Rotterdam
Rotterdam is the second-largest city and a municipality of the Netherlands. It is located in the province of South Holland, at the mouth of the Nieuwe Maas channel leading into the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta at the North Sea, its history goes back to 1270, when a dam was constructed in the Rotte, after which people settled around it for safety. In 1340, Rotterdam was granted city rights by the Count of Holland. A major logistic and economic centre, Rotterdam is Europe's largest port, it has a population of 633,471. Rotterdam is known for its Erasmus University, its riverside setting, lively cultural life and maritime heritage; the near-complete destruction of the city centre in the World War II Rotterdam Blitz has resulted in a varied architectural landscape, including sky-scrapers designed by renowned architects such as Rem Koolhaas, Piet Blom and Ben van Berkel. The Rhine and Scheldt give waterway access into the heart of Western Europe, including the industrialized Ruhr; the extensive distribution system including rail and waterways have earned Rotterdam the nicknames "Gateway to Europe" and "Gateway to the World".
The settlement at the lower end of the fen stream Rotte dates from at least 900 CE. Around 1150, large floods in the area ended development, leading to the construction of protective dikes and dams, including Schielands Hoge Zeedijk along the northern banks of the present-day Nieuwe Maas. A dam on the Rotte was located at the present-day Hoogstraat. On 7 July 1340, Count Willem IV of Holland granted city rights to Rotterdam, whose population was only a few thousand. Around the year 1350, a shipping canal, the Rotterdamse Schie was completed, which provided Rotterdam access to the larger towns in the north, allowing it to become a local trans-shipment centre between the Netherlands and Germany, to urbanize; the port of Rotterdam grew but into a port of importance, becoming the seat of one of the six "chambers" of the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the Dutch East India Company. The greatest spurt of growth, both in port activity and population, followed the completion of the Nieuwe Waterweg in 1872.
The city and harbor started to expand on the south bank of the river. The Witte Huis or White House skyscraper, inspired by American office buildings and built in 1898 in the French Château-style, is evidence of Rotterdam's rapid growth and success; when completed, it was the tallest office building in Europe, with a height of 45 m. During World War I the city was the world's largest spy centre because of Dutch neutrality and its strategic location in between Great-Britain and German-occupied Belgium. Many spies who were arrested and executed in Britain were led by German secret agents operating from Rotterdam. MI6 had its main European office on de Boompjes. From there the British occupied Belgium. During World War I, an average of 25,000 Belgian refugees lived in the city, as well as hundreds of German deserters and escaped Allied prisoners of war. During World War II, the German army invaded the Netherlands on 10 May 1940. Adolf Hitler had hoped to conquer the country in just one day, but his forces met unexpectedly fierce resistance.
The Dutch army was forced to capitulate on 15 May 1940, following the bombing of Rotterdam on 14 May and the threat of bombing of other Dutch cities. The heart of Rotterdam was completely destroyed by the Luftwaffe; some 80,000 civilians were made homeless and 900 were killed. The City Hall survived the bombing. Ossip Zadkine attempted to capture the event with his statue De Verwoeste Stad; the statue stands near the Leuvehaven, not far from the Erasmusbrug in the centre of the city, on the north shore of the river Nieuwe Maas. Rotterdam was rebuilt from the 1950s through to the 1970s, it remained quite windy and open until the city councils from the 1980s on began developing an active architectural policy. Daring and new styles of apartments, office buildings and recreation facilities resulted in a more'livable' city centre with a new skyline. In the 1990s, the Kop van Zuid was built on the south bank of the river as a new business centre. Rotterdam was voted 2015 European City of the Year by the Academy of Urbanism.
