side. The interior, which has a crypt in each transept, in the main preserves its original character. It has ten columns which are attributed to the temple of Venus, and there are good screens of the 12th century, and other sculptures. In the dilapidated episcopal palace Pope Pius II. died in 1464. An interesting church is S. Maria della Piazza, with an elaborate arcaded façade (1210). The Palazzo del Comune, with its lofty arched substructures at the back, was the work of Margaritone d’ Arezzo, but has been since twice restored. There are also several fine late Gothic buildings, among them the churches of S. Francesco and S. Agostino, the Palazzo Benincasa, and the Loggia dei Mercanti, all by Giorgio Orsini, usually called da Sebenico (who worked much at Sebenico, though he was not a native of it), and the prefecture, which has Renaissance additions. The portal of S. Maria della Misericordia is an ornate example of early Renaissance work. The archaeological museum contains interesting pre-Roman objects from tombs in the district, and two Roman beds with fine decorations in ivory (E. Brizio, in Notizie degli scavi, 1902, 437, 478).
To the east of the town is the harbour, now an oval basin of 990 by 880 yards, the finest harbour on the S. W. coast of the Adriatic, and one of the best in Italy. It was originally protected only by the promontory on the N., from the elbow-like shape of which (Gk. ἀγκών) the ancient town, founded by Syracusan refugees about 390 B.C., took the name which it still holds. Greek merchants established a purple factory here (Sil. Ital. viii. 438). Even in Roman times it kept its own coinage with the punning device of the bent arm holding a palm branch, and the head of Aphrodite on the reverse, and continued the use of the Greek language. When it became a Roman colony is doubtful.[1] It was occupied as a naval station in the Illyrian war of 178 B.C. (Liv. xli. 1). Caesar took possession of it immediately after crossing the Rubicon. Its harbour was of considerable importance in imperial times, as the nearest to Dalmatia,[2] and was enlarged by Trajan, who constructed the north quay, his architect being Apollodorus of Damascus. At the beginning of it stands the marble triumphal arch with a single opening, and without bas-reliefs, erected in his honour in A.D. 115 by the senate and people. Pope Clement II. prolonged the quay, and an inferior imitation of Trajan’s arch was set up; he also erected a lazaretto at the south end of the harbour, now a sugar refinery, Vanvitelli being the architect-in-chief. The southern quay was built in 1880, and the harbour is now protected by forts on the heights, while the place is the seat of the 7th army corps.
The port of Ancona was entered in 1904 by 869 steamships and 600 sailing vessels, with a total tonnage of 961,612 tons. The main imports were coal, timber, metals, jute. The main exports were asphalt and calcium carbide. Sugar refining and shipbuilding are carried on.
Ancona is situated on the railway between Bologna and Brindisi, and is also connected by rail with Rome, via Foligno and Orte.
After the fall of the Roman empire Ancona was successively attacked by the Goths, Lombards and Saracens, but recovered its strength and importance. It was one of the cities of the Pentapolis under the exarchate of Ravenna, the other four being Fano, Pesaro, Senigallia and Rimini, and eventually became a semi-independent republic under the protection of the popes, until Gonzaga took possession of it for Clement VII. in 1532. From 1797 onwards, when the French took it, it frequently appears in history as an important fortress, until Lamoricière capitulated here on the 29th of September 1860, eleven days after his defeat at Castelfidardo. (T. As.)
ANCREN RIWLE, a Middle English prose treatise written for a small community of three religious women and their servants at Tarent Kaines (Tarrant Crawford), at the junction of the Stour and the Tarrant, Dorset. It was generally supposed to date from the first quarter of the 13th century, but Professor E. Kölbing is inclined to place the Corpus Christi MS. about the middle of the 12th century. The house of Tarrant was founded by Ralph de Kahaines, and greatly enriched about 1230 by Richard Poor, bishop successively of Chichester, Salisbury and Durham, who was born at Tarrant and died there in 1237. At the time when the Ancren Riwle was addressed to them the anchoresses did not belong to any of the monastic orders, but the monastery was under the Cistercian rule before 1266.[3] There are extant seven English MSS. of the work, and one Latin, the Latin version being generally supposed to be a translation. The Latin MS., Regula Anachoritarum sive de vita solitaria (Magdalen College, Oxford, No. 67, fol. 50) has a prefatory note:—Hia incipit prohemium venerabilis patris magistri Simonis de Gandavo, episcopi Sarum, in librum de vita solitaria, quem scripsit sororibus suis anachoritis apud Tarente. But Bishop Simon of Ghent, who died in 1315, could not have written the book, if it dates, at latest, from the early 13th century. It has been tentatively attributed to Richard Poor, who was connected with Tarrant, and was actually a benefactor of the monastery. But the adoption of Prof. Kölbing’s early date would almost destroy Poor’s claim.
