OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Baron, Michel

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​BARON, MICHEL (1653–1729), French actor (whose family name originally was Boyron), was born in Paris, the son of a leading actor (d. 1655) and of a talented actress (d. 1662). At the age of twelve he joined the company of children known as the Petits Comédiens Dauphins, of which he was the brightest star. Molière was delighted with his talent, and with the king’s permission secured him for his own company. In consequence of a misunderstanding with Molière’s wife, the actor withdrew from the dramatist’s company, but rejoined it in 1670, reappearing as Domitien in Corneille’s Tite et Bérénice, and in his Psyche. He remained in this company until Molière’s death. He then became a member of the company at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and from this time until his retirement in 1691 was undisputed master of the French stage, creating many of the leading rôles in Racine’s tragedies, besides those in two of his own comedies, L'Homme à bonnes fortunes (1686), and La Coquette (1687). He also wrote Les Enlèvements (1685), Le Débauché (1689), and translated and acted two plays of Terence. In 1720 Baron reappeared at the Palais Royal, and his activity on the stage was renewed in a multitude of parts. He died on the 22nd of December 1729.
His son Étienne Michel Baron (1676–1711) was also a fine actor, and left a son and two daughters who all played at the Comédie Française.
See George Monval, Un Comédien amateur d’art (1893); also the Abbé d’Allamial’s Lettres à mylord XXX. sur Baron et la demoiselle Lecouvreur, in F. G. J. S. Andrieux’s Collection des mémoires sur l’art dramatique (1822).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Barnum, Phineas Taylor

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​BARNUM, PHINEAS TAYLOR (1810–1891), American showman, was born in Bethel, Connecticut, on the 5th of July 1810, his father being an inn- and store-keeper. Barnum first started as a store-keeper, and was also concerned in the lottery mania then prevailing in the United States. After failing in business, he started in 1829 a weekly paper, The Herald of Freedom, in Danbury; after several libel suits and a prosecution which resulted in imprisonment, he moved to New York in 1834, and in 1835 began his career as a showman, with his purchase and exploitation of a coloured woman, Joyce Heth, reputed to have been the nurse of George Washington, and to be over a hundred and sixty years old. With this woman and a small company he made well-advertised and successful tours in America till 1839, though Joyce Heth died in 1836, when her age was proved to be not more than seventy. After a period of failure, he purchased Scudder’s American Museum, New York, in 1841; to this he added considerably, and it became one of the most popular shows in the United States. He made a special hit by the exhibition, in 1842, of Charles Stratton, the celebrated “General Tom Thumb” (see Dwarf). In 1844 Barnum toured with the dwarf in England. A remarkable instance of his enterprise was the engagement of Jenny Lind to sing in America at $1000 a night for one hundred and fifty nights, all expenses being paid by the entrepreneur. The tour began in 1850. Barnum retired from the show business in 1855, but had to settle with his creditors in 1857, and began his old career again as showman and museum proprietor. In 1871 he established the “Greatest Show on Earth,” a travelling amalgamation of circus, menagerie and museum of “freaks,” &c. This show, incorporated in the name of “Barnum, Bailey & Hutchinson,” and later as “Barnum & Bailey’s” toured all over the world. In 1907 the business was sold to Ringling Brothers. Barnum wrote several books, such as The Humbugs of the World (1865), Struggles and Triumphs (1869), and his Autobiography (1854, and later editions). He died on the 7th of April 1891.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Barocchio, Giacomo

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​BAROCCHIO (or Barozzi), GIACOMO, called Da Vignola (1507–1573), Italian architect, was born at Vignola in the Modenese territory on the 1st of October 1507. His early work was conducted at Bologna, Piacenza, Assisi and Perugia, until he was summoned to Rome as papal architect under Pope Julius III. In 1564 he succeeded Michelangelo as the architect of St Peter’s, and executed various portions of that fabric, besides a variety of works in Rome. The designs for the Escorial were also supplied by him. He is the author of an excellent work on the Five Orders of Architecture (Rome, 1563), and another work on Practical Perspective (Rome, 1583). To his extensive acquirements and exquisite taste were superadded an amenity of manners and a noble generosity that won the affection and admiration of all who knew him. He died in Rome on the 7th of July 1573. He was an eminent upholder of the classic style at a period when the style known as baroque was corrupting the architecture of Italy. The term baroque owes its origin to the Spanish word barrueco or berrueco, an imperfectly round pearl, and is not derived from the architect Barocchio, whose name so much resembles it. Yet it is curious that it was much used to describe a debased form of architecture encouraged by the Jesuits whose church in Rome was built by Barocchio.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Barocci, Federigo

