Ouchy
Ouchy is a port and a popular lakeside resort south of the centre of Lausanne in Switzerland, at the edge of Lake Geneva. Popular with tourists for the views of nearby France, Ouchy is a favorite area for rollerskating and for skateboarding; the incredible views of the lake and the Alps, the cooler air in summer have made Ouchy a popular place in the summer months. There is a major cluster of hotels – the Beau-Rivage Palace, the Château d'Ouchy, the Mövenpick hotel, etc. – and restaurants around the port. It is served by Lausanne Metro Line 2 from Ouchy station. In 2015, the metro station "Ouchy" was renamed "Ouchy-Olympique" to mark the 100th anniversary of the installation of the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne; the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee are to the west of Ouchy. The Olympic Museum and the Olympic Park are in Ouchy. Once a fishing village, Ouchy was incorporated into the city of Lausanne in the mid-19th century to serve as a port on Lake Geneva. Links between the port and the city centre were improved in 1877 when Switzerland's first funicular opened.
The line was converted to a rack railway in 1954, with a maintenance depot located at the Ouchy station. Renamed Métro Lausanne-Ouchy, the line continued operating until 2006, when it was upgraded to become Lausanne Métro line 2. On 18 October 1912, the First Treaty of Lausanne was signed in Ouchy between Italy and the Ottoman Empire, concluding the Italo-Turkish War. Compagnie générale de navigation sur le lac Léman Lausanne travel guide from Wikivoyage Media related to Ouchy at Wikimedia Commons Page on the website of the City of Lausanne
Reformation in Switzerland
The Protestant Reformation in Switzerland was promoted by Huldrych Zwingli, who gained the support of the magistrate and population of Zürich in the 1520s. It led to significant changes in civil life and state matters in Zürich and spread to several other cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy. Seven cantons remained Roman Catholic, which led to inter-cantonal wars known as the Wars of Kappel. After the victory of the Catholic cantons in 1531, they proceeded to institute counter-reformatory policies in some regions; the schism and distrust between Catholic and Protestant cantons would define their interior politics and paralyse any common foreign policy until well into the 18th century. Despite their religious differences, despite an Catholic defence alliance of the seven Catholic cantons, further major armed conflicts directly between the cantons did not occur. Soldiers from both sides fought in the French Wars of Religion. In the Thirty Years' War, the thirteen cantons managed to maintain their neutrality because all major powers in Europe depended on Swiss mercenaries, would not let Switzerland fall into the hands of one of their rivals.
The Three Leagues of the Grisons, at that time not yet a member of the confederacy, were involved in the war from 1620 on, which led to their loss of the Valtellina from 1623 to 1639. After the violent conflicts of the late 15th century the Swiss cantons had had a generation of relative political stability; as part of their struggle for independence, they had in the 15th century sought to limit the influence of the Church on their political sovereignty. Many monasteries had come under secular supervision, the administration of schools was in the hands of the cantons, although the teachers still were priests. Many of the problems of the Church existed in the Swiss Confederacy. Many a cleric as well as the Church as a whole enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle in stark contrast to the conditions the large majority of the population lived in. Many priests were badly educated, spiritual Church doctrines were disregarded. Many priests did not live in concubinage; the new reformatory ideas thus fell on fertile ground.
The main proponent of the Reformation in Switzerland was Ulrich Zwingli, whose actions during the Affair of the Sausages are now considered to be the start of the Reformation in Switzerland. His own studies, in the renaissance humanist tradition, had led him to preach against injustices and hierarchies in the Church in 1516 while he was still a priest in Einsiedeln; when he was called to Zürich, he expanded his criticism onto political topics and in particular condemned the mercenary business. His ideas were received favourably by entrepreneurs and the guilds; the first disputation of Zürich of 1523 was the breakthrough: the city council decided to implement his reformatory plans and to convert to Protestantism. In the following two years, profound changes took place in Zürich; the Church was secularised. Priests were relieved from celibacy, the opulent decorations in the churches were thrown out; the state assumed the administration of Church properties, financing the social works, paid the priests.
The last abbess of the Fraumünster, Katharina von Zimmern, turned over the convent including all of its rights and possessions to the city authorities on 30 November 1524. She married the next year. Over the next few years, the cities of St. Gallen, Basel, Bienne and Bern all followed the example set by Zürich, their subject territories were converted to Protestantism by decree. In Basel, reformer Johannes Oecolampadius was active, in St. Gallen, the Reformation was adopted by mayor Joachim Vadian. In Glarus, in the Grisons, which all three had a more republican structure, individual communes decided for or against the Reformation. In the French-speaking parts, reformers like William Farel had been preaching the new faith under Bernese protection since the 1520s, but only in 1536, just before John Calvin arrived there, did the city of Geneva convert to Protestantism; the same year, Bern conquered the hitherto Savoyard Vaud and instituted Protestantism there. Despite their conversion to Protestantism, the citizens of Geneva were not ready to adopt Calvin's new strict Church order, banned him and Farel from the city in 1538.
Three years later—there had been elections in the meantime, there was a new city council—Calvin was called back. Step by step he implemented his strict programme. A counter-revolt in 1555 failed, many established families left the city. Zwingli, who had studied in Basel at the same time as Erasmus, had arrived at a more radical renewal than Luther and his ideas differed from the latter in several points. A reconciliation attempt at the Marburg Colloquy in 1529 failed. Although the two charismatic leaders found a consensus on fourteen points, they kept differing on the last one on the Eucharist: Luther maintained that through sacramental union the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper became the flesh and blood of Christ, whereas Zwingli considered bread and wine only symbols; this schism and the defeat of Zürich in the Second War of Kappel in 1531, where Zwingli was killed on the battlefield, were a serious setback limiting Zwinglianism to parts of the Swiss confederacy and preventing its adoption in areas north of the Rhine.
After Zwingli's death, Heinrich Bullinger took over his post in Zürich. Reformers in Switzerland continued for the next decades to reform the Church and to improve its ac
Cantonal and University Library of Lausanne
The Cantonal and University Library of Lausanne was founded in the 16th century and became one of the most important public libraries in Switzerland. The University of Lausanne was founded in 1537. In 1982, the university's central administration and the Cantonal and University Library were installed at Dorigny. EPFL Learning Center Lausanne campus Official website University of Lausanne European Library
Villard de Honnecourt
Villard de Honnecourt was a 13th-century artist from Picardy in northern France. He is known to history only through a surviving portfolio or "sketchbook" containing about 250 drawings and designs of a wide variety of subjects. Nothing is known of Villard apart from what can be gleaned from his surviving "sketchbook." Based on the large number of architectural designs in the portfolio, it was traditionally thought that Villard was a successful, itinerant architect and engineer. This view is rejected today, as there is no evidence of him working as an architect or in any other identifiable profession, the drawings contain many inaccuracies and misunderstandings that would be surprising from a practicing architect, he was trained as a metalworker. Nonetheless, it is clear from his drawings that he was interested in architecture and that he traveled to some of the major ecclesiastical building sites of his day to record details of these buildings, his drawing of one of the west facade towers of Laon Cathedral and those of radiating chapels and a main vessel bay and exterior, of Rheims Cathedral are of particular interest.
Villard tells us, with pride, that he had been in many lands and that he made a trip to Hungary where he remained many days, but he does not say why he went there or who sent him. It has been proposed that he may have been a lay agent or representative of the cathedral chapter of Cambrai Cathedral to obtain a relic of St. Elizabeth of Hungary who had made a donation to the cathedral chapter and to whom the chapter dedicated one of the radiating chapels in their new chevet, he claimed to have made many of his drawings "from life", an activity more associated with much artists of the Renaissance. The so-called "sketchbook" of Villard de Honnecourt dates to about c.1225-1235. It was discovered in the mid-19th century and is presently housed in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, under the shelfmark MS Fr 19093, it consists of 33 parchment sheets measuring on 9.25 x 6.1 inches. The manuscript is not complete, its original extent cannot be determined; because the drawings and captions are oriented in many different directions, the album appears to have been assembled in an ad hoc fashion, as if the individual sheets were not intended to be bound together into book form.
It is unclear whether it was Villard himself or a party who assembled and bound the leaves into a book. The album contains about 250 drawings; these include architectural designs, a great variety of human and animal subjects, ensembles of religious and secular figures derived from or intended as sculptural groups, ecclesiastical objects, mechanical devices, engineering constructions such as lifting devices and a water-driven saw, a number of automata, designs for war engines such as a trebuchet, many other subjects. Many drawings are accompanied by labels; the original purpose of the album is the subject of controversy. It was thought to have served as a kind of training manual for practicing architects; this is rejected by most current researchers, because Villard's drawings seem fundamentally ill-suited to such a purpose, though it has been argued that the drawings were deliberately simplistic and abstracted to serve as coded mnemonic devices for architects who were initiated into the relevant oral tradition.
Most scholars today believe it more served as a pattern or model book, containing designs for manuscript illumination or metalwork. Several printed facsimiles of the album have appeared. Parker, J. H. and J. Facsimile of the Sketch-book of Wilars de Honnecourt, an Architect of the Thirteenth Century. London, 1859. - See. Bowie, Theodore; the Sketchbook of Villard de Honnecourt. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1959. Hahnloser, Hans R. Villard de Honnecourt. Kritische Gesamtausgabe des Bauhüttenbuches ms. fr. 19093 der Pariser Nationalbibliothek. Graz, 1972.. Erlande-Brandenburg, Alain, et al. Carnet de Villard de Honnecourt. Paris, 1986; the Medieval Sketchbook of Villard de Honnecourt. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2006. Barnes, Carl F. Jr; the portfolio of Villard de Honnecourt: a new critical edition and color facsimile. Farnham. A full digital facsimile is available online via the BNF's online library, Gallica: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10509412z.r=villard%20de%20honnecourt Barnes, Carl F. Jr. Villard de Honnecourt--the artist and his drawings: a critical bibliography.
Boston, MA: G. K. Hall, 1982. Barnes, Carl F. Jr. "Le'probleme' Villard de Honnecourt." In Les batisseurs des cathedrales gothiques, ed. Roland Recht, pp. 209–223. Barnes, Carl F. JRr “An Essay on Villard de Honnecourt, Cambrai Cathedral, Saint Elizabeth of Hungary,” New Approaches to Medieval Architecture, Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2011, pp. 77–91. Bugslag, James. “contrefais al vif: nature and the lion drawings of Villard de Honnecourt.” Word & Image 17, no. 4: 360-378. Gimpel, Jean. "Villard de Honnecourt: Architect and Engineer." In The Medieval Machine: The Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages, pp. 114–142. Perkinson, Stephen. “Portraits and counterfeits: Villard de Honnecourt and thirt
Poland
Poland the Republic of Poland, is a country located in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative subdivisions, covering an area of 312,696 square kilometres, has a temperate seasonal climate. With a population of 38.5 million people, Poland is the sixth most populous member state of the European Union. Poland's capital and largest metropolis is Warsaw. Other major cities include Kraków, Łódź, Wrocław, Poznań, Gdańsk, Szczecin. Poland is bordered by the Baltic Sea, Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast and Lithuania to the north and Ukraine to the east and Czech Republic, to the south, Germany to the west; the establishment of the Polish state can be traced back to AD 966, when Mieszko I, ruler of the realm coextensive with the territory of present-day Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, in 1569 it cemented its longstanding political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin; this union formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th and 17th century Europe, with a uniquely liberal political system which adopted Europe's first written national constitution, the Constitution of 3 May 1791.
More than a century after the Partitions of Poland at the end of the 18th century, Poland regained its independence in 1918 with the Treaty of Versailles. In September 1939, World War II started with the invasion of Poland by Germany, followed by the Soviet Union invading Poland in accordance with the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. More than six million Polish citizens, including 90% of the country's Jews, perished in the war. In 1947, the Polish People's Republic was established as a satellite state under Soviet influence. In the aftermath of the Revolutions of 1989, most notably through the emergence of the Solidarity movement, Poland reestablished itself as a presidential democratic republic. Poland is regional power, it has the fifth largest economy by GDP in the European Union and one of the most dynamic economies in the world achieving a high rank on the Human Development Index. Additionally, the Polish Stock Exchange in Warsaw is the largest and most important in Central Europe. Poland is a developed country, which maintains a high-income economy along with high standards of living, life quality, safety and economic freedom.
Having a developed school educational system, the country provides free university education, state-funded social security, a universal health care system for all citizens. Poland has 15 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Poland is a member state of the European Union, the Schengen Area, the United Nations, NATO, the OECD, the Three Seas Initiative, the Visegrád Group; the origin of the name "Poland" derives from the West Slavic tribe of Polans that inhabited the Warta river basin of the historic Greater Poland region starting in the 6th century. The origin of the name "Polanie" itself derives from the early Slavic word "pole". In some languages, such as Hungarian, Lithuanian and Turkish, the exonym for Poland is Lechites, which derives from the name of a semi-legendary ruler of Polans, Lech I. Early Bronze Age in Poland begun around 2400 BC, while the Iron Age commenced in 750 BC. During this time, the Lusatian culture, spanning both the Bronze and Iron Ages, became prominent; the most famous archaeological find from the prehistory and protohistory of Poland is the Biskupin fortified settlement, dating from the Lusatian culture of the early Iron Age, around 700 BC.
Throughout the Antiquity period, many distinct ancient ethnic groups populated the regions of what is now Poland in an era that dates from about 400 BC to 500 AD. These groups are identified as Celtic, Slavic and Germanic tribes. Recent archeological findings in the Kujawy region, confirmed the presence of the Roman Legions on the territory of Poland; these were most expeditionary missions sent out to protect the amber trade. The exact time and routes of the original migration and settlement of Slavic peoples lacks written records and can only be defined as fragmented; the Slavic tribes who would form Poland migrated to these areas in the second half of the 5th century AD. Up until the creation of Mieszko's state and his subsequent conversion to Christianity in 966 AD, the main religion of Slavic tribes that inhabited the geographical area of present-day Poland was Slavic paganism. With the Baptism of Poland the Polish rulers accepted Christianity and the religious authority of the Roman Church.
However, the transition from paganism was not a smooth and instantaneous process for the rest of the population as evident from the pagan reaction of the 1030s. Poland began to form into a recognizable unitary and territorial entity around the middle of the 10th century under the Piast dynasty. Poland's first documented ruler, Mieszko I, accepted Christianity with the Baptism of Poland in 966, as the new official religion of his subjects; the bulk of the population converted in the course of the next few centuries. In 1000, Boleslaw the Brave, continuing the policy of his father Mieszko, held a Congress of Gniezno and created the metropolis of Gniezno and the dioceses of Kraków, Kołobrzeg, Wrocław. However, the pagan unrest led to the transfer of the capital to Kraków in 1038 by Casimir I the Restorer. In 1109, Prince Bolesław III Wrymouth defeated the King of Germany Henry V at the Battle of Hundsfeld, stopping the Ge
La Cité (Lausanne)
La Cité is a district of the city of Lausanne, in Switzerland. The Cathedral, the Museum of Contemporary Design and Applied Arts, the Lausanne Museum of History, the Ancienne académie, the Grand Council of Vaud, the Château Saint-Maire are situated in this district, it is served from Riponne and Bessières stations. Festival de la cité, annual free summer festival
Geneva
Geneva is the second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situated where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the capital of the Canton of Geneva; the municipality has a population of 200,548, the canton has 495,249 residents. In 2014, the compact agglomération du Grand Genève had 946,000 inhabitants in 212 communities in both Switzerland and France. Within Swiss territory, the commuter area named "Métropole lémanique" contains a population of 1.26 million. This area is spread east from Geneva towards the Riviera area and north-east towards Yverdon-les-Bains, in the neighbouring canton of Vaud. Geneva is a global city, a financial centre, a worldwide centre for diplomacy due to the presence of numerous international organizations, including the headquarters of many agencies of the United Nations and the Red Cross. Geneva hosts the highest number of international organizations in the world, it is where the Geneva Conventions were signed, which chiefly concern the treatment of wartime non-combatants and prisoners of war.
