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Caesarea Philippi

(Encyclopedia)Caesarea Philippi fĭlĭpˈī [key], city, N ancient Palestine, at the foot of Mt. Hermon. It was built by Philip the Tetrarch in the 1st cent. a.d. Its site (Paneas) had long been a center for the wo...

Swansea, town, United States

(Encyclopedia)Swansea swŏnˈzē [key], town (1990 est. pop. 15,500), Bristol co., SE Mass., a suburb of Fall River, on an inlet of Mount Hope Bay; founded 1667, inc. 1785. Once a vast farmland, it has become chief...

Tacca, Pietro

(Encyclopedia)Tacca, Pietro pyāˈtrō täkˈkä [key], 1577–1644, Italian sculptor. A pupil of Giovanni Bologna, Tacca adopted the tortuous poses of mannerism and combined them in his bronzes with a classical na...

Van Vleck, John Hasbrouck

(Encyclopedia)Van Vleck, John Hasbrouck, 1899–1980, American physicist, b. Middletown, Conn., Ph.D. Harvard, 1922. As a professor at Harvard, Van Vleck developed fundamental theories on the quantum mechanics of m...

Santa Cruz, Álvaro de Bazán, marqués de

(Encyclopedia)Santa Cruz, Álvaro de Bazán, marqués de älˈvärō ᵺā bäthänˈ märkāsˈ dā sänˈtä kro͞oth [key], 1526–88, Spanish admiral. He fought in various actions against the Ottomans and disti...

Candace

(Encyclopedia)Candace kănˈdəsē, kăndāˈsē [key], title for queens in ancient Cush (Kush). The Latinized form of kandake, it was mistakenly treated in some sources as a name. One of them made war (c.22 b.c.) ...

abdication

(Encyclopedia)abdication, in a political sense, renunciation of high public office, usually by a monarch. Some abdications have been purely voluntary and resulted in no loss of prestige. For instance, Holy Roman Em...

Escorial

(Encyclopedia)Escorial ĕskyo͝orˈēəl [key], monastery and palace, in New Castile, central Spain, near Madrid. One of the finest edifices in Europe, it was built (1563–84) as the monastery of San Lorenzo del E...

Guy of Lusignan

(Encyclopedia)Guy of Lusignan lüsēnyäNˈ [key], d. 1194, Latin king of Jerusalem (1186–92) and Cyprus (1192–94), second husband of Sibylla, sister of King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem. In 1183 he was briefly rege...

Marie de' Medici

(Encyclopedia)Marie de' Medici mĕdˈĭchē [key], 1573–1642, queen of France, second wife of King Henry IV and daughter of Francesco de' Medici, grand duke of Tuscany. She was married to Henry in 1600. After his...