GROSSENHAIN, a town in the circle of Dresden, Saxony, is situated on the Röder, an affluent of the Elbe, 20 miles N. W. of Dresden. It has manufactures of woollen and cotton stuffs, buckskin, silk thread, and waxcloth. The principal buildings are the church of Our Lady completed in 1748, the real school of the second order, the new town-house completed in 1876, the infirmary, and the poorhouse. The population in 1875, including the garrison, was 10,686.

Grossenhain owes its origin to the Sorbs, and obtained the rank of a town in the 10th century. It was for a time possessed by the Bohemians, by whom it was strongly fortified. It afterwards came into the possession of the counts of Meissen, from whom it was taken in 1312 by the margraves Waldemar and John of Brandenburg. It suffered considerably in all the great German wars, and in 1744 was nearly destroyed by fire.

GROSSETESTE, Robert (c. 1175∙ 1253), in some respects the most distinguished of all the English mediaeval prelates as regards his personal influence both over the men of his time and on its literature, was born of humble parents at Stradbrook in Suffolk about the year 1175. All that is known of his early years is (from his own account) that he studied the characters of the best men in the Scriptures, and endeavoured to conform his actions to theirs. He was sent by his friends to Oxford, where he studied law and medicine, and seems to have finished his education at Paris, where he probably laid the foundation of his knowledge of Greek and Hebrew. His first patron was William de Vere, bishop of Hereford, to whom he was introduced by Giraldus Cambrensis, but who died in 1199, and thus had little opportunity of assisting the young scholar. From Paris he returned to Oxford, graduated in divinity, and became master of the schools (rector scolarunι) or chancellor. He also became the first rector of the Franciscans at Oxford. Here he probably wrote his commentaries on Aristotle, and laid the foundations of his fame as a preacher. His earliest preferment of which we can speak with certainty was the archdeaconry of Wilts, which he held in 1214 and 1220; he was archdeacon of Northampton in 1221, holding at the same time the prebend of Empingham, which belonged to the archdeaconry. This he exchanged for the archdeaconry of Leicester, which he probably held till 1232. In May 1225 he was collated by Hugh de Wells, bishop of Lincoln, to the church of Abbotsley, Hunts, and at one time he held the rectory of St Margaret’s, Leicester. In 1231 he probably wrote his treatise De Cessatione Legalium with the view of converting the Jews, for whose benefit the Domus conversorum was ...

GROSSETO, a town of Italy, at the head of the province of the sιrne name, is situated in the Maremma district, near the right bank of the Ombrone-Senese, with a station on the railway between Florence and Rome. It is well built and surrounded with solid walls about 2 miles in circuit, and among its public edifices is a spacious cathedral with a marble façade; but the principal interest of the place results from the great hydraulic labours by which the surrouuding swamp—the Lacus Prelius of Cicero— has gradually been drained and rendered capable of tillage. Drinking water, of which the town was formerly almost destitute, has been supplied by an artesian well of enormous depth, bored since 1833. About 3⅛ miles to the N.E. lie the sulphurous baths of Roselle (Aquoe Iiusel-larum), and about 2 miles further off are the ruins of the ancient Etruscan city of Rusellae, the walls of which are about 2 miles in circumference. Roselle continued to be inhabited till the close of the 13th century, but its unliealthi-ness gradually constrained the inhabitants to remove to Grosseto, which is first distinctly mentioned in 830 in a document of Louis I., and became a bishop’s see in 1138. For some time Grosseto was under the sway of the Aldobrandini family, and it was afterwards subject to the republic of Siena, which treated it badly. Francis I. furnished it with a fortress and walls, and Ferdinand I. made it a regular place of arms. At present the climate is so unhealthy in summer that the provincial authorities remove to Scansano. The population of Grosseto in 1871 was 3290 in the town proper, 4151 including the suburbs, and 6316 in the commune.

GROSSI, Tommaso (1791-1853), Lombard poet and novelist, was born at Bellano, on the Lake of Como, January 20, 1791. He took his degree in law at Pavia in 1810, and proceeded thence to Milan to exercise his profession; but the Austrian Government, suspecting the young barrister’s loyalty, interfered with his prospects, and thus it happened that Grossi was a simple notary all his life. That the suspicion was well grounded he soon showed by writing in the Milanese dialect the battle poem La Pmneide, in which he described with vivid colours the tragical death of Prina, chief treasurer during the empire, whom the people of Milan, instigated by Austrian agitators, had torn to pieces and dragged through the streets of the town (1814). The poem, being anonymous, was first attributed to the celebrated Porta, but Grossi of his own accord acknowledged himself the author. In 1816 he published other two poems, written likewise in Milanese —The Golden Kain (La Pioggia d’Oro) and The Fugitive (La Fuggitiva). These compositions secured him the friendship of Porta and Manzoni, and the three poets came to form a sort of romantic literary triumvirate. Grossi took advantage of the popularity of his Milanese poems to try Italian verse, into which he sought to introduce the moving realism which had given such satisfaction in his earliest compositions; and in this he was entirely successful with his poem lldegonda (1814). He next set about writing an epic poem, entitled The Lombards in the First Crusade, a work of which Manzoni makes honourable mention in his Betrothed. This composition, which was published by subscription (1826), attained a success that has not been equalled by that of any other Italian poem within the century. The example of Manzoni, who had meanwhile published The ...

GROSSWARDEIN (Hungarian, Hagy-Vdrad), a royal free city, and capital of the county of Bihar in the Trans-Tibiscan circle, Hungary, is situated in a beautiful plain on the banks of the river Sebeskörös, 47° 3' N. lat., 21° 53' E. long. It is the seat of a Roman Catholic and of a Greek (Old-United) bishopric, of a royal court of justice, of the county assizes, and of a board of assessment, and is the headquarters of the divisional regiments and militia (Jιonved). The town consists of Nagy-Vârad proper, with Vârad-Olaszi, Vârad-Velencze, and Vàrad-Vâralja. The streets and squares are well laid out, and adorned with many fine public and private buildings. Among these are sixteen Roman Catholic churches, of which the most striking is the cathedral; two Calvinist, one Lutheran, one Old-United and two Orthodox Greek churches, and a Jews’ synagogue. The other noteworthy edifices comprise the county and town halls, two episcopal palaces, chapter and clergy houses, hospitals, cloisters belonging to the Compassionate Brothers, and a convent for Ursula nuns, several manufactories, a large and handsome railway station, a prison, and barracks. Among the educational establishments are the royal law academy, a Roman Catholic gymnasium and seminary for the education of priests, a Calvinist school, and a gymnasium for adherents of the Old-United or Catholic Greek confession, two institutes for training teachers, a military academy, a real-school, and an orphan asylum. The inhabitants are chiefly employed in industrial and commercial pursuits; and the neighbourhood yields a good supply of wine, fruit, and agricultural produce. The great fairs periodically held in the town attract strangers from a considerable distance. Grosswardein is the point of junction of the ...