V E N 



V E N 



reafon that tlie Britons never attempted to make any oppo- 

 fition to Cxiar by fea, when the very year after it he in- 

 vaded their country. 



VENETIA, a country of Italy, which commenced E. 

 of Gaul, near the lake Benacus, and the river Mincius, 

 ■which flowed frojn it. Its boundaries to the N.E. were 

 not very diftinftly afcertained. Its principal rivers, belide 

 tjie Po, were the Athefis, the Medoacus Major, and the 

 Plavis. It was very fertile in pafture, and fumifhed ex- 

 cellent horfes. The people were denominated Veneti or 

 Heneti. Their principal towns were Hadria, Atefte, 

 Patavium, Verona, Vicentia, Altinum, Tarvifuim, &c. 

 See Venice. 



VENETICjE iNSUl.iE, or Vemtonim IiifuU, compre- 

 hended, under this denomination, a great number of iflands 

 fituated on the weilern coaft of Gallia Celticaor Lyonnenfis. 

 This general appellation included Bellifle, Houat, Hedic, 

 Groa or Grouais, now Quibei'on. Thefe iflands occupied 

 that part of the fea which was oppoflte to the continent 

 inhabited by the Vencl't ; which fee. 



VENETICO, in Geography, a fmall ifland in the Medi- 

 terranean, near the coall of the Morea. N. lat. 26° 41'. 

 E. long. 25'^ 53'. — Alfo, a fmall ifland in the Grecian 

 Archipelago, near the S. coaft of the ifland of Scio. 



VENETORI, a town of Walachia ; 24 miles W. of 

 Buchareft. 



VENETUS Lacus, in Ancient Geography, the name of 

 one of thofe two lakes, which the Rhine formed near its 

 fource in the Alps. The lake now called Boden-fee, or 

 more commonly the lake of Confl;ance, is called " Brigan- 

 tinus" by Pliny, and ". Brigantia" by Ammianus Mar- 

 cellinus. Strabo afligns to it 300 ftadia of length, and 200 

 ot breadth. Its name Boden-fee is derived from a place 

 called Bodman, fituated at the extremity of the lake oppo- 

 fite to which is Bregentz, whence the appellations Brigantia 

 and Brigantinus. 



VENEV, in Geography, a town of Rudia, in the govern- 

 ment of Tula, on the Ofer ; 40 miles N.N.E. of Tula. 

 N. lat. 54' 20'. E. long. 38° 14'. 



VENEW. See Venue. 



VENEZIANO, Antonio, in Biography. Of this early 

 painter the birth-place is not exaftly known, a? he is by one 

 author fuppofed to have been a Venetian, and by another a 

 Florentine. His principal works are at Pifa and Florence, 

 and in the Ducal palace at Venice. He certainly improved 

 upon the fl:yle of thofe painters who preceded him, if we ex- 

 cept Giotto ; his manner was lefs formal, and he is faid to 

 have painted well in frefco, and to have carried the manage- 

 ment of it to a confiderable degree of perfeftion. He died 

 in 1 384, at the age of 74. 



Veneziano, Domenico, was born at Venice in 1420, 

 and was a difciple of Antonio da Meffina, after he had, as 

 Vafari relates, learned the fecret of oil painting from 

 J. V. Eyck ; and to him Meflina communicated his fecret. 

 He painted feveral piAures at Loretto and Perugia, and 

 afterwards fettled at Florence ; where the novelty of his 

 manner, and the abihty with which he executed it, acquired 

 for hira confiderable renown. Unfortunately for him, he 

 formed an intimacy with Andrea Caftagno, an eminent 

 Tufcan painter, and taught him the management of oil 

 colours ; when his treacherous friend conceived the hor- 

 rible defign of an"affinating him, that he might remain 

 fole poff'eiror of the fecret, and effeded his deteftable 

 purpofe in 1476, when Domenico had attained his 56th 

 year. 



VENEZIANU, Antoni, a Sicilian poet, was born in 

 IJ43, at Monreale, and acquired great celebrity in fcience 



and polite literature, fo that it was faftiionable to cultivate 

 acquaintance with him ; and aroongft thofe wl;o fought this 

 honour was Taflb. In 1578 he was taken, on a voyage 

 to Rome, by an Algerine corfair, but redeemed ; on his re- 

 turn to his native country, he was imprifoned under a fuf- 

 picion of being the author of fome writing againft the 

 viceroy of Sicily, and being confined at Palermo, he was 

 deftroyed in the caftle by the explofion of a powder- 

 magazine in Auguft 1593. His writings confift chiefly of 

 fonnets apd lyric poems in the Sicilian dialeft ; and fome of 

 his compofitions in pure Italian were printed at Palermo in 

 1572. A large colleftion of his SiciUan poems exifts in 

 MS. Gen. Biog. 



VENEZUELA, in Geography, a province of the eaftem 

 part of Terra Firma, or of Spanifli America, included within 

 the jurifdiftion of the captain-generalfliip of Caraccas, which 

 is not only the capital cf this province, but the metropolis of 

 the captain-generalfliip, the feat of the royal audience and of 

 the intendanc)', whole authority extends over the provinces 

 of Venezuela, Maracaibo, Varinas, Cumana, Guiana, and 

 the ifland of Margaretta ; extending from N. lat. 12° to the 

 equator, and from 62° to 75" long. W. from the meridian of 

 Paris. The name of Venezuela, which is in Spanifh a dimi- 

 nutive of Venice, was given to this province on account of 

 fome Indian villages, which the firft conquerors found on 

 the lakes of Maracaibo. Others have erroneoufly afcribed 

 the origin of this name to the following circumftance ; viz. 

 that Alphonfo Ojeda, having landed here in 1499, caufed 

 fome huts to be conftrufted upon poles, in order to elevate 

 them above the ftagnant water which covered the plain ; 

 but though it is true that Ojeda, in 1499, vifited the 

 eaft:ern fiiore of Terra Firma, he never thought of erefting 

 any huts over its ftagnant waters. The chief place of the 

 province of Venezuela has never been nearly on a level with 

 the water. Caraccas is at leaft fixty toifes above the level 

 of the fea, and has no other water befides that of three brooks 

 which pafs rapidly through it, and of a fmall river which 

 bounds it on the fouth. The firft fettlement of the Spa- 

 niards on the borders of the lake of Maracaibo took place 

 in 1527. The population of Venezuela, including Varinas, 

 confifted, in 1801, of 500,000 perfons ; that of the govern- 

 ment of Maracaibo, of 100,000; of Cumana, 80,000; of Spa- 

 nifli Guiana, 34,000 ; and of the ifle of Margaretta, 14,000 : 

 making a total, according to the ftatement of Depons, of 

 728,00®. The population of Caraccas, in 1802, is ftated at 

 from 41,000 to 42,000, confifting of whites, flaves, freed 

 perfons, and very few Indians ; the firft clafs forming nearly 

 a fourth of the whole, the flaves a third, the Indians a twen- 

 tieth, and the freed perfons the reft. All the whites are either 

 planters, merchants, military men, priefts, monks, or perfons 

 employed in the adminiftration of juftice or finance. In 

 this population, the whites are computed at two-tenths, the 

 flaves at three, the defcendants of freed-men at four, and the 

 Indians compofe the remainder. A late writer, profefling 

 himfelf a " South American," in his " Outhne of the Revo- 

 lution in Spanifli America," ( 1817,) fays, that in the town of 

 Caraccas alone there were 45,000 inhabitants ; and the whole 

 population of Venezuela, including the feveral provinces 

 above enumerated, amounted in 1811 to more than 800,000. 

 The foil of Venezuela is fertile, and yields, with prodigal 

 hberahty (fays Depons), all the produftions which are 

 to be met with in the Weft India iflands, befides many 

 others which they do not poflefs. If a man labour, he muft 

 grow rich ; and if he vegetate merely in indolence and floth, 

 he has only to ftoop, in order to gather from the foil more 

 than firfficient to fatisfy the wants of nature. The cacao of 

 this province is abundant and excellent. It likewife fur- 



niflies 



