Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Didymus of Alexandria, d. c.396, Greek grammarian and theologian, also called Didymus the Blind. His treatise On the Holy Ghost was translated by St. Jerome, who studied briefly with him. Although Did...

(Encyclopedia) Agatha, Saint ăgˈəthə [key], 3d cent., Sicilian virgin, martyred under Roman Emperor Decius. She is mentioned in the Martyrology of Jerome and the Calendar of Carthage in the 6th cent. Agatha is i...

(Encyclopedia) Bonaparte bwōnäpärˈtā [key], family name of Napoleon I, emperor of the French. Of the second generation of the family the most important was Louis Bonaparte's son, Louis Napoleon, who became e...

(Encyclopedia) De profundis dā prōfo͞onˈdēs [key] [Lat.,=from the depths], the opening words of Psalm 130, one of the penitential Psalms, in Jerome's Latin version (see Vulgate); also used as a title for the Ps...

(Encyclopedia) Klenze, Leo von lāˈō fən klĕnˈtsə [key], 1784–1864, German architect and landscape and portrait painter. He was court architect to Jérôme Bonaparte of Westphalia and to Louis I of Bavaria, ...

(Encyclopedia) Stephenson, George, 1781–1848, British engineer, noted as a locomotive builder. He learned to read and write in night school at the age of 18, while working in a colliery. He constructed (1814) a tr...

(Encyclopedia) Müller, Johannes von yōhäˈnəs fən mülˈər [key], 1752–1809, Swiss historian. He spent much of his life in Germany, where he held political posts under the elector of Mainz, the king of Pruss...

(Encyclopedia) Lalemant, Charles shärl lälmäNˈ [key], 1587–1674, French Jesuit missionary in North America; brother of Jérôme Lalemant and uncle of Gabriel Lalemant. He arrived in Quebec in 1625 and acted as...

(Encyclopedia) Damasus I, Saint dămˈəsəs [key], c.305–384, pope (366–84), a Spaniard; successor of Liberius. His election was opposed by the Arian Ursinus (antipope 366–67). The Roman emperor Valentinian I...

(Encyclopedia) Scaliger, Julius Caesar, 1484–1558, Italian philologist and physician in France. Scaliger studied medicine and settled in France (1526), where he worked as a physician. A scholar of profound eruditi...