SAVANNAH (54), a city and port of the United States, capital of Chatham County, Georgia, on the Savannah River, 18 m. from its mouth; well equipped with parks, electric light, handsome churches, government buildings, &c., an important naval stores station and second cotton port of the U.S., and has foundries, rice, flour, cotton, and paper-mills, &c.

SAVE, a tributary of the Danube, rises in the Julian Alps and flows SE. across Southern Austria till it joins the Danube at Belgrade after a course of 556 m., of which 366 are navigable.

SAVIGNY, KARL VON, a German jurist, born in Frankfort-on-the-Main, of French parentage; wrote a treatise on the Right of Property, became professor of Roman Law at Berlin; his chief works were the “History of Roman Law in the Middle Ages” and the “History of Roman Law in Modern Times” (1779-1861).

SAVILLE, SIR HENRY, a learned scholar, born in Yorkshire; was tutor to Queen Elizabeth and provost of Eton, and founder of the Savilian professorships of Geometry and Astronomy at Oxford (1549-1642).

SAVONA (24), a seaport of Italy, on the Gulf of Genoa, in the Riviera, 26 m.  SW. of Genoa, in the midst of orange groves, &c.; handsomely laid out; has a 16th-century cathedral, castle, palace, picture gallery, &c.; exports pottery and has prosperous iron-works, glass-works, tanneries, &c.

SAVONAROLA, GIROLAMO, Italian reformer, born at Ferrara of a noble family; was in his youth of a studious ascetic turn, became at 24 a Dominican monk, was fired with a holy zeal for the purity of the Church, and issued forth from his privacy to denounce the vices that everywhere prevailed under her sanction, with threats of divine judgment on her head, so that the impressions his denunciations made were deep and wide-spread; the effect was especially marked in Florence, where for three years the reformer’s influence became supreme, till a combination of enemies headed by the Pope succeeded in subverting it to his ejection from the Church, his imprisonment, and final execution, preceded by that of his confederates Fra Domenico and Fra Silvestro; it was as a reformer of the morals of the Church and nowise of its dogmas that Savonarolo presented himself, while the effect of his efforts was limited pretty much to his own day and generation (1452-1498).

SAVOY, DUCHY OF (532), in the SE. of France, on the Italian frontier, comprises the two departments of Haute-Savoie and Savoie; previous to 1860 constituted a province of the kingdom of Sardinia; Lake of Geneva bounds it on the N. and the lofty Graian Alps flank it on the E., forming part of the Alpine highlands; it is charmingly picturesque, with mountain, forest, and river (numerous tributaries of the Rhone); has excellent grazing lands; grows the vine abundantly, besides the usual cereals; the people are industrious and thrifty, but for the most part poor.  Aix-les-Bains, Evian, and Challes are popular watering-places.  Chambery was the old capital.