1.
Locarno
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It has a population of about 16,000, and about 56,000 for the agglomeration of the same name including Ascona besides other municipalities. The town of Locarno is located on the part of Maggias delta. It is the 74th largest city in Switzerland by population and the third largest in the Ticino canton, after Lugano, the official language of Locarno is Italian. The town is known for hosting the Locarno International Film Festival which takes place every year in August and involves open-air screenings at the main square and it is also known for the Locarno Treaties, a series of European territorial agreements negotiated here in October 1925. In January 2004, the Italian historian Marino Vigano speculated that Locarnos castle may have designed by Leonardo da Vinci. In 1934 in the vicinity of todays Via S. Jorio, some of the urns were directly buried, while others were placed in boxes of uncut stone. The urns contained, in addition to burned bones, bronze ornaments, similar urns were also discovered in the district of S. Antonio, which was probably also a small cemetery. The ceramic and bronze objects date from the Canegrate culture, however, no traces of the settlement have been discovered. In 1935, a necropolis was discovered at Solduno. The over 200 graves cover nearly a thousand years, from the La Tène culture to the 3rd century AD, many of the La Tène era grave goods are Celtic style Fibulae or brooches. These objects demonstrate a cultural influence from regions north of the Alps, however, the ceramic objects are indigenous to Golasecca culture which spread into Ticino and Lombardy. Between 1946 and 1949, a number of Roman era tombs were discovered on the terrace between the churches of Santa Maria in Selva and San Giovanni Battista in Solduno, the Roman city that became Locarno was therefore between the vicus of Muralto and this cemetery. Unfortunately, intensive construction and agricultural activity have destroyed most traces of the ancient city, in 1995 and 1997,57 graves were found in Via Valle Maggia. Nineteen were from the Roman period, which confirms that even in the 3rd century AD cremation, among other significant finds, a number of glass items were discovered. The Roman necropolis was used from the end of the prehistoric La Tène era until the middle of the 3rd century AD, the extensive Romanization of Locarno wiped out much of the local culture and replaced it with ancient Roman elements. However, it appears there was no Roman ruling class which could have dominated the local population. The capitanei were a group of prominent noble families who emerged in the early Middle Ages, the term is first mentioned in a document granting market rights to the town by the Emperor Frederick I in 1164. This title was reserved only the direct vassals of the kings fief
2.
Mona Lisa
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The painting is a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, and is in oil on a white Lombardy poplar panel, and is believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1506. Leonardo may have continued working on it as late as 1517 and it was acquired by King Francis I of France and is now the property of the French Republic, on permanent display at the Louvre Museum in Paris since 1797. Mona in Italian is a form of address originating as ma donna – similar to Ma’am, Madam. This became madonna, and its contraction mona, the title of the painting, though traditionally spelled Mona, is also commonly spelled in modern Italian as Monna Lisa but this is rare in English. Vasaris account of the Mona Lisa comes from his biography of Leonardo published in 1550,31 years after the artists death and it has long been the best-known source of information on the provenance of the work and identity of the sitter. Leonardos assistant Salaì, at his death in 1525, owned a portrait which in his papers was named la Gioconda. Dated October 1503, the note was written by Leonardos contemporary Agostino Vespucci and this note likens Leonardo to renowned Greek painter Apelles, who is mentioned in the text, and states that Leonardo was at that time working on a painting of Lisa del Giocondo. The model, Lisa del Giocondo, was a member of the Gherardini family of Florence and Tuscany, the painting is thought to have been commissioned for their new home, and to celebrate the birth of their second son, Andrea. The Italian name for the painting, La Gioconda, means jocund or, literally, the jocund one, in French, the title La Joconde has the same meaning. Before that discovery, scholars had developed several alternative views as to the subject of the painting, some argued that Lisa del Giocondo was the