1.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially the Met, is located in New York City and is the largest art museum in the United States, and is among the most visited art museums in the world. Its permanent collection contains two million works, divided among seventeen curatorial departments. The main building, on the edge of Central Park along Manhattans Museum Mile, is by area one of the worlds largest art galleries. A much smaller second location, The Cloisters at Fort Tryon Park in Upper Manhattan, contains a collection of art, architecture. On March 18,2016, the museum opened the Met Breuer museum at Madison Avenue in the Upper East Side, it extends the museums modern, the Met maintains extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanian, Byzantine, Indian, and Islamic art. The museum is home to collections of musical instruments, costumes and accessories, as well as antique weapons. Several notable interiors, ranging from first-century Rome through modern American design, are installed in its galleries, the Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870. The founders included businessmen and financiers, as well as leading artists and thinkers of the day and it opened on February 20,1872, and was originally located at 681 Fifth Avenue. The Met maintains extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanian, Byzantine, the museum is also home to encyclopedic collections of musical instruments, costumes and accessories, and antique weapons and armor from around the world. A number of interiors, ranging from 1st century Rome through modern American design, are permanently installed in the Mets galleries. In addition to its permanent exhibitions, the Met organizes and hosts traveling shows throughout the year. The director of the museum is Thomas P. Campbell, a long-time curator and it was announced on February 28th,2017 that Campbell will be stepping down as the Mets director and CEO, effective June. On March 1st,2017 the BBC reported that Daniel Weiss shall be the acting CEO until a replacement is found, Beginning in the late 19th century, the Met started to acquire ancient art and artifacts from the Near East. From a few tablets and seals, the Mets collection of Near Eastern art has grown to more than 7,000 pieces. The highlights of the include a set of monumental stone lamassu, or guardian figures. The Mets Department of Arms and Armor is one of the museums most popular collections. Among the collections 14,000 objects are many pieces made for and used by kings and princes, including armor belonging to Henry VIII of England, Henry II of France, Rockefeller donated his more than 3, 000-piece collection to the museum. The Mets Asian department holds a collection of Asian art, of more than 35,000 pieces, the collection dates back almost to the founding of the museum, many of the philanthropists who made the earliest gifts to the museum included Asian art in their collections
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Paris
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Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It has an area of 105 square kilometres and a population of 2,229,621 in 2013 within its administrative limits, the agglomeration has grown well beyond the citys administrative limits. By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The aire urbaine de Paris, a measure of area, spans most of the Île-de-France region and has a population of 12,405,426. It is therefore the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union after London, the Metropole of Grand Paris was created in 2016, combining the commune and its nearest suburbs into a single area for economic and environmental co-operation. Grand Paris covers 814 square kilometres and has a population of 7 million persons, the Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France and ranking it as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. The city is also a rail, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the subway system, the Paris Métro. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro, notably, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the top tourist destinations. The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris, the 80, 000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros, Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The name Paris is derived from its inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. Thus, though written the same, the name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are also pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the areas major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, this place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town
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Painting
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Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface. The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, Painting is a mode of creative expression, and the forms are numerous. Drawing, gesture, composition, narration, or abstraction, among other aesthetic modes, may serve to manifest the expressive, Paintings can be naturalistic and representational, photographic, abstract, narrative, symbolistic, emotive, or political in nature. A portion of the history of painting in both Eastern and Western art is dominated by motifs and ideas. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action, the term painting is also used outside of art as a common trade among craftsmen and builders. What enables painting is the perception and representation of intensity, every point in space has different intensity, which can be represented in painting by black and white and all the gray shades between. In practice, painters can articulate shapes by juxtaposing surfaces of different intensity, thus, the basic means of painting are distinct from ideological means, such as geometrical figures, various points of view and organization, and symbols. In technical drawing, thickness of line is ideal, demarcating ideal outlines of an object within a perceptual frame different from the one used by painters. Color and tone are the essence of painting as pitch and rhythm are the essence of music, color is highly subjective, but has observable psychological effects, although these can differ from one culture to the next. Black is associated with mourning in the West, but in the East, some painters, theoreticians, writers and scientists, including Goethe, Kandinsky, and Newton, have written their own color theory. Moreover, the use of language is only an abstraction for a color equivalent, the word red, for example, can cover a wide range of variations from the pure red of the visible spectrum of light. There is not a register of different colors in the way that there is agreement on different notes in music. For a painter, color is not simply divided into basic, painters deal practically with pigments, so blue for a painter can be any of the blues, phthalocyanine blue, Prussian blue, indigo, cobalt, ultramarine, and so on. Psychological and symbolical meanings of color are not, strictly speaking, colors only add to the potential, derived context of meanings, and because of this, the perception of a painting is highly subjective. The analogy with music is quite clear—sound in music is analogous to light in painting, shades to dynamics and these elements do not necessarily form a melody of themselves, rather, they can add different contexts to it. Modern artists have extended the practice of painting considerably to include, as one example, collage, some modern painters incorporate different materials such as sand, cement, straw or wood for their texture. Examples of this are the works of Jean Dubuffet and Anselm Kiefer, there is a growing community of artists who use computers to paint color onto a digital canvas using programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel Painter, and many others. These images can be printed onto traditional canvas if required, rhythm is important in painting as it is in music
4.
Rococo
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Rococo artists and architects used a more jocular, florid, and graceful approach to the Baroque. Their style was ornate and used light colours, asymmetrical designs, curves, unlike the political Baroque, the Rococo had playful and witty themes. By the end of the 18th century, Rococo was largely replaced by the Neoclassic style. In 1835 the Dictionary of the French Academy stated that the word Rococo usually covers the kind of ornament, style and design associated with Louis XVs reign and it includes therefore, all types of art from around the middle of the 18th century in France. The word is seen as a combination of the French rocaille and coquilles, the term may also be a combination of the Italian word barocco and the French rocaille and may describe the refined and fanciful style that became fashionable in parts of Europe in the 18th century. The Rococo love of shell-like curves and focus on decorative arts led some critics to say that the style was frivolous or merely modish, when the term was first used in English in about 1836, it was a colloquialism meaning old-fashioned. While there is some debate about the historical significance of the style to art in general. Italian architects of the late Baroque/early Rococo were wooed to Catholic Germany, Bohemia and Austria by local princes, an exotic but in some ways more formal type of Rococo appeared in France where Louis XIVs succession brought a change in the court artists and general artistic fashion. By the end of the long reign, rich Baroque designs were giving way to lighter elements with more curves. These elements are obvious in the designs of Nicolas Pineau. During the Régence, court life moved away from Versailles and this change became well established, first in the royal palace. The delicacy and playfulness of Rococo designs is seen as perfectly in tune with the excesses of Louis XVs reign. The 1730s represented the height of Rococo development in France, the style had spread beyond architecture and furniture to painting and sculpture, exemplified by the works of Antoine Watteau and François Boucher. The Rococo style was spread by French artists and engraved publications, william Hogarth helped develop a theoretical foundation for Rococo beauty. Though not intentionally referencing the movement, he argued in his Analysis of Beauty that the lines and S-curves prominent in Rococo were the basis for grace. The development of Rococo in Great Britain is considered to have connected with the revival of interest in Gothic architecture early in the 18th century. The beginning of the end for Rococo came in the early 1760s as figures like Voltaire and Jacques-François Blondel began to voice their criticism of the superficiality, Blondel decried the ridiculous jumble of shells, dragons, reeds, palm-trees and plants in contemporary interiors. By 1785, Rococo had passed out of fashion in France, replaced by the order, in Germany, late 18th century Rococo was ridiculed as Zopf und Perücke, and this phase is sometimes referred to as Zopfstil
5.
