Italy
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, Austria, 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, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France 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 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, 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 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 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
Liberation of Saint Peter
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
Ceiling
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, 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, 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
Mamertine Prison
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, 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 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
Colosseum
The Colosseum or Coliseum, 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 reused for purposes as housing, quarters for a religious order, a fortress, a quarry. Although partially ruined because of damage caused by earthquakes and stone-robbers, the Colosseum is 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 remodeled by Neros successors into the likeness of Helios or Apollo, Neros head was 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 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
Church (building)
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, 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 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 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 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
Sapienza University of Rome
The Sapienza University of Rome, 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 the most prestigious Italian university and 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 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
Jerusalem
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 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 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 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 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
Apse
In architecture, an apse is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, known as an Exedra. Smaller apses may 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 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
Portico
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, 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 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, 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 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, From Mycenae to the Parthenon, TASCHEN,2004, Editor-in-chief Angelika Taschen, Cologne, ISBN 3-8228-1225-0 Stierlin, Henri
Moses (Michelangelo)
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 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
