Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Stamma, Philip

(Encyclopedia)Stamma, Philip or Philipp, c.1705–55, Syrian-born chess pioneer. He lived in France and Italy before settling in England c.1737. There he attained a reputation as a fine chess player, popularized th...

Samain, Albert

(Encyclopedia)Samain, Albert älbĕrˈ sämăNˈ [key], 1858–1900, French poet. He was a founder (1890) of the literary periodical Mercure de France. His first collection of verse, Au jardin de l'infante (1893, r...

Richier, Ligier

(Encyclopedia)Richier, Ligier rēshyāˈ [key], c.1500–c.1567, French sculptor. Most of his work is in the churches of his native Lorraine. The most famous is The Entombment, consisting of 13 life-size figures i...

Niemeyer Soares, Oscar

(Encyclopedia)Niemeyer Soares, Oscar o͝oskärˈ nēˈmīər so͝oäˈrəs [key], 1907–2012, Brazil's foremost 20th-century architect, b. Rio de Janeiro. Influenced by Le Corbusier, Niemeyer developed an architec...

Neptune, in astronomy

(Encyclopedia)Neptune, in astronomy, 8th planet from the sun at a mean distance of about 2.8 billion mi (4.5 billion km) with an orbit lying between those of Uranus and the dwarf planet Pluto; its period of revolut...

Galiani, Ferdinando

(Encyclopedia)Galiani, Ferdinando fārdēnänˈdō gälyäˈnē [key], 1728–87, Italian economist, educated for the church. As a very young man he wrote Della moneta [on money] (1750), which attacked the mercanti...

Briggs, Le Baron Russell

(Encyclopedia)Briggs, Le Baron Russell, 1855–1934, American educator, b. Salem, Mass., grad. Harvard (B.A., 1875; M.A., 1882). As a teacher at Harvard he developed, with Barrett Wendell, a prescribed and widely i...

Bloy, Léon

(Encyclopedia)Bloy, Léon lāôNˈ blwä [key], 1846–1917, French writer. A Roman Catholic and a social reformer, Bloy wrote violent and vituperative attacks on religious conformism and bitter portraits of his li...

Bayard, Pierre Terrail, seigneur de

(Encyclopedia)Bayard, Pierre Terrail, seigneur de bāˈərd; pyĕr tĕrīˈyə sānyörˈ də bäyärˈ [key], c.1474–1524, French military hero, called le chevalier sans peur et sans reproche [the knight without...

Ademar

(Encyclopedia)Ademar or Adhémar both: ădˈəmär [key], d. 1098, French prelate, bishop of Le Puy-en-Velay. At the Council of Clermont (1095), he energetically promoted the First Crusade (see Crusades) and was de...
 

Browse by Subject