Italian author and editor noted for his novels and stories examining individual lives played out against the background of modern history. The author's Jewish heritage and the life of the Jewish community in Ferrara, where he lived most of his ...
town, Vicenza provincia, Veneto regione, northern Italy, on the Brenta River at the foot of Monte Grappa, north of Padua. Between 1036 and 1259 the town became important under the Ezzelini family, who built ...
late Renaissance painter of the Venetian school, known for his religious paintings, lush landscapes, and scenes of everyday life. The son of a provincial artist, Francesco da Ponte, who adopted the name Bassano, he was the outstanding member of a ...
town, north-central Togo. The town lies in a major cotton growing area about 30 miles (50 km) northwest of Sokode, Togo's second largest town. Bassar serves as an important centre for commercial trade. It has road links with Burkina Faso ...
(French: "low dance"), courtly dance for couples, originating in 14th-century Italy and fashionable in many varieties for two centuries. Its name is attributed both to its possible origin as a peasant, or "low," dance and to its style of small ...
town and port, eastern Gambia, on the south bank of the Gambia River. The town is a branch banking centre; a market centre for peanuts (groundnuts), rice, and cattle among the Fulani, Malinke, and Wolof peoples; and the last port ...
region of France encompassing the northwestern departements of Orne, Calvados, and Manche. It is bounded by the regions of Haute-Normandie to the northeast, Centre to the southeast, Pays de la Loire ...
(French: "low-cut"), an enameling technique in which a metal surface, usually gold or silver, is engraved or carved in low relief and then covered with translucent vitreous enamel. This technique dramatizes the play of light and shade over the low-cut ...
administrative capital of Guadeloupe (an overseas departement of France), on the Caribbean island of Basse-Terre. The town, dating from 1643, is situated on the southwestern coast of the island between the sea and the 4,813-foot (1,467-metre) peak ...
town, western Maharashtra state, western India, on the Arabian Sea coast, north of Bombay. Part of the territory of the Hindu Devagiri Yadavas until 1317, it later became a seaport for the Gujarat Muslim kings. In 1526 the Portuguese established ...
(Dec. 31, 1802), pact between Baji Rao II, the Maratha peshwa of Pune (Poona) in India, and the British. It was a decisive step in the breakup of the Maratha confederacy. The pact led directly to the East India Company's ...
clarinet pitched a fourth lower than the ordinary B♭ clarinet, probably invented in about 1770 by A. and M. Mayrhofer of Passau, Bavaria. The name derives from its basset ("small bass") pitch and its original curved-horn shape (later supplanted by ...
breed of dog developed centuries ago in France and long maintained, chiefly in France and Belgium, as a hunting dog of the aristocracy. Originally used to trail hares, rabbits, and deer, it has also been used in hunting birds, foxes, ...
chief town of St. Kitts (St. Christopher) island and capital of St. Kitts and Nevis (q.v.), a parliamentary federated state located in the eastern Caribbean. It lies on the island's southwestern coast, 60 miles (100 km) west of St. John's, ...
district, administrative and historic county of Nottinghamshire, England. The district occupies the northern quarter of the county. The name Bassetlaw previously applied to the parliamentary constituency that covers much the same area and earlier still was the name of one ...
glamorous Welsh singer. Renowned for her strident, sultry voice, sequined gowns, and lavish jewelry, she was a forerunner of the score of pop music divas who emerged in the last decades of the 20th century. She was also one of ...
pioneer Italian bacteriologist, who anticipated the work of Louis Pasteur by 10 years in discovering that numerous diseases are caused by microorganisms.
in music, a system of partially improvised accompaniment played on a bass line, usually on a keyboard instrument. The use of basso continuo was customary during the 17th and 18th centuries, when only the bass line was written out, or ...
the principal tenor and bass instrument of the orchestral woodwind family. The bassoon's reed is made by bending double a shaped strip of cane. Its narrow conical bore leads from the curved metal crook, onto which the double reed is ...
