Francesco Foscari, 

 Doge of Venice 



title Bellini 



FOSCARI 



Foscari, FRANCESCO (1373- 

 1457). Doge of Venice. After hold- 

 ing various offices in the republic 

 lie was elected 

 doge in 1423. 



>* Ambitious t o 

 extendVenetian 

 I power, he took 

 ^ an active part 

 J in the politics 

 || of the mainland, 

 entering aleague 

 against the Vis- 

 conti of Milan 

 in 1426, thereby 



After OenlileSellini acqu iri n g Ber- 



gamo, Brescia, and Cremona. In 

 1441 Velaggio, Peschiera, and 

 Lonato were added to the Venetian 

 territories. The misdeeds of hi? 

 son, Giacopo, brought about the 

 doge's deposition, Oct. 24, 1457, 

 and he died Nov. 1, 1457. Byron's 

 tragedy, The Two Foscari, is 

 founded on the lives of Francesco 

 and his son. 



Foscolo, UQO (1778-1827). Ital- 

 ian poet, romancer, and patriot. 

 Born at Zante, Jan. 26, 1778, of 

 Venetian and 

 Greek descent, 

 and christened 

 Niccolo, he 

 changed his first 

 name to Ugo. 

 His story, Let- 

 tere di Jacopo 

 Ortis, 1798, re- 

 flects the melan- 

 choly of the ro- 

 mantic period, 

 and his best known poem, I Sepol- 

 cri, 1807, was inspired by the re- 

 verence due to the tomb and the 

 immortality of the memories of the 

 great. Foscolo served for a time in 

 the French army, but, disillusioned 

 as to Napoleon's intentions, sought 

 refuge in England when the Aus- 

 trians took Milan. He died at 

 Turnham Green, Oct. 10, 1827. 

 Buried at Chiswick, his remains 

 were removed to Florence in 1871. 



Fossa OR FOUSSA (Cryptoprocta 

 ferox). A carnivorous mammal, 

 found only in Madagascar, and 

 placed by most zoologists between 

 the cat and the civet. It is about 

 5 ft. long, including the tail, which 

 is nearly as long as the body. The 

 fur is pale brown in colour, and the 

 claws retractile like those of a cat. 



Fossano. City of Italy, in the 

 prov. of Cuneo. It stands on a hill, 

 overlooking the river Stura, 40 m. by 

 rly. S. of Turin, and possesses a 14th 

 century castle. Paper, silk, hemp, 

 and leather are manufactured. The 

 French and Austrians fought here 

 in 1796 and 1799. Pop. 18,731. 



Fosse (Lat. fossa* ditch). Ex- 

 cavation outside the ramparts or 

 outer walls of a fort. Its purpose 

 was to hinder the advance of an 



Ugo Foscolo, 

 Italian poet 



3270 



enemy, and make it impossible for 

 him to find ground upon which to 

 erect scaling ladders. Frequently 

 filled with water, its effectiveness 

 was also occasionally increased by 

 its being planted with pointed 

 stakes and palisades. Bar bed- wire 

 entanglements may also be placed 

 in it. See Castle ; Fortification. 



Fosse Way. Early English name 

 for an ancient British highway 

 from Axminster to Lincoln. Incor- 

 porated in the Romano-British 

 road system, no part of its 182 m. 

 deviates more than 6 m. from a 

 straight line between these places. 

 It runs through Bath, Cirencester, 

 High Cross, and Leicester. Men- 

 tioned in an Anglo-Saxon charter, 

 744, it ranked as one of Edward 

 the Confessor's four royal roads. 

 See Britain. 



Fossils (Lat. fossilis, dug up). 

 Term applied to traces of plants or 

 animals found in the earth's crust. 



Early Greek philosophers re- 

 cognized that the sea had at times 

 encroached upon the land, and 

 the discovery of marine shells 

 among the mountains seemed on 

 this ground natural enough. In 

 the 16th and 17th centuries a con- 

 troversy arose as to whether such 

 objects were due to the entomb- 

 ment of animals in muds, which 

 afterwards consolidated round 

 them as firm rocks, or whether they 

 were mere imitations of organic 

 structures naturally produced. 



Field observation, notably in 

 Italy, showed that marine beds 

 had been raised above the sea, that 

 large areas had been at one time 

 submerged, and that " organized 

 fossils " could in consequence be 

 utilised in reading the past history 

 of the earth. For a time there 

 was a tendency to refer all the re- 

 mains of marine animals entombed 

 in rocks to the Noachian deluge, 

 or to a succession of such deluges 

 sweeping round the globe; but the 

 great variety of these remains, 

 and the orderly succession of the 

 beds in which they occur, gradu- 

 ally led to the acceptance of more 

 rational views. 



According to the influences to 

 which they have been subject, 

 and to a large extent according 

 to their age, fossil plants, shells, 

 and bones become altered in con- 

 stitution, losing some of their 

 chemical constituents and perhaps 

 gaining others by substitution. 

 The passage from wood-fibre into 

 coaly matter by the giving 

 off of gases and the retention of 

 a large part of the carbon is a 

 familiar example. Fossils may 

 suffer complete solution, but at 

 the same time some other sub- 

 stance may be deposited from the 

 solvent which preserves the origi- 



FOSS1LS 



nal form and structure. Corals or 

 shells of molluscs may be replaced 

 in this way by iron carbonate or 

 by silica. 



Frequently, however, the fossil 

 is dissolved away, leaving only a 

 mould, an external cast, in the en- 

 casing rock. Shells or sea-urchins, 

 with their central cavities, which 

 were originally occupied by the 

 organism, become filled with mud 

 or some deposited mineral, and are 

 represented after solution by in- 

 ternal casts, on which any per- 

 forations or patternings, or the 

 impressions of muscular attach- 

 ments, can be identified in reversed 

 relief. The original colour is rarely 

 preserved in a fossil state, and 

 the sheen and iridescence of many 

 specimens is due to the deposit 

 of some chemical substance as a 

 thin film, sometimes on the surface 

 of a mere internal cast. 



The accumulation of calcium 

 phosphate in and around the fossils 

 in certain beds has led to their 

 being utilised as chemical manures. 



It was not until the close of the 

 18th century that it was realized 

 that strata could be " identified 

 by organized fossils." This phrase 

 is due to the English land sur- 

 veyor, William Smith, the great 

 pioneer of stratigraphical geology, 

 who showed conclusively that 

 successive deposits contained suc- 

 cessive types of animal remains. 

 Hence, when a sequence has been 

 established by observation, it is 

 possible to determine from the 

 fossil contents the relative age of 

 a deposit. Fossils thus become the 

 great clue to prehistoric times. 

 A New Meaning 



At first it was taken for granted 

 that the various associations of 

 life-forms represented independent 

 creations, one group of plants 

 and animals being swept away 

 and another substituted. The 

 nobler view that is provided by the 

 theories of organic evolution has 

 given a new meaning to fossils 

 and a new zest to palaeontology, 

 the study concerned with their 

 description. Indeed, the discovery 

 of numerous links between one 

 type and another ; of animals like 

 the early reptiles, which unite 

 in themselves the characters of 

 groups now far apart ; and of a 

 general specialisation of life-forms, 

 sometimes by simplification, to- 

 wards those now prevalent on the 

 earth has raised the study of past 

 forms of life, as revealed in fossils, 

 into one of the highest branches of 

 natural philosophy. See Geology ; 

 Consult also An Introduction to 

 Palaeontology, A. Morley Davies, 

 1920; Invertebrate Palaeontology, 

 H. L. Hawkins, 1920. 



Orenville A. J. Cole 



