ituc 



R U C 



The Greeks call the ruby kti/^t-.-, q. d. refilling the 

 fire. The ancients, out of their credulity and fuperllition, 

 attributed many virtues to the ruby ; as that it expels 

 poifons, cures the plague, abates luxury and incontinence, 

 banifhes forrow, &c. 



It is faid the inhabitants of Pegu have the art of heighten- 

 ing the rednefs and brilliancy of rubies, by laying them in 

 the fire, and giving them a proper degree of heat ; but this 

 feems a very erroneous account. 



The ruby is formed in a itony fubftance, or bed, of a 

 rofe-colour, called mother of ruby ; it lias not all its colour 

 and luftre at once, but comes to it by degrees. At firft it 

 is whitifh ; and, as it approaches to maturity, becomes red. 

 Hence we have white rubies, others half-white, half-red, 

 and others blue and red, called fapphire rubies. When a 

 ruby exceeds twenty carats, it may be called a carbuncle ; 

 the name of an imaginary ltor.e, of which the ancients and 

 moderns have given us fo many defcriptions. 



They have feveral modes of counterfeiting rubies ; and 

 fome have carried the imitation to that length, that the 

 molt able lapidaries, till they come to try the hardnefs, are 

 fomctimes deceived. 



Frutiere affures us verv pofitively, that there have been 

 rubies in France of two hundred and forty carats. Taver- 

 nier tells us he faw one in the Iudies of fifty carats, which 

 he had a mind to have bought. He adds, that the king of 

 France has finer and larger rubies than any in the poffeflion 

 of the great Mogul. 



The largelt ruby that is known to be in the world was 

 brought from China to prince Gargarin, governor of 

 Siberia. It came afterwards into the hands of prince 

 Mentchikof, and is at prefent one o.f the ornaments of the 

 imperial crown of Ruffia. 



RUBY, Sapphire. See Sapphire and Gems. 



Ri.'by, Counterfeit. See Gems, Ruby Glass, and Ruby 

 Paste. 



Ruby, in Chemijlry, is a name given to feveral prepara- 

 tions uf natural bodies, becaufe of their red colour : as, 



Ruby of Arfemc, &c. See Realgar- 

 Ruby, in Heraldry, denotes the red colour with which 

 the arms of noblemen are blazoned ; being the fame which, 

 in the arms of others, not noble, is called gules. 



RvBY-Throat, Latham, in Ornithology. See Motacilla 

 Calliope. 



RUCCELLA, La, in Geography, a town of Sicily, in 

 the valley of Demona ; 7 miles S.W. of Cefalu. 



RUCELLAI, Bernardo, in Biography, was born of a 

 noble family at Florence in 1449. At the age of feventeen 

 he married Nannma, daughter of Piero, and filter of the 

 illuilrious Lorenzo de Medici, which gave him great in- 

 fluence, and railed him to the higher! polts in the republic. 

 In 1480 he was appointed to the office of gonfalonier <>f 

 juftice ; and four years afterwards he went as ambaffador 

 to the itate of Genoa. In 1494 he was deputed, in the 

 fame quality, to Ferdinand, king of Naples, and afterwards 

 to Charles VII. king of France. With his public em- 

 ployments he joined that cultivation of polite literature, 

 which wae frequent among the Florentines in the age of 

 the Medici. He was intimately acquainted with Mar- 

 figlio Ficino, of whofe academy he was at firft one of the 

 chief ornaments, and afterwards the firmelt fupport. After 

 the death of Lorenzo he was the munificent patron and 

 protector of the Platonic academy, for the ufe of which he 

 ercftcd a fumptuous edifice, with fine gardens and groves, 

 furnifhed with monuments of antiquity, ferving as well for 

 ornament as inilrudtion. In the revolutions which fol- 

 lowed the fubveriion of the Medici interelt, Rueellai in- 



curred the charges of ambition and inconltancy, by favour- 

 ing fomctimes one party and fometimes another : but, ac- 

 cording to Mr. Rofcoe, his crime, in the eyes of the 

 Florentine hiltorians of the fucceeding century, was " an 

 ardent love of liberty, which he preferred to the claims of 

 kindred, and the expectations of perfonal aggrandizement." 

