Methodist Ladies' College, Melbourne
Methodist Ladies' College is an independent, non-selective and boarding school for girls, located in Kew, an eastern suburb of Melbourne, Australia. The school has two additional outdoor education campuses known as "Marshmead" and "Banksia". Established in 1882 on its current campus by the Methodist Church of Australasia, MLC is now a school of the Uniting Church in Australia and caters for 2200 students from the Early Learning Centre to year 12, including more than 100 boarders; the college is a member of Girls Sport Victoria, the Australian Boarding Schools' Association, the Junior School Heads Association of Australia, the Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia, the Alliance of Girls' Schools Australasia. MLC offers students both the Victorian Certificate of the International Baccalaureate. Fees are up to $36,000 per student per year. William Henry Fitchett was secretary of a committee formed in 1879 to start a secondary school for girls. MLC was founded on its current campus in Kew on 14 February 1882 as a modern school of the first order, with buildings that formed a collegiate institution for girls unsurpassed in the colonies.
It was the first Australian girls’ school established by the Wesleyan Methodists and Fitchett was the first principal. The goal of its founders was to provide a high-class Christian education for girls, comparable with that provided elsewhere for boys; as the first Australian girls’ school established by the Wesleyan Methodists, MLC attracted boarders from all Australian colonies. In 1990, MLC became the first school in the world to introduce laptop computers for all students from Year 5 to Year 12. In 1991, MLC Marshmead opened, providing Year 9 students with an eight-week residential experience with a focus on outdoor education. In 2001, The Sun-Herald reported a 1988 study which ranked MLC third in Australia's top ten girls' schools, based on the number of its alumni mentioned in the Who's Who in Australia. In 2002, MLC won the title of'Australian School of the Year', as published in The Australian newspaper; as with most Australian schools, MLC has a house system through which students partake in inter-house competitions and activities.
The college has five houses: Berry - Colour: Purple, Mascot: Turtle. Cato - Colour: Blue, Mascot: Bear. Fitchett - Colour: Yellow, Mascot: Lion Krome - Colour: Green, Mascot: Frog Nevile - Colour: Pink, Mascot: Pink PantherIn the past, there was a Tiddeman house; this was a specific house for boarders. MLC offers an extensive range of VCE and Vocational Education Training courses, as well as the IB Diploma Programme, it has one of the largest VCE subject selections in the state. The school's success with the IB Programme is internationally renowned, with students achieving in the top global percentile each year, its physical education program includes a wide variety of winter sports. It participates in the Girls Sport Victoria competition; the music school features an auditorium, a department for woodwind, keyboard and brass, with multiple ensembles including a concert orchestra, senior strings and bands. The music school is known for its excellence; the state of the art auditorium is used for external performances.
The school offers a speech and drama program from early years and theatre arts and drama at VCE level, as well as a variety of studio arts subjects. MLC works with the Yalari scholarship programme to support Indigenous girls from regional and remote communities to study and board at MLC. Yalari is a not-for-profit organisation that offers secondary education scholarships at leading Australian boarding schools. MLC includes Indigenous issues in its mainstream curriculum, maintains a student Aboriginal Reconciliation Committee, grows an Indigenous garden, appoints a senior Year 12 prefect to an Indigenous portfolio. MLC holds annual sporting and cultural exchanges with Worowa Aboriginal College at Healesville, Victoria. In September 2012 the school board sacked the principal of 15 years, Rosa Storelli, leading to calls by Storelli plus many parents and old girls for the board's dismissal. There were protests outside the school by parents and students; the action by the board was made possible by changes to the school's constitution.
