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Encyclopedias since 1768

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Venice ... Verbania

Venice: resort city, Sarasota county, west-central Florida, U.S. It lies along the Gulf of Mexico, about 20 miles (30 km) south of Sarasota. Originally a fishing village settled in the 1870s, it was later planned (c. 1925) as a retirement city ...
Venice majolica: tin-glazed earthenware made at Venice that reached its stylistic zenith in the 16th century. The workshops of Maestro Ludovico (fl. 1540-45), Domenigo da Venezia (fl. 1550-60), and Jacomo da Pesaro (fl. 1543) produced outstanding ware of this type. Venetian potters ...
Venice Palace, Museum of the: in Rome, museum occupying part of the papal apartment of the first great Renaissance palace of Rome. Dating from the middle of the 15th century, the Palazzo Venezia was built for Cardinal Pietro Barbo, later Pope Paul II. Displayed are ...
Venice, Gulf of: northern section of the Adriatic Sea (an arm of the Mediterranean Sea), extending eastward for 60 miles (95 km) from the Po River delta, Italy, to the coast of Istria, in Slovenia and Croatia. It receives the Po, Adige, Piave, ...
Vening Meinesz, Felix Andries: Dutch geophysicist and geodesist who was known for his measurements of gravity.
Venini, Paolo: Italian glassmaker and designer and manufacturer of glassware, whose works are outstanding for their combination of traditional technique and modern form. His glass factory in Murano contributed to a revival of art-glass manufacture in the 1930s and '40s and employed ...
venison: (from Latin venatus, "to hunt"), the meat from any kind of deer; originally, the term referred to any kind of edible game.
Venizelos, Eleutherios: prime minister of Greece (1910-15, 1917-20, 1924, 1928-32, 1933), the most prominent Greek politician and statesman of the early 20th century. Under his leadership Greece doubled in area and population during the Balkan Wars (1912-13) and also gained territorially and ...
Venkataraman, Ramaswamy: Indian politician, government official, and lawyer who was president of India from 1987 to 1992.
Venlo: gemeente (commune), Limburg provincie, southeastern Netherlands. It lies along the Maas (Meuse) River, near the German border. Chartered in 1343, it joined the Hanseatic League in 1364 and was a medieval fortress and trade centre. Venlo is now the centre ...
Vennberg, Karl: poet and critic who was the critical-analytical leader in Swedish poetry of the 1940s.
venom: the poisonous secretion of an animal, produced by specialized glands that are often associated with spines, teeth, stings, or other piercing devices. The venom apparatus may be primarily for killing or paralyzing prey or may be a purely defensive adaptation. ...
Venosa: town and episcopal see, Potenza provincia, Basilicata regione, southern Italy. It is situated on the lower slope of Mount Vulcano, north of Potenza. Originally a settlement of the Lucanians (an ancient Italic tribe), it was taken by the Romans after ...
venous sinus: in human anatomy, any of the channels of a branching complex sinus network that lies between layers of the dura mater, the outermost covering of the brain, and functions to collect oxygen-depleted blood. Unlike veins, these sinuses possess no muscular ...
Vent, Iles du: eastern group of islands within the Society Islands, French Polynesia, in the central South Pacific. The group is composed of volcanic islands surrounded by coral reefs. The far larger Tahiti and Moorea (qq.v.) lie at the centre of the group. ...
Ventidius, Publius: Roman general and politician who rose from captivity to military fame, a change of fortune frequently cited by ancient authors.
ventifact: stone that has received one or more highly polished, flattened facets as a result of erosion by windblown sand. The facets are cut in sequence and correlate with the dominant wind direction. As one surface is cut, the stone may ...
ventilating: the natural or mechanically induced movement of fresh air into or through an enclosed space. The supply of air to an enclosed space involves the removal of a corresponding volume of expired air, which may be laden with odours, heat, ...
Ventimiglia: town, Imperia provincia, Liguria regione, northwestern Italy. It is situated at the mouth of the Roia River near the French border, just northeast of Nice, France. To the east of the modern town is the ruined Roman town Albium Intemelium, ...
Ventnor: town ("parish"), Isle of Wight, historic county of Hampshire, England. The town lies along the southeastern coast of the Isle of Wight. From a small fishing hamlet it grew in the 19th century into a fashionable resort, noted for its ...
Ventose Decrees: during the French Revolution, laws providing for the confiscation of the property of enemies of the revolution and its distribution to needy patriots. The Ventose Decrees are sometimes considered to be the most radical expression of social democracy of the ...
ventricle: muscular chamber that pumps blood out of the heart and into the circulatory system. Ventricles occur among some invertebrates. Among vertebrates, fishes and amphibians generally have a single ventricle, while reptiles, birds, and mammals have two.
ventricular fibrillation: irregular and uncoordinated contraction of the muscle fibres of the ventricles, the heart's lower chambers. Since ventricular fibrillation completely prevents the heart's functioning as a pump, it quickly brings death unless emergency measures restore the circulation of oxygenated blood throughout ...
ventricular septal defect: opening in the partition between the two ventricles, or lower chambers, of the heart. Such defects are congenital and may be accompanied by other congenital defects of the heart, most commonly pulmonary stenosis.
ventriloquism: the art of "throwing" the voice, i.e., speaking in such a manner that the sound seems to come from a distance or from a source other than the speaker. At the same time, the voice is disguised (partly by its ...
Ventris, Michael: English architect and cryptographer who in 1952 deciphered the Minoan Linear B script and showed it to be Greek in its oldest known form, dating from about 1400 to 1200 BC, roughly the period of the events narrated in the ...
Ventspils: city and port, western Latvia. It lies at the mouth of the Venta River on the Baltic Sea coast. A settlement existed there in the 2nd millennium BC, and by the 10th century AD it was inhabited by Wends (a ...
Ventura: city, seat (1873) of Ventura county, southern California, U.S. It lies on the Pacific coast overlooking the Santa Barbara Channel. It is the site of the San Buenaventura Mission, the ninth and last mission founded (1782) by Junipero Serra, which ...
Ventures, the: American musical group that gained fame with its instrumental interpretations of pop hits and that served as a prototype for guitar-based rock groups. The principal members were Don Wilson (b. Feb. 10, 1933, Tacoma, Wash., U.S., ), Bob Bogle (b. ...
venturi tube: short pipe with a constricted inner surface, used to measure fluid flows and as a pump. The 18th-19th-century Italian physicist Giovanni Battista Venturi, observing the effects of constricted channels on fluid flow, designed an instrument with a narrow throat in ...
Venturi, Robert: American architect, who proposed alternatives to the Functionalist mainstream of 20th-century American architectural design. He became the unofficial dean of the eclectic movement known as postmodernism.
venue: in law, locality in which a criminal offense or civil litigation is to be conducted. The concept of venue involves important issues of public policy in the adjudication of crimes.
Venus: second planet from the Sun and sixth in the solar system in size and mass. No planet approaches closer to Earth than Venus; at its nearest it is the closest large body to Earth other than the Moon. Because Venus's ...
Venus: ancient Italian goddess associated with cultivated fields and gardens and later identified by the Romans with the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite.
Venus and Adonis stanza: a stanza consisting of an iambic pentameter quatrain and couplet with the rhyme scheme ababcc. The stanza was so called because it was used by William Shakespeare in his poem Venus and Adonis (1593).
Venus comb: marine snail, a species of murex (q.v.).
Venus de Milo: ancient statue of Aphrodite, now in Paris at the Louvre Museum. Carved by a sculptor of Antioch on the Maeander River in about 150 BC, it was found on the Aegean island of Melos in 1820. The general composition derives ...
Venus's flower basket: any of several sponges of the genus Euplectella, especially E. aspergillum (class Hyalospongiae, glass sponges). The name Venus's flower basket derives from the sponges' delicate, white, latticelike skeletons. In the living animal the skeleton is covered by a thin layer ...
Venus's girdle: (Cestum veneris) ribbon-shaped comb jelly of the order Cestida (phylum Ctenophora) found in the Mediterranean Sea. Its graceful, transparent body, which is a delicate violet in colour, is 1 metre (about 40 inches) or more long and ...
Venus's looking glass: (Legousia, or Specularia, speculum-veneris), species of annual herb of the bellflower family (Campanulaceae), native to sandy, sunny parts of the Mediterranean region. It is grown as a garden ornamental for its blue, violet, or white, wide-open, bell-shaped flowers. The long ...
Venus's-flytrap: (species Dionaea muscipula), flowering perennial plant of the sundew family (Droseraceae), notable for its unusual habit of catching and digesting insects and other small animals. The only member of its genus, the plant is native to a small region of ...
Venus's-hairstone: variety of quartz interspersed with fine crystals of the mineral rutile (q.v.).
Venyukovia: genus of extinct mammallike reptiles (therapsids) that are found as fossils in Permian deposits in eastern Europe (the Permian Period began 286,000,000 years ago and lasted 41,000,000 years). Venyukovia was herbivorous, with primitive teeth; it is thought that Venyukovia may ...
Veracruz: city and port on the Gulf of Mexico, east-central Veracruz estado ("state"), east-central Mexico.
Veracruz: estado ("state"), east-central Mexico. Long and narrow, it stretches 430 miles (690 km) along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico and averages 55 miles (89 km) in width. Veracruz is bounded on the north by Tamaulipas state, east by ...
Veracruz incident: (April 21-Nov. 14, 1914), the occupation of Veracruz, the chief port on the east coast of Mexico, by military forces of the United States during the civil wars of the Mexican Revolution.
Veralden-radien: (Sami: "Ruler of the World"), the deity believed by the Sami (Lapps) to be closest to the starry heaven. Because the deity is associated with mailmen stytto, the pillar supporting the heavens, he is also responsible for the continued maintenance ...
veranda: in architecture, most frequently, an open-walled, roofed porch attached to the exterior of a domestic structure and usually surrounded by a railing. The word came into English through the Hindi varanda, but it is related to the Spanish baranda, meaning ...
Veratrum: genus of poisonous herbs of the lily family (Liliaceae). The genus includes about 15 to 45 perennial species, among them the American hellebore and the European hellebore (see hellebore) and the false hellebore (see skunk cabbage). They bear flowers that ...
Veraval: city, south-central Gujarat state, west-central India. Veraval lies on the Arabian Sea coast of the Kathiawar Peninsula and is part of the Patan urban agglomeration. Its port principally handles timber and agricultural products. Matches, textile bobbins, and bone fertilizer are ...
Verbania: commune, capital of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola provincia, Piemonte (Piedmont) regione, northern Italy. Verbania is a summer resort on Lake Maggiore (ancient Verbanus Lacus). Formed in 1939 by the union of the towns of Pallanza and Intra, it has botanical gardens, two 16th-century ...