A Guardian profile of Rem Koolhaas begins "If you put the last 50 years of architecture in a blender, spat it out in building-sized chunks across the skyline, you would end up with something that looked a bit like Rotterdam."'Rotterdam' is divided into a northern and a southern part by the river Nieuwe Maas, connected by: the Beneluxtunnel. The former railway lift bridge De Hef is preserved as a monument in lifted position between the Noordereiland and the south of Rotterdam; the city centre is located on the northern bank of the Nieuwe Maas, although recent urban development has extended the centre to parts of southern Rotterdam known as De Kop van Zuid. From its inland core, Rotterdam reaches the North Sea by a swathe of predominantly harbour area. Built behind di
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and most populous city of Denmark. As of July 2018, the city has a population of 777,218, it forms the core of the wider urban area of the Copenhagen metropolitan area. Copenhagen is situated on the eastern coast of the island of Zealand; the Øresund Bridge connects the two cities by road. A Viking fishing village established in the 10th century in the vicinity of what is now Gammel Strand, Copenhagen became the capital of Denmark in the early 15th century. Beginning in the 17th century it consolidated its position as a regional centre of power with its institutions and armed forces. After suffering from the effects of plague and fire in the 18th century, the city underwent a period of redevelopment; this included construction of the prestigious district of Frederiksstaden and founding of such cultural institutions as the Royal Theatre and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. After further disasters in the early 19th century when Horatio Nelson attacked the Dano-Norwegian fleet and bombarded the city, rebuilding during the Danish Golden Age brought a Neoclassical look to Copenhagen's architecture.
Following the Second World War, the Finger Plan fostered the development of housing and businesses along the five urban railway routes stretching out from the city centre. Since the turn of the 21st century, Copenhagen has seen strong urban and cultural development, facilitated by investment in its institutions and infrastructure; the city is the cultural and governmental centre of Denmark. Copenhagen's economy has seen rapid developments in the service sector through initiatives in information technology and clean technology. Since the completion of the Øresund Bridge, Copenhagen has become integrated with the Swedish province of Scania and its largest city, Malmö, forming the Øresund Region. With a number of bridges connecting the various districts, the cityscape is characterised by parks and waterfronts. Copenhagen's landmarks such as Tivoli Gardens, The Little Mermaid statue, the Amalienborg and Christiansborg palaces, Rosenborg Castle Gardens, Frederik's Church, many museums and nightclubs are significant tourist attractions.
The largest lake of Denmark, Arresø, lies around 27 miles northwest of the City Hall Square. Copenhagen is home to the University of Copenhagen, the Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen Business School and the IT University of Copenhagen; the University of Copenhagen, founded in 1479, is the oldest university in Denmark. Copenhagen is home to the FC Brøndby football clubs; the annual Copenhagen Marathon was established in 1980. Copenhagen is one of the most bicycle-friendly cities in the world; the Copenhagen Metro launched in 2002 serves central Copenhagen while the Copenhagen S-train, the Lokaltog and the Coast Line network serves and connects central Copenhagen to outlying boroughs. To relieve traffic congestion, the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link road and rail construction is planned, because the narrow 9-9.5 mile isthmus between Roskilde Fjord and Køge Bugt forms a traffic bottleneck. The Copenhagen-Ringsted Line will relieve traffic congestion in the corridor between Roskilde and Copenhagen.
Serving two million passengers a month, Copenhagen Airport, Kastrup, is the busiest airport in the Nordic countries. Copenhagen's name reflects its origin as a place of commerce; the original designation in Old Norse, from which Danish descends, was Kaupmannahǫfn, meaning "merchants' harbour". By the time Old Danish was spoken, the capital was called Køpmannæhafn, with the current name deriving from centuries of subsequent regular sound change. An exact English equivalent would be "chapman's haven". However, the English term for the city was adapted from Kopenhagen. Although the earliest historical records of Copenhagen are from the end of the 12th century, recent archaeological finds in connection with work on the city's metropolitan rail system revealed the remains of a large merchant's mansion near today's Kongens Nytorv from c. 1020. Excavations in Pilestræde have led to the discovery of a well from the late 12th century; the remains of an ancient church, with graves dating to the 11th century, have been unearthed near where Strøget meets Rådhuspladsen.
These finds indicate. Substantial discoveries of flint tools in the area provide evidence of human settlements dating to the Stone Age. Many historians believe the town dates to the late Viking Age, was founded by Sweyn I Forkbeard; the natural harbour and good herring stocks seem to have attracted fishermen and merchants to the area on a seasonal basis from the 11th century and more permanently in the 13th century. The first habitations were centred on Gammel Strand in the 11thcentury or earlier; the earliest written mention of the town was in the 12th century when Saxo Grammaticus in Gesta Danorum referred to it as Portus
Guido Reni
Guido Reni was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, although his works showed a classical manner, similar to Simon Vouet, Nicholas Poussin and Philippe de Champaigne. He painted religious works, but mythological and allegorical subjects. Active in Rome and his native Bologna, he became the dominant figure in the Bolognese School that emerged under the influence of the Carracci. Born in Bologna into a family of musicians, Guido Reni was the only child of Daniele Reni and Ginevra Pozzi. At the age of nine, he was apprenticed to the Bolognese studio of Denis Calvaert. Soon after, he was joined in that studio by Domenichino, he may have trained with a painter by the name of Ferrantini. When Reni was about twenty years old, the three Calvaert pupils migrated to the rising rival studio, named Accademia degli Incamminati, led by Ludovico Carracci, they went on to form the nucleus of a prolific and successful school of Bolognese painters who followed Lodovico's cousin Annibale Carracci to Rome. Reni completed commissions for his first altarpieces while in the Carracci academy.
