dogeship. Ottone’s son, Pietro, was king of Hungary for some time after the death of his uncle, St Stephen, in 1038.
See Kohlschütter, Venedig unter dem Herzog Peter II. Orseole (Göttingen, 1868); H. F. Brown, Venice (1895); F. C. Hodgson, The Early History of Venice (1901); and W. C. Hazlitt, The Venetian Republic (1900).
ORSHA (Polish Orsza), a town of Russia, in the government of Mogilev, 74 m. by rail W.S.W. of Smolensk on the Moscow-Warsaw railway, and on the Dnieper. Pop. (1897), 13,161. It is an important entrepôt for grain, seeds and timber. It is a very old town, mentioned in the annals under the name of Rsha in 1067. In the 13th century it was taken by the Lithuanians, who fortified it. In 1604 the Poles founded there a Jesuit college. The Russians besieged Orsha more than once in the 16th and 17th centuries, and finally annexed it in 1772.
ORSINI, the name of a Roman princely family of great antiquity, whose perpetual feuds with the Colonna are one of the dominant features of the history of medieval Rome. According to tradition the popes Paul I. (757) and Eugenius II. (824) were of the Orsini family, but the probable founder of the house was a certain Ursus (the Bear), about whom very little is known, and the first authentic Orsini pope was Giacinto Orsini, son of Petrus Bobo, who assumed the name of Celestin III. (1191). The latter endowed his nephews with church lands and founded the fortunes of the family, which alone of the Guelf houses was able to confront the Ghibelline Colonna. “Orsini for the Church” was their war-cry in opposition to “Colonna for the people.” In the 13th century the “Sons of the Bear” were already powerful and rich, and under Innocent III. they waged incessant war against other families, including that of the pope himself (Conti). In 1241 Matteo Orsini was elected senator of
Rome, and sided with Pope Gregory IX. against the Colonna
and the Emperor Frederick II., saving Rome for the Guelfic
cause. In 1266 the family acquired Marino, and in 1277 Giovanni Orsini was elected pope as Nicholas III. When Boniface VIII. proclaimed a crusade against the Colonna in 1297, the Orsini played a conspicuous part in the expedition and captured Nepi, which the pope granted them as a fief. On the death of Benedict XI. (1304) fierce civil warfare broke out in Rome and the Campagna for the election of his successor, and Cardinal Napoleone Orsini appears as the leader of the French faction at the conclave. The Campagna was laid waste by the feuds of the Orsinis, the Colonnas and the Caetanis. At this time the Orsini held the castle of S. Angelo, and a number of palaces on the Monte Giordano, which formed a fortified and walled quarter. In 1332, during the absence of the popes at Avignon, the feuds between Orsini and Colonna, in which even Giovanni Orsini, although cardinal legate, took part, reduced Rome to a state of complete anarchy. We find the Orsini again at war with the Colonna at the time of Rienzi. In 1435 Francesco Orsini was appointed prefect of Rome, and created duke of Gravina by Pope Eugenius IV. In 1484 war between the Orsini and the Colonna broke out once more, the former supporting the pope (Sixtus IV.). Virginio Orsini led his faction against the rival house’s strongholds, which were stormed, the Colonna
being thereby completely defeated. The Orsini fortunes waxed
and waned many times, and their property was often confiscated, but they always remained a powerful family and gave many soldiers, statesmen and prelates to the church. The title of prince of Solofra was conferred on them in 1620, and that of prince of the Holy Roman Empire in 1629. In 1724 Vincenzo Maria Orsini was elected pope (Benedict XIII.) and gave his family the title of Roman princes.
Authorities.—F. Sansovino, Storia di casa Orsina (Venice, 1565); F. Gregorovius, Geschichte der Stadt Rom (Stuttgart, 1872); A. von Reumont, Geschichte der Stadt Rom (Berlin, 1868); Almanach de Gotha.
