1.
Pantheon, Rome
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The Pantheon is a former Roman temple, now a church, in Rome, Italy, on the site of an earlier temple commissioned by Marcus Agrippa during the reign of Augustus. The present building was completed by the emperor Hadrian and probably dedicated about 126 AD and he retained Agrippas original inscription, which has confused its date of construction as the original Pantheon burnt down so it is not certain when the present one was built. The building is circular with a portico of large granite Corinthian columns under a pediment, a rectangular vestibule links the porch to the rotunda, which is under a coffered concrete dome, with a central opening to the sky. Almost two thousand years after it was built, the Pantheons dome is still the worlds largest unreinforced concrete dome, the height to the oculus and the diameter of the interior circle are the same,43.3 metres. Mary and the Martyrs but informally known as Santa Maria Rotonda, the square in front of the Pantheon is called Piazza della Rotonda. The Pantheon is a property, ruled by Italys Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism through the Polo Museale del Lazio. The Pantheons large circular domed cella, with a temple portico front, is unique in Roman architecture. Nevertheless, it became a standard exemplar when classical styles were revived, Pantheon is derived from the Ancient Greek Pantheion meaning of, relating to, or common to all the gods. His uncertainty strongly suggests that Pantheon was merely a nickname, not the name of the building. In fact, the concept of a dedicated to all the gods is questionable. The only definite pantheon recorded earlier than Agrippas was at Antioch in Syria and it seems highly significant that Dio does not quote the simplest explanation for the name—that the Pantheon was dedicated to all the gods. Godfrey and Hemsoll maintain that the word Pantheon need not denote a group of gods, or, indeed, even all the gods. Certainly the word pantheus or pantheos, could be applicable to individual deities…, bearing in mind also that the Greek word θεῖος need not mean of a god but could mean superhuman, or even excellent. It seems likely that the Pantheon and the Basilica of Neptune were Agrippas sacra privata and this less solemn designation would help explain how the building could have so easily lost its original name and purpose in such a relatively short period of time. However, archaeological excavations have shown that the Pantheon of Agrippa had been destroyed except for the façade. Lise Hetland argues that the present construction began in 114, under Trajan and her argument is particularly interesting in light of Heilmeyers argument that, based on stylistic evidence, Apollodorus of Damascus, Trajans architect, was the obvious architect. The form of Agrippas Pantheon is debated and this description was widely accepted until the late 20th century. The only passages referring to the decoration of the Agrippan Pantheon written by an eyewitness are in Plinys Natural History, from him we know that the capitals, too, of the pillars, which were placed by M
2.
Engraving
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Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it. Wood engraving is a form of printing and is not covered in this article. Engraving was an important method of producing images on paper in artistic printmaking, in mapmaking. Other terms often used for printed engravings are copper engraving, copper-plate engraving or line engraving, hand engraving is a term sometimes used for engraving objects other than printing plates, to inscribe or decorate jewellery, firearms, trophies, knives and other fine metal goods. Traditional engravings in printmaking are also engraved, using just the same techniques to make the lines in the plate. Each graver is different and has its own use, engravers use a hardened steel tool called a burin, or graver, to cut the design into the surface, most traditionally a copper plate. Modern professional engravers can engrave with a resolution of up to 40 lines per mm in high grade work creating game scenes, dies used in mass production of molded parts are sometimes hand engraved to add special touches or certain information such as part numbers. In addition to engraving, there are engraving machines that require less human finesse and are not directly controlled by hand. They are usually used for lettering, using a pantographic system, there are versions for the insides of rings and also the outsides of larger pieces. Such machines are used for inscriptions on rings, lockets. Gravers come in a variety of shapes and sizes that yield different line types, the burin produces a unique and recognizable quality of line that is characterized by its steady, deliberate appearance and clean edges. The angle tint tool has a curved tip that is commonly used in printmaking. Florentine liners are flat-bottomed tools with multiple lines incised into them, ring gravers are made with particular shapes that are used by jewelry engravers in order to cut inscriptions inside rings. Flat gravers are used for work on letters, as well as wriggle cuts on most musical instrument engraving work, remove background. Knife gravers are for line engraving and very deep cuts, round gravers, and flat gravers with a radius, are commonly used on silver to create bright cuts, as well as other hard-to-cut metals such as nickel and steel. Square or V-point gravers are typically square or elongated diamond-shaped and used for cutting straight lines, V-point can be anywhere from 60 to 130 degrees, depending on purpose and effect. These gravers have very small cutting points, other tools such as mezzotint rockers, roulets and burnishers are used for texturing effects. Burnishing tools can also be used for stone setting techniques
3.
Classical order
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An Order in architecture is a certain assemblage of parts subject to uniform established proportions, regulated by the office that each part has to perform. The three orders of architecture—the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian—originated in Greece, to these the Romans added, in practice if not in name, the Tuscan, which they made simpler than Doric, and the Composite, which was more ornamental than the Corinthian. The Architectural Order of a building is akin to the mode or key of classical music. It is established by certain modules like the intervals of music, Columns shrank into half-columns emerging from walls or turned into pilasters. This treatment continued after the conscious and correct use of the orders, initially following exclusively Roman models, Greek Revival architecture, inspired by increasing knowledge of Greek originals, returned to more authentic models, including ones from relatively early periods. Each style has distinctive capitals at the top of columns and horizontal entablatures which it supports, the column shaft and base also varies with the order, and is sometimes articulated with vertical hollow grooves known as fluting. The capital rests on the shaft and it has a load-bearing function, which concentrates the weight of the entablature on the supportive column, but it primarily serves an aesthetic purpose. The necking is the continuation of the shaft, but is separated by one or many grooves. The echinus lies atop the necking and it is a circular block that bulges outwards towards the top to support the abacus, which is a square or shaped block that in turn supports the entablature. The entablature consists of three layers, all of which are visually separated from each other using moldings or bands. There are names for all the parts of the orders. The height of columns are calculated in terms of a ratio between the diameter of the shaft at its base and the height of the column, sometimes this is phrased as lower diameters high, to establish which part of the shaft has been measured. There are three orders in Ancient Greek architecture, Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. These three were adopted by the Romans, who modified their capitals, the Roman adoption of the Greek orders took place in the 1st century BC. The three Ancient Greek orders have since been used in neo-classical European architecture. Sometimes the Doric order is considered the earliest order, but there is no evidence to support this, rather, the Doric and Ionic orders seem to have appeared at around the same time, the Ionic in eastern Greece and the Doric in the west and mainland. Both the Doric and the Ionic order appear to have originated in wood, the Temple of Hera in Olympia is the oldest well-preserved temple of Doric architecture. It was built just after 600 BC, the Doric order later spread across Greece and into Sicily where it was the chief order for monumental architecture for 800 years
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Greece
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Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, historically also known as Hellas, is a country in southeastern Europe, with a population of approximately 11 million as of 2015. Athens is the capital and largest city, followed by Thessaloniki. Greece is strategically located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, situated on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the northeast. Greece consists of nine regions, Macedonia, Central Greece, the Peloponnese, Thessaly, Epirus, the Aegean Islands, Thrace, Crete. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of the mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, the Cretan Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean Basin and the 11th longest coastline in the world at 13,676 km in length, featuring a vast number of islands, eighty percent of Greece is mountainous, with Mount Olympus being the highest peak at 2,918 metres. From the eighth century BC, the Greeks were organised into various independent city-states, known as polis, which spanned the entire Mediterranean region and the Black Sea. Greece was annexed by Rome in the second century BC, becoming a part of the Roman Empire and its successor. The Greek Orthodox Church also shaped modern Greek identity and transmitted Greek traditions to the wider Orthodox World, falling under Ottoman dominion in the mid-15th century, the modern nation state of Greece emerged in 1830 following a war of independence. Greeces rich historical legacy is reflected by its 18 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, among the most in Europe, Greece is a democratic and developed country with an advanced high-income economy, a high quality of life, and a very high standard of living. A founding member of the United Nations, Greece was the member to join the European Communities and has been part of the Eurozone since 2001. Greeces unique cultural heritage, large industry, prominent shipping sector. It is the largest economy in the Balkans, where it is an important regional investor, the names for the nation of Greece and the Greek people differ from the names used in other languages, locations and cultures. The earliest evidence of the presence of human ancestors in the southern Balkans, dated to 270,000 BC, is to be found in the Petralona cave, all three stages of the stone age are represented in Greece, for example in the Franchthi Cave. Neolithic settlements in Greece, dating from the 7th millennium BC, are the oldest in Europe by several centuries and these civilizations possessed writing, the Minoans writing in an undeciphered script known as Linear A, and the Mycenaeans in Linear B, an early form of Greek. The Mycenaeans gradually absorbed the Minoans, but collapsed violently around 1200 BC and this ushered in a period known as the Greek Dark Ages, from which written records are absent. The end of the Dark Ages is traditionally dated to 776 BC, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the foundational texts of Western literature, are believed to have been composed by Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BC. With the end of the Dark Ages, there emerged various kingdoms and city-states across the Greek peninsula, in 508 BC, Cleisthenes instituted the worlds first democratic system of government in Athens
5.
Rome
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Rome is a special comune and the capital of Italy. Rome also serves as the capital of the Lazio region, with 2,873,598 residents in 1,285 km2, it is also the countrys largest and most populated comune and fourth-most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. It is the center of the Metropolitan City of Rome, which has a population of 4.3 million residents, the city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio, along the shores of the Tiber. Romes history spans more than 2,500 years, while Roman mythology dates the founding of Rome at only around 753 BC, the site has been inhabited for much longer, making it one of the oldest continuously occupied sites in Europe. The citys early population originated from a mix of Latins, Etruscans and it was first called The Eternal City by the Roman poet Tibullus in the 1st century BC, and the expression was also taken up by Ovid, Virgil, and Livy. Rome is also called the Caput Mundi, due to that, Rome became first one of the major centres of the Italian Renaissance, and then the birthplace of both the Baroque style and Neoclassicism. Famous artists, painters, sculptors and architects made Rome the centre of their activity, in 1871 Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, and in 1946 that of the Italian Republic. Rome has the status of a global city, Rome ranked in 2014 as the 14th-most-visited city in the world, 3rd most visited in the European Union, and the most popular tourist attraction in Italy. Its historic centre is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, monuments and museums such as the Vatican Museums and the Colosseum are among the worlds most visited tourist destinations with both locations receiving millions of tourists a year. Rome hosted the 1960 Summer Olympics and is the seat of United Nations Food, however, it is a possibility that the name Romulus was actually derived from Rome itself. As early as the 4th century, there have been alternate theories proposed on the origin of the name Roma. There is archaeological evidence of occupation of the Rome area from approximately 14,000 years ago. Evidence of stone tools, pottery and stone weapons attest to about 10,000 years of human presence, several excavations support the view that Rome grew from pastoral settlements on the Palatine Hill built above the area of the future Roman Forum. Between the end of the age and the beginning of the Iron age. However, none of them had yet an urban quality, nowadays, there is a wide consensus that the city was gradually born through the aggregation of several villages around the largest one, placed above the Palatine. All these happenings, which according to the excavations took place more or less around the mid of the 8th century BC. Despite recent excavations at the Palatine hill, the view that Rome has been indeed founded with an act of will as the legend suggests in the middle of the 8th century BC remains a fringe hypothesis. Traditional stories handed down by the ancient Romans themselves explain the earliest history of their city in terms of legend and myth
6.
