1.
Theodor de Bry
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Theodorus de Bry was an engraver, goldsmith, editor and publisher, famous for his depictions of early European expeditions to the Americas. The Spanish Inquisition forced de Bry, a Protestant, to flee his native and he moved around Europe, starting from the city of Liège in the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, then to Strasbourg, Antwerp, London and Frankfurt, where he settled. De Bry created a number of engraved illustrations for his books. Most of his books were based on observations by explorers, even if De Bry himself, acting as a recorder of information. To modern eyes, many of the illustrations seem formal but detailed, as a man he trained under his grandfather, Thiry de Bry the Elder, and under his father, Thiry de Bry the Younger, who were jewellers and engravers, engraving copper plates. The art of copper engraving was the technology required at that time for printing images. In 1524 Thiry de Bry the Younger married Catherine le Blavier, daughter of Conrad le Blavier de Jemeppe and their son, Theodore de Bry, also became a jeweller and engraver. Theodore de Bry became a Protestant, and in 1570 was sentenced to perpetual banishment and he moved to Strasbourg, along the west bank of the Rhine. In 1588, Theodorus and his family moved permanently to Frankfurt-am-Main, the most famous one is known as Les Grands Voyages, i. e. The Great Travels, or The Discovery of America and he also published the largely identical India Orientalis series, as well as many other illustrated works on a wide range of subjects. His books were published in Latin, and were translated into German, English. His illustrations were based on the paintings of colonist John White. The book sold well, and the year de Bry published a new one about the first French attempts to colonize Florida, Fort Caroline, founded by Jean Ribault. It featured 43 illustrations based on paintings of Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, Jacques de Moyne had planned to publish his account of his expeditions but died 1587. According to de Brys account, he had bought de Moynes paintings from his widow in London, the Latin and German editions varied markedly, in accordance with the differences in estimated readership. The verisimilitude of many of de Brys illustrations is questionable, not least because he never crossed the Atlantic, amerindians look like Mediterranean Europeans, and illustrations mix different tribal customs and artifacts. In addition to life of the American natives, Theodore de Bry even included a few depictions of cannibalism. All in all, the vast amount of illustrations and texts influenced the European perception of the New World, Africa
2.
Italians
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Italians are a nation and ethnic group native to Italy who share a common culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a native tongue. The majority of Italian nationals are speakers of Standard Italian. Italians have greatly influenced and contributed to the arts and music, science, technology, cuisine, sports, fashion, jurisprudence, banking, Italian people are generally known for their localism and their attention to clothing and family values. The term Italian is at least 3,000 years old and has a history that goes back to pre-Roman Italy. According to one of the common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú. 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 Etruscan civilization reached its peak about the 7th century BC, but by 509 BC, when the Romans overthrew their Etruscan monarchs, its control in Italy was on the wane. By 350 BC, after a series of wars between Greeks and Etruscans, the Latins, with Rome as their capital, gained the ascendancy by 272 BC, and they managed to unite the entire Italian peninsula. This period of unification was followed by one of conquest in the Mediterranean, in the course of the century-long struggle against Carthage, the Romans conquered Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica. Finally, in 146 BC, at the conclusion of the Third Punic War, with Carthage completely destroyed and its inhabitants enslaved, octavian, the final victor, was accorded the title of Augustus by the Senate and thereby became the first Roman emperor. After two centuries of rule, in the 3rd century AD, Rome was threatened by internal discord and menaced by Germanic and Asian invaders. Emperor Diocletians administrative division of the empire into two parts in 285 provided only temporary relief, it became permanent in 395, in 313, Emperor Constantine accepted Christianity, and churches thereafter rose throughout the empire. However, he moved his capital from Rome to Constantinople. The last Western emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed in 476 by a Germanic foederati general in Italy and his defeat marked the end of the western part of the Roman Empire. During most of the period from the fall of Rome until the Kingdom of Italy was established in 1861, Odoacer ruled well for 13 years after gaining control of Italy in 476. Then he was attacked and defeated by Theodoric, the king of another Germanic tribe, Theodoric and Odoacer ruled jointly until 493, when Theodoric murdered Odoacer. Theodoric continued to rule Italy with an army of Ostrogoths and a government that was mostly Italian, after the death of Theodoric in 526, the kingdom began to grow weak
3.
Humanism
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The term was coined in 1808 by the early nineteenth century German educational reformer and theologian Friedrich Niethammer and gradually adopted into English. Niethammer had wished to introduce into German education the humane values of ancient Greece, the word Humanism is ultimately derived from the Latin concept humanitas, and, like most other words ending in -ism, entered English in the nineteenth century. Those who earnestly desire and seek after these are most highly humanized. For the desire to pursue of that kind of knowledge, and the training given by it, has granted to humanity alone of all the animals. Gellius says that in his day humanitas is commonly used as a synonym for philanthropy – or kindness and he himself was involved in public affairs. By assigning pride of place to Paideia in his comment on the etymology of humanitas, gelliuss writings fell into obscurity during the middle ages, but during the Italian Renaissance, Gellius became a favorite author. Teachers and scholars of Greek and Latin grammar, rhetoric, philosophy, during the French Revolution, and soon after, in Germany, humanism began to refer to an ethical philosophy centered on humankind, without attention to the transcendent or supernatural. The designation Religious Humanism refers to organized groups that sprang up during the late-nineteenth and it is similar to Protestantism, although centered on human needs, interests, and abilities rather than the supernatural. The first Humanist Manifesto was issued by a conference held at the University of Chicago in 1933, signatories included the philosopher John Dewey, but the majority were ministers and theologians. But in the century, during the French Enlightenment, a more ideological use of the term had come into use. In 1765, the author of an article in a French Enlightenment periodical spoke of The general love of humanity. A virtue hitherto quite nameless among us, and which we will venture to call humanism, for the time has come to create a word for such a beautiful and necessary thing. The latter part of the 18th and the early 19th centuries saw the creation of numerous philanthropic and benevolent societies dedicated to human betterment. Humanism began to acquire a negative sense, the Oxford English Dictionary records the use of the word humanism by an English clergyman in 1812 to indicate those who believe in the mere humanity of Christ, i. e. Unitarians and Deists. Human-centered philosophy that rejected the supernatural may also be found circa 1500 BCE in the Lokayata system of Indian philosophy, nasadiya Sukta, a passage in the Rig Veda, contains one of the first recorded assertions of agnosticism. Another instance of ancient humanism as a system of thought is found in the Gathas of Zarathustra. Zarathustras philosophy in the Gathas lays out a conception of humankind as thinking beings, dignified with choice, in China, Yellow Emperor is regarded as the humanistic primogenitor. Sage kings such as Yao and Shun are humanistic figures as recorded, king Wu of Zhou has the famous saying, Humanity is the Ling of the world
4.
Renaissance
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The Renaissance was a period in European history, from the 14th to the 17th century, regarded as the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages and modern history. It started as a movement in Italy in the Late Medieval period and later spread to the rest of Europe. This new thinking became manifest in art, architecture, politics, science, Early examples were the development of perspective in oil painting and the recycled knowledge of how to make concrete. Although the invention of movable type sped the dissemination of ideas from the later 15th century. In politics, the Renaissance contributed to the development of the customs and conventions of diplomacy, the Renaissance began in Florence, in the 14th century. Other major centres were northern Italian city-states such as Venice, Genoa, Milan, Bologna, the word Renaissance, literally meaning Rebirth in French, first appeared in English in the 1830s. The word also occurs in Jules Michelets 1855 work, Histoire de France, the word Renaissance has also been extended to other historical and cultural movements, such as the Carolingian Renaissance and the Renaissance of the 12th century. The Renaissance was a movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life in the early modern period. Renaissance scholars employed the humanist method in study, and searched for realism, however, a subtle shift took place in the way that intellectuals approached religion that was reflected in many other areas of cultural life. In addition, many Greek Christian works, including the Greek New Testament, were back from Byzantium to Western Europe. Political philosophers, most famously Niccolò Machiavelli, sought to describe life as it really was. Others see more competition between artists and polymaths such as Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, and Masaccio for artistic commissions as sparking the creativity of the Renaissance. Yet it remains much debated why the Renaissance began in Italy, accordingly, several theories have been put forward to explain its origins. During the Renaissance, money and art went hand in hand, Artists depended entirely on patrons while the patrons needed money to foster artistic talent. Wealth was brought to Italy in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries by expanding trade into Asia, silver mining in Tyrol increased the flow of money. Luxuries from the Eastern world, brought home during the Crusades, increased the prosperity of Genoa, unlike with Latin texts, which had been preserved and studied in Western Europe since late antiquity, the study of ancient Greek texts was very limited in medieval Western Europe. One of the greatest achievements of Renaissance scholars was to bring this entire class of Greek cultural works back into Western Europe for the first time since late antiquity, Arab logicians had inherited Greek ideas after they had invaded and conquered Egypt and the Levant. Their translations and commentaries on these ideas worked their way through the Arab West into Spain and Sicily and this work of translation from Islamic culture, though largely unplanned and disorganized, constituted one of the greatest transmissions of ideas in history
5.
Ancient history
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Ancient history is the aggregate of past events from the beginning of recorded human history and extending as far as the Early Middle Ages or the Postclassical Era. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with Sumerian Cuneiform script, the term classical antiquity is often used to refer to history in the Old World from the beginning of recorded Greek history in 776 BC. This roughly coincides with the date of the founding of Rome in 753 BC, the beginning of the history of ancient Rome. In India, ancient history includes the period of the Middle Kingdoms, and, in China. Historians have two major avenues which they take to better understand the ancient world, archaeology and the study of source texts, primary sources are those sources closest to the origin of the information or idea under study. Primary sources have been distinguished from secondary sources, which cite, comment on. Archaeology is the excavation and study of artefacts in an effort to interpret, archaeologists excavate the ruins of ancient cities looking for clues as to how the people of the time period lived. The study of the ancient cities of Harappa, Mohenjo-daro, the city of Pompeii, an ancient Roman city preserved by the eruption of a volcano in AD79. Its state of preservation is so great that it is a window into Roman culture and provided insight into the cultures of the Etruscans. The Terracotta Army, the mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor in ancient China, the discovery of Knossos by Minos Kalokairinos and Sir Arthur Evans. The discovery of Troy by Heinrich Schliemann, most of what is known of the ancient world comes from the accounts of antiquitys own historians. Although it is important to take account the bias of each ancient author. Some of the more notable ancient writers include Herodotus, Thucydides, Arrian, Plutarch, Polybius, Sima Qian, Sallust, Livy, Josephus, Suetonius, furthermore, the reliability of the information obtained from these surviving records must be considered. Few people were capable of writing histories, as literacy was not widespread in almost any culture until long after the end of ancient history, the earliest known systematic historical thought emerged in ancient Greece, beginning with Herodotus of Halicarnassus. He was also the first to distinguish between cause and immediate origins of an event, the Roman Empire was one of the ancient worlds most literate cultures, but many works by its most widely read historians are lost. Indeed, only a minority of the work of any major Roman historian has survived, prehistory is the period before written history. The early human migrations in the Lower Paleolithic saw Homo erectus spread across Eurasia 1.8 million years ago, the controlled use of fire occurred 800,000 years ago in the Middle Paleolithic. 250,000 years ago, Homo sapiens emerged in Africa, 60–70,000 years ago, Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa along a coastal route to South and Southeast Asia and reached Australia
6.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
7.
Modern history
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Modern history, the modern period or the modern era, is the global historiographical approach to the timeframe after the Post-classical history. It took all of history up to 1804 for the worlds population to reach 1 billion. Contemporary history is the span of historic events from approximately 1945 that are relevant to the present time. Some events, while not without precedent, show a new way of perceiving the world, the concept of modernity interprets the general meaning of these events and seeks explanations for major developments. The fundamental difficulty of studying modern history is the fact that a plethora of it has been documented up to the present day and it is imperative to consider the reliability of the information obtained from these records. In the pre-modern era, many peoples sense of self and purpose was expressed via a faith in some form of deity. Pre-modern cultures have not been thought of creating a sense of distinct individuality, religious officials, who often held positions of power, were the spiritual intermediaries to the common person. It was only through intermediaries that the general masses had access to the divine. Tradition was sacred to ancient cultures and was unchanging and the order of ceremony. The term modern was coined in the 16th century to present or recent times. New information about the world was discovered via empirical observation, versus the use of reason. The term Early Modern was introduced in the English language in the 1930s, to distinguish the time between what we call Middle Ages and time of the late Enlightenment. It is important to note that these terms stem from European history, in the Contemporary era, there were various socio-technological trends. Regarding the 21st century and the modern world, the Information Age and computers were forefront in use, not completely ubiquitous. The development of Eastern powers was of note, with China, in the Eurasian theater, the European Union and Russian Federation were two forces recently developed. A concern for Western world, if not the world, was the late modern form of terrorism. The modern period has been a period of significant development in the fields of science, politics, warfare and it has also been an age of discovery and globalization. During this time, the European powers and later their colonies, began a political, economic, the modern era is closely associated with the development of individualism, capitalism, urbanization and a belief in the possibilities of technological and political progress
8.
Arezzo
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Arezzo is a city and comune in Italy, capital of the province of the same name, located in Tuscany. Arezzo is about 80 kilometres southeast of Florence, at an elevation of 296 metres above sea level, in 2013 the population was about 99,000. Described by Livy as one of the Capitae Etruriae, Arezzo is believed to have one of the twelve most important Etruscan cities—the so-called Dodecapolis. Etruscan remains establish that the acropolis of San Cornelio, a hill next to that of San Donatus, was occupied and fortified in the Etruscan period. Increasing trade connections with Greece also brought some elite goods to the Etruscan nobles of Arezzo, conquered by the Romans in 311 BC, Arretium became a military station on the via Cassia, the road to expansion by republican Rome into the basin of the Po. Arretium sided with Marius in the Roman Civil War, and the victorious Sulla planted a colony of his veterans in the half-demolished city, as Arretium Fidens. The old Etruscan aristocracy was not extinguished, Gaius Cilnius Maecenas, around 26-261 AD the town council of Arezzo dedicated an inscription to its patron L. Petronius Taurus Volusianus. See that article for discussion of the possible significance of Volusianuss association with the city. The commune of Arezzo threw off the control of its bishop in 1098 and was an independent city-state until 1384, generally Ghibelline in tendency, it opposed Guelph Florence. In 1252 the city founded its university, the Studium, during this period Piero della Francesca worked in the church of San Francesco di Arezzo producing the splendid frescoes, recently restored, which are Arezzos most famous works. Afterwards the city began an economical and cultural decay, which ensured that its medieval centre was preserved. In the 18th century the neighbouring marshes of the Val di Chiana, south of Arezzo, were drained, in 1860 Arezzo became part of the Kingdom of Italy. The Commonwealth War Graves Commissions Arezzo War Cemetery, where 1,266 men are buried, is located to the North West of the city, Pope Benedict XVI visited Arezzo and two other Italian municipalities on Sunday, May 13,2012. Arezzo is set on a hill rising from the floodplain of the River Arno. In the upper part of the town are the cathedral, the town hall, the upper part of the town maintains its medieval appearance despite the addition of later structures. Notable earthquakes are still a rare phenomenon in the province. Under the Köppen climate classification Arezzo is either a humid climate or an oceanic climate. It has uncharacteristically hot summer days for a climate, with the lows moderating the average temps
9.
Tuscany
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Tuscany is a region in central Italy with an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.8 million inhabitants. Tuscany is known for its landscapes, traditions, history, artistic legacy, Tuscany produces wines, including Chianti, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, Morellino di Scansano and Brunello di Montalcino. Having a strong linguistic and cultural identity, it is considered a nation within a nation. Tuscany is traditionally a popular destination in Italy, and the main tourist destinations by number of tourist arrivals are Florence, Pisa, Montecatini Terme, Castiglione della Pescaia and Grosseto. The village of Castiglione della Pescaia is also the most visited destination in the region. Additionally, Siena, Lucca, the Chianti region, Versilia and Val dOrcia are also internationally renowned, Tuscany has over 120 protected nature reserves, making Tuscany and its capital Florence popular tourist destinations that attract millions of tourists every year. In 2012, the city of Florence was the worlds 89th most visited city, roughly triangular in shape, Tuscany borders the regions of Liguria to the northwest, Emilia-Romagna to the north and east, Umbria to the east and Lazio to the southeast. The comune of Badia Tedalda, in the Tuscan Province of Arezzo, has an exclave named Ca Raffaello within Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany has a western coastline on the Tyrrhenian Sea, containing the Tuscan Archipelago, of which the largest island is Elba. Tuscany has an area of approximately 22,993 square kilometres, surrounded and crossed by major mountain chains, and with few plains, the region has a relief that is dominated by hilly country used for agriculture. Hills make up nearly two-thirds of the total area, covering 15,292 square kilometres, and mountains. Plains occupy 8. 4% of the total area—1,930 square kilometres —mostly around the valley of the River Arno, many of Tuscanys largest cities lie on the banks of the Arno, including the capital Florence, Empoli and Pisa. The pre-Etruscan history of the area in the late Bronze and Iron Ages parallels that of the early Greeks, following this, the Villanovan culture saw Tuscany, and the rest of Etruria, taken over by chiefdoms. City-states developed in the late Villanovan before Orientalization occurred and the Etruscan civilization rose, the Etruscans created the first major civilization in this region, large enough to establish a transport infrastructure, to implement agriculture and mining and to produce vibrant art. The Etruscans lived in Etruria well into prehistory, throughout their existence, they lost territory to Magna Graecia, Carthage and Celts. Despite being seen as distinct in its manners and customs by contemporary Greeks, the cultures of Greece, one reason for its eventual demise was this increasing absorption by surrounding cultures, including the adoption of the Etruscan upper class by the Romans. Soon after absorbing Etruria, Rome established the cities of Lucca, Pisa, Siena, and Florence, endowed the area with new technologies and development, and ensured peace. These developments included extensions of existing roads, introduction of aqueducts and sewers, however, many of these structures have been destroyed by erosion due to weather. The Roman civilization in the West collapsed in the 5th century AD, in the years following 572, the Longobards arrived and designated Lucca the capital of their Duchy of Tuscia
10.
Coluccio Salutati
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Salutati was born in Stignano, a tiny commune near Buggiano. After studies in Bologna, where his father lived in exile after a Ghibelline coup in Buggiano, the returned to Buggiano. There he worked as notary and pursued his studies, coming into contact with the Florentine humanists Boccaccio. Papal secretary Francesco Bruni took Salutati with him to Rome from 1368 to 1370, in 1370, through his connections in the curia he was made chancellor of the powerful Tuscan city of Lucca, a post he quickly lost in internecine struggles there. In 1374 Coluccio received an appointment in Florence and the year was appointed Chancellor of Florence. His abilities as a statesman were soon tested as Florence was immediately faced with war with the papacy, Salutati was charged with addressing Pope Gregory XI to assure him that Florence was still a loyal member of the Guelf party. Although he failed to prevent war with the papacy, Salutati soon became the most celebrated chancellor in all of Italy and a master of the formal letter. Florences principal nemesis during his tenure, Giangaleazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan, during his life, Florence warred twice against its powerful northern rival, Giangaleazzo Visconti. His treatise De tyranno published in 1400, has, most likely, its model in Visconti, occasionally his letters had unintended consequences. In testimony to his service as chancellor the city of Florence paid 250 florins for his funeral in 1406, coluccios cultural achievements are perhaps even greater than his political ones. An admiring correspondent of Petrarch, he spent much of his salary on amassing a collection of 800 books, Coluccio also did important studies of history, tying Florences origin not to the Roman Empire but to the Roman Republic. In his lifetime, the study of literature, especially pagan literature, was discouraged by the Roman Catholic Church. Coluccio played an important part in changing this outlook, frequently engaging in debates on the merits of pagan literature with Church officials. He promoted the work of younger humanists such as Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini, Niccolò Niccoli, Leonardo Bruni and he also brought the Byzantine scholar Manuel Chrysoloras to Florence in 1397 to teach one of the first courses in Greek since the end of the Roman Empire. After Boethius, few Westerners spoke or read Greek, many ancient Greek works of science and philosophy were not available in Latin translation. By Salutatis time, a few Latin texts of Aristotle had arrived in Europe via Muslim Spain and these texts, however, had been translated from Arabic, rather than directly from the Greek. By bringing Chrysoloras to Florence, Salutati made it possible for a group of scholars to read Aristotle
