644 



TORPID STATE OF ANIMALS TORSTENSON. 



TORPID STATE OF ANIMALS. See Dor- 

 mant State. 



TORQUEMADA. See Inquisition. 

 TORRE (in Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, 

 tower) appears in many geographical and family names. 

 TORRE DEL GRECO; a town in Naples, five 

 miles south-east of Capua, nine east-south-east of 

 Naples; population, 16,766. It is situated on the 

 sea-coast, at the foot of mount Vesuvius. The in- 

 habitants are mostly employed in fishing, naviga- 

 tion, and the culture of the vine. This town was 

 destroyed by an eruption of Vesuvius in 1794; yet 

 the inhabitants, after the eruption, returned, and 

 rebuilt the town on the same spot. 



TORRES VEDRAS, LINES OF; so called from 

 a small village lying on the road from Lisbon to 

 Coirabra, twenty-four miles north-west of the 

 former. These stupendous works, constructed by 

 lord Wellington in 1810, consisted of two lines, 

 the one extending from Alhandra, on the Tagus, to 

 the mouth of the Zizandra, on the Atlantic ocean, 

 twenty-nine miles in length, and the other, in the 

 rear of the former, reaching from Quintella, on the 

 Tagus, to the mouth of the Lorenza, on the ocean, 

 twenty-four miles in extent, forming an impreg- 

 nable barrier between the enemy and Lisbon. 

 Fifty miles of fortifications, bristling with six 

 hundred pieces of artillery, and one hundred and 

 fifty forts, flanked with abattis and breast-works, 

 and presenting, in some places, high hills artificially 

 scarped, in others, deep and narrow passes care- 

 fully chocked, and artificial pools or marshes made 

 by damming up the streams, were defended by 

 70,000 disposable men. The French force under 

 Massena, which had been much superior to that of 

 the British, before Wellington had concentrated 

 in the lines the Portuguese troops and the marines, 

 amounted, also, to about 70,000 men. The Bri- 

 tish were plentifully supplied with provisions, 

 by the Tagus and the sea, and enjoyed per- 

 fect security in their rear. The French, on the 

 other hand, were suffering from want, in a country 

 where Wellington had laid waste and destroyed 

 every thing which could be useful to an enemy, 

 and were harassed by the attacks of the inhabi- 

 tants. Massena was, therefore, finally obliged to 

 retreat, by hunger (March 4, 1811), after having 

 made some ineffectual attacks upon the works. 

 The lines of Torres Vedras thus saved Lisbon, an- 

 nihilated a well-appointed French army, and gave 

 Wellington a fair opportunity to enter upon offen- 

 sive operations. 



TORRICELLI, EVANGELISTA, an illustrious 

 mathematician and philosopher, born at Faenza, in 

 Italy, in 1608, was instructed in Greek and Latin 

 by his uncle, a monk, probably with a view to his 

 obtaining preferment in the church ; but his genius 

 induced him to devote himself to the study of ma- 

 thematics, which he did for some time without a 

 master ; but at the age of twenty, he went to Rome, 

 and prosecuted his studies under father Benedict 

 Castelli. Torricelli, thus assisted, made great im- 

 provement, and, having read Galilei's Dialogues, 

 composed a treatise concerning Motion, according 

 to his principles. Castelli, astonished at the ability 

 displayed in this piece, took it to Galilei at Flor- 

 ence, who conceived a high opinion of the author, 

 and engaged him as his amanuensis. He entered on 

 this office in October, 1641 ; but, Galilei dying 

 three 'months after, Torricelli was about to return 

 to Rome, when the grand duke of Tuscany, Fer- 

 dinand II., engaged him to continue at Florence, 



giving him the title of ducal mathematician, and the 

 promise of a professorship in tln> university, on the 

 first vacancy. Here he applied himself closely to 

 study, and made many improvements and some dis- 

 coveries in mathematics, physics, and astronomy. 

 He improved the construction of microscopes and 

 telescopes, and first ascertained the gravity of the 

 air, by means of mercury in a glass tube, whem'i: 

 resulted the barometer. (See Barometer.} He was 

 cutoff prematurely, after a few days' illness, in 1647- 

 He published, in 1644, a volume entitled Opera 

 Geometrica; and his academical lectures were 

 printed in 1715. 



TORRICELLIAN VACUUM, AND TORRI- 

 CELLIAN TUBE. See Barometer, and Tor- 

 ricelli. 



TORRIGIANO, PIETRO; a Florentine artist 

 of great eminence, who flourished towards 1 1n- 

 close of the fifteenth and the commencement of the 

 succeeding century. He was born in 1472, and, 

 while yet a lad, gave evidence of that genius for 

 sculpture which time only was wanting to bring to 

 perfection. Being, at the time, a fellow-student 

 with the famous Michael Angelo Buonaroti, a dispute, 

 arising from a jealousy with respect to their com- 

 parative proficiency, terminated in blows; one of 

 which, from the hand of Torrigiano, broke the 

 bridge of his antagonist's nose, and inflicted a mark 

 which he carried to his grave. While in the zenith 

 of his reputation, he went to England, which he 

 afterwards quitted for Spain, and there fell into the 

 hands of the holy office, being denounced as guilty 

 of impiety and sacrilege, in breaking to pieces a 

 statue of the virgin, which he had himself executed 

 for a hidalgo, who afterwards refused to pay him 

 an adequate price. He was condemned to the 

 stake, but avoided the torture of a public execu- 

 tion, by starving himself, previously to the cele- 

 bration .of the auto da fe, in 1522. The beautiful 

 tomb of Henry VII. in the chapel erected by that" 

 monarch in Westminster abbey, is by him. 



TORSO {Italian) signifies originally the core of 

 an apple, pear, &c. ; secondly, the trunk of a statue, 

 of which the head and the extremities are wanting. 

 One has become particularly celebrated, and is often 

 called the torso, by way of excellence. It is the 

 torso of Hercules, in the Belvedere of the Vatican, 

 at Rome, considered, by connoisseurs, one of the 

 finest works of art remaining from antiquity. 

 " Mutilated in the greatest degree," says Winckel- 

 mann, in his History of Art, " without head, arms, 

 and legs, as this statue is, it yet discloses to those 

 who are able to penetrate the secrets of art, the 

 splendour of its former beauty. The artist has 

 formed, in this Hercules, a high ideal of a body of 

 more than natural perfection, in the prime of adult 

 age. The figure was, as we may judge from the 

 remaining part, seated with a supported and upturned 

 head. This Hercules may be said to approach 

 nearer to the noblest period of art than even the 

 Apollo." A Greek inscription ascribes it to the 

 artist Apollonius. It was found, towards the end 

 of the fifteenth century, in Rome. 



TORSTENSON, LEONARD, a Swedish general, 

 born at Torstena, in 1603, died at Stockholm, in 

 1651, was one of the most distinguished pupils of 

 the school of Gustavus Adolphus. He served un- 

 der that king, and under Baner, in the thirty years' 

 war, and was made prisoner in the attack on W;il- 

 lenstein's camp at Nuremberg, in 1632. He re- 

 turned to Sweden in 1639, and, in 1641, on the 

 death of Baner, was appointed to the command-in- 



