Italy: Political development, 1380–1454: …under the personal domination of Maso degli Albizzi (1382–1417) and then of his son, Rinaldo (until 1434). The Albizzi regime successfully resisted the Visconti and then a temporary threat from King Ladislas of Naples in the years 1408–14, and it also contributed to Florence’s expansion over Tuscany, which since the…

Maso di Banco was a Florentine painter who was the most talented of Giotto’s pupils. Maso’s work displays a style that effectively and intelligently incorporated the teachings of the master. It was the work of Maso that Lorenzo Ghiberti singled out in the 15th century for praise. Maso is mentioned

masochism, psychosexual disorder in which erotic release is achieved through having pain inflicted on oneself. The term derives from the name of Chevalier Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, an Austrian who wrote extensively about the satisfaction he gained by being beaten and subjugated. The amount of pain

Masolino was a painter who achieved a compromise between the International Gothic manner and the advanced early Renaissance style of his own day. He owes his prominence in the history of Florentine art not to his innovations but to his lyrical style and his unfailing artistry. Masolino came from

Masolino was a painter who achieved a compromise between the International Gothic manner and the advanced early Renaissance style of his own day. He owes his prominence in the history of Florentine art not to his innovations but to his lyrical style and his unfailing artistry. Masolino came from

Freemasonry, the teachings and practices of the fraternal (men-only) order of Free and Accepted Masons, the largest worldwide secret society—an oath-bound society, often devoted to fellowship, moral discipline, and mutual assistance, that conceals at least some of its rituals, customs, or

American literature: Multicultural writing: …with sprawling, picaresque historical novels: Mason & Dixon (1997), about two famous 18th-century surveyors who explored and mapped the American colonies, and Against the Day (2006), set at the turn of the 20th century.

mason bee, (genus Osmia), genus of more than 350 species of solitary bees mostly native to the Northern Hemisphere and known for their habit of using mud in the construction of their nests. Like most other bees, mason bees do not produce honey, and they do not sting unless provoked. They are

Mason City, city, seat (1855) of Cerro Gordo county, northern Iowa, U.S., along the Winnebago River, about 120 miles (195 km) north of Des Moines. The area was inhabited by Winnebago and Sioux peoples when Freemasons arrived to settle the site in 1853; its earlier names were Shibboleth, Masonic

Mason ware, a sturdy English pottery known as Mason’s Patent Ironstone China. It was first produced by C.J. Mason & Company in 1813 to provide a cheap substitute for Chinese porcelain, especially the larger vases. The decoration was a kind of chinoiserie, or hybrid Oriental. Mason specialties were

wasp: The potter, or mason, wasps (subfamily Eumeninae) of the Vespidae build nests of mud, which are sometimes vaselike or juglike and may be found attached to twigs or other objects.

Mason ware, a sturdy English pottery known as Mason’s Patent Ironstone China. It was first produced by C.J. Mason & Company in 1813 to provide a cheap substitute for Chinese porcelain, especially the larger vases. The decoration was a kind of chinoiserie, or hybrid Oriental. Mason specialties were

Andrew Mason is the cofounder of Groupon, a Chicago-based e-commerce company that specializes in providing customers with coupons for discounted products and services from local businesses. Mason grew up in the Pittsburgh suburb of Mount Lebanon. His parents were entrepreneurs: his father was a

Bertha Mason, fictional character, the Creole wife of Edward Rochester in Jane Eyre (1847) by Charlotte Brontë and Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) by Jean

Bertha Mason, fictional character, the Creole wife of Edward Rochester in Jane Eyre (1847) by Charlotte Brontë and Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) by Jean

Bobbie Ann Mason is an American short-story writer and novelist known for her evocation of rural Kentucky life. Mason was reared on a dairy farm and first experienced life outside rural Kentucky when she traveled throughout the Midwest as the teenage president of the fan club for a pop quartet, the

New Zealand literature: Drama: Bruce Mason, whose one-man show The End of the Golden Weather (published 1962) had been performed hundreds of times all over the country, continued to write and saw the best of his earlier plays with Maori themes—The Pohutukawa Tree (published 1960) and Awatea (published 1969)—given…

Jeremiah Dixon: …who, working with fellow surveyor Charles Mason, established the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania, known since as the Mason and Dixon Line.