This became a cautionary tale for other independent schools in Australia about the relationship between principals and the boards of those schools and the power sharing relationships among the various stakeholders. By 2017 most members of that board had been replaced. Rosa Storelli is a senior academic at La Trobe University. Alumnae of the Methodist Ladies' College are known as'Old Collegians' and automatically become members of the'MLC Old Collegians' Club' upon graduation; the club was established on 29 October 1904 for the purpose of providing an ongoing relationship between the College and its alumnae. Some notable "Old Collegians" include: Entertainment and the artsRoma Egan - child TV actress, ballet dancer and teacher Joyce Nicholson - author, political philanthropist Alice Marian Ellen Bale - artist Cate Blanchett - AC - Twice Academy Award winning actress, theatre owner Tessa James - actress Ada Lorna Forbes - actress Deborra-Lee Furness - actress Libbi Gorr - entertainer Nene King - magazine publisher, former editor and editor-in-chief of Women's Weekly and Woman's Day Karen Knowles - singer and director Dora Lynnell Wilson - artist Yumi Stynes - television presenter (also attended Melbourne
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is a major centre-left political party in Australia. The party has been in opposition at the federal level since the 2013 election. Bill Shorten has been the party's federal parliamentary leader since 13 October 2013; the party is a federal party with branches in each territory. Labor is in government in the states of Victoria, Western Australia, in both the Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory; the party competes against the Liberal/National Coalition for political office at the federal and state levels. It is the oldest political party in Australia. Labor's constitution has long stated: "The Australian Labor Party is a democratic socialist party and has the objective of the democratic socialisation of industry, production and exchange, to the extent necessary to eliminate exploitation and other anti-social features in these fields"; this "socialist objective" was introduced in 1921, but was qualified by two further objectives: "maintenance of and support for a competitive non-monopolistic private sector" and "the right to own private property".
Labor governments have not attempted the "democratic socialisation" of any industry since the 1940s, when the Chifley Government failed to nationalise the private banks, in fact have privatised several industries such as aviation and banking. Labor's current National Platform describes the party as "a modern social democratic party"; the ALP was not founded as a federal party until after the first sitting of the Australian Parliament in 1901. It is regarded as descended from labour parties founded in the various Australian colonies by the emerging labour movement in Australia, formally beginning in 1891. Labor is thus the country's oldest political party. Colonial labour parties contested seats from 1891, federal seats following Federation at the 1901 federal election; the ALP formed the world's first Labour Party government, as well as the world's first social democratic government at a national level. Labor was the first party in Australia to win a majority in either house of the Australian Parliament, at the 1910 federal election.
The Australian Labor Party at both a federal and state/colony level predates, among others, both the British Labour Party and the New Zealand Labour Party in party formation and policy implementation. Internationally, the ALP is a member of the Progressive Alliance network of social-democratic parties, having been a member of the Socialist International. In standard Australian English, the word "labour" is spelled with a ⟨u⟩. However, the political party uses the spelling "Labor", without a ⟨u⟩. There was no standardised spelling of the party's name, with "Labor" and "Labour" both in common usage. According to Ross McMullin, who wrote an official history of the Labor Party, the title page of the proceedings of Federal Conference used the spelling "Labor" in 1902, "Labour" in 1905 and 1908, "Labor" from 1912 onwards. In 1908, James Catts put forward a motion at Federal Conference that "the name of the party be the Australian Labour Party", carried by 22 votes to two. A separate motion recommending state branches to adopt the name was defeated.
There was no uniformity of party names until 1918, when Federal Conference resolved that state branches should adopt the name "Australian Labor Party" – now spelled without a ⟨u⟩. Each state branch had used a different name, due to their different origins. Despite the ALP adopting the spelling without a ⟨u⟩, it took decades for the official spelling to achieve widespread acceptance. In 1954, Labor MP Ted Johnson complained in the Parliament of Western Australia that both Hansard and the daily newspapers were still using the spelling "Labour"; as late as the 1980s, historian Finlay Crisp used the spelling "Labour" in academic works about the party. McMullin has observed that "the way the spelling of'Labor Party' was consolidated had more to do with the chap who ended up being in charge of printing the federal conference report than any other reason"; some sources have attributed the official decision to use "Labor" to King O'Malley, born in the United States and was reputedly an advocate of spelling reform.
It has been suggested that the adoption of the spelling without a ⟨u⟩ "signified one of the ALP's earliest attempts at modernisation", served the purpose of differentiating the party from the Australian labour movement as a whole and distinguishing it from other British Empire labour parties. The decision to include the word "Australian" in the party's name – rather than just "Labour Party" as in the United Kingdom – has been attributed to "the greater importance of nationalism for the founders of the colonial parties"; the Australian Labor Party has its origins in the Labour parties founded in the 1890s in the Australian colonies prior to federation. Labor tradition ascribes the founding of Queensland Labour to a meeting of striking pastoral workers under a ghost gum tree in Barcaldine, Queensland in 1891; the Balmain, New South Wales branch of the party claims to be the oldest in Australia. Labour as a parliamentary party dates from 1891 in New South Wales and South Australia, 1893 in Queensland, in the other colonies.
