OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Festoon

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​FESTOON (from Fr. feston, Ital. festone, from a Late Lat. festo, originally a “festal garland,” Lat. festum, feast), a wreath or garland, and so in architecture a conventional arrangement of flowers, foliage or fruit bound together and suspended by ribbons, either from a decorated knot, or held in the mouths of lions, or suspended across the back of bulls’ heads as in the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli. The “motif” is sometimes known as a “swag.” It was largely employed both by the Greeks and Romans and formed the principal decoration of altars, friezes and panels. The ends of the ribbons are sometimes formed into bows or twisted curves; when in addition a group of foliage or flowers is suspended it is called a “drop.” Its origin is probably due to the representation in stone of the garlands of natural flowers, &c., which were hung up over an entrance doorway on fête days, or suspended round the altar.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Fettercairn

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​FETTERCAIRN, a burgh of barony of Kincardineshire, Scotland, 41/2 m. N.W. of Laurencekirk. Pop. of parish (1901) 1390. The chief structures include a public hall, library and reading-room, and the arch built to commemorate the visit of Queen Victoria in 1861. The most interesting relic, however, is the market cross, which originally belonged to the extinct town of Kincardine. To the S.W. is Balbegno Castle, dating from 1509, and planned on a scale that threatened to ruin its projector. It contains a lofty hall of fine proportions. Two miles N. is Fasque, the estate of the Gladstones, which was acquired in 1831 by Sir John Gladstone (1764–1851), the father of W. E. Gladstone. The castle, which stands in beautiful grounds, was built in 1809. Sir John Gladstone’s tomb is in the Episcopal church of St Andrew, which he erected and endowed. In the immediate vicinity are the ruins of the royal castle of Kincardine, where, according to tradition, Kenneth III. was assassinated in 1005, although he is more generally said to have been slain in battle at Monzievaird, near Crieff in Perthshire.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Festiniog

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​FESTINIOG (or Ffestiniog), a town of Merionethshire, North Wales, at the head of the Festiniog valley, 600 ft. above the sea, in the midst of rugged scenery, near the stream Dwyryd, 31 m. from Conway. Pop. of urban district (1901), 11,435. There are many large slate quarries in this parish, especially at Blaenau Festiniog, the junction of three railways, London & North Western, Great Western and Festiniog, a narrow-gauge line between Portmadoc and Duffws. This light railway runs at a considerable elevation (some 700 ft.), commanding a view across the valley and lake of Tan y Bwlch. Lord Lyttelton’s letter to Mr Bower is a well-known panegyric on Festiniog. Thousands of workmen are employed in the slate quarries. The Cynfael falls are famous. Near are Beddau gwyr Ardudwy (the graves of the men of Ardudwy), memorials of a fight to recover women of the Clwyd valley from the men of Ardudwy. Near, too, is a rock named “Hugh Lloyd’s pulpit” (Lloyd lived in the time of Charles I., Cromwell and Charles II.).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Festa, Constanzo

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​FESTA, CONSTANZO (c. 1495–1545), Italian singer and musical composer, became a member of the Pontifical choir in Rome in 1517, and soon afterwards maestro at the Vatican. His motets and madrigals (the first book of which appeared in 1537) excited Dr Burney’s warm praise in his History of Music; and, among other church music, his Te Deum (published in 1596) is still sung at important services in Rome. His madrigal, called in English “Down in a flow’ry vale,” is well known.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Festus, Sextus Pompeius

