Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/855

 LANCE

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LANCE

overo saggio di alcunc inventioni". In this book Lana describes a series of useful discoveries — for ex- ample, methods of cipher- writing and of writing for the blind; an apparatus for speaking at a long dis- tance; also telescopes, microscopes, a sowing machine, etc. Two chapters treat of aeronautics — chapter v, " How to construct birds which will fly through the air", and chapter vi, "Demonstration of the feasi- bility of constructing a ship with rudder and sails, which will sail through the air". Here Lana dis- tinguishes explicitly between the "heavier than air" and the "lighter than air". Although the various in- genious methods of constructing birds given in chap- ter V are very interesting, chapter vi is much more im- portant. In this he devises a strictly scientific plan for the making of an airship: he begins by discuss- ing the precedent conditions, then develops the plan, and finally solves the objections which might be ad- vanced. According to his plan four large globes are to be made of very thin sheet metal of such diameter that the weight of the air contained therein will be greater than that of the sheet metal of which the globes are made. When the air is exhausted from the globes liy means of a simple process explained by Lana, they will float through the air, and moreover carry a car for passengers. In the second volume of his great work (pp. 291-4), Lana again explains his plan, in which he says he has made some improvements. He also mentions that perhaps wood or glass might be substituted for the envelope of the globes. Lana's plan aroused much interest and discussion. Though the Italian Borelli considered it impracticable, German savants, such as Leibniz and Professors Sturm and Lohmcier, spoke well of it. At all events, Lana's in- fluence on his successors was suggestive and encourag- ing; although his plan was never carried into execution, the principles so clearly set forth by him form the basis of modern aeronautics, and his importance is becoming ever more clearly recognized in our times. In ad- dition to the works already mentioned, Lana also wrote a drama, "La Rappresantazione di San Val- entino ", and an ascetical treatise, " La beltii svelata ". Bioo. univcrscUr. XXIII (Paris. 1S19), .311-4; Nouvelle Biog Gmcrah; s. v.; Wilhelm. An der Witge der Luftschtffahrl, I (Hamm, Westphalia, 1909); Idem, Die Anfrnge der Luftschi/- fahrt (Hamm, 1909).

B. WiLHELM.

Lance, The Holy. — We read in the Gospel of St. John (xix, 34), that, after our Saviour's death, " one of the soldiers with a spear [latwea] opened his side and immediately there came out blood and water". Of the weapon thus sanctified nothing is known until the pilgrim St. .\ntoninus of Piacenza (.\. D. 570), descril> inK the holy places of Jerusalem, tells us that he saw in the liasi'hca of Mount Sion "the crown of thorns with which Our Lord was cro-mied and the lance with which He was struck in the side". The mention of the lance at the church of the Holy Sepulchre in the so- called " Breviarius",as M.de Melypoints out (Exuvia-, III, .'52), is not to be relied on. On the other hand, m a miniature of the famous S>Tiac manuscript of the Laurentian Librarv at Florence, illuminatetl by one Rabulas in the year 586, the incident of the opening of Christ's side is given a prominence which is highly significant. Moreover, the name Longinus — if, in- deed, this is not a later addition — is written in Greek characters (AOriNOC) above the head of the soldier who is thrusting his lance into our Saviour's side. This seems to show that the legend which assigns this name to the soldier (who, according to the same tradi- tion, was healed of ophthalmia and converted by a drop of the precious blood spurting from the woumi) is as old .as the sixth century. -\nd further it is tempt- ing, even if rash, to conjecture that the n-ame AA771TOS, or Myxfoi is in some way connected with the lance (X67X'!). Be this as it may, a spear believed to be identical with that which pierced our Saviour's body

was venerated at Jerusalem at the close of the sixth century, and the presence there of this important relic is attested half a century earher by Cassiodorus (In Ps. Ixxxvi, P. L., LXX, 621) and after him bv Gregory of Tours (P. L., LXXI, 712). In 615 .lerusalem was captured by a lieutenant of the Persian King Chos- roes. The sacred relics of the Passion fell into the hands of the pagans, and, according to the " Chronicon Pa.schale", the point of the lance, which had been broken off, was given in the same year to Nicetas, who took it to Constantinople and deposited it in the church of St. Sophia. This point of the lance, which was now set in an "ycona", or icon, many centuries afterwards (i. e., in 1241) was presented by Baldwin to St. Louis, and it was enshrined with the Crown of Thorns (q. v.)

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.Miniature of the Crucifixion Showing the Holy Lance From the Rabulas .MS. (a.d. 586), Laurentian Library, Florence in the Sainte Chapelle. During the French Revolu- tion these rehcs were removed to the Bibliotheque Nationale, and, although the Crown has l)een happily preserved to us, the other has now disappeared.

As for the second and larger portion of the lance, Arculpus, about 670, saw it at Jerusalem, where it must have been restored by Heraclius. lint it was then venerated at the church of the Holy Sepulchre. .Vfter this date we practically hear no more of it from pil- grims to the Holy Land. In particular, St .Willibald, who came to Jerusalem in 715, does not mention it. There is consequently some reason to believe that the larger relic as well as the point had been conveyed to Constantinople before the tenth century, possibly at the same time as the Crown of Thorns. At any rate its presence at Constantinople seems to be clearly at- tested by various pilgrims, particularly Rus.sians, and, though it was deposited in various churches in suc- cession, it seems possible to trace it and distinguish it from the companion rehc of the point. Sir John Mandeville, whose credit as a witne.'ss has of late years been in part rehabilitated, declared, in 1.357, that he had seen the blade of the Holy Lance both at Paris and at Constantinople, and that the latter was a much larger relic than the former. Whatever the Constantinople relic was, it fell into the hands of the Turks, and in 1492, under circumstances minutely de- scribed in Pastor's " History of the Popes ", the Sultan Bajazet sent it to Innocent VIII to conciliate his