Word Finder - alba

definition

A type of lyrical poetry, traditionally Provençal, about lovers who must part at dawn.

Throughout the middle ages, moreover, the word alba was somewhat loosely used.

Alba decided to take a self-defense so that she would be able to overpower anyone who came at her.

Both the alb and its name are derived ultimately from the tunica alba, the white tunic, which formed part of the ordinary dress of Roman citizens under the Empire.

P. alba suffers much from the ravages of wood-eating larvae, and also from fungoid growths, especially where the branches have been removed by pruning or accident.

The Latin colony of Alba Fucens near the north-west corner of the lake was founded in the adjoining Aequian territory in 303, so that from the beginning of the 3rd century the Marsians were in touch with a Latin-speaking community, to say nothing of the Latin colony of Carsioli (298 B.C.) farther west.

The white spruce (Picea alba), sometimes met with in English plantations, is a tree of lighter growth than the black spruce, the branches being more widely apart; the foliage is of a light glaucous green; the small light-brown cones are more slender and tapering than in P. nigra, and the scales have even edges.

The name Albanus Mons is also used generally of the Alban group of hills in which there seem to have been some remains of volcanic activity in early Roman times, which covered the early necropolis of Alba Longa, and occasionally produced showers of stones, e.g.

Some interesting manoeuvres now took place, Wellington moving parallel and close to Marmont, but more to the north, making for the fords of Aldea Lengua and Santa Marta on the Tormes nearer to Salamanca, and being under the belief that the Spaniards held the castle and ford at Alba on that river.

About the 6th century the long tunica alba went out of fashion in civil life, but it was retained in the services of the Church and developed into the various forms of the liturgical alb (q.v.) and surplice (q.v.).

Taking magnesia alba, which he distinguished from limestone with which it had previously been confused, he showed that on being heated it lost weight owing to the escape of this fixed air (named carbonic acid by Lavoisier in 1781), and that the weight was regained when the calcined product was made to reabsorb the fixed air with which it had parted.

It occupies the site of the ancient Alba.

Alba was the birthplace of the emperor Pertinax.

Messalla restored the road between Tusculum and Alba, and many handsome buildings were due to his initiative.

Of the long-billed paradise birds the most remarkable is that known as the "twelve-wired" (Seleucides alba), its delicate yellow plumes, twelve of which are transformed into wire-like bristles.

During the war between Rome and Alba Longa it was agreed that the issue should depend on a combat between the two families.

In southern Italy, probably under Greek influence, and in Milan (where the custom still survives) the diaconal stole was put on over the dalmatic. Similarly in Spain and Gaul, anterior to the Carolingian age, the stole was worn by deacons over the alba or outer tunic.

Thus, the Lent lily is Narcissus Pseudonarcissus; the African lily is Agapanthus umbellatus; the Belladonna lily is Amaryllis Belladonna (q.v.); the Jacobaea lily is Sprekelia formosissima; the Mariposa lily is Calochortus; the lily of the Incas is Alstroemeria pelegrina; St Bernard's lily is Anthericum Liliago; St Bruno's lily is Anthericum (or Paradisia) Liliastrum; the water lily is Nymphaea alba; the Arum lily is Richardia africana; and there are many others.

His successful wars with Alba, Fidenae and Veii shadow forth the earlier conquests of Latian territory and the first extension of the Roman domain beyond the walls of Rome.

It was during his reign that the combat between the Horatii and Curiatii, the representatives of Rome and Alba, took place.

The distinctive event of this reign is the destruc tion of Alba, which may be regarded as an historical fact.

Its name, though probably of Indian origin, is sometimes written Turrialba, and connected with the Latin Turris Alba, " White Tower."

His family was of patrician rank and traced a legendary descent from lulus, the founder of Alba g Y, Longa, son of Aeneas and grandson of Venus and Anchises.

After thirty years he left Lavinium, and founded Alba Longa.

He was led in triumph through Rome, and died in captivity at Alba Fucens.

Valentin prepared magnesia alba from the mother liquors obtained in the manufacture of nitre.

Magnesia alba, a white bulky precipitate obtained by adding sodium carbonate to Epsom salts,is a mixture of Mg(CO 3 H) (OH) 2H 2 O,Mg(CO 3 H) (OH) and Mg(OH) 2.