 On the accefiion of Leo X. he declined the office which his 

 countrymen would have conferred upon him of going as 

 public orator to congratulate the pontiff, forefeeing, pro- 

 bably, in his elevation, the ruin of the liberties of Florence. 

 He died in 15 14, and was buried in the church of St. Maria 

 Novella, the front of which, begun by his father, was 

 finilhed b lr him with great magnificence. The following 

 are the works of this patron of literature : " De Urbe 

 Roma," which is a commentary on the defcription of Rome 

 by Publio Vittore, in which he collected from all the 

 ancient writers whatever would ferve to convey a juit idea 

 of the grandeur of that capital ; " De Magiltratibus Ro- 

 maics ;" " De Bello Italico;" and " De Bello Pifano :" 

 thefe have been compared with the hillory of Salluft. 

 Bernardo was a poet in his own tongue ; and a piece of 

 his, entitled " Trionfo della Calumnia," was printed 

 among the " Canti Carnafcialefchi," at Florence in 1759. 

 Rofcoe's Lorenzi de Medici. 



Rucellai, Giovanni, fon of the preceding, a diftin- 

 guifhed Italian poet, was born in 1475. Improving the 

 advantages which he naturally enjoyed under his father's 

 roof, he became a diflinguifhed Icholar, and in 1505 the 

 republic of Florence nominated him ambaffador to the 

 Venetian Hate. He took a very active part in the tumult 

 raifed by the younger citizens in the year 15 1 2, to promote 

 the return of the Medici to Florence. Upon the elevation 

 of pope Leo X., who was his relation, Giovanni, in hopes 

 of preferment, repaired to Rome, and entered into the 

 ecclefialtical order: and in 151? he attended Leo on his 

 vifit to Florence, on which occalion the pontiff was enter- 

 tained in the Rucellai gardens with the reprefentation of 

 the tragedy of " Rofmonda," written by Giovanni. Leo 

 {hewed the greatelt attachment to his relation, and fent him, 

 at a very critical period, as nuncio to the court of Francis L, 

 where he was at the death of Leo X. On that event he 

 returned to Florence, and was fent to Rome to congratulate 

 the new pope Adrian VI. on his acceffion. In tins, as well 

 as in the pontificate of Leo X., and alfo in the fucceeding 

 one of Clement VII., to whom he was related, he had the 

 molt fanguine hope of promotion to a cardinalate. He 

 died in 1526, without attaining to the object of his am- 

 bition. As an author, Giovanni is known by " Le Api," 

 .The Bees, whicli is a didactic poem in unrhymed verfe, 

 and bears a high rank among Italian compofitions in that 

 elafs. His tragedy Rofmonda, already noticed, and his 

 Orelles, are imitations, the former of the Hecuba of 

 Euripides, the latter of the Iphigenia in Tauris. Rolcoe's 

 Leo X. 



RUCHENWALDE, in Geography, a town of Bran- 

 denburg, on the Ucker Mark ; 2 miles N.E. of Storkow. 



RUCHT, a river of France, which runs into the Rocr, 

 near Hermbach. 



RUCK, in Rural Economy, a provincial term, fignifying 

 a rude heap or bundle of any thing. 



RUCKENSTEIN, in Geography, a town of the duchy 

 of Carniola ; 6 miles W. of Gurkfeld. 



RUCKERSDORF, a town of Bavaria, in the territory 

 of Nuremberg ; S miles W. of Lauf. 



RUCKERSWALDE, a town of Silelia, in the prin 

 cipality of Neill'e ; 5 miles E.S.E. of Nciffe. 



RUCK.- 