ORSINI, FELICE (1819–1858), Italian revolutionist, was born at Meldola in Romagna. He was destined for an ecclesiastical career, but he soon abandoned that prospect, and became an ardent liberal, joining the Giovane Italia, a society founded by Giuseppe Mazzini. Implicated together with his father in revolutionary plots, he was arrested in 1844 and condemned to imprisonment for life. The new pope, Pius IX., however, set him free, and he led a company of young Romagnols in the first war of Italian independence (1848), distinguishing himself in the engagements at Treviso and Vicenza. He was elected member of the Roman Constituent Assembly in 1849, and after the fall of the republic he conspired against the papal autocracy once more in the interest of the Mazzinian party. Mazzini sent him on a secret mission to Hungary, but he was arrested in 1854 and imprisoned at Mantua, escaping a few months later. In
1857 he published an account of his prison experiences in English under the title of Austrian Dungeons in Italy, which led to a rupture between him and Mazzini. He then entered into negotiations with Ausonio Franchi, editor of the Ragione of Turin, which he proposed to make the organ of the pure republicans. But having become convinced that Napoleon III. was the chief obstacle to Italian independence and the principal cause of the anti-liberal reaction throughout Europe, he went to Paris in 1857 to conspire against him. On the evening of the 14th of January 1858, while the emperor and empress were on their way to the theatre, Orsini and his accomplices threw three bombs at the imperial carriage. The intended victims were unhurt, but several other persons were killed or wounded. Orsini
himself was wounded, and at once arrested; on the 11th of
February he wrote his famous letter to Napoleon, in which he
exhorted him to take up the cause of Italian freedom. He
addressed another letter to the youth of Italy, stigmatizing
political assassination. He was condemned to death and
executed on the 13th of March 1858, meeting his fate with great calmness and bravery. Of his accomplices Pieri also was executed, Rudio was condemned to death but obtained a commutation of sentence, and Gomez was condemned to hard
labour for life. The importance of Orsini’s attempt lies in the
fact that it terrified Napoleon, who came to believe that unless
he took up the Italian cause other attempts would follow and
that sooner or later he would be assassinated. This fear contributed
not a little to the emperor’s subsequent Italian policy.
Bibliography.—Memoirs and Adventures of Felice Orsini written by himself (Edinburgh, 1857, 2nd ed., edited by Ausonio Franchi, Turin, 1858); Lettere edite e inedite di F. O. (Milan, 1861); Enrico Montazio, I contemporanei Italiani-Felice Orsini (Turin, 1862); La vérité sur Orsini, par un ancien proscrit (1879); Angelo Arboit, Tofin e la fuga di Felice Orsini (Cagliari, 1893).
ORTA, LAKE OF, in N. Italy, W. of Lago Maggiore. It has been so named since the 16th century, but was previously called the Lago di San Giulio, the patron of the region—Cusio is a merely poetical name. Its southern end is about 22 m. by rail N.W. of Novara on the main Turin-Milan line, while its north end is about 4 m. by rail S. of the Gravellona-Toce railway station, half-way between Ornavasso and Omegna. It has an area of about 614 sq. m., it is about 8 m. in length, its greatest depth is 482 ft., and the surface is 951 ft. above sea-level, while its width varies from 12 to 114 m. Its scenery is characteristically Italian, while the large island of San Giulio (just W. of the village of Orta) has some very picturesque buildings, and takes its name from the local saint, who lived in the 4th century.
The chief place is Orta, built on a peninsula projecting from the east shore of the lake, while Omegna is at its northern extremity. It is supposed that the lake is the remnant of a much larger sheet of water by which originally the waters of the Toce or Tosa flowed south towards Novara. As the glaciers retreated the waters flowing from them sank, and were gradually diverted into Lago Maggiore. This explains why no considerable stream feeds the Lake of Orta, while at its north end the Nigoglia torrent flows out of it, but in about 12 m. it falls into the Strona, which in
turn soon joins the Toce or Tosa, a short distance before this river flows into Lago Maggiore.
(W. A. B. C.)
ORTELIUS (Ortels, Wortels), ABRAHAM, next to Mercator the greatest geographer of his age, was born at Antwerp on the 14th of April 1527, and died in the same city on the 4th of July 1598. He was of German origin, his family coming from Augsburg. He travelled extensively in western Europe, especially in the Netherlands; south and west Germany (e.g. 1560, 1575, 1578); France (1559–1560, &c.); England and Ireland
