Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Peri, Jacopo yäˈkōpō pĕˈrē [key], 1561–1633, Italian composer and singer. Dafne (c.1597), perhaps the first opera, was composed by both Peri and Jacopo Corsi. The librettist, Ottavio Rinuccin...

(Encyclopedia) Vatel, François fräNswäˈ vätĕlˈ [key], fl. 17th cent., French chef, famous in the time of Louis XIV. Mme Marie de Sévigné, in her letters, speaks of him as the chef of the prince of Condé an...

(Encyclopedia) Ferdinand, 1865–1927, king of Romania (1914–27), nephew of Carol I. The second son of the Prussian prince, Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, he was designated successor to the heirless Carol I ...

(Encyclopedia) Carol II, 1893–1953, king of Romania, son of King Ferdinand and Queen Marie. While crown prince, he contracted a morganatic marriage with Zizi Labrino but divorced her to marry (1921) Princess Helen...

(Encyclopedia) Josephine, 1763–1814, empress of the French (1804–9) as the consort of Napoleon I. Born Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de la Pagerie in Martinique, she was married in 1779 to Alexandre de Beauharnais...

(Encyclopedia) quietism, a heretical form of religious mysticism founded by Miguel de Molinos, a 17th-century Spanish priest. Molinism, or quietism, developed within the Roman Catholic Church in Spain and spread esp...

(Encyclopedia) Repplier, Agnes rĕpˈlēr [key], 1858–1950, American essayist, b. Philadelphia. Her essays, esteemed for their scholarship and wit, are collected in several volumes, including Books and Men (1888),...

(Encyclopedia) eau de Cologne ō də kəlōnˈ [key], dilute perfume [commonly called cologne in English] introduced c.1709 in Cologne, Germany, by Jean Marie Farina. It was probably a modification of a popular form...

(Encyclopedia) Canonsburg, borough (2020 pop. 8,672), Washington co., SW Pa., inc. 1802. Its steel and coal industries have declined significantly. A gram of radium pr...

(Encyclopedia) Horne, Marilyn, 1934–, American mezzo-soprano, b. Bradford, Pa. She established herself with her characterization of Marie in Alban Berg's Wozzeck at the San Francisco Opera in 1960. In 1970 she mad...