Isabella de Medici, with his own hand; but her father gave her in preference to Francesco Peretti, nephew of Cardinal Montalto. Peretti was assassinated (1581), and a few days afterwards Vittoria fled from the house of the Cardinal, where she had resided, to that of the Duke of Bracciano. The opposition of Pope Gregory XIII., who even went so far as to confine Vittoria to Fort St Angelo for nearly a year, did not prevent her marriage with the duke. On the accession of Montalto to the papal throne as Sixtus V. (1585), the duke thought it prudent to take refuge with his wife in the territory of the Venetian republic. After a few months residence at Salò, on the Lake of Garda, he died, bequeathing nearly the whole of his large fortune to his widow. This excited the anger of Ludovico Orsini, a relative, who caused Vittoria to be murdered in her residence at Padau (Dec. 22, 1585). The history of this beautiful and accomplished but unfortunate woman has been written by Adry (1800), and recently by Count Gnoli, and forms the basis of Webster's tragedy, The White Devil, and of Tieck's romance, Vittoria Accoramboni.
Accordion (from the French accord), a small musical instrument in the shape of a bellows, which produces sounds by the action of wind on metallic reeds of various sizes. It is played by being held in both hands and pulled back wards and forwards, the fingers being left free to touch the keys, which are ranged along each side. The instrument is akin to the concertina, but differs from it in having the chords fixed by a mechanical arrangement. It is manufactured chiefly in Paris.
Accorso (in Latin Accursius), Francis, an eminent lawyer, born at Florence about 1182. After practising for some time in his native city, he was appointed professor at Bologna, where he had great success as a teacher. He undertook the great work of arranging into one body the almost innumerable comments and remarks upon the Code, the Institutes, and Digests, the confused dispersion of which among the works of different writers caused much obscurity and contradiction. When he was employed in this work, it is said that, hearing of a similar one proposed and begun by Odofred, another lawyer of Bologna, he feigned indisposition, interrupted his public lectures, and shut himself up, till he had, with the utmost expedition, accomplished his design. His work has the vague title of the Great Gloss, and, though written in barbarous Latin, has more method than that of any preceding writer on the subject. The best edition of it is that of Godefroi, published at Lyons in 1589, in 6 vols. folio. Accursius was greatly extolled by the lawyers of his own and the immediately succeeding age, and he was even called the Idol of Jurisconsults, but those of later times formed a much lower estimate of his merits. There can be no doubt that he has disentangled with much skill the sense of many laws; but it is equally undeniable that his ignorance of history and antiquities has often led him into absurdities, and been the cause of many defects in his explanations and commentaries. He died at Bologna in 1260. His eldest son Francis, who filled the chair of law at Bologna with great reputation, was invited to Oxford by King Edward I., and in 1275 or 1276 read lectures on law in that university. In 1280 he returned to Bologna, where he died in 1293.
Accorso (or Accursius), Mariangelo, a learned and ingenious critic, was born at Aquila, in the kingdom of Naples, about 1490. 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 Diatribæ in Ausonium, Solinum, et Ovidium, printed at Rome, in folio, in 1524, is a singular monument of erudition and critical skill. He bestowed, it is said, unusual pains on Claudian, and made, from different manuscripts, above seven hundred corrections on the works of that poet. Unfortunately these criticisms were never published. He was the first editor of the Letters of Cassiodorus, with his Treatise on the Soul; 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 published in 1531 (republished, with his name, in 1574), entitled ''Osco, Volsco, Romanaque Eloquentia Interlocutoribus, Dialogus Ludis Romanis actus. Accorso was accused of plagiarism in his notes on Ausonius; and the determined manner in which he repelled, by a most solemn oath, this charge of literary theft, presents us with a singular instance of anxiety and care to preserve a literary reputation unstained.
Account, a Stock Exchange term: e.g., "To Buy or Sell for the Account," &c. The word has different, though kindred, significations, all derived from the making up and settling of accounts on particular days, in which stricter sense the word "Settlement" is more specially used.
The financial importance of the Account may be gathered from the Clearing House returns. Confining ourselves to the six years, from the 30th of April 1867 to the 30th of April 1873, we have the following figures, furnished by the Clearing House to Sir John Lubbock, and communicated by him to the Times:—
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During the year ending April 30, 1873, the total amount of bills, checks, &c., paid at the Clearing House showed an increase of £643,613,000 during the same period ending April 1872, and of £2,745,924,000 over 1868. The amounts passing through on the 4ths of the month amounted to £265,965,000, showing an increase of £36,336,000 over 1872. The payments on Stock Exchange Account Days formed, a sum of £1,032,474,600, being an increase of £90,028,000 over 1872. The payments on Consols Account Days for the same period amounted to £243,561,000, giving an increase of £9,718,000 over 1872.
In English and Indian Government Securities, the settlements are monthly, and for foreign, railway, and other securities, generally speaking, they are fortnightly. It follows therefore that in 1867-1868, an ordinary Stock Exchange Account Day involved payments, on Stock Exchange accounts only, averaging about £10,000,000 sterling, and in 1872-3 something like £25,000,000 sterling; and these sums again, enormous as they are, represent for the most part only the balance of much larger transactions. The London Account is, in fact, probably the greatest and most important periodical event in the financial world. The great European centres have their own Account Days and methods of settlement, but the amounts dealt in are very much less than on the London market. The leading cities in the United Kingdom have also their Stock Exchanges, but their practice follows more or less that of London, where the bulk of their business is transacted by means of post and telegraph.
The Account in Consols or other English Government Securities, or in the securities of the Government of India, or in Bank of England Stock, or other Stocks transferable at the Bank of England, extends over a month, the settlements being monthly, and in them the committee of the Stock Exchange does not take cognisance of any bargain for a future account, if it shall have been effected more
