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plain below. The castle was the birthplace of Ruggiero di Loria, the great Italian admiral of the 13th century. The population was 10,609 in 1871.

LAURVIK, or Laurvig, a seaport town of south-eastern Norway, in the amt of Jarlsberg, is situated at the head of a short fjord, near where the Lougen or Laagen Elv falls into the sea. A considerable trade in timber and fish is carried on; and formerly the best Norway iron was produced in the immediate neighbourhood, at Fritzö; but the works are now used as a saw-mill. About a mile to the south is Frederiksværn, formerly a station of the Norwegian fleet, and the seat of a naval academy. The population of Laurvik in 1875 was 7681.

LAUSANNE, the chief town of the canton of Vaud in Switzerland, lies about 27 miles N.E. of Geneva and 1 mile to the N. of the lake, which used not unfrequently to be called the Lake of Lausanne instead of the Lake of Geneva. It is the junction of the railways to Geneva from Bern and the Rhone valley, and has direct communication with Paris via Pontarlier. A railway worked by a cable connects the town proper with the village and port of Ouchy on the lake. Built on the lower slopes of Mont Jorat, partly on the crests and declivities of three hills and partly in the intervening valleys, Lausanne presents a fine appearance from the water, and in turn enjoys a wide out look over the Alps of Savoy on the farther side. Modern improvements have largely modified the original characteristics of the site. The Great Bridge, designed by Pichard (1790-1841) and opened to traffic in Oct. 1844 crosses the Flon, and unites the quarters of St Francis and St Lawrence; and a roadway with easy gradients due to the same engineer tunnels beneath the castle and passes round the city. The Place de Riponne, the most spacious of the public squares and the site of the great corn-market and the Arlaud museum, is an artificial level secured by massive substructions above the channel of the Louve. Lausanne is rapidly extending in all directions, and especially towards the south and west. The principal building is the cathedral of Notre Dame, which occupies a terrace on the highest hill. It is a good example of plain and massive Gothic, the ground plan a Latin cross, and the interior remarkably simple. The erection is assigned to 1235-1275, and the dedication was performed by Gregory X. in presence of the emperor Rudolph of Hapsburg. To the north of the cathedral on the highest point in the city stands the castle, a structure of the 15th century. The academy, founded by the Bernese authorities in 1589, has numbered among its teachers Theodore Beza, Conrad Gessner, De Crousaz, Vinet, and Juste Olivier. The Arlaud museum founded in 1846, the blind asylum established by a wealthy Englishman, Mr Haldiman, the penitentiary designed by Pichard, the great cantonal hospital, the theatre, and the cantonal library (80,000 volumes) are among the more noteworthy of the remaining institutions. Besides the well-known Society of Naturalists (established 1841) there are in the town a medical and an historical society (1837). Since the days of Gibbon, whose praises of the town have been often repeated, Lausanne has become a favourite place of residence for foreigners, and an international centre of education. The population was 26,520 (22,610 Protestants, 3517 Roman Catholics) in 1870, and 30,179 in 1880. At the end of the 18th century it was only 9000.

Though Lausanne (Latin, Lausonium; Lausanna in Tab. Peut.) undoubtedly existed at an earlier date, it was when Bishop Marius of Aventicum (c. 593) chose one of its hills as the new seat of his bishopric that its history practically began. The little episcopal city had a rival in an independent German community on the neighbouring hill, but after long struggles the bishop was recognized as official head of the united community, on condition that every year in May he convoked the three estates to the plaid général. This state of matters lasted till the beginning of the 16th century. In 1536 the Bernese deprived the bishops of their temporal authority, transferred most of the goods of the church to the secular domain, and appointed intendants of their own to guide the action of the local magistracy. In this state of pupilage to Bern the city remained till the Revolution, and in 1798 it was made the chief town of the newly constituted canton of Vaud. In 1875 it was chosen as the seat of the supreme court of the Swiss confederation. Among the eminent men born in Lausanne are Benjamin Constant and the Secretans.

See Ludovicus, Chronicon breve Episcoporum Laus., published by Gremaud in 1856; Schmitt, Hist. du diocèse de Lausanne; Bridel, Matériaux pour une hist. litt. de l'Acad. de Lausanne; the Mémoires of the Soc. d'hist. de la Suisse romande; Rodolphe Rey, Genève et les rives du Leman, 1875. The Gazette de Lausanne dates from 1798, though its present name was adopted only in 1804.

1. Academy. 2. Corn Exchange. 3. Arlaud Museum. Plan of Lausanne. 4. Hôtel de Ville. 5. Post Office. 6. Penitentiary. 7. Scotch Church. 8. English Church. 9. Ouchy Church.

LAVA. See GEOLOGY.

LAVAGNA, a market-town of Italy, in the province of Genoa, situated on the sea-coast about a mile east of Chiavari, on the railway between Genoa and Pisa, It has a little shipbuilding, and exports (to France, Portugal, Constantinople, &c.) large quantities of excellent slate quarried in the vicinity. Among its buildings are two fine churches, and palaces belonging to the Rivarola, the Pallavicini, and Fransoni families. The population in 1871 was 5055 for the town and 6066 for the commune.

In the 10th century Lavagna was the seat of the independent counts Fieschi, who, after a severe struggle (1166-1198), were obliged to recognize the supremacy of Genoa. Among the members of the family born at Lavagna are Sinibaldo (Pope Innocent IV.) and Giovanni Luigi, the famous conspirator against the Doria party in Genoa, Filippo of Lavagna was the first printer in Milan (1460).

LAVAL, capital of the department of Mayenne, France, is situated on the Mayenne, 186 miles by railway west from Paris. On the right bank of the river stands the