Marie de' Medici cycle
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The Marie de Medici Cycle is a series of twenty-four paintings by Peter Paul Rubens commissioned by Marie de Medici, widow of Henry IV of France, for the Luxembourg Palace in Paris. Rubens received the commission in the autumn of 1621, after negotiating the terms of the contract in early 1622, the project was to be completed within two years, coinciding with the marriage of Maries daughter, Henrietta Maria. Twenty-one of the paintings depict Maries own struggles and triumphs in life, the remaining three are portraits of herself and her parents. The paintings now hang in the Louvre in Paris, much speculation exists on the exact circumstances under which Marie de Medici decided to commission Rubens to paint such a grandiose project, conceived in truly heroic proportions. The immortalizing of her life, however, seems to be the most apparent reason for the Queens choice to commission a painter who was capable of executing such a demanding task. The contract stated that Rubens was to paint all the figures, Marie de Medici became the second wife to King Henry IV of France in a marriage by proxy on 5 October 1600 by the power invested in her uncle, Grand Duke Ferdinand of Tuscany. When Henry was assassinated in 1610, Louis XIII, his son, Louis mother, Marie, acted as his regent as commanded by the Frankish Salic law in case of an infant ruler. However, even after Louis came of age at thirteen in 1614, in 1617, Louis XIII finally decided to take governing matters in his own hands at the age of fifteen and the queen was exiled to Blois. Louis and his mother were not reconciled for over four years, upon her return, Marie focused on building and decorating the Luxembourg Palace, an enormous undertaking in which Peter Paul Rubens played a key role. Rubens, then court painter to the Duchy of Mantua under Vincenzo I Gonzaga, had first met Marie at her wedding in Florence in 1600. In 1621, Marie de Medici commissioned Rubens to paint two large series depicting the lives of herself and her husband, Henry IV, to adorn both wings of the first floor of the Luxembourg Palace. The cycle of paintings dedicated to the life of Henry IV was never completed, the fact that the Henry IV series was not realized can be attributed in part to Marie de Medici being permanently banned from France by her son in 1631. She escaped to Brussels, and later died in exile in 1642 in the house that the Peter Paul Rubenss family had occupied more than fifty years prior. While this cycle was one of Rubenss first great commissions, Marie de Medicis life proved a one to portray. Rubens had the task of creating twenty-one paintings about a woman whose life could be measured by her marriage to Henry IV, furthermore, unlike her husband, Maries life was neither graced with triumphant victories nor punctuated by vanquished foes. Rather, implications of political scandal in her life made any literal depiction of the far too controversial for Rubens to execute without incurring the disapproval from others in government. Rubens painted extravagant images of the Queen Mother surrounded by ancient gods, the ambiguity of the figures was essentially used to depict Marie in a positive light. Rubenss Medici commission was an inspiration for artists as well, particularly the French painters Jean-Antoine Watteau
6.
Peter Paul Rubens
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Sir Peter Paul Rubens was a Flemish/Netherlandish draughtsman and painter. He is widely considered as the most notable artist of Flemish Baroque art school, the catalogue of his works by Michael Jaffé lists 1,403 pieces, excluding numerous copies made in his workshop. His commissioned works were mostly history paintings, which included religious and mythological subjects and he painted portraits, especially of friends, and self-portraits, and in later life painted several landscapes. Rubens designed tapestries and prints, as well as his own house and he also oversaw the ephemeral decorations of the royal entry into Antwerp by the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand in 1635. His drawings are mostly extremely forceful but not overly detailed and he also made great use of oil sketches as preparatory studies. For altarpieces he painted on slate to reduce reflection problems. Rubens was born in the city of Siegen to Jan Rubens and he was named in honour of Saint-Peter and Paul, because he was born on their solemnety. His father, a Calvinist, and mother fled Antwerp for Cologne in 1568, after increased religious turmoil and persecution of Protestants during the rule of the Spanish Netherlands by the Duke of Alba. Jan Rubens became the adviser of Anna of Saxony, the second wife of William I of Orange. Following Jan Rubens imprisonment for the affair, Peter Paul Rubens was born in 1577, the family returned to Cologne the next year. In 1589, two years after his fathers death, Rubens moved with his mother Maria Pypelincks to Antwerp, religion figured prominently in much of his work and Rubens later became one of the leading voices of the Catholic Counter-Reformation style of painting. In Antwerp, Rubens received a Renaissance humanist education, studying Latin, by fourteen he began his artistic apprenticeship with Tobias Verhaeght. Subsequently, he studied under two of the leading painters of the time, the late Mannerist artists Adam van Noort. Much of his earliest training involved copying earlier works, such as woodcuts by Hans Holbein the Younger. Rubens completed his education in 1598, at time he entered the Guild of St. Luke as an independent master. In 1600 Rubens travelled to Italy and he stopped first in Venice, where he saw paintings by Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto, before settling in Mantua at the court of Duke Vincenzo I Gonzaga. The colouring and compositions of Veronese and Tintoretto had an effect on Rubenss painting. With financial support from the Duke, Rubens travelled to Rome by way of Florence in 1601, there, he studied classical Greek and Roman art and copied works of the Italian masters
7.
Luxembourg Palace
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The Luxembourg Palace is located at 15 rue de Vaugirard in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. It was originally built to the designs of the French architect Salomon de Brosse to be the residence of the regent Marie de Medici. After the Revolution it was refashioned by Jean Chalgrin into a legislative building, since 1958 it has been the seat of the French Senate of the Fifth Republic. Immediately west of the palace on the rue de Vaugirard is the Petit Luxembourg, now the residence of the Senate President, and slightly further west, the Musée du Luxembourg, in the former orangery. On the south side of the palace, the formal Luxembourg Garden presents a 25-hectare green parterre of gravel and lawn populated with statues, after the death of Henry IV in 1610, his widow, Marie de Médicis, became regent to her son, Louis XIII. Marie de Médicis desired to make a similar to her native Florences Palazzo Pitti. Marie de Médicis bought the Hôtel de Luxembourg and its fairly extensive domain in 1612 and commissioned the new building, the suites of paintings she commissioned, in the subjects of which she expressed her requirements through her agents and advisers, are scattered among museums. Marie de Médicis installed her household in 1625, while work on interiors continued, the apartments in the right wing on the western side were reserved for the Queen and the matching suite to the east, for her son, Louis XIII, when he was visiting. The 24 Marie de Medici cycle canvases, a series commissioned from Peter Paul Rubens, were installed in the Galerie de Rubens on the floor of the western wing. A series of paintings executed for her Cabinet doré was identified by Anthony Blunt in 1967, Louis XIII commissioned further decorations for the Palace from Nicolas Poussin and Philippe de Champaigne. In 1642, Marie bequeathed the Luxembourg to her second and favourite son, Gaston, duc dOrléans, who called it the Palais dOrléans, but by popular will it was still known by its original name. Upon Gastons death, the passed to his widow, Marguerite de Lorraine, then to his elder daughter by his first marriage, Anne, duchesse de Montpensier. In 1660, Anne de Montpensier sold the Luxembourg to her younger half-sister, Élisabeth Marguerite dOrléans, duchesse de Guise who, in turn, gave it to her cousin, King Louis XIV, in 1694. In 1715, the became the residence of Marie Louise Elisabeth dOrleans. The widowed Duchess was notoriously promiscuous, having the reputation of a French Messalina, the Luxembourg palace and its gardens thus became stages where the radiantly beautiful princess acted out her ambitions, enthroned like a queen surrounded by her court. According to various songs which scurrilously evoked her amours the Lady of the Luxembourg hid several pregnancies. Her taste for strong liquors and her sheer gluttony also scandalised the court, on 21 May 1717, Madame de Berry received Peter the Great at the Luxembourg. On 28 February 1718, the Duchess of Berry threw a magnificent party for her visiting aunt, the entire palace and its gardens were elaborately illuminated
8.
French Academy in Rome
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The French Academy in Rome is an Academy located in the Villa Medici, within the Villa Borghese, on the Pincio in Rome, Italy. The Academy was founded at the Palazzo Capranica in 1666 by Louis XIV under the direction of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Charles Le Brun, such scholars were and are known as pensionnaires de lAcadémie. One recipient of the scholarship in the 17th century was Pierre Le Gros the Younger, the Academy was housed in the Palazzo Capranica until 1737, and then in the Palazzo Mancini from 1737 to 1793. These envois were annual works, sent to Paris to be judged, at first, the villa and its gardens were in a sad state and had to be renovated to house the winners of the Prix de Rome. The competition was interrupted during the first World War, and Mussolini confiscated the villa in 1941, the competition and Prix de Rome were eliminated in 1968 by André Malraux. The Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the Institut de France then lost their guardianship of the Villa Medici to the Ministry of the Culture, from that time on, the boarders no longer belonged solely to the traditional disciplines but also to new or previously neglected artistic fields. These artists-in-residence are known as pensionnaires, the French word ‘pension’ refers to the room & board these, generally young and promising, artists receive. The artists are no longer recruited by a competition but by application, between 1961 and 1967, the artist Balthus, then at the head of the Academy, carried out a vast restoration campaign of the palace and its gardens, providing them with modern equipment. Balthus participated “hands on” in all the phases of the construction, where the historic décor had disappeared, Balthus proposed personal alternatives. Work continued under the direction of director, Richard Peduzzi, under director Frédéric Mitterrand the Academy opened up its guest rooms to the general public at times when they are not used by pensionnaires or other official guests. k. a. Carolus-Duran 1913-1921, Albert Besnard 1921-1933, Denys Puech 1933-1937, Paul-Maximilien Landowski 1937-1960, Jacques Ibert 1961-1977, Comte Balthazar Klossowski de Rola, a. k. a. Balthus 1979-1985, Jean Leymarie 1985-1994, Jean-Marie Drot 1994-1997, Pierre-Jean Angremy, a. k. a. villamedici. it/ Official site Google Map
9.