Architecture
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Architecture is both the process and the product of planning, designing, and constructing buildings and other physical structures. Architectural works, in the form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural symbols. Historical civilizations are often identified with their surviving architectural achievements, Architecture can mean, A general term to describe buildings and other physical structures. The art and science of designing buildings and nonbuilding structures, the style of design and method of construction of buildings and other physical structures. A unifying or coherent form or structure Knowledge of art, science, technology, the design activity of the architect, from the macro-level to the micro-level. The practice of the architect, where architecture means offering or rendering services in connection with the design and construction of buildings. The earliest surviving work on the subject of architecture is De architectura. According to Vitruvius, a building should satisfy the three principles of firmitas, utilitas, venustas, commonly known by the original translation – firmness, commodity. An equivalent in modern English would be, Durability – a building should stand up robustly, utility – it should be suitable for the purposes for which it is used. Beauty – it should be aesthetically pleasing, according to Vitruvius, the architect should strive to fulfill each of these three attributes as well as possible. Leon Battista Alberti, who elaborates on the ideas of Vitruvius in his treatise, De Re Aedificatoria, saw beauty primarily as a matter of proportion, for Alberti, the rules of proportion were those that governed the idealised human figure, the Golden mean. The most important aspect of beauty was, therefore, an inherent part of an object, rather than something applied superficially, Gothic architecture, Pugin believed, was the only true Christian form of architecture. The 19th-century English art critic, John Ruskin, in his Seven Lamps of Architecture, Architecture was the art which so disposes and adorns the edifices raised by men. That the sight of them contributes to his health, power. For Ruskin, the aesthetic was of overriding significance and his work goes on to state that a building is not truly a work of architecture unless it is in some way adorned. For Ruskin, a well-constructed, well-proportioned, functional building needed string courses or rustication, but suddenly you touch my heart, you do me good. I am happy and I say, This is beautiful, le Corbusiers contemporary Ludwig Mies van der Rohe said Architecture starts when you carefully put two bricks together. The notable 19th-century architect of skyscrapers, Louis Sullivan, promoted an overriding precept to architectural design, function came to be seen as encompassing all criteria of the use, perception and enjoyment of a building, not only practical but also aesthetic, psychological and cultural
7.
Doric order
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The Doric order was one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture, the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognised by the simple circular capitals at the top of columns and it was the earliest and in its essence the simplest of the orders, though still with complex details in the entablature above. The Greek Doric column was fluted or smooth-surfaced, and had no base, the capital was a simple circular form, with some mouldings, under a square cushion that is very wide in early versions, but later more restrained. In stone they are purely ornamental, the relatively uncommon Roman and Renaissance Doric retained these, and often introduced thin layers of moulding or further ornament, as well as often using plain columns. The Doric order was used in Greek Revival architecture from the 18th century onwards, often earlier Greek versions were used, with wider columns. Since at least Vitruvius it has been customary for writers to associate the Doric with masculine virtues and it is also normally the cheapest of the orders to use. In their original Greek version, Doric columns stood directly on the pavement of a temple without a base. The Parthenon has the Doric design columns and it was most popular in the Archaic Period in mainland Greece, and also found in Magna Graecia, as in the three temples at Paestum. These are in the Archaic Doric, where the capitals spread wide from the column compared to later Classical forms, pronounced features of both Greek and Roman versions of the Doric order are the alternating triglyphs and metopes. The triglyphs are decoratively grooved with two vertical grooves and represent the original wooden end-beams, which rest on the plain architrave that occupies the half of the entablature. Under each triglyph are peglike stagons or guttae that appear as if they were hammered in from below to stabilize the post-and-beam construction and they also served to organize rainwater runoff from above. The spaces between the triglyphs are the metopes and they may be left plain, or they may be carved in low relief. The spacing of the triglyphs caused problems which some time to resolve. The architecture followed rules of harmony, since the original design probably came from wooden temples and the triglyphs were real heads of wooden beams, every column had to bear a beam which lay across the centre of the column. Triglyphs were arranged regularly, the last triglyph was centred upon the last column and this was regarded as the ideal solution which had to be reached. Changing to stone instead of wooden beams required full support of the architrave load at the last column. At the first temples the final triglyph was moved, still terminating the sequence, even worse, the last triglyph was not centered with the corresponding column. That “archaic” manner was not regarded as a harmonious design, the resulting problem is called the doric corner conflict
8.
Ionic order
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The Ionic order forms one of the three classical orders of classical architecture, the other two canonic orders being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two orders, the Tuscan, and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite order. The Ionic columns are the thinnest and smallest columns out of the three canonic orders, the Ionic capital is characterized by the use of volutes. The Ionic columns normally stand on a base which separates the shaft of the column from the stylobate or platform, since Vitruvius a female character has been ascribed to the Ionic, in contrast to the masculine Doric. The major features of the Ionic order are the volutes of its capital, the only tools required to design these features were a straight-edge, a right angle, string and a compass. Originally the volutes lay in a plane, then it was seen that they could be angled out on the corners. Ionic columns are most often fluted, after a little early experimentation, the number of hollow flutes in the shaft settled at 24. This standardization kept the fluting in a proportion to the diameter of the column at any scale. Roman fluting leaves a little of the surface between each hollow, Greek fluting runs out to a knife edge that was easily scarred. In some instances, the fluting has been omitted, mohr included 8 unfluted Ionic frontal columns on his 1928 design for the railroads St. Louis suburban stop Delmar Station. Pictorial often narrative bas-relief frieze carving provides a feature of the Ionic order. Roman and Renaissance practice condensed the height of the entablature by reducing the proportions of the architrave, the Ionic order originated in the mid-6th century BC in Ionia, the southwestern coastland and islands of Asia Minor settled by Ionian Greeks, where an Ionian dialect was spoken. The Ionic order column was being practiced in mainland Greece in the 5th century BC and it was most popular in the Archaic Period in Ionia. The first of the great Ionic temples was the Temple of Hera on Samos and it stood for only a decade before it was leveled by an earthquake. A longer-lasting 6th century Ionic temple was the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Parthenon, although it conforms mainly to the Doric order, also has some Ionic elements. A more purely Ionic mode to be seen on the Athenian Acropolis is exemplified in the Erechtheum, following the conquests of Alexander the Great in the east, a few examples of the Ionic order can be found as far as Pakistan with the Jandial temple near Taxila. Several examples of capitals displaying Ionic influences can seen as far away as Patna, especially with the Pataliputra capital. Renaissance architectural theorists took his hints, to interpret the Ionic order as matronly in comparison to the Doric order, the Ionic is a natural order for post-Renaissance libraries and courts of justice, learned and civilized
9.
Classical architecture
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Different styles of classical architecture have arguably existed since the Carolingian Renaissance, and prominently since the Italian Renaissance. Although classical styles of architecture can vary greatly, they can in all be said to draw on a common vocabulary of decorative and constructive elements. The term classical architecture also applies to any mode of architecture that has evolved to a highly refined state, such as classical Chinese architecture and it can also refer to any architecture that employs classical aesthetic philosophy. The term might be used differently from traditional or vernacular architecture, for contemporary buildings following authentic classical principles, the term New Classical Architecture may be used. Classical architecture is derived from the architecture of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, with the collapse of the western part of the Roman empire, the architectural traditions of the Roman empire ceased to be practised in large parts of western Europe. In the Byzantine Empire, the ancient ways of building lived on, the first conscious efforts to bring back the disused language of form of classical antiquity into Western architecture can be traced to the Carolingian Renaissance of the late 8th and 9th centuries. In general, therefore, they are not considered classical architectural styles in a strict sense, nonetheless, the classical architecture of the Renaissance from the outset represents a highly specific interpretation of the classical ideas. Most of the styles originating in post-renaissance Europe can be described as classical architecture and this broad use of the term is employed by Sir John Summerson in The Classical Language of Architecture. The elements of architecture have been applied in radically different architectural contexts than those for which they were developed. For example, Baroque or Rococo architecture are styles which, although classical at root, during these periods, architectural theory still referred to classical ideas but rather less sincerely than during the Renaissance. Neoclassical architecture held a strong position on the architectural scene c. With the advent of Modernism during the early 20th century, classical architecture arguably almost completely ceased to be practised, as noted above, classical styles of architecture dominated Western architecture for a very long time, roughly from the Renaissance until the advent of Modernism. That is to say, that classical antiquity at least in theory was considered the source of inspiration for architectural endeavours in the West for much of Modern history. Furthermore, it can even be argued that styles of architecture not typically considered classical, like Gothic, therefore, a simple delineation of the scope of classical architecture is difficult to make. The more or less defining characteristic can still be said to be a reference to ancient Greek or Roman architecture, and the architectural rules or theories that derived from that architecture. In the grammar of architecture, the word petrification is often used when discussing the development of sacred structures, such as temples, during the Archaic and early Classical periods, the architectural forms of the earliest temples had solidified and the Doric emerged as the predominant element. And not everyone within the reach of Mediterranean civilization made this transition. Nor was it the lack of knowledge of working on their part that prevented them from making the transition from timber to dressed stone
10.
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
11.
