Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Chaucer, Geoffrey jĕfˈrē chôˈsər [key], c.1340–1400, English poet, one of the most important figures in English literature. To Chaucer's final period, in which he achieved his fullest artist...

(Encyclopedia) Japanese architecture, structures created on the islands that constitute Japan. Evidence of prehistoric architecture in Japan has survived in the form of models of terra-cotta houses buried in tombs a...

(Encyclopedia) Roman art, works of art produced in ancient Rome and its far-flung provinces. The continued striving after three-dimensional illusionist effects revealed in the various phases of painting was dup...

(Encyclopedia) Lurgan lûrˈgən [key], town (1991 pop. 21,905), Co. Ulster, central Northern Ireland, near Lough Neagh. A textile center since the 17th cent., Lurgan is also a market hub with factories that produce...

(Encyclopedia) Acominatus, Michael kōnēāˈtēz [key], c.1140–1220, Byzantine writer and metropolitan of Athens. Acominatus' speeches, poems, and letters give much information about medieval Athens, which he, a ...

(Encyclopedia) Méhul, Étienne Nicolas ātyĕnˈ nēkôläˈ māülˈ [key], 1763–1817, French operatic composer of outstanding importance during the Revolutionary period. Méhul's masterpiece was the biblical op...

(Encyclopedia) Mosconi, Willie (William Joseph Mosconi) mŏskōˈnē [key], 1913–93, U.S. professional billiard player, b. Philadelphia. After a brief period as a child prodigy he did not take up the game again un...

(Encyclopedia) Decorated style, name applied to the second period of English Gothic architecture from the late 13th to the mid-14th cent. The basic structural elements developed during the Early English style (late ...

(Encyclopedia) Bosse, Abraham äbrä-ämˈ bôs [key], 1602–76, French engraver and painter. He studied art in Paris and became a teacher of perspective in the Académie royale. A prolific and skillful worker, he ...

(Encyclopedia) Bradley, James, 1693–1762, English astronomer. His discovery of the aberration of light, announced in 1728, provided an important line of evidence for the motion of the earth around the sun. In 1742...