insects, such as flies and small bees; the petals are white in colour. It includes several British genera, Cerastium (mouse-ear chickweed), Stellaria (fig. 1) (stitchwort and chickweed), Arenaria (sandwort), Sagina (pearlwort), Spergula (spurrey) and Spergularia (sandwort spurrey).
Fig. 3.
b, The same cut horizontally, and the halves separated so as to show the interior of the cavity of the ovary o, with the free central placenta p, covered with ovules g.
Tribe II. Sileneae: the sepals are joined below to form a narrow tube, in which stand the long claws of the petals and the stamens, partly closing the tube and rendering the honey inaccessible to all but long-tongued insects such as the larger bees and Lepidoptera. The flowers are often red. It includes several British genera:—Dianthus (pink) fig. 2, Silene (catchfly, bladder campion), Lychnis (campion, L. Flos-Cuculi is ragged robin), and Githago or Agrostemma (corn cockle). Several, such as Lychnis vespertina, Silene nutans and others, are night-flowering, opening their flowers and becoming scented in the evening or at night, when they are visited by night-flying moths.
The plants of this order are of little or no economic value, soap-wort, Saponaria officinalis, forming a lather in water was formerly officinal. Dianthus (carnation and pink) Gypsophila, Lychnis and others, are garden plants.
CASABIANCA, RAPHAEL, Comte de (1738–1825), French general, was descended from a noble Corsican family. In 1769 he took the side of France against Genoa, then mistress of the island. In 1793, having entered the service of the revolutionary government, he was appointed lieutenant-general in Corsica in place of Pascale Paoli, who was outlawed for intrigues with England. For his defence of Calvi against the English he was appointed general of division, and he served in Italy from 1794 to 1798. After the 18th of Brumaire he entered the senate and was made count of the empire in 1806. In 1814 he joined the party of Louis XVIII., rejoined Napoleon during the Hundred Days, and in 1819 succeeded again in entering the chamber of peers.
His nephew, Louis de Casabianca (1762–1798), entered the French navy, served in the convoy of the French troops sent to aid the revolted American colonies, and took part in various naval actions off the North American coast. He became captain in 1792, represented Corsica in the Convention, and then received command of the Orient, which at the battle of the Nile bore the flag of Admiral Brueys. When the latter was killed, Casabianca, though badly wounded, fought the burning ship to the end, and perished with most of the crew. His son, Giacomo Jocante, a boy of ten years of age, refused to leave the ship and died in trying to save his father. This heroic act was the subject of several poems, including the well-known ballad by Mrs. Hemans.
CASABLANCA (Dar el Baida, “the white house”), a seaport on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, in 33° 27′ N., 7° 46′ W. It is a wool and grain port for central Morocco, chiefly for the provinces of Tadla and Shawia. Third in importance of the towns on the Moorish coast, unimpeded by bar or serious rocks, the roadstead is exposed to the north-west winds. There is anchorage for steamers in 5 to 6 fathoms. Vessels were loaded and discharged by lighters from the beach. In May 1907 the construction began of harbour works which afford sheltered accommodation for ships at all states of the tide. The value of the foreign trade of the port for the period 1897–1907 was about £750,000 a year. A railway to Ber Reshid, the first section of a line intended to tap the rich agricultural region of which Casablanca is the port, was opened in September 1908, being the first railway built in Morocco. The population, about 20,000, includes numerous foreign merchants, Franciscan and Protestant missions, and a consular corps. Built by the Portuguese upon the site of the once prosperous town of Anfa, which they had destroyed in 1468, Casablanca was held by them for some time, till trouble with the natives compelled them to abandon it. In August 1907, in consequence of the murder of a number of French and Spanish workmen engaged on the harbour works, the town was bombarded and occupied by the French (see Morocco: History).
CASALE MONFERRATO, a town and episcopal see of Piedmont, Italy, in the province of Alessandria, 21 m. N.N.W. by rail from the town of Alessandria. Pop. (1901) 18,874 (town); 31,370 (commune). It lies in the plain on the right bank of the Po, 377 ft. above sea-level, and is a junction for Mortara, Vercelli. Chivasso and Asti; it is also connected by steam tramways with Alessandria, Vercelli and Montemagno. The fine Lombard Romanesque cathedral, originally founded in 742, was rebuilt in the early 12th century and consecrated in 1106; it suffered from restoration in 1706, but has been brought back to its original form. It contains some good pictures. The church of S. Domenico is a good Renaissance edifice, and there are some fine palaces. The church of S. Ilario is said to occupy the site of a pagan temple, but the name of the ancient town (if any) which occupied this site is not known. About 10 m. distant is the Sacro Monte di Crea, with eighteen chapels on its slopes containing terra-cotta groups of statues, resembling those at Varallo. Casale Monferrato was given by Charlemagne to the church of Vercelli, but obtained its liberty from Frederick I. (Barbarossa). It was sacked by the troops of Vercelli, Alessandria and Milan in 1215, but rebuilt and fortified in 1220. It fell under the power of its marquises in 1292, and became the chief town of a small state. In 1536 it passed to the Gonzagas of Mantua, who fortified it very strongly. It has since been of considerable importance as a fortress: it successfully resisted the Austrians in 1849, and was strengthened in 1852. There is a large Portland cement factory here.
CASAMARI, a Cistercian abbey in the province of Rome, 6 m. E.S.E. of Veroli. It marks the site of Cereatae, the birthplace of Marius, afterwards known, as inscriptions attest, as Cereatae Marianae, having been separated perhaps by the triumvirs, from the territory of Arpinum. We find it under the early empire as an independent community. The abbey is a fine example of Burgundian early-Gothic (1203–1217), paralleled in Italy by Fossanuova alone (which is almost contemporary with it), and is very well preserved.
See C. Enlart, “Origines françaises de l’architecture gothique en Italie” (Bibliothèque des écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, fasc. 66), (Paris, 1894).
CASANOVA DE SEINGALT, GIOVANNI JACOPO (1725–1798), Italian adventurer, was born at Venice in 1725. His father belonged to an ancient and even noble family, but alienated his friends by embracing the dramatic profession early in life. He made a runaway marriage with Zanetta Farusi, the beautiful daughter of a Venetian shoemaker; and Giovanni was their eldest child. When he was but a year old, his parents, taking a journey to London, left him in charge of his grandmother, who, perceiving his precocious and lively intellect, had him educated far above her means. At sixteen he passed his examination and entered the seminary of St Cyprian in Venice, from which he was expelled a short time afterwards for some scandalous and immoral conduct, which would have cost him his liberty, had not his mother managed somehow to procure him a situation in the household of the Cardinal Acquaviva. He made but a short stay, however, in that prelate’s establishment, all restraint being irksome to his wayward disposition, and took to travelling. Then began that existence of adventure and intrigue which only ended with his death. He visited Rome, Naples, Corfu and Constantinople. By turns journalist, preacher, abbé, diplomatist, he was nothing very long, except homme à bonnes fortunes, which profession he cultivated till the end of his days. In 1755, having returned to Venice, he was denounced as a spy and imprisoned. On the 1st of November 1756 he
