1.
Palace of Versailles
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The Palace of Versailles, Château de Versailles, or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France. Versailles is therefore not only as a building, but as a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy of the Ancien Régime. First built by Louis XIII in 1623, as a lodge of brick and stone. The first phase of the expansion was designed and supervised by the architect Louis Le Vau and it culminated in the addition of three new wings of stone, which surrounded Louis XIIIs original building on the north, south, and west. After Le Vaus death in 1670, the work was taken over and completed by his assistant, charles Le Brun designed and supervised the elaborate interior decoration, and André Le Nôtre landscaped the extensive Gardens of Versailles. Le Brun and Le Nôtre collaborated on the fountains, and Le Brun supervised the design. During the second phase of expansion, two enormous wings north and south of the wings flanking the Cour Royale were added by the architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart. He also replaced Le Vaus large terrace, facing the garden on the west, with became the most famous room of the palace. The Royal Chapel of Versailles, located at the end of the north wing, was begun by Mansart in 1688. One of the most baffling aspects to the study of Versailles is the cost – how much Louis XIV, owing to the nature of the construction of Versailles and the evolution of the role of the palace, construction costs were essentially a private matter. Initially, Versailles was planned to be a residence for Louis XIV and was referred to as the kings house. Once Louis XIV embarked on his campaigns, expenses for Versailles became more of a matter for public record. To counter the costs of Versailles during the years of Louis XIVs personal reign. Accordingly, all materials that went into the construction and decoration of Versailles were manufactured in France, even the mirrors used in the decoration of the Hall of Mirrors were made in France. While Venice in the 17th century had the monopoly on the manufacture of mirrors, to meet the demands for decorating and furnishing Versailles, Colbert nationalised the tapestry factory owned by the Gobelin family, to become the Manufacture royale des Gobelins. In 1667, the name of the enterprise was changed to the Manufacture royale des Meubles de la Couronne, the Comptes meticulously list the expenditures on the silver furniture – disbursements to artists, final payments, delivery – as well as descriptions and weight of items purchased. Entries for 1681 and 1682 concerning the silver used in the salon de Mercure serve as an example. 5 In anticipation, For the silver balustrade for the bedroom,90,000 livres II
2.
History of the Palace of Versailles
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The Palace of Versailles is a royal château in Versailles, in the Île-de-France region of France. When the château was built, Versailles was a village, today, however, it is a suburb of Paris. Versailles is therefore not only as a building, but as well as a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy of the Ancien Régime. During this period, the village of Versailles centred on a castle and church. In 1575, Albert de Gondi, a naturalized Florentine who gained prominence at the court of Henry II, in the early seventeenth century, Gondi invited Louis XIII on several hunting trips in the forests surrounding Versailles. Pleased with the location, Louis ordered the construction of a lodge in 1624. Designed by Philibert Le Roy, the structure, a small château, was constructed of stone and red brick, eight years later, Louis obtained the seigneury of Versailles from the Gondi family and began to make enlargements to the château. Adjacent exterior towers were located at the four corners, with the entire structure surrounded by a moat and this was preceded by two service wings, creating a forecourt with a grilled entrance marked by two round towers. The vignette also shows a garden on the side of the château with a fountain on the central axis. Louis XIV had played and hunted at the site as a boy, with a few modifications, this structure would become the core of the new palace. Louis XIIIs successor, Louis XIV, had a great interest in Versailles and he settled on the royal hunting lodge at Versailles, and over the following decades had it expanded into one of the largest palaces in the world. Beginning in 1661, the architect Louis Le Vau, landscape architect André Le Nôtre and this was done to fulfill Louis XIVs desire to establish a new centre for the royal court. Following the Treaties of Nijmegen in 1678, he began to move the court to Versailles. The court was established there on 6 May 1682. By moving his court and government to Versailles, Louis XIV hoped to more control of the government from the nobility. All the power of France emanated from this centre, there were government offices here, as well as the homes of thousands of courtiers, their retinues, like other French court manners, étiquette was quickly imitated in other European courts. The expansion of the château became synonymous with the absolutism of Louis XIV, in 1661, following the death of Cardinal Mazarin, chief minister of the government, Louis had declared that he would be his own chief minister. The idea of establishing the court at Versailles was conceived to ensure all of his advisors
3.
