1.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
2.
Emperor
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An emperor is a monarch, usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the equivalent, may indicate an emperors wife, mother. Emperors are generally recognized to be of an honour and rank than kings. The Emperor of Japan is the currently reigning monarch whose title is translated into English as Emperor. Both kings and emperors are monarchs, but emperor and empress are considered the higher monarchical titles. In as much as there is a definition of emperor, it is that an emperor has no relations implying the superiority of any other ruler. Thus a king might be obliged to pay tribute to another ruler, or be restrained in his actions in some unequal fashion, although initially ruling much of Central Europe and northern Italy, by the 19th century the Emperor exercised little power beyond the German speaking states. In Eastern Europe the rulers of the Russian Empire also used translatio imperii to wield authority as successors to the Eastern Roman Empire. Their title of Emperor was officially recognised by the Holy Roman Emperor in 1514, in practice the Russian Emperors are often known by their Russian-language title Tsar, which may also used to refer to rulers equivalent to a king. Historians have liberally used emperor and empire anachronistically and out of its Roman and European context to any large state from the past or the present. Such pre-Roman titles as Great King or King of Kings, used by the Kings of Persia, however such empires did not need to be headed by an emperor. Empire became identified instead with vast territorial holdings rather than the title of its ruler by the mid-18th century, outside the European context, emperor was the translation given to holders of titles who were accorded the same precedence as European emperors in diplomatic terms. In reciprocity, these rulers might accredit equal titles in their languages to their European peers. Through centuries of international convention, this has become the dominant rule to identifying an emperor in the modern era, also the name of the position split in several branches of Western tradition, see below. Later new symbols of worldly and/or spiritual power, like the orb, rules for indicating successors also varied, there was a tendency towards male inheritance of the supreme office, but as well election by noblemen, as ruling empresses are known. Ruling monarchs could additionally steer the succession by adoption, as occurred in the two first centuries of Imperial Rome. Of course, intrigue, murder and military force could also mingle in for appointing successors, probably the epoch best known for this part of the imperial tradition is Romes third century rule. When Republican Rome turned into a de facto monarchy in the half of the 1st century BC
3.
Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor
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Frederick I, also known as Frederick Barbarossa, was the Holy Roman Emperor from 1155 until his death. He was elected King of Germany at Frankfurt on 4 March 1152 and he became King of Italy in 1155 and was crowned Roman Emperor by Pope Adrian IV on 18 June 1155. Two years later, the term sacrum first appeared in a document in connection with his Empire and he was later formally crowned King of Burgundy, at Arles on 30 June 1178. He was named Barbarossa by the northern Italian cities which he attempted to rule, Barbarossa means red beard in Italian, in German, he was known as Kaiser Rotbart, before his imperial election, Frederick was by inheritance Duke of Swabia. He was the son of Duke Frederick II of the Hohenstaufen dynasty and Judith, daughter of Henry IX, Duke of Bavaria, Frederick therefore descended from the two leading families in Germany, making him an acceptable choice for the Empires prince-electors. Historians consider him among the Holy Roman Empires greatest medieval emperors, in 1147 he became Duke of the southern German region of Swabia, and shortly afterwards made his first trip to the East, accompanied by his uncle, the German king Conrad III, on the Second Crusade. The expedition proved to be a disaster, but Frederick distinguished himself, when Conrad died in February 1152, only Frederick and the prince-bishop of Bamberg were at his deathbed. Frederick energetically pursued the crown and at Frankfurt on 4 March 1152 the kingdoms princely electors designated him as the next German king and he was crowned King of the Romans at Aachen several days later, on 9 March 1152. Fredericks father was from the Hohenstaufen family, and his mother was from the Welf family, the Hohenstaufens were often called Ghibellines, which derives from the Italianized name for Waiblingen castle, the family seat in Swabia, the Welfs, in a similar Italianization, were called Guelfs. The reigns of Henry IV and Henry V left the status of the German empire in disarray, for a quarter of a century following the death of Henry V in 1125, the German monarchy was largely a nominal title with no real power. The king was chosen by the princes, was given no resources outside those of his own duchy, the royal title was furthermore passed from one family to another to preclude the development of any dynastic interest in the German crown. When Frederick I of Hohenstaufen was chosen as king in 1152, royal power had been in abeyance for over twenty-five years. The only real claim to lay in the rich cities of northern Italy. The Salian line had died out with the death of Henry V in 1125, one of the Hohenstaufens gained the throne as Conrad III of Germany. When Frederick Barbarossa succeeded his uncle in 1152, there seemed to be excellent prospects for ending the feud, the Welf duke of Saxony, Henry the Lion, would not be appeased, however, remaining an implacable enemy of the Hohenstaufen monarchy. Barbarossa had the duchies of Swabia and Franconia, the force of his own personality, the Germany that Frederick tried to unite was a patchwork of more than 1600 individual states, each with its own prince. A few of these, such as Bavaria and Saxony, were large, many were too small to pinpoint on a map. The titles afforded to the German king were Caesar, Augustus, by the time Frederick would assume these, they were little more than propaganda slogans with little other meaning
4.
