The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 46

AUVERGNE', an ancient province of France, united to the crown under Louis XIII. in 1610, embracing the deps. of Puy-de-Dome, Cantal, and part of Haute-Loire, the highlands of which separate the basin of the Loire from that of the Garonne, and contain a hardy and industrious race of people descended from the original inhabitants of Gaul; they speak a strange dialect, and supply all the water-carriers and street-sweepers of Paris.

AUXERRE' (15), an ancient city, capital of the dep. of Yonne, 90 m.

SE. of Paris; has a fine cathedral in the Flamboyant style; drives a large trade in wine.

AVA, capital of the Burmese empire from 1364 to 1740 and from 1822 to 1835; now in ruins from an earthquake in 1839.

AV'ALON, in the Celtic mythology an island of faerie in the region where the sun sinks to rest at eventide, and the final home of the heroes of chivalry when their day's work was ended on earth.

AVARS, a tribe of Huns who, driven from their home in the Altai Mts.

by the Chinese, invaded the E. of Europe about 553, and committed ravages in it for about three centuries, till they were subdued by Charlemagne, and all but exterminated in 827.

AVATAR', or Descent, the incarnation and incarnated manifestation of a Hindu deity, a theory both characteristic of Vishnuism and marking a new epoch in the religious development of India.

AVE MARIA, an invocation to the Virgin, so called as forming the first two words of the salutation of the angel in Luke i. 28.

AVEBURY, or ABERY, a village in Wilts.h.i.+re, 6 m. W. of Marlborough, in the middle of a so-called Druidical structure consisting of 100 monoliths, surmised to have been erected and arranged in memory of some great victory.

AVELLI'NO (26), chief town in a province of the name in Campania, 59 m. E. of Naples, famous for its trade in hazel-nuts and chestnuts; manufactures woollens, paper, macaroni, &c.; has been subject to earthquakes.

AVENTINE HILL, one of the seven hills of Rome, the mount to which the plebs sullenly retired on their refusal to submit to the patrician oligarchy, and from which they were enticed back by Menenius Agrippa by the well-known fable of the members of the body and the stomach.

AVENTI'NUS, a Bavarian historian, author of the "Chronicon Bavariae"

(Annals of Bavaria), a valuable record of the early history of Germany (1477-1534).

AVENZO'AR, an Arabian physician, the teacher of Averroes (1073-1103).

AVERNUS, a deep lake in Italy, near Naples, 1 m. in circ.u.mference, occupying the crater of an extinct volcano, at one time surrounded by a dark wood, and conceived, from its gloomy appearance, as well as from the mephitic vapours it exhaled, to be the entrance to the infernal world, and identified with it.

AVER'ROeS, an Arabian physician and philosopher, a Moor by birth and a native of Cordova; devoted himself to the study and the exposition of Aristotle, earning for himself the t.i.tle of the "Commentator," though he appears to have coupled with the philosophy of Aristotle the Oriental pantheistic doctrine of emanations (1126-1198).

AVERSA (24), an Italian town 8 m. from Naples, amid vineyards and orange groves; much resorted to by the Neapolitans.

AVEYRON', a mountainous dep. in the S. of France, with excellent pastures, where the Roquefort cheese is produced.

AVICEN'NA, an ill.u.s.trious Arabian physician, surnamed the prince of physicians, a man of immense learning and extensive practice in his art; of authority in philosophy as well as in medicine, his philosophy being of the school of Aristotle with a mixture of Neoplatonism, his "Canon of Medicine," being the supreme in medical science for centuries (980-1037).

AVIE'NUS, RUFUS FESTUS, a geographer and Latin poet, or versifier rather, of the 4th century.

AVIGN'ON (37), capital of the dep. of Vaucluse, France; an ancient city beautifully situated on the left bank of the Rhone, near the confluence of the Durance, of various fortune from its foundation by the Phocaeans in 539 B.C.; was the seat of the Papacy from 1305 to 1377, purchased by Pope Clement VI. at that period, and belonged to the Papacy from that time till 1797, when it was appropriated to France; it contains a number of interesting buildings, and carries on a large trade in wine, oil, and fruits; grows and manufactures silk in large quant.i.ties.

A'VILA (10), a town in Spain, in a province of the name, in S. of Old Castile, 3000 ft. above the sea-level, with a Gothic cathedral and a Moorish castle; birthplace of St. Theresa.

AVILA, JUAN D', a Spanish priest, surnamed the Apostle of Andalusia, for his zeal in planting the Gospel in its mountains; _d_. 1569.

AVILA Y ZINUGA, a soldier, diplomatist, and historian under Charles V.

AVLO'NA (6), or VALONA, a port of Albania, on an inlet of the Adriatic.

AV'OLA (12), a seaport on the E. coast of Sicily, ruined by an earthquake in 1693, rebuilt since; place of export of the Hybla honey.

A'VON, the name of several English rivers, such as Shakespeare's in Warwicks.h.i.+re, of Salisbury in Wilts.h.i.+re, and of Bristol, rising in Wilts.h.i.+re.

AVRANCHES' (7), a town in dep. of Manche, Normandy; the place, the spot marked by a stone, where Henry II. received absolution for the murder of Thomas a Becket; lace-making the staple industry, and trade in agricultural products.

AWE, LOCH, in the centre of Argylls.h.i.+re, overshadowed by mountains, 25 m. in length, the second in size of Scottish lakes, studded with islands, one with the ruin of a castle; the scenery gloomily picturesque; its surface is 100 ft. above the sea-level.

AXEL, archbishop of Lund; born in Zealand; a Danish patriot with Norse blood; subdued tribes of Wends, and compelled them to adopt Christianity.

AXHOLME, ISLE OF, a tract of land in NW. Lincolns.h.i.+re, 17 m. long and 5 m. broad; once a forest, then a marsh; drained in 1632, and now fertile, producing hemp, flax, rape, &c.

AXIM, a trading settlement on the Gold Coast, Africa, belonging to Britain; belonged to Holland till 1871.

AX'OLOTL, a batrachian, numerous in Mexico and the Western States, believed to be in its preliminary or tadpole state of existence.

AX'UM, capital of an Ethiopian kingdom in Abyssinia, now in ruins, where Christianity was introduced in the 4th century, and which as the outpost of Christendom fell early before the Mohammedan power.