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 municipium with its own institutions and the use of the Oscan language. It became a Roman colony under Augustus, who died at Nola. Sacked by Genseric in 455, and by the Saracens in 806 and 904, captured by Manfred in the 13th century, and damaged by earthquakes in the 15th and 16th, Nola lost much of its importance. The revolution of 1820 under General. Pepe began at Nola. The sculptor Giovanni Marliano was a native of the city; and some of his works are preserved in the cathedral.

Nola lay on the Via Popillia from Capua to Nuceria and the south, and a branch road ran from it to Abella and Abellinum. Mommsen (Corp. inscr. Lat. x. 142) further states that roads must have run direct from Nola to Neapolis and Pompeii, but Kiepert’s map annexed to the volume does not indicate them. In the days of its independence it issued an important series of coins, and in luxury it vied with Capua. Its territory was very fertile, and this was the principal source of its wealth. A large number of vases of Greek style were manufactured here and have been found in the neighbourhood. Their material is of pale yellow clay with shining black glaze, and they are decorated with skilfully drawn red figures. Of the ancient city, which occupied the same site as the modern town, hardly anything is now visible, and the discoveries of the ancient street pavement have not been noted with sufficient care to enable us to recover the plan. Numerous ruins, an amphitheatre, still recognizable, a theatre, a temple of Augustus, &c., existed in the 16th century, and have been since used for building material. They are described by A. Leone, De Nola (Venice, 1514). A few tombs of the Roman period are preserved. The neighbourhood was divided into pagi, the names of some of which are preserved to us (Pagus Agrifanus, Capriculanus, Lanitanus).

 NÖLDEKE, THEODOR (1836–), German Semitic scholar, was born at Harburg on the 2nd of March 1836, and studied at Göttingen, Vienna, Leiden and Berlin. In 1859 his history of the Koran won for him the prize of the French Académie des Inscriptions, and in the following year he rewrote it in German (Geschichte des Korans) and published it with additions at Göttingen. In 1861 he began to lecture at the university of this town, where three years later he was appointed extraordinary professor. In 1868 he became ordinary professor at Kiel, and in 1872 was appointed to the chair of Oriental languages at Strassburg, which he resigned in 1906. Nöldeke’s range of studies has been wide and varied, but in the main his work has followed the two lines already indicated by his prize essay, Semitic languages, and the history and civilization of Islam. While a great deal of his work (e.g. his Grammatik der neusyrischen Sprache, 1868, his Mandäische Grammatik, 1874, and his translations from the Arabian of Tabarī, 1881–1882) is meant for specialists, many of his books are of interest to the general reader. Several of his essays first appeared in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and his article on the Koran, with some others, was republished in a volume called Oriental Sketches. The articles dealing with Persia were republished in a German volume, Aufsätze zur persischen Geschichte (Leipzig, 1887). Among his best-known works are: Das Leben Mohammeds (1863); Beiträge zur Kenntnis der Poesie der alten Araber (1864); Die alttestamentliche Literatur (1868); Untersuchungen zur Kritik des Alten Testaments (1869); Zur Grammatik des klassischen Arabisch (1896); Fünf Moʽallaqat, übersetzt und erklärt (1899–1901); and Beiträge zur semitischen Sprachwissenschaft (1904). He has contributed frequently to the Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft, the Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen and the Expositor.

 NOLI, a coast village of Liguria, Italy, in the province of Genoa, from which it is 36 m. S.W. by rail, 13 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 1985. It is a town of considerable antiquity, now decayed, and has an ancient church of S. Paragorio, once the cathedral, a Romanesque basilica dating from the 11th century, with interesting works of art. The diocese has been united with that of Savona.

NOLLEKENS, JOSEPH (1737–1823) British sculptor, was born on the 11th of August 1737 in Dean Street, Soho, London, where his father, a native of Antwerp, the “old Nollekens” of Horace Walpole, was a painter of some repute. In his thirteenth year he entered the studio of the sculptor Peter Scheemakers, and practised drawing and modelling with great assiduity, ultimately gaining various prizes offered by the Society of Arts. In 1760 he went to Rome, and he executed a marble bas-relief, “Timoclea before Alexander,” which obtained a prize of fifty guineas from that society in 1762. Garrick and Sterne were among the first English visitors who sat to him for busts; among his larger pieces belonging to this early period perhaps the most important is the “Mercury and Venus chiding Cupid.” Having returned to England in 1770, he was admitted an associate of the Royal Academy in 1771, and elected a member in 1772, the year in which he married Mary, the second daughter of Saunders Welch. By this time he had become known to George III., whose bust he shortly afterwards executed, and henceforward, until about 1816, he was the most fashionable portrait sculptor of his day. He himself thought highly of his early portrait of Sterne. Among many others may be specially named those of Pitt, Fox, the prince of Wales (afterwards George IV.), Canning, Perceval, Benjamin West and Lords Castlereagh, Aberdeen, Erskine, Egremont and Liverpool. He elaborated a number of marble groups and statues, amongst which may be mentioned those of “Bacchus,” “Venus taking off her Sandal,” “Hope leaning on an Urn,” “Juno,” “Paetus and Arria,” “Cupid and Psyche” and (his own favourite performance) “Venus anointing Herself”; all, however, although remarkable for delicacy of workmanship, are deficient in vigour and originality, and the drapery is peculiarly weak. The most prominent personal characteristic of Nollekens seems to have been his frugality, which ultimately developed into absolute miserliness. Mrs Nollekens died in 1817, and the sculptor himself died in London on the 23rd of April 1823, leaving a large fortune.

NOLLE PROSEQUI (sometimes shortened into nol. pros.), a technical term of English law, the meaning of which varies as it is used with reference to civil or criminal cases. In civil cases it applied only to actions in the king’s bench division, and there signified a formal undertaking by the plaintiff that he intended to proceed no further with the action (se ulterius nolle prosequi). The more modern practice in such cases is to proceed by way of discontinuance. In proceedings either by indictment or by information, a nolle prosequi or stay of proceedings may be entered by the attorney-general. The nolle prosequi is a matter purely for his discretion, and will not be granted unless very good ground be shown for his interference. The object of it generally is to obtain a stay of proceedings against an accomplice in order to procure his evidence. This object is, however, more usually effected by the prosecution offering no evidence and the judge directing an acquittal.

In the United States the term bears the same meaning as in England, with one exception. The attorney-general has not the same discretion with which English law invests him. Although in some states the prosecuting officer may enter a nolle prosequi at his discretion, in others the leave of the court must be obtained.

NOLLET, JEAN ANTOINE (1700–1770), French physicist, of peasant origin, was born near Noyon (Oise) on the 19th of November 1700. He entered holy orders and ultimately attained the rank of abbé; but his tastes all lay in the direction of experimental research, especially on the subject of electricity. In 1734 he was admitted a member of the London Royal Society, four years later he entered the Academy of Sciences at Paris, and in 1753 he was appointed to the newly-instituted chair of experimental physics in the Collège de Navarre. In addition to many memoirs he wrote Leçons de physique expérimentale (1743), Essai sur l’électricité des corps (1747), Recherches sur les causes particulières des phénomènes électriques (1749 and 1754), Recueil de lettres sur l’électricité (1753), L’Art de faire les chapeaux (1764) and L’Art des expériences (1770). He died at Paris on the 24th of April 1770.