ABRUZZI, Duke of the, Prince Luigi Amadeo Giuseppe Maria Ferdinando Fran cesco, Italian admiral, mountaineer and Arctic explorer: b. Madrid, 29 Jan. 1873. He is the third son of the late Prince Amadeo, Duke of Aosta, and a first cousin of King Victor Em manuel III. His two elder brothers, the Duke of Aosta and the Count of Turin, are generals in the Italian army. He was educated at the naval school at Leghorn and rose in the service by his own merits and industry. Being of daring and adventurous disposition, he found an outlet for his energies first, in 1897, by , climbing Mount St. Elias, Alaska, the hi hest peak in the Rockies, 18,000 feet. On 12June 1899 he sailed from Christiania on Polare in command of a North Pole expedi tion. He sent one winter in Teplitz Bay, Rudolf Lan but on account of serious dam age to his ship he was compelled to return be fore he could accomplish his aims. He had intended to reach the Pole by a series of sledge expeditions, one of which, commanded by one of his officers, Captain Cagni, started on 11 March 1900 from the base, and on 25 April reached 86° 33' 49" N., beating Nansen's pre
vious record. They returned in September. The Duke himself was too severely frostbitten to travel the whole distance, yet the result of his expedition was to establish the outlines of the northern coasts of Franz-Josef Land and the non-existence of Petermann Land. In 1906 he conducted an expedition into Equa torial Africa where he succeeded in climbing the highest peak of Mount Ruwenzori, 16,600 feet high, never before, so far as is known, touched by human foot. Three years later he established another record by climbing Mount Austen, in India, to a height of over 24,000 feet. In the Tripolitainc war the Duke com manded a squadron operating in the Mediter ranean and Adriatic. In August 1914 he was appointed commander-in-chief of the Italian navy and when, in May 1915, his country en tered the European war, he co-operated with the Allied admirals in maintaining command of the southern waters. See WAR, EUROPEAN.