NEVERS, a town of France, in the department of Nievre, and situated in E. Long. 3. 14. N. Lat. 46. 59. on the river Loire, which here receives the rivulet Nievre. It contained 12,150 inhabitants in 1805. It is a place of great antiquity, supposed to be Cesar's Noviodunum in Aedui, where he erected magazines for his armies. Francis I. made it a duchy and peerage in 1521, in favour of Francis of Cleves, to whom it came by marriage. It devolved afterwards to the house of Mantua, and then to the Palatine family, who in 1651 sold it to Cardinal Mazarine. The cardinal obtained a title of duke and peer for his nephew Philip Mancini, in whose family it continued till the late revolution. The town is fortified with walls, defended with many high towers and deep ditches, and is the seat of a bishopric, suffragan of Sens, as likewise of a bailiwick and chamber of accounts. There was a stone bridge on the Loire, which was carried away by the ice, and has been replaced by a wooden one. This town is famous for its manufacture of glass, earthen ware, cloth, and cutlery. In the centre of Nevers, on the summit of a hill, is built the palace of the ancient dukes. It appears to have been constructed in the sixteenth century, and exhibits a model of the beauty and delicacy of Gothic architecture. The apartments are hung with tapestry of 200 years old, which have an air of grotesque and rude magnificence.