Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Viète, François

(Encyclopedia)Viète or Vieta, François fräNswäˈ vyĕt, vyātäˈ, vīēˈtə [key], 1540–1603, French mathematician. As a founder of modern algebra, he introduced the use of letters as algebraic symbols and ...

Rude, François

(Encyclopedia)Rude, François fräNswäˈ rüd [key], 1784–1855, French sculptor. As a Bonapartist, he left Paris after the battle of Waterloo and spent 12 years in Brussels. Rude is best known for his monumental...

Duquesnoy, François

(Encyclopedia)Duquesnoy, François fräNswäˈ dükĕnwäˈ [key], 1594–1643, Flemish sculptor. In 1618 he went to Rome, where he remained most of his life, eventually becoming one of the most sought after sculpt...

Boucher, François

(Encyclopedia)Boucher, François fräNswäˈ bo͞oshāˈ [key], 1703–70, French painter. Boucher's art embodied the spirit of his time; it was elegant, frivolous, and artificial. He studied briefly with François...

Lefort, François

(Encyclopedia)Lefort, François fräNswäˈ ləfôrˈ [key], 1656–99, Swiss soldier of fortune in Russian service, b. Geneva. He was one of the early boon companions of Peter I (Peter the Great) and remained Pete...

Coppée, François

(Encyclopedia)Coppée, François fräNswäˈ kôpāˈ [key], 1842–1908, French poet and dramatist. He won fame with the one-act comedy Le Passant (1869, tr. 1881), in which Sarah Bernhardt made her first successf...

Hotman, François

(Encyclopedia)Hotman, François fräNswäˈ ôtmäN [key], 1524–90, French jurist. Converted (1547) to Protestantism and implicated (1560) in the conspiracy of Amboise (see Amboise, conspiracy of), he spent large...

Marie, Alexandre Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Marie, Alexandre Thomas älĕksäNˈdrə tômäˈ märēˈ [key], 1795–1870, French minister of public works. He served in the revolutionary provisional government of 1848 and in the executive commi...

Medici, Marie de'

(Encyclopedia)Medici, Marie de': see Marie de' Medici. ...

Savary, Anne Jean Marie René

(Encyclopedia)Savary, Anne Jean Marie René än zhäN märēˈ rənāˈ sävärēˈ [key], 1774–1833, French general in the Napoleonic Wars. He presided (1804) at the trial of the duc d'Enghien and was created (1...