He left the academy after an argument with Ludovico Carracci over unpaid work. Around this time he made his first prints, a series commemorating Pope Clement VIII's visit to Bologna in 1598. By late 1601, Reni and Albani had moved to Rome to work with the teams led by Annibale Carracci in fresco decoration of the Farnese Palace. During 1601–1604, his main patron was Cardinal Paolo Emilio Sfondrati. By 1604–1605, he received an independent commission for an altarpiece of the Crucifixion of St. Peter. After returning to Bologna, he went back to Rome to become one of the premier painters during the papacy of Paul V. Reni's frescoed ceiling of the large central hall of the Casino dell'Aurora, located in the grounds of the Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi, is considered his fresco masterpiece; the building was a pavilion commissioned by Cardinal Scipione Borghese. The massive fresco is framed in quadri riportati and depicts Apollo in his Chariot preceded by Dawn bringing light to the world; the work is restrained in classicism, copying poses from Roman sarcophagi, showing far more simplicity and restraint than Carracci's riotous Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne in the Farnese.
In this painting Reni allies himself more with the sterner Cavaliere d'Arpino and Albani "School" of mytho-historic painting, less with the more crowded frescoes characteristic of Pietro da Cortona. There is little concession to perspective, the vibrantly colored style is antithetical to the tenebrism of Caravaggio's followers. Documents show that Reni was paid 247 scudi and 54 baiocchi upon completion of his work on 24 September 1616. In 1630, the Barberini family of Pope Urban VIII commissioned from Reni a painting of the Archangel Michael for the church of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini; the painting, completed in 1636, gave rise to an old legend that Reni had represented Satan—crushed under St Michael's foot—with the facial features of Cardinal Giovanni Battista Pamphilj in revenge for a slight. Reni frescoed the Paoline Chapel of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome as well as the Aldobrandini wings of the Vatican. According to rumor, the pontifical chapel of Montecavallo was assigned to Reni to paint.
However, because he felt underpaid by the papal ministers, the artist left Rome once again for Bologna, leaving the role of the preeminent artist in Rome to Domenichino. Returning to Bologna more or less permanently after 1614, Reni established a successful and prolific studio there, he was commissioned to decorate the cupola of the chapel of Saint Dominic in Bologna's Basilica of San Domenico between 1613 and 1615, resulting in the radiant fresco Saint Dominic in Glory, a masterpiece that can stand comparison with the exquisite Arca di San Domenico below it. He contributed to the decoration of the Rosary Chapel in the same church, with a Resurrection. In 1614–15 he painted "The Israelites Gathering Manna" for a chapel in the cathedral of Ravenna. Leaving Bologna in 1618, Reni traveled to Naples to complete a commission to paint a ceiling in a chapel of the cathedral of San Gennaro. However, in Naples, other prominent local painters, including Corenzio and Ribera, were vehemently resistant to competitors, according to rumor, conspired to poison or otherwise harm Reni.
Reni, who had a great fear of being poisoned, chose not to outstay his welcome. After leaving Rome, Reni alternately painted in different styles, but displayed less eclectic tastes than many of Carracci's trainees. For example, his altarpiece for Samson Victorious formulates stylized poses, like those characteristic of Mannerism. In contrast, his Crucifixion and his Atlanta and Hipomenes depict dramatic diagonal movement coupled with the effects of light and shade that portray the more Baroque influence of Caravaggio, his turbulent yet realistic Massacre of the Innocents is painted in a manner reminiscent of a late Raphael. In 1625, Prince Władysław Sigismund Vasa of Poland visited the artist's workshop in Bologna during his visit to Western Europe; the close rapport
Caravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian painter active in Rome, Naples and Sicily from the early 1590s to 1610. His paintings combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, which had a formative influence on Baroque painting. Caravaggio employed close physical observation with a dramatic use of chiaroscuro that came to be known as tenebrism, he made the technique a dominant stylistic element, darkening shadows and transfixing subjects in bright shafts of light. Caravaggio vividly expressed crucial moments and scenes featuring violent struggles and death, he worked with live models, preferring to forgo drawings and work directly onto the canvas. His influence on the new Baroque style that emerged from Mannerism was profound, it can be seen directly or indirectly in the work of Peter Paul Rubens, Jusepe de Ribera, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Rembrandt, artists in the following generation under his influence were called the "Caravaggisti" or "Caravagesques", as well as tenebrists or tenebrosi.