In 2017, Geneva was ranked as the world's fifteenth most important financial centre for competitiveness by the Global Financial Centres Index, fifth in Europe behind London, Zürich and Luxembourg. In 2019 Geneva was ranked among the ten most liveable cities in the world by Mercer together with Zürich and Basel; the city has been referred to as the world's most compact metropolis and the "Peace Capital". In 2017, Geneva was ranked as the seventh most expensive city in the world. Geneva was ranked third in purchasing power in a global cities ranking by UBS in 2018; the city was mentioned in Latin texts, by Caesar, with the spelling Genava from the Celtic *genawa- from the stem *genu-, in the sense of a bending river or estuary. The medieval county of Geneva in Middle Latin was known as pagus major Genevensis or Comitatus Genevensis. After 1400 it became the Genevois province of Savoy; the name takes various forms in modern languages, Geneva in English, French: Genève, German: Genf, Italian: Ginevra, Romansh: Genevra.
The city shares the origin of * genawa "estuary", with the Italian port city of Genoa. Geneva was an Allobrogian border town, fortified against the Helvetii tribe, when the Romans took it in 121 BC, it became Christian under the Late Roman Empire, acquired its first bishop in the 5th century, having been connected to the Bishopric of Vienne in the 4th. In the Middle Ages, Geneva was ruled by a count under the Holy Roman Empire until the late 14th century, when it was granted a charter giving it a high degree of self-governance. Around this time, the House of Savoy came to at least nominally dominate the city. In the 15th century, an oligarchic republican government emerged with the creation of the Grand Council. In the first half of the 16th century, the Protestant Reformation reached the city, causing religious strife, during which Savoy rule was thrown off and Geneva allied itself with the Swiss Confederacy. In 1541, with Protestantism on the rise, John Calvin, the Protestant Reformer and proponent of Calvinism, became the spiritual leader of the city and established the Republic of Geneva.
By the 18th century, Geneva had come under the influence of Catholic France, which cultivated the city as its own. France tended to be at odds with the ordinary townsfolk, which inspired the failed Geneva Revolution of 1782, an attempt to win representation in the government for men of modest means. In 1798, revolutionary France under the Directory annexed Geneva. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, on 1 June 1814, Geneva was admitted to the Swiss Confederation. In 1907, the separation of Church and State was adopted. Geneva flourished in the 19th and 20th centuries, becoming the seat of many international organizations. Geneva is located at 46°12' North, 6°09' East, at the south-western end of Lake Geneva, where the Rhône flows out, it is surrounded by three mountain chains, each belonging to the Jura: the Jura main range lies north-westward, the Vuache southward, the Salève south-eastward. The city covers an area of 15.93 km2, while the area of the canton is 282 km2, including the two small exclaves of Céligny in Vaud.
The part of the lake, attached to Geneva has an area of 38 km2 and is sometimes referred to as petit lac. The canton has only a 4.5-kilometre-long border with the rest of Switzerland. Of 107.5 km of border, 103 are shared with France, the Département de l'Ain to the north and west and the Département de la Haute-Savoie to the south and east. Of the land in the city, 0.24 km2, or 1.5%, is used for agricultural purposes, while 0.5 km2, or 3.1%, is forested. The rest of the land, 14.63 km2, or 91.8%, is built up, 0.49 km2, or 3.1%, is either rivers or lakes and 0.02 km2, or 0.1%, is wasteland. Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 3.4%, housing and buildings made up 46.2% and transportation infrastructure 25.8%, while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 15.7%. Of the agricultural land, 0.3% is used for growing crops. Of the water in the municipality, 0.2 % is composed of lakes and 2.9 % streams. The altitude of Geneva is 373.6 metres, corresponds to the altitude of
