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Rh for the Paris exhibition buildings In 1878. He died on the 17th of September 1879 at Lausanne.

As a designer Viollet-le-Duc occupied only a secondary place; but as a writer on medieval architecture and the kindred arts he takes the highest rank. His two great dictionaries are the standard works in their class, and are most beautifully illustrated with very skilful drawings by his own hand. Viollet-le-Duc was a man of the most varied and brilliant abilities, endowed with a power of work which has seldom been equalled. He was at once an artist, a man of science, a learned archaeologist and a scholar. The map in his Le Massif du Mont Blanc, showing the rock contours and the glaciers of Mont Blanc, is a model of its kind, which combines great artistic beauty with the accuracy of the most skilful engineer. His strong poetical fancy enabled him to reconstruct the life and buildings of the middle ages in the most vivid way.

 VIOLONCELLO (Fr. violoncelle, Ger. Violoncell, Ital. violoncello), the bass member of the violin family. Although the word violoncello is a diminutive, signifying "small violone," or double bass, the instrument is really a bass violin, formed on a different model from the violone, which has the sloping shoulders and flat back of the viol family, whereas those of the violoncello are rounded as in the violin. The construction of the violoncello is therefore the same as that of the (q.v.) but on a much larger scale. It is either held, on account of its size, between the performer's knees, or rests on the floor supported on a foot or spike.

 VIONVILLE, a village of Lorraine, between Metz and the French frontier, celebrated as the scene of the battle of Vionville (Rezonville or Mars la Tour), fought on the 16th of August 1870 between the French and the Germans (see and ).

 VIOTTI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1753–1824), Italian violinist and musical composer, was born at Fontanetto in the province of Turin on the 23rd of May 1753. He learned the rudiments of music from his father, a blacksmith who played the horn, and in 1764 Giovannini taught him the violin for a year. Two years later he was placed at the cost of the prince de la Cisterne under the violinist G. Pugnani at Turin, where he became violinist in the court chapel. In 1780 Viotti, having already made himself a name, travelled through Germany and Poland to Russia, where the empress Catherine honoured him with marks of extraordinary favour. He next appeared in London, in company with Pugnani, and at once achieved a brilliant and lasting reputation. In 1782 he was equally successful in Paris. Two years later he was appointed leader of the prince de Soubise's private orchestra; and in 1788 he undertook the direction of the opera, raising the performances, with Cherubini's assistance, to a very high level. He had also started an Italian opera in co-operation with the barber Léonard, which was opened in 1789 in the Tulleries, being subsequently amalgamated with the Théâtre de la Foire St Germain in 1790 and finally merged in the new Théâtre Feydeau in 1791. In 1791 the Revolution compelled Viotti to fly to London, where he took part in the Hanover Square concerts, but being suspected to be an agent of the Revolutionary Committee in Paris he was compelled to retire for a time to the neighbourhood of Hamburg, which he subsequently quitted, although the date of his departure, often given as 1795, does not seem probable. It is possible that he was already in 1794 in London, where he took shares in a wine business, and he resided almost uninterruptedly there until 1819, when he once more settled in Paris, resumed the direction of the opera, and retired in 1822 with a pension. He died in London on the 10th (or 3rd) of March 1824.

 VIPER. The vipers constitute a family of Old-World poisonous snakes, with a pair of poisonous fangs in the maxillary bones, which are short and movable. The main anatomical features are described in the article. In the present article only the Viperinae, namely those without an external pit between the eye and the nose, are described. Pit vipers, or Crotalinae, are treated under, and those which are possessed of a rattle under. The true vipers comprise about nine genera with some forty species, which can be distinguished as follows:—

Causus in Africa, and Azemiophis feae in Burma, are the only vipers which have the head covered with large symmetrical shields, while in the other genera the head shields are broken up into small shields, or into still more numerous scales. C. rhombeatus, common from the Gambia to the Cape.

Atractaspis, small burrowing snakes in Africa, without post-frontal bones.

Echis and Atheris have only one row of subcaudal shields. E. carinata, scarcely exceeding 20 in. in length, is very poisonous and easily overlooked on account of its light brown coloration, with pale spots and delicate markings on the keels of the scales of the back. It is a desert type, having the lateral scales strongly keeled and directed downwards, by means of which it shuffles itself into the sand; by folding itself and rubbing the scales together it produces a rustling sound. It ranges from India, where it is known as the "Krait" called "Kuppur" in Sind, through North Africa. This desert type is replaced farther south in Africa, where vegetation flourishes, by the closely allied genus, Atheris, which, however, possesses a prehensile tail and vivid coloration and has assumed truly arboreal habits.

Cerastes is another desert form, but is restricted to Africa; the arrangement of the scales of the sides of the body is similar to that of 