Tuscan order
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The Tuscan order is in effect a simplified Doric order, with un-fluted columns and a simpler entablature with no triglyphs or guttae. It was not one of the three orders of classical architecture described by the Roman architect Vitruvius, these were the Doric, Ionic, instead the Tuscan order, presented as a standardized formal order, is an invention of Italian Renaissance writers largely motivated by nationalism. However, relatively simple columns with round capitals had been part of the architecture of Italy. Sebastiano Serlio described five orders including a Tuscan order, the solidest and least ornate, though Fra Giocondo had attempted a first illustration of a Tuscan capital in his printed edition of Vitruvius, he showed the capital with an egg and dart enrichment that belonged to the Ionic. The most rustic Tuscan order of Serlio was later carefully delineated by Andrea Palladio, in its simplicity, The Tuscan order is seen as similar to the Doric order, and yet in its overall proportions, intercolumniation and simpler entablature, it follows the ratios of the Ionic. This strong order was considered most appropriate in military architecture and in docks, not all modern writers accept the Tuscan order, and it is sometimes called Doric even by those aware of the distinction. Giorgio Vasari made an argument for this claim by reference to il Cronacas graduated rustication on the facade of Palazzo Strozzi. Later Roman practice ignored the Tuscan order, and so did Leon Battista Alberti in De re aedificatoria, Serlio alone gives a stockier proportion of 1,6. A plain astragal or taenia ringed the column beneath its plain cap, a relatively rare church in the Tuscan order is St Pauls, Covent Garden by Inigo Jones. Christ Church, Spitalfields in London by Nicholas Hawksmoor, uses it outside, in a typical usage, at the very grand Palladian house of Wentworth Woodhouse in Yorkshire, which is mainly Corinthian, the stable court of 1768 uses Tuscan. Another English house, West Wycombe Park, has a facade in two storeys with Tuscan on the ground floor and Ionic above. This recalls Palladios Palazzo Chiericati, which uses Ionic over Doric, the Neue Wache is a Greek Revival guardhouse in Berlin, by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Nonetheless, despite these Tuscan aspects, the impression is strongly Greek. Tuscan is often used for doorways and other entrances where only a pair of columns are required, in gardening, carpenters Doric which is Tuscan, provides simple elegance to gate posts and fences in many traditional garden contexts. Composite order Buffalo as an Architectural Museum, Tuscan
12.
Composite order
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The composite order is a mixed order, combining the volutes of the Ionic order capital with the acanthus leaves of the Corinthian order. In many versions the composite order volutes are larger, however, the column of the composite order is typically ten diameters high, though as with all the orders these details may be adjusted by the architect for particular buildings. The Composite order is essentially treated as Corinthian except for the capital, the composite order is not found in ancient Greek architecture and until the Renaissance was not ranked as a separate order. Instead it was considered as an imperial Roman form of the Corinthian order, leon Battista Alberti in his De re aedificatoria mentions the composite order, calling it Italic. Despite this origin, very many Composite capitals in fact treat the two volutes as different elements, each springing from one side of their leafy base. In this, and in having an ornament between them, they resemble the Archaic Greek Aeolic order, though this seems not to have been the route of their development in early Imperial Rome. This has the advantage of removing the necessity to have a different appearance between the front and side views, and the Ionic eventally developed bending forms that allowed this. The treatment of details has often been very variable, with the inclusion of figures, heraldic symbols, the composite order, due to its delicate appearance, was deemed by the Renaissance to be suitable for the building of churches dedicated to The Virgin Mary or other female saints. In general it has been since used to suggest richness. Bramante used the order in the second order of the cloister of Santa Maria della Pace. For the first order, the Ionic order was used, francesco Borromini developed the composite order in San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, Rome. The interior of the church has 16 composite columns, the load-bearing columns placed underneath the arches have inverted volutes. This choice was highly criticised at the time, thinking it was a lack of knowledge of the Vittruvian orders that led him to his decision, the inverted volutes can also be seen in Borrominis Oratorio dei Filippini in the lower order. There the controversy was even higher, considering that Borromini also removed the acanthus leaves, reggio calabria, Dipartimento Patrimonio Architettonico e Urbanistico
13.
Fluting (architecture)
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Fluting in architecture is the shallow grooves running vertically along a surface. The term typically refers to the running on a column shaft or a pilaster. If the hollowing out of material meets in a point, the point is called an arris, if the lower half of the hollowed-out grooves appear to have been re-filled with a cylindrical element, it may be referred to as cabled fluting. Fluting University of Pittsburgh - fluting from the Medieval Art and Architecture glossary
14.
Column
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A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member, the term column applies especially to a large round support with a capital and a base or pedestal and made of stone, or appearing to be so. A small wooden or metal support is called a post. For the purpose of wind or earthquake engineering, columns may be designed to resist lateral forces, other compression members are often termed columns because of the similar stress conditions. Columns are frequently used to support beams or arches on which the parts of walls or ceilings rest. In architecture, column refers to such an element that also has certain proportional. A column might also be an element not needed for structural purposes, many columns are engaged. All significant Iron Age civilizations of the Near East and Mediterranean made some use of columns, egyptian columns are famously present in the Great Hypostyle Hall of Karnak, where 134 columns are lined up in 16 rows, with some columns reaching heights of 24 metres. Some of the most elaborate columns in the ancient world were those of the Persians and they included double-bull structures in their capitals. The Hall of Hundred Columns at Persepolis, measuring 70 ×70 metres, was built by the Achaemenid king Darius I, many of the ancient Persian columns are standing, some being more than 30 metres tall. The Minoans used whole tree-trunks, usually turned upside down in order to prevent re-growth, stood on a set in the stylobate. These were then painted as in the most famous Minoan palace of Knossos, the Minoans employed columns to create large open-plan spaces, light-wells and as a focal point for religious rituals. These traditions were continued by the later Mycenaean civilization, particularly in the megaron or hall at the heart of their palaces. Being made of wood these early columns have not survived, but their bases have and through these we may see their use. The Greeks developed the classical orders of architecture, which are most easily distinguished by the form of the column and their Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders were expanded by the Romans to include the Tuscan and Composite orders. Columns, or at least large structural exterior ones, became less significant in the architecture of the Middle Ages. Early columns were constructed of stone, some out of a piece of stone. Monolithic columns are among the heaviest stones used in architecture, other stone columns are created out of multiple sections of stone, mortared or dry-fit together
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Capital (architecture)
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In architecture the capital or chapiter forms the topmost member of a column. It mediates between the column and the load thrusting down upon it, broadening the area of the supporting surface. The capital, projecting on each side as it rises to support the abacus, joins the usually square abacus and the usually circular shaft of the column. The capital may be convex, as in the Doric order, concave, as in the bell of the Corinthian order, or scrolling out. These form the three types on which all capitals are based. The Composite order, established in the 16th century on a hint from the Arch of Titus, from the highly visible position it occupies in all colonnaded monumental buildings, the capital is often selected for ornamentation, and is often the clearest indicator of the architectural order. The treatment of its detail may be an indication of the buildings date, the decoration underneath the bracket capital comes from art and designs from the many cultures that the Persian Empire conquered and assimilated including Egypt, Babylon, and Lydia. But of course these decorations below the bracket capital serve no purpose and are simply there for show. The earliest Aegean capital is shown in the frescoes at Knossos in Crete, it was of the convex type. The Doric capital is the simplest of the five Classical orders, it consists of the abacus above an ovolo molding, the sloping side of the echinus becomes flatter in the later examples, and in the Colosseum at Rome forms a quarter round. In the Ionic capital, spirally coiled volutes are inserted between the abacus and the ovolo. In the Ionic capitals of the archaic Temple of Artemis at Ephesus the width of the abacus is twice that of its depth, a century later, in the temple on the Ilissus, the abacus has become square. It has been suggested that the foliage of the Greek Corinthian capital was based on the Acanthus spinosus, not all architectural foliage is as realistic as Isaac Wares however. The leaves are carved in two ranks or bands, like one leafy cup set within another. The various orders are discussed in Vitruvius books iii and iv, Vitruvius describes Roman practice in a practical fashion. He gives some tales about the invention of each of the Orders, the increasing adoption of composite capitals signalled a trend towards freer, more inventive capitals in Late Antiquity. The top of an anta is often decorated, usually with bands of floral motifs. The designs often respond to an order of columns, but usually with a different set of design principles, in order not to protude excessively from the wall surface, these structures tend to have a rather flat surface, forming brick-shaped capitals, called anta capitals
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Acanthus (ornament)
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The acanthus is one of the most common plant forms to make foliage ornament and decoration. The motif is found in decoration in nearly every medium, the relationship between acanthus ornament and the acanthus plant has been the subject of a long-standing controversy. Alois Riegl argued in his Stilfragen that acanthus ornament originated as a version of the palmette. In Ancient Greek architecture acanthus ornament appears extensively in the capitals of the Corinthian and Composite orders, the oldest known example of a Corinthian column is in the Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae in Arcadia, c. 450–420 BC, but the order was used sparingly in Greece before the Roman period, Acanthus decoration continued in popularity in Byzantine, Romanesque, and Gothic architecture. It saw a revival in the Renaissance, and still is used today. A few of her toys were in it, and a tile had been placed over the basket. An acanthus plant had grown through the basket, mixing its spiny. After centuries without decorated capitals, they were revived enthusiastically in Romanesque architecture, often using foliage designs, curling acanthus-type leaves occur frequently in the borders and ornamented initial letters of illuminated manuscripts, and are commonly found in combination with palmettes in woven silk textiles. In the Renaissance classical models were followed closely, and the acanthus becomes clearly recognisable again in large-scale architectural examples. The term is also found describing more stylized and abstracted foliage motifs. Palmette Arabesque Media related to Acanthus ornaments at Wikimedia Commons
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Ancient Corinth
