Latin

Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini (Italian: [dʒaɱ franˈtʃesko ˈpɔddʒo brattʃoˈliːni]; 11 February 1380 – 30 October 1459), usually referred to simply as Poggio Bracciolini, was an Italian scholar and an early Renaissance humanist. He is noted for rediscovering and recovering many classical Latin manuscripts, mostly decaying and forgotten in German, Swiss, and French monastic libraries. His most celebrated finds are De rerum natura, the only surviving work by Lucretius, De architectura by Vitruvius, lost orations by Cicero such as Pro Sexto Roscio, Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria, Statius' Silvae, Ammianus Marcellinus' Res Gestae (Rerum gestarum Libri XXXI), and Silius Italicus's Punica, as well as works by several minor authors such as Frontinus' De aquaeductu, Nonius Marcellus, Probus, Flavius Caper, and Eutyches.

Optimates (/ˌɒptɪˈmeɪtiːz/, /ˈɒptɪmeɪts/; Latin for "best ones"; sg. optimas) and populares (/ˌpɒpjʊˈlɛəriːz, -jə-, -ˈleɪriːz/; Latin for "supporters of the people"; sg. popularis) are labels applied to politicians, political groups, traditions, strategies, or ideologies in the late Roman Republic. There is "heated academic discussion" as to whether Romans would have recognised an ideological content or political split in the label.

Among other things, optimates have been seen as supporters of the continued authority of the senate, politicians who operated mostly in the senate, or opponents of the populares. The populares have also been seen as focusing on operating before the popular assemblies, generally in opposition to the senate, using "the populace, rather than the senate, as a means [for advantage]". References to optimates (also called boni, "good men") and populares are found among the writings of Roman authors of the 1st century BC. The distinction between the terms is most clearly established in Cicero's Pro Sestio, a speech given and published in 56 BC, where he framed the two labels against each other.

The Kulliyat (Arabic: الـكـلّـيـات في الـطـب, romanized: al-Kulliyāt fi al-ṭibb, lit. 'The General Principles of Medicine'), mostly known by its Latin translation as Colliget, is a medical encyclopedia written by the Andalusian polymath Averroes. The title of the book is opposite to "The Specificities of Medicine" (Arabic: جزئیات في الـطـب, romanized: al-Juzʾiyyāt fi al-ṭibb), which was written by his friend ibn Zuhr. The two collaborated, intending that their books complement each other. Written between 1153 and 1169, the Colliget was eventually translated into Medieval Hebrew and Latin and became a widely used textbook in Europe until the 18th century.

Abū al-Qāsim Khalaf ibn al-'Abbās al-Zahrāwī al-Ansari (c. 936–1013), popularly known as al-Zahrawi, Latinised as Albucasis or Abulcasis (from Arabic Abū al-Qāsim), was an Arab physician, surgeon and chemist from al-Andalus. He is considered one of the greatest surgeons of the Middle Ages.

Al-Zahrawi's principal work is the Kitab al-Tasrif, a thirty-volume encyclopedia of medical practices. The surgery chapter of this work was later translated into Latin, attaining popularity and becoming the standard textbook in Europe for the next five hundred years. Al-Zahrawi's pioneering contributions to the field of surgical procedures and instruments had an enormous impact in the East and West well into the modern period, where some of his discoveries are still applied in medicine to this day. He pioneered the use of catgut for internal stitches, and his surgical instruments are still used today to treat people.

The Biblia pauperum (Latin for "Paupers' Bible") was a tradition of picture Bibles beginning probably with Ansgar, and a common printed block-book in the later Middle Ages to visualize the typological correspondences between the Old and New Testaments. Unlike a simple "illustrated Bible", where the pictures are subordinated to the text, these Bibles placed the illustration in the centre, with only a brief text or sometimes no text at all. Words spoken by the figures in the miniatures could be written on scrolls coming out of their mouths. To this extent one might see parallels with modern comics.

The tradition is a further simplification of the Bible moralisée tradition, which was similar but with more text. Like these, the Biblia pauperum was usually in the local vernacular language, rather than Latin.

The miles Christianus 'Christian soldier' or miles Christi 'soldier of Christ' is a Christian allegory based on New Testament military metaphors, especially the Armor of God metaphor of military equipment standing for Christian virtues and on certain passages of the Old Testament from the Latin Vulgate. The plural of Latin miles 'soldier' is milites or the collective militia.

By the 5th century, the Church had started to develop doctrines that allowed for Christian participation in battle, though this was limited by a requirement that the fighting must be undertaken to convert infidels or spread the glory of Christ. Christians were not to fight for conquest or personal glory.

The title Duke (and Prince) of the Franks (Latin: dux (et princeps) Francorum) has been used for three different offices, always with "duke" implying military command and "prince" implying something approaching sovereign or regalian rights. The term "Franks" may refer to an ethnic group or to the inhabitants of a territory called Francia.

The first office was that of the mayors of the palace of the Merovingian kings of the Franks, whose powers increased as those of the kings declined. The second was that of the second-in-command to the early kings of France, the last incumbent of which succeeded to the throne in 987. This title was sometimes rendered as Duke of France (dux Franciae). The third instance was that of the rulers in East Francia (now Germany) of the so-called "tribal" duchy of Franconia.

East Francia (Latin: Francia orientalis) or the Kingdom of the East Franks (Regnum Francorum orientalium) was a successor state of the Carolingian Empire ruled by the Carolingian dynasty until 911. It was established through the 843 Treaty of Verdun which divided the former kingdom of Francia into three kingdoms: Francia Orientalis (the East Frankish kingdom); Francia Media (the Middle Frankish kingdom); and Francia Occidentalis (the West Frankish kingdom).

The east–west division with the Treaty of Verdun, enforced by the Germanic-Latin language split, "gradually hardened into the establishment of separate kingdoms", with East Francia becoming (or being) the Kingdom of Germany, and West Francia becoming the Kingdom of France.

Arabia Deserta (Latin for lit. 'Deserted Arabia'), also known as Arabia Magna (lit. 'Great Arabia'), signified the desert interior of the Arabian Peninsula, delineated to the northeast by the Euphrates. In ancient times, this land was populated by nomadic Bedouin tribes.

Arabia Deserta was one of three regions into which the Romans divided the Arabian peninsula: Arabia Deserta (or Arabia Magna), Arabia Felix, and Arabia Petraea. As a name for the region, it remained popular into the 19th and 20th centuries, and was used in Charles M. Doughty's Travels in Arabia Deserta (1888).

The Republic of Ragusa was an aristocratic maritime republic centered on the city of Dubrovnik (Ragusa in Italian and Latin; Raguxa in Venetian) in South Dalmatia (today in southernmost Croatia) that carried that name from 1358 until 1808. It reached its commercial peak in the 15th and the 16th centuries, before being conquered by Napoleon's French Empire and formally annexed by the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy in 1808. It had a population of about 30,000 people, of whom 5,000 lived within the city walls. Its motto was "Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro", a Latin phrase which can be translated as "Liberty is not well sold for all the gold".