The city was founded in 1573 by Luis Geronimo de Cabrera and was for a long time distinguished for its learning and piety. It was the headquarters of the Jesuits in this part of South America for two centuries, and for a time the capital of the Spanish _intendencia_ of Tucuman. The expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767 proved to be a serious blow to the academic reputation of the city, from which it did not recover until 1870, when President Sarmiento engaged some eminent scientific men from Europe to teach modern science in the university.
CÓRDOBA, a town of the state of Vera Cruz, Mexico, 55 m. W.S.W. of the port of Vera Cruz, in a highly fertile valley, near the volcano of Orizaba, and 2880 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1895) 7974. The surrounding district produces sugar, tobacco and coffee, Córdoba being one of the principal coffee-producing centres of Mexico. It also manufactures cotton and woollen fabrics. The town is regularly laid out and built of stone, and contains several handsome edifices, chief of which is the old cathedral. Córdoba was a town of considerable importance in colonial times, but fell into decay after the revolution. The railway from Vera Cruz to Mexico, which passes through it, and the development of coffee production, have helped the city to recover a part of its lost trade.
CORDON (a French derivative of _corde_, cord), a word used in many applications of its meaning of "line" or "cord," and particularly of a cord of gold or silver lace worn in military and other uniforms. The word is especially used of the sash or ribbon worn by members of an order of knighthood, crossing from one shoulder to the opposite hip. The _cordon bleu_, the sky-blue ribbon of the knight's grand cross of the order of the Holy Spirit, the highest order of the Bourbon kings of France, was, like the "blue ribbon" of the English Garter, taken as a type of the highest reward or prize to which any one can attain (see also COOKERY). In heraldry, "cordons" are the ornamental cords which, with the hats to which they are attached, ensign the shields of arms of certain ecclesiastical dignitaries; they are interlaced to form a mesh or network and terminate in rows of tassels. A cardinal's cordon is _gules_ with five rows of fifteen tassels, an archbishop's _vert_ with four rows of ten, and a bishop's also _vert_, with three rows of six. In architecture a "cordon" is a projecting band of stone along the outside of a building, a string-course. The word is frequently used in a transferred sense of a line of posts or stations to guard an enclosed area from unauthorized passage, e.g. a military or police cordon, and especially a sanitary cordon, a line of posts to prevent communication from or with an area infected with disease.