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# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Platerspiel

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​PLATERSPIEL, Blaterpfeife, a medieval simplified bagpipe, consisting of an insufflation tube, a bladder and a chaunter, the double reed in its socket at the top of the chaunter being concealed within the bladder. In the platerspiel we recognise the early medieval chorus, a word which in medieval Latin was frequently used also for the bagpipe. In the earlier forms of platerspiels of which we possess illustrations, such as the well known example of the 13th century reproduced by Martin Gerbert from a MS. at St Blasius, the bladder is unusually large, and the chaunter has, instead of a bell, the grotesque head of an animal with gaping jaws. At first the chaunter was a straight conical tube terminating in a bell, as in the bagpipe The later instruments have a pipe of larger calibre more or less curved and bent back as in the cromorne. One of these appears in the 13th-century Spanish MS., known as the Cantigas de Santa Maria in the Escurial, together with a platerspiel having two pipes, a chaunter and a drone side by side. Another is figured by Virdung (1511).
There was practically no technical difference between the bent platerspiel and the cromorne, the only distinction being the form and size of the air-chamber in which the reed was set in vibration by the compressed air forced into it through the insufflation tube or the raised slit respectively of the two instruments. The earlier form of platerspiel is found at the end of the 15th century, in the magnificent Book of Hours, known as the Sforza Book (Brit. Mus.). An interest in allusion to the platerspiel occurs in an old English ballad Eight shepherds were playing on various instruments. "the fyrst hed ane drone bagpipe, the next hed ane pipe maid of ane bleddir and of ane reid, the thrid playit on ane trump, &c," from which it is evident that the platerspiel retained its individuality and did not become merged in the bagpipe. (K. S.)
* ↑ Reproduced by J. F. Riaño, in Studies of Early Spanish Music (London, 1887).
* ↑ See facsimile edited by Dr George Warner, pl. xxviii fol 51.
* ↑ See F. J. Furnivall, Captain Cox, his ballads and Books, or Robert Laneham’s Letter A.D. 1575 (London, 1871), cix. 86.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Platonic Love

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​PLATONIC LOVE, a term commonly applied to an affectionate relation between a man and a woman into which the sexual element does not enter. The term in English goes back as far as Sir William Davenant's Platonic Lovers (1636). It is derived from the conception, in Plato's Symposium, of the love of the idea of good which lies at the root of all virtue and truth. Amor platonicus was used, e.g. by Marsilio Ficino (15th century), as a synonym for amor socraticus, referring to the affection which subsisted between Socrates and his pupils.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Plated Ware

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​PLATED WARE, articles chiefly intended for table use consisting of an inferior metal or alloy covered by one of the precious metals, with the object of giving them the appearance of gold or silver. Before the introduction of electro-plating the method employed for silver-plating (the invention of which in 1742 is associated with the name of Thomas Bolsover, of Sheffield) was to fuse or burn together, by a flux of borax, a thin sheet of silver on each side of an ingot of base metal, generally copper, or German silver, which is an alloy of copper. The silver plates were firmly wired to the ingot, which was then placed in a heated furnace and brought nearly to the fusing point of the silver. The artisan knew the exact moment to withdraw the ingot. When cold it was rolled down to a sheet, and from such sheets "silver-plated" articles were made. Articles like dish-covers were originally only silver-plated on one side, and after being worked into shape were tinned inside with pure tin. In Birmingham bar-copper was the base metal used, when bare of silver this showed blood-red. The Sheffield manufacturers, on the other hand, used shot-copper mixed with brass (an alloy of copper and zinc) in the proportion of 4 or 6 to 1. In this way they got rid of the redness of the copper and rendered it harder, and their product is the "old Sheffield plate" (q.v.) that has become famous all over the world. This method of plating rapidly declined with the introduction of the newer process of electro-plating (q.v.), by which it has been superseded. Plating with nickel is extensively used for bedsteads and other articles of upholstery, and for various parts of bicycles, steamships, railway carriages, &c. Steel sheets are also plated with nickel for cooking purposes, and iron is plated with brass.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Platform

