Josquin des Prez \zh6s-'ka n -de-'pra\ (b. c. 1445, Conde-sur-l’Escaut?, Burgundian Hainaut—d. Aug. 27,
1521, Conde-sur-l’Escaut) Northern French composer. Perhaps a student of Johannes Ockeghem, he spent his life working as a singer, moving from post to post in Italy, including the Milan Cathedral (1459-72) and the Papal Chapel (1486-94), before returning to Conde in 1504, where he would spend the rest of his life. Jos¬ quin was able to balance complexity of imitative counterpoint with an inexhaustible melodic gift. He left over 60 motets (including Absalon, fill mi), some 18 complete masses (including Missa Pange lingua), and many superb secular songs in the chordal “Italian” style (including “El grillo”). The first music printer, Ottaviano Petrucci, devoted an entire vol¬ ume to Josquin’s works, an honour accorded to no other composer. His posthumous reputation, as attested by Martin Luther and others, was the greatest of any composer up to his time, and his works were closely imi¬ tated throughout the 16th century.
Jotunheim \'yo-t 3 n-,ham\ Mountains Mountain range, south-central Norway. It is the highest range in Scandinavia and extends 80 mi (130 km); its tallest peaks are Glitter Mountain (8,045 ft [2,452 m]) and Galdhp Mountain (8,100 ft [2,470 m]). The mountains are mentioned in early Norse sagas, but they were not fully explored until the early 19th century.
Joule VjiilV James (Prescott) (b. Dec. 24, 1818, Salford, Lancash¬ ire, Eng.—d. Oct. 11, 1889, Sale, Cheshire) English physicist. After study¬ ing under John Dalton, in 1840 he described “Joule’s law,” which stated that the heat produced in a wire by an electric current is proportional to the product of the resistance of the wire and the square of the current. In 1843 he published his value for the amount of work required to produce a unit of heat, called the mechanical equivalent of heat, and established that heat is a form of energy. He established that the various forms of energy are basically the same and can be changed from one into another, a discovery that formed the basis of the law of conservation of energy, the first law of thermodynamics. In his honour, the value of the mechani¬ cal equivalent of heat is usually represented by the letter J, and a stan¬ dard unit of work is called the joule.
journalism Collection, preparation, and distribution of news and related commentary and feature materials through media such as pam¬ phlets, newsletters, newspapers, magazines, radio, film, television, and books. The term was originally applied to the reportage of current events in printed form, specifically newspapers, but in the late 20th century it came to include electronic media as well. It is sometimes used to refer to writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation. Colleges and universities con¬ fer degrees in journalism and sponsor research in related fields such as media studies and journalism ethics.
jousting Medieval Western European mock battle between two horse¬ men who charged at each other with leveled lances in an attempt to unseat the other. It probably originated in France in the 11th century, superseding the melee, in which mock battles were held between two bodies of armed horsemen, and it flourished in much of Europe in the 12th—15th century.
Josephine, detail of an oil painting by Francois Gerard; in the Musee National de Malmaison, Paris.
GIRAUDON/ART RESOURCE, NEW YORK
Josquin des Prez, drawing by Joris van der Straeten, 16th century.
THE BETTMANN ARCHIVE
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Jove ► Juarez I 1001
Though the lances were blunted, knights were often seriously wounded or killed. Tournaments were mounted only by royalty and nobility; ladies of the court would sponsor individual knights, for whom jousting became a ritual of courtly love. Characterized by striking panoply and pageantry, jousting tournaments represented the preeminent display of chivalry.
Jove See Jupiter
Joyce, James (Augustine Aloysius) (b. Feb. 2, 1882, Dublin, Ire.—d. Jan. 13, 1941, Zurich,
Switz.) Irish novelist. Educated at a Jesuit school (though he soon rejected Catholicism) and at Univer¬ sity College, Dublin, he decided early to become a writer. In 1902 he moved to Paris, which would become his principal home after years spent in Trieste and Zurich. His life was difficult, marked by financial troubles, chronic eye diseases that occasionally left him totally blind, censorship problems, and his daugh¬ ter Lucia’s mental illness. The remarkable story collection The Dubliners (1914) and the autobio¬ graphical novel Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), his early prose volumes, were powerful examples of his gift for storytelling and his great intelligence. With financial help from friends and sup¬ porters, including Ezra Pound, Sylvia Beach (1887-1962), and Harriet Shaw Weaver (1876-1961), he spent seven years writing Ulysses (1922), the controversial masterpiece (ini¬ tially banned in the U.S. and Britain) now widely regarded by many as the greatest English-language novel of the 20th century. It embodies a highly experimental use of language and exploration of such new liter¬ ary methods as interior monologue and stream-of-consciousness narrative. He spent 17 years on his final work, the extraordinary Finnegans Wake (1939), famous for its complex and demanding linguistic virtuosity.
Joyner, Florence Griffith See Florence Griffith Joyner
Joyner-Kersee, Jackie orig. Jacqueline Joyner (b. March 3, 1962, East St. Louis, Ill., U.S.) U.S. athlete. She won four consecutive National Junior Heptathlon championships and starred in basketball and track and field at UCLA. In 1986 she became the first heptathlon com¬ petitor ever to score 7,000 points. She broke that barrier six times, four times establishing a new world record. She won heptathlon gold medals at the 1988 and 1992 Olympics, becoming the first heptathlete ever to achieve consecutive Olympic wins. Her best events were the long jump (world record, 1987; Olympic gold medal, 1988), 100-m hurdles, 200-m run, and high jump. Many consider her to be the finest female athlete in history.
JPEG \'ja-,peg\ in full Joint Photographic Experts Group Stan¬ dard computer file format for storing graphic images in a compressed form for general use. JPEG images are compressed using a mathematical algo¬ rithm. A variety of encoding processes can be used, depending on whether the user’s goal is the highest quality of image (lossless) or smallest file size (lossy). The JPEG and GIF formats are the most commonly used graphics formats on the Internet for lossy and lossless data compression, respectively.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. U.S. financial services corporation. Formed in 2000 by the merger of investment bank J.P. Morgan and consumer bank Chase Manhattan Corp., the resulting firm ranked as one of the largest financial services companies in the U.S. The company increased its hold¬ ings by purchasing Bank One in 2004.
Juan Carlos I (b. Jan. 5, 1938, Rome, Italy) King of Spain from 1975. The grandson of Alfonso XIII, he lived in exile until 1947. After Francisco Franco abolished the republic and declared Spain a representative mon¬ archy, he prepared Juan Carlos for his future role, paying particular atten¬ tion to his military education. In 1969 Juan Carlos was designated prince; he acceded to the Spanish throne two days after Franco’s death. Although he had sworn loyalty to Franco’s National Movement, he proved to be