LATINI LATITUDE 201 are some Christian poems in existence by Domnulus, and one by Mamertus Claudianus, all rather prosaic. The works of the theolo- gians, as Arnobius (the younger), Cerealis, Gelasius, Honoratius, Salonius, Gennadius, and others, turn chiefly on the relation of the free- dom of the will to mercy, and on the person of Christ ; others wrote sermons and commen- taries on Biblical works. The historical works of the second half of the 5th century are the history by Victor Vitensis of the persecution of the orthodox church by the Arian Vandals, and the chronicles .of the Spaniard Idacius, which contain a special account of his native country. The history of the destruction of Troy by the Phrygian Dares, which became the chief source of the Trojan romances of the middle ages, is a forgery of the 5th or 6th cen- tury. See Klotz, Handbuch der lateinischen Literaturgeschichte (Leipsic, 1845) ; Thomp- son, "History of Roman Literature" (Lon- don, 1852); Browne, "A History of Eoman Classical Literature " (London, 1853) ; Munk, GeschicJite der romischen Literatur (Berlin, 1858-'61) ; Sellar, " The Roman Poets of the Republic" (Edinburgh, 1863) ; Bahr, Geschichte der romischen Literatur (4th ed., 3 vols., Carlsruhe, 1866) ; Patin, JEtudes sur la poesie latine (2 vols., Paris, 1869) ; Hubner, Grund- riss zu Vorlesungen iiber die romische Litera- turgeschichte (2d ed., Berlin, 1869) ; and espe- cially Bernhardy, Grundriss der romischen Literatur (5th ed., Brunswick, 1872), and Teuffel, Geschichte der romischen Literatur (2d ed., Leipsic, 1871; English translation, 2 vols., London, 1873). LATINI, Brunetto, an Italian scholar and poet, born in Florence about 1230, died there in 1294. He was the son of Bonacorso Latini, and be- came a leader of the Guelphs, after whose downfall he was exiled (1260), and spent many years in Paris in teaching philosophy and let- ters. After the overthrow of the Ghibellines he returned to Florence, where he became a friend and teacher of Dante, and in 1284 held the office of syndic. He was buried in the church of Santa Maria Novella, and he is one of the four personages commemorated by me- dallions in the cupola of Dante's tomb at Ra- venna. His didactic poem Tesoretto, which he wrote, as he said, when " Florence was in her splendor," was published in Venice in 1553, be- sides which he composed various other works in Italian. But his fame rests on his Livre du tresor, a philosophical compilation, written in French, because, as he says, "he happened to be in France, and the language was more agreeable and usual than any other," Italian being as yet little used in prose at that period. The first part relates to history, theology, geography, and other subjects, and contains a remarkable allusion to the mariner's compass. The second part treats of ethics, and the third of rhetoric and the art of government. Edi- tions of Buono-Giamboni's Italian translation were published from 1474 to 1824. The French bibliographer, F. A. P. Chabaille, who died in 1863, published Latini's manuscripts extant in the national library of Paris in his Documents inedits de Vhistoire de France. A project of Napoleon I. to nominate a commission for publishing the Livre du tresor at public ex- pense, with commentaries, was not taken up till May 15, 1855, when it was recommended by the minister of public instruction. Dante, though praising Latini for teaching him how immortality is achieved by man, represents him as having committed a crime, which, accord- ing to one of the commentators, refers to a charge of forgery, but which had been indig- nantly denied by Latini in his Tesoretto. See Ortolani's essay, included in his Penalties dc VEnfer de Dante (Paris, 1874). LATIMS, a king of Latium, and father of Lavinia, whom he gave in marriage to ^Eneas. (See ^ENEAS.) LATITUDE (Lat. latitude, breadth). I. In geography, the distance of a place on the earth's surface from the equator, N. or S., reckoned in degrees, minutes, and seconds of the great circle constituting the earth's polar circumference. (See DEGREE.) Technically expressed, the lat- itude of a place is its distance from the equa- tor, measured by the angle which the horizon plane of the place makes with the equator, or by the angle which a plumb line at the place makes with the plane of the earth's axis. It is therefore equal to the altitude of the pole of the heavens above the horizon. There are several ways of determining the latitude of a place. 1. The elevation of the pole star, cor- rected for the effects due to the star's motion round the real pole of the heavens, and for refraction, aberration, &c., gives the latitude. 2. The latitude may be determined by observ- ing the altitude of a known star, when on the meridian; for manifestly the known north polar distance of the star added to the merid- ian altitude, corrected for refraction, aberra- tion, &c., is the supplement of the altitude of the pole of the heavens, which altitude, as we have seen, is equal to the latitude of the place of observation. 3. If the altitudes of circum- polar stars above and below the pole be ob- served, the mean of these altitudes (corrected for refraction, aberration, &c.) is the altitude of the pole ; that is, is the latitude. 4. The latitude can be determined by an extra-meridio- nal observation of a star at a known hour. For in this case we have : 1, the star's polar dis- tance ; 2, the zenith distance at the time (which is the complement of the observed altitude corrected for refraction, aberration, &c.) ; and 3, the hour angle. That is, we have two sides and an angle (opposite to one of them) of the spherical triangle which has for its angu- lar points the pole, the zenith, and the star. Hence we can determine the third side, which is the zenith distance of the pole, that is, the complement of the latitude. 5. If a star be observed when on the prime vertical, the lati- tude becomes known without an exact knowl-
