Word Finder - ducal

definition

Of or pertaining to a duke, a duchess, or the duchy or dukedom they hold.

The ducal dignity rarely passed out of a circle of specially old and distinguished families.

The kingly power in Poland, like the ducal power at Venice, had been so narrowed that Poland, though she still kept a king, called herself a republic no less than Venice.

At Z is the treasury of St Mark, which was originally one of the towers belonging to the old ducal palace; E, site of old houses; G, clocktower; H, old palace of procurators; J, old library; M, two columns; N, Ponte della Paglia; 0, Bridge of Sighs; W, Giants' Staircase; X, sacristy of St Mark; Y, Piazzetta.

During the earlier years of the republic the ducal palace was frequently destroyed and rebuilt.

The collegiate church (Stiftskirche) dates from about 1340, and contains a number of fine ducal monuments.

Curiously enough the cottage, a stone building, built by the same duke for Jean Jacques Rousseau, still stands in the park, while the ducal residence was burnt down by the sans-culottes.

The new duke, unwilling to yield to the wishes of his people for greater political liberty, was soon compelled to take flight, and the duchy was for a time ruled by a provisional government and by Charles Albert of Sardinia; but in April 1849 Baron d'Aspre with 15,000 Austrians took possession of Parma, and the ducal government was restored under Austrian protection.

The government is carried on by a ministry of five, with departments for the ducal house and foreign affairs, home affairs, justice, education and public worship and finance.

The nobility and clergy were on the side of the ducal authority; its opponents were the municipalities, especially those of Flanders.

He there received the imperial crown, and summoned the Italian princes for a settlement of all disputed claims. Francesco Sforza, the last and childless heir of the ducal house, was left in Milan till his death, which happened in 1535.

Not only the Gonzagas, but several other ancient ducal families, died out about the date which we have reached.

The eldest of the cadet branches of the ducal house has its origin in William (c. 1510-1573), eldest son of the victor of Flodden by his second marriage.

The ducal castle is now occupied by the chief court of the Palatinate.

This church was burned in 976 along with the ducal palace in the insurrection against the Doge Candiano IV.

Taken as a whole, after the ducal palace this is the noblest effect of all in Venice."

We find it retaining some traces of Byzantine influence in the decorated surfaces of applied marbles, and in the roundels of porphyry and verd antique, while it also retained certain characteristics of Gothic, as, for instance, in the pointed arches of the Renaissance facade in the courtyard of the ducal palace designed by Antonio Rizzo (1499).

By the side of the sea in the piazzetta, on to which the west facade of the ducal palace faces, stand two ancient columns of Egyptian granite, one red and the other grey.

They contain the voluminous and invaluable records of the Venetian republic, diplomatic, judicial, commercial, notarial, &c. Under the republic the various departments of state stored their records in various buildings, at the ducal palace, at the Scuola di San Teodoro, at the Camerlenghi.

Contemporaneously with the restoration of the southern facade of St Mark's, the restoration of the colonnade of the ducal palace towards the Piazzetta and the Mole was undertaken at a cost of £23,000.

For the same reason the Biblioteca Marciana with its 350,000 volumes was moved to the Old Mint, opposite the ducal palace.

Further, two ducal councillors were appointed to assist the doge, and he was compelled, not merely permitted, to seek the advice of the more prominent citizens at moments of crisis.

Moreover, still further tq limit the power of the doge, the number of ducal councillors was raised from two to six.

In 1198, on the election of Enrico Dandolo, the aristocracy carried their policy one step farther, and by the promissione ducale, or coronation oath, which every doge was required to swear, they acquired a powerful weapon for the suppression of all that remained of ancient ducal authority.

For two years the duchy was in the hands of the crown, but in 1363, the second ducal house, also Capetian, was founded by Philip the Bold, son of John II., king of France.

He was at first pantler, then carver, titles which are misleading as to the nature of his services, which were those of a diplomatist; and in 1457 he became a member of the ducal council.