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Corinth was a city-state on the Isthmus of Corinth, the narrow stretch of land that joins the Peloponnese to the mainland of Greece, roughly halfway between Athens and Sparta. The modern town of Corinth is located approximately 5 kilometres northeast of the ancient ruins, for Christians, Corinth is well-known from the two letters of Saint Paul in the New Testament, First Corinthians and Second Corinthians. Corinth is also mentioned in the Book of Acts as part of the Apostle Pauls missionary travels, in addition, the second book of Pausanias Description of Greece is devoted to Corinth. Ancient Corinth was one of the largest and most important cities of Greece, the Romans demolished Corinth in 146 BC, built a new city in its place in 44 BC, and later made it the provincial capital of Greece. According to Hellenic myth, the city was founded by Corinthos, however, other myths suggest that it was founded by the goddess Ephyra, a daughter of the Titan Oceanus, thus the ancient name of the city. There is evidence that the city was destroyed around 2000 BC, some ancient names for the place are derived from a pre-Greek Pelasgian language, such as Korinthos. It seems likely that Corinth was also the site of a Bronze Age Mycenaean palace-city, like Mycenae, Tiryns, according to myth, Sisyphus was the founder of a race of ancient kings at Corinth. It was also in Corinth that Jason, the leader of the Argonauts, during the Trojan War, as portrayed in the Iliad, the Corinthians participated under the leadership of Agamemnon. In a Corinthian myth recounted to Pausanias in the 2nd century AD, Briareus and his verdict was that the Isthmus of Corinth belonged to Poseidon and the acropolis of Corinth belonged to Helios. Thus, Greeks of the Classical age accounted for the cult of the sun-titan in the highest part of the site. The Upper Peirene spring is located within the walls of the acropolis, the spring, which is behind the temple, they say was the gift of Asopus to Sisyphus. The latter knew, so runs the legend, that Zeus had ravished Aegina, the daughter of Asopus, Corinth had been a backwater in 8th-century Greece. The Bacchiadae were a tightly-knit Doric clan and the kinship group of archaic Corinth in the 8th and 7th centuries BC. In 747 BC, an aristocratic revolution ousted the Bacchiad kings and they dispensed with kingship and ruled as a group, governing the city by annually electing a prytanis, probably a council, and a polemarchos to head the army. During Bacchiad rule from 747 to 650 BC, Corinth became a unified state, large scale public buildings and monuments were constructed at this time. In 733 BC, Corinth established colonies at Corcyra and Syracuse, by 730 BC, Corinth emerged as a highly advanced Greek city with at least 5,000 people. Aristotle tells the story of Philolaus of Corinth, a Bacchiad who was a lawgiver at Thebes and he became the lover of Diocles, the winner of the Olympic games. They both lived for the rest of their lives in Thebes and their tombs were built near one another and Philolaus tomb points toward the Corinthian country, while Diocles faces away
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Forum of Augustus
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The Forum of Augustus is one of the Imperial forums of Rome, Italy, built by Augustus. It includes the Temple of Mars Ultor and this landmark was built in 42 BCE. The triumvir Octavian vowed to build a temple honoring Mars, the Roman God of War, after winning the battle, with the help of Mark Antony and Lepidus, Octavian had avenged the assassination of his adoptive father Julius Caesar. He became the Princeps of Rome in 27 BC under the name Augustus, the land the Forum was to be built on was already owned by Augustus himself. However, the plans called for more space than he had. This self-proclaimed good deed was more likely just a ploy to save Augustus money. These land issues, as well as numerous architectural mishaps, prolonged construction, the incomplete forum and its temple were inaugurated,40 years after they were first vowed, in 2 BC. In 19 AD Tiberius added two triumphal arches either side of the temple in honour of Drusus the Elder and Germanicus, the educational and cultural use of the exedrae were recorded in the late antiquity. The last notice of the forum was given in 395, archeological data testifies to the systematic dismantling of the structures in the first half of the 6th century, probably because it was seriously damaged in an earthquake or during the wars. The Forum of Augustus was among the first of the public buildings of Rome which disappeared that also explains the rapid loss of the memory of its original name. In the 9th century a Basilian monastery was erected on the podium of the ruined temple, the Forum of Augustus was built to both house a temple honouring Mars, and to provide another space for legal proceedings, as the Roman Forum was very crowded. Before battle, generals set off from the Temple of Mars, other ceremonies took place in the temple including the assumption of the toga virilis by young men. The Senate met at the Temple when discussing war and the victorious generals dedicated their spoils from their triumphs to Mars at the altar, arms or booty recovered from battle were often stored in the Forum as well. The Forum was filled with a variety of different statues. Most notable were the statues of Augustus in full military outfit in the center of the Forum, in total, there were 108 portrait statues with inscriptions of each individual’s achievements, providing an important idea of how Augustus viewed his role within Roman history. The inscriptions are called elogia by modern scholars and they trace Augustus’ lineage back through the fourteen Alban kings to the founding ancestors Aeneas and Romulus. These figures reinforced the importance of both Roman lineage and also of the lineage that Augustus himself held. By advertising this lineage, he reinforced his power and authorities as a leader, also, by placing himself amongst great figures and heroes, he further portrayed himself and his own importance
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Ancona
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Ancona is a city and a seaport in the Marche region in central Italy, with a population of c.101,997 as of 2015. Ancona is the capital of the province of Ancona and of the region, the city is located 280 km northeast of Rome, on the Adriatic Sea, between the slopes of the two extremities of the promontory of Monte Conero, Monte Astagno and Monte Guasco. Ancona is one of the ports on the Adriatic Sea, especially for passenger traffic. Greek merchants established a Tyrian purple dye factory here, in Roman times it kept its own coinage with the punning device of the bent arm holding a palm branch, and the head of Aphrodite on the reverse, and continued the use of the Greek language. When it became a Roman colony is uncertain and it was occupied as a naval station in the Illyrian War of 178 BC. Julius Caesar took possession of it immediately after crossing the Rubicon and its harbour was of considerable importance in imperial times, as the nearest to Dalmatia, and was enlarged by Trajan, who constructed the north quay with his Syrian architect Apollodorus of Damascus. At the beginning of it stands the marble triumphal arch with a single archway, Ancona was successively attacked by the Goths, Lombards and Saracens between the 3rd and 5th centuries, but recovered its strength and importance. It was one of the cities of the Pentapolis of the Roman Exarchate of Ravenna in the 7th and 8th centuries, in 840, Saracen raiders sacked and burned the city. After Charlemagnes conquest of northern Italy, it became the capital of the Marca di Ancona, after 1000, Ancona became increasingly independent, eventually turning into an important maritime republic, often clashing against the nearby power of Venice. An oligarchic republic, Ancona was ruled by six Elders, elected by the three terzieri into which the city was divided, S. Pietro, Porto and Capodimonte. It had a coin of its own, the agontano, Ancona was usually allied with Ragusa and the Byzantine Empire. In 1137,1167 and 1174 it was enough to push back the forces of the Holy Roman Empire. Anconitan ships took part in the Crusades, and their navigators included Cyriac of Ancona, in the struggle between the Popes and the Holy Roman Emperors that troubled Italy from the 12th century onwards, Ancona sided with the Guelphs. Differently from other cities of northern Italy, Ancona never became a seignory, the sole exception was the rule of the Malatesta, who took the city in 1348 taking advantage of the black death and of a fire that had destroyed many of its important buildings. The Malatesta were ousted in 1383, in 1532 it definitively lost its freedom and became part of the Papal States, under Pope Clement VII. Symbol of the authority was the massive Citadel. Together with Rome, and Avignon in southern France, Ancona was the city in the Papal States in which the Jews were allowed to stay after 1569. The southern quay was built in 1880, and the harbour was protected by forts on the heights, from 1797 onwards, when the French took it, it frequently appears in history as an important fortress
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Trajan
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Trajan was Roman emperor from 98 to 117 AD. Born in the city of Italica in the province of Hispania Baetica, Trajans non-patrician family was of Italian, Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a legatus legionis in Hispania Tarraconensis, in 89 Trajan supported Domitian against a revolt on the Rhine led by Antonius Saturninus, in September 96, Domitian was succeeded by Marcus Cocceius Nerva, an old and childless senator who proved to be unpopular with the army. After a brief and tumultuous year in power, culminating in a revolt by members of the Praetorian Guard, Nerva was compelled to adopt the more popular Trajan as his heir and he died on 27 January 98 and was succeeded by his adopted son without incident. Early in his reign, he annexed the Nabataean Kingdom, creating the province of Arabia Petraea and his conquest of Dacia enriched the empire greatly, as the new province possessed many valuable gold mines. However, its position north of the Danube made it susceptible to attack on three sides, and it was later abandoned by Emperor Aurelian. Trajans war against the Parthian Empire ended with the sack of the capital Ctesiphon and his campaigns expanded the Roman Empire to its greatest territorial extent. In late 117, while sailing back to Rome, Trajan fell ill and he was deified by the Senate and his ashes were laid to rest under Trajans Column. He was succeeded by his adopted son Hadrian, as an emperor, Trajans reputation has endured – he is one of the few rulers whose reputation has survived nineteen centuries. Every new emperor after him was honoured by the Senate with the wish felicior Augusto, among medieval Christian theologians, Trajan was considered a virtuous pagan. As far as ancient literary sources are concerned, an extant continuous account of Trajans reign does not exist, only fragments remain of the Getiká, a book by Trajans personal physician Titos Statilios Kriton. The Parthiká, a 17-volume account of the Parthian Wars written by Arrian, has met a similar fate, book 68 in Cassius Dios Roman History, which survives mostly as Byzantine abridgments and epitomes, is the main source for the political history of Trajans rule. Besides this, Pliny the Youngers Panegyricus and Dio of Prusas orations are the best surviving contemporary sources and it is certain that much of text of the letters that appear in this collection over Trajans signature was written and/or edited by Trajans Imperial secretary, his ab epistulis. Therefore, discussion of Trajan and his rule in modern historiography cannot avoid speculation, as well as recourse to sources such as archaeology. Marcus Ulpius Traianus was born on 18 September 53 AD in the Roman province of Hispania Baetica, Trajans birthplace of Italica was founded as a Roman military colony in 206 BC, though it is unknown when the Ulpii arrived there. Trajan was the son of Marcia, a Roman noblewoman and sister-in-law of the second Flavian Emperor Titus, and Marcus Ulpius Traianus, Marcus Ulpius Traianus the elder served Vespasian in the First Jewish-Roman War, commanding the Legio X Fretensis. Trajan himself was just one of many well-known Ulpii in a line that continued long after his own death and his elder sister was Ulpia Marciana, and his niece was Salonina Matidia. The patria of the Ulpii was Italica, in Spanish Baetica, as a young man, he rose through the ranks of the Roman army, serving in some of the most contested parts of the Empires frontier
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Column of Phocas
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The Column of Phocas is a Roman monumental column in the Roman Forum of Rome, Italy. Erected before the Rostra and dedicated or rededicated in honour of the Eastern Roman Emperor Phocas on August 1,608, the fluted Corinthian column stands 13.6 m tall on its cubical white marble socle. On stylistic grounds, the column seems to have made in the 2nd century for an unknown structure. Likewise, the socle was recycled from its original use supporting a dedicated to Diocletian. The precise occasion for this honour is unknown, though Phocas had formally donated the Pantheon to Pope Boniface IV. Atop the columns capital was erected by Smaragdus, the Exarch of Ravenna, in October 610, Phocas was overthrown and killed, his statues everywhere were overthrown. The monument remains today in its original location and its isolated, free-standing position among the ruins has always made it a landmark in the Forum, and it often appears in vedute and engravings. The rise in ground level due to silt and debris had completely buried the socle by the time Giuseppe Vasi, the square foundation of brick was not originally visible, the present level of the Forum not having been excavated down to its earlier Augustan paving until the 19th century. Zygmunts Column René Seindal, The Column of Phocas Encyclopaedia Romana Column of Phocas The Column of Phocas, the Roman Forum, Its History and Its Monuments The Column of Phocas
