lletino di archaeologia cristiana_, November 1864, August
1865. See also _Authorities_, below.

CATAFALQUE (a word of unknown origin, occurring in various forms in many
European languages, meaning a funeral scaffold or temporary stage), a
movable structure of wood sometimes richly decorated, erected
temporarily at funeral ceremonies in a church to receive the coffin or
effigy of the deceased; also an open hearse or funeral car.

CATALANI, ANGELICA (1780-1849), Italian opera-singer, daughter of a
tradesman at Sinigaglia, was educated at the convent of Santa Lucia at
Gubbio, where her magnificent soprano voice, of extraordinary compass
and purity, soon became famous. In 1795 she made her debut on the stage
at Venice, and from that moment every impresario in Europe was anxious
to engage her. For nearly thirty years she sang at all the great houses,
receiving very large fees; her first appearance in London being at the
King's theatre in 1806. She remained in England, a prima donna without a
serious rival, for seven years. Then she was given the management of the
opera in Paris, but this resulted in financial failure, owing to the
incapacity and extravagance of her husband, Captain Valabregue, whom she
married in 1806. But her continental tours continued to be enormously
successful, until she retired in 1828. She settled at Florence in 1830,
where she founded a free singing school for girls; and her charity and
kindness were unbounded. She died of cholera in Paris on the 12th of
June 1849.

CATALEPSY (from Gr. [Greek: katalepsis], a seizure), a term applied to a
nervous affection characterized by the sudden suspension of sensation
and volition, accompanied with a peculiar rigidity of the whole or of
certain muscles of the body. The subjects of catalepsy are in most
instances females of highly nervous temperament. The exciting cause of
an attack is usually mental emotion operating either suddenly, as in the
case of a fright, or more gradually in the way of prolonged depression.
The symptoms presented vary in different cases, and even in the same
individual in different attacks. Sometimes the typical features of the
disease are exhibited in a state of complete insensibility, together
with a statue-like appearance of the body which will retain any attitude
it may be made to assume during the continuance of the attack. In this
condition the whole organic and vital functions appear to be reduced to
the low