The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 445

VELASQUEZ, DIEGO DE SILVA, greatest of Spanish painters, born at Seville, of Portuguese family; studied under FRANCISCO HERRERA (q. v.), who taught him to teach himself, so that but for the hint he was a self-taught artist, and simply painted what he saw and as he saw it; portrait-painting was his forte, one of his earliest being a portrait of Olivarez, succeeded by one of Philip IV. of Spain, considered the most perfect extant, and by others of members of the royal family; specimens of his work are found in different countries, but the best are in Spain, in Madrid, and they include sacred subjects, genre, landscape, and animal paintings, as well as portraits (1599-1660).

VENDeE, LA (442), a dep. of France, on the Bay of Biscay, S. of Loire-Inferieure; marshy on the W., wooded on the N., and with an open fertile tract in the middle and S.; it is famous as the seat of a stubborn resistance to the Revolution, and for the b.l.o.o.d.y violence with which it was suppressed.

VENDeMIAIRE (vintage month), the first month of the French Revolution year, from 22nd September to 21st October.

VENDETTA, the practice which existed in Corsica and Sicily on the part of individuals of exacting vengeance for the murder of a relative on the murderer or one of his relations.

VENDoME, LOUISE JOSEPH, DUC DE, French general, born at Paris, great-grandson of Henry IV.; served in the wars of Louis XIV., and gained several victories; was defeated by Marlborough and Prince Eugene at Oudenarde in 1708, but by his victory at Villaviciosa contributed to the restoration of Philip V. to the Spanish throne in 1711; was a man of gross sensuality, and has been pilloried by Saint Simon for the execration of all mankind (1654-1712).

VENEZUELA (2,323), a federal republic in South America, founded in 1830, over three times as large as Spain, consisting of nine States and several territories; composed of mountain and valley, and in great part of llanos, within the basin of the Orinoco; between the Caribbean Sea, Colombo, Brazil, and British Guiana, and containing a population of Indian, Spanish, and Negro descent; on the llanos large herds of horses and cattle are reared; the agricultural products are sugar, coffee, cotton, tobacco, &c.; the forests yield mahogany, ebony, and dye-wood, while the mines yield iron, copper, &c., and there are extensive gold-fields, considered the richest in the world; the boundary line between the British colony and Venezuela was for long matter of keen dispute, but by the intervention of the United States at the request of the latter a treaty between the contending parties was concluded, referring the matter to a court of arbitration, which met at Paris in 1895, and settled it in 1899, in vindication, happily, of the British claim, the Schomburgk line being now declared to be the true line, and the gold-fields ours.

VENGEUR, LE, a war-vessel of the French fabled to have gone down rather than surrender to the English in a battle off Ushant on 1st June 1794, the crew shouting "Vive la Republique," when it was really a cry for help.

VENICE, a city of Italy, in a province of the same name, at the head of the Adriatic, in a shallow lagoon dotted with some eighty islets, and built on piles partly of wood and partly of stone, the streets of which are ca.n.a.ls traversed by gondolas and crossed here and there by bridges; the city dates from the year 432, when the islands were a place of refuge from the attacks of the Huns, and took shape as an independent State with magistrates of its own about 687, to a.s.sume at length the form of a republic and become "Queen of the Adriatic Sea," the doge, or chief magistrate, ranking as one of the sovereign powers of the Western world; from its situation it became in the 10th century a great centre of trade with the East, and continued to be till the discovery of the route round the Cape, after which it began to decline, till it fell eventually under the yoke of Austria, from which it was wrested in 1866, and is now part of the modern kingdom of Italy, with much still to show of what it was in its palmy days, and indications of a measure of recovery from its down-trodden state; for an interesting and significant sketch in brief of its rise and fall see the "SHADOW ON THE DIAL" in Ruskin's "St.

Mark's Rest."

VENTNOR, a town and favourite watering-place on the S. sh.o.r.e of the Isle of Wight, with a fine beach; much resorted to in winter from its warm Southern exposure.

VENUS, the Roman G.o.ddess of love, of wedded love, and of beauty (originally of the spring), and at length identified with the Greek APHRODITe (q. v.); she was regarded as the tutelary G.o.ddess of Rome, and had a temple to her honour in the Forum.

VENUS, an interior planet of the solar system, revolving in an orbit outside that of Mercury and within that of the earth, nearly as large as the latter; is 67 millions of miles from the sun, round which it revolves in 224 days, while it takes 23 hours to rotate on its own axis; it is the brightest of the heavenly bodies, and appears in the sky now as the morning star, now as the evening star, according as it rises before the sun or sets after it, so that it is always seen either in the E. or the W.; when right between us and the sun it is seen moving as a black spot on the sun's disk, a phenomenon known as "Transit of Venus," the last instance of which occurred in 1882, and that will not occur again till after 105 years.

VERA CRUZ (24), a chief seaport of Mexico, on the Gulf of Mexico, 263 m. SE. of the capital; is regularly built and strongly fortified, but is unhealthily situated, and the yellow and other fevers prevail; trade is chiefly in the hands of foreigners; exports ores, cochineal, indigo, dye-woods, &c.