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​FESTUS, SEXTUS POMPEIUS, Roman grammarian, probably flourished in the 2nd century A.D. He made an epitome of the celebrated work De verborum significatu, a valuable treatise alphabetically arranged, written by M. Verrius Flaccus, a freedman and celebrated grammarian who flourished in the reign of Augustus. Festus gives the etymology as well as the meaning of every word; and his work throws considerable light on the language, mythology and antiquities of ancient Rome. He made a few alterations, and inserted some critical remarks of his own. He also omitted such ancient Latin words as had long been obsolete; these he discussed in a separate work now lost, entitled Priscorum verborum cum exemplis. Of Flaccus’s work only a few fragments remain, and of Festus’s epitome only one original copy is in existence. This MS., the Codex Festi Farnesianus at Naples, only contains the second half of the work (M-V) and that not in a perfect condition. It has been published in facsimile by Thewrewk de Ponor (1890). At the close of the 8th century Paulus Diaconus abridged the abridgment. From his work and the solitary copy of the original attempts have been made with the aid of conjecture to reconstruct the treatise of Festus.
Of the early editions the best are those of J. Scaliger (1565) and Fulvius Ursinus (1581); in modern times, those of C. O. Müller (1839, reprinted 1880) and de Ponor (1889); see J. E. Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship, vol. i. (1906).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Festus

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​FESTUS (? Rufus or Rufius), one of the Roman writers of breviaria (epitomes of Roman history). The reference to the defeat of the Goths at Noviodunum (A.D. 369) by the emperor Valens, and the fact that the author is unaware of the constitution of Valentia as a province (which took place in the same year) are sufficient indication to fix the date of composition. Mommsen identifies the author with Rufius Festus, proconsul of Achaea (366), and both with Rufius Festus Avienus (q.v.), the translator of Aratus. But the absence of the name Rufius in the best MSS. is against this. Others take him to be Festus of Tridentum, magister memoriae (secretary) to Valens and proconsul of Asia, where he was sent to punish those implicated in the conspiracy of Theodorus, a commission which he executed with such merciless severity that his name became a byword. The work itself (Breviarium rerum gestarum populi Romani) is divided into two parts—one geographical, the other historical. The chief authorities used are Livy, Eutropius and Florus. It is extremely meagre, but the fact that the last part is based on the writer’s personal recollections makes it of some value for the history of the 4th century.
Editions by W. Förster (Vienna, 1873) and C. Wagener (Prague, 1886); see also R. Jacobi, De Festi breviarii fontibus (Bonn, 1874), and H. Peter, Die geschichtliche Litt. über die römische Kaiserzeit ii. p. 133 (1897), where the epitomes of Festus, Aurelius Victor and Eutropius are compared.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Meleda

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​MELEDA (Serbo-Croatian, Mljet; Lat. Melita), the most southerly and easterly of the larger Adriatic islands of the Austrian province of Dalmatia. Pop. (1900), 1617. Meleda lies south of the Sabioncello promontory, from which it is divided by the Meleda Channel. Its length is 23 m.; its average breadth 2 m. It is of volcanic origin, with numerous chasms and gorges, of which the longest, the Babinopolje, connects the north and south of the island. Port Palazzo, the principal harbour, on the north, is a port of call for tourist steamers. Meleda has been regarded as the Melita on which St Paul was shipwrecked, this view being first expounded, in the 10th century, by Constantine Porphyrogenitus. As at Malta, a “St Paul’s Bay” is still shown.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Melendez Valdés, Juan

