FOGGIA, a town and episcopal see (since 1855) of Apulia, Italy, the capital of the province of Foggia, situated 243 ft. above sea-level, in the centre of the great Apulian plain, 201 m. by rail S.E. of Ancona and 123 m. N.E. by E. of Naples. Pop. (1901) town, 49,031; commune, 53,134. The name is probably derived from the pits or cellars (foveae) in which the inhabitants store their grain. The town is the medieval successor of the ancient Arpi, 3 m. to the N.; the Normans, after conquering the district from the Eastern empire, gave it its first importance. The date of the erection of the cathedral is probably about 1179; it retains some traces of Norman architecture, and the façade has a fine figured cornice by Bartolommeo da Foggia; the crypt has capitals of the 11th (?) century. The whole church was, however, much altered after the earthquake of 1731. A gateway of the palace of the emperor Frederick II. (1223, by Bartolommeo da Foggia) is also preserved. Here died his third wife, Isabella, daughter of King John of England. Charles of Anjou died here in 1284. After his son’s death, it was a prey to internal dissensions and finally came under Alphonso I. of Aragon, who converted the pastures of the Apulian plain into a royal domain in 1445, and made Foggia the place at which the tax on the sheep was to be paid and the wool to be sold. The other buildings of the town are modern. Foggia is a commercial centre of some importance for the produce of the surrounding country, and is also a considerable railway centre, being situated on the main line from Bologna to Brindisi, at the point where this is joined by the line from Benevento and Caserta. There are also branches to Rocchetta S. Antonio (and thence to either Avellino, Potenza, or Gioia del Colle), to Manfredonia, and to Lucera.
FÖHN (Ger., probably derived through Romansch favongn, favoign, from Lat. favonius), a warm dry wind blowing down the valleys of the Alps from high central regions, most frequently in winter. The Föhn wind often blows with great violence. It is caused by the indraft of air from the elevated region to areas of low barometric pressure in the neighbourhood, and the warmth and dryness are due to dynamical compression of the air as it descends to lower levels. Similar local winds occur in many parts of the world, as Greenland, and on the slopes of the Rocky Mountains. In the southern Alpine valleys the Föhn wind is often called sirocco, but its nature and cause are different from the true sirocco. The belief that the warm dry wind comes from the Sahara dies hard; and still finds expression in some textbooks.
For a full account of these winds see Hann, Lehrbuch der Meteorologie, p. 594.
FÖHR, a German island in the North Sea, belonging to the province of Schleswig-Holstein, and situated off its coast. Pop. 4500. It comprises an area of 32 sq. m., and is reached by a regular steamboat service from Husum and Dagebüll on the mainland to Wyk, the principal bathing resort on the E. coast of the island. The chief attraction of Wyk is the Sandwall, a promenade which is shaded by trees and skirts the beach. Föhr, the most fertile of the North Frisian islands, is principally marshland, and comparatively well wooded. There are numerous pleasantly-situated villages and hamlets scattered over it, of which the most frequented are Boldixum, Nieblum and Alkersum. The inhabitants are mainly engaged in the fishing industry, and are known as excellent sailors.
FOIL. 1. (Through O. Fr. from Lat. folium, a leaf, modern Fr. feuille), a leaf, and so used in heraldry and in plant names, such as the “trefoil” clover; and hence applied to anything resembling a leaf. In architecture, the word appears for the small leaf-like spaces formed by the cusps of tracery in windows or panels, and known, according to the number of such spaces, as “quatrefoil,” “cinquefoil,” &c. The word is also found in “counterfoil,” a leaf of a receipt or cheque book, containing memoranda or a duplicate of the receipt or draft, kept by the receiver or drawer as a “counter” or check. “Foil” is particularly used of thin plates of metal, resembling a leaf, not in shape as much as in thinness. In thickness foil comes between “leaf” and “sheet” metal. In jewelry, a foil of silvered sheet copper, sometimes known as Dutch foil, is used as a backing for paste gems, or stones of inferior lustre or colour. This is coated with a mixture of isinglass and translucent colour, varying with the stones to be backed, or, if only brilliancy is required, left uncoloured, but highly polished. From this use of “foil,” the word comes to mean, in a figurative sense, something which by contrast, or by its own brightness, serves to heighten the attractive qualities of something else placed in juxtaposition. The commonest “foil” is that generally known as “tinfoil.” The ordinary commercial “tinfoil” usually consists chiefly of lead, and is used for the wrapping of chocolate or other sweetmeats, tobacco or cigarettes. A Japanese variegated foil gives the effect of “damaskeening.” A large number of thin plates of various metals, gold, silver, copper, together with alloys of different metals are soldered together in a particular order, a pattern is hammered into the soldered edges, and the whole is hammered or rolled into a single thin plate, the pattern then appearing in the order in which the various metals were placed.
2. (From an O. Fr. fuler or foler, modern fouler, to tread or trample, to “full” cloth, Lat. fullo, a fuller), an old hunting term, used of the running back of an animal over its own tracks, to confuse the scent and baffle the hounds. It is also used in wrestling, of a “throw.” Thus comes the common use of the word, in a figurative sense, with reference to both these meanings, of baffling or defeating an adversary, or of parrying an attack.
3. As the name of the weapon used in fencing (see [Foil-Fencing]) the word is of doubtful origin. One suggestion, based on a supposed similar use of Fr. fleuret, literally a “little flower,” for the weapon, is that foil means a leaf, and must be referred in origin to Lat. folium. A second suggestion is that it means “blunted,” and is the same as (2). A third is that it is an adaptation of an expression “at foils,” i.e. “parrying.” Of these suggestions, according to the New English Dictionary, the first has nothing to support it, the second is not supported by any evidence that in sense (2) the word ever meant to blunt. The third has some support. Finally a suggestion is made that the word is an alteration of an old word “foin,” meaning a thrust with a pointed weapon. The origin of this word is probably an O. Fr. foisne, from the Lat. fuscina, a three-pronged fork.