Church of God in Christ, Inc.: …of a dynamic preacher named Charles H. Mason is acknowledged by both. During the late 19th century Mason led Holiness churches in Jackson, Mississippi, and Memphis, Tennessee. When news of the outpouring of Pentecostal blessing at the Apostolic Faith Gospel Mission in Los Angeles reached him, he traveled there himself…

ironstone china: A patent was granted to Charles James Mason, Lane Delph, in 1813 for the manufacture of “English porcelain,” a white ware that he marketed as Mason’s Ironstone China. Job and George Ridgway made a similar product under the name stone china. The wares, usually service pieces and vases based on…

homeschooling: Main theories, theorists, and methods: …same time, the work of Charlotte Mason—a 19th-century British educator—had a resurgence among Christian homeschoolers, as a result of the publication of Susan Schaeffer Macaulay’s book For the Children’s Sake: Foundations of Education for the Home and School (1984). Mason advocated teaching Latin or other languages that once provided the…

Charlotte Mason was an American philanthropist who for a time encouraged many artists of the Harlem Renaissance. Known as “Godmother,” she was a generous patron, but her controlling nature often caused conflict with her beneficiaries. Mason was born into a wealthy family. She married a prominent

Charlotte Mason was an American philanthropist who for a time encouraged many artists of the Harlem Renaissance. Known as “Godmother,” she was a generous patron, but her controlling nature often caused conflict with her beneficiaries. Mason was born into a wealthy family. She married a prominent

Monica Mason is a South African ballet dancer and dance administrator known for her multifaceted association with the British Royal Ballet, which spanned more than a half century. As a dancer, she coupled remarkable physical strength with solid technique and dramatic skill. As the company’s

Daniel Gregory Mason was a composer in the German-influenced Boston group of U.S. composers. Mason was the grandson of the music publisher and educator Lowell Mason and the son of Henry Mason, a founder of the Mason & Hamlin Co. piano firm. He studied with John Knowles Paine at Harvard University

Traffic: July 12, 1983, Birmingham), guitarist Dave Mason (b. May 10, 1946, Worcester, Worcestershire, England), and drummer Jim Capaldi (b. August 2, 1944, Evesham, Worcestershire—d. January 28, 2005, London).

Frederik Pohl was an American science-fiction writer whose best work uses the genre as a mode of social criticism and as an exploration of the long-range consequences of technology in an ailing society. Pohl was a high-school dropout, but, by the time he was 20 years old, he was editing the

George Mason was an American patriot and statesman who insisted on the protection of individual liberties in the composition of both the Virginia and the U.S. Constitution (1776, 1787). He was ahead of his time in opposing slavery and in rejecting the constitutional compromise that perpetuated it.

Borscht Belt: Jokes: ” —Jackie Mason “I tell ya, my whole life, all I know is rejection. When I was a kid, my yo-yo, it never came back.” —Rodney Dangerfield “Today I give my daughter what I really didn’t have as a kid. All the silly, dumb, extravagant, frilly,…

chess: Origin of time controls: …a contender for first prize, James Mason, exceeded the time limit in one game but eventually won the game after his opponent declined to claim the forfeit. Another contender for first prize, Wilhelm Steinitz, appealed Mason’s victory, and a forfeiture was imposed instead.

James Mason was a British stage and motion-picture actor best known for his urbane characterizations. During his 50-year acting career, he played in 106 films. Mason studied architecture before trying for a theatrical career. Following four years as a stage actor, his first film was Late Extra

James Murray Mason was an antebellum U.S. senator from Virginia and, later, a Confederate diplomat taken prisoner in the Trent Affair. Although raised a Tidewater aristocrat, Mason graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and, after studying law at the College of William and Mary, set up his

Pequot: John Mason led English, Mohegan, and Narragansett warriors in an attack on the main fortified Pequot village on the site of modern-day Mystic, Connecticut. The Pequot were surprised but quickly mounted a spirited defense that almost led to an English defeat. Realizing that he could…

John Mitchell Mason was a U.S. minister and educator, who is best known for his work in raising standards of Protestant theological education in the U.S. He also was noted for his prowess as an orator. Mason developed a plan for theological education and in 1804 founded a seminary of the Associate