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​MELENDEZ VALDÉS, JUAN (1754–1817), Spanish poet, was born at Ribera del Fresno, Badajoz, on the 11th of March 1754. Destined by his parents for the priesthood, he graduated in law at Salamanca, where he became indoctrinated with the ideas of the French philosophical school. In 1780 with Batilo, a pastoral in the manner of Garcilaso de la Vega, he won a prize offered by the Spanish academy; next year he was introduced to Jovellanos, through whose influence he was appointed to a professorship at Salamanca in 1783. The pastoral scenes in Las Bodas de Camacho (1784) do not compensate for its undramatic nature, but it gained a prize from the municipality of Madrid. A volume of verses, lyrical and pastoral, published in 1785, caused Melendez Valdés to be hailed as the first Spanish poet of his time. This success induced him to resign his chair at Salamanca, and try his fortune in politics. Once more the friendship of Jovellanos obtained for him in 1789 a judgeship at Saragossa, whence he was transferred two years later to a post in the chancery court at Valladolid. In 1797 he dedicated to Godoy an enlarged edition of his poems, the new matter consisting principally of unsuccessful imitations of Milton and Thomson; but the poet was rewarded by promotion to a high post in the treasury at Madrid. On the fall of Jovellanos in 1798 Melendez Valdés was dismissed and exiled from the capital; he returned in 1808 and accepted office under Joseph Bonaparte. He had previously denounced the French usurper in his verses. He now outraged the feelings of his countrymen by the grossest flattery of his foreign master, and in 1813 he fled to Alais. Four years later he died in poverty at Montpellier. His remains were removed to Spain in 1900. In natural talent and in acquired accomplishment Melendez Valdés was not surpassed by any contemporary Spaniard; he failed from want of character, and his profound insincerity affects his poems. Yet he has fine moments in various veins, and his imitation of Jean Second’s Basia is notable.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Meletius of Lycopolis

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​MELETIUS OF LYCOPOLIS (4th century), founder of the sect known after him as the “Meletians,” or as the “Church of the Martyrs,” in the district of Thebes in Egypt. With Peter, archbishop of Alexandria, he was thrown into prison during the persecution under Diocletian. His importance is due to his refusal to receive, at least until the persecution had ceased, those Christians who during the persecutions had renounced their faith, and then repented. This refusal led to a breach with Peter, and other Egyptian bishops who were willing to grant absolution to those who were willing to do penance for their infidelity. Meletius, after regaining his freedom, held his ground and drew around him many supporters, extending his influence even so far away as Palestine. He ordained 29 bishops and encroached upon Peter’s jurisdiction. The Council of Nicaea in 325 upheld the bishops, but Meletius was allowed to remain bishop of Lycopolis though with merely nominal authority. His death followed soon after. His followers, however, took part with the Arians in the controversy with Athanasius and existed as a separate sect till the 5th century.
See Achelis in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyk. xii. (1903) 558, with the authorities there quoted, and works on Church History.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Melilla

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​MELILLA, a Spanish fortified station and penal settlement on the north coast of Morocco, south of Cape Tres Forcas and 135 m. E.S.E. of Ceuta. Pop. about 9000. The town is built on a huge rock connected with the mainland by a rocky isthmus. There is a harbour, only accessible to small vessels; the roadstead outside is safe and has deep water a mile to the east of the fortress. From the landing-place, where a mole is cut out of the rock, there is a steep ascent to the upper town, characteristically Spanish in appearance. The town is walled, and the isthmus protected by a chain of small forts. A Moorish custom-house is placed on the Spanish border beyond the fort of Santa Isabel, and is the only authorized centre of trade on the Riff coast between Tetuan and the Algerian frontier. It thus forms the entrepot for the commerce of the Riff district and its hinterland. Goat skins, eggs and beeswax are the principal exports, cotton goods, tea, sugar and candles being the chief imports. For the period 1900–1905 the annual value of the trade was about £200,000. Melilla, the first place captured by Spain on the African mainland, was seized from the Moors in 1490. The Spaniards have had much trouble with the neighbouring tribes—turbulent Riffians, hardly subject to the sultan of Morocco. The limits of the Spanish territory round the fortress were fixed by treaties with Morocco in 1859, 1860, 1861 and 1894. In 1893 the Riffians besieged Melilla and 25,000 men had to be despatched against them. In 1908 two companies, under the protection of El Roghi, a chieftain then ruling the Riff region, started mining lead and iron some 15 m. from Melilla and a railway to the mines was begun. In October of that year the Riffians revolted from the Roghi and raided the mines, which remained closed until June 1909. On the 9th of July the workmen were again attacked and several of them killed. Severe fighting between the Spaniards and the tribesmen followed. The Riffians having submitted, the Spaniards, in 1910, restarted the mines and undertook harbour works at Mar Chica.
See Budgett Meakin, The Land of the Moors (London, 1901), ch. xix., and the authorities there cited; P. Barré, “Melilla et les présides espagnols,” Rev. française (1908).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Meliorism

