to its proximity to mines and rich grazing and grain-producing districts. Hosius, its bishop, presided over the first council of Nicaea in 345; and its importance was maintained by the Visigothic kings, whose rule lasted from the 5th to the beginning of the 8th century. Under the Moors, Cordova was at first an appanage of the caliphate of Damascus; but after 756 Abd-ar-Rahman I. made it the capital of Moorish Spain, and the centre of an independent caliphate (see Abd-ar-Rahman). It reached its zenith of prosperity in the middle of the 10th century, under Abd-ar-Rahman III. At his death, it is recorded by native chroniclers, probably with Arabic exaggeration, that Cordova contained within its walls 200,000 houses, 600 mosques, 900 baths, a university, and numerous public libraries; whilst on the bank of the Guadalquivir, under the power of its monarch, there were eight cities, 300 towns and 12,000 populous villages. A period of decadence began in 1016, owing to the claims of the rival dynasties which aimed at succeeding to the line of Abd-ar-Rahman; the caliphate never won back its position, and in 1236 Cordova was easily captured by Ferdinand III. of Castile. The substitution of Spanish for Moorish supremacy rather accelerated than arrested the decline of art, industry and population; and in the 19th century Cordova never recovered from the disaster of 1808, when it was stormed and sacked by the French. Few cities of Spain, however, can boast of so long a list of illustrious natives in the Moorish and Roman periods, and even, to a less extent, in modern times. It was the birthplace of the rhetorician Marcus Annaeus Seneca, and his more famous son Lucius (c. 3 B.C.–A.D. 65); of the poet Lucan (A.D. 39–65); of the philosophers Averroes (1126–1198) and Maimonides (1135–1204); of the Spanish men of letters Juan de Mena (c. 1411–1456), Lorenzo de Sepúlveda (d. 1574) and Luis de Gongora y Argote (1561–1627); and the painters Pablo de Céspedes (1538–1608) and Juan de Valdés Leal (1630–1691). The celebrated captain Gonzalo Fernandez de Córdoba (q.v.), the conqueror of Naples (1495–1498), was born in the neighbouring town of Montilla.
See Estudio descriptivo de los monumentos árabes de Granada y Córdoba, by R. Contreras (Madrid, 1885); Córdoba, a large illustrated volume of the series España, by P. de Madrazo (Barcelona, 1884); Inscripciones árabes de Córdoba, by R. Amador de los Ríos y Villalta (Madrid, 1886).
CORDUROY, a cotton cloth of the fustian kind, made like a ribbed velvet. It is generally a coarse heavy material and is
used largely for workmen’s clothes, but some finer kinds are used
for ladies’ dresses, &c. According to the New English Dictionary
the word is understood to be of English invention, “either
originally intended, or soon after assumed, to represent a
supposed French corde du roi.” It is said that a coarse woollen
fabric called duroy, made in Somerset during the 18th century,
has no apparent connexion with it. From the ribbed appearance
of the cloth the name corduroy is applied, particularly in America,
to a rough road of logs laid transversely side by side, usually
across swampy ground.
CORDUS, AULUS CREMUTIUS, Roman historian of the later
Augustan age. He was the author of a history (perhaps called
Annales) of the events of the civil wars and the reign of Augustus,
embracing the period from at least 43–18 B.C. In A.D. 25 he was
brought to trial for having eulogized Brutus and spoken of
Cassius as the last of the Romans. His real offence was a witticism
at the expense of Sejanus, who put up two of his creatures
to accuse him in the senate. Seeing that nothing could save him,
Cordus starved himself to death. A decree of the senate ordered
that his works should be confiscated and burned by the aediles.
Some copies, however, were saved by the efforts of Cordus’s
daughter Marcia, and after the death of Tiberius the work was
published at the express wish of Caligula. It is impossible to form
an opinion of it from the scanty fragments (H. Peter, Historicorum
Romanorum Fragmenta, 1883). According to ancient authorities,
the writer was very outspoken in his denunciations, and his
relatives considered it necessary to strike out the most offensive
passages of the work before it was widely circulated (Quintilian,
Instit. x. 1, 104). Two passages in Pliny (Nat. Hist. x. 74 [37],
xvi. 108 [45]) seem to refer to a work of a different nature from
the history—perhaps a treatise on Admiranda or remarkable
things.