Caravaggio trained as a painter in Milan before moving in his twenties to Rome. He developed a considerable name as an artist, as a violent and provocative man. A brawl forced him to flee to Naples. There he again established himself as one of the most prominent Italian painters of his generation, he traveled in 1607 to Malta and on to Sicily, pursued a papal pardon for his sentence. In 1609 he returned to Naples. Questions about his mental state arose from his bizarre behavior, he died in 1610 under uncertain circumstances while on his way from Naples to Rome. Reports stated that he died of a fever, but suggestions have been made that he was murdered or that he died of lead poisoning. Caravaggio's innovations inspired Baroque painting, but the Baroque incorporated the drama of his chiaroscuro without the psychological realism; the style evolved and fashions changed, Caravaggio fell out of favor. In the 20th century interest in his work revived, his importance to the development of Western art was reevaluated.
The 20th-century art historian André Berne-Joffroy stated, "What begins in the work of Caravaggio is, quite modern painting." Caravaggio was born in Milan, where his father, was a household administrator and architect-decorator to the Marchese of Caravaggio, a town not far from the city of Bergamo. In 1576 the family moved to Caravaggio to escape a plague that ravaged Milan, Caravaggio's father and grandfather both died there on the same day in 1577, it is assumed that the artist grew up in Caravaggio, but his family kept up connections with the Sforzas and with the powerful Colonna family, who were allied by marriage with the Sforzas and destined to play a major role in Caravaggio's life. Caravaggio's mother died in 1584, the same year he began his four-year apprenticeship to the Milanese painter Simone Peterzano, described in the contract of apprenticeship as a pupil of Titian. Caravaggio appears to have stayed in the Milan-Caravaggio area after his apprenticeship ended, but it is possible that he visited Venice and saw the works of Giorgione, whom Federico Zuccari accused him of imitating, Titian.
He would have become familiar with the art treasures of Milan, including Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper, with the regional Lombard art, a style that valued simplicity and attention to naturalistic detail and was closer to the naturalism of Germany than to the stylised formality and grandeur of Roman Mannerism. Following his initial training under Simone Peterzano, in 1592 Caravaggio left Milan for Rome, in flight after "certain quarrels" and the wounding of a police officer; the young artist arrived in Rome "naked and needy... without fixed address and without provision... short of money." During this period he stayed with the miserly Pandolfo Pucci, known as "monnsignor Insalata". A few months he was performing hack-work for the successful Giuseppe Cesari, Pope Clement VIII's favourite artist, "painting flowers and fruit" in his factory-like workshop. In Rome there was demand for paintings to fill the many huge new churches and palazzos being built at the time, it was a period when the Church was searching for a stylistic alternative to Mannerism in religious art, tasked to counter the threat of Protestantism.
Caravaggio's innovation was a radical naturalism that combined close physical observation with a dramatic theatrical, use of chiaroscuro that came to be known as tenebrism. Known works from this period include a small Boy Peeling a Fruit, a Boy with a Basket of Fruit, the Young Sick Bacchus a self-portrait done during convalescence from a serious illness that ended his employment with Cesari. All three demonstrate the physical particularity for which Caravaggio was to become renowned: the fruit-basket-boy's produce has been analysed by a professor of horticulture, able to identify individual cultivars right down to "... a large fig leaf with a prominent fungal scorch lesion resembling anthracnose."Caravaggio left Cesari, determined to make his own way after a heated argument. At this point he forged some important friendships, with the painter Prospero Orsi, the architect Onorio Longhi, the sixteen-year-old Sicilian artist Mario Minniti. Orsi
Joachim von Sandrart
Joachim von Sandrart was a German Baroque art-historian and painter, active in Amsterdam during the Dutch Golden Age. He is most significant for his collection of biographies of Dutch and German artists the Teutsche Academie, published between 1675 and 1680. Sandrart was born in Frankfurt am Main. According to his dictionary of art called the Teutsche Academie, he learned to read and write from the son of Theodor de Bry, Johann Theodoor de Brie and his associate Matthäus Merian, but at age 15 was so eager to learn more of the art of engraving, that he walked from Frankfurt to Prague to become a pupil of Aegidius Sadeler of the Sadeler family. Sadeler in turn urged him to paint, whereupon he travelled to Utrecht in 1625 to become a pupil of Gerrit van Honthorst, through him he met Rubens when he brought a visit to Honthorst in 1627, to recruit him for collaboration on part of his Marie de' Medici cycle. Honthorst took Sandrart along with him. There he worked with Honthorst and spent time making copies of Holbein portraits for the portrait gallery of Henry Howard, 22nd Earl of Arundel.