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​PLATFORM (Fr. plateforme, i.e. ground plan), a word now generally confined to a raised flat structure or stage, temporary or permanent, erected in a building or in the open air, from which speeches, addresses, lectures, &c., can be delivered at a public or other meeting. Similar structures of wood, brick or stone, are used in railway stations at such a level above the rails as to enable passengers to have easy access to the carriages, and in fortification the word is used of the raised level surface on which guns are mounted. The earlier uses of the word, such as for a plane geometrical figure, the ground plan of a building, and figuratively, for a plan, design, scheme, &c., are now obsolete. In a figurative sense the term is applied to a common basis on which members of a political party may agree, and especially in the United States to the declaration made by a party at a national or state convention.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Plato (poet)

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​PLATO, Athenian comic poet of the Old Comedy, flourished between 428-389 B.C. According to Suidas, he was the author of thirty comedies. Some of these deal with political matters. Such were the Cleophon and Hyperbolus, directed against the well-known demagogues, and the Symmachia, referring to a coalition formed by Nicias, Alcibiades and Phaeax to get rid of Hyperbolus by ostracism. His later plays treat the vices and failings of mankind in the spirit of burlesque and parody. Such were the Sophistae, akin to the Clouds of Aristophanes; the Cinesias, an attack on a contemporary poet; the Festivals, satirizing the useless expenditure and extravagance common on such occasions; mythological subjects—Adonis, Europe, Io, the Ants (on the Aeginetan legend of the change of ants into men); Phaon, the story of the Lesbian ferryman, who was presented by Aphrodite with a marvellous ointment, the use of which made women madly in love with him.
See T. Kock, Comicorum atticorum fragmenta, i. (1880); A. Meineke, Poetarum comicorum graecorum fragmenta (1855).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Valeria, Via

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​VALERIA, VIA, an ancient highroad of Italy, the continuation north-eastwards of the Via Tiburtina (q.v.). It probably owed its origin to M. Valerius Messalla, censor in 154 B.C. It ran first up the Anio valley past Varia (q.v.), and then, abandoning it at the 36th mile, where the Via Sublacensis diverged, ascended to Carseoli (q.v.), and then again to the lofty pass of Monte Bove (4003 ft.), whence it descended again to the valley occupied by the Lago di Fucino (q.v.). It is doubtful whether it ran farther than the eastern point of the territory of the Marsi at Cerfennia, to the N.E. of the Lacus Fucinus, before the time of Claudius. Stiabo states that in his day it went as far as Corfinium, and this important place must have been in some way accessible from Rome, but probably, beyond Cerfennia, only by a track. The difficult route from Cerfennia to the valley of the Aternus—a drop of nearly 1000 ft., involving too the crossing of the main ridge of the Apennines (3675 ft.) by the Mons Imeus (mod. Forca Caruso)—was, however, probably not made into a highroad until Claudius's reign: one of his milestones (Corp. Inscr. Lat. ix. 5973) states that he in A.D. 48–49 made the Via Claudia Valeria from Cerfennia to the mouth of the Aternus (mod. Pescara). He also constructed a road, the Via Claudia Nova, connecting the Via Salaria, which it left at Foruli (mod. Civitatomassa, near Amiternum) with the Via Valeria near the modern Popoli. This road was continued south (we do not know by whom or when) to Aesernia. From Popoli the road followed the valley of the Aternus to its mouth, and there joined the coast-road at Pescara. The modern railway from Rome to Castellammare Adriatico follows closely the line of the Via Valeria.
See E. Albertini in Mélanges de l'École française de Rome (1907), 463 sqq.
(T. As.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Valerianus, Publius Licinius

