82, he went on to paint more than 50 images of her. Line, rather than colour, dominates his work, and the flowing rhythms and easy poses of Roman Classical sculpture underlie the smooth patterns of his composi¬ tions.
Romulus and Remus Twins of Roman legend who were the legend¬ ary founders of Rome. They were the offspring of Mars and Rhea Silvia, a Vestal Virgin and princess in Alba Longa. As infants they were thrown into the Tiber River by their great-uncle Amulius, who feared they would lay claim to his title. Suckled by a she-wolf and raised by a shepherd, the twins later deposed Amulius, restored their grandfather Numitor to the throne, and founded a city on the site where they had been saved from the river. When Romulus built a city wall, Remus jumped over it and was killed by his brother. The city was named for Romulus, who ruled until his disappearance in a storm. Believing that he had become a deity, the Romans worshiped him as Quirinus.
Romulus and Remus with their wolf foster-mother, bronze sculpture; in the Museo Nuovo in the Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome
AUNARI/ART RESOURCE
Roncesvalles \ I r6n-thas-'bal- 1 yas\, Battle of or Battle of Ron- cevaux \rou-s3-'vo\ (August 15, 778) Basque attack on Charlemagne’s army at a pass in the Pyrenees in northern Spain. It occurred when Char¬ lemagne was returning to Aquitaine after a campaign against the Muslims in Spain, and his rear guard was ambushed and massacred by Basque sol¬ diers. The battle is treated in the 11th-century Chanson de Roland , in which the attackers are Moors and the rear guard is led by Charlemagne’s nephew Roland.
Rondane Vron-da-noN National Park Park, south-central Norway. Established as a national park in 1970, it covers an area of 221 sq mi (572 sq km) of mountainous terrain. The highest peak is Rondeslottet at 7,146 ft (2,178 m). Vegetation is sparse, and the few trees are mostly dwarf birch and conifers.
rondeau Vran-do,\ French \ro n -'do\ One of several formes fixes (fixed forms) in French lyric poetry and song of the 14th—15th century, later popular with many English poets. The rondeau has only two rhymes (allowing no repetition of rhyme words) and consists of 13 or 15 lines of 8 or 10 syllables divided into three stanzas. The beginning of the first line of the first stanza serves as the refrain of the second and third stanzas.
rondo Musical form characterized by the initial statement and periodic restatement of a melody alternately with contrasting material. It originated in the French Baroque harpsichord rondeau, where a refrain of 8 or 16 measures is played in alternation with a succession of couplets (episodes) so as to form a chainlike structure of variable length. Most rondos fall into either a five-part (abaca) or a seven-part ( abacaba ) form. The rondo was very popular in the late 18th and the early 19th centuries, frequently providing the form for the final movements of sonatas, quartets, sympho¬ nies, and concertos.
Rondon \ron-'don\, Candido (Mariano da Silva) (b. May 5,1865, Mimoso, near Cuiaba, Mato Grosso, Braz.—d. Jan. 19, 1958, Rio de Ja¬ neiro) Brazilian explorer and protector of Indians. As a young soldier, he was assigned to extend telegraph lines into the Brazilian backlands. In 1913-14 he and U.S. Pres. Theodore Roosevelt headed an expedition that explored a tributary of the Madeira River. In both these undertakings, Ron¬ don came into close contact with the Indians of the interior. Appalled at their mistreatment by developers and settlers, he helped create a govem-
Erwin Rommel, 1941.
ULLSTEIN BILDERDIENST, BERLIN
George Romney, "Self Portrait," oil painting, 1782; in the National Portrait Gallery, London
COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY,
LONDON
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
1640 I ronin ► Roosevelt
ment agency for their protection. The state of Rondonia, created in 1982 from the former Guapore territory, was named for him.
ronin \'ro-nin\ Japanese masterless samurai. Because samurai received their livelihood from their lord in return for service, a masterless samurai was essentially a vagabond unless he could enter the service of another lord. Ronin could be disruptive to society; at the beginning of the Tokugawa period (the early 17th century), ronin led unsuccessful revolts against the shogunate. The most famous ronin were the 47 whose actions were celebrated in the kabuki play Chiishingura. By avenging their lord’s death in defiance of a shogunal order forbidding the vendetta, the 47 ronin, who were subsequently forced to commit seppuku (ritual suicide), came to be seen as embodiments of the ideals of bushido, the warrior’s code.
Ronsard \ron-'sar\, Pierre de (b. Sept. 11, 1524, La Possonniere, near Couture, France—d. Dec. 27, 1585, Saint-Cosme, near Tours) French poet. Of a noble family, Ronsard turned to scholarship and literature after an illness left him partially deaf. He was the foremost poet of La Pleiade, a literary group that used Classical and Italian models to elevate the French language as a medium for literary expression. He was recognized in his lifetime as a prince of poets; among his diverse works were Odes (1550), inspired by Horace; Les Amours (1552); the unfinished La Fran- ciade (1572), in imitation of Virgil’s Aeneid, meant to be the national epic; and Sonnets pour Helene, now perhaps his most famous collection. He perfected and established the alexandrine as the classic form in French for scathing satire, elegiac tenderness, and tragic passion.
Rontgen Yrent-gan, 'ront-jonV, Wilhelm Conrad or Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen (b. March 27,
1845, Lennep, Prussia—d. Feb. 10,
1923, Munich, Ger.) German physi¬ cist. He taught at the Universities of Giessen (1879-88), Wurzburg (1888-1900), and Munich (1900- 20). In 1895 he discovered rays that did not exhibit properties such as reflection or refraction and mistak¬ enly thought they were unrelated to light. Because of their mysterious nature, he called them X-rays. He later produced the first X-ray photo¬ graphs, showing the interiors of metal objects and the bones in his wife’s hand. He also did important research in a wide variety of other fields. In 1901 he was awarded the first Nobel Prize for Physics.
roof Covering of the top of a build¬ ing. Roofs have been constructed in a wide variety of forms—flat,
pitched, vaulted, domed, or in combinations—as dictated by regional, technical, and aesthetic considerations. Thatched roofs, usually sloping, were the earliest type and are still used in rural Africa and elsewhere. Flat roofs have historically been used in arid climates where drainage of water off the roof is not important, as in the Middle East and the southwestern U.S. They came into more widespread use in the 19th century, when new waterproof roofing materials and the use of structural steel and concrete made them more practical. Sloping roofs come in many different variet¬ ies. The simplest is the lean-to (or shed) roof, which has only one slope. A roof with two slopes that form a triangle at each end is called a gable roof. A hipped (or hip) roof has sloping sides and ends meeting at inclined projecting angles called hips. The gambrel roof has two slopes on each of its two sides, the upper being less steep than the lower. The mansard roof has two slopes on all four sides, a shallower upper part and a steeper lower part. See also hammer-beam roof.
roof pendant Downward extension of the surrounding rock that pro¬ trudes into the upper surface of intrusive rocks. Most intrusions that con¬ tain roof pendants are relatively shallow; the roof pendants occur as isolated pieces of the surrounding rock within the intrusive mass. Because roof pendants are exposed by erosion of the overlying rock, their pres¬ ence indicates that the igneous body is being observed near its upper sur¬ face. Roof pendants can be studied to determine some of the conditions that existed at the time of intrusion, such as the temperature and compo¬ sition of the MAGMA.