NOVI, or (to distinguish it from Novi di Modena, Ac.) Novi Ligure, a city of Italy, in the province of Alessandria (Piedmont), at the foot of the Apennines and on the edge of a fertile plain, about 20 miles south of the river Po. It is of importance mainly as the meeting-place of the railways from Alessandria, Genoa, and Piacenza, and is one of the leading seats of the silk industry in Italy. The ruins of its ancient castle, its collegiate church, the Piazza del Duomo with its central marble fountain, and some of the picturesque old palaces of the Genoese nobility are the chief objects of interest, though the city also possesses its theatres, public library, antiquarian museum, literary academy, Ac. The population of the city was 9917 in 1881; that of the commune 11,445 in 1861, and 13,783 in 1881.

Novi begins to appear as Corte Nova in the 10th century, and in the Middle Ages it was a frequent object of dispute between Tortona, Milan, Pavia, and Genoa. In 1480 Nicolao Ghirardengo, a native of the town, set up his printing-press within its walls. In August 1799 was fought the great battle of Novi, in which the French under Joubert were defeated by the Russians under Suwaroff, and in November of the same year there was a lesser conflict, in which the French proved victorious over the Austrians.

NOVIBAZAR, Novipazar, or Yenipazar (i.e., New Market), on the Rashka, a tributary of the Ibar and subtributary of the Danube, is the chief town of a sanjak in the Turkish vilayet of Bosnia (formerly of Kossovo), which was occupied by Austria-Hungary in 1879 in accordance with the terms of the treaty of Berlin. Owing to the configuration of the country it is a point of great strategical importance, commanding the lines of communication between Bosnia and Rumelia, and between Servia and Montenegro. The site was formerly occupied by the old Servian town of Rassia mentioned by Byzantine writers in the 9th century. In the neighbourhood is the old church of St Peter and St Paul, the metropolitan church of the bishopric of Rassia, in which Stephen Nemanya passed from the Roman to the Greek Church in 1143. According to Dr Blau, the sanjak had a male population of 83,983 in 1871, that of the town is estimated at from 9000 to 12,000.