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Late antiquity
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Late antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages in mainland Europe, the Mediterranean world, and the Near East. The development of the periodization has generally been accredited to historian Peter Brown, precise boundaries for the period are a continuing matter of debate, but Brown proposes a period between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Generally, it can be thought of as from the end of the Roman Empires Crisis of the Third Century to, in the East, the early Islamic period, following the Muslim conquests in the mid–7th century. In the West the end was earlier, with the start of the Early Medieval period typically placed in the 6th century, beginning with Constantine the Great, Christianity was made legal in the Empire, and a new capital was founded at Constantinople. The resultant cultural fusion of Greco-Roman, Germanic and Christian traditions formed the foundations of the subsequent culture of Europe, the term Spätantike, literally late antiquity, has been used by German-speaking historians since its popularization by Alois Riegl in the early 20th century. Concurrently, some migrating Germanic tribes such as the Ostrogoths and Visigoths saw themselves as perpetuating the Roman tradition, Constantine confirmed the legalization of the religion through the so-called Edict of Milan in 313, jointly issued with his rival in the East, Licinius. Monasticism was not the only new Christian movement to appear in Late Antiquity, notable in this regard is the topic of the Fifty Bibles of Constantine. Within the recently legitimized Christian community of the 4th century, a division could be distinctly seen between the laity and an increasingly celibate male leadership. Celibate and detached, the clergy became an elite equal in prestige to urban notables. The Late Antique period also saw a transformation of the political and social basis of life in. The later Roman Empire was in a sense a network of cities, archaeology now supplements literary sources to document the transformation followed by collapse of cities in the Mediterranean basin. Burials within the urban precincts mark another stage in dissolution of traditional urbanistic discipline, overpowered by the attraction of saintly shrines, in Roman Britain, the typical 4th- and 5th-century layer of black earth within cities seems to be a result of increased gardening in formerly urban spaces. A similar though less marked decline in population occurred later in Constantinople. In Europe there was also a decline in urban populations. As a whole, the period of antiquity was accompanied by an overall population decline in almost all Europe. Long-distance markets disappeared, and there was a reversion to a degree of local production and consumption, rather than webs of commerce. The degree and extent of discontinuity in the cities of the Greek East is a moot subject among historians. In the western Mediterranean, the new cities known to be founded in Europe between the 5th and 8th centuries were the four or five Visigothic victory cities
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Baalbek
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The capital of Baalbek-Hermel Governorate, Baalbek has a population of approximately 82,608, mostly Shia Muslims, followed by Sunni Muslims and a minority of Christians. It is reckoned a stronghold of the Shia Hezbollah movement and it is home to the annual Baalbeck International Festival. Heliopolis is the latinisation of the Greek Hēlioúpolis, meaning Sun City in reference to the solar cult there and it is the earlier attested of the two names, appearing under the Seleucids and Ptolemies. Ammianus Marcellinus, however, does note that earlier Assyrian names of Levantine towns continued to be used alongside the official Greek ones imposed by the successors of Alexander, in Greek religion, Helios was both the sun in the sky and its personification as a god. It was sometimes described as Heliopolis in Syria or Coelesyria to distinguish it from its namesake in Egypt, in Catholicism, its titular see is distinguished as Heliopolis in Phoenicia, from its former Roman province Phoenice. The importance of the cult is also attested in the name Biḳāʿ al-ʿAzīz borne by the plateau surrounding Baalbek, as it references an earlier solar deity and not later men. In Greek and Roman antiquity, it was known as Heliopolis and it still possesses some of the best-preserved Roman ruins in Lebanon, including one of the largest temples of the empire. The gods that were worshipped there were equivalents of the Canaanite deities Hadad, local influences are seen in the planning and layout of the temples, as they vary from the classic Roman design. The name BʿLBK is first attested in two early 5th-century Syriac manuscripts, a c. 411 translation of Eusebiuss Theophania and a c. 435 life of Rabbula and it was pronounced as Baʿlabakka or Baʿlabakku in Classical Arabic. In Modern Standard Arabic, its vowels are marked as Baʿlabak or Baʿlabekk or Bʿalbik, the half ring ⟨ ʿ ⟩ or apostrophe ⟨ ⟩ in these romanisations marks the words pharyngeal stop. The etymology of Baalbek has been debated indecisively since the 18th century, cook took it to mean Lord of the Beka and Donne as City of the Sun. Lendering asserts that it is probably a contraction of Baʿal Nebeq, steiner proposes a Semitic adaption of Lord Bacchus, from the classical temple complex. The hilltop of Tell Baalbek, part of a valley to the east of the northern Beqaa Valley and it was well-watered both from a stream running from the Rās-el-ʿAin spring SE of the citadel and, during the spring, from numerous rills formed by meltwater from the Anti-Lebanons. Macrobius later credited the foundation to a colony of Egyptian or Assyrian priests. The settlements religious, commercial, and strategic importance was minor enough, however and its enviable position in a fertile valley, major watershed, and along the route from Tyre to Palmyra should have made it a wealthy and splendid site from an early age. During the Canaanite period, the temples were largely devoted to the Heliopolitan Triad, a male god, his consort. The site of the present Temple of Jupiter was probably the focus of worship, as its altar was located at the hills precise summit. Following Alexander the Greats conquest of Persia in the 330s BC and it was annexed by the Romans during their eastern wars
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Jerash
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Jerash, the Gerasa of Antiquity, is the capital and largest city of Jerash Governorate, which is situated in the north of Jordan,48 kilometres north of the capital Amman towards Syria. Jerash Governorates geographical features vary from cold mountains to fertile valleys from 250 to 300 metres above sea level, the 749 Galilee earthquake destroyed large parts of Jerash, while subsequent earthquakes along with wars and turmoil contributed to additional destruction. Then after, the Crusaders abandoned Jerash for Sakib the eastern border of the Kingdom of Jerusalem with Seljuk Empire and they initiated a re-treatment of the eastern border of settlement. This, however, was not yet permanent, since Jerash re-appeared on Ottoman tax registers of the 16th century, most of the ruins of Jerash remained buried in the soil for hundreds of years until they were discovered by German Orientalist Ulrich Jasper Seetzen in 1806. Subsequently, a community of people from Syria came to the area by the time of the Emirate of Transjordan, evidence of settlements dating to the Bronze Age have been found in the region. Jerash is the site of the ruins of the Greco-Roman city of Gerasa and this took place during the spring of 331 BC, when Alexander left Egypt, crossed Syria and then went to Mesopotamia. After the Roman conquest in 63 BC, Jerash and the land surrounding it were annexed to the Roman province of Syria, in AD90, Jerash was absorbed into the Roman province of Arabia, which included the city of Philadelphia. The Romans ensured security and peace in this area, which enabled its people to devote their efforts and time to economic development, Jerash is considered one of the most important and best preserved Roman cities in the Near East. Jerash was the birthplace of the mathematician Nicomachus of Gerasa, in the second half of the 1st century AD, the city of Jerash achieved great prosperity. In AD106, the Emperor Trajan constructed roads throughout the province, the Emperor Hadrian visited Jerash in AD 129–130. The triumphal arch was built to celebrate his visit, a remarkable Latin inscription records a religious dedication set up by members of the imperial mounted bodyguard wintering there. The city finally reached a size of about 800,000 square meters within its walls, the Persian invasion in AD614 caused the rapid decline of Jerash. Despite its decline, the city continued to flourish during the Umayyad period, in AD749, a major earthquake destroyed much of Jerash and its surroundings. During the period of the Crusades, some of the monuments were converted to fortresses, small settlements continued in Jerash during the Ayyubid, Mamluk Sultanate, and Ottoman periods. Most of these monuments were built by donations of the wealthy citizens. The south theatre has a focus in the centre of the pit in front of the stage, marked by a distinct stone, and from which normal speaking can be heard easily throughout the auditorium. From AD350, a large Christian community lived in Jerash, a cathedral was built in the 4th century. An ancient synagogue with detailed mosaics, including the story of Noah, was found beneath a church, the use of water power to saw wood or stone is well known in the Greek and Roman world, the invention in Greece occurring in the 3rd century BC
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Roman foot
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A pes is an ancient Roman unit of length that roughly corresponds to a foot. There are twelve unciae in one pes, one pes is 11.6 inches or 29.5 centimeters. There are 2.5 pedes in one gradus, ancient Roman weights and measures History of the foot Passus
26.
Abacus (architecture)
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In architecture, an abacus is a flat slab forming the uppermost member or division of the capital of a column, above the bell. Its chief function is to provide a supporting surface, tending to be wider than the capital. In classical architecture, the shape of the abacus and its edge profile varies in the different classical orders, in the Greek Doric order, the abacus is a plain square slab without mouldings, supported on an echinus. In the Roman and Renaissance Doric orders, it is crowned by a moulding, in the Tuscan and Roman Doric capital, it may rest on a boltel. In the archaic Greek Ionic order, the abacus is rectangular in plan, owing to the width of the capital. In later examples, the slab is thinner and the abacus remains square, except there are angled volutes. In the Roman and Renaissance Ionic capital, the abacus is square with a fillet on the top of an ogee moulding with curved edges over angled volutes. It is often square with the lower edge splayed off and moulded or carved, in Early English work, a circular deeply moulded abacus was introduced, which in the 14th and 15th centuries was transformed into an octagonal one. In Gothic architecture, the forms of the abacus vary in shape, such as square, circular, or even octagonal. The form of the Gothic abacus is often affected by the shape of a vault that springs from the column, in śilpaśāstra, the ancient Indian science of sculpture, the abacus is commonly termed as phalaka. It consists of a plate and forms part of the standard pillar. The phalaka should be constructed below the potikā and it is commonly found together with the dish-like maṇḍi as a single unit. The term is found in books such as the Mānasāra, Kāmikgāgama. Early Saxon abaci are frequently simply chamfered, but sometimes grooved as in the crypt at Repton, the abacus in Norman work is square where the columns are small, but on larger piers it is sometimes octagonal, as at Waltham Abbey. The square of the abacus is often sculptured with ornaments, as at the White Tower and at Alton, in Early English work, the abacus is generally circular, and in larger work, a group of circles, with some examples of octagonal and square shapes. The mouldings are generally half-rounds, which overhang deep hollows in the capital, in France, the abacus in early work is generally square, as at Chateau de Blois. Figure 7 shows a circular abacus used at windows in the chapels of Notre Dame de Paris. Towards the end of the 13th century, this element decreases in importance—they became short with a narrow profile during the 14th century, wikisource has original text related to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition article, Abacus Avery, Catherine A. ed. abacus
27.
