1.
Book frontispiece
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A frontispiece in books generally refers to a decorative or informative illustration facing a books title page, being the verso opposite the recto title page. While some books depict thematic elements, other books feature the portrait as the frontispiece. In medieval illuminated manuscripts, a miniature showing the book or text being presented was often used as a frontispiece. The word comes from the French frontispice, or the late Latin frontispicium, from the Latin frons, in English, it was originally used as an architectural term, referring to the decorative facade of a building. By then, the English spelling had also morphed, by way of folk etymology, book design Prints & People, A Social History of Printed Pictures, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on book frontispieces
2.
Ole Worm
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Ole Worm, who often went by the Latinized form of his name Olaus Wormius, was a Danish physician and antiquary. Worm was the son of Willum Worm who served as the mayor of Aarhus, Ole Worms grandfather Johan Worm, a magistrate in Aarhus, was a Lutheran who had fled from Arnhem in Gelderland while it was under Catholic rule. Worm married Dorothea Fincke, the daughter of a friend and colleague, Fincke was a Danish mathematician and physicist, who invented the terms tangent and secant and who taught at the University of Copenhagen for more than 60 years. Ole Worm was something of a student, after attending the grammar school of Aarhus. He received his Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Basel in 1611, the rest of his academic career was spent in Copenhagen, where he taught Latin, Greek, physics, and medicine. He was personal physician to King Christian IV of Denmark, somewhat remarkable for a physician of the time, he remained in the city of Copenhagen to minister to the sick during an epidemic of the Black Death. In medicine, Worms chief contributions were in embryology, the Wormian bones are named after him. Worm is also known to have been a collector of early literature in the Scandinavian languages and he also wrote a number of treatises on runestones and collected texts that were written in runic. Worm received letters of introduction to the bishops of Denmark and Norway from the King of Denmark due to the Kings interest, in 1643 his Danicorum Monumentorum, Danish Monuments was published. The first written study of runestones, it is one of the only surviving sources for depictions of numerous runestones and inscriptions from Denmark. Worm compiled engravings of his collection, along with his speculations about their meaning, into a catalog of his Museum Wormianum, as a scientist, Worm straddled the line between modern and pre-modern. As an example, in a modern, empirical mode, Worm determined in 1638 that the unicorn did not exist. Worms primary use of his natural history collection was for the purpose of pedagogy, the early twentieth century horror author H. P. Lovecraft mentions Ole Worm as one of the translators of the fictional book Al Azif. Horror writer Anders Fager has elaborated this myth in several of his tales, a Runic calendar collected by Wormius in Gotland
3.
Narwhal
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The narwhal, or narwhale, is a medium-sized toothed whale that possesses a large tusk from a protruding canine tooth. It lives year-round in the Arctic waters around Greenland, Canada and it is one of two living species of whale in the Monodontidae family, along with the beluga whale. The narwhal males are distinguished by a long, straight, helical tusk, the narwhal was one of many species described by Carl Linnaeus in his publication Systema Naturae in 1758. Like the beluga, narwhals are medium-sized whales, for both sexes, excluding the males tusk, the total body size can range from 3.95 to 5.5 m, the males are slightly larger than the females. The average weight of an adult narwhal is 800 to 1,600 kg, at around 11 to 13 years old, the males become sexually mature, females become sexually mature at about 5 to 8 years old. Narwhals do not have a fin, and their neck vertebrae are jointed like those of other mammals, not fused as in dolphins. Found primarily in Canadian Arctic and Greenlandic and Russian waters, the narwhal is a uniquely specialized Arctic predator, in winter, it feeds on benthic prey, mostly flatfish, under dense pack ice. During the summer, narwhals mostly eat Arctic cod and Greenland halibut, each year, they migrate from bays into the ocean as summer comes. In the winter, the male narwhals occasionally dive up to 1,500 m in depth, with dives lasting up to 25 minutes, narwhals, like most toothed whales, communicate with clicks, whistles, and knocks. Narwhals can live up to 50 years and they are often killed by suffocation when the sea ice freezes over. Another cause of fatality, specifically among young whales, is starvation, the current population of the narwhal is about 75,000, so narwhals qualify for Near Threatened under the criterion of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Narwhals have been harvested for over a thousand years by Inuit people in northern Canada and Greenland for meat and ivory, the narwhal was one of the many species originally described by Linnaeus in his Systema Naturae. The scientific name, Monodon monoceros, is derived from the Greek, the narwhal is most closely related to the beluga whale. Together, these two species comprise the extant members of the family Monodontidae, sometimes referred to as the white whales. The Monodontidae are distinguished by size, forehead melons, short snouts. Although the narwhal and the beluga are classified as separate genera, with one each, there is some evidence that they may, very rarely. The complete skull of a whale was discovered in West Greenland circa 1990. The white whales, dolphins and porpoises together comprise the superfamily Delphinoidea, fossil evidence shows that ancient white whales lived in tropical waters
4.
Unicorn
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The unicorn is a legendary creature that has been described since antiquity as a beast with a single large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead. The Bible also describes an animal, the reem, which some versions translate as unicorn, in European folklore, the unicorn is often depicted as a white horse-like or goat-like animal with a long horn and cloven hooves. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, it was described as an extremely wild woodland creature, a symbol of purity and grace. In the encyclopedias its horn was said to have the power to render poisoned water potable, in medieval and Renaissance times, the tusk of the narwhal was sometimes sold as unicorn horn. The earliest description is from Ctesias, who in his book Indika described them as wild asses, fleet of foot, having a horn a cubit and a half in length, and colored white, red and black. Aristotle must be following Ctesias when he mentions two one-horned animals, the oryx and the so-called Indian ass, strabo says that in the Caucasus there were one-horned horses with stag-like heads. Cosmas Indicopleustes, a merchant of Alexandria who lived in the 6th century, made a voyage to India and he gives a description of a unicorn based on four brass figures in the palace of the King of Ethiopia. He states, from report, that it is impossible to take this ferocious beast alive, and that all its strength lies in its horn. When it finds itself pursued and in danger of capture, it throws itself from a precipice, and turns so aptly in falling, that it all the shock upon the horn. A one-horned animal is found on seals from the Indus Valley Civilization. Seals with such a design are thought to be a mark of social rank. Medieval knowledge of the fabulous beast stemmed from biblical and ancient sources, the predecessor of the medieval bestiary, compiled in Late Antiquity and known as Physiologus, popularized an elaborate allegory in which a unicorn, trapped by a maiden, stood for the Incarnation. As soon as the unicorn sees her, it lays its head on her lap and this became a basic emblematic tag that underlies medieval notions of the unicorn, justifying its appearance in every form of religious art. Interpretations of the myth focus on the medieval lore of beguiled lovers, whereas some religious writers interpret the unicorn. The myths refer to a beast with one horn that can only be tamed by a virgin, subsequently, with the rise of humanism, the unicorn also acquired more orthodox secular meanings, emblematic of chaste love and faithful marriage. The Throne Chair of Denmark is made of unicorn horns – almost certainly narwhal tusks, the same material was used for ceremonial cups because the unicorns horn continued to be believed to neutralize poison, following classical authors. The unicorn, tamable only by a woman, was well established in medieval lore by the time Marco Polo described them as scarcely smaller than elephants. They have the hair of a buffalo and feet like an elephants and they have a single large black horn in the middle of the forehead
5.
German language
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German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and it is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg. Major languages which are most similar to German include other members of the West Germanic language branch, such as Afrikaans, Dutch, English, Luxembourgish and it is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English. One of the languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide. The German speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of publication of new books. German derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, a portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. With slightly different standardized variants, German is a pluricentric language, like English, German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, when Martin Luther translated the Bible, he based his translation primarily on the standard bureaucratic language used in Saxony, also known as Meißner Deutsch. Copies of Luthers Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region that translated words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics initially rejected Luthers translation, and tried to create their own Catholic standard of the German language – the difference in relation to Protestant German was minimal. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a widely accepted standard was created, until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language, in urban northern Germany, the local Low German dialects were spoken. Standard German, which was different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Northern German pronunciation was considered the standard in prescriptive pronunciation guides though, however, German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire and its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Some cities, such as Prague and Budapest, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain, others, such as Pozsony, were originally settled during the Habsburg period, and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest and Bratislava as well as cities like Zagreb, the most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860, in 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a standardization of the German language in its written form
6.
Renaissance
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The Renaissance was a period in European history, from the 14th to the 17th century, regarded as the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages and modern history. It started as a movement in Italy in the Late Medieval period and later spread to the rest of Europe. This new thinking became manifest in art, architecture, politics, science, Early examples were the development of perspective in oil painting and the recycled knowledge of how to make concrete. Although the invention of movable type sped the dissemination of ideas from the later 15th century. In politics, the Renaissance contributed to the development of the customs and conventions of diplomacy, the Renaissance began in Florence, in the 14th century. Other major centres were northern Italian city-states such as Venice, Genoa, Milan, Bologna, the word Renaissance, literally meaning Rebirth in French, first appeared in English in the 1830s. The word also occurs in Jules Michelets 1855 work, Histoire de France, the word Renaissance has also been extended to other historical and cultural movements, such as the Carolingian Renaissance and the Renaissance of the 12th century. The Renaissance was a movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life in the early modern period. Renaissance scholars employed the humanist method in study, and searched for realism, however, a subtle shift took place in the way that intellectuals approached religion that was reflected in many other areas of cultural life. In addition, many Greek Christian works, including the Greek New Testament, were back from Byzantium to Western Europe. Political philosophers, most famously Niccolò Machiavelli, sought to describe life as it really was. Others see more competition between artists and polymaths such as Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, and Masaccio for artistic commissions as sparking the creativity of the Renaissance. Yet it remains much debated why the Renaissance began in Italy, accordingly, several theories have been put forward to explain its origins. During the Renaissance, money and art went hand in hand, Artists depended entirely on patrons while the patrons needed money to foster artistic talent. Wealth was brought to Italy in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries by expanding trade into Asia, silver mining in Tyrol increased the flow of money. Luxuries from the Eastern world, brought home during the Crusades, increased the prosperity of Genoa, unlike with Latin texts, which had been preserved and studied in Western Europe since late antiquity, the study of ancient Greek texts was very limited in medieval Western Europe. One of the greatest achievements of Renaissance scholars was to bring this entire class of Greek cultural works back into Western Europe for the first time since late antiquity, Arab logicians had inherited Greek ideas after they had invaded and conquered Egypt and the Levant. Their translations and commentaries on these ideas worked their way through the Arab West into Spain and Sicily and this work of translation from Islamic culture, though largely unplanned and disorganized, constituted one of the greatest transmissions of ideas in history
7.
Europe
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Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, yet the non-oceanic borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are arbitrary. Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres, or 2% of the Earths surface, politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a population of about 740 million as of 2015. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast, Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the period, marked the end of ancient history. Renaissance humanism, exploration, art, and science led to the modern era, from the Age of Discovery onwards, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to economic, cultural, and social change in Western Europe. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1955, the Council of Europe was formed following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill and it includes all states except for Belarus, Kazakhstan and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, the EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The European Anthem is Ode to Joy and states celebrate peace, in classical Greek mythology, Europa is the name of either a Phoenician princess or of a queen of Crete. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, wide, broad and ὤψ eye, broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. For the second part also the divine attributes of grey-eyed Athena or ox-eyed Hera. The same naming motive according to cartographic convention appears in Greek Ανατολή, Martin Litchfield West stated that phonologically, the match between Europas name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor. Next to these there is also a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning darkness. Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent, in some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa
8.