Amsterdam
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Amsterdam is the capital and most populous municipality of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Its status as the capital is mandated by the Constitution of the Netherlands, although it is not the seat of the government, which is The Hague. Amsterdam has a population of 851,373 within the city proper,1,351,587 in the urban area, the city is located in the province of North Holland in the west of the country. The metropolitan area comprises much of the part of the Randstad, one of the larger conurbations in Europe. Amsterdams name derives from Amstelredamme, indicative of the citys origin around a dam in the river Amstel, during that time, the city was the leading centre for finance and diamonds. In the 19th and 20th centuries the city expanded, and many new neighborhoods and suburbs were planned, the 17th-century canals of Amsterdam and the 19–20th century Defence Line of Amsterdam are on the UNESCO World Heritage List. As the commercial capital of the Netherlands and one of the top financial centres in Europe, Amsterdam is considered a world city by the Globalization. The city is also the capital of the Netherlands. Many large Dutch institutions have their headquarters there, and seven of the worlds 500 largest companies, including Philips and ING, are based in the city. In 2012, Amsterdam was ranked the second best city to live in by the Economist Intelligence Unit and 12th globally on quality of living for environment, the city was ranked 3rd in innovation by Australian innovation agency 2thinknow in their Innovation Cities Index 2009. The Amsterdam seaport to this day remains the second in the country, famous Amsterdam residents include the diarist Anne Frank, artists Rembrandt van Rijn and Vincent van Gogh, and philosopher Baruch Spinoza. The Amsterdam Stock Exchange, the oldest stock exchange in the world, is located in the city center. After the floods of 1170 and 1173, locals near the river Amstel built a bridge over the river, the earliest recorded use of that name is in a document dated October 27,1275, which exempted inhabitants of the village from paying bridge tolls to Count Floris V. This allowed the inhabitants of the village of Aemstelredamme to travel freely through the County of Holland, paying no tolls at bridges, locks, the certificate describes the inhabitants as homines manentes apud Amestelledamme. By 1327, the name had developed into Aemsterdam, Amsterdam is much younger than Dutch cities such as Nijmegen, Rotterdam, and Utrecht. In October 2008, historical geographer Chris de Bont suggested that the land around Amsterdam was being reclaimed as early as the late 10th century. This does not necessarily mean there was already a settlement then, since reclamation of land may not have been for farming—it may have been for peat. Amsterdam was granted city rights in either 1300 or 1306, from the 14th century on, Amsterdam flourished, largely from trade with the Hanseatic League
10.
Peter the Great
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Peter the Great, Peter I or Peter Alexeyevich ruled the Tsardom of Russia and later the Russian Empire from 7 May 1682 until his death, jointly ruling before 1696 with his elder half-brother, Ivan V. Through a number of successful wars he expanded the Tsardom into a larger empire that became a major European power. He led a revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist and medieval social and political systems with ones that were modern, scientific, westernized. Peters reforms made an impact on Russia and many institutions of Russian government trace their origins to his reign. From an early age, Peters education was put in the hands of tutors, most notably Nikita Zotov, Patrick Gordon. On 29 January 1676, Tsar Alexis died, leaving the sovereignty to Peters elder half-brother and this position changed when Feodor died in 1682. As Feodor did not leave any children, a dispute arose between the Miloslavsky family and Naryshkin family over who should inherit the throne, Peters other half-brother, Ivan V, was next in line for the throne, but he was chronically ill and of infirm mind. Consequently, the Boyar Duma chose the 10-year-old Peter to become Tsar with his mother as regent and this arrangement was brought before the people of Moscow, as ancient tradition demanded, and was ratified. Sophia Alekseyevna, one of Alexis daughters from his first marriage, in the subsequent conflict some of Peters relatives and friends were murdered, including Matveev, and Peter witnessed some of these acts of political violence. The Streltsy made it possible for Sophia, the Miloslavskys and their allies, to insist that Peter and Ivan be proclaimed joint Tsars, Sophia acted as regent during the minority of the sovereigns and exercised all power. For seven years, she ruled as an autocrat, a large hole was cut in the back of the dual-seated throne used by Ivan and Peter. Sophia would sit behind the throne and listen as Peter conversed with nobles, while feeding him information and giving him responses to questions and this throne can be seen in the Kremlin Armoury in Moscow. Peter was not particularly concerned that others ruled in his name and he engaged in such pastimes as shipbuilding and sailing, as well as mock battles with his toy army. Peters mother sought to force him to adopt a conventional approach. The marriage was a failure, and ten years later Peter forced his wife to become a nun, by the summer of 1689, Peter planned to take power from his half-sister Sophia, whose position had been weakened by two unsuccessful Crimean campaigns. When she learned of his designs, Sophia conspired with the leaders of the Streltsy, Sophia was eventually overthrown, with Peter I and Ivan V continuing to act as co-tsars. Peter forced Sophia to enter a convent, where she gave up her name, still, Peter could not acquire actual control over Russian affairs. Power was instead exercised by his mother, Natalya Naryshkina and it was only when Nataliya died in 1694 that Peter became an independent sovereign
11.
Catherine I of Russia
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Catherine I was the second wife of Peter the Great and Empress of Russia from 1725 until her death. The life of Catherine I was said by Voltaire to be nearly as extraordinary as that of Peter the Great himself, there are no documents that confirm her origins. Said to have born on 15 April 1684, she was originally named Marta Helena Skowrońska. Marta was the daughter of Samuel Skowroński, later spelt Samuil Skavronsky, a Roman Catholic peasant from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and her mother is named in at least one source as Elisabeth Moritz, and there is debate as to whether her father was a Swedish officer. It is likely that two stories were conflated, and Swedish sources suggest that the Elizabeth Moritz story is probably incorrect, some biographies state that Martas father was a gravedigger and handyman, while others speculate that he was a runaway landless serf. Martas parents died of the plague around 1689, leaving five children, in his household she served as a lowly servant, likely either a scullery maid or washerwoman. No effort was made to teach her to read and write, Marta was considered a very beautiful young girl, and there are accounts that Frau Glück became fearful that she would become involved with her son. When Russian forces captured the town, Pastor Glück offered to work as a translator and she may have worked in the household of his superior, Sheremetev. It is not known whether she was his mistress, or household maid and she travelled back to the Russian court with Sheremetevs army. Afterwards she became part of the household of Prince Alexander Menshikov, anecdotal sources suggest that she was purchased by him. Whether the two of them were lovers is disputed, as Menshikov was already engaged to Darya Arsenyeva and it is clear that Menshikov and Marta formed a lifetime alliance. It is possible that Menshikov, who was jealous of Peters attentions and knew his tastes. In any case, in 1703, while visiting Menshikov at his home, in 1704, she was well established in the Tsars household as his mistress, and gave birth to a son, Peter. In 1705, she converted to Orthodoxy and took the new name of Catherine Alexeyevna and she and Darya Menshikova accompanied Peter and Menshikov on their military excursions. Though no record exists, Catherine and Peter are described as having married secretly between 23 Oct and 1 Dec 1707 in St. Petersburg and they had twelve children, two of whom survived into adulthood, Anna and Yelizaveta. Peter had moved the capital to St Petersburg in 1703, while the city was being built he lived in a three-room log cabin with Catherine, where she did the cooking and caring for the children, and he tended a garden as though they were an ordinary couple. The relationship was the most successful of Peters life and a number of letters exist demonstrating the strong affection between Catherine and Peter. As a person she was energetic, compassionate, charming
12.
