Italian poet, a major figure among the Florentine poets who wrote in the dolce stil nuovo ("sweet new style") and who is considered, next to Dante, the most striking poet and personality in 13th-century Italian literature.
(from Late Latin caballarius, "horseman"), originally a rider or cavalryman; the term had the same derivation as the French chevalier. In English the word knight was at first generally used to imply the qualities of chivalry associated with the chevalier ...
(May 8, 1661-Jan. 24, 1679), the first English Parliament after the Restoration of Charles II to the throne. It was originally enthusiastically royalist in tone, but over the years its membership changed and it became increasingly critical of many of ...
any of a group of English gentlemen poets, called Cavaliers because of their loyalty to Charles I (1625-49) during the English Civil Wars, as opposed to Roundheads, who supported Parliament. They were also cavaliers in their style of life and ...
river in western Africa, rising north of the Nimba Range in Guinea and flowing south to form more than half of the Liberia-Cote d'Ivoire border. It enters the Gulf of Guinea 13 miles (21 km) east of Harper, Liberia, after ...
Roman fresco painter and mosaicist whose work represents the earliest significant attempt in Italian art to break with Byzantine stylizations and move toward a plastic, illusionistic depiction of figures and space. He was an important influence on the innovatory Florentine ...
military force mounted on horseback, formerly an important element in the armies of all major powers. When employed as part of a combined military formation, its main duties included observing and reporting information about the enemy, screening movements of its ...
county in the province of Ulster, northeastern Ireland. It is bounded by Counties Monaghan (northeast), Meath, Westmeath, and Longford (south), and Leitrim (northwest). Northern Ireland lies to the north. Northwestern Cavan comprises uplands, intersected by valleys, declining toward the main ...
musical form appearing in operas and occasionally in cantatas and instrumental music. In early 18th-century cantatas, notably those of J.S. Bach, the cavatina was a short, epigrammatic piece sometimes sung between the speech-like recitative and the more lyric arioso. In ...
natural opening in the Earth large enough for human exploration. Such a cavity is formed in many types of rock and by many processes. The largest and most common caves are those formed by chemical reaction between circulating groundwater and ...
extinct species (Ursus spelaeus) of bear, notable for its habit of inhabiting caves, where its remains are frequently preserved; in European cave deposits, the remains of more than 100,000 cave bears have been found. The cave bear is best known ...
any of the crystalline deposits that form in a solution cave after the creation of the cave itself. These deposits are generally composed of calcium carbonate dissolved from the surrounding limestone by groundwater. Carbon dioxide carried in the water is ...
any of the pale, blind, cave-dwelling fishes of the genera Amblyopsis and Typhlichthys, family Amblyopsidae. Cave fishes are small, growing to about 10 cm (4 inches) long, and are found in fresh water in dark limestone caves of the United ...
small, almost spherical concretion of calcite that is formed in a pool of water in a cave and is not attached to the surface on which it forms. Occasionally saturated water drips into small pools with such vigour that a ...
(Latin: "let the buyer beware"), in the law of commercial transactions, principle that the buyer purchases at his own risk in the absence of an express warranty in the contract.
unincorporated rural community, Queens county, on the central northern coast of Prince Edward Island, Canada, 24 miles (39 km) northwest of Charlottetown. It lies near a sandy beach (called Penamkeak by the Micmac Indians and now a popular bathing place) ...
measurement of the force of gravitational attraction between pairs of lead spheres, which thus allowed the first calculation of the value of the gravitational constant, G, the number expressing the proportionality between the attractive force exerted by two objects and ...
English courtier and writer who won a minor but lasting reputation through a single work, his Life of Cardinal Wolsey, a landmark in the development of English biography, an important document to the student of Tudor history, and a rare ...
English physicist and chemist who conducted experiments in diverse fields, discovering such phenomena as the composition of air, the nature and properties of hydrogen, the specific heat of certain substances, the composition of water, and various properties of electricity. He ...
British statesman, protege of William Ewart Gladstone, who was murdered by Irish nationalists the day after his arrival in Dublin as chief secretary to the lord lieutenant of Ireland and as a goodwill emissary from England, at the height of ...
the eggs, or roe, of sturgeon preserved with salt. It is prepared by removing the egg masses from freshly caught fish and passing them carefully through a fine-mesh screen to separate the eggs and remove any extraneous bits of tissue ...
formation of vapour bubbles within a liquid at low-pressure regions that occur in places where the liquid has been accelerated to high velocities, as in the operation of centrifugal pumps, water turbines, and marine propellers. Cavitation is undesirable because it ...
(Jan. 20, 1872), brief uprising of 200 Filipino troops and workers at the Cavite arsenal, which became the excuse for Spanish repression of the embryonic Philippine nationalist movement. Ironically, the harsh reaction of the Spanish authorities served ultimately to promote ...
Piedmontese statesman, a conservative whose exploitation of international rivalries and of revolutionary movements brought about the unification of Italy (1861) under the House of Savoy, with himself as the first prime minister of the new kingdom.
any of 14 species of South American rodents comprising guinea pigs, maras, yellow-toothed cavies, mountain cavies, and rock cavies. All except the maras have robust bodies, short limbs, large heads and eyes, and short ears. There are four digits on ...
village and castle in the Highland council area, historic county of Nairnshire, Scotland, south of Nairn, near Inverness. The local castle, according to a now discredited tradition perpetuated by Shakespeare, was the scene of the murder of King Duncan I ...
city, east central Maranhao state, northeastern Brazil, on the Rio Itapicuru, at 207 ft (63 m) above sea level. Formerly known as Sao Jose das Aldeias Altas, it was renamed to honour Luis Alves de Lima e Silva, duque de ...
city, northeastern Rio Grande do Sul estado (state), southern Brazil, lying at 2,490 feet (760 metres) above sea level on the range of hills separating the Antas and Cai river valleys. It was founded in 1875 by ...
small, low island, usually sandy, situated on a coral reef platform. Such islands are commonly referred to as keys in Florida and parts of the Caribbean. Sand cays are usually built on the edge of the coral platform, opposite the ...
Indians of the coastal lowlands of western Ecuador, one of the few aboriginal groups left in the region. The Cayapa speak a Chibchan language somewhat related to the language of the neighbouring Colorado people. Like the Colorado, the Cayapa believe ...
capital and Atlantic Ocean port of French Guiana. It is located at the northwestern end of Cayenne Island, which is formed by the estuaries of the Cayenne and Mahury rivers. Founded in 1643 by the French as La Ravardiere, it ...
town and municipio (municipality), central Cayey Mountains, Puerto Rico. The town, at an altitude of 1,300 feet (400 metres), was founded in 1773 as Cayey de Muesas on the Spanish military highway linking San Juan with Ponce ...
English mathematician and leader of the British school of pure mathematics that emerged in the 19th century. The interested viewer may read an extract from the geometry article he wrote for the 9th edition of the Encyclopaedia ...
