been published, is in the library of the Vatican. It was translated into Latin by Plato of Tibur, and was published at Nuremberg in 1537, with some additions and demonstrations of Regiomontanus; and the same was reprinted at Bologna in 1645, with this author's notes. Dr. Halley detected many faults in these editions. (Philos. Trans. for 1693, No. 204.) In this work Albategni gives the motion of the sun's apogee since Ptolemy's time; as well as the motion of the stars, which he makes one degree in seventy years. He made the longitude of the first star of Aries to be 18° 2'; and the obliquity of the ecliptic 23° 35'; and upon his observations were founded the Alphonsine tables of the moon's motion. ALBEMARLE. See MONK. ALBENAS (JOHN POLDO D'), a lawyer and antiquary, was born at Nismes, and not at Vivarais, as Castel asserts in his history of Languedoc. His family was noble, but more famous for the talents of Poldo, and his father James. He originally studied with a view to practice at the bar, but Nismes becoming, in 1552, the seat of the presidial. court, he was appointed to the office of counsellor, which he held during life with much reputation, and employed his leisure hours in the cultivation of jurisprudence and polite literature. His first work was a French translation of St. Julian, archbishop of Toledo, on death, and a future state. This was followed by a translation, from the Latin of Æneas Sylvius (Pius II.) of a history of the Taborites of Bohemia; but his most curious work is his "History of Nismes," fol. 1557, illustrated with many curious views and monuments engraven in wood, and very singular specimens of the art at that time. D'Albenas was among the first who embraced the reformed religion, and contributed not a little to the extension of it. Before his death, in 1563, the greater part of the inhabitants of Nismes, and its neighbourhood, professed Calvinism. * ALBERGATI (FABIO), a native of Bologna, flourished in the middle of the sixteenth century. He was the author of a work entitled "El Cardinale," Bologna, 1599, 4to. and of "Trattato del modi di ridurre a pace l' inimicitie private," Venice, 8vo, 1614; a subject which has been 1 Hutton's Mathematical Dictionary. Vossius de Scient. Math.-D'Herbelot Bibl. Orient.-Biog. Universelle. 2 Moreri. Biog. Universelle, treated by J. B. Olevano. In 1573, Zanetti published at Rome six volumes of Albergati's moral works. ALBERGOTTI (FRANCIS), an Italian lawyer, the son of Alberic Rosiati of Bergamo, one of the most learned men of his time, was born at Arezzo, near Florence, in the fourteenth century. He studied under the celebrated Baldi, and made a rapid progress in philosophy, law, history, &c. He afterwards became an advocate at Arezzo, but went to Florence in 1349. Here his learning, talents, and integrity, procured him one of those titles which were frequently bestowed at that time on men of celebrity. He was called doctor solidæ veritatis. By the republic of Florence he was entrusted to negociate several very important affairs, particularly with the Bolognese in 1558; and as the recompense of his services, he was ennobled. He died at Florence in 1376, leaving three sons; two eminent in the church, and one as a lawyer. His works are principally "Commentaries on the Digest," on " some books of the Civil Code," and consultations, much praised by Bartholi. His father, mentioned above, wrote on the sixth book of the Decretals, a work much esteemed and often reprinted, and a Dictionary of Law, with other professional treatises. 2 ALBERIC, a historian and monk of the Cistertian order, in the monastery of Trois-Fontaines, in the diocese of Chalons-sur-Marne, was born near that place, in the beginning of the thirteenth century. He is the author of a "Chronicle" containing the remarkable events from the creation to 1241. Leibnitz and Menckenius have printed it, the first in vol. II. of his "Accessiones Historicæ," Leipsic, 1698, 4to; and the second in vol. I. of " Scriptores rerum Germanicarum et Saxonic." ibid. 1728, fol. This chronicle, of which the imperial library at Paris possesses a more complete manuscript than those used by the above editors, is valued on account of the curious particulars it contains, although it is not very exact in chronological points, particularly in the very ancient periods. Alberic wrote also several poetical pieces, of which, mention is made in father du Visch's "Bibl. ordin. Cisterc." 3 ALBERIC, or ALBERT. See ALBERT of AIX. 1 Dict. Historique. Biog. Universelle. 3 Cave, vol. II.-Fabricii Bibl. Lat. Med. 2 Moreri. Biog. Universelle. Biog. Universelle. ALBERONI (JULIUS), an eminent Spanish statesman, and cardinal, was born May 15, 1664. His birth and early employments afforded no presage of his future ambition and fame. He was the son of a gardener near Parma, and when a boy, officiated as bell-ringer, and attended upon the parish church of his village. The rector, finding him a shrewd youth, taught him Latin. Alberoni afterwards took orders, and had a small living, on which he resided. While here, M. Campistron, a Frenchman, secretary to the duke of Vendome, who commanded Louis XIV's armies in Italy, was robbed, and stripped of his clothes and money, by some ruffians near Alberoni's village. Alberoni, hearing of his misfortune, took him into his house, furnished him with clothes, and gave him as much money as he could spare, for his travelling expences. Campistron, no less impressed with the strength of his understanding than with the warmth of his benevolence, took him to the head quarters, and presented him to his general, as a man to whom he had very great obligations. M. de Vendome first employed him in discovering where the people in his neighbourhood had concealed their grain; an undertaking which rendered Alberoni's departure for Spain, with Vendome, as prudent as it turned out to be advantageous. By degrees he obtained the marshal's confidence, and ventured to propose the daughter of