Shroud of Turin
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The shroud is kept in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, northern Italy. The Catholic Church has neither endorsed nor rejected the shroud. Pope John Paul II called the Shroud a mirror of the Gospel, the origins of the shroud and its images are the subject of intense debate among theologians, historians and researchers. Articles published from 2005 -2015 have highlighted concerns about this dating, aspects of the 1988 test continue to be debated, but meaningful challenges to the dating result have so far been unsuccessful. According to Christopher Ramsey of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit in 2011, there are various hypotheses as to why the dates might not be correct, but none of them stack up. A variety of methods have been proposed for the formation of the image, despite numerous investigations and tests, the status of the Shroud of Turin remains murky, and the nature of the image and how it was fixed on the cloth remain puzzling. The shroud continues to be intensely studied and controversial. The shroud is rectangular, measuring approximately 4.4 by 1.1 metres, the cloth is woven in a three-to-one herringbone twill composed of flax fibrils. Its most distinctive characteristic is the faint, brownish image of a front, the two views are aligned along the midplane of the body and point in opposite directions. The front and back views of the head nearly meet at the middle of the cloth, the image of the Man of the Shroud has a beard, moustache, and shoulder-length hair parted in the middle. Forensic doctors have interpreted markings on the cloth as follows, One wrist bears a large, round wound, small punctures around the forehead and scalp Scores of linear wounds on the torso and legs. Swelling of the face Streams of blood down both arms The details of the image on the shroud are not easily seen with the naked eye, in May 1898 Italian photographer Secondo Pia was allowed to photograph the shroud. He took the first photograph of the shroud on 28 May 1898, Pia was startled by the visible image of the negative plate, implying that the shroud is effectively a negative of some kind. Pia was at first accused of doctoring his photographs, but he was vindicated in 1931 when another photographer, Giuseppe Enrie, photographed the shroud, in 1978, ultraviolet photographs were taken of the shroud. The shroud was damaged in a fire in 1532 in the chapel in Chambery, There are some burn holes and scorched areas down both sides of the linen, caused by contact with molten silver during the fire that burned through it in places while it was folded. Fourteen large triangular patches and eight smaller ones were sewn onto the cloth by Poor Clare nuns to repair the damage, the historical records for the shroud can be separated into two time periods, before 1390 and from 1390 to the present. Prior to 1390 there are some similar images such as the Pray Codex. However, what is claimed by some to be the image of a shroud on the Pray Codex has crosses on one side, a step pyramid pattern on the other
5.
Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia
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Victor Amadeus II was Duke of Savoy from 1675 to 1730. He also held the titles of marquis of Saluzzo, duke of Montferrat, prince of Piedmont, count of Aosta, Moriana, Louis XIV organised his marriage in order to maintain French influence in the Duchy but Victor Amadeus soon broke away from the influence of France. Having fought in the War of the Spanish Succession, he became king of Sicily in 1713 but he was forced to exchange this title, Victor Amadeus was born in Turin to Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy and his second wife Marie Jeanne of Savoy. Named after his paternal grandfather Victor Amadeus I he was their only child, as an infant he was styled as the Prince of Piedmont, traditional title of the heir apparent to the duchy of Savoy. A weak child, his health was greatly monitored, as an infant he had a passion for soldiers and was noted as being very intelligent. His father died in June 1675 Turin at the age of forty after a series of convulsive fevers and his mother was declared Regent of Savoy and Marie Jeanne, known as Madame Royale at court, took power. The duchy would revert to the Kingdom of Portugal at her death. Victor Amadeus refused and a party was formed which refused to recognise his leaving Savoy. Despite a marriage contract being signed between Portugal and Savoy on 15 May 1679, the marriage between Victor Amadeus and the Infanta came to nothing and was thus cancelled, other candidates included Maria Antonia of Austria, a Countess Palatine of Neuburg and Anna Maria Luisa de Medici. Victor Amadeus was keen on the match with Tuscany and negotiations were kept secret from France even though the match never happened, under the influence of Louis XIV and Marie Jeanne, Victor Amadeus was forced to marry a French princess Anne Marie dOrléans. His mother was keen on the match and had always promoted French interests having been born in Paris a member of a branch of the House of Savoy. A significant event of his mothers regency was the Salt Wars of 1680 and these rebellions were caused by the unpopular taxes on salt in all cities in Savoy. The system had been put in place by Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy in order to raise money for the crown, the unrest caused an army to be sent to stop the unrest in the town, which was pacified quickly. However, in the town of Montaldo, the unrest began again and was more serious than before,200 soldiers were killed in warfare which lasted for several days. The news of these rebellions soon reached a wider scope and it clear that soon the whole of Piedmont was on the verge of revolt. The event had allowed Victor Amadeus a chance to some power. Having succeeded in ending his mothers power in Savoy, Victor Amadeus looked to his marriage with the youngest child of Philippe I, Duke of Orléans. The contract of marriage between Anne Marie and the Duke of Savoy was signed at Versailles on 9 April, On 10 April 1684, Anne Marie was married at Versailles, by proxy, the couple were married in person on 6 May 1684
6.
Filippo Juvarra
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Filippo Juvarra was an Italian architect and stage set designer, active in a late-Baroque style. He was born in Messina, Sicily, to a family of goldsmiths, after spending his formative years with his family in Sicily where he designed Messinas festive settings for the coronation of Philip V of Spain and Sicily, Juvarra moved to Rome in 1704. There he studied architecture with Carlo and Francesco Fontana, the first phase of his independent career was occupied with designs for ceremonies and celebrations, and especially with set designs for theatres. Juvarras set designs incorporate the scena per angolo, literally scenes at an angle, the exact origin of this style is unclear. Ferdinando Galli Bibiena claims to have invented it in his treatise Architettura Civile, however, the style was clearly in use before then, including in the works of Juvarra. A couple of early drawings by Juvarra, dated 1706, are associated with the Teatro S. Bartolomeo, Naples, the majority of his work in theatre and set design was in Rome under the patronage of Cardinal Ottoboni. He assisted in the rebuilding of the Cardinals private theatre in the Palazzo della Cancelleria, the first opera for which Juvarra designed all the sets was Costantino Pio. The libretto was by Cardinal Ottoboni and the music was by Carlo Francesco Pollarolli, the opera was premiered in 1709 and was one of the first operas to appear after the lifting of papal bans on secular theatre, it also inaugurated Ottoboni’s newly renovated private theatre. He also worked on set designs for performances sponsored by Ottoboni at the Teatro Capranica, in 1713 a theatre project took him to Genoa. In 1706 Juvarra won a contest for the new sacristy at the St. Peters, organized by Pope Clement XI, Juvarra was also an engraver, his book of engravings of sculpted coats-of-arms appeared in 1711, Raccolta di varie targhe fatte da professori primarii di Roma. He was engaged in projects in Lombardy, including a monumental altar for the Sanctuary Church of Caravaggio. He also designed the decorative belltower for the cathedral of Belluno, one of Juvarras masterworks, the basilica church of Superga, was built in 1731 and rises at the top of a mountain overlooking the city of Turin. It was part-picturesque monument and part-royal mausoloeum for the family of Savoy, construction was arduous, and took over fourteen years, including two years to flatten the mountaintop, and at incredible cost and effort to bring the stones and supplies to the peak. Behind the church was a monastery, the classical portico is appended to a centralized church with a highly vertical, seventy five meter, baroque dome, the latter creates a mountain atop a mountain effect. He also built in Turin the church of the Blessed Virgin of the Carmine and he also helped decorate the interior of many churches in Turin. He also built churches, including the bizarre, Borrominesque church of San Gregorio in Messina. In Mantua, he added a tall buttressed dome to the Alberti church of SantAndrea, the Palace of Stupinigi was built to be the royal hunting lodge some 6 miles outside of Turin, the huge layout and highly decorated interiors made this palace a grand setting for summer retreats. Juvarra fulfills the needs of his patron for classical grandeur, but with the urge to decorate
7.
Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia
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Charles Emmanuel III was the Duke of Savoy and King of Sardinia from 1730 until his death. He was born a Prince of Savoy in Turin to Victor Amadeus II of Savoy and his maternal grandparents were Prince Philippe of France and his first wife Princess Henrietta Anne, the youngest daughter of King Charles I of England and Henrietta Maria of France. From his birth he was styled as the Duke of Aosta, at the time of his birth, Charles Emmanuel was not the heir to the Duchy of Savoy, his older brother Prince Victor Amadeus John Philip, Prince of Piedmont, was the heir apparent. Charles Emmanuel was the second of three males that would be born to his parents and his older brother died in 1715 and Charles Emmanuel then became heir apparent. As a result of his aid in the War of the Spanish Succession, Victor Amadeus was forced to exchange Sicily for the less important kingdom of Sardinia in 1720 after objections from an alliance of four nations, including several of his former allies. Yet he retained his new title of King, however, Victor Amadeus in his late years was dominated by shyness and sadness, probably under the effect of some mental illness. In the end, on 3 September 1730, he abdicated and he was not loved by Victor Amadeus, and consequently received an incomplete education. He however acquired noteworthy knowledge in the field along his father. In summer,1731, after having recovered from a fatal illness. The old king was confined to the Castle of Rivoli, where he died without any further harm to Charles. In the War of the Polish Succession Charles Emmanuel sided with the French- backed king Stanislaw I, after the treaty of alliance signed in Turin, on 28 October 1733 he marched on Milan and occupied Lombardy without significant losses. However, when France tried to convince Philip V of Spain to join the coalition, he asked to receive Milan and this was not acceptable for Charles Emmanuel, as it would recreate a Spanish domination in Italy as it had been in the previous centuries. While negotiations continued about the matter, the Savoy-French-Spanish troops attacked Mantua under the command of Charles Emmanuel himself. Sure that in the end Mantua would be assigned to Spain, the Franco-Piedmontese army was victorious in two battles at Crocetta and Guastalla. In the end, when Austria and France signed a peace, in exchange, he was given some territories, including Langhe, Tortona and Novara. Charles Emmanuel was involved in the War of the Austrian Succession, in which he sided with Maria Theresa of Austria, with financial and naval support from England. After noteworthy but inconclusive initial successes, he had to face the French-Spanish invasion of Savoy and, after a failed allied attempt to conquer the Kingdom of Naples, when the enemy army invaded Piedmont, in 1744 he personally defended Cuneo against the Spanish-French besiegers. The following year, with some 20,000 men, he was facing an invasion of two armies with a total of some 60,000 troops, the important strongholds of Alessandria, Asti and Casale fell
8.
