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Italian Wars

(Encyclopedia)Italian Wars, 1494–1559, series of regional wars brought on by the efforts of the great European powers to control the small independent states of Italy. Renaissance Italy was split into numerous ri...

literature

(Encyclopedia)literature. For the literature of England, see English literature; for that of Germany, see German literature, and so forth. For the forms of literary art, see biography, essay, novel, theater, letter...

Medici, Italian family

(Encyclopedia)Medici mĕˈdĭchē, Ital. māˈdēchē [key], Italian family that directed the destinies of Florence from the 15th cent. until 1737. Of obscure origin, they rose to immense wealth as merchants and ba...

Spanish literature

(Encyclopedia)Spanish literature, the literature of Spain. The Spanish civil war (1936–39) truncated the cultural evolution of the country. Many writers went into exile. Salinas, Guillén, Juan Larrea, an...

Yugoslav literature

(Encyclopedia)Yugoslav or South Slav literature, literature written in Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian, and, especially after World War II, Macedonian languages. The Serbian and Croatian literary languages are similar an...

French literature

(Encyclopedia)French literature, writings in medieval French dialects and standard modern French. Writings in Provençal and Breton are considered separately, as are works in French produced abroad (as at Canadian ...

children's literature

(Encyclopedia)children's literature, writing whose primary audience is children. See also children's book illustration. The contributions and innovations of the 19th cent. continued into the 20th cent., achieving...

English literature

(Encyclopedia)English literature, literature written in English since c.1450 by the inhabitants of the British Isles; it was during the 15th cent. that the English language acquired much of its modern form. For the...

Italian East Africa

(Encyclopedia)Italian East Africa, former federation of the Italian colonies of Eritrea and Italian Somaliland and the kingdom of Ethiopia. The federation was formed (1936) to consolidate the administration of the ...

Da Ponte, Lorenzo

(Encyclopedia)Da Ponte, Lorenzo lōrĕntˈsō dä pônˈtā [key], 1749–1838, Italian librettist and teacher, b. Ceneda as Emmanuele Conegliano. Born Jewish, he converted to Catholicism at 14, became (1773) a pri...