1.
Rhineland
–
The Rhineland is the name used for a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine River, chiefly its middle section. In the High Middle Ages, numerous Imperial States along the river emerged from the stem duchy of Lotharingia. The term covered the whole occupied zone west of the Rhine including the bridge-heads on the eastern banks, after the collapse of the French dominated West Bank in the early 19th century, the regions of Lower Rhine and Jülich-Cleves-Berg were annexed to the Kingdom of Prussia. In 1822 the Prussian administration reorganized the territory as the Rhine Province, following the First World War, the western part of Rhineland was occupied by Entente forces, then demilitarized under the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. German forces remilitarized the territory in 1936, as part of a diplomatic test of will, stretching down to the North Palatine Uplands in the south, this area, except for the Saarland, more or less corresponds with the modern use of the term. The southern and eastern parts are mainly hill country, cut by valleys, principally the Middle Rhine up to Bingen and its Ahr, Moselle. The border of the North German plain is marked by the lower Ruhr, in the south, the river cuts the Rhenish Massif. The area encompasses the western part of the Ruhr industrial region, toponyms as well as local family names often trace back to the Frankish heritage. The lands on the shore of the Rhine are strongly characterised by Roman influence. In the core territories, large parts of the population are members of the Catholic Church. On the right bank of the Rhine, between the Main and the Lahn, were the settlements of the Mattiaci, a branch of the Germanic Chatti, while farther to the north were the Usipetes and Tencteri. Julius Caesar conquered the tribes on the left bank, and Augustus established numerous fortified posts on the Rhine. The Frankish conquerors of the Rhenish districts were singularly little affected by the culture of the Roman provincials they subdued, by the 8th century the Frankish dominion was firmly established in western Germania and northern Gaul. On the division of the Carolingian Empire at the Treaty of Verdun the part the province to the east of the fell to East Francia. As the central power of the Holy Roman Emperor weakened, the Rhineland split up into small independent principalities, each with its separate vicissitudes. After the Imperial Reform of 1500/12, the territory was part of the Lower Rhenish–Westphalian, Upper Rhenish, aachen was the place of coronation of the German emperors, and the ecclesiastical principalities of the Rhine played a large role in German history. At the Peace of Basel in 1795, the whole of the bank of the Rhine was taken by France. The population was about 1.6 million in small states
Rhineland
–
Deutsches Eck, Koblenz
Rhineland
–
Coat of arms of the Rhineland
2.
Garlic
–
Garlic is a species in the onion genus, Allium. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chive, with a history of several thousand years of human consumption and use, garlic is native to the region between the Mediterranean and China, and has long been a common seasoning worldwide. It was known to Ancient Egyptians, and has used both as a food flavoring and as a traditional medicine. Allium sativum is a bulbous plant and it grows up to 1.2 m in height. Its hardiness is USDA Zone 8 and it is pollinated by bees and other insects. Allium sativum grows in the wild in areas where it has become naturalized, the wild garlic, crow garlic, and field garlic of Britain are members of the species Allium ursinum, Allium vineale, and Allium oleraceum, respectively. In North America, Allium vineale and Allium canadense, known as garlic or wild garlic. So-called elephant garlic is actually a wild leek, and not a true garlic, single clove garlic originated in the Yunnan province of China. A. sativum var. ophioscorodon Döll, called Ophioscorodon, or hard-necked garlic, includes porcelain garlics, rocambole garlic and it is sometimes considered to be a separate species, Allium ophioscorodon G. Don. A. sativum var. sativum, or soft-necked garlic, includes artichoke garlic, silverskin garlic, Garlic is easy to grow and can be grown year-round in mild climates. While sexual propagation of garlic is possible, nearly all of the garlic in cultivation is propagated asexually, in colder climates, cloves are planted in the autumn, about six weeks before the soil freezes, and harvested in late spring or early summer. The cloves must be planted deep enough to prevent freeze/thaw, which causes mold or white rot, Garlic plants can be grown closely together, leaving enough space for the bulbs to mature, and are easily grown in containers of sufficient depth. Garlic does well in loose, dry, well-drained soils in sunny locations, when selecting garlic for planting, it is important to pick large bulbs from which to separate cloves. Large cloves, along with proper spacing in the planting bed, Garlic plants prefer to grow in a soil with a high organic material content, but are capable of growing in a wide range of soil conditions and pH levels. There are different varieties or subspecies of garlic, most notably hardneck garlic, the latitude where the garlic is grown affects the choice of type, as garlic can be day-length sensitive. Hardneck garlic is grown in cooler climates and produces relatively large cloves, whereas softneck garlic is generally grown closer to the equator and produces small. Garlic scapes are removed to all the garlics energy into bulb growth. The scapes can be eaten raw or cooked, Garlic plants are usually hardy and not affected by many pests or diseases
Garlic
–
Garlic
Garlic
–
Flower head
Garlic
–
Italian garlic PDO (Aglio Bianco Polesano)
Garlic
–
Bulbils
3.
