Francesco Laurana was an early Italian Renaissance sculptor and medalist, especially distinguished for his severely elegant portrait busts of women and as an early disseminator of the Renaissance style in France. Laurana’s early career is obscure, the first notice of him, in 1453, being when he was

Bexhill: …the resort area is the De la Warr Pavilion, built in the mid-1930s by Bauhaus architects Erich Mendelsohn and Serge Chermayeff. There is an annual music festival. Pop. (2001) 39,451; (2011) 42,369.

Thomas West, 12th Baron De La Warr was one of the English founders of Virginia, for whom Delaware Bay, the Delaware River, and the state of Delaware were named. The son of Thomas West, the 11th Baron (c. 1556–1602), the younger West fought in the Netherlands and in Ireland under Robert Devereux,

South Holland, village, Cook county, northeastern Illinois, U.S. South Holland is a suburb of Chicago, located along the Little Calumet River about 30 miles (50 km) south of downtown. Founded in 1847 by Dutch farmers, it was first called De Laage Prairie (“The Low Prairie”); it was renamed South

Paul de Lamerie was a well-known Dutch-born English silversmith. De Lamerie’s parents were Huguenots who probably left France for religious reasons in the early 1680s. They had settled in Westminster by 1691. After serving as an apprentice to a London goldsmith, Pierre Platel, de Lamerie registered

Oboe Concerto: The piece was inspired by John de Lancie, an American serviceman who in civilian life was a professional oboist.

De Land, city, seat (1888) of Volusia county, northeastern Florida, U.S. It is situated just east of the St. Johns River, about 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Daytona Beach. The area’s original inhabitants, the Timucua Indians, were driven from the region by the Creek and British by the mid-18th

Earth sciences: Knowledge of Earth composition and structure: …rocks and minerals is the De lapidibus (“On Stones”) of the Greek philosopher Theophrastus(c. 372–c. 287 bce). Written probably in the early years of the 3rd century, this work remained the best study of mineral substances for almost 2,000 years. Although reference is made to some 70 different materials, the…

Nicholas Of Clémanges: In his treatise De lapsu et reparatione justitiae (“On the Failure and Renewal of Justice”) and in companion works (c. 1415) discussing the decline of the church and the ravages of simoniacal practices (the selling of religious offices) by ecclesiastical authorities, Nicholas deplored clerical avarice and the abuse…

Jean de Lattre de Tassigny was a French army officer and posthumous marshal of France who became one of the leading military figures in the French forces under General Charles de Gaulle during World War II. He was also the most successful French commander of the First Indochina War (1946–54). After

Blossius Aemilius Dracontius: …in his most religious poem, De laudibus dei. This last poem, considered his most important work, comprises 2,327 hexameters in three books: Book I describes the Creation and Fall and the evidence for immortality; Book II treats the benevolence of God as shown by the preservation and redemption of the…

Sir John Fortescue: …notable for a legal treatise, De laudibus legum Angliae (c. 1470; “In Praise of the Laws of England”), written for the instruction of Edward, prince of Wales, son of the deposed king Henry VI of England. He also stated a moral principle that remains basic to the Anglo-American jury system:…

Dino De Laurentiis was an Italian-born American film producer known for his prolific output of films ranging from the populist to the cerebral. De Laurentiis—one of seven children—was raised near Naples. After leaving school at age 15, he briefly worked for his father, a pasta manufacturer, before

Dino De Laurentiis was an Italian-born American film producer known for his prolific output of films ranging from the populist to the cerebral. De Laurentiis—one of seven children—was raised near Naples. After leaving school at age 15, he briefly worked for his father, a pasta manufacturer, before

turbine: Development of modern steam turbines: … of Sweden constructed small reaction turbines that turned at about 40,000 revolutions per minute to drive cream separators. Their high speed, however, made them unsuitable for other commercial applications. De Laval then turned his attention to single-stage impulse turbines that used convergent-divergent nozzles, such as the one shown in Figure…

astronomical map: Relationship of the bright stars and their constellations: …book of printed star charts, De le stelle fisse (1540) of the Italian Alessandro Piccolomini, introduced a lettering system for the stars; although frequently reprinted, application of its nomenclature did not spread.

