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LEFT ISSIK-KUL 210 ITALIAN ARCHITECTURE later he was awarded the cross and a first-class medal. Later he resided at The Hague. Among his chief pictures may be named "The Sewing-School at Katwijk" (1881), "Silent Company" (1882), "Fine Weather" (1883), and "The Struggle for Life" (1883). He is also favorably known as an etcher by "Old Mary," "The Cradle," "The Mother," "The Fisherman," etc. He died in 1911. ISSIK-KUL (iz-ik-ul'), a lake in Central Asia, in the Russian province of Semiryetchensk, situated, at an elevation of 5,000 feet above sea level, between the Terskei Ala-tau range on the S. and the Kangei Ala-tau on the N. It meas- ures 112 miles long, 38 miles broad, and covers an area of 1,980 square miles. Its water is very salty, but full of fish. ISSUE, in law, the point of fact in dispute which is submitted to a jury. ISSUS (is'us), anciently, a seaport on a gulf of the same name in Cilicia, Asia Minor, celebrated for the victory which Alexander the Great obtained here over Darius (333 B. c), by which the camp and treasure and family of Darius fell into his hands. ISSY (is-e'), a village in the French department of Seine, half a mile S. W. from Paris. There ai'e manufactures of wax, cloth, chemicals, etc. Here on July 3, 1815, Bliicher defeated Davout. In 1870-1871, during the siege of Paris by the Germans, the fort of Issy suffered se- verely from the artillery fire. It now forms part of the S. W. defenses of Paris. Pop. about 20,000. ISTAR (is-tar'), the ancient Baby- lonian god of war and destruction. ISTER. See Danube. ISTHMIAN GAMES, athletic contests of ancient Greece, celebrated in April and May of the first and third years of each Olympiad. The contests included all varieties of athletic sports, as wres- tling, running, boxing, etc., and competi- tions in music and poetry. The victors were crowned with garlands of pine leaves, these being the only prize. ISTHMUS, in geography, a narrow neck of land joining two larger portions, as the Isthmus of Suez and the Isthmus of Panama. The name was often em- ployed by the ancients without any addi- tion to designate the Isthmus of Corinth, joining the Peloponnesus to continental Hellas. Here were celebrated the Isthmian games. ISTRIA (is'tre-a), an Austrian mar- graviate until 1918— now a part of Italy, forming a peninsula in the N. E. corner of the Adriatic Sea, between the Gulf of Trieste and the Gulf of Fiume or Quarnero. Though a mountainous land, often sv/ept by the sirocco and bora winds, it yields excellent olive oil and wine. Area, with the adjacent islands, 1,812 square miles; pop. about 400,000. Capital, Rovigno. After the collapse of Austria in the World War in 1918, Allied forces occupied Pola, the naval base on the peninsula. ISVOLSKY. ALEXANDER PETRO- VITCH, a Russian statesman; born in Moscow, 1856. Having finished his edu- cation, at the age of twenty-two, he at once entered the diplomatic service and was sent to Rome, with the result that a Russian legation was established in the Vatican. Was appointed ambassa- dor to Japan, in 1900, and to Denmark in 1902. Became Foreign Minister in 1906, and in 1910 went to France as ambassador, where he remained till after the Revolution of 1917, when he resigned. ITACOLUMITE, a schistose quartzite, containing scales of mica, talc, and chlorite, which are often so arranged as to give a certain flexibility to the rock (flexible sandstone). In Brazil and the S. E. States of North America itacolu- mite is the matrix in which diamonds are found. ITALIAN ARCHITECTURE, a style founded on the old Roman orders, and the charactei'istic features of the ancient buildings of Rome, which may be con- sidered to have been initiated in Italy by Brunelleschi and the Italian archi- tects of the day in the 15th century, and brought to perfection by Palladio and other architects of eminence in the 16th century, who flourished in the times of the Medici. In buildings designed both for public and private purposes it is chiefly characterized by the use of the Roman orders of architecture, rather as decorative than constructive features. These are mainly obtained by the use of pilasters placed along the facade of each story of a building at intservals, each row of pilasters being surmounted by an en- tablature running along the entire length of the edifice, like a string course. The windows and doors were decorated with pilasters or columns, rising from a mas- sive and projecting sill and surmounted by circular, pointed, or broken pediments, on which recumbent figures were fre- quently placed. The roof was partially hidden by a balustrade which crowned the edifice and rose above the attic story, and the pedestals of the balustrade gen- erally supported statues or sculptured