Ostend Manifesto: …minister to Great Britain, and John Y. Mason, minister to France, to confer with Soulé at Ostend, Belgium. Their dispatch urged U.S. seizure of Cuba if the United States possessed the power and if Spain refused the sale. This action stemmed both from fear of a slave revolt in Cuba…

Lowell Mason was a hymn composer, music publisher, and one of the founders of public-school music education in the United States. Mason went to Savannah, Georgia, as a bank clerk and became choirmaster at the Independent Presbyterian Church in that city. In 1822 he published The Handel and Haydn

Japanese music: Music education: …and a Boston music teacher, Luther Whiting Mason (1828–96). Mason went to Japan in 1880 to help form a music curriculum for public schools and start a teacher-training program. Although there was much talk of combining the best of East and West, the results of the sincere efforts of an…

Max Mason was an American mathematical physicist, educator, and science administrator. Mason completed his undergraduate work at the University of Wisconsin (1898) and received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Göttingen in 1903. His first position, as an instructor in mathematics at the

balloon flight: Long-distance ballooning: …accompanied by the Irish musician Thomas (“Monck”) Mason, aboard the Great Balloon of Nassau in November 1836. Taking off from London, they traveled about 750 km (480 miles) in 18 hours to land in the Duchy of Nassau (now in Germany). Paul (“Ed”) Yost and Donald Piccard made the first…

Monica Mason is a South African ballet dancer and dance administrator known for her multifaceted association with the British Royal Ballet, which spanned more than a half century. As a dancer, she coupled remarkable physical strength with solid technique and dramatic skill. As the company’s

Pink Floyd: …1943, Great Bookham, Surrey), drummer Nick Mason (b. January 27, 1945, Birmingham, West Midlands), keyboard player Rick Wright (in full Richard Wright; b. July 28, 1945, London—d. September 15, 2008, London), and guitarist David Gilmour (b. March 6, 1944, Cambridge).

Perry Mason, fictional American trial lawyer and detective, the protagonist of more than 80 mystery novels (beginning with The Case of the Velvet Claws, 1933) by American attorney Erle Stanley Gardner. Mason, who almost never lost a case, also had a successful legal career in film, radio (1943–55),

Barbados: Barbados since independence: …the country’s newly elected president, Dame Sandra Mason.

flag of Michigan: …first chief executive, “Boy Governor” Stevens T. Mason, who acquired his nickname by being elected at age 23. The company flag was blue with the new state seal on the obverse, a popular design among U.S. military units at the time. Michigan formally adopted blue military colours in 1865 and…

balloon flight: Long-distance ballooning: …accompanied by the Irish musician Thomas (“Monck”) Mason, aboard the Great Balloon of Nassau in November 1836. Taking off from London, they traveled about 750 km (480 miles) in 18 hours to land in the Duchy of Nassau (now in Germany). Paul (“Ed”) Yost and Donald Piccard made the first…

biblical literature: Non-European versions: …the work of Wesleyan missionary W. Mason. The New Testament appeared in Ojibwa in 1833, and the whole Bible was translated for the Dakota peoples in 1879. The Labrador Eskimos had a New Testament in 1826 and a complete Bible in 1871.

shorthand: History and development of shorthand: …his method of shorthand; and William Mason, whose method was used to record sermons and to translate the Bible in the years following the Reformation. Mason’s system was later adapted and became the official system of the British Parliament.

Mason-Dixon Line, originally the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania in the United States. In the pre-Civil War period it was regarded, together with the Ohio River, as the dividing line between slave states south of it and free-soil states north of it. The term Mason and Dixon Line was

Mason-Dixon Line, originally the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania in the United States. In the pre-Civil War period it was regarded, together with the Ohio River, as the dividing line between slave states south of it and free-soil states north of it. The term Mason and Dixon Line was

construction: Early steel-frame high-rises: …were built; in Chicago the Masonic Temple (1892) of Daniel Burnham and John Root reached 22 stories (91 meters or 302 feet), but then the leadership shifted to New York City with the 26-story Manhattan Life Building (1894). The Singer Building (1907) by the architect Ernest Flagg rose to 47…

