Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

118 results found

Donatus

(Encyclopedia)Donatus (Aelius Donatus) ēˈlēəs dōnätˈəs [key], fl. 4th cent. a.d., Roman grammarian; teacher of St. Jerome. His only well-known work, the Ars grammatica [elements of grammar], was throughout ...

Canfield, Richard Albert

(Encyclopedia)Canfield, Richard Albert, 1855–1914, American gambler, b. New Bedford, Mass. A well-known gambling operator in Providence, R.I., Canfield went in the 1880s to New York, where his gambling establishm...

Central Valley project

(Encyclopedia)Central Valley project, central Calif., long-term general scheme for the utilization of the water of the Sacramento River basin in the north for the benefit of the farmlands of the San Joaquin Valley ...

divine right

(Encyclopedia)divine right, doctrine that sovereigns derive their right to rule by virtue of their birth alone—a right based on the law of God and of nature. Authority is transmitted to a ruler from his ancestors...

Didymus of Alexandria

(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...

Agatha, Saint

(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...

Bonaparte

(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...

De profundis

(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...

Klenze, Leo von

(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, ...

Browse by Subject