See Tacitus, Annals, iv. 34, 35; Suetonius, Tiberius, 61, Caligula, 16; Seneca, Suasoriae, vii., esp. the Consolatio to Cordus’s daughter Marcia; Dio Cassius lvii. 24. There are monographs by J. Held (1841) and C. Rathlef (1860). Also H. Peter, Die geschichtliche Literatur über die römische Kaiserzeit (1897); Teuffel-Schwabe, Hist. of Roman Lit., Eng. trans., 277, 1.
CORELLI, ARCANGELO (1653–1713), Italian violin-player and composer, was born on the 12th or 13th of February 1653,
at Fusignano near Imola, and died in 1713. Of his life little
is known. His master on the violin was Bassani. Matteo
Simonelli, the well-known singer of the pope’s chapel, taught
him composition. His first decided success was gained in Paris
at the age of nineteen. To this he owed his European reputation.
From Paris Corelli went to Germany. In 1681 he was in the
service of the electoral prince of Bavaria; between 1680 and 1685
he spent a considerable time in the house of his friend Farinelli.
In 1685 he was certainly in Rome, where he led the festival
performances of music for Queen Christine of Sweden and was
also a favourite of Cardinal Ottoboni. From 1689 to 1690 he
was in Modena, the duke of which city made him handsome
presents. In 1708 he went once more to Rome, living in the
palace of Cardinal Ottoboni. His visit to Naples, at the invitation
of the king, took place in the same year. The style of execution
introduced by Corelli and preserved by his pupils, such as
Geminiani, Locatelli, and many others, has been of vital importance
for the development of violin-playing, but he employed
only a limited portion of his instrument’s compass, as may be
seen by his writings, wherein the parts for the violin never
proceed above D on the first string, the highest note in the third
position; it is even said that he refused to play, as impossible,
a passage which extended to A in altissimo in the overture to
Handel’s Trionfo del Tempo, and took serious offence when the
composer played the note in evidence of its practicability. His
compositions for the instrument mark an epoch in the history
of chamber music; for his influence was not confined to his
own country. Even Sebastian Bach submitted to it. Musical
society in Rome owed much to Corelli. He was received in the
highest circles of the aristocracy, and arranged and for a long
time presided at the celebrated Monday concerts in the palace
of Cardinal Ottoboni. Corelli died possessed of a sum of 120,000
marks and a valuable collection of pictures, the only luxury
in which he had indulged. He left both to his benefactor and
friend, who, however, generously made over the money to Corelli’s
relations. Corelli’s compositions are distinguished by a beautiful
flow of melody and by a masterly treatment of the accompanying
parts, which he is justly said to have liberated from the strict
rules of counterpoint. Six collections of concerti, sonatas and
minor pieces for violin, with accompaniment of other instruments,
besides several concerted pieces for strings, are authentically
ascribed to this composer. The most important of these is the
XII. Suonati a violino e violone o cimbalo (Rome, 1700).
CORELLI, MARIE (1864– ), English novelist, was the daughter of an Italian father and a Scottish mother, but in infancy was adopted by Charles Mackay (q.v.), the song-writer and journalist, whose son Eric, at his death, became her guardian. She was sent to be educated in a French convent with the object of training her for the musical profession, and while still a girl composed various pieces of music. But her journalistic connexion proved a stronger stimulus to expression, and editors who were friends of her adopted father printed some of her early poetry. Then she produced what was at least a clever, if not a remarkably well written, romantic story, on the theme of a self-revelation connecting the Christian Deity with a world force in the form of electricity, which was published in 1886 under the title of A Romance of Two Worlds. It had an immediate and large sale, which resulted, naturally, in her devoting her inventive faculty to satisfy the public demand for similar work. Thus she wrote in succession a series of melodramatic romantic novels, original in some aspects of their treatment, daring in others, but all combining a readable plot with enough au fond of what the majority demanded in ethical and religious
