1.
Tatar
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The Tatars are a Turkic people living in Asia and Europe who were one of the five major tribal confederations in the Mongolian plateau in the 12th century CE. The name Tatar first appears in form on the Kul Tigin monument as
2.
Republic of Venice
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It was based in the lagoon communities of the historically prosperous city of Venice. It was a leading European economic and trading power during the Middle Ages, the Venetian city state was founded as a safe haven for people escaping persecution in mainland Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. In its early years, it prospered on the salt trade, in subsequent centuries, the city state established a thalassocracy. It dominated trade on the Mediterranean Sea, including commerce between Asia, Europe and North Africa, the Venetian navy was used in the Crusades. Venice achieved territorial conquests along the Adriatic Sea, the city became home to an extremely wealthy merchant class, who patronized renowned art and architecture along the citys lagoons. Venetian merchants were influential financiers in Europe, the city was also the birthplace of great European explorers, including Marco Polo, as well as the classical music composer Vivaldi. The republic was ruled by the Doge, who was elected by members of the Great Council of Venice, the ruling class was an oligarchy of merchants and aristocrats. Venice and other Italian maritime republics played a key role in fostering capitalism, Venetian citizens generally supported the system of governance. The city-state enforced strict laws and employed ruthless tactics in its prisons, the opening of new trade routes to the Americas and the East Indies via the Atlantic Ocean marked the beginning of Venices decline as a maritime republic. The city state suffered defeats from the navy of the Ottoman Empire, in 1797, the country was colonized by Austria and France, following an invasion by Napoleon Bonaparte. Venice became a part of a unified Italy in the 19th century and it was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in reference to its title as one of the Most Serene Republics. He was the first historical Doge of Venice, whichever the case, the first doges had their power base in Heraclea. Ursuss successor, Deusdedit, moved his seat from Heraclea to Malamocco in the 740s and he was the son of Ursus and represented the attempt of his father to establish a dynasty. Such attempts were more commonplace among the doges of the first few centuries of Venetian history. They desired to remain well-connected to the Empire, another faction, republican in nature, believed in continuing along a course towards practical independence. The other main faction was pro-Frankish, supported mostly by clergy, they looked towards the new Carolingian king of the Franks, Pepin the Short, as the best provider of defence against the Lombards. A minor, pro-Lombard faction was opposed to close ties with any of these further-off powers, the successors of Obelerio inherited a united Venice. By the Pax Nicephori, the two emperors had recognised that Venice belonged to the Byzantine sphere of influence, many centuries later, the Venetians claimed that the treaty had recognised Venetian de facto independence, but the truth of this claim is doubted by modern scholars
3.
San Lorenzo, Venice
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San Lorenzo is a church building in the sestiere of Castello of Venice, northern Italy. The church dates to the 9th century, and became attached to the neighboring Benedictine monastery and it was rebuilt in 1580-1616 to designs by Simone Sorela. The high altar was sculpted by Giovanni Maria da Cannaregio using designs by Girolamo Campagna. The latter sculptor completed the statues of Saints Lawrence and Sebastian and it has been rumored that Marco Polo was buried here, but more likely he was buried at the no longer extant San Sebastiano. San Lorenzo on The List of Churches of Venice
4.
The Travels of Marco Polo
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The book was written in Old French by romance writer Rustichello da Pisa, who worked from accounts which he had heard from Marco Polo when they were imprisoned together in Genoa. From the beginning, there has been incredulity over Polos sometimes fabulous stories, some have questioned whether Marco had actually travelled to China or was just repeating stories that he had heard from other travellers. The source of the title Il Milione is debated, One view is it comes from the Polo familys use of the name Emilione to distinguish themselves from the numerous other Venetian families bearing the name Polo. A more common view is that the name refers to medieval reception of the travelog, modern assessments of the text usually consider it to be the record of an observant rather than imaginative or analytical traveller. Marco Polo emerges as being curious and tolerant, and devoted to Kublai Khan, the book is Polos account of his travels to China, which he calls Cathay and Manji. The Polo party left Venice in 1271, the journey took 3 years after which they arrived in Cathay as it was then called and met the Grandson of Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan. They left China in late 1290 or early 1291 and were back in Venice in 1295, the tradition is that Polo dictated the book to a romance writer, Rustichello da Pisa, while in prison in Genoa between 1298–1299. Rustichello may have worked up his first Franco-Italian version from Marcos notes, the book was then named Devisement du Monde and Livres des Merveilles du Monde in French, and De Mirabilibus Mundi in Latin. The Travels is divided into four books, Book One describes the lands of the Middle East and Central Asia that Marco encountered on his way to China. Book Two describes China and the court of Kublai Khan, Book Three describes some of the coastal regions of the East, Japan, India, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, and the east coast of Africa. Book Four describes some of the then-recent wars among the Mongols and some of the regions of the far north, Polos writings included descriptions of cannibals and spice growers. The Travels was a popular success in an era before printing. In the mid-fifteenth century the cartographer of Murano, Fra Mauro, Marco Polos description of the Far East and its riches inspired Christopher Columbuss decision to try to reach Asia by sea, in a westward route. A heavily annotated copy of Polos book was among the belongings of Columbus, Marco Polo was accompanied on his trips by his father and uncle, though neither of them published any known works about their journeys. The book was translated into many European languages in Marco Polos own lifetime, other early important sources are R, and Z. Another Old French Polo manuscript, dating to around 1350, is held by the National Library of Sweden, a total of about 150 copies in various languages are known to exist. During copying and translating many errors were made, so there are differences between the various copies. The first English translation is the Elizabethan version by John Frampton, The most noble and famous travels of Marco Polo, the first attempt to collate manuscripts and provide a critical edition was in a volume of collected travel narratives printed at Venice in 1559
5.
Venice Republic
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It was based in the lagoon communities of the historically prosperous city of Venice. It was a leading European economic and trading power during the Middle Ages, the Venetian city state was founded as a safe haven for people escaping persecution in mainland Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. In its early years, it prospered on the salt trade, in subsequent centuries, the city state established a thalassocracy. It dominated trade on the Mediterranean Sea, including commerce between Asia, Europe and North Africa, the Venetian navy was used in the Crusades. Venice achieved territorial conquests along the Adriatic Sea, the city became home to an extremely wealthy merchant class, who patronized renowned art and architecture along the citys lagoons. Venetian merchants were influential financiers in Europe, the city was also the birthplace of great European explorers, including Marco Polo, as well as the classical music composer Vivaldi. The republic was ruled by the Doge, who was elected by members of the Great Council of Venice, the ruling class was an oligarchy of merchants and aristocrats. Venice and other Italian maritime republics played a key role in fostering capitalism, Venetian citizens generally supported the system of governance. The city-state enforced strict laws and employed ruthless tactics in its prisons, the opening of new trade routes to the Americas and the East Indies via the Atlantic Ocean marked the beginning of Venices decline as a maritime republic. The city state suffered defeats from the navy of the Ottoman Empire, in 1797, the country was colonized by Austria and France, following an invasion by Napoleon Bonaparte. Venice became a part of a unified Italy in the 19th century and it was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in reference to its title as one of the Most Serene Republics. He was the first historical Doge of Venice, whichever the case, the first doges had their power base in Heraclea. Ursuss successor, Deusdedit, moved his seat from Heraclea to Malamocco in the 740s and he was the son of Ursus and represented the attempt of his father to establish a dynasty. Such attempts were more commonplace among the doges of the first few centuries of Venetian history. They desired to remain well-connected to the Empire, another faction, republican in nature, believed in continuing along a course towards practical independence. The other main faction was pro-Frankish, supported mostly by clergy, they looked towards the new Carolingian king of the Franks, Pepin the Short, as the best provider of defence against the Lombards. A minor, pro-Lombard faction was opposed to close ties with any of these further-off powers, the successors of Obelerio inherited a united Venice. By the Pax Nicephori, the two emperors had recognised that Venice belonged to the Byzantine sphere of influence, many centuries later, the Venetians claimed that the treaty had recognised Venetian de facto independence, but the truth of this claim is doubted by modern scholars
6.
Kublai Khan
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Kublai Khan, born Kublai and also known by the temple name Shizu, was the fifth Khagan of the Mongol Empire, reigning from 1260 to 1294. He also founded the Yuan dynasty in China as a conquest dynasty in 1271, Kublai was the fourth son of Tolui and a grandson of Genghis Khan. He succeeded his older brother Möngke as Khagan in 1260, but had to defeat his younger brother Ariq Böke in the Toluid Civil War lasting until 1264 and this episode marked the beginning of disunity in the empire. Kublais real power was limited to China and Mongolia, though as Khagan he still had influence in the Ilkhanate and, to a lesser degree. In 1271, Kublai established the Yuan dynasty, which ruled over present-day Mongolia, China, Korea, and some adjacent areas, by 1279, the Mongol conquest of the Song dynasty was completed and Kublai became the first non-native emperor to conquer all of China. Kublai Khan was the son of Tolui, and his second son with Sorghaghtani Beki. As his grandfather Genghis Khan advised, Sorghaghtani chose a Buddhist Tangut woman as her sons nurse, on his way home after the Mongol conquest of Khwarezmia, Genghis Khan performed a ceremony on his grandsons Möngke and Kublai after their first hunt in 1224 near the Ili River. Kublai was nine years old and with his eldest brother killed a rabbit and his grandfather smeared fat from killed animals onto Kublais middle finger in accordance with a Mongol tradition. After the Mongol conquest of the Jin dynasty, in 1236, Ögedei gave Hebei to the family of Tolui, Kublai received an estate of his own, which included 10,000 households. Because he was inexperienced, Kublai allowed local officials free rein, corruption amongst his officials and aggressive taxation caused large numbers of Chinese peasants to flee, which led to a decline in tax revenues. Kublai quickly came to his appanage in Hebei and ordered reforms, Sorghaghtani sent new officials to help him and tax laws were revised. Thanks to those efforts, many of the people who fled returned, the most prominent, and arguably most influential, component of Kublai Khans early life was his study and strong attraction to contemporary Chinese culture. Kublai invited Haiyun, the leading Buddhist monk in North China, when he met Haiyun in Karakorum in 1242, Kublai asked him about the philosophy of Buddhism. Haiyun named Kublais son, who was born in 1243, Zhenjin, Haiyun also introduced Kublai to the formerly Daoist and now Buddhist monk, Liu Bingzhong. Liu was a painter, calligrapher, poet, and mathematician, Kublai soon added the Shanxi scholar Zhao Bi to his entourage. Kublai employed people of other nationalities as well, for he was keen to balance local and imperial interests, Mongol, in 1251, Kublais eldest brother Möngke became Khan of the Mongol Empire, and Khwarizmian Mahmud Yalavach and Kublai were sent to China. Kublai received the viceroyalty over North China and moved his ordo to central Inner Mongolia, during his years as viceroy, Kublai managed his territory well, boosted the agricultural output of Henan, and increased social welfare spendings after receiving Xian. These acts received great acclaim from the Chinese warlords and were essential to the building of the Yuan Dynasty, Möngke dismissed Mahmud Yalavach, which met with resistance from Chinese Confucian-trained officials
7.
