OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Urswick, Christopher

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​URSWICK, CHRISTOPHER (1448-1522), English diplomatist, was born at Furness in Lancashire and was probably educated at Cambridge. He became chaplain to Margaret, countess of Richmond and Derby, and was employed by her to forward the schemes for securing the English throne for her son, Henry of Richmond, afterwards Henry VII. He crossed from Harfleui to Wales with Henry in August 1485, and was present at the ​battle of Bosworth; then followed for him a series of ecclesiastical preferments, the most important of which was to the deanery of York. He was sent on several weighty embassies, including one to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain to arrange the marriage between Prince Arthur and Catherine of Aragon, and another to France in 1492, when he signed the treaty of Etaples. In 1495 he became dean of Windsor, and he died on the 24th of March 1522. Urswick was very friendly with Erasmus and with Sir Thomas More. He did some building at Windsor, and one of the chapels in St George's chapel there is still called the Urswick chapel. Urswick's kinsman, Sir Thomas Urswick, was a Yorkist partisan, who was recorder of London and chief baron of the exchequer.
See Urswick, Records of the Family of Urwick or Urswick (1893).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ursa Minor

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​URSA MINOR (“The Little Bear”), in astronomy, a constellation of the northern hemisphere, mentioned by Thales (7th century B.C.) and by Eudoxus and Aratus. By the Greeks it was sometimes named Cynosura (Gr. κυνός, dog’s; οὐρά, tail), alleging this to be one of the dogs of Callisto, who became Ursa major. The Phoenicians named it Phoenice, or the Phoenician constellation, possibly in allusion to the fact that the brightest star is a Ursae minoris or the pole-star, which being situated very close to the north pole is of incalculable service to navigators. Ptolemy catalogued 8 stars, Tycho Brahe 7 and Hevelius 12. α Ursae minoris, more generally known as the pole-star or Polaris, a star of the 2nd magnitude, describes a circle of 2° 25′ daily about the north pole; it has a 9th-magnitude companion, and is also a spectroscopic binary.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ursulines

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​URSULINES, a religious order founded at Brescia by Angela Merici (1470-1540) in November 1535, primarily for the education of girls and the care of the sick and needy. It was approved in 1544 by Paul III., and in 1572 Gregory XIII., at the instance of Charles Borromeo, declared it a religious order under the rule of St Augustine. In the following century it was powerfully encouraged and supported by St Francis of Sales. In most cases, especially in France, the sisters adopted enclosure and took solemn vows; they were called the “religious ” Ursulines as distinct from the “ congregated ” Ursulines, who preferred to follow the original plan. There were Ursulines in Canada in 163Q, who taught the catechism to Indian children, and subsequently helped to preserve a religious spirit among the French population and to humanize the Indians and half-breeds. Towards the beginning of the 18th century, the period of its greatest prosperity, the order embraced some 20 congregations, with 350 convents and from 15,000 to 20,000 nuns. The members wear a black dress bound by a leathern girdle, a black sleeveless cloak, and a close-fitting head-dress with a white veil and a longer black veil. Their patron is the St Ursula mentioned above. The founder was beatified by Clement VIII. in 1768 and canonized as St Agnes of Brescia by Pius VII. in 1807. The Irish Ursulines were established at Cork in 1771 by Miss Nano Nagle. The Ursulines do not increase now as rapidly as they did, congregations taking simple vows like the Sisters of Mercy being apparently more adapted to modern needs.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ursa Major