Piano nobile
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The piano nobile is the principal floor of a large house, usually built in one of the styles of Classical Renaissance architecture. This floor contains the reception and bedrooms of the house. The piano nobile is often the first or sometimes the second storey, located above a ground floor containing minor rooms, the reasons for this were so the rooms would have finer views, and more practically to avoid the dampness and odors of the street level. This is especially true in Venice where the piano nobile of the many palazzi is especially obvious from the exterior by virtue of its windows and balconies. Examples of this are Ca Foscari, Ca dOro, Ca Vendramin Calergi, larger windows than those on other floors are usually the most obvious feature of the piano nobile. Often in England and Italy the piano nobile is reached by an outer staircase. Kedleston Hall is an example of this in England, as is Villa Capra in Italy, most houses contained a secondary floor above the piano nobile which contained more intimate withdrawing and bedrooms for private use by the family of the house when no honoured guests were present. Above this floor would often be an attic floor containing staff bedrooms, in these instances, occasionally in museums etc. the principal piano nobile is described as the primo piano nobile to differentiate it. Though often found, this usage is potentially misleading, rooms in the piano nobile are always the grandest, the term is not used in Britain. This arrangement of floors continued throughout Europe for as long as large houses continued to be built in the classical styles and this arrangement was designed at Buckingham Palace as recently as the mid-19th century. Holkham Hall, Osterley Park and Chiswick House are among the innumerable 18th-century English houses which employed this design, Life in the English Country House. Harris, John, de Bellaigue, Geoffrey, & Miller, Oliver, English Country Houses, Early Georgian 1715–1760 London, Country Life. Pavilion Books Ltd. Kaminski Marion, Art and Architecture of Venice,1999, Könemann, ISBN 3-8290-2657-9 Masson, Georgina
4.
Throne room
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Any of these could just as well be transferred, even on a permanent basis, to one or more other rooms, even outside the palace or ambulant. A common misconception is that kings and other ruling princes governed their lands seated on a throne for most of the working day. In earlier times this may have been true for some rulers who actually presided over their council, yet another room was used. Many others were almost constantly on the move with an ambulant court and it could even have been that the crown did not have an effective capital, as in England during most of the time before the Norman conquest. Or it could have been that the crown had, rather, other monarchies frequently changed their capital, but then they would have used a mobile throne, possibly in addition to the permanent one used for enthronement and/or coronation. There are cases in Africa and Asia where the name of the capital is not a fixed place. In some climates court migrated annually between a summer and a winter capital and it has also common to spend quite some time, without need for practical reason, in secondary residences, not in the least hunting lodges. Even when their capitals were well fixed English and French Renaissance kings used to travel extensively, henry VIIIs most frequently used residence was, in fact, at Hampton Court, outside London. Nowadays throne rooms are used for occasional grand ceremonies. Paper work is done in an office, and most guests are received in a salon, the following are notable throne rooms. Others are listed in the article on thrones and it was inspired by King Solomons throne which according to the Bible was made of ivory and had six steps with lion figures on each. The throne room actually used for receiving ambasadors is at Christiansborg, the throne was commissioned by Louis XIV and was in use up until 1789. In 1837 the Château de Versailles became a national museum, as part of the greater Versailles museum, the room is open to the public. Preferring Fontainebleau over Versailles, Napoleon had Louis XVs bedroom converted into a throne room, the palace was last used by Napoleon III when it was later declared a national monument in 1871, after the collapse of the empire. For over 700 years, the Grimaldi family have ruled Monaco and it also where most civil marriages of the royal family occur, before then having a religious ceremony elsewhere. The residence of the Wittelsbach monarchs of Bavaria has many throne-rooms and they were all built in the 19th century, after the monarchs of Bavaria became kings. Therefore, the throne-rooms are all in the classicism style and these thrones were used by King David Kalakaua, his wife Queen Kapiolani, and his successor Queen Liliʻuokalani. Kalakaua and his wife actually disliked sitting on the thrones, instead preferring to stand in front of them while receiving guests, the trial of Queen Liliuokalani also occurred in this room where she was found guilty and imprisoned within the palace by the Republic of Hawaii
5.
