See J. Beloch, Campanien (Breslau, 1890), 278 seq.; G. Feola, Rapporto sullo stato dei ruderi Augusto-Tiberiani—MS. inedito, publicato dal Dott. Ignazio Cerio (Naples, 1894); F. Furchheim, Bibliografia dell’ Isola di Capri e della provincia Sorrentina (Naples, 1899); C. Weichhardt, Das Schloss des Tiberius und andere Römerbauten auf Capri (Leipzig, 1900).
(T. As.)
CAPRICCIO, or Caprice (Ital. for a sudden motion or fancy), a musical term for a lively composition of an original and fantastic nature, not following a set musical form, although the first known, written for the harpsichord, partook of the nature of a fugue. The word is also used for pieces of a fanciful type, in the nature of transcriptions and variations.
CAPRICORNUS (“The Goat”), in astronomy, the tenth sign of the zodiac (q.v.), represented by the symbol
intended to denote the crooked horns of this animal. The word is derived from Lat. caper, a goat, and cornu, a horn. It is also a constellation of the southern hemisphere, mentioned by Eudoxus (4th century b.c.) and Aratus (3rd century b.c.); Ptolemy and Tycho Brahe catalogued 28 stars, Hevelius gave 29. It was represented by the ancients as a creature having the forepart a goat, and the hindpart a fish, or sometimes simply as a goat. An interesting member of this constellation is α-Capricorni, a pair of stars of 3rd and 4th magnitudes, each of which has a companion of the 9th magnitude.
CAPRIFOLIACEAE, a natural order of plants belonging to the sympetalous or higher division of Dicotyledons, that namely which is characterized by having the petals of the flower united. The plants are mainly shrubs and trees; British representatives are Sambucus (elder), Viburnum (guelder-rose and wayfaring tree), Lonicera (honeysuckle) (see fig.); Adoxa (moschatel), a small herb with a creeping stem and small yellowish-green flowers, is occasionally found on damp hedge-banks; Linnaea, a slender creeping evergreen with a thread-like stem and pink bell-shaped flower, a northern plant, occurs in fir-forests and plantations in the north of England and Scotland. The leaves are opposite, simple as in honeysuckle, or compound as in elder; they have usually no stipules. The flowers are regular as in Viburnum