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​BAROCCI (or Baroccio), FEDERIGO (1528–1612), Italian painter, was born at Urbino, where the genius of Raphael inspired him. In his early youth he travelled to Rome, where he painted in fresco and was warmly commended by Michelangelo. He then returned to Urbino, where, with the exception of some short visits to Rome, he continued to reside till his death. He acquired great fame by his paintings of religious subjects, in the style of which he to some extent imitated Correggio. His own followers were very numerous, but according to Lanzi (Hist. of Painting) carried their master’s peculiarities to excess. Barocci also etched from his own designs a few prints, which are highly finished, and executed with great softness and delicacy.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Baronius, Caesar

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​BARONIUS, CAESAR (1538–1607), Italian cardinal and ecclesiastical historian, was born at Sora, and was educated at Veroli and Naples. At Rome he joined the Oratory in 1557 under St Philip Neri (q.v.) and succeeded him as superior in 1593. Clement VIII., whose confessor he was, made him cardinal in 1596 and librarian of the Vatican. At subsequent conclaves he was twice nearly elected pope, but on each occasion was opposed by Spain on account of his work On the Monarchy of Sicily, in which he supported the papal claims against those of the Spanish government. Baronius is best known by his Annales Ecclesiastici, undertaken by the order of St Philip as an answer to the Magdeburg Centuries. After nearly thirty years of lecturing on the history of the Church at the Vallicella and being trained by St Philip as a great man for a great work, he began to write, and produced twelve folios (1588–1607). In the Annales he treats history in strict chronological order and keeps theology in the background. In spite of many errors, especially in Greek history, in which he had to depend upon secondhand information, the work of Baronius stands as an honest attempt to write history, marked with a sincere love of truth. Sarpi, in urging Casaubon to write against Baronius, warns him never to charge or suspect him of bad faith, for no one who knew him could accuse him of disloyalty to truth. Baronius makes use of the words of St Augustine: “I shall love with a special love the man who most rigidly and severely corrects my errors.” He also undertook a new edition to the Roman martyrology (1586), which he purified of many inaccuracies.
His Annales, which end in 1198, were continued by Rinaldi (9 vols., 1676–1677); by Laderchi (3 vols., 1728–1737); and by Theiner (3 vols., 1856). The most useful edition is that of Mansi (38 vols., Lucca, 1738–1759), giving Pagi’s corrections at the foot of each page.  (E. Tn)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ageladas

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​AGELADAS, or (as the name is spelt in an inscription) Hagelaidas, a great Argive sculptor, who flourished in the latter part of the 6th and the early part of the 5th century B.C. He was specially noted for his statues of Olympic victors (of 520, 516, 508 B.C.); also for a statue at Messene of Zeus, copied on the coins of that city. Ageladas was said to have been the teacher of Myron, Phidias and Polyclitus; this tradition is a testimony to his wide fame, though historically doubtful. We have no work of Ageladas surviving; but we have an inscription which contains the name of his son Argeiadas.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Agathon

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​AGATHON (c. 448–400 B.C.), Athenian tragic poet, friend of Euripides and Plato, best known from his mention by Aristophanes (Thesmophoriazusae) and in Plato's Symposium, which describes the banquet given to celebrate his obtaining a prize for a tragedy (416). He probably died at the court of Archelaus, king of Macedonia. He introduced certain innovations, and Aristotle (Poetica, 9) tells us that the plot of his Ἄνθος was original, not, as usually, borrowed from mythological subjects.
See Aristophanes, Thesmoph. 59, 106, Eccles. 100; Plato, Symp. 198 c; Plutarch, Symp. 3; Aelian, Var. Hist. xiv. 13; Ritsch, Opuscula, i.; fragments in Nauck, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Agathyrsi