Diana (mythology)
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In Roman mythology, Diana was the goddess of the hunt, the moon, and nature being associated with wild animals and woodland, and having the power to talk to and control animals. She was eventually equated with the Greek goddess Artemis, though she had an independent origin in Italy, Diana was worshipped in ancient Roman religion and is revered in Roman Neopaganism and Stregheria. Diana was known to be the goddess of childbirth and women. She was one of the three goddesses, along with Minerva and Vesta, who swore never to marry. Oak groves were especially sacred to her as were deer, according to mythology, Diana was born with her twin brother, Apollo, on the island of Delos, daughter of Jupiter and Latona. She made up a triad with two other Roman deities, Egeria the water nymph, her servant and assistant midwife, and Virbius, the woodland god. Diana is a form developed from an ancient *divios, corresponding to later divus, dius, as in Dius Fidius, Dea Dia. It is rooted in Indoeuropean *dyw, meaning sky or daylight, from which also derived the name of Vedic god Dyaus and the Latin deus, dies. On the Tablets of Pylos a theonym διϝια is supposed as referring to a deity precursor of Artemis, Modern scholars mostly accept the identification. The ancient Latin writers Varro and Cicero considered the etymology of Dīāna as allied to that of dies, the persona of Diana is complex and contains a number of archaic features. According to Georges Dumézil it falls into a subset of celestial gods. Such gods, while keeping the original features of celestial divinities, the celestial character of Diana is reflected in her connection with light, inaccessibility, virginity, and her preference for dwelling on high mountains and in sacred woods. Diana therefore reflects the world in its sovereignty, supremacy, impassibility. At the same time, however, she is seen as active in ensuring the succession of kings and these functions are apparent in the traditional institutions and cults related to the goddess. This ever open succession reveals the character and mission of the goddess as a guarantor of kingly status through successive generations. Her function as bestower of authority to rule is also attested in the story related by Livy in which a Sabine man who sacrifices a heifer to Diana wins for his country the seat of the Roman empire. Diana was also worshipped by women who wanted to be pregnant or who, once pregnant and this form of worship is attested in archeological finds of votive statuettes in her sanctuary in the nemus Aricinum as well as in ancient sources, e. g. Ovid. According to Dumezil the forerunner of all gods is an Indian epic hero who was the image of the Vedic god Dyaus
6.
Mars
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Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, after Mercury. Named after the Roman god of war, it is referred to as the Red Planet because the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance. Mars is a planet with a thin atmosphere, having surface features reminiscent both of the impact craters of the Moon and the valleys, deserts, and polar ice caps of Earth. The rotational period and seasonal cycles of Mars are likewise similar to those of Earth, Mars is the site of Olympus Mons, the largest volcano and second-highest known mountain in the Solar System, and of Valles Marineris, one of the largest canyons in the Solar System. The smooth Borealis basin in the northern hemisphere covers 40% of the planet, Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos, which are small and irregularly shaped. These may be captured asteroids, similar to 5261 Eureka, a Mars trojan, there are ongoing investigations assessing the past habitability potential of Mars, as well as the possibility of extant life. Future astrobiology missions are planned, including the Mars 2020 and ExoMars rovers, liquid water cannot exist on the surface of Mars due to low atmospheric pressure, which is about 6⁄1000 that of the Earths, except at the lowest elevations for short periods. The two polar ice caps appear to be largely of water. The volume of ice in the south polar ice cap, if melted. On November 22,2016, NASA reported finding a large amount of ice in the Utopia Planitia region of Mars. The volume of water detected has been estimated to be equivalent to the volume of water in Lake Superior, Mars can easily be seen from Earth with the naked eye, as can its reddish coloring. Its apparent magnitude reaches −2.91, which is surpassed only by Jupiter, Venus, the Moon, optical ground-based telescopes are typically limited to resolving features about 300 kilometers across when Earth and Mars are closest because of Earths atmosphere. Mars is approximately half the diameter of Earth with an area only slightly less than the total area of Earths dry land. Mars is less dense than Earth, having about 15% of Earths volume and 11% of Earths mass, the red-orange appearance of the Martian surface is caused by iron oxide, or rust. It can look like butterscotch, other common colors include golden, brown, tan. Like Earth, Mars has differentiated into a metallic core overlaid by less dense materials. Current models of its interior imply a core with a radius of about 1,794 ±65 kilometers, consisting primarily of iron and this iron sulfide core is thought to be twice as rich in lighter elements than Earths. The core is surrounded by a mantle that formed many of the tectonic and volcanic features on the planet
7.