Mason City, city, seat (1855) of Cerro Gordo county, northern Iowa, U.S., along the Winnebago River, about 120 miles (195 km) north of Des Moines. The area was inhabited by Winnebago and Sioux peoples when Freemasons arrived to settle the site in 1853; its earlier names were Shibboleth, Masonic

masonry, the art and craft of building and fabricating in stone, clay, brick, or concrete block. Construction of poured concrete, reinforced or unreinforced, is often also considered masonry. The art of masonry originated when early man sought to supplement his valuable but rare natural caves with

cement: Types of portland cement: Masonry cements are used primarily for mortar. They consist of a mixture of portland cement and ground limestone or other filler together with an air-entraining agent or a water-repellent additive. Waterproof cement is the name given to a portland cement to which a water-repellent agent…

Freemasonry, the teachings and practices of the fraternal (men-only) order of Free and Accepted Masons, the largest worldwide secret society—an oath-bound society, often devoted to fellowship, moral discipline, and mutual assistance, that conceals at least some of its rituals, customs, or

Teyateyaneng: …resident commissioner, Marshall Clark, and Chief Masopha, third son of the legendary Moshoeshoe, founder and paramount chief of the Sotho nation. Masopha agreed to pay taxes to the resident commissioner, who allowed the chief to set up his own district headquarters with police recruited from his own people. From its…

Christian David Ginsburg: …authority in England on the Masorah (authoritative Jewish tradition concerning the correct text of the Hebrew Bible).

Isaiah ben Judah Loeb Berlin: …commentary on the Talmud entitled Masoret ha-Shas (“Talmud Tradition”) supplements an earlier work by a Frankfort rabbi and is the best known of Berlin’s numerous collated texts (noting variant readings and parallel passages).

biblical literature: The medieval period: …of the Middle Ages, the Masoretes of Babylonia and Palestine (6th–10th century) had fixed in writing, by points and annotation, the traditional pronunciation, punctuation, and (to some extent) interpretation of the biblical text. The rise of the Karaites, who rejected rabbinic tradition and appealed to scripture alone (8th century onward)…

Masoretic text, (from Hebrew masoreth, “tradition”), traditional Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible, meticulously assembled and codified, and supplied with diacritical marks to enable correct pronunciation. This monumental work was begun around the 6th century ad and completed in the 10th by scholars

Afghanistan: Civil war, communist phase (1978–92): …was under the command of Ahmad Shah Massoud, who instead fought the Soviets from a redoubt in the Panjanshīr River valley (commonly Panjshēr valley) northeast of Kabul. Massoud was among those commanders affiliated with the Islamic Society (one of the most influential mujahideen groups), then headed by an Azhar-trained scholar,…

Mazovia, lowland territory in east-central Poland, located west of Podlasia in the basin of the middle Vistula and lower Bug rivers. Mazovia included the Płock-Ciechanów region (to which the name Mazovia originally referred) as well as the regions of Sochaczew, Grójec (formerly Grodziec), and

Lina Bo Bardi: Life and work in Brazil: …help establish and direct the Art Museum of São Paulo (Museu de Arte de São Paulo; MASP), the first museum in Brazil to collect and exhibit modern art. For the first iteration of the institution, which opened in 1947 in part of the building that housed Chateaubriand’s business, Bo Bardi…

Gaston Maspero was a French Egyptologist and director general of excavations and antiquities for the Egyptian government, who was responsible for locating a collective royal tomb of prime historic importance. Maspero taught Egyptian language at Paris, from 1869 until his appointment as professor at

Gaston Maspero was a French Egyptologist and director general of excavations and antiquities for the Egyptian government, who was responsible for locating a collective royal tomb of prime historic importance. Maspero taught Egyptian language at Paris, from 1869 until his appointment as professor at

Persis: …belonged; the Maraphii; and the Maspii. It was these three that Cyrus II the Great assembled to approve his plans for his revolt against Astyages, his Median overlord, in 550 bc.

