abacus schools
From the late thirteenth century onwards, many towns and guilds paid an ‘abacus master’ to teach mathematics to a given number of boys who intended to engage in commerce or ...
Abraham Zacuto
(c. 1450–1515?),the foremost writer on astronomy in fifteenth-century Castile. Zacuto was born in Salamanca, Spain, to Jewish parents. His principal work, the Almanach perpetuum coelestium motuum, ...
Absalon Pederssøn Beyer
(1528–1575), Norwegian theological educator and humanist.Orphaned at age six, he was raised as the foster son of Bishop Geble Pederssøn, the first Lutheran bishop of Bergen. Beyer was educated ...
Accolti family
The Arezzo family of the Accolti produced jurists, churchmen, and writers for centuries. The family had already produced several distinguished jurists when Benedetto Accolti ‘il Vecchio’ (1415–66) ...
acorn cup
Covered silver cup shaped like the cupulate involucre in which the acorn grows, usually mounted on a botanical stem. Acorn cups were popular in Elizabethan and Jacobean England.
Adam Krafft
(Eng., Adam of Fulda; Lat., Fuldanus/Fuldensis, Crato, Vegetius; 1493–1558), German Lutheran church reformer, theologian, and administrator in Hesse.Krafft's father, Hans, was a burgomaster at Fulda, ...
Adam Pastor
(d. 1560),German Anabaptist leader, probably born in Münster; his real name was Rudolf Martens. He was principally active in Cleves (German Kleve). In 1547 he began to work with ...
Adam van Noort
(b Antwerp, 1562; d Antwerp, ?Sept. 1641).Flemish history and portrait painter, remembered chiefly as one of the teachers of Rubens. Too little is known of the style of either ...
adiaphora
A transliteration of the Greek word ἀδδιáφορα, which means ‘things indifferent’. In theological use, an adiaphoron is a rite or a practice that is not essential to the Christian faith. ...
adlerglas
A German drinking-glass, sometimes with a cover, developed in the mid-sixteenth century. Each glass was decorated in enamel with an image of the eagle of the Holy Roman Empire; the ...
