Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Masaccio mäzätˈchō [key], 1401–1428?, Italian painter. He is the foremost Italian painter of the Florentine Renaissance in the early 15th cent. Masaccio's original name was Tommaso Guidi. He was...

(Encyclopedia) Bellingshausen Sea, part of the S Pacific Ocean, W Antarctica, SW of Cape Horn between the Antarctic Peninsula and Amundsen Sea. The sea is named after Russian explorer Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshau...

(Encyclopedia) Bernini, Giovanni Lorenzo or Gianlorenzo jōvänˈnē lōrĕnˈtsō, jänlōrĕnˈtsō bĕrnēˈnē [key], 1598–1680, Italian sculptor and architect, b. Naples. He was the dominant figure of the Ita...

(Encyclopedia) Mikszáth, Kálmán kälˈmän mĭkˈsät [key], 1849–1910, Hungarian writer. He wrote witty novels and tales satirizing the decaying gentry and petty civil servants of Hungary before 1914. These in...

(Encyclopedia) Jonas jōˈnəs [key], Greek form of Hebrew Jonah. St. Peter's father is called Jonas and Jona (KJV) and John (RSV). ...

(Encyclopedia) Transfiguration, in the New Testament, manifestation wherein Jesus appeared “shining” before Peter, James, and John. The traditional explanation is that in it Jesus' divine glory shone in his eart...

(Encyclopedia) Shklovsky, Iosif Samuilovich yôsˈĭf səmo͞oēlˈəvĭch shklŏfˈskē [key], 1916–85, Soviet astronomer. He was head of the department of radio-astronomy at the Sternberg Astronomical Institute,...

(Encyclopedia) Chern, Shiing-Shen, 1911–2004, Chinese-American mathematician, b. Kashing (now Jiaxing), China, D.Sc. Hamburg, 1936. While undertaking graduate studies in China (1932–34), Chern developed what bec...

(Encyclopedia) Arthur I, 1187–1203?, duke of Brittany (1196–1203?), son of Geoffrey, fourth son of Henry II of England and Constance, heiress of Brittany. Arthur, a posthumous child, was proclaimed duke in 1196,...

(Encyclopedia) Peterhof or Petergof pyĕˌtrədvəryĕtsˈ [key], town, NW European Russia, on Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland. Administratively part of Saint Petersburg, Peterhof is a port, a rail terminus, and a r...