half a year (1520 or 1522) at Dillingen, by order of the bishop of Augsburg; a death sentence was commuted to banishment through the influence of Isabella, wife of Christian II. of Denmark and sister of Charles V. Returning to Wittenberg he met Luther, acted as tutor to the sons of Franz von Sickingen at Ebernburg, taught Hebrew at Wittenberg, and aided Luther in his version of the Old Testament. The dates and particulars of his career are uncertain till 1527, when he became pastor at Saalfeld, and in 1528, superintendent. His vehement opposition to the Augsburg Interim (1548) led him to take temporary shelter at Rudolstadt with Catherine, countess of Schwarzburg. In 1550 he was appointed dean of the Collegiatstift in Schmalkalden. Here he had a controversy with Andreas Osiander. Restored to Saalfeld, not without opposition, in 1552, he remained there, still engaged in controversy, till his death on the 12th of November 1560. He was twice married, and left four sons. He published numerous sermons, a few Old Testament expositions and some controversial tracts.
See G. Kawerau, in A. Hauck’s Realencyklopädie (1896); Allgemeine deutsche Biog. (1875); Lives by J. Avenarius (1718); J. G. Hillinger (1731); Chr. Schlegel (1737); Fr. Gensler (1816).
AQUILA, SERAFINO DELL’ (1466–1500), Italian poet and improvisatore, was born in 1466 at the town of Aquila, from which he took his name, and died in the year 1500. He spent several years at the courts of Cardinal Sforza and Ferdinand, duke of Calabria; but his principal patrons were the Borgias at Rome, from whom he received many favours. Aquila seems to have aimed at an imitation of Dante and Petrarch; and his poems, which were extravagantly praised during the author’s lifetime, are occasionally of considerable merit. His reputation was in great measure due to his remarkable skill as an improvisatore and musician. His works were printed at Venice in 1502, and there have been several subsequent editions.
AQUILA, a city of the Abruzzi, Italy, the capital of the province of Aquila, and the seat of an archbishop, 2360 ft. above sea-level, 50 m. directly N.E. of Rome, and 145 m. by rail. Pop. (1901) town, 18,494; commune, 21,261. It lies on a hill in the wide valley of the Aterno, surrounded by mountains on all sides, the Gran Sasso d’Italia being conspicuous on the north-east. It is a favourite summer resort of the Italians, but is cold and windy in winter. In the highest part of the town is the massive citadel, erected by the Spanish viceroy Don Pedro de Toledo in 1534. The church of S. Bernardino di Siena (1472) has a fine Renaissance façade by Nicolò Filotesio (commonly called Cola dell’ Amatrice), and contains the monumental tomb of the saint, decorated with beautiful sculptures, and executed by Silvestro Ariscola in 1480. The church of S. Maria di Collemaggio, just outside the town, has a very fine Romanesque façade of simple design (1270–1280) in red and white marble, with three finely decorated portals and a rose-window above each. The two side doors are also fine. The interior contains the mausoleum of Pope Celestine V. (d. 1296) erected in 1517. Many smaller churches in the town have similar façades (S. Giusta, S. Silvestro, &c.). The town also contains some fine palaces: the municipality has a museum, with a collection of Roman inscriptions and some illuminated service books. The Palazzi Dragonetti and Persichetti contain private collections of pictures. Outside the town is the Fontana delle novantanove cannelle, a fountain with ninety-nine jets distributed along three walls, constructed in 1272. Aquila has some trade in lace and saffron, and possesses other smaller industries. It was a university town in the middle ages, but most of its chairs have now been suppressed.
Aquila was founded by Conrad, son of the emperor Frederick II., about 1250, as a bulwark against the power of the papacy. It was destroyed by Manfred in 1259, but soon rebuilt by Charles I. of Anjou. Its walls were completed in 1316; and it maintained itself as an almost independent republic until it was subdued in 1521 by the Spaniards, who had become masters of the kingdom of Naples in 1503. It was twice sacked by the French in 1799.
See V. Bindi, Monumenti storici ed artistici degli Abruzzi (Naples, 1889), pp. 771 seq.
