an Italian named G. Angelo Braschi, b. Cesena; successor of Clement XIV. He was created cardinal in 1774. Early in his reign he was faced with the attempts of Hol...

Chouans

(Encyclopedia)Chouans sho͞oˈənz, Fr. shwäN [key] [Norman Fr.,=owls], peasants of W France who rose against the French Revolutionary government in 1793. One of their first leaders was Jean Cottereau, traditional...

Favre, Jules

(Encyclopedia)Favre, Jules zhül fäˈvrə [key], 1809–80, French statesman. At first a partisan of the July Monarchy, he joined the republican opposition to King Louis Philippe. After the February Revolution of ...

María Luisa

(Encyclopedia)María Luisa lo͞oēˈsä [key], 1751–1819, queen of Spain, daughter of Duke Philip of Parma, consort of King Charles IV. Dissolute and domineering, she exerted, with her favorite Godoy, the real po...

Volney, Constantin François de Chassebœuf, comte de

(Encyclopedia)Volney, Constantin François de Chassebœuf, comte de kôNstäNtăNˈ fräNswäˈ də shäsböfˈ kôNt də vôlnāˈ [key], 1757–1820, French scholar. He traveled in Egypt and Syria in the 1780s an...

Canova, Antonio

(Encyclopedia)Canova, Antonio äntôˈnyō känôˈvä [key], 1757–1822, Italian sculptor. He was a leading exponent of the neoclassical school whose influence on the art of his time was enormous. Canova's monume...

Yorck von Wartenburg, Ludwig, Graf

(Encyclopedia)Yorck von Wartenburg or York von Wartenburg, Ludwig, Graf both: lo͝otˈvĭkh gräf yôrk fən värˈtənbo͝orkh [key], 1759–1830, Prussian army officer. He commanded the Prussian auxiliary corps t...

Rostopchin, Feodor Vasilyevich, Count

(Encyclopedia)Rostopchin, Feodor Vasilyevich, Count fyôˈdər vəsēˈlyəvĭch, rəstəpchēnˈ [key], 1763–1826, Russian general and statesman. He rose rapidly under Czar Paul I, serving as foreign minister fr...

Alexander I, czar of Russia

(Encyclopedia)Alexander I, 1777–1825, czar of Russia (1801–25), son of Paul I (in whose murder he may have taken an indirect part). In the first years of his reign the liberalism of his Swiss tutor, Frédéric ...

Arcole

(Encyclopedia)Arcole ärˈkōlā [key], village (1987 est. pop. 4,500), Venetia, N Italy. There, in Nov., 1796, Napoleon Bonaparte defeated the Austrians in a three-day battle. ...

Browse by Subject