ARPEGGIO (from Ital. arpeggiare, to play upon the harp), in music, the notes of a chord, played in rapid succession as on a harp, and not together.
ARPI (Gr. Ἀργόριππα), an ancient city of Apulia, 20 m. W. of the sea coast, and 5 m. N. of the modern Foggia. The legend attributes its foundation to Diomedes, and the figure of a horse, which appears on its coins, shows the importance of horse-breeding in early times in the district. Its territory extended to the sea, and Strabo says that from the extent of the city walls one could gather that it had once been one of the greatest cities of Italy. As a protection against the Samnites Arpi became an ally of Rome, and remained faithful until after the battle of Cannae, but Fabius captured it in 213 B.C., and it never recovered its former importance. It lay on a by-road from Luceria to Sipontum. No Roman inscriptions have, indeed, been found here, and remains of antiquity are scanty. Foggia is its medieval representative.
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ARPINO (anc. Arpinum), a town of Campania, Italy, in the province of Caserta, 1475 ft. above sea-level; 12 m. by rail N.W. of Roccasecca, a station on the railway from Naples to Rome. Pop. (1901) 10,607. Arpino occupies the lower part of the site of the ancient Volscian town of Arpinum, which was finally taken from the Samnites by the Romans in 305 B.C. It became a civitas sine suffragio, but received full privileges (civitas cum suffragio) in 188 B.C. with Formiae and Fundi; it was governed as a praefectura until the Social War, and then became a municipium. The ancient polygonal walls, which are still finely preserved, are among the best in Italy. They are built of blocks of pudding-stone, originally well jointed, but now much weathered. They stand free in places to a height of 11 ft., and are about 7 ft. wide at the top. A single line of wall, with medieval round towers at intervals, runs on the north side from the present town to Civitavecchia (2055 ft.), on the site of the ancient citadel. Here is the Porta dell’ Arco, a gate of the old wall, with an aperture 15 ft. high, formed by the gradual inclination of the two sides towards one another. Below Arpino, in the valley of the Liris, between the two arms of its tributary the Fibrenus, and ¾ m. north of Isola del Liri, lies the church of S. Domenico, which marks the site of the villa in which Cicero was born and frequently resided. Near it is an ancient bridge, of a road which crossed the Liris to Cereatae (modern Casamari). The painter Giuseppe Cesari (1560-1640), more often known as the Cavaliere d’ Arpino, was also born here.
See O.E. Schmidt, Arpinum, eine topographisch-historische Skizze (Meissen, 1900).
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ARQUÀ PETRARCA, a village of Venetia, Italy, in the province of Padua, 3 m. to the S.W. of Battaglia. Pop. (1901) 1573. It is chiefly famous as the place where Petrarch lived his last few years and died in 1374. His house still exists, and his tomb, a sarcophagus supported by four short columns of red marble, stands in front of the church. Near Arquà, on the banks of the small Lago della Costa, is the site of a prehistoric lake village, excavations in which have produced interesting results.