Republic of Genoa
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It began when Genoa became a self-governing commune within the Regnum Italicum, and ended when it was conquered by the French First Republic under Napoleon and replaced with the Ligurian Republic. Corsica was ceded to France in the Treaty of Versailles of 1768, before 1100, Genoa emerged as an independent city-state, one of a number of Italian city-states during this period. Nominally, the Holy Roman Emperor was overlord and the Bishop of Genoa was president of the city, however, actual power was wielded by a number of consuls annually elected by popular assembly. The Adorno, Campofregoso, and other merchant families all fought for power in this Republic, as the power of the consuls allowed each family faction to gain wealth. The Republic of Genoa extended over modern Liguria and Piedmont, Sardinia, Corsica, through Genoese participation on the Crusades, Genoese colonies were established in the Middle East, in the Aegean, in Sicily and Northern Africa. The collapse of the Crusader States was offset by Genoa’s alliance with the Byzantine Empire, as Venices relations with the Byzantine Empire were temporarily disrupted by the Fourth Crusade and its aftermath, Genoa was able to improve its position. Genoa took advantage of opportunity to expand into the Black Sea and Crimea. Internal feuds between the families, the Grimaldi and Fieschi, the Doria, Spinola, and others caused much disruption. However, this prosperity did not last, the Black Death was imported into Europe in 1347 from the Genoese trading post at Caffa in Crimea, on the Black Sea. Following the economic and population collapse, Genoa adopted the Venetian model of government, the wars with Venice continued, and the War of Chioggia -- where Genoa almost managed to decisively subdue Venice—ended with Venices recovery of dominance in the Adriatic. In 1390 Genoa initiated a crusade against the Barbary pirates with help from the French, though it has not been well-studied, the fifteenth century seems to have been a tumultuous time for Genoa. After a period of French domination from 1394–1409, Genoa came under rule by the Visconti of Milan, Genoa lost Sardinia to Aragon, Corsica to internal revolt and its Middle Eastern, Eastern European and Asia Minor colonies to the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Under the ensuing economic recovery, many aristocratic Genoese families, such as the Balbi, Doria, Grimaldi, Pallavicini, according to Felipe Fernandez-Armesto and others, the practices Genoa developed in the Mediterranean were crucial in the exploration and exploitation of the New World. At the time of Genoa’s peak in the 16th century, the city attracted many artists, including Rubens, Caravaggio and Van Dyck. The architect Galeazzo Alessi designed many of the city’s splendid palazzi, as did in the decades that followed by fifty years Bartolomeo Bianco, a number of Genoese Baroque and Rococo artists settled elsewhere and a number of local artists became prominent. At the time of its founding in the early 11th century the Republic of Genoa consisted of the city of Genoa, as the commerce of the city increased, so did the territory of the Republic. By 1015 all of Liguria fell under the Republic of Genoa, after the First Crusade in 1098 Genoa gained settlements in Syria. In 1261 the city of Smyrna in Asia Minor became Genoese territory, in 1255 Genoa established the colony of Caffa in Crimea
8.
Merchant
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A merchant is a person who trades in commodities produced by other people to earn a profit. A merchant historically was anyone involved in business as long as industry, commerce, the status of the merchant has varied during different periods of history and among different societies. There are two types of merchant, A wholesale merchant is a wholesaler who operates in the chain between produce and retail merchant, typically dealing in large quantities of goods, some wholesale merchants only organize the movement of goods rather than move the goods themselves. A retail merchant or retailer, sells merchandise to end-users or consumers, a shop-keeper is a retail merchant. Merchants have existed as long as business, industry, trade, a merchant class characterized many pre-modern societies. Open air, public markets were known in ancient Babylonia and Assyria, China, Egypt, Greece, India, Persia, Phonecia and these markets typically occupied a place in the towns centre. Surrounding the market, skilled artisans, such as metal-workers and leather workers and these artisans may have sold wares directly from their premises, but also prepared goods for sale on market days. In ancient Greece markets operated within the agora, and in ancient Rome the forum, the nature of direct selling centred around transactional exchange, where the goods were on open display, allowing buyers to evaluate quality directly through visual inspection. Relationships between merchant and consumer were minimal, the Phoenicians plied their ships across the Mediterranean, becoming a major trading power by 9th century BCE. The Phoenicians imported and exported wood, textiles, glass and produce such as wine, oil, dried fruit and their trading skills necessitated a network of colonies along the Mediterranean coast, stretching from modern day Crete through to Tangiers and onto Sardinia. The Phoenicians not only traded in goods, but were also instrumental in transporting the trappings of culture. The Phoenicians extensive trade networks necessitated considerable book-keeping and correspondence, in around 1500 BCE, the Phoenicians developed a phonetic alphabet which was much easier to learn that the pictographic scripts used in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Phoenician traders and merchants were responsible for spreading their alphabet around the region. Phoenician inscriptions have been found in sites at a number of former Phoenician cities and colonies around the Mediterranean, such as Byblos. The Romans defined merchants or traders in a narrow sense. Merchants were those who bought and sold goods while landowners who sold their own produce were not considered to be merchants, being a landowner was a respectable occupation. On the other hand, the trade of merchant was not considered respectable, although they may have lacked high social standing, merchants in ancient Rome often made handsome profits. Umbricius Scauras, for example, was a manufacturer and trader of fish sauce in Pompeii and his villa, situated in one of the wealthier districts of Pompeii, was very large and ornately decorated in a show of substantial personal wealth
9.
Europeans in Medieval China
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Given textual and archaeological evidence, it is thought that thousands of Europeans lived in Imperial China during the period of Mongol rule. These were people from countries traditionally belonging to the lands of Christendom during the High to Late Middle Ages who visited, traded, performed Christian missionary work, or lived in China. The most famous European visitor to China during this period was Marco Polo, preceded, respectively, by his father and uncle Niccolò and Maffeo Polo. The establishment of the Ming dynasty in 1368 and reestablishment of native Han Chinese rule led to the cessation of European merchants and Roman Catholic missionaries living in China. The Venetian merchant Marco Polo, as well as his father and uncle Niccolò and Maffeo Polo, respectively, Marco Polo wrote an account of his travels there, as did the Franciscan friar Odoric of Pordenone, the merchant Francesco Balducci Pegolotti, and the author John Mandeville. In Khanbaliq, the Roman archdiocese was established by John of Montecorvino, the Uyghur Nestorian Christian Rabban Bar Sauma was the first diplomat from China to reach the royal courts of Christendom in the West. Before the 13th century, instances of Europeans going to China or of Chinese going to Europe are virtually unknown, euthydemus I, Hellenistic ruler of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom in Central Asia during the 3rd century BC, led an expedition into the Tarim Basin in search of precious metals. Lucas Christopoulos presents an argument that the influence of Hellenistic art in China stretches back to the Qin dynasty, yet ancient ceramics from sites at Khotan bear clear influence from the Hellenistic Kingdom of Ptolemaic Egypt, with styles non-existent in Kushan art. This has led Christopoulos to assume the presence of peoples not only from the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom but also Greeks, Saka, the Eastern-Han era Chinese general Ban Chao, Protector General of the Western Regions, explored Central Asia and in 97 AD dispatched his envoys Gan Ying to Daqin. Subsequently, there were a series of Roman embassies in China lasting from the 2nd to 3rd centuries AD, historian Rafe de Crespigny speculates that they were Roman merchants instead of official diplomats. Roman golden medallions from the reigns of Antoninus Pius and his adopted son Marcus Aurelius have been found in Oc Eo, Roman coins have been found in China, but far less so than in India. It is possible that a group of Greek acrobatic performers, who claimed to be from a place west of the seas, were presented by a king of Burma to Emperor An of Han in 120 AD. It is known that in both the Parthian Empire and Kushan Empire of Asia, ethnic Greeks continued to be employed as such as musicians. Byzantine Greek historian Procopius stated that two Nestorian Christian monks eventually uncovered the way of how silk was made, from this revelation monks were sent by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian as spies on the Silk Road from Constantinople to China and back to steal the silkworm eggs. These histories also provided descriptions of Constantinople, its walls, and how it was besieged by Da shi and their commander Mo-yi. From Chinese records it is known that Michael VII Doukas of Fu lin dispatched a mission to Chinas Song dynasty that arrived in 1081. China was a destination for Radhanite Jews who brought boys, female slaves and eunuchs from Europe according to the 9th-century Book of Roads, during the subsequent Song period there was also a community of Kaifeng Jews in China. Polo related this account to Rustichello da Pisa around 1298 while they shared a Genoese prison cell following their capture in battle, although Marco Polos presence is omitted entirely, his story is confirmed by the 14th-century Persian historian Rashid-al-Din Hamadani in his Jami al-tawarikh
10.
Christopher Columbus
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Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer, navigator, colonizer, and citizen of the Republic of Genoa. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean and those voyages and his efforts to establish permanent settlements on the island of Hispaniola initiated the European colonization of the New World. Western imperialism and economic competition were emerging among European kingdoms through the establishment of routes and colonies. During his first voyage in 1492, he reached the New World instead of arriving at Japan as he had intended, landing on an island in the Bahamas archipelago that he named San Salvador. Over the course of three voyages, he visited the Greater and Lesser Antilles, as well as the Caribbean coast of Venezuela and Central America. These voyages had, therefore, an impact in the historical development of the modern Western world. He spearheaded the transatlantic trade and has been accused by several historians of initiating the genocide of the Hispaniola natives. Columbus himself saw his accomplishments primarily in the light of spreading the Christian religion, Columbus never admitted that he had reached a continent previously unknown to Europeans, rather than the East Indies for which he had set course. He called the inhabitants of the lands that he visited indios, the name Christopher Columbus is the Anglicisation of the Latin Christophorus Columbus. His name in Italian is Cristoforo Colombo and, in Spanish and he was born before 31 October 1451 in the territory of the Republic of Genoa, though the exact location remains disputed. His father was Domenico Colombo, a wool weaver who worked both in Genoa and Savona and who also owned a cheese stand at which young Christopher worked as a helper. Bartolomeo, Giovanni Pellegrino, and Giacomo were his brothers, Bartolomeo worked in a cartography workshop in Lisbon for at least part of his adulthood. He also had a sister named Bianchinetta, Columbus never wrote in his native language, which is presumed to have been a Genoese variety of Ligurian. In one of his writings, he says he went to sea at the age of 10, in 1470, the Columbus family moved to Savona, where Domenico took over a tavern. In the same year, Christopher was on a Genoese ship hired in the service of René of Anjou to support his attempt to conquer the Kingdom of Naples. Some modern historians have argued that he was not from Genoa but, instead and these competing hypotheses have generally been discounted by mainstream scholars. In 1473, Columbus began his apprenticeship as business agent for the important Centurione, Di Negro, later, he allegedly made a trip to Chios, an Aegean island then ruled by Genoa. In May 1476, he took part in a convoy sent by Genoa to carry valuable cargo to northern Europe
11.