his sovereign, the duke of Parma, to him, as a fit match for the king of Spain. Alberoni's proposal was attended to, and the princess was demanded in marriage by that monarch, then Philip V. The duke of Parma consented with great readiness to a match that was to procure for his daughter the sovereignty of so great a kingdom as that of Spain. When every thing was settled, and immediately before the princess was to set out for her new dominions, the ministers of Spain had heard that she was a young woman of a haughty imperious temper, and extremely intriguing and ambitious. They therefore prevailed upon the king to write to the duke, requesting another of his daughters in marriage, to whose quiet disposition they could not possibly have any objections. The king did as he was desired, and sent his letter by a special messenger. Alberoni, who was then at Parma, hearing of this, and afraid that all his projects of ambition would come to nothing, unless the princess whom he recommended, and who of course would think herself highly obliged to him for her exalted situation, became queen of Spain, caused the messenger to be stopped at one day's journey from Parma, and gave him his choice, either to delay his coming to Parma for a day, or to be assassinated. He of course chose the first, and the princess set out upon her journey to Spain, and became queen, Alberoni was now prime minister of Spain, a cardinal, and archbishop of Valentia; and exercised his ministry with the most complete despotism. One of his projects was, to dispossess the duke of Orleans of the regency of France, and to bestow it upon his own sovereign, as the oldest representative of the house of Bourbon: to place the pretender on the throne of England, and to add to Spain the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily. This project, however, was discovered by the regent; and one of the conditions he made with the king of Spain was, the banishment of Alberoni from his councils and his kingdom. With this he was obliged to comply, and the cardinal received orders to leave Madrid in twenty-four hours, and the kingdom of Spain in fifteen days. Alberoni, who took with him great wealth, had not proceeded far, when it was discovered that he was carrying out of the kingdom the celebrated will of Charles II. of Spain, which gave that kingdom to its then sovereign. Persons were immediately detached from Madrid, to wrest this serious and important document from him, which it was supposed he intended to take to the emperor of Germany, to ingratiate himself with him. With some violence they effected their purpose, and the cardinal proceeded on his journey to the frontiers of France, where he had the additional mortification of being received by an officer, sent by the regent to conduct him through that kingdom, as a state prisoner. Unembarrassed, however, by this circumstance, Alberoni wrote to the regent, to offer him his services, against Spain, but his high ness disdained to return any answer. The cardinal's disgrace happened in 1720, and he retired to Parma for some time, till he was summoned by the pope to attend a consistory, in which his conduct was to be examined by some of the members of the sacred college, respecting a correspondence he was supposed to have kept up with the Grand Signior; and he was sentenced to be confined one year in the Jesuits college at Rome. After this, he returned to Parma, near which city he founded, at a very great expence, an establishment for the instruction of young men destined for the priesthood. In the disastrous campaign of 1746, the buildings of this academy were destroyed by the three armies that were in the neighbourhood: and as the cardinal was not supposed to have been over delicate in procuring the means by which his establishment was to have been supported, his countrymen did not appear to express much dissatisfaction at the demolition of it. He soon after this went to Rome, and was made legate of Romana by pope Clement XII. He died at Rome in 1752, at the age of 87 years, having preserved entire to the last, the powers of his mind and of his body. In the account given of his old age, by the editor of the Dictionnaire Historique, he is said to have been very chatty in conversation, and talked in so lively and so agreeable a manner, that it made even the very curious facts he had to tell more interesting to those who heard them. His stories were interlarded with French, Spanish, or Italian, as the circumstances required. He was continually applying some maxim of Tacitus, in Latin, to corroborate his own observations, or to support those of others. His general topics of conversation were, the campaigns in which he attended M. de Vendome, his ministry in Spain, or the common political events of the day. He was rather impatient of contradiction, and expected that in argument or in narration the company should defer to him. Our own history shews, that his spirit was always very high, and his temper very violent. During the time that he was prime minister of Spain, colonel Stanhope, afterwards lord Harrington, the English envoy, carried him a list of the ships of his country that were then before Barcelona, and would act against it, if he persisted in his endeavours to embroil the peace of Europe, by arming the Porte against the Emperor, and by making the Czar and the king of Sweden go to war with England, in order to establish the Pretender upon the English throne. Alberoni snatched the paper which contained the numbers out of the envoy's hands, and, according to the continuator of Rapin's history, threw it on the ground with much passion. Mr. Seward, from whose " Anecdotes of distinguished Persons" we have taken the principal part of this article, says, that he tore it in a thousand pieces. Col. Stanhope, nothing abashed, went on coolly with the thread of his conversation, which may be seen in the continuation of Rapin. That Alberoni wrote with the same spirit he acted, is |