In the course of the ith century this region came to be included under the general name of " Palestine," and was called Palcesdiia Tertia, or Salutaris. It became the diocese of a metropolitan, whose seat was at Petra, and who was afterwards placed under the patriarch of Jerusalem. With the Mohammedan conquest in the 7th century its commercial prosperity disappeared. Ly- ing between the three rival empires of Arabia, Egypt, and Syria, it lost its ancient independence ; the course of trade was diverted into new channels ; its great routes were abandoned ; and at length the entire country was quietly yielded up to the Bedouin of the surrounding wilderness, whose descendants still claim it as their do- main. During the 12th century it was partially occu- pied by the Crusaders, who gave it the name of A raUa Tertia, or Sijria Sobal. From that period it remained unvisited by Europeans, and had almost disappeared from their maps, until it was partially explored, first by Seetzen in 1807, and more fully by Burckhardt in 1812 ; and now the wonders of the Wady Musa are familiarly known to all. — Kitto. See Petua.
See Reland, Palmstma Illustr. p. 90 sq. ; Vincent, Commei-ce of the Ancients, ii, 272 sq. ; Ritter, Gesch. d. Petr. AraUem, in the "Trans, of the Berlin Acad." 1824 ; Forster, Mohammedanism Unveiled, and Geogra- phy of Arabia; Robinson, Sketches of Idumcea, in " Amer. Bib. Repos." 1833 ; and Bibl. Researches, vol. ii ; Cleas, in Pauly's Real-Encyklopddie, p. 377 sq. ; Quatre- mere, Memoire sur les Nabateens {Extrait du Nouveau Journal Asiatique), Paris, 1835 ; Schwarz, Palest, p. 215. See Nabath^eans.
Neba'joth (Gen. xxv, 13; xxviii, 9; xxxvi, 3). See Nebaiotii.
Nebal'lat (Heb. Neballat', ::^a3 ; Gesenius, hidden wickedness; YWr&t, firm soil ; Dietrich, pz-oyVrfjow; Sept. Na/3aXAar [but most copies omit]), a town (probably of Dan) occupied by the tribe of Benjamin (Neh. xi, 8-1). It is identified by Schwarz (Palest, p. 134) with the large village Beit-Nebala, five English miles north- east of Ramleh (Van de-Velde, Memoir, p. 336).
Ne'bat (Heb. Nebat', an: ; Gesenius, sight ; Fiirst, cultivation; Sept. No/3«r), the father of Jeroboam (q.v.), king of Israel, in connection with whom he is always mentioned as a descendant of Ephraim, living in Zere- da, a city of Manasseh (1 Kings xi, 26, etc. ; 2 Chron. ix, 29, etc.). B.C. cir. 1000. The Jewish tradition pre-
served in Jerome (Qucest. Hebr. in lib. Reg.) identifies him with Shimei of Gera, who was a Benjamite.
Nebbia, Cesare, a reputable Italian painter, whose works were mostly of a religious character, was born at Orvieto about 1530. He studied under Girola- mo Muziauo, whose style he adopted, and assisted him in the important works he executed for Gregor}^ XIII in the Vatican and the Capella Gregoriana. Assisted by Gio Guerra da INIodena, Nebbia superintended the works projected by Sixtus V, intrusting the completion of his designs to the younger painters. They were ex- tensively employed during the five years' reign of that pontiff in the chapel of S. Maria Maggiore, the library of the Vatican, the Scala Santa, and the Lateran and Quirinal palaces. Nebbia was much inferior to Muzi- ano in dignity and grandeur, but possessed a fertile in- vention and great facility of execution. Lanzi says there are some beautiful pictures by him finely colored, as the Epiphany, quite in jNIuziano's stj-le, in the church of S. Francesco at Viterbo. Among his principal works at Rome, Baglioni mentions the Coronation of the Vir- gin in S. Maria de' Monti, and tlie Resurrection \n S. Giacomo degli Spagnuoli. He died at Rome in 1614. See Spooner, Biog. Hist, of the Fine Arts, ii, 611.
Nebbia, Galeotto, an old Italian painter much devoted to sacred subjects, was a native of Castellaccio, near Alessandria, an(l fiourished at Genoa about 1480. In the church of S. Brigida in that city are two altar- pieces by him which are esteemed for their antiquity and originality. The first represents the Archangels, and the second St. Pantaleone and other Maiiyrs. Lanzi says they are remarkably well executed for the time : the figures represented on a gold groiuid, the draperies extremely rich, with stiff and regular foldings, not bor- rowed from any other school. The grade, or step, is ornamented with minute histories — somewhat crude, but displaying much diligence and care in finishing. See Spooner, Biog. Hist, of the Fine A lis, ii, Oil.
Nebentrost, George, a Bohemian Protestant di- vine, who was obliged to quit his native land during the Anti-Reformation movement at the close of the 16th century, was born at Annaberg in 1577. After having, by due preparation, fitted himself for the ministry, he preached for two years at Dobritzschei and Neschwitz ; was then exiled, and resided three years at Pressnitz and Annaberg; and was then again a minister of the Protestant doctrines at Johstadt, where he suffered much during the Thirty-years' War. He died in 1057, on the same day on which he had, fifty-eight years before, begun his clerical duties in Bohemia. See Pescheck, The Ref. and Anti-Ref. in Bohemia, ii, 405.
Ne'bo (Heb. Nebo', 133, prob. of Chaktean origin, see below, No. 1), the name of a heathen deity, and of three places in or around Palestine. In treating of them we appropriate whatever we find suitable to our purpose in the dictionaries of Kitto, Smith, and Fairbairn (s. v.).