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​VALERIANUS, PUBLIUS LICINIUS, Roman emperor from A.D. 253 to 260. He was of noble family, and in 238 was princeps senatus. In 251, when Decius revived the censorship with legislative and executive powers so extensive that it practically embraced the civil authority of the emperor, Valerian was chosen censor by the senate. After the death of Decius Valerian retained the confidence of his successor, Trebonianus Gallus, who sent him to fetch troops to quell the rebellion of Aemilianus, governor of Moesia and Pannonia. The soldiers in Raetia, however, proclaimed Valerian emperor; and marching slowly towards Rome he found both his rivals dead, slain by their own soldiers. Valerian was about sixty-three years of age, and had scarcely the vigour to deal with the enemies that threatened every frontier of the empire. Taking his son Gallienus as colleague, he left the wars in Europe to his direction, under which matters went from bad to worse and the whole West fell into disorder. Valerian chose for his own part the war in the East, where Antioch had fallen into the hands of a Persian vassal and Armenia was occupied by Shapur (Sapor) I., while in 258 the Goths ravaged Asia Minor. Valerian recovered Antioch, fought in Mesopotamia with mixed success and finally was taken captive. It is said that he was subjected to the greatest insults by his captors, and that after his death his skin was stuffed with straw and preserved as a trophy in the chief Persian temple. Owing to imperfect and contradictory authorities, the chronology and details of this reign are very uncertain.
See Trebellius Pollio, Life of Valerian (frags.); Aurelius Victor, Caesares, 32; Eutropius ix. 6; Ammianus Marcellinus xxiii. 5; Zosimus i. 27; Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. 10; H. Schiller, Geschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit, i. pt. 2.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Valeric Acid

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​VALERIC ACID, or Valerianic Acid, C$_4$H$_9$CO$_2$H, an organic acid belonging to the fatty acid series, which exists in four isomeric forms, one of which contains an asymmetric carbon atom and consequently occurs in two optically active modifica- tions and one optically inactive modification. Ordinary valeric acid (baldrianic acid) is a mixture of isovaleric acid or isopro-pylaceticacid, (CH$_3$)$_2$ CH-CH$_2$ -CO$_2$H, and optically active methy- lethylacetic acid, (CH$_3$) (C$_2$H$_5$)CH-CO$_2$ H, which occur free or as esters in the vegetable and animal kingdoms, chiefly in the roots of Angelica archangelica and Valeriana officinalis. It may be extracted by boiling with water or soda. A similar product is obtained by oxidizing fermentation amyl alcohol with chromic acid. Isovaleric acid is an oily liquid having the odour of stale cheese and boiling at 174; the salts are usually greasy to the touch. Potassium permanganate oxidizes it to /3-oxyisovaleric acid (CH$_3$)$_2$-C(OH)-CH$_2$-CO$_2$H, whilst nitric acid gives, among other products, dinitropropane, (CH$_3$)$_2$ C(NO$_2$)$_2$. The acid has been synthesized, as has also the inactive form of methylethyl-acetic acid; this modification is split into its optical antipodes by crystallization of its brucine salt. Normal valeric acid or propylacetic acid, CH$_3$-CH$_2$-CH$_2$ -CH$_2$-CO$_2$ H, is a liquid boiling at 186°. The remaining isomer, pivalic or trimethylacetic acid, (CH$_3$)$_3$ C-CO$_2$H, melts at 35° and boils at 163°. Both these acids are synthetic products.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Valerius Flaccus, Gaius

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The Argonautica was unknown till the first four and a half books were discovered by Poggio at St Gall in 1417. The editio princeps was published at Bologna (1474). Recent editions by G. Thilo (1863), with critical notes; C. Schenkl (1871), with bibliography; E. Bährens (1875), with critical introduction; P. Langen (1896), with Latin notes, and short introductions on the style and language; Caesar Giarratano (1904); see also J. Peters, De. V. F. Vita et Carmine (1890); W. C. Summers, Study of the Argonautica (1894).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Valenzuela, Fernando de

