CENTO

cento, a town of emilia, italy, in the province of ferrara, 18 m. s.e. direct from the town of ferrara; 50 ft. above sea-level; it is reached by road (6 m. to the w.) from the station of s. pietro in casale, 15 m. s.w. by w. of ferrara, and also by a steam tramway (18 m. n.) from bologna to pieve di cento, on the opposite bank of the reno. pop. (1901) 4307 (town), 19,078 (commune). it is connected by a navigable canal with ferrara. it was the birthplace of the painter giovanni francesco barbieri (guercino). the communal picture-gallery and several churches contain works by him, but none of first-rate importance. a statue of him stands in front of the 16th century palazzo governativo. the town was surrounded by walls, the gates of which are preserved. the origin of the name is uncertain. cento (gr. _[greek: kentron]_, lat. _cento_, patchwork), a composition made up by collecting passages from various works. the byzantine greeks manufactured several out of the poems of homer, among which may be mentioned the life of christ by the famous empress eudoxia, and a version of the biblical history of eden and the fall. the romans of the later empire and the monks of the middle ages were fond of constructing poems out of the verse of virgil. such were the _cento nuptialis_ of ausonius, the sketch of biblical history which was compiled in the 4th century by proba falconia, wife of a roman proconsul, and the hymns in honour of st quirinus taken from virgil and horace by metellus, a monk of tegernsee, in the latter half of the 12th century. specimens may be found in the work of aldus manutius (venice, 1504; frankfort, 1541, 1544). in 1535 laelius capitulus produced from virgil an attack upon the dissolute lives of the monks; in 1536 there appeared at venice a _petrarca spirituale_; and in 1634 alexander ross (a scotsman, and one of the chaplains of charles i.) published a _virgilius evangelizans, seu historia domini nostri jesu christi virgilianis verbis et versibus descripta_.