CANITZ, FRIEDRICH RUDOLF LUDWIG, Freiherr Von (1654-1699), German poet and diplomatist, was born at Berlin on the 27th of November 1654. He attended the universities of Leiden and Leipzig, travelled in England, France, Italy and Holland, and on his return was appointed groom of the bedchamber (Kammerjunker) to the elector Frederick William of Brandenburg, whom he accompanied on his campaigns in Pomerania and Sweden. In 1680 he became councillor of legation, and he was employed on various embassies. In 1697 the elector Frederick III. made him a privy councillor, and the emperor Leopold I. created him a baron of the Empire. Having fallen ill on an embassy to the Hague, he obtained his discharge and died at Berlin in 1699. Canitz’s poems (Nebenstunden unterschiedener Gedichte), which did not appear until after his death (1700), are for the most part dry and stilted imitations of French and Latin models, but they formed a healthy contrast to the coarseness and bombast of the later Silesian poets.
A complete edition of Canitz’s poems was published by U. König in 1727; see also L. Fulda, Die Gegner der zweiten schlesischen Schule, ii. (1883).
CAÑIZARES, JOSÉ DE (1676-1750), Spanish dramatist, was born at Madrid on the 4th of July 1676, entered the army, and retired with the rank of captain in 1702 to act as censor of the Madrid theatres and steward to the duke of Osuna. In his fourteenth year Cañizares recast a play by Lope de Vega under the title of Las Cuentas del Gran Capitán, and he speedily became a fashionable playwright. His originality, however, is slight, and El Dómine Lucas, the only one of his pieces that is still read, is an adaptation from Lope de Vega. Cañizares produced a version of Racine’s Iphigénie shortly before 1716, and is to some extent responsible for the destruction of the old Spanish drama. He died on the 4th of September 1750, at Madrid.
CANNAE (mod. Canne), an ancient village of Apulia, near the river Aufidus, situated on a hill on the right bank, 6 m. S.W. from its mouth. It is celebrated for the disastrous defeat which the Romans received there from Hannibal in 216 b.c. (see [Punic Wars]). There is a considerable controversy as to whether the battle took place on the right or the left bank of the river. In later times the place became a municipium, and unimportant Roman remains still exist upon the hill known as Monte di Canne. In the middle ages it became a bishopric, but was destroyed in 1276.
See O. Schwab, Das Schlachtfeld von Canna (Munich, 1898), and authorities under [Punic Wars].
CANNANORE, or Kananore, a town of British India, in the Malabar district of Madras, on the coast, 58 m. N. from Calicut and 470 m. by rail from Madras. Pop. (1901) 27,811. Cannanore belonged to the Kalahasti or Cherakal rajas till the invasion of Malabar by Hyder Ali. In 1498 it was visited by Vasco da Gama; in 1501 a Portuguese factory was planted here by Cabral; in 1502 da Gama made a treaty with the raja, and in 1505 a fort was built. In 1656 the Dutch effected a settlement and built the present fort, which they sold to Ali Raja in 1771. In 1783 Cannanore was captured by the British, and the reigning princess became tributary to the East India Company. Here is the residence of the Moplah chief, known as the Ali Raja, who owns most of the Laccadive Islands. Cannanore was the military headquarters of the British on the west coast until 1887.