Mercury (planet)
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Mercury is the smallest and innermost planet in the Solar System. Its orbital period around the Sun of 88 days is the shortest of all the planets in the Solar System and it is named after the Roman deity Mercury, the messenger to the gods. Like Venus, Mercury orbits the Sun within Earths orbit as a planet, so it can only be seen visually in the morning or the evening sky. Also, like Venus and the Moon, the displays the complete range of phases as it moves around its orbit relative to Earth. Seen from Earth, this cycle of phases reoccurs approximately every 116 days, although Mercury can appear as a bright star-like object when viewed from Earth, its proximity to the Sun often makes it more difficult to see than Venus. Mercury is tidally or gravitationally locked with the Sun in a 3,2 resonance, as seen relative to the fixed stars, it rotates on its axis exactly three times for every two revolutions it makes around the Sun. As seen from the Sun, in a frame of reference that rotates with the orbital motion, an observer on Mercury would therefore see only one day every two years. Mercurys axis has the smallest tilt of any of the Solar Systems planets, at aphelion, Mercury is about 1.5 times as far from the Sun as it is at perihelion. Mercurys surface appears heavily cratered and is similar in appearance to the Moons, the polar regions are constantly below 180 K. The planet has no natural satellites. Mercury is one of four planets in the Solar System. It is the smallest planet in the Solar System, with a radius of 2,439.7 kilometres. Mercury is also smaller—albeit more massive—than the largest natural satellites in the Solar System, Ganymede, Mercury consists of approximately 70% metallic and 30% silicate material. Mercurys density is the second highest in the Solar System at 5.427 g/cm3, Mercurys density can be used to infer details of its inner structure. Although Earths high density results appreciably from gravitational compression, particularly at the core, Mercury is much smaller, therefore, for it to have such a high density, its core must be large and rich in iron. Geologists estimate that Mercurys core occupies about 55% of its volume, Research published in 2007 suggests that Mercury has a molten core. Surrounding the core is a 500–700 km mantle consisting of silicates, based on data from the Mariner 10 mission and Earth-based observation, Mercurys crust is estimated to be 35 km thick. One distinctive feature of Mercurys surface is the presence of narrow ridges
8.
Jupiter
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Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a giant planet with a mass one-thousandth that of the Sun, Jupiter and Saturn are gas giants, the other two giant planets, Uranus and Neptune are ice giants. Jupiter has been known to astronomers since antiquity, the Romans named it after their god Jupiter. Jupiter is primarily composed of hydrogen with a quarter of its mass being helium and it may also have a rocky core of heavier elements, but like the other giant planets, Jupiter lacks a well-defined solid surface. Because of its rotation, the planets shape is that of an oblate spheroid. The outer atmosphere is visibly segregated into several bands at different latitudes, resulting in turbulence, a prominent result is the Great Red Spot, a giant storm that is known to have existed since at least the 17th century when it was first seen by telescope. Surrounding Jupiter is a faint planetary ring system and a powerful magnetosphere, Jupiter has at least 67 moons, including the four large Galilean moons discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610. Ganymede, the largest of these, has a greater than that of the planet Mercury. Jupiter has been explored on several occasions by robotic spacecraft, most notably during the early Pioneer and Voyager flyby missions and later by the Galileo orbiter. In late February 2007, Jupiter was visited by the New Horizons probe, the latest probe to visit the planet is Juno, which entered into orbit around Jupiter on July 4,2016. Future targets for exploration in the Jupiter system include the probable ice-covered liquid ocean of its moon Europa, Earth and its neighbor planets may have formed from fragments of planets after collisions with Jupiter destroyed those super-Earths near the Sun. Astronomers have discovered nearly 500 planetary systems with multiple planets, Jupiter moving out of the inner Solar System would have allowed the formation of inner planets, including Earth. Jupiter is composed primarily of gaseous and liquid matter and it is the largest of the four giant planets in the Solar System and hence its largest planet. It has a diameter of 142,984 km at its equator, the average density of Jupiter,1.326 g/cm3, is the second highest of the giant planets, but lower than those of the four terrestrial planets. Jupiters upper atmosphere is about 88–92% hydrogen and 8–12% helium by percent volume of gas molecules, a helium atom has about four times as much mass as a hydrogen atom, so the composition changes when described as the proportion of mass contributed by different atoms. Thus, Jupiters atmosphere is approximately 75% hydrogen and 24% helium by mass, the atmosphere contains trace amounts of methane, water vapor, ammonia, and silicon-based compounds. There are also traces of carbon, ethane, hydrogen sulfide, neon, oxygen, phosphine, the outermost layer of the atmosphere contains crystals of frozen ammonia. The interior contains denser materials - by mass it is roughly 71% hydrogen, 24% helium, through infrared and ultraviolet measurements, trace amounts of benzene and other hydrocarbons have also been found
9.
