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De Sica, Vittorio

(Encyclopedia)De Sica, Vittorio vēt-tôrˈyō də sēˈkə [key], 1901–74, Italian film director and actor. His Shoeshine (1946), The Bicycle Thief (1948), and Umberto D. (1952) are classics of postwar Italian n...

Ny-Ålesund

(Encyclopedia)Ny-Ålesund nüˌ-ôˈləso͝on [key] [New Alesund], town, on Kongsfjorden, NW Spitsbergen island, Svalbard, Norway. Established as a coal-mining settlement, it is now a largely seasonal scientific re...

Agnelli

(Encyclopedia)Agnelli än-yĕlˈlē [key], family of Italian industrialists. Giovanni Agnelli, 1866–1945, served as a cavalry officer until 1892. One of the founders (1899) of Fiat (Fabbrica Italiana Automobili T...

Chénier, André

(Encyclopedia)Chénier, André äNdrāˈ shānyāˈ [key], 1762–94, French poet, by some critics considered the greatest in 18th-century France. He was born in Constantinople, where his father was consul general,...

Sverdrup, Otto

(Encyclopedia)Sverdrup, Otto svĕrˈdro͝op [key], 1855–1930, Norwegian arctic explorer. A companion of Fridtjof Nansen on the voyage across Greenland in 1888 and on Nansen's later (1893–96) polar expedition, ...

Ellsworth, Lincoln

(Encyclopedia)Ellsworth, Lincoln, 1880–1951, American explorer, b. Chicago, Ill. He was a surveyor and engineer in railroad building and later a prospector and mining engineer in NW Canada. He became the financia...

Amundsen, Roald

(Encyclopedia)Amundsen, Roald (Roald Engelbregt Grauning Amundsen) rōˈäl äˈmo͝onsən [key], 1872–1928, Norwegian polar explorer; the first person to reach the South Pole. He served (1897–99) as first mate...

Italian literature

(Encyclopedia)Italian literature, writings in the Italian language, as distinct from earlier works in Latin and French. In the second half of the 19th cent. Francesco De Sanctis, literary critic and historian, la...

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