Natural history
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Natural history is the research and study of organisms including animals, fungi and plants in their environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. It encompasses scientific research but is not limited to it, with articles nowadays more often published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the sciences, natural history is the systematic study of any category of natural objects or organisms. That is a broad designation in a world filled with many narrowly focused disciplines. For example, geobiology has a strong multi-disciplinary nature combining scientists, a person who studies natural history is known as a naturalist or natural historian. The English term natural history is a translation of the Latin historia naturalis and its meaning has narrowed progressively with time, while the meaning of the related term nature has widened. In antiquity, it covered essentially anything connected with nature or which used materials drawn from nature. For example, Pliny the Elders encyclopedia of this title, published circa 77 to 79 AD, covers astronomy, geography, man and his technology, medicine and superstition as well as animals and plants. Medieval European academics considered knowledge to have two divisions, the humanities and divinity, with science studied largely through texts rather than observation or experiment. In modern terms, natural philosophy roughly corresponded to modern physics and chemistry, natural history had been encouraged by practical motives, such as Linnaeus aspiration to improve the economic condition of Sweden. Similarly, the Industrial Revolution prompted the development of geology to help find useful mineral deposits, the astronomer, William Herschel was also a natural historian. Instead of working with plants or minerals he worked with the stars and he spent his time building telescopes to see the stars and the rest of the time watching the stars. In the beginning, he believed there to be a known as a nebulae. Herschel can be considered a natural historian because he observed the natural world, in the process he made charts of all the stars and kept records of all that he saw. S. Wilcove and T. Eisner, The close observation of organisms—their origins, their evolution, their behavior and it encompasses changes in internal states insofar as they pertain to what organisms do. Some definitions go further, focusing on observation of organisms in their environment. Bartholomew, A student of history, or a naturalist, studies the world by observing plants. A common thread in many definitions of natural history is the inclusion of a component, as seen in a recent definition by H. W. Greene
9.
Geology
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Geology is an earth science concerned with the solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Geology can also refer generally to the study of the features of any terrestrial planet. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth by providing the evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life. Geology also plays a role in engineering and is a major academic discipline. The majority of data comes from research on solid Earth materials. These typically fall into one of two categories, rock and unconsolidated material, the majority of research in geology is associated with the study of rock, as rock provides the primary record of the majority of the geologic history of the Earth. There are three types of rock, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. The rock cycle is an important concept in geology which illustrates the relationships between three types of rock, and magma. When a rock crystallizes from melt, it is an igneous rock, the sedimentary rock can then be subsequently turned into a metamorphic rock due to heat and pressure and is then weathered, eroded, deposited, and lithified, ultimately becoming a sedimentary rock. Sedimentary rock may also be re-eroded and redeposited, and metamorphic rock may also undergo additional metamorphism, all three types of rocks may be re-melted, when this happens, a new magma is formed, from which an igneous rock may once again crystallize. Geologists also study unlithified material which typically comes from more recent deposits and these materials are superficial deposits which lie above the bedrock. Because of this, the study of material is often known as Quaternary geology. This includes the study of sediment and soils, including studies in geomorphology, sedimentology and this theory is supported by several types of observations, including seafloor spreading, and the global distribution of mountain terrain and seismicity. This coupling between rigid plates moving on the surface of the Earth and the mantle is called plate tectonics. The development of plate tectonics provided a basis for many observations of the solid Earth. Long linear regions of geologic features could be explained as plate boundaries, mid-ocean ridges, high regions on the seafloor where hydrothermal vents and volcanoes exist, were explained as divergent boundaries, where two plates move apart. Arcs of volcanoes and earthquakes were explained as convergent boundaries, where one plate subducts under another, transform boundaries, such as the San Andreas Fault system, resulted in widespread powerful earthquakes. Plate tectonics also provided a mechanism for Alfred Wegeners theory of continental drift and they also provided a driving force for crustal deformation, and a new setting for the observations of structural geology
10.
Ethnography
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Ethnography is the systematic study of people and cultures. It is designed to explore cultural phenomena where the researcher observes society from the point of view of the subject of the study, an ethnography is a means to represent graphically and in writing the culture of a group. The word can thus be said to have a double meaning, the resulting field study or a case report reflects the knowledge and the system of meanings in the lives of a cultural group. The typical ethnography is a study and so includes a brief history, and an analysis of the terrain, the climate. In all cases it should be reflexive, make a contribution toward the understanding of the social life of humans, have an aesthetic impact on the reader. An ethnography records all observed behavior and describes all symbol-meaning relations, the word ethnography is derived from the Greek ἔθνος, meaning a company, later a people, nation and -graphy meaning field of study. Ethnographic studies focus on large groups of people who interact over time. Ethnography is a design, where the researcher explains about shared learnt patterns of values, behaviour, beliefs. The field of anthropology originated from Europe and England designed in late 19th century and it spread its roots to the United States at the beginning of the 20th century. Some of the main contributors like EB Tylor from Britain and Lewis H Morgan, franz Boas, Bronislaw Malinowski, Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead, were a group of researchers from United States who contributed the idea of cultural relativism to the literature. He gives the point of the native and this became the origin of field work. Since Malinowski was very firm with his approach he applied it practically and he was interested in learning the language of the islanders and stayed there for a long time doing his field work. The field of ethnography became very popular in the late 19th century, again, in the latter part of the 19th century, the field of anthropology became a good support for scientific formation. Though the field was flourishing it had a lot of threat to encounter, post colonialism, the research climate shifted towards post-modernism and feminism. Therefore, the field of anthropology moved into discipline of social science, gerhard Friedrich Müller developed the concept of ethnography as a separate discipline whilst participating in the Second Kamchatka Expedition as a professor of history and geography. Whilst involved in the expedition, he differentiated Völker-Beschreibung as an area of study. This became known as ethnography, following the introduction of the Greek neologism ethnographia by Johann Friedrich Schöpperlin, there are different forms of ethnography, confessional ethnography, life history, feminist ethnography etc. Two popular forms of ethnography are realist ethnography and critical ethnography, realist ethnography, is a traditional approach used by cultural anthropologists
11.
Archaeology
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Archaeology, or archeology, is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities. In North America, archaeology is considered a sub-field of anthropology, archaeologists study human prehistory and history, from the development of the first stone tools at Lomekwi in East Africa 3.3 million years ago up until recent decades. Archaeology as a field is distinct from the discipline of palaeontology, Archaeology is particularly important for learning about prehistoric societies, for whom there may be no written records to study. Prehistory includes over 99% of the human past, from the Paleolithic until the advent of literacy in societies across the world, Archaeology has various goals, which range from understanding culture history to reconstructing past lifeways to documenting and explaining changes in human societies through time. The discipline involves surveying, excavation and eventually analysis of data collected to learn more about the past, in broad scope, archaeology relies on cross-disciplinary research. Archaeology developed out of antiquarianism in Europe during the 19th century, Archaeology has been used by nation-states to create particular visions of the past. Nonetheless, today, archaeologists face many problems, such as dealing with pseudoarchaeology, the looting of artifacts, a lack of public interest, the science of archaeology grew out of the older multi-disciplinary study known as antiquarianism. Antiquarians studied history with attention to ancient artifacts and manuscripts. Tentative steps towards the systematization of archaeology as a science took place during the Enlightenment era in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, in Europe, philosophical interest in the remains of Greco-Roman civilization and the rediscovery of classical culture began in the late Middle Age. Antiquarians, including John Leland and William Camden, conducted surveys of the English countryside, one of the first sites to undergo archaeological excavation was Stonehenge and other megalithic monuments in England. John Aubrey was a pioneer archaeologist who recorded numerous megalithic and other monuments in southern England. He was also ahead of his time in the analysis of his findings and he attempted to chart the chronological stylistic evolution of handwriting, medieval architecture, costume, and shield-shapes. Excavations were also carried out in the ancient towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum and these excavations began in 1748 in Pompeii, while in Herculaneum they began in 1738. The discovery of entire towns, complete with utensils and even human shapes, however, prior to the development of modern techniques, excavations tended to be haphazard, the importance of concepts such as stratification and context were overlooked. The father of archaeological excavation was William Cunnington and he undertook excavations in Wiltshire from around 1798, funded by Sir Richard Colt Hoare. Cunnington made meticulous recordings of neolithic and Bronze Age barrows, one of the major achievements of 19th century archaeology was the development of stratigraphy. The idea of overlapping strata tracing back to successive periods was borrowed from the new geological and paleontological work of scholars like William Smith, James Hutton, the application of stratigraphy to archaeology first took place with the excavations of prehistorical and Bronze Age sites
12.
Relic
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In religion, a relic usually consists of the physical remains of a saint or the personal effects of the saint or venerated person preserved for purposes of veneration as a tangible memorial. Relics are an important aspect of forms of Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Shamanism. Relic derives from the Latin reliquiae, meaning remains, and a form of the Latin verb relinquere, to leave behind, a reliquary is a shrine that houses one or more religious relics. In ancient Greece, a city or sanctuary might claim to possess, without necessarily displaying, the sanctuary of the Leucippides at Sparta claimed to display the egg of Leda. The bones were not regarded as holding a power derived from the hero, with some exceptions. Miracles and healing were not regularly attributed to them, rather, their presence was meant to serve a tutelary function, the bones of Orestes and Theseus were supposed to have been stolen or removed from their original resting place and reburied. Plutarch says that the Athenians were likewise instructed by the oracle to locate, the body of the legendary Eurystheus was also supposed to protect Athens from enemy attack, and in Thebes, that of the prophet Amphiaraus, whose cult was oracular and healing. As with the relics of Theseus, the bones are sometimes described in sources as gigantic. On the basis of their size, it has been conjectured that such bones were those of prehistoric creatures. The head of the poet-prophet Orpheus was supposed to have transported to Lesbos. The 2nd-century geographer Pausanias reported that the bones of Orpheus were kept in a stone vase displayed on a pillar near Dion, his place of death and these too were regarded as having oracular power, which might be accessed through dreaming in a ritual of incubation. The accidental exposure of the bones brought a disaster upon the town of Libretha, according to the Chronicon Paschale, the bones of the Persian Zoroaster were venerated, but the tradition of Zoroastrianism and its scriptures offer no support of this. In Hinduism, relics are less common than in other religions since the remains of most saints are cremated. The veneration of corporal relics may have originated with the movement or the appearance of Buddhism. In Buddhism, relics of the Buddha and various sages are venerated, after the Buddhas death, his remains were divided into eight portions. Afterward, these relics were enshrined in stupas wherever Buddhism was spread, some relics believed to be original remains of the body of the Buddha still survive, including the much-revered Sacred Relic of the tooth of the Buddha in Sri Lanka. A stupa is a building created specifically for the relics, many Buddhist temples have stupas and historically, the placement of relics in a stupa often became the initial structure around which the whole temple would be based. Today, many also hold the ashes or ringsel of prominent/respected Buddhists who were cremated
13.