Robert Browning
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Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of the dramatic monologue made him one of the foremost Victorian poets. His poems are known for their irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentary, historical settings, Brownings early career began promisingly, but was not a success. His reputation took more than a decade to recover, during which time he moved away from the Shelleyan forms of his early period, in 1846 Browning married the older poet Elizabeth Barrett, who at the time was considerably better known than himself. So started one of historys most famous literary marriages and they went to live in Italy, a country he called my university, and which features frequently in his work. By the time of her death in 1861, he had published the crucial collection Men and Women, the collection Dramatis Personae and the book-length epic poem The Ring and the Book followed, and made him a leading British poet. He continued to write prolifically, but his reputation rests largely on the poetry he wrote in this middle period. Unusually for a poet, societies for the study of his work were founded while he was still alive, such Browning Societies remained common in Britain and the United States until the early 20th century. Brownings admirers have tended to temper their praise with reservations about the length and difficulty of his most ambitious poems, particularly The Ring and the Book. Nevertheless, they have included such eminent writers as Henry James, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, G. K. Chesterton, Ezra Pound, Jorge Luis Borges, among living writers, Stephen Kings The Dark Tower series and A. S. Byatts Possession refer directly to Brownings work, today Brownings critically most esteemed poems include the monologues Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, Fra Lippo Lippi, Andrea Del Sarto, and My Last Duchess. Robert Browning was born in Walworth in the parish of Camberwell, Surrey and he was baptized on 14 June 1812, at Locks Fields Independent Chapel, York Street, Walworth, the only son of Sarah Anna and Robert Browning. His father was a clerk for the Bank of England. Brownings paternal grandfather was an owner in Saint Kitts, West Indies. Brownings father had sent to the West Indies to work on a sugar plantation. Brownings mother was the daughter of a German shipowner who had settled in Dundee in Scotland, the evidence, however, is inconclusive either way. Roberts father, a collector, amassed a library of around 6,000 books. As such, Robert was raised in a household of significant literary resources and his mother, to whom he was very close, was a devout nonconformist and a talented musician. His younger sister, Sarianna, also gifted, became her brothers companion in his later years and his father encouraged his childrens interest in literature and the arts
9.
Piedmont
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Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.6 million, the capital of Piedmont is Turin. The name Piedmont comes from medieval Latin Pedemontium or Pedemontis, i. e. ad pedem montium, meaning “at the foot of the mountains”. Other towns of Piedmont with more than 20,000 inhabitants sorted by population and it borders with France, Switzerland and the Italian regions of Lombardy, Liguria, Aosta Valley and for a very small fragment with Emilia Romagna. The geography of Piedmont is 43. 3% mountainous, along with areas of hills. Piedmont is the second largest of Italys 20 regions, after Sicily and it is broadly coincident with the upper part of the drainage basin of the river Po, which rises from the slopes of Monviso in the west of the region and is Italy’s largest river. The Po collects all the waters provided within the semicircle of mountains which surround the region on three sides, from the highest peaks the land slopes down to hilly areas, and then to the upper, and then to the lower great Padan Plain. 7. 6% of the territory is considered protected area. There are 56 different national or regional parks, one of the most famous is the Gran Paradiso National Park located between Piedmont and the Aosta Valley, Piedmont was inhabited in early historic times by Celtic-Ligurian tribes such as the Taurini and the Salassi. They were later subdued by the Romans, who founded several colonies there including Augusta Taurinorum, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the region was repeatedly invaded by the Burgundians, the Goths, Byzantines, Lombards, Franks. In the 9th–10th centuries there were incursions by the Magyars. At the time Piedmont, as part of the Kingdom of Italy within the Holy Roman Empire, was subdivided into several marks, in 1046, Oddo of Savoy added Piedmont to their main territory of Savoy, with a capital at Chambéry. Other areas remained independent, such as the powerful comuni of Asti and Alessandria, the County of Savoy was elevated to a duchy in 1416, and Duke Emanuele Filiberto moved the seat to Turin in 1563. In 1720, the Duke of Savoy became King of Sardinia, founding what evolved into the Kingdom of Sardinia, the Republic of Alba was created in 1796 as a French client republic in Piedmont. A new client republic, the Piedmontese Republic, existed between 1798 and 1799 before it was reoccupied by Austrian and Russian troops, in June 1800 a third client republic, the Subalpine Republic, was established in Piedmont. It fell under full French control in 1801 and it was annexed by France in September 1802, in the congress of Vienna, the Kingdom of Sardinia was restored, and furthermore received the Republic of Genoa to strengthen it as a barrier against France. Piedmont was a springboard for Italys unification in 1859–1861, following earlier unsuccessful wars against the Austrian Empire in 1820–1821 and this process is sometimes referred to as Piedmontisation. However, the efforts were countered by the efforts of rural farmers
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