1.
Rome
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Rome is a special comune and the capital of Italy. Rome also serves as the capital of the Lazio region, with 2,873,598 residents in 1,285 km2, it is also the countrys largest and most populated comune and fourth-most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. It is the center of the Metropolitan City of Rome, which has a population of 4.3 million residents, the city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio, along the shores of the Tiber. Romes history spans more than 2,500 years, while Roman mythology dates the founding of Rome at only around 753 BC, the site has been inhabited for much longer, making it one of the oldest continuously occupied sites in Europe. The citys early population originated from a mix of Latins, Etruscans and it was first called The Eternal City by the Roman poet Tibullus in the 1st century BC, and the expression was also taken up by Ovid, Virgil, and Livy. Rome is also called the Caput Mundi, due to that, Rome became first one of the major centres of the Italian Renaissance, and then the birthplace of both the Baroque style and Neoclassicism. Famous artists, painters, sculptors and architects made Rome the centre of their activity, in 1871 Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, and in 1946 that of the Italian Republic. Rome has the status of a global city, Rome ranked in 2014 as the 14th-most-visited city in the world, 3rd most visited in the European Union, and the most popular tourist attraction in Italy. Its historic centre is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, monuments and museums such as the Vatican Museums and the Colosseum are among the worlds most visited tourist destinations with both locations receiving millions of tourists a year. Rome hosted the 1960 Summer Olympics and is the seat of United Nations Food, however, it is a possibility that the name Romulus was actually derived from Rome itself. As early as the 4th century, there have been alternate theories proposed on the origin of the name Roma. There is archaeological evidence of occupation of the Rome area from approximately 14,000 years ago. Evidence of stone tools, pottery 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 age and the beginning of the Iron age. However, none of them had yet an urban quality, nowadays, there is a wide consensus that the city was gradually born through the aggregation of several villages around the largest one, placed above the Palatine. All these happenings, which according to the excavations took place more or less around the mid of the 8th century BC. Despite recent excavations at the Palatine hill, the view that Rome has been indeed founded with an act of will as the legend suggests in the middle of the 8th century BC remains a fringe hypothesis. Traditional stories handed down by the ancient Romans themselves explain the earliest history of their city in terms of legend and myth
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Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
Roman Catholic
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The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church or the Universal Church, is the largest Christian church, with more than 1.28 billion members worldwide. As one of the oldest religious institutions in the world, it has played a prominent role in the history, headed by the Bishop of Rome, known as the Pope, the churchs doctrines are summarised in the Nicene Creed and the Apostles Creed. Its central administration is located in Vatican City, enclaved within Rome, the Catholic Church is notable within Western Christianity for its sacred tradition and seven sacraments. It teaches that it is the one church founded by Jesus Christ, that its bishops are the successors of Christs apostles. The Catholic Church maintains that the doctrine on faith and morals that it declares as definitive is infallible. The Latin Church, the Eastern Catholic Churches, as well as such as mendicant orders and enclosed monastic orders. Among the sacraments, the one is the Eucharist, celebrated liturgically in the Mass. The church teaches that through consecration by a priest the sacrificial bread and wine become the body, the Catholic Church practises closed communion, with only baptised members in a state of grace ordinarily permitted to receive the Eucharist. The Virgin Mary is venerated in the Catholic Church as Queen of Heaven and is honoured in numerous Marian devotions. The Catholic Church has influenced Western philosophy, science, art and culture, Catholic spiritual teaching includes spreading the Gospel while Catholic social teaching emphasises support for the sick, the poor and the afflicted through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. The Catholic Church is the largest non-government provider of education and medical services in the world, from the late 20th century, the Catholic Church has been criticised for its doctrines on sexuality, its refusal to ordain women and its handling of sexual abuse cases. Catholic was first used to describe the church in the early 2nd century, the first known use of the phrase the catholic church occurred in the letter from Saint Ignatius of Antioch to the Smyrnaeans, written about 110 AD. In the Catechetical Discourses of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, the name Catholic Church was used to distinguish it from other groups that call themselves the church. The use of the adjective Roman to describe the Church as governed especially by the Bishop of Rome became more widespread after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire and into the Early Middle Ages. Catholic Church is the name used in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church follows an episcopal polity, led by bishops who have received the sacrament of Holy Orders who are given formal jurisdictions of governance within the church. Ultimately leading the entire Catholic Church is the Bishop of Rome, commonly called the pope, in parallel to the diocesan structure are a variety of religious institutes that function autonomously, often subject only to the authority of the pope, though sometimes subject to the local bishop. Most religious institutes only have male or female members but some have both, additionally, lay members aid many liturgical functions during worship services
5.
Minor basilica
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Minor basilica is a title given to some Roman Catholic church buildings. According to canon law, no church building can be honoured with the title of basilica unless by apostolic grant or from immemorial custom, presently, the authorising decree is granted by the Pope through the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. In relation to churches, writers on architecture use the term basilica to describe a church built in a particular style, in the 18th century, the term took on a canonical sense, unrelated to this architectural style. Basilicas in this sense are divided into major and minor basilicas. Today only four, all in Rome, are classified as major basilicas. These external signs, except that of the cappa magna, are still seen in basilicas. It should be large and with an ample sanctuary. It should be renowned for history, relics or sacred images, many basilicas are notable churches, and often receive significant pilgrimages. In December 2009 the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico set a record with 6.1 million pilgrims in two days for the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. As of June 30,2013, there were four major basilicas and 1,748 minor basilicas in the world, of these 1,748 minor basilicas, three have the title of papal minor basilica and four the title of pontifical minor basilica. The three papal minor basilicas are Saint Lawrence outside the Walls, Rome, and the Basilica of San Francesco dAssisi, All four pontifical minor basilicas now have individual pontifical delegates. For the Bari basilica, which is a dependency of the Secretariat of State, for the basilicas of Loreto and Pompei, which are within their own territorial prelatures, the pontifical delegate is the local territorial prelate. Only for the Paduan basilica is the pontifical delegate distinct from the local bishop, the remaining 1,741 minor basilicas are all classified merely as such. Another such Italian church, recognized as a basilica. This name, qualifying it as both pontifical and royal, is confirmed by other sources. Others are the Pontifical Basilica of Saints Cosmas and Damian in Bitonto, one patriarchal basilica, namely the Patriarchal Cathedral Basilica of St Mark in Venice, called patriarchal because it is the cathedral of the Patriarch of Venice, is a minor basilica. The minor basilicas form the vast majority, including cathedrals, many technically parish churches, some shrines. Some oratories and semi-private places of worship, have raised to the status of a minor basilica
6.
Church (building)
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A church building, often simply called a church, is a building used for Christian religious activities, particularly worship services. The term in its sense is most often used by Christians to refer to their religious buildings. In traditional Christian architecture, the church is arranged in the shape of a Christian cross. When viewed from plan view the longest part of a cross is represented by the aisle, towers or domes are often added with the intention of directing the eye of the viewer towards the heavens and inspiring church visitors. The earliest identified Christian church was a church founded between 233 and 256. During the 11th through 14th centuries, a wave of building of cathedrals, a cathedral is a church, usually Roman Catholic, Anglican, Oriental Orthodox or Eastern Orthodox, housing the seat of a bishop. In standard Greek usage, the word ecclesia was retained to signify both a specific edifice of Christian worship, and the overall community of the faithful. This usage was retained in Latin and the languages derived from Latin, as well as in the Celtic languages. In the Germanic and some Slavic languages, the word kyriak-ós/-ē/-ón was adopted instead, in Old English the sequence of derivation started as cirice, then churche, and eventually church in its current pronunciation. German Kirche, Scottish kirk, Russian церковь, etc. are all similarly derived, according to the New Testament, the earliest Christians did not build church buildings. Instead, they gathered in homes or in Jewish worship places like the Second Temple or synagogues, the earliest archeologically identified Christian church is a house church, the Dura-Europos church, founded between 233 and 256. During the 11th through 14th centuries, a wave of building of cathedrals, in addition to being a place of worship, the cathedral or parish church was used by the community in other ways. It could serve as a place for guilds or a hall for banquets. Mystery plays were performed in cathedrals, and cathedrals might also be used for fairs. The church could be used as a place to thresh and store grain, a common architecture for churches is the shape of a cross. These churches also often have a dome or other large vaulted space in the interior to represent or draw attention to the heavens. Other common shapes for churches include a circle, to represent eternity, or an octagon or similar star shape, another common feature is the spire, a tall tower on the west end of the church or over the crossing. The Latin word basilica was used to describe a Roman public building
7.
Nave
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The nave /ˈneɪv/ is the central aisle of a basilica church, or the main body of a church between its western wall and its chancel. It is the zone of a church accessible by the laity, the nave extends from the entry — which may have a separate vestibule — to the chancel and may be flanked by lower side-aisles separated from the nave by an arcade. If the aisles are high and of a width comparable to the central nave and it provides the central approach to the high altar. The term nave is from medieval Latin navis, a ship was an early Christian symbol. The term may also have suggested by the keel shape of the vaulting of a church. The earliest churches were built when builders were familiar with the form of the Roman basilica and it had a wide central area, with aisles separated by columns, and with windows near the ceiling. Old St. Peters Basilica in Rome is a church which had this form. It was built in the 4th century on the orders of Roman emperor Constantine I, the nave, the main body of the building, is the section set apart for the laity, while the chancel is reserved for the clergy. In medieval churches the nave was separated from the chancel by the rood screen, medieval naves were divided into bays, the repetition of form giving an effect of great length, and the vertical element of the nave was emphasized. During the Renaissance, in place of dramatic effects there were more balanced proportions, longest nave in Denmark, Aarhus Cathedral,93 metres. Longest nave in England, St Albans Cathedral, St Albans,84 metres, longest nave in Ireland, St Patricks Cathedral, Dublin,91 metres. Longest nave in France, Bourges Cathedral,91 metres, including choir where a crossing would be if there were transepts, longest nave in Germany, Cologne cathedral,58 metres, including two bays between the towers. Longest nave in Italy, St Peters Basilica in Rome,91 metres, longest nave in Spain, Seville,60 metres, in five bays. Longest nave in the United States, Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York City, highest vaulted nave, Beauvais Cathedral, France,48 metres high but only one bay of the nave was actually built but choir and transepts were completed to the same height. Highest completed nave, Rome, St. Peters, Italy,46 metres high, abbey, with architectural discussion and groundplans Cathedral architecture Cathedral diagram List of highest church naves
8.
Michelangelo
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Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art. Considered to be the greatest living artist during his lifetime, he has since described as one of the greatest artists of all time. A number of Michelangelos works of painting, sculpture, and architecture rank among the most famous in existence and he sculpted two of his best-known works, the Pietà and David, before the age of thirty. As an architect, Michelangelo pioneered the Mannerist style at the Laurentian Library, at the age of 74, he succeeded Antonio da Sangallo the Younger as the architect of St. Peters Basilica. Michelangelo transformed the plan so that the end was finished to his design, as was the dome, with some modification. Michelangelo was unique as the first Western artist whose biography was published while he was alive, in his lifetime he was often called Il Divino. One of the qualities most admired by his contemporaries was his terribilità, the attempts by subsequent artists to imitate Michelangelos impassioned and highly personal style resulted in Mannerism, the next major movement in Western art after the High Renaissance. Michelangelo was born on 6 March 1475 in Caprese near Arezzo, at the time of Michelangelos birth, his father was the Judicial administrator of the small town of Caprese and local administrator of Chiusi. Michelangelos mother was Francesca di Neri del Miniato di Siena, the Buonarrotis claimed to descend from the Countess Mathilde of Canossa, this claim remains unproven, but Michelangelo himself believed it. Several months after Michelangelos birth, the returned to Florence. There Michelangelo gained his love for marble, as Giorgio Vasari quotes him, If there is good in me. Along with the milk of my nurse I received the knack of handling chisel and hammer, as a young boy, Michelangelo was sent to Florence to study grammar under the Humanist Francesco da Urbino. The young artist, however, showed no interest in his schooling, preferring to copy paintings from churches, the city of Florence was at that time the greatest centre of the arts and learning in Italy. Art was sponsored by the Signoria, by the merchant guilds and by patrons such as the Medici. The Renaissance, a renewal of Classical scholarship and the arts, had its first flowering in Florence, the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti had laboured for fifty years to create the bronze doors of the Baptistry, which Michelangelo was to describe as The Gates of Paradise. The exterior niches of the Church of Orsanmichele contained a gallery of works by the most acclaimed sculptors of Florence – Donatello, Ghiberti, Andrea del Verrocchio, and Nanni di Banco. The interiors of the churches were covered with frescos, begun by Giotto. During Michelangelos childhood, a team of painters had been called from Florence to the Vatican, among them was Domenico Ghirlandaio, a master in fresco painting, perspective, figure drawing, and portraiture who had the largest workshop in Florence at that period
9.
Moses (Michelangelo)
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The Moses is a sculpture by the Italian High Renaissance artist Michelangelo Buonarroti, housed in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome. The statue of Moses would have placed on a tier about 3.74 meters high. In the final design, the statue of Moses sits in the center of the bottom tier, giorgio Vasari in the Life of Michelangelo wrote, Michelangelo finished the Moses in marble, a statue of five braccia, unequalled by any modern or ancient work. The Jews still go every Saturday in troops to visit and adore it as a divine and his right arm links the Tables of the Law with a portion of his beard, his left arm lies in his lap. When he came down from Mount Sinai, Moses found his people worshipping the Golden Calf - the false idol they had made and his anger defies the prison of stone, the limits of the sculptors art. Few can resist the impression of a mind, real emotions. Today, he glares at the tourists who mob the church of San Pietro in Vincoli and he outfaces them, just as he outfaced Sigmund Freud, who spent three weeks in 1913 trying to figure out the sculptures emotional effect. Mosess vitality has made this work popular since the 16th century, according to Vasari, Romes Jewish population adopted the statue as their own. Its power must have something to do with the rendition of things that should be impossible to depict in stone, most quirkily, following the iconographic convention common in Latin Christianity, the statue has two horns on its head. This was Jeromes effort to translate the difficult, original Hebrew Masoretic text, which uses the term, karan. The Greek Septuagint, which Jerome also had available, translated the verse as Moses knew not that the appearance of the skin of his face was glorified. In general medieval theologians and scholars understood that Jerome had intended to express a glorification of Moses face, the understanding that the original Hebrew was difficult and was not likely to literally mean horns persisted into and through the Renaissance. For the next 150 years or so, evidence for further images of a horned Moses is sparse, in the 16th century, the prevalence of depictions of a horned Moses steeply diminished. The depiction with horns is first found in 11th-century England, a book published in 2008 advanced a theory that the horns on Michelangelos statue were never meant to be seen and that it is wrong to interpret them as horns, never had horns. The artist had planned Moses as a not only of sculpture. For this reason, the piece had to be elevated and facing straight forward, the two protrusions on the head would have been invisible to the viewer looking up from the floor below — the only thing that would have been seen was the light reflected off of them. Freud describes Moses in a psychological state, We may now, I believe. But this interpretation had to be given up, for it made us expect to see him spring up in the moment, break the Tables
10.
Donald Wuerl
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Donald William Wuerl is an American prelate of the Catholic Church. He is the sixth Archbishop of Washington, serving since 2006 and he previously served as Auxiliary Bishop of Seattle and Bishop of Pittsburgh. He was elevated to the cardinalate by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010, donald Wuerl was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the second of four children of Francis and Mary Anna Wuerl. He has two brothers, Wayne and Dennis, and a sister, Carol and his father worked nights weighing freight cars for the Pennsylvania Railroad, and served in the Navy during World War II. His mother died in 1944, and his father married Kathryn Cavanaugh in 1946, Wuerl received his early education at the parochial school of St. Mary of the Mount Church in the Mount Washington neighborhood of Pittsburgh, graduating in 1958. He then attended the Catholic University of America in Washington, D. C. where he was a Basselin Scholar at Theological College, earning a bachelors degree and he continued his studies at the Pontifical North American College in Rome. He earned a degree in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in 1967. After ordination, Wuerl was sent to Rome for further theological study and he is an alumnus of the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas Angelicum where he obtained a doctorate in theology in 1974. He was ordained a priest on December 17,1966 and his first assignment was as assistant pastor at St. Rosalia parish in Pittsburghs Greenfield neighborhood and as secretary to Pittsburghs Bishop John Wright. After Wright was elevated to cardinal in 1969, Wuerl was his secretary in Vatican City from 1969 until Wrights death in 1979. In 1976, he co-authored a catechism for adults, The Teaching of Christ, Wuerl was rector at St. Paul Seminary in Pittsburgh from 1981 to 1985. In 1982, he was executive secretary to Bishop John Marshall of Burlington, Vermont. On December 3,1985, Wuerl was appointed bishop of Rosemarkie. Wuerl was consecrated bishop on January 6,1986, at St. Peters Basilica in Rome, the division of authority only became public when Hunthausen announced it in September 1986. While some chancery officials expressed support for Wuerl, some questioned his role, in November, Hunthausen won support for his objections to the Vaticans restrictions on his authority from the U. S. Wuerl later said the arrangement had been unworkable, following the restoration of Hunthausens authority he moved to a Pittsburgh suburb to await his next posting. Wuerl was appointed the bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh on February 12,1988. Wuerl launched and hosted a program, The Teaching of Christ, in 1990
11.
Cardinal Priest
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A cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical leader, considered a Prince of the Church, and usually an ordained bishop of the Roman Catholic Church. The cardinals of the Church are collectively known as the College of Cardinals, the duties of the cardinals include attending the meetings of the College and making themselves available individually or in groups to the Pope as requested. Most have additional duties, such as leading a diocese or archdiocese or managing a department of the Roman Curia, a cardinals primary duty is electing the pope when the see becomes vacant. During the sede vacante, the governance of the Holy See is in the hands of the College of Cardinals. The right to enter the conclave of cardinals where the pope is elected is limited to those who have not reached the age of 80 years by the day the vacancy occurs. In 1059, the right of electing the pope was reserved to the clergy of Rome. The term was applied in this sense as early as the century to the priests of the tituli of the diocese of Rome. The Church of England retains an instance of this origin of the title, which is held by the two senior members of the College of Minor Canons of St Pauls Cathedral. In Rome the first persons to be called cardinals were the deacons of the seven regions of the city at the beginning of the 6th century, when the word began to mean principal, eminent, or superior. The name was given to the senior priest in each of the title churches of Rome. By the 8th century the Roman cardinals constituted a class among the Roman clergy. They took part in the administration of the church of Rome, by decree of a synod of 769, only a cardinal was eligible to become pope. In 1059, during the pontificate of Nicholas II, cardinals were given the right to elect the pope under the Papal Bull In nomine Domini. For a time this power was assigned exclusively to the cardinal bishops, Cardinals were granted the privilege of wearing the red hat by Pope Innocent IV in 1244. In cities other than Rome, the name began to be applied to certain church men as a mark of honour. This meaning of the word spread rapidly, and from the 9th century various episcopal cities had a class among the clergy known as cardinals. The use of the title was reserved for the cardinals of Rome in 1567 by Pius V, in the year 1563 the influential Ecumenical Council of Trent, headed by Pope Pius IV, wrote about the importance of selecting good Cardinals. The earlier influence of temporal rulers, notably the French kings, in early modern times, cardinals often had important roles in secular affairs
12.
Sapienza University of Rome
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The Sapienza University of Rome, also called simply Sapienza or the University of Rome, is a collegiate research university located in Rome, Italy. Formally known as Università degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza, it is the largest European university by enrollments and one of the oldest in history, the University is also the most prestigious Italian university and also the best ranked in Southern Europe. The biggest part of the Italian ruling class studied at this University and he introduced a new tax on wine in order to raise funds for the university, the money was used to buy a palace which later housed the SantIvo alla Sapienza church. However, the Universitys days of splendour came to an end during the sack of Rome in 1527, when the studium was closed and the professors dispersed, Pope Paul III restored the university shortly after his ascension to the pontificate in 1534. In the 1650s the university known as Sapienza, meaning wisdom. University students were newly animated during the 19th-century Italian revival, in 1870, La Sapienza stopped being the papal university and became the university of the capital of Italy. In 1935 the new university campus, planned by Marcello Piacentini, was completed, Sapienza University has many campuses in Rome but its main campus is the Città Universitaria, which covers 439,000 m2 near the Roma Tiburtina Station. The university has satellite campuses outside Rome, the main of which is in Latina. In 2011 a project was launched to build a campus residence halls near Pietralata station. The Department of Philosophy is located in this building, since the 2011 reform, Sapienza University of Rome has eleven faculties and 65 departments. Today Sapienza, with 140,000 students and 8,000 among academic and technical, the university has significant research programmes in the fields of engineering, natural sciences, biomedical sciences and humanities. It offers 10 Masters Programmes taught entirely in English, as of the 2016 Academic Ranking of World Universities, Sapienza is positioned within the 151-200 group of universities and among the top 3% of universities in the world. In 2015, the Center for World University Rankings ranked the Sapienza University of Rome as the 112th in the world, in order to cope with the large demand for admission to the university courses, some faculties hold a series of entrance examinations. The entrance test often decides which candidates will have access to the undergraduate course, for some faculties, the entrance test is only a means through which the administration acknowledges the students level of preparation. Students that do not pass the test can still enroll in their chosen degree courses but have to pass an additional exam during their first year, the title of the speech would have been The Truth Makes Us Good and Goodness is Truth. Some students and professors protested in reaction to a 1990 speech that Pope Benedict XVI gave in which he, in their opinion, endorsed the actions of the church against Galileo in 1633
13.
Colosseum
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The Colosseum or Coliseum, also known as the Flavian Amphitheatre, is an oval amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy. Built of concrete and sand, it is the largest amphitheatre ever built, the Colosseum is situated just east of the Roman Forum. Construction began under the emperor Vespasian in AD72, and was completed in AD80 under his successor, further modifications were made during the reign of Domitian. These three emperors are known as the Flavian dynasty, and the amphitheatre was named in Latin for its association with their family name, the building ceased to be used for entertainment in the early medieval era. It was later reused for purposes as housing, workshops, quarters for a religious order, a fortress, a quarry. Although partially ruined because of damage caused by earthquakes and stone-robbers, the Colosseum is also depicted on the Italian version of the five-cent euro coin. The Colosseums original Latin name was Amphitheatrum Flavium, often anglicized as Flavian Amphitheatre, the building was constructed by emperors of the Flavian dynasty, following the reign of Nero. This name is used in modern English, but generally the structure is better known as the Colosseum. The name Colosseum has long believed to be derived from a colossal statue of Nero nearby. This statue was later remodeled by Neros successors into the likeness of Helios or Apollo, Neros head was also replaced several times with the heads of succeeding emperors. Despite its pagan links, the statue remained standing well into the era and was credited with magical powers. It came to be seen as an symbol of the permanence of Rome. This is often mistranslated to refer to the Colosseum rather than the Colossus, however, at the time that the Pseudo-Bede wrote, the masculine noun coliseus was applied to the statue rather than to what was still known as the Flavian amphitheatre. The Colossus did eventually fall, possibly being pulled down to reuse its bronze, by the year 1000 the name Colosseum had been coined to refer to the amphitheatre. The statue itself was forgotten and only its base survives. The name further evolved to Coliseum during the Middle Ages, in Italy, the amphitheatre is still known as il Colosseo, and other Romance languages have come to use similar forms such as Coloseumul, le Colisée, el Coliseo and o Coliseu. The site chosen was an area on the floor of a low valley between the Caelian, Esquiline and Palatine Hills, through which a canalised stream ran. By the 2nd century BC the area was densely inhabited and it was devastated by the Great Fire of Rome in AD64, following which Nero seized much of the area to add to his personal domain
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Relic
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In religion, a relic usually consists of the physical remains of a saint or the personal effects of the saint or venerated person preserved for purposes of veneration as a tangible memorial. Relics are an important aspect of forms of Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Shamanism. Relic derives from the Latin reliquiae, meaning remains, and a form of the Latin verb relinquere, to leave behind, a reliquary is a shrine that houses one or more religious relics. In ancient Greece, a city or sanctuary might claim to possess, without necessarily displaying, the sanctuary of the Leucippides at Sparta claimed to display the egg of Leda. The bones were not regarded as holding a power derived from the hero, with some exceptions. Miracles and healing were not regularly attributed to them, rather, their presence was meant to serve a tutelary function, the bones of Orestes and Theseus were supposed to have been stolen or removed from their original resting place and reburied. Plutarch says that the Athenians were likewise instructed by the oracle to locate, the body of the legendary Eurystheus was also supposed to protect Athens from enemy attack, and in Thebes, that of the prophet Amphiaraus, whose cult was oracular and healing. As with the relics of Theseus, the bones are sometimes described in sources as gigantic. On the basis of their size, it has been conjectured that such bones were those of prehistoric creatures. The head of the poet-prophet Orpheus was supposed to have transported to Lesbos. The 2nd-century geographer Pausanias reported that the bones of Orpheus were kept in a stone vase displayed on a pillar near Dion, his place of death and these too were regarded as having oracular power, which might be accessed through dreaming in a ritual of incubation. The accidental exposure of the bones brought a disaster upon the town of Libretha, according to the Chronicon Paschale, the bones of the Persian Zoroaster were venerated, but the tradition of Zoroastrianism and its scriptures offer no support of this. In Hinduism, relics are less common than in other religions since the remains of most saints are cremated. The veneration of corporal relics may have originated with the movement or the appearance of Buddhism. In Buddhism, relics of the Buddha and various sages are venerated, after the Buddhas death, his remains were divided into eight portions. Afterward, these relics were enshrined in stupas wherever Buddhism was spread, some relics believed to be original remains of the body of the Buddha still survive, including the much-revered Sacred Relic of the tooth of the Buddha in Sri Lanka. A stupa is a building created specifically for the relics, many Buddhist temples have stupas and historically, the placement of relics in a stupa often became the initial structure around which the whole temple would be based. Today, many also hold the ashes or ringsel of prominent/respected Buddhists who were cremated
15.
Saint Peter
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Saint Peter, also known as Simon Peter, Simeon, or Simōn pronunciation, according to the New Testament, was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ, leaders of the early Christian Great Church. Hippolytus of Rome, a 3rd-century theologian, gave him the title of Apostle of the Apostles, according to Catholic teaching, Peter was ordained by Jesus in the Rock of My Church dialogue in Matthew 16,18. He is traditionally counted as the first Bishop of Rome and by Eastern Christian tradition also as the first Patriarch of Antioch. The ancient Christian churches all venerate Peter as a saint and as founder of the Church of Antioch. The New Testament indicates that Peter was the son of John and was from the village of Bethsaida in the province of Galilee or Gaulanitis and his brother Andrew was also an apostle. According to New Testament accounts, Peter was one of twelve apostles chosen by Jesus from his first disciples, originally a fisherman, he played a leadership role and was with Jesus during events witnessed by only a few apostles, such as the Transfiguration. According to the gospels, Peter confessed Jesus as the Messiah, was part of Jesuss inner circle, thrice denied Jesus and wept bitterly once he realised his deed, according to Christian tradition, Peter was crucified in Rome under Emperor Nero Augustus Caesar. It is traditionally held that he was crucified upside down at his own request, Tradition holds that he was crucified at the site of the Clementine Chapel. His remains are said to be contained in the underground Confessio of St. Peters Basilica. According to Catholic doctrine, the direct successor to Saint Peter is the incumbent pope. Two general epistles in the New Testament are ascribed to Peter, the Gospel of Mark was traditionally thought to show the influence of Peters preaching and eyewitness memories. Peters original name was Shimon or Simeon and he was later given the name Peter, New Testament Greek Πέτρος derived from πέτρα, which means rock. In the Latin translation of the Bible this became Petrus, a form of the feminine petra. Another version of this name is Aramaic, , after his name in Hellenised Aramaic. The English, Dutch and German Peter, French Pierre, the Italian Pietro, the Spanish and Portuguese Pedro, the Syriac or Aramaic word for rock is kepa, which in Greek became Πέτρος, also meaning rock. He is also known as Simon Peter, Cephas and Kepha, both Cephas and Kepha also mean rock. In the New Testament, he is among the first of the disciples called during Jesus ministry, Peter became the first listed apostle ordained by Jesus in the early church. Peter was a fisherman in Bethsaida and he was named Simon, son of Jonah or John
16.
Jerusalem
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Jerusalem is a city located on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is considered a city in the three major Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, the part of Jerusalem called the City of David was settled in the 4th millennium BCE. In 1538, walls were built around Jerusalem under Suleiman the Magnificent, today those walls define the Old City, which has been traditionally divided into four quarters—known since the early 19th century as the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Quarters. The Old City became a World Heritage Site in 1981, and is on the List of World Heritage in Danger, Modern Jerusalem has grown far beyond the Old Citys boundaries. These foundational events, straddling the dawn of the 1st millennium BCE, the sobriquet of holy city was probably attached to Jerusalem in post-exilic times. The holiness of Jerusalem in Christianity, conserved in the Septuagint which Christians adopted as their own authority, was reinforced by the New Testament account of Jesuss crucifixion there, in Sunni Islam, Jerusalem is the third-holiest city, after Mecca and Medina. As a result, despite having an area of only 0, outside the Old City stands the Garden Tomb. Today, the status of Jerusalem remains one of the issues in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, West Jerusalem was among the captured and later annexed by Israel while East Jerusalem, including the Old City, was captured. Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War and subsequently annexed it into Jerusalem, one of Israels Basic Laws, the 1980 Jerusalem Law, refers to Jerusalem as the countrys undivided capital. All branches of the Israeli government are located in Jerusalem, including the Knesset, the residences of the Prime Minister and President, the international community does not recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital, and the city hosts no foreign embassies. Jerusalem is also home to some non-governmental Israeli institutions of importance, such as the Hebrew University. In 2011, Jerusalem had a population of 801,000, of which Jews comprised 497,000, Muslims 281,000, a city called Rušalim in the Execration texts of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt is widely, but not universally, identified as Jerusalem. Jerusalem is called Urušalim in the Amarna letters of Abdi-Heba, the name Jerusalem is variously etymologized to mean foundation of the god Shalem, the god Shalem was thus the original tutelary deity of the Bronze Age city. The form Yerushalem or Yerushalayim first appears in the Bible, in the Book of Joshua, according to a Midrash, the name is a combination of Yhwh Yireh and the town Shalem. The earliest extra-biblical Hebrew writing of the word Jerusalem is dated to the sixth or seventh century BCE and was discovered in Khirbet Beit Lei near Beit Guvrin in 1961. The inscription states, I am Yahweh thy God, I will accept the cities of Judah and I will redeem Jerusalem, or as other scholars suggest, the mountains of Judah belong to him, to the God of Jerusalem
17.
Liberation of Saint Peter
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The Liberation of Saint Peter is an event described in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 12 in which Saint Peter is rescued from prison by an angel. Although described in a short passage, the tale has given rise to theological discussions and has been the subject of a number of artworks. Acts 12, 3–19 says that Peter was put into prison by King Herod, but the night before his trial an angel appeared to him, Peters chains fell off, and he followed the angel out of prison, thinking it was a vision. The prison doors opened of their own accord, and the angel led Peter into the city, when the angel suddenly left him, Peter came to himself and returned to the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark. A servant girl called Rhoda came to answer the door, and when she heard Peters voice she was so overjoyed that she rushed to tell the others, eventually Peter is let in and describes how the Lord had brought him out of prison. When his escape is discovered, Herod orders the guards put to death, F. F. Bruce argues that direct divine intervention is strongly indicated in this narrative. James B. Jordan suggests that this incident is portrayed as being a type of resurrection for Peter. Noting that one of the themes of the Book of Acts is that Christs servants follow in His footsteps. A number of churches are named after St Peter in Chains, including in Rome, in Pisa, in London, Birżebbuġa, Tollard Royal and it was included in the pre-1962 General Calendar of the Roman Rite. Traditional Roman Catholics continue to celebrate the feast day of St Peters Chains either as a Greater-Double or a Double Major feast, in the Orthodox Church this feast is celebrated on January 16. Acts 12,7 is referred to in Charles Wesleys hymn And Can It Be, St. Peter ad Vincula, or St. Peter’s Chains, Butlers Lives of the Saints
18.
Licinia Eudoxia
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Licinia Eudoxia was a Roman Empress, daughter of Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius II. Her husbands included the Western Roman Emperors Valentinian III and Petronius Maximus, Eudoxia was born in 422, the daughter of Theodosius II, Eastern Roman Emperor and his consort Aelia Eudocia, a woman of Greek origin. Her only known siblings, Arcadius and Flacilla, predeceased their parents and their paternal grandparents were Arcadius and Aelia Eudoxia. Their maternal grandfather was Leontius, a sophist from Athens, the identity of her maternal grandfather was first given by Socrates of Constantinople. John Malalas later gave a detailed account of her mothers history. The jealousy and avarice of her brothers soon compelled Athenais to seek a refuge at Constantinople, later historians have tended to reject the above account as too reminiscent of a fairy tale or a romance novel to be historically accurate. The exact circumstances of the introduction of Eudocia to Theodosius II, the argument is considered doubtful as the building activity of Eudocia in the 420s focused on Athens rather than Antioch. The identity of Eudoxias maternal grandmother is not recorded, in 424, Eudoxia was betrothed to Valentinian III, her first cousin, once removed. The year of their betrothal was recorded by Marcellinus Comes, at the time of their betrothal, Valentinian was approximately four years old, Eudoxia only two. Gibbon attributes the betrothal to the agreement of the three females who governed the Roman world, meaning Galla Placidia, her niece Pulcheria, Galla Placidia was Valentinian IIIs mother and a younger, paternal half-sister of Arcadius. Valentinian III was at the time being prepared to claim the throne of the Western Roman Empire, the latter was not a member of the Theodosian dynasty and thus regarded a usurper by the Eastern court. Within 424, Valentinian was proclaimed a Caesar in the Eastern court, the following year, Joannes was defeated and executed. Valentinian replaced him as Augustus of the West, Eudoxia and Valentinian III married on 29 October 437, in Constantinople, their marriage marking the reunion of the two halves of the House of Theodosius. The marriage was recorded by Socrates of Constantinople, the Chronicon Paschale, in 439, Eudoxia was granted the title of Augusta, with the birth of their first daughter Eudocia. They also had a daughter, Placidia. The births and eventual fates of the two daughters were recorded by Priscus, Procopius, John Malalas and the Chronicon Paschale, on 16 March 455, Valentinian III was killed in the Campus Martius, Rome by Optila and Thraustila. He summoned Optila and Thraustila, brave Scythians who had campaigned with Aëtius and had assigned to attend on Valentinian. He gave and received guarantees, put the blame for Aëtius murder on the Emperor and those who avenged the fallen man, he said, would justly have the greatest blessings
19.
Valentinian III
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Valentinian III was Western Roman Emperor from 425 to 455. His reign was marked by the dismemberment of the Western Empire. Valentinian was born in the capital of Ravenna, the only son of Galla Placidia. His mother was the younger half-sister of the western emperor Honorius, while his father was at the time a Patrician and the power behind the throne. Through his mother, Valentinian was a descendant both of Theodosius I, who was his grandfather, and of Valentinian I, who was the father of his maternal grandmother. It was also through his mothers side of the family that he was the nephew of Honorius and first cousin to Theodosius II, Valentinian had a full sister, Justa Grata Honoria, who was probably born in 417 or 418. When Valentinian was less than two years old, Honorius appointed Constantius co-emperor, a position he would hold until his death seven months later, as a result of all these family ties, Valentinian was the son, grandson, great-grandson, cousin, and nephew of Roman Emperors. In either 421 or 423, Valentinian was given the title of Nobilissimus by Honorius, in 423, Honorius died, and the usurper Joannes took the power in Rome. To counter this threat to his power, Theodosius belatedly recognised Valentinian’s father as Augustus, Theodosius also betrothed him to his own daughter Licinia Eudoxia. Given his minority status, the new Augustus ruled under the regency of his mother Galla Placidia and her regency lasted until 437, and, for the duration, Theodosius II gave her his full support. This period was marked with an imperial policy and an attempt to stabilize the western provinces as far as the stretched resources of the empire could manage. In 425, the court at Ravenna negotiated with the Huns who had accompanied Flavius Aëtius to Italy in support of Joannes and they agreed to leave Italy, and to evacuate the province of Pannonia Valeria, which was returned to the empire. This allowed Felix and the government to restructure the defences along the Danubian provinces in 427 and 428. In addition, there were significant victories over the Visigoths in Gaul in 426/7 and 430, nevertheless, there were significant problems that threatened the viability of the Roman state in the west. The Visigoths were a constant presence in south-eastern Gaul and could not be dislodged, the Vandals in Hispania continued their incursions, and, in 429, they commenced their invasion of Mauretania Tingitana. The loss of these territories seriously impacted the ability to function. The burden of taxation became more and more intolerable as Romes power decreased, in 427, Felix accused Bonifacius of being a traitor and demanded that he return to Italy. Bonifacius refused and defeated an army sent by Felix to capture him, weakened, Felix was unable to resist Aëtius who, with the support of Galla Placidia, replaced him as Magister militum praesentalis in 429, before having him killed in 430
20.
Aelia Eudocia
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Eudocia lived in a world where Greek paganism and Christianity existed side-by-side with both pagans and non-Orthodox Christians being persecuted. Aelia Eudocia was born circa 400 AD in Athens into a family of Greek descent and her father, a Greek philosopher named Leontius, taught rhetoric at the Academy of Athens, where people from all over the Mediterranean came to either teach or learn. Eudocias given name was Athenais, chosen by her parents in honour of the citys protector and her father was rich and had a magnificent house on the Acropolis with a large courtyard in which young Athenais frequently played as a child. When Athenais was 12 years old, her mother died and she became her fathers comfort, taking on the responsibilities of household chores, raising her siblings and she had two brothers, Gessius and Valerius, who would later receive honours at court from their sister and brother-in-law. In return for her activities, her father spent time giving her a thorough training in rhetoric, literature. He taught her the Socratic virtue of knowledge of moderation, and she had a gift for memorisation, and easily learned the poetry of Homer and Pindar, which her father would recite to her. Both as a teacher and a model, he had a great impact on her, prepared her for her destiny. When he died in 420, she was devastated, in his will, he left all his property to her brothers, with only 100 coins reserved for her, saying that ufficient for her is her destiny, which will be the greatest of any woman. Athenais had been her fathers confidante and had expected more than this meager 100-coin inheritance and she begged her brothers to be fair and give her an equal share of their fathers property, but they refused. Legend has it that when Theodosius II was 20 years old and he talked to his sister Pulcheria, who began to search for a maiden fit for her brother, that was either patrician or imperial blood. His longtime childhood friend, Paulinus, also helped Theodosius in his search, the Emperors search had begun fortuitously at the same time that Athenais had arrived in Constantinople. Athenais had been raised pagan, and upon her marriage to Theodosius II converted to Christianity and was renamed Eudocia and they were married on June 7,421 and there were reports that Theodosius celebrated his wedding with chariot races in the hippodrome. Her brothers, who had rejected her after their fathers death, however, instead of punishing them, Eudocia called them back to Constantinople, and Theodosius rewarded them. The emperor made Gessius praetorian prefect of Illyricum and made Valerius magister officiorum, both Gessius and Valerius were rewarded because Eudocia believed that their mistreatment of her was part of her destiny. He also honoured his best friend, Paulinus with the title of magister officiorum, the historians Sozomen and Theodoret did not include Eudocia in their respective historical works perhaps because they wrote after 443 AD when Eudocia had fallen into disgrace. She was very conscious of her Greek heritage, as demonstrated in her famous address to the citizens of Antioch where she included the line Υμετέρης γενεής τε καί αίματος εύχομαι είναι. On her return, her position was undermined by the jealousy of Pulcheria and the suspicion of an intrigue with her protégé, Paulinus. The argument is considered doubtful as the activity of Eudocia in the 420s focused on Athens rather than Antioch
21.
Valentinian II
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Valentinian II, was Roman Emperor from AD375 to 392. Flavius Valentinianus was born to Emperor Valentinian I and his second wife and he was the half-brother of Valentinian’s other son, Gratian, who had shared the imperial title with his father since 367. He had three sisters Galla, Grata and Justa, the elder Valentinian died on campaign in Pannonia in 375. Neither Gratian nor his uncle Valens were consulted by the commanders on the scene. Instead of merely acknowledging Gratian as his father’s successor, Valentinian I’s generals acclaimed the four-year-old Valentinian augustus on 22 November 375. The army, and its Frankish general Merobaudes, may have been uneasy about Gratians lack of military ability, and so raised a boy who would not immediately aspire to military command. Gratian, forced to accommodate the generals who supported his half-brother, governed the provinces, while Italy, part of Illyricum. In 378, their uncle, the Emperor Valens, was killed in battle with the Goths at Adrianople, and Gratian invited the general Theodosius to be emperor in the East. As a child, Valentinian II was under the influence of his Arian mother, the Empress Justina, and the court at Milan. Justina used her influence over her son to oppose the Nicean party which was championed by Ambrose. In 385 Ambrose, backed by Milans populace, refused an imperial request to hand over the Portian basilica for the use of Arian troops. In 386 Justina and Valentinian received the Arian bishop Auxentius, Ambrose and his congregation barricaded themselves inside the church, and the imperial order was rescinded. Magnus Maximus used the emperor’s heterodoxy against him, and even his eventual protector, Theodosius, Valentinian also tried to restrain the despoiling of pagan temples in Rome. Valentinian, at the insistence of Ambrose, refused the request and, in so doing, rejected the traditions, in 383, Magnus Maximus, commander of the armies in Britain, declared himself Emperor and established himself in Gaul and Hispania. For a time the court of Valentinian, through the mediation of Ambrose, came to an accommodation with the usurper, in 386 or 387, Maximus crossed the Alps into the Po valley and threatened Milan. Valentinian II and Justina fled to Theodosius in Thessalonica, the latter came to an agreement, cemented by his marriage to Valentinian’s sister Galla, to restore the young emperor in the West. In 388, Theodosius marched west and defeated Maximus, although he was to appoint both of his sons emperor, Theodosius remained loyal to the dynasty of Valentinian I. After the defeat of Maximus, Theodosius remained in Milan until 391, Valentinian took no part in Theodosiuss triumphal celebrations over Maximus
22.
Pope Leo I
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Pope Saint Leo I, also known as Saint Leo the Great, was pope from 29 September 440 to his death in 461. He was a Roman aristocrat, and was the first pope to have called the Great. He is perhaps best known for having met Attila the Hun in 452 and he is also a Doctor of the Church, most remembered theologically for issuing the Tome of Leo, a document which was a major foundation to the debates of the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon. It was followed by a major schism associated with Monophysitism, Miaphysitism and Dyophysitism, according to the Liber Pontificalis, he was a native of Tuscany. About the same time John Cassian dedicated to him the treatise against Nestorius written at his request and these two men were the two highest officials in Gaul. Leos work helped to solidify political and religious unity in his area of the Roman Empire, during his absence on this mission, Pope Sixtus III died, and Leo was unanimously elected by the people to succeed him. On 29 September, he entered upon a pontificate that was to be epoch-making for the centralisation of the government of the Roman Church, Leo defends the true divinity and the true humanity of the one Christ against heretical one-sidedness. He takes up this topic also in many of his sermons, to Leo the Great, Mariology is determined by Christology. If Christ were divine only, everything about him would be divine, only his divinity would have been crucified, buried and resurrected. Mary would only be the mother of God, and Christians would have no hope for their own resurrection, the nucleus of Christianity would be destroyed. The most unusual beginning of a human life through her was to give birth to Jesus. Leo contributed to the development of the doctrine on papal primacy, based on his devotion to St Peter and on the veneration for the Apostle. Besides recourse to biblical language, Leo also describes his own relationship with St Peter in terms derived from Roman law. He calls himself the heir and deputy of Peter, having received his apostolic authority and being obliged to follow his example. On the one hand, Peter stands before him with a claim on how Leo is to exercise his office, on the hand, Leo, as the Roman bishop, represents the Apostle. Christ, however, always comes out as the source of all grace and authority, Peter is indeed the example for Leos relationship to Christ. Leo was a significant contributor to the centralisation of authority within the Church. The bishop of Rome had gradually become viewed as the patriarch in the Western church
23.
Mamertine Prison
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The Mamertine Prison, in antiquity the Tullianum, was a prison located in the Comitium in ancient Rome. It was located on the slope of the Capitoline Hill, facing the Curia and the imperial fora of Nerva, Vespasian. Located between it and the Tabularium was a flight of stairs leading to the Arx of the Capitoline known as the Gemonian stairs, the church of San Giuseppe dei Falegnami now stands above the Mamertine. The origins of the names are uncertain. The name Mamertine is medieval in origin, and may be a reference to a temple of Mars. According to tradition, the prison was constructed around 640–616 BC and it was originally created as a cistern for a spring in the floor of the second lower level. Prisoners were lowered through an opening into the lower dungeon, imprisonment was not a sentence under Roman statutory law, though detention is mentioned in the Twelve Tables and throughout the Digest. Detention, however, includes debt bondage in the early Republic, the wearing of chains, mainly for slaves, slaves or lower-status citizens sentenced to hard labor were held in prison camps. Incarceration in facilities such as the Tullianum was intended to be a temporary measure prior to trial or execution, located near the law courts, the Tullianum was used as a jail or holding cell for short periods before executions and as a site for executions. In 63 BC, certain co-conspirators of Catiline, including Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura, were briefly in the Tullianum. In this case, the executions were conducted hastily, without due process of appeal, during the consulship of Cicero, who was later exiled for his actions. Sejanus was held in the Tullianum before his execution, which involved the Gemonian stairs. Some Gracchan sympathizers ended up in the Carcer, where the unfortunate haruspex Herennius Siculus hit his head on an architrave and died before he could be executed. There is no evidence that the Tullianum was used for incarceration, and the lowest dungeon was unsuited for the purpose. In some cases, it is whether a source using the word carcer means the Carcer. High-status prisoners, whether Roman or foreign, were held in the custody of individual Romans. The line between being a war captive and a hostage lawfully held by treaty was thin, and conditions of captivity could vary widely, from abject misery, the Tullianum only rarely played a role in these detentions. Captured foreign rulers or generals were paraded in a Roman conquerors triumph and these were strikingly few in number, and included the Samnite Gaius Pontius, the Gaul Vercingetorix, some Cilician pirates, and the Galatian Adiatorix
24.
Reliquary
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A reliquary is a container for relics. These may be the purported or actual physical remains of saints, such as bones, pieces of clothing, the authenticity of any given relic is often a matter of debate, for that reason, some churches require documentation of the relics provenance. Relics have long been important to Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, in these cultures, reliquaries are often presented in shrines, churches, or temples to which the faithful make pilgrimages in order to gain blessings. Relics are venerated in the Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, reliquaries provide a means of protecting and displaying relics. While frequently taking the form of caskets, they range in size from simple pendants or rings to very elaborate ossuaries, ivory was widely used in the Middle Ages for reliquaries, its pure white color an indication of the holy status of its contents. These objects constituted a form of artistic production across Europe. Many were designed with portability in mind, often being exhibited in public or carried in procession on the saints feast day or on holy days. Pilgrimages often centered on the veneration of relics, the faithful often venerate relics by bowing before the reliquary or kissing it. Those churches which observe the veneration of relics make a distinction between the honor given to the saints and the worship that is due to God alone. The feretrum was a form of reliquary or shrine containing the sacred effigies. In the late Middle Ages the craze for relics, many now fraudulent, became extreme, 16th-century reformers such as Martin Luther opposed the use of relics since many had no proof of historic authenticity, and they objected to the cult of saints. Nonetheless, the use and manufacture of reliquaries continues to this day, especially in Roman Catholic, post-Reformation reliquaries have tended to take the form of glass-sided caskets to display relics such as the bodies of saints. The earliest reliquaries were essentially boxes, either simply box-shaped or based on an architectural design and these latter are known by the French term chasse, and typical examples from the 12th to 14th century have wooden frameworks with gilt-copper plaques nailed on, decorated in champlevé enamel. Limoges was the largest centre of production, NB the English usage differs from that of the French châsse, relics of the True Cross became very popular from the 9th century onwards and were housed in magnificent gold and silver cross-shaped reliquaries, decorated with enamels and precious stones. Similarly, the bones of saints were often housed in reliquaries that recalled the shape of the body part. A philatory is a transparent reliquary designed to contain and exhibit the bones and this style of reliquary has a viewing portal by which to view the relic contained inside. During the later Middle Ages, the form, mostly used for consecrated hosts, was sometimes used for reliquaries. These housed the relic in a crystal or glass capsule mounted on a column above a base
25.
Pope Sixtus III
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Pope Sixtus III was Pope from 31 July 432 to his death in 440. At that council, the debate over Christs human and divine natures turned on whether Mary could legitimately be called the Mother of God or only Mother of Christ. The council gave her the Greek title Theotokos, and the dedication of the church in Rome is a response to that. Prior to being made Pope, Sixtus was a patron of Pelagius, one of his main concerns was in restoring peace between Cyril of Alexandria and the Syrians. He also maintained the rights of the Pope over Illyria and the position of the archbishop of Thessalonica as head of the local Illyrian church and his feast is kept on 28 March. List of Catholic saints List of popes Helmut Feld
26.
Pope Adrian I
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Pope Adrian I was Pope from 1 February 772 to his death in 795. He was the son of Theodore, a Roman nobleman, Charlemagne besieged Desiderius in his capital of Pavia. After taking the town, he banished the Lombard king to the Abbey of Corbie in France, while the Lombards had always been openly respectful of the papacy, the popes distrusted them. The popes had sought aid from the Eastern Roman Empire to keep these barbarians in check, because the East could offer no direct aid, Adrian then looked to the Franks to offset the power of the Lombards. Friendly relations between pope and king were not disturbed by the dispute about the veneration of icons. In 787, Second Council of Nicaea, approved by Pope Adrian, had confirmed the practice and he also had his theologians, including Theodulf of Orleans, compose the more comprehensive Libri Carolini. Pope Adrian reacted to the Capitulare with a defense of the Council, in 794, a synod held at Frankfurt in 794 discussed the issue but refused to receive the Libri and content itself with condemning extreme forms of veneration of icons. He gave the Lichfield bishop Hygeberht the pallium in 788 and he also encouraged Charlemagne to lead his troops into Spain against the Muslims there and was generally interested in expanding Christian influence and eliminating Muslim control. An epitaph written by Charlemagne in verse, in which he styles Adrian father, is still to be seen at the door of the Vatican basilica. At the time of his death at the age of 95, only three other popes – Pius IX, Leo XIII, and John Paul II – have reigned for longer periods since. List of popes by length of reign Partial letter from Pope Adrian to the 2nd session of the Seventh Ecumenical Council
27.
Pope Julius II
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Pope Julius II, nicknamed The Fearsome Pope and The Warrior Pope, born Giuliano della Rovere, was Pope from 1 November 1503 to his death in 1513. In addition to a military policy, he personally led troops into battle on at least two occasions. There is disagreement about Juliuss year of birth, for some sources put it as late as 1453, Giuliano della Rovere was the son of Rafaello della Rovere. Francesco della Rovere was his uncle and he was educated among the Franciscans by his uncle, who took him under his special charge and later sent him to a Franciscan friary in Perugia with the purpose of obtaining knowledge of the sciences. After his uncle was elected Pope Sixtus IV, della Rovere was promoted to be cardinal, taking the title as that formerly held by his uncle. With his uncle he obtained great influence, and in addition to the archbishopric of Avignon he held no fewer than eight bishoprics, including Lausanne from 1472. In June 1474, della Rovere led an army to Todi and Spoleto, around this time, in 1483, an illegitimate daughter was born, Felice della Rovere. Della Rovere, jealous and angry, accused Borgia of being elected over him, in 1494 he joined Charles VIII of France who was undertaking a military expedition into Italy. This was, in Andrew Greeleys view, almost certainly by means of bribery with money, but also, per Ott, Ullman, and Hughes, with promises. Giuliano Della Rovere thenceforth took the name of his fourth century predecessor, Julius I, indeed, on the day of his election, he declared I will not live in the same rooms as the Borgias lived. He desecrated the Holy Church as none before and he usurped the papal power by the devils aid, and I forbid under the pain of excommunication anyone to speak or think of Borgia again. His name and memory must be forgotten and it must be crossed out of every document and memorial. All paintings made of the Borgias or for them must be covered over with black crepe, all the tombs of the Borgias must be opened and their bodies sent back to where they belong—to Spain. The Borgias apartments remained sealed until the 19th Century, the combination was, however, at first little more than nominal, and was not immediately effective in compelling the Venetians to deliver up more than a few unimportant places in the Romagna. With a campaign in 1506, he led an army to Perugia and Bologna. The refusal of Pope Clement VII to grant the annulment led to the English Reformation, the same year, he founded the Swiss Guard to provide a constant corps of soldiers to protect the Pope. On Palm Sunday,1507, Julius II entered Rome, both as a second Julius Caesar, heir to the majesty of Romes imperial glory, and in the likeness of Christ, whose vicar the pope was, and who in that capacity governed the universal Roman Church. Julius, who modelled himself after his namesake Caesar, would lead his army across the Italian peninsula under the imperial war-cry
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Pope Sixtus IV
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Pope Sixtus IV, born Francesco della Rovere, was Pope from 9 August 1471 to his death in 1484. His accomplishments as pope included building the Sistine Chapel and the creation of the Vatican Archives, a patron of the arts, the group of artists that he brought together introduced the Early Renaissance into Rome with the first masterpieces of the citys new artistic age. Sixtus aided the Spanish Inquisition, though he fought to prevent abuses therein and he was famed for his nepotism and was personally involved in the infamous Pazzi conspiracy. Francesco was born to a family of modest means from Liguria, Italy and he was born in Celle Ligure, a town near Savona. He went on to lecture at Padua and many other Italian universities, in 1464, Della Rovere was elected Minister General of the Franciscan order at the age of 50. In 1467, he was appointed Cardinal by Pope Paul II with the church being the Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli. Before his papal election, Cardinal della Rovere was renowned for his unworldliness and had even written learned treatises entitled On the Blood of Christ and On the Power of God. His pious reputation was one of the factors that prompted the College of Cardinals to elect him pope upon the unexpected death of Paul II at the age of fifty-four. Upon being elected pope Della Rovere adopted the name Sixtus – a name that had not been used since the 5th century, one of his first acts was to declare a renewed crusade against the Ottoman Turks in Smyrna. However, after the conquest of Smyrna, the fleet disbanded, some fruitless attempts were made towards unification with the Greek Church. For the remainder of his pontificate, Sixtus turned to temporal issues, Sixtus IV sought to strengthen his position by surrounding himself with relatives and friends. His nephew Pietro Riario also benefited from his nepotism, Pietro became one of the richest men in Rome and was entrusted with Pope Sixtus foreign policy. However, Pietro died prematurely in 1474, and his role passed to Giuliano della Rovere, six of the thirty-four cardinals that he created were his nephews. Francesco Salviati, Archbishop of Pisa and an organizer of the plot, was hanged on the walls of the Florentine Palazzo della Signoria. To this, Sixtus IV replied with an interdict and two years of war with Florence, however, Infessura had partisan allegiances to the Colonna and so is not considered to be always reliable or impartial. However, such accusations are easily dismissed as propaganda, but did nevertheless prompt the noted historian of the Catholic Church, Ludwig von Pastor. Sixtus continued a dispute with King Louis XI of France, who upheld the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, according to which papal decrees needed royal assent before they could be promulgated in France. This was a cornerstone of the claimed for the Gallican Church
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Portico
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A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was used in Ancient Greece and has influenced many cultures. Some noteworthy examples of porticos are the East Portico of the United States Capitol, the portico adorning the Pantheon in Rome, porticos are sometimes topped with pediments. Bologna, Italy, is famous for its porticos, in total, there are over 45 km of arcades, some 38 in the city center. The longest portico in the world, about 3.5 km, in Bologna, Italy, porticos stretch for 18 km. Palladio was a pioneer of using temple-fronts for secular buildings, in the UK, the temple-front applied to The Vyne, Hampshire was the first portico applied to an English country house. A pronaos is the area of the portico of a Greek or Roman temple. Roman temples commonly had an open pronaos, usually with only columns and no walls, the word pronaos is Greek for before a temple. In Latin, a pronaos is also referred to as an anticum or prodomus, the different variants of porticos are named by the number of columns they have. The style suffix comes from the Greek στῦλος, column, the tetrastyle has four columns, it was commonly employed by the Greeks and the Etruscans for small structures such as public buildings and amphiprostyles. Roman provincial capitals also manifested tetrastyle construction, such as the Capitoline Temple in Volubilis, the North Portico of the White House is perhaps the most notable four-columned portico in the United States. Hexastyle buildings had six columns and were the standard façade in canonical Greek Doric architecture between the archaic period 600–550 BC up to the Age of Pericles 450–430 BC. With the colonization by the Greeks of Southern Italy, hexastyle was adopted by the Etruscans, Roman taste favoured narrow pseudoperipteral and amphiprostyle buildings with tall columns, raised on podiums for the added pomp and grandeur conferred by considerable height. The Maison Carrée at Nîmes, France, is the best-preserved Roman hexastyle temple surviving from antiquity, octastyle buildings had eight columns, they were considerably rarer than the hexastyle ones in the classical Greek architectural canon. The best-known octastyle buildings surviving from antiquity are the Parthenon in Athens, built during the Age of Pericles, and the Pantheon in Rome. The destroyed Temple of Divus Augustus in Rome, the centre of the Augustan cult, is shown on Roman coins of the 2nd century AD as having built in octastyle. The decastyle has ten columns, as in the temple of Apollo Didymaeus at Miletus, the temple of Venus and Rome, built by Hadrian in Rome about 130 A. D. was decastyle, the only known example in Roman architecture. Classical architecture List of classical architecture terms Hypostyle Loggia Stoa Greek architecture, Encyclopædia Britannica,1968 Stierlin, Greece, From Mycenae to the Parthenon, TASCHEN,2004, Editor-in-chief Angelika Taschen, Cologne, ISBN 3-8228-1225-0 Stierlin, Henri
30.
Giuliano da Sangallo
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Giuliano da Sangallo was an Italian sculptor, architect and military engineer active during the Italian Renaissance. He is known primarily for being the architect of Lorenzo de Medici. In this role, Giuliano designed a villa for Lorenzo as well as a monastery for Augustinian monks, additionally, Giuliano was commissioned to build multiple structures for Pope Julius II and Pope Leo X. Giuliano da Sangallo was born in 1443 in Florence. His father, Francesco Giamberti, was a woodworker and an architect who worked closely with Cosimo de Medici. This proved to be helpful to Giuliano and his brother, Antonio, later in life as it helped them to develop a working relationship and friendship with Cosimos grandson. As a child, Giuliano became an apprentice to a joiner, as an apprentice, his woodworking, building and sculpting skills drew the attention of Lorenzo de Medici. Through this, he was able to develop his eye, learn about classical design. Giulianos first major, independent commission came from other than the Medici family and it showed not only his architectural skill. Lorenzo the Magnificent called upon Giuliano to build fortifications and manage the artillery in the town of Castellina against an invasion led by the Duke of Calabria. In this role, Giuliano successfully pushed out the Calabrian forces and showed his talent for military building. The victory at Calabria gave Lorenzo de Medici confidence to keep working with Giuliano, consequently, Lorenzo commissioned him to design a villa in Poggio a Caiano after holding a competition to determine the best design. Giuliano was able to use Leon Battista Albertis design for the Villa Medici in Fiesole as his initial inspiration, construction on the villa began in 1485 and remained largely unfinished throughout Lorenzos life. His son, Giovanni, oversaw its completion after being elected pope as Pope Leo X. Giulianos design featured classical design elements including Ionic columns and an ancient temple style façade. The Medici Villa in Poggia a Caiano is one of the oldest examples of Renaissance-style country villas and served as an inspiration for many future architects of the era. In 1484, a child from the town of Prato claimed to have seen a painting of the Virgin Mary, Santa Maria delle Carceri was commissioned after the townspeople declared this a miracle and decided that a church should be built at the site of the vision to commemorate it. For this project, Lorenzo de Medici once again hired his favorite architect and his designs relied heavily on his study of the work of Alberti and Brunelleschi. Specifically, Sangallo used a Greek cross plan and this is a classical layout design that features four arms of equal length extending off of a central nave and it had not been used extensively in the Renaissance before that point. Construction began on the church in 1486 but the façade remains unfinished to this day, in 1488, after the initial plans were set for the villa in Poggia a Caiano, Lorenzo de Medici commissioned Giuliano to build a castle for Ferrante of Aragon, the King of Naples
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Apse
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In architecture, an apse is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an Exedra. Smaller apses may also be in other locations, especially shrines, an apse is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault. Commonly, the apse of a church, cathedral or basilica is the semicircular or polygonal termination to the choir or sanctuary, in relation to church architecture it is generally the name given to where the altar is placed or where the clergy are seated. An apse is occasionally found in a synagogue, e. g. Maoz Haim Synagogue, the apse is separated from the main part of the church by the transept. Smaller apses are sometimes built in other than the east end. The domed apse became a part of the church plan in the early Christian era. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the apse is known as diaconicon. Various ecclesiastical features of which the apse may form part are drawn here, The chancel, directly to the east beyond the choir contains the High Altar. This area is reserved for the clergy, and was formerly called the presbytery. Hemi-cyclic choirs, first developed in the East, came to use in France in 470, famous northern French examples of chevets are in the Gothic cathedrals of Amiens, Beauvais and Reims. The word ambulatory refers to an aisle in the apse that passes behind the altar and choir. An ambulatory may refer to the passages that enclose a cloister in a monastery, or to other types of aisles round the edge of a church building
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Doric order
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The Doric order was one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture, the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognised by the simple circular capitals at the top of columns and it was the earliest and in its essence the simplest of the orders, though still with complex details in the entablature above. The Greek Doric column was fluted or smooth-surfaced, and had no base, the capital was a simple circular form, with some mouldings, under a square cushion that is very wide in early versions, but later more restrained. In stone they are purely ornamental, the relatively uncommon Roman and Renaissance Doric retained these, and often introduced thin layers of moulding or further ornament, as well as often using plain columns. The Doric order was used in Greek Revival architecture from the 18th century onwards, often earlier Greek versions were used, with wider columns. Since at least Vitruvius it has been customary for writers to associate the Doric with masculine virtues and it is also normally the cheapest of the orders to use. In their original Greek version, Doric columns stood directly on the pavement of a temple without a base. The Parthenon has the Doric design columns and it was most popular in the Archaic Period in mainland Greece, and also found in Magna Graecia, as in the three temples at Paestum. These are in the Archaic Doric, where the capitals spread wide from the column compared to later Classical forms, pronounced features of both Greek and Roman versions of the Doric order are the alternating triglyphs and metopes. The triglyphs are decoratively grooved with two vertical grooves and represent the original wooden end-beams, which rest on the plain architrave that occupies the half of the entablature. Under each triglyph are peglike stagons or guttae that appear as if they were hammered in from below to stabilize the post-and-beam construction and they also served to organize rainwater runoff from above. The spaces between the triglyphs are the metopes and they may be left plain, or they may be carved in low relief. The spacing of the triglyphs caused problems which some time to resolve. The architecture followed rules of harmony, since the original design probably came from wooden temples and the triglyphs were real heads of wooden beams, every column had to bear a beam which lay across the centre of the column. Triglyphs were arranged regularly, the last triglyph was centred upon the last column and this was regarded as the ideal solution which had to be reached. Changing to stone instead of wooden beams required full support of the architrave load at the last column. At the first temples the final triglyph was moved, still terminating the sequence, even worse, the last triglyph was not centered with the corresponding column. That “archaic” manner was not regarded as a harmonious design, the resulting problem is called the doric corner conflict
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Coffer
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A coffer in architecture is a series of sunken panels in the shape of a square, rectangle, or octagon in a ceiling, soffit or vault. For centuries, it was thought that wooden coffers were first made by crossing the wooden beams of a ceiling in the Loire Valley châteaux of the early Renaissance. In 2012, however, archaeologists working under Andrew Wallace-Hadrill at the House of the Telephus in Herculaneum discovered that wooden coffered ceilings were constructed in Roman times. Experimentation with the shapes in coffering, which solve problems of mathematical tiling. The more complicated problems of diminishing the scale of the coffers were presented by the requirements of curved surfaces of vaults. A prominent example of Roman coffering, employed to lighten the weight of the dome, can be found in the ceiling of the dome in the Pantheon. In ancient Chinese wooden architecture, coffering is known as zaojing, dome Dropped ceiling Cove ceiling Beam ceiling U. S. National Capitol
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Ceiling
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A ceiling /ˈsiːlɪŋ/ is an overhead interior surface that covers the upper limits of a room. It is not generally considered an element, but a finished surface concealing the underside of the roof structure or the floor of a storey above. Ceilings can be decorated to taste, and there are fine examples of frescoes. The most common type of ceiling is the ceiling which is suspended from structural elements above. Pipework or ducts can be run in the gap above the ceiling, other types of ceiling include the cathedral ceiling, the concave or barrel-shaped ceiling, the stretched ceiling and the coffered ceiling. Coving often links the ceiling to the surrounding walls, ceilings can play a part in reducing fire hazard, and a system is available for rating the fire resistance of dropped ceilings. Ceilings are classified according to their appearance or construction, a cathedral ceiling is any tall ceiling area similar to those in a church. A dropped ceiling is one in which the surface is constructed anywhere from a few inches or centimetres to several feet or a few metres below the structure above it. This may be done for aesthetic purposes, such as achieving a desirable ceiling height, an inverse of this would be a raised floor. A cove ceiling uses a curved plaster transition between wall and ceiling, it is named for cove molding, a molding with a concave curve, a stretched ceiling uses a number of individual panels using material such as PVC fixed to a permieter rail. Ceilings have frequently been decorated with painting, mosaic tiles. While hard to execute a decorated ceiling has the advantage that it is protected from damage by fingers. In the past, however, this was more than compensated for by the damage from smoke from candles or a fireplace, many historic buildings have celebrated ceilings. Perhaps the most famous is the Sistine Chapel ceiling by Michelangelo, ceiling height may have psychological impacts. The most common ceiling that contributes to fire-resistance ratings in commercial and residential construction is the dropped ceiling, an independent ceiling, however, can be constructed such that it has a stand-alone fire-resistance rating. Such systems must be tested without the benefit of being suspended from a slab above in order to prove that the system is capable of holding itself up. This type of ceiling would be installed to protect items above from fire, merriam-Webster ceiling definition Diydata. com treatise on lath & plasterboard ceilings Virtualmuseum. ca treatise on ceiling construction
35.
Giovanni Battista Parodi
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Giovanni Battista Parodi was an Italian painter, born in Genoa. He belonged to an Italina family of artist and his father was the sculptor and wood-carver Filippo Parodi. His brother was Domenico Parodi, a painter, sculptor and architect, in Genoa his frescoes are to be seen in the Church of Santa Maria Maddalena. }But he spent most of career in Milan and Bergamo. He added church ceilings in Milan, contributed to the decoration of churches in Bergamo, in Rome, his sole prominent public commission was for the fresco of the ceiling of San Pietro in Vincoli in 1706. and the vault medallions in S Maria dell’Orto, Rome
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Saint Balbina
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Saint Balbina, sometimes called Balbina of Rome and Balbina the Virgin is venerated as a virgin martyr and saint of the Roman Catholic Church. The story of Balbina is introduced in the legendary Acts of Sts, Alexander and Balbina, where it is said that she was the daughter of Quirinus, a Tribune in the Roman Army. Usuardus speaks of her in his martyrology, his account of St. Balbina rests on the record of the martyrdom of St. Alexander, legend has it that Quirinus was ordered to hold Pope Alexander I and a man named Hermes in prison because of their Christian faith. They were held in prisons that were a great distance apart. Quirinus was trying to convert Hermes back to the old gods, Hermes explained that Pope Alexander could make a better argument than he, and asked several times to visit his prison. At first Quirinus agreed to this, but after a while he became angry and he tightened the guard so that the two would not be able to speak with one other another. That night Hermes prayed, and an angel appeared to Pope Alexander, releasing his chains, the next morning Quirinus came to Hermes cell as usual, and he was shocked to find both men inside. His heart now open to what the two Christians had to say, he stayed and talked with the men for a while, Hermes shared his story and told of how the Pope with the help of God had raised his son from the dead. Hearing this, Quirinus said that his daughter Balbina had a large goiter, the Pope asked him to bring her to prison where he was held originally. How can she find you there, when youre here with Hermes and he who brought me here, will also bring me back, replied the Pope. So Quirinus quickly returned home and brought his daughter to the prison where he had locked up Pope Alexander. There, they found Alexander patiently waiting for them, tightly shackled in the way he had been before, seeing this, they knelt before him in reverence. Full of devotion, Balbina started to kiss the links of the chains that the Pope was attached to, but he said to her, You shall not kiss these chains, but go out and find St. Peters chains. Once youve found them, kiss them with devotion and you will soon be well, knowing where Peter had been held before his martyrdom, Quirinus jumped up immediately and took Balbina with him, and there he found the chains. Balbina kissed them and was soon well, Quirinus immediately had Pope Alexander and Hermes pardoned and released. Along with his wife and daughter he was baptized by the Pope, Pope Alexander stipulated that the miracle of the chains should be celebrated from that day forward, and he built the church of the Apostle Peter, where the chains have been held ever since. The church he called ad Vincula, is today St. Peter in Chains, another account has Quirinus placed as the one ordered to execute Alexander and two others, Eventius, and Theodolus, who had been arrested by order of Trajan. Quirinus converted to Christianity, however, after witnessing miracles performed by three saints, and he was baptized along with his wife, and daughter Balbina
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Della Rovere
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The Della Rovere family is a noble family of Italy. Pope Sixtus IV built the Sistine Chapel, which is named for him, the Basilica San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome is the family church of the della Rovere. Guidobaldo da Montefeltro adopted Francesco Maria I della Rovere, his sisters child, guidobaldo I, who was heirless, called Francesco Maria at his court, and named him as heir of the Duchy of Urbino in 1504, this through the intercession of Julius II. In 1508, Francesco Maria inherited the duchy thereby starting the line of Rovere Dukes of Urbino and that dynasty ended in 1626 when Pope Urban VIII incorporated Urbino into the papal dominions. As compensation to the last sovereign duke, the title only could be continued by Francesco Maria II, vittoria, last descendant of the della Rovere family, married Ferdinando II de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. They had two children, Cosimo III, Tuscanys longest reigning monarch, and Francesco Maria de Medici, currently, only a cadet branch of the Lanti Della Rovere is survived, continuing the family traditions. Small caps text indicates the surname of the children of a union, all persons have the surname Della Rovere unless otherwise indicated. Ian Verstegen, Patronage and Dynasty, the Rise of the Della Rovere in Renaissance Italy
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Guercino
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Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, best known as Guercino, or Il Guercino, was an Italian Baroque painter and draftsman from the region of Emilia, and active in Rome and Bologna. The vigorous naturalism of his manner is in contrast to the classical equilibrium of his later works. His many drawings are noted for their luminosity and lively style and he was born in Cento, a village between Bologna and Ferrara. At an early age he acquired the nickname Guercino because he was cross-eyed, mainly self-taught, at the age of 16, he worked as apprentice in the shop of Benedetto Gennari, a painter of the Bolognese School. By 1615, he moved to Bologna, where his work was praised by Ludovico Carracci, Guercino painted two large canvases, Elijah Fed by Ravens and Samson Seized by Philistines, for Cardinal Serra, a Papal Legate to Ferrara. These paintings have a stark naturalist Caravaggesque style, although it is unlikely that Guercino saw any of the Roman Caravaggios first-hand, the Arcadian Shepherds was painted in 1618 at the same time of The Flaying of Marsyas by Apollo in Palazzo Pitti. Its dramatic composition is typical of Guercinos early works, which are often tumultuous and he often claimed that his early style was influenced by a canvas of Ludovico Carracci that he saw in the Capuchin church in Cento. Some of his works are closer to the style of his contemporary Guido Reni. He was recommended by Marchese Enzo Bentivoglio to the Bolognese Ludovisi Pope, Pope Gregory XV, the years he spent in Rome, 1621–23, were very productive. Petronilla Altarpiece for the Vatican, which is considered his masterpiece, after the death of Gregory XV, Guercino returned to his hometown. In 1626, he began his frescoes in the Duomo of Piacenza, between 1618 and 1631, Giovanni Battista Pasqualini produced 67 engravings that document the early production of Guercino, which is not included in the Libro dei Conti. In 1642, following the death of Guido Reni, Guercino moved his workshop to Bologna. In 1655, the Franciscan Order of Reggio paid him 300 ducats for the altarpiece of Saint Luke Displaying a Painting of the Madonna, the Corsini also paid him 300 ducats for the Flagellation of Christ painted in 1657. Guercino was remarkable for the rapidity of his executions, he completed no fewer than 106 large altarpieces for churches. He was also a prolific draftsman and his production includes many drawings, usually in ink, washed ink, or red chalk. Most of them were made as preparatory studies for his paintings, but he also drew landscapes, genre subjects, Guercinos drawings are known for their fluent style in which rapid, calligraphic pen strokes combined with dots, dashes, and parallel hatching lines describe the forms. Guercino continued to paint and teach until his death in 1666, as he never married, his estate passed to his nephews and pupils, Benedetto Gennari II and Cesare Gennari. Benedetto Zallone of Cento, and Matteo Loves, masterpieces of Cento, Rome and Polish collections, displayed at the National Museum in Warsaw from September 2013 to February 2014
39.
Cardinal (Catholicism)
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A cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical leader, considered a Prince of the Church, and usually an ordained bishop of the Roman Catholic Church. The cardinals of the Church are collectively known as the College of Cardinals, the duties of the cardinals include attending the meetings of the College and making themselves available individually or in groups to the Pope as requested. Most have additional duties, such as leading a diocese or archdiocese or managing a department of the Roman Curia, a cardinals primary duty is electing the pope when the see becomes vacant. During the sede vacante, the governance of the Holy See is in the hands of the College of Cardinals. The right to enter the conclave of cardinals where the pope is elected is limited to those who have not reached the age of 80 years by the day the vacancy occurs. In 1059, the right of electing the pope was reserved to the clergy of Rome. The term was applied in this sense as early as the century to the priests of the tituli of the diocese of Rome. The Church of England retains an instance of this origin of the title, which is held by the two senior members of the College of Minor Canons of St Pauls Cathedral. In Rome the first persons to be called cardinals were the deacons of the seven regions of the city at the beginning of the 6th century, when the word began to mean principal, eminent, or superior. The name was given to the senior priest in each of the title churches of Rome. By the 8th century the Roman cardinals constituted a class among the Roman clergy. They took part in the administration of the church of Rome, by decree of a synod of 769, only a cardinal was eligible to become pope. In 1059, during the pontificate of Nicholas II, cardinals were given the right to elect the pope under the Papal Bull In nomine Domini. For a time this power was assigned exclusively to the cardinal bishops, Cardinals were granted the privilege of wearing the red hat by Pope Innocent IV in 1244. In cities other than Rome, the name began to be applied to certain church men as a mark of honour. This meaning of the word spread rapidly, and from the 9th century various episcopal cities had a class among the clergy known as cardinals. The use of the title was reserved for the cardinals of Rome in 1567 by Pius V, in the year 1563 the influential Ecumenical Council of Trent, headed by Pope Pius IV, wrote about the importance of selecting good Cardinals. The earlier influence of temporal rulers, notably the French kings, in early modern times, cardinals often had important roles in secular affairs
40.
Girolamo Agucchi
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Girolamo Agucchi was a Catholic cardinal from 1604 to 1605. Agucchi was born in Bologna on January 15,1555, the son of Gian Giorgio Agucchi and his mother was the sister of Cardinal Filippo Sega, and Giovanni Battista Agucchi was his brother. He was educated at the University of Bologna, receiving a doctorate in law, after university, he became a notary of the Holy See. On April 15,1592, Pope Clement VIII made him a protonotary apostolic and he was then made papal envoy to the County of Flanders. In 1595, he became Referendary of the Apostolic Signatura and he became vice-governor of Fermo on September 20,1596. On November 1,1597, he became the majordomo of Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini and he traveled to Ferrara with the cardinal in 1598. In 1600, he became Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Bishops, in the consistory of June 9,1604, Pope Clement VIII made him a cardinal priest. On June 25,1604, he received the red hat and he participated in the papal conclave of March 1605 that elected Pope Leo XI. He died in Rome on April 27,1605, and is buried in San Pietro in Vincoli
41.
Domenichino
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Domenico Zampieri, known as Domenichino for his shortness, was an Italian Baroque painter of the Bolognese or Carracci School of painters. Domenichino was born in Bologna, son of a shoemaker, and he left Bologna for Rome in 1602 and became one of the most talented apprentices to emerge from Annibale Carraccis supervision. As a young artist in Rome he lived with his slightly older Bolognese colleagues Albani and Guido Reni, and worked alongside Lanfranco, meanwhile, he had completed frescoes c. Following Annibale Carraccis death in 1609, Annibales Bolognese pupils, foremost Domenichino, Albani, Reni and Lanfranco, became the leading painters in Rome. One of Domenichinos masterpieces, his frescoes of Scenes of the Life of Saint Cecilia in the Polet Chapel of San Luigi dei Francesi, was commissioned in 1612 and completed in 1615. Concurrently he painted his first, and most celebrated, altarpiece and it subsequently would be judged as being comparable to Raphaels great Transfiguration and even as the best picture in the world. With the election of a Bolognese pope in 1621, Domenichino returned to Rome, appointed Papal Architect, he nonetheless continued to be most active as a painter, obtaining many commissions for altarpieces in Roman churches. His Scenes from the Life of San Gennaro occupied him for the rest of his life and he painted four large lunettes, four pendentives, and twelve scenes in the soffits of the arches, all in fresco, plus three large altarpieces in oil on copper. He died, perhaps by poison at the hands of the jealous Cabal of Naples, before completing the fourth altarpiece or the cupola, at the time of his death, Domenichinos chief assistant was an obscure painter from Assisi, Francesco Raspantino, who inherited his masters studio. Earlier, Domenichinos principal pupils were Alessandro Fortuna, Giovanni Battista Ruggieri, Antonio Alberti called Barbalonga, Francesco Cozza, Andrea Camassei, others who studied in his studio include Poussin, Pietro Testa, and his future biographer, Giovanni Pietro Bellori. The portrait of Agucchi in York used to be attributed to Domenichino, Imitation in this sense is not copying but a creative process inspired by rhetorical theory whereby revered models are not only emulated but surpassed. Jerome from an altarpiece of the subject in Bologna by his former teacher. Like Domenichinos paintings, its sources were in ancient models and aimed at clarity of expression capable of moving its audience, as the Florentine composer Giulio Caccini held and Domenichino surely believed, the aim of the composer/artist was to move the passion of the mind. To achieve that goal, Domenichino paid particular attention to expressive gestures, Domenichinos composite score of 58 nonetheless was surpassed only by Raphael and Rubens, and it equalled that of the Carracci. The Balance reflects Domenichinos high standing in the history of European taste— until John Ruskin in the 1840s wrote his devastating attacks on Bolognese Baroque painting in his Modern Painters, the Carracci and their followers were condemned by Ruskin as being insincere. For Ruskin, there was no entirely sincere nor any great art from the seventeenth century, in 1996 the first major exhibition of his work was held at the Palazzo Venezia in Rome. 1620, Royal Collection, Hampton Court Madonna of Loreto with Saints John the Baptist, Paterniano, 1618–19, North Carolina Museum of Art) Rinaldo and Armida, c. 1620–21, Louvre, Paris Martyrdom of St Peter Martyr, c, 1622-23, Louvre, Paris Saint Ignatius de Loyola’s Vision of Christ and God the Father, c
