Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/116

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NOLA


90


NOMINALISM


623: St. Quodvultdeus, who died in 387 and was suc- ceeaed by St. Paulinus. The body of the last-named Baint wa.< taken to Benevento in S'.'i'.), ami in the vear 1000 was given to Otho III by the iicciplc of Bene- vento in exchange for the body of .St. ISartholomew; in 190!) it was restored to Nola. In the hftli century the archpresbytcr St. -Vdeodatus flourished at Nola; his metrical epitaph has been preserved. In 4.S4 Joannes Taloias. Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria, having been driven from his diocese, was maile Bishop of Nola. It was St. Paulinus III (c. 505) who became a slave to free a widow's son; this heroic deed was after- wards attributed to St. Paulinus I. Bishop Lupicinus (780) restored several sacred buildings. Francis Scac- ciani (1370) erected the Gothic cathedral, which was finished by Bishop Gian .\ntonio Boccarelli (1469). Antonio Scarampi (1549) founded the seminary and introduced the reforms of the Council of Trent. Fa- brizio Gallo (1.5.S5) founded several charitable institu- tions; G. B. Lancellotti (101.5-56), who was Apostolic nuncio to Poland from 1622 to 1627, did much for the diocese; Francis M. Carafa (1704), a Theatine, was zealous for the education of the clergy; Traiano Ca- racciolo (1738) constructed the new seminary.

The diocese is a suffragan of Naples; has 86 par- ishes, with 200,000 inhabitants, 9 religious houses of men, and 19 of women, several educational establish- ments and asylums, and four monthly and bi-monthly periodicals.

Cappelletti, Le Chiese d' Italia, XXI; Remondini, Storia delta dUA e diocesi di Nola (Naples, 1747-57).

U. Beniqni.

Nola, Giovanni Marliano da, sculptor and archi- tect, b., it is said, of a leather merchant named Giu- seppe, at Nola, near Naples, 1488; d. 1558 (?). He studied under Agnolo Aniello Fiore and then went to Rome, being attracted by the fame of Michel- angelo, whose work he studied closely. On his return to Naples he was employed in churches, palaces, and piazze. Among his works may be mentioned the monument of Galeazzo Pandono in S. Domenico (1514) ; the tombs of the three youths Jacopo, Ascanio, and Sigismondo (who died of poison) in their family church of S. Sevcrino (1516) ; various sculptures in the church of Monte Oliveto (1524), notably a fine group of the Mother and Child with infant St. John and, in the choir, tombs of Alphonsus II and Guerrero Origlia; in the church of S. Chiara, the simple and touching recumbent figure of the girl Antonia Gandino (1530). Outside of Italy the noble monument of the Spanish Duke of Cardona (about 1532) in the Franciscan church of Belpuch is among the best known. The decorations made by Nola for the reception of Empe- ror Charles Vin Naples (1.535) are still to be seen on the Porta Capuana. In 1537 he carved a beautiful standing Madonna and two Saints for the church of S. Domenico Maggiore. In 1553 the Spanish viceroy, Peter of Toledo, caused him to erect the mausoleum to himself and his wife in the church of S. Giacomo degU Spagnuoli. Further works of Nola's, also in Naples, are the Piet^ and tomb of a child, Andrea Cicara, in the church of S. Severino; a Madonna della Misericordia in S. Pictro ad Aram; an altar-piece at S. Aniello, representing the Mother and Child seated on a crescent moon ; and a fine set of wooden bas-reliefs depicting the hfe of Christ, in the sacristy of the Annmiziata. Nola is one of the most justly lauded representatives of a rather poor school of Renaissance sculpture in Naples.

CicooNABA, Sloria detta scuUura (Venice, 1813 — ); Perkins, Italian Sculptors (London, 1868); Lt^BKE, History of Sculpture, tr. BuBNETT (London, 1872).

M. L. Handle Y.

Noli. See Savona and Noli, Diocese of.

Nollet, Jean-Antoine, physicist, b. at Pimprfi, Oise, France, 19 November, 1700; d. at Paris, 25


April, 1770. His peasant parents sent him to study at Clermont and Beauvais. He went later to Paris to prepare for the priesthood. In 172S he received the deaconship and applied immcdialely for ])crmission to preach. Soon love of science hccainc uppermost and together with Dufay and Hcauiuur he devoted him- self to the study of physics and especially to research work in electricity. Abbe Nollet was the first to recognize the importance of sharp points on the conductors in the discharge of electricity. This was later applied practically in the construction of the lightning-rod. He also studied the conduction of electricity in tubes, in smoke, vapours, steam, the in- fluence of electric charges on evaporation, vegetation, and animal life. His discovery of the osmosis of wa- ter through a bladder into alcohol was the starting- point of that branch of physics.

In 1734 Nollet went to London and was admitted into the Royal Society. In 1735 he started in Paris, at his own expense, a course in experimental physics which he continued until 1760. In 1738 Cardinal Fleury created a public chair of experimental physics for Nollet. In 1739 he entered the Academy of Sciences, becoming associate member in 1742, and pensionary in 1758. In April, 1739 the King of Sar- dinia called him to Turin to instruct the Duke of Savoy, and to furnish the instruments needed for the new chair of physics at the university. After lecturing a short time at Bordeaux, he was called to Versailles to instruct the dauphin in experimental science. He was appointed professor of experimental physics at the Royal College of Navarre, in 17.53. In 1761 he taught at the school of artillery at M(?zieres. Nollet was also a member of the Institute of Bologna and of the Academy of Sciences of Erfurt. He was calm and sim- ple in manner, and his letters and papers showed that he had been devoted and generous to his family and his native village. Nollet contributed to the " Recueil de I'Acad^mie des Sciences" (1740-67) and the "Philo- sophical Transactions of the Royal Society"; his larger works include among others: — "Programme d'un cours de physique experimentale " (Paris, 1738); "LeQons de physique experimentale" (Paris, 1743); "Recherches sur les causes particulieres des phd- nomenesdlectriques" (Paris, 1749); " L'art des experi- ences" (Paris, 1770).

Grandjean de Foucht, Eloge de J.-A. Nollet; Histoire de V Academie Royale des Sciences (Paris, 1773). 121-36.

William Fox.

Nominalism, Realism, Conceptualism. — These terms are used to designate the theories that have been proposed as solutions of one of the most impor- tant questions in philosophy, often referred to as the problem of universals, which, while it was a favourite subject for discussion in ancient times, and especially in the Middle Ages, is still prominent in modern and contemporary philosophy. We propose to discuss in this article: I. The Nature of the Problem and the Suggested Solutions; II. The Principal Historic Forms of Nominalism, Realism, and Conceptualism; III. The Claims of Moderate Realism.

I. The Problem and the Suggested Solutions. — The problem of universals is the problem of the cor- respondence of our intellectual concepts to things ex- isting outside our intellect. Whereas external objects are determinate, individual, formally exclusive of all multiplicity, our concepts or mental representations offer us the realities independent of all particular de- termination; they are abstract and universal. The question, therefore, is to discover to what extent the concepts of the mind correspond to the things they represent; how the flower we conceive represents the flower existing in nature; in a word, whether our ideas are faithful and have an objective reality. Four solu- tions of the problem have been offered. It is neces- sary to describe them carefully, as writers do not always use the terms in the same sense.