The first election contested by Labour candidates was the 1891 New South Wales election, when Labour candidates won 35 of 141 seats. The major parties were the Protectionist and Free Trade parties and Labour held the balance of power, it offered parliamentary support in exchange for policy concessions. The United Labor Party of
Venice
Venice is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is situated on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges; the islands are located in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay that lies between the mouths of the Po and the Piave rivers. In 2018, 260,897 people resided in the Comune di Venezia, of whom around 55,000 live in the historical city of Venice. Together with Padua and Treviso, the city is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, considered a statistical metropolitan area, with a total population of 2.6 million. The name is derived from the ancient Veneti people who inhabited the region by the 10th century BC; the city was the capital of the Republic of Venice. The 697–1797 Republic of Venice was a major financial and maritime power during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, a staging area for the Crusades and the Battle of Lepanto, as well as an important center of commerce and art in the 13th century up to the end of the 17th century.
The city-state of Venice is considered to have been the first real international financial center, emerging in the 9th century and reaching its greatest prominence in the 14th century. This made Venice a wealthy city throughout most of its history. After the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna, the Republic was annexed by the Austrian Empire, until it became part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1866, following a referendum held as a result of the Third Italian War of Independence. Venice has been known as "La Dominante", "La Serenissima", "Queen of the Adriatic", "City of Water", "City of Masks", "City of Bridges", "The Floating City", "City of Canals"; the lagoon and a part of the city are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Parts of Venice are renowned for the beauty of their settings, their architecture, artwork. Venice is known for several important artistic movements—especially during the Renaissance period—has played an important role in the history of symphonic and operatic music, is the birthplace of Antonio Vivaldi.
Although the city is facing some major challenges, Venice remains a popular tourist destination, an iconic Italian city, has been ranked the most beautiful city in the world. The name of the city, deriving from Latin forms Venetia and Venetiae, is most taken from "Venetia et Histria", the Roman name of Regio X of Roman Italy, but applied to the coastal part of the region that remained under Roman Empire outside of Gothic and Frankish control; the name Venetia, derives from the Roman name for the people known as the Veneti, called by the Greeks Enetoi. The meaning of the word is uncertain, although there are other Indo-European tribes with similar-sounding names, such as the Celtic Veneti and the Slavic Vistula Veneti. Linguists suggest that the name is based on an Indo-European root *wen, so that *wenetoi would mean "beloved", "lovable", or "friendly". A connection with the Latin word venetus, meaning the color'sea-blue', is possible. Supposed connections of Venetia with the Latin verb venire, such as Marin Sanudo's veni etiam, the supposed cry of the first refugees to the Venetian lagoon from the mainland, or with venia are fanciful.
The alternative obsolete form is Vinegia. Although no surviving historical records deal directly with the founding of Venice and the available evidence have led several historians to agree that the original population of Venice consisted of refugees—from nearby Roman cities such as Padua, Treviso and Concordia, as well as from the undefended countryside—who were fleeing successive waves of Germanic and Hun invasions; this is further supported by the documentation on the so-called "apostolic families", the twelve founding families of Venice who elected the first doge, who in most cases trace their lineage back to Roman families. Some late Roman sources reveal the existence of fishermen, on the islands in the original marshy lagoons, who were referred to as incolae lacunae; the traditional founding is identified with the dedication of the first church, that of San Giacomo on the islet of Rialto —said to have taken place at the stroke of noon on 25 March 421. Beginning as early as AD 166–168, the Quadi and Marcomanni destroyed the main Roman town in the area, present-day Oderzo.
