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Rh of which excited the warm admiration of Sir David Wilkie (No. 1057 in the Prado). The last of his works which we shall name is “Las Hilanderas” or the Spinners (Madrid, 1061), painted about 1656, representing the interior of the royal tapestry works. The subject is nothing, the treatment everything. It is full of light, air and movement, splendid in colour and marvellous in handling. This picture, Raphael Mengs said, seemed to have been painted not by the hand but by the pure force of will. We see in it the full ripeness of the power of Velazquez, a concentration of all the art-knowledge he had gathered during his long artistic career of more than forty years. In no picture is he greater as a colourist. The scheme is simple—a harmony of red, bluish-green, grey and black, which are varied and blended with consummate skill.

In 1660 a treaty of peace between France and Spain was to be consummated by the marriage of the infanta Maria Theresa with Louis XIV., and the ceremony was to take place in the Island of Pheasants, a small swampy island in the Bidassoa. Velazquez was charged with the decoration of the Spanish pavilion and with the whole scenic display. In the midst of the grandees of the first two courts in Christendom Velazquez attracted much attention by the nobility of his bearing and the splendour of his costume. On the 26th of June he returned to Madrid, and On the 31st of July he was stricken with fever. Feeling his end approaching, he signed his will, appointing as his sole executors his wife and his firm friend Fuensalida, keeper of the royal records. He died on the 6th of August 1660, passing away in the full possession of his great powers, and leaving no work behind him to show a trace of decay. He was buried in the Fuensalida vault of the church of San Juan, and within eight days his wife Juana was laid beside him. Unfortunately this church was destroyed by the French in 1811, so that his place of interment is now unknown. There was much difficulty in adjusting the tangled accounts outstanding between Velazquez and the treasury, and it was not till 1666, after the death of Philip, that they were finally settled.

Velazquez can hardly be said to have formed a school of painting. Apart from the circumstance that his occupations at court would have prevented this, his genius was too personal for transmission by teaching. Yet his influence on those immediately connected with him was considerable. In 1642 he befriended young Murillo on his arrival in Madrid, received him into his house, and directed his studies for three years. His son-in-law Mazo painted in his manner, and doubtless many pictures by Mazo are attributed to the master. Carreno, though never a pupil, was a favourite and had the good sense to appreciate him and imitate him. His faithful slave Pareja studied his methods and produced work which by the favour of Velazquez procured his manumission from Philip. But the appreciation of the fine talent of Velazquez passed away quickly in Spain, as that country began to fall to pieces.

VELEIA, an ancient town of Aemilia, Italy, situated about 20 in, S. of Placentia., It is mentioned by Pliny among the towns of the eighth region, though the Veleiates were Ligurians by race. Its inhabitants were in the census of Vespasian found to be remarkable for their longevity. Nothing further was known of it until 1747, when some ploughmen found the famous Tabula alimentaria, now in the museum at Parma. This, the largest inscribed bronze tablet of antiquity (4 ft. 6 in. by 9 ft. 6 in.) contains the list of estates in the territories of Veleia, Libarna, Placentia, Parma and Luca, in which Trajan had assigned before 102 72,000 sesterces (£720) and then 1,044,000 sesterces (£10,440), on a mortgage bond to forty-six estates, the total value of which was reckoned at over 13,000,000 sesterces (£130,000), the interest on which at 5% was to serve for the support of 166 boys and 36 girls, the former receiving 16, the latter 12 sesterces a month. See  for a similar inscription. Excavations were begun on the site in 1760, and were at first successful; the forum and basilica, the thermae and the amphitheatre, private houses, &c., with many statues (twelve of marble from the basilica, and a fine bronze head of Hadrian) and inscriptions were discovered. Pre-Roman cremation tombs have also been found, with objects of bronze and iron of no great value. But later excavations which were carried on at intervals up to 1876 have given less fruitful results. The oldest dated monument is a bronze tablet with a portion of the text of the Lex Rubria of 49 which dealt with the administration of justice in Cisalpine Gaul in connexion with the extension to it of the privileges of the Roman franchise, the latest an inscription of  276. How and when it was abandoned is uncertain: the previously, prevalent view that it was destroyed by a landslip was proved to be mistaken by the excavations of 1876. Most of the objects found are in the museum at Parma.

 VÉLEZ-MALAGA, a town of southern Spain, in the province of Malaga, finely situated in a fertile valley at the southern base of the lofty Sierra de Alhama, and on the left bank of the small river Vélez, 1 m. from its mouth and 27 m. by road E.N.E. of Malaga. Pop. (1900) 23, 586. Vélez-Malaga formerly was a place of considerable commercial importance, but its prosperity has much declined; there is no railway, and the town suffered severely in the earthquakes of 1884 and the floods of 1907. The vegetation of the neighbourhood is most luxuriant, including the aloe, palm, sugar-cane, prickly pear, orange, vine, olive and sweet potato. Vélez-Malaga was held by the Moors from 711 to 1487, when it was captured by Ferdinand of Castile. Under Moorish rule the citadel was built and the town became an important trading station and fortress. Its harbour, the Vélez estuary, affords good anchorage and is well sheltered.

VELIA (Gr. , later  ), an ancient town of Lucania, Italy, on the hill now crowned by the medieval castle of Castellammare della Bruca, 440 ft. above sea-level, on the S.W. coast, 1 m. N.W. of the modern railway station of Ascea, 25 m. S.E. of Paestum. Remains of the city walls, with traces of one gate and several towers, of a total length of over 3 m., still exist, and belong to three different periods, in all of which the crystalline limestone of the locality is used. Bricks were also employed in later times; their form is peculiar to this place, each having two rectangular channels on one side, and being about 15 in. square, with a thickness of nearly 4 in. They all bear Greek brick-stamps. There are some remains of cisterns on the site, and various other traces of buildings. The town was mainly celebrated for the philosophers who bore its name (see Eleatic School). About 530 the Phocaeans, driven from Corsica, seized it from the Oenotrians. Its coins were widely diffused in S. Italy, and it kept its independence even in Roman times, and only became a municipium after the Social War.

VELIUS LONGUS (2nd cent, ), Latin grammarian during the reign of Trajan (or Hadrian), author of an extant treatise on Orthography (H. Keil, Grammatici Latini, vii.). He is