BRENNER PASS, pass on the central Tyrolese Alps, 6853 ft. high, between Innsbruck and Botzen, crossed by a railway, which facilitates trade between Venice, Germany, and Austria.

BRENNUS, a Gallic chief, who, 300 B.C., after taking and pillaging Rome, invested the Capitol for so long that the Romans offered him a thousand pounds’ weight of gold to retire; as the gold was being weighed out he threw his sword and helmet into the opposite scale, adding Vae victis, “Woe to the conquered,” an insolence which so roused Camillus, that he turned his back and offered battle to him and to his army, and totally routed the whole host.

BRENTA, an Italian river; rises in the Tyrol, waters Bassano, and debouches near Venice.

BRENTANO, CLEMENS, poet of the romanticist school, born at Frankfort-on-the-Main, brother of Goethe’s Bettina von Arnim; was a roving genius (1778-1849).

BRENTFORD, market-town in Middlesex, on the Brent, 10 m.  W. of London, that figures in history and literature.

BRENZ, JOHANN, the reformer of Wuertemberg, and one of the authors of the Wuertemberg Confession, as well as a catechism extensively used (1499-1570).

BRESCIA (43), a city of Lombardy, on the Mella and Garza, 50 m.  E. of Milan; has two cathedrals, an art gallery and library, a Roman temple excavated in 1822, and now a classical museum; its manufactures are woollens, silks, leather, and wine.

BRESLAU (335), the capital of Silesia, second city in Prussia; an important commercial and manufacturing centre, and has a first-class fortress; is on the Oder, 150 m. by rail SE. of Frankfort; it stands in the centre of the Baltic, North Sea, and Danube trade, and has a large woollen industry and grain market; there are a cathedral, university, and library.

BRESSAY, one of the Shetland Isles, near Lerwick, with one of the best natural harbours in the world.

BREST (76), a strongly-fortified naval station in the extreme NW. of France; one of the chief naval stations in France, with a magnificent harbour, and one of the safest, first made a marine arsenal by Richelieu; has large shipbuilding yards and arsenal; its industries are chiefly related to naval equipment, with leather, waxcloth, and paper manufactures.

BRETON, JULES ADOLPHE, a French genre and landscape painter, born at Courrieres, in Pas-de-Calais, 1827.

BRETON DE LOS HERREROS, Spanish poet and dramatist; wrote comedies and satires in an easy, flowing style (1800-1873).

BRETEUIL, BARON DE, an ex-secretary of Louis XVI. (1733-1807).

BRETHREN OF THE COMMON LIFE, a Dutch branch of the “Friends of God,” founded at Deventer by Gerard Groote.

BRETSCHNEIDER, HENRY GOTTFRIED VON, a German satirical writer, born at Gera; led a bohemian life; served in the army; held political posts; composed, besides satirical writings, “Almanach der Heiligen auf das Jahr, 1788,” “Wallers Leben und Sitten,” and the comic epic, “Graf Esau” (1739-1810).