Battle of Poltava
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It is widely believed to have been the beginning of Swedens decline as a Great Power, as the Tsardom of Russia took its place as the leading nation of north-eastern Europe. The battle also bears major importance in Ukrainian national history, as Hetman of Zaporizhian Host Ivan Mazepa sided with the Swedes, seeking to create an uprising in Ukraine against the tsardom. Today, in place of battle there is a State Cultural Heritage Preserve Complex in Poltava known as the Poltava Battle Field and consists of monuments, Charles XII had led Swedish forces to early victories in North Zealand and in the Battle of Narva in November 1700. However, it would take six years before he defeated Augustus II of Saxony-Poland, Peter I withdrew from Poland in the spring of 1706, and offered to surrender all of his Baltic possessions to Sweden except St. Petersburg, but Charles refused. Peter subsequently adopted a policy in order to deprive the Swedish forces of supplies. Charles ordered an attack on the Russian heartland with a possible assault on Moscow from his campaign base in Poland. The Swedish army of almost 44,000 men left Saxony on 22 August 1707, Charles took the field in November after waiting for reinforcements to arrive. Continuing east, Charles crossed the Vistula River on 25 December 1707, then continued through a hostile Masuria, at the time, the Russians had been occupied with a large rebellion of Don Cossacks, known as the Bulavin Rebellion. This revolt was contained in part by the forces of the Cossack Hetmanate led by Hetman Ivan Mazepa, the Swedes continued to the area around Smorgon and Minsk, where the army went into winter quarters. Charles left 8,000 dragoons under Major-General Ernst Detlof von Krassow in western Poland, poor weather and road conditions kept the Swedish troops in winter quarters until June 1708. In July the Swedes defeated Marshal Boris Sheremetyevs forces at the Battle of Holowczyn, during the spring, General Lewenhaupt in Courland had been ordered to gather supplies and to march his army of about 12,000 men to join Charles forces. However, his departure from Mitau was delayed until late June, rather than winter in Livonia or wait for Lewenhaupt, Charles decided to move southward into the Ukraine and to join Mazepa, who had decided to rebel against Peter. Peter sent Sheremetev to shadow the Swedish army, Lewenhaupt followed south and was attacked while crossing a river near a small village that gave name to the Battle of Lesnaya, losing the supply train and half of his force. In need of resupply, Charles moved towards Baturyn, Mazepas headquarters, anticipating the Swedish arrival, Menshikov ordered the merciless massacre of the population, razing the city and destroying or looting arms, ammunition and food. By the spring of 1709 Charles force had shrunk to half of its original size, after the coldest winter in Europe in over 500 years, Charles was left with 20,000 soldiers and 34 cannons. Short of supplies, Charles laid siege to the Russian fortress at Poltava on the Vorskla River on 2 May 1709, Peters force of 80,000 marched to relieve the siege. Upon his arrival, Peter built a camp on the Vorskla,4 km north of Poltava. While observing the Russian position on 20 June, Charles was struck by a stray bullet, in addition, Charles last hope of reinforcement expired, as the Swedish forces under von Krassow had turned aside to deal with the anti-Swedish Sandomierz Confederation in Poland
13.
Phineus (son of Belus)
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In Greek mythology, Phineus was a son of Belus by Anchinoe and thus brother to Aegyptus, Danaus and Cepheus. The affair appears to have formed part of Euripides lost Andromeda, Cepheus scolded his brother for this outburst, pointing out that he had done nothing to help Andromeda in the crisis, but Phineus still cast his spear at Perseus. Although he missed, a battle ensued in which many fell until Perseus, surrounded by the enemy, held up the head of the Gorgon, turning all. Amazed by this, Phineus pleaded for his life with his gaze averted, aegeus–Meleager, Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, MA, ISBN9780674996250. Dräger, P. Phineus, in H. Cancik & H. Schneider, Brills New Pauly, Antiquity,11, ISBN9789004142169 CS1 maint, kannicht, R. Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, V, Göttingen, ISBN3525257554. Pseudo-Apollodorus, Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, London, William Heinemann Ltd.1921
14.
John Law (economist)
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John Law was a Scottish economist who believed that money was only a means of exchange that did not constitute wealth in itself and that national wealth depended on trade. He was appointed Controller General of Finances of France under the Duke of Orleans, regent for the youthful king and he was responsible for the Mississippi Company bubble and a chaotic economic collapse in France, which has been compared to the early-17th century tulip mania in Holland. The Mississippi Bubble was contemporaneous with the South Sea Company bubble of England, Law was a gambler and a brilliant mental calculator. He was known to win games by mentally calculating the odds. He originated economic ideas such as The Scarcity Theory of Value, Laws views held that money creation will stimulate the economy, that paper money is preferable to metallic money, and that shares are a superior form of money since they pay dividends. Law was born into a family of bankers and goldsmiths from Fife, his father had purchased Lauriston Castle, Law joined the family business at age fourteen and studied the banking business until his father died in 1688. Law subsequently neglected the firm in favour of more extravagant pursuits and he subsequently lost large sums of money in gambling. On 9 April 1694, John Law fought a duel with another British Dandy, Wilson had challenged Law over the affections of Elizabeth Villiers. Law killed Wilson with a pass and thrust of his sword. He was arrested, charged with murder and stood trial at the Old Bailey and he appeared before the infamously sadistic hanging-judge, Salathiel Lovell and was found guilty of murder, and sentenced to death. He was initially incarcerated in Newgate Prison to await execution and his sentence was later commuted to a fine, upon the ground that the offence only amounted to manslaughter. Wilsons brother appealed and had Law imprisoned, but he managed to escape to Amsterdam, Law urged the establishment of a national bank to create and increase instruments of credit and the issue of banknotes backed by land, gold, or silver. The first manifestation of Laws system came when he had returned to Scotland and he published a text entitled Money and Trade Considered, with a Proposal for Supplying the Nation with Money. Laws propositions of creating a bank in Scotland were ultimately rejected. He spent ten years moving between France and the Netherlands, dealing in financial speculations, problems with the French economy presented the opportunity to put his system into practice. He had the idea of abolishing minor monopolies and private farming of taxes and he would create a bank for national finance and a state company for commerce, ultimately to exclude all private revenue. This would create a monopoly of finance and trade run by the state. The council called to consider Laws proposal, including such as Samuel Bernard
15.
Louis XV of France
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Louis XV, known as Louis the Beloved, was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France and Navarre from 1 September 1715 until his death. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five, Cardinal Fleury was his chief minister from 1726 until the Cardinals death in 1743, at which time the young king took sole control of the kingdom. During his reign, Louis returned the Austrian Netherlands, territory won at the Battle of Fontenoy of 1745, Louis also ceded New France in North America to Spain and Great Britain at the conclusion of the Seven Years War in 1763. He incorporated the territories of Lorraine and Corsica into the kingdom of France and he was succeeded by his grandson Louis XVI in 1774. French culture and influence were at their height in the first half of the eighteenth century, however, many scholars believe that Louis XVs decisions damaged the power of France, weakened the treasury, discredited the absolute monarchy, and made it more vulnerable to distrust and destruction. Evidence for this view is provided by the French Revolution, which broke out 15 years after his death, norman Davies characterized Louis XVs reign as one of debilitating stagnation, characterized by lost wars, endless clashes between the Court and Parliament, and religious feuds. A few scholars defend Louis, arguing that his negative reputation was based on propaganda meant to justify the French Revolution. Jerome Blum described him as a perpetual adolescent called to do a mans job, Louis XV was born in the Palace of Versailles on 15 February 1710 during the reign of Louis XIV. His grandfather, Louis Le Grand Dauphin, had three sons with his wife Marie Anne Victoire of Bavaria, Louis, Duke of Burgundy, Philippe, Duke of Anjou, and Charles, Duke of Berry. Louis XV was the son of the Duke of Burgundy and his wife Marie Adélaïde of Savoy, the eldest daughter of Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy. At birth, Louis XV received a title for younger sons of the French royal family. In April 1711, Louis Le Grand Dauphin suddenly died, making Louis XVs father, the Duke of Burgundy, at that time, Burgundy had two living sons, Louis, Duke of Brittany and his youngest son, the future Louis XV. A year later, Marie Adélaïde, Duchess of Burgundy, contracted smallpox and her husband, said to be heartbroken by her death, died the same week, also having contracted smallpox. Within a week of his death, it was clear that the two children had also been infected. The elder son was treated by bloodletting in an unsuccessful effort to save him. Fearing that the Dauphin would die, the Court had both the Dauphin and the Duke of Anjou baptised, the Dauphin died the same day,8 March 1712. His younger brother, the Duke of Anjou, was treated by his governess, Madame de Ventadour. The two year old Dauphin survived the smallpox, on 1 September 1715, Louis XIV died of gangrene, having reigned for 72 years
16.
