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* CATAFALQUE. 319 CATALAN LANGUAGE. was used for the lyinjr in state of notable de- ceased persone, and at coninioiiiorative sen'ices. (See C'ENOT^vPii.) The catafahiue was some- times so extensive a structme as to beoome a mortuary ehapel {chapellc ardcntc) ; it was usu- ally erected inside a church. Movable cata- falques are employed in funeral processions. A mai.'nificent catafalque was used at the burial of Mielielanjrelo in Florence. It was executed by the principal Florentine artiste of the time. CAT'ALAN. See Catalonia. CATALANGAN, k-i'ta-lAn-g-in'. A Malay- Chinese people in Isabcla Province, Luzon. They speak the Iraya language, and belong to the first migration. See Philippines. CATALAN GRAND COMPANY, The. A powerful band of mercenaries noted for the part it played in the wars of the Byzantine Empire during the first half of the Fourteenth Century. It originally consisted of natives of Aragon and Catalonia, partly Christian and parth' Moslem, who fought in Sicily during the wars that fol- lowed the famous Sicilian Vespers, in 1282. With the conclusion of peace in 1302, the Cata- lans, numbering some GOOO men. under the leadership of Roger de Flor, entered the senice of Andronicus II., Emperor of Constantinople, and were sent against the Turkish armies which were then ravaging the Asiatic provinces of the Empire. The Catalans defeated them decisive- ly, and then entered upon a course of pillage and rapine, unchecked by the remonstrances of the Emperor, who was too weak to enforce obe- dience to his orders. In 1300 Andronicus caused Eoger to be assassinated, at .drianople, and the greater number of the Catalans fled. A band of 1500, however, consisting mostly of Frenchmen, after defeating an army of 43,000 men, seized the fortress of Gallipoli, on the Hellespont, and held it for four years against the Emperor, ravaging Tlirace, and levying trib- ute on trade. In 1310 they abandoned Galli- poli, and, marching into Greece, entered the ser- vice of Gualtier de Brienne, Uuke of Athens, whom, in the following year, they overthrew in a battle on the Cephissus, making themselves masters of Boeotia and Attica. The widows and daughters of the fallen Latin nobles became the wives of the Catalan officers. Subsequently the Duchy of Athens was made an appanage of -Aragon. The power of the Catalans rapidly de- clined, and disappeared before the end of the Fourteenth Centurv. Consult Gibbon, Decline nml Fall, Chap. LXII. CATALANI, ka'ta-la'ne, Angelica (1780- 1840). A celebrated Italian soprano, bom at Sinigaglia. She was educated in the Convent of Santa Lucia. Gubbio, where, in her seventh year, she displayed such wonderful vocal powers that strangers flocked from all quarters to hear her. -After two years of study with Boselli, she made her first appearance in A'enice in her sixteenth year, and the furore she created was extraor- dinary even for Italy. ^Managers were outbid- ding one another for her services, composers were vicing for the honor of having her sing in tlieir operas. She swept through the chief cities of Italy like a meteor, arousing enthusiasm at the Scala in Zingarelli's Clilenncstra and Xic- eolini's linctannli di ftoma (18011. She sang in Lisbon, with Creseentini and GafTroni, from 1801 to 180(5; married Captain Vallabr6gue, then attache in the French Embassy, and reaped a golden harvest in Madrid and Paris. Iler suc- cess in London (180(1) eclipsed all her previous ef- forts, and she stayed there from 1807 to 1814, worshiped by her audiences. She was then in the /onilli of her vocal powers and fame. Xa- I)oleon's exile permitted her to go to Paris, where she was made directress of the Italian opera. Her husband was an incapable busi- ness man, and the ventiire absorbed the sums of money she had made. In 1817 the lease and subvention was withdra^•n, and Catalani found herself compelled again to turn to the oi)cratie stage for a living. For ten years she traveled all over Euro])e. her jierformances evoking ever- increasing enthusiasm. In 1827 she retired from the stage, lived for some time in Paris, and then (1830) settled at her villa near Florence, where she established a free singing school for talented girls. Thereafter she only occasionally appeared in public, at charitable aflfairs. She died of cholera in Paris. Catalani was one of those rare cases in which Xature seems to lavish upon one individual all the gifts in her posses- sion. She was a woman of exceptional beauty, and, though large of frame, of infinite grace and majestic appearance. With her personal charm she united great vivacity, and dramatic power worthy of a queen of tragedy. But her greatest gift was her voice — a soprano of nearly three octaves in range. Its tmexampled power and soulfulness made her delivery of sacred music sublime, while its sweetness, flexibility, and rapidity of execution carried her audiences by storm. Consult: Edwards, The Prima Donna, Vol. I. (London, 1888) ; Ferris, Great Singers (Xew York. 1803) ; Xeedham, Queens of Song (London, 1803). CATALAN LANGUAGE AND LITEB- ATURE. One of the group of Romance lan- guages (q.v.). It is spoken to-day by upward of 3,500.000 people : ( 1 ) In the eastern portion of the Pyrenees and along the coast of the Spanish Peninsula, including the whole of the French Department of Pyrenees Orientales, and the seven Spanish provinces of Gerona, Barcelona, Tarragona, Lerida, A'alencia, Alicante, and Cas- tellon de la Plana: (2) in the Balearic Islands; (3) in the district of Alghero in Sardinia: (4) in some parts of Cuba and the -Argentine Re- public. It is not a separate branch, lying mid- way between the Spanish and Provencal, but merely an olTshoot of the latter, which during the cuddle -Ages raised itself for a time to the dignity of a literary language, and so is still treated separately by students of the Romance languages. The chief peculiarities of Catalan are: (1) Tlie prevailing use. in the conjugation in -iV, of the so-called inchoative form, a form known to some extent to all the Romance lan- guages, excepting the Spanish group. (2) The formation of a number of perfect participles from the infinitive stem, instead of tlie perfect stem. (3) The treatment of unaccented final vowels, a lieing retained and the other vowels dropped luidcr the same circumstances as in French and Provencal. (4) The retention of the original pronunciation of the Latin il where the French and Provencal have iV. This is the c.ne important diff'erence between Catalan and