1.
Portrait miniature
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A portrait miniature is a miniature portrait painting, usually executed in gouache, watercolour, or enamel. They were especially valuable in introducing people to other over distances. Soldiers and sailors might carry miniatures of their loved ones while traveling, the first miniaturists used watercolour to paint on stretched vellum. During the second half of the 17th century, vitreous enamel painted on copper became increasingly popular, in the 18th century, miniatures were painted with watercolour on ivory, which had now become relatively cheap. As small in size as 40 mm ×30 mm, portrait miniatures were used as personal mementos or as jewellery or snuff box covers. The portrait miniature developed from the manuscript, which had been superseded for the purposes of book illustration by techniques such as woodprints. Lucas Horenbout was another Netherlandish miniature painter at the court of Henry VIII and these might be paintings, or finished drawings with some colour, and were produced by François Clouet, and his followers. Following these men we find Simon Renard de St. André, others whose names might be mentioned were Joseph Werner, and Rosalba Carriera. The colours are opaque, and gold is used to heighten the effect and they are often signed, and have frequently also a Latin motto upon them. Hilliard worked for a while in France, and he is identical with the painter alluded to in 1577 as Nicholas Belliart. Hilliard was succeeded by his son Lawrence Hilliard, his technique was similar to that of his father, but bolder, Isaac Oliver and his son Peter Oliver succeeded Hilliard. Isaac was the pupil of Hilliard, Peter was the pupil of Isaac. The two men were the earliest to give roundness and form to the faces they painted and they signed their best works in monogram, and painted not only very small miniatures, but larger ones measuring as much as 10 in ×9 in. They copied for Charles I of England on a small scale many of his famous pictures by the old masters, other miniaturists at about the same date included Balthazar Gerbier, George Jamesone, Penelope Cleyn and her brothers. Samuel Cooper was a nephew and student of the elder Hoskins and he spent much of his time in Paris and Holland, and very little is known of his career. His work has a breadth and dignity, and has been well called life-size work in little. His portraits of the men of the Puritan epoch are remarkable for their truth to life and he painted upon card, chicken skin and vellum, and on two occasions upon thin pieces of mutton bone. The use of ivory was not introduced until long after his time and his work is frequently signed with his initials, generally in gold, and very often with the addition of the date
2.
Self-portrait
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A self-portrait is a representation of an artist that is drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by that artist. With better and cheaper mirrors, and the advent of the panel portrait, Portrait of a Man in a Turban by Jan van Eyck of 1433 may well be the earliest known panel self-portrait. He painted a portrait of his wife, and he belonged to the social group that had begun to commission portraits. The genre is venerable, but not until the Renaissance, with increased wealth and interest in the individual as a subject, a self-portrait may be a portrait of the artist, or a portrait included in a larger work, including a group portrait. Many painters are said to have included depictions of specific individuals, including themselves, in these works, the artist usually appears as a face in the crowd or group, often towards the edges or corner of the work and behind the main participants. Rubenss The Four Philosophers is a good example and this culminated in the 17th century with the work of Jan de Bray. Many artistic media have used, apart from paintings, drawings. In the famous Arnolfini Portrait, Jan van Eyck is probably one of two figures glimpsed in a mirror – a surprisingly modern conceit. The Van Eyck painting may have inspired Diego Velázquez to depict himself in view as the painter creating Las Meninas, as the Van Eyck hung in the palace in Madrid where he worked. This was another modern flourish, given that he appears as the painter, in what may be one of the earliest childhood self-portraits now surviving, Albrecht Dürer depicts himself as in naturalistic style as a 13-year-old boy in 1484. In later years he appears variously as a merchant in the background of Biblical scenes, leonardo da Vinci may have drawn a picture of himself at the age of 60, in around 1512. The picture is often reproduced as Da Vincis appearance, although this is not certain. In the 17th century, Rembrandt painted a range of self-portraits, family and professional group paintings, including the artists depiction, became increasingly common from the 17th century on. From the later 20th century on, video plays a part in self-portraiture. Vigée-Lebrun painted a total of 37 self-portraits, many of which were copies of earlier ones, Women artists have historically embodied a number of roles within their self-portraiture. Most common is the artist at work, showing themselves in the act of painting, or at least holding a brush and palette. Often, the viewer if the clothes worn were those they normally painted in. Images of artists at work are encountered in Ancient Egyptian painting, one of the first self-portraits was made by the Pharaoh Akhenatens chief sculptor Bak in 1365 BC
3.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
4.
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
5.
Panel painting
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A panel painting is a painting made on a flat panel made of wood, either a single piece, or a number of pieces joined together. Panel painting is very old, it was a very prestigious medium in Greece and Rome, a series of 6th century BC painted tablets from Pitsa represent the oldest surviving Greek panel paintings. Most classical Greek paintings that were famous in their day seem to have been of a size comparable to modern works - perhaps up to a half-length portrait size. We can only attempt to imagine what these looked like from some detailed literary descriptions, the Severan Tondo, also from Egypt is one of the handful of non-funerary Graeco-Roman specimens to survive. Encaustic and tempera are the two used in antiquity. Encaustic largely ceased to be used after the early Byzantine icons, the earliest forms of panel painting were dossals, altar fronts and crucifixes. All were painted with images, commonly the Christ or the Virgin, with the saints appropriate to the dedication of the church. Donor portraits including members of the family are also often shown. Painted panels for altars are most numerous in Spain, especially Catalonia, the 13th and 14th centuries in Italy were a great period of panel painting, mostly altarpieces or other religious works. However, it is estimated that of all the paintings produced there,99.9 percent have been lost. The vast majority of Early Netherlandish paintings are on panel, and these include most of the earliest portraits, such as those by Jan van Eyck, and some other secular scenes. However, one of the earliest surviving oils on canvas is a French Madonna with angels of about 1410 in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, which is very early indeed for oil painting also. By the 15th century with the wealth of Europe, and later the appearance of humanism. Secular art opened the way to the creation of chests, painted beds, birth trays, many such works are now detached and hung framed on walls in museums. Many double-sided wings of altarpieces have also been sawn into two one-sided panels, canvas took over from panel in Italy by the first half of the 16th century, a change led by Mantegna and the artists of Venice. His panels are of notoriously complicated construction, containing as many as seventeen pieces of wood, for smaller cabinet paintings, copper sheets were another rival support, from the end of the 16th century, used by many artists including Adam Elsheimer. Many Dutch painters of the Golden Age used panel for their small works, by the 18th century it had become unusual to paint on panel, except for small works to be inset into furniture, and the like. But, for example, The National Gallery in London has two Goya portraits on panel, many other painting traditions also painted, and still paint, on wood, but the term is usually only used to refer to the Western tradition described above
6.
Illuminated manuscript
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An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented with such decoration as initials, borders and miniature illustrations. Comparable Far Eastern and Mesoamerican works are described as painted, islamic manuscripts may be referred to as illuminated, illustrated or painted, though using essentially the same techniques as Western works. This article covers the technical, social and economic history of the subject, for an art-historical account, the earliest surviving substantive illuminated manuscripts are from the period 400 to 600, produced in the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths and the Eastern Roman Empire. The significance of these works lies not only in their inherent artistic and historical value, had it not been for the monastic scribes of Late Antiquity, most literature of Greece and Rome would have perished in Europe. As it was, the patterns of textual survivals were shaped by their usefulness to the severely constricted literate group of Christians, the majority of surviving manuscripts are from the Middle Ages, although many survive from the Renaissance, along with a very limited number from Late Antiquity. The majority of manuscripts are of a religious nature. However, especially from the 13th century onward, a number of secular texts were illuminated. Most illuminated manuscripts were created as codices, which had superseded scrolls, a very few illuminated manuscript fragments survive on papyrus, which does not last nearly as long as vellum or parchment. Most medieval manuscripts, illuminated or not, were written on parchment, beginning in the late Middle Ages manuscripts began to be produced on paper. Illuminated manuscripts continued to be produced in the early 16th century, Manuscripts are among the most common items to survive from the Middle Ages, many thousands survive. They are also the best surviving specimens of medieval painting, indeed, for many areas and time periods, they are the only surviving examples of painting. There are a few examples from later periods, the type of book that was most often heavily and richly illuminated, sometimes known as a display book, varied between periods. In the first millennium, these were most likely to be Gospel Books, such as the Lindisfarne Gospels, the Romanesque period saw the creation of many huge illuminated complete Bibles – one in Sweden requires three librarians to lift it. Many Psalters were also illuminated in both this and the Gothic period. Finally, the Book of Hours, very commonly the personal book of a wealthy layperson, was often richly illuminated in the Gothic period. Other books, both liturgical and not, continued to be illuminated at all periods, the Byzantine world also continued to produce manuscripts in its own style, versions of which spread to other Orthodox and Eastern Christian areas. See Medieval art for other regions, periods and types, reusing parchments by scraping the surface and reusing them was a common practice, the traces often left behind of the original text are known as palimpsests. The Gothic period, which saw an increase in the production of these beautiful artifacts, also saw more secular works such as chronicles
7.
Italian Renaissance
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The term Renaissance is in essence a modern one that came into currency in the 19th century, in the work of historians such as Jules Michelet and Jacob Burckhardt. The French word renaissance means Rebirth, and the era is best known for the renewed interest in the culture of classical antiquity after the period that Renaissance humanists labeled the Dark Ages. Though today perhaps best known for Italian Renaissance art and architecture, the period saw major achievements in literature, music, philosophy, Italy became the recognized European leader in all these areas by the late 15th century, and to varying degrees retained this lead until about 1600. This was despite a turbulent and generally disastrous period in Italian politics, the European Renaissance began in Tuscany, and centred in the city of Florence. It later spread to Venice, where the remains of ancient Greek culture were brought together, the Renaissance later had a significant effect on Rome, which was ornamented with some structures in the new allantico mode, then was largely rebuilt by humanist sixteenth-century popes. The Italian Renaissance peaked in the century as foreign invasions plunged the region into the turmoil of the Italian Wars. However, the ideas and ideals of the Renaissance endured and spread into the rest of Europe, setting off the Northern Renaissance, the Italian Renaissance is best known for its cultural achievements. Accounts of Renaissance literature usually begin with Petrarch and his friend, famous vernacular poets of the 15th century include the renaissance epic authors Luigi Pulci, Matteo Maria Boiardo, and Ludovico Ariosto. 15th century writers such as the poet Poliziano and the Platonist philosopher Marsilio Ficino made extensive translations from both Latin and Greek, the same is true for architecture, as practiced by Brunelleschi, Leon Battista Alberti, Andrea Palladio, and Bramante. Their works include Florence Cathedral, St. Peters Basilica in Rome, yet cultural contributions notwithstanding, some present-day historians also see the era as one of the beginning of economic regression for Italy. By the Late Middle Ages, Latium, the heartland of the Roman Empire. Rome was a city of ancient ruins, and the Papal States were loosely administered, and vulnerable to external interference such as that of France, and later Spain. The Papacy was affronted when the Avignon Papacy was created in southern France as a consequence of pressure from King Philip the Fair of France, in the south, Sicily had for some time been under foreign domination, by the Arabs and then the Normans. Sicily had prospered for 150 years during the Emirate of Sicily, in contrast Northern and Central Italy had become far more prosperous, and it has been calculated that the region was among the richest of Europe. The Crusades had built lasting trade links to the Levant, the main trade routes from the east passed through the Byzantine Empire or the Arab lands and onwards to the ports of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice. Luxury goods bought in the Levant, such as spices, dyes, moreover, the inland city-states profited from the rich agricultural land of the Po valley. From France, Germany, and the Low Countries, through the medium of the Champagne fairs, land and river trade routes brought goods such as wool, wheat, and precious metals into the region. The extensive trade that stretched from Egypt to the Baltic generated substantial surpluses that allowed significant investment in mining, thus, while northern Italy was not richer in resources than many other parts of Europe, the level of development, stimulated by trade, allowed it to prosper
8.
Tours
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Tours is a city located in the centre-west of France. It is the centre of the Indre-et-Loire department and the largest city in the Centre-Val de Loire region of France. In 2012, the city of Tours had 134,978 inhabitants, Tours stands on the lower reaches of the River Loire, between Orléans and the Atlantic coast. The surrounding district, the province of Touraine, is known for its wines, for the alleged perfection of its local spoken French. The city is also the end-point of the annual Paris–Tours cycle race, in Gallic times the city was important as a crossing point of the Loire. Becoming part of the Roman Empire during the 1st century AD, the name evolved in the 4th century when the original Gallic name, Turones, became first Civitas Turonum then Tours. It was at time that the amphitheatre of Tours, one of the five largest amphitheatres of the Empire, was built. Tours became the metropolis of the Roman province of Lugdunum towards 380–388, dominating the Loire Valley, Maine, one of the outstanding figures of the history of the city was Saint Martin, second bishop who shared his coat with a naked beggar in Amiens. This incident and the importance of Martin in the medieval Christian West made Tours, and its position on the route of pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, a major centre during the Middle Ages. In the 6th century Gregory of Tours, author of the Ten Books of History, in the 9th century, Tours was at the heart of the Carolingian Rebirth, in particular because of Alcuin abbot of Marmoutier. The outcome was defeat for the Muslims, preventing France from Islamic conquest, in 845, Tours repulsed the first attack of the Viking chief Hasting. In 850, the Vikings settled at the mouths of the Seine, still led by Hasting, they went up the Loire again in 852 and sacked Angers, Tours and the abbey of Marmoutier. During the Middle Ages, Tours consisted of two juxtaposed and competing centres, in the west, the new city structured around the Abbey of Saint Martin was freed from the control of the City during the 10th century and became Châteauneuf. This space, organized between Saint Martin and the Loire, became the centre of Tours. Between these two centres remained Varennes, vineyards and fields, little occupied except for the Abbaye Saint-Julien established on the banks of the Loire, the two centres were linked during the 14th century. Tours became the capital of the county of Tours or Touraine and it was the capital of France at the time of Louis XI, who had settled in the castle of Montils, Tours and Touraine remained until the 16th century a permanent residence of the kings and court. The rebirth gave Tours and Touraine many private mansions and castles and it is also at the time of Louis XI that the silk industry was introduced – despite difficulties, the industry still survives to this day. At this time, the Catholics returned to power in Angers, the Massacre of Saint-Barthelemy was not repeated at Tours
9.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
10.
Pope Eugene IV
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Pope Eugene IV, born Gabriele Condulmer, was Pope from 3 March 1431 to his death in 1447. He is the last pope to take the name Eugene upon his election, Condulmer was born in Venice to a rich merchant family. He entered a community of Canons Regular of San Giorgio in Alga in his native city, at the age of twenty-four he was appointed by his maternal uncle, Pope Gregory XII, as Bishop of Siena. In Siena, the political leaders objected to a bishop who was not only 24, therefore, he resigned the appointment, becoming instead his uncles papal treasurer, protonotary and Cardinal Priest of the Basilica of San Clemente. Pope Martin V named him Cardinal Priest of the Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere and he also served as papal legate at Picenum in the March of Ancona. Condulmer was quickly elected to succeed Martin V in the conclave of 1431. He was crowned as Eugene IV at St. Peters Basilica on 11 March 1431 and he is described as tall, thin, with a winning countenance, although many of his troubles were owing to his own want of tact, which alienated parties from him. Upon assuming the chair, Eugene IV took violent measures against the numerous Colonna relatives of his predecessor Martin V. This at once involved him in a serious contest with the house of Colonna that nominally supported the local rights of Rome against the interests of the Papacy. By far the most important feature of Eugene IVs pontificate was the struggle between the Pope and the Council of Basel, the final embodiment of the Conciliar movement. On 23 July 1431, his legate Giuliano Cesarini opened the council, canon Beaupère of Besançon, who had been sent from Basle to Rome, gave the pope an unfavourable and exaggerated account of the temper of the people of Basle and its environs. Distrustful of its purposes and emboldened by the attendance, the Pope issued a bull on 18 December 1431 that dissolved the council. The council resisted this expression of papal prerogative, Eugene IVs action gave some weight to the contention that the Curia was opposed to any authentic measures of reform. The council refused to dissolve, instead renewed the resolutions by which the Council of Constance had declared a council superior to the Pope. A compromise was arranged by the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, who had been crowned emperor at Rome on 31 May 1433 and this situation led also to establishment of an insurrectionary republic at Rome controlled by the Colonna family. The city was restored to obedience by Giovanni Vitelleschi, the militant Bishop of Recanati, in August 1435 a peace treaty was signed at Ferrara by the various belligerents. The Pope moved to Bologna in April 1436 and his condottieri Francesco Sforza and Vitelleschi in the meantime reconquered much of the Papal States. Traditional Papal enemies such as the Prefetti di Vico were destroyed, meanwhile, the struggle with the council sitting at Basel broke out anew
11.
Charles VII of France
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Charles VII, called the Victorious or the Well-Served, was a monarch of the House of Valois who ruled as King of France from 1422 to his death. In the midst of the Hundred Years War, Charles VII inherited the throne of France under desperate circumstances, in addition, his father Charles VI had disinherited him in 1420 and recognized Henry V of England and his heirs as the legitimate successors to the French crown instead. At the same time, a war raged in France between the Armagnacs and the Burgundian party. However, his political and military position improved dramatically with the emergence of Joan of Arc as a leader in France. Joan of Arc and other charismatic figures led French troops to lift the siege of Orléans, as well as other cities on the Loire river. With the local English troops dispersed, the people of Reims switched allegiance and opened their gates and this long-awaited event boosted French morale as hostilities with England resumed. Following the battle of Castillon in 1453, the French had expelled the English from all their continental possessions except for the Pale of Calais, the last years of Charles VII were marked by conflicts with his turbulent son, the future Louis XI of France. Born at the Hôtel Saint-Pol, the residence in Paris. He was the child and fifth son of Charles VI of France. His four elder brothers, Charles, Charles, Louis and John had each held the title of Dauphin of France in turn, all died childless, leaving Charles with a rich inheritance of titles. By 1419, Charles had established his own court in Bourges and they also decided that a further meeting should take place the following 10 September. On that date, they met on the bridge at Montereau, the Duke assumed that the meeting would be entirely peaceful and diplomatic, thus he brought only a small escort with him. The Dauphins men reacted to the Dukes arrival by attacking and killing him, Charles level of involvement has remained uncertain to this day. Although he claimed to have been unaware of his mens intentions, the assassination marked the end of any attempt of a reconciliation between the two factions Armagnacs and Burgundians, thus playing into the hands of Henry V of England. Charles was later required by a treaty with Philip the Good, the son of John the Fearless, to pay penance for the murder, at the death of his father, Charles VI, the succession was cast into doubt. For those who did not recognize the treaty and believed the Dauphin Charles to be of legitimate birth, for those who did not recognize his legitimacy, the rightful heir was recognized as Charles, Duke of Orléans, cousin of the Dauphin, who was in English captivity. Only the supporters of Henry VI and the Dauphin Charles were able to enlist sufficient military force to press effectively for their candidates, the English, already in control of northern France, were able to enforce the claim of their king in the regions of France that they occupied. Northern France, including Paris, was ruled by an English regent, Henry Vs brother, John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford
12.
Court painter
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A court painter was an artist who painted for the members of a royal or noble family, sometimes on a fixed salary and on an exclusive basis where the artist was not supposed to undertake other work. Especially in the late Middle Ages, they were given the office of valet de chambre. Usually they were given a salary and formal title, and often a pension for life, in England the role of Serjeant Painter was set up for this, leaving the Kings painter free to paint mostly portraits. See category of Italian art collectors for lists that included non-aristocratic patrons, some artists, like Jan van Eyck or Diego Velázquez, were used in other capacities at court, as diplomats, functionaries, or administrators. In Islamic cultures, especially between the 14th and 17th centuries, similar arrangements operated for miniaturists and artists in other media. In the Persian miniature, the shah and other rulers typically maintained a workshop or atelier, of calligraphers, miniaturists, binders and other crafts. The name by which Riza Abbasi is usually includes the honorific title Abbasi. Abd as-Samad, a Persian painter who moved to the Mughal Empire, was given a number of significant administrative jobs, the court remained the focus of patronage of painting in the sub-Mughal princely courts of India, whether Muslim or Hindu. At many periods rulers owned or controlled royal workshops or factories making high-quality tapestries, porcelain or pottery, silks and this was especially the case in China and in the Byzantine Empire. Le Brun dominated, and largely created, the style found throughout Louis XIVs palaces, by the 20th century court painters was an obsolete position. Commonly more artists were granted permission by royalty who would sit for official portraits whether for private of patron purposes, Artists of the Tudor Court 21st Century Court Artists Michael Levey, Painting at Court, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London,1971
13.
Louis XI of France
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Louis XI, called the Prudent, was a monarch of the House of Valois who ruled as King of France from 1461 to 1483. He succeeded his father Charles VII. Louis was a devious, the king forgave his rebellious vassals, including Louis, to whom he entrusted the management of the Dauphiné, then a province in southeastern France. Louiss ceaseless intrigues, however, led his father to him from court. From the Dauphiné, Louis led his own political establishment and married Charlotte of Savoy, daughter of Louis, Duke of Savoy, against the will of his father. Charles VII sent an army to compel his son to his will, but Louis fled to Burgundy, where he was hosted by Philip the Good, when Charles VII died in 1461, Louis left the Burgundian court to take possession of his kingdom. His taste for intrigue and his diplomatic activity earned him the nicknames the Cunning. In 1472, the subsequent Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, however, Louis was able to isolate Charles from his English allies by signing the Treaty of Picquigny with Edward IV of England. The treaty formally ended the Hundred Years War, with the death of Charles the Bold at the Battle of Nancy in 1477, the dynasty of the dukes of Burgundy died out. Louis took advantage of the situation to seize numerous Burgundian territories, including Burgundy proper, without direct foreign threats, Louis was able to eliminate his rebellious vassals, expand royal power, and strengthen the economic development of his country. He died in 1483 and was succeeded by his son Charles VIII, Louis was born in Bourges on 3 July 1423, the son of King Charles VII of France. At the time of the Hundred Years War, the English held northern France, including the city of Paris, and Charles VII was restricted to the centre and south of the country. Louis was the grandson of Yolande of Aragon, who was a force in the family for driving the English out of France. Just a few weeks after Louiss christening at the Cathedral of St. Étienne on 4 July 1423, shortly thereafter, a combined Anglo-Burgundian army threatened Bourges itself. Duke Philip II was the reigning Duke of Burgundy while he was king, phillip was an uncle of King Charles VI, and he actually served on a council of regents for King Charles. The Dukes of Anjou, Berry, and Bourbon, all uncles of Charles VI, all effective power in France actually lay with this council of dukes. In its position of independence from the French throne, Burgundy had grown in size, during the Hundred Years War, the Burgundians allied themselves with England against the French crown. Indeed, the Burgundians were responsible for the capture of Joan of Arc, Joan later led troops in other victories at the Battle of Jargeau and the Battle of Patay. Nevertheless, Louis grew up aware of the weakness of the French nation
14.
Hundred Years' War
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Each side drew many allies into the war. It was one of the most notable conflicts of the Middle Ages, the war marked both the height of chivalry and its subsequent decline, and the development of strong national identities in both countries. After the Norman Conquest, the kings of England were vassals of the kings of France for their possessions in France, the French kings had endeavored, over the centuries, to reduce these possessions, to the effect that only Gascony was left to the English. Through his mother, Isabella of France, Edward III of England was the grandson of Philip IV of France and nephew of Charles IV of France, in 1316, a principle was established denying women succession to the French throne. When Charles IV died in 1328, Isabella, unable to claim the French throne for herself, the French rejected the claim, maintaining that Isabella could not transmit a right that she did not possess. Several overwhelming English victories in the war—especially at Crecy, Poitiers, however, the greater resources of the French monarchy precluded a complete conquest. Historians commonly divide the war into three separated by truces, the Edwardian Era War, the Caroline War, and the Lancastrian War. Later historians adopted the term Hundred Years War as a historiography periodization to encompass all of these events, the war owes its historical significance to multiple factors. By its end, feudal armies had been replaced by professional troops. Although primarily a conflict, the war gave impetus to ideas of French. The wider introduction of weapons and tactics supplanted the feudal armies where heavy cavalry had dominated, the war precipitated the creation of the first standing armies in Western Europe since the time of the Western Roman Empire and thus helping to change their role in warfare. With respect to the belligerents, in France, civil wars, deadly epidemics, famines, English political forces over time came to oppose the costly venture. The dissatisfaction of English nobles, resulting from the loss of their continental landholdings, the root causes of the conflict can be found in the demographic, economic and political crises of 14th century Europe. The outbreak of war was motivated by a rise in tension between the Kings of France and England about Guyenne, Flanders and Scotland. The dynastic question, which due to an interruption of the direct male line of the Capetians, was the official pretext. The question of succession to the French throne was raised after the death of Louis X in 1316. Louis X left only a daughter, and his posthumous son John I lived only a few days, Philip, Count of Poitiers, brother of Louis X, asserted that women were ineligible to succeed to the French throne. Through his political sagacity he won over his adversaries and succeeded to the French throne as Philip V of France, by the same law that he procured, his daughters were denied the succession, which passed to his younger brother, Charles IV, in 1322
15.
Adoration of the Magi
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It is related in the Bible by Matthew 2,11, On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another path. The scene was used to represent the Nativity, one of the most indispensable episodes in cycles of the Life of the Virgin as well as the Life of Christ. In the church calendar, the event is commemorated in Western Christianity as the Feast of the Epiphany, the Orthodox Church commemorates the Adoration of the Magi on the Feast of the Nativity. The term is anglicized from the Vulgate Latin section title for this passage, in the earliest depictions, the Magi are shown wearing Persian dress of trousers and Phrygian caps, usually in profile, advancing in step with their gifts held out before them. The earliest are from catacomb paintings and sarcophagus reliefs of the 4th century, crowns are first seen in the 10th century, mostly in the West, where their dress had by that time lost any Oriental flavour in most cases. Later Byzantine images often show small pill-box like hats, whose significance is disputed, melchior represents Europe and middle age. From the 14th century onwards, large retinues are often shown, the gifts are contained in spectacular pieces of work. The subject matter is found in stained glass. Many hundreds of artists have treated the subject, a partial list of those with articles follows. See also, Category, Adoration of the Magi in art, Adoration of the Magi, Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C. Hieronymus Bosch, Museo del Prado, Madrid Adoration of the Magi of 1475, Botticelli, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C
16.
Dauphin of France
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The Dauphin of France —strictly The Dauphin of Viennois —was the title given to the heir apparent to the throne of France from 1350 to 1791 and 1824 to 1830. The word is French for dolphin, as a reference to the depiction of the animal on their coat of arms, guigues IV, Count of Vienne, had a dolphin on his coat of arms and was nicknamed le Dauphin. The wife of the Dauphin was known as la Dauphine, the first French prince called le Dauphin was Charles the Wise, later to become Charles V of France. The title was equivalent to the English Prince of Wales, the Scottish Duke of Rothesay, the Portuguese Prince of Brazil. The official style of a Dauphin of France, prior to 1461, was par la grâce de Dieu, dauphin de Viennois, comte de Valentinois et de Diois. A Dauphin of France united the coat of arms of the Dauphiné, which featured Dolphins, with the French fleurs-de-lis, and might, where appropriate, further unite that with other arms. Because of this, the Dauphiné suffered from anarchy in the 14th and 15th centuries, for example, he married Charlotte of Savoy against his fathers wishes. Savoy was an ally of the Dauphiné, and Louis wished to reaffirm that alliance to stamp out rebels. Louis was driven out of the Dauphiné by Charles VIIs soldiers in 1456, after his succession as Louis XI of France in 1461, Louis united the Dauphiné with France, bringing it under royal control. The sons of the King of France hold the style and rank of Son of France, while male-line grandsons hold the style, the sons and grandsons of the Dauphin ranked higher than their cousins, being treated as the kings children and grandchildren respectively. The title was abolished by the Constitution of 1791, which made France a constitutional monarchy, under the constitution the heir to the throne was restyled Prince Royal, taking effect from the inception of the Legislative Assembly on 1 October 1791. The title was restored in potentia under the Bourbon Restoration of Louis XVIII, with the accession of his brother Charles X, Charles son and heir Louis-Antoine, Duke of Angoulême automatically became Dauphin. With the removal of the Bourbons the title fell into disuse, in Mark Twains Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck encounters two odd characters who turn out to be professional con men. One of them claims that he should be treated with deference, since he is really an impoverished English duke, in Baronness Emma Orczys Eldorado, the Scarlet Pimpernel rescues the Dauphin from prison and helps spirit him from France. Alphonse Daudet wrote a story called The Death of the Dauphin. It is also mentioned in Cormac McCarthys Blood Meridian
17.
Charles V of France
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Charles V, called the Wise, was a monarch of the House of Valois who ruled as King of France from 1364 to his death. In 1349, as a prince, Charles received from his grandfather King Philip VI the province of Dauphiné to rule. This allowed him to bear the title Dauphin until his coronation, after 1350, all heirs apparent of France bore the title of Dauphin until their coronation. Charles became regent of France when his father John II was captured by the English at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. With the help of talented advisers known as the Marmousets, his management of the kingdom allowed him to replenish the royal treasury. He established the first permanent army paid with regular wages, which liberated the French populace from the companies of routiers who regularly plundered the country when not employed. Furthermore, the French Navy, led by Jean de Vienne and he was succeeded by his son Charles VI the Mad, whose disastrous reign allowed the English to regain control of large parts of France. Charles was born at the Château de Vincennes outside of Paris, the future king was highly intelligent but physically weak, with pale skin and a thin, ill-proportioned body. This made a sharp contrast to his father, who was tall, strong, as neither the pope nor the emperor wanted to buy, the transaction was concluded with Philip VI. Under the Treaty of Romans, the Dauphiné of Viennois was to be held by a son of the future king John the Good, so it was Charles, the eldest son of the latter, who became the first Dauphin. At the age of twelve, he was confronted with the exercise of power while staying in Grenoble. A few days after his arrival, the people of Grenoble were invited to the Place Notre-Dame, young Charles took his place next to Bishop John of Chissé and received the oath of allegiance of the people. On April 8,1350 at Tain-lHermitage, the Dauphin married his cousin Joanna of Bourbon at the age of 12, the prior approval of the pope was obtained for this consanguineous marriage. The marriage was delayed by the death of his mother Bonne of Luxembourg and his grandmother Joan the Lame, the dauphin himself had been seriously ill from August to December 1349. Gatherings were limited to slow the spread of the then raging in Europe. Despite his young age, the applied to be recognized by his subjects. Charles was recalled to Paris at the death of his grandfather Philip VI, the legitimacy of John the Good, and that of the Valois in general, was not unanimous. His father, Philip VI, had lost all credibility with the disasters of Crecy, Calais, the ravages of the plague, the royal clan had to cope with opposition from all sides in the kingdom
18.
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
19.
Grandes Chroniques de France
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The Grandes Chroniques de France is a vernacular royal compilation of the history of France, most manuscripts of which are luxury copies that are heavily illuminated. Copies were produced between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, the text being extended at intervals to cover recent events and it was continued under his successors until completed in 1461. It covers the Merovingian, Carolingian, and Direct Capetian dynasties of French kings, with illustrations depicting personages, in front of this a number of figures were engaged in key historical moments, especially battles, coronations, weddings and important meetings. There might be over 200 such scenes illustrated, often collected together as individual compartments in a miniature with a decorated framework. By the mid-15th century the number of illustrations was fewer, around 50 even in lavish copies, but the miniatures were larger, scenes of ceremonial moments, now often including large crowds, had become more popular, though battles retained their place. As first written, the Grandes Chroniques traced the history of the French kings from their origins in Troy to the death of Philip II of France, the continuations of the text were drafted first at Saint-Denis and then at the court in Paris. Its final form brought the chronicle down to the death of Charles V in the 1380s, there are also Burgundian variants, which give a different account of the final period, a product of the dissention which finally led to the Armagnac–Burgundian Civil War in 1407-35. The compiler, Abbot Guillaume Fillastre of Saint Bertin, aimed to promote Philips claim to the French throne and he is shown handing over the work to Philip in the presentation miniature by Simon Marmion in Philips copy. Sources for material on the reign of Charlemagne included the Historia Caroli Magni, also known as the Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle, other sources included Abbot Sugers Life of Louis IV. The earliest surviving copy was presented by the monks of St-Denis to Philip III in about 1274, with 36 miniatures and historiated initials by Parisian artists. Especially fine are the lavishly illustrated copies made for Charles V, Louis VII, illuminated by Jean Fouquet and Philip the Good of Burgundy, now in the Russian National Library, Saint Petersburg. During this period, there were no copies of the work that belonged to members of the Parlement or the university community. But from the century a number of unillustrated copies survive on paper or on mixtures of parchment and paper that belonged to secretaries and notaries. Latterly, under the Valois Dukes of Burgundy, it there as well. A unusually late copy, never finished, was begun in Calais in 1487, the miniatures that were completed seem to be by English artists. Altogether only four early print editions were made, all in Paris and these were in 1477,1493,1514 and 1518
20.
Charles IV of France
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Charles IV, called the Fair in France and the Bald in Navarre, was the last direct Capetian King of France and King of Navarre from 1322 to his death. Charles was the son of Philip IV, like his father. Beginning in 1323 Charles was confronted with a peasant revolt in Flanders, as duke of Guyenne, King Edward II of England was a vassal of Charles, but he was reluctant to pay homage to another king. In retaliation, Charles conquered the Duchy of Guyenne in a known as the War of Saint-Sardos. In a peace agreement, Edward II accepted to swear allegiance to Charles, in exchange, Guyenne was returned to Edward but with a much-reduced territory. When Charles IV died without heir, the senior lineage of the House of Capet ended. He was succeeded by his cousin Philip of Valois, but the legitimacy was one factor of the Hundred Years War. By virtue of the birthright of his mother, Joan I of Navarre, Charles claimed the title Charles I, King of Navarre. From 1314 to his accession to the throne, he held the title of Count of La Marche and was crowned King of France in 1322 at the cathedral in Reims. Charles married his first wife, Blanche of Burgundy, the daughter of Otto IV, Count of Burgundy, in 1308, after Charles assumed the throne he refused to release Blanche, their marriage was annulled, and Blanche retreated to a nunnery. His second wife, Marie of Luxembourg, the daughter of Henry VII, Charles married again in 1325, this time to Jeanne dÉvreux, she was his first cousin, and the marriage required approval from Pope John XXII. Jeanne was crowned queen in 1326, in one of the better recorded French coronation ceremonies, the coronation was also the first appearance of the latterly famous medieval cook, Guillaume Tirel, then only a junior servant. During the first half of his reign Charles relied heavily on his uncle, Charles of Valois, for advice, Charles of Valois would have been aware that if Charles died without male heirs, he and his male heirs would have a good claim to the crown. Charles undertook rapid steps to assert his own control, executing the Count of LIsle-Jourdain, a troublesome southern noble, Charles, a relatively well educated king, also founded a famous library at Fontainebleau. During his six-year reign Charles administration became increasingly unpopular and he debased the coinage to his own benefit, sold offices, increased taxation, exacted burdensome duties, and confiscated estates from enemies or those he disliked. He was also involved in Jewish issues during the period. Charles father, Philip IV, had confiscated the estates of numerous Jews in 1306, and Charles took vigorous, finally, Charles at least acquiesced, or at worst actively ordered, in the expulsion of many Jews from France following the leper scare. Charles inherited a long-running period of tension between England and France, once Charles took up the throne, Edward attempted to avoid payment again
21.
Marie of Luxembourg, Queen of France
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Not to be confused with Marie de Luxembourg, Countess of Vendôme. Marie of Luxembourg, was by birth member of the House of Luxembourg and by marriage Queen of France and she was the daughter of Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor and Margaret of Brabant. Her two siblings were John of Luxembourg and Beatrice of Luxembourg, Queen of Hungary, Marie was betrothed in 1308 to Louis of Bavaria, son and heir to Rudolf I, Duke of Bavaria. The engagement was agreed on soon after Maries father Henry became King of the Romans and it ended due to the death of Louis around 1311. During the same year, Maries mother Queen Margaret died whilst travelling with Henry in Geno, on 21 September 1322 in either Paris or Provins Marie married to Charles IV of France following the annulment of his first marriage to the adulterous Blanche of Burgundy. Blanche had given birth to two children, Philip and Joan, but both of them died young and Charles needed a son and heir to carry on the House of Capet. On 15 May 1323 Marie was consecrated Queen of France at Sainte-Chapelle by Guillaume de Melum, in the same year she became pregnant but she later miscarried a girl. Whilst pregnant again in March 1324, Marie and Charles were travelling to Avignon to visit the pope when Marie fell out of the bottom of the coach. As a result, she went into labour and her child, a boy, was born prematurely, following her death Charles married Jeanne dÉvreux, but failed to father a son, so the direct House of Capet was succeeded its branch, the House of Valois
22.
Melun Diptych
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The Melun Diptych is a two-panel oil painting by the French court painter Jean Fouquet created around 1452. The name of the came from its original home in the Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame in Melun. The left panel depicts Etienne Chevalier with his patron saint St. Stephen, each wooden panel measures about 93 by 85 centimeters and the two would have been hinged together at the center. The two pieces, originally a diptych, are now separated, the left panel now resides in the Staatliche Museen in Berlin and the right panel is now located at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, Belgium. A self-portrait medallion is also associated with the two panels, measuring 6 centimeters in diameter, it would have adorned the frame, and consists of copper, enamel, and gold. The medallion is now located in the Louvre in Paris, France, on the left Étienne Chevalier, the treasurer to King Charles VII of France, kneels in a red robe with in his hand in a position of prayer. The king liked to have such as Chevalier about him because he thought them more reliable than nobles. On his right is Chevaliers patron saint, St. Stephen and his right arm is draped across Chevaliers shoulder while his left hand holds a book and a jagged rock, his representational attribute as he was stoned to death. Both men gaze off to the right as if they were looking at the Virgin, the wall behind the treasurer and his patron saint is inlaid with marble panels and has elaborate white and gold moldings. The tiled floors neutral colors create a stark contrast with the colors of the mens robes. Identifying Chevalier is an engraving on the wall behind him that says IER ESTIEN and this lettering has been used to link the painting to Fouquet since he never signed any of his work. It is very similar to lettering used in several miniatures which are attributed to him, seated on an elaborate gold throne, the Madonna and the Christ child are depicted in the right panel. The Madonna wears a dress, white mantle and a jewel-encrusted crown. On her lap sits the child, who makes a gesture to the left with His left hand at the patron. The two are surrounded by blue and red cherubim, which greatly contrast with the skin of the Virgin. Although the figures are modeled realistically, the mood is otherworldly, the Madonna is depicted here as the Queen of Heaven and is meant to reveal her as between the veil of heaven and earth. She is both human and otherworldly, the unnatural colors have been attributed to represent the heraldic colors of the king, being red, white, and blue. The Virgin is believed to be a portrait of Agnès Sorel, mistress of King Charles VII
23.
Saint Stephen
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Accused of blasphemy, at his trial he made a long speech denouncing the Jewish authorities who were sitting in judgment on him and was then stoned to death. His martyrdom was witnessed by Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee who would himself become a follower of Jesus. The only primary source for information about Stephen is the New Testament book of the Acts of the Apostles, Stephen is mentioned in Acts 6 as one of the Greek-speaking Hellenistic Jews selected to participate in a fairer distribution of welfare to the Greek-speaking widows. The Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox Churches, Stephens name in the original Greek of the Acts of the Apostles is given as Stephanos, meaning crown. Traditionally, Stephen is invested with a crown of martyrdom, artistic representations often depict him with three stones and the palm frond. Eastern Christian iconography shows him as a young, beardless man with a tonsure, wearing a deacons vestments, according to Orthodox belief, he was the eldest and is therefore called archdeacon. As another deacon, Nicholas of Antioch, is stated to have been a convert to Judaism, it may be assumed that Stephen was born Jewish. Since the name Stephanos is Greek, it has assumed that he was one of these Hellenistic Jews. Stephen is stated to have full of faith and the Holy Spirit. Members of these synagogues had challenged Stephens teachings, but Stephen had bested them in debate, furious at this humiliation, they suborned false testimony that Stephen had preached blasphemy against Moses and God. They dragged him to appear before the Sanhedrin, the legal court of Jewish elders, accusing him of preaching against the Temple. Stephen is said to have been unperturbed, his face looking like that of an angel, robert Eisenman puts forward the theory that the stoning of Stephen is in fact an account of the stoning of James, first Bishop of Jerusalem, as recounted by Josephus, in 62CE. In a long speech to the Sanhedrin comprising almost the whole of Acts Chapter 7, Stephen presents his view of the history of Israel. The God of glory, he says, appeared to Abraham in Mesopotamia, thus establishing at the beginning of the one of its major themes. Stephen recounts the stories of the patriarchs in some depth, God appeared to Moses in the burning bush, and inspired Moses to lead his people out of Egypt. Nevertheless, the Israelites turned to other gods and this establishes the second main theme of Stephens speech, Israels disobedience to God. Stephen faced two accusations, that he had declared that Jesus would destroy the Temple in Jerusalem and that he had changed the customs of Moses. The Roman Catholic Church states that St. Stephen appealed to the Jewish scriptures to prove how the laws of Moses were not subverted by Jesus but and he denounces his listeners as stiff-necked people who, just as their ancestors had done, resist the Holy Spirit
24.
Berlin
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Berlin is the capital and the largest city of Germany as well as one of its constituent 16 states. With a population of approximately 3.5 million, Berlin is the second most populous city proper, due to its location in the European Plain, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. Around one-third of the area is composed of forests, parks, gardens, rivers. Berlin in the 1920s was the third largest municipality in the world, following German reunification in 1990, Berlin once again became the capital of all-Germany. Berlin is a city of culture, politics, media. Its economy is based on high-tech firms and the sector, encompassing a diverse range of creative industries, research facilities, media corporations. Berlin serves as a hub for air and rail traffic and has a highly complex public transportation network. The metropolis is a popular tourist destination, significant industries also include IT, pharmaceuticals, biomedical engineering, clean tech, biotechnology, construction and electronics. Modern Berlin is home to world renowned universities, orchestras, museums and its urban setting has made it a sought-after location for international film productions. The city is known for its festivals, diverse architecture, nightlife, contemporary arts. Since 2000 Berlin has seen the emergence of a cosmopolitan entrepreneurial scene, the name Berlin has its roots in the language of West Slavic inhabitants of the area of todays Berlin, and may be related to the Old Polabian stem berl-/birl-. All German place names ending on -ow, -itz and -in, since the Ber- at the beginning sounds like the German word Bär, a bear appears in the coat of arms of the city. It is therefore a canting arm, the first written records of towns in the area of present-day Berlin date from the late 12th century. Spandau is first mentioned in 1197 and Köpenick in 1209, although these areas did not join Berlin until 1920, the central part of Berlin can be traced back to two towns. Cölln on the Fischerinsel is first mentioned in a 1237 document,1237 is considered the founding date of the city. The two towns over time formed close economic and social ties, and profited from the right on the two important trade routes Via Imperii and from Bruges to Novgorod. In 1307, they formed an alliance with a common external policy, in 1415 Frederick I became the elector of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, which he ruled until 1440. In 1443 Frederick II Irontooth started the construction of a new palace in the twin city Berlin-Cölln
25.
Altarpiece
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An altarpiece is an artwork such as a painting, sculpture or relief representing a religious subject made for placing behind the altar of a Christian church. Altarpieces were one of the most important products of Christian art especially from the late Middle Ages to the era of the Counter-Reformation. Large number of altarpieces are now removed from their settings, and often their elaborate sculpted frameworks. Altarpieces seem to have begun to be used during the 11th century, the reasons and forces that led to the development of altarpieces are not generally agreed upon. The habit of placing decorated reliquaries of saints on or behind the altar, as well as the tradition of decorating the front of the altar with sculptures or textiles, an elaborate example of such an early altarpiece is the Pala dOro in Venice. The appearance and development of these first altarpieces marked an important turning point both in the history of Christian art and Christian religious practice, the autonomous image now assumed a legitimate position at the centre of Christian worship. Painted panel altars emerged in Italy during the 13th century, in the 13th century, it is not uncommon to find frescoed or mural altarpieces in Italy, mural paintings behind the altar function as visual complements for the liturgy. These altarpieces were influenced by Byzantine art, notably icons, which reached Western Europe in greater numbers following the conquest of Constantinople in 1204. During this time, altarpieces began to be decorated with an outer. Vigoroso da Sienas altarpiece from 1291 display such an altarpiece and this treatment of the altarpiece would eventually pave the way for the emergence, in the 14th century, of the polyptych. The sculpted elements in the emerging polyptychs often took inspiration from contemporary Gothic architecture, in Italy, they were still typically executed in wood and painted, while in northern Europe altarpieces were often made of stone. The early 14th century saw the emergence, in Germany, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, the Baltic region, by hinging the outer panels to the central panel and painting them on both sides, the motif could be regulated by opening or closing the wings. The pictures could thus be changed depending on liturgical demands, the earliest often displayed sculptures on the inner panels, i. e. displayed when open, and paintings on the back of the wings, displayed when closed. With the advent of winged altarpieces, a shift in imagery also occurred, instead of being centred on a single holy figure, altarpieces began to portray more complex narratives linked to the Christian concept of salvation. As the Middle Ages progressed, altarpieces began to be commissioned more frequently, in Northern Europe, initially Lübeck and later Antwerp would develop into veritable export centres for the production of altarpieces, exporting to Scandinavia, Spain and northern France. By the 15th century, altarpieces were often commissioned not only by churches but also by individuals, families, guilds, the 15th century saw the birth of Early Netherlandish painting in the Low Countries, henceforth panel painting would dominate altarpiece production in the area. In Germany, sculpted wooden altarpieces were instead generally preferred, while in England alabaster was used to a large extent, in England, as well as in France, stone retables enjoyed general popularity. In Italy both stone retables and wooden polyptychs were common, with painted panels and often with complex framing in the form of architectural compositions
26.
Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp
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The Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp is a museum in Antwerp, Belgium, founded in 1810, houses a collection of paintings, sculptures and drawings from the fourteenth to the twentieth centuries. This collection is representative of the production and the taste of art enthusiasts in Antwerp, Belgium. The museum is closed for renovation until the end of 2017, the neoclassical building housing the collection is one of the primary landmarks of the Zuid district of Antwerp. The majestic building was designed by Jacob Winders and Frans van Dijk, built beginning in 1884, opened in 1890, the building stands in gardens bounded by the Leopold de Waalplaats, the Schildersstraat, the Plaatsnijdersstraat, and the Beeldhouwersstraat. The museums collection began with the artworks owned by the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke, when the guild disbanded, its gallery of paintings went to the Academy of Fine Arts, which had been founded in 1663 with the involvement of David Teniers. The gallery had works by Peter Paul Rubens, Jacob Jordaens, during French occupations in 1794 and 1796, art was looted from churches and other buildings in Antwerp, the pieces that were later recovered became part of the museums collection. By 1817 the museum listed 127 items in its catalogue, mostly dating to the mid-16th and 17th centuries, william I of the Netherlands helped the museum in various ways. In 1823 he donated three paintings, including a work by Titian—Pope Alexander IV presents Jacopo Pesaro to Saint Peter—which became the museums first foreign piece. He decreed a grant of 20,000 guilders to build the collections contemporary art in 1827, only in 1873 did the museum begin to acquire living artists works. A significant bequest from a mayor of Antwerp, Florent van Ertborn. Van Ertborn had collected Early Netherlandish art at a time when it was out of favour and these works included Jan van Eycks Saint Barbara and Madonna at the Fountain and Rogier van der Weydens Portrait of Philip de Croy and the Seven Sacraments Altarpiece. Also in the bequest were paintings by Hans Memling, Dieric Bouts, Joachim Patinir, Quinten Massys, Jean Fouquet, Simone Martini, Antonello da Messina, at the end of 2011 the museum closed to the public for major renovations
27.
Antwerp
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Antwerp is a city in Belgium, the capital of Antwerp province in the region of Flanders. With a population of 510,610, it is the most populous city proper in Belgium and its metropolitan area houses around 1,200,000 people, which is second behind Brussels. Antwerp is on the River Scheldt, linked to the North Sea by the Westerschelde estuary, the Port of Antwerp is one of the biggest in the world, ranking second in Europe and within the top 20 globally. Antwerp has long been an important city in the Low Countries, the inhabitants of Antwerp are nicknamed Sinjoren, after the Spanish honorific señor or French seigneur, lord, referring to the Spanish noblemen who ruled the city in the 17th century. The city hosted the 1920 Summer Olympics, according to folklore, notably celebrated by a statue in front of the town hall, the city got its name from a legend about a giant called Antigoon who lived near the Scheldt river. He exacted a toll from passing boatmen, and for those who refused, he severed one of their hands, eventually the giant was killed by a young hero named Silvius Brabo, who cut off the giants own hand and flung it into the river. Hence the name Antwerpen, from Dutch hand werpen, akin to Old English hand and wearpan, a longstanding theory is that the name originated in the Gallo-Roman period and comes from the Latin antverpia. Antverpia would come from Ante Verpia, indicating land that forms by deposition in the curve of a river. Note that the river Scheldt, before a period between 600 and 750, followed a different track. This must have coincided roughly with the current ringway south of the city, however, many historians think it unlikely that there was a large settlement which would be named Antverpia, but more something like an outpost with a river crossing. However, John Lothrop Motley argues, and so do a lot of Dutch etymologists and historians, aan t werp is also possible. This warp is a hill or a river deposit, high enough to remain dry at high tide. Another word for werp is pol hence polders, historical Antwerp allegedly had its origins in a Gallo-Roman vicus. Excavations carried out in the oldest section near the Scheldt, 1952–1961, produced pottery shards, the earliest mention of Antwerp dates from the 4th century. In the 4th century, Antwerp was first named, having been settled by the Germanic Franks, the name was reputed to have been derived from anda and werpum. The Merovingian Antwerp was evangelized by Saint Amand in the 7th century, at the end of the 10th century, the Scheldt became the boundary of the Holy Roman Empire. Antwerp became a margraviate in 980, by the German emperor Otto I, in the 11th century Godfrey of Bouillon was for some years known as the marquis of Antwerp. In the 12th century, Norbert of Xanten established a community of his Premonstratensian canons at St. Michaels Abbey at Caloes
28.
Jan van Eyck
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Jan van Eyck was a Flemish/Netherlandish painter active in Bruges. He is often considered one of the founders of Early Netherlandish painting school, the few surviving records of his early life indicate that he was born c. After Johns death in 1425 he was employed in Lille as court painter to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, until 1429 before moving to Bruges, where he lived until his death. Apart from the Ghent Altarpiece and the miniatures of the Turin-Milan Hours, about 20 surviving paintings are confidently attributed to him. Ten, including the Ghent altarpiece, are dated and signed with a variation of his motto, ALS IK KAN always written in Greek characters, Van Eyck painted both secular and religious subject matter, including altarpieces, single panel religious figures and commissioned portraits. His work includes single panels, diptychs, triptychs, and polyptych panels and he was well paid by Philip, who sought that the painter was secure financially and had artistic freedom and could paint whenever he pleased. Van Eycks work comes from the International Gothic style, but he soon eclipsed it, through his developments in the use of oil paint he achieved a new level of virtuosity. Van Eyck was highly influential and his techniques and style were adopted and refined by the Early Netherlandish painters, little is known of Jan van Eycks early life and neither the date nor place of his birth is documented. This suggests a date of birth of 1395 at the latest, however, his apparent age in the London probable self-portrait of 1433 suggests to most scholars a date closer to 1380. He was identified in the late 1500s as having been born in Maaseik and this claim is still considered credible on etymological grounds, considering that Van Eyck means of Eyck which is an old variant spelling of eik. He had a sister Margareta, and at least two brothers, Hubert and Lambert, both painters, but the order of their births has not been established. Another significant, and rather younger, painter who worked in Southern France and it is not known where Jan was educated, but he had knowledge of Latin and used the Greek and Hebrew alphabets in his inscriptions, indicating that he was schooled in the classics. This level of education was rare among painters, and would have made him attractive to the cultivated Philip. Van Eyck served John of Bavaria-Straubing, ruler of Holland, Hainault, by this time van Eyck had assembled a small workshop and was involved in redecorating the Binnenhof palace in The Hague. After Johns death in 1425 he moved to Bruges and came to the attention of Philip the Good c and his emergence as a collectable painter generally follows his appointment to Philips court, and from this point his activity in the court is comparatively well documented. He served as court artist and diplomat, and a was a member of the Tournai painters guild. On 18 October 1427, the Feast of St. Luke, he travelled to Tournai to attend a banquet in his honour, also attended by Robert Campin, a court salary freed him from commissioned work, and allowed a large degree of artistic freedom. Over the following decade van Eycks reputation and technical ability grew, unlike most of his peers his reputation never diminished and he remained well regarded over the following centuries
29.
Portrait of a Man (Self Portrait?)
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Portrait of a Man is an oil painting by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck, from 1433. It has been in the National Gallery, London since 1851, having been in England since Thomas Howard, 21st Earl of Arundel acquired it, the panel contains an inscription at the top reading Als Ich Can which was intended as as I/Eyck can. It is, along with the unusually confrontational gaze, taken as an indication that the work is a self-portrait, the original frame survives, and has the painted inscription JOHES DE EYCK ME FECIT ANO MCCCC.33. OCTOBRIS at the bottom and at the top the motto AlC IXH XAN, which appears on other van Eyck paintings, always written in Greek letters, as on other van Eyck frames, the letters are painted to appear carved. Like all van Eycks portraits, it shows a sharp and detailed analysis of the physical lines, the subject is often thought to be van Eyck himself, though there is no direct evidence for this. In none of these is it as prominent as here, a reason, along with the very direct but bloodshot gaze. Some art historians view the work as a form of calling card for prospective clients, a similar chaperon is worn by a figure in the background of van Eycks Rolin Madonna, and it has also been suggested that this is a self-portrait. Depicting the lines and folds of a chaperon would allow an artist to display his skill. More so, the positioning of its long cornette may directly refer to his occupation as a painter - it is rolled up, the emphasis on the sitters sharp and keenly intelligent shot eyes is a further subtle clue, one found again later in Albrecht Dürer 1500 Self-Portrait. Typically for van Eyck, the head is a large in relation to the torso. The technique shows the skill, economy and speed of van Eycks best work, campbell describes the painting of the left eye as follows, The white of the eye is laid in white mixed with minute quantities of red and blue. A very thin scumble of red is brought over the underlayer, the veins are painted in vermilion into the wet scumble. The iris is ultra-marine, fairly pure at its circumference but mixed with white, there are black flecks near the circumference and the pupil is painted in black over the blue of the iris. ISBN 0-19-284269-2 National Gallery Jan van Eyck, Portrait of a Man in a Red Turban,1433, Smarthistory
30.
Chantilly, Oise
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Chantilly is a commune in the Oise department in the valley of the Nonette in the Hauts-de-France region of northern France. Surrounded by Chantilly Forest, the town of 11,000 inhabitants falls within the area of Paris. It lies 38.4 km north-northeast from the centre of Paris and it now houses the Musée Condé. Chantilly is also known for its horse racing track, the Chantilly Racecourse, where races are held for the prix du Jockey Club. Chantilly and the communities are home to the largest racehorse-training community in France. Chantilly is also home to the Living Museum of the Horse and it is considered one of the more important tourist destinations in the Paris area. Chantilly gave its name to Chantilly cream and to Chantilly lace, the city was the base for the England National Football Team during the Euro 2016 Championship. Chantilly lies in the Parisian basin, at the end of the region of Hauts-de-France. It belongs to the region of Valois. Chantilly lies 39 km southwest of Beauvais,79 km south of Amiens, Chantilly is the center of an urban area that includes the communes of Avilly-Saint-Léonard, Boran-sur-Oise, Coye-la-Forêt, Gouvieux, Lamorlaye, and Vineuil-Saint-Firmin. Its the third-largest urban area in the Oise and the seventh-largest in Hauts-de-France and it has no large businesses or heavy industry and 40% of the population works in Ile-de-France, in other words Paris or its closer suburbs, which are less than an hour away by train. Chantilly straddles the junction of the Paris Basin and the western Valois, the site of the town was originally a clearing or meadowland, sometimes called a lawn or pelouse, which is mostly occupied today by the racecourse. The remaining open space between the town and the racecourse is always referred to as the little lawn, the highest point in the area,112 meters, is at Bois Lorris, in Lamorlaye. The lowest elevation is 35m, at the Canardière on the banks of the Nonette in Gouvieux, the commune sits on a Lutetian sedimentary limestone plateau covered by Chantilly Forest. Sand created by wind and erosion covers this chalky plateau, although the sand is less than a meter thick it is very useful for training horses in the forest. This stone has also used for building in parts of the region. It was also used for building in Chantilly itself during the 18th century, when a quarry on the current site of the racecourse produced stone for the officials housing. In the following century the quarry was used to grow mushrooms and it now belongs to the Chantilly Estate and is periodically open to the public
31.
Josephus
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Josephus claimed the Jewish Messianic prophecies that initiated the First Roman-Jewish War made reference to Vespasian becoming Emperor of Rome. In response Vespasian decided to keep Josephus as a slave and interpreter, after Vespasian became Emperor in 69 CE, he granted Josephus his freedom, at which time Josephus assumed the emperors family name of Flavius. Flavius Josephus fully defected to the Roman side and was granted Roman citizenship and he became an advisor and friend of Vespasians son Titus, serving as his translator when Titus led the Siege of Jerusalem. Since the siege proved ineffective at stopping the Jewish revolt, the citys destruction, Josephus recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the first century CE and the First Jewish–Roman War, including the Siege of Masada. His most important works were The Jewish War and Antiquities of the Jews, the Jewish War recounts the Jewish revolt against Roman occupation. Antiquities of the Jews recounts the history of the world from a Jewish perspective for an ostensibly Roman audience and these works provide valuable insight into first century Judaism and the background of Early Christianity. Josephus introduces himself in Greek as Iōsēpos, son of Matthias and he was the second-born son of Matthias. His older full-blooded brother was also called Matthias and their mother was an aristocratic woman who descended from the royal and formerly ruling Hasmonean dynasty. Josephuss paternal grandparents were Josephus and his wife—an unnamed Hebrew noblewoman, distant relatives of each other and he descended through his father from the priestly order of the Jehoiarib, which was the first of the 24 orders of priests in the Temple in Jerusalem. Josephus was a descendant of the high priest Jonathon, born and raised in Jerusalem, Josephus was educated alongside his brother. In his early twenties, he traveled to negotiate with Emperor Nero for the release of 12 Jewish priests, Josephus successfully fought the Roman army in Galilee, until he was captured by the Romans during the height of the war. After the Jewish garrison of Yodfat fell under siege, the Romans invaded, killing thousands, according to Josephus, he was trapped in a cave with 40 of his companions in July 67 CE. The Romans asked the group to surrender, but they refused, Josephus suggested a method of collective suicide, they drew lots and killed each other, one by one, counting to every third person. Two men were left, who surrendered to the Roman forces, in 69 CE, Josephus was released. According to his account, he acted as a negotiator with the defenders during the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE, in which his parents and first wife died. While being confined at Yodfat, Josephus claimed to have experienced a divine revelation, after the prediction came true, he was released by Vespasian, who considered his gift of prophecy to be divine. In 71 CE, he went to Rome in the entourage of Titus, becoming a Roman citizen, in addition to Roman citizenship, he was granted accommodation in conquered Judaea and a decent, if not extravagant, pension. While in Rome and under Flavian patronage, Josephus wrote all of his known works, although he uses Josephus, he appears to have taken the Roman praenomen Titus and nomen Flavius from his patrons
32.
Henry Yates Thompson
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Henry Yates Thompson was a British newspaper proprietor and collector of illuminated manuscripts. He was educated at Harrow and at Trinity College, Cambridge, two years after his marriage to Elizabeth Smith, the eldest daughter of publisher George Smith, in 1878, Yates Thompsons father-in-law gave him ownership of the Pall Mall Gazette. Previously a Conservative newspaper, Thompson transformed it into a Liberal publication, hiring first John Morley, then Morleys assistant, W. T. Stead and he supported Stead through the controversy surrounding the editors famous exposé of child prostitution, The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon in 1885. Yet Yates Thompson had little interest in the business. Yates Thompsons sale of the Gazette allowed him to more time on what had become since the 1870s his primary interest. He benefited from the dispersal of a number of collections, including those from the libraries of Sir Thomas Phillipps, Firmin Didot, John Ruskin, and he had a prodigious memory, which aided him in combining long-separated volumes and manuscripts into complete sets. Endeavoring to keep his collection manageable, he sold off lesser volumes that he acquired and his collection was catalogued in 4 volumes between 1898 and 1912 by M. R. James and others. He decided to refine his collection to include 100 manuscripts of the highest quality, when he was able to buy a better manuscript thereafter, he would sell one to make way for it. Many of the books that Yates Thompson collected were subsequently donated to museums, including the British Library, BnF and he received the Freedom of Liverpool in October 1901, in recognition of benefits he had conferred on the city, including the palm houses in Sefton and Stanley parks. An Englishman in the American Civil War, The Diaries of Henry Yates Thompson
33.
Melun
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Melun is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. It is a suburb of Paris 41.4 km from the centre of Paris. Melun is the prefecture of the Seine-et-Marne, and the seat of an arrondissement. Meledunum began as a Gaulish town, Caesar noted Melun as a town of the Senones, situated on an island in the Seine, at the island there was a wooden bridge, which his men repaired. Roman Meledunum was a mutatio where fresh horses were available for official couriers on the Roman road south-southeast of Paris. The Normans sacked it in 845, the castle of Melun became a royal residence of the Capetian kings. Hugh Capet gave Melun to Bouchard, his favorite, in the reign of Hughs son, Robert II of France, Eudes, the count of Champagne, bought the city, but the king took it back for Bouchard in 999. The chatelain Gautier and his wife, who had sold the city, were hanged, Robert died there in July 1031. Donatus Bouchard I, also Count of Vendôme and Count of Paris The early viscounts of Melun were listed by 17th and 18th century genealogists, such viscounts include Honoré Armand de Villars and Claude Louis Hector de Villars. Melun is served by the Gare de Melun, which is a station on Paris RER line D, on the Transilien R suburban rail line. The Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame, Melun was the home of the Melun Diptych. The nearby château of Vaux-le-Vicomte is considered a predecessor of Palace of Versailles. The officers school of the French Gendarmerie is located in Melun, the Viscounts and Counts of Melun are listed in Detlev Schwennicke, Europäische Stammtafeln, Neue Folge, Volume VII, Tafels 55 &56
34.
Diptych
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A diptych is any object with two flat plates attached at a hinge. For example, the notebook and school exercise book of the ancient world was a diptych consisting of a pair of such plates that contained a recessed space filled with wax. Writing was accomplished by scratching the wax surface with a stylus, when the notes were no longer needed, the wax could be slightly heated and then smoothed to allow reuse. Ordinary versions had wooden frames, but more luxurious diptychs were crafted with more expensive materials, others may have been made to celebrate a wedding, or, perhaps like the Poet and Muse diptych at Monza, simply commissioned for private use. Some of the most important surviving works of the Late Roman Empire are diptychs, of some dozens survive. The largest surviving Byzantine ivory panel, is a leaf from a diptych in the Justinian court manner of c, from the Middle Ages many panel paintings took the diptych form, as small portable works for personal use, Eastern Orthodox ones may be called travelling icons. These suited the mobile lives of medieval elites, the ivories tended to have scenes in several registers crowded with small figures. The outsides, which received considerable wear from travelling, might have simpler decorative designs. Large altarpieces tended to be made in form, with two outer panels that could be closed across the main central representation. They are one type of the forms of painting known as polyptychs. The diptych was a format in Early Netherlandish painting and depicted subjects ranging from secular portraiture to religious personages and stories. Often a portrait and a Madonna and Child had a leaf each and it was especially popular in the 15th and 16th centuries. Painters such as Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Hans Memling, Diptych is also often used in reference to films or pieces of literature that form a complementary pair. When taken together, they are viewed as illuminating each other, an example is the pair of Alan Ayckbourn plays, House and Garden. It is in form that the mention of diptychs in early Christian literature is found. The term refers to official lists of the living and departed that are commemorated by the local church, the living would be inscribed on one wing of the diptych, and the departed on the other. The inscribing of a name in the diptychs means that the local church considers itself to be in communion with him. The names in the diptychs would be read publicly by the deacon during the Divine Liturgy, diptychs were also used to inscribe the names of the saints
35.
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
36.
Crayon
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A crayon is a stick of colored wax, charcoal, chalk or other material used for writing or drawing. A crayon made of pigment with a dry binder is a pastel, a grease pencil or Chinese marker is made of colored hardened grease. There are also watercolor crayons, sometimes called water-soluble crayons, Crayons are available at a range of prices and are easy to work with. They are less messy than most paints and markers, blunt, typically nontoxic and these characteristics make them particularly good instruments for teaching small children to draw in addition to being used widely by student and professional artists. In the modern English-speaking world, the term crayon is commonly associated with the wax crayon. Such crayons are usually approximately 3.5 inches in length, paraffin wax is heated and cooled to achieve the correct temperature in which a usable wax substance can be dyed and then manufactured and shipped for use around the world. Paraffin waxes are used for cosmetics, candles, for the preparation of printing ink, fruit preserving, in the industry, for lubricating purposes. Colin Snedeker, a chemist for Binney & Smith, developed the first washable crayons in response to complaints regarding stained fabrics. A patent for the washable solid marking composition utilized in the washable crayons was awarded to Snedeker in 1990, the history of the crayon is not entirely clear. The word crayon dates to 1644, coming from crale and the Latin word creta, the notion to combine a form of wax with pigment actually goes back thousands of years. Encaustic painting is a technique that uses hot beeswax combined with colored pigment to bind color into stone, a heat source was then used to burn in and fix the image in place. Pliny the Elder, a Roman scholar, was thought to describe the first techniques of wax crayon drawings and this method, employed by the Egyptians, Romans, Greeks and even indigenous people in the Philippines, is still used today. However, the process wasnt used to make crayons into a form intended to be held, contemporary crayons are purported to have originated in Europe where some of the first cylinder shaped crayons were made with charcoal and oil. Pastels are an art medium having roots with the modern crayon, conté crayons, out of Paris, are a hybrid between a pastel and a conventional crayon, used since the late 1790s as a drawing crayon for artists. Later, various hues of powdered pigment eventually replaced the primary charcoal ingredient found in most early 19th century product, references to crayons in literature appear as early as 1813 in Jane Austens Pride and Prejudice. Joseph Lemercier, considered by some of his contemporaries to be the soul of lithography, was one of the founders of the modern crayon. Through his Paris business circa 1828 he produced a variety of crayon, but even as those in Europe were discovering that substituting wax for the oil strengthened the crayon, various efforts in the United States were also developing. The initial era of wax crayons saw a number of companies and products competing for the lucrative education, Binney & Smith Company developed their own famous line of wax crayons beginning on June 10,1903
37.
Annunciation
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Gabriel told Mary to name her son Yehoshua, meaning YHWH is salvation. According to Luke 1,26, the Annunciation occurred in the month of Elizabeths pregnancy with John the Baptist. Many Christians observe this event with the Feast of the Annunciation on 25 March, an approximation of the vernal equinox nine full months before Christmas. In England, this came to be known as Lady Day and it marked the new year until 1752. The 2nd-century writer Irenaeus of Lyon regarded the conception of Jesus as 25 March coinciding with the Passion, the Annunciation has been a key topic in Christian art in general, as well as in Marian art in the Catholic Church, particularly during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. A work of art depicting the Annunciation is sometimes called an Annunciation. 28 And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured,29 And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. 30 And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary,31 And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. 34 Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be,36 And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. 37 For with God nothing shall be impossible,38 And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her,19 Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a publick example, was minded to put her away privily. 21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS,35 In answer the angel said to her, Holy spirit will come upon you, and power of the Most High will overshadow you. And for that reason the one who is born will be called holy, manuscript 4Q246 of the Dead Sea Scrolls reads, shall be great upon the earth. O king, all people shall make peace, and all shall serve him and he shall be called the son of the Great God, and by his name shall he be hailed as the Son of God, and they shall call him Son of the Most High. It has been suggested that the similarity in content is such that Lukes version may in some way be dependent on the Qumran text, the Annunciation is described in the Quran, in Sura 003,045 verses 45–51,45 Behold. Muslim tradition holds that the Annunciation took place during the month of Ramadan, in Greek, the Annunciation is known as the Good Tidings or Evangelism. In the Orthodox Churches that use a new style Calendar, the feast is celebrated on March 25, in churches using the old style Julian calendar, the feast day is April 7. The traditional hymn for the feast of the Annunciation goes back to St Athanasius, indeed, the Divine Liturgy is celebrated on Great and Holy Friday only when the latter coincides with the feast of the Annunciation
38.
David
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David was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the second king of the United Kingdom of Israel and Judah, reigning in c. He is described as a man after Gods own heart in 1 Samuel 13,14 and Acts 13,22. The Hebrew prophets regarded him as the ancestor of the future messiah, the New Testament says he was an ancestor of Jesus. God is angered when Saul, Israels king, unlawfully offers a sacrifice and later disobeys a divine instruction to not only all of the Amalekites. Consequently, he sends the prophet Samuel to anoint David, the youngest son of Jesse of Bethlehem, God sends an evil spirit to torment Saul. Sauls courtiers recommend that he send for David, a man skillful on the lyre, wise in speech, and brave in battle. So David enters Sauls service as one of the royal armour-bearers, and plays the lyre to soothe the king, war comes between Israel and the Philistines, and the giant Goliath challenges the Israelites to send out a champion to face him in single combat. David, sent by his father to bring provisions to his brothers serving in Sauls army, refusing the kings offer of the royal armour, he kills Goliath with his sling. Saul inquires the name of the heros father. Saul sets David over his army, all Israel loves David, but his popularity causes Saul to fear him. Saul plots his death, but Sauls son Jonathan, one of those who loves David, warns him of his fathers schemes and David flees. He becomes a vassal of the Philistine king Achish of Gath, but Achishs nobles question his loyalty, Jonathan and Saul are killed, and David is anointed king over Judah. In the north, Sauls son Ish-Bosheth is anointed king of Israel, with the death of Sauls son, the elders of Israel come to Hebron and David is anointed king over all Israel. He conquers Jerusalem, previously a Jebusite stronghold, and makes it his capital. He brings the Ark of the Covenant to the city, intending to build a temple for God, Nathan also prophesies that God has made a covenant with the house of David, Your throne shall be established forever. David wins more victories over the Philistines, while the Moabites, Edomites, Amalekites, Ammonites, during a battle to conquer the Ammonite capital of Rabbah, David seduces Bathsheba and causes the death of her husband Uriah the Hittite. In response, Nathan prophesies the punishment that shall fall upon him, in fulfillment of these words Davids son Absalom rebels. The rebellion ends at the battle of the Wood of Ephraim, Absaloms forces are routed, and Absalom is caught by his long hair in the branches of a tree, and killed by Joab, contrary to Davids order. Joab was the commander of Davids army, David laments the death of his favourite son, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom
39.