Fra Mauro map
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The Fra Mauro map, considered the greatest memorial of medieval cartography, is a map of the world made around 1450 by the Italian cartographer Fra Mauro. It is a circular planisphere drawn on parchment and set in a frame that measures over two by two meters. It includes Asia, the Indian Ocean, Africa, Europe and it is oriented with south at the top. The Fra Mauro world map is a major cartographical work and it took several years to complete and was very expensive to produce. The map contains hundreds of detailed illustrations and more than 3000 descriptive texts and it was the most detailed and accurate representation of the world that had been produced up until that time. As such, the Fra Mauro map is considered one of the most important works in the history of cartography and it marks the end of Bible-based geography in Europe and the beginning of embracing a more scientific way of making maps, placing accuracy ahead of religious or traditional beliefs. The maker of the map, Fra Mauro, was a Camaldolese monk from the island of Murano near Venice and he was employed as an accountant and professional cartographer. The map was made for the kings and rulers of Venice and Portugal, the map is usually on display in the museum Museo Correr in Venice in Italy. The map is very large – the full frame measures 2.4 by 2.4 meters and this makes Fra Mauros mappa mundi the worlds largest extant map from early modern Europe. The map is drawn on high quality vellum and is set in a wooden frame. The large drawings are highly detailed and uses a range of colors, blue, red, turquoise, brown, green. The main circular map of the world is surrounded by four smaller spheres, the top right is a diagram of the four elements – earth is followed by water, fire and air. The bottom left is an illustration of the Garden of Eden, significantly, Fra Mauro took the step of placing the Garden of Eden outside the world, rather than in its traditional place in the extreme east. The bottom right depicts Earth as a globe and it shows the North Pole, the South Pole as well as the Equator and the two tropics. About 3000 inscriptions and detailed texts describe the geographical features on the map as well as related information about them. The depiction of inhabited places and mountains, the maps chorography is also an important feature, castles and cities are identified by pictorial glyphs representing turreted castles or walled towns, distinguished in order of their importance. The making of the map was an undertaking and the map took several years to complete. The map was not created by Fra Mauro alone, but by a team of cartographers, artists and copyists led by him, the price of the map would have been about an average copyists annual salary
12.
Venice
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Venice is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is situated across a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and these are located in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay that lies between the mouths of the Po and the Piave Rivers. Parts of Venice are renowned for the beauty of their settings, their architecture, the lagoon and a part of the city are listed as a World Heritage Site. In 2014,264,579 people resided in Comune di Venezia, together with Padua and Treviso, the city is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, with a total population of 2.6 million. PATREVE is a metropolitan area without any degree of autonomy. The name is derived from the ancient Veneti people who inhabited the region by the 10th century BC, the city was historically the capital of the Republic of Venice. Venice has been known as the La Dominante, Serenissima, Queen of the Adriatic, City of Water, City of Masks, City of Bridges, The Floating City, and City of Canals. The City State of Venice is considered to have been the first real international financial center which gradually emerged from the 9th century to its peak in the 14th century and this made Venice a wealthy city throughout most of its history. It is also known for its several important artistic movements, especially the Renaissance period, Venice has played an important role in the history of symphonic and operatic music, and it is the birthplace of Antonio Vivaldi. Venice has been ranked the most beautiful city in the world as of 2016, the name Venetia, however, derives from the Roman name for the people known as the Veneti, and called by the Greeks Eneti. The meaning of the word is uncertain, although there are other Indo-European tribes with similar-sounding names, such as the Celtic Veneti, Baltic Veneti, and the Slavic Wends. Linguists suggest that the name is based on an Indo-European root *wen, so that *wenetoi would mean beloved, lovable, a connection with the Latin word venetus, meaning the color sea-blue, is also possible. The alternative obsolete form is Vinegia, some late Roman sources reveal the existence of fishermen on the islands in the original marshy lagoons. They were referred to as incolae lacunae, the traditional founding is identified with the dedication of the first church, that of San Giacomo on the islet of Rialto — said to have taken place at the stroke of noon on 25 March 421. Beginning as early as AD166 to 168, the Quadi and Marcomanni destroyed the center in the area. The Roman defences were again overthrown in the early 5th century by the Visigoths and, some 50 years later, New ports were built, including those at Malamocco and Torcello in the Venetian lagoon. The tribuni maiores, the earliest central standing governing committee of the islands in the Lagoon, the traditional first doge of Venice, Paolo Lucio Anafesto, was actually Exarch Paul, and his successor, Marcello Tegalliano, was Pauls magister militum. In 726 the soldiers and citizens of the Exarchate rose in a rebellion over the controversy at the urging of Pope Gregory II
13.
Constantinople
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Constantinople was the capital city of the Roman/Byzantine Empire, and also of the brief Latin, and the later Ottoman empires. It was reinaugurated in 324 AD from ancient Byzantium as the new capital of the Roman Empire by Emperor Constantine the Great, after whom it was named, Constantinople was famed for its massive and complex defences. The first wall of the city was erected by Constantine I, Constantinople never truly recovered from the devastation of the Fourth Crusade and the decades of misrule by the Latins. The origins of the name of Byzantion, more known by the later Latin Byzantium, are not entirely clear. The founding myth of the city has it told that the settlement was named after the leader of the Megarian colonists, Byzas. The later Byzantines of Constantinople themselves would maintain that the city was named in honour of two men, Byzas and Antes, though this was likely just a play on the word Byzantion. During this time, the city was also called Second Rome, Eastern Rome, and Roma Constantinopolitana. As the city became the remaining capital of the Roman Empire after the fall of the West, and its wealth, population, and influence grew. In the language of other peoples, Constantinople was referred to just as reverently, the medieval Vikings, who had contacts with the empire through their expansion in eastern Europe used the Old Norse name Miklagarðr, and later Miklagard and Miklagarth. In Arabic, the city was sometimes called Rūmiyyat al-kubra and in Persian as Takht-e Rum, in East and South Slavic languages, including in medieval Russia, Constantinople was referred to as Tsargrad or Carigrad, City of the Caesar, from the Slavonic words tsar and grad. This was presumably a calque on a Greek phrase such as Βασιλέως Πόλις, the modern Turkish name for the city, İstanbul, derives from the Greek phrase eis tin polin, meaning into the city or to the city. In 1928, the Turkish alphabet was changed from Arabic script to Latin script, in time the city came to be known as Istanbul and its variations in most world languages. In Greece today, the city is still called Konstantinoúpolis/Konstantinoúpoli or simply just the City, apart from this, little is known about this initial settlement, except that it was abandoned by the time the Megarian colonists settled the site anew. A farsighted treaty with the emergent power of Rome in c.150 BC which stipulated tribute in exchange for independent status allowed it to enter Roman rule unscathed. The site lay astride the land route from Europe to Asia and the seaway from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, and had in the Golden Horn an excellent and spacious harbour. He would later rebuild Byzantium towards the end of his reign, in which it would be briefly renamed Augusta Antonina, fortifying it with a new city wall in his name, Constantine had altogether more colourful plans. Rome was too far from the frontiers, and hence from the armies and the imperial courts, yet it had been the capital of the state for over a thousand years, and it might have seemed unthinkable to suggest that the capital be moved to a different location. Constantinople was built over 6 years, and consecrated on 11 May 330, Constantine divided the expanded city, like Rome, into 14 regions, and ornamented it with public works worthy of an imperial metropolis
14.
Dalmatia
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Dalmatia is one of the four historical regions of Croatia, alongside Croatia proper, Slavonia, and Istria. Dalmatia is a belt of the east shore of the Adriatic Sea. The hinterland ranges in width from fifty kilometres in the north, to just a few kilometres in the south,79 islands run parallel to the coast, the largest being Brač, Pag and Hvar. The largest city is Split, followed by Zadar, Dubrovnik, the name of the region stems from an Illyrian tribe called the Dalmatae, who lived in the area in classical antiquity. Later it became a Roman province, and as result a Romance culture emerged, along with the now-extinct Dalmatian language, later largely replaced with related Venetian. With the arrival of Croats to the area in the 8th century, who occupied most of the hinterland, Croatian and Romance elements began to intermix in language and the culture. During the Middle Ages, its cities were conquered by, or switched allegiance to. The longest-lasting rule was the one of the Republic of Venice, between 1815 and 1918, it was as a province of Austrian Empire known as the Kingdom of Dalmatia. It was the Romans who first gave Dalmatia its name, inspired by the Illyrian word “delmat”, meaning a proud and its Latin form Dalmatia gave rise to its current English name. In the Venetian language, once dominant in the area, it is spelled Dalmàssia, the modern Croatian spelling is Dalmacija, pronounced. Dalmatia is referenced in the New Testament at 2 Timothy 4,10 so its name has been translated in many of the worlds languages. In antiquity the Roman province of Dalmatia was much larger than the present-day Split-Dalmatia County, Dalmatia is today a historical region only, not formally instituted in Croatian law. Its exact extent is uncertain and subject to public perception. According to Lena Mirošević and Josip Faričić of the University of Zadar, simultaneously, the southern part of Lika and upper Pounje, which were not a part of Austrian Dalmatia, became a part of Zadar County. From the present-day administrative and territorial point of view, Dalmatia comprises the four Croatian littoral counties with seats in Zadar, Šibenik, Split, Dalmatia is therefore generally perceived to extend approximately to the borders of the Austrian Kingdom of Dalmatia. The Encyclopædia Britannica defines Dalmatia as extending to the narrows of Kotor, other sources, however, such as the Treccani encyclopedia and the Rough Guide to Croatia still include the Bay as being part of the region. This definition does not include the Bay of Kotor, nor the islands of Rab, Sveti Grgur and it also excludes the northern part of the island of Pag, which is part of the Lika-Senj County. However, it includes the Gračac Municipality in Zadar County, which was not a part of the Kingdom of Dalmatia and is not traditionally associated with the region, the inhabitants of Dalmatia are culturally subdivided into two or three groups
15.
