The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 14

ALBA'NIA, a region in Balkan peninsula, on the Adriatic, extending from Servia to Greece.

ALBANO, LAKE OF, a small crater-like lake 15 m. SE. of Rome, near which rises the Castel Gandolfo, where the Pope has a villa.

ALBANY, the old Celtic name for the Scottish highlands.

ALBANY, a town in W. Australia, on King George Sound, 261 m. SE. of Perth, a port of call for Australian liners; also the capital (94) of the State of New York, on the Hudson River, a well-appointed city; seat of justice for the State, with a large trade and numerous manufactures.

ALBANY, COUNTESS OF, wife of English pretender, Prince Charles Stuart, a dissolute woman (1753-1824).

ALBANY, THE DUKE OF, a t.i.tle formerly given to a member of the royal family, and revived in the present reign.

ALBANY, d.u.c.h.eSS OF, daughter of Prince Waldeck Pyrmont and widow of Prince Leopold of England; _b_. 1861, widow since 1884.

ALBATEGNI, a distinguished Arabian astronomer, born in Mesopotamia in the 9th or 10th century of our era; his observations extended over 50 years; he so improved the methods and instruments of observation as to earn the t.i.tle of the Ptolemy of the Arabs.

ALBATROSS, the largest and strongest of sea-birds, that ranges over the southern seas, often seen far from land; it is a superst.i.tion among sailors that it is disastrous to shoot one.

ALBERO'NI, an Italian of humble birth, became a Cardinal of the Church and Prime Minister to Philip V. of Spain, wrought hard to restore Spain to its ancient grandeur, was defeated in his project by the quadruple alliance of England, France, Austria, and Holland, and obliged to retire (1664-1752).

ALBERT, archbishop of Mainz, a dignity granted him by Pope Leo X. at the ransom of 15,000, which he was unable to pay, and which, as the Pope needed it for building St. Peter's, he borrowed, the Pope granting him the power to sell indulgences in order to repay the loan, in which traffic Tetzel was his chief salesman, a trade which roused the wrath of Luther, and provoked the German Reformation (1450-1545).

ALBERT, the last Grandmaster of the Teutonic knights, who being "religious in an eminent degree and shaken in his belief" took zealously to Protestantism and came under the influence of Luther, who advised him to declare himself Duke of Prussia, under the wing of Sigismund of Poland, in defiance of the Teutonic order as no longer worthy of bed and board on the earth, and so doing, became founder of the Prussian State (1490-1568).

ALBERT, markgrave of Brandenburg, defined by Carlyle "a failure of a Fritz," with "features" of a Frederick the Great in him, "but who burnt away his splendid qualities as a mere temporary s.h.i.+ne for the able editors, and never came to anything, full of fire, too much of it wildfire, not in the least like an Alcibiades except in the change of fortune he underwent" (1522-1557).

ALBERT, PRINCE, second son of Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, born Aug. 26, 1819, an accomplished man with a handsome presence, who became the consort of Queen Victoria in 1840, and from his prudence and tact was held in the highest honour by the whole community, but died at Windsor of typhoid fever, Dec. 14, 1861, to the unspeakable sorrow of both Queen and country.

ALBERT, ST., bishop of Liege, was a.s.sa.s.sinated by the emissaries of the Emperor Henry VI. in 1195. Festival, Nov. 21.

ALBERT EDWARD. See WALES, PRINCE OF.

ALBERT I., emperor of Germany from 1298 to 1308, eldest son of Rudolf of Hapsburg, "a most clutching, strong-fisted, dreadfully hungry, tough, and unbeautiful man, whom his nephew at last had to a.s.sa.s.sinate, and did a.s.sa.s.sinate, as he crossed the river Reuss with him in a boat, May 1, 1308."

ALBERT II., a successor, "who got three crowns--Hungary, Bohemia, and the Imperial--in one year, and we hope a fourth," says the old historian, "which was a heavenly and eternal one," for he died the next year, 1439.

ALBERT III., elector of Brandenburg. See ACHILLES OF GERMANY.

ALBERT MEDAL, a medal of gold and of bronze, inst.i.tuted in 1866, awarded to civilians for acts of heroism by sea or land.

ALBERT THE BEAR, markgrave of Brandenburg, called the Bear, "not from his looks or qualities, for he was a tall handsome man, but from the cognisance on his s.h.i.+eld, an able man, had a quick eye as well as a strong hand, and could pick what way was straightest among crooked things, was the s.h.i.+ning figure and the great man of the North in his day, got much in the North and kept it, got Brandenburg for one there, a conspicuous country ever since," says Carlyle, "and which grows more so in our late times" (1100-1175).

ALBERT NYAN'ZA, a lake in Equatorial Africa, in the Nile basin, discovered by Sir Samuel Baker in 1864, 150 m. long by 40 broad, and 2500 feet above sea-level.

ALBER'TA (26), a fertile region with large forests in British America, on the E. slope of the Rocky Mountains, the south abounding in cattle ranches, and the mountainous districts in minerals.

ALBERTI, an ill.u.s.trious Florentine family, rivals of the Medicis and the Albrizzi.

ALBER'TUS MAGNUS, one of the greatest of the scholastic philosophers and theologians of the Middle Ages, teacher of Thomas Aquinas, supreme in knowledge of the arts and sciences of the time, and regarded by his contemporaries in consequence as a sorcerer (1190-1280).

ALBI, a town of some antiquity and note in S. of France, 22 m. NE.

of Toulouse.

ALBIGEN'SES, a religious sect, odious, as heretical, to the Church, which sprung up about Albi, in the S. of France, in the 12th century, against which Pope Innocent III. proclaimed a crusade, which was carried on by Simon de Montfort in the 13th century, and by the Inquisition afterwards, to their utter annihilation.

ALBINOS, persons or animals with preternaturally pale skin and fair hair, also with pupils of a red or pink colour, and eyes too weak to bear full light.

ALBINUS, an able professor of anatomy and therapeutics at Leyden (1696-1770).

ALBION, a white cliff, the ancient name of Great Britain.

ALBOIN, king of the Lombards in the 6th century, from 561 to 573; invaded Italy as far as the Tiber, and set up his capital in Pavia; incurred the resentment of his wife, who had him a.s.sa.s.sinated for forcing her to drink wine out of the skull of her father.

ALBORAK, a wonderful horse of Mahomet, an impersonation of the lightning as his steed.

ALBOR'NOZ, a Spanish statesman, archbishop of Toledo, a bold defender of the faith against the Moor and a plain-spoken man in the interest of Christianity (1310-1367).