Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) interior decoration, adornment of the interior of a building, public or domestic, comprising interior architecture, finishing, and furnishings. Asian and classical cultures used the decorative arts to...

(Encyclopedia) Raphael Santi or Raphael Sanzio, Ital. Raffaello Santi or Raffaello Sanzio räfˌfäĕlˈlō sänˈtē, sänˈtsyō [key], 1483–1520, major Italian Renaissance painter, b. Urbino. In Raphael's work ...

(Encyclopedia) Middle Ages, period in Western European history that followed the disintegration of the West Roman Empire in the 4th and 5th cent. and lasted into the 15th cent., i.e., into the period of the Renaissa...

(Encyclopedia) La Harpe, Jean François de lä ärp [key], 1739–1803, French critic. He was the author of the monumental Cours de littérature ancienne et moderne, lectures he delivered after his appointment (178...

(Encyclopedia) Menzel Bourguiba mănzĭlˈ äbo͞oˈ ro͞oˌkībäˈ [key], formerly Ferryville, town (1994 pop. 47,521), N Tunisia, on Lake Bizerte. It was founded as a naval installation during the period of Frenc...

(Encyclopedia) Le Gallienne, Richard, 1866–1947, English man of letters. As literary critic and contributor to the Yellow Book, he was associated with the fin-de-siècle aesthetes of the 1890s before becoming a re...

(Encyclopedia) Italian East Africa, former federation of the Italian colonies of Eritrea and Italian Somaliland and the kingdom of Ethiopia. The federation was formed (1936) to consolidate the administration of the ...

(Encyclopedia) Olympiad, unit of a chronological era of ancient Greece, a four-year period, each one beginning with the Olympic games. Timaeus (c.356–c.260 b.c.) of Sicily was the first to use, as a check on chron...

(Encyclopedia) Osborne, Dorothy ŏzˈbərn [key], later Lady Temple, 1627–95, English letter writer. The daughter of a royalist, she became engaged to Sir William Temple against the wishes of her family. Her lette...

(Encyclopedia) Shimazaki Toson shēˈmäˈzäˈkē tōˈsōn [key], 1872–1943, Japanese poet and novelist. A pioneer in the establishment of a new Japanese verse form, Toson later turned his talents to prose ficti...