£70 LAT 
LA'TRIA,/. [Greek.] The higheft kind of worfhip ; 
diftinguiihed by the papilts from dulia, or inferior wor- 
fhip.—The practice of the catholic church makes genu¬ 
flections, proftrations, fupplications, and other aCts of la- 
tria, to the crofs. Stillingjleet . 
LA'TRIS, in ancient geography, a town of Germany, 
at the mouth of the Viltula. Pliny. 
LATROCTNA'TION, J'. [from the Lat. latro, a rob¬ 
ber.] The aft of robbing ; a depredation. 
LATROCIN'IUM, f. in old charters, the prerogative 
of adjudging and executing thieves. Larceny ; theft. 
LATRO'CINY, J. [A literal verfion of the Latin latro- 
cinium, which was afterwards contracted into] Larceny. 
LATRONI'CA, a town of Naples, in Bafilicata : twen¬ 
ty-two miles fouth-weft of Turfi. 
LATRUN'CULUSjyi A game amongft the Romans, of 
much the fame nature with our chefs. The latrunculi 
were properly the chefs-men, called affo latrones and cal¬ 
culi ; they were made of giafs, and diltinguifhed by black 
and white colours ; fometimes they were made of wax or 
other convenient fubftances. Some give the invention of 
this game to Palamedes when at the liege of Troy, Se¬ 
neca attributes it to Chilon, one of the feven Grecian 
fages; others honour Pyrrhus with the invention"; and 
others again contend that it is of Perfian origin. Fre- 
cjuent allufions to this game are met with in the Roman 
dallies j and a little poem was written upon it, addrefled 
to Pifo, which fome fay was the work of Ovid, others of 
Lucan, in the end of fome editions of whole works it is 
to be found, and to which we refer for a fuller account 
of the game. This game exprelfes fo well the chance and 
order of war, that it is, with great appearance of probabi¬ 
lity, attributed to fome military officer as the inventor. 
One Canius Julius was fo exceedingly fond of chefs, that, 
after he was fentenced to death by Caligula, he was found 
playing, but interrupted in his game by a call to execu¬ 
tion ; he obeyed the lummons, but firft delired the cen¬ 
turion who brought the fatal order, to bear witnefs that 
lie had one man upon the board more than his antagonilt, 
that he might not falfely brag of victory when he Ihould 
be no more. See the article Chess, vol. iv. p. 416. 
LATSCH, a town in the county of Tyrol: fix miles 
wed-foirth-wed of Tyrol. 
LAT'SCHACH, a town of the duchy of Carinthia : 
fourteen miles fouth-wed of Clagenfurt. 
LATTA'I. See Bickerton’s Island, vol. iii. p. 17. 
LATTAN'ZIO (Gambara), a painter of hiltory and 
portraits. He was the fon of a tailor at Cremona; but, 
being more inclined to painting than the ufe of the nee¬ 
dle, he fpent his youthful days in covering the walls and 
furniture of his father’s houfe with drawings in charcoal, 
and thus drew upon himfelf the difpleaftire of his parents, 
who evinced their diflatisfaCfion by the unequivocal tef- 
timony of the fcourge. Giulio Campo, an artid of fome 
celebrity, reiiding at Cremona, happened on.e day to pafs 
by when the tailor was exerting his energies upon the 
Back of his felt-willed fon Lattanzio; hearing the caufe, 
he took the boy home with him, and for fix years aflifted 
and encouraged him Ln his purfuit of the art of painting. 
Such was the fuccefs accompanying this act of generality, 
that, according to Vafari, Gambara became the bell painter 
of his time in Brefcia, where he took up his relidence; 
and where many ingenious artids praCfifed painting in 
conjunction or competition with him. His principal 
works are in frefco, and fome are ftill to be feen at Bref- 
pia, particularly the cloifter of Santa Euphemia, wherein 
lie painted a leries of fcri-ptural and .evangelical fubjects. 
Venice, Parma, and Cremona, all poiTefs teltimonials of his 
fkili, which adorn their churches and many of their pri¬ 
vate houfes. His ftyle is very much like that of Porde- 
none, an attempt to unite the colour of the Venetian with 
the drawing and defignof the Florentine fchool ; but it is 
not fo powerful. He married a daughter of Romanino ; 
but died at the early age of thirty-two, by a fail from a 
fcaffbld while painting in the church of St. Lorenzo in 
Brefcia, about the year 1570. 
LAT 
LAT'TEN, or Lattin, ['/aim , Fr. latocn , Dot.] A 
name formerly ufed for thofe plates of iron covered with 
tin, nowufually called tin, of which tea-canifters, and tuch 
other things, are made. 
The principal part of the work is to prepare the leaves, 
beat out to a proper thinnefs, fo as that they fliall readily 
receive the tin ; for, if there he but the fmalleft particle of 
dull on them, or only the flighted: ruft in any part, the 
tin w'ill never fix there. This fnioothing of the plates is 
effected by keeping them in acid water till the furface is 
a little preyed upon by it, and then they are fcoured 
with fand, which makes them very fmooth and fine. By 
this means a woman cleans more plates in an hour, than 
the mod expert workman can do otherwife in many days. 
M. Reaumur, to whom the world owes the difeovery of 
this procefs, mentions feveral waters, any one of which 
will tucceed ; but the Germans themfelves ufe nothing but 
common water, made eager with rye. This they make a 
great fecret of, but the preparation is very eafy. After 
they have ground the rye grofsly, they leave it to ferment 
in common water for fome time; and they are thus fure 
of a (harp and eager mendruum, excellently fitted for their 
purpofe. With this liquor they fill certain troughs, or 
tuns, and into thefe they put feveral bundles of the plates 
of iron ; and, to make the liquor mere eager, and to aft the 
better on them, they keep it in doves, where it has little 
air, and is kept warm with fmall charcoal fires. 
There are feveral other ways of making iron rud, a? 
keeping it in a moid cellar, expofing it to the dew, fprink- 
ling it w ith fimple water, or, what is dill better, with wa¬ 
ter in which fal ammoniac has been diflolved, feveral times 
a-day ; and, in thofe countries where the pyrites is com¬ 
mon, the vitriolic waters, which partake of it, will do it 
very well. This water may be prepared at little or no 
expenfe, only by heaping up large quantities of the py¬ 
rites, and letting it moulder in the air, then putting it 
into common water, and making a lixivium of it. Which¬ 
ever method of rutting the plates be ufed, it is always ne- 
cefiary to fcour them with fand as foon as it is done; 
and, when they are thus cleaned, they mud be immedi¬ 
ately plunged into water, to prevent their ruding again, 
and they are to be left in this water till the indant in 
which they are.to be tinned, or, in the language of the 
workmen, blanched. The people employed in this part of 
the operation are called Handlers ; and the others, w ho af- 
fid at the cleaning of the plates, the fealers. The blancher 
makes as great a lecret of his art as the fealer does of his; 
and it was with great difficulty that M. Reaumur obtain¬ 
ed it. The manner of doing it is this : 
They flux the tin in a large iron crucible, which has 
the figure of an oblong pyramid with four faces, of which 
two oppofite ones are lei's than the two others. Tire cru¬ 
cible is heated only from below, its upper part being luted 
with the furnace all round. The crucible is always deeper 
than the plates, which are to be tinned, are long; they al¬ 
ways put them in downright, and the tin ought to fwim 
over them. To this purpofe artificers of different trades 
prepare plates of dilferent fhapes; but M. Reaumur 
thinks them all exceptionable. But the Germans ufe no 
fort of preparation of the iron, to make it receive the tin, 
more than the keeping it always deeped in water till t-he 
time; only, when the tin is melted in the crucible, they 
cover it with a layer of a fort of fuet, which is ufually 
twra inches thick ; and the plate mud pafs through this be¬ 
fore it can come to the melted tin. The fird ufe of this 
covering is to keep the tin from burning; as, if any part 
Ihould Like fire, the fuet would foon moiden it, and re- 
duce it to its primitive date again. The blanchers fay, 
this diet is a compounded matter. It is indeed of a Black 
colour, but M. Reaumur fuppofed that to be only an ar¬ 
tifice to make it a fecret, and that it is only coloured 
with foot, or the finoke of a chimney ; but lie found it 
true fo far, that the cofrimon unprepared fuet was not 
fufficient; for, after feveral attempts, there was always 
fomething wanting to render the fuccefs of the operation 
certain. The whole fecret of blanching, therefore, was 
found 
