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Graf, Urs

(Encyclopedia)Graf or Graff, Urs o͝ors [key], c.1485–1528, Swiss wood engraver, etcher, painter, and goldsmith, studied at Basel. He was influenced by the work of Dürer and Hans Baldung. One of the first to emp...

Pontano, Giovanni

(Encyclopedia)Pontano, Giovanni jōvänˈnē pōntäˈnō [key], 1426–1503, Italian poet, historian, and statesman, who used also the Latin form Jovianus Pontanus. He was protected by Alfonso of Aragón, who made...

Patiño, Simón Ituri

(Encyclopedia)Patiño, Simón Ituri sēmōnˈ ēto͞oˈrē pätēˈnyō [key], 1868–1947, Bolivian capitalist. He owned rich tin mines in Bolivia and invested his enormous fortune, thought to have been among the ...

Hestia

(Encyclopedia)Hestia hĕsˈtēə [key], in Greek religion and mythology, goddess of the hearth; daughter of Kronos and Rhea. Both public and private worship of Hestia were widespread; she represented personal and c...

Dunstable, John

(Encyclopedia)Dunstable, John dŭnˈstəbəl [key], c.1385–1453, English composer. Dunstable is thought to have accompanied his patron, the duke of Bedford, to France. About 60 of his works—nearly all sacred pi...

Six Dynasties

(Encyclopedia)Six Dynasties, period of Chinese history between the fall of the Han dynasty (a.d. 220) and the unification of China under the Sui dynasty (a.d. 589). It is named for the six successive dynasties that...

bundling

(Encyclopedia)bundling, courtship custom, thought to have originated in Holland and the British Isles. It was extended to America, particularly to New England, and most widely practiced in the years prior to the Re...

Blanchard, Jean Pierre

(Encyclopedia)Blanchard, Jean Pierre fräNswäˈ [key], 1753–1809, French balloonist. In 1785 he made with Dr. John Jeffries of Boston, Mass., the first crossing by air of the English Channel. His ascents at Phil...

Bloch, Ernst

(Encyclopedia)Bloch, Ernst, 1885–1977, German Marxist philosopher. He taught at the Univ. of Leipzig (1918–33), drifting toward Marxist thought during the 1920s. He fled the Nazis after 1933, moving first to Sw...

existentialism

(Encyclopedia)existentialism ĕgzĭstĕnˈshəlĭzəm, ĕksĭ– [key], any of several philosophic systems, all centered on the individual and his relationship to the universe or to God. Important existentialists o...