largest and most important island of the group, has an area of about 110 square miles, with a population of about 15,000. It is, for the most part, hilly or mountainous, with, however, valleys and plains of great beauty and fertility, producing a much esteemed malvasia wine. Wheat, cotton, beans, peas, and various kinds of fruits, are among its other vegetable products. On several of the mountains are craters of extinct volcanoes. There are also thermal springs in different parts of the island. Lipari, the chief town of the island, and the capital of the whole group, is situated on a steep declivity on the E. side of the island, in N. Lat. 38° 27' 56", E. Long. 14° 57' 50". It is a bishop's see, and the residence of a military governor, and has a commodious harbour with good anchorage. The town is irregularly built, with narrow and dirty streets. The principal public building is the cathedral. The castle, the greater part of which was built by Charles V., after Barbarossa had plundered the town, stands on a large volcanic mass, and incloses the cathedral and some other edifices. A large trade is carried on in the products of this and the other islands. Pop. 12,500.

The Lipari Islands were by the ancients termed Æolica Insulae, from their king, Æolus, who is said to have received from Jupiter power over the winds. They were also called Hephaestiades, or Vulcanæ insulae, as sacred to the god Vulcan, and Lipareenses, from Lipara, the principal of the group. Lipara is said to have been so called from Liparus, son of Auson, one of its kings who flourished before the time of Æolus. It was colonized about B.C. 550, by Dorians from Cnidus and Rhodes, who, as they increased in numbers, extended themselves to the adjoining islands of Didyme, Hiera, and Strongylo. The necessity of defending themselves against the Tyrrhenian pirates led to the establishing of a naval force, with which they themselves not unfrequently resorted to piracy. At the commencement of the first Punic War, in B.C. 264, this island was subject to the Carthaginians, and became an important naval station. Captured by C. Aurelius in B.C. 251, it continued ever after a part of the Roman empire.