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Rh of Mainz till 1802, when it was incorporated with Hesse. From 1807 to 1814 it belonged to the kingdom of Westphalia; and in 1866 passed with Hesse Cassel to Prussia.

FRIULI (in the local dialect, Furlanei), a district at the head of the Adriatic Sea, at present divided between Italy and Austria, the Italian portion being included in the province of Udine and the district of Portogruaro, and the Austrian comprising the province of Görz and Gradiska, and the so-called Idrian district. In the north and east Friuli includes portions of the Julian and Carnic Alps, while the south is an alluvial plain richly watered by the Isonzo, the Tagliamento, and many lesser streams which, although of small volume during the dry season, come down in enormous floods after rain or thaw. The inhabitants, known as Furlanians, are mainly Italians, but they speak a dialect of their own which contains Celtic elements. The area of the country is about 3300 sq. m.; it contains about 700,000 inhabitants.

Friuli derives its name from the Roman town of Forum Julii, or Forojulium, the modern Cividale, which is said by Paulus Diaconus to have been founded by Julius Caesar. In the 2nd century the district was subjugated by the Romans, and became part of Gallia Transpadana. During the Roman period, besides Forum Julii, its principal towns were Concordia, Aquileia and Vedinium. On the conquest of the country by the Lombards during the 6th century it was made one of their thirty-six duchies, the capital being Forum Julii or, as they called it, Civitas Austriae. It is needless to repeat the list of dukes of the Lombard line, from Gisulf (d. 611) to Hrothgaud, who fell a victim to his opposition to Charlemagne about 776; their names and exploits may be read in the Historia Langobardorum of Paulus Diaconus, and they were mainly occupied in struggles with the Avars and other barbarian peoples, and in resisting the pretensions of the Lombard kings. The discovery, however, of Gisulf’s grave at Cividale, in 1874, is an interesting proof of the historian’s authenticity. Charlemagne filled Hrothgaud’s place with one of his own followers, and the frontier position of Friuli gave the new line of counts, dukes or margraves (for they are variously designated) the opportunity of acquiring importance by exploits against the Bulgarians, Slovenians and other hostile peoples to the east. After the death of Charlemagne Friuli shared in general in the fortunes of northern Italy. In the 11th century the ducal rights over the greater part of Friuli were bestowed by the emperor Henry IV. on the patriarch of Aquileia; but towards the close of the 14th century the nobles called in the assistance of Venice, which, after defeating the archbishop, afforded a new illustration of Aesop’s well-known fable, by securing possession of the country for itself. The eastern part of Friuli was held by the counts of Görz till 1500, when on the failure of their line it was appropriated by the German king, Maximilian I., and remained in the possession of the house of Austria until the Napoleonic wars. By the peace of Campo Formio in 1797 the Venetian district also came to Austria, and on the formation of the Napoleonic kingdom of Italy in 1805 the department of Passariano was made to include the whole of Venetian and part of Austrian Friuli, and in 1809 the rest was added to the Illyrian provinces. The title of duke of Friuli was borne by Marshal Duroc. In 1815 the whole country was recovered by the emperor of Austria, who himself assumed the ducal title and coat of arms; and it was not till 1866 that the Venetian portion was again ceded to Italy by the peace of Prague. The capital of the country is Udine, and its arms are a crowned eagle on a field azure.

See Manzano, Annali del Friuli (Udine, 1858–1879); and Compendio di storia friulana (Udine, 1876); Antonini, Il Friuli orientale (Milan, 1865); von Zahn, Friaulische Studien (Vienna, 1878); Pirona, Vocabolario friulino (Venice, 1869); and L. Fracassetti, La Statistica etnografica del Friuli (Udine, 1903).

FROBEN [], JOANNES (c. 1460–1527), German printer and scholar, was born at Hammelburg in Bavaria about the year 1460. After completing his university career at Basel, where he made the acquaintance of the famous printer Johannes Auerbach (1443–1513), he established a printing house in that city about 1491, and this soon attained a European reputation for accuracy and for taste. In 1500 he married the daughter of the bookseller Wolfgang Lachner, who entered into partnership with him. He was on terms of friendship with (q.v.), who not only had his own works printed by him, but superintended Frobenius’s editions of St Jerome, St Cyprian, Tertullian, Hilary of Poitiers and St Ambrose. His Neues Testament in Greek (1516) was used by Luther for his translation. Frobenius employed Hans Holbein to illuminate his texts. It was part of his plan to print editions of the Greek Fathers. He did not, however, live to carry out this project, but it was very creditably executed by his son Jerome and his son-in-law Nikolaus Episcopius. Frobenius died in October 1527. His work in Basel made that city in the 16th century the leading centre of the German book trade. An extant letter of Erasmus, written in the year of Frobenius’s death, gives an epitome of his life and an estimate of his character; and in it Erasmus mentions that his grief for the death of his friend was far more poignant than that which he had felt for the loss of his own brother, adding that “all the apostles of science ought to wear mourning.” The epistle concludes with an epitaph in Greek and Latin.

 FROBISHER, SIR MARTIN (c. 1535–1594), English navigator and explorer, fourth child of Bernard Frobisher of Altofts in the parish of Normanton, Yorkshire, was born some time between 1530 and 1540. The family came originally from North Wales. At an early age he was sent to a school in London and placed under the care of a kinsman, Sir John York, who in 1544 placed him on board a ship belonging to a small fleet of merchantmen sailing to Guinea. By 1565 he is referred to as Captain Martin Frobisher, and in 1571–1572 as being in the public service at sea off the coast of Ireland. He married in 1559. As early as 1560 or 1561 Frobisher had formed a resolution to undertake a voyage in search of a North-West Passage to Cathay and India. The discovery of such a route was the motive of most of the Arctic voyages undertaken at that period and for long after, but Frobisher’s special merit was in being the first to give to this enterprise a national character. For fifteen years he solicited in vain the necessary means to carry his project into execution, but in 1576, mainly by help of the earl of Warwick, he was put in command of an expedition consisting of two tiny barks, the “Gabriel” and “Michael,” of about 20 to 25 tons each, and a pinnace of 10 tons, with an aggregate crew of 35.

He weighed anchor at Blackwall, and, after having received a good word from Queen Elizabeth at Greenwich, set sail on the 7th of June, by way of the Shetland Islands. Stormy weather was encountered in which the pinnace was lost, and some time afterwards the “Michael” deserted; but stoutly continuing the voyage alone, on the 28th of July the “Gabriel” sighted the coast of Labrador in lat. 62° 2′ N. Some days later the mouth of Frobisher Bay was reached, and a farther advance northwards being prevented by ice and contrary winds, Frobisher determined to sail westward up this passage (which he conceived to be a strait) to see “whether he mighte carrie himself through the same into some open sea on the backe syde.” Butcher’s Island was reached on the 18th of August, and some natives being met with here, intercourse was carried on with them for some days, the result being that five of Frobisher’s men were decoyed and captured, and never more seen. After vainly trying to get back his men, Frobisher turned homewards, and reached London on the 9th of October.

Among the things which had been hastily brought away by the men was some “black earth,” and just as it seemed as if nothing more was to come of this expedition, it was noised abroad that the apparently valueless “black earth” was really a lump of gold ore. It is difficult to say how this rumour arose, and whether there was any truth in it, or whether Frobisher was a party to a deception, in order to obtain means to carry out the great idea of his life. The story, at any rate, was so far successful; the greatest enthusiasm was manifested by the court and the commercial and speculating world of the time; and next year a much more important expedition than the former was fitted out, the queen