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Through the middle of the ancient city flowed a stream called the Pedicus, which discharged itself near Famagusta : in the same year 1567, it was cut off therefrom, and its course diverted. But in our days it has no water, the little which it collects in the winter months being spread over the neigh-bouring country. Under the House of Lusignan Nicosia was the royal residence, and an Archiépiscopal see ; it contained many con-vents of monks and nuns, and as many as 300 churches of the Latin and Greek rites, many palaces and public buildings. Amongst its illustrious bishops was Triphyllius, about A.D. 328, of whom St Jerome wrote in his book De Viris illustribus, cap. xcii.: "Triphyllius, bishop of Ledra or Leucotheon in Cyprus, enjoyed great distinction in the reign of Constantius as the most eloquent man of his age. I have read his com-mentaries on the Song of Songs, and he is said to have composed many other works, of which none have come down to us." At the beginning of the Lusignan rule, about 1212, Nicosia was erected into a Latin Archbishopric, by Innocent III, at the prayer of Alice, wife of Hugues I, King of Cyprus. The Blessed Hugo, our Tuscan fellow countryman, was one of the Latin bishops of Nicosia. He founded in 1268, in Calci out-side Pisa, a convent of Regular Canons of St Augustine, who were thereafter called Nicosia Fathers, from the Metropolis of their founder ; a fuller account will be found in the Historia Clericorum Canonicorum of Gabriello Penolto, L. и. c. 20. Pope Alexander IV made the Archbishop a Legate ex officio, with the right of wearing the robes of a cardinal, except the hat. Pius IV about 1560 left the election of the Archbishop to the republic of Venice, the Venetians choosing four persons, one of whom was appointed by the Pope. In the fifteenth century the city, and a large part of the kingdom, fell into the hands of the Saracens, who carried off the King a prisoner to Egypt. His liberty and his crown were 4-0 Concerning the City of Nicosia, Capital [CH.

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