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MELIORISM (Lat. melior, better), in philosophy, a term given to that view of the world which believes that at present the sum of good exceeds the sum of evil and that, in the future, good will continually gain upon evil. The term is said to have been invented by George Eliot to express a theory mediating between optimism and pessimism. The pragmatic movement in philosophy which puts stress upon the duty and value of effort is naturally favourable to the melioristic view: the best things that have been said recently in favour of it are found in books such as William James's Pragmatism.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Melegnano

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​MELEGNANO (formerly Marignano), a town of Lombardy, Italy, in the province of Milan, 11 m. S.E. of that city by the railway to Piacenza, 289 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901), 6782. There are remains of a castle of the Visconti. Its military importance is due to its position at the crossing of the river Lambro. It was a stronghold of Milan in her great struggle against Lodi, and is famous for the victory of Francis I. of France over the Swiss in 1515, known as the battle of Marignan, and for the action between the French and Austrians in 1859.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Melissus of Samos

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​MELISSUS OF SAMOS, Greek philosopher of the Eleatic School (q.v.), was born probably not later than 470 B.C. According to Diogenes Laërtius, ix. 24, he was not only a thinker, but also a political leader in his native town, and was in command of the fleet which defeated the Athenians in 442. The same authority says he was a pupil of Parmenides and of Heraclitus, but the statement is improbable, owing to discrepancy in dates. His works, fragments of which are preserved by Simplicius and attested by the evidence of Aristotle, are devoted to the defence of Parmenides’ doctrine. They were written in Ionic and consist of long series of argument. Being, he says, is eternal. It cannot have had a beginning because it cannot have begun from not-being (cf. ex nihilo nihil), nor from being (εἴη γὰρ ἂ οὕτω καὶ οὐ γένοιτο). It cannot suffer destruction; it is impossible for being to become not being, and if it became another being, there would be no destruction. According to Simplicius (Physica, f. 22b), he differed here from Parmenides in distinguishing being and absolute being (τὸ ἁπλῶς ἐόν). He goes on to show that eternal being must also be unlimited in magnitude, and, therefore, one and unchangeable. Any change whether from internal or external source, he says, is unthinkable; the One is unvarying in quantity and in kind. There can be no division inside this unity, for any such division implies space or void; but void is nothing, and, therefore, is not. It follows further that being is incorporeal, inasmuch as all body has size and parts. The fundamental difficulty underlying this logic is the paradox more clearly expressed by Zeno and to a large extent represented in almost all modern discussion, namely that the evidence of the senses contradicts the intellect. Abstract argument has shown that change in the unity is impossible; yet the senses tell us that hot becomes cold, hard becomes soft, the living dies, and so on. From a comparison of Melissus with Zeno of Elea, it appears that the spirit of dialectic was already tentatively at work, though it was not conscious of its own power. Neither Melissus nor Zeno seems to have observed that the application of these destructive methods struck at the root not only of multiplicity but also of the One whose existence they maintained. The weapons which they forged in the interests of Parmenides were to be used with equal effect against themselves.
See Ritter and Preller, §§ 159–166; Brandis, Commentationum eleaticarum, pt. 1, p. 185; Mullach, Aristotelis de Melisso, Xenophane, Gorgia; Pabst, De Melissi samii fragmentis (Bonn, 1889), and histories of philosophy.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Melfi