Health
–
Health is the level of functional and metabolic efficiency of a living organism. In humans it is the ability of individuals or communities to adapt, other definitions have been proposed, among which a recent definition that correlates health and personal satisfaction. The definition of health has evolved over time, although this definition was welcomed by some as being innovative, it was also criticized as being vague, excessively broad, and was not construed as measurable. For a long time it was set aside as an impractical ideal, just as there was a shift from viewing disease as a state to thinking of it as a process, the same shift happened in definitions of health. Again, the WHO played a role when it fostered the development of the health promotion movement in the 1980s. This brought in a new conception of health, not as a state, the 1984 WHO revised definition of health defined it as the extent to which an individual or group is able to realize aspirations and satisfy needs, and to change or cope with the environment. Health is a resource for everyday life, not the objective of living, it is a concept, emphasizing social and personal resources. Thus, health referred to the ability to maintain homeostasis and recover from insults, since the late 1970s, the federal Healthy People Initiative has been a visible component of the United States’ approach to improving population health. Progress has been limited for many objectives, leading to concerns about the effectiveness of Healthy People in shaping outcomes in the context of a decentralized and uncoordinated US health system. Healthy People 2020 gives more prominence to health promotion and preventive approaches, a new expanded digital interface facilitates use and dissemination rather than bulky printed books as produced in the past. The impact of changes to Healthy People will be determined in the coming years. Systematic activities to prevent or cure health problems and promote health in humans are undertaken by health care providers. Applications with regard to animal health are covered by the veterinary sciences, studies have shown that high levels of stress can affect human health. Generally, the context in which an individual lives is of importance for both his health status and quality of their life. The concept of the field, as distinct from medical care. The report identified three interdependent fields as key determinants of an individuals health, the maintenance and promotion of health is achieved through different combination of physical, mental, and social well-being, together sometimes referred to as the health triangle. The WHOs 1986 Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion further stated that health is not just a state, Health is a positive concept emphasizing social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities. Health and illness can co-exist, as people with multiple chronic diseases or terminal illnesses can consider themselves healthy
Health
–
Donald Henderson as part of the CDC's
smallpox eradication team in 1966.
Health
–
Postage stamp,
New Zealand, 1933. Public health has been promoted – and depicted – in a wide variety of ways.
Health
–
A lady washing her hands c. 1655
4.
Baghdad
–
Baghdad is the capital of the Republic of Iraq. The population of Baghdad, as of 2016, is approximately 8,765,000 making it the largest city in Iraq, the second largest city in the Arab world, and the second largest city in Western Asia. Located along the Tigris River, the city was founded in the 8th century, within a short time of its inception, Baghdad evolved into a significant cultural, commercial, and intellectual center for the Islamic world. This, in addition to housing several key institutions, garnered the city a worldwide reputation as the Centre of Learning. Throughout the High Middle Ages, Baghdad was considered to be the largest city in the world with a population of 1,200,000 -3,000,000 people. The city was destroyed at the hands of the Mongol Empire in 1258, resulting in a decline that would linger through many centuries due to frequent plagues. With the recognition of Iraq as an independent state in 1938, in contemporary times, the city has often faced severe infrastructural damage, most recently due to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the subsequent Iraq War that lasted until December 2011. In recent years, the city has been subjected to insurgency attacks. As of 2012, Baghdad was listed as one of the least hospitable places in the world to live, the site where the city of Baghdad developed has been populated for millennia. By the 8th century AD, several villages had developed there, including a Persian hamlet called Baghdad, the name is of Indo-European origin and a Middle Persian compound of Bagh god and dād given by, translating to Bestowed by God or Gods gift. In Old Persian the first element can be traced to boghu and is related to Slavic bog god, a similar term in Middle Persian is the name Mithradāt, known in English by its Hellenistic form Mithridates, meaning gift of Mithra. There are a number of locations in the wider region whose names are compounds of the word bagh, including Baghlan. The name of the town Baghdati in Georgia shares the same etymological origins, when the Abbasid caliph, al-Mansur, founded a completely new city for his capital, he chose the name Madinat al-Salaam or City of Peace. This was the name on coins, weights, and other official usage. By the 11th century, Baghdad became almost the exclusive name for the world-renowned metropolis, after the fall of the Umayyads, the first Muslim dynasty, the victorious Abbasid rulers wanted their own capital whence they could rule. They chose a site north of the Sassanid capital of Ctesiphon, on 30 July 762, the caliph Al-Mansur commissioned the construction of the city, mansur believed that Baghdad was the perfect city to be the capital of the Islamic empire under the Abbasids. Mansur loved the site so much he is quoted saying, This is indeed the city that I am to found, where I am to live, and where my descendants will reign afterward. The citys growth was helped by its excellent location, based on at least two factors, it had control over strategic and trading routes along the Tigris, the abundance of water in a dry climate
Baghdad
–
Zumurrud Khaton tomb in Baghdad (built in 1202 AD), photo of 1932.
Baghdad
–
Panoramic view over the ancient city of
Babylon, located 85 km (53 mi) south of Baghdad.
Baghdad
–
Suq al-Ghazel (The Yarn Bazaar) Minaret in Baghdad,
Mesopotamia (
Iraq). This is the oldest
minaret in Baghdad. It belonged to the Caliph Mosque, built by Caliph Muktafi 901–907 AD.
5.
