VESTAL VIRGINS.  See VESTA.

VESUVIUS, a flattened conical mountain, 4161 ft. in height, and an active volcano on the Bay of Naples, 10 m.  SE. of the city; it was by eruption of it that the two cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii were overwhelmed in 79 A.D.; its crater is half a mile in diameter, and has a depth of 350 ft.; there are some 60 eruptions on record, the latest being in 1891.

VETURIA, a Roman matron, the mother of Coriolanus.

VIA DOLOROSA, way leading from the Mount of Olives to Golgotha, which Christ traversed from the Agony in the Garden to the Cross.

VIATICUM, name given to the Eucharist administered by a priest to a person on the point of death.

VICAR OF BRAY.  See BRAY.

VICAR OF CHRIST, title assumed by the Pope, who claims to be the
Vicegerent of Christ on earth.

VICENZA (27), a town in the NE. of Italy, in a province of the name, bordering on the Tyrol, 42 m.  W. of Venice; has fine palaces designed by Palladio, a native of the place; manufactures woollen and silk fabrics, and wooden wares; was a place of some importance under the Lombards.

VICHY, a fashionable watering-place in Central France, on the Allier, at the foot of the volcanic mountains of Auvergne; has hot alkaline springs, much resorted to for their medicinal virtues.

VICKSBURG (13), largest city on the Mississippi, on a bluff above the river, fortified by the Confederates in the Civil War; after a siege of over a year surrendered to General Grant, 4th July 1864, with 30,000 men.

VICO, GIOVANNI BATTISTA, Italian philosopher, born at Naples, where he was for 40 years professor of rhetoric; his great work “Scienza Nuova,” by which he became the father of the philosophy of history, which he resolved Calvinistically into a spiritual development of the purpose of God (1668-1744).

VICTOR, CLAUDE PERRIN, marshal of France, served with distinction all through the wars of Napoleon, and held command, not to his honour, under the Bourbons after his fall (1764-1841).

VICTOR, ST., the name of two martyrs, one of Marseilles and one of Milan, distinguished for their zeal in overthrowing pagan altars.

VICTOR EMMANUEL II., king of Sardinia, and afterwards of united Italy, born in Turin, eldest son of Charles Albert; became king in 1849 on the abdication of his father; distinguished himself in the war against Austria, adding Austrian Lombardy and Tuscany to his dominions, and by the help of Garibaldi, Naples and Sicily, till in 1861 he was proclaimed King of Italy, and in 1870 he entered Rome as his capital city (1820-1878).