The ducal palace, standing in extensive grounds, contains a collection of historical curiosities and a gallery of pictures, which includes works by Cimabue, Lippi,Rubens,Titian and Van Dyck.

In the environs are the ducal villas of Georgium and Luisium, the gardens of which, as well as those of the neighbouring town of Worlitz, are much admired.

In that year the first plot against the Viscontian rule, hatched by the twelve and the Salimbeni and fomented by the Florentines, was violently repressed, and caused the twelve to be again driven from office; but in the following year a special balia, created in consequence of that riot, annulled the ducal suzerainty and restored the liberties of Siena.

At the coronation (19th May) he was made grand-chamberlain, a count of the empire, on which occasion he is said to have adopted the arms of the French ducal house of Biron, and was presented with an estate at Wenden with 50,000 crowns a year.

Its ancient castle is picturesquely situated on a lofty porphyry rock, and is memorable as the place from which, in 1455, Kunz von Kaufungen carried off the young princes Albert and Ernest, the founders of the present royal and ducal families of Saxony.

It is first recorded as a town in 127 4, and in the 1 4 th century was the seat of the princes of Grubenhagen, a branch of the ducal house of Brunswick.

The union of the duchy with the crown in 1477 deprived Dijon of the splendour of the ducal court; but to cbunterbalance this loss it was made the capital of the province and seat of a parlement.

Lessing was ducal librarian here, and the old library building, designed in 1723 in imitation of the Pantheon at Rome, contains a marble statue of him.

The ducal burial-vault is in the church of St Mary.

The town passed wholly into the possession of the Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel family in 1671, and for nearly one hundred years enjoyed the distinction of being the ducal capital.

In 1754, however, Duke Charles transferred the ducal residence to Brunswick.

It joined the Hanseatic League, and was later the residence of the branch of the ducal house, which received the title of elector of Hanover and ascended the British throne in the person of George I.

Finally, in the cemetery is the grand ducal family vault, in which Goethe and Schiller also lie, side by side.

Among the other prominent buildings in Weimar are the Griines Schloss (18th century), containing a library of 200,000 volumes and a valuable collection of portraits, busts and literary and other curiosities; the old ducal dower-house (Wittumspalais); the museum, built in1863-1868in the Renaissance style with some old masters and Preller's famous mural paintings illustrating the Odyssey.

As he refused to give up his duchy he was kept in prison, while Henry confiscated the estates of powerful nobles, demanded the restoration of ducal lands by the bishops, and garrisoned newly-erected forts with Swabians, who provisioned themselves from the surrounding country.

When the insurgents under Duke Otto were joined by the Thuringians, Henry was compelled in 1074 to release Magnus and to make a number of concessions as the price of the peace of Gerstungen; which, however, was short-lived, as the peasants employed in pursuance of its terms in demolishing the forts, desecrated the churches and violated the ducal tombs.

Both retained the ducal title and claimed the electoral privilege, a claim which the Lauenburg line refused to abandon when it was awarded to the Wittenberg line by the Golden Bull of 1356.

The castle, formerly the ducal residence, is in the Bergstadt, defended by moats, and surrounded by beautiful gardens.

Prince Frederick removed the ducal residence to Ballenstedt in 1765.

Tommaso greatly encouraged commerce, reconstructed the ducal palace and commenced the library.

The old ducal palace, begun by Duke Francis I.

Many of the best pictures in the ducal collection were sold in the 18th century and found their way to Dresden.

Constituted a duchy in 1452 in favour of Borso d'Este, and enlarged and strengthened by Hercules II., it became the ducal residence on the incorporation of Ferrara with the States of the Church (1598).

The ducal palace, known as the Ehrenburg, is a magnificent building, originally erected on the site of a convent of bare-footed friars by Duke John Ernest in 1549, renovated in 1698, and restored in 1816 by Duke Ernest I.

The Zeughaus (armoury) contains the ducal library of 100,000 volumes, and among other public buildings may be mentioned the Augustenstift, formerly the seat of the ministerial offices, and the Marstall (royal mews).