the truth of the recital it contains. An English translation of the letters, edited by Francis A. MacNutt, was published in 1908. The
conquests of Cortes have been described with pompous elegance by
Antonio de Solis in his Historia de la conquista de Mejico (1684), and
with more truth and simplicity by Bernardo Diaz del Castillo in his
work under the same title (1632). See also Sir Arthur Helps’s Life
of Hernando Cortes (2 vols., London, 1871), F. A. MacNutt’s Fernando
Cortes (“Heroes of the Nations” Series, 1909), and the bibliography to Mexico.
CORTES, a Spanish term literally signifying the “courts,” and applied to the states, or assembly of the states, of the kingdom. (See Spain and Portugal.)
CORTI, LODOVICO, Count (1823–1888), Italian diplomatist, was born at Gambarano on the 28th of October 1823. Early involved with Benedetto Cairoli in anti-Austrian conspiracies, he was exiled to Turin, where he entered the Piedmontese foreign office. After serving as artillery officer through the campaign of 1848, he was in 1850 appointed secretary of legation in London, whence he was promoted minister to various capitals, and in
1875 ambassador to Constantinople. Called by Cairoli to the
direction of foreign affairs in 1878, he took part in the congress
of Berlin, but unwisely declined Lord Derby’s offer for an Anglo-Italian
agreement in defence of common interests. At Berlin
he sustained the cause of Greek independence, but in all other
respects remained isolated, and excited the wrath of his countrymen
by returning to Italy with “clean hands.” For a time he
withdrew from public life, but in 1881 was again sent to Constantinople
by Cairoli, where he presided over the futile conference
of ambassadors upon the Egyptian question. In 1886 he was
transferred to the London embassy, but was recalled by Crispi
in the following year through a misunderstanding. He died in Rome on the 9th of April 1888.
CORTLAND, a city and the county-seat of Cortland county,
New York, U.S.A., in the central part of the state, on Tioughnioga
river, at the junction of its E. and W. branches. Pop.
(1890) 8590; (1900) 9014, of whom 682 were foreign born;
(1905) 11,272;(1910) 11,504. It is served by the Delaware, Lackawanna
& Western and the Lehigh Valley railways. The Franklin
Hatch library and a state normal and training school (opened
in 1869) are in Cortland. The city has important manufactories
of wire, and wire-cloth and netting (one of the largest in America),
cabs, carriages and waggons, iron and steel, wall-paper, dairy
supplies, corundum wheels, and clothing. The value of the city’s
factory products increased from $3,063,828 in 1900 to $4,574,191
in 1905 or 49.3%. The town of Cortlandville, which formed a
part of the Phelps and Gorham Purchase, was first settled in
1792, and until 1829 was a part of the town of Homer; from
which in the latter year it was separated, and made the county-seat.
In 1900 the village of Cortland in the town of Cortlandville was chartered as a city.
See H. C. Goodwin, Cortland County and the Border Wars of New York (New York, 1859).
CORTONA, a town and episcopal see of Italy, in the province
of Arezzo, 18 m. S. by E. from the town of Arezzo by rail. The
ancient and modern names are identical. Pop. (1901) of town,
3579; commune, 29,296. The highest point of Cortona, a
medieval castle (Fortezza), is situated 2130 ft. above sea-level
on a hill commanding a splendid view, and is approached by a
winding road. It is surrounded by its ancient Etruscan walls,
which for the greater part of the circuit are fairly well preserved.
They are constructed of parallelepipedal blocks of limestone,
finely jointed (though the jointing has often been spoilt by
weathering), and arranged in regular courses which vary in
size in different parts of the enceinte. Near the N.W. angle
some of the blocks are 7 to 8½ ft. long and 2½ ft. high, while on
the W. side they are a good deal smaller—sometimes only 1 ft.
high (see F. Noack in Römische Mitteilungen, 1897, 184). Within
the town are two subterranean vaulted buildings in good masonry,
of uncertain nature, some other remains under modern buildings,
and a concrete ruin known as the “Bagni di Bacco.” The
museum of the Accademia Etrusca, a learned body founded by
Ridolfino Venuti in 1726, is situated in the Palazzo Pretorio;
it contains some Etruscan objects, among which may be specially
noted a magnificent bronze lamp with 16 lights, of remarkably
fine workmanship, found in 1740, at the foot of the hill, two
votive hands and a few other bronzes, and a little gold jewellery.
The library has a good MS. of Dante. The cathedral, originally
a Tuscan Romanesque building of the 11th-12th centuries, is
now a fine Renaissance basilica restored in the 18th century,
containing some paintings by Luca Signorelli, a native of the
place. Opposite is the baptistery, with three fine pictures by
Fra Angelico. S. Margherita, just below the Fortezza, is an
ugly modern building occupying the site of a Gothic church of
1294, and containing a fine original rose window and reliefs
from the tomb of the saint by Angelo e Francesco di maestro
Pietro d’Assisi. Other works by Signorelli are to be seen elsewhere
in the town, especially in S. Domenico; Pietro Berettini
(Pietro da Cortona, 1596–1669) is hardly represented here at all.
Below the town is the massive tomb chamber (originally subterranean,
but now lacking the mound of the earth which covered
it) known as the Grotta di Pitagora (grotto of Pythagoras). To
the E. is the church of S. Maria del Calcinaio, a fine early Renaissance
building by Francesco di Giorgio Martini of Siena,
with fine stained glass windows.
The foundation of Cortona belongs to the legendary period of Italy. It appears in history as one of the strongholds of the Etruscan power; but in Roman times it is hardly mentioned. Dionysius’s statement that it was a colony (i. 26) is probably due to confusion.
See G. Dennis, Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria (London, 1883), ii. 394 seq.; A. Della Cella, Cortona Antica (Cortona, 1900). (T. As.)
CORUMBÁ, a town and river port of Brazil on the W. bank
of the Paraguay river, 1986 m. above Buenos Aires and 486 m.
above the Paraguayan frontier. Pop. (1890) 8414. Corumbá
is a fortified military post, has the large Ladario naval arsenal,
where small river boats are built and repaired, and is the commercial
entrepôt of the state of Matto Grosso. It is near the
Bolivian frontier and is strongly garrisoned. Although the
climate is extremely hot, the neighbouring country has many
large cattle farms. Corumbá is one of the most important places
in the interior of Brazil.
CORUNDUM, a mineral composed of native alumina (Al2O3). remarkable for its hardness, and forming in its finer varieties
a valuable gem-stone. Specimens were sent from India to
England in the 18th century, and were described in 1798 by the
Hon. C. Greville under the name of corundum—a word which
he believed to be the native name of the stone (Hindi, kurund;
Tamil, kurundam; Sanskrit, kuruvinda, “ruby”). The finely
coloured, transparent varieties include such gem-stones as the
ruby and sapphire, whilst the impure granular and massive forms
are known as emery. The term corundum is often restricted to
the remaining kinds, i.e. those crystallized and crystalline
varieties which are not sufficiently transparent and brilliant
for ornamental purposes, and which were known to the older
mineralogists as “imperfect corundum.” Such varieties were
termed by J. Black, in consequence of their hardness,
adamantine spar, but this
name is now usually restricted
to a hair-brown
corundum, remarkable for a
pearly sheen on the basal
plane.
 | |
| Fig. 1. | Fig. 2. |
Corundum crystallizes in the hexagonal system. In fig. 1, which is a form of ruby, the prism a is combined with a hexagonal pyramid n, a rhombohedron R, and the basal pinacoid C. In fig. 2, which represents a typical crystal of sapphire, the prism s is associated with the acute pyramids b, r, and a rhombohedron a. Other crystals show a tabular habit, consisting usually of the basal pinacoid with a rhombohedron, and it is notable that this habit is said to be characteristic of corundum which has consolidated from a fused magma. Corundum has no true
