or SPEYER, a city of Bavaria, in the province of the Rhine, the capital of a canton of the same name. It contains no less than fifteen Catholic and two Lutheran churches, though not more than 740 houses with 3900 inhabitants, having greatly declined from its former extent and celebrity. Here the reformers of Germany, in 1529, entered a protest against the proceedings of the Diet, and thus obtained the name of Protestants. Lat. 49. 18. 51. Long. 8. 31. 13. E. The bishopric, which was very rich, was secularized in 1795, when the French seized the country, and occupied it till the general peace in 1814.

in Architecture, was used by the ancients for the base of a column, and sometimes for the astragal or tore; but among the moderns it denotes a steeple that continually diminishes as it ascends, whether conically or pyramidally.