controversy, with a view to convincing him of his errors,
but the arguments of the Scottish proto-martyr, and above
all the spectacle of his heroism at the stake, impressed
Alesius so powerfully that he was entirely won over to the
cause of the Reformers. A sermon which he preached before
the Synod at St Andrews against the dissoluteness of the
clergy gave great offence to the provost, who cast him into
prison, and might have carried his resentment to the extremest
limit had not Alesius contrived to escape to Germany in
1532. After travelling in various countries of northern
Europe, he settled down at Wittenberg, where he made the
acquaintance of Luther and Melanchthon, and signed the Augsburg
confession. Meanwhile he was tried in Scotland for heresy and
condemned without a hearing. In 1533 a decree of the Scottish
clergy, prohibiting the reading of the New Testament by the
laity, drew from Alesius a defence of the right of the people,
in the form of a letter to James V. A reply to this by John
Cochlaeus, also addressed to the Scottish king, occasioned
a second letter from Alesius, in which he not only amplifies
his argument with great force, but enters into more general
questions connected with the Reformation. In August 1534
he and a few others were excommunicated at Holyrood by the
deputy of the archbishop of St Andrews. When Henry VIII.
broke with the church of Rome Alesius was induced to go to
England, where he was very cordially received (August 1535)
by the king and his advisers Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell.
After a short residence at Lambeth he was appointed, through
the influence of Cromwell, then chancellor of the university,
to lecture on theology at Cambridge; but when he had delivered
a few expositions of the Hebrew psalms, he was compelled by
the opposition of the papal party to desist. Returning to
London he supported himself for some time by practising as a
physician. In 1537 he attended a convocation of the clergy,
and at the request of Cromwell conducted a controversy with
Stokesley, bishop of London, on the nature of the sacraments.
His argument was afterwards published under the title Of
the Auctorite of the Word of God concerning the number of
the Sacraments. In 1539 Alesius was compelled to flee for
the second time to Germany, in consequence of the enactment
of the statute of the Six Articles. He was appointed to a
theological chair in the university of Frankfort-on-Oder,
where he was the first professor who taught the reformed
doctrines. In 1543 he quitted Frankfort for a similar
position at Leipzig, his contention that it was the duty of
the civil magistrate to punish fornication, and his sudden
departure, having given offence to the authorities of the
former university. He was in England again for a short
time during Edward VI.'s reign, and was commissioned by
Cranmer to make a Latin version of the First Prayer-Book
(1549) for the information of Bucer, whose opinion was
desired. He died at Leipzig on the 17th of March 1565.
Alesius was the author of a large number of exegetical,
dogmatic and polemical works, of which over twenty are
mentioned by Bale in his List of English Writers. (See also
the British Museum catalogue.) In his controversial works he
upholds the synergistic views of the Scottish theologian John
Major. He displayed his interest in his native land by the
publication of a Cohortatio ad Concordiam Pietatis, missa in
Patriam suam (1544), which had the express approval of Luther,
and a Cohortatio ad Pietatis Concordiam ineundam (1559).
The best early account of Alesius is the Oratio de Alexandro
Alesio of Jacob Thomasius (April 1661), printed in the
latter's Orationes (No. XIV., Leipzia, 1683): the best
modern account is by Dr A. W. Ward in the Dictionary of
National Biography. See also A. F. Mitchell's introduction
to Gau's Richt Vay (Scottish Text Society, 1888).
ALESIA, the ancient name for a hill in central France, now
Alise-Ste-Reine (department Cote d'Or), where in 52 B.C.
Caesar besieged the Gaulish national leader Vercingetorix
within enormous entrenchments, forced him to surrender, and thus
practically ended his conquest of Gaul. The siege-works have
been excavated by Napoleon III. and others, down to the present
day. The site seems to have been inhabited also during the
Roman empire, but its importance is limited to Caesar's siege.
ALESSANDRI, ALESSANDRO (ALEXANDER AB ALEXANDRO) (1461-1523),
Italian jurist, was born at Naples about the year 1461.
He studied law at Naples and Rome, and afterwards practised
for a time as advocate in both cities. He is said to have
been royal proto-notary at Naples in 1490. Dissatisfied,
according to his own account, with the corrupt administration
of justice, he at length quitted the bar and devoted himself
entirely to literary pursuits, especially to the study of
philology and antiquities. A sinecure appointment, which
he owed to the favour of the pope, enabled him to lead a
life of learned leisure at Rome, where he died on the 2nd
of October 1523. His work entitled Dies Geniales appeared
at Rome in 1522, and was constructed after the model of the
Noctes Atticae of Aulus Gellius, and the Saturnalia of
Macrobius. It consists of a confused mass of heterogeneous
materials relating to philology, antiquities, law, dreams,
spectres, &c., and is characterized by considerable credulity.
ALESSANDRIA, a city and episcopal see of Piedmont, Italy,
capital of a province which bears its name, situated on the
river Tanaro, 57 m. E. by S. of Turin by rail. Pop. (1901)
71,298, of which about half reside in the actual town: the
rest are distributed over the suburbs. Alessandria was founded
in 1168 by the inhabitants of the district in order to defend
themselves against the marquis of Monferrato and the town of
Pavia, at whose request it was besieged in 1174 by Frederick
Barbarossa for six months, but without success. The Lombard
League now included it among the allied cities and named it
Alessandria, after Pope Alexander III. The traditional account
of its foundation by the Lombard League has been disproved
by F. Graf, Die Grundung Alessandrias: ein Beitrag zur
Geschichte des Lombardenbunides (1888). After falling
into various hands, it was ceded to Savoy by the peace of
Utrecht in 1713, and its citadel was begun in 1728. During
the French occupation (1800-1814), which began after the
battle of Marengo, it was still more strongly fortified; the
works were entirely destroyed by the Austrians in 1815, but
were afterwards reconstructed, and Alessandria is still an
important fortress and the headquarters of the second army
corps. The citadel is on the left bank of the Tanaro, the
town being on the right bank. It is regularly built and
contains few buildings of architectural interest, but is a
flourishing and important commercial town, not merely owing
to its own manufactures (which are miscellaneous) but for
the products of the district, and one of the greatest railway
centres in Italy. Lines diverge from it to Turin via Asti,
to Valenza (and thence to Vercelli, Mortara--for Novara or
Milan--and Pavia), to Tortona, to Novi, to Acqui and to Bra.
ALESSI, GALEAZZO (1512-1572), Italian architect, was born
at Perugia, and was probably a pupil of Caporali. He was an
enthusiastic student of ancient architecture, and his style gained
for him a European reputation. Genoa is indebted to him for
a number of its most magnificent palaces, and specimens of his
skill may be seen in the churches of San Paolo and Santa Vittoria
at Milan, in certain parts of the Escurial, and in numerous
churches and palaces throughout Sicily, Flanders and Germany.
See Rossi, Di Galeazzo Alessi memorie (Perugia, 1873).
ALETHIOLOGY (from the Gr. aletheia, truth), an
uncommon expression for the doctrine of truth, used by Sir
William Hamilton in his philosophic writings when treating
of the rules for the discrimination of truth and error.
ALETRIUM (mod. Alatri), a town of the Hernici, about 6
m. due N. of Frusino, Italy, mentioned in 306 B.C. for its
fidelity to Rome. In Cicero's time it was a municipium,
and continued in this position throughout the imperial
period. It is chiefly remarkable for its finely preserved
fortifications constructed of tetrahedral and polygonal blocks
of local limestone well jointed, with maximum dimensions
of about 3 by 1 1/2 ft.; the outer circuit of the city wall
measures about 2 1/2 m. It is almost entirely an embanking
wall, as is the rule in the cities of this part of Italy, with
a maximum height, probably, of about 30 ft. Two of the gates
(of which there were perhaps five) are still to some extent
preserved, and three posterns are to be found. In the centre
of the city rises a hill (1647 ft.) which was adopted as the
citadel. Remains of the fortifications of three successive
periods can be traced, of which the last, perhaps a little more
recent than that of the city wall, is the best preserved. In
the first two periods the construction is rough, while in the
third the blocks are very well and finely jointed, and the
faces smoothed; they are mostly polygonal in form and are much
larger (the maximum about 10 by 6 ft.) than those of the city
wall. A flat surface was formed partly by smoothing off the
rock and partly by the erection of huge terrace walls which
rise to a height of over 50 ft., enclosing a roughly rectangular
area of 235 by 115 yds. Two approaches to the citadel were
constructed, both passing through the wall; the openings of
both are rectangular. The architrave of the larger, known
as Porta di Civita, measures about 17 ft. in length, 5 ft.
in height, 6 ft. in thickness; while that of the smaller
is decorated with three phalli in relief. Later, though
probably in ancient times, a ramp was added on the northern
side. In the centre of the arx was a building on the site
of the present cathedral, of which only a small portion is
preserved. Remains of a high-pressure aqueduct, which
supplied the town with water and was constructed with other
public buildings (Corp. Inscr. Lat. x., Berlin, 1883,
p. 5807) by L. Betilienus Varus, may still be traced. A
temple was excavated in 1889 about 1/2 m. to the north of
the town and many fragments of the painted terra-cottas
with which it was decorated were found. A reconstruction of
it has been erected in the Museo di Villa Giulia at Rome.
The present town (pop. in 1901, 15,322) has a picturesque
aspect, and contains many buildings in the Gothic style.
See R. Bassel, Centralblatt der Bauverwaltung, 1881, 121,
p. 134; H. Winnefeld, Romische Mitteilungen, 1889, 126;
G. Fiorelli in Notizie degli Scavi, 1882, 417. (T. As.)
ALEURITES (Gr. aleuritus, pertaining to aleuron, ground
meal, from alein, to grind), a genus of trees belonging
to the natural order Euphorbiaceae. Aleurites moluccana,
or triloba, is widely cultivated throughout the tropical
and sub-tropical parts of the world for its fruit, which
is about the size of a walnut, and contains several seeds
which are rich in oil. The oil is extracted and used
for food and light; it is known in India as kekuna, and
the tree as the ``candle-nut.'' In the Sandwich Islands
the nuts are strung upon strips of wood and used as
torches. The oil is exported to Europe for candle-making.
A. cordata flourishes in China, where it is known as the
varnish- tree, on account of the lac contained in its seeds.
ALEUTIAN ISLANDS (possibly from Chukchi aliat, ``island''),
a chain of small islands situated in the Northern Pacific
Ocean, and extending about 1200 m. westward from the