This part of Roman Italy was again overrun in the early 5th century by the Visigoths and, some 50 years by the Huns led by Attila. The last and most enduring immigration into the north of the Italian peninsula, that of the Lombards in 568, left the Eastern Roman Empire only a small strip of coastline in the current Veneto, including Venice; the Roman/Byzantine territory was organized as the Exarchate of Ravenna, administered from that ancient port and overseen by a viceroy appointed by the Emperor in Constantinople. Ravenna and Venice were connected only by sea routes, with the Venetians' isolated position came increasing autonomy. New ports were built, including those at Torcello in the Venetian lagoon; the tribuni maiores formed the earliest central standing governing committee of the islands in the lagoon, dating from c. 568. The traditional first doge of Venice, Paolo Lucio A
Ivanhoe
Ivanhoe is a historical novel by Sir Walter Scott, first published in 1819 in three volumes and subtitled A Romance. At the time it was written it represented a shift by Scott away from realistic novels set in Scotland in the comparatively recent past, to a somewhat fanciful depiction of medieval England, it has proved to be one of the most influential of Scott's novels. Ivanhoe is set in 12th-century England, with colourful descriptions of a tournament, outlaws, a witch trial and divisions between Jews and Christians, it has been credited for increasing interest in medievalism. It has had an important influence on popular perceptions of Richard the Lionheart, King John, Robin Hood. There have been several adaptations for stage and television. In June 1819 Scott was still suffering from the severe stomach pains that had forced him to dictate the last part of The Bride of Lammermoor and most of A Legend of the Wars of Montrose, finishing at the end of May, but by the beginning of July at the latest he had started dictating his new novel Ivanhoe, again with John Ballantyne and William Laidlaw as amanuenses.
He was able to take up the pen himself for the second half of the novel and completed it in early November. For detailed information about the middle ages Scott drew on three works by the antiquarian Joseph Strutt: Horda Angel-cynnan or a Compleat View of the Manners, Arms, Habits etc. of the Inhabitants of England and Habits of the People of England, Sports and Pastimes of the People of England. Two historians gave him a solid grounding in the period: Robert Henry with his The History of Great Britain, Sharon Turner with The History of the Anglo-Saxons from the Earliest Period to the Norman Conquest, his clearest debt to an original medieval source involved the Templar Rule, reproduced in The Theatre of Honour and Knight-Hood translated from the French of André Favine. Scott was happy to introduce details from the middle ages, Chaucer was helpful, as was the fourteenth-century romance Richard Coeur de Lion. Ivanhoe, bearing the date 1820, was published by Archibald Constable in Edinburgh on 20 December 1819 and issued in London on the 29th.
As with all of the Waverley novels before 1827 publication was anonymous. It is possible that Scott was involved in minor changes to the text during the early 1820s but his main revision was carried out in 1829 for the'Magnum' edition where the novel appeared in Volumes 16 and 17 in September and October 1830; the standard modern edition, by Graham Tulloch, appeared as Volume 8 of the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels in 1998: this is based on the first edition with emendations principally from Scott's manuscript in the second half of the work. Ivanhoe is the story of one of the remaining Anglo-Saxon noble families at a time when the nobility in England was overwhelmingly Norman, it follows the Saxon protagonist, Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe, out of favour with his father for his allegiance to the Norman king Richard the Lionheart. The story is set in 1194, after the failure of the Third Crusade, when many of the Crusaders were still returning to their homes in Europe. King Richard, captured by Leopold of Austria on his return journey to England, was believed to still be in captivity.
Protagonist Wilfred of Ivanhoe is disinherited by his father Cedric of Rotherwood for supporting the Norman King Richard and for falling in love with the Lady Rowena, a ward of Cedric's and descendant of the Saxon Kings of England. Cedric planned to marry Rowena to the powerful Lord Athelstane, a pretender to the Crown of England by his descent from the last Saxon King, Harold Godwinson. Ivanhoe accompanies King Richard on the Crusades, where he is said to have played a notable role in the Siege of Acre; the book opens with a scene of Norman prelates seeking the hospitality of Cedric. They are guided there by a pilgrim, known at that time as a palmer. Returning from the Holy Land that same night, Isaac of York, a Jewish moneylender, seeks refuge at Rotherwood. Following the night's meal, the palmer observes one of the Normans, the Templar Brian de Bois-Guilbert, issue orders to his Saracen soldiers to capture Isaac; the palmer assists in Isaac's escape from Rotherwood, with the additional aid of the swineherd Gurth.
Isaac of York offers to repay his debt to the palmer with a suit of armour and a war horse to participate in the tournament at Ashby-de-la-Zouch Castle, on his inference that the palmer was secretly a knight. The palmer accepts the offer; the tournament is presided over by Prince John. Other characters in attendance are Cedric, Lady Rowena, Isaac of York, his daughter Rebecca, Robin of Locksley and his men, Prince John's advisor Waldemar Fitzurse, numerous Norman knights. On the first day of the tournament, a bout of individual jousting, a mysterious knight, identifying himself only as "Desdichado", defeats Bois-Guilbert; the masked knight declines to reveal himself despite Prince John's request, but is declared the champion of the day and is permitted to choose the Queen of the Tournament. He bestows this honour upon the Lady Rowena. On the second day, at a melee
Toorak College, Mount Eliza
Toorak College is an independent, inter-denominational and boarding school for girls years 5 - 12 and co-educational from pre school to year four. The school is located above Port Phillip Bay in Mount Eliza, a town forty kilometres south of Melbourne, Australia; the school began in 1874 as a boys' school in Toorak, a suburb of Melbourne, moved to its current location at Mount Eliza in 1928, as an independent school for girls. The college caters to 925 students from kindergarten to year 12, including 70 boarders from years 7 to 12, offers a range of Victorian Certificate of Education subjects. Toorak College offers co-curricular activities including a wide range of visual and performing arts and sports. Toorak's co-educational ELC and junior school has been an IB World School since November 2007, is authorised to offer the IB Primary Years Programme. Toorak College is affiliated with the Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia, the Junior School Heads Association of Australia, the Alliance of Girls' Schools Australasia, the Association of Independent Schools of Victoria, the Australian Boarding Schools Association, is a founding member of Girls Sport Victoria.
Toorak College takes its name from the township of Toorak, where it opened as a boys' school on Wednesday, 21 January 1874. At first, classes were held in the brick hall of St John's Presbyterian Church on Jackson Street, but the school soon moved into specially erected buildings on nearby Douglas Street; the founding principal was John Stevens Miller, a Scot, involved in several schools since his arrival in Victoria, in 1854. His successor, John Thomas Craig, was a Scot and the school maintained a nominal association with the Presbyterian church for some years. During his years at Toorak College, Craig built the school into one of the largest owned schools in Melbourne, he had a reputation as a fine educationist. After the prosperity of the 1880s, the economic difficulties of the next decade reduced enrolments dramatically. Craig, whose health had never been strong, leased his school to Margaret Oliver Tripp. Margaret Tripp was a lady of long teaching experience. Assisted by two of her sisters, she took over Toorak College on 4 February 1895.
She figures prominently in the school's history, because, in 1897, she changed Toorak College from a boys' school to a school for girls. Toorak College was a small school when its next principal, Ellen Blundell Pye, arrived late in 1899, she encouraged the playing of a range of sports such as tennis, athletics and rowing. The number of pupils increased and a school spirit developed, expressed in the "Games Song" written during this period; the original building and the Red House, built by Pye to house junior boarders, still stand on Douglas Street as part of Glamorgan School, now the Toorak campus of Geelong Grammar School. Ill health forced Ellen Pye to retire at the end of 1907, the three Hamilton sisters came from Alexandra College, Hamilton, to take her place, they remained for nearly thirty years. Isabella and Robina were co-principals and Barbara had charge of the boarding house. Although new buildings were erected, the site at Douglas Street was no longer adequate. In 1919, the school moved to Mayfield Avenue off DOIST Malvern.
A severe influenza epidemic delayed the opening of classes that year until 10 March. The 230 students found their new school "a paradise of model classrooms, a playing field such as we never dreamt of, a real chapel with stone walls and stained glass windows"; the parents and "old girls" of the school came to its rescue late in 1926, as it was proposed to close Toorak College. Many felt that the loss of the college and the influence of the Hamiltons would be detrimental to the education of girls. After speech night, in 1926, a committee of parents was established for the purpose of continuing Toorak College as a private company; the school was moved into temporary premises known as "The Towers", on Lansell Road, while a new home was found for it. Late in 1928, the school moved for this time to its present site in Mount Eliza. For the next fifteen years, during which the Hamiltons retired and the country suffered another economic depression and a war, enrolments were low and the school continued only because of the support of its pupils and present.
One sign of a recovery in Toorak College's fortunes was. These were held in places as far apart as the "Long Walk", the "Elephant", the "Dolls House", until 1957 when, due to the gifts of Sir Reginald Ansett and Sir Norman Carson, two benefactors of the school, a separate junior school was built on Charles Street, named Wardle House. By the time Wardle retired in 1958, the composition of the pupils at the school had begun to change from the country boarding school as visualised by the Hamiltons; the growth of the Mornington Peninsula as a residential zone created a demand for education for day girls, the years Lillian Bush spent as headmistress saw great developments in facilities at the school. Wardle House gained an extra classroom. Dorothea Cerutty led the school during the decade 1967–1976. Under her leadership, Toorak College experienced a period of considerable growth, it gained audio-visual facilities, a swimming pool, new boarding house and the chapel were opened. In 1981, the school council undertook to ha
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with 383,084 inhabitants in 2013, over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area. Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of that era, it is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, has been called "the Athens of the Middle Ages". A turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family and numerous religious and republican revolutions. From 1865 to 1871 the city was the capital of the established Kingdom of Italy; the Florentine dialect forms the base of Standard Italian and it became the language of culture throughout Italy due to the prestige of the masterpieces by Dante Alighieri, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini. The city attracts millions of tourists each year, the Historic Centre of Florence was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982; the city is noted for Renaissance art and architecture and monuments.
The city contains numerous museums and art galleries, such as the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Pitti, still exerts an influence in the fields of art and politics. Due to Florence's artistic and architectural heritage, it has been ranked by Forbes as one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Florence is an important city in Italian fashion, being ranked in the top 15 fashion capitals of the world. In 2008, the city had the 17th highest average income in Italy. Florence originated as a Roman city, after a long period as a flourishing trading and banking medieval commune, it was the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, it was politically and culturally one of the most important cities in Europe and the world from the 14th to 16th centuries; the language spoken in the city during the 14th century was, still is, accepted as the Italian language. All the writers and poets in Italian literature of the golden age are in some way connected with Florence, leading to the adoption of the Florentine dialect, above all the local dialects, as a literary language of choice.
Starting from the late Middle Ages, Florentine money—in the form of the gold florin—financed the development of industry all over Europe, from Britain to Bruges, to Lyon and Hungary. Florentine bankers financed the English kings during the Hundred Years War, they financed the papacy, including the construction of their provisional capital of Avignon and, after their return to Rome, the reconstruction and Renaissance embellishment of Rome. Florence was home to the Medici, one of European history's most important noble families. Lorenzo de' Medici was considered a political and cultural mastermind of Italy in the late 15th century. Two members of the family were popes in the early 16th century: Leo X and Clement VII. Catherine de Medici married King Henry II of France and, after his death in, reigned as regent in France. Marie de' Medici married Henry IV of France and gave birth to the future King Louis XIII; the Medici reigned as Grand Dukes of Tuscany, starting with Cosimo I de' Medici in 1569 and ending with the death of Gian Gastone de' Medici in 1737.
The Etruscans formed in 200 BC the small settlement of Fiesole, destroyed by Lucius Cornelius Sulla in 80 BC in reprisal for supporting the populares faction in Rome. The present city of Florence was established by Julius Caesar in 59 BC as a settlement for his veteran soldiers and was named Fluentia, owing to the fact that it was built between two rivers, changed to Florentia, it was built in the style of an army camp with the main streets, the cardo and the decumanus, intersecting at the present Piazza della Repubblica. Situated along the Via Cassia, the main route between Rome and the north, within the fertile valley of the Arno, the settlement became an important commercial centre. In centuries to come, the city experienced turbulent periods of Ostrogothic rule, during which the city was troubled by warfare between the Ostrogoths and the Byzantines, which may have caused the population to fall to as few as 1,000 people. Peace returned under Lombard rule in the 6th century. Florence was conquered by Charlemagne in 774 and became part of the Duchy of Tuscany, with Lucca as capital.
The population began to grow again and commerce prospered. In 854, Florence and Fiesole were united in one county. Margrave Hugo chose Florence as his residency instead of Lucca at about 1000 AD; the Golden Age of Florentine art began around this time. In 1013, construction began on the Basilica di San Miniato al Monte; the exterior of the church was reworked in Romanesque style between 1059 and 1128. In 1100, Florence was a "Commune"; the city's primary resource was the Arno river, providing power and access for the industry, access to the Mediterranean sea for international trade. Another great source of strength was its industrious merchant community; the Florentine merchant banking skills became recognised in Europe after they brought decisive financial innovation to medieval fairs. This period saw the eclipse of Florence's powerful rival Pisa, the exercise of power by the mercantile elite following an anti-aristocratic movement, led by Giano della Bella, that resulted in a set of laws called the Ordinances of Justice.
Of a population estimated at 94,00
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is a state in south-eastern Australia. Victoria is Australia's smallest mainland state and its second-most populous state overall, thus making it the most densely populated state overall. Most of its population lives concentrated in the area surrounding Port Phillip Bay, which includes the metropolitan area of its state capital and largest city, Australia's second-largest city. Victoria is bordered by Bass Strait and Tasmania to the south,New South Wales to the north, the Tasman Sea to the east, South Australia to the west; the area, now known as Victoria is the home of many Aboriginal people groups, including the Boon wurrung, the Bratauolung, the Djadjawurrung, the Gunai/Kurnai, the Gunditjmara, the Taungurong, the Wathaurong, the Wurundjeri, the Yorta Yorta. There were more than 30 Aboriginal languages spoken in the area prior to the European settlement of Australia; the Kulin nation is an alliance of five Aboriginal nations which makes up much of the central part of the state. With Great Britain having claimed the half of the Australian continent, east of the 135th meridian east in 1788, Victoria formed part of the wider colony of New South Wales.
The first European settlement in the area occurred in 1803 at Sullivan Bay, much of what is now Victoria was included in 1836 in the Port Phillip District, an administrative division of New South Wales. Named in honour of Queen Victoria, who signed the division's separation from New South Wales, the colony was established in 1851 and achieved self government in 1855; the Victorian gold rush in the 1850s and 1860s increased both the population and wealth of the colony, by the time of the Federation of Australia in 1901, Melbourne had become the largest city and leading financial centre in Australasia. Melbourne served as federal capital of Australia until the construction of Canberra in 1927, with the Federal Parliament meeting in Melbourne's Parliament House and all principal offices of the federal government being based in Melbourne. Politically, Victoria has 37 seats in the Australian House of Representatives and 12 seats in the Australian Senate. At state level, the Parliament of Victoria consists of the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council.
The Labor Party led Daniel Andrews as premier has governed Victoria since 2014. The personal representative of the Queen of Australia in the state is the Governor of Victoria Linda Dessau. Victoria is divided into 79 municipal districts, including 33 cities, although a number of unincorporated areas still exist, which the state administers directly; the economy of Victoria is diversified, with service sectors including financial and property services, education, retail and manufacturing constitute the majority of employment. Victoria's total gross state product ranks second in Australia, although Victoria ranks fourth in terms of GSP per capita because of its limited mining activity. Culturally, Melbourne hosts a number of museums, art galleries, theatres, is described as the world's sporting capital; the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the largest stadium in Australia and the Southern Hemisphere, hosted the 1956 Summer Olympics and the 2006 Commonwealth Games. The ground is considered the "spiritual home" of Australian cricket and Australian rules football, hosts the grand final of the Australian Football League each year, drawing crowds of 100,000.
Nearby Melbourne Park has hosted the Australian Open, one of tennis' four Grand Slam events, annually since 1988. Victoria has eight public universities, with the oldest, the University of Melbourne, dating from 1853. Victoria, like Queensland, was named after Queen Victoria, on the British throne for 14 years when the colony was established in 1851. After the founding of the colony of New South Wales in 1788, Australia was divided into an eastern half named New South Wales and a western half named New Holland, under the administration of the colonial government in Sydney; the first British settlement in the area known as Victoria was established in October 1803 under Lieutenant-Governor David Collins at Sullivan Bay on Port Phillip. It consisted of 402 people, they had been sent from England in HMS Calcutta under the command of Captain Daniel Woodriff, principally out of fear that the French, exploring the area, might establish their own settlement and thereby challenge British rights to the continent.
In 1826, Colonel Stewart, Captain Samuel Wright, Lieutenant Burchell were sent in HMS Fly and the brigs Dragon and Amity, took a number of convicts and a small force composed of detachments of the 3rd and 93rd regiments. The expedition landed at Settlement Point, on the eastern side of Western Port Bay, the headquarters until the abandonment of Western Port at the insistence of Governor Darling about 12 months afterwards. Victoria's next settlement was on the south west coast of what is now Victoria. Edward Henty settled Portland Bay in 1834. Melbourne was founded in 1835 by John Batman, who set up a base in Indented Head, John Pascoe Fawkner. From settlement, the region around Melbourne was known as the Port Phillip District, a separately administered part of New South Wales. Shortly after, the site now known as Geelong was surveyed by Assistant Surveyor W. H. Smythe, three weeks after Melbourne, and in 1838, Geelong was declared a town, despite earlier European settlements dating back to 1826