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​AGATHYRSI, a people of Thracian origin, who in the earliest historical times occupied the plain of the Maris (Maros), in the region now known as Transylvania. Thyrsi is supposed to be a Scythian form of Τραυσοί (Trausi), a Thracian tribe mentioned by Stephanus of Byzantium. They are described by Herodotus (iv. 104) as of luxurious habits, wearing gold ornaments (the district is still auriferous) and having wives in common. They tattooed their bodies (picti, Aeneid iv. 136), degrees of rank being indicated by the manner in which this was done, and coloured their hair dark blue. Like the Gallic Druids, they recited their laws in a kind of sing-song to prevent their being forgotten, a practice still in existence in the days of Aristotle (Problemata, xix. 28). Valerius Flaccus (Argonautica vi. 135) calls them Thyrsagetae, probably in reference to their celebration of orgiastic rites in honour of some divinity akin to the Thracian Dionysus. In later times the Agathyrsi were driven farther north, and their name was unknown to the Romans in their original home.
See Ammianus Marcellinus xxxi. 2. 17; Pliny, Nat. Hist. iv. 12 [26]. 88; Pomponius Mela ii. 1. 10; W. Tomaschek "Die alten Thraker" in Sitzungsber. der philosophisch-historischen Klasse der kaiserl. Akad. der Wiss. cxxviii (Vienna, 1893).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Agave

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# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Agde

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​AGDE, a town of southern France, in the department of Herault, on the left bank of the river of that name, 21/2 m. from the Mediterranean Sea and 32 m. S.W. of Montpellier on the Southern railway. Pop. (1906) 7146. The town lies at the foot of an extinct volcano, the Montagne St Loup, and is built of black volcanic basalt, which gives it a gloomy appearance. Overlooking the river is the church of St André, which dates partly from the 12th century, and, till the Revolution, was a cathedral. It is a plain and massive structure with crenelated walls, and has the aspect of a fortress rather than of a church. The exterior is diversified by arched recesses forming machicolations, and the same architectural feature is reproduced in the square tower which rises like a donjon above the building. The Canal du Midi, or Languedoc canal, uniting the Garonne with the Mediterranean, passes under the walls of the town, ​and the mouth of the Hérault forms a harbour which is protected by a fort. The maritime commerce of the town has declined, owing partly to the neighbourhood of Cette, partly to the shallowness of the Hérault . The fishing industry is, however, still active. The chief public institutions are the tribunal of commerce and the communal college.
Agde is a place of great antiquity and is said to have been founded under the name of ἀγαθὴ πόλις (Good City) by the Phocaeans. The bishopric was established about the year 400 and was suppressed in 1790.
Sybid of Agde (Concilium Agathense.)—With the permission of the West Goth Alaric II. thirty-five bishops of southern Gaul assembled in person or sent deputies to Agde on the 11th of September 506. Caesarius, bishop of Arles, presided. The forty-seven genuine canons of the synod deal with discipline, church life, the alienation of ecclesiastical property and the treatment of Jews. While favouring sacerdotal celibacy the council laid rather rigid restrictions on monasticism. It commanded that the laity communicate at Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide. The canons of Agde are based in part on earlier Gallic, African and Spanish legislation; and some of them were re-enacted by later councils, and found their way into collections such as the Hispana, Pseudo-Isidore and Gratian.
See Mansi viii. 319 ff.; Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, 2nd edition, ii. 649 ff. (English translation, iv. 76 ff.); Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie, i. 242.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Agenais

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​AGENAIS, or Agenois, a former province of France. In ancient Gaul it was the country of the Nitiobroges with Aginnum for its capital, and in the 4th century it was the Civitas Agennensium which was a part of Aquitania Secunda and which formed the diocese of Agen. Having in general shared the fortunes of Aquitaine during the Merovingian and Carolingian periods, Agenais next became an hereditary countship in the part of the country now called Gascony (Vasconia). In 1038 this countship was purchased by the dukes of Aquitaine and counts of Poitiers. The marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine with Henry Plantagenet in 1152 brought it under the sway of England; but when Richard Cœur-de-Lion married his sister Joan to Raymund VI., count of Toulouse, in 1196, Agenais formed part of the princess’s dowry; and with the other estates of the last independent count of Toulouse it lapsed to the crown of France in 1271. This, however, was not for long; the king of France had to recognize the prior rights of the king of England to the possession of the countship, and restored it to him in 1279. During the wars between the English and the French in the 14th and 15th centuries, Agenais was frequently taken and retaken, the final retreat of the English in 1453 at last leaving the king of France in peaceable possession. Thenceforth Agenais was no more than an administrative term. At the end of the ancien régime it formed part of the “Gouvernement” of Guienne, and at the Revolution it was incorporated in the départment of Lot-et-Garonne, of which it constitutes nearly the whole. The title of count of Agenais, which the kings of England had allowed to fall into desuetude, was revived by the kings of France, and in 1789 was held by the family of the dukes of Richelieu.
There is no good history of Agenais; that published by Jules Andrieu in 1893 (Histoire de l’Agenais, 2 vols.). being quite inadequate. The Bibliographie générale de l’Agenais, by the same author (1886–1891, 3 vols.), may be found useful. (C.B.*)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Agathodaemon

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​AGATHODAEMON, of Alexandria, map designer, probably lived in the 2nd century A.D. Some MSS. of the Geography of Ptolemy contain twenty-seven maps, which are stated to have been drawn by Agathodaemon of Alexandria, who “delineated the whole world according to the eight books of Ptolemy’s geography.” As Ptolemy speaks of Πίνακες to accompany his treatise, these maps were probably the work of a contemporary acting under his instructions. About 1470 Nicolaus Doris, a Benedictine monk, brought out a revised edition of them, the names being inserted in Latin instead of Greek.
See Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography, ii.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Agathodaemon (spirit)

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​AGATHODAEMON, in Greek mythology, the "good spirit" of cornfields and vineyards. It was the custom of the Greeks to drink a cup of pure wine in his honour at the end of each meal (Aristophanes, Equites, 106). He was also regarded as the protecting spirit of the state and of individuals. He was often accompanied by Ἀγαθὴ Τύχη (good fortune), and in this aspect may be compared with the Roman Bonus Eventus (Pliny, Nat Hist. xxxvi. 23), and Genius. He is represented in works of art in the form of a serpent, or of a young man with a cornucopia and a bowl in one hand, and a poppy and ears of corn in the other.
See Gerhard, Über Agathodämon und Bona Dea (Berlin, 1849).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Amherst (Burma)

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​AMHERST, a town and district in the Tenasserim division of Lower Burma. The town is situated about 30 m. S. of Moulmein. It was founded by the British in 1826 on the restoration of the town of Martaban to the Burmese, and named in compliment to the governor-general of India of that day; but in 1827 the headquarters were transferred to Moulmein. Amherst has been eclipsed in prosperity by the latter city, and is now merely a bathing-place for Moulmein.
The district forms a narrow strip of land between the Indian Ocean and the mountains which separate it from the independent kingdom of Siam. It has an area of 7062 sq. m. and had a population in 1901 of 300,173; it consists partly of fertile valleys formed by spurs of mountain system which divides it from Siam, and partly of a rich alluvial tract created by the great rivers which issue from them. The most important of these are the Salween and the Gyaing, formed by the junction of the Hlaingbwè and Haungtharaw rivers. The river highways bring down inexhaustible supplies of rice to Moulmein, the chief town of the district, as also of the province of Tenasserim. The district is subject to very heavy rainfall approaching 150 in. in the year, and has a uniform temperature of about 80° F. throughout the twelvemonth.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Amianthus

