Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/749

Rh the umbrella." In 1855 the king of Burmah in addressing the governor-general of India termed himself "the monarch who reigns over the great umbrella-wearing chiefs of the Eastern countries." The baldachins erected over ecclesiastical chairs, altars, and portals, and the canopies of thrones and pulpits, &c., are in their origin closely related to umbrellas, and have the same symbolic significance. In each of the basilican churches of Rome there still hangs a large umbrella.

Among the Greeks and Romans the umbrella (,, umbraculum, umbella) was used by ladies, while the carrying of it by men was regarded as a sign of effeminacy. Probably in these southern climes it never went out of use, and we find from allusions by Montaigne that in his day its employment as a sun-shade was quite common in Italy. The umbrella was not unknown in England in the 17th century, and was already used as a rain protector. Michael Drayton, writing about the beginning of the 17th century, says, speaking of doves:— And, like umbrellas, with their feathers Shield you in all sorts of weathers." Although it was the practice to keep an umbrella in the coffee-houses early in the 18th century, its use cannot have been very familiar, for in 1752 Colonel Wolfe, writing from Paris, mentions the carrying of them there as a defence against both rain and sun, and wonders that they are not introduced into England. The traveller Jonas Hanway, who died in 1786, is credited with having been the first Englishman who habitually carried an umbrella. That practice he began thirty years before his death; at first he was singular, and his habit was derided, but he lived to see his example commonly followed.

The umbrella as at first used, based on its Eastern prototype, was a heavy ungainly article which did not hold well together, and no little ingenuity has been exercised to bring it into the elegant, compact, and strong form which is now quite common. The early umbrella had a long handle, with ribs of whalebone or cane, very rarely of metal, and stretchers of cane. The jointing of the ribs and stretchers to the stick and to each other was very rough and imperfect. The covering material consisted of oiled silk or cotton, heavy in substance, and liable to stick together in the folds. Gingham soon came to be substituted for the oiled cloth, and in 1848 William Sangster patented the use of alpaca as an umbrella covering material. One of the most notable inventions for combining lightness, strength, and elasticity in the ribs of umbrellas was the "Paragon" rib patented by Samuel Fox in 1852. It is formed of a thin strip of steel rolled into a U or trough section, a form which gives great strength for the weight of metal The use of such ribs, combined with the notched rings and runners which give a separate hinge and joint to each rib and stretcher, and with the thin but tough covering materials now in use, has principally contributed to the strength, lightness, and elegance which ordinary umbrellas now present. Umbrella silk is principally made at Lyons and Crefeld; but much of it is so loaded in dyeing that it cuts readily at the folds. Textures of pure silk or of silk and alpaca mixed have better wear-resisting properties.

 UMBRIA. The early Greeks applied the name to all central and northern Italy. Herodotus (iv. 49) speaks of it somewhat vaguely, as if it extended up to the Alps. The Umbrians probably extended across central Italy from sea to sea down as far as Latium. Pliny (iii. 13, 19) tells us that the Umbri were considered the most ancient nation of Italy (antiquissima gens Italise), by which he probably means, of the Italian stock. The Greek writers included under the name of Umbria the district known in later times as Picenum. Pseudo-Scylax makes Umbria march with Samnium, and describes Ancona as a city of Umbria. The Umbrians seem to have found the Siculi and Liburni in occupation of the land into which they advanced, the former holding the parts lying towards the interior, the latter people the district along the Adriatic. The Umbrians were one of the chief peoples of that branch of the Indo-European family which had entered Italy from the north and driven out and absorbed the older inhabitants. They were more closely connected with the Samnites and Oscans than with the Latin stock, as is shown by their language. Their possession of the fertile regions of upper Italy exposed them to the constant assaults of fresh bodies of invaders, pressing on over the Alps, and perhaps likewise from the seaboard. Their force was extended over a wide area, and thus too weak to withstand the attacks from various sides to which they were exposed. Thus their extensive territory was gradually reduced by the successive encroachments of other peoples. First came the Etruscans, who according to Herodotus (i. 94) were Lydians, who established themselves in the land of the Umbrians. From which side of Italy they made their invasion, whether from the mouth of the Poor from the western coast of what later became Etruria, or whether from both, we have no means of determining. That the Umbrians did not yield without a struggle we cannot doubt. It was only after three hundred of their towns had been captured by the Etruscans that they succumbed. Nevertheless they still retained considerable influence in upper Italy, which, according to Strabo (v. 216), continued down to the time of the Roman conquest. For he says that there was a large Umbrian element in the Roman colonies in the region of the Po, as also some Etruscan. For, according to him, the Umbrians and Etruscans lived in a continual rivalry for the pre-eminence, so that if the one people made an expedition northwards, the other determined not to be outdone. So when the Etruscans had marched against the barbarians who dwelt near the Po, and had soon again been expelled owing to their effeminacy, the Umbrians in turn marched against the conquerors of the Etruscans. In consequence of this alternating struggle for these regions they planted many colonies, some Etruscan, others Umbrian. Most of the colonies were Umbrian because the Umbrians lay closer to the disputed territory. Thus, even though they lost the sovereignty, the Umbrian race probably continued to form a considerable portion of the population of a wide extent of country. At all events, at the time of the Gaulish inroad the Etruscans seem to be in possession of the mouth of the Po. At this time, therefore, Umbria as a state consisted of the region bounded on the W. by the Tiber, on the S. by the Sabines, on the E. by Picenum and the Adriatic, while on the N. it extended close up to the southern or Spinetic mouth of the Po. Scylax describes the Etruscans as extending from the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Adriatic, and represents them as in possession of the ancient Greek town of Spina. How much farther south the Etruscan sway had once reached we cannot determine, but that they had once held this region, as far as Ravenna at least, is rendered probable by the tradition that Ravenna had been founded by a colony of Thessaliaus who, not brooking the insulting treatment which they received from the Etruscans, gladly admitted some Umbrians, who thus became the possessors of the city. When the great Gaulish inroad took place at the beginning of the 4th century Etruscans and Umbrians alike suffered severely. Some of the Celtic tribes crossed the Po and formed permanent settlements. The Ananes settled in the Apennines, the Boii between the former and the Adriatic; next came the Lingones; and finally the Senones occupied the seaboard of the Adriatic as far as the Rubicon. This region in Roman times was known as the Ager Gallicus (Polybius, ii. 16). But it was not only in the north and west that the Umbrians had been driven back. The early Greeks had included under the name of Umbria the district along the Adriatic, afterwards known as Picenum. This consisted of a fertile region, extending from beyond Ancona to the river Matrino. It is not improbable that the Picentes issued from the Sabine region. Tradition alleged