Temple of Vesta, Tivoli
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The Temple of Vesta is a Roman temple in Tivoli, Italy, dating to the early 1st century BC. Its ruins sit on the acropolis of the city, overlooking the falls of the Aniene that are now included in the Villa Gregoriana, a rectangular temple stands nearby, equally difficult to attribute, often called the Temple of the Sibyl. The name of the builder or restorer of the Temple of Vesta is Lucius Gellius, memorialized in the inscription on the architrave. The peripteral temple in a variant of the Corinthian order surrounds its circular cella, which is raised on a high brick podium clad in blocks of travertine, the ambulacrum that surrounds the cella had eighteen Corinthian columns. The temples capitals has two rows of Acanthus and its abacus is decorated with oversize fleuron in the form of flowers with pronounced spiral pistils. The column flutes have flat tops, the frieze exhibits fruit swag suspended between bucrania. Above each swag is a rosette, the cornice does not have modillions. The comparatively good condition of the temple is owing to its Christianization as a church, the Christian accretions have already disappeared in the 16th century. Careful measured drawings of the Temple of Vesta were published by Antoine Desgodetz who gave elevation and plan as well as carefully rendered details of the carved capitals, in the following century both Giuseppe Vasi and Giovanni Battista Piranesi made etchings and engravings of the Temple of Vesta. The Temple of Vesta has provided a model for numerous structures and these range from slavish replicas in landscaped gardens to variants using only some aspects of its detailing. In England, examples include William Kents Temple of Ancient Virtue at Stowe, Sir John Soanes drawings, which he used as comparative examples in his lectures, are preserved at Sir John Soanes Museum, London. In Northern Ireland, the Mussenden Temple at Downhill was built by Frederick Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Derry, in the style of the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli. Indeed, in 1777, he attempted to buy the Temple of Vesta and bring it back to Downhill, in France, the temple inspired Richard Miques Temple of Love in his jardin anglo-chinois at the Petit Trianon and Gabriel Daviouds Temple de Sibylle in the Parc des Buttes Chaumont. In Poland, the Temple of the Sibyl in Puławy was erected by Izabela Czartoryska to designs by the Polish architect Chrystian Piotr Aigner, in northern California, a version of the temple was set as a landscape feature in the English tradition
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Fleuron (architecture)
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A fleuron is a flower shaped ornament, and in architecture may have a number of meanings. It is a noun for the ornamental termination at the ridge of a roof such as a crop. It is also a form of stylised late gothic decoration in the form of a square, often seen on crockets. It can be the ornament in the middle of each face of a Corinthian abacus. Finally it can be a form of Anthemion, the decorative Greek floral decoration
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Swag (motif)
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A festoon is a wreath or garland, and in architecture typically a carved ornament depicting conventional arrangement of flowers, foliage or fruit bound together and suspended by ribbons. The motif is known as a swag when depicting fabric or linen. In modern English the verb forms, especially festooned with, are used very loosely or figuratively to mean having any type of fancy decoration or covering. Its origin is due to the representation in stone of the garlands of natural flowers, etc. which were hung up over an entrance doorway on fête days. The design was employed both by the Ancient Greeks and Romans and formed the principal decoration of altars, friezes. The ends of the ribbons are formed into bows or twisted curves. The motif was used in neo-classical architecture and decorative arts, especially ceramics. In modern usage, the term can refer to a style of electric light bulb with two points of contact on either end providing power to the filament or diode. Attribution This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh. The dictionary definition of festoon at Wiktionary
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Bucrania
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Bucranium was a common form of carved decoration in Classical architecture used to fill the metopes between the triglyphs of the frieze of Doric temples. With time, during the century, the connection with sacrifices faded. In serious, post-antique contexts that follow the conventions, the presence of bucrania signifies that the Doric order is the organizing principle. The Temple of Vesta, Tivoli, in the Corinthian order, also has bucrania in its frieze and they are in fact fleshed ox heads with eyes. Similarly, the Ionic Temple of Portunus in Rome has conventional bucrania in its frieze, garlanded bucrania provide a repetitive motif in the plasterwork of the fine 18th century Staircase Hall of The Vyne, inside the Pantheon at Stourhead and at Lacock Abbey. The Lost Meaning of Classical Architecture, Speculations on Ornament from Vitruvius to Venturi, Chapter 2, Architecture and Sacrifice
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Modillion
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A modillion is an ornate bracket, a corbel, underneath a cornice and supporting it, more elaborate than dentils. All of these words are used as verbs in a historic tense to describe neatly any particular structure. They occur classically under a Corinthian or a Composite cornice, Modillions may be carved or plain. Media related to Modillions at Wikimedia Commons
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Indo-Corinthian capital
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Indo-Corinthian capitals are capitals crowning columns or pilasters, which can be found in the northwestern Indian subcontinent, and usually combine Hellenistic and Indian elements. These capitals are typically dated to the first centuries of the Common Era, however, earlier Indian types reflecting Ionic influence are known from the 3rd century BCE, particularly with the Pataliputra capital. Indo-Corinthian capitals display a design and foliage structure which is derived from the academic Corinthian capital developed in Greece and its importation to India followed the road of Hellenistic expansion in the East in the centuries after the conquests of Alexander the Great. In particular the Greco-Bactrian kingdom, centered on Bactria, upheld the type at the doorstep of India, in India, the design was often adapted, usually taking a more elongated form and sometimes being combined with scrolls, generally within the context of Buddhist stupas and temples. Indo-Corinthian capitals also incorporated figures of the Buddha or Bodhisattvas, usually as central figures surrounded by, and often under the shade of and this practice was not limited to India, and also found favor in various areas of Central Asia. The depiction of figurines within the foliage of Corinthian capitals is not in itself an eastern development, Indo-Corinthian capital were also used in combination with architectural elements, such as Buddhist stupas. One of the best example was excavated and reconstituted at Sirkap, further, in the art of Gandhara, Indo-Corinthian capitals on top of separating pilasters, are used extensively in narrative friezes of the life of the Buddha. This usage continued as late as the 5th century, Greco-Buddhist art Errington, Elizabeth, Cribb, Joe, Claringbull, Maggie. The Crossroads of Asia, Transformation in Image and Symbol in Art of Ancient Afghanistan and Pakistan, cambridge, Ancient India and Iran Trust
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Gandhara
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Gandhara is also an ancient name for Kandahar, Afghanistan. Gandhāra was an ancient Indic kingdom situated in the region of Pakistan. It encompassed the Peshawar valley and later extended to both Jalalabad district of modern-day Afghanistan as well as Taxila, in Pakistan. During the Achaemenid period and Hellenistic period, its city was Charsadda. It is mentioned in the Zend Avesta as Vaēkərəta, the sixth most beautiful place on earth and it was known as the crown jewel of Bactria and also held sway over Takṣaśilā. Gandhara existed since the time of the Rigveda and formed part of the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BC, after it was conquered by Mahmud of Ghazni in 1001 AD, the name Gandhara disappeared. During the Muslim period, the area was administered from Lahore or from Kabul, during Mughal times, it was an independent district which included the Kabul province. The name Gāndhāra occurs later in the classical Sanskrit of the epics and it is recorded in Avestan as Vaēkərəta. The Gandhari people are a tribe mentioned in the Rigveda, the Atharvaveda, one proposed origin of the name is from the Sanskrit word gandha, meaning perfume and referring to the spices and aromatic herbs which they traded and with which they anointed themselves. Some authors have connected the modern name Kandahar to Gandhara, Herodotus records that those Iranic tribes, which were adjacent to the city of Caspatyrus and the district of Pactyïce, had customs similar to the Bactrians, and are the most warlike amongst them. These are also the people who obtain gold from the ant-hills of the adjoining desert, on the identity of Caspatyrus, there have been two opinions, one equating it with Kabul, the other with the name of Kashmir. The boundaries of Gandhara varied throughout history, sometimes the Peshawar Valley and Taxila were collectively referred to as Gandhara, sometimes the Swat Valley was also included. The heart of Gandhara, however, was always the Peshawar Valley, the kingdom was ruled from capitals at Kapisa, Pushkalavati, Taxila, Puruṣapura and in its final days from Udabhandapura on the River Indus. Evidence of the Stone Age human inhabitants of Gandhara, including stone tools, the artifacts are approximately 15,000 years old. More recent excavations point to 30,000 years before the present, the region shows an influx of southern Central Asian culture in the Bronze Age with the Gandhara grave culture, and the nucleus of Vedic civilisation. This culture flourished from 1500 to 500 BC and its evidence has been discovered in the hilly regions of Swat and Dir, and even at Taxila. The name of the Gandhāris is attested in the Rigveda and in ancient inscriptions dating back to Achaemenid Persia, the Behistun inscription listing the 23 territories of King Darius I includes Gandāra along with Bactria and Sattagydia. In the book Histories by Herodotus, Gandhara is named as a source of tax collections for King Darius, the Gandhāris, along with the Balhika, Mūjavants, Angas, and the Magadhas, are also mentioned in the Atharvaveda, as distant people
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Pilaster
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The pilaster is an architectural element in classical architecture used to give the appearance of a supporting column and to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function. It consists of a flat surface raised from the wall surface, usually treated as though it were a column, with a capital at the top, plinth at the bottom. In contrast to a pilaster, a column or buttress can support the structure of a wall. It may be defined as a column which has lost its three-dimensional. A pilaster appears with a capital and entablature, also in low-relief or flattened against the wall and these vertical elements can also be used to support a recessed archivolt around a doorway. The pilaster can be replaced by ornamental brackets supporting the entablature or a balcony over a doorway, when a pilaster appears at the corner intersection of two walls it is known as a canton. As with a column, a pilaster can have a plain or fluted surface to its profile, during the Renaissance and Baroque architects used a range of pilaster forms. In the giant order pilasters appear as tall, linking floors in a single unit
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Indian subcontinent