Cabinet painting
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A cabinet painting is a small painting, typically no larger than about two feet in either dimension, but often much smaller. This room might be used as a study or office, or just a sitting room, heating the main rooms in large palaces or mansions in the winter was difficult, and small rooms were more comfortable. They also offered more privacy from servants or other members or visitors. Typically, such a room would be for the use of a single individual, names varied, cabinet, closet, study, office and others. Later such paintings might be housed in a case, which might also be called a cabinet. Other small precious objects, including paintings, curiosities of all sorts, old master prints, books, small sculptures and so on. There is a rare surviving cabinet with its contents probably little changed since the eighteenth century at Ham House in Richmond. It is less than ten feet square, and leads off from the Long Gallery, as is often the case, it has an excellent view of the front entrance to the house, so that comings and going can be observed. Most surviving large houses or palaces, especially from before 1700, have such rooms, the magnificent Mannerist Studiolo of Francesco I Medici in Florence is rather larger than most examples, and rather atypical in that most of the paintings were commissioned for the room. These were designed to be picked up and handled, even fondled, small antiquities were also very commonly displayed in such rooms, including coins. Small paintings have been produced at all periods of Western art, raphael produced many cabinet paintings, and all the paintings of the important German artist Adam Elsheimer could be so described. The works of two were much copied. The Dutch artists of the century had an enormous output of small paintings. The painters of the Leiden School were especially noted Fijnschilders – fine painters producing highly finished small works, watteau, Fragonard and other French 18th-century artists produced many small works, generally emphasizing spirit and atmosphere rather than a detailed finish. The term is not as common as it was in the 19th century, a cabinet miniature is a larger portrait miniature, usually full-length and typically up to about ten inches high. These were first painted in England, from the end of the 1580s, initially by Nicholas Hilliard, in 1991, an exhibition entitled Cabinet Painting toured London, Hove Museum and Art Gallery and Glynn Vivian Art Gallery and Museum, Swansea. It included more than sixty cabinet paintings by contemporary artists
14.
Antiquities
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Antiquities are objects from Antiquity, especially the civilizations of the Mediterranean, the Classical antiquity of Greece and Rome, Ancient Egypt and the other Ancient Near Eastern cultures. Artifacts from earlier periods such as the Mesolithic, and other civilizations from Asia, non-artistic artifacts are now less likely to be called antiquities than in earlier periods. Francis Bacon wrote in 1605, Antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have escaped the shipwreck of time. Bonhams use a similar definition.4000 B. C to the 12th Century A. D, geographically they originate from Egypt, the Near East and Europe. The term is no longer used in formal academic discussion. Most, but not all, antiquities have been recovered by archaeology, there is little or no overlap with antiques, which covers objects, not generally discovered as a result of archaeology, at most about three hundred years old, and usually far less. Precious cameos and other antique carved gems might be preserved when incorporated into crowns and diadems and liturgical objects, Roman columns could be re-erected in churches. Sarcophagi could receive new occupants and cinerary urns could function as holy water stoups, in Rome the Roman bronze Spinario was admired for itself by the guidebook writer Magister Gregorius. The Euphronios krater is an apparent example that has come to light, another example is the ambiguous legal case concerning the Getty Museums Bronze Statue of a Victorious Youth. The field has been complicated by the trade in Archaeological forgeries, such as the Etruscan terracotta warriors, the Persian Princess
15.
Macrocosm and microcosm
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Macrocosm and microcosm refers to a vision of cosmos where the part reflects the whole and vice versa. It is a present in all esoteric schools of thinking, according to scholar Pierre A. Riffard. It is closely associated with Hermeticism and underlies practices such as astrology, alchemy, §435, pg 151 Theories of Macrocosms and Microcosms in the History of Philosophy, G. P. Conger, NY,1922, which includes a survey of critical discussions up to 1922. Cosmos - an Illustrated Dimensional Journey from microcosmos to macrocosmos - from Digital Nature Agency
16.
Charles I of England
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Charles I was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles was the son of King James VI of Scotland, but after his father inherited the English throne in 1603, he moved to England. He became heir apparent to the English, Irish, and Scottish thrones on the death of his brother, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. Two years later, he married the Bourbon princess Henrietta Maria of France instead, after his succession, Charles quarrelled with the Parliament of England, which sought to curb his royal prerogative. Charles believed in the right of kings and thought he could govern according to his own conscience. Many of his subjects opposed his policies, in particular the levying of taxes without parliamentary consent and he supported high church ecclesiastics, such as Richard Montagu and William Laud, and failed to aid Protestant forces successfully during the Thirty Years War. From 1642, Charles fought the armies of the English and Scottish parliaments in the English Civil War, after his defeat in 1645, he surrendered to a Scottish force that eventually handed him over to the English Parliament. Charles refused to accept his captors demands for a constitutional monarchy, re-imprisoned on the Isle of Wight, Charles forged an alliance with Scotland, but by the end of 1648 Oliver Cromwells New Model Army had consolidated its control over England. Charles was tried, convicted, and executed for treason in January 1649. The monarchy was abolished and a called the Commonwealth of England was declared. The monarchy was restored to Charless son, Charles II, in 1660, the second son of King James VI of Scotland and Anne of Denmark, Charles was born in Dunfermline Palace, Fife, on 19 November 1600. James VI was the first cousin twice removed of Queen Elizabeth I of England, in mid-July 1604, Charles left Dunfermline for England where he was to spend most of the rest of his life. His speech development was slow, and he retained a stammer, or hesitant speech. In January 1605, Charles was created Duke of York, as is customary in the case of the English sovereigns second son, Thomas Murray, a Presbyterian Scot, was appointed as a tutor. Charles learnt the usual subjects of classics, languages, mathematics, in 1611, he was made a Knight of the Garter. Eventually, Charles apparently conquered his physical infirmity, which might have been caused by rickets and he became an adept horseman and marksman, and took up fencing. Even so, his public profile remained low in contrast to that of his stronger and taller elder brother, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. However, in early November 1612, Henry died at the age of 18 of what is suspected to have been typhoid, Charles, who turned 12 two weeks later, became heir apparent
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Science
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Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. The formal sciences are often excluded as they do not depend on empirical observations, disciplines which use science, like engineering and medicine, may also be considered to be applied sciences. However, during the Islamic Golden Age foundations for the method were laid by Ibn al-Haytham in his Book of Optics. In the 17th and 18th centuries, scientists increasingly sought to formulate knowledge in terms of physical laws, over the course of the 19th century, the word science became increasingly associated with the scientific method itself as a disciplined way to study the natural world. It was during this time that scientific disciplines such as biology, chemistry, Science in a broad sense existed before the modern era and in many historical civilizations. Modern science is distinct in its approach and successful in its results, Science in its original sense was a word for a type of knowledge rather than a specialized word for the pursuit of such knowledge. In particular, it was the type of knowledge which people can communicate to each other, for example, knowledge about the working of natural things was gathered long before recorded history and led to the development of complex abstract thought. This is shown by the construction of calendars, techniques for making poisonous plants edible. For this reason, it is claimed these men were the first philosophers in the strict sense and they were mainly speculators or theorists, particularly interested in astronomy. In contrast, trying to use knowledge of nature to imitate nature was seen by scientists as a more appropriate interest for lower class artisans. A clear-cut distinction between formal and empirical science was made by the pre-Socratic philosopher Parmenides, although his work Peri Physeos is a poem, it may be viewed as an epistemological essay on method in natural science. Parmenides ἐὸν may refer to a system or calculus which can describe nature more precisely than natural languages. Physis may be identical to ἐὸν and he criticized the older type of study of physics as too purely speculative and lacking in self-criticism. He was particularly concerned that some of the early physicists treated nature as if it could be assumed that it had no intelligent order, explaining things merely in terms of motion and matter. The study of things had been the realm of mythology and tradition, however. Aristotle later created a less controversial systematic programme of Socratic philosophy which was teleological and he rejected many of the conclusions of earlier scientists. For example, in his physics, the sun goes around the earth, each thing has a formal cause and final cause and a role in the rational cosmic order. Motion and change is described as the actualization of potentials already in things, while the Socratics insisted that philosophy should be used to consider the practical question of the best way to live for a human being, they did not argue for any other types of applied science
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Museum
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Most large museums are located in major cities throughout the world and more local ones exist in smaller cities, towns and even the countryside. Museums have varying aims, ranging from serving researchers and specialists to serving the general public, the goal of serving researchers is increasingly shifting to serving the general public. There are many types of museums, including art museums, natural history museums, science museums, war museums, the city with the largest number of museums is Mexico City with over 128 museums. According to The World Museum Community, there are more than 55,000 museums in 202 countries, the English museum comes from the Latin word, and is pluralized as museums. The first museum/library is considered to be the one of Plato in Athens, however, Pausanias gives another place called Museum, namely a small hill in Classical Athens opposite to the Akropolis. The hill was called Mouseion after Mousaious, a man who used to sing on the hill, the purpose of modern museums is to collect, preserve, interpret, and display items of artistic, cultural, or scientific significance for the education of the public. The purpose can also depend on ones point of view, to a family looking for entertainment on a Sunday afternoon, a trip to a local history museum or large city art museum could be a fun, and enlightening way to spend the day. To city leaders, a healthy museum community can be seen as a gauge of the health of a city. To a museum professional, a museum might be seen as a way to educate the public about the museums mission, Museums are, above all, storehouses of knowledge. In 1829, James Smithsons bequest, that would fund the Smithsonian Institution, stated he wanted to establish an institution for the increase, Museums of natural history in the late 19th century exemplified the Victorian desire for consumption and for order. Gathering all examples of classification of a field of knowledge for research. As American colleges grew in the 19th century, they developed their own natural history collections for the use of their students, while many large museums, such as the Smithsonian Institution, are still respected as research centers, research is no longer a main purpose of most museums. While there is a debate about the purposes of interpretation of a museums collection, there has been a consistent mission to protect. Much care, expertise, and expense is invested in efforts to retard decomposition in aging documents, artifacts, artworks. All museums display objects that are important to a culture, as historian Steven Conn writes, To see the thing itself, with ones own eyes and in a public place, surrounded by other people having some version of the same experience can be enchanting. Museum purposes vary from institution to institution, some favor education over conservation, or vice versa. For example, in the 1970s, the Canada Science and Technology Museum favored education over preservation of their objects and they displayed objects as well as their functions. One exhibit featured a printing press that a staff member used for visitors to create museum memorabilia
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Cabinet (room)