subject of a different portrait, identifying at least four other paintings as the Mona Lisa referred to by Vasari. Several other women have been proposed as the subject of the painting, the consensus of art historians in the 21st century maintains the long-held traditional opinion, that the painting depicts Lisa del Giocondo. Leonardo da Vinci began painting the Mona Lisa in 1503 or 1504 in Florence, although the Louvre states that it was doubtless painted between 1503 and 1506, the art historian Martin Kemp says there are some difficulties in confirming the actual dates with certainty. According to Leonardos contemporary, Giorgio Vasari, after he had lingered over it four years, Leonardo, later in his life, is said to have regretted never having completed a single work. In 1516, Leonardo was invited by King François I to work at the Clos Lucé near the castle in Amboise. It is believed that he took the Mona Lisa with him, bambach has concluded that da Vinci probably continued refining the work until 1516 or 1517. Upon his death, the painting was inherited with other works by his pupil, Francis I bought the painting for 4,000 écus and kept it at Palace of Fontainebleau, where it remained until Louis XIV moved the painting to the Palace of Versailles. After the French Revolution, it was moved to the Louvre, during the Franco-Prussian War it was moved from the Louvre to the Brest Arsenal. In December 2015, it was reported that French scientist Pascal Cotte had found a hidden portrait underneath the surface of the painting using reflective light technology, the portrait is an underlying image of a model looking off to the side
3.
Metz
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Metz is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers. Metz is the prefecture of the Moselle department and the seat of the parliament of the Great East region, located near the tripoint along the junction of France, Germany, and Luxembourg, the city forms a central place of the European Greater Region and the SaarLorLux euroregion. The city has been steeped in Romance culture, but has strongly influenced by Germanic culture due to its location. Because of its historical, cultural, and architectural background, Metz has been submitted on Frances UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List, Metz is home to some world-class venues including the Arsenal Concert Hall and the Centre Pompidou-Metz museum. A basin of urban ecology, Metz gained its nickname of The Green City, as it has extensive open grounds, the historic city centre is one of the largest commercial pedestrian areas in France. A historic garrison town, Metz is the heart of the Lorraine region, specialising in information technology. In ancient times, the town was known as city of Mediomatrici, after its integration into the Roman Empire, the city was called Divodurum Mediomatricum, meaning Holy Village or Holy Fortress of the Mediomatrici, then it was known as Mediomatrix. During the 5th century AD, the name evolved to Mettis, Metz has a recorded history dating back over 3,000 years. Before the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar in 52 BC, between the 6th and 8th centuries, the city was the residence of the Merovingian kings of Austrasia. After the Treaty of Verdun in 843, Metz became the capital of the Kingdom of Lotharingia and was integrated into the Holy Roman Empire. During the 12th century, Metz rose to the status of Republic, with the signature of the Treaty of Chambord in 1552, Metz passed to the hands of the Kings of France. Under French rule, Metz was selected as capital of the Three Bishoprics, with creation of the departments by the Estates-General of 1789, Metz was chosen as capital of the Department of Moselle. Metz remained German until the end of World War I, when it reverted to France, however, after the Battle of France during the Second World War, the city was annexed once more by the German Third Reich. In 1944, the attack on the city by the U. S, Third Army freed the city from German rule and Metz reverted one more time to France after World War II. During the 1950s, Metz was chosen to be the capital of the newly created Lorraine region, with the creation of the European Community and the later European Union, the city has become central to the Greater Region and the SaarLorLux Euroregion. Metz is located on the banks of the Moselle and the Seille rivers,43 km from the Schengen tripoint where the borders of France, Germany, and Luxembourg meet. The city was built in a place where branches of the Moselle river creates several islands. The terrain of Metz forms part of the Paris Basin and presents a plateau relief cut by river valleys presenting cuestas in the north-south direction
4.