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​URSA MAJOR (“The Great Bear”), in astronomy, a constellation of the northern hemisphere, supposed to be referred to in the Old Testament (Job ix. 9, xxxviii. 22), mentioned by Homer, Ἄρκτος θ’, ἥν καὶ ἅμαξαν ἐπίκλησιν καλέονται (Il. 18. 487), Eudoxus (4th century B.C.) and Aratus (3rd century B.C.). The Greeks identified this constellation with the nymph Callisto (q.v.), placed in the heavens by Zeus in the form of a bear together with her son Arcas as “bear-warder,” or Arcturus (q.v.); they named it Arctos, the she-bear, Helice, from its turning round the pole-star. The Romans knew the constellation as Arctos or Ursa; the Arabians termed the quadrilateral, formed by the four stars α, β, γ, δ, Na’sh, a bier, whence it is sometimes known as Feretrum majus. The Arabic name should probably be identified with Hebrew name ’Ash and ’Ayish in the book of Job (see G. Schiaparelli, Astronomy in the Old Testament, 1905). Ptolemy catalogued 8 stars, Tycho 7 and Hevelius 12. Of these, the seven brightest (α of the 1st magnitude, β, γ, ε, ζ, η of the 2nd magnitude, and δ of the 3rd magnitude) constitute one of the most characteristic figures in the northern sky; they have received various names—Septentriones, the wagon, plough, dipper and Charles’s wain (a corruption of “churl's wain,” or peasant’s cart). With the Hindus these seven stars represented the seven Rishis. α and β are called the “pointers,” since they are collinear with, or point to, the pole-star. ξ Ursa majoris is a beautiful binary star, its components having magnitudes 4 and 5; this star was one of the first to be recognized as a binary— i.e. having two components revolving about their common centre of gravity—and the first to have its orbit calculated. ζ Ursa majoris is perhaps the best known double star in the northern hemisphere, the larger component is itself a spectroscopic double. The nebula M. 97 Ursae majoris is of the planetary type; the earl of Rosse observed two spiral condensations turning in opposite directions—hence its name,—the “Owl nebula.”
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sweetbread

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​SWEETBREAD, a popular term for certain glands of animals, particularly when used as articles of food; these are usually the pancreas, the “stomach-sweetbread” of butchers, and the thymus, or “breast sweetbread.” The term is also sometimes used to include the salivary and lymphatic glands (see Ductless Glands, Pancreas and Lymphatic System).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sweet Potato

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​SWEET POTATO. This plant, known botanically as Ipomaea batatas (formerly as Convolvulus batatas), and a member of the natural order Convolvulaceae, is generally cultivated in most tropical countries for the sake of its tuberous root, which is an article of diet greatly in request. It is a climbing perennial with entire or palmately-lobed leaves very variable in shape borne on slender twining stems. The flowers are borne on long stalks in loose clusters or cymes, and have a white or rosy funnel-shaped corolla like that of the common bindweed of English hedges. The edible portion is the root, which dilates into large club-shaped masses filled with starch. It is ill suited to the climate of the United Kingdom, but in tropical countries it is as valuable as the potato is in higher latitudes. The plant is not known in a truly wild state, nor has its origin been ascertained. A. de Candolle concludes that it is in all probability of American origin, where it has been cultivated from prehistoric times by the aborigines. It is mentioned by Gerard as the “potato,” or “potatus” or “potades,” in contradistinction to the “potatoes” of Virginia (Solanum tuberosum). He grew it in his garden, but the climate was not warm enough to allow it to flower, and in winter it perished and rotted. But as the appellation “common” is applied to them the roots must have been introduced commonly. Gerard tells us he bought those that he planted at “the Exchange in London,” and he gives an interesting account of the uses to which they were put, the manner in which they were prepared as “sweetmeats,” and the invigorating properties assigned to them. The allusions in the Merry Wives of Windsor and other of Shakespeare's plays in all probability refer to this plant, and not to what we now call the “potato.” The plants require a warm sunny climate, long season, and a liberal supply of water during the growing season. For an account of the cultivation in North America, where large quantities are grown in the Southern states, see L. H. Bailey, Cyclopaedia of American Horticulture (1902). Sir George Watt, Dictionary of the Economic Products of India (1890), gives an account of its cultivation in India, where some confusion has arisen by the use of the name batatas for the yam (q.v.) ; the author suggests that the introduction of the sweet potato into India is comparatively recent.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Swetchine, Madame

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​Swetchine, Madame (1782–1857), Russian mystic, whose maiden name was Soymanof, was born in Moscow, and under the influence of Joseph de Maistre became a member of the Roman Catholic Church in 1815. In the following year she settled in Paris where, until her death, she maintained a famous salon remarkable no less for its high courtesy and intellectual brilliance than for its religious atmosphere. Though not physically beautiful she had a personality of rare spiritual charm, nurtured in the private chapel of her house. Her husband, General Swetchine, was 25 years her senior. Her Life and Works (of which the best known are “Old Age” and “Resignation”) were published by M. de Falloux (2 vols., 1860) and her Letters by the same editor (2 vols., 1861).
See Sainte-Beuve, Nouveaux lundis, vol. i.; and E. Scherer, Études sur la littérature contemporaine, vol. i.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sweet-sop