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​VALENZUELA, FERNANDO DE (1630–1692), Spanish royal favourite and minister, was born at Naples on the 19th of January 1630. His father, Don Francisco de Valenzuela, a gentleman of Ronda, had been compelled to flee from Spain in consequence of a brawl, and had enlisted as a soldier in Naples, where he married Dona Leonora de Encisa. Francisco de Valenzuela having died young, his son was placed by his mother as a page in the household of the duke of Infantado. He lost his place owing to a reduction of the duke’s establishment, and for several years he lived obscurely; but by good fortune he succeeded in persuading Maria de Uceda, one of the ladiesin-waiting of Mariana, second wife of Philip IV., to marry him. liy her help Valenzuela obtained a footing in the palace. He was appointed introduce of ambassadors on the 12th of October 1671, and it became notorious that whoever had a petition to present or a place to ask for must apply to him. He became popularly known as the duende, the fairy or brownie of the palace, and was believed to be the lover of the queen. In 1675 a court intrigue, conducted by his rivals and supported by the younger Don John of Austria, was so far successful that he was driven from court; but the queen gave him the title of marquis of Villa Sierra, and appointed him ambassador to Venice. Valenzuela succeeded in getting the embassy exchanged for the governorship of Granada. His stay at this post was short, for he was able to organize a counter-intrigue which soon brought him back to court. The queen-regent now openly appointed him prime minister, gave him official quarters in the palace, and conferred a grandee ship on him, to the profound indignation of the other grandees. In January 1678 a palace revolution broke out against the queen-regent, who was driven from Madrid, and Valenzuela fled for refuge to the monastery of the Escorial. He was, however, taken out by force, and his house was pillaged. His property was confiscated-his jewels, furniture and ready money were estimated to amount to £120,000—he was degraded from the grandee ship and exiled to the Philippines. At a later period he was released from close confinement and allowed to settle in Mexico, where a pension was given him. He died in Mexico, from the kick of a horse he was breaking in, on the 7th of February 1692. Part of his property, and the title of Villa Sierra, but not the grandee ship, were restored to his wife and children. The career of Valenzuela probably helped to suggest the subject of Ruy Blas to Victor Hugo.
See Documentos Inéditos para la Historia de España, vol. lxvii. (Madrid, 1842, &c.), which contain an artful and well-written defence of himself addressed to King Charles II. of Spain from Mexico.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Valerius, Publius

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​VALERIUS, PUBLIUS, surnamed Publicola (or Poplicola), “friend of the people,” the colleague of Brutus in the consulship in the first year of the Roman republic (509 B.C.). According to Livy and Plutarch, his family, whose ancestor Volusus had settled in Rome at the time of King Tatius, was of Sabine origin. He took a prominent part in the expulsion of the Tarquins, and though not originally chosen as the colleague of Brutus he soon took the place of Tarquinius Collatiiius. On the death of Brutus, which left him sole consul, the people began to fear that he was aiming at kingly power. To calm their apprehensions he discontinued the building of his house on the top of the Velian Hill, and also gave orders that the fasces should be lowered whenever he appeared before the people. He further introduced two laws to protect the liberties of the citizens, one enacting that whosoever should attempt to make himself a king might be slain by any man at any time, while another provided an appeal to the people on behalf of any citizen condemned by a magistrate (lex Valeria de provocatione, see Rome, History, II. “The Republic”). He died in 503, and was buried at the public expense, the matrons mourning him for ten months.
Livy ii. 6-8; Dion. Halic. iv. 67, v. 12-40; Life by Plutarch.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Turner, Nat

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​TURNER, NAT (1800-1831), the negro leader of a slave insurrection in Virginia, known as the “Southampton Insurrection,” was born in Southampton county, Virginia, in 1800. From his childhood he claimed to see visions and hear voices, and he became a Baptist preacher of great influence among the negroes. In 1828 he confided to a few companions that a voice from heaven had announced that “the last shall be first,” which was interpreted to mean that the slaves should control. An insurrection was planned, and a solar eclipse in February 1831 and peculiar atmospheric conditions on the 13th of August were accepted as the signal for beginning the work. On the night of the 21st of August 1831, with seven companions, he entered the home of his master, Joseph Travis, and murdered the inmates. After securing guns, horses and liquor they visited other houses, sparing no one. Recruits were added, in some cases by compulsion, until the band numbered about sixty. About noon on the 22nd they were scattered by a small force of whites, hastily gathered. Troops, marines and militia were hurried to the scene, and the negroes were hunted down. In all thirteen men, eighteen women, and twenty-four children had been butchered. After hiding for several weeks Nat was captured on the 30th of October and was tried and hanged, having made, meanwhile, a full confession. Nineteen of his associates were hanged and twelve were sent out of the state. The insurrection, which was attributed to the teachings of the abolitionists, led to the enactment of stricter slave codes.
See S. B. Weeks, “Slave Insurrections in Virginia,” in Magazine of American History, vol. xxxi. (New York, 1891), and W. S. Drewry, The Southampton Insurrection (Washington, 1900).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Turnebus, Adrianus

