Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/625

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
CRI—CRO
591

at Delphi. The plunder of the town was sold to defray the expenses of the Pythian games. In 339 the people of Am- phissa began to rebuild the city, and to cultivate the plain. This act brought on the second Sacred War, the conduct of which was intrusted by the Amphictyons to Philip of Macedon, who took Amphissa in the following year. Cirrha was afterwards rebuilt, but never regained its former im portance. Crissa is probably represented by the modern Chryso, and the ruins of Cirrha, including extensive remains of its port, are to be seen in the neighbourhood of the

Pleistus.

CRITIAS, an Athenian orator and poet, and one of the thirty tyrants. In his youth he habitually listened to the conversations of Socrates, but his manhood was devoted to selfish political intrigues. He stirred up the Penestse of Thessaly against their masters, and made himself so trouble some at home that he was banished by the people. Return ing to Athens he was made ephor by the oligarchical party ; and he was the most cruel and unscrupulous of the thirty tyrants who in 404 B.C. were appointed by the Lacedaemonians. See Greece.

CRIVELLI, Carlo, Cavaliere, a Venetian painter, was born in the earlier part of the 15th century. The only dates that can with certainty be given are 1468 and 1493 ; these are respectively the earliest and the latest years signed on his pictures the former on an altar-piece in the church of San Silvestro at Massa near Fermo, and the latter on a picture in the Oggioni collection in Milan. Though born in Venice, Crivelli seems to have worked chiefly in the March of Ancona, and especially in and near Ascoli ; there are only two pictures of his proper to a Venetian building, both of these being in the church of San Sebastian. He is said to have studied under Jacobello del Fiore, who was painting as late at any rate as 1436 ; at that time Crivelli was probably only a boy. The latter always signed as " Carolus Crivellus Venetus ; " from 1 490 he added " Miles," having then been knighted by Ferdinand II. of Naples. He painted in tempera only, and is seen to most advantage in subject pictures of moderate size. He intro duced agreeable landscape backgrounds ; and was parti cularly partial to giving fruits and flowers (the peach is one of his favourite fruits) as accessories, often in pendent festoons. The National Gallery in London is well supplied with examples of Crivelli ; the Annunciation, and the Beato Ferretti (of the same family as Pope Pius IX.) in religious ecstasy, may be specified. Another of his principal pictures is in San Francesco di Matelica ; in the Vatican Gallery is a Dead Christ, and in the Brera of Milan the painter s own portrait. Crivelli is a painter of marked individuality, hard in form, crudely definite in contour ; stern, forced, energetic, almost grotesque and repellent, in feature and expression ; simply vigorous in his effect of detachment and relief, and sometimes admitting into his pictures objects actually raised in surface ; distinct and warm in colour, with an effect at once harsh and harmonious. His pictures gain by being seen in half- light, and at some little distance ; under favouring con ditions, they grip the spectator with uncommon power. Few artists seem to have worked with more uniformity of purpose, or more forthright command of his materials, so far as they go. It is surmised that Carlo was of the same family as the painters Donato Crivelli (vho was working in 1459, and was also a scholar of Jacobello) and Vittorio Crivelli. Pietro Alamanni was his pupil.

CROATIA and SLAVONIA, a crown-land of o the Hungarian kingdom, which extends from 14 25 to 20 25 E. long., and is bounded on the N.W. by Carniola and Styria, N. by Hungary, S. by Servia, Bosnia, and Dalmatia, and W, by Dalmatia and the Adriatic, on which it has a coast-lineof about SSmiles, Inclusive of thedistricts belong ing to the Military Frontier, it has a total area of about 16,785 English square miles; and according to the census of 1869 its total population amounted to 1,864,021, of whom 695,997 are assigned to the military portion.

Mountains.—The whole country may be divided into two great natural sections, of which the more important belongs to the basin of the Danube, and is mainly defined by that river and its two extensive tributaries, the Drave and the Save, while the other consists of the highlands of the Adriatic coast. The mountains are partly outrunners of the Alpine system, and partly prolongations of the Karst ; but the line of demarcation has not as yet been clearly defined. The former, known chiefly as the Warasdin Mountains, stretch eastward with gradually diminishing elevation through more than half the length of the country to the neighbourhood of Diakovar, and attain their- greatest height of 3483 feet in Mount Ivancica. The latter consist of three more or less distinct chains running north-west and south-east : the Velebit or Velebitch, with a mean height of 3318 feet, which gives its steep and barren character to the southern part of the coast ; the Kapela, with a mean height of 2488 feet, lying further inland, and connecting itself with the mountains of Carniola ; and the Plisevica, with a mean height of 3214 feet, which forms the boundary between Bosnia and Croatia. The mean height of the whole of the plateau to which these ranges belong is esti mated at 2074 feet. Many parts of the mountain regions are richly wooded with pine, beech, and chestnut, and many of the smaller valleys and glens are abundantly fertile. The richest part of Croatia, indeed, is not the valley of the Drave or the Save, but the hilly district between the Kostel, the Ivancica, and the Agram Mountains, called by the natives Zagorye, or the Land behind the Hills. A small group known as the Vrdnik Mountains rises in the east of Slavonia.

Rivers, &c.From the point where it begins to form the Croatian boundary, to its junction with the Danube below Esseg, the Drave receives only one important tributary, the Bednya ; but the Save is the recipient of a large number of considerable affluents : the Sotla, the Krapina, the Zelina, the Lonya, the Ilova, the Pakra, and the Olyava from the Warasdin Mountains ; and the Kulpa, the Korana, and the Unna from the Karst. The Recina falls into the sea; the Gaska loses itself in swampy hollows ; and the Lika plunges into a rocky abyss not far from Gospich. Exten sive marshes occur along the main rivers in Slavonia ; and there is an interesting cluster of seven lakes called the Lakes of Plitvica, in connection with the Korana. Warm mineral springs rise at Krapina, at Toplice near Warasdin, at Stubica near Agram, at Daruvar, and at Topusko near Glina ; and there is a sulphurous spring at Lipik near Pakrac.

Climate.—The climate of the lowlands is equable and temperate ; but the Karst district is exposed to very violent and sudden changes. The mean temperature throughout the year for Agram is 52 Fahr., and throughout the hottest month 72. At Fiume it is very much warmer. The rain comes mainly with the south-west wind, and the annual fall varies from 23 inches in the lowlands to 51 in the Karst. The coast districts are exposed to the violent wind called the Bora, which while it lasts is strong enough to render all locomotion impossible.

Agriculture.—About 16 per cent, of the whole country

is unproductive, and in the eastern districts a considerable proportion of the rest is assigned to pasture. The chief crops are wheat, oats, rye, potatoes, flax, and hemp; tobacco is also grown ; and a good deal of attention is bestowed on the vine, though the national beverage is pre pared from the damson plum. Horses are raised in

Slavonia ; the oak and beech woods furnish food to great