Muscat, town, capital of Oman, located on the Gulf of Oman coast. The town long gave its name to the country, which was called Muscat and Oman until 1970. Situated on a cove surrounded by volcanic mountains, the town is connected by road to the west and the south. In 1508 the Portuguese gained

masque, festival or entertainment in which disguised participants offer gifts to their host and then join together for a ceremonial dance. A typical masque consisted of a band of costumed and masked persons of the same sex who, accompanied by torchbearers, arrived at a social gathering to dance and

the man in the iron mask was a political prisoner, famous in French history and legend, who died in the Bastille in 1703, during the reign of Louis XIV. There is no historical evidence that the mask was made of anything but black velvet (velours), and only afterward did legend convert its material

Percy Bysshe Shelley: …1819) in England by writing The Masque of Anarchy and several radical songs that he hoped would rouse the British people to active but nonviolent political protest. Later in 1819 he sent to England Peter Bell the Third, which joins literary satire of William Wordsworth’s Peter Bell to attacks on…

Ben Jonson: His masques at court: …in 1603, and in 1605 The Masque of Blackness was presented at court. The “masque” was a quasi-dramatic entertainment, primarily providing a pretense for a group of strangers to dance and sing before an audience of guests and attendants in a royal court or nobleman’s house. This elementary pattern was…

William Vaughn Moody: …are his poetic plays, including The Masque of Judgment (1900) and The Fire-Bringer (1904), from an uncompleted trilogy on the unity of God and man. He abruptly changed his style with his most popular work, The Great Divide (1906), a prose play about conflict between eastern U.S. puritanism and the…

The Masque of the Red Death, allegorical short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in Graham’s Magazine in April 1842. In a medieval land ravaged by the Red Death, a plague that causes swift, agonizing death, Prince Prospero retreats to his castle with 1,000 knights and ladies. There he welds

Masque of the Red Death, The, American horror film, released in 1964, that was loosely based on two short stories by Edgar Allan Poe. The film afforded Vincent Price one of his most memorable film roles. Satanist Prince Prospero (played by Price) resides comfortably in an opulent medieval European

William Goldman: …script for the thriller film Masquerade (1965). He began to draw critical attention for his big screen work the following year, adapting Ross MacDonald’s detective novel The Moving Target into the popular film Harper, which starred Paul Newman. At the close of the 1960s Goldman rocketed to fame with Butch…

masque: …cour and the more spectacular masquerade.

African dance: Masquerade dancers: Masquerade dancers are a feature of religious societies in many areas. Four main types of masquerader are identified by the roles they play: those who embody deities or nature spirits and to whom sacrifice is made to assure the fertility of land and…

William Hogarth: Youth and early career: In his first major work, Masquerades and Operas, published independently of the booksellers in 1724, Hogarth attacked contemporary taste and expressed attitudes that were vigorously sustained throughout his life. Boldly questioning the standards of a powerful clique that was supported by the 3rd earl of Burlington, an influential art patron…

Qatar: Finance: The Qatar Central Bank (Maṣraf Qaṭar al-Markazī), founded in 1993, provides banking functions for the state and issues the Qatari rial, the national currency. In addition to domestic banks, including commercial, development, and Islamic banks (institutions bound by strict religious rules governing transactions), licensed foreign banks…

Arabic literature: Modern Arabic drama: …dynamics through what he termed masraḥ al-tasyīs (“theatre of politicization”). Because Wannūs was such a crucially important figure, other Syrian and Lebanese dramatists of the latter half of the 20th century operated somewhat in his shadow, but Muḥammad al-Māghūṭ, ʿIṣām Maḥfūẓ, and Mamdūḥ ʿAdwān wrote significant plays that were successfully…

Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah was an Egyptian militant Islamist and al-Qaeda strategist who was indicted by the United States for his role in the August 7, 1998, bombings of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. According to the indictment, Abdullah had served as a member of al-Qaeda’s inner circle and

Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa, bank created by the Arab League summit conference in Algiers in November 1973 to finance development projects in Africa. In 1975 BADEA began operating by supplying African countries, excluding members of the Arab League, with technical assistance, which

mass, the central act of worship of the Roman Catholic Church, which culminates in celebration of the sacrament of the Eucharist. The term mass derives from the ecclesiastical Latin formula for the dismissal of the congregation: Ite, missa est (“Go, it is the sending [dismissal]”). After the Second

architecture: Space and mass: …terms of the play of masses in a void. The aesthetics of masses, like that of spaces, is rooted in one’s psychology. When a tall tree or a mountain is called majestic and a rocky cliff menacing, human attributes are being projected. People inevitably humanize inert matter and so give…

