STRASBURG 



STRATEGY 



761 



1550 he published at Venice Tredeci piacevoli notti, 

 the second part at the same place in 1554. This 

 famous work was a collection of stories in the style 

 of the Decameron, grouped round an imaginary 

 incident. Francesea Gonzaga, daughter of Ottaviano 

 Sforza, Duke of Milan, on account of commotions 

 in that city, retires to the island of Murano, near 

 Venice, where, surrounded by a group of brilliant 

 ladies and gentlemen, she passes the time listening 

 to stories related by the company. Thirteen nights 

 are thus spent, and seventy-four stories told, each 

 followed by an enigma, when the approach of Lent 

 brings an interruption. These stories are derived 

 from the most various sources ; twenty-four are 

 borrowed from Jerome Morlini, fifteen from 

 Boccaccio, Sachetti, Brevio, Ser Giovanni, the 

 Fabliaux, the Golden Legend, and the Romance of 

 Merlin. Six are of plain oriental origin, and may 

 be found in the Panchatantra, Forty Viziers, Siddhi 

 Ktir, and Thousand and One Nights. Twenty-nine 

 stories remain, and of these twenty-two are genuine 

 folk-tales. Two of Straparola's stories found a 

 wider immortality in Perrault's ' Peau d'Ane ' and 

 ' Le Chat Botte ;' and many of Madame d'Aulnoy's 

 fairy-tales, as well as others in the Cabinet des 

 Fees, are mere translations. Straparola's book 

 passed through sixteen editions in twenty years ; 

 a French translation of the first book by Jean 

 Louveau appeared in 1560, reprinted in 1573, along 

 with the second book as translated by Pierre de 

 Larivey (Les Facetieuses Nuits de Straparole in 

 P. Jannet's ' Bibliotheque Elzevirienne,' 2 vols. 

 1857 ; new ed. of Jouaust, with preface by Gustave 

 Brunet, 1882). Many of Straparola's stories are 

 facetious in its narrowest sense ; but at least they 

 are no worse than their contemporaries. The work 

 was prohibited by the church in 1605 ; yet another 

 reprint appeared at Venice so soon after as 1608. 



See F. W. V. Schmidt's German translation of eighteen 

 tales, with valuable notes ( Berlin, 1817 ) ; the Disser- 

 tation by F. W. J. Brakelmann ( Gbttingen, 1867 ) ; 

 Liebrecht's translation of Dunlop's History of Fiction 

 ( 1851 ) ; and the translation of the NigMt by W. G. 

 Water* (2 vols. 1894). 



StraslmrjJ (Ger. Strassburg, Fr. Strasbourg), 

 formerly the capital of the French department of 

 Bas-Rhin, but since 1871 capital of the German 

 imperial territory of Alsace-Lorraine, stands on 

 the river 111 and the canals connecting the Rhine 

 with the Rhone and the Marne, 2 miles from 

 the left bank of the Rhine, and 300 miles E. of 

 Paris. The citadel, originally built by Vauban 

 (1682-84), was demolished by the Germans during 

 the bombardment of 1870, but since then they have 

 rebuilt it and strengthened the fortifications with 

 some fourteen detached forts on the adjacent heights, 

 so that Strasburg now ranks as a first-class fortress 

 of great strength. Its position near the borders 

 of France, Germany, and Switzerland is favourable 

 to its commerce, and gives it great strategic im- 

 portance. The most celebrated building in the city 

 is the cathedral or minster, founded in 1015 or in 

 1179, but principally built between 1277 and 1439 ; 

 Rome of the oldest parts are Romanesque ( portions 

 of choir and transept), but the church as a whole is 

 one of the sublimest specimens of Gothic architec- 

 ture in existence. The principal architect ( to whom 

 most of the glorious western fa9ade is due) was 

 Erwin von Steinbach (fl. 1318). Only one of the 

 two towers was completed, with a spire of open 

 stone-work (143%); it is 466 feet high. The 

 minster has a remarkable astronomical clock dating 

 from 1838-42; in it are portions of an older one 

 made in 1571, but there was a remarkable clock 

 here in the 14th century. In the present one are, 

 besides a complete planetarium and perpetual 

 calendar, many automaton figures angels which 

 strike the quarters, twelve apostles which come 



forth at noon and pass in procession before a figure 

 of Christ, and a cock which crows at stated times. 