VERDI, GIUSEPPE, Italian composer, born at Roncole, Parma; his musical talent was slow of recognition, but the appearance of his "Lombardi" and "Ernani" in 1843-44 established his repute, which was confirmed by "Rigoletto" in 1851 and "Il Trovatore" and "La Traviata" in 1853; _b_. 1813.

VERDUN (18), a strongly fortified town in the department of Meuse, 35 m. W. of Metz; capitulated to the Germans in 1870 after a siege of six weeks.

VERESTCHAGIN, Russian painter, is realistic to an extreme degree and anti-conventional; _b_. 1842.

VERGIL, POLYDORE, historian and miscellaneous writer, born at Urbino; was a friend and correspondent of Erasmus; was sent to England by the Pope as deputy-collector of Peter's pence, and was there promoted to ecclesiastical preferments; wrote in Latin an able and painstaking history of England, bringing it down to the year 1538 (1470-1555).

VERIGNIAUD, an eloquent orator of the French Revolution; a man of indolent temper, but by his eloquence became leader of the Girondins; presided at the trial of the king, and p.r.o.nounced the decision of the court--sentence of death, presided as well "at the Last Supper of his party, with wild coruscations of eloquence, with song and mirth," and was guillotined next day, the last of the lot (1753-1793).

VERLAINE, PAUL, French poet, born in Metz; has written lyrics of a quite unique type (1844-1896).

VERMONT (green mount) (332), an inland New England State, W. of New Hamps.h.i.+re and a little larger in size, includes large tracts of both pastoral and arable land; rears live-stock in great numbers, yields cereals, and produces the best maple sugar in the States, and has large quarries of granite, marble, and slate.

VERNE, JULES, French story-teller, born at Nantes, inventor and author of a popular series of semi-scientific novels; _b_. 1828.

VERNET, CLAUDE, French marine-painter, born at Avignon; executed more than 200 paintings, both landscape and sea pieces (1712-1789).

CARLO, son of preceding, painter of battle-pieces, born at Bordeaux (1768-1833). HORACE, son of latter, born in Paris, distinguished also for his battle-pieces in flattery of French Chauvinism (1789-1863).

VERNON, DI, the heroine in Sir Walter Scott's "Rob Roy," an enthusiastic royalist, distinguished for her beauty and talents.

VERONA (72), an old Italian town on the Adige, in Venetia, 62 m. W.

of Venice; is a fortress city and one of the famous Quadrilateral; has many interesting buildings and some Roman remains, in particular of an amphitheatre; has manufactures of silk, velvet, and woollen fabrics, and carries on a large local trade.

VERONESE, PAOLO, painter of the Venetian school, born at Verona, whence his name; studied under an uncle, painted his "Temptation of St.

Anthony" for Mantua Cathedral, and settled in Venice in 1555, where he soon earned distinction and formed one of a trio along with t.i.tian and Tintoretto; the subjects he treated were mostly scriptural, the most celebrated being the "Marriage Feast at Cana of Galilee," now in the Louvre (1528-1588).

VERONICA, ST., according to legend a woman who met Christ on His way to crucifixion and offered Him her veil to wipe the sweat off His face.

See SUDARIUM.

VERSAILLES (51), a handsome city of France, capital of the department of Seine-et-Oise, 11 m. by rail SW. of Paris, of which it is virtually a suburb, and was during the monarchy, from Louis XIV.'s time, the seat of the French court; has a magnificent palace, with a gallery embracing a large collection of pictures; was occupied by the Germans during the siege of Paris, and in one of its halls the Prussian king was proclaimed emperor of Germany as William I.

VERTUMNUS in Roman mythology the G.o.d of the seasons, wooed Pomona under a succession of disguises, and won her at last.

VESPASIAN, t.i.tUS FLAVIUS VESPASIa.n.u.s, Roman emperor (from 70 to 79) and tenth of the 12 Caesars, born in the Sabine territory of humble parentage; rose by his valour to high rank in the army and in favour with it, till at length he was elected by it to the throne; he had waged war successfully in Germany, Britain, and at Jerusalem, and during his reign, and nearly all through it, the temple of Ja.n.u.s was shut at Rome.

VESPUCCI, AMERIGO, navigator, born at Florence; made two voyages to America in 1499 and in 1501, and from him the two continents derived their name, owing, it is said, to his first visit being misdated in an account he left, which made it appear that he had preceded Columbus (1451-1512).

VESTA, the Roman G.o.ddess of the hearth, identified with the Greek Hestia; was the guardian of domestic life and had a shrine in every household; had a temple in Rome in which a heaven-kindled fire was kept constantly burning and guarded by first four then six virgins called Vestals, whose persons were held sacred as well as their office, since any laxity in its discharge might be disastrous to the city.

VESTAL VIRGINS. See VESTA.

VESUVIUS, a flattened conical mountain, 4161 ft. in height, and an active volcano on the Bay of Naples, 10 m. SE. of the city; it was by eruption of it that the two cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii were overwhelmed in 79 A.D.; its crater is half a mile in diameter, and has a depth of 350 ft.; there are some 60 eruptions on record, the latest being in 1891.