Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/544

Rh 486 A K E A K G only be used for washing ; while the fish are no longer to be found. There was a fountain of the same name in Ithaca (Homer), and another at Chalcis in Euboea, which supplied the city with water, but, according to Leake, has now disappeared. There was also a lake Arethusa, through which the Tigris flowed, identified by Bitter with L. Nazuk. ARETHUSA was also the name of two cities : Arethusa in Macedonia, famous for the tomb of Euripides, and Arethusa in Syria (Rastaii), which gives its name to Marcus, a bishop who was persecuted by the Arethusans, and is honoured as a martyr by the Greek Church. AEETINO, PIETEO, an Italian writer of the 16th century, was born in!492 at Arezzo in Tuscany, from which place he took his name. He is said to have been the natural son of Luigi Bacci, a gentleman of the town. He received little education, and lived for some years poor and neglected, pick ing up such scraps of information as he could. When very young he was banished from Arezzo on account of a satirical sonnet which he composed against indulgences. He went to Perugia, where for some time he worked as a bookbinder, and continued to distinguish himself by his daring attacks upon religion. After some years wander ing through parts of Italy he reached Rome, where his talents, wit, and impudence commended him to the Papal Court. This favour, however, he lost in 1523 by writing a set of obscene sonnets, to accompany an equally immoral series of drawings by the great painter, Julio Romano. He left Rome and was received by John de Medici, who took him to Milan and introduced him to Francis I. He gained the good graces of that monarch, and received hand some presents from him. Shortly after this Aretino attempted to regain the favour of the Pope, but, having come to Rome, he composed a sonnet against a rival in some low amour, and in return was assaulted and severely wounded. He could obtain no redress from the Pope, and returned to John de Medici. On the death of the latter in December 1526, he withdrew to Venice, where he afterwards continued to reside. He spent his time here in writing comedies, sonnets, licentious dialogues, and a few devotional and religious works. He led a profligate life, and procured funds to satisfy his needs by writing syco- phantish letters to all the nobles and princes with whom he was acquainted. This plan proved eminently success ful, for large sums were given him, apparently from fear of his satire. So great did Aretino s pride grow, that he styled himself the &quot; divine,&quot; and the &quot; scourge of princes.&quot; He died in 1557, according to some accounts by falling from his chair in a fit of laughter caused by hearing some indecent story of his sisters. The reputation of Aretino in his own time rested chiefly on his satirical sonnets or burlesques; but his comedies, five in number, are now considered the best of his works. His letters, of which a great number have been printed, are also commended for their style. The dialogues and the licentious sonnets have been translated into French, under the title Academic des Dames. AREZZO, the ancient ARRETIUM, a Tuscan city on the Chiana (Clanis), which is now an affluent of the Arno, but formerly flowed into the Tiber. Arretium was one of the twelve cities of the ancient Etruscan Confederation, and continued after its incorporation with the Roman dominion to be a highly important military post. Having sided with Marius in the civil war, the Aretines were deprived by Sulla of their Roman citizenship; but the city received a colony under Augustus, and seems to have had a peculiar municipal constitution. In the time of Pliny it was known for its pottery, and many specimens of the bright red ware, with ornaments in relief, differing from the productions of Southern Etruria, have been preserved to the present day. Among the relics that have been discovered here are the bronze statues of Minerva and the Chimsera, now in the Florentine Gallery. In modern history Arezzo is chiefly remarkable for the obstinate opposition it main tained against the pertinacious encroachments of the Florentines, to whom, however, it had finally to submit. It is now a clean, well-built, well-paved, and flourishing town of 10,000 inhabitants, the seat of a bishop and a prefect, with a theological seminary, a surgical school, a library, and a museum. In its cathedral are the tombs of Guido Tarlati, its warlike bishop, who died in 1327, Gregory X. (1276), and Redi the naturalist (1698). Few cities can show such a list of remarkable men as Arezzo Maecenas (?), Guido, famous for his musical discoveries, Guittone the poet, Petrarch, Leonardo Bruno the historian, Cesalpini the botanist, Margheritone and Spinello the painters, Alberghotti the jurist, Pope Julius III., Pietro Aretino the satirist, Vasari the author of Lives of the Artists, Redi already mentioned, Fossombroni the mathe matician and engineer. ARGAM, a village of Haidarabad, in the Nizam s dominions, situated in 21 2 N. lat., and 77 2 E. long., 40 miles south-west of Elichpur, and 135 miles north east of Aurungabad. The village is rendered memorable as the site of an action which took place on the 28th November 1803 between the British army, commanded by Major-General Wellesley (afterwards Duke of Welling ton), and the Marhattas under Sindhia and the Raja of Berar, in which the latter were defeated with great loss. A medal struck in England in 1851 commemorates the vic tory. ARGELANDER, FRIEDRICH WILHELM AUGUST, a distinguished German astronomer, was born at Memel, 22d March 1799; and died at Bonn, 17th February 1875. He studied at the university of Konigsberg, where his attention was attracted to the study of astronomy by Bessel, whose assistant he became in 1821. In the follow ing year he published an essay on the path of the great comet of 1811, the period of which he determined with great accuracy. In 1823 he was made superintendent of the observatory at Abo; and in 1832 was transferred to the university of Helsingfors, where he remained for five years. In 1837 he published an admirable essay upon the proper motion of the solar system, and in the same year was appointed professor of astronomy at Bonn, where he spent the remainder of his life. Argelander s fame rests principally on the extensive and accurate observations he undertook in continuation of the plan laid down by Bessel. His results were published in the Observationes Astronomicoe Aboce factce, 3 vols., 1830-32; DLX Stellarum Fixarum Positiones Mediae, 1835 ; Durchmusterung des nord. Him- mels zwischen 45 und 80 nordl. Breite, 1846 ; and in the Sternverzeichniss, containing upwards of 210,000 stars, in the 3d and 4th vols. of the Astron. Beobacht. auf der Sternwarte zu Bonn. The Neue Uranographie, 1843, and the Atlas des nordl. gestirnten Himmels, 1857, are also valuable works. For several years before his death, Argelander was engaged in observations on stars of vari able magnitude and brilliancy, and the results of his labours will probably be put forth in a collected form. ARGENSOLA, the name of two Spanish poets, brothers, who are sometimes called the &quot; Spanish Horaces.&quot; The elder, Lupercio Leonardo y Argensola, was born in 1565 and died in 1613. He was educated at the universities of Huesca and Saragossa, and became secretary first to his patron, the duke of Villahermosa, and afterwards to the ex-Empress Maria of Austria. In 1599 he was made historiographer of Aragon, and a few years later historio grapher royal. In 1 6 1 he accepted the office of secretary to the Count of Lemos, then viceroy of Naples, at which place