BELLINI, GENTILE, the son of Jacopo Bellini, was distinguished as a portrait-painter; decorated along with his brother the council-chamber of the ducal palace; his finest picture the “Preaching of St. Mark” (1421-1508).

BELLINI, GIOVANNI, brother of the preceding, produced a great many works; the subjects religious, all nobly treated; had Giorgione and Titian for pupils; among his best works, the “Circumcision,” “Feast of the Gods,” “Blood of the Redeemer”; did much to promote painting in oil (1426-1516).

BELLINI, JACOPO, a painter from Florence who settled in Venice, the father and founder of the family; d. 1470.

BELLINI, VINCENZO, a musical composer, born at Catania, Sicily; his works operas, more distinguished for their melody than their dramatic power; the best are “Il Pirati,” “La Somnambula,” “Norma,” and “Il Puritani” (1802-1835).

BELLMANN, the poet of Sweden, a man of true genius, called the “Anacreon of Sweden,” patronised by Gustavus Adolphus (1741-1795).

BELLO`NA, the goddess of fury in war among the Romans, related by the poets to Mars as sister, wife, or daughter; inspirer of the war-spirit, and represented as armed with a bloody scourge in one hand and a torch in the other.

BELLOT, JOSEPH RENE, a naval officer, born in Paris, distinguished in the expedition of 1845 to Madagascar, and one of those who went in quest of Sir John Franklin; drowned while crossing the ice (1826-1853).

BELLOY, a French poet, born at St. Flour; author of “Le Siege du Calais” and numerous other dramatic works (1727-1775).

BELON, PIERRE, a French naturalist, one of the founders of natural history, and one of the precursors of Cuvier; wrote in different departments of natural history, the chief, “Natural History of Birds”; murdered by robbers while gathering plants in the Bois de Boulogne (1518-1564).

BEL`PHEGOR, a Moabite divinity.

BELPHOEBE (i. e.  Beautiful Diana), a huntress in the “Faerie Queene,” the impersonation of Queen Elizabeth, conceived of, however, as a pure, high-spirited maiden, rather than a queen.

BELSHAM, THOMAS, a Unitarian divine, originally Calvinist, born at Bedford; successor to the celebrated Priestley at Hackney, London; wrote an elementary work on psychology (1750-1829).

BELSHAZZAR, the last Chaldean king of Babylon, slain, according to the Scripture account, at the capture of the city by Cyrus in 538 B.C.

BELT, GREAT and LITTLE, gateways of the Baltic:  the Great between Zealand and Fuenen, 15 m. broad; the Little, between Fuenen and Jutland, half as broad; both 70 m. long, the former of great depth.

BELT OF CALMS, the region in the Atlantic and Pacific, 4 deg. or 5 deg. latitude broad, where the trade-winds meet and neutralise each other, in which, however, torrents of rain and thunder-storms occur almost daily.

BELTANE, or BELTEIN, an ancient Celtic festival connected with the sun-worship, observed about the 1st of May and the 1st of November, during which fires were kindled on the tops of hills, and various ceremonies gone through.