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Geologically, the Indian subcontinent is related to the land mass that rifted from Gondwana and merged with the Eurasian plate nearly 55 million years ago. Geographically, it is the region in south-central Asia delineated by the Himalayas in the north, the Hindu Kush in the west. Politically, the Indian subcontinent usually includes Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, sometimes, the term South Asia is used interchangeably with Indian subcontinent. There is no consensus about which countries should be included in each and it is first attested in 1845 to refer to the North and South Americas, before they were regarded as separate continents. Its use to refer to the Indian subcontinent is seen from the twentieth century. It was especially convenient for referring to the region comprising both the British India and the states under British Paramountcy. The term Indian subcontinent also has a geological significance and it was, like the various continents, a part of the supercontinent of Gondwana. A series of tectonic splits caused formation of basins, each drifting in various directions. The geological region called the Greater India once included the Madagascar, Seychelles, Antartica, as a geological term, Indian subcontinent has meant that region formed from the collision of the Indian basin with Eurasia nearly 55 million years ago, towards the end of Paleocene. The Indian subcontinent has been a particularly common in the British Empire. The region, state Mittal and Thursby, has also labelled as India, Greater India. The BBC and some sources refer to the region as the Asian Subcontinent. Some academics refer to it as South Asian Subcontinent, the terms Indian subcontinent and South Asia are sometimes used interchangeably. There is no accepted definition on which countries are a part of South Asia or Indian subcontinent. In dictionary entries, the term subcontinent signifies a large, distinguishable subdivision of a continent, the region experienced high volcanic activity and plate subdivisions, creating Madagascar, Seychelles, Antartica, Austrolasia and the Indian subcontinent basin. The Indian subcontinent drifted northeastwards, colliding with the Eurasian plate nearly 55 million years ago and this geological region largely includes Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The zone where the Eurasian and Indian subcontinent plates meet remains one of the active areas. The English term mainly continues to refer to the Indian subcontinent, physiographically, it is a peninsular region in south-central Asia delineated by the Himalayas in the north, the Hindu Kush in the west, and the Arakanese in the east
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Hellenistic period
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It is often considered a period of transition, sometimes even of decadence or degeneration, compared to the enlightenment of the Greek Classical era. The Hellenistic period saw the rise of New Comedy, Alexandrian poetry, the Septuagint, Greek science was advanced by the works of the mathematician Euclid and the polymath Archimedes. The religious sphere expanded to include new gods such as the Greco-Egyptian Serapis, eastern deities such as Attis and Cybele, the Hellenistic period was characterized by a new wave of Greek colonization which established Greek cities and kingdoms in Asia and Africa. This resulted in the export of Greek culture and language to new realms. Equally, however, these new kingdoms were influenced by the cultures, adopting local practices where beneficial, necessary. Hellenistic culture thus represents a fusion of the Ancient Greek world with that of the Near East, Middle East and this mixture gave rise to a common Attic-based Greek dialect, known as Koine Greek, which became the lingua franca through the Hellenistic world. Scholars and historians are divided as to what event signals the end of the Hellenistic era, Hellenistic is distinguished from Hellenic in that the first encompasses the entire sphere of direct ancient Greek influence, while the latter refers to Greece itself. The word originated from the German term hellenistisch, from Ancient Greek Ἑλληνιστής, from Ἑλλάς, Hellenistic is a modern word and a 19th-century concept, the idea of a Hellenistic period did not exist in Ancient Greece. Although words related in form or meaning, e. g, the major issue with the term Hellenistic lies in its convenience, as the spread of Greek culture was not the generalized phenomenon that the term implies. Some areas of the world were more affected by Greek influences than others. The Greek population and the population did not always mix, the Greeks moved and brought their own culture. While a few fragments exist, there is no surviving historical work which dates to the hundred years following Alexanders death. The works of the major Hellenistic historians Hieronymus of Cardia, Duris of Samos, the earliest and most credible surviving source for the Hellenistic period is Polybius of Megalopolis, a statesman of the Achaean League until 168 BC when he was forced to go to Rome as a hostage. His Histories eventually grew to a length of forty books, covering the years 220 to 167 BC, another important source, Plutarchs Parallel Lives though more preoccupied with issues of personal character and morality, outlines the history of important Hellenistic figures. Appian of Alexandria wrote a history of the Roman empire that includes information of some Hellenistic kingdoms, other sources include Justins epitome of Pompeius Trogus Historiae Philipicae and a summary of Arrians Events after Alexander, by Photios I of Constantinople. Lesser supplementary sources include Curtius Rufus, Pausanias, Pliny, in the field of philosophy, Diogenes Laertius Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers is the main source. Ancient Greece had traditionally been a collection of fiercely independent city-states. After the Peloponnesian War, Greece had fallen under a Spartan hegemony, in which Sparta was pre-eminent but not all-powerful
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India
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India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and it is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast, in the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a border with Thailand. The Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilisation of the 3rd millennium BCE, in the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BCE, early political consolidations took place under the Maurya and Gupta empires, the later peninsular Middle Kingdoms influenced cultures as far as southeast Asia. In the medieval era, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived, much of the north fell to the Delhi sultanate, the south was united under the Vijayanagara Empire. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal empire, in the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, and in the mid-19th under British crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which later, under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance, in 2015, the Indian economy was the worlds seventh largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the major economies and is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption, malnutrition, a nuclear weapons state and regional power, it has the third largest standing army in the world and ranks sixth in military expenditure among nations. India is a constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society and is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindu, the latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as The people of the Indus, the geographical term Bharat, which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations. Scholars believe it to be named after the Vedic tribe of Bharatas in the second millennium B. C. E and it is also traditionally associated with the rule of the legendary emperor Bharata. Gaṇarājya is the Sanskrit/Hindi term for republic dating back to the ancient times, hindustan is a Persian name for India dating back to the 3rd century B. C. E. It was introduced into India by the Mughals and widely used since then and its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety
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Greco-Buddhist art
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It is also a strong example of cultural syncretism between eastern and western traditions. The influence of Greco-Buddhist art also spread northward towards Central Asia, strongly affecting the art of the Tarim Basin, and ultimately the arts of China, Korea, and Japan. The clearest examples of Hellenistic art are found in the coins of the Greco-Bactrian kings of the period, fortified Greek cities, such as Sirkap in northern Pakistan, were established. Architectural styles used Hellenistic decorative motifs such as fruit garland and scrolls, stone palettes for aromatic oils representing purely Hellenistic themes such as a Nereid riding a Ketos sea monster are found. In Hadda, Hellenistic deities, such as Atlas are found, wind gods are depicted, which will affect the representation of wind deities as far as Japan. Dionysiac scenes represent people in Classical style drinking wine from amphoras and this artistic trend then developed for several centuries and seemed to flourish further during the Kushan Empire from the 1st century AD. Greco-Buddhist art depicts the life of the Buddha in a manner, probably by incorporating the real-life models. The Bodhisattvas are depicted as bare-chested and jewelled Indian princes, the buildings in which they are depicted incorporate Greek style, with the ubiquitous Indo-Corinthian capitals and Greek decorative scrolls. Surrounding deities form a pantheon of Greek and Indian gods, stucco as well as stone was widely used by sculptors in Gandhara for the decoration of monastic and cult buildings. Stucco provided the artist with a medium of great plasticity, enabling a high degree of expressiveness to be given to the sculpture, sculpting in stucco was popular wherever Buddhism spread from Gandhara - India, Afghanistan, Central Asia and China. It then lost this sophisticated realism, becoming progressively more symbolic, the style is Greek, adorned with Corinthian columns in excellent Hellenistic execution. Later in Hadda, the Greek divinity Atlas is represented holding Buddhist monuments with decorated Greek columns, the motif was adopted extensively throughout the Indian sub-continent, Atlas being substituted for the Indian Yaksa in the monuments of the Shunga Empire around the 2nd century BC. Sometime between the 2nd century BC and the 1st century AD, the first anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha were developed. These were absent from earlier strata of Buddhist art, which preferred to represent the Buddha with symbols such as the stupa, the Bodhi tree, the empty seat, the wheel, or the footprints. But the innovative anthropomorphic Buddha image immediately reached a high level of sculptural sophistication. Most of the images of the Buddha are anepigraphic, which makes it difficult to have a definite dating. The next Greco-Buddhist findings to be strictly datable are rather late, AD120 Kanishka casket and Kanishkas Buddhist coins. These works at least indicate though that the representation of the Buddha was already extant in the 1st century AD
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Gautama Buddha
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Gautama Buddha, also known as Siddhārtha Gautama, Shakyamuni Buddha, or simply the Buddha, after the title of Buddha, was an ascetic and sage, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. He is believed to have lived and taught mostly in the part of ancient India sometime between the sixth and fourth centuries BCE. Gautama taught a Middle Way between sensual indulgence and the severe asceticism found in the śramaṇa movement common in his region and he later taught throughout other regions of eastern India such as Magadha and Kosala. Gautama is the figure in Buddhism. He is recognized by Buddhists as a teacher who attained full Buddhahood. Accounts of his life, discourses, and monastic rules are believed by Buddhists to have been summarized after his death, various collections of teachings attributed to him were passed down by oral tradition and first committed to writing about 400 years later. Scholars are hesitant to make unqualified claims about the facts of the Buddhas life. Apart from the Vedic Brahmins, the Buddhas lifetime coincided with the flourishing of influential schools of thought like Ājīvika, Cārvāka, Jainism. Brahmajala Sutta records sixty-two such schools of thought, thus, Buddha was just one of the many śramaṇa philosophers of that time. The times of Gautamas birth and death are uncertain, most historians in the early 20th century dated his lifetime as circa 563 BCE to 483 BCE. These alternative chronologies, however, have not yet accepted by all historians. It was either a republic, or an oligarchy, and his father was an elected chieftain. He obtained his enlightenment in Bodh Gaya, gave his first sermon in Sarnath, no written records about Gautama were found from his lifetime or some centuries thereafter. One Edict of Asoka, who reigned from circa 269 BCE to 232 BCE, another one of his edicts mentions the titles of several Dhamma texts, establishing the existence of a written Buddhist tradition at least by the time of the Maurya era. These texts may be the precursor of the Pāli Canon and they are written in the Gāndhārī language using the Kharosthi script on twenty-seven birch bark manuscripts and date from the first century BCE to the third century CE. The sources for the life of Siddhārtha Gautama are a variety of different and these include the Buddhacarita, Lalitavistara Sūtra, Mahāvastu, and the Nidānakathā. Of these, the Buddhacarita is the earliest full biography, a poem written by the poet Aśvaghoṣa in the first century CE. The Lalitavistara Sūtra is the next oldest biography, a Mahāyāna/Sarvāstivāda biography dating to the 3rd century CE, the Mahāvastu from the Mahāsāṃghika Lokottaravāda tradition is another major biography, composed incrementally until perhaps the 4th century CE