Mark The Hermit: The treatise De lege spirituali (“On the Spiritual Law”), delineating a monastic program, describes Christian perfection as knowledge of the Divine Presence and Providence, which begins with man knowing his limited self. Asceticism, the purpose of which is simply to dispose one to this state of awareness,…

Francisco Suárez: …and philosophy of law in De Legibus (1612; “On Laws”) as well as in the Defensio. Having refuted the divine-right theory of kingly rule, he declared that the people themselves are the original holders of political authority; the state is the result of a social contract to which the people…

Cicero: Philosophy of Cicero: …De republica, following it with De legibus (begun in 52). These writings were an attempt to interpret Roman history in terms of Greek political theory. The bulk of his philosophical writings belong to the period between February 45 and November 44. His output and range of subjects were astonishing: the…

Henry de Bracton: …English jurist and author of De legibus et consuetudinibus Angliae (c. 1235; “On the Laws and Customs of England”), one of the oldest systematic treatises on the common law. While depending chiefly on English judicial decisions and the methods of pleading required by English judges, Bracton enlarged the common law…

Richard Cumberland: …Legibus Naturae, Disquisitio Philosophica (1672; A Philosophical Enquiry into the Laws of Nature, 1750). Although it is basically an attack on the views of Thomas Hobbes, the book begins by a consideration of those of Hugo Grotius, Dutch jurist and theologian. Grotius had based the authenticity of the laws of…

Tamara de Lempicka was a 20th-century artist who created a unique painting style, often called “stylized cubism,” which appears to combine the monumentality of 16th-century Mannerism, the mechanical feel of Italian Futurism, and the exaggeration of contemporary fashion magazines. De Lempicka is

Daniel De Leon was an American socialist, one of the founders of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). He was one of the chief propagandists for socialism in the early American labour movement, but his uncompromising tactics were often divisive. De Leon arrived in the United States in 1874. In

Erasmus: The Protestant challenge of Erasmus: ” De libero arbitrio (1524) defended the place of human free choice in the process of salvation and argued that the consensus of the church through the ages is authoritative in the interpretation of Scripture. In reply Luther wrote one of his most important theological works,…

Lorenzo Valla: In his brief dialogue De libero arbitrio (“On Free Will”), Valla attacked the stoic philosopher Boethius (480–524/525), who had attempted to reconcile man’s free will with God’s foreknowledge; and in his Dialecticae disputationes (“Dialectical Disputations”), Valla reduced Aristotle’s nine “categories” to three (substance, quality, and action, which corresponded to…

Georg Joachim Rheticus: …the new views in his De libris revolutionum…Nic. Copernici…narratio prima… (1540; “The First Account of the Book on the Revolutions by Nicolaus Copernicus”). He encouraged Copernicus to complete his great work and took it to Nürnberg for publication, though in 1542 he moved to Leipzig to take up a new…

Pierre de Fermat: Analyses of curves: In a paper entitled “De Linearum Curvarum cum Lineis Rectis Comparatione” (“Concerning the Comparison of Curved Lines with Straight Lines”), he showed that the semicubical parabola and certain other algebraic curves were strictly rectifiable. He also solved the related problem of finding the surface area of a segment of…

Marcus Terentius Varro: Dedicated to Cicero, Varro’s De lingua Latina (“On the Latin Language”) is of interest not only as a linguistic work but also as a source of valuable incidental information on a variety of subjects. Of the original 25 books there remain, apart from brief fragments, only books v to…

Girolamo Benivieni: …Benivieni summarized in the canzone “De lo amore celeste” (“Of Heavenly Love”), and this in turn became the subject of an extensive commentary by Pico della Mirandola. Thus, through all these sources, Platonism reached many other writers, including the Italians Pietro Bembo and Baldassare Castiglione and the English poet Edmund…

Arculf: Adamnan’s narrative of Arculf’s journey, De locis sanctis, came to the attention of the Venerable Bede, who inserted a brief summary of it in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Bede also wrote a separate and longer digest that endured throughout the Middle Ages as a popular guidebook to…

Melchor Cano: …a theologian rests on his De locis theologicis (posthumously published in 1563), an analysis of the scientific value of theological statements, which led him to evaluate the sources of theology. He also wrote commentaries on the Pauline epistles.

New Siberian Islands: …to the northeast the small De Long Islands. The New Siberian Islands proper consist of the large islands of Novaya Sibir, Belkovsky, Kotelny, and Faddeyevsky. Between the last two lies Bunge Island, a low sandy plain occasionally inundated by the sea.

George Washington De Long was an American explorer whose disastrous Arctic expedition gave evidence of a continuous ocean current across the polar regions. De Long conceived of a plan for reaching the North Pole while serving with a polar expedition that sailed around Greenland in 1873. Setting

Luis de León: His prose masterpiece, De los nombres de Cristo (1583–85), a treatise in the dialogue form popularized by the followers of Erasmus on the various names given to Christ in Scripture, is the supreme exemplar of Spanish classical prose style: clear, lofty, and, though studied, entirely devoid of affectation.…

Western philosophy: Robert Grosseteste and Roger Bacon: His treatise De luce (1215–20; On Light) presents light as the basic form of all things and God as the primal, uncreated light.

Giorgio De Lullo was an Italian theatrical director who gained an international reputation as founder and director of the Compagnia dei Giovani, which performed at theatre festivals including the World Theatre Seasons in London and the Théâtre des Nations in Paris. De Lullo, a graduate of the

Bonvesin Da La Riva: …etiquette of his time, and De magnalibus urbis Mediolani (“Concerning the Great Works of the City of Milan”), a detailed description of the topography, demography, and architecture of Milan and its environs.

William Gilbert: …de Magno Magnete Tellure (1600; On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies and on the Great Magnet the Earth), gives a full account of his research on magnetic bodies and electrical attractions. After years of experiments, he concluded that a compass needle points north–south and dips downward because Earth acts as…

Order of the Solar Temple: …and New Age lecturer, and Joseph De Mambro. Its headquarters was later moved to Zürich, where a leadership council of 33 members presided, and regional lodges were set up to perform initiation ceremonies and other rites in Switzerland, Canada, and elsewhere.

Paul de Man was a Belgian-born literary critic and theorist, along with Jacques Derrida one of the two major proponents of deconstruction, a controversial form of philosophical and literary analysis that was influential within many academic disciplines in the 1970s and ’80s. De Man was born into a

history of Europe: The term and concept before the 18th century: In 1641 the French historian Pierre de Marca apparently coined the French vernacular term le moyen âge, which gained authority in the respected lexicographical work Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et infimae latinitatis (1678; “A Glossary for Writers of Middle and Low Latin”), by Charles du Fresne, seigneur du Cange, who…

Italian literature: The veristi and other narrative writers: Emilio De Marchi, another writer in the realist mold, has Milan for his setting and in Demetrio Pianelli (1890) has painted a candid but essentially kindly portrait of the new Milanese urban middle class. Antonio Fogazzaro was akin to the veristi in his powers of…

St. Louise de Marillac ; canonized March 11, 1934; feast day March 15) was a cofounder with St. Vincent de Paul of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, a congregation of laywomen dedicated to teaching and hospital work. Louise was a member of the powerful de Marillac family and was well

Juan Martínez Montañés was a Spanish sculptor who was instrumental in the transition from Mannerism to the Baroque. His work influenced not only the sculptors and altarmakers of Spain and Latin America but also the Spanish painters of his century. After studying in Granada under Pablo de Rojas

Peter Høeg: …with De måske egnede (1993; Borderliners), a story of social cruelty and of friendship among a group of outsiders at an elite private school, and Kvinden og aben (1996; The Woman and the Ape), in which the wife of an esteemed zoologist works to save an ape from death at…

Pedanius Dioscorides: …physician and pharmacologist whose work De materia medica was the foremost classical source of modern botanical terminology and the leading pharmacological text for 16 centuries.

Spain: Science: …interest is merited by the Materia medica, a revision of the Eastern Arabic text of the 1st-century Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides ordered by al-Naṣir, on which Jews, Arabs, and Christians collaborated. Gradually the Andalusian Arabs kept adding new medicinal “simples”—which described the properties of various medicinal plants—to those described by…

Germany: The Christian Democratic parties: …by a large mandate, with Lothar de Maizière as minister president presiding over the six-month transitional period to unification.

Aulus Cornelius Celsus: De medicina, now considered one of the finest medical classics, was largely ignored by contemporaries. It was discovered by Pope Nicholas V (1397–1455) and was among the first medical works to be published (1478) after the introduction of the printing press.

Prospero Alpini: …of current Egyptian medical practice, De medicina Aegyptorum (1591; “On Egyptian Medicine”), was a valuable addition to medical history. Alpini’s study of Egyptian diseases culminated in his widely acclaimed De praesagienda vita et morte aegrotontium (1601; The Presages of Life and Death in Diseases).