Swiss people
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The Swiss are citizens of Switzerland. The demonym derives from the toponym of Schwyz and has been in use to refer to the Old Swiss Confederacy since the 16th century. The number of Swiss nationals has grown from 1.7 million in 1815 to 6.76 million in 2009 with 90% of them living in Switzerland, about 60% of those living abroad reside in the European Union. The largest groups of Swiss descendants and nationals outside of Europe are found in the United States, closely related German-speaking peoples are the Alsatians, the Swabians and the Vorarlbergians. The French-speaking Swiss, traditionally speaking Franco-Provençal dialects, today largely assimilated to the standard French language, amalgamated from the Gallo-Roman population and they are closely related to the French. The Italian-speaking Swiss, traditionally speakers of Lombard language today partly assimilated to the standard Italian language, amalgamated from Raetians and they are closely related to the Italians. The Romansh, speakers of the Romansh language, settling in parts of the Grisons, with worldwide human migration, there are an increasing number of Swiss not descended or only partially descended from the core ethnic groups listed above. Most naturalized Swiss citizens will be linguistically oriented according to their canton of residence, the Swiss populace historically derives from an amalgamation of Gaulish or Gallo-Roman, Alamannic and Rhaetic stock. Their cultural history is dominated by the Alps, and the environment is often cited as an important factor in the formation of the Swiss national character. Political allegiance and patriotism was directed towards the cantons, not the federal level, from the 19th century there were conscious attempts to foster a federal Pan-Swiss national identity that would replace or alleviate the cantonal patriotisms. An additional symbol of national identity at the federal level was introduced with the Swiss national holiday in 1889. The bonfires associated with the holiday have become so customary since then that they have displaced the Funken traditions of greater antiquity. These specifically include Grisons, Valais, Ticino, Vaud and Geneva, according to Hartley-Moore, Localized equivalents of nationalist symbols were also essential to the creation of Swiss civil society. In the Swiss model, pride in local identity is to some degree synonymous with loyalty to the larger state, as Gottfried Keller argued in the nineteenth century, Without cantons and without their differences and competition, no Swiss federation could exist. Facilitated naturalization for foreign spouses and children of Swiss citizens requires a total minimum residence of five years, with more than 20% of the population resident aliens, Switzerland has one of the highest ratios of non-naturalized inhabitants in Europe. In 2003,35,424 residents were naturalized, a number exceeding net population growth. Over the 25-year period of 1983 to 2007,479,264 resident foreigners were naturalized, compare the figure of 0. 2% in the United Kingdom. The genetic composition of the Swiss population is similar to that of Central Europe in general, Switzerland is on one hand at the crossroads of several prehistoric migrations, while on the other hand the Alps acted as a refuge in some cases
5.
Integrated Authority File
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The Integrated Authority File or GND is an international authority file for the organisation of personal names, subject headings and corporate bodies from catalogues. It is used mainly for documentation in libraries and increasingly also by archives, the GND is managed by the German National Library in cooperation with various regional library networks in German-speaking Europe and other partners. The GND falls under the Creative Commons Zero license, the GND specification provides a hierarchy of high-level entities and sub-classes, useful in library classification, and an approach to unambiguous identification of single elements. It also comprises an ontology intended for knowledge representation in the semantic web, available in the RDF format
6.
Virtual International Authority File
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The Virtual International Authority File is an international authority file. It is a joint project of national libraries and operated by the Online Computer Library Center. The project was initiated by the US Library of Congress, the German National Library, the National Library of France joined the project on October 5,2007. The project transitions to a service of the OCLC on April 4,2012, the aim is to link the national authority files to a single virtual authority file. In this file, identical records from the different data sets are linked together, a VIAF record receives a standard data number, contains the primary see and see also records from the original records, and refers to the original authority records. The data are available online and are available for research and data exchange. Reciprocal updating uses the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting protocol, the file numbers are also being added to Wikipedia biographical articles and are incorporated into Wikidata. VIAFs clustering algorithm is run every month, as more data are added from participating libraries, clusters of authority records may coalesce or split, leading to some fluctuation in the VIAF identifier of certain authority records