Amalek
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Amalek occurs in the Old Testament of the Bible and refers to a grandson of Esau, the descendant nation of Amalekites, and the territories of Amalek which they inhabited. According to the Book of Genesis and 1 Chronicles, Amalek was the son of Eliphaz, Timna was a Horite and sister of Lotan. Amalek appears in the genealogy of Esau who was the chief of an Edomite tribe, Amalek is described as the chief of Amalek in Genesis 36,16, in which it is surmised that he ruled a clan or territory named after him. In the chant of Balaam at Numbers,24,20, Amalek was called the first of the nations, rashi states, He was the first of all of them to war against Israel. First-century Roman-Jewish scholar and historian Flavius Josephus refers to Amalek as a bastard in a derogatory sense, according to the Old Testament, the Amalekites were a nomadic, or seminomadic people who inhabited the Negev. They are commonly considered to be Amaleks descendants through the genealogy of Esau and this is probably based on the association of this tribal group with the steppe region of ancient Israel and the area of Kadesh. As a people, the Amalekites are identified as a recurrent enemy of the Israelites, Amalek may mean people of lek, or dweller in the valley, or possibly war-like, people of prey, cave-men. In some rabbinical interpretations, Amalek is etymologised as a people am, who lick blood, the Amalekites had a nomadic lifestyle, which led to widespread distribution, mostly along the fringe of southern Canaans agricultural zone. They also made use of camels. Glen Miller states, The Amalekites were not part of Canaan. but were a tribe of marauding bands. The archaeological data we have of sites in the Negev around the time of this event indicates a very sporadic population--although mostly in the mid-central Negev-- although widely spread out and we have evidence of about 50 fortresses at this time, ranging in diameter from 25-70 meters. It is generally accepted that the Amalekites are descendants of Amalek, a grandson of Esau, in exegesis of Genesis 14,7, the use of Amalekites seems out of place in a passage that concerns the days of Abraham. Bible scholar David Noel Freedman considers the anachronism to be an editorial insertion, rashi explains that the writer was making a reference to the country which was afterwards inhabited by the Amalekites. Knight elaborates this concept by making the comparison, Caesar went into France because Gaul was afterward occupied by the Franks, alternatively, during the Islamic Golden Age, certain Arabic writings claimed that the Amalekites existed long before Abraham. Some Muslim historians claimed that the Amalekites who fought Joshua were descendants of the inhabitants of North Africa, al-Masudi said that the Amalekites originated in the region of Mecca well before the days of Abraham. Ebn Arabshah purported that Amalek was a descendant of Ham, son of Noah, even medieval Jewish historian Nachmanides argued that the Amalekites were not descended from the grandson of Esau but from a man named Amalek, from whom the grandson took his name. It is, however, possible that the name Amalek may have given to two different nations. By the 19th Century, there was support by Western theologians for the idea that the nation of Amalek could have flourished before the time of Abraham
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Antiquities of the Jews
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Antiquities of the Jews contains an account of history of the Jewish people, written in Greek for Josephus gentile patrons. In the first ten volumes, Josephus follows the events of the books of the Hebrew Bible beginning with the creation of Adam. The second ten volumes continue the history of the Jewish people beyond the biblical text and this work, along with Josephuss other major work, The Jewish War, provides valuable background material to historians wishing to understand 1st-century AD Judaism and the early Christian period. In the preface of Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus provides his motivation for composing such a large work, josephan scholar Louis Feldman highlights several of the misconceptions about the Jewish people that were being circulated in Josephus time. In particular, the Jews were thought to lack great historical figures and they were also accused of harboring hostility toward non-Jews, and were thought to be generally lacking in loyalty, respect for authority, and charity. With these harsh accusations against the Jews fluttering about the Roman empire, Josephus, formerly Joseph ben Matthias, such a work is often called an apologia, as it pleads the case of a group of people or set of beliefs to a larger audience. In order to accomplish this goal, Josephus omitted certain accounts in the Jewish narrative, for example, the Song of the Sea sung by Moses and the people of Israel after their deliverance at the Red Sea is completely omitted in Josephus text. He does mention, however, that Moses composed a song to God in hexameter—a rather unusual scheme for an ancient Hebrew. Josephus also writes that Abraham taught science to the Egyptians, who in turn taught the Greeks, and that Moses set up a senatorial priestly aristocracy, which like Rome resisted monarchy. Thus, in an attempt to make the Jewish history more palatable to his Greco-Roman audience, in another example, apparently due to his concern with pagan antisemitism, Josephus omitted the entire episode of the golden calf from his account of the Israelites at Mount Sinai. Josephus Judean Antiquities is a source for the history of the Intertestamental period. Josephus also adds an account of his personal life, Vita. The extant copies of work, which all derive from Christian sources. The long one has come to be known as the Testimonium Flavianum, if genuine, it is an early extrabiblical record of Jesus, and as such is sometimes cited as independent evidence for the historical existence of Jesus. The earliest complete Greek manuscript of the Antiquities dates from the eleventh century, one of the best known translations of this work was provided by William Whiston in 1737, which has been in print continuously since then. However, the Loeb Classical Library has a recent translation by Henry St. John Thackeray and Ralph Marcus. A cross-reference apparatus for the Works of Josephus and the Biblical canon also exists
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Temple in Jerusalem
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These successive temples stood at this location and functioned as a site of ancient Israelite and later Jewish worship. The Hebrew name given in the Hebrew Bible for the complex is either Beit YHWH, Beit HaElohim House of God, or simply Beiti my house. The term hekhal hall or main building is often translated temple in older English Bibles, in rabbinical literature the temple is Beit HaMikdash, The Sanctified House, and only the Temple in Jerusalem is referred to by this name. The Hebrew Bible says that the First Temple was built in 957 BCE by King Solomon and this temple was sacked a few decades later by Shoshenq I, Pharaoh of Egypt. The First Temple was totally destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, according to the Book of Ezra, construction of the Second Temple was authorized by Cyrus the Great and began in 538 BCE, after the fall of the Babylonian Empire the year before. It was completed 23 years later, on the day of Adar, in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the Great. However, with a reading of the Book of Ezra and the Book of Nehemiah, there were four edicts to build the Second Temple. Cyrus in 536 BCE, which is recorded in the first chapter of Ezra, next, Darius I of Persia in 519 BCE, which is recorded in the sixth chapter of Ezra. Third, Artaxerxes I of Persia in 457 BCE, which was the year of his reign. Finally, by Artaxerxes again in 444 BCE in the chapter of Nehemiah. Moreover, the narrowly avoided being destroyed again in 332 BCE when the Jews refused to acknowledge the deification of Alexander the Great of Macedonia. Alexander was allegedly turned from his anger at the last minute by astute diplomacy, further, after the death of Alexander on 13 June 323 BCE, and the dismembering of his empire, the Ptolemies came to rule over Judea and the Temple. Under the Ptolemies, the Jews were given many civil liberties, however, when the Ptolemaic army was defeated at Panium by Antiochus III of the Seleucids in 198 BCE, this policy changed. Antiochus wanted to Hellenize the Jews, attempting to introduce the Greek pantheon into the temple. Moreover, a rebellion ensued and was crushed, but no further action by Antiochus was taken. However, his policies never took effect in Judea, since he was assassinated the year after his ascension, Antiochus IV Epiphanes succeeded his older brother to the Seleucid throne and immediately adopted his fathers previous policy of universal Hellenisation. The Jews rebelled again and Antiochus, in a rage, retaliated in force, considering the previous episodes of discontent, the Jews became incensed when the religious observances of Sabbath and circumcision were officially outlawed. When Antiochus erected a statue of Zeus in their temple and Hellenic priests began sacrificing pigs, when a Greek official ordered a Jewish priest to perform a Hellenic sacrifice, the priest killed him
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Pompey
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Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, usually known in English as Pompey /ˈpɒmpiː/ or Pompey the Great, was a military and political leader of the late Roman Republic. He came from a wealthy Italian provincial background, and his father had been the first to establish the family among the Roman nobility, Pompeys immense success as a general while still very young enabled him to advance directly to his first consulship without meeting the normal requirements for office. His success as a commander in Sullas Second Civil War resulted in Sulla bestowing the nickname Magnus. He was consul three times and celebrated three triumphs, after the deaths of Julia and Crassus, Pompey sided with the optimates, the conservative faction of the Roman Senate. Pompey and Caesar then contended for the leadership of the Roman state, when Pompey was defeated at the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC, he sought refuge in Egypt, where he was assassinated. His career and defeat are significant in Romes subsequent transformation from Republic to Empire, Pompeys family first gained the position of Consul in 141 BC. Pompeys father, Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, was an equestrian from Picenum. He fought the Social War against Romes Italian allies and he supported Sulla, who belonged to the optimates, the pro-aristocracy faction, against Marius, who belonged to the populares, in Sullas first civil war. He died during the siege of Rome by the Marians in 87 BC, either as a casualty of an epidemic and his twenty-year-old son Pompey inherited his estates, and the loyalty of his legions. Pompey had served two years under his fathers command, and had participated in the part of the Social War. When his father died, Pompey was put on due to accusations that his father stole public property. As his father’s heir Pompey could be held to account and he discovered that this was committed by one of his fathers freedmen. Following his preliminary bouts with his accuser, the took a liking to Pompey and offered his daughter. Another civil war broke out between the Marians and Sulla, Cassius Dio added that Pompey had sent a detachment to pursue him, but he outstripped them by crossing the River Phasis. He reached the Maeotis and stayed in the Cimmerian Bosporus and he had his son Machares, who ruled it and gone over to the Romans, killed and recovered that country. Meanwhile, Pompey set up a colony for his soldiers at Nicopolitans in Cappadocia, in Plutarchs account Pompey was invited to invade Armenia by Tigranes’ son, who rebelled against his father. The two men received the submission of several towns, when they got close Artaxata Tigranes, knowing Pompey’s leniency, surrendered and allowed a Roman garrison in his palace. Pompey offered the restitution of the Armenian territories in Syria, Phoenicia, Cilicia, Galatia and he demanded an indemnity and ruled that the son should be king of Sophene
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Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "