FRITILLARY (Fritillaria: from Lat. fritillus, a chess-board, so called from the chequered markings on the petals), a genus of hardy bulbous plants of the natural order Liliaceae, containing about 50 species widely distributed in the northern hemisphere. The genus is represented in Britain by the fritillary or snake’s head, which occurs in moist meadows in the southern half of England, especially in Oxfordshire. A much larger plant is the crown imperial (F. imperialis), a native of western Asia and well known in gardens. This grows to a height of about 3 ft., the lower part of the stoutish stem being furnished with leaves, while near the top is developed a crown of large pendant flowers surmounted by a tuft of bright green leaves like those of the lower part of the stem, only smaller. The flowers are bell-shaped, yellow or red, and in some of the forms double. The plant grows freely in good garden soil, preferring a deep well-drained loam, and is all the better for a top-dressing of manure as it approaches the flowering stage. Strong clumps of five or six roots of one kind have a very fine effect. It is a very suitable subject for the back row in mixed flower borders, or for recesses in the front part of shrubbery borders. It flowers in April or early in May. There are a few named varieties, but the most generally grown are the single and double yellow, and the single and double red, the single red having also two variegated varieties, with the leaves striped respectively with white and yellow.
“Fritillary” is also the name of a kind of butterfly.
FRITZLAR, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hesse-Cassel, on the left bank of the Eder, 16 m. S.W. from Cassel, on the railway Wabern-Wildungen. Pop. (1905) 3448. It is a prettily situated old-fashioned place, with an Evangelical and two Roman Catholic churches, one of the latter, that of St Peter, a striking medieval edifice. As early as 732 Boniface, the apostle of Germany, established the church of St Peter and a small Benedictine monastery at Frideslar, “the quiet home” or “abode of peace.” Before long the school connected with the monastery became famous, and among its earlier scholars it numbered Sturm, abbot of Fulda, and Megingod, second bishop of Würzburg. When Boniface found himself unable to continue the supervision of the society himself, he entrusted the office to Wigbert of Glastonbury, who thus became the first abbot of Fritzlar. In 774 the little settlement was taken and burnt by the Saxons; but it evidently soon recovered from the blow. For a short time after 786 it was the seat of the bishopric of Buraburg, which had been founded by Boniface in 741. At the diet of Fritzlar in 919 Henry I. was elected German king. In the beginning of the 13th century the village received municipal rights; in 1232 it was captured and burned by the landgrave Conrad of Thuringia and his allies; in 1631 it was taken by William of Hesse; in 1760 it was successfully defended by General Luckner against the French; and in 1761 it was occupied by the French and unsuccessfully bombarded by the Allies. As a principality Fritzlar continued subject to the archbishopric of Mainz till 1802, when it was incorporated with Hesse. From 1807 to 1814 it belonged to the kingdom of Westphalia; and in 1866 passed with Hesse Cassel to Prussia.
FRIULI (in the local dialect, Furlanei), a district at the head of the Adriatic Sea, at present divided between Italy and Austria, the Italian portion being included in the province of Udine and the district of Portogruaro, and the Austrian comprising the province of Görz and Gradiska, and the so-called Idrian district. In the north and east Friuli includes portions of the Julian and Carnic Alps, while the south is an alluvial plain richly watered by the Isonzo, the Tagliamento, and many lesser streams which, although of small volume during the dry season, come down in enormous floods after rain or thaw. The inhabitants, known as Furlanians, are mainly Italians, but they speak a dialect of their own which contains Celtic elements. The area of the country is about 3300 sq. m.; it contains about 700,000 inhabitants.
Friuli derives its name from the Roman town of Forum Julii, or Forojulium, the modern Cividale, which is said by Paulus Diaconus to have been founded by Julius Caesar. In the 2nd century B.C. the district was subjugated by the Romans, and became part of Gallia Transpadana. During the Roman period, besides Forum Julii, its principal towns were Concordia, Aquileia and Vedinium. On the conquest of the country by the Lombards during the 6th century it was made one of their thirty-six duchies, the capital being Forum Julii or, as they called it, Civitas Austriae. It is needless to repeat the list of dukes of the Lombard line, from Gisulf (d. 611) to Hrothgaud, who fell a victim to his opposition to Charlemagne about 776; their names and exploits may be read in the Historia Langobardorum of Paulus Diaconus, and they were mainly occupied in struggles with the Avars and other barbarian peoples, and in resisting the pretensions of the Lombard kings. The discovery, however, of Gisulf’s grave at Cividale, in 1874, is an interesting proof of the historian’s authenticity. Charlemagne filled Hrothgaud’s place with one of his own followers, and the frontier position of Friuli gave the new line of counts, dukes or margraves (for they are variously designated) the opportunity of acquiring importance by exploits against the Bulgarians, Slovenians and other hostile peoples to the east. After the death of Charlemagne Friuli shared in general in the fortunes of northern Italy. In the 11th century the ducal rights over the greater part of Friuli were bestowed by the emperor Henry IV. on the patriarch of Aquileia; but towards the close of the 14th century the nobles called in the assistance of Venice, which, after defeating the archbishop, afforded a new illustration of Aesop’s well-known fable, by securing possession of the country for itself. The eastern part of Friuli was held by the counts of Görz till 1500, when on the failure of their line it was appropriated by the German king, Maximilian I., and remained in the possession of the house of Austria until the Napoleonic wars. By the peace of Campo Formio in 1797 the Venetian district also came to Austria, and on the formation of the Napoleonic kingdom of Italy in 1805 the department of Passariano was made to include the whole of Venetian and part of Austrian Friuli, and in 1809 the rest was added to the Illyrian provinces. The title of duke of Friuli was borne by Marshal Duroc. In 1815 the whole country was recovered by the emperor of Austria, who himself assumed the ducal title and coat of arms; and it was not till 1866 that the Venetian portion was again ceded to Italy by the peace of Prague. The capital of the country is Udine, and its arms are a crowned eagle on a field azure.
See Manzano, Annali del Friuli (Udine, 1858-1879); and Compendio di storia friulana (Udine, 1876); Antonini, Il Friuli orientale (Milan, 1865); von Zahn, Friaulische Studien (Vienna, 1878); Pirona, Vocabolario friulino (Venice, 1869); and L. Fracassetti, La Statistica etnografica del Friuli (Udine, 1903).
(T. As.)