collective behavior: Publics and masses: …be distinguished from the “mass.” Members of a mass exhibit similar behavior, simultaneously, but with a minimum of interaction. Masses include a wide range of groups. They include, for instance, people simultaneously reading the newspaper advertisement for a department store sale and simultaneously converging on the store with similar…

mass, in physics, quantitative measure of inertia, a fundamental property of all matter. It is, in effect, the resistance that a body of matter offers to a change in its speed or position upon the application of a force. The greater the mass of a body, the smaller the change produced by an applied

mass, in music, the setting, either polyphonic or in plainchant, of the liturgy of the Eucharist. The term most commonly refers to the mass of the Roman Catholic church, whose Western traditions used texts in Latin from about the 4th century to 1966, when the use of the vernacular was mandated. The

mass: …is the American Leonard Bernstein’s Mass.

Karl Lashley: … (1929) contained two significant principles: mass action and equipotentiality. Mass action postulates that certain types of learning are mediated by the cerebral cortex (the convoluted outer layer of the cerebrum) as a whole, contrary to the view that every psychological function is localized at a specific place on the cortex.…

law of mass action, law stating that the rate of any chemical reaction is proportional to the product of the masses of the reacting substances, with each mass raised to a power equal to the coefficient that occurs in the chemical equation. This law was formulated over the period 1864–79 by the

Hans Lietzmann: …his Messe und Herrenmahl (1926; The Mass and the Lord’s Supper), which detected a possible fusion of two distinct types of 1st- and 2nd-century prayer services. His extensive research on St. Peter and St. Paul provided insights into the development of the church’s organization in 1st-century Rome. Geschichte der alten…

glacier: Mass balance: Glaciers are nourished mainly by snowfall, and they primarily waste away by melting and runoff or by the breaking off of icebergs (calving). In order for a glacier to remain at a constant size, there must be a balance between income (accumulation) and…

Sir Arthur Travers Harris, 1st Baronet: …Air Marshal Harris developed the saturation technique of mass bombing—that of concentrating clouds of bombers in a giant raid on a single city, with the object of completely demolishing its civilian quarters. Conducted in tandem with American precision bombing of specific military and industrial sites by day, saturation bombing was…

bullfighting: Development in the modern era: …stopping the common practice of mass bullfights (the release for battle of dozens of bulls at the same time). In fact, corridas became such a routine part of Spanish life that they were eventually held during fiestas in commemoration of holy days and the canonization of saints, and even now…

solid-waste management: Energy recovery: A mass burn system uses all the refuse, without prior treatment or preparation. A refuse-derived fuel system separates combustible wastes from noncombustibles such as glass and metal before burning. If a turbine is installed at the plant, both steam and electricity can be produced in a…

mass communication, process of sharing information with a large audience. Mass communication is accomplished via mass media—that is, technology capable of sending messages to great numbers of people, many of whom are unknown to the sender (e.g., television). The purposes of mass communication

mass society, concept used to characterize modern society as homogenized but also disaggregated, because it is composed of atomized individuals. The term is often used pejoratively to denote a modern condition in which traditional forms of human association have broken down and been replaced by

information system: Operational support and enterprise systems: …through an approach known as mass customization. This involves sending orders from the customers to the firm’s warehouses and perhaps to suppliers to deliver input materials just in time for a batched custom production run. Financial accounts are updated accordingly, and delivery logistics and billing are initiated.

atomic mass: The difference, called the mass defect, is accounted for during the combination of these particles by conversion into binding energy, according to an equation in which the energy (E) released equals the product of the mass (m) consumed and the square of the velocity of light in vacuum (c);…

launch vehicle: Beyond rockets: …transportation concept is called a mass driver. A mass driver is an electromagnetic accelerator, probably miles in length, that would use pulsed magnetic fields to accelerate payloads to orbital or near-orbital velocity. The advantage of a mass driver is that the accelerating device and its source of energy remain on…

A realistic prediction of the future depends upon recognition that humanity originated in Africa by a series of accidents bordering on the bizarre. The unique winning combination was, first, a relatively immense body size, roughly over 10 kilograms, attained by fewer than 1 in 10,000 species in the