Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Armour Plates" to "Arundel, Earls of"

ft. above the sea. The Evangelical parish church contains some fine statues by Christian Rauch, and the palace (built 1710-1720), in addition to a valuable library of 30,000 vols., a collection of coins and pictures, among the latter several by Angelica Kauffmann. Arolsen is the birthplace of the sculptor C. Rauch and of the painters Wilhelm and Friedrich Kaulbach. ARONA, a town of Piedmont, Italy, in the province of Novara, on the W. bank of Lake Maggiore, 3 m. from its S. extremity, 23 m. N. of Novara, and 42 m. N.W. of Milan by rail. Pop. (1901) 4700. It is a railway centre of some importance on the Simplon line, and is also the southern terminus of the steamers which ply on Lake Maggiore. The church of S. Maria contains a fine altar-piece by Gaudenzio Ferrari. On a hill to the north of the town stands a colossal bronze statue of S. Carlo Borromeo (born here in 1538), erected in 1697. The pedestal, of red granite, is 42 ft. high, and the statue 70 ft. high; the latter is hollow, and can be ascended from within. ARPEGGIO (from Ital. _arpeggiare_, to play upon the harp), in music, the notes of a chord, played in rapid succession as on a harp, and not together. ARPI (Gr. [Greek: Hargorippa]), an ancient city of Apulia, 20 m. W. of the sea coast, and 5 m. N. of the modern Foggia. The legend attributes its foundation to Diomedes, and the figure of a horse, which appears on its coins, shows the importance of horse-breeding in early times in the district. Its territory extended to the sea, and Strabo says that from the extent of the city walls one could gather that it had once been one of the greatest cities of Italy. As a protection against the Samnites Arpi became an ally of Rome, and remained faithful until after the battle of Cannae, but Fabius captured it in 213 B.C., and it never recovered its former importance. It lay on a by-road from Luceria to Sipontum. No Roman inscriptions have, indeed, been found here, and remains of antiquity are scanty. Foggia is its medieval representative. (T. As.) ARPINO (anc. _Arpinum_), a town of Campania, Italy, in the province of Caserta, 1475 ft. above sea-level; 12 m. by rail N.W. of Roccasecca, a station on the railway from Naples to Rome. Pop. (1901) 10,607. Arpino occupies the lower part of the site of the ancient Volscian town of Arpinum, which was finally taken from the Samnites by the Romans in 305 B.C. It became a _civitas sine suffragio_, but received full privileges (_civitas cum suffragio_) in 188 B.C. with Formiae and Fundi; it was governed as a _praefectura_ until the Social War, and then became a _municipium_. The ancient polygonal walls, which are still finely preserved, are among the best in Italy. They are built of blocks of pudding-stone, originally well jointed, but now much weathered. They stand free in places to a height of 11 ft., and are about 7 ft. wide at the top. A single line of wall, with medieval round towers at intervals, runs on the north side from the present town to Civitavecchia (2055 ft.), on the site of the ancient citadel. Here is the Porta dell' Arco, a gate of the old wall, with an aperture 15 ft. high, formed by the gradual inclination of the two sides towards one another. Below Arpino, in the valley of the Liris, between the two arms of its tributary the Fibrenus, and 3/4 m. north of Isola del Liri, lies the church of S. Domenico, which marks the site of the villa in which Cicero was born and frequently resided. Near it is an ancient bridge, of a road which crossed the Liris to Cereatae (modern Casamari). The painter Giuseppe Cesari (1560-1640), more often known as the Cavaliere d' Arpino, was also born here. See O.E. Schmidt, _Arpinum, eine topographisch-historische Skizze_ (Meissen, 1900). (T. As.) ARQUA PETRARCA, a village of Venetia, Italy, in the province of Padua, 3 m. to the S.W. of Battaglia. Pop. (1901) 1573. It is chiefly famous as the place where Petrarch lived his last few years and died in 1374. His house still exists, and his tomb, a sarcophagus supported by four short columns of red marble, stands in front of the church. Near Arqua, on the banks of the small Lago della Costa, is the site of a prehistoric lake village, excavations in which have produced interesting results. See A. Moschetti and F. Cordenone in _Bollettino del Museo Civico di Padova_, iv. (1901), 102 seq. ARQUEBUS (also called harquebus, hackbut, &c.), a firearm of the 16th century, the immediate predecessor of the musket. The word itself is certainly to be derived from the German Hakenbuhse (mod. Hakenbuchse, cf. Eng. _hackbut_ and _hackbush_), "hook gun." The "hook" is often supposed to refer to the bent shape of the butt, which differentiated it from the straight-stocked hand gun, but it has also been suggested that the original arquebus had a metal hook near the muzzle, which was used to grip the wall (or other fixed object) so as to steady the aim and take up the force of recoil, that from this the name _Hakenbuhse_ spread till it became the generic name for small arms, and that the original form of the weapon then took the name of _arquebus a croc_. The French form _arquebuse_ and Italian _arcobugio_, _archibugio_, often and wrongly supposed to indicate the hackbut's affinity with the crossbow ("hollow bow" or "mouthed bow"), are popular corruptions, the Italian being apparently the earlier of the two and supplanting the first and purest French form _haquebut_. Previous to the French wars in Italy, hand-gun men and even arbalisters seem to have been called arquebusiers, but in the course of these wars the arquebus or hackbut came into prominence as a distinct type of weapon. The Spanish arquebusiers, who used it with the greatest effect in the Italian wars, notably at Bicocca (1522) and Pavia (1525), are the originators of modern infantry fire action. Filippo Strozzi made many improvements in the arquebus about 1530, and his weapons were effective up to four and five hundred paces. He also standardized the calibres of the arquebuses of the French army, and from this characteristic feature of the improved weapon arose the English term "caliver." In the latter part of the 16th century (c. 1570) the arquebus began to be displaced by the musket. ARQUES-LA-BATAILLE, a village of France, in the department of Seine-Inferieure, 4 m. S.E. of Dieppe by the Western railway. Pop. (1906) 1250. Arques is situated near the confluence of the rivers Varenne and Bethune; the forest of Arques stretches to the north-east. The interest of the place centres in the castle dominating the town, which was built in the 11th century by William of Arques; his nephew, William the Conqueror, regarding it as a menace to his own power, besieged and occupied it. After frequently changing hands, it came into the possession of the English, who were expelled in 1449 after an occupation of thirty years. In 1589 its cannon decided the battle of Arques in favour of Henry IV. Since 1869 the castle has been state property. The first line of fortification was the work of Francis I.; the second line and the donjon date back to the 11th century. The church of Arques, a building of the 16th century, preserves a fine stone rood screen, statuary, stained glass and other relics of the Renaissance period. ARRACK, RACK or RAK, a generic name applied to a variety of spirituous liquors distilled in the Far East. According to some authorities the word is derived from the Arabic _arak_ (perspiration), but according to others (see Morewood's _History of Inebriating Liquors_, 1834, p. 140) it is derived from the _areca-nut_, a material from which a variety of arrack was long manufactured, and is of Indian origin. The liquor to which this or a similar name is applied is (or was, since the