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A cabinet was a private room in the houses and palaces of early modern Europe, a room serving as a study or retreat, usually for a man. The cabinet would be furnished with books and works of art, and sited adjacent to his bedchamber, such a room might be used as a study or office, or just a sitting room. Heating the main rooms in palaces or mansions in the winter was difficult. They also offered more privacy from servants, other household members, typically such a room would be for the use of a single individual, so that a house might have at least two and often more. Names varied, cabinet, closet, study, office, and this was true for the elaborate Studiolo of Francesco I de Medici located in Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. Isabella dEste called her room with paintings commissioned from Andrea Mantegna, Perugino, a studiolo would often have a Latin motto painted or inlaid round the frieze. Heraldry and personal devices and emblems would remind the occupant of his station in life, series of portraits of exemplary figures were popular, whether the Nine Worthies or the classical philosophers, in imaginary ideal portrait heads. Fra Bartolommeo died before starting work, and Raphael got no further than a drawing, dosso Dossi, Alphonsos court painter, completed the room with a large painting and ten small oblong subjects to go as a frieze above the others. Two people in private conversation were until recently said to be closetted. In his closet at Christ Church, Oxford, Robert Burton wrote The Anatomie of Melancholy, Cabinet in English was often used for strongrooms, or treasure-stores - the tiny but exquisite Elizabethan tower strongroom at Lacock Abbey might have been so called - but also in the wider sense. David Rizzio was murdered when dining with his putative lover Mary, Queen of Scots in a cabinet abowte xii footes square, in the same a little low reposinge bedde, and a table. A rare surviving cabinet, or closet, with its contents probably little changed since the early 18th century, is at Ham House in Richmond, London, England. It is less than 10 feet square, and leads off from the Long Gallery, as is often the case, it has an excellent view of the front entrance to the house, so that comings and goings can be discreetly observed. Most surviving large houses or palaces, especially from before 1700, have such rooms, but they are very often not displayed to visitors. Since the reign of King George I, the Cabinet – derived from the room – has been the executive group of British government. The process has repeated itself in recent times, as leaders have felt the need to have a Kitchen Cabinet, figurative uses of Closet have developed in a different direction. Especially wealthy or aristocratic people may have had a series of cabinets in a suite, versailles has a large assortment of cabinets en filade for the king located behind and adjacent to his formal bedchamber, the Petit appartement du roi. The meaning of cabinet began to be extended to the contents of the cabinet, thus we see the 16th-century cabinet of curiosities, often combined with a library
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Cabinetry
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A cabinet is a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors or drawers for storing miscellaneous items. Some cabinets stand alone while others are built into a wall or are attached to it like a medicine cabinet, cabinets are typically made of wood or, now increasingly, of synthetic materials. Commercial grade cabinets, which differ in the used, are called casework. Cabinets usually have one or more doors on the front, which are mounted with door hardware, many cabinets have doors and drawers or only drawers. Short cabinets often have a surface on top that can be used for display, or as a working surface. A cabinet intended for clothing storage is usually called a wardrobe or an armoire, before the advent of industrial design, cabinet makers were responsible for the conception and the production of any piece of furniture. In the last half of the 18th century, cabinet makers, such as Thomas Sheraton, Thomas Chippendale, Shaver, cabinet Constructors, and George Hepplewhite, also published books of furniture forms. These books were compendiums of their designs and those of other cabinet makers, in parallel to this evolution there came a growing demand by the rising middle class in most industrialised countries for finely made furniture. This eventually resulted in a growth in the number of traditional cabinet makers. Before 1650, fine furniture was a rarity in Western Europe, generally, people did not need it and for the most part could not afford it. They made do with simple but serviceable pieces, the arts and craft movement which started in the United Kingdom in the middle of the 19th century spurred a market for traditional cabinet making, and other craft goods. It rapidly spread to the United States and to all the countries in the British Empire and this movement exemplified the reaction to the eclectic historicism of the Victorian era and to the soulless machine-made production which was starting to become widespread. After World War II woodworking became a hobby among the middle classes. The more serious and skilled amateurs in this field now turn out pieces of furniture which rival the work of professional cabinet makers and this style of design is typified by clean horizontal and vertical lines. Compared to other designs there is an absence of ornamentation. While Scandinavian design is easy to identify, it is more about the materials than the design. This style of design is very ornate, French Provincial objects are often stained or painted, leaving the wood concealed. Corners and bevels are often decorated with gold leaf or given some kind of gilding
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Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor
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Rudolf II was Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary and Croatia, King of Bohemia and Archduke of Austria. He was a member of the House of Habsburg, Rudolf was born in Vienna on 18 July 1552. Rudolf spent eight years, from age 11 to 19, in Spain. Rudolf would remain for the rest of his reserved, secretive. He suffered from bouts of melancholy, which was common in the Habsburg line. These became worse with age, and were manifested by a withdrawal from the world, like his contemporary, Elizabeth I of England, Rudolf dangled himself as a prize in a string of diplomatic negotiations for marriages, but never in fact married. It has been proposed by A. L. Rowse that he was homosexual, during his periods of self-imposed isolation, Rudolf reportedly had affairs with his court chamberlain, Wolfgang von Rumpf, and a series of valets. One of these, Philip Lang, ruled him for years and was hated by those seeking favour with the emperor, in addition, Rudolf was known to have had a succession of affairs with women, some of whom claimed to have been impregnated by him. He had several children with his mistress Catherina Strada. Their eldest son, Don Julius Caesar dAustria, was born between 1584 and 1586 and received an education and opportunities for political and social prominence from his father. In 1607, Rudolf sent Julius to live at Český Krumlov in Bohemia castle, Julius lived at Český Krumlov when in 1608 he reportedly abused and murdered the daughter of a local barber, who had been living in the castle, and then disfigured her body. Rudolf condemned his sons act and suggested that he should be imprisoned for the rest of his life, however, Julius died in 1609 after showing signs of schizophrenia, refusing to bathe, and living in squalor, his death was apparently caused by an ulcer that ruptured. Many artworks commissioned by Rudolf are unusually erotic, the emperor was the subject of a whispering campaign by his enemies in his family and the Catholic Church in the years before he was deposed. Sexual allegations may well have formed a part of the campaign against him, historians have traditionally blamed Rudolfs preoccupation with the arts, occult sciences, and other personal interests as the reason for the political disasters of his reign. Although raised in his uncles Catholic court in Spain, Rudolf was tolerant of Protestantism and he largely withdrew from Catholic observances, even in death denying last sacramental rites. He had little attachment to Protestants either, except as counter-weight to repressive Papal policies and he put his primary support behind conciliarists, irenicists, and humanists. His conflict with the Ottoman Empire was the cause of his undoing. Unwilling to compromise with the Turks, and stubbornly determined that he could all of Christendom with a new Crusade, he started a long
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Hradschin
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Hradčany, the Castle District, is the district of the city of Prague, Czech Republic surrounding Prague Castle. The castle is said to be the biggest castle in the world at about 570 metres in length and its history stretches back to the 9th century. St Vitus Cathedral is located in the castle area, most of the district consists of noble historical palaces. There are many attractions for visitors, romantic nooks, peaceful places. Hradčany was an independent borough until 1784, when the four independent boroughs that had formerly constituted Prague were proclaimed a single city, the other three were Malá Strana, Staré Město and Nové Město. Official Website of the City of Prague Hradčany - Prague-wiki Fullscreen QTVR virtual tour of Hradčany and Prague Castle
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Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria
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Ferdinand II, Archduke of Further Austria was ruler of Further Austria including Tirol. The son of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor, he was married to Philippine Welser in his first marriage, in his second marriage to Anna Juliana Gonzaga, he was the father of Anna of Tyrol, the would-be Holy Roman Empress. Archduke Ferdinand of Austria was the son of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor and Anna of Bohemia. He was a brother of Emperor Maximilian II. At the behest of his father, he was put in charge of the administration of Bohemia in 1547 and he also led the campaign against the Turks in Hungary in 1556. In 1557 he was married to Philippine Welser, daughter of a patrician from Augsburg. The marriage was accepted by Emperor Ferdinand I in 1559 under the condition of secrecy. The children were to receive the name of Austria but would only be entitled to if the House of Habsburg became totally extinct in the male line. The sons born of this received the title Margrave of Burgau, after the Margraviate of Burgau. The younger of the sons, who survived their father, later received the title of Fürst zu Burgau. After his fathers death in 1564, Ferdinand became the ruler of Tirol, however, he remained governor of Bohemia in Prague until 1567 according to the wishes of his brother Maximilian II. In his own lands, Ferdinand made sure that the Catholic counterreformation would prevail, the cultured humanist from the House of Habsburg was instrumental in promoting the Renaissance in central European. He also was a collector of art. He accommodated his world-famous collections in a museum built specifically for that purpose, the collection was started during his time in Bohemia and subsequently moved it to Tyrol. In particular, the Chamber of Art and Curiosities, the gallery of portraits and the collection of armor were highly expensive, today these collections are at Ambras Castle Innsbruck and in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. After the death of Philippine in 1580, he married Anne Catherine, Archduke Ferdinand died on 24 January 1595. Since his sons from the first marriage were not entitled to the inheritance, and his daughter from the Mantuan marriage became the Empress Anna, consort of Emperor Mathias, who received his Further Austrian inheritance. He and his first wife Philippine Welser were parents of four children, became a Cardinal in 1576, Margrave of Burgau in 1578, Bishop of Constance in 1589 and Bishop of Brixen in 1591
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Chamber of Art and Curiosities, Ambras Castle
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The Chamber of Art and Curiosities is a cabinet of curiosities created by Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria in the 16th century. Ferdinand II, son of Emperor Ferdinand I, was one of history’s most prominent collectors of art, as the only Renaissance Kunstkammer of its kind to have been preserved at its original location, the Chamber of Art and Curiosities represents an unrivalled cultural monument. Representing an excellent example of a late Renaissance encyclopedic collection of its genre, it continues to be displayed at Ambras Castle in Innsbruck, Ferdinand II, like many other rulers of the Renaissance, was interested in promoting the arts and sciences. He spent considerable time and money on his collection and converted the medieval Ambras Castle into a contemporary palace to display his possessions. The Glassammlung Strasser boasts precious glassware from the Renaissance and Baroque periods, the Habsburger Porträtgalerie laid out on three floors is open to visitors in summer. The paintings include works by painters such as Hans Burgkmair, Lucas Cranach the Younger, Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Peter Paul Rubens, Diego Velázquez. Today, these collections at Ambras are administered by the KHM-Museumsverband, as the Kunsthistorisches Museum, also, Asiatica of the period are included with a suit of samurai armor, a Ryukyu bowl, and a silk painting from China. The Ambras collection contains a number of portraits, and some of the subjects were perceived at the time as Wonder of Nature. Giants and dwarfs, people with hirsutism and others, are shown, including, Vlad III the Impalers depiction was painted about one century after his reign and it is intended not only to show him as a ruler but also to be a psychogram of evil. The life of Pedro Gonzalez has been chronicled as he became famous during his lifetime on account of his condition. Born in 1537 in Tenerife, he first came to the court of Henry II, King of France and he got married there and some of his children were also afflicted with hypertrichosis universalis and painted. His family became an object of inquiry by Ulisse Aldrovandi among others. The paintings of Gonsalvus by an anonymous German artist were created from drawings. The paintings were titled Der Rauch man Zu Münichen because of the origin of the painting and this is an unusual and unique late 16th-century painting of a man with a physical disability. In typical portrait-style he gazes at the viewer, while the top of his head is covered by a hat, a fashionable neck piece separates his head from his naked body, which lies chest-down on a dark green sheet. His limbs appear withered and useless, originally the portrait was partially obscured by a sheet of red paper, which the observer would lift to reveal the subjects body. Observers indicated that they were shocked, the man was probably a jester at a court. An extensive analysis of the painting has been published and this portrait represents a Hungarian hussar, by tradition Gregor Baci, who apparently survived a piercing injury with a lance to the right side of his face
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Ambras Castle