Genoa
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Genoa is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015,594,733 people lived within the administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of Genoa, over 1.5 million people live in the wider metropolitan area stretching along the Italian Riviera. Genoa has been nicknamed la Superba due to its glorious past, part of the old town of Genoa was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2006. The citys rich history in notably its art, music. It is the birthplace of Christopher Columbus, Niccolò Paganini, Giuseppe Mazzini, Genoa, which forms the southern corner of the Milan-Turin-Genoa industrial triangle of north-west Italy, is one of the countrys major economic centres. The city has hosted massive shipyards and steelworks since the 19th century, the Bank of Saint George, founded in 1407, is among the oldest in the world and has played an important role in the citys prosperity since the middle of the 15th century. Today a number of leading Italian companies are based in the city, including Fincantieri, Selex ES, Ansaldo Energia, Ansaldo STS, Edoardo Raffinerie Garrone, Piaggio Aerospace, the Genoa area has been inhabited since the fifth or fourth millennium BC. In ancient times this area was frequented and inhabited by Ligures, Phoenicians, Phocaeans, Greeks, and Etruscans. The city cemetery, dating from the 6th and 5th centuries BC, testifies to the occupation of the site by the Greeks, but the fine harbour probably saw use much earlier, perhaps by the Etruscans. In the 5th century BC was founded the first oppidum at the foot of the today called the Castle Hill which now is inside the medieval old town. The ancient Ligurian city was known as Stalia, so referred to by Artemidorus Ephesius and Pomponius Mela, Ligurian Stalia was overshadowed by the powerful Marseille and Vada Sabatia, near modern Savona. Stalia had an alliance with Rome through a foedus aequum in the course of the Second Punic War, the Carthaginians accordingly destroyed it in 209 BC. The town was rebuilt and, after the Carthaginian Wars ended in 146 BC. it received municipal rights, the original castrum thenceforth expanded towards the current areas of Santa Maria di Castello and the San Lorenzo promontory. Trades included skins, wood, and honey, goods were shipped to the mainland, up to major cities like Tortona and Piacenza. Among the archeological remains from the Roman period, an amphitheatre was also found, another theory traces the name to the Etruscan word Kainua which means New City and still another from the Latin word ianua, related to the name of the God Janus, meaning door or passage. The latter is in reference to its position at the centre of the Ligurian coastal arch. The Latin name, oppidum Genua, is recorded by Pliny the Elder as part of the Augustean Regio IX Liguria, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Ostrogoths occupied Genoa
16.
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 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
17.
Near East
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The Near East is a geographical term that roughly encompasses Western Asia. Despite having varying definitions within different academic circles, the term was applied to the maximum extent of the Ottoman Empire. The term has fallen into disuse in English and has replaced by the terms Middle East. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations defines the region similarly, but also includes Afghanistan while excluding the countries of North Africa and the Palestinian territories. Up until 1912 the Ottomans retained a band of territory including Albania, Macedonia and Southern Thrace, the Ottoman Empire, believed to be about to collapse, was portrayed in the press as the sick man of Europe. The Balkan states, with the exception of Bosnia and Albania, were primarily Christian. Starting in 1894 the Ottomans struck at the Armenians on the grounds that they were a non-Muslim people. The Hamidian Massacres aroused the indignation of the entire Christian world, in the United States the now aging Julia Ward Howe, author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, leaped into the war of words and joined the Red Cross. Relations of minorities within the Ottoman Empire and the disposition of former Ottoman lands became known as the Eastern Question and it now became relevant to define the east of the eastern question. In about the middle of the 19th century Near East came into use to describe part of the east closest to Europe. The term Far East appeared contemporaneously meaning Japan, China, Korea, Indonesia, near East applied to what had been mainly known as the Levant, which was in the jurisdiction of the Ottoman Porte, or government. Those who used the term had little choice about its meaning and they could not set foot on most of the shores of the southern and central Mediterranean from the Gulf of Sidra to Albania without permits from the Ottoman Empire. Some regions beyond the Ottoman Porte were included, one was North Africa west of Egypt. It was occupied by piratical kingdoms of the Barbary Coast, de facto independent since the 18th century, formerly part of the empire at its apogee. Iran was included because it could not easily be reached except through the Ottoman Empire or neighboring Russia, in the 1890s the term tended to focus on the conflicts in the Balkan states and Armenia. The demise of the man of Europe left considerable confusion as to what was to be meant by Near East. It is now used only in historical contexts, to describe the countries of Western Asia from the Mediterranean to Iran. There is, in short, no universally understood fixed inventory of nations and they appear together in the journals of the mid-19th century
18.
Latin Empire
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It was established after the capture of Constantinople in 1204 and lasted until 1261. Baldwin IX, Count of Flanders, was crowned the first Latin emperor as Baldwin I on 16 May 1204, the last Latin emperor, Baldwin II, went into exile, but the imperial title survived, with several pretenders to it, until the 14th century. The original name of state in the Latin language was Imperium Romaniae. This name was used based on the fact that the name for the Eastern Roman Empire in this period had been Romania. The names Byzantine and Latin were not contemporaneous terms, the term Latin has been used because the crusaders were Roman Catholic and used Latin as their liturgical and scholarly language. It is used in contrast to the Eastern Orthodox locals who used Greek in both liturgy and common speech, after the fall of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade, the crusaders agreed to divide up Byzantine territory. In the Partitio terrarum imperii Romaniae, signed on 1 October 1204, none of these polities actually controlled the city of Rome, which remained under the temporal authority of the Pope. The initial campaigns of the crusaders in Asia Minor resulted in the capture of most of Bithynia by 1205, with the defeat of the forces of Theodore I Laskaris at Poemanenum and Prusa. Latin successes continued, and in 1207 a truce was signed with Theodore, the Latins inflicted a further defeat on Nicaean forces at the Rhyndakos river in October 1211, and three years later the Treaty of Nymphaeum recognized their control of most of Bithynia and Mysia. The peace was maintained until 1222, when the resurgent power of Nicaea felt sufficiently strong to challenge the Latin Empire, Nicaea turned also to the Aegean, capturing the islands awarded to the empire. In 1235, finally, the last Latin possessions fell to Nicaea, unlike in Asia, where the Latin Empire faced only an initially weak Nicaea, in Europe it was immediately confronted with a powerful enemy, the Bulgarian tsar Kaloyan. When Baldwin campaigned against the Byzantine lords of Thrace, they called upon Kaloyan for help, at the Battle of Adrianople on 14 April 1205, the Latin heavy cavalry and knights were crushed by Kaloyans troops and Cuman allies, and Emperor Baldwin was captured. He was imprisoned in the Bulgarian capital Tarnovo until his later in 1205. At the same time, another Greek successor state, the Despotate of Epirus, under Michael I Komnenos Doukas, posed a threat to the vassals in Thessalonica. Henry demanded his submission, which Michael provided, giving off his daughter to Henrys brother Eustace in the summer of 1209 and this alliance allowed Henry to launch a campaign in Macedonia, Thessaly and Central Greece against the rebellious Lombard lords of Thessalonica. However, Michaels attack on the Kingdom of Thessalonica in 1210 forced him to north to relieve the city. In 1214 however, Michael died, and was succeeded by Theodore Komnenos Doukas, on 11 June 1216, while supervising repairs to the walls of Thessalonica, Henry died, and was succeeded by Peter of Courtenay, who himself was captured and executed by Theodore the following year. A regency was set up in Constantinople, headed by Peters widow, Yolanda of Flanders, epirote armies then conquered Thrace in 1225–26, appearing before Constantinople itself
19.
Yuan dynasty
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The Yuan dynasty, officially the Great Yuan, was the empire or ruling dynasty of China established by Kublai Khan, leader of the Mongolian Borjigin clan. His realm was, by point, isolated from the other khanates and controlled most of present-day China and its surrounding areas. Some of the Mongolian Emperors of the Yuan mastered the Chinese language, while others used their native language. The Yuan dynasty is considered both a successor to the Mongol Empire and an imperial Chinese dynasty and it was the khanate ruled by the successors of Möngke Khan after the division of the Mongol Empire. In official Chinese histories, the Yuan dynasty bore the Mandate of Heaven, following the Song dynasty, the dynasty was established by Kublai Khan, yet he placed his grandfather Genghis Khan on the imperial records as the official founder of the dynasty as Taizu. In addition to Emperor of China, Kublai Khan also claimed the title of Great Khan, supreme over the other khanates, the Chagatai, the Golden Horde. As such, the Yuan was also referred to as the Empire of the Great Khan. However, while the claim of supremacy by the Yuan emperors was at times recognized by the khans, their subservience was nominal. In 1271, Kublai Khan imposed the name Great Yuan, establishing the Yuan dynasty, dà Yuán is from the clause 大哉乾元 in the Commentaries on the Classic of Changes section regarding Qián. The counterpart in Mongolian language was Dai Ön Ulus, also rendered as Ikh Yuan Üls or Yekhe Yuan Ulus, in Mongolian, Dai Ön is often used in conjunction with the Yeke Mongghul Ulus, resulting in Dai Ön Yeke Mongghul Ulus, meaning Great Mongol State. Nevertheless, both terms can refer to the khanate within the Mongol Empire directly ruled by Great Khans before the actual establishment of the Yuan dynasty by Kublai Khan in 1271. Genghis Khan united the Mongol and Turkic tribes of the steppes and he and his successors expanded the Mongol empire across Asia. Under the reign of Genghis third son, Ögedei Khan, the Mongols destroyed the weakened Jin dynasty in 1234, Ögedei offered his nephew Kublai a position in Xingzhou, Hebei. Kublai was unable to read Chinese but had several Han Chinese teachers attached to him since his early years by his mother Sorghaghtani and he sought the counsel of Chinese Buddhist and Confucian advisers. Möngke Khan succeeded Ögedeis son, Güyük, as Great Khan in 1251 and he granted his brother Kublai control over Mongol held territories in China. Kublai built schools for Confucian scholars, issued paper money, revived Chinese rituals and he adopted as his capital city Kaiping in Inner Mongolia, later renamed Shangdu. Many Han Chinese and Khitan defected to the Mongols to fight against the Jin, two Han Chinese leaders, Shi Tianze, Liu Heima, and the Khitan Xiao Zhala defected and commanded the 3 Tumens in the Mongol army. Liu Heima and Shi Tianze served Ogödei Khan, Liu Heima and Shi Tianxiang led armies against Western Xia for the Mongols
20.
Michael VIII Palaiologos
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Michael VIII Palaiologos or Palaeologus reigned as Byzantine Emperor 1259–1282. Michael VIII was the founder of the Palaiologan dynasty that would rule the Byzantine Empire until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 and he recovered Constantinople from the Latin Empire in 1261 and transformed the Empire of Nicaea into a restored Byzantine Empire. Michael rose to distinction at an age, serving as the governor of the Thracian towns of Melnik. However, in the fall of 1253 Michael was accused before the Emperor John III Vatatzes of plotting against the throne, the only way Michael was allowed to prove his innocence was through trial by ordeal, holding a red-hot iron. Following the death of John Vatatzes, Michael crossed the Sangarios River with a few close friends, Michael was invested with the titles of megas doux and, in November 1258, of despotēs. On 1 January 1259 Michael VIII Palaiologos was proclaimed co-emperor at Nymphaion, in 1259 Michael VIII defeated the alliance of William II Villehardouin, Prince of Achaea, and Michael II Komnenos Doukas of Epirus at the Battle of Pelagonia. According to Geanakoplos, n the period preceding the Nicene reconquest of Constantinople in 1261 no event was of greater importance than Michael Palaeologus victory at Pelagonia. Despite this brilliant victory, only one event could remove the stigma of usurper completely from the eyes of his subjects — recovery of Constantinople itself, in 1260 Michael personally led an unsuccessful attempt to capture the city. Rumors of reinforcements for the city forced Michael to sign a one-year truce with the Latin Emperor Baldwin II that August. Realizing that he needed a navy to effectively besiege Constantinople, Michael concluded the Treaty of Nymphaeum with Genoa in March of the following year, Genoese help proved to be unneeded when Michael VIIIs general Alexios Strategopoulos captured Constantinople from Baldwin II through treachery on 25 July 1261. News of the city first reached Michaels sister Eulogia, who awoke her brother at dawn. He was not convinced until a messenger arrived from Strategopoulos bearing the crown, Michael VIII entered the city on 15 August and had himself crowned together with his infant son Andronikos II Palaiologos. Once in control of Constantinople, Michael abolished all Latin customs and reinstated most Byzantine ceremonies and institutions as they had existed before the Fourth Crusade. He repopulated the capital, building its population from 35,000 when he took power to 70,000 by the end of his reign, and restored damaged churches, monasteries, and public buildings. In December John IV, who had left behind at Nicaea, was blinded and relegated to a monastery. Although Michael tried to keep the blinding of John a secret and this ban was not lifted until six years later on the appointment of patriarch Joseph I. In the words of Geanaklopos, With the fall of Constantinople, for the Greeks had now effectively reasserted their right to a church divorced from Rome. Thus it became the task of each of the six successive popes of Michaels reign to accomplish the return of the schismatics to the Roman fold, Michael also approached Manfred of Sicily to achieve some kind of accord
21.
Empire of Nicaea
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Founded by the Laskaris family, it lasted from 1204 to 1261, when the Nicaeans restored the Byzantine Empire in Constantinople. In 1204, Byzantine emperor Alexios V Ducas Murtzouphlos fled Constantinople after crusaders invaded the city. Theodore I Lascaris, the son-in-law of Emperor Alexios III Angelos, was proclaimed emperor but he too, realizing the situation in Constantinople was hopeless, fled to the city of Nicaea in Bithynia. The Latin Empire, established by the Crusaders in Constantinople, had control over former Byzantine territory, and Byzantine successor states sprang up in Epirus, Trebizond. Trebizond had broken away as an independent state a few weeks before the fall of Constantinople, Nicaea, however, was the closest to the Latin Empire and was in the best position to attempt to re-establish the Byzantine Empire. Theodore also defeated an army from Trebizond, as well as minor rivals. In 1206, Theodore proclaimed himself emperor at Nicaea, numerous truces and alliances were formed and broken over the next few years, as the Byzantine successor states, the Latin Empire, the Bulgarians, and the Seljuks of Iconium fought each other. In 1211, at Antioch on the Meander, Theodore defeated an invasion by the Seljuks. The Nicaeans were compensated for this loss when, in 1212. Theodore consolidated his claim to the throne by naming a new Patriarch of Constantinople in Nicaea. In 1219, he married the daughter of Latin Empress Yolanda of Flanders, the accession of Vatatzes was initially challenged by the Laskarids, with the sebastokratores Isaac and Alexios, brothers of Theodore I, seeking the aid of the Latin Empire. Vatatzes prevailed over their forces, however, in the Battle of Poimanenon, securing his throne. It proved short-lived, as it came under Bulgarian control after the Battle of Klokotnitsa in 1230, with Trebizond lacking any real power, Nicaea was the only Byzantine state left, and John III expanded his territory across the Aegean Sea. In 1235, he allied with Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria, allowing him to extend his influence over Thessalonica and Epirus. In 1242, the Mongols invaded Seljuk territory to the east of Nicaea, in 1245, John allied with the Holy Roman Empire by marrying Constance II of Hohenstaufen, daughter of Frederick II. In 1246, John attacked Bulgaria and recovered most of Thrace and Macedonia, by 1248, John had defeated the Bulgarians and surrounded the Latin Empire. He continued to land from the Latins until his death in 1254. Theodore II Lascaris, John IIIs son, faced invasions from the Bulgarians in Thrace, a conflict between Nicaea and Epirus broke out in 1257
22.
Byzantine Empire
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It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, several signal events from the 4th to 6th centuries mark the period of transition during which the Roman Empires Greek East and Latin West divided. Constantine I reorganised the empire, made Constantinople the new capital, under Theodosius I, Christianity became the Empires official state religion and other religious practices were proscribed. Finally, under the reign of Heraclius, the Empires military, the borders of the Empire evolved significantly over its existence, as it went through several cycles of decline and recovery. During the reign of Maurice, the Empires eastern frontier was expanded, in a matter of years the Empire lost its richest provinces, Egypt and Syria, to the Arabs. This battle opened the way for the Turks to settle in Anatolia, the Empire recovered again during the Komnenian restoration, such that by the 12th century Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest European city. Despite the eventual recovery of Constantinople in 1261, the Byzantine Empire remained only one of several small states in the area for the final two centuries of its existence. Its remaining territories were annexed by the Ottomans over the 15th century. The Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 finally ended the Byzantine Empire, the term comes from Byzantium, the name of the city of Constantinople before it became Constantines capital. This older name of the city would rarely be used from this point onward except in historical or poetic contexts. The publication in 1648 of the Byzantine du Louvre, and in 1680 of Du Canges Historia Byzantina further popularised the use of Byzantine among French authors, however, it was not until the mid-19th century that the term came into general use in the Western world. The Byzantine Empire was known to its inhabitants as the Roman Empire, the Empire of the Romans, Romania, the Roman Republic, Graikia, and also as Rhōmais. The inhabitants called themselves Romaioi and Graikoi, and even as late as the 19th century Greeks typically referred to modern Greek as Romaika and Graikika. The authority of the Byzantine emperor as the legitimate Roman emperor was challenged by the coronation of Charlemagne as Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III in the year 800. No such distinction existed in the Islamic and Slavic worlds, where the Empire was more seen as the continuation of the Roman Empire. In the Islamic world, the Roman Empire was known primarily as Rûm, the Roman army succeeded in conquering many territories covering the entire Mediterranean region and coastal regions in southwestern Europe and north Africa. These territories were home to different cultural groups, both urban populations and rural populations. The West also suffered heavily from the instability of the 3rd century AD
23.
Latin
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
24.
Lorenzo Tiepolo
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Lorenzo Tiepolo was Doge of Venice from 1268 until his death. Born in Venice, Lorenzo Tiepolo was the son of Doge Jacopo Tiepolo and his first dogaressa was Agnese Ghisi. It is a matter of debate if his wife, Marguerite, was either the daughter of the King of Romania or of Bohemund of Brienne. Tiepolo also demonstrated skill as commander when, during the War of Saint Sabas with Genoa and he served also as a podestà of Fano. In 1268, after the death of Reniero Zeno, Lorenzo was elected as Doge on July 23 of that year, although beloved by the population, he attracted the hostility of the Venetian nobility for his nepotism towards his sons. The position of Cancellier Grande was therefore created to thwart such a behaviour, after an initial setback in 1271, the Venetians were able to regain the upper hand and the terms of peace were favourable to Venice. Under his dogado, in 1273, Marco Polo began his journey to China and he was to return only in 1295. Tiepolo died in Venice in 1275 and was buried with his father in the Dominican church of San Zanipolo
25.
Castello, Venice
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Castello is the largest of the six sestieri of Venice, Italy. There had been, since at least the 8th-century, small settlements of the islands of San Pietro di Castello and this island was also called Isola dOlivolo. From the thirteenth century onward, the district grew around a naval dockyard on what was originally the Isole Gemini, the land in the district was dominated by the Arsenale of the Republic of Venice, then the largest naval complex in Europe. Other significant structures were by the monasteries in the north of the quarter, napoleon closed the Arsenal and planned what are now the Bienniale Gardens. More recently the island of SantElena has been created, and more land drained at other extremities of Castello
26.
Gemstone
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A gemstone is a piece of mineral crystal which, in cut and polished form, is used to make jewelry or other adornments. However, certain rocks or organic materials that are not minerals are used for jewelry and are therefore often considered to be gemstones as well. Most gemstones are hard, but some soft minerals are used in jewelry because of their luster or other properties that have aesthetic value. Rarity is another characteristic that lends value to a gemstone, apart from jewelry, from earliest antiquity engraved gems and hardstone carvings, such as cups, were major luxury art forms. A gem maker is called a lapidary or gemcutter, a worker is a diamantaire. The carvings of Carl Fabergé are significant works in this tradition, the traditional classification in the West, which goes back to the ancient Greeks, begins with a distinction between precious and semi-precious, similar distinctions are made in other cultures. In modern usage the precious stones are diamond, ruby, sapphire, other stones are classified by their color, translucency and hardness. Another unscientific term for semi-precious gemstones used in art history and archaeology is hardstone, in modern times gemstones are identified by gemologists, who describe gems and their characteristics using technical terminology specific to the field of gemology. The first characteristic a gemologist uses to identify a gemstone is its chemical composition, for example, diamonds are made of carbon and rubies of aluminium oxide. Next, many gems are crystals which are classified by their crystal system such as cubic or trigonal or monoclinic, another term used is habit, the form the gem is usually found in. For example, diamonds, which have a crystal system, are often found as octahedrons. Gemstones are classified into different groups, species, and varieties, for example, ruby is the red variety of the species corundum, while any other color of corundum is considered sapphire. Other examples are the Emerald, aquamarine, red beryl, goshenite, heliodor, and morganite, gems are characterized in terms of refractive index, dispersion, specific gravity, hardness, cleavage, fracture, and luster. They may exhibit pleochroism or double refraction and they may have luminescence and a distinctive absorption spectrum. Material or flaws within a stone may be present as inclusions, gemstones may also be classified in terms of their water. This is a grading of the gems luster, transparency. Very transparent gems are considered first water, while second or third water gems are those of a lesser transparency, there is no universally accepted grading system for gemstones. Diamonds are graded using a system developed by the Gemological Institute of America in the early 1950s, historically, all gemstones were graded using the naked eye
27.
Trebuchet
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A trebuchet is a type of siege engine most frequently used in the Middle Ages. It is sometimes called a trebuchet or counterpoise trebuchet, to distinguish it from an earlier weapon called the traction trebuchet. The counterweight trebuchet appeared in both Christian and Muslim lands around the Mediterranean in the 12th century and it was commonly used to fling projectiles weighing between 50 kilograms and 100 kilograms at or into enemy fortifications located up to 300 metres away. Its use continued into the 15th century, well after the introduction of gunpowder, the three distinguishing characteristics of a trebuchet are, The trebuchet is a compound machine—a combination of simple machines. The trebuchet makes use of the advantage of a lever. Most trebuchets are powered exclusively by the force of gravity, potential energy is stored by means of an extremely heavy weight box attached to the counterweight portion of the throwing arm. When the trebuchet is fired, the box is permitted to fall. The throwing arm is usually four to six times the length of the counterweight portion and these factors multiply the acceleration transmitted to the throwing portion of the arm and its attached sling. The sling is affixed to the end of the portion of the throwing arm. The sling contains the projectile and transmits the forces generated at the end of the arm to the projectile. The sling also changes the trajectory, so that, at the time of release from the sling, the couillard is a smaller version with a single stem or platform instead of the usual double A frames. The counterweight is split into two halves to avoid hitting the center stem, the trebuchet derives from the ancient sling, and originated in China. A variation of the sling, called staff sling, contained a piece of wood to extend the arm. This evolved into the traction trebuchet in which a number of people pulled on ropes attached to the arm of a lever that has a sling on the long arm. This type of trebuchet was smaller and had a shorter range and these teams would sometimes be local citizens helping in the siege or in the defense of their town. Traction trebuchets had a range of 100 to 200 feet when casting weights up to 250 pounds, the first traction trebuchets were invented by the Chinese sometime before the 4th century BC. The first traction trebuchets may have used by the Mohists in China as early as 4th century BC. At the Battle of Caishi in 1161, trebuchets operated by Song Dynasty soldiers fired bombs of lime, recent work showed that the traction trebuchet was transferred to the eastern Mediterranean by the late 6th century during the Northern Zhou or Sui dynasty
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Anatolia
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Anatolia, in geography known as Asia Minor, Asian Turkey, Anatolian peninsula, or Anatolian plateau, is the westernmost protrusion of Asia, which makes up the majority of modern-day Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Sea of Marmara forms a connection between the Black and Aegean Seas through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits and separates Anatolia from Thrace on the European mainland. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line between the Gulf of Alexandretta and the Black Sea to the Armenian Highlands, thus, traditionally Anatolia is the territory that comprises approximately the western two-thirds of the Asian part of Turkey. The Turkification of Anatolia began under the Seljuk Empire in the late 11th century, however, various non-Turkic languages continue to be spoken by minorities in Anatolia today, including Kurdish, Assyrian, Armenian, Arabic, Laz, Georgian, and Greek. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line running from the Gulf of Alexandretta to the Black Sea. This traditional geographical definition is used, for example, in the latest edition of Merriam-Websters Geographical Dictionary, under this definition, Anatolia is bounded to the east by the Armenian Highlands, and the Euphrates before that river bends to the southeast to enter Mesopotamia. To the southeast, it is bounded by the ranges that separate it from the Orontes valley in Syria, the first name the Greeks used for the Anatolian peninsula was Ἀσία, presumably after the name of the Assuwa league in western Anatolia. As the name of Asia came to be extended to areas east of the Mediterranean. The name Anatolia derives from the Greek ἀνατολή meaning “the East” or more literally “sunrise”, the precise reference of this term has varied over time, perhaps originally referring to the Aeolian, Ionian and Dorian colonies on the west coast of Asia Minor. In the Byzantine Empire, the Anatolic Theme was a theme covering the western, the modern Turkish form of Anatolia is Anadolu, which again derives from the Greek name Aνατολή. The Russian male name Anatoly and the French Anatole share the same linguistic origin, in English the name of Turkey for ancient Anatolia first appeared c. It is derived from the Medieval Latin Turchia, which was used by the Europeans to define the Seljuk controlled parts of Anatolia after the Battle of Manzikert. Human habitation in Anatolia dates back to the Paleolithic, neolithic Anatolia has been proposed as the homeland of the Indo-European language family, although linguists tend to favour a later origin in the steppes north of the Black Sea. However, it is clear that the Anatolian languages, the oldest branch of Indo-European, have spoken in Anatolia since at least the 19th century BC. The earliest historical records of Anatolia stem from the southeast of the region and are from the Mesopotamian-based Akkadian Empire during the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 24th century BC, scholars generally believe the earliest indigenous populations of Anatolia were the Hattians and Hurrians. The region was famous for exporting raw materials, and areas of Hattian-, one of the numerous cuneiform records dated circa 20th century BC, found in Anatolia at the Assyrian colony of Kanesh, uses an advanced system of trading computations and credit lines. They were speakers of an Indo-European language, the Hittite language, originating from Nesa, they conquered Hattusa in the 18th century BC, imposing themselves over Hattian- and Hurrian-speaking populations. According to the most widely accepted Kurgan theory on the Proto-Indo-European homeland, however, the Hittites adopted the cuneiform script, invented in Mesopotamia
29.
Adana
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Adana is a major city in southern Turkey. The city is situated on the Seyhan river,35 km inland from the Mediterranean Sea and it is the administrative seat of the Adana Province and has a population of 1.7 million, making it the fifth most populous city in Turkey. Adana-Mersin polycentric metropolitan area, with a population of 3 million, stretches over 70 km east-west and 25 km north-south, encompassing the cities of Mersin, Tarsus, Adana lies in the heart of Çukurova, a geo-cultural region alternatively known as Cilicia. Home to six people, Çukurova is one of the largest population concentrations in Turkey, as well as the most agriculturally productive area, owing to its large stretch of flat. Region covers the provinces of Mersin, Adana, Osmaniye, the earlier Egyptian texts for a country Danaja are inscriptions from Thutmosis II and Amenophis III. After the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization some refugees from the Aegean area went to the coast of Cilicia, the inhabitants Dananayim or Danuna are identified as one group of the Sea Peoples who attacked Egypt in 1191 BC during the reign of Ramesses III. Denyen are identified as inhabitants of the city Adana and it is also possible that the name is connected with the PIE da-nu Da-na-vo, Scythian nomad people, water demons in Rigveda. In Hellenistic times, it was known as Antiochia in Cilicia or Antiochia ad Sarum, the editors of The Helsinki Atlas tentatively identify Adana as Quwê, the Neo-Assyrian capital of Quwê province. The name also appears as Coa, and may be the place referred to in the Bible, the Armenian name of the city is Ատանա Atana or Ադանա Adana. According to an ancient Greco-Roman legend, the name has its origins in Adanus and Sarus, the Hittites names and writings have been found in the area, evidencing this possibility. Adanas name has had different versions over the centuries, Adanos, Ta Adana, Uru Adaniya, Erdene, Edene, Ezene, Batana, Atana, Azana. Adana is located at the edge of the Mediterranean, where it serves as the gateway to the Çukurova plain. This large stretch of flat, fertile land lies southeast of the Taurus Mountains, from Adana, crossing the Çukurova westwards, the road from Tarsus enters the foothills of the Taurus Mountains. The temperature decreases with every foot of ascent, as the road reaches an altitude of nearly 4,000 feet and it goes through the famous Cilician Gates, the rocky pass through which armies have coursed since the dawn of history, and continues to the Anatolian plain. The north of the city is surrounded by the Seyhan reservoir and HEP, the dam was constructed for hydroelectric power and to irrigate the lower Çukurova plain. Two irrigation channels in the city flow to the plain, passing through the city center from east to west, there is another canal for irrigating the Yüreğir plain to the southeast of the city. The 37th parallel north passes through the city, Adana has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate under both the Köppen classification, and a dry-hot summer subtropical climate under the Trewartha classification. Winters are mild and wet and summers are long, hot, the highest recorded temperature was on 8 July 1978 with 45.6 °C
30.
Palace
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A palace is a grand residence, especially a royal residence, or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name Palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome which housed the Imperial residences, in many parts of Europe, the term is also applied to ambitious private mansions of the aristocracy. Many historic palaces are now put to uses such as parliaments, museums, hotels. The word is sometimes used to describe a lavishly ornate building used for public entertainment or exhibitions. The word palace comes from Old French palais, from Latin Palātium, the original palaces on the Palatine Hill were the seat of the imperial power while the capitol on the Capitoline Hill was the religious nucleus of Rome. Long after the city grew to the seven hills the Palatine remained a residential area. Emperor Caesar Augustus lived there in a purposely modest house only set apart from his neighbours by the two trees planted to flank the front door as a sign of triumph granted by the Senate. His descendants, especially Nero, with his Golden House, enlarged the house, the word Palātium came to mean the residence of the emperor rather than the neighbourhood on top of the hill. Palace meaning government can be recognized in a remark of Paul the Deacon, AD790 and describing events of the 660s, When Grimuald set out for Beneventum, he entrusted his palace to Lupus. At the same time, Charlemagne was consciously reviving the Roman expression in his palace at Aachen, in the 9th century, the palace indicated the housing of the government too, and the constantly travelling Charlemagne built fourteen. In the Holy Roman Empire the powerful independent Electors came to be housed in palaces and this has been used as evidence that power was widely distributed in the Empire, as in more centralized monarchies, only the monarchs residence would be a palace. In modern times, the term has been applied by archaeologists and historians to large structures that housed combined ruler, court, in informal usage, a palace can be extended to a grand residence of any kind. The earliest known palaces were the residences of the Egyptian Pharaohs at Thebes, featuring an outer wall enclosing labyrinthine buildings. Other ancient palaces include the Assyrian palaces at Nimrud and Nineveh, the Minoan palace at Knossos, the Brazilian new capital, Brasília, hosts modern palaces, most designed by the citys architect Oscar Niemeyer. The Alvorada Palace is the residence of the Brazils president. The Planalto Palace is the official workplace, the Jaburu Palace is the official residence of Brazils vice-president. In Canada, Government House is a given to the official residences of the Canadian monarchy. The use of the term Government House is a custom from the British Empire
31.
Executor
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An executor is someone who is responsible for executing, or following through on, an assigned task or duty. The feminine form, executrix, may sometimes be used, the role of an executor should not be confused with that of an executioner, a person who carries out a death sentence ordered by the state or other legal authority. An executor is a term referring to a person named by the maker of a will or nominated by the testator to carry out the instructions of the will. Typically, the executor is the responsible for offering the will for probate. An executor will make sure estate taxes are calculated, necessary forms are filed and they will also assist the attorney with the estate. Additionally, the acts as a legal conveyor who designates where the donations will be sent using the information left in bequests. In most circumstances, the executor is the representative of the estate for all purposes, the executor holds legal title to the estate property, but may not use the title or property for his/her own benefit, unless permitted by the terms of the will. A person who deals with a persons property without proper authority is known as an executor de son tort. When there is no will, a person is said to have died intestate—without testimony, as a result, there is no tangible testimony to follow, and hence there can be no executor. If there is no will or the named in a will do not wish to act. The generic term for executors or administrators is personal representative, in England and Wales, when a person dies intestate in a nursing home, and has no family members who can be traced, those responsible for their care automatically become their executors. Under Scottish law, a representative of any kind is referred to as an executor. In some countries, such as the United States, an executor is entitled to compensation for his or her services. For example, in California the executor is entitled to 4% of the first $100K of estate value, 3% of the next $100K, and so on. In other countries, such as the United Kingdom, the executor is not automatically entitled to compensation, in recent years, custom executors insurance policies have entered the marketplace. These are currently available in countries including Canada, England, many find such cover an attractive proposition as the vast majority of wills allow reasonable expenses, such as the cost of the policy, to be reclaimed from the deceaseds estate
32.
Tatars
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The Tatars are a Turkic people living in Asia and Europe who were one of the five major tribal confederations in the Mongolian plateau in the 12th century CE. The name Tatar first appears in form on the Kul Tigin monument as
33.
Slave
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A slave is unable to withdraw unilaterally from such an arrangement and works without remuneration. Many scholars now use the chattel slavery to refer to this specific sense of legalised. In a broader sense, however, the word slavery may also refer to any situation in which an individual is de facto forced to work against his or her will. Scholars also use the generic terms such as unfree labour or forced labour. However – and especially under slavery in broader senses of the word – slaves may have some rights and/or protections, Slavery began to exist before written history, in many cultures. A person could become a slave from the time of their birth, capture, while slavery was institutionally recognized by most societies, it has now been outlawed in all recognized countries, the last being Mauritania in 2007. Nevertheless, there are still more slaves today than at any point in history. The most common form of the trade is now commonly referred to as human trafficking. Chattel slavery is still practiced in the Islamic State of Iraq. An older interpretation connected it to the Greek verb skyleúo to strip a slain enemy, there is a dispute among historians about whether terms such as unfree labourer or enslaved person, rather than slave, should be used when describing the victims of slavery. Chattel slavery, also called traditional slavery, is so named because people are treated as the chattel of the owner and are bought, although it dominated many societies in the past, this form of slavery has been formally abolished and is very rare today. Even when it can be said to survive, it is not upheld by the system of any internationally recognized government. Indenture, otherwise known as bonded labour or debt bondage is a form of labour under which a person pledges himself or herself against a loan. The services required to repay the debt, and their duration, debt bondage can be passed on from generation to generation, with children required to pay off their parents debt. It is the most widespread form of slavery today, debt bondage is most prevalent in South Asia. This may also include institutions not commonly classified as slavery, such as serfdom, conscription, Human trafficking primarily involves women and children forced into prostitution. And is the fastest growing form of forced labour, with Thailand, Cambodia, India, Brazil, in 2007, Human Rights Watch estimated that 200,000 to 300,000 children served as soldiers in current conflicts. A forced marriage may be regarded as a form of slavery by one or more of the involved in the marriage
34.
San Giovanni Grisostomo, Venice
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San Giovanni Grisostomo is a small church in the sestiere or neighborhood of Cannaregio, Venice. The church was founded in 1080, destroyed by fire in 1475, then starting in 1497 by Mauro Codussi and his son. The bell tower dates from the late 16th century, the interior is based on a Greek cross design. Behind the façade are hung two canvasses, formerly organ doors, by Giovanni Mansueti depicting Saints Onuphrius, Agatha, Andrew, Onuphrius was the co-titular patron saint who was revered by the confraternity of the Tentori. In 1516, a relic of the saint, his finger, was donated to this church, the chapel on the right has the painting Saints Christopher, Jerome and Louis of Toulouse by Giovanni Bellini. On the wall of the apse are a series of canvases on the life of Saint John Chrysostom, on the high altar is a relief of the Deposition from the Cross. To the left is the built for Giacomo Bernabò, with sculptural design by Codussi. The marble altarpiece of the Coronation of the Virgin was completed by Tullio Lombardo, new York City, Rizzoli International Publications
35.
Church of San Polo, Venice
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The Chiesa di San Polo is a Catholic church in Venice, dedicated to the Apostle Paul. It gives its name to the San Polo sestiere of the city, the current Gothic church dates from the 15th century, but a church has stood on the site since the 9th century and the south doorway, possibly by Bartolomeo Bon, survives from this church. The campanile, standing detached from the church, was built in 1362, the interior has a ships keel roof and was restored in 1804 by Davide Rossi. On the left wall near the entrance is a Last Supper by Jacopo Tintoretto, other walls have canvases by Paolo Piazza. Next to the altar are two statues by Alessandro Vittoria, St Paul and St Anthony Abbot. Among the ceiling paintings are a Glory of Angels and Resurrection by Giandomenico Tiepolo and his father, Giambattista is thought to be the author of Virgin appears to St John Nepomuk, commissioned by the King of Poland, August III. VIA CRUCIS by Giandomenico Tiepolo Giambattista Tiepolo Gian Domenico Tiepolo Veronese San Polo, Venice Adrian Fletchers Paradoxplace Venice Pages – San Polo
36.
Friar
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The most significant orders of friars are the Dominicans, Franciscans, Augustinians and Carmelites. Friars are different from monks in that they are called to live the evangelical counsels in service to society, rather than through cloistered asceticism, whereas monks live in a self-sufficient community, friars work among laypeople and are supported by donations or other charitable support. A monk or nun makes their vows and commits to a community in a particular place. The English term Friar is derived from the Norman French word frere, from the Latin frater, Fray is sometimes used in former Spanish colonies such as the Philippines or the American Southwest as a title, such as in Fray Juan de Torquemada. In the Roman Catholic Church, there are two classes of orders known as friars, or mendicant orders, the four great orders, the four great orders were mentioned by the Second Council of Lyons, and are, The Carmelites, founded c. They are also known as the White Friars because of the cloak which covers their brown habit. They received papal approval from Honorius III in 1226 and later by Innocent IV in 1247, the Carmelites were founded as a purely contemplative order, but became mendicants in 1245. There are two types of Carmelites, those of the Ancient Observance and those of the Discalced Carmelites and they are also known as the Friars Minor. The Franciscans were founded by St. Francis of Assisi and received papal approval by Innocent III in 1209. Today the Friars Minor is composed of three branches, the Order of Friars Minor, Order of Friars Minor Capuchin and the Order of Friars Minor Conventual wearing grey or black habits. They are also known as the Friar Preachers, or the Black Friars, the Dominicans were founded by St. Dominic and received papal approval from Honorius III in 1216 as the Ordo Praedicatorum under the Rule of St. Augustine. They became a mendicant order in 1221, the Augustinians, founded in 1244 and enlarged in 1256. They are also known as the Hermits of St. Augustine and their rule is based on the writings of Augustine of Hippo. The Augustinians were assembled from various groups of hermits as a mendicant order by Pope Innocent IV in 1244, additional groups were added by Alexander IV in 1256. Francis, a branch of the Third Order of St, in the Anglican Communion there are also a number of mendicant groups such as the Anglican Friars Preachers and The Society of St. Francis. Several high schools, as well as Providence College, use friars as their school mascot, the Major League Baseball team San Diego Padres have the Swinging Friar. The University of Michigans oldest a cappella group is a male known as The Friars. The University of Pennsylvania has an honor society known as Friars
37.
Solidus (coin)
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The solidus, nomisma, or bezant was originally a relatively pure gold coin issued in the Late Roman Empire. Under Constantine, who introduced it on a scale, it had a weight of about 4.5 grams. The Byzantine solidus also inspired the originally slightly less pure Arabian dinar, in late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, the solidus also functioned as a unit of weight equal to 1/72 of a pound. The solidus was introduced by Diocletian in AD301 as a replacement of the aureus, composed of solid gold. His minting was on a scale, however, and the coin only entered widespread circulation under Constantine I after AD312. Constantines solidus was struck at a rate of 72 to a Roman pound of gold, each coin weighed 24 Greco-Roman carats. By this time, the solidus was worth 275,000 increasingly debased denarii, with the exception of the early issues of Constantine the Great and the odd usurpers the Solidus today is a much more affordable Gold Roman Coin to collect compared to the Older Aureus. Especially those of Valens Honorius and later Byzantine issues, the solidus was maintained essentially unaltered in weight, dimensions and purity until the 10th century. During the 6th and 7th centuries lightweight solidi of 20,22 or 23 siliquae were struck along with the weight issues. Many of these coins have been found in Europe, Russia and Georgia. The lightweight solidi were distinguished by different markings on the coin, usually in the exergue for the 20 and 22 siliquae coins and by stars in the field for the 23 siliquae coins. In theory the solidus was struck from pure gold, but because of the limits of refining techniques, in the Greek-speaking world during the Roman period, and then in the Byzantine economy, the solidus was known as the νόμισμα nomisma. Initially it was difficult to distinguish the two coins, as they had the design, dimensions and purity, and there were no marks of value to distinguish the denominations. The only difference was the weight, the tetarteron nomisma was a lighter coin, about 4.05 grams, but the histamenon nomisma maintained the traditional weight of 4.5 grams. To eliminate confusion between the two, from the reign of Basil II the solidus was struck as a coin with a larger diameter. From the middle of the 11th century the larger diameter histamenon nomisma was struck on a concave flan, former money changer Michael IV the Paphlagonian assumed the throne of Byzantium in 1034 and began the slow process of debasing both the tetarteron nomisma and the histamenon nomisma. Alexius reformed the coinage in 1092 and eliminated the solidus altogether, in its place he introduced a new gold coin called the hyperpyron nomisma at about 20. 5k fine. The weight, dimensions and purity of the hyperpyron nomisma remained stable until the fall of Constantinople to the Crusaders in 1204, after that time the exiled Empire of Nicea continued to strike a debased hyperpyron nomisma
38.