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​SWEET-SOP, or Sugar Apple, botanical name Anona squamosa, a small tree or shrub with thin oblong-ovate leaves, solitary greenish flowers and a yellowish-green fruit, like a shortened pine cone in shape with a tubercle corresponding to each of the carpels from the aggregation of which it has been formed. The fruit is 3 to 4 in. in diameter and contains a sweet creamy-yellow custard-like pulp. It is a native of the West Indies and tropical America; it is much prized as a fruit, and has been widely introduced into the eastern hemisphere.
​Another species, A. muricala, is the sour-sop, a small evergreen tree bearing a larger dark-green fruit, 6 to 8 in. long and 1 to 5 lb in weight, oblong or bluntly conical in shape, with a rough spiny skin and containing a soft white juicy subacid pulp with a flavour of turpentine. It is a popular fruit in the West Indies, where it is native, and is grown with special excellence in Porto Rico. A drink is made from the juice. A. reticulata is the custard apple (q.v.) and A. paluslris the alligator apple.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Swellendam

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​Swellendam, a town of South Africa, Cape province, in the valley of the Breede River, 192 m. by rail E. by S. of Cape Town. Pop. (1904), 2406, of whom 1139 were white. Swellendam is one of the older Dutch settlements in the Cape, dating from 1745, and was named after Hendrik Swellengrebel (then governor of the Cape) and his wife, whose maiden name was Damme. Early in 1795 the burghers of the town and district rose in revolt against the Dutch East India Company, proclaimed a “free republic,” and elected a so-styled national assembly. At the same time the burghers of Graaff Reinet also rebelled against the Cape authorities, who were powerless to suppress the insurrectionary movement. One of the claims of the “free republic” was “the absolute and unconditional slavery of all Hottentots and Bushmen.” In September of that year Cape Town surrendered to the British and the “National” party at Swellendam quietly accepted British rule. The town is a trading centre of some importance, and in the surrounding district are large sheep and ostrich farms. The neighbourhood is noted for its abundance of everlasting flowers.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Vittoria

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​VITTORIA, a town of Sicily in the province of Syracuse, 95 m. W.S.W. of Syracuse by rail (42 m. direct), founded in 1605 by Giovanni Alphonso Henriquez, who named it after his mother, the famous Vittoria Colonna. It is a prosperous town ​in the centre of a fertile district, with the largest wine trade in Sicily. Pop. (1901) 30,832 (town), 32,219 (commune).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Vivaldo, Ugolino and Sorleone de

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​VIVALDO, UGOLINO and SORLEONE DE (fl. 1291–1315), Genoese explorers, connected with the first known expedition in search of an ocean way from Europe to India. Ugolino, with his brother Guido or Vadino Vivaldo, was in command of this expedition of two galleys, which he had organized in conjunction with Tedisio Doria, and which left Genoa in May 1291 with the purpose of going to India “by the Ocean Sea” and bringing back useful things for trade. Planned primarily for commerce, the enterprise also aimed at proselytism. Two Franciscan friars accompanied Ugolino. The galleys were well armed and sailed down the Morocco coast to a place called Gozora (Cape Nun), in 28° 47′ N., after which nothing more was heard of them. Early in the next (14th) century, Sorleone de Vivaldo, son of Ugolino, undertook a series of distant wanderings in search of his father, and even penetrated, it is said, to Magadoxo on the Somali coast. In 1455 another Genoese seaman, Antoniotto Uso di Mare, sailing with Cadamosto in the service of Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal, claimed to have met, near the mouth of the Gambia, with the last descendant of the survivors of the Vivaldo expedition. The two galleys, he was told, had sailed to the Sea of Guinea; in that sea one was stranded, but the other passed on to a place on the coast of Ethiopia-Mena or Amenuan, near the Gihon (here probably meaning the Senegal)—where the Genoese were seized and held in close captivity.
See Jacopo Doria, “Annales” (under A.D. 1291) in Pertz, Monumenta Germaniae historica. Scriptores, xviii. 335 (1863); the “Conoçimiento de todos los Reinos,” ed. Marcos Jimenez de la Espada in the Boletin of the Geographical Society of Madrid, vol. ii., No. 2, pp. 111, 113, 117-18 (Madrid, February, 1877); Canale, Degli antichi navigatori e scopritori Genovesi (Genoa, 1846), G. H. Pertz, Der älteste Versuch zur Entdeckung des Seeweges nach Ostindien (Berlin, 1859); Annali di Geografia e di Statistica composti … da Giacomo Gråberg (Genoa, 1802); Belgrano, “… Annali … di Caffaro,” in Archiv. Stor. Ital., 3rd series, ii. 124, &c., and in Atti della Soc. Lig. di Storia Patria, xv. 320 (1881); W. Heyd, Histoire du commerce du Levant (the improved French edition of the Geschichte des Levantehandels), ii. 140-43 (Paris, 1886); C. R. Beazley, Dawn of Modern Geography, iii. 413-19, 551 (Oxford, 1906).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Vivarini