Venus (mythology)
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Venus is the Roman goddess whose functions encompassed love, beauty, desire, sex, fertility, prosperity and victory. In Roman mythology, she was the mother of the Roman people through her son, Aeneas, Julius Caesar claimed her as his ancestor. Venus was central to religious festivals, and was revered in Roman religion under numerous cult titles. The Romans adapted the myths and iconography of her Greek counterpart Aphrodite for Roman art, in the later classical tradition of the West, Venus becomes one of the most widely referenced deities of Greco-Roman mythology as the embodiment of love and sexuality. It has connections to venerari and venia through a common root in an Indo-European *wenes- or *u̯enis. Their common Proto-Indo-European root is assumed as *wen- or *u̯en- to strive for, wish for, desire, Venus has been described as perhaps the most original creation of the Roman pantheon, and an ill-defined and assimilative native goddess, combined with a strange and exotic Aphrodite. The ambivalence of her persuasive functions has been perceived in the relationship of the root *venes- with Latin venenum, in the sense of a charm, in myth, Venus-Aphrodite was born of sea-foam. Roman theology presents Venus as the yielding, watery female principle, essential to the generation and her male counterparts in the Roman pantheon, Vulcan and Mars, are active and fiery. Venus absorbs and tempers the male essence, uniting the opposites of male and female in mutual affection and she is essentially assimilative and benign, and embraces several otherwise quite disparate functions. She can give military victory, sexual success, good fortune, in one context, she is a goddess of prostitutes, in another, she turns the hearts of men and women from sexual vice to virtue. Images of Venus have been found in murals, mosaics. Petronius, in his Satyricon, places an image of Venus among the Lares of the freedman Trimalchios lararium, prospective brides offered Venus a gift before the wedding, the nature of the gift, and its timing, are unknown. Some Roman sources say that girls who come of age offer their toys to Venus, it is unclear where the offering is made, in dice-games, a popular pastime among Romans of all classes, the luckiest, best possible roll was known as Venus. Venus signs were for the most part the same as Aphrodites, Venus statues, and her worshipers, wore myrtle crowns at her festivals. Likewise, Roman folk-etymology transformed the ancient, obscure goddess Murcia into Venus of the Myrtles, myrtle was thought a particularly potent aphrodisiac. The female pudendum, particularly the clitoris, was known as murtos, as goddess of love and sex, Venus played an essential role at Roman prenuptial rites and wedding nights, so myrtle and roses were used in bridal bouquets. Marriage itself was not a seduction but a condition, under Junos authority. Venus was also a patron of the ordinary, everyday wine drunk by most Roman men and women, in the rites to Bona Dea, a goddess of female chastity, Venus, myrtle and anything male were not only excluded, but unmentionable
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Venus
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Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. It has the longest rotation period of any planet in the Solar System and it is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty. It is the second-brightest natural object in the sky after the Moon, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6. Because Venus orbits within Earths orbit it is a planet and never appears to venture far from the Sun. Venus is a planet and is sometimes called Earths sister planet because of their similar size, mass, proximity to the Sun. It is radically different from Earth in other respects and it has the densest atmosphere of the four terrestrial planets, consisting of more than 96% carbon dioxide. The atmospheric pressure at the surface is 92 times that of Earth. Venus is by far the hottest planet in the Solar System, with a surface temperature of 735 K. Venus is shrouded by an layer of highly reflective clouds of sulfuric acid. It may have had water oceans in the past, but these would have vaporized as the temperature rose due to a greenhouse effect. The water has probably photodissociated, and the hydrogen has been swept into interplanetary space by the solar wind because of the lack of a planetary magnetic field. Venuss surface is a dry desertscape interspersed with rocks and is periodically resurfaced by volcanism. As one of the brightest objects in the sky, Venus has been a fixture in human culture for as long as records have existed. It has been sacred to gods of many cultures, and has been a prime inspiration for writers and poets as the morning star. Venus was the first planet to have its motions plotted across the sky, as the closest planet to Earth, Venus has been a prime target for early interplanetary exploration. It was the first planet beyond Earth visited by a spacecraft, Venuss thick clouds render observation of its surface impossible in visible light, and the first detailed maps did not emerge until the arrival of the Magellan orbiter in 1991. Plans have been proposed for rovers or more missions. Venus is one of the four planets in the Solar System
11.