Signum manus
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The term Chrismon was introduced in New Latin specifically as a term for the Chi Rho monogram. In medievalist paleography and Diplomatik, the study of these signatures or sigils was known as Chrismologia or Chrismenlehre, while the study of cross variants was known as Staurologia. Chrismon in this context may refer to the Merovingian period abbreviation I. C. N. for in Christi nomine, later also I. C. for in Christo, a cross symbol was often drawn as an invocation at the beginning of documents in the early medieval West. At the end of documents, commissioners or witnesses would sign with a signum manus and this practice is widespread in Merovingian documents of the 7th and 8th centuries. A related development is the use of the cross symbol on the obverse side of early medieval coins. The tradition of minting coins with the monogram of the monarch on the obverse side originates in the 5th century. This tradition was continued in the 6th century by Germanic kings and these early designs were box monograms. The first cruciform monogram was used by Justinian I in the 560s, Tiberius III used a cruciform monogram with the letters R, M for Rome and T, B for Tiberius, Pope Gregory III used the letters G, R, E, O. The earliest surviving Merovingian royal charters, dating to the 7th century, have the box monograms of Chlothar II, the signum manus in the form of a modified cross symbol first appears in charters of both Frankish Gaul and Anglo-Saxon England in the late 7th and early 8th century. Charlemagne first used his cruficorm monogram, likely inspired by the earlier papal monograms, in 769, and he would continue to use it for the rest of his reign. The monogram spells KAROLVS, with the consonants K, R, L, S at the ends of the cross-arms, louis the Pious abandoned the cross monogram, using again a H-type or box monogram. Christogram Rota Royal cypher Ildar H. Garipzanov, Chapter 4 in The Symbolic Language of Royal Authority in the Carolingian World, volume 1, Issue 29 of Allgemeine Encyklopädie der Wissenschaften und Künste,1837, 303–307. Johann Christoph Gatterer, Elementa artis diplomaticae universalis, 145–149, karl Friedrich Stumpf-Brentano, Die Wirzburger Immunitaet-Urkunden des X und XI Jahrhunderts vol
39.
Biblioteca Marciana
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The library is named after St. Mark, the patron saint of Venice. It is not to be confused with the State Archive of the Republic of Venice, the library was provided with a building designed by Jacopo Sansovino. The first sixteen arcaded bays of his design were constructed during 1537 to 1553, with work on frescoes, one of the early librarians, from 1530, was Pietro Bembo. However, the stock began to be collected before the construction of the building. The Marciana was enriched by the transfer in the eighteenth century of the collections accumulated in several monasteries. Giovanni e Paolo in Venice and S, major additions made to the collection include,1589, Melchiorre Guilandino of Marienburg,1595, Jacopo Contarini da S. The Library has since expanded back into its adjacent original quarters, today, besides about a million printed books, the Biblioteca Marciana contains about 13,000 manuscripts and 2883 incunabula and 24,055 works printed between 1500 and 1600. Among the irreplaceable treasures are unique scores of operas by Francesco Cavalli and sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti
40.
Franco-Mongol alliance
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Several attempts at a Franco-Mongol alliance against the Islamic caliphates, their common enemy, were made by various leaders among the Frankish Crusaders and the Mongol Empire in the 13th century. Such an alliance might have seemed an obvious choice, the Mongols were already sympathetic to Christianity, the Franks and Mongols also shared a common enemy in the Muslims. However, despite many messages, gifts, and emissaries over the course of several decades, communications tended to follow a recurring pattern, the Europeans asked the Mongols to convert to Western Christianity, while the Mongols responded with demands for submission and tribute. Other Christian leaders such as the Crusaders of Acre were more mistrustful of the Mongols, European attitudes began to change in the mid-1260s, from perceiving the Mongols as enemies to be feared, to potential allies against the Muslims. The Mongols sought to capitalize on this, promising a re-conquered Jerusalem to the Europeans in return for cooperation, the Mongol Empire eventually dissolved into civil war, and the Egyptian Mamluks successfully recaptured all of Palestine and Syria from the Crusaders. After the Fall of Acre in 1291, the remaining Crusaders retreated to the island of Cyprus, with the Fall of Ruad in 1302 or 1303, the Crusaders lost their last foothold in the Holy Land. Traditionally, the Mongols tended to see outside parties as either subjects or enemies, among Western Europeans, there had long been rumors and expectations that a great Christian ally would come from the East. These rumors circulated as early as the First Crusade, and usually surged in popularity after the Crusaders lost a battle, a legend arose about a figure known as Prester John, who lived in far-off India, Central Asia, or perhaps even Ethiopia. This legend developed a life of its own, and some individuals who came from the East were greeted with expectations that they might be sent by the long-awaited Prester John. In 1210, news reached the West of the battles of the Mongol Kuchlug, kuchlugs forces had been battling the powerful Khwarezmian Empire, whose leader was the Muslim Muhammad II of Khwarezm. Rumors circulated in Europe that Kuchlug was the mythical Prester John, Mongol raiding parties were beginning to invade the eastern Islamic world, in Transoxania and Persia in 1219–1221. In a letter dated June 20,1221, Pope Honorius III even commented about forces coming from the Far East to rescue the Holy Land. After Genghis Khans death in 1227, his empire was divided by his descendants into four sections or Khanates, the southwestern section, known as the Ilkhanate, was under the leadership of Genghis Khans grandson Hulagu. He continued to support his brother, the Great Khan, and was therefore at war with the Golden Horde, while at the time continuing an advance towards Persia. The Mongol invasion of Europe ended in 1242, in part because of the death of the Great Khan Ögedei, when one Great Khan died, Mongols from all parts of the empire were recalled to the capital to decide who should be the next Great Khan. In the meantime, the Mongols relentless march westward had displaced the Khawarizmi Turks, along the way, the Turks took Jerusalem from the Christians in 1244. After the subsequent loss at the Battle of La Forbie, Christian kings began to prepare for a new crusade, the loss of Jerusalem caused some Europeans to look to the Mongols as potential allies of Christendom, provided the Mongols could be converted to Western Christianity. In March 1245, Pope Innocent IV had issued multiple papal bulls, some of which were sent with an envoy, the Franciscan John of Plano Carpini, to the Emperor of the Tartars
41.
Byzantine-Mongol alliance
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A Byzantine–Mongol alliance occurred during the end of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th century between the Byzantine Empire and the Mongol Empire. Byzantium actually tried to maintain relations with both the Golden Horde and the Ilkhanate realms, who were often at war with each other. The alliance involved numerous exchanges of presents, military collaboration and marital links, soon after the Battle of Kose Dag in 1243, the Empire of Trebizond surrendered to the Mongol Empire while the court of Nicaea put its fortresses in order. William of Rubruck also noted that he met an envoy of John III Doukas Vatatzes, emperor of Nicaea and you wrote to us that you wished to join your father-in-law to assist the Latins. We abundantly praise you for this, but we cannot tell you yet, before having asked to the rulers, what road they are planning to follow. We will transmit to them your advice, so as to enlighten their deliberations, in 1265 Berke Khan sent the Golden Horde army under Noghai to Thrace, prompting to force the Byzantines to release the Mamluk envoy and the former Seljuk Sultan Kaykaus II. According to Egyptian sources, Michael agreed to send fabrics to the Mongol Khan in Russia. When Michael realized the importance of the Mongols and became an ally of Noghai, a group of 4,000 Mongol soldiers were dispatched to Constantinople in 1282, just before the death of Michael, to fight against the despot of Thessaly. After 1295, Andronikos II offered Ghazan a marital alliance, in exchange for Mongol help to fight against the Turcomans at the Oriental frontier of the Byzantine Empire, Ghazan accepted the offer and promised to stop the incursions. The death of Ghazan in 1308 was mourned by the Byzantines and this alliance would continue under Ghazans successor, Oljeitu. In 1305 Ilkhan Oljeitu promised Andronicus II40,000 men, under Andronikos III relations seem to have turned even more conflictual. In 1341, the Mongols planned to attack Constantinople, and Andronikos III had to send an embassy to stop the attack, Mongol invasions of Anatolia Gilbert Dagron, Brigitte Mondrain, Vincent Deroche, and Jean-Claude Cheynet. Comité dorganization du XXe Congrès international des études Byzantines, Collège de France,2001, the Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261–1453. Cambridge University Press,1993, ISBN 0-521-43991-4, publications de la Sorbonne,1986, ISBN 2-85944-110-7. The Mongols and the West, 1221-1410, arméniens & autres Chrétiens dOrient sous la domination Mongole. Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner S. A.2007, ISBN 978-2-7053-3791-9, the Islamic World in Ascendancy, From the Arab Conquests to the Siege of Vienna. Greenwood Publishing Group,2000, ISBN 0-275-96892-8 and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. article name needed
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Miniature (illuminated manuscript)
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These include Persian miniatures, and their Mughal, Ottoman and other Indian offshoots. This article gives an art historical account of the miniature form, for the techniques involved in production, see illuminated manuscript. The earliest extant miniatures are a series of colored drawings or miniatures cut from the Ambrosian Iliad and they are similar in style and treatment with the pictorial art of the later Roman classical period. Of even greater value from a point of view are the miniatures of the Vatican manuscript of Virgil, known as the Vergilius Vaticanus. They are in a perfect condition and on a larger scale than the Ambrosian fragments. The drawing is quite classical in style, and the idea is conveyed that the miniatures are copies from an older series. The colors are opaque, indeed, in all the miniatures of early manuscripts the employment of body color was universal. The method followed in placing the different scenes on the page is highly instructive of the practice followed, as we may presume, by the artists of the early centuries. Again, for the purpose of securing something like perspective, an arrangement of zones was adopted. It was reserved for the Byzantine school to break away more decidedly from the natural presentment of things, but on comparing the miniatures of the Byzantine school generally with their classical predecessors, one has a sense of having passed from the open air into the cloister. Under the restraint of ecclesiastical domination Byzantine art became more and more stereotyped, the tendency grows to paint the flesh-tints in swarthy hues, to elongate and emaciate the limbs, and to stiffen the gait. Browns, blue-greys and neutral tints are in favor, in the miniatures of Byzantine manuscripts are first seen those backgrounds of bright gold which afterwards appear in such profusion in the productions of every western school of painting. The influence of Byzantine art on that of medieval Italy is obvious, the early mosaics in the churches of Italy, such as those at Ravenna and Venice, also afford examples of the dominating Byzantine influence. In the native schools of illumination of Western Europe, decoration only was the leading motive, the highest qualities of the miniatures of the 10th and 11th century of this school lie in fine outline drawing, which had a lasting influence on the English miniature of the later centuries. But the southern Anglo-Saxon school rather stands apart from the line of development of the western medieval miniature. Under the Carolingian monarchs there developed a school of painting derived from classical models, in this school, which owed its origin to the encouragement of Charlemagne, it is seen that the miniature appears in two forms. Accompanied as it was with profuse decoration in border and initial, on the other hand, there is also the miniature in which there is an attempt at illustration, as, for example, the depicting of scenes from the Bible. Here there is freedom, and we trace the classical style which copies Roman, as distinguished from Byzantine
listen); Italian: [ˈmarko ˈpɔːlo]; Venetian: [ˈmaɾko ˈpo.lo] 1254 – January 8–9, 1324)[1] was a Venetian merchant, explorer, and writer.[2][3][4][5][6] His travels are recorded in Livres des merveilles du monde (Book of the Marvels of the World, also known as The Travels of Marco Polo, c. 1300), a book that described to Europeans the wealth and great size of China, its capital Peking, and other Asian cities and countries.
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Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Marco Polo". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "