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Ambras Castle is a Renaissance castle and palace located in the hills above Innsbruck, Austria. Ambras Castle is 587 metres above sea level, the cultural and historical importance of the castle is closely connected with Archduke Ferdinand II and served as his residence from 1563 to 1595. Ferdinand was one of history’s most prominent collectors of art, the princely sovereign of Tyrol, son of Emperor Ferdinand I, ordered that the mediaeval fortress at Ambras be turned into a Renaissance castle as a gift for his wife Philippine Welser. The Lower Castle contains armouries feature masterpieces of the European armourer’s art from the time of Emperor Maximilian I to Emperor Leopold I, as the only Renaissance Kunstkammer of its kind to have been preserved at its original location, the Kunst- und Wunderkammer represents an unrivalled cultural monument. The Upper Castle contains a portrait gallery featuring paintings of numerous members of the House of Habsburg. Long before Innsbruck became a city, references to an Amras or Omras appeared in documents dating from the 10th century. This original fortification was destroyed in 1133 and no traces of it remain, in 1248, the castle ruins and property passed by inheritance from the Counts of Andechs to Count Albert IV of Tyrol. The modern Ambras Castle was built by Archduke Ferdinand II, the son of Emperor Ferdinand I. In 1589, he added an additional building west of the Lower Castle for the purpose of housing his collection of weaponry, Philippine became a popular and beloved figure through her charity and willingness to help others, particularly the common people of Tyrol. Even the nobility brought their petitions to the former commoner, as signs of affection, people addressed their written petitions to Merciful Miss or serene Princess Mrs. Philippine of Austria. After Ferdinands death in 1595, the son of Ferdinand and Philippine, Margrave Charles of Burgau. With little interest in the castle, and never having used it as a residence, in the following years, Ambras Castle no longer had the status of an official residence and was seldom lived in. Inadequate preservation measures led to the loss of books, manuscripts, and hand sketches. In 1805, the remaining Ambras collections were threatened by the defeat of Austria by the French Empire, fortunately, after recognized the private-law character of the Ambras collection, Napoleon had it brought to safety in Vienna. In 1855, Archduke Karl Ludwig, then governor of Tyrol, had the palace remodeled to use as a summer residence, significant changes were made during this time to the palace and the surrounding park. The Outer Bailey was constructed with an entrance ramp for carriages. The park was redesigned as an English garden, following Archduke Karl Ludwigs renouncement of his succession rights in 1889, the palace fell once again into ruinous condition. In 1880, it was converted into a museum and subsequently renovated, in 1919, following the dissolution of the Austria-Hungary Empire, Ambras Castle became the property of the Republic of Austria
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Ferrante Imperato
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Ferrante Imperato, who ranged southern Italy making geological observations, took as his motto In dies auctior. He was in correspondence with a network of scholars in Italy and he was among the first correctly to identify the processes through which fossils were formed, subjecting them to empirical tests. His pupil, schooled in the collection, was the jurist Fabio Colonna who carried further his work on fossils, Ferrante had a small garden and corresponded with botanists, but historians of botany discount his interest in plants as curiosa. The book was so sought after that an edition was issued in Venice,1672, edited by Giovanni Maria Ferro. Other books are devoted to mining, animals and plant specimens, charles Lyell wrote the following in Principles of geology, Vol.1, pp. 26-27. This hint was the first imperfect attempt to connect the position fossil shells with the agency of volcanoes, a more fully developed by Hooke, Lazzaro Moro, Hutton. The Plantae genus Imperata is named after Ferrante Imperato
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Frans Francken the Younger
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Frans Francken the Younger was a Flemish painter and the best-known member of the large Francken family of artists. Francken created altarpieces and painted panels, but his reputation chiefly relies on his small and delicate cabinet pictures with historical, mythological. He was a frequent collaborator of leading Antwerp painters of his time, Frans Francken the Younger was born in Antwerp as the son of Frans Francken the Elder and Elisabeth Mertens. His father was a pupil of Antwerps leading history painter Frans Floris, Frans Francken the Younger trained with his father Frans the Elder. He, together with his brother Hieronymus Francken II, may also have received training with his uncle Hieronymus Francken I in Paris. Frans Francken the Younger likely first worked in the workshop before he became an independent master in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1605. He was deacon of the Guild in 1616, franckens talent was recognised from an early age. He became a successful artist and operated a large workshop which made many copies of his original compositions. Already in 1607 he was able to buy a house in the city centre where he established his residence, on 8 November 1607 Francken married Elisabeth Plaquet with the special permission of the bishop. This may have had something to do with the fact that their son was born before the end of 1607. The son was given the name as his father and grandfather. He would be known as Frans III and earned himself later as a painter the nickname the Rubense Francken, three further boys and five girls were born to the Francken couple. One of them, Hieronymus, would become a painter. Frans Francken the Youngers pupils included Daniel Hagens, the Monogrammist N. F. his brother Hieronymus II, Frans Francken the Younger was a versatile artist who practised in many genres and introduced new subjects into Flemish art. Many of his works are historical, allegorical and biblical cabinet paintings with the focus on figures. Frans Francken the Younger introduced many other themes that later became popular, such as the Triumphal Procession of Amphitrite and Croesus. Francken also made a series of paintings depicting witches and witchcraft, Frans Francken the Younger signed his works with de jonge Frans Francken before the death of his father in 1616. From the late 1620s he used the signature de oude Fr, Francken, to distinguish himself from his son Frans III
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Virtuoso
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A virtuoso is an individual who possesses outstanding technical ability in a particular art or field such as fine arts, music, singing, playing a musical instrument, or composition. This word also refers to a person who has cultivated appreciation of artistic excellence, the plural form of virtuoso is either virtuosi or the Anglicisation, virtuosos, and the feminine forms are virtuosa and virtuose. According to Music in the Western civilization by Piero Weiss and Richard Taruskin, the defining element of virtuosity is the performance ability of the musician in question, who is capable of displaying feats of skill well above the average performer. Especially in music, both critics and musicians have mixed opinions on virtuosity, while the skill implied is clearly positive, musicians focused on virtuosity have been criticized for overlooking substance and emotion in favor of raw technical prowess. For instance, Ken Jennings initial success on Jeopardy was described as a virtuoso performance, the meaning of virtuoso has its roots in the Italian usage of the 16th and 17th centuries, signifying an honorific term reserved for a person distinguished in any intellectual or artistic field. The term evolved with time, simultaneously broadening and narrowing in scope as interpretations went in and out of fashion, originally a musician was honored the classification by being a composer, theorist or famous maestro, more importantly than being a skilled performer. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the word shifted in meaning, sébastien de Brossard in his Dictionnaire de Musique approached the word virtuoso by its Latin root virtu emphasizing exceptional training, especially in theory. This position was defended in Johann Gottfried Walthers Musicalisches Lexicon favoring the theorist over the performer. Johan Matthensons Der brauchbare Virtuoso maintained the respect for the traditional theoretische Virtuosen, in the late 18th century, people began to use the term to describe a instrumentalist or vocalist who pursued a career as a soloist. The tension about the merit of practical virtuosity started to grow at the time and intensified in the 19th century. Franz Liszt, considered one of the greatest of all virtuosos, declared that virtuosity is not an outgrowth, media related to Musicians at Wikimedia Commons
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Herbarium
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A herbarium is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The term can refer to the building or room where the specimens are housed. The specimens in a herbarium are used as reference material in describing plant taxa. The same term is used in mycology to describe an equivalent collection of preserved fungi. A xylarium is a herbarium specialising in specimens of wood, the term hortorium has occasionally been applied to a herbarium specialising in preserving material of horticultural origin. During the drying process the specimens are retained within their flimsies at all times to minimise damage, for some plants it may prove helpful to allow the fresh specimen to wilt slightly before being arranged for the press. The sheet is placed in a protective case. As a precaution against insect attack, the plant is frozen or poisoned. Certain groups of plants are soft, bulky, or otherwise not amenable to drying and mounting on sheets, for these plants, other methods of preparation and storage may be used. For example, conifer cones and palm fronds may be stored in labelled boxes, representative flowers or fruits may be pickled in formaldehyde to preserve their three-dimensional structure. Small specimens, such as mosses and lichens, are often air-dried and packaged in paper envelopes. No matter the method of preservation, detailed information on where and when the plant was collected, habitat, color, and the name of the collector is usually included. The value of a herbarium is much enhanced by the possession of “types”, that is and it is also rich in types of Australian plants from the collections of Sir Joseph Banks and Robert Brown, and contains in addition many valuable modern collections. Most herbaria utilize a system of organizing their specimens into herbarium cases. Specimen sheets are stacked in groups by the species to which they belong, groups of species folders are then placed together into larger, heavier folders by genus. The genus folders are then sorted by taxonomic family according to the standard selected for use by the herbarium. Locating a specimen filed in the herbarium requires knowing the nomenclature and it also requires familiarity with possible name changes that have occurred since the specimen was collected, since the specimen may be filed under an older name. Modern herbaria often maintain electronic databases of their collections, many herbaria have initiatives to digitize specimens to produce a virtual herbarium
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Christian I, Elector of Saxony
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Christian I of Saxony was Elector of Saxony from 1586 to 1591. He belonged to the Albertine line of the House of Wettin and he was the sixth but second surviving son of Elector Augustus of Saxony and Anna of Denmark. The death of his brother, Alexander, made him the new heir apparent to the Electorate of Saxony. Christian succeeded his father when he died, in 1586, during his reign, the first measurement was made of the Electorate of Saxony by Matthias Oeder. Later, the work of Oeder was continued by Balthasar Zimmermann until 1633, in Dresden on 25 April 1582, Christian married Sophie, daughter of John George, Elector of Brandenburg. They had seven children, Christian II, successor of his father as Elector, John George I, successor of his brother as Elector. Sophie, married on 26 August 1610 to Duke Francis I of Pomerania, Augustus, married on 1 January 1612 to Elisabeth of Brünswick-Wolfenbüttel. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh
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Netherlands
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The Netherlands, also informally known as Holland is the main constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a densely populated country located in Western Europe with three territories in the Caribbean. The European part of the Netherlands borders Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, sharing borders with Belgium, the United Kingdom. The three largest cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, Amsterdam is the countrys capital, while The Hague holds the Dutch seat of parliament and government. The port of Rotterdam is the worlds largest port outside East-Asia, the name Holland is used informally to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands. Netherlands literally means lower countries, influenced by its low land and flat geography, most of the areas below sea level are artificial. Since the late 16th century, large areas have been reclaimed from the sea and lakes, with a population density of 412 people per km2 –507 if water is excluded – the Netherlands is classified as a very densely populated country. Only Bangladesh, South Korea, and Taiwan have both a population and higher population density. Nevertheless, the Netherlands is the worlds second-largest exporter of food and agricultural products and this is partly due to the fertility of the soil and the mild climate. In 2001, it became the worlds first country to legalise same-sex marriage, the Netherlands is a founding member of the EU, Eurozone, G-10, NATO, OECD and WTO, as well as being a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union. The first four are situated in The Hague, as is the EUs criminal intelligence agency Europol and this has led to the city being dubbed the worlds legal capital. The country also ranks second highest in the worlds 2016 Press Freedom Index, the Netherlands has a market-based mixed economy, ranking 17th of 177 countries according to the Index of Economic Freedom. It had the thirteenth-highest per capita income in the world in 2013 according to the International Monetary Fund, in 2013, the United Nations World Happiness Report ranked the Netherlands as the seventh-happiest country in the world, reflecting its high quality of life. The Netherlands also ranks joint second highest in the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, the region called Low Countries and the country of the Netherlands have the same toponymy. Place names with Neder, Nieder, Nether and Nedre and Bas or Inferior are in use in all over Europe. They are sometimes used in a relation to a higher ground that consecutively is indicated as Upper, Boven, Oben. In the case of the Low Countries / the Netherlands the geographical location of the region has been more or less downstream. The geographical location of the region, however, changed over time tremendously
32.
Nuremberg
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Nuremberg is a city on the river Pegnitz and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia, about 170 kilometres north of Munich. It is the second-largest city in Bavaria, and the largest in Franconia, the population as of February 2015, is 517,498, which makes it Germanys fourteenth-largest city. The urban area also includes Fürth, Erlangen and Schwabach with a population of 763,854. The European Metropolitan Area Nuremberg has ca.3.5 million inhabitants, Nuremberg was, according to the first documentary mention of the city in 1050, the location of an Imperial castle between the East Franks and the Bavarian March of the Nordgau. From 1050 to 1571, the city expanded and rose dramatically in importance due to its location on key trade routes, Nuremberg is often referred to as having been the unofficial capital of the Holy Roman Empire, particularly because Imperial Diet and courts met at Nuremberg Castle. The Diets of Nuremberg were an important part of the structure of the empire. The increasing demand of the court and the increasing importance of the city attracted increased trade. Nuremberg soon became, with Augsburg, one of the two great trade centers on the route from Italy to Northern Europe. In 1298, the Jews of the town were accused of having desecrated the host, behind the massacre of 1298 was also the desire to combine the northern and southern parts of the city, which were divided by the Pegnitz. The Jews of the German lands suffered many massacres during the plague years, in 1349, Nurembergs Jews were subjected to a pogrom. They were burned at the stake or expelled, and a marketplace was built over the former Jewish quarter, the plague returned to the city in 1405,1435,1437,1482,1494,1520 and 1534. Charles was the patron of the Frauenkirche, built between 1352 and 1362, where the Imperial court worshipped during its stays in Nuremberg. Charles IV conferred upon the city the right to conclude alliances independently, frequent fights took place with the burgraves without, however, inflicting lasting damage upon the city. Through these and other acquisitions the city accumulated considerable territory, the Hussite Wars, recurrence of the Black Death in 1437, and the First Margrave War led to a severe fall in population in the mid-15th century. During the Middle Ages, Nurembergs literary culture was rich, varied, the cultural flowering of Nuremberg, in the 15th and 16th centuries, made it the centre of the German Renaissance. In 1525, Nuremberg accepted the Protestant Reformation, and in 1532, during the 1552 revolution against Charles V, Nuremberg tried to purchase its neutrality, but the city was attacked without a declaration of war and was forced into a disadvantageous peace. The state of affairs in the early 16th century, increased trade routes elsewhere, frequent quartering of Imperial, Swedish and League soldiers, the financial costs of the war and the cessation of trade caused irreparable damage to the city and a near-halving of the population. In 1632, the city, occupied by the forces of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, was besieged by the army of Imperial general Albrecht von Wallenstein, the city declined after the war and recovered its importance only in the 19th century, when it grew as an industrial centre
33.
Coral
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Corals are marine invertebrates in the class Anthozoa of phylum Cnidaria. They typically live in colonies of many identical individual polyps. The group includes the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans, a coral group is a colony of myriad genetically identical polyps. Each polyp is an animal typically only a few millimeters in diameter. A set of tentacles surround a central mouth opening, an exoskeleton is excreted near the base. Over many generations, the colony creates a large skeleton that is characteristic of the species. Individual heads grow by reproduction of polyps. Corals also breed sexually by spawning, polyps of the same species release gametes simultaneously over a period of one to several nights around a full moon and these are commonly known as zooxanthellae and the corals that contain them are zooxanthellate corals. Such corals require sunlight and grow in clear, shallow water, other corals do not rely on zooxanthellae and can live in much deeper water, with the cold-water genus Lophelia surviving as deep as 3,000 metres. Some have been found on the Darwin Mounds, north-west of Cape Wrath, Corals have also been found as far north as off the coast of Washington State and the Aleutian Islands. In his Scala Naturae, Aristotle classified corals as zoophyta, animals that had characteristics of plants and were therefore hypothetically in between animals and plants, the Persian polymath Al-Biruni classified sponges and corals as animals, arguing that they respond to touch. The phylogeny of Anthozoans is not clearly understood and a number of different models have been proposed, within the Hexacorallia, the sea anemones, coral anemones and stony corals may constitute a monophyletic grouping united by their eight-fold symmetry and cnidocyte trait. The Octocorallia appears to be monophyletic, and primitive members of this group may have been stolonate, the cladogram presented here comes from a 2014 study by Stampar et al. which was based on the divergence of mitochondrial DNA within the group and on nuclear markers. Corals are classified in the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria and they are divided into three subclasses, Hexacorallia, Octocorallia, and Ceriantharia. The Hexacorallia include the stony corals, the sea anemones and the zoanthids and these groups have polyps that generally have 6-fold symmetry. The Octocorallia include blue coral, soft corals, sea pens and these groups have polyps with 8-fold symmetry, each polyp having eight tentacles and eight mesenteries. Fire corals are not true corals, being in the order Anthomedusa of the class Hydrozoa, Corals are sessile animals in the class Anthozoa and differ from most other cnidarians in not having a medusa stage in their life cycle. The body unit of the animal is a polyp, most corals are colonial, the initial polyp budding to produce another and the colony gradually developing from this small start
34.
East Indies
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The East Indies or Indies are the lands of South and Southeast Asia. In a more restricted sense, the Indies can be used to refer to the islands of Southeast Asia, the name Indies is derived from the river Indus and is used to connote parts of Asia that came under Indian cultural influence. The East Indies may also include the former French-held Indochina, former British territories Brunei and Singapore and it does not, however, include the former Dutch New Guinea western New Guinea, which is geographically considered to be part of Melanesia. In colonial times they were just natives, however, the peoples of the East Indies comprise a wide variety of cultural diversity, and the inhabitants do not consider themselves as belonging to a single ethnic group. The major languages in this area draw from a variety of language families, and should not be confused with the term Indic. The extensive East Indies are subdivided into two sections, archaically called Hither India and Further India, the first is the former British India, the second is Southeast Asia. Historically, the king of Abyssinia was identified with Prester John of the Indies, exploration of these regions by European powers first began in the late 15th century and early 16th century led by the Portuguese explorers. The Portuguese described the region they discovered as the Indies. Eventually, the region would be broken up into a series of Indies, the East Indies, which was also called Old Indies or Great Indies, consisting of India, and the West Indies, also called New Indies or Little Indies, consisting of the Americas. The New World was initially thought to be the easternmost part of the Indies by explorer Christopher Columbus, later, to avoid confusion, the New World came to be called the West Indies, while the original Indies came to be called the East Indies. Greater India History of the Americas Indian Spanish West Indies
35.
Adoration of the Magi
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It is related in the Bible by Matthew 2,11, On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another path. The scene was used to represent the Nativity, one of the most indispensable episodes in cycles of the Life of the Virgin as well as the Life of Christ. In the church calendar, the event is commemorated in Western Christianity as the Feast of the Epiphany, the Orthodox Church commemorates the Adoration of the Magi on the Feast of the Nativity. The term is anglicized from the Vulgate Latin section title for this passage, in the earliest depictions, the Magi are shown wearing Persian dress of trousers and Phrygian caps, usually in profile, advancing in step with their gifts held out before them. The earliest are from catacomb paintings and sarcophagus reliefs of the 4th century, crowns are first seen in the 10th century, mostly in the West, where their dress had by that time lost any Oriental flavour in most cases. Later Byzantine images often show small pill-box like hats, whose significance is disputed, melchior represents Europe and middle age. From the 14th century onwards, large retinues are often shown, the gifts are contained in spectacular pieces of work. The subject matter is found in stained glass. Many hundreds of artists have treated the subject, a partial list of those with articles follows. See also, Category, Adoration of the Magi in art, Adoration of the Magi, Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C. Hieronymus Bosch, Museo del Prado, Madrid Adoration of the Magi of 1475, Botticelli, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C
36.
Amber
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Amber is fossilized tree resin, which has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times. Much valued from antiquity to the present as a gemstone, amber is made into a variety of decorative objects and it has also been used as a healing agent in folk medicine. There are five classes of amber, defined on the basis of their chemical constituents, because it originates as a soft, sticky tree resin, amber sometimes contains animal and plant material as inclusions. Amber occurring in coal seams is also called resinite, and the term ambrite is applied to that found specifically within New Zealand coal seams, the English word amber derives from Arabic ʿanbar عنبر via Middle Latin ambar and Middle French ambre. The word was adopted in Middle English in the 14th century as referring to what is now known as ambergris, in the Romance languages, the sense of the word had come to be extended to Baltic amber from as early as the late 13th century. At first called white or yellow amber, this meaning was adopted in English by the early 15th century, as the use of ambergris waned, this became the main sense of the word. The two substances conceivably became associated or confused because they both were washed up on beaches. Ambergris is less dense water and floats, whereas amber is too dense to float. The classical names for amber, Latin electrum and Ancient Greek ἤλεκτρον, are connected to a term ἠλέκτωρ meaning beaming Sun, according to myth, when Phaëton son of Helios was killed, his mourning sisters became poplar trees, and their tears became elektron, amber. Earlier Pliny says that an island of three days sail from the Scythian coast called Balcia by Xenophon of Lampsacus, author of a fanciful travel book in Greek, is called Basilia by Pytheas. It is generally understood to be the same as Abalus and it is assumed that there were well-established trade routes for amber connecting the Baltic with the Mediterranean. Pliny states explicitly that the Germans export amber to Pannonia, from where it was traded further abroad by the Veneti, the ancient Italic peoples of southern Italy were working amber, the most important examples are on display at the National Archaeological Museum of Siritide to Matera. Amber used in antiquity as at Mycenae and in the prehistory of the Mediterranean comes from deposits of Sicily. Besides the fanciful explanations according to which amber is produced by the Sun, Pliny cites opinions that are aware of its origin in tree resin. Amber is produced from a marrow discharged by trees belonging to the genus, like gum from the cherry. This is confirmed by the recorded Old High German glas and Old English glær for amber, in Middle Low German, amber was known as berne-, barn-, börnstēn. The Low German term became dominant also in High German by the 18th century, the Baltic Lithuanian term for amber is gintaras and Latvian dzintars. They, and the Slavic jantar or Hungarian gyanta, are thought to originate from Phoenician jainitar, Early in the nineteenth century, the first reports of amber from North America came from discoveries in New Jersey along Crosswicks Creek near Trenton, at Camden, and near Woodbury
37.
Portrait miniature
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A portrait miniature is a miniature portrait painting, usually executed in gouache, watercolour, or enamel. They were especially valuable in introducing people to other over distances. Soldiers and sailors might carry miniatures of their loved ones while traveling, the first miniaturists used watercolour to paint on stretched vellum. During the second half of the 17th century, vitreous enamel painted on copper became increasingly popular, in the 18th century, miniatures were painted with watercolour on ivory, which had now become relatively cheap. As small in size as 40 mm ×30 mm, portrait miniatures were used as personal mementos or as jewellery or snuff box covers. The portrait miniature developed from the manuscript, which had been superseded for the purposes of book illustration by techniques such as woodprints. Lucas Horenbout was another Netherlandish miniature painter at the court of Henry VIII and these might be paintings, or finished drawings with some colour, and were produced by François Clouet, and his followers. Following these men we find Simon Renard de St. André, others whose names might be mentioned were Joseph Werner, and Rosalba Carriera. The colours are opaque, and gold is used to heighten the effect and they are often signed, and have frequently also a Latin motto upon them. Hilliard worked for a while in France, and he is identical with the painter alluded to in 1577 as Nicholas Belliart. Hilliard was succeeded by his son Lawrence Hilliard, his technique was similar to that of his father, but bolder, Isaac Oliver and his son Peter Oliver succeeded Hilliard. Isaac was the pupil of Hilliard, Peter was the pupil of Isaac. The two men were the earliest to give roundness and form to the faces they painted and they signed their best works in monogram, and painted not only very small miniatures, but larger ones measuring as much as 10 in ×9 in. They copied for Charles I of England on a small scale many of his famous pictures by the old masters, other miniaturists at about the same date included Balthazar Gerbier, George Jamesone, Penelope Cleyn and her brothers. Samuel Cooper was a nephew and student of the elder Hoskins and he spent much of his time in Paris and Holland, and very little is known of his career. His work has a breadth and dignity, and has been well called life-size work in little. His portraits of the men of the Puritan epoch are remarkable for their truth to life and he painted upon card, chicken skin and vellum, and on two occasions upon thin pieces of mutton bone. The use of ivory was not introduced until long after his time and his work is frequently signed with his initials, generally in gold, and very often with the addition of the date
38.
Chiaroscuro
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Chiaroscuro is an oil painting technique, developed during the Renaissance, that uses strong tonal contrasts between light and dark to model three-dimensional forms, often to dramatic effect. The underlying principle is that solidity of form is best achieved by the light falling against it, artists known for developing the technique include Leonardo da Vinci, Caravaggio, and Rembrandt. It is a mainstay of black and white photography and these in turn drew on traditions in illuminated manuscripts going back to late Roman Imperial manuscripts on purple-dyed vellum. Such works used to be called chiaroscuro drawings, but are often described in modern museum terminology by such formulae as pen on prepared paper. Chiaroscuro woodcuts began as imitations of this technique, when discussing Italian art, the term sometimes is used to mean painted images in monochrome or two colours, more generally known in English by the French equivalent, grisaille. The term broadened in meaning early on to cover all strong contrasts in illumination between light and dark areas in art, which is now the primary meaning. The invention of these effects in the West, skiagraphia or shadow-painting to the Ancient Greeks, traditionally was ascribed to the famous Athenian painter of the fifth century BC, Apollodoros. Chose her place to sit for that purpose in the alley of a goodly garden. In drawings and prints, modelling chiaroscuro often is achieved by the use of hatching, washes, stipple or dotting effects, and surface tone in printmaking are other techniques. Chiaroscuro woodcuts are old master prints in woodcut using two or more blocks printed in different colours, they do not necessarily feature strong contrasts of light and they were first produced to achieve similar effects to chiaroscuro drawings. Other printmakers to use the technique include Hans Wechtlin, Hans Baldung Grien, in Germany the technique achieved its greatest popularity around 1520, but it was used in Italy throughout the sixteenth century. Later artists such as Goltzius sometimes made use of it, in most German two-block prints, the keyblock was printed in black and the tone block or blocks had flat areas of colour. In Italy, chiaroscuro woodcuts were produced without keyblocks to achieve a different effect. Manuscript illumination was, as in areas, especially experimental in attempting ambitious lighting effects since the results were not for public display. The development of compositional chiaroscuro received an impetus in northern Europe from the vision of the Nativity of Jesus of Saint Bridget of Sweden. Hugo van der Goes and his followers painted many scenes lit only by candle or the light from the infant Christ. As with some later painters, in their hands the effect was of stillness, strong chiaroscuro became a popular effect during the sixteenth century in Mannerism and Baroque art. Divine light continued to illuminate, often rather inadequately, the compositions of Tintoretto, Veronese, tenebrism was especially practiced in Spain and the Spanish-ruled Kingdom of Naples, by Jusepe de Ribera and his followers
39.
Athanasius Kircher
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Athanasius Kircher, S. J. was a German Jesuit scholar and polymath who published around 40 major works, most notably in the fields of comparative religion, geology, and medicine. Kircher has been compared to fellow Jesuit Roger Boscovich and to Leonardo da Vinci for his enormous range of interests and he taught for more than forty years at the Roman College, where he set up a wunderkammer. A resurgence of interest in Kircher has occurred within the community in recent decades. Kircher claimed to have deciphered the writing of the ancient Egyptian language. He did, however, correctly establish the link between the ancient Egyptian and the Coptic languages, and some regard him as the founder of Egyptology. Kirchers work in geology included studies of volcanoes and fossils, Kircher also displayed a keen interest in technology and mechanical inventions, inventions attributed to him include a magnetic clock, various automatons and the first megaphone. The invention of the lantern is often misattributed to Kircher. A scientific star in his day, towards the end of his life he was eclipsed by the rationalism of René Descartes, in the late 20th century, however, the aesthetic qualities of his work again began to be appreciated. One modern scholar, Alan Cutler, described Kircher as a giant among seventeenth-century scholars, another scholar, Edward W. Schmidt, referred to Kircher as the last Renaissance man. Kircher was born on 2 May in either 1601 or 1602 in Geisa, Buchonia, near Fulda, currently Hesse, from his birthplace he took the epithets Bucho, Buchonius and Fuldensis which he sometimes added to his name. He attended the Jesuit College in Fulda from 1614 to 1618, the youngest of nine children, Kircher studied volcanoes owing to his passion for rocks and eruptions. He was taught Hebrew by a rabbi in addition to his studies at school and he studied philosophy and theology at Paderborn, but fled to Cologne in 1622 to escape advancing Protestant forces. On the journey, he escaped death after falling through the ice crossing the frozen Rhine — one of several occasions on which his life was endangered. Later, traveling to Heiligenstadt, he was caught and nearly hanged by a party of Protestant soldiers, from 1622 to 1624 Kircher was sent to begin his regency period in Koblenz as a teacher. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1628 and became professor of ethics and mathematics at the University of Würzburg, beginning in 1628, he also began to show an interest in Egyptian hieroglyphs. In 1631, while still at Würzburg, Kircher allegedly had a vision of a bright light. This was the year that Kircher published his first book, in 1633 he was called to Vienna by the emperor to succeed Kepler as Mathematician to the Habsburg court. On the intervention of Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, the order was rescinded and he was sent instead to Rome to continue with his scholarly work, on the way, his ship was blown off course and he arrived in Rome before he knew of the changed decision
40.
Automaton
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An automaton is a self-operating machine, or a machine or control mechanism designed to automatically follow a predetermined sequence of operations, or respond to predetermined instructions. Some automata, such as bellstrikers in mechanical clocks, are designed to give the illusion to the observer that they are operating under their own power. The word automaton is the latinization of the Greek αὐτόματον, automaton and this word was first used by Homer to describe automatic door opening, or automatic movement of wheeled tripods. The automata in the Hellenistic world were intended as tools, toys, religious idols and he had invented the worlds first cuckoo clock. Complex mechanical devices are known to have existed in Hellenistic Greece, though the surviving example is the Antikythera mechanism. However, the information gleaned from recent scans of the fragments indicate that it may have come from the colonies of Corinth in Sicily and its also said that when King Solomon stepped upon the throne, a mechanism was set in motion. As soon as he stepped upon the first step, a golden ox, on each side, the animals helped the King up until he was comfortably seated upon the throne. In ancient China, an account of automata is found in the Lie Zi text. Within it there is a description of an earlier encounter between King Mu of Zhou and a mechanical engineer known as Yan Shi, an artificer. The latter proudly presented the king with a life-size, human-shaped figure of his mechanical handiwork and it walked with rapid strides, moving its head up and down, so that anyone would have taken it for a live human being. The artificer touched its chin, and it began singing, perfectly in tune and he touched its hand, and it began posturing, keeping perfect time. And, indeed, it turned out to be only a construction of leather, wood, glue and lacquer, variously coloured white, black, red, other notable examples of automata include Archytass dove, mentioned by Aulus Gellius. The manufacturing tradition of automata continued in the Greek world well into the Middle Ages, similar automata in the throne room were described by Luitprands contemporary Constantine Porphyrogenitus, who later became emperor, in his book Περὶ τῆς Βασιλείου Τάξεως. In the mid-8th century, the first wind powered automata were built, statues that turned with the wind over the domes of the four gates, the public spectacle of wind-powered statues had its private counterpart in the Abbasid palaces where automata of various types were predominantly displayed. In 827, Caliph Al-Mamun had a silver and golden tree in his palace in Baghdad, there were metal birds that sang automatically on the swinging branches of this tree built by Muslim inventors and engineers. The Abbasid Caliph Al-Muqtadir also had a tree in his palace in Baghdad in 915, with birds on it flapping their wings. In the 9th century, the Banū Mūsā brothers invented an automatic flute player. Al-Jazari described complex programmable humanoid automata amongst other machines he designed and constructed in the Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices in 1206 and his automaton was a boat with four automatic musicians that floated on a lake to entertain guests at royal drinking parties
41.
Mythology
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Mythology refers variously to the collected myths of a group of people or to the study of such myths. Myths are the people tell to explain nature, history. Myth is a feature of every culture, mythologizing continues, as shown in contemporary mythopoeia such as urban legends and the expansive fictional mythoi created by fantasy novels and comics. A cultures collective mythology helps convey belonging, shared and religious experiences, behavioral models, the study of myth began in ancient history. Rival classes of the Greek myths by Euhemerus, Plato and Sallustius were developed by the Neoplatonists, the nineteenth-century comparative mythology reinterpreted myth as a primitive and failed counterpart of science, a disease of language, or a misinterpretation of magical ritual. Recent approaches often view myths as manifestations of psychological, cultural, or societal truths, the term mythology predates the word myth by centuries. It first appeared in the fifteenth-century, borrowed from the Middle French term mythologie, the word mythology, comes from Middle French mythologie, from Late Latin mythologia, from Greek μυθολογία mythología from μῦθος mythos and -λογία -logia. The word mythología appears in Plato, but was used as a term for fiction or story-telling of any kind, combining mỹthos. From Lydgate until the seventeenth or eighteenth-century, mythology was similarly used to mean a moral, fable, from its earliest use in reference to a collection of traditional stories or beliefs, mythology implied the falsehood of the stories being described. It came to be applied by analogy with similar bodies of traditional stories among other cultures around the world. The Greek loanword mythos and Latinate mythus both appeared in English before the first example of myth in 1830, in present use, mythology usually refers to the collected myths of a group of people, but may also mean the study of such myths. For example, Greek mythology, Roman mythology and Hittite mythology all describe the body of myths retold among those cultures, dundes defined myth as a sacred narrative that explains how the world and humanity evolved into their present form. Lincoln defined myth as ideology in narrative form, scholars in other fields use the term myth in varied ways. In a broad sense, the word can refer to any traditional story, due to this pejorative sense, some scholars opted for the term mythos. Its use was similarly pejorative and now commonly refers to its Aristotelian sense as a plot point or to a collective mythology. The term is distinguished from didactic literature such as fables. Main characters in myths are usually gods, demigods or supernatural humans, however, many exceptions or combinations exist, as in the Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid. Myths are often endorsed by rulers and priests and are linked to religion or spirituality
42.
Vegetable Lamb of Tartary
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The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary is a legendary zoophyte of Central Asia, once believed to grow sheep as its fruit. The sheep were connected to the plant by an umbilical cord, when all accessible foliage was gone, both the plant and sheep died. Underlying the myth is a plant, Cibotium barometz, a fern of the genus Cibotium. It was known under other names including the Scythian lamb, the borometz, barometz and borametz. The lamb is produced by removing the leaves from a length of the ferns woolly rhizome. When the rhizome is inverted, it resembles a woolly lamb with the legs being formed by the severed petiole bases. In his book, The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, Henry Lee describes the legendary lamb as believed to be both an animal and a living plant. However, he states that some believed the lamb to be the fruit of a plant. Others, however, believed the lamb to be a member of the plant that, once separated from it. The vegetable lamb was believed to have blood, bones, and it was connected to the earth by a stem, similar to an umbilical cord, that propped the lamb up above ground. The cord could flex downward, allowing the lamb to feed on the grass, once the plants within reach were eaten, the lamb died. It could be eaten, once dead, and its blood supposedly tasted sweet like honey and its wool was said to be used by the native people of its homeland to make head coverings and other articles of clothing. The only carnivorous animals attracted to the lamb-plant were wolves, there is mention of a similar plant-animal in Jewish folklore as early as AD436. This creature, called the Yeduah, was like a lamb in form and those who went hunting the Yeduah could only harvest the creature by severing it from its stem with arrows or darts. Once the animal was severed, it died and its bones could be used in divination, an alternative version of the legend tells of the Faduah, a human-shaped plant-animal connected to the earth from a stem attached to its navel. The Faduah was believed to be aggressive, though, grabbing and killing any creature that wandered too close, like the Barometz, it too died once severed from its stem. He is referring to the legendary plant-animal, the barnacle tree, the ripened fruit would then release “barnacle geese” that would live in the water, growing to mature geese. The alleged existence of this fellow plant-animal was accepted as an explanation for migrating geese from the North, much like the vegetable lamb, the watersheep was believed to be both plant and animal and tales of its existence placed it near Persia
43.
Belsazar Hacquet
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Belsazar de la Motte Hacquet was a Carniolan physician of French descent in the Enlightenment Era. He was a war surgeon, a surgeon in the town of Idrija. He researched the geology and botany of Carniola, Istria, and nearby places and he also did ethnographical work among the South Slavic peoples, particularly among the Slovene-speaking population. He self-identified primarily as a chemist and introduced the methods of analysis to Carniola. Hacquet was mysterious about the time and place of his birth, most sources have cited the information from his autobiography that he was born in 1739 or 1740 in Le Conquet, Brittany to an aristocratic father. When he lived in Ljubljana, he told Sigmund Zois that he was born to a Russian grandee, in 1821, the German lexicon Das Gelehrte Teutschland mentioned that he had been born in Metz, Lorraine. A2003 investigation in the archives in Metz has given further credence to the claim that Hacquet had been born in this town or its vicinity. The author hypothesised that Balthasar Hacquet was a son of a poor mother, however, the question remains unsettled pending further research. Hacquet studied in Vienna, and was a surgeon during the Seven Years War. Since 1766 until 1773 he was the surgeon and obstetrician in Idrija. In 1772 he became member of the Carniolan Agricultural Society, in 1773 he became a teacher of anatomy, physiology and obstetrics at Ljubljana Lyceum. From 1787 until 1805 he was a professor at the Lwów University, then he worked in Krakow, where he stayed until 1809. In 1807 he became dean of the Medical Faculty, from 1810, when he retired, he lived in Vienna. Hacquet is remembered for his journeys throughout the Austrian Empire. He was a polymath, and performed research in the fields of geology, mineralogy, botany, chemistry, ethnography and he is recognized as the first scientist to perform extensive exploration of the Julian Alps. In 1777 he was the first to try to ascend to the top of Triglav, the highest peak in Slovenia, in 1789 he published a description of the 1786 debris flow at the Slano Blato Landslide. He was the first after Carl Linnaeus to distinguish the mineral dolomite from the limestone and described it already in 1778,13 years earlier than Déodat Gratet de Dolomieu and he met with Dolomieu in Laibach in 1784. Among Hacquets written works is the four-volume Oryctographia Carniolica, which included a geological and mineralogical study of Carniola, Istria and he was also the author of an ethnographical study of Southern Slavic peoples called Slavus Venedus Illyricus
44.
Ljubljana
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Ljubljana is the capital and largest city of Slovenia. It has been the cultural, educational, economic, political, during antiquity, a Roman city called Emona stood in the area. Ljubljana itself was first mentioned in the first half of the 12th century and it was under Habsburg rule from the Middle Ages until the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918. Situated at the middle of a route between the northern Adriatic Sea and the Danube region, it was the historical capital of Carniola. The origin of the name is unclear. In the Middle Ages, both the river and the town were known by the German name Laibach. This name was in use as an endonym until 1918. The city is called in Italian Lubiana and in Latin, Labacum or Aemona For most scholars, the problem has been in how to connect the Slovene and he supported the thesis that the name of the river derived from the name of the settlement. The name Laibach, he claimed, was actually a hybrid of German and Slovene, the symbol of the city is the Ljubljana Dragon. It is depicted on the top of the tower of Ljubljana Castle in the Ljubljana coat of arms and it symbolizes power, courage, and greatness. There are several explanations on the origin of the Ljubljana Dragon and it was there that Jason struck down a monster. This monster has evolved into the dragon that today is present in the city coat of arms and it is historically more believable that the dragon was adopted from Saint George, the patron of the Ljubljana Castle chapel built in the 15th century. In the legend of Saint George, the dragon represents the old ancestral paganism overcome by Christianity, according to another explanation, related to the second, the dragon was at first only a decoration above the city coat of arms. In the Baroque, it part of the coat of arms. Around 2000 BC, the Ljubljana Marshes in the vicinity of Ljubljana were settled by people living in pile dwellings. Prehistoric pile dwellings and the oldest wooden wheel in the world are among the most notable archeological findings from the marshland and these lake-dwelling people lived through hunting, fishing and primitive agriculture. To get around the marshes, they used dugout canoes made by cutting out the inside of tree trunks and their archeological remains, nowadays in the Municipality of Ig, have been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site since June 2011, in the common nomination of six Alpine states. Around 50 BC, the Romans built a military encampment that later became a permanent settlement called Iulia Aemona and this entrenched fort was occupied by the Legio XV Apollinaris
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Carniola
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Carniola was a historical region that comprised parts of present-day Slovenia. In 1991, 47% of the population of Slovenia lived within the borders of the former Duchy of Carniola and its capital was originally Krainburg, for a short period Stein, and from the second half of the 13th century, Laibach or Ljubljana. Nowadays, its territory is almost entirely located in Slovenia, except for a part in the northwest Italy. Carniola in its form, established in 1815, encompassed 9,904 km2. In 1914, before the beginning of World War I, it had a population of slightly under 530,000 inhabitants, the Julian and Karavanken Alps traverse the country. The highest mountain peaks are Nanos,4,200 feet, Vremščica,3,360 feet, Snežnik,5,900 feet, and Triglav,9,300 feet. The principal rivers are Sava, Tržič Bistrica, Kokra, Kamnik Bistrica, Sora, Ljubljanica, Mirna, Krka, and Kolpa and it was known to the Romans as Lugea palus, and is a natural curiosity. Dante Alighieri mentions it in his Divine Comedy, the Ljubljana Marshes cover an area of 76 square miles. Hot and mineral springs are to be found at Sušica, Šmarjetske, there is an interesting cave at Postojna. Agriculture thrives better in Upper than in Lower Carniola, the Vipava Valley is especially famous for its wine and vegetables, and for its mild climate. The principal exports are all kinds of vegetables, clover-seed, lumber, carvings, cattle, in the mineral kingdom the principal products are iron, coal, quicksilver, manganese, lead, and zinc. Upper Carniola has the most industries, among the products being lumber, linen, woollen stuffs, and lace, bells, straw hats, wicker-work, the railroads are the Juzna, the Prince Rudolf, the Bohinjska, the Kamniska, the Dolenjska, and the Vrhniska. The principal cities and towns are, Kamnik, Kranj, Tržič, Vrhnika, Vipava, Idrija, Turjak, Ribnica, Metlika, Novo Mesto, Vače. The mean average temperature in spring is 56 °F, in summer,77 °F, in autumn,59 °F, of the inhabitants 95 per cent were Slovenes, kinsmen to the Croats, the remainder are Germans,700 Croats, and Italians. In the districts of Gottschee and Črnomelj dwell the people of White Carniola for a link between the Croats and Slovenes. One-half of the Germans live in Gottschee,5000 in Ljubljana,3500 at Novo Mesto, the Germans at Gottschee were settled there by Otho, Count of Ortenburg, in the fourteenth century, and they preserve their Tyrolean German dialect. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Lombards settled in Carniola, from about 900 AD until the 20th century, Carniolas ruling classes and urban areas spoke German, while the peasantry spoke Slovene. The capital of Carniola, originally situated at Kranj, was moved to Kamnik and finally to the current capital of Slovenia
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Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor
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Joseph II was Holy Roman Emperor from 1765 to 1790 and ruler of the Habsburg lands from 1780 to 1790. He was the eldest son of Empress Maria Theresa and her husband, Francis I and he was thus the first ruler in the Austrian dominions of the House of Lorraine, styled Habsburg-Lorraine. He has been ranked, with Catherine the Great of Russia and Frederick the Great of Prussia and his policies are now known as Josephinism. He died with no sons and was succeeded by his younger brother, Joseph was born in the midst of the early upheavals of the War of the Austrian Succession. His real education was given to him through the writings of Voltaire and the Encyclopédistes and he married Princess Isabella of Parma in October 1760, a union fashioned to bolster the 1756 defensive pact between France and Austria. Joseph loved his bride, Isabella, finding her both stimulating and charming, and she sought, with care to cultivate his favor. The marriage of Joseph and Isabella resulted in the birth of a daughter, Isabella was fearful of pregnancy and early death. Her own pregnancy proved difficult as she suffered symptoms of pain, illness. She remained bedridden for six weeks after their daughters birth, almost immediately on the back of their newfound parenthood, the couple then endured two consecutive miscarriages—an ordeal particularly hard on Isabella—followed quickly by another pregnancy. Pregnancy was again provoking melancholy, fears and dread in Isabella, progressively ill with smallpox and strained by sudden childbirth and tragedy, Isabella died the following week. This marriage proved unhappy, albeit brief, as it lasted only two years. Though Maria Josepha loved her husband, she felt timid and inferior in his company, lacking common interests or pleasures, the relationship offered little for Joseph, who confessed he felt no love for her in return. He adapted by distancing himself from his wife to the point of near total avoidance, seeing her only at meals, Maria Josepha, in turn, suffered considerable misery in finding herself locked in a cold, loveless union. Four months after the anniversary of their wedding, Maria Josepha grew ill. Joseph neither visited her during her illness nor attended her funeral, though he expressed regret for not having shown her better kindness. One thing the union did provide him was the possibility of laying claim to a portion of Bavaria. In 1770, at the age of seven, Josephs only surviving child, Maria Theresa, became ill with pleurisy, the loss of his daughter was deeply traumatic for him and left him profoundly grief-stricken and scarred. He was made a member of the council of state
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