Making all of those copies only served to arouse more curiosity in the young adventurer, in 1627 Sandrart booked a passage on a ship from London to Venice, where he was welcomed by Jan Lis, Nicolao Renier. He set out for Bologna, where he was met by his cousin on his father's side Michael le Blond, a celebrated engraver. With him, he crossed the mountains to Florence, from there on to Rome, where they met Pieter van Laer. Sandrart became famous as a portrait-painter. After a few years he undertook a tour of Italy, traveling to Naples, where he drew studies of Mount Vesuvius, believed to be the entrance to the Elysian fields described by Virgil. From there he traveled to Malta and beyond, searching for literary sights to see and paint, wherever he went he paid his way by selling portraits. Only when he was done traveling did he return to Frankfurt, where he married Johanna de Milkau. Afraid of political unrest and plague, he moved to Amsterdam with his wife in 1637. In Amsterdam he worked as a painter of genre works, portraits.
He won a good following as a painter, winning a lucrative commission for a large commemorative piece for the state visit by Maria of Medici in 1638, which hangs in the Rijksmuseum. This piece was commissioned by the Bicker Company of the Amsterdam schutterij, shows the members posing around a bust of Maria of Medici, with a poem by Joost van den Vondel hanging below it; the state visit was a big deal for Amsterdam, as it meant the first formal recognition of the Dutch Republic of the seven provinces by France. However, Maria herself never returned to France; this piece cemented his reputation as a leading painter, in 1645 Sandrart decided to cash in and go home when he received an inheritance in Stockau, outside Ingolstadt, he sold his things and moved there. He received 3000 guilders for 2 books of his Italian drawings, that according to Houbraken were resold in his lifetime for 4555 guilders. Though he rebuilt the old homestead, it was burned by the French, he sold it and moved to Augsburg, where he painted for the family of Maximilian I, the Elector of Bavaria.
When his wife died in 1672, Sandrart moved to Nuremberg, where he married Hester Barbara Bloemaart, the daughter of a magistrate there. This is, his large 1649 painting Peace-Banquet commemorating the Peace of Münster, now hangs in Nuremberg's town hall. He is best known as an author of books on art, some of them in Latin, for his historical work, the Teutsche Academie, published between 1675 and 1680, in more recent editions; this work is an educational compilation of short biographies of artists, inspired by Karel van Mander's similar Schilder-boeck. Both Sandrart and van Mander based their Italian sections on the work of Giorgio Vasari, his work in turn became one of the primary sources for Arnold Houbraken's Schouburg, who wrote a little poem about him: Wat arbeid, moeite, en yver, What work and dedication,En nazoek dat een Schryver And research that a WriterSteets doen moet, weet niemant. The one who has taken it in hand himself. Sandrart published the first biography of the German artist Matthias Grünewald, incorrectly bestowed on the artist the name Grünewald by which he is now popularly known.
Sandrart copied a mistake in Cornelis de Bie's Het Gulden Cabinet on Hendrick ter Brugghen whom De Bie has erroneously called "Verbrugghen". De Bie corrects this mistake in a manuscript and attacks Sandrart for having copied the mistake without proper research in a work of his. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed.. "Sandrart, Joachim von". Encyclopædia Britannica. 24. Cambridge University Press. P. 141. Teutsche Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste, Joachim von Sandrart, Nürnberg 1675, 1679, 1680 Sandrart's commemorative painting of Maria de Medici's visit in 1638, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam Link to the Sandrart.net digitalization project for the Teutsche Academie His portrait engraved by Philipp Kilian after a painting by Johann Ulrich Mayr
Utrecht
Utrecht is the fourth-largest city and a municipality of the Netherlands and most populous city of the province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, in the centre of mainland Netherlands, had a population of 345,080 in 2017. Utrecht's ancient city centre features many buildings and structures several dating as far back as the High Middle Ages, it has been the religious centre of the Netherlands since the 8th century. It remains the main religious centre in the country. Utrecht was the most important city in the Netherlands until the Dutch Golden Age, when it was surpassed by Amsterdam as the country's cultural centre and most populous city. Utrecht is host to Utrecht University, the largest university in the Netherlands, as well as several other institutions of higher education. Due to its central position within the country, it is an important transport hub for both rail and road transport, it has the second highest number of cultural events after Amsterdam.
In 2012, Lonely Planet included Utrecht in the top 10 of the world's unsung places. Although there is some evidence of earlier inhabitation in the region of Utrecht, dating back to the Stone Age and settling in the Bronze Age, the founding date of the city is related to the construction of a Roman fortification built in around 50 CE. A series of such fortresses was built after the Roman emperor Claudius decided the empire should not expand north. To consolidate the border, the Limes Germanicus defense line was constructed along the main branch of the river Rhine, which at that time flowed through a more northern bed compared to today; these fortresses were designed to house a cohort of about 500 Roman soldiers. Near the fort, settlements would grow housing artisans and soldiers' wives and children. In Roman times, the name of the Utrecht fortress was Traiectum, denoting its location at a possible Rhine crossing. Traiectum became Dutch Trecht. In 11th-century official documents, it was Latinized as Ultra Traiectum.
Around the year 200, the wooden walls of the fortification were replaced by sturdier tuff stone walls, remnants of which are still to be found below the buildings around Dom Square. From the middle of the 3rd century, Germanic tribes invaded the Roman territories. Around 275 the Romans could no longer maintain the northern border and Utrecht was abandoned. Little is known about the next period 270–650. Utrecht is first spoken of again several centuries. Under the influence of the growing realms of the Franks, during Dagobert I's reign in the 7th century, a church was built within the walls of the Roman fortress. In ongoing border conflicts with the Frisians, this first church was destroyed. By the mid-7th century and Irish missionaries set out to convert the Frisians. Pope Sergius I appointed Saint Willibrordus, as bishop of the Frisians; the tenure of Willibrordus is considered to be the beginning of the Bishopric of Utrecht. In 723, the Frankish leader Charles Martel bestowed the fortress in Utrecht and the surrounding lands as the base of the bishops.
From on Utrecht became one of the most influential seats of power for the Roman Catholic Church in the Netherlands. The archbishops of Utrecht were based at the uneasy northern border of the Carolingian Empire. In addition, the city of Utrecht had competition from the nearby trading centre Dorestad. After the fall of Dorestad around 850, Utrecht became one of the most important cities in the Netherlands; the importance of Utrecht as a centre of Christianity is illustrated by the election of the Utrecht-born Adriaan Florenszoon Boeyens as pope in 1522. When the Frankish rulers established the system of feudalism, the Bishops of Utrecht came to exercise worldly power as prince-bishops; the territory of the bishopric not only included the modern province of Utrecht, but extended to the northeast. The feudal conflict of the Middle Ages affected Utrecht; the prince-bishopric was involved in continuous conflicts with the Counts of Holland and the Dukes of Guelders. The Veluwe region was seized by Guelders, but large areas in the modern province of Overijssel remained as the Oversticht.
Several churches and monasteries were built inside, or close to, the city of Utrecht. The most dominant of these was the Cathedral of Saint Martin, inside the old Roman fortress; the construction of the present Gothic building was begun in 1254 after an earlier romanesque construction had been badly damaged by fire. The choir and transept were finished from 1320 and were followed by the ambitious Dom tower; the last part to be constructed was the central nave, from 1420. By that time, the age of the great cathedrals had come to an end and declining finances prevented the ambitious project from being finished, the construction of the central nave being suspended before the planned flying buttresses could be finished. Besides the cathedral there were four collegiate churches in Utrecht: St. Salvator's Church, on the Dom square, dating back to the early 8th century. Saint John, originating in 1040. Besides these churches, the city housed St. Paul's Abbey, the 15th-century beguinage of St. Nicholas, a 14th-century chapter house of the Teutonic Knights.
Besides these
Domenichino
Domenico Zampieri, known as Domenichino for his shortness, was an Italian Baroque painter of the Bolognese or Carracci School of painters. Domenichino was born in Bologna, son of a shoemaker, there studied under Denis Calvaert. After quarreling with Calvaert, he left to work in the Accademia degli Incamminati of the Carracci where, because of his small stature, he was nicknamed Domenichino, meaning "little Domenico" in Italian, he left Bologna for Rome in 1602 and became one of the most talented apprentices to emerge from Annibale Carracci's supervision. As a young artist in Rome he lived with his older Bolognese colleagues Albani and Guido Reni, worked alongside Lanfranco, who would become a chief rival. In addition to assisting Annibale with completion of his frescoes in the Galleria Farnese, including A Virgin with a Unicorn, he painted three of his own frescoes in the Loggia del Giardino of the Palazzo Farnese c. 1603–04. With the support of Monsignor Giovanni Battista Agucchi, the maggiordomo to Cardinal Aldobrandini and Gregory XV, Giovanni's brother Cardinal Girolamo Agucchi, Domenichino obtained further commissions in Rome.
His most important project of the first decade was decoration of the Cappella dei Santissimi Fondatori in the medieval basilica of the Abbey of Grottaferrata, some 20 kilometers outside Rome, where Odoardo Farnese was the titular abbot. Meanwhile, he had completed frescoes c. 1604–05 in the church of Sant'Onofrio, feigned stucco decoration of 1606–07 in the Palazzo Mattei, a large scene of The Flagellation of St. Andrew at San Gregorio Magno, painted in competition with a fresco by Reni that faces it, a ceiling with Scenes from the Life of Diana, 1609, in the Villa Odescalchi at Bassano di Sutri. Following Annibale Carracci's death in 1609, the pupils who had followed Annibale's Roman style, including Domenichino and Francesco Albani, were not as successful at gaining the most prestigious commissions as Guido Reni; as Donald Posner stated in his influential thesis, The Roman Style of Annibale Carracci and His School, ‘...it should be stressed that the severe classicism of Annibale’s late style had an immediate life in Rome of only about a lustrum.’ In turn, the Bolognese biographer Malvasia states that'only Guido was put ahead of everyone else, Guido alone proclaimed and well treated, while, on the contrary, was either not recognized or mistreated in the fees he got, so that he was left without commissions and rejected.
Therefore, he was forced to go begging for work, with much effort, through intermediaries, at any price... the same had been true of the Flagellation of Saint Andrew, painted for a hundred and fifty scudi, whereas in the case of the Adoration of the Cross on the opposite wall four hundred scudi had gone to Guido.' One of Domenichino's masterpieces, his frescoes of Scenes of the Life of Saint Cecilia in the Polet Chapel of San Luigi dei Francesi, was commissioned in 1612 and completed in 1615. Concurrently he painted his first, most celebrated, The Last Communion of St. Jerome for the church of San Girolamo della Carità, it subsequently would be judged as being comparable to Raphael's great Transfiguration and as "the best picture in the world". By late 1616, Domenichino had designed the coffered ceiling with The Assumption of the Virgin in Santa Maria in Trastevere. From 1617 until 1621, Domenichino was absent from Rome, working in Bologna and at Fano, where during 1618–19 he frescoed the Nolfi chapel of the Fano Cathedral with Scenes from the Life of the Virgin.
With the election of a Bolognese pope in 1621, Domenichino returned to Rome. Appointed Papal Architect, he nonetheless continued to be most active as a painter, obtaining many commissions for altarpieces in Roman churches, he executed numerous frescoes in Rome during the 1620s: a ceiling in the Palazzo Costaguti. In spite of his activity in Rome, Domenichino decided to leave the city in 1631 to take up the most prestigious, lucrative, commission in Naples, the decoration of the Cappella del Tesoro di San Gennaro of the Naples Cathedral, his Scenes from the Life of San Gennaro occupied him for the rest of his life. He painted four large lunettes, four pendentives, twelve scenes in the soffits of the arches, all in fresco, plus three large altarpieces in oil on copper, he died by poison at the hands of the jealous Cabal of Naples, before completing the fourth altarpiece or the cupola, subsequently frescoed by Lanfranco. At the time of his death, Domenichino's chief assistant was an obscure painter from Assisi, Francesco Raspantino, who inherited his master's studio.
Earlier, Domenichino's principal pupils were Alessandro Fortuna, Giovanni Battista Ruggieri, Antonio Alberti called Barbalonga, Francesco Cozza, Andr
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