Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 08.djvu/140

LEFT HOME 106 ROMULUS opened with thirteen students who had for some time been waiting in the Col- lege of the Propaganda for the event. The first ordination of an alumnus was in 1862, in the Church of St. John Lat- eran by Cardinal Patuzzi. During the Vatican Council the American prelates in Rome decided that the property of the college should remain in the hands of the Sacred Congregation of Propa- ganda. There are thirty-five purses or scholarships founded in the colleges. The number of students is about one hundred and forty. In 1884 the college was ex- empted from the effect of the Italian statutes of confiscation. ROME, UNIVERSITY OF, a govern- ment educational institution situated in Rome, Italy, and now known as the Royal University. In former times it was known as the Studium Urbis. The University of Rome was founded at the beginning of the 14th century by Pope Boniface VIII. During the political and social upheavals which accompanied the Great Schism and so violently affected the more temporal aspects of the Church of Rome, the University ceased for a time to exist. It was revived and re- organized under its former name by Eu- genius IV. in 1431. From then on it maintained its existence as a papal in- stitution until the year 1870, when in the political upheaval of that period, it was brought under the control of the Italian Government. The Royal Uni- versity has a registration of between four and five thousand students. Al- though handicapped, as other educational institutions have been by the recent World War, it has continued to carry on its activities in the several schools of engineering, pharmacy, agriculture, diplomacy, philosophy, science, medicine, and law. Its manuscript, pamphlet, and book collections, known as the Biblio- teca Alessandrina, have been credited with about 250,000 volumes. ROMNEY, GEORGE, an English pa., oorn in Reckside, Lancashire, Dec. 26, 1734. He was the son of a carpenter, and at first worked at his father's trade, but he afterward was apprenticed to an itinerant artist named Steele, and at the age of 23 began the career of a painter. After a certain amount of local success he went to Lon- don in 1762, and next year won a prize offered by the Society of Art for a his- torical composition. He steadily rose in popularity, and was finally recognized as inferior only to Reynolds and Gains- borough as a portrait painter; some critics even placed him higher than either. His residence in London was interrupted by occasional visits to the Continent for purposes of study, and his most prosperous period dates from 1775, after his return from a visit of 18 months to Rome. Many distinguished Englishmen and many ladies of rank sat to him for their portraits; but per- haps the most beautiful of his sitters was Emma Hart, afterward Lady Ham- ilton, whom he depicted in very numer- ous character. He did not neglect his* torical or imaginative compositions, and he contributed several pictures to Boyd- ell's famous Shakespeare gallery, found- ed in 1786. His health began to fail in 1797, and in 1799 he rejoined his wife (married in 1756), who throughout his whole London career had remained at Kendal. Romney displays a want of carefulness, and defective knowledge of anatomy in his historical compositions; but he atones for these faults by fine color, a subtle sense of beauty, and by his originality. Fine examples of his work command high prices. He died in Kendal, Nov. 15, 1802. ROMULUS, mythical founder and first King of Rome. According to the legends, he was the son of the vestal Rhea Sylvia by the god Mars, Sylvia being a daugh- ter of Numitor, rightful heir of the King of Alba, but deprived by his broth- er. Exposed with his twin brother Remus, the babes were suckled by a she wolf, and afterward brought up by a shepherd. Their parentage was discov- ered, and they determined to found a city on the banks of the Tiber, the scene of their exposure. The right to choose the site was acquired by Romulus; and Remus not acquiescing, in his disap- pointment, was slain. Inhabitants for the new city were found by establishing a refuge for murderers and fugitive slaves on the Capitoline hills, and by carrying off the Sabine maidens at a feast to which they were invited. This led to war with the Sabines, which ended, through the intervention of the Sabine women, in a union of Romans and Sabines, under their two kings, Romulus and Titus Tatius. The latter was soon slain, and Romulus reigned alone. He was regarded as the author of the fundamental division of the peo- ple into tribes, curiae, and gentes, and of the institution of the senate and the comitia curiata. The date commonly assigned for the foundation of Rome is 753 B. c. The tomb in which the body of Romu- lus is alleged to have been interred was discovered in January, 1899, in the Ro- man Forum, near the arch of Septimus Severus, along the Via Sacra. A large slab of black marble, measuring four square meters, was found, exactly cor-