 In the church are also a magnificent rose-window 

 (42 feet across), a fine pulpit, and grand stained 

 glass. The damage done to the structure during 

 the siege of 1870 was carefully repaired. Other 

 notable buildings are the Protestant church of 

 St Thomas, with the tomb of Marshal Saxe, the 

 imperial palace, the library (formerly the castle, 

 and then the episcopal palace), the new university, 

 the public buildings of the province, and the 

 arsenal. The university of Strasburg was the 

 only French university besides Paris with the full 

 complement of faculties. Founded in 1621, on the 

 basis of the academy of Johannes Sturm (q.v.), it 

 became specially famous in the branches of medi- 

 cine and philology, but was broken up during 

 the Revolution. In 1803 a Protestant academy 

 was established with ten chairs ; and five years 

 later Napoleon founded an imperial academy with 

 faculties of law, medicine, physical science, and 

 philosophy ; in 1819 a partial fusion of these 

 academies took place. The university was reorgan- 

 ised as a German institution in 1872, is equipped with 

 new university buildings (1884), magnificent labora- 

 tories, &c., and has more than 100 teachers and 

 900 students. The famous library, with nearly 

 200,000 volumes and precious Incunabula (q.v.), was 

 entirely destroyed by fire during the bombardment 

 in 1870, but was replaced by a new collection that has 

 now swelled to 600,000 volumes. The trade of Stras- 

 burg, especially its transit trade, is very extensive, 

 and it has a great variety of manufactures beer, 

 pates de foie gras, leather, cutlery, engines, musi- 

 cal instruments, jewellery, tobacco, furniture, 

 chemicals, fancy articles, &c. Pop. ( 1880 ) 104,471 ; 

 (1890) 123,566 one-half Catholics. 



Strasburg, the Argentoratum of the Romans, 

 was colonised by them during the reign of Augustus. 

 Here Julian won a great victory over the Alle- 

 n 1:1.11 ni in 357 A.D. The name Stratisburgmn first 

 appeai-s in the 6th century. It became a free town 

 or the German empire in the 13th century, and both 

 then and in the early part of the 15th century 

 occupied a prominent position in respect of culture 

 and enlightenment. In 1681 it was seized by 

 Louvois, at the command of Louis XIV., in a time 

 of profound peace, and was confirmed to him by 

 the treaty of Ryswick, but retained the quaint 

 appearance of a German imperial city. On Sep- 

 tember 28, 1870, after a siege of seven weeks, 

 Strasburg surrendered to the Germans. 



See Seinguerlet, Strasbourg pendant la Revolution; 

 German works by Apell ( Berl. 1884 ) and Krieger ( Strasb. 

 1885); for the siege, Wagner (3 vols. Berl. 1874-77); 

 also the article ALSACE-LORRAINE. 



Strata Florida ( Latinised from Ystrad Fflur, 

 ' Plain of the Fllur ' ), the ruins of a Cistercian 

 abbey founded in 1164, 17 miles SE. of Aberyst- 

 with. Little of the building but a Norman arch- 

 way and part of a wall are now standing ; but 

 excavations in 1857-88 laid bare the foundations 

 and some fine tiled pavements. See the monograph 

 by S. W. Williams (1889). 



Strategy has been defined by military writers 

 as the 'science of generals,' 'the art of making 

 war on the map, ' or ' the art of rightly directing 

 masses of troops towards the object of the cam- 

 paign;' it is dependent upon the due considera- 

 tion of everything that can possibly influence 

 the campaign. Roughly speaking, strategy directs 

 the movements of troops until contact with the 

 enemy is imminent. From that moment all com- 

 binations and manoeuvres are classed as Tactics 

 (q.v.), until perhaps the opposing armies become 

 again sufficiently separated for strategy to be 

 employed. The object of strategy is to bring an 



