LEBRIJA, or LEBRIXA  , a town of southern Spain, in the province of Seville, near the left bank of the Guadalquivir, and on the eastern edge of the marshes known as Las Marismas . Pop . (1900) 10,997 . Lebrija is 44 M . S. by W. of Seville, on the Seville-Cadiz railway . Its chief buildings are a ruined Moorish castle and the parish church, an imposing structure in a variety of styles—Moorish, Gothic, Romanesque—dating from the 14th century to the 16th, and containing some early specimens of the carving of Alonso Carlo (1601-1667) . There are manufactures of bricks, tiles and earthenware, for which clay is found in the neighbourhood; and some trade in grain, wine and oil . Lebrija is the Nabrissa or Nebrissa, surnamed Veneria, of the Romans; by Silius Italicus (iii . 393), who connects it with the worship of Dionysus, the name is derived from the Greek ve,6pts (a " fawn-skin," associated with Dionysiac ritual) . Nebrishah was a strong and populous place during the period of Moorish domination (from 711); it was taken by St Ferdinand in 1249, but again lost, and became finally subject to the Castilian crown only under Alphonso the Wise in 1264 . It was the birthplace of Elio Antonio de Lebrija or Nebrija (1444-1522), better known as Nebrissensis, one of the most important leaders in the revival of learning in Spain, the tutor of Queen Isabella, and a collaborator with Cardinal Jimenes in the preparation of the Cornplutensian Polyglot (see ALCALA DE HENARES) . LE BRUN, CHARLES (1619-169o), French painter, was born at Paris on the 24th of February 1619, and attracted the notice of Chancellor Seguier, who placed him at the age of eleven in the studio of Vouet .

At fifteen he received commissions from Cardinal

Richelieu, in the execution of which he displayed an ability which obtained the generous commendations of Poussin, in whose company Le Brun started for Rome in 1642 . In Rome he remained four years in the receipt of a pension due to the liberality of the chancellor . On his return to Paris Le Brun found numerous patrons, of whom Superintendent Fouquet was the most important . Employed at Vaux le Vicomte, Le Brun ingratiated himself with Mazarin, then secretly pitting Colbert against Fouquet . Colbert also promptly recognized Le Brun's powers of organization, and attached him to his interests . Together they founded the Academy of Painting and Sculpture (1648), and the Academy of France at Rome (1666), and gave a new development to the industrial arts . In 166o they established the Gobelins, which at first was a great school for the manufacture, not of tapestries only, but of every class of furniture required in the royal palaces . Commanding the industrial arts through the Gobelins—of which he was director—and the whole artist world through the Academy—in which he successively held every post—Le Brun imprinted his own character on all that was produced in France during his lifetime, and gave a direction to the national tendencies which endured after his death . The nature of his emphatic and pompous talent was in harmony with the taste of the king, who, full of admiration at the decorations designed by Le Brun for his triumphal entry into Paris (166o), commissioned him to execute a series of subjects from the history of Alexander . The first of these, " Alexander and the Family of Darius," so delighted Louis XIV. that he at once ennobled Le Brun (December, 1662), who was also created first painter to his majesty with a pension of 12,000 livres, the same amount as he had yearly received in the service of the magnificent Fouquet . From this date all that was done in the royal palaces was directed by Le Brun . The works of the gallery of Apollo in the Louvre were interrupted in 1677 when he accompanied the king to Flanders (on his return from Lille he painted several compositions in the Chateau of St Germains), and finally—for they remained unfinished at his death—by the vast labours of Versailles, where he reserved for himself the Halls of War and Peace, the Ambassadors' Staircase, and the Great Gallery, other artists being forced to accept the position of his assistants .

At the death of Colbert,

Louvois, who succeeded him in the department of public works, showed no favour to Le Brun, and in spite of the king's continued support he felt a bitter change in his position . This contributed to the illness which on the 22nd of February 1690 ended in his death in the Gobelins . Besides his gigantic labours at Versailles and the Louvre, the number of his works for religious corporations and private patrons is enormous . He modelled and engraved with much facility, and, in spite of the heaviness and poverty of drawing and colour, his extraordinary activity and the vigour of his conceptions justify his claim to fame . Nearly all his compositions have been reproduced by celebrated engravers .