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​MELFI, a city and episcopal see of Basilicata, Italy, in the province of Potenza, 30 m. by rail N. of the town of that name. Melfi is picturesquely situated on the lower slopes of Monte Vulture, 1591 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901), 14,547. The castle was originally erected by Robert Guiscard, but as it now stands it is mainly the work of the Doria family, who have possessed it since the time of Charles V.; and the noble cathedral which was founded in 1153 by Robert’s son and successor, Roger, has had a modern restoration (though it retains its campaniles) in consequence of the earthquake of 1851, when the town was ruined, over one thousand of the inhabitants perishing. It is the centre of an agricultural district which produces oil and wine. In the town hall is a fine Roman sarcophagus found 6 m. W. of Venosa.
Melfi does not seem to occupy an ancient site, and its origin is uncertain. By the Normans it was made the capital of Apulia in 1041, and fortified. The council held by Nicholas I. in 1059, that of Urban II. in 1089, the rebellion against Roger in 1133 and the subsequent punishment, the plunder of the town by Barbarossa in 1167, the attack by Richard, count of Acerra in 1190, and the parliament of 1223, in which Frederick II. established the constitution of the kingdom of Naples, form the principal points of interest in the annals of Melfi. In 1348 Joanna I. of Naples bestowed the city on Niccolo Acciajuoli; but it was shortly afterwards captured, after a six months’ siege, by the king of Hungary, who transferred it to Conrad the Wolf. In 1392 Goffredo Marzano was made count of Melfi; but Joanna II. granted the lordship to the Caracciolo family, and they retained it for one hundred and seven years till the time of Charles V. An obstinate resistance was offered by the city to Lautrec de Foix in 1528; and his entrance within its walls was followed by the massacre, it is said, of 18,000 of its citizens.
See G. de Lorenzo, Venosa e la regione del Vulture (Bergamo, 1906).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Melicertes

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​MELICERTES, in Greek legend, the son of the Boeotian prince Athamas and Ino, daughter of Cadmus. Ino, pursued by her husband, who had been driven mad by Hera because Ino had brought up the infant Dionysus, threw herself and Melicertes into the sea from a high rock between Megara and Corinth. Both were changed into marine deities—Ino as Leucothea, Melicertes as Palaemon. The body of the latter was carried by a dolphin to the Isthmus of Corinth and deposited under a pine tree. Here it was found by his uncle Sisyphus, who had it removed to Corinth, and by command of the Nereids instituted the Isthmian games and sacrifices in his honour. There seems little doubt that the cult of Melicertes was of foreign, probably Phoenician, origin, and introduced by Phoenician navigators on the coasts and islands of the Aegean and Mediterranean. He is a native of Boeotia, where Phoenician influences were strong; at Tenedos he was propitiated by the sacrifice of children, which seems to point to his identity with Melkart. The premature death of the child in the Greek form of the legend is probably an allusion to this.
The Romans identified Palaemon with Portunus (the harbour god). No satisfactory origin of the name Palaemon has been given. It has been suggested that it means the “wrestler” or “struggler” (παλαίω) and is an epithet of Heracles, who is often identified with Melkart, but there does not appear to be any traditional connexion between Heracles and Palaemon. Melicertes being Phoenician, Palaemon also has been explained as the “burning lord” (Baal-haman), but there seems little in common between a god of the sea and a god of fire.
See Apollodorus iii. 4, 3; Ovid, Metam. iv. 416–542, Fasti, vi. 485; Hyginus, Fab. 2; Pausanias i. 44, ii. 1; Philostratus, Icones, ii. 16; articles by Toutain in Daremberg and Sago’s Dictionnaire des antiquités and by Stoll in Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie; L. Preller, Griechische Mythologie; R. Brown, Semitic Influence in Hellenic Mythology (1898).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Composite Order

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​COMPOSITE ORDER, in architecture, a compound of the Ionic and Corinthian orders (see Order), the chief characteristic of which is found in the capital (q.v.), where a double row of acanthus leaves, similar to those carved round the Corinthian capital, has been added under the Ionic volutes. The richer decoration of the Ionic capital had already been employed in those of the Erechtheum, where the necking was carved with the palmette or honeysuckle. Similar decorated Ionic capitals were found in the forum of Trajan. The earliest example of the Composite capital is found in the arch of Titus at Rome. The entablature was borrowed from that of the Corinthian order.