Dicuil: Completed in 825, his De mensura orbis terrae (“Concerning the Measurement of the World”) contains the earliest mention of Irish hermits having visited Iceland (795), where they marveled at the midnight sun. The work also contains the most definite Western reference to the old freshwater canal between the Nile…

Isaac Newton: Influence of the Scientific Revolution: …methodis serierum et fluxionum (“On the Methods of Series and Fluxions”). The word fluxions, Newton’s private rubric, indicates that the calculus had been born. Despite the fact that only a handful of savants were even aware of Newton’s existence, he had arrived at the point where he had become…

Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron: …schoolmates during childhood, Herzog and de Meuron began at an early age to work together on drawings and models. Neither initially studied architecture in college. Herzog studied commercial design before attending the University of Basel to study biology and chemistry, and de Meuron pursued a degree in civil engineering. Unsatisfied…

Luis Carlos López: His major works are De mi villorio (1908; “Of My Village”), Posturas dificiles (1909; “Difficult Situations”), and Por el atajo (1928; “For the Short-Cut”).

Agnes de Mille was an American dancer and choreographer who further developed the narrative aspect of dance and made innovative use of American themes, folk dances, and physical idioms in her choreography of musical plays and ballets. Her father was the playwright William Churchill DeMille, her

Agnes de Mille was an American dancer and choreographer who further developed the narrative aspect of dance and made innovative use of American themes, folk dances, and physical idioms in her choreography of musical plays and ballets. Her father was the playwright William Churchill DeMille, her

James De Mille was a Canadian author of more than 30 novels with a wide range of appeal, particularly noted for his wit and humour. While a student at Acadia College (now Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia), De Mille traveled extensively in Europe, and scenes of Italy became settings for

military technology: The development of artillery: …weapon, depicted in the English de Millimete manuscript, was some three feet long with a bore diameter of about two inches (five cm). The projectile resembled an arrow with a wrapping around the shaft, probably of leather, to provide a gas seal within the bore. Firing was apparently accomplished by…

Vietnam: Legendary kingdoms: …the Vietnamese people was King De Minh, a descendant of a mythical Chinese ruler who was the father of Chinese agriculture. De Minh and an immortal fairy of the mountains produced Kinh Duong, ruler of the Land of Red Demons, who married the daughter of the Dragon Lord of the…

Innocent III: Early life and career: …De miseria condicionis humane (On the Misery of the Human Condition), De missarum mysteriis (On the Mysteries of the Mass), and De quadripartita specie nuptiarum (On Four Types of Marriage). The first was enormously popular in the Middle Ages, and the others demonstrate that he was a competent, if…

Innocent III: Early life and career: …Condition), De missarum mysteriis (On the Mysteries of the Mass), and De quadripartita specie nuptiarum (On Four Types of Marriage). The first was enormously popular in the Middle Ages, and the others demonstrate that he was a competent, if not gifted, theologian. All three tracts demonstrate his ability to…

monad: Giordano Bruno in De monade, numero et figura liber (1591; “On the Monad, Number, and Figure”) described three fundamental types: God, souls, and atoms. The idea of monads was popularized by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in Monadologia (1714). In Leibniz’s system of metaphysics, monads are basic substances that make…

Dante: Exile, Il convivio, and De monarchia: 1313; On Monarchy), in which he expands the political arguments of the Convivio. In the embittered atmosphere caused by Clement’s deceit, Dante turned his argumentative powers against papal insistence on its superiority over the political ruler—that is, against the argument that the empire derived its political…

Tommaso Campanella: …in such early writings as De monarchia Christianorum (1593; “On Christian Monarchy”) and Dialogo politico contra Luterani, Calvinisti ed altri eretici (1595; “Political Dialogue Against Lutherans, Calvinists, and Other Heretics”), in which he asserted that sinful humanity can be regenerated through a religious reformation founded on establishment of a universal…

Saint Nilus of Ancyra: …moral and monastic subjects, including De monastica exercitatione (“On Monastic Practice”) and De voluntaria paupertate (“On Voluntary Poverty”), which stress the essence of monastic obedience as the renunciation of the will and all resistance to the religious superior, whose duty is to guide the prayer life of the monk and…

Caelius Aurelianus: His most famous work, De morbis acutis et chronicis (“Concerning Acute and Chronic Diseases”), is a thorough exposition of classical medical knowledge.