The Ancren Riwle is written in a simple, non-rhetorical style. The severity of the doctrine of self-renunciation is softened by the affectionate tone in which it is inculcated. The book contains rules for the conduct of the anchoresses, and gives liturgical directions for divine service; but the greater part of it is taken up with the purely spiritual side of religion. The rules for the restraint of the senses, for confession and penance, are subordinated to the central idea of the supreme importance of purity of heart and the love of Christ. The last chapter deals with the domestic affairs and administration of the monastery. Incidentally the writer gives a picture of the manners and ideas of the time, and provides an account of the doctrine then generally accepted in the English church.
Ancren Riwle was edited for the Camden Society by the Rev. James Morton in 1843 from the Cotton MS. (Nero A xiv.). A collation of this text with the MS. by E. Kölbing is printed in the Jahrbuch für romanische u. engl. Spr. und Lit. xv. 180 seq. (1876). The Ancren Riwle (ed. Abbot F. A. Gasquet, 1905) is available for the ordinary reader in The King’s Classics. There are three English MSS. of Ancren Riwle in the Cottonian collection in the British Museum, numbered Nero A xiv., Titus D xviii., and Cleopatra C vi. Nero A xiv. is written in pure south-western dialect. Portions of this text are printed in Henry Sweet’s First Middle English Primer (Oxford, 2nd ed., 1895), which contains a grammatical introduction. MS. 402 in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, contains the earliest version of Ancren Riwle, entitled Ancren Wissé, and dating (according to E. Kölbing in Englische Studien, 1886, vol. ix. 116) from about 1150. The language shows considerable traces of the Midland dialect. MS. 234 in Caius College, Cambridge, contains a considerable portion of the Ancren Riwle, but does not follow the order of the other MSS. For its exact contents see Kölbing, in Englische Studien, iii. 535 (1880). A more recently discovered version in Magdalene College, Cambridge, in MS. Pepys 2498, is entitled The Recluse, and is abridged and differently arranged. It is written in English of the latter half of the 14th century (see A. C. Paues in Englische Studien, xxx. 344-346, 1902). A Latin version (Cotton MS. Vitellius E vii.), and a French copy (ibid. F vii.) were seriously damaged in the fire at Ashburnham House, but both MSS. have been recently restored. The Latin MS. (Codex lxvii.) at Magdalen College, Oxford, is probably a copy of another Latin text, for it contains obvious slips.
See also R. Wülker, “Ueber die Sprache der Ancren Riwle und die der Homilie: Hali Meidenhad,” in Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur (Halle, 1874, i. 209), giving an analysis of the differences in dialect between the two works; and Edgar Elliott Bramlette, “The Original Language of the Ancren Riwle,” in Anglia, xv. 478-498, arguing in favour of a Latin original.
ANCRUM, a village on Ale or Alne Water (a tributary of the Teviot), Roxburghshire, Scotland, 2 m. W. of Jedfoot Bridge station on the Roxburgh-Jedburgh branch of the North British railway. Pop. (1901) 973. The earlier forms of the name, “Alnecrumba,” “Ankrom” and “Alnecrom,” indicate its Gaelic derivation from crom, “crooked”—“the crook or bend of the
- ↑ Scanty remains of the ancient town walls, of a gymnasium near the harbour and of the amphitheatre are still extant.
- ↑ It was connected by a road with the Via Flaminia at Nuceria (Norcera), a distance of 70 m.
- ↑ For information on the subject of Tarent Kaines see Sir W. Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum (new ed., 1846), vol. v. 619 et seq.
