Travertine
Travertine is a form of limestone deposited by mineral springs, especially hot springs. Travertine often has a fibrous or concentric appearance and exists in white, cream-colored and it is formed by a process of rapid precipitation of calcium carbonate, often at the mouth of a hot spring or in a limestone cave. In the latter, it can form stalactites, and it is frequently used in Italy and elsewhere as a building material. Travertine is a sedimentary rock, formed by the precipitation of carbonate minerals from solution in ground and surface waters. Similar deposits formed from water are known as tufa. The word travertine is derived from the Italian travertino, itself a derivation of the Latin tiburtinus ‘of Tibur’ and its namesake is the origin of Tivoli, a district near Rome. Modern travertine is formed from geothermally heated supersaturated alkaline waters, with raised pCO2, on emergence, waters degas CO2 due to the lower atmospheric pCO2, resulting in an increase in pH. Since carbonate solubility decreases with increased pH, precipitation is induced, precipitation may be enhanced by factors leading to a reduction in pCO2, for example increased air-water interactions at waterfalls may be important, as may photosynthesis.
Precipitation may be enhanced by evaporation in some springs, both calcite and aragonite are found in hot spring travertines, aragonite is preferentially precipitated when temperatures are hot, while calcite dominates when temperatures are cooler. When pure and fine, travertine is white, but often it is brown to yellow due to impurities, travertine may precipitate out directly onto rock and other inert materials as in Pamukkale or Yellowstone for example. The latter has a historic value, because it was one of the quarries that Gian Lorenzo Bernini selected material from to build the famous Colonnade of St. Peters Square in Rome in 1656-1667. Michaelangelo chose travertine as the material for the ribs of the dome of St Peters Basilica. Travertine derives its name from the town, known as Tibur in ancient Roman times. The ancient name for the stone was lapis tiburtinus, meaning tibur stone, detailed studies of the Tivoli and Guidonia travertine deposits revealed diurnal and annual rhythmic banding and laminae, which have potential use in geochronology.
Cascades of natural lakes formed behind travertine dams can be seen in Pamukkale, Turkey, in Central Europes last post-glacial palaeoclimatic optimum, huge deposits of tufa formed from karst springs. On a smaller scale, these karst processes are still working, travertine has been an important building material since the Middle Ages. Travertine has formed sixteen huge, natural dams in a valley in Croatia known as Plitvice Lakes National Park, clinging to moss and rocks in the water, the travertine has built up over several millennia to form waterfalls up to 70 m in height. In the U. S. the most well-known place for travertine formation is Yellowstone National Park, Oklahoma has two parks dedicated to this natural wonder
Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls
The Basilica is within Italian territory and not the territory of the Vatican City State. James Michael Harvey was named Archpriest of the Basilica in 2012, in the 5th century it was larger than the Old St. Peters Basilica. The Christian poet Prudentius, who saw it at the time of emperor Honorius, under Pope St. Gregory the Great the Basilica was extensively modified. The pavement was raised to place the altar directly over St. Pauls tomb, a confession permitted access to the Apostles sepulcher. In that period there were two monasteries near the Basilica, St. Aristuss for men and St. Stefanos for women, masses were celebrated by a special body of clerics instituted by Pope Simplicius. Over time the monasteries and the Basilicas clergy declined, Pope St. Gregory II restored the former, as it lay outside the Aurelian Walls, the Basilica was damaged in the 9th century during a Saracen raid. In 937, when Saint Odo of Cluny came to Rome, Alberic II of Spoleto, Patrician of Rome, entrusted the monastery and basilica to his congregation, Pope Martin V entrusted it to the monks of the Congregation of Monte Cassino.
It was made an abbey nullius, the abbots jurisdiction extended over the districts of Civitella San Paolo and Nazzano, all of which formed parishes. But the parish of San Paolo in Rome is under the jurisdiction of the cardinal vicar, the graceful cloister of the monastery was erected between 1220 and 1241. From 1215 until 1964 it was the seat of the Latin Patriarch of Alexandria, Pope Leo XII issued a document Ad plurimas encouraging donations for reconstruction. It was re-opened in 1840, and reconsecrated in 1855 with the presence of Pope Pius IX, the complete decoration and reconstruction, in charge of Luigi Poletti, took longer and many countries made their contributions. The Viceroy of Egypt sent pillars of alabaster, the Emperor of Russia the precious malachite, the work on the principal façade, looking toward the Tiber, was completed by the Italian Government, which declared the church a national monument. On 23 April 1891 the explosion of the magazine at Forte Portuense destroyed the stained glass windows.