At this time the city was probably under the hegemony of Alba Longa, then the head of the Latin League.

It is asserted, too, that some of the earliest tombs of the necropolis of Alba Longa were found beneath a stratum of peperino.

But by far the most important of these extinct cities was Alba, on the lake to which it gave its name, which was, according to universally received tradition, the parent of Rome, as well as of numerous other cities within the limits of Latium, including Gabii, Fidenae, Collatia, Nomentum and other well-known towns.

Whether or not this tradition deserves to rank as historical, it appears certain that at a still earlier period there existed a confederacy of thirty towns, of which Alba was the supreme head.

This earlier league was doubtless broken up by the fall of Alba; it was probably the increasing power of the Volsci and Aequi that led to the formation of the later league, including all the more powerful cities of Latium, as well as to the alliance concluded by them with the Romans in the consulship of Spurius Cassius (493 B.C.).

Alba, the boundary of Roman territory was at the Fossae Cluiliae, 5 m.

The southern road, the Via Valeria led to Carsioli and Alba Fucens (founded as Latin colonies respectively in 2 9 8 and 303 B.C.), and the northern (afterwards the Via Flaminia 4) to Narnia (founded as a Latin colony in 2 99 B.C.).

The lower part of it (up to about 6000 ft.) consists chiefly of forests of evergreen pines (Pines nigricans), the upper (up to about 6800 ft.) of birchwoods (Betula alba).

The white walnut (Juglans alba) or hickory is common in North America, and is very tough, hard and elastic. The black walnut (Juglans nigra) is also native to America.

The place was connected by road with Alba Pompeia and Augusta Taurinorum.

It was devastated by the Samnites, was one of the 12 Latin colonies that refused in 209 B.C. to provide more soldiers, and was in 186 used as a state prison, like Alba and Setia.

In the Second Punic war Alba at first remained faithful, but afterwards refused to send contingents and was punished.

A very good description of the site, with plans, is given by C. Promis, L'Antichita di Alba Fucense (Rome, 1836).

In the North American area Picea alba, P. nigra, Larix americana, Abies balsamea (balsam fir), Thuja canadensis (hemlock spruce), Pinus Strobus (Weymouth pine), Thuja occidentalis (white cedar), Taxus canadensis are characteristic species.

In the early part of his reign he appears, in agreement with the Turkish sultan and the king of Poland, turning out the Hungarian vassal, the ferocious Vlad, from the Walachian throne, and annexing the coast cities of Kilia and Cetatea Alba or Byelgorod, the Turkish Akkerman.

A hold was obtained on the country by the occupation of various fortresses on Moldavian soil with the surrounding territory - in 1538 Cetatea Alba, in 1592 Bender, in 1702 Chotim (Khotin).

It is under their orders and often at their expense that the first Slavonic printing-presses were established in places like Kronstadt (Brashov) Oratia, Sasz-Shebesh and Belgrad (Alba Julia, in Transylvania)where Slavonic and Rumanian books appeared.

Confirmation of this may be found in Cicero's description (Pro Milone, 85) of the destruction of the shrines and sacred groves of Alba by the construction of Clodius's villa, in the local application of the adjective Albanus, and in the position of Castel Gandolfo itself, which exactly suits Livy's description.

The view that the modern Albano occupies the site of Alba Longa was commonly held in the 15th and 16th centuries, but was disproved by P. Cluver (1624).

But it is certain that no city took the place of Alba Longa until comparatively late times.

Forster in 1788 (Enchiridion, p. 37) conferred upon it, from its snowy plumage, the name Chionis, which has most properly received general acceptance, though in the same year the compiler Gmelin termed the genus Vaginalis, as a rendering of Pennant's English name, and the species alba.

It has thus become the Chionis alba of ornithology.

The form of the bill's "sheath" in the two species is also quite different, for in C. alba it is almost level throughout, while in C. minor it rises in front like the pommel of a saddle.

The Latin colonies of Alba Fucens (304 B.C.) and Carsioli (298 B.C.) must have spread the use of Latin (or what passed as such) all over the district; through it lay the chief (and for some time the only) route (Via Valeria) to Luceria and the south.