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Bodhisattva
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Bodhisattvas are a popular subject in Buddhist art. In early Indian Buddhism, the term bodhisattva was primarily used to specifically to Gautama Buddha in his former life. The Jataka tales, which are the stories of the Buddhas past lives, depict the various attempts of the bodhisattva to embrace qualities like self-sacrifice, mount Potalaka, for example, is one of Bodhisattvayana. Because Hinayana was disliked and the terms Śrāvaka-Bodhisattva or Pratyekabuddha-Bodhisattva were not widely used, nevertheless, bodhisattva retained an implied reference to someone on the path to become an arhat or pratyekabuddha. In contrast, the goal of Mahayanas bodhisattva path is to achieve Samyaksambodhiṃ, when, during his discourses, he recounts his experiences as a young aspirant, he regularly uses the phrase When I was an unenlightened bodhisatta. The term therefore connotes a being who is bound for enlightenment, in other words, in the Pāli canon, the bodhisatta is also described as someone who is still subject to birth, illness, death, sorrow, defilement, and delusion. Some of the lives of the Buddha as a bodhisattva are featured in the Jataka tales. According to the Theravāda monk Bhikkhu Bodhi, the path is not taught in the earliest strata of Buddhist texts such as the Pali Nikayas which instead focus on the ideal of the Arahant. In later Theravada literature, the bodhisatta is used fairly frequently in the sense of someone on the path to liberation. He also quotes an inscription from the 10th Century king of Sri Lanka, Mahinda IV, paul Williams writes that some modern Theravada meditation masters in Thailand are popularly regarded as bodhisattvas. Like perhaps some of the early Mahāyāna forest hermit monks, or the later Buddhist Tantrics and they are widely revered, worshipped, and held to be arhats or bodhisattvas. Mahāyāna Buddhism is based principally upon the path of a bodhisattva, according to Jan Nattier, the term Mahāyāna was originally even an honorary synonym for Bodhisattvayāna, or the Bodhisattva Vehicle. The Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra contains a simple and brief definition for the term bodhisattva and this definition is given as the following. Because he has enlightenment as his aim, a bodhisattva-mahāsattva is so called, the early Rastrapalapariprccha sutra also promotes a solitary life of meditation in the forests, far away from the distractions of the householder life. The Rastrapala is also critical of monks living in monasteries and in cities who are seen as not practicing meditation. These texts seem to indicate the initial Bodhisattva ideal was associated with a strict forest asceticism, Mahāyāna Buddhism encourages everyone to become bodhisattvas and to take the bodhisattva vows. With these vows, one makes the promise to work for the enlightenment of all sentient beings by practicing the six perfections. Indelibly entwined with the vow is merit transference
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Vincenzo Scamozzi
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Vincenzo Scamozzi was an Italian architect and a writer on architecture, active mainly in Vicenza and Republic of Venice area in the second half of the 16th century. He was perhaps the most important figure there between Andrea Palladio, whose unfinished projects he inherited at Palladios death in 1580, and Baldassarre Longhena, Scamozzis only pupil. The great public project of Palladios that Scamozzi inherited early in the process of construction was the Teatro Olimpico at Vicenza, which Palladio had designed in the last months of his life. His father was the surveyor and building contractor Gian Domenico Scamozzi, he was Scamozzis first teacher, imbuing him with the principles of Sebastiano Serlio, vincenzo visited Rome in 1579–1580, and then moved to Venice in 1581. In 1600, he visited France and left a record of his impressions of French architecture. Scamozzi is famous for having inherited several unfinished projects from Andrea Palladio at the time of Palladios death in 1580 and it was originally published with woodcut illustrations at Venice in 1615. Scamozzi depended for sections of his treatment of Vitruvius on Daniele Barbaros commentary, published in 1556 with illustrations by Palladio, at that time, such treatises were becoming a vehicle for self-promotion. His first book entitled Discorsi sopra Lantichita di Roma had been cobbled together with some illustrated commentary on the ruins of Rome. According to his preface to the volumes, the images were stock productions that already existed, over half were copied from a volume published by Hieronymus Cock in Antwerp in 1551. His major book came out one year before his death and was too late to influence his own success, Scamozzis practice is sometimes spoken of as being a source of the neo-Palladian architecture as it was introduced by Inigo Jones, another follower of Andrea Palladios own example. Rudolf Wittkower referred to him as among the father of neo-classicism. Scamozzi moved to Venice in 1581, where he had invited to design the Procuratie Nuove on the Piazza San Marco itself. Eleven bays of this project were completed, and later were extended by Baldassare Longhena to fill the south flank of the piazza. The A. Everett Austin House in Hartford, Connecticut, U. S. A. is an homage to the Villa Ferreti. cesr. univ-tours. fr/Traite/Auteur/Scamozzi. asp
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Paolo Veronese
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Known as a supreme colorist, and after an early period with Mannerism, Paolo Veronese developed a naturalist style of painting, influenced by Titian. His most famous works are elaborate narrative cycles, executed in a dramatic and colorful style, full of architectural settings. Nonetheless, many of the greatest artists, may be counted among his admirers, including Rubens, Watteau, Tiepolo, Delacroix and Renoir. Veronese took his name from his birthplace of Verona, then the largest possession of Venice on the mainland. The census in Verona attests that Veronese was born sometime in 1528 to a stonecutter, or spezapreda, named Gabriele and it was common for surnames to be taken from a fathers profession, and thus Veronese was known as Paolo Spezapreda. He later changed his name to Paolo Caliari, because his mother was the daughter of a nobleman called Antonio Caliari. He was often called Paolo Veronese before the last century to him from another painter from Verona, Alessandro Veronese. By 1541, Veronese was apprenticed with Antonio Badile, who was later to become his father-in-law, although trained in the culture of Mannerism then popular in Parma, he soon developed his own preference for a more radiant palette. In 1552 Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga, great-uncle of the ruling Guglielmo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, commissioned an altarpiece for Mantua Cathedral and his panel of Jupiter Expelling the Vices for the former is now in the Louvre. He then painted a History of Esther in the ceiling for the church of San Sebastiano and it was these ceiling paintings and those of 1557 in the Marciana Library that established him as a master among his Venetian contemporaries. Already these works indicate Veroneses mastery in reflecting both the subtle foreshortening of the figures of Correggio and the heroism of those by Michelangelo. By 1556 Veronese was commissioned to paint the first of his monumental banquet scenes, the Feast in the House of Simon, owing to its scattered composition and lack of focus, however, it was not his most successful refectory mural. In the late 1550s, during a break in his work for San Sebastiano, Veronese decorated the Villa Barbaro in Maser, Veroneses decorations employed complex perspective and trompe loeil, and resulted in a luminescent and inspired visual poetry. The encounter between architect and artist was a triumph, the Wedding at Cana, painted in 1562–1563, was also collaboration with Palladio. It was commissioned by the Benedictine monks for the San Giorgio Maggiore Monastery, on an island across from Saint Marks. The contract insisted on the size, and that the quality of pigment. For example, the contract specified that the blues should contain the precious mineral lapis-lazuli, the contract also specified that the painting should include as many figures as possible. There are a number of portraits staged upon a canvas surface nearly ten meters wide
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Francesco di Giorgio Martini
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Born in Siena, he apprenticed as a painter with Vecchietta. The third book is preoccupied with the city, constrained within star-shaped polygonal geometries reminiscent of the star fort. The design of the church of San Sebastiano in Vallepiatta in Siena is also attributed to him, di Giorgios painting of the Madonna and Child with 2 Angels is found at the Lowe Art Museum in Coral Gables, Florida. Born sometime in 1439 in Siena to a dealer, Francesco Maurizio di Giorgio di Martino was baptized on September 23,1439. Not much is known about his youth, except that he is assumed to have been a student of Vecchietta due to similarities in style between di Giorgios early paintings and those of the master. The first record of his work as an artist is from 1464 and he was married two times in quick succession when his first wife, Cristofana, died shortly after they were married in 1467. Di Giorgios early years as a professional artist, architect, and they were able to enlarge the fountain in the Piazza del Campo and make other improvements around the city, successfully fulfilling their contract in 1473. During this period, di Giorgio was also working with assistants on The Coronation of the Virgin for the Santa Maria della Scala, a large painted altarpiece. Sienese records from 1471 describe an episode in which the artist and nine others broke into the Monastery of the Holy Saviour outside Siena and they were sentenced to be banished from the city for three months, or to pay a 25 lire fine, which di Giorgio paid. During the mid-1470s, di Giorgio came into the employ of Federico da Montefeltro and he created multiple artistic works for the Duke, including the bronze relief Deposition from the Cross and served as an architect and engineer for the duke during the Pazzi conspiracy. In the fighting between Italian city-states which followed, di Giorgio constructed a series of fortifications for his patron. This source of employment for di Giorgio continued after da Montefeltros death with his son the new duke, architectural work also came to di Giorgio through his employment with the Duke, including what is probably his most famous building, Santa Maria delle Grazie al Calcinaio in Cortona. The church was challenging to design due to the incline of its location. Letters from 1485 reveal that the Sienese government wrote to Francesco di Giorgio to request that he return to his city and embark on the design. He did return to the city in 1486 and began receiving a salary of 800 florins for his position as official city engineer in which he would inspect all engineering projects throughout Siena. Di Giorgio also completed projects for the city, such as the candle-holding angel sculptures which he contributed to the altar at the Opera del Duomo. This time was one of prosperity and popularity for di Giorgio, whose presence and expertise were fought over by the rulers of several city-states, particularly Siena and his tax documents from 1488 show material wealth as well as familial wealth in the form of six children. In 1490 he was commissioned by the government of Milan to produce a model for dome of the Milan Cathedral and this project led him to journey to the site of the cathedral, where he met Leonardo da Vinci who had also been hired to consult on the building
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Architrave
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An architrave is the lintel or beam that rests on the capitals of the columns. It is an element in Classical architecture. The term can also be applied to all sides, including the vertical members, in an entablature in classical architecture, it is the lowest part, below the frieze and cornice. The word is derived from the Greek and Latin words arche, the architrave is different in the different orders. In the Tuscan, it consists of a plain face, crowned with a fillet. In the Doric and composite, it has two faces, or fasciae, and three in the Ionic and Corinthian, in which it is 10/12 of a high, though. It means the part of something. The part on which the idea, the reasoning, the thought or the philosophy are based, examples, 1). the Mature Hegel- the Hegel of the Philosophy of Right- who becomes the architrave on which he constructs his social philosophy. Ref. Page, XIV, The Ethics of Democracy, A Contemporary Reading of Hegels Philosophy of Right LINK 2) to become the architrave of his theoretic construction Ref. Pag and it is placed above the bracket of a pillar, which gives it extra support. Dravidian architecture recognizes several distinct types of Architraves, rounded, wavy, flower shaped, bevel and tenon type, voluted, figural
Media related to Corinthian columns at Wikimedia Commons