Herbal
–
Herbals were often illustrated to assist plant identification. Herbals were among the first literature produced in Ancient Egypt, China, India, herbals were also among the first books to be printed in both China and Europe. In Western Europe herbals flourished for two following the introduction of moveable type. In the late 17th century, the rise of modern chemistry, herbals have seen a modest revival in the western world since the last decades of the 20th century, as herbalism and related disciplines became popular forms of alternative medicine. Much of the found in printed herbals arose out of traditional medicine. Before the advent of printing, herbals were produced as manuscripts, early handwritten herbals were often illustrated with paintings and drawings. Like other manuscript books, herbals were published through repeated copying by hand, in the process of making a copy, the copyist would often translate, expand, adapt, or reorder the content. Most of the original herbals have been lost, many have survived only as later copies, as printing became available, it was promptly used to publish herbals, the first printed matter being known as incunabula. In Europe, the first printed herbal with woodcut illustrations, the Puch der Natur of Konrad of Megenberg, metal-engraved plates were first used in about 1580. China is renowned for its traditional herbal medicines that date back thousands of years and it survives as a copy made c.500 CE and describes about 365 herbs. In 1406 Ming dynasty prince Zhu Xiao published the Jiuhuang Bencao illustrated herbal for famine foods and it contained high quality woodcuts and descriptions of 414 species of plants of which 276 were described for the first time, the book pre-dating the first European printed book by 69 years. Other herbals include Bencao Fahui in 1450 by Xu Yong and Bencao Gangmu of Li Shizhen in 1590. Traditional herbal medicine of India, known as Ayurveda, possibly back to the second millennium BCE tracing its origins to the holy Hindu Vedas and, in particular. One authentic compilation of teachings is by the surgeon Sushruta, available in a treatise called Sushruta Samhita and this contains 184 chapters and description of 1120 illnesses,700 medicinal plants,64 preparations from mineral sources and 57 preparations based on animal sources. Other early works of Ayurveda include the Charaka Samhita, attributed to Charaka and this tradition, however is mostly oral. The earliest surviving written material which contains the works of Sushruta is the Bower Manuscript—dated to the 4th century CE, an illustrated herbal published in Mexico in 1552, Libellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis, is written in the Aztec Nauhuatl language by a native physician, Martín Cruz. In 1570 Francisco Hernández was sent from Spain to study the natural resources of New Spain, here he drew on indigenous sources, including the extensive botanical gardens that had been established by the Aztecs, to record c.1200 plants in his Rerum Medicarum of 1615. Nicolás Monardes’ Dos Libros contains the first published illustration of tobacco, by about 2000 BCE, medical papyri in ancient Egypt included medical prescriptions based on plant matter and made reference to the herbalists combination of medicines and magic for healing
Herbal
–
Dioscorides'
De Materia Medica,
Byzantium, 15th-century manuscript, by which time the text had been in circulation for about 1500 years
Herbal
–
Statue of
Theophrastus c. 371 – c. 287 BCE,
Orto botanico di Palermo
Herbal
–
A page from the
Ebers Papyrus, the most complete and extensive of surviving ancient herbals
Herbal
–
Arabic Book of Simple Drugs (c. 1334) from Dioscorides’ De Materia Medica.
British Museum
6.
Humours
–
It is also present in the Indian Ayurveda system of medicine. The four humors of Hippocratic medicine are black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood, a humor is also referred to as a cambium. The humoralist system of medicine was highly individualistic, for individual patient was said to have their own unique humoral composition. Moreover, it resembled a holistic approach to medicine as the link between mental and physical processes were emphasized by this framework, Ayurveda, which is known to have been practiced in the 6th century C. E, names three elemental substances, the doshas. Ayurveda is still practiced in India. The concept has not been used in medicine since then, the theory holds that the human body is filled with four basic substances, called humors, which are in balance when a person is healthy. Diseases and disabilities supposedly resulted from an excess or deficit of one of four humors. Disease could also be the result of the corruption of one or more of the humors and these deficits were thought to be caused by vapors inhaled or absorbed by the body. The four humors are black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and these terms only partly correspond to the modern medical terminology, in which there is no distinction between black and yellow bile, and in which phlegm has a very different meaning. It was believed that these were the basic substances from which all liquids in the body were made, when a patient was suffering from a surplus or imbalance of one of these four fluids, then said patients personality and or physical health could be negatively affected. Paired qualities were associated with humor and its season. The word humor is a translation of Greek χυμός, chymos, at around the same time, ancient Indian Ayurveda medicine had developed a theory of three humors, which they linked with the five Hindu elements. The following table shows the four humors with their elements, seasons, sites of formation. Excess of yellow bile was thought to produce aggression, and excess anger reciprocally gave rise to liver derangement, the word melancholy derives from Greek μέλαινα χολή meaning black bile, from the belief that an excess of black bile caused depression. Phlegm was thought to be associated with behavior, as preserved in the word phlegmatic /flɛgˈmatɪk/. The phlegm of humorism is far from the thing as phlegm as it is defined today. What can we say of this classification of humours into four groups. Although advances in cellular pathology and chemistry discredited humoralism by the nineteenth century, only in some instances did the theory of humoralism wane into obscurity
Humours
–
The four temperaments as depicted in an 18th century woodcut: phlegmatic, choleric, sanguine and melancholic.
7.
Biblioteca Casanatense
–
The Biblioteca Casanatense is a library in Rome, Italy. The library is located at Via di SantIgnazio,52, the library was established in 1701 by the Dominicans of the Convent of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome. It was opened to the public, according to the will of Cardinal Girolamo Casanata. The library contained about 25000 volumes, since 1872 the library has been managed by the Italian government. In the present day the library is under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture and his chief service to learning, especially the theological sciences, was the Casanatense Library founded and endowed by him. In 1655 the same convent had inherited the library of Giambattista Castellani, chief physician of Gregory XV, Cardinal Casanata, moreover, ordered that the new library should be accessible to the public six hours daily, excepting feast-days. In addition to the staff he provided for a college of six Dominicans of different nationalities. Each of them must previously have received the degree of Doctor from one of the most famous universities of Europe, aided by the resources of the library, they were to devote themselves to the defence and propagation of Catholic doctrine. Moreover, two professors were to expound regularly the text of St Thomas Aquinas, in other words, by means of the new library, he had created at Rome another centre of intellectual activity. After the 1870 loss by the Papacy of the power over Rome, the library was nationalized. Amongst the librarys possessions are 64 Greek codices, and 230 Hebrew texts, the incunabula number 2036, there is also a large collection of Roman governmental proclamations from 1500 to 1870, and comedies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Father Cloché, the General of the Dominicans, placed in the library a statue of Cardinal Casanata, an inscription records the formal permission of Clement XI to preserve there the books of what were considered heretical authors. The Casanatense Library still preserves 1125 manuscript volumes of opinions, reports and his curial duties did not prevent him from taking an interest in letters and the sciences. He was on terms and corresponded with the learned men of his day. The library holds medieval manuscripts, including biblical manuscripts, attribution This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Herbermann, Charles, ed. Girolamo Casanata. Cavarra, A. A. ed. Biblioteca Casanatense, Roma, la Biblioteca Casanatense di Roma, Napoli 1993 De Gregorio, V. Casanatense e dintorni. Moricca Caputo, A. Catalogo dei manoscritti della Biblioteca Casanatense, Roma,1949 Panetta, M
Biblioteca Casanatense
–
interior of Biblioteca Casanatense
Biblioteca Casanatense
–
Tacuinum Sanitatis, Lombardy, late 14th century (Biblioteca Casanatense.
8.
Palermo
–
Palermo is a city of Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence, Palermo is located in the northwest of the island of Sicily, right by the Gulf of Palermo in the Tyrrhenian Sea. The city was founded in 734 BC by the Phoenicians as Ziz, Palermo then became a possession of Carthage, before becoming part of the Roman Republic, the Roman Empire and eventually part of the Byzantine Empire, for over a thousand years. The Greeks named the city Panormus meaning complete port, from 831 to 1072 the city was under Arab rule during the Emirate of Sicily when the city first became a capital. The Arabs shifted the Greek name into Balarme, the root for Palermos present-day name, eventually Sicily would be united with the Kingdom of Naples to form the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies until the Italian unification of 1860. The population of Palermo urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 855,285, in the central area, the city has a population of around 676,000 people. The inhabitants are known as Palermitani or, poetically, panormiti, the languages spoken by its inhabitants are the Italian language, Sicilian language and the Palermitano dialect. Palermo is Sicilys cultural, economic and touristic capital and it is a city rich in history, culture, art, music and food. Palermo is the main Sicilian industrial and commercial center, the industrial sectors include tourism, services, commerce. Palermo currently has an airport, and a significant underground economy. In fact, for cultural, artistic and economic reasons, Palermo was one of the largest cities in the Mediterranean and is now among the top tourist destinations in both Italy and Europe. It is the seat of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Arab-Norman Palermo. The city is going through careful redevelopment, preparing to become one of the major cities of the Euro-Mediterranean area. Roman Catholicism is highly important in Palermitano culture, the Patron Saint of Palermo is Santa Rosalia whose Feast Day is celebrated on 15 July. The area attracts significant numbers of each year and is widely known for its colourful fruit, vegetable and fish markets at the heart of Palermo, known as Vucciria, Ballarò. Palermo lies in a basin, formed by the Papireto, Kemonia, the basin was named the Conca dOro by the Arabs in the 9th century. The city is surrounded by a range which is named after the city itself. These mountains face the Tyrrhenian Sea, Palermo is home to a natural port and offers excellent views to the sea, especially from Monte Pellegrino
Palermo
–
Clockwise from top: Quattro Canti in Maqueda Street, San Domenico Church, Pretoria Square and Santa Caterina Church, and view of downtown Palermo from Mount Pellegrino
Palermo
–
View of Palermo from Monte Pellegrino.
Palermo
–
Monte Pellegrino pictured at the end of the 19th century; the mountain is visible from everywhere in the city
Palermo
–
Mesolithic cave art at
Addaura
9.
