The state of education throughout the province is very low. In the town of Albacete, where it is best, little more than half the population can read; while at Yeste, where it is worst, the proportion is only 1 in 15. The graver crimes are of infrequent occurrence; but the inhabitants always wear arms, and offences against the person are numerous. Population in 1867, 221,444.
Albacete, a town of Spain, capital of the above province, is situated about 140 miles S.E. of Madrid, and is a station on the railway between Madrid and Valencia. It is surrounded by a fertile plain, and has considerable trade in saffron and in the agricultural products of the district. A great market, chiefly for the sale of cattle, is held annually in September, and extends over several days. The town is well built, and has several churches, two hospitals, and a normal school. At one time it had an extensive trade in cutlery, from which it received the name of the Sheffield of Spain. This manufacture has been very much reduced by the importation of cutlery from England and Germany, but Albacete is still famous for its daggers, which are held in high repute and much worn by the Spaniards. They are formidable weapons, of coarse manufacture, but with richly-ornamented handles, and frequently bear proverbial inscriptions suitable to their murderous appearance. Population, 15,150.
ALBAN, St, usually styled the protomartyr of Britain, was born at Verulamium, and nourished towards the end of the third century. In his youth he took a journey to Rome in company with Amphibalus, a monk of Caerleon, and served seven years as a soldier under the Emperor Diocletian. On his return home he settled at Verulamium, and, influenced by the example and instructions of Amphibalus, renounced the errors of paganism, in which he had been educated, and became a convert to the Christian religion. It is generally agreed that Alban suffered martyrdom during the great persecution in the reign of Diocletian; but authors differ as to the precise date. Bede, who gives a full account of the event, fixes it in 286; some refer it to the year 296 ; while Usher reckons it amongst the events of 303. Between 400 and 500 years after St Alban s death, Offa, king of the Mercians, built a large and stately monastery near Verulamium to his memory, and around it the present town of St Albans was gradually erected.
ALBANI, or Albano, Francesco (1578–1660), a celebrated Italian painter, was born at Bologna. His father was a silk merchant, and intended to bring up his son to the same occupation; but Albani was already, at the age of twelve, filled with so strong an inclination for painting, that on the death of his father he devoted him self entirely to art. His first master was Denis Calvart, with whom Guido Reni was at the same time a pupil. He was soon left by Calvart entirely to the care of Guido, and contracted with him a close friendship. He followed Guido to the school of the Caracci; but after this, owing to mutual rivalry, their friendship began gradually to cool. They kept up for a long time a keen competition, and their mutual emulation called forth some of their best productions. Notwithstanding this rivalry, they still spoke of each other with the highest esteem. Albani, after having greatly improved himself in the school of the Caracci, went to Rome, where he opened an academy and resided for many years. Here he painted, after the designs of Annibal Caracci, the whole of the frescoes in the chapel of St Diego in the church of San Giacomo degli Spagnuoli. His best frescoes are those on mythological subjects, of which there is a large number in the Verospi Palace, now Torlonin. On the death of his wife he returned to Bologna, where he married a second time, and resided till his death in the enjoyment of much domestic happiness and general esteem. His wife and children were very beautiful, and served him for models. But while thus studying from nature, his love of artificial refinement and conventional expression was so great, that even his best works are deficient in breadth and vigour, as well as in unaffected grace and natural feeling. The learning displayed in the composition of his pictures, and their minute elaboration and exquisite finish, gave them great celebrity, and entitle them to a distinctive place among the products of the Bolognese school.
"In point of original invention," says Lanzi, "Albani is superior to Domenichino, perhaps to any other of the school; and in his representation of female forms, according to Mengs, he has no equal. By some he is denominated the Anacreon of painting. Like that poet, with his short odes, so Albani, from his small paintings, acquired great reputation; and as the one sings Venus and the Loves, and maids and boys, so does the artist hold up to the eye the same delicate and graceful subjects. Nature, indeed, formed, the perusal of the poets inclined, and fortune encouraged his genius for this kind of painting; and possessing a consort and twelve children, all of surprising beauty, he was at the same time blest with the finest models for the pursuit of his studies. He had a villa most delight fully situated, which further presented him with a variety of objects enabling him to represent the beautiful rural views so familiar to his eye.
A great number of his works are at Bologna. Among the most celebrated of his pictures are the "Four Seasons;" "Diana and Venus," in the Florentine gallery; the "Toilet of Venus," in the Louvre; "Venus landing at Cythera," in the Ghigi palace at Rome, &c. Among the best of his sacred subjects are a "St Sebastian" and an "Assumption of the Virgin," both in the church of St Sebastian at Rome. He was among the first of the Italian painters to devote himself to the painting of cabinet pictures.
ALBANIA, a country of considerable extent, which though frequently ruled by turbulent and nearly independent chiefs, ranks as one of the provinces of the Turkish empire. The tract of land to which this name is now applied extends from 39° to 43° N. lat., and from 18° 24′ to 21° 48′ E. long.; from the Gulf of Cattaro in the north to the Gulf of Arta in the south, and from the coast of the Adriatic Sea and Ionian Sea on the west to an irregular ill-defined line inland towards the east, roughly indicated in its northern part by the Tchar Dagh, the ancient Scardus, a part of the Hæmus or Balkan range, and southwards by the Pindus chain, or rather the portions of it now called the mountains of Sagori, Metzovo, and Suli. Within these limits is included the ancient Epirus, corresponding to the southern part of the country now comprehended under the general name of Albania, and divided from Albania, properly so called, by the river Voyutza or Viosa, which enters the Adriatic a few miles north of Avlona. Albania, therefore, is bounded on the N. by Dalmatia, Montenegro (from which it is separated by the river Moroka), and Bosnia; on the E. by Servia and the Turkish province of Rum-ili, in which Macedonia, or the greater part of it, is included; and on the S. by Hellas or Northern Greece, which was the Turkish province of Livadia before Greece regained its independence, and from which it is separated by the river Garla or Suli. The superficial area of Albania is estimated at about 18,944 square miles, and it has a coast-line of about 280 miles from north to south, without reckoning indentations, &c. It nowhere extends more than 100 miles from the sea, and in the southern part not more than 30 miles.
According to the most recent division of the Turkish empire into eyalets, sanjaks, and livas, Albania is comprehended in three eyalets, namely, Uskub or Uskup in the north; Roumelia, which also includes part of Macedonia, in the centre; and Yania, corresponding pretty nearly to the ancient Epirus, in the south. The chief towns of these eyalets are respectively Scutari, Monastir,