Pietro da Cortona
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Pietro da Cortona was an Italian Baroque painter and architect. Along with his contemporaries and rivals Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini and he was also an important designer of interior decorations. He was born Pietro Berrettini, but is known by the name of his native town of Cortona in Tuscany. He worked mainly in Rome and Florence, only a limited number of his architectural projects were built but nonetheless they are as distinctive and as inventive as those of his rivals. Berrettini was born into a family of artisans and masons, in Cortona and he trained in painting in Florence under Andrea Commodi, but soon he departed for Rome at around 1612/3, where he joined the studio of Baccio Ciarpi. In Rome, he had encouragement from many prominent patrons, according to Cortonas biographers his gifted copy of Raphaels Galatea fresco brought him to the attention of Marcello Sacchetti, papal treasurer during the Barberini papacy. Such contacts helped him gain a major commission in Rome. In 1633, Pope Urban VIII commissioned from Cortona a large painting for the main salon ceiling of the Barberini family palace. It was completed six years later, following Cortonas influential visit to northern Italy where he would have seen at first hand perspectival works by Paolo Veronese, Cortonas huge Allegory of Divine Providence and Barberini Power marks a watershed in Baroque painting. The ornamented architectural framework essentially forms five compartments, the central and most significant part celebrates the glorification of the reign of Urban VIII in a light filled scene populated with allegorical figures and Barberini family emblems. The illusion of spatial extension through paint, the grandiose theme, the first two represented the ages of silver and gold. In 1641, he was recalled to paint the Bronze Age and he began work on the decoration of the grand-ducal reception rooms on the first floor of the Palazzo Pitti, now part of the Palatine Gallery. These highly ornate ceilings with frescoes and elaborate stucco work essentially celebrate the Medici lineage, Pietro left Florence in 1647, and his pupil and collaborator, Ciro Ferri, completed the cycle by the 1660s. For a number of years, Cortona was involved for decades in the decoration of the frescoes in the Oratorian Chiesa Nuova in Rome. Other frescoes are in Palazzo Pamphilj in Piazza Navona, in 1660, he executed The Stoning of Saint Stephen for the church of San Ambrogio della Massima in Rome. The work currently hangs in the Hermitage, towards the end of his life he devoted much of his time to architecture, but he published a treatise on painting in 1652 under a pseudonym and in collaboration. He refused invitations to both France and Spain and he was elected as director of the Academy of St Luke the painters guild in Rome, in 1634. It was at the Academy in 1636 that Cortona and Andrea Sacchi were involved in controversies regarding the number of figures that were appropriate in a painted work
12.
Palazzo Pitti
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The Palazzo Pitti, in English sometimes called the Pitti Palace, is a vast, mainly Renaissance, palace in Florence, Italy. It is situated on the side of the River Arno. The core of the present palazzo dates from 1458 and was originally the residence of Luca Pitti. The palace was bought by the Medici family in 1549 and became the residence of the ruling families of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. It grew as a treasure house as later generations amassed paintings, plates, jewelry. In the late 18th century, the palazzo was used as a base by Napoleon. The palace and its contents were donated to the Italian people by King Victor Emmanuel III in 1919, the palazzo is now the largest museum complex in Florence. The principal palazzo block, often in a building of design known as the corps de logis, is 32,000 square metres. It is divided into several principal galleries or museums detailed below, the construction of this severe and forbidding building was commissioned in 1458 by the Florentine banker Luca Pitti, a principal supporter and friend of Cosimo de Medici. The early history of the Palazzo Pitti is a mixture of fact, Pitti is alleged to have instructed that the windows be larger than the entrance of the Palazzo Medici. Besides obvious differences from the architects style, Brunelleschi died 12 years before construction of the palazzo began. The design and fenestration suggest that the architect was more experienced in utilitarian domestic architecture than in the humanist rules defined by Alberti in his book De Re Aedificatoria. Though impressive, the original palazzo would have no rival to the Florentine Medici residences in terms of either size or content. Whoever the architect of the Palazzo Pitti was, he was moving against the flow of fashion. The rusticated stonework gives the palazzo a severe and powerful atmosphere, reinforced by the series of seven arch-headed apertures. The Roman-style architecture appealed to the Florentine love of the new style allantica, work stopped after Pitti suffered financial losses following the death of Cosimo de Medici in 1464. Luca Pitti died in 1472 with the building unfinished, the building was sold in 1549 by Buonaccorso Pitti, a descendant of Luca Pitti, to Eleonora di Toledo. Raised at the court of Naples, Eleonora was the wife of Cosimo I de Medici of Tuscany
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