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​TURNEBUS, ADRIANUS [Adrien Turnèbe] (1512-1565), French classical scholar, was born at Les Andelys in Normandy. At the age of twelve he was sent to Paris to study, and attracted great notice by his remarkable abilities. After having held the post of professor of belles-lettres in the university of Toulouse, in 1547 he returned to Paris as professor (or royal reader) of Greek at the Collège Royal. In 1552 he was entrusted with the printing of the Greek books at the royal press, in which he was assisted by his friend, Guillaume Morel (q.v.). He died of consumption on the 12th of June 1565. His works chiefly consist of philological dissertations, commentaries (on Aeschylus, Sophocles, Theophrastus, Philo and portions of Cicero), and translations of Greek authors into Latin and French. His son, Étienne, published his complete works, in three volumes (Strassburg, 1600), and his son Adrien his Adversaria, containing explanations and emendations of numerous passages in classical authors.
See Oratio funebris by Léger du Chesne (Leodegarius a Quercu) prefixed to the Strassburg edition; L. Clément, De Adriani Turnebi praefationibus et poematis (1899); J. E. Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship (1908) iii.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Turner, Charles

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​TURNER, CHARLES (1773–1857), English engraver, was born at Woodstock in 1773. He entered the schools of the Royal Academy in 1795; and, engraving in stipple in the manner of Bartolozzi, he was employed by Alderman Boydell. His finest plates, however, are in mezzotint, a method in which he engraved J. M. W. Turner’s “Wreck” and twenty-four subjects of his Liber studiorum, Reynold’s “Marlborough Family,” and many of Raeburn’s best portraits, including those of Sir Walter Scott, Lord Newton, Dr Hamilton, Professors Dugald Stewart and John Robison, and Dr Adam. He also worked after Lawrence, Shee and Owen. He was an admirable engraver, large, broad and masterly in touch; and he reproduced with great fidelity the characteristics of the various painters whose works he translated into black and white. In 1828 he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy. He died on the 1st of August 1857.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Turner, William

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​TURNER, WILLIAM (d. 1568), English divine, botanist and physician, was born at Morpeth in Northumberland, and was ​educated at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, where he was elected junior fellow in 1530. He learnt Greek from Nicholas Ridley, and, hearing Hugh Latimer preach, threw in his lot with the new faith. In 1538 he published his Libellus de re herbaria, and in 1540 set out to preach in different places. For doing this without a licence he suffered imprisonment, and on his release travelled in Holland, Germany, Italy and Switzerland, always increasing his knowledge of botany and medicine, collecting plants, and writing books on religion which were so popular in England that they were forbidden by proclamation in July 1546. On the accession of Edward VI. he became chaplain and physician to the duke of Somerset and in 1550 prebendary of York. In November 1550 he was made dean of Wells, but in 1553 was deprived, and during Queen Mary's reign lived at various places in Germany, mostly along the Rhine. Returning to England in 1558 he regained his deanery, and did all he could to disparage episcopacy and ceremonial, and to bring the Anglican Church into conformity with the Reformed Churches of Germany and Switzerland. On the complaint of his bishop, Gilbert Berkeley, he was suspended for Nonconformity in 1564. He passed his last days in Crutched Friars, London, and died on the 7th of July 1568. Turner was a sound and keen botanist, and introduced lucerne into England. He was a racy writer, a man of undoubted learning, and a vigorous controversialist.