from prudence or cunning, withholds part. “Economy” is used in both senses.
ACCOMMODATION BILL. An accommodation bill, as its name implies, is a bill of exchange accepted and sometimes endorsed without any receipt of value in order to afford temporary pecuniary aid to the person accommodated. (See Bill of Exchange.)
ACCOMPANIMENT (i.e. that which “accompanies”), a musical term for that part of a vocal or instrumental composition added to support and heighten the principal vocal or instrumental part; either by means of other vocal parts, single instruments or the orchestra. The accompaniment may be obbligato or ad libitum, according as it forms an essential part of the composition or not. The term obbligato or obbligato accompaniment is also used for an independent instrumental solo accompanying a vocal piece. Owing to the early custom of only writing the accompaniment in outline, by means of a “figured bass,” to be filled in by the performer, and to the changes in the number, quality and types of the instruments of the orchestra, “additional” accompaniments have been written for the works of the older masters; such are Mozart’s “additional” accompaniments to Handel’s Messiah or those to many of the elder Bach’s works by Robert Franz. In common parlance any support given, e.g. by the piano, to a voice or instrument is loosely called an accompaniment, which may be merely “vamped” by the introduction of a few chords, or may rise to the dignity of an artistic composition. In the history of song the evolution of the art side of an accompaniment is important, and in the higher forms the vocal and instrumental parts practically constitute a duet, in which the instrumental part may be at least as important as that of the voice.
ACCOMPLICE (from Fr. complice, conspirator, Lat. complex, a sharer, associate, complicare, to fold together; the ac- is possibly due to confusion with “accomplish,” to complete, Lat. complere, to fill up), in law, one who is associated with another or others in the commission of a crime, whether as principal or accessory. The term is chiefly important where one of those charged with a crime turns king’s evidence in the expectation of obtaining a pardon for himself. Accordingly, as his evidence is tainted with self-interest, it is a rule of practice to direct a jury to acquit, where the evidence of an accomplice is not corroborated by independent evidence both as to the circumstances of the offence and the participation of the accused in it. An accomplice who has turned king’s evidence usually receives a pardon, but has no legal right to exemption from punishment till he has actually received it.
ACCORAMBONI, VITTORIA (1557–1585), an Italian lady famous for her great beauty and accomplishments and for her tragic history. She was born in Rome of a family belonging to the minor noblesse of Gubbio, which migrated to Rome with a view to bettering their fortunes. After refusing several offers of marriage for Vittoria, her father betrothed her to Francesco Peretti (1573), a man of no position, but a nephew of Cardinal Montalto, who was regarded as likely to become pope. Vittoria was admired and worshipped by all the cleverest and most brilliant men in Rome, and being luxurious and extravagant although poor, she and her husband were soon plunged in debt. Among her most fervent admirers was P. G. Orsini, duke of Bracciano, one of the most powerful men in Rome, and her brother Marcello, wishing to see her the duke’s wife, had Peretti murdered (1581). The duke himself was suspected of complicity, inasmuch as he was believed to have murdered his first wife, Isabella de’ Medici. Now that Vittoria was free he made her an offer of marriage, which she willingly accepted, and they were married shortly after. But her good fortune aroused much jealousy, and attempts were made to annul the marriage; she was even imprisoned, and only liberated through the interference of Cardinal Carlo Borromeo. On the death of Gregory XIII., Cardinal Montalto, her first husband’s uncle, was elected in his place as Sixtus V. (1585); he vowed vengeance on the duke of Bracciano and Vittoria, who, warned in time, fled first to Venice and thence to Salò in Venetian territory. Here the duke died in November 1585, bequeathing all his personal property (the duchy of Bracciano he left to his son by his first wife) to his widow. Vittoria, overwhelmed with grief, went to live in retirement at Padua, where she was followed by Lodovico Orsini, a relation of her late husband and a servant of the Venetian republic, to arrange amicably for the division of the property. But a quarrel having arisen in this connexion Lodovico hired a band of bravos and had Vittoria assassinated (22nd of December 1585). He himself and nearly all his accomplices were afterwards put to death by order of the republic.
About Vittoria Accoramboni much has been written, and she has been greatly maligned by some biographers. Her story formed the basis of Webster’s drama, The Tragedy of Paolo Giordano Ursini (1612), and of Ludwig Tieck’s novel, Vittoria Accoramboni (1840); it is told more accurately in D. Gnoli’s volume, Vittoria Accoramboni (Florence, 1870), and an excellent sketch of her life is given in Countess E. Martinengo-Cesaresco’s Lombard Studies (London, 1902). (L. V. *)
ACCORD (from Fr. accorder, to agree), in law, an agreement between two parties, one of whom has a right of action against the other, to give and accept in substitution for such right any good legal consideration. Such an agreement when executed discharges the cause of action and is called Accord and Satisfaction.
ACCORDION (Fr. accordéon; Ger. Handharmonica,
Ziehharmonica), a small portable reed wind instrument with keyboard,
the smallest representative of the organ family, invented in
1829 by Damian, in Vienna.
The accordion consists of a bellows of many folds, to which is attached a keyboard with from 5 to 50 keys. The keys on being depressed, while the bellows are being worked, open valves admitting the wind to free reeds, consisting of narrow tongues of metal riveted some to the upper, some to the lower board of the bellows, having their free ends bent, some inwards, some outwards. Each key produces two notes, one from the inwardly bent reed when the bellows are compressed, the other from the outwardly bent reed by suction (as in the American organ; see Harmonium) when the bellows are expanded. The pitch of the note is determined by the length and thickness of the reeds, reduction of the length tending to sharpen the note, while reduction of the thickness lowers it. The right hand plays the melody on the keyboard, while the left works the bellows and manipulates the two or three bass harmony keys, which sound the simple chords of the tonic and dominant. The archetype of the accordion is the cheng (q.v.), or Chinese organ, between which and the harmonium it forms a connecting link structurally, although not invented for some thirty years after the harmonium. The timbre of the accordion is coarse and devoid of beauty, but in the hands of a skilful performer the best instruments are not entirely without artistic merit. Improvements in the construction of the accordion produced the concertina (q.v.), melodion and melophone.
See Adolf Mueller, Accordion-Schule oder vollständige Anleitung, das Accordion in kurzer Zeit richtig spielen zu erlernen (Wien, 1834). See also Free Reed Vibrator. (K. S.)
ACCORSO (Accursius), MARIANGELO (c. 1490–1544), Italian critic, was born at Aquila, in the kingdom of Naples. He was a great favourite with Charles V., at whose court he resided for thirty-three years, and by whom he was employed on various foreign missions. To a perfect knowledge of Greek and Latin he added an intimate acquaintance with several modern languages. In discovering and collating ancient manuscripts, for which his travels abroad gave him special opportunities, he displayed uncommon diligence. His work entitled Diatribae in Ausonium, Solinum et Ovidium (1524) is a monument of erudition and critical skill. He was the first editor of the Letters of Cassiodorus, with his Treatise on the Soul (1538); and his edition of Ammianus Marcellinus (1533) contains five books more than any former one. The affected use of antiquated terms, introduced by some of the Latin writers of that age, is humorously ridiculed by him, in a dialogue in which an Oscan, a Volscian and a Roman are introduced as interlocutors (1531). Accorso was accused of plagiarism in his notes on Ausonius, a charge which he most solemnly and energetically repudiated.