French journalist and diplomat whose death in Rome at the hands of a mob was exploited by the French Revolutionary governments as a grievance against the papacy.
any of certain species of linden (q.v.) common to North America, especially Tilia americana, which is found in a vast area of eastern North America but centred in the Great Lakes region; and T. caroliniana and T. georgiana, which are ...
soft, woody fibre obtained from stems of dicotyledonous plants (flowering plants with net-veined leaves) and used for textiles and cordage. Such fibres, usually characterized by fineness and flexibility, are also known as "soft" fibres, distinguishing them from the coarser, less ...
small historic town, northern Iran. It lies just south of the Elburz Mountains in a well-watered plain. Clustered around the tomb of the poet and mystic Abu Yazid al-Bistami (d. 874) are a mausoleum, a 12th-century minaret and mosque wall, ...
any of several small annual or perennial herbs of the sandalwood family (Santalaceae) that have narrow leaves resembling those of true toadflax (Linaria). In North America, bastard toadflax refers to plants of the genus Comandra. They are sometimes parasitic on ...
in Hellenistic and Roman times, large tribe settled in Europe east of the Carpathian Mountains from the upper valley of the Dniester River to the Danube River delta. The Bastarnae were used by the Macedonian kings Philip V and Perseus ...
(from baster, "bastard," or "half-breed"), member of an ethnically mixed group in Namibia and northwestern South Africa, most of whom are descendants of 18th-century Dutch and French men and indigenous Nama (Khoekhoe) women of southwestern Africa. They ...
ancient Egyptian goddess worshiped in the form of a lioness, and later a cat. Bastet was an ancient deity whose nature changed after the domestication of the cat around 1500 BC. She was native to Bubastis in the Nile River ...
city, southeastern Uttar Pradesh state, northern India. It lies east of Faizabad on the Kuwana River. Located on a national highway and a major rail line, it is an agricultural trade centre with some industry at nearby villages. Basti consists ...
city, capital of Haute-Corse departement, Corse region, France. It lies on the northeastern coast of Corsica, 22 miles (35 km) south of the island's northernmost point, the tip of Cape Corse. It is close to the Italian mainland (73 miles ...
ethnologist who theorized that there is a general psychic unity of humankind that is responsible for certain elementary ideas common to all peoples. Bastian proposed that cultural traits, folklore, myths, and beliefs of various ethnic groups originate within each group ...
type of village or town built largely in the 13th and 14th centuries in England and Gascony and laid out according to a definite geometric plan. It is thought by some to have been an influence on English colonists when ...
medieval fortress on the east side of Paris that became, in the 17th and 18th centuries, a French state prison and a place of detention for important persons charged with various offenses. The Bastille, stormed by an armed mob of ...
in France and its overseas departements and territories, holiday marking the anniversary of the fall on July 14, 1789, of the Bastille in Paris. Originally built as a medieval fortress, the Bastille eventually came to be used ...
a cerium fluoride carbonate, CeCO3(OH,F), found in contact metamorphic zones and pegmatites; cerium is commonly substituted by light rare earths, lanthanum, yttrium, and thorium. It ranges in colour from wax-yellow to reddish-brown. Bastnaesite is commonly associated with other rare-earth-bearing minerals ...
city, Morehouse parish, northeastern Louisiana, U.S., 24 miles (38 km) northeast of Monroe. Settlement of the area began after a Dutch nobleman, Baron de Bastrop, was given a large land grant by the Spanish in 1796. The baron subsequently sold ...
any member of the only group of mammals capable of flight. This ability, coupled with the ability to navigate at night by using a system of acoustic orientation (echolocation), has made the bats a highly diverse and populous order. Nearly ...
any blood-sucking insect of the family Polyctenidae (order Heteroptera), which numbers at least 18 species. Bat bugs are external parasites found in the fur of tropical bats. The adult (between 3.5 and 5 mm [0.14 and 0.2 inch] long) lacks ...
any insect belonging to the two families Nycteribiidae and Streblidae (order Diptera). Members of the family Nycteribiidae are wingless, spiderlike insects with long legs and a small head that folds back into a groove in the thorax when at rest. ...
city, west-central Israel, on the Plain of Sharon and the Mediterranean coast just south of Tel Aviv-Yafo. Founded in 1926 as a suburban development called Bayit ve-Gan (Hebrew: "House and Garden"), it was abandoned during the Arab riots of 1929. ...
(species Otocyon megalotis), large-eared fox, belonging to the dog family (Canidae), found in open, arid areas of eastern and southern Africa. It has 48 teeth, 6 more than any other canid. The bat-eared fox is like the red fox in ...