AQUILA, in astronomy, the “Eagle,” sometimes named the “Vulture,” a constellation of the northern hemisphere, mentioned by Eudoxus (4th cent. B.C.) and Aratus (3rd cent. B.C.). Ptolemy catalogued nineteen stars jointly in this constellation and in the constellation Antinous, which was named in the reign of the emperor Hadrian (A.D. 117–138), but sometimes, and wrongly, attributed to Tycho Brahe, who catalogued twelve stars in Aquila and seven in Antinous; Hevelius determined twenty-three stars in the first, and nineteen in the second. The most brilliant star of this constellation, α-Aquilae or Altair, has a parallax of 0.23″, and consequently is about eight times as bright as the sun; η-Aquilae is a short-period variable, while Nova Aquilae is a “temporary” or “new” star, discovered by Mrs Fleming of Harvard in 1899.
AQUILA ROMANUS, a Latin grammarian who flourished in the second half of the 3rd century A.D. He was the author of an extant treatise De Figuris Sententiarum et Elocutionis, written as an instalment of a complete rhetorical handbook for the use of a young and eager correspondent. While recommending Demosthenes and Cicero as models, he takes his own examples almost exclusively from Cicero. His treatise is really adapted from that by Alexander, son of Numenius, as is expressly stated by Julius Rufinianus, who brought out a supplementary treatise, augmented by material from other sources. Aquila’s style is harsh and careless, and the Latin is inferior.
Halm, Rhetores Latini minores (1863); Wensch, De Aquila Romano (1861).
AQUILEIA, an ancient town of Italy, at the head of the Adriatic at the edge of the lagoons, about 6 m. from the sea, on the river Natiso (mod. Natisone), the course of which has changed somewhat since Roman times. It was founded by the Romans in 181 B.C. as a frontier fortress on the north-east, not far from the site where, two years before, Gaulish invaders had attempted to settle. The colony was led by two men of consular and one of praetorian rank, and 3000 pedites formed the bulk of the settlers. It was probably connected by road with Bononia in 175 B.C.; and subsequently with Genua in 148 B.C. by the Via Postumia, which ran through Cremona, Bedriacum and Altinum, joining the first-mentioned road at Concordia, while the construction of the Via Popilia from Ariminum to Ad Portum near Altinum in 132 B.C. improved the communications still further. In 169 B.C., 1500 more families were settled there as a reinforcement to the garrison. The discovery of the goldfields near the modern Klagenfurt in 150 B.C. (Strabo iv. 208) brought it into notice, and it soon became a place of importance, not only owing to its strategic position, but as a centre of trade, especially in agricultural products. It also had, in later times at least, considerable brickfields. It was originally a Latin colony, but became a municipium probably in 90 B.C. The customs boundary of Italy was close by in Cicero’s day. It was plundered by the Iapydes under Augustus, but, in the period of peace which followed, was able to develop its resources. Augustus visited it during the Pannonian wars in 12–10 B.C. and it was the birthplace of Tiberius’s son by Julia, in the latter year. It was the starting-point of several important roads leading to the north-eastern portion of the empire—the road (Via Iulia Augusta) by Iulium Carnicum to Veldidena (mod. Wilten, near Innsbruck), from which branched off the road into Noricum, leading by Virunum (Klagenfurt) to Lauricum (Lorch) on the Danube, the road into Pannonia, leading to Emona (Laibach)[1] and Sirmium (Mitrowitz), the road to Tarsatica (near Fiume) and Siscia (Sissek), and that to Tergeste (Trieste) and the Istrian coast.
In the war against the Marcomanni in A.D. 167, the town was hard pressed; the fortifications had fallen into disrepair during the long peace. In A.D. 238, when the town took the side of the senate against the emperor Maximinus, they were hastily restored, and proved of sufficient strength to resist for several months, until Maximinus himself was assassinated. The 4th century marks, however, the greatest importance of
- ↑ This road is described in detail by O. Cuntz in Jahreshefte des Österr. Arch. Inst. v. (1902), Beiblatt, pp. 139 seq.