On 31 May 2005 Pope Benedict XVI ordered the Basilica to come under the control of an Archpriest, the covered portico that precedes the façade is a Neo-classicist addition of the 19th-century reconstruction. The 20th-century door includes the remains of the leaves from the portal, executed by Staurachius of Chios around 1070 in Constantinople, with scenes from the New. On the right is the Holy Door, which is opened only during the Jubilees, the new basilica has maintained the original structure with one nave and four aisles. It is 131.66 metres long,65 metres -wide, and 29.70 metres -high, the naves 80 columns and its stucco-decorated ceiling are from the 19th century. All that remains of the ancient basilica are the portion of the apse with the triumphal arch
Roman calendar
The Roman calendar is the calendar used by the Roman kingdom and republic. The original calendar consisted of 10 months beginning in spring with March and these months ran for 38 nundinal cycles, each forming a kind of eight day week ended by religious rituals and a public market. The winter period was used to create January and February. The legendary early kings Romulus and Numa were traditionally credited with establishing this early fixed calendar, in particular, the kalends and ides seem to have derived from the first sighting of the crescent moon, the first-quarter moon, and the full moon respectively. The system ran well short of the year, and it needed constant intercalation to keep religious festivals. For superstitious reasons, such intercalation occurred within the month of February even after it was no longer considered the last month. Having won his war with Pompey, Caesar used his position as Romes chief pontiff to enact a calendar reform in 46 BC, in order to bring the calendar back to its proper place, Augustus was obliged to suspend intercalation for a few decades.
The original Roman calendar is believed to have been a lunar calendar whose months began from the first signs of a new crescent moon. Because a lunar cycle is about 29½ days long, such months would have varied between 29 and 30 days, Romes 8-day week, the nundinal cycle, was shared with the Etruscans, who used it as the schedule of royal audiences. It was presumably a feature of the calendar and was credited in Roman legend variously to Romulus and Servius Tullius. The Romans themselves described their first organized year as one with ten fixed months, such a decimal division fit general Roman practice. The four 31-day months were called full and the others hollow and its 304 days made up exactly 38 nundinal cycles. Later Roman writers credited this calendar to Romulus, their legendary first king and culture hero, although this was common with other practices and traditions whose origin had been lost to them. Rüpke finds the coincidence of the length of the supposed Romulan year with the length of the first ten months of the Julian calendar to be suspicious, other traditions existed alongside this one, however.
Plutarchs Parallel Lives recounts that Romuluss calendar had been solar but adhered to the principle that the year should last for 360 days. Months were employed secondarily and haphazardly, with some counted as 20 days, the attested calendar of the Roman Republic was quite different. It followed Greek calendars in assuming a lunar cycle of 29½ days and a year of 12½ synodic months. The additional two months of the year were January and February, the month was sometimes known as Mercedonius
Corinthian order
The Corinthian order is the last developed of the three principal classical orders of ancient Greek and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric order which was the earliest, followed by the Ionic order, when classical architecture was revived during the Renaissance, two more orders were added to the canon, the Tuscan order and the Composite order. The Corinthian, with its offshoot the Composite, is the most ornate of the orders, characterized by slender fluted columns and elaborate capitals decorated with acanthus leaves and it was employed in southern Gaul at the Maison Carrée, Nîmes and at the comparable podium temple at Vienne. Other prime examples noted by Mark Wilson Jones are the order of the Basilica Ulpia and the arch at Ancona the column of Phocas. The Corinthian order is named for the Greek city-state of Corinth, according to the architectural historian Vitruvius, the column was created by the sculptor Callimachus, probably an Athenian, who drew acanthus leaves growing around a votive basket.
Its earliest use can be traced back to the Late Classical Period, the earliest Corinthian capital was found in Bassae, dated at 427 BC. In its proportions, the Corinthian column is similar to the Ionic column, though it is more slender, the abacus upon the capital has concave sides to conform to the outscrolling corners of the capital, and it may have a rosette at the center of each side. Corinthian columns were erected on the top level of the Roman Colosseum, holding up the least weight and their height to width ratio is about 10,1. One variant is the Tivoli Order, found at the Temple of Vesta, the Tivoli Orders Corintinan Capital has two rows of Acanthus and its abacus is decorated with oversize fleuron in the form of hibiscus flowers with pronounced spiral pistils. The column flutes have flat tops, the frieze exhibits fruit swag suspended between bucrania. Above each swag is a rosette, the cornice does not have modillions. Indo-Corinthian capitals are capitals crowning columns or pilasters, which can be found in the northwestern Indian subcontinent and these capitals are typically dated to the 1st centuries of our era, and constitute important elements of Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara.
The classical design was adapted, usually taking a more elongated form. Indo-Corinthian capitals incorporated figures of the Buddha or Bodhisattvas, usually as central figures surrounded, the Corinthian architrave is divided in two or three sections, which may be equal, or they may bear interesting proportional relationships, one with another. Above the plain, unadorned architrave lies the frieze, which may be carved with a continuous design or left plain. At the Capitol the proportions of architrave to frieze are exactly 1,1, above that, the profiles of the cornice moldings are like those of the Ionic order. If the cornice is deep, it may be supported by brackets or modillions. The Corinthian column is almost always fluted, if it is not, it is often worth pausing to unravel the reason why
Pons Cestius
The Pons Cestius is a Roman stone bridge in Rome, spanning the Tiber to the west of the Tiber Island. The original version of bridge was built around the 1st century BC, after the Pons Fabricius. The Pons Cestius is the first bridge that reached the bank of Tiber from the Tiber Island. Several prominent members of the Cestii clan from the 1st century BC are known, in the 4th century the Pons Cestius was rebuilt by the Emperors Valentinian I, Valens and Gratian and re-dedicated in 370 as the Pons Gratiani. The bridge was rebuilt using tuff and peperino, with a facing of travertine, some of the rebuilding material came from the demolished porticus of the nearby Theatre of Marcellus. During the building of the walls along the embankment in 1888–1892. The ancient bridge, which had two arches, was simply not long enough. A new bridge, with three arches, was constructed in its stead, with its central arch reusing about two-thirds of the original material. List of Roman bridges Roman architecture Roman engineering O’Connor, Colin
Ponte Sant'Angelo
The bridge is faced with travertine marble and spans the Tiber with five arches, three of which are Roman, it was approached by means of ramp from the river. The bridge is now solely pedestrian, and provides a vista of the Castel SantAngelo. It links the rioni of Ponte, and Borgo, to whom the bridge administratively belongs, dante writes in his Comedy that during the jubilee of 1300, due to the large number of pilgrims going and coming from Saint Peter, two separate lanes were arranged on the bridge. During the 1450 jubilee, balustrades of the bridge yielded, due to the crowds of the pilgrims. In response, some houses at the head of the bridge as well as a Roman triumphal arch were pulled down in order to widen the route for pilgrims. For centuries after the 16th century, the bridge was used to expose the bodies of the executed in the nearby Piazza di Ponte, in 1669 Pope Clement IX commissioned replacements for the aging stucco angels by Raffaello da Montelupo, commissioned by Paul III. They are now in the church of SantAndrea delle Fratte, in Rome, for the Great Jubilee in 2000, the Lungotevere on the right bank between the bridge and the castle became a pedestrian area.
List of Roman bridges Roman architecture Roman engineering Notes Sources O’Connor, Roman Bridges, Cambridge University Press, satellite image Angels of the Passion Multimedia feature from Beliefnet. com
Andrea Palladio
Andrea Palladio was an Italian architect active in the Republic of Venice. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily by Vitruvius, is considered to be the most influential individual in the history of architecture. All of his buildings are located in what was the Venetian Republic, the city of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Palladio was born on 30 November 1508 in Padua and was given the name and his father, called Della Gondola, was a miller. From early on, Andrea Palladio was introduced into the work of building, in Padua he gained his first experiences as a stonecutter in the sculpture workshop of Bartolomeo Cavazza da Sossano, who is said to have imposed particularly hard working conditions. At the age of sixteen he moved to Vicenza where he would reside for most of his life, here he became an assistant in the Pedemuro studio, a leading workshop of stonecutters and masons. He joined a guild of stonemasons and bricklayers and he was employed as a stonemason to make monuments and decorative sculptures.
These sculptures reflected the Mannerist style of the architect Michele Sanmicheli, perhaps the key moment that sparked Palladios career was being employed by the Humanist poet and scholar, Gian Giorgio Trissino, from 1538 to 1539. While Trissino was reconstructing the Villa Cricoli, he took interest in Palladios work, Trissino was heavily influenced by the studies of Vitruvius, who influenced Palladios own ideals and attitudes toward classical architecture. It was Trissino who gave him the name by which he became known, indeed, the word Palladio means Wise one. The powerful Barbaros introduced Palladio to Venice, where he finally became Proto della Serenissima after Jacopo Sansovino, in addition to the Barbaros, the Corner and Pisani families supported Palladios career. Andrea Palladio began to develop his own architectural style around 1541, the Palladian style, named after him, adhered to classical Roman principles he rediscovered and explained in his works. Andrea Palladio is known to be one of the most influential architects in Western architecture and his architectural works have been valued for centuries as the quintessence of High Renaissance calm and harmony.
He designed many palaces and churches, but Palladios reputation, the palladian villas are located mainly in the province of Vicenza, while the palazzi are concentrated in the city of Vicenza and the churches in Venice. A number of his works are now protected as part of the World Heritage Site City of Vicenza, other buildings by Palladio are to be found within the Venice and its Lagoon World Heritage Site. Palladios first major public project began when his designs for building the loggias for the town hall and he proposed an addition of two-storey stone buttresses reflecting the Gothic style of the existing hall while using classical proportions. The construction was completed in 1617 after Palladios death, aside from Palladios designs, his publications contributed to Palladianism. During the second half of his life, Palladio published many books, above all, Palladio is most known for his designs of villas and palaces as well as his books
Leon Battista Alberti
Leon Battista Alberti was an Italian humanist author, architect, priest, linguist and cryptographer, he epitomised the Renaissance Man. Although Alberti is known mostly for being an artist, he was a mathematician of many sorts, Albertis life was described in Giorgio Vasaris Lives of the Most Excellent Painters and Architects. Leon Battista Alberti was born in 1404 in Genoa and his mother is unknown, and his father was a wealthy Florentine who had been exiled from his own city, allowed to return in 1428. Alberti was sent to boarding school in Padua, studied Law at Bologna and he lived for a time in Florence, travelled to Rome in 1431 where he took holy orders and entered the service of the papal court. During this time he studied the ancient ruins, which excited his interest in architecture, Alberti was gifted in many ways. He was tall, strong and an athlete who could ride the wildest horse. He distinguished himself as a writer while he was still a child at school, in 1435, he began his first major written work, Della pittura, which was inspired by the burgeoning pictorial art in Florence in the early 15th century.
In this work he analyses the nature of painting and explores the elements of perspective, composition, in 1447 he became the architectural advisor to Pope Nicholas V and was involved with several projects at the Vatican. His first major commission was in 1446 for the facade of the Rucellai Palace in Florence. This was followed in 1450 by a commission from Sigismondo Malatesta to transform the Gothic church of San Francesco in Rimini into a memorial chapel, the Tempio Malatestiano. In 1452, he completed De re aedificatoria, a treatise on architecture, using as its basis the work of Vitruvius, the work was not published until 1485. It was followed in 1464 by his less influential work, De statua, Albertis only known sculpture is a self-portrait medallion, sometimes attributed to Pisanello. Alberti was employed to design two churches in Mantua, San Sebastiano, which was never completed, and for which Albertis intention can only be speculated, and the Basilica of SantAndrea. The design for the church was completed in 1471, a year before Albertis death.
As an artist, Alberti distinguished himself from the ordinary craftsman and he was a humanist, and part of the rapidly expanding entourage of intellectuals and artisans supported by the courts of the princes and lords of the time. Alberti, as a member of family and as part of the Roman curia, had special status. He was a welcomed guest at the Este court in Ferrara, the Duke of Urbino was a shrewd military commander, who generously spent money on the patronage of art. Alberti planned to dedicate his treatise on architecture to his friend, among Albertis smaller studies, pioneering in their field, were a treatise in cryptography, De componendis cifris, and the first Italian grammar
Glossary of ancient Roman religion
The vocabulary of ancient Roman religion was highly specialized. Its study affords important information about the religion and beliefs of the ancient Romans and this legacy is conspicuous in European cultural history in its influence on juridical and religious vocabulary in Europe, particularly of the Western Church. For theonyms, or the names and epithets of gods, see List of Roman deities, for public religious holidays, see Roman festivals. For temples see the List of Ancient Roman temples, individual landmarks of religious topography in ancient Rome are not included in this list, see Roman temple. The verb abominