Pope Hormisdas
Pope Hormisdas was Pope from 20 July 514 to his death in 523. His papacy was dominated by the Acacian schism, started in 484 by Acacius of Constantinople's efforts to placate the Monophysites, his efforts to resolve this schism were successful, on 28 March 519, the reunion between Constantinople and Rome was ratified in the cathedral of Constantinople before a large crowd. Jeffrey Richards explains Hormisdas's Persian name as in honour of an exiled Persian noble, Hormizd, "celebrated in the Roman martyrology but not so honoured in the East." The names of his father and son suggest he had an otherwise "straightforward Italian pedigree." However, according to Iranica he was related to Hormizd. He was born in Frusino in the moribund era of the Western Roman Empire. Before becoming a Roman deacon, Hormisdas was married, his son would in turn become Pope under the name of Silverius. During the Laurentian schism, Hormisdas was one of the most prominent clerical partisans of Pope Symmachus, he was notary at the synod held at St. Peter's in 502.
Two letters of Magnus Felix Ennodius, bishop of Pavia, survive addressed to him, written when the latter tried to regain horses and money he had lent the Pope. Unlike his predecessor Symmachus, his election lacked any notable controversies. Upon becoming Pope, one of Hormisdas' first actions was to remove the last vestiges of the schism in Rome, receiving back into the Church those adherents of the Laurentian party who had not been reconciled. "The schism had lingered on out of personal hatred to Symmachus," writes Jeffrey Richards, "something with which Hormisdas was not tainted."The account of his tenure in the Liber Pontificalis, as well as the overwhelming bulk of his surviving correspondence, is dominated by efforts to restore communion between the Sees of Rome and Constantinople caused by the Acacian schism. This schism was the consequence of the "Henoticon" of the Emperor Zeno and supported by his successor Anastasius, who became more and more inclined towards Monophysitism and persecuted those bishops who refused to repudiate the Council of Chalcedon.
The emperor Anastasius took the first steps to resolve this schism pressured by Vitalian, the commander of the imperial cavalry, having taken up the cause of orthodoxy, led Thracia, Scythia Minor, Mysia to revolt, marched with an army of Huns and Bulgarians to the gates of Constantinople. Richards points out that there would bound to be some tentative efforts from Constantinople, "if only because there was a new man on the throne of St. Peter. Relations between Symmachus and the emperor Anastasius had been non-existent". Anastasius wrote to Hormisdas on 28 December 514, inviting him to a synod that would be held 1 July of the following year. A second, less courteous invitation, dated 12 January 515, was sent by Anastasius to the pope, which reached Rome before the first. On 4 April Hormisdas answered, expressing his delight at the prospect of peace, but at the same time defending the position of his predecessors and welcoming a synod, but believing it unnecessary; the bearers of the emperor's first letter at last reached Rome on 14 May.
The pope guardedly carried on negotiations, convened a synod at Rome and wrote to the emperor on 8 July to announce the departure of an embassy for Constantinople. Meanwhile, the two hundred bishops who had assembled on 1 July at Heraclea separated without accomplishing anything; the pope's embassy to the imperial court consisted of two bishops, Ennodius of Pavia and Fortunatus of Catina, the priest Venantius, the deacon Vitalis, the notary Hilarius. According to Rev. J. Barmby, Hormisdas made several demands: The emperor should publicly announce his acceptance of the Council of Chalcedon and the letters of Pope Leo. "Thus the emperor proposed a free discussion in council. However both the Senate, as well as King Theodoric, stayed loyal to the pope. Meanwhile, Hormisdas reported to Avitus of Vienne that an additional number of Balkan bishops had entered into relations with Rome, Bishop John of Nicopolis, the archbishop of Epirus, had broken communion with Constantinople and resumed it with Rome.
A second papal embassy consisting of Ennodius and Bishop Peregrinus of Misenum was as unsuccessful as the first. Anastasius attempted to bribe the legates, but was unsuccessful. Secure now that Vitalian had been defeated outside Constantinople, forced into hiding, his supporters executed, Anastasius announced on 11 July 517 that he was breaking off the negotiations, but less than a year the emperor died. His successor, the Catholic Justin I reversed Anastasius' policies. All the demands of Pope Hormisdas were granted: the name of the condemned Patriarch Acacius as well as the names of the Emperors Anastasius and Zeno wer
Marozia
Marozia, born Maria and known as Mariuccia or Mariozza, was a Roman noblewoman, the alleged mistress of Pope Sergius III and was given the unprecedented titles senatrix and patricia of Rome by Pope John X. Edward Gibbon wrote of her that the "influence of two sister prostitutes and Theodora was founded on their wealth and beauty, their political and amorous intrigues: the most strenuous of their lovers were rewarded with the Roman tiara, their reign may have suggested to darker ages the fable of a female pope; the bastard son, two grandsons, two great grandsons, one great great grandson of Marozia—a rare genealogy—were seated in the Chair of St. Peter." Pope John XIII was the offspring of her younger sister Theodora. From this description, the term "pornocracy" has become associated with the effective rule in Rome of Theodora and her daughter Marozia through male surrogates. Marozia was born about 890, she was the daughter of the Roman consul Theophylact, Count of Tusculum, of Theodora, the real power in Rome, whom Liutprand of Cremona characterized as a "shameless whore... exercised power on the Roman citizenry like a man."
At the age of fifteen, Marozia became the mistress of Theophylact's cousin Pope Sergius III, whom she knew when he was bishop of Portus. The two had John. That, at least, is the story found in two contemporary sources, the Liber Pontificalis and the Antapodosis sive Res per Europam gestae, by Liutprand of Cremona, but a third contemporary source, the annalist Flodoard, says John XI was brother of Alberic II, the latter being the offspring of Marozia and her husband Alberic I. Hence John too may have been the son of Marozia and Alberic I. Marozia married Alberic I, duke of Spoleto, in 909, their son Alberic II was born in 911 or 912. By the time Alberic I was killed at Orte in 924, the Roman landowners had won complete victory over the traditional bureaucracy represented by the papal curia. Rome was under secular control, the historic nadir of the papacy. In order to counter the influence of Pope John X, Marozia subsequently married his opponent Guy of Tuscany, who loved his beautiful wife as much as he loved power.
Together they attacked Rome, arrested Pope John X in the Lateran, jailed him in the Castel Sant'Angelo. Either Guy had him smothered with a pillow in 928 or he died from neglect or ill treatment. Marozia seized power in Rome in a coup d'état; the following popes, Leo VI and Stephen VII, were both her puppets. In 931 she managed to impose her son as pontiff, under the name of John XI. John was only twenty-one at the time; when her husband died in 929, Marozia negotiated a marriage with his half-brother Hugh of Arles, elected King of Italy. Hugh was married, but had that marriage annulled so that Hugh and Marozia could be wed. Alberic II, Marozia's son, led the opposition to the rule of Hugh. After deposing them in 932, at the wedding ceremonies, Alberic II imprisoned his mother until her death. Hugh escaped the city. Marozia would remain in prison for some 5 years. Marozia may well have had the misfortune of having eloquent detractors: the Liber Pontificalis and the chronicle of Liutprand of Cremona are the main sources for the details of her life.
Although given the level of widespread violence and corruption of the period, there was more than little to be exaggerated. Alberic II was in his turn father of Octavian, who became Pope John XII in 955. Popes Benedict VIII, John XIX, Benedict IX, antipope Benedict X of the House of Tusculani were Marozia's descendants. By Guy of Tuscany she had a daughter named Berta Theodora. Chamberlin, E. R.. The Bad Popes. Williams, George. Papal genealogy, the families and descendants of the popes. Di Carpegna Falconieri, Marozia, in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, 70, pp. 681–685
Ferdinand Gregorovius
Ferdinand Gregorovius was a German historian who specialized in the medieval history of Rome. Gregorovius was the son of Neidenburg district justice council Ferdinand Timotheus Gregorovius and his wife Wilhelmine Charlotte Dorothea Kausch. Gregorovius family members lived for over 300 years in Prussia and had many jurist and artists. One famous ancestor of Ferdinand's was Johann Adam Gregorovius, born 1681 in Johannisburg, district of Gumbinnen. An earlier ancestor named. Ferdinand Gregorovius was born at Neidenburg, East Prussia, studied theology and philosophy at the University of Königsberg. In 1838, he joined the Corps Masovia. After teaching for many years, Gregorovius took up residence in Italy in 1852, remaining in that country for over twenty years. In 1876, he was made honorary citizen of Rome, the first German to be awarded this honor. A street and a square are named after him, he returned to Germany, where he died in Munich. He is best known for Wanderjahre in Italien, his account of the travels on foot that he took through Italy in the 1850s, the monumental Die Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter, a classic for Medieval and early Renaissance history.
He wrote biographies of Pope Alexander VI and Lucrezia Borgia, as well as works on Byzantine history and medieval Athens, translated Italian authors into German, among them Giovanni Melis. According to Jesuit Father John Hardon, S. J. Gregorovius was "a bitter enemy of the popes." Der Ghetto und die Juden in Rom, Mit Einem Geleitwort von Leo Baeck, Im Schocken Verlag/Berlin, 1935 Der Tod des Tiberius Geschichte des römischen Kaisers Hadrian und seiner Zeit The Emperor Hadrian Siciliana Corsica. Schwäbisch Hall: E. Fischhaber, 1855. Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter Translated into English'The History of Rome in the Middle Ages'.. Von der Zeit Justinians bis zur türkischen Eroberung Lucretia Borgia und ihre Zeit John Leslie Garner's trans. of the 3rd German edition Die Grabmäler der Römischen Päpste, first edition 1857 in German in 1881 as Die Grabdenkmäler der Päpste and in English as The Tombs of the Popes Victoria Press, Rome 1904 Die Insel Capri. Idylle vom Mittelmeer M. Douglass Fairbairn's trans.
Works by Ferdinand Gregorovius at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Ferdinand Gregorovius at Internet Archive Works by Ferdinand Gregorovius at LibriVox Works by Ferdinand Gregorovius at Open Library Ferdinand Gregorovius Latian Summers
Rome
Rome is the capital city and a special comune of Italy. Rome serves as the capital of the Lazio region. With 2,872,800 residents in 1,285 km2, it is the country's most populated comune, it is the fourth most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. It is the centre of the Metropolitan City of Rome, which has a population of 4,355,725 residents, thus making it the most populous metropolitan city in Italy. Rome is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio, along the shores of the Tiber; the Vatican City is an independent country inside the city boundaries of Rome, the only existing example of a country within a city: for this reason Rome has been defined as capital of two states. Rome's history spans 28 centuries. While Roman mythology dates the founding of Rome at around 753 BC, the site has been inhabited for much longer, making it one of the oldest continuously occupied sites in Europe; the city's early population originated from a mix of Latins and Sabines.
The city successively became the capital of the Roman Kingdom, the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, is regarded by some as the first metropolis. It was first called The Eternal City by the Roman poet Tibullus in the 1st century BC, the expression was taken up by Ovid and Livy. Rome is called the "Caput Mundi". After the fall of the Western Empire, which marked the beginning of the Middle Ages, Rome fell under the political control of the Papacy, in the 8th century it became the capital of the Papal States, which lasted until 1870. Beginning with the Renaissance all the popes since Nicholas V pursued over four hundred years a coherent architectural and urban programme aimed at making the city the artistic and cultural centre of the world. In this way, Rome became first one of the major centres of the Italian Renaissance, the birthplace of both the Baroque style and Neoclassicism. Famous artists, painters and architects made Rome the centre of their activity, creating masterpieces throughout the city.
In 1871, Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, which, in 1946, became the Italian Republic. Rome has the status of a global city. In 2016, Rome ranked as the 14th-most-visited city in the world, 3rd most visited in the European Union, the most popular tourist attraction in Italy, its historic centre is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The famous Vatican Museums are among the world's most visited museums while the Colosseum was the most popular tourist attraction in world with 7.4 million visitors in 2018. Host city for the 1960 Summer Olympics, Rome is the seat of several specialized agencies of the United Nations, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Food Programme and the International Fund for Agricultural Development; the city hosts the Secretariat of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean as well as the headquarters of many international business companies such as Eni, Enel, TIM, Leonardo S.p. A. and national and international banks such as Unicredit and BNL.
Its business district, called EUR, is the base of many companies involved in the oil industry, the pharmaceutical industry, financial services. Rome is an important fashion and design centre thanks to renowned international brands centered in the city. Rome's Cinecittà Studios have been the set of many Academy Award–winning movies. According to the founding myth of the city by the Ancient Romans themselves, the long-held tradition of the origin of the name Roma is believed to have come from the city's founder and first king, Romulus. However, it is a possibility that the name Romulus was derived from Rome itself; as early as the 4th century, there have been alternative theories proposed on the origin of the name Roma. Several hypotheses have been advanced focusing on its linguistic roots which however remain uncertain: from Rumon or Rumen, archaic name of the Tiber, which in turn has the same root as the Greek verb ῥέω and the Latin verb ruo, which both mean "flow". There is archaeological evidence of human occupation of the Rome area from 14,000 years ago, but the dense layer of much younger debris obscures Palaeolithic and Neolithic sites.
Evidence of stone tools and stone weapons attest to about 10,000 years of human presence. Several excavations support the view that Rome grew from pastoral settlements on the Palatine Hill built above the area of the future Roman Forum. Between the end of the bronze age and the beginning of the Iron age, each hill between the sea and the Capitol was topped by a village. However, none of them had yet an urban quality. Nowadays, there is a wide consensus that the city developed through the aggregation of several villages around the largest one, placed above the Palatine; this aggregation was facilitated by the increase of agricultural productivity above the subsistence level, which allowed the establishment of secondary and tertiary activities. These in turn boosted the development of trade with the Greek colonies of southern Italy; these developments, which according to archaeological ev
Pope Formosus
Pope Formosus was Cardinal-bishop and Pope, his papacy lasting from 6 October 891 to his death in 896. His brief reign as Pope was troubled, marked by interventions in power struggles over the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the kingdom of West Francia, the Holy Roman Empire. Formosus's remains were put on trial in the Cadaver Synod. A native of Rome, Formosus was born around 816, he became Cardinal Bishop of Porto in 864. Two years Pope Nicholas I appointed him a papal legate to Bulgaria, he undertook diplomatic missions to France. Upon the death of Louis II of Italy in 875, the nobles elected his uncle, Charles the Bald, King of the Franks to be the Holy Roman Emperor. Formosus conveyed Pope John VIII's invitation for King Charles to come to Rome to be crowned emperor. Charles received the imperial insignia in Rome on 29 December; those who favored the widowed Empress Engelberga or her brother-in-law, Louis the German, did not support the coronation. Fearing political retribution, many of them left Rome surreptitiously.
Formosus, went to Tours. On April 19, John VIII called a synod which ordered Formosus and other papal officials to return to Rome; when Formosus did not comply - he was removed from the ranks of the clergy and excommunicated on the grounds that he had deserted his diocese without papal permission, had aspired to the position of Archbishop of Bulgaria. Additional charges included the accusations; the condemnation of Formosus and others was announced in July 872. In 878 the sentence of excommunication was withdrawn after he promised never to return to Rome or exercise his priestly functions. In 867, while Formosus was serving as legate to the Bulgarian court, Prince Bogoris requested that he be named Archbishop of Bulgaria. Since the canons forbade a bishop to leave his own see to undertake the government of another, the request was denied; as early as 872 he was a candidate for the papacy. In 883, John's successor, Pope Marinus I, restored Formosus to his suburbicarian diocese of Portus. Following the reigns of Marinus, Pope Hadrian III and Pope Stephen V, Formosus was unanimously elected Pope on 6 October 891.
Shortly after Formosus' election, he was asked to intervene in Constantinople, where Patriarch Photius I had been ejected and Stephen, the son of Emperor Basil I, had taken the office. Formosus refused to reinstate those, ordained by Photius, as his predecessor, Stephen V, had nullified all of Photius' ordinations. However, the eastern Bishops determined to recognize Photius' ordinations nonetheless. Formosus immediately immersed himself in the dispute between Odo, Count of Paris, Charles the Simple for the French crown. Formosus was distrustful of Guy III of Spoleto, the Holy Roman Emperor, began looking for support against the Emperor. To bolster his position, Guy III forced Formosus to crown his son Lambert as co-Emperor in April 892; the following year, Formosus persuaded Arnulf of Carinthia to advance to Rome, invade the Italian peninsula, liberate Italy from the control of Spoleto. In 894, Arnulf's army occupied all the country north of the Po River. Guy III of Spoleto died in December, leaving his son Lambert in the care of his mother Agiltrude, an opponent of the Carolingians.
In autumn 895 Arnulf undertook his second Italian campaign, progressing to Rome by February and seizing the city from Agiltrude by force on February 21. The following day, Formosus crowned Arnulf Holy Roman Emperor in St. Peter's Basilica; the new emperor moved against Spoleto but was struck with paralysis on the way and was unable to continue the campaign. During his papacy he had to contend with the Saracens, who were attacking Lazio. On 4 April 896, Formosus died, he was succeeded by Pope Boniface VI. Pope Stephen VI, the successor of Boniface, influenced by Lambert and Agiltrude, sat in judgment of Formosus in 897, in what was called the Cadaver Synod; the corpse was disinterred, clad in papal vestments, seated on a throne to face all the charges from John VIII. The verdict was; the damnatio memoriae, an old judicial practice from Ancient Rome, was applied to Formosus, all his measures and acts were annulled and the orders conferred by him were declared invalid. The papal vestments were torn from his body, the three fingers from his right hand he had used in blessings were cut off and the corpse was thrown into the Tiber.
Following the death of Stephen VI, Formosus' body was reinterred in St Peter's Basilica. Further trials of this nature against deceased persons were banned, but Pope Sergius III reapproved the decisions against Formosus. Sergius demanded the re-ordination of the bishops consecrated by Formosus, who in turn had conferred orders on many other clerics, causing great confusion; the validity of Formosus' work was re-reinstated. The decision of Sergius with respect to Formosus has subsequently been universally disregarded by the Church, since Formosus' condemnation had little to do with piety and more to do with politics. Bartolomeo Platina writes that Sergius had the much-abused corpse of Formosus exhumed once more, found guilty again, beheaded, thus in effect conducting a second Cadaver Synod, while Joseph Brusher says that "Sergius indulged in no
Pope Sergius III
Pope Sergius III was Pope from 29 January 904 to his death in 911. He was pope during a period of feudal violence and disorder in central Italy, when warring aristocratic factions sought to use the material and military resources of the Papacy; because Sergius III had reputedly ordered the murder of his two immediate predecessors, Leo V and Christopher, fathered an illegitimate son who became pope, his pontificate has been variously described as "dismal and disgraceful", "efficient and ruthless". Sergius was the son of Benedictus, traditionally was believed descended from a noble Roman family, although it has been speculated that he was in fact related to the family of Theophylact, Count of Tusculum, he was ordained as a subdeacon by Pope Marinus I, followed by his being raised to the deaconate by Pope Stephen V. During the pontificate of Pope Formosus, he was a member of the party of nobles who supported the Emperor Lambert, the opponent of Formosus and the pope’s preferred imperial candidate, Arnulf of Carinthia.
Formosus consecrated Sergius as bishop of Caere in 893 in order to remove him from Rome. Sergius ceased to act as bishop of Caere with the death of Formosus in 896, as all of the ordinations conferred by Formosus were declared null and void, although Formosus’ ordination of Sergius was reconfirmed by Theodore II, he actively participated in the farcical Cadaver synod that condemned the pontificate of Formosus. With the death of Theodore in 898, with a small following of Roman nobility led by his father Benedictus, attempted to have himself elected pope, contrary to the wishes of the emperor Lambert, duke of Spoleto. Although Sergius was elected, a rival candidate, Pope John IX, was elected. With Lambert’s support, John was installed as pope, one of his first acts was to convene a synod which excommunicated Sergius and his followers. Sergius was forcibly exiled by Lambert, fleeing to his see at Caere, where he placed himself under the protection of Adalbert II, Margrave of Tuscany. By the time the Antipope Christopher seized the chair of Saint Peter by force, circumstances had changed at Rome, with the rise of the magister militum Theophylact, Count of Tusculum, stationed at Rome by the retreating emperor Louis the Blind in 902.
Putting himself at the head of a faction of the nobility, Theophylact revolted against Christopher, asked Sergius to return to Rome to become pope. Sergius accepted, with the armed backing of Adalbert II, he entered Rome, by which stage Christopher had been cast into prison by Theophylact. Sergius was consecrated Pope on 29 January 904. Sergius III owed his rise to the power of his new patron Theophylact, rewarded him with the position of sacri palatii vestararius, the principal official at the top of papal patronage in control of the disbursements, thus of patronage. All real power now devolved onto Theophylact, Sergius became his puppet; the first clear sign of this shift in power was the fate of Sergius’ two predecessors, Pope Leo V and the Antipope Christopher. According to the pro-Formosan Eugenius Vulgarius, Sergius ordered both men to be strangled in prison sometime in early 904; that both men were murdered during Sergius’ pontificate appears probable, although other accounts state that Christopher at least was allowed to retire to a monastery.
Given where the real power lay, it seems more that either Theophylact gave the orders directly, or that he directed Sergius to give the orders. For the remainder of his pontificate, Sergius promoted his family and members of his aristocratic party to positions of authority and prominence within the church. Pope Sergius III convoked a synod which annulled all the ordinations of Formosus and required all bishops ordained by Formosus to be re-ordained, it was alleged that Sergius managed to get the consent of the Roman clergy at the synod by threatening them with exile, violence or through the use of bribery. The decision to require reordination was unpopular, those affected at sees distant from Rome not only ignored the synod’s instructions, but wrote letters both condemning the revoking of ordinations and justifying validity of the original ordinations; the ruling was subsequently reversed again after his death. Confirming his continued support of the anti-Formosus faction, Sergius honoured the murdered Pope Stephen VI, responsible for the "Cadaver Synod" that had condemned and mutilated the corpse of Pope Formosus, by writing a laudatory epitaph on Stephen VI's tombstone.
For centuries it was believed that Sergius had the much-abused corpse of Formosus exhumed once more, found guilty again, beheaded, thus in effect conducting a second Cadaver Synod. However, the source for this was Liutprand of Cremona, who mistakenly placed the cadaver synod in the pontificate of Sergius III, instead of Stephen VI. Although neither Sergius nor Theophylact supported the continued nominal rule of Emperor Louis, they were somewhat unwilling to grant the imperial title to the only other contender, Berengar I of Italy. On the one occasion that Sergius agreed to crown Berengar in around 906, Berengar was prevented from reaching Rome by the forces of Alberic I of Spoleto and Adalbert II of Tuscany, both of whom had been supporters of Sergius, but were unhappy with his decision to support Berengar. Berengar’s unwillingness to control his vassals contributed to the papal reluctance; when Sergius was ignored, the pope wrote to the bishop of
Public domain
The public domain consists of all the creative works to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable; the works of William Shakespeare and Beethoven, most early silent films, are in the public domain either by virtue of their having been created before copyright existed, or by their copyright term having expired. Some works are not covered by copyright, are therefore in the public domain—among them the formulae of Newtonian physics, cooking recipes, all computer software created prior to 1974. Other works are dedicated by their authors to the public domain; the term public domain is not applied to situations where the creator of a work retains residual rights, in which case use of the work is referred to as "under license" or "with permission". As rights vary by country and jurisdiction, a work may be subject to rights in one country and be in the public domain in another; some rights depend on registrations on a country-by-country basis, the absence of registration in a particular country, if required, gives rise to public-domain status for a work in that country.
The term public domain may be interchangeably used with other imprecise or undefined terms such as the "public sphere" or "commons", including concepts such as the "commons of the mind", the "intellectual commons", the "information commons". Although the term "domain" did not come into use until the mid-18th century, the concept "can be traced back to the ancient Roman Law, as a preset system included in the property right system." The Romans had a large proprietary rights system where they defined "many things that cannot be owned" as res nullius, res communes, res publicae and res universitatis. The term res nullius was defined as things not yet appropriated; the term res communes was defined as "things that could be enjoyed by mankind, such as air and ocean." The term res publicae referred to things that were shared by all citizens, the term res universitatis meant things that were owned by the municipalities of Rome. When looking at it from a historical perspective, one could say the construction of the idea of "public domain" sprouted from the concepts of res communes, res publicae, res universitatis in early Roman law.
When the first early copyright law was first established in Britain with the Statute of Anne in 1710, public domain did not appear. However, similar concepts were developed by French jurists in the 18th century. Instead of "public domain", they used terms such as publici juris or propriété publique to describe works that were not covered by copyright law; the phrase "fall in the public domain" can be traced to mid-19th century France to describe the end of copyright term. The French poet Alfred de Vigny equated the expiration of copyright with a work falling "into the sink hole of public domain" and if the public domain receives any attention from intellectual property lawyers it is still treated as little more than that, left when intellectual property rights, such as copyright and trademarks, expire or are abandoned. In this historical context Paul Torremans describes copyright as a, "little coral reef of private right jutting up from the ocean of the public domain." Copyright law differs by country, the American legal scholar Pamela Samuelson has described the public domain as being "different sizes at different times in different countries".
Definitions of the boundaries of the public domain in relation to copyright, or intellectual property more regard the public domain as a negative space. According to James Boyle this definition underlines common usage of the term public domain and equates the public domain to public property and works in copyright to private property. However, the usage of the term public domain can be more granular, including for example uses of works in copyright permitted by copyright exceptions; such a definition regards work in copyright as private property subject to fair-use rights and limitation on ownership. A conceptual definition comes from Lange, who focused on what the public domain should be: "it should be a place of sanctuary for individual creative expression, a sanctuary conferring affirmative protection against the forces of private appropriation that threatened such expression". Patterson and Lindberg described the public domain not as a "territory", but rather as a concept: "here are certain materials – the air we breathe, rain, life, thoughts, ideas, numbers – not subject to private ownership.
The materials that compose our cultural heritage must be free for all living to use no less than matter necessary for biological survival." The term public domain may be interchangeably used with other imprecise or undefined terms such as the "public sphere" or "commons", including concepts such as the "commons of the mind", the "intellectual commons", the "information commons". A public-domain book is a book with no copyright, a book, created without a license, or a book where its copyrights expired or have been forfeited. In most countries the term of protection of copyright lasts until January first, 70 years after the death of the latest living author; the longest copyright term is in Mexico, which has life plus 100 years for all deaths since July 1928. A notable exception is the United States, where every book and tale published prior to 1924 is in the public domain.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton.