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​VIVARINI, the surname of a family of painters of Murano (Venice), who produced a great quantity of work in Venice and its neighbourhood in the 15th century, leading on to that phase of the school which is represented by Carpaccio and the Bellinis.
Antonio Vivarini (Antonio of Murano) was probably the earliest of this family. He came from the school of Andrea da Murano, and his works show the influence of Gentile da Fabriano. The earliest known date of a picture of his, an altar-piece in the Venetian academy, is 1440; the latest, in the Lateran museum, 1464, but he appears to have been alive in 1470. He worked in company with a certain “Joannes de Alemania,” who has been (with considerable doubt) regarded as a brother (Giovanni of Murano), but no trace of this painter exists of a date later than 1447. After 1447 Antonio painted either alone or in combination with his younger brother Bartolommeo. The works of Antonio are well drawn for their epoch, with a certain noticeable degree of softness, and with good flesh and other tints. Three of his principal paintings are the “Virgin Enthroned with the Four Doctors of the Church,” the “Coronation of the Virgin,” and “Sts Peter and Jerome.” The first two (in which Giovanni co-operated) are in the Venetian academy, the third in the National Gallery, London. This gallery contains also specimens of the two under-named painters.
Bartolommeo Vivarini is known to have worked from 1450 to 1499. He learned oil-painting from Antonello da Messina, and is said to have produced, in 1473, the first oil picture done in Venice. This is in the church of S. Giovanni e Paolo—a large altar-piece in nine divisions, representing Augustine and other saints. Most of his works, however, including one in the National Gallery, are in tempera. His outline is always hard, and his colour good; the figures have much dignified and devout expression. As “vivarino” means in Italian a goldfinch, he sometimes drew a goldfinch as the signature of his pictures.
Luigi or Alvise Vivarini, born about 1446, painted in 1475 and on to 1502, when he died. It has sometimes been supposed that, besides the Luigi who was the latest of this pictorial family, there had also been another Luigi who was the earliest, this supposition being founded on the fact that one picture is signed with the name, with the date 1414. There is good ground, however, for considering this date to be a forgery of a later time. The works of Luigi show an advance on those of his predecessors, and some of them are productions of high attainment; one of the best was executed for the Scuola di S. Girolamo in Venice, representing the saint caressing his lion, and some monks decamping in terror. The architecture and perspective in this work are superior. Other works by Luigi are in Treviso and in Milan. He painted some remarkable portraits. (W. M. R.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Vitré

