Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/146

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
ALP
122
ALS

first bishop of Evora, from which he was preferred to the archiepiscopate. He died at the advanced age of 102.

ALPETRAGIUS, an Arabian of Morocco; flourished about the middle of the twelfth century; celebrated for a new physical theory of the celestial motions. His idea was that the stars move in spirals—thus representing or rather combining both their proper and diurnal motions.

ALPHANUS or ALPHANI was a physician of Salernum, in the sixteenth century, and author of a work on the subject of the plague and other pestilential diseases.

ALPHARABIUS, Jacobus, an antiquarian of Leonessa in the kingdom of Naples, in the beginning of the 18th century.

ALPHEGE, also Elphege, St., and archbishop of Canterbury, was a monk of extreme strictness and holiness of life. Called to preside over the great monastery at Bath, he distinguished his rule by the suppression of many irregularities. St. Dunstan was so impressed with his value, that he procured his appointment to the see of Winchester a.d. 984, whence in 1006 he was translated to Canterbury. He received his pall at Rome, and on his return held a national synod, 1009, in which the observance of Friday as a weekly fast was confirmed, a decree which is embodied in the present English Prayer Book. When Canterbury was besieged by the Danes, the primate did not abandon his flock, but remained at his post, animating and encouraging the defenders. On the capture of the city he was taken prisoner, confined for several months, and cruelly massacred in the 59th year of his age. The date of his martyrdom is April 19, 1012, on which day he is commemorated in the English and Roman calendar.—J. B., O.

ALPHEN, Daniel van, a Dutch lawyer and author. He was professor of canon and civil law in the university of Leyden. He was born in 1713, and died in 1797.

ALPHEN, Jerome van, a Dutch theologian, born in 1700, was protestant minister successively at Nieuw Loosdrecht, Leeuwarden, and Amsterdam, and died in 1758.

ALPHEN, Jerome van, a Dutch poet. He was born at Gouda in 1746; died at the Hague in 1803.

ALPHEN, Jerome Simon van, a protestant theologian, born at New Hanau, 1665; died 1742.

ALPHERY, Nicephorus, a clergyman of the church of England in the seventeenth century, said to have been descended from a branch of the imperial family of Russia; but this is doubtful. He held the living of Wooley in Huntingdonshire, but was ejected from his charge during the Commonwealth. He lived to resume his duties after the Restoration.

ALPHÉUS, a Greek engraver, who lived in the first century.

ALPHÉUS, a Greek poet, a native of Mitylène, who flourished in the Augustan age.

A´LPHIUS, Avitus, a Roman poet, who lived probably in the reign of Tiberius. His works are lost, with the exception of six verses to which his name is attached, and which are preserved in the "Anthologia Latina."

ALPIN, the last of the Scoto-Irish kings, who reigned over the western district of Scotland before the union of the Picts and Scots. He reigned from 833 to 836, was distinguished for his warlike spirit, and at last fell fighting against the Picts between the rivers Ayr and Doon.

ALPINI, Prospero, rendered in Latin Prosper Alpinus, a celebrated botanist and a physician, was born at Marostica in the north of Italy, 23d November, 1553. He was educated at the university of Padua, where he prosecuted his medical studies with zeal, and took the degree of doctor of medicine in 1578. He enteral on the practice of his profession as a physician, but afterwards devoted his attention chiefly to botany. As physician to the Venetian consul, Alpini visited Egypt, where he spent three years. He became acquainted with the plants of the country, and afterwards published a work on the Egyptian Flora. He returned to Venice in 1586, and was appointed physician to the prince of Melfi. He was subsequently appointed professor of botany at Padua, and continued to discharge the duties of that office until 1617, when he died in the 64th year of his age. He published works on exotic plants, on the balsam plant, and on rhubarb. The genus Alpinia was named after him by Linnæus.—J. H. B.

A´LPRUNUS, Johannes Baptista, a German physician. He practised medicine at Vienna, where he held the office of physician to the Empress Eleonora, wife of Leopold I.

ALPTEGHI´N, the Turkish slave of Ahmed, second sultan of the race of Sàman. Having been freed by his master, he attained rank in the army, amassed great wealth, and became governor of Khorássán. He subsequently headed an insurrection against the reigning sultan, and, aided by a large army, took possession of Ghuznee, which he retained till his death in 975-6. His son-in-law and successor, Subekteghin, was father of the celebrated Mahmud the Ghuznevide.—F.

ALQUIÉ, François Savinien d', a French writer of the 17th century; author of several works, chiefly historical.

ALQUIER, Charles-Jean-Marie, a French diplomatist, born at Talmont in the department of La Vendée in 1752. In 1789 he was mayor of Rochelle, and under the National Convention in 1792, the Directory in 1799, and, subsequently, the Consular Government of France, he was ambassador successively in Bavaria, Madrid, Florence, Naples, Rome, Stockholm, and Copenhagen. He died in 1826.

ALRAKI, R. Joshua Ibn Vibesh, a Spanish rabbi of the 12th or 13th century, and author of a herbal in Arabic.

ALS, Peter, a Danish portrait and historical painter; born at Copenhagen in 1725; died in 1775.

ALSACE, Charles Alexandre Mark Marcellin, also nephew of the Cardinal d'Alsace. He was a marshal of France, and died by the guillotine at Paris in 1794.

ALSACE, Philippe Gabriel Maurice d', nephew of the cardinal. He died at Paris in 1802.

ALSACE, Thomas-Alexandre-Mark d', also nephew of the cardinal; prince of Chimay, grandee of Spain, and colonel of the grenadiers of France. He fell at the battle of Minden.

ALSACE, Thomas-Louis d' Henin-Lietard, Cardinal d', archbishop of Malines, primate of the Austrian Netherlands, count of Boussu, prince of Chimay; born in Brussels in 1680. He died in 1759, distinguished for devotedness to his duties, and for those virtues suited to his rank.

ALSARIO or ALZARIO, Della Croce Vincenzo, an Italian physician, born at Genoa about the year 1576. His works are numerous, and exhibit much talent and erudition.

ALSCHEIK, Moses, was a rabbi of Galilee, author of commentaries on the Old Testament. He died in 1592.

ALSLOOT, Daniel van, was a Flemish landscape painter, born in Brussels about 1550, and died about 1608.

ALSOP, Anthony, prebendary of Winchester, and rector of Brightwell in Berkshire, was the author of a variety of works exhibiting extensive scholarship and refined taste. He possessed great skill in Latin versification, and many of his poems have been highly esteemed for their ease and elegance. He was accidentally drowned in 1772.

ALSOP, Vincent, a nonconformist divine of considerable learning, the author of a variety of works, the best known of which are replies to Sherlock's treatise "On the Knowledge of Christ," and Stillingfleet's "Mischief of Separation." He died at Westminster in 1703.

ALSOUFY, Abul-Hassan-Abderrahman-ben-Omar, an Arabian astronomer, born at Réï in Hamadan in 903. He wrote several treatises on his favourite science, for the instruction of Sultan Adhad-Eddaulah, at whose court he lived. His death took place in 986.

ALSTED, John Henry, one of the most prolific writers of the seventeenth century, was born in 1588 at Ballersback, near Herborn, in Nassau, where his father was a pastor of the Reformed church; studied at Herborn; received there, in 1608, his first appointment as head-master of the university—pædagogium—and delivered private lectures in philosophy; was made extraordinary professor of philosophy in 1610, and ordinary professor of the same in 1615, after declining invitations to Wesel and Hanau, and another to enter the service of John Sigismund, elector of Brandenburg. In 1618 he was sent by the counts of the Wetterau to the synod of Dort. In 1619 he was made professor of theology at Herborn, and on Piscator's death in 1626, succeeded him in the principal theological chair. In 1629 he accepted a theological chair in the newly-erected university of Weissenburg in Transylvania, where he continued till his death on 8th November, 1638. Adelung gives the titles of upwards of sixty-two works which Alsted published on various subjects of theology, philosophy, and chronology; nor is the list complete. He chiefly employed himself in reducing the sciences of his day to methods and compends. His "Encyclopædia Philosophica" (Herborn, 1620, 4to), containing an abridged view of the knowledge of his age, was received with much favour, and was twice reprinted