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​AMIANTHUS, a corruption of amiantus (Gr. ἀμίαντος, undefiled), a name applied to the finer kinds of asbestos (q.v.), in consequence, it is said, of the mineral being unaffected by fire. Some of the finest amianthus, with long silky flexible fibres, occurs in the district of the Tarentaise in Savoy. According to Dr J. W. Evans, the ancient amianthus, derived mostly from Karystos in Euboea and from Cyprus, was probably a fibrous serpentine, or chrysotile (now called locally παμπακόπετρα, or cotton-stone).
See Mineralogical Mag. (London) vol. xiv. no. 65 (1906), art. by J. W. Evans.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Amhurst, Nicholas

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​AMHURST, NICHOLAS (1697–1742), English poet and political writer, was born at Marden, Kent, on the 16th of October 1697. He was educated at the Merchant Taylors’ School, and received an exhibition (1716) to St John's College, Oxford. In 1719 he was expelled from the university, ostensibly for his irregularities of conduct, but in reality, according to his own account, because of his whig principles, which were sufficiently evident in a congratulatory epistle to Addison, in Protestant Popery; or the Convocation (1718), an attack on the opponents of Bishop Hoadly, and in The Protestant Session . . . by a member of the Constitution Club at Oxford (1719), addressed to James, first Earl Stanhope, and printed anonymously, but doubtless by Amhurst. He had satirized Oxford morals in Strephon’s Revenge; a Satire on the Oxford Toasts (1718), and he attacked from time to time the administration of the university and its principal members. An old Oxford custom on public occasions permitted some person to deliver from the rostrum a humorous, satirical speech, full of university scandal. This orator was known as Terrae filius. In 1721 Amhurst produced a series of bi-weekly satirical papers under this name, which ran for seven months and incidentally provides much curious information. These publications were reprinted in 1726 in two volumes as Terrae Filius; or the secret history of the University of Oxford; in several essays. . . . He collected his poems in 1720, and wrote another university satire, Oculus Britanniae, in 1724. On leaving Oxford for London he became a prominent pamphleteer on the opposition side. On the 5th of December 1726 he issued the first number of the Craftsman, a weekly periodical, which he conducted under the pseudonym of Caleb D’Anvers. The paper contributed largely to the final overthrow of Sir Robert Walpole’s government, and reached a circulation of 10,000 copies. For this success Amhurst’s editorship was not perhaps chiefly responsible. It was the organ of Lord Bolingbroke and William Pulteney, the latter of whom was a frequent and caustic contributor. In 1737 an imaginary letter from Colley Cibber was inserted, in which he was made to suggest that many plays by Shakespeare and the older dramatists contained passages which might be regarded as seditious. He therefore desired to be appointed censor of all plays brought on the stage. This was regarded as a “suspected” libel, and a warrant was issued for the arrest of the printer. Amhurst surrendered himself instead, and suffered a short imprisonment. On the overthrow of the government in 1742 the opposition leaders did nothing for the useful editor of the Craftsman, and this neglect is said to have hastened Amhurst’s death, which took place at Twickenham on the 27th of April 1742.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Amicable Numbers

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​AMICABLE NUMBERS, two numbers so related that the sum of the factors of the one is equal to the other, unity being considered as a factor. Such a pair are 220 and 284; for the factors of 220 are 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 11, 20, 22, 44, 55 and 110, of which the sum is 284; and the factors of 284 are 1, 2, 4, 71, and 142, of which the sum ​is 220. Amicable numbers were known to the Pythagoreans, who accredited them with many mystical properties. A general formula by which these numbers could be derived was invented by the Arabian astronomer Tobit ben Korra (836–901): if p = 3·2$^m$ − 1, q = 3·2$^{m−1}$ − 1 and r = 9·2$^{2m−1}$ − 1, where m is an integer and p, q, r prime numbers, then 2$^m$ pq and 2$^m$ r are a pair of amicable numbers. This formula gives the pairs 220 and 284, 17,296 and 18,416, 9,463,584 and 9,437,056. The pair 6232 and 6368 are amicable, but they cannot be derived from this formula. Amicable numbers have been studied by Al Madshritti (d. 1007), René Descartes, to whom the formula of Tobit ben Korra is sometimes ascribed, C. Rudolphus and others.