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​VITRÉ, a town of north-western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Ille-et-Vilaine, situated on a hill rising from the left bank of the Vilaine, 24 m. E. of Rennes by rail. Pop. (1906) town, 7106; commune, 10,092. The town largely retains its feudal aspect. The ramparts on the north side and on the west, consisting of a machicolated wall with towers at intervals, are still standing. Only one gateway remains of the original castle, founded towards the end of the 11th century; the rest was rebuilt in the 14th and 15th centuries (the best period of Breton military architecture) and restored in recent times. It is now occupied by a prison, a museum of natural history and painting and the town library. The church of Notre-Dame, formerly a priory of the abbey of St Mélaine of Rennes, dates from the 15th and 16th centuries. An outside stone pulpit is a fine example of 16th-century sculpture. The church possesses a fine enamelled triptych of the 16th century. A tower of the 16th century is all that remains of the church of St Martin. The château of Les Rochers 3 m. from Vitré was the residence of Madame de Sévigné.
Vitré was formerly a Breton barony, and belonged in the 10th century to the younger branch of the counts of Rennes. In 1295 it passed to Guy IX., baron of Laval, on his marriage with the heiress, and afterwards successively belonged to the families of Rieux, Coligny and La Trémoille. The town was seized by Charles VIII. in 1488. Protestantism spread under the rule of the houses of Rieux and Coligny; Vitré became a Huguenot stronghold; and a Protestant church was established, which was not suppressed till the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685. Philip Emmanuel, duke of Mercœur, the head of the members of the League in Brittany, besieged the town in vain for five months in 1589. The estates of Brittany, over which the barons of Vitré and of Leon alternately presided, met here several times.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Vittorio

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​VITTORIO, a town and episcopal residence of the province of Treviso, Venetia, Italy, 25 m. by rail N. of Treviso, 466 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 2977 (town), 19,133 (commune). It is a summer resort, with sulphur and saline springs (51.8° to 59° F.), and was formed in 1879 by the union of Ceneda (the episcopal see) and Serravalle. The cathedral contains paintings by Pomponio Amalteo (a pupil of Pordenone) and others. At Serravalle is a church with a fine altar-piece (1547) by Titian. It is a seat of the silkworm breeding and silk-throwing industries.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Vittel

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​VITTEL, a watering-place of north-eastern France, in the department of Vosges, 31 m. W. of Epinal by rail. Pop. (1906) 1954. The waters resemble those of Contrexéville, but are lighter in character; they are bottled and exported in large quantities. They are prescribed in cases of gravel, gout, &c. Vittel has been considerably developed in recent years, and is well supplied with hotels, a fine casino and park, &c.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Vitus, St

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​VITUS, ST (German, Veit; French, Guy). According to the legend, where he is associated with Modestus and Crescentia, by whom he had been brought up, St. Vitus suffered martyrdom at a very early age under the emperor Diocletian. Son of a Sicilian nobleman who was a worshipper of idols, Vitus was converted to the Christian faith without the knowledge of his father, was denounced by him and scourged, but resisted all attacks on his profession. Admonished by an angel, he crossed the sea to Lucania and went to Rome, where he suffered martyrdom. His festival is celebrated on the 15th of June. The Passion of St. Vitus has no historical value, but his name occurs in the Martyrologium hieronymianum. In 836 the abbey of Corvey, in Saxony, received his relics, and became a very active centre of his cult. In the second half of the 9th century the monks of Corvey, according to Helmold's Chronica Slavorum, evangelized the island of Rügen, where they built a church in honour of St Vitus. The islanders soon relapsed, but they kept up the superstitious cult of the saint (whom they honoured as a god), returning to Christianity three centuries later. At Prague, too, there are some relics of the saint, who is the patron of Bohemia and also of Saxony, and one of the fourteen “protectors” (Nothhelfer) of the church in Germany. Among the diseases against which St Vitus is invoked is chorea, also known as St. Vitus's Dance.
See Acta sanctorum, June, iii. 1013-42 and vi. 137-40; Bibliotheca hagiographica Latina (Brussels, 1899), n. 8711-23; J. H. Kessel, “St Veit, seine Geschichte, Verehrung and bildliche Darstellungen,” in Jahrbücher des Vereins von Alterthumsfreunden im Rheinlande (1867), pp. 152-83. (H. De.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Vivero

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​VIVERO, a town of north-western Spain, in the province of Lugo; on the Ria de Vivero, an estuary formed by the river Landrove, which here enters the Bay of Biscay. Pop. (1900) 12,843. Vivero is an old-fashioned and picturesque town, connected with the opposite bank of the estuary by a bridge of twelve arches and a causeway. Its fishing fleet, its coasting trade and the agricultural products of the fertile country around are important. The only means of communication with the interior is by the road to Cabreiros, for Lugo and Ferrol.