Daddi \'dad-de\, Bernardo (b. c. 1290, Florence?—d. c. 1355, Flo¬ rence?) Italian painter. He became one of the leading painters in Florence after the death of his teacher, Giotto. He directed a busy workshop spe¬ cializing in small devotional panels and portable altarpieces. His works include a triptych for the Church of Ognissanti (1328) and the polyptych Crucifixion with Eight Saints (1348). His style, a fusion of Giotto’s seri¬ ousness and the lightness of Sienese art, featuring smiling Madonnas and abundant flowers and draperies, remained the dominant style of Floren¬ tine painting through the 14th century.
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daddy longlegs ► Dahshur I 505
daddy longlegs or harvestman Any of the 3,400 arachnid species constituting the order Opiliones.
Daddy longlegs differ from spiders in having extremely long, thin legs and a spherical or oval body that is not divided in two. The body is approxi¬ mately 0.05-1.0 in. (1-22 mm) long; the fragile legs may be 20 times the body length. Males are smaller than females. Adults have a pair of glands that secrete a foul-smelling fluid.
Daddy longlegs are very widely dis¬ tributed in temperate regions and in the tropics. The U.S. and Canada have about 150 species. They feed on insects, mites, spiders, carrion, and vegetable matter. See also crane fly.
dado \'da-do\ In Classical architecture, the plain portion of the pedestal of a column, between the base and the cornice (or cap). In later architec¬ ture, a dado is a wall’s paneled or decorated lower part, up to 2-3 ft (60-90 cm) above the floor and defined by a horizontal molding. Interior walls were so treated especially in the 16th-18th century. In carpentry, a dado is a rectangular groove cut across the grain of a wood member.
Dadra and Nagar Haveli \d9-'dra... l n9-gor-3- , ve-le\ Union territory (pop., 2001 prelim.: 220,451), western India. Located between Gujarat and Maharashtra states and consisting of the entities of Dadra and Nagar Havali, it has a total area of 190 sq mi (491 sq km); its capital is Silvassa. Forests cover part of the area; the rest is devoted to cultivation and graz¬ ing. Industrial development is limited. It came under Portuguese control in 1783-85. In 1954 indigenous freedom movements forced the Portu¬ guese out, and it became a union territory of India in 1961. The popula¬ tion is predominantly Hindu.
Daedalic sculpture or Daidalic sculpture \de-'da-lik\ Type of figurative sculpture attributed by later Greeks to the legendary Greek artist Daedalus (Daidalos), associated with Bronze Age Crete and early Archaic sculpture in Greece. Daedalic sculpture displays Eastern (“Orientalizing”) influences: wiglike hair, large eyes, and prominent nose; the female body is flatly geometric with a high waist and formless drapery. The style was used in figurines, on clay plaques, and in relief decoration on vases.
Daedalus Vde-do-bs, 'de-do-losN In Greek mythology, a brilliant archi¬ tect, sculptor, and inventor. He was credited with building for King Minos of Crete the Labyrinth in which the Minotaur was kept. When the king turned against Daedalus and imprisoned him, Daedalus secretly made wings for himself and his son Icarus, intending to escape to Sicily. Despite his father’s warnings, Icarus flew too close to the sun; the wax holding the feathers to his wings melted, and he fell into the sea and drowned.
daemon See demon
daffodil Bulb-forming flowering plant ( Narcissus pseudonarcissus), also called common daffodil or trumpet narcissus, native to northern Europe and widely cultivated there and in North America. It grows to about 16 in. (41 cm) and has five or six leaves about 12 in. (30 cm) long that grow from the bulb. The stem bears one large yellow trumpet-shaped blossom. The daffodil’s popularity has resulted in the production of many varieties differing from the yellow parent form mainly in colour.
Dafydd ap Llywelyn See David ap Llywelyn
Dagan \'da-,gan\ West Semitic god of crop fertility, father of Baal. He was the mythical inventor of the plow. He had an important temple at Ras Shamra and at sanctuaries in Palestine, where he was known as a god of the Philistines. At Ras Shamra he was second only to El, though Baal assumed his functions as vegetation god by c. 1500 bc.
Dagda Vdag-tho\ or Eochaid Ollathair Vo-ke-'o-lo-horV In Irish mythology, a leader of the mythical Tuatha De Danann and father of the three Brigits and of Maponos. His name means “good god,” referring to his many powers rather than to his moral character. The Dagda had an enormous appetite for food and sex and may have been associated with fertility. He possessed a cauldron that was never empty and a club that could kill men and restore them to life.
Dagobert Vdag-o-.borA I (b. 605—d. Jan. 19, 639, Saint-Denis, France) Last Frankish king of the Merovingian dynasty to rule a politically united realm. He became king of Austrasia in 623 and of the entire Frankish
realm in 629. Dagobert secured a treaty with the Byzantine emperor, defeated the Gascons and Bretons, and campaigned against the Slavs in the east. In 631 he sent an army to help the Visigothic usurper in Spain. He moved his capital from Austrasia to Paris, then made his son king of Austrasia in 634. Dagobert also revised Frankish law, patronized the arts, and founded the great abbey of Saint-Denis.
Daguerre \da-'ger\, Louis (-Jacques-Mande) (b. Nov. 18, 1787, Cormeilles, Fr.—d. July 10, 1851, Bry-sur-Mame) French inventor. Ini¬ tially a scene painter for the opera, in 1822 he opened the Diorama, an exhibition of views with effects induced by changes in lighting. In 1826 Nicephore Niepce learned of Daguerre’s experiments in obtaining perma¬ nent pictures by the action of sunlight, and the two became partners in the development of Niepce’s heliographic process until Niepce’s death in 1833. Continuing to experiment, Daguerre discovered that exposing an iodized silver plate in a camera would create a lasting image if the latent image on the plate was developed and fixed. In 1839 a description of his daguerreotype process was announced at the Academy of Sciences.
daguerreotype \d3-'ge-ro-,tIp\ First successful form of photography. It is named for Louis Daguerre, who invented the technique in collabora¬ tion with Nicephore Niepce. They found that if a copper plate coated with silver iodide was exposed to light in a camera, then fumed with mercury vapour, and fixed (made permanent) by a solution of common salt, a per¬ manent image would be formed. The first daguerreotype image was pro¬ duced in 1837, by which time Niepce had died, so the process was named for Daguerre. Many daguerreotypes, especially portraits, were made in the mid 19th century; the technique was gradually replaced by the wet collodion process, introduced in 1851.
Dahl \'dal\, Roald (b. Sept. 13, 1916, Llandaff, Wales—d. Nov. 23, 1990, Oxford, Eng.) British writer. A fighter pilot during World War II, he began his writing career when C.S. Forester encouraged him to write about his combat adventures; they were published by The Saturday Evening Post. The short-story collection Someone Like You (1953) was a best-seller; his later stories, many published in The New Yorker, often include bizarre or supernatural elements. His popular children’s books James and the Giant Peach (1961) and Charlie and the Chocolate Fac¬ tory (1964) were made into films.
dahlia \'dal-ya\ Any of the 12-20 species of tuberous-rooted herbaceous plants that make up the genus Dahlia, in the composite family, native to higher elevations of Mexico and Central America. The leaves of most are segmented and toothed or cut. About six species have been bred for cul¬ tivation as ornamental flowers. Wild species have both disk and ray flow¬ ers in the flowering heads, but many varieties of ornamentals, such as the common garden dahlia ( D. bipinnata), have shortened ray flowers. Dahlia flowers may be white, yellow, red, or purple.