Bernardino Ramazzini: …De Morbis Artificum Diatriba (1760; Diseases of Workers), the first comprehensive work on occupational diseases, outlining the health hazards of irritating chemicals, dust, metals, and other abrasive agents encountered by workers in 52 occupations. He served as professor of medicine at the University of Padua from 1700 until his death.

Augustus De Morgan: …logic include the formulation of De Morgan’s laws and work leading to the development of the theory of relations and the rise of modern symbolic, or mathematical, logic.

Augustus De Morgan was an English mathematician and logician whose major contributions to the study of logic include the formulation of De Morgan’s laws and work leading to the development of the theory of relations and the rise of modern symbolic, or mathematical, logic. De Morgan was educated at

pottery: Stoneware and earthenware: One of his pupils, William de Morgan, started a pottery at Fulham (London) in 1888 that made dishes and tiles inspired by Persian, Hispano-Moresque, and Italian wares. De Morgan used brilliant blues and greens and a coppery red lustre. His designs were a great improvement on those of the…

Dudo of Saint-Quentin: The work, De moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum (“Concerning the Customs and Deeds of the First Dukes of the Normans”), was completed sometime between 1015 and 1026. Trained as a poet, Dudo wrote his history as an apologetic for the Norman dukes. Its inaccurate and legendary…

Isaac Newton: Universal gravitation: …received a short tract entitled De Motu (“On Motion”). Already Newton was at work improving and expanding it. In two and a half years, the tract De Motu grew into Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which is not only Newton’s masterpiece but also the fundamental work for the whole of modern…

blood group: Historical background: …et Sanguinis in Animalibus (The Anatomical Exercises Concerning the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals) in 1628. His discovery, that blood circulates around the body in a closed system, was an essential prerequisite of the concept of transfusing blood from one animal to another of the same…

Giovanni Maria Lancisi: This treatise and De motu cordis et aneurysmatibus (1728; “On the Motion of the Heart and on Aneurysms”), in which he discussed the various causes of heart enlargement and was the first to describe aneurysms of syphilitic origin, markedly contributed to knowledge of cardiac pathology.

al-Battānī: …printed edition, under the title De motu stellarum (“On Stellar Motion”), was published in 1537.

De claris mulieribus, work by Giovanni Boccaccio, written about 1360–74. One of the many Latin works the author produced after his meeting with Petrarch, De claris mulieribus contains the biographies of more than 100 notable women. In it Boccaccio decried the practice of sending women without

Immanuel Kant: Early years of the professorship at Königsberg: As indicated in its title, De Mundi Sensibilis atque Intelligibilis Forma et Principiis: Dissertatio (“On the Form and Principles of the Sensible and Intelligible Worlds”), the implicit dualism of the Träume is made explicit, and it is made so on the basis of a wholly un-Leibnizian interpretation of the distinction…

rhythm: Metre: Augustine (354–430), in De musica, added more.

Ratramnus: De nativitate Christi (“On the Birth of Christ”) argues that Christ’s birth was natural, a belief challenged by Paschasius.

philosophy of religion: Ancient origins: …an original work of philosophy, De natura deorum (44 bce; “The Nature of the Gods”), by the Roman statesman and scholar Marcus Tullius Cicero, is an invaluable source of information on ancient ideas about religion and the philosophical controversies they engendered.

Georgius Agricola: Chief works: In several other books, notably De natura eorum quae effluunt ex terra (1546) and De ortu et causis subterraneorum (1546), Agricola describes his ideas on the origin of ore deposits in veins and correctly attributes them to deposition from aqueous solution. He also describes in detail the erosive action of…

Earth sciences: Ore deposits and mineralogy: Of his seven geologic books, De natura fossilium (1546; “On Natural Fossils”) contains his major contributions to mineralogy and, in fact, has been called the first textbook on that subject. In Agricola’s time and well into the 19th century, fossil was a term that could be applied to any object…

Bernardino Telesio: …books of his major work, De natura juxta propria principia (“On Nature According to Its Own Principles”), were published in 1565, and the complete edition of nine books appeared in 1586. Although Telesio had been encouraged in his writings by contemporary Roman Catholic popes, this work and two of his…

encyclopaedia: Three stages of development: …Neckham, in his early 13th-century De naturis rerum (“On the Natures of Things”), hoped that by imparting knowledge he might help to lift or lighten the human spirit, and to this end he tried to maintain a simple and admirably clear text. Neckham’s near-contemporary Bartholomaeus Anglicus similarly set himself in…

encyclopaedia: Special interests: …in this respect is the De naturis rerum (c. 1228–44) of the Dominican friar Thomas de Cantimpré. His aim was that of St. Augustine: to unite in a single volume the whole of human knowledge concerning the nature of things, particularly the nature of animals, with a view toward using…

Richard Fitzneale: Fitzneale’s De necessariis observantiis scaccarii dialogus, commonly called the Dialogus de scaccario, is an account in two books of the procedure followed by the exchequer in the author’s time, a procedure which was largely the creation of his own family. Soon after the author’s death it…

Danielle de Niese is an Australian-born American opera singer, noted especially for her performances of repertoire from the Baroque and Classical periods. De Niese studied music as a child in Australia, and when she was 10 years old, the family moved to Los Angeles. There she continued studies in

Robert De Niro is one of cinema’s most acclaimed actors, famous for his uncompromising portrayals of violent and abrasive characters and, later in his career, for his comic depictions of cranky old men. De Niro won Academy Awards for his performances in The Godfather Part II (1974) and Raging Bull

Giambattista Vico: Early life and career: …in 1709 under the title De Nostri Temporis Studiorum Ratione (“On the Method of the Studies of Our Time”), is rich with his reflections about pedagogical methods. This work was followed almost immediately by the publication of Vico’s great metaphysical essay De Antiquissima Italorum Sapientia (“On the Ancient Wisdom of…

Tycho Brahe: Youth and education: …his observations of it in De nova stella in 1573 marked his transformation from a Danish dilettante to an astronomer with a European reputation.

whole genome sequencing: Sequencing methods: from genes to genomes: A major challenge for de novo sequencing, in which sequences are assembled for the very first time (such as with the HGP), is the production of individual DNA reads that are of sufficient length and quality to span common repetitive elements, which are a general property of complex genome…

Walter Map: …composed De nugis curialium (Courtiers’ Trifles). A miscellany written in Latin, it contains legends, folklore, and tales as well as gossip, observations, and reflections, and it reveals the author to have been knowledgeable and shrewd and a man of considerable wit. Perhaps the best-known item is the letter from…

Levi ben Gershom: …preserved only in Latin translation, De numeris harmonicis (1343; “The Harmony of Numbers”), containing commentaries on the first five books of Euclid and original axioms.

Martianus Minneus Felix Capella: Manuscripts give the title De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii to the first two books and entitle the remaining seven De arte grammatica, De arte dialectica, De arte rhetorica, De geometrica, De arithmetica, De astrologia, and De harmonia. Mercury gives his bride, who is

St. Ambrose: Ecclesiastical administrative accomplishments: …obitu Valentiniani consolatio (392) and De obitu Theodosii (395)—Ambrose established the medieval concept of a Christian emperor as a dutiful son of the church, “serving under orders from Christ” and so subject to the advice and strictures of his bishop.

St. Ambrose: Ecclesiastical administrative accomplishments: emperors Valentinian II and Theodosius—De obitu Valentiniani consolatio (392) and De obitu Theodosii (395)—Ambrose established the medieval concept of a Christian emperor as a dutiful son of the church, “serving under orders from Christ” and so subject to the advice and strictures of his bishop.

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim: Agrippa’s De occulta philosophia added impetus to Renaissance study of magic and injected his name into early Faust legends. In this book he explained the world in terms of cabalistic analyses of Hebrew letters and Pythagorean numerology and acclaimed magic as the best means to know…

Athenodorus Cananites: …in the composition of the De Officiis) provide the main sources of information about him.

St. Ambrose: Literary and musical accomplishments: …moral obligations of the clergy, De officiis ministrorum (386), is skillfully modelled on Cicero’s De officiis. He sought to replace the heroes of Rome with Old Testament saints as models of behaviour for a Christianized aristocracy. By letters, visitations, and nominations, he strengthened this aristocratic Christianity in the northern Italian…

Samuel, baron von Pufendorf: Career in Sweden: …an excerpt from it, titled The Whole Duty of Man According to the Law of Nature, in which Pufendorf departed from the traditional approach of the medieval theologians to natural law and based it on man’s existence as a social being (socialitas). He argued that every individual has a right…