Italo-Norman
–
Normans first arrived in Italy as pilgrims probably either on their way or returning from Rome or Jerusalem also visiting the shrine at Monte Gargano in the late tenth and early eleventh century. In 1017, the Lombard lords in Apulia recruited their assistance against the power of the Byzantine Catapanate of Italy. They began the conquest of Sicily in 1061 and it was complete by 1091, indeed, Italo-Normans were the primary Norman mercenaries in the employ of the Byzantine emperors. Many found service in Rome, under the pope, and some went to Spain to join the Reconquista, in 1096, the Normans of Bohemond of Taranto joined the First Crusade and set up the principality of Antioch in the Levant. In 1130, under Roger II, they created the Kingdom of Sicily, encompassing the whole of their conquests in the peninsula, from 1135 to 1155 Roger II even created the Italo-Norman Kingdom of Africa in coastal Tunisia and Tripolitania. He planned to unite this African kingdom to his Kingdom of Sicily and this Italo-Norman kingdom in southern Italy, when founded in 1130, united the whole of southern Italy under the same rule for the first time since the Roman Empire fell. The Roger II dynasty continued with William I and William II, hauteville family Drengot family Filangieri Pellegrino - baroni di San Demetrio]] Parisi or Parisio - conti di Aderno]] Loud, Graham A. The Age of Robert Guiscard, Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest Essex, Norman conquest of southern Italy Anglo-Norman, the Normans in England Cambro-Norman, the Normans in Wales Hiberno-Norman, the Normans in Ireland Scoto-Norman, the Normans in Scotland
Italo-Norman
–
Palazzo dei Normanni, the palace of the Norman kings in
Palermo.
Italo-Norman
–
Bronze lion attributed to an Italo-Norman artist (
Metropolitan Museum of Art).
Italo-Norman
–
The "Kingdom of Africa" (Regno d'Africa) of Italo-Norman
Roger II, pinpointed in red
10.
Lombardy
–
Lombardy is one of the twenty administrative regions of Italy, in the northwest of the country, with an area of 23,844 square kilometres. Milan, Lombardys capital, is the second-largest city and the largest metropolitan area in Italy, the word Lombardy comes from Lombard, which in turn is derived from Late Latin Longobardus, Langobardus, derived from the Proto-Germanic elements *langaz + *bardaz, equivalent to long beard. Some sources derive the second element instead from Proto-Germanic *bardǭ, *barduz, Lombardy referred during the early Middle Ages to the entire territory of Italy ruled by the Lombards, a Germanic tribe who conquered much of the Italian peninsula beginning in the 6th century. During the late Middle Ages, the term shifted meaning and was used to identify the whole of Northern Italy, with a surface of 23,861 km2, Lombardy is the 4th largest region of Italy. It is bordered by Switzerland and by the Italian regions of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol and Veneto, Emilia-Romagna, three distinct natural zones can be fairly easily distinguished in the Lombardy region, mountains, hills and plains – the latter being divided in Alta and Bassa. Inconsistent with the three distinctions above made is the subregion of Oltrepò Pavese, formed by the Apennine foothills beyond the Po River. The mighty Po river marks the border of the region for a length of about 210 km. In its progress it receives the waters of the Ticino River, the other streams which contribute to the great river are, the Olona, the Lambro, the Adda, the Oglio and the Mincio. The numerous lakes of Lombardy, all of glacial origin, lie in the northern highlands, from west to east these are Lake Maggiore, Lake Lugano, Lake Como, Lake Iseo, Lake Idro, then Lake Garda, the largest in Italy. A minor mountainous area, the Oltrepò Pavese, lies south of the Po, in the plains, intensively cultivated for centuries, little of the original environment remains. The most commons trees are elm, alder, sycamore, poplar, willow, in the area of the foothills lakes, however, grow olive trees, cypresses and larches, as well as varieties of subtropical flora such as magnolias, azaleas, acacias. Numerous species of flora in the Prealpine area include some kinds of saxifrage, the Lombard garlic, groundsels bellflowers. The highlands are characterized by the vegetation of the whole range of the Italian Alps. At a lower levels oak woods or broadleafed trees grow, on the slopes beech trees grow at the lowest limits. Shrubs such as rhododendron, dwarf pine and juniper are native to the summital zone, Lombardy has a wide array of climates, due to local variances in elevation, proximity to inland water basins, and large metropolitan areas. In addition, there is a seasonal temperature variation. A peculiarity of the climate is the thick fog that covers the plains between October and February. In the Alpine foothills, characterised by an Oceanic climate, numerous lakes exercise a mitigating influence, in the hills and mountains, the climate is humid continental
Lombardy
–
Mount Adamello
Lombardy
–
Lombardy Lombardia
Lombardy
–
Bridge over the
Ticino river
Lombardy
–
The
Alpine ibex (Capra ibex)
11.
Codex
–
A codex is a book constructed of a number of sheets of paper, vellum, papyrus, or similar materials, with hand-written contents. The book is bound by stacking the pages and fixing one edge. Some codices are continuously folded like a concertina, the alternative to paged codex format for a long document is the continuous scroll. Examples of folded codices include the Maya codices, sometimes people use the term for a book-style format, including modern printed books but excluding folded books. The Romans developed the form from wooden writing tablets, the codexs gradual replacement of the scroll—the dominant book form in the ancient world—has been called the most important advance in book making before the invention of printing. The codex transformed the shape of the book itself, and offered a form that lasted for centuries, the spread of the codex is often associated with the rise of Christianity, which adopted the format for use with the Bible early on. In fact, any combination of codices and scrolls with papyrus and parchment is technically feasible, the codex began to replace the scroll almost as soon as it was invented. In Egypt, by the century, the codex outnumbered the scroll by ten to one based on surviving examples. By the sixth century, the scroll had almost vanished as a medium for literature, technically, even modern paperbacks are codices, but publishers and scholars reserve the term for manuscript books produced from Late antiquity until the Middle Ages. The scholarly study of manuscripts from the point of view of the bookbinding craft is called codicology. The study of ancient documents in general is called paleography, the Romans used precursors made of reusable wax-covered tablets of wood for taking notes and other informal writings. Two ancient polyptychs, a pentatych and octotych, excavated at Herculaneum used a connecting system that presages later sewing on of thongs or cords. Julius Caesar may have been the first Roman to reduce scrolls to pages in the form of a note-book. At the turn of the 1st century AD, a kind of folded parchment notebook called pugillares membranei in Latin became commonly used for writing in the Roman Empire, theodore Cressy Skeat theorized that this form of notebook was invented in Rome and then spread rapidly to the Near East. Codices are described in works by the Classical Latin poet. He wrote a series of five couplets meant to accompany gifts of literature that Romans exchanged during the festival of Saturnalia. ”Early codices of parchment or papyrus appear to have widely used as personal notebooks. The parchment notebook pages were commonly washed or scraped for re-use and consequently, writings in a codex were often considered informal, as early as the early 2nd century, there is evidence that a codex—usually of papyrus—was the preferred format among Christians. In the library of the Villa of the Papyri, Herculaneum, however, in the Nag Hammadi library, hidden about AD390, all texts are codices
Codex
–
The
Codex Gigas, 13th century, Bohemia.
Codex
–
Codices largely replaced scrolls similar to this.
Codex
–
Reproduced Roman-style
wax tablet, from which the codex evolved
Codex
–
Early medieval bookcase containing about ten codices depicted in the
Codex Amiatinus (ca. 700)
12.
Late Middle Ages
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The Late Middle Ages or Late Medieval Period was the period of European history generally comprising the 14th and 15th centuries. The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the modern era. Around 1300, centuries of prosperity and growth in Europe came to a halt, a series of famines and plagues, including the Great Famine of 1315–1317 and the Black Death, reduced the population to around half of what it was before the calamities. Along with depopulation came social unrest and endemic warfare, France and England experienced serious peasant uprisings, such as the Jacquerie and the Peasants Revolt, as well as over a century of intermittent conflict in the Hundred Years War. To add to the problems of the period, the unity of the Catholic Church was shattered by the Western Schism. Collectively these events are called the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages. Despite these crises, the 14th century was also a time of progress in the arts. Following a renewed interest in ancient Greek and Roman texts that took root in the High Middle Ages, combined with this influx of classical ideas was the invention of printing, which facilitated dissemination of the printed word and democratized learning. These two things would lead to the Protestant Reformation. Toward the end of the period, the Age of Discovery began, the rise of the Ottoman Empire, culminating in the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, eroded the last remnants of the Byzantine Empire and cut off trading possibilities with the east. Europeans were forced to seek new trading routes, leading to the expedition of Columbus to the Americas in 1492 and their discoveries strengthened the economy and power of European nations. The changes brought about by these developments have led scholars to view this period as the end of the Middle Ages and beginning of modern history. However, the division is artificial, since ancient learning was never entirely absent from European society. As a result there was continuity between the ancient age and the modern age. Some historians, particularly in Italy, prefer not to speak of the Late Middle Ages at all, but rather see the period of the Middle Ages transitioning to the Renaissance. The term Late Middle Ages refers to one of the three periods of the Middle Ages, along with the Early Middle Ages and the High Middle Ages, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodization in his History of the Florentine People. Flavio Biondo used a framework in Decades of History from the Deterioration of the Roman Empire. Tripartite periodization became standard after the German historian Christoph Cellarius published Universal History Divided into an Ancient, Medieval, for 18th-century historians studying the 14th and 15th centuries, the central theme was the Renaissance, with its rediscovery of ancient learning and the emergence of an individual spirit
Late Middle Ages
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Silver mining and processing in
Kutná Hora, Bohemia, 15th century
Late Middle Ages
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Western/Central Europe
Holy Roman Empire France Gascony Bohemia Eastern Europe
Teutonic Order Golden Horde G. Horde Vassals Genovese Prov. Poland Mazovia Wallachia Hungary Lithuania Italian peninsula
Two Sicilies (Sicily) Two Sicilies (Naples) Papal states Sardinia Venice Genoa
Late Middle Ages
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Ottoman miniature of the
siege of Belgrade in 1456
Late Middle Ages
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The peasants preparing the fields for the winter with a
harrow and sowing for the winter grain. The background contains the
Louvre, c. 1410
13.
Medieval medicine
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In the Early Middle Ages, following the fall of the Western Roman Empire, standard medical knowledge was based chiefly upon surviving Greek and Roman texts, preserved in monasteries and elsewhere. Many simply placed their hopes in the church and God to heal all their sicknesses, the efficacy of cures was similarly bound in the beliefs of patient and doctor rather than empirical evidence, so that remedia physicalia were often subordinate to spiritual intervention. The Western medical tradition often traces roots directly to the early Greek civilization, the Greeks certainly laid the foundation for Western medical practice but much more of Western medicine can be traced to the Middle East, Germanic, and Celtic cultures. The Greek medical foundation comes from a collection of writings known today as the Hippocratic Corpus. Remnants of the Hippocratic Corpus survive in modern medicine in forms like the “Hippocratic Oath” as in to “Do No Harm. ”The Hippocratic Corpus, popularly attributed to an ancient Greek practitioner known as Hippocrates, lays out the basic approach to health care. Greek philosophers viewed the body as a system that reflects the workings of nature. The body, as a reflection of natural forces, contained four elemental properties expressed to the Greeks as the four humors, the humors represented fire, air, earth and water through the properties of hot, cold, dry and moist, respectively. Health in the body relied on keeping these humors in balance within each person. Maintaining the balance of humors within a patient occurred in several ways, an initial examination took place as standard for a physician to properly evaluate the patient. The patients home climate, their diet, and astrological charts were regarded during consultation. The heavens influenced every person in different ways by influencing elements connected to certain humors, the physician could determine which humor was unbalanced in the patient and prescribe a new diet to restore that balance. Diet not only included food to eat or avoid but also an exercise regiment, Hippocratic medicine represented learned medical practice beginning with the Hippocratic Corpus having been written down, therefore requiring practitioners to be literate. The written treatises within the Corpus are varied, incorporating medical doctrine from any source the Greeks came into contact with, Surgery and dissection yielded much knowledge of the human body that Hippocratic physicians employed alongside their methods of balancing humors in patients. The combination of knowledge in diet, surgery, and medication formed the foundation of medical learning upon which Galen would later greatly contribute. In Homers Iliad and Odyssey the gods are implicated as the cause of plagues or widespread disease and this religious side of healing clearly manifested in the cult of Asclepius, whom Homer regarded as the great physician, and was deified in the third and fourth century BC. Hundreds of temples devoted to Asclepius have been throughout the Greek. Healing visions and dreams formed the foundation for the process as the person seeking treatment from Asclepius slept in a special dormitory. The healing occurred either in the dream or advice from the dream could be used to seek out proper treatment for illness elsewhere
Medieval medicine
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"Anatomical Man" (also "Zodiacal Man"),
Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (Ms.65, f.14v, early 15th century)
Medieval medicine
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A dentist with silver forceps and a necklace of large teeth, extracting the tooth of a well seated man.
Omne Bonum (England - London; 1360–1375).
Medieval medicine
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13th-century illustration showing the veins.
Medieval medicine
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Anathomia, 1541
14.
Carrot
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The carrot is a root vegetable, usually orange in colour, though purple, black, red, white, and yellow cultivars exist. Carrots are a form of the wild carrot, Daucus carota, native to Europe. The plant probably originated in Persia and originally cultivated for its leaves, the most commonly eaten part of the plant is the taproot, although the greens are sometimes eaten as well. The domestic carrot has been bred for its greatly enlarged, more palatable. The carrot is a plant in the umbellifer family Apiaceae. At first, it grows a rosette of leaves while building up the enlarged taproot, fast-growing cultivars mature within three months of sowing the seed, while slower-maturing cultivars are harvested four months later. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reports that production of carrots and turnips for the calendar year 2013 was 37.2 million tonnes. Carrots are widely used in many cuisines, especially in the preparation of salads, in Old English, carrots were not clearly distinguished from parsnips, the two were collectively called moru or more. Various languages still use the word for carrot as they do for root. Molecular and genetic studies, along with history, support the idea that the cultivated/domesticated carrot has a single origin in Central Asia. The wild ancestors of the carrot are likely to have originated in Persia, which remains the centre of diversity for Daucus carota, when they were first cultivated, carrots were grown for their aromatic leaves and seeds rather than their roots. Carrot seeds have been found in Switzerland and Southern Germany dating back to 2000–3000 BC, some close relatives of the carrot are still grown for their leaves and seeds, for example, parsley, cilantro/coriander, fennel, dill and cumin. Three different types of carrots are depicted, and the states of them that the root can be cooked. The plant appears to have been introduced into Spain by the Moors in the 8th century, in the 10th century, in worldwide locations like West Asia, India and Europe, the roots were purple. The modern carrot originated in Afghanistan at about this time, the Jewish scholar Simeon Seth describes both red and yellow carrots in the 11th century. The 12th-century Arab-Andalusian agriculturist, Ibn al-Awwam, also mentions roots of these colours, cultivated carrots appeared in China in the 14th century, and in Japan in the 18th century. Orange-coloured carrots appeared in the Netherlands in the 17th century, which has been related to the fact that the Dutch flag at the time, the Princes Flag, included orange. These, the carrots, were intended by the English antiquary John Aubrey when he noted in his memoranda
Carrot
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Carrot
Carrot
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Seedlings shortly after germination
Carrot
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Daucus carota umbel (inflorescence). Individual flowers are borne on undivided pedicels originating from a common node.
Carrot
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Top view of Daucus carota inflorescence, showing umbellets
15.
Pedanius Dioscorides
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He was employed as a medic in the Roman army. A native of Anazarbus, Cilicia, Asia Minor, Dioscorides practised medicine in Rome during the reign of the emperor Nero. He was a surgeon with the Roman army, which gave him the opportunity to travel extensively, the name Pedanius is Roman, suggesting that an aristocrat of that name sponsored him to become a Roman citizen. He dedicated his books to Laecanius Arius, a medical practitioner of Tarsus in Cilicia. In the medieval period, De Materia Medica was circulated in Greek, as well as Latin, while being reproduced in manuscript form through the centuries, it was often supplemented with commentary and minor additions from Arabic and Indian sources. A number of illustrated manuscripts of De Materia Medica survive, the most famous of these is the lavishly illustrated Vienna Dioscurides, produced in Constantinople in 512/513 AD. Densely illustrated Arabic copies survive from the 12th and 13th centuries, De Materia Medica is the prime historical source of information about the medicines used by the Greeks, Romans, and other cultures of antiquity. The work also records the Dacian and Thracian names for some plants, the Dioscorea genus of plants, which includes the yam, was named after him by Linnaeus. De Materia Medica, Being an Herbal with many other materials, Englished by Tess Anne Osbaldeston, year 2000. De Materia Medica, translated by Lily Y. Beck, Englished by John Goodyer A. D.1655, edited by R. T. De Materia medica, libri V Eiusdem de Venenis Libri duo, interprete Iano Antonio Saraceno Lugdunaeo, Medico, translated by Janus Antonius Saracenus. In Voltaires Candide, the characters injuries received at the hands of the Bulgarian army. Pedanius Dioscorides in, Health and Well Being, A Medieval Guide, hamilton, J. S. Scribonius Largus on the medical profession. Bulletin of the history of medicine, lazris, J. Stavros, V. Limage paradigmatique, des Schémas anatomiques dAristote au De materia medica de Dioscoride. Riddle, John M. Dioscorides on pharmacy and medicine, the Arabic materia medica of Dioscorides. Québec, Canada, Les Éditions du sphinx, the Preface of Dioscorides Materia Medica, introduction, translation, and commentary. Transactions & studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Dioscurides Neapolitanus, Codex ex Vindobonensis Graecus 1. Medic, Catalogue des textes en ligne, Dioscoride/Dioscodirides, Pedanius, bibliothèque interuniversitaire de médecine et dodontologie, Université Paris Descartes
Pedanius Dioscorides
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Dioscorides as depicted in a 1240 Arabic edition of De Materia Medica
Pedanius Dioscorides
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Blackberry from the 6th-century
Vienna Dioscurides manuscript
Pedanius Dioscorides
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Cover of an early printed version of
De Materia Medica,
Lyon, 1554
Pedanius Dioscorides
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Dioscorides receives a
mandrake root, an illumination from the
Vienna Dioscurides
16.
Smithsonian
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The Smithsonian Institution, established in 1846 for the increase and diffusion of knowledge, is a group of museums and research centers administered by the Government of the United States. Originally organized as the United States National Museum, that ceased to exist as an administrative entity in 1967. Additional facilities are located in Arizona, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York City, Texas, Virginia, more than 200 institutions and museums in 45 states, Puerto Rico, and Panama are Smithsonian Affiliates. The Institutions thirty million annual visitors are admitted without charge and its annual budget is around $1.2 billion with 2/3 coming from annual federal appropriations. Other funding comes from the Institutions endowment, private and corporate contributions, membership dues, and earned retail, concession, Institution publications include Smithsonian and Air & Space magazines. The British scientist James Smithson left most of his wealth to his nephew Henry James Hungerford, Congress officially accepted the legacy bequeathed to the nation, and pledged the faith of the United States to the charitable trust on July 1,1836. The American diplomat Richard Rush was dispatched to England by President Andrew Jackson to collect the bequest, Rush returned in August 1838 with 105 sacks containing 104,960 gold sovereigns. Once the money was in hand, eight years of Congressional haggling ensued over how to interpret Smithsons rather vague mandate for the increase, unfortunately, the money was invested by the US Treasury in bonds issued by the state of Arkansas which soon defaulted. The United States Exploring Expedition by the U. S. Navy circumnavigated the globe between 1838 and 1842, in 1846, the regents developed a plan for weather observation, in 1847, money was appropriated for meteorological research. The Institution became a magnet for young scientists from 1857 to 1866, the Smithsonian played a critical role as the U. S. partner institution in early bilateral scientific exchanges with the Academy of Sciences of Cuba. The Smithsonian Institution Building began construction in 1849, designed by architect James Renwick Jr. its interiors were completed by general contract Gilbert Cameron and the building opened in 1855. The Smithsonians first expansion came with construction of the Arts and Industries Building in 1881, Congress had promised to build a new structure for the museum if the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition generated enough income. It did, and the building was designed by architects Adolf Cluss and Paul Schulze, meigs of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The National Zoological Park opened in 1889 to accommodate the Smithsonians Department of Living Animals and this structure was designed by the D. C. architectural firm of Hornblower & Marshall. More than 40 years would pass before the museum, the Museum of History. It was designed by the firm of McKim, Mead & White. That same year, the Smithsonian signed an agreement to take over the Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration, the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum opened in the Old Patent Office Building on October 7,1968. The first new building to open since the National Museum of Natural History was the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Smithsonian
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The
"Castle" (1847), the Institution's first building and still its headquarters
Smithsonian
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Smithsonian Institution Logo of the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian
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Aircraft on display at the
National Air and Space Museum, including a
Ford Trimotor and
Douglas DC-3 (top and second from top)
Smithsonian
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The Smithsonian Castle doorway