Louvre
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The Louvre or the Louvre Museum is the worlds largest museum and a historic monument in Paris, France. A central landmark of the city, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the citys 1st arrondissement, approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are exhibited over an area of 72,735 square metres. The Louvre is the second most visited museum after the Palace Museum in China. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built as a fortress in the late 12th century under Philip II, remnants of the fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to the expansion of the city, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function and. The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace, in 1692, the building was occupied by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, which in 1699 held the first of a series of salons. The Académie remained at the Louvre for 100 years, during the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum to display the nations masterpieces. The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, because of structural problems with the building, the museum was closed in 1796 until 1801. The collection was increased under Napoleon and the museum renamed Musée Napoléon, the collection was further increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and bequests since the Third Republic, whether this was the first building on that spot is not known, it is possible that Philip modified an existing tower. According to the authoritative Grand Larousse encyclopédique, the name derives from an association with wolf hunting den, in the 7th century, St. Fare, an abbess in Meaux, left part of her Villa called Luvra situated in the region of Paris to a monastery. This territory probably did not correspond exactly to the modern site, the Louvre Palace was altered frequently throughout the Middle Ages. In the 14th century, Charles V converted the building into a residence and in 1546, Francis acquired what would become the nucleus of the Louvres holdings, his acquisitions including Leonardo da Vincis Mona Lisa. After Louis XIV chose Versailles as his residence in 1682, constructions slowed, however, on 14 October 1750, Louis XV agreed and sanctioned a display of 96 pieces from the royal collection, mounted in the Galerie royale de peinture of the Luxembourg Palace. Under Louis XVI, the museum idea became policy. The comte dAngiviller broadened the collection and in 1776 proposed conversion of the Grande Galerie of the Louvre – which contained maps – into the French Museum, many proposals were offered for the Louvres renovation into a museum, however, none was agreed on. Hence the museum remained incomplete until the French Revolution, during the French Revolution the Louvre was transformed into a public museum. In May 1791, the Assembly declared that the Louvre would be a place for bringing together monuments of all the sciences, on 10 August 1792, Louis XVI was imprisoned and the royal collection in the Louvre became national property
17.
Marie-Anne de Cupis de Camargo
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Marie Anne de Cupis de Camargo, sometimes known simply as La Camargo, was a French dancer. Camargo was born on 15 April 1710, and baptised the day, in Brussels. She had a brother, Jean-Baptiste who later became a composer and violinist. Her father, who was of Spanish ancestry, earned a living as violinist and dancing-master. She made her Paris debut on 5 May 1726 at the Paris Opera Ballet in Les Caractères de la Danse, the piece was choreographed by her teacher Françoise Prévost to music by Jean Ferry Rebel. Prévost herself originated the role, and subsequently taught her solo to both Camargo and her other student, Marie Sallé. Camargo dazzled audiences with her technique and spritely energy, performing entrechats. She became the first woman to execute the entrechat quatre, and she popularized two innovations to ballet, changing from heeled shoes to slippers, and she was one of the first ballet-dancers to shorten the skirt to what afterwards became the regulation length. Every new fashion bore her name, her manner of doing her hair was copied by all at court and her increasing popularity at the Paris Opera inspired jealousy in Prévost, who demoted her to the corps de ballet. However, an incident involving a missing male dancer saw Camargo unexpectedly step into his place. This feat secured her status as a principal ballerina and she had many titled admirers whom she nearly ruined by her extravagances, among others Louis de Bourbon, Count of Clermont. At his wish she retired from the stage from 1736 to 1741, after finally retiring, she received a government pension. In her time she appeared in 78 ballets or operas, always to the delight of the public. Nicolas Lancret painted a portrait of her that exists in several versions including works now held at the Wallace Collection, London. In them she wears heeled shoes and is poised à demi point, the work was later revived in 1901 for the Russian Imperial Ballet by Lev Ivanov for Pierina Legnani. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, however, the ballet was never performed again, the following incident takes place in the third volume of Casanovas History of My Life, She died on 28 April 1770 in Paris at the age of 60. Camargo, Marie Anne de Cupis de
18.
Madame de Pompadour
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She took charge of the king’s schedule and was a valued aide and advisor, despite her frail health and many political enemies. She secured titles of nobility for herself and her relatives, and built a network of clients and she was particularly careful not to alienate the Queen, Marie Leszczyńska. On February 8,1756, the Marquise de Pompadour was named as the lady in waiting to the queen, a position considered the most prestigious at the court. She was a patron of architecture and decorative arts, such as porcelain. She was a patron of the philosophes of the Enlightenment, including Voltaire, Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, otherwise known as Reinette to her friends, was born on 29 December 1721 in Paris to François Poisson and his wife Madeleine de La Motte. It is suspected that her father was either the rich financier Pâris de Montmartel or the tax collector Le Normant de Tournehem. Her younger brother was Abel-François Poisson de Vandières, who became the Marquis de Marigny. Poisson was intelligent, beautiful and refined and she spent her early childhood at the Ursuline convent in Poissy where she received a good education. At the age of 9 in 1730 she returned to Paris under the care of her mother Madame Poisson, the fortune teller told her then that she would one day be the mistress of King Louis XV. From then on Madame Poisson thought, her daughter was destined for greatness and she must provide the means and opportunities to help her achieve it. So her mother took charge of her education at home by hiring tutors who taught her to recite entire plays by heart, play the clavichord, dance, sing, paint. She became an actress and singer, and also attended Pariss Club de lEntresol. On 15 December 1740, Tournehem made his nephew his sole heir, disinheriting all his nephews and nieces. These included the estate at Étiolles, a gift from her guardian. With her husband, she had two children, a boy who died a year after his birth in 1741 and Alexandrine-Jeanne, born 10 August 1744 and died June 1754. Contemporary opinion supported by artwork from the considered the young Mme dÉtiolles to be beautiful, with her small mouth. Her young husband was soon infatuated with her and she was celebrated in the world of Paris. She founded her own salon, at Étiolles, and was joined by many philosophes, as Jeanne Antoinette became known in society, King Louis XV came to hear of her
19.
Perpignan
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Perpignan is a city, a commune, and the capital of the Pyrénées-Orientales department in southern France. Perpignan was the capital of the province and County of Roussillon. In 2013 Perpignan had 118,238 inhabitants in the city proper, the metropolitan area had a total population of 305,837 in 2010. Perpignan is located in the center of the Roussillon plain,13 km west of the Mediterranean coast and it is the southern most of the cities of metropolitan France. Perpignan is crossed by the largest river in Roussillon, the Têt, and by one of its tributaries, floods often occur, as in 1892 when the rising of the Têt in Perpignan destroyed 39 houses, leaving more than 60 families homeless. Perpignan experiences a Mediterranean climate similar to much of the Mediterranean coastline of France, roads The motorway A9 connects Perpignan with Barcelona and Montpellier. Trains Perpignan is served by the Gare de Perpignan railway station, which offers connections to Paris, Barcelona, Toulouse, salvador Dalí proclaimed it to be the Center of the Universe after experiencing a vision of cosmogonic ecstasy there in 1963. Airport The nearest airport is Perpignan–Rivesaltes Airport, attested forms The name of Perpignan appears in 927 as Perpinianum, followed in 959 by Villa Perpiniano, Pirpinianum in the 11th century, Perpiniani in 1176. Perpenyà, which appears in the 13th century, is the most common form until the 15th century, though settlement in the area goes back to Roman times, the medieval town of Perpignan seems to have been founded around the beginning of the 10th century. Soon Perpignan became the capital of the counts of Roussillon, historically, it was part of the region known as Septimania. In 1172 Count Girard II bequeathed his lands to the Counts of Barcelona, Perpignan acquired the institutions of a partly self-governing commune in 1197. French feudal rights over Roussillon were given up by Louis IX in the Treaty of Corbeil, when James I the Conqueror, king of Aragon and count of Barcelona, founded the Kingdom of Majorca in 1276, Perpignan became the capital of the mainland territories of the new state. The succeeding decades are considered the age in the history of the city. It prospered as a centre of manufacture, leather work, goldsmiths work. King Philippe III of France died there in 1285, as he was returning from his crusade against the Aragonese Crown. In 1344 Peter IV of Aragon annexed the Kingdom of Majorca, a few years later it lost approximately half of its population to the Black Death. Perpignan is one of the houses of Lancaster Girls Grammar School, the festival has a broad mainstream focus with pop-related music as well as traditional acoustic guitar music and alternative music. The festival has attracted international guests like Caetano Veloso, Rumberos Catalans, Pedro Soler, Bernardo Sandoval, Peter Finger, in 2008, Perpignan became Capital of Catalan Culture
20.
Maurice de Saxe
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Maurice, Count of Saxony was a Franco-Saxon soldier in French service who became a Marshal and later also Marshal General of France. He is best known for his victory at the Battle of Fontenoy. Maurice was born at Goslar, an son of Augustus II the Strong, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony. He was the first of eight extramarital children whom August acknowledged, although as many as 354 are claimed by sources, including Wilhelmine of Bayreuth, in 1698, the Countess sent him to his father in Warsaw. August had been elected King of Poland in the previous year and this separation from his father made him independent and had an important effect on his future career. At the age of twelve, Maurice served in the army of Prince Eugene of Savoy, at the sieges of Tournai and Mons, a proposal at the end of the campaign to send him to a Jesuit college in Brussels was dropped due to the protests of his mother. Upon his return to the camp of the Allies at the beginning of 1710 and he next served under Peter the Great against the Swedes. In 1711, August formally recognized him and Maurice was granted the rank of Count and he then accompanied his father to Pomerania, and in 1712 he took part in the battle of Gadebusch. At the age of 17 in 1713 he commanded his own regiment, in manhood, Maurice bore a strong resemblance to his father, both physically and in character. His grasp was so powerful that he could bend a horseshoe with his hand, the next year, Johanna gave birth to a son, called August Adolf after his grandfather, the child only lived a few hours. Since Maurice had also given her more serious grounds of complaint against him, after serving in a campaign against the Ottoman Empire in 1717, he went to Paris to study mathematics, and in 1720 obtained a commission as maréchal de camp. In 1725, he entered negotiations for election as Duke of Courland, at the insistence of the Duchess Anna Ivanovna and he was chosen Duke in 1726, but declined marriage with the duchess. Lecouvreur was to die shortly afterwards, there is controversy as to whether or not she was poisoned by her rival, Maria Karolina Sobieska. At the outbreak of the War of the Polish Succession, Saxe served under Marshal the Duke of Berwick, saxes exploits were the sole redeeming feature in an unsuccessful campaign, and on 26 March 1743, his merits were rewarded by promotion to Marshal of France. He had been given only 50-60,000 men to defend against an army twice as large. From this time on, he one of the great generals of the age. During the battle, he was unable to sit on horseback due to edema, in recognition of his brilliant achievement, King Louis XV of France conferred on him the Château de Chambord for life, and in April 1746, he was naturalised as a French subject. Until the end of the war, he continued to command in the Netherlands, besides Fontenoy he added Rocoux and Lawfeldt or Val to the list of French victories
21.
Marie Anne de Mailly
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Marie Anne de Mailly-Nesle, duchesse de Châteauroux was the youngest of the five famous de Nesle sisters, four of whom would become the mistress of King Louis XV of France. Marie Anne was born the youngest daughter of Louis de Mailly, Marquis de Nesle et de Mailly, Prince dOrange and her parents had been married in 1709. Her mother was the daughter of Paul Jules de La Porte, duc Mazarin et de La Meilleraye, the son of the famous adventuress, Hortense Mancini, the only one of the de Nesle sisters not to become one of Louis XVs mistresses was the Marquise de Flavacourt. Louise Julie was the first sister to attract the king followed by Pauline Félicité, Marie Anne also had a younger half-sister, Henriette de Bourbon, Mademoiselle de Verneuil, from her mothers relationship with the duc de Bourbon, the chief minister of Louis XV from 1723 to 1726. In her youth, Marie Anne was known as Mademoiselle de Monchy, on 19 June 1734, she married Jean Baptiste Louis, marquis de La Tournelle. Her husband died on 23 November 1740, in 1726, Marie Annes oldest sister, Louise Julie, wed her cousin, Louis Alexandre de Mailly, comte de Mailly. Shortly thereafter she caught the attention of King Louis XV, and was permitted by her husband to become a royal mistress, although she became the kings mistress in 1732, Madame de Mailly was not officially recognized as his maîtresse en titre until 1738. Louise Julie did not use her new position at court to enrich herself or to interfere in politics, in 1738, she received a letter from her younger sister Pauline-Félicité requesting to be invited to court. Louise Julie granted her sisters wish, but upon her arrival at court, Pauline-Félicité seduced the king, while Madame de Mailly remained as the official mistress, the king fell in love with Pauline-Félicité and arranged for her to marry the marquis de Vintimille. He even gave Madame de Vintimille the castle of Choisy-le-Roi as a gift, Madame de Vintimille quickly became pregnant by the king, and she died giving birth to his illegitimate son in 1741. He eventually decided upon the sister of both Madame de Mailly and Madame de Vintimille, Marie Anne, the widow of the marquis de La Tournelle. At a masked ball on Shrove Tuesday,1742, Richelieu led Marie Anne up to the king, the beautiful marquise, however, at first rejected the royal advances. She already had a lover, the young duc dAgénois, and was not inclined to him up even for the kings sake. As a result, Louis conspired with Richelieu, who was dAgénoiss uncle, Richelieu was quite anxious to do anything to bring about a liaison between the king and Madame de La Tournelle because he knew Madame de Mailly did not view him in a kindly light. The end result of their deliberations was that Louis, in imitation of the biblical David, here, more fortunate than the husband of Bathsheba, the duc dAgénois was only wounded, and returned to the court in glory. Louis was in despair, but Richelieu sent his nephew to Languedoc and she insisted that her older sister Madame de Mailly should be dismissed and she herself acknowledged in her place. Finding refuge in a convent, Madame de Mailly later became quite religious, the post of lady-in-waiting of Marie Anne de Mailly was the result of an intrigue. On 13 September 1742, the duchess de Villars, previously a dame du palais, was promoted to dame datours, and there was thereby a vacancy among the ladies-in-waiting of the queen
22.
Guinea (coin)
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The guinea was a coin of approximately one quarter ounce of gold that was minted in Great Britain between 1663 and 1814. From 1717 to 1816, its value was fixed at twenty-one shillings. Then, Britain adopted the standard and guinea became a colloquial or specialised term. The name came from the Guinea region in West Africa, where much of the used to make the coins originated. The name also forms the basis for the Arabic word for the Egyptian pound الجنيه el-Genēh / el-Geni, the first guinea was produced on 6 February 1663, a proclamation of 27 March 1663 made the coins legal currency. One troy pound of 11/12 fine gold would make 44½ guineas, the denomination was originally worth one pound, or twenty shillings, but an increase in the price of gold during the reign of King Charles II led to the market trading it at a premium. The price of gold continued to increase, especially in times of trouble, and by the 1680s, indeed, in his diary entries for 13 June 1667, Samuel Pepys records that the price was 24 to 25 shillings. The diameter of the coin was 1 inch throughout Charles IIs reign, Guinea was not an official name for the coin, but much of the gold used to produce the early coins came from Guinea in Africa. The coin was produced each year between 1663 and 1684, with the elephant appearing on some coins each year from 1663 to 1665 and 1668, and the elephant and castle on some coins from 1674 onward. The elephant, with or without the castle, symbolises the Royal African Company, the obverse and reverse of this coin were designed by John Roettier. The edge was milled to deter clipping or filing, and to distinguish it from the silver half-crown which had edge lettering, until 1669 the milling was perpendicular to the edge, giving vertical grooves, while from 1670 the milling was diagonal to the edge. John Roettier continued to design the dies for this denomination in the reign of King James II. In this reign, the coins weighed 8.5 g with a diameter of 25–26 mm, Coins of each year were issued both with and without the elephant and castle mark. The edge of the coins are milled diagonally, with the removal of James II in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, his daughter Mary, and her husband Prince William of Orange ruled jointly by agreement as co-monarchs. Their heads appear conjoined on the piece in Roman style, with Williams head uppermost. By the early part of this reign the value of the guinea had increased to thirty shillings. The guineas of this reign weighed 8, following the death of Queen Mary from smallpox in 1694, William continued to reign as William III. The coins of William IIIs reign weighed 8.4 g with a gold purity of 0.9123
23.
Hermitage Museum
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The State Hermitage Museum is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. One of the largest and oldest museums in the world, it was founded in 1754 by Catherine the Great and has open to the public since 1852. Its collections, of only a small part is on permanent display. The collections occupy a complex of six historic buildings along Palace Embankment, including the Winter Palace. Apart from them, the Menshikov Palace, Museum of Porcelain, Storage Facility at Staraya Derevnya, the museum has several exhibition centers abroad. The Hermitage is a state property. Since July 1992, the director of the museum has been Mikhail Piotrovsky, of the six buildings in the main museum complex, five, namely the Winter Palace, Small Hermitage, Old Hermitage, New Hermitage and Hermitage Theatre, are open to the public. The entrance ticket for foreign tourists more than the fee paid by citizens of Russia. However, entrance is free of charge the first Thursday of every month for all visitors, the museum is closed on Mondays. The entrance for visitors is located in the Winter Palace. A hermitage is the dwelling of a hermit or recluse, the word derives from Old French hermit, ermit hermit, recluse, from Late Latin eremita, from Greek eremites, literally people who live alone, which is in turn derived from ἐρημός, desert. Originally, the building housing the collection was the Small Hermitage. Today, the Hermitage Museum encompasses many buildings on the Palace Embankment, apart from the Small Hermitage, the museum now also includes the Old Hermitage, the New Hermitage, the Hermitage Theatre, and the Winter Palace, the former main residence of the Russian tsars. In recent years, the Hermitage has expanded to the General Staff Building on the Palace Square facing the Winter Palace, the Western European Art collection includes European paintings, sculpture, and applied art from the 13th to the 20th centuries. It is displayed, in about 120 rooms, on the first, drawings and prints are displayed in temporary exhibitions. Since 1940, the Egyptian collection, dating back to 1852 and it serves as a passage to the exhibition of Classical Antiquities. A modest collection of the culture of Ancient Mesopotamia, including a number of Assyrian reliefs from Babylon, Dur-Sharrukin, the collection of Classical Antiquities occupies most of the ground floor of the Old and New Hermitage buildings. Its floor is made of a marble mosaic imitating ancient tradition, while the stucco walls
24.
Warsaw
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Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It stands on the Vistula River in east-central Poland, roughly 260 kilometres from the Baltic Sea and 300 kilometres from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population is estimated at 1.750 million residents within a metropolitan area of 3.101 million residents. The city limits cover 516.9 square kilometres, while the area covers 6,100.43 square kilometres. Once described as Paris of the East, Warsaw was believed to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world until World War II. On 9 November 1939, the city was awarded Polands highest military decoration for heroism, Warsaw is one of Europe’s most dynamic metropolitan cities. In 2012 the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked Warsaw as the 32nd most liveable city in the world, in 2017 the city came 4th in the “Business-friendly” category and 8th in the “Human capital and life style”. It was also ranked as one of the most liveable cities in Central, Warsaw is considered an Alpha– global city, a major international tourist destination and a significant cultural, political and economic hub. The city is a significant centre of research and development, BPO, ITO, the Warsaw Stock Exchange is the largest and most important in Central and Eastern Europe. Frontex, the European Union agency for external security, has its headquarters in Warsaw. Together with Frankfurt, London and Paris, Warsaw is also one of the cities with the highest number of skyscrapers in the European Union, the city is the seat of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra and the University of Warsaw. The historic city-centre of Warsaw with its picturesque Old Town in 1980 was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, buildings represent examples of nearly every European architectural style and historical period. Warsaw provides many examples of architecture from the gothic, renaissance, baroque, neoclassical and modern periods, furthermore, the city is positioning itself as Europes chic cultural capital with thriving art and club scenes and renowned restaurants. Folk etymology attributes the city name to a fisherman, Wars, according to legend, Sawa was a mermaid living in the Vistula River with whom Wars fell in love. In actuality, Warsz was a 12th/13th-century nobleman who owned a village located at the site of Mariensztat neighbourhood. See also the Vršovci family which had escaped to Poland, the official city name in full is miasto stołeczne Warszawa. A native or resident of Warsaw is known as a Varsovian – in Polish warszawiak, warszawianin, warszawianka, warszawiacy, other names for Warsaw include Varsovia and Varsóvia, Varsovie, Varsavia, Warschau, װאַרשע /Varshe, Варшава /Varšava /Varshava, Varšuva, Varsó. The first fortified settlements on the site of todays Warsaw were located in Bródno, after Jazdów was raided by nearby clans and dukes, a new similar settlement was established on the site of a small fishing village called Warszowa
25.
Royal Castle, Warsaw
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The Royal Castle in Warsaw is a castle residency that formerly served throughout the centuries as the official residence of the Polish monarchs. It is located in the Castle Square, at the entrance to the Warsaw Old Town, the personal offices of the king and the administrative offices of the Royal Court of Poland were located there from the sixteenth century until the Partitions of Poland. Initially the complex served as the residence of the Dukes of Masovia, and since the century, the seat of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In its long history the Royal Castle was repeatedly plundered and devastated by the invading Swedish, Brandenburgian, Prussian and Tsarist armies. The Constitution of 3 May 1791, the first of its type in Europe, in the 19th century, after the collapse of the November Uprising, it was used as an administrative centre by the Tsar and was re-designed for the needs of the Imperial Russian administration. During the course of World War I it was the residence of the German Governor-General, in 1920-1922 the Royal Castle was the seat of the Polish Head of State and between 1926 and World War II the building was the residence of the Polish president, Ignacy Mościcki. Reconstruction of the carried out in 1971-1984 was led by the Civic Committee. It was afforded by mainly US donations, in 1980, the Royal Castle, together with the Old Town was registered as a protected UNESCO World Heritage Site. Today it is a historical and national monument, and is listed as a national museum visited by over 500,000 people every year, the Royal Castle, due to its iconic appearance and its long history, is one of Warsaws most recognizable landmarks. In the 1339 the Papal Legate in Warsaw heard a case brought by the King of Poland, Casimir III the Great and he claimed that they had illegally seized a slice of Polish territory — Pomerania and the Kujawy region. The documents in this case are the earliest written testimony to the existence of Warsaw, at that time a fortified town surrounded by earthen and wooden ramparts, and situated where the Royal Castle now stands, it was the seat of Trojden, Duke of Masovia. At the end of the 13th century, during the Dukes Conrad II of Mazovia reign, the next duke, Casimir I, decided to build the first brick building here at the burg-citys area the Great Tower. Its facade, which was standing in 1944, was knocked down by the Germans. The character of the new residence and its size decided the change of the buildings status, and from 1414 it functioned as a Prince Manor. When the Masovia region was incorporated in the Kingdom of Poland in 1526, the edifice, which until then had been the Castle of the Dukes of Masovia, became one of the royal residences. From 1548 onwards Queen Bona Sforza resided in it with her daughters Izabela, who became Queen of Hungary, Catherine, later to become Queen of Sweden, in 1556–1557 and in 1564 the King of Poland, Sigismund II Augustus, convened royal parliaments in Warsaw. In 1569–1572 King Sigismund II Augustus started alterations in the Castle, the Curia Maior was altered so as provide a meeting place for the Parliament, with premises for the Chamber of Deputies on the ground floor, and the Senate Chamber on the first floor. This was one of the first attempts in Europe to create a building that would be used solely for parliamentary purposes, a new Renaissance—style building, known as the Royal House, was erected next to the Curia Maior
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Wallace Collection
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The collection opened to permanent public view in 1900 in Hertford House, and remains there to this day. A condition of the bequest was that no object should ever leave the collection, the Wallace Collection is a non-departmental public body. The Collection numbers nearly 5,500 objects and is best known for its quality and breadth of eighteenth-century French paintings, Sèvres porcelain and French furniture. His father Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, brother of Queen Jane Seymour, had started building the palatial Somerset House on the Strand as his townhouse, the present House in Manchester Square was the townhouse of a later branch of the family. The Wallace Restaurant is now run by Peyton and Byrne as a French-style brasserie, the Wallace Collections Old Master paintings represent some of the finest works of art in the world, executed by most of the leading artists of their period. The paintings include important works from all periods between the fourteenth to the mid-nineteenth century, strengths of the collection include examples by Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyck, Canaletto, Gainsborough, François Boucher, Fragonard, Murillo, Titian, Poussin and Velázquez. The inventory of pictures, watercolours and drawings comprises all the major European schools. M. W, the Wallace Collection contains the richest and most distinguished museum collections of eighteenth-century Sèvres porcelain in the world. It includes 137 vases,80 tea wares,67 useful wares,3 biscuit figures and 130 plaques, one highlight of the collection is the major collection of furniture attributed to André-Charles Boulle, perhaps the best-known cabinet-maker ever to have lived. Joseph Baumhauer –1 item, Bas darmoire, c, 1765–1770, André-Charles Boulle –22 items, Armoire, c. 1700–10, Cabinet avec son pied, c,1667, Cartonnier et pendule, c.1715, Commode, c. 1710, Paire de grande table, c,1713, Paire de coffre de toilette, c. 1720–25, Table à mettre dans un trumeau, c,1705, Martin Carlin –4 items, Paire de Encoignures, c. 1783, Adrien Delorme –2 items, Paire de bibliothèque basse Étienne Doirat –1 item, Commode,1720, Étienne Levasseur –5 items, Grande Bibliothèque, c. 1775, Paire de bibliothèque basse, c.1775 Paire de meubles à hauteur deappui, c.1775 Alexandre-Jean Oppenord –3 items, Bureau plat,1710, Commode, c. 1710, Jean Henri Riesener –10 items, Commode, delivered to Marie-Antoinettes cabinet intérieur de la reine at Versailles,1780, Commode, delivered to Marie-Antoinette for Chateau de Marly, c. 1782, Encoignure, delivered to Marie-Antoinettes cabinet intérieur at Versailles,1783, Secrétaire à abattant, delivered to Marie-Antoinettes cabinet intérieur at Versailles, c. 1783, Secrétaire à abattant, delivered to Marie-Antoinettes Petit Triannon at Versailles,1783, Secrétaire à abattant, delivered to Marie-Antoinettes cabinet intérieur at Versailles, c. 1780, Bureau à cylindre, delivered to the comte dOrsay for the Hôtel dOrsay, 1785–90 Media related to Wallace Collection at Wikimedia Commons Official website
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Public domain
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The term public domain has two senses of meaning. Anything published is out in the domain in the sense that it is available to the public. Once published, news and information in books is in the public domain, in the sense of intellectual property, works in the public domain are those whose exclusive intellectual property rights have expired, have been forfeited, or are inapplicable. Examples for works not covered by copyright which are therefore in the domain, are the formulae of Newtonian physics, cooking recipes. Examples for works actively dedicated into public domain by their authors are reference implementations of algorithms, NIHs ImageJ. The term is not normally applied to situations where the creator of a work retains residual rights, as rights are country-based and vary, a work may be subject to rights in one country and be in the public domain in another. Some rights depend on registrations on a basis, and the absence of registration in a particular country, if required. Although the term public domain did not come into use until the mid-18th century, the Romans had a large proprietary rights system where they defined many things that cannot be privately owned as res nullius, res communes, res publicae and res universitatis. The term res nullius was defined as not yet appropriated. The term res communes was defined as things that could be enjoyed by mankind, such as air, sunlight. The term res publicae referred to things that were shared by all citizens, when the first early copyright law was first established in Britain with the Statute of Anne in 1710, public domain did not appear. However, similar concepts were developed by British and French jurists in the eighteenth century, instead of public domain they used terms such as publici juris or propriété publique to describe works that were not covered by copyright law. The phrase fall in the domain can be traced to mid-nineteenth century France to describe the end of copyright term. In this historical context Paul Torremans describes copyright as a coral reef of private right jutting up from the ocean of the public domain. Because copyright law is different from country to country, Pamela Samuelson has described the public domain as being different sizes at different times in different countries. According to James Boyle this definition underlines common usage of the public domain and equates the public domain to public property. However, the usage of the public domain can be more granular. Such a definition regards work in copyright as private property subject to fair use rights, the materials that compose our cultural heritage must be free for all living to use no less than matter necessary for biological survival
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Pierre de Nolhac
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Pierre Girault de Nolhac, known as Pierre de Nolhac, was a French historian, art historian and poet. A Member of the French School of Rome in 1882, he worked there on Italian humanism of the sixteenth century and he was elected a member of the Académie française in 1922. He played a role in the preparations for the Treaty of Versailles, Pierre de Nolhac left a substantial body of work largely devoted to history, especially to Renaissance humanism. During his stay at the French School of Rome, he discovered unpublished manuscripts of Petrarch in the Vatican library, and his monograph on Fulvio Orsini is still authoritative. He also devoted several books to Queen Marie-Antoinette at Versailles and his work as a poet was recognised in his own time, notably by his friend, the Italian poet Gabriele dAnnunzio. The central library of Versailles has many manuscripts of works by Pierre de Nolhac, including Erasmus and Italy, Queen Marie Antoinette, Nattier, Louis XV. A postage stamp was issued bearing his image February 13,1960, a street in Versailles, near the castle between the Dufour Pavilion and the Grand Commun, bears his name. He is the father of the painter Henri de Nolhac, saint-André, Claude, A kings favourite, Madame du Barry and her times from hitherto unpublished documents London, Herbert Jenkins,1915. Pierre de Nolhac, La Résurrection de Versailles, Souvenirs dun conservateur, 1887-1920, reissue presented and annotated by Christophe Pincemaille, coll
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Emilia Dilke
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Emilia, Lady Dilke, born Emily Francis Strong, was an English author, art historian, feminist and trade unionist. Emilia Francis Strong, the daughter of Henry and Emily Weedon Strong, was called by her name, with its masculine spelling, during her childhood. She was raised in Iffley, near Oxford, and attended the South Kensington Art School in London in her late teens. She married Mark Pattison, Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford, in 1861, she was known as Francis Pattison, Mrs. Mark Pattison, or, in some of her publications. After Mark Pattisons death in 1884, she married Sir Charles Dilke, both of her marriages were topics of some public discussion. In addition to numerous signed and unsigned essays, and her works of art history, she wrote essays on French politics and on womens trade unionism. She also published two volumes of short stories. Her niece, Gertrude Tuckwell worked with her closely in her feminist, in addition to numerous articles in periodicals, she published, under the surname Pattison, The Renaissance of Art in France,2 vols. In Illustrated Biographies of Modern Artists, e. d, the Outcast Spirit and Other Stories Contains most of her fiction. H. C. G. UK National Archives, thurston, H. T. Colby, F. M. eds. article name needed
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CiNii
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CiNii is a bibliographic database service for material in Japanese academic libraries, especially focusing on Japanese works and English works published in Japan. The database was founded in April 2005 and is maintained by the National Institute of Informatics, the database contains more than 15 million articles from more than 3600 publications. A typical month saw more than 30 million accesses from 2.2 million unique visitors, the database assigns a unique identifier, NII Article ID, to each of its journal article entries. A different identifier, NII Citation ID aka NACSIS-CAT Record ID, is used for books
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Integrated Authority File
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The Integrated Authority File or GND is an international authority file for the organisation of personal names, subject headings and corporate bodies from catalogues. It is used mainly for documentation in libraries and increasingly also by archives, the GND is managed by the German National Library in cooperation with various regional library networks in German-speaking Europe and other partners. The GND falls under the Creative Commons Zero license, the GND specification provides a hierarchy of high-level entities and sub-classes, useful in library classification, and an approach to unambiguous identification of single elements. It also comprises an ontology intended for knowledge representation in the semantic web, available in the RDF format
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Madame de Pompadour as Diana the Huntress
Marie Leszczyńska, Queen of France, Reading the Bible
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Justice punishing Injustice
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Nattier, Jean Marc". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.; Endnotes:
