Monte Alban Vmon-ta-al-'banV Ridgetop site of the ruins of the ancient centre of Zapotec culture, located near Oaxaca, Mex. Construction at the site began around the 8th century bc. Monte Alban reached its height ad 250-700. The site contains great plazas, truncated pyramids, a tlachtli court for an ancient ballgame, underground passageways, and about 170 tombs, the most elaborate yet uncovered in the New World. The great plaza atop the highest hill is flanked by four platforms; two temples stand on the platform to the south. In its final phase, Monte Alban was inhab¬ ited by the Mixtec.
Monte-Carlo Resort (pop., 2000: 15,507), one of the four sections (quartiers) of Monaco. It is situated northeast of Nice on the French Riv¬ iera. In 1856 Charles III of Monaco granted a charter allowing a joint- stock company to build a casino, which opened in 1861. The district around it, called Monte-Carlo, became a luxurious playground for the world’s wealthy. The government took over the casino’s operating com¬ pany in 1967.
Monte Carlo method Statistical method of approximating the solu¬ tion of complex physical or mathematical systems. The method was adopted and improved by John von Neumann and Stanislaw Ulam for simulations of the atomic bomb during the Manhattan Project. Because the method is based on random chance, it was named after a gambling resort.
Monte Cassino Principal monastery of the Benedictine order, located in Latium, central Italy. It was founded c. 529 by St. Benedict of Nursia and reached its peak under Desiderius (later Pope Victor III), who was abbot 1058-87. Its buildings were destroyed by the Lombards (c. 581), the Arabs (883), an earthquake (1349), and World War II bombardment (1944), but were rebuilt each time. It was reconsecrated in 1964.
Montego \man-'te-go\ Bay Seaport (pop., 2000 est.: 89,859), north¬ western Jamaica, located northwest of Kingston. It lies on the site of a large Arawak village visited by Christopher Columbus in 1494. The Span¬ ish, ousted by the British after 150 years, destroyed most of the original buildings. One of Jamaica’s largest cities, it is a commercial centre and busy port. It is also a popular tourist resort noted for its white sandy beaches.
Montenegro \ l mon-ta-'na-gr6\ Constituent republic of Serbia and Mon¬ tenegro. Area: 5,333 sq mi (13,812 sq km). Population (2003): 620,145.
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The capital is Podgorica. The republic’s name (“Black Mountain”) refers to its ancient stronghold near the Adriatic Sea, Mount Lovcen, which rises to 5,738 ft (1,749 m). Montenegro’s landscape ranges from arid hills to forests and fertile valleys. The majority of its population are Montene¬ grins who follow the Eastern Orthodox Church; there are sizable Muslim and Albanian minorities. Under the Roman Empire the region was part of the province of Illyricum. Settled by Slavs in the 7th century, it was incorporated in the Serbian empire in the late 12th century. It retained its independence following the defeat of the Serbians by the Ottoman Empire in 1389 at the Battle of Kosovo. Often at war with the Ottomans and Albanians, it began an alliance with Russia early in the 18th century. In the Balkan Wars of 1912-13, it cooperated against the Ottoman Empire. It supported Serbia during and after World War I. It was then absorbed into Serbia; the union became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (from 1929, Yugoslavia). During World War II Montenegro was occupied by the Italians and was the scene of heavy fighting. In 1946 the federal constitution of the new Yugoslavia made Montenegro one of Yugo¬ slavia’s six nominally autonomous federated units. In 1992, one year after the breakup of Yugoslavia, Montenegro and Serbia combined as the new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In 2003, following agitation for indepen¬ dence in Montenegro, the Serbian, Montenegrin, and Yugoslav parlia¬ ments ratified a new constitutional agreement that maintained the federation; the accord renamed the country Serbia and Montenegro and gave Montenegro significant autonomy over its own affairs.
Monterrey City (pop., 2000: 1,110,997), capital of Nuevo Leon state, northern Mexico. It lies at an elevation of about 1,750 ft (530 m). It was founded in 1579, but its growth was slow until the late 19th century. In 1846 it was taken by U.S. Gen. Zachary Taylor in the Mexican War. In 1882 rail connections were established with Laredo, Texas, U.S., and in 1930 construction began on the Inter-American Highway, leading to the development of large-scale smelting and heavy-industry enterprises. It has several institutions of higher education.
Montesquieu V.man-tos-'kyuV, Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de (La Brede et de) (b. Jan. 18, 1689, Chateau La Brede, near Bordeaux, France—d. Feb. 10, 1755, Paris) French philosophe and satirist. Born into a noble family, he held public office in Bordeaux from 1714. His satirical Persian Letters (1721) was hugely successful. From 1726 he traveled widely to study social and political institutions. His magnum opus, the enormous The Spirit of the Laws (1750), contained an original classification of governments by their manner of conducting policy, an argument for the separation of the legislative, judicial, and executive powers, and a celebrated but less influential theory of the politi¬ cal influence of climate. The work profoundly influenced European and American political thought and was relied on by the framers of the U.S. Constitution. His other works include Causes of the Greatness and Deca¬ dence of the Romans (1734).
Montessori X.man-to-'sor-eV Maria (b. Aug. 31, 1870, Chiaravalle, near Ancona, Italy—d. May 6, 1952, Noordwijk aan Zee, Neth.) Italian educator. Montessori took a degree in medicine (1894) and worked in a clinic for retarded children before going on to teach at the University of Rome. In 1907 she opened her first children’s school, and for the next 40 years she traveled throughout Europe, India, and the U.S., lecturing, writ¬ ing, and setting up Montessori schools. Today there are hundreds of such schools in the U.S. and Canada alone; their principal focus is on preschool education, but some provide elementary education to grade 6. The Mont¬ essori system is based on belief in children’s creative potential, their drive to learn, and their right to be treated as individuals. It relies on the use of “didactic apparatuses” to cultivate hand-eye coordination, self- directedness, and sensitivity to premathematical and preliterary instruc¬ tion.
Monteverdi V.man-to-'ver-deV, Claudio (Giovanni Antonio)
(baptized May 15, 1567, Cremona, Duchy of Milan—d. Nov. 29, 1643, Venice) Italian composer. The first of his nine books of madrigals appeared in 1587, the second in 1590. He visited the court of the Gonza- gas in Mantua, and his next book (1592) shows freer use of dissonance and close coordination of music and words. He married in 1599 and settled in Mantua. Attacked in 1600 for the even freer dissonance in his newest works, he replied that music now had two “practices,” the stricter first practice for sacred works and the more expressive second practice for secular music. It was his first opera, Orfeo, performed in 1607, that finally established him as a composer of large-scale music rather than of exquis¬ ite miniature works. In 1610 he completed his great Vespers. Having long
tried to obtain his release from Mantua, he was finally granted it in 1612, and the next year he was put in charge of music at San Marco Basilica, Venice. After the first opera house opened in Venice (1637), he wrote his last three operas, including II ritorno d’Ulisse in patria (1640) and the remarkable Incoronazione di Poppea (1643). Monteverdi is the first great figure of Baroque music, a remarkable innovator who synthesized the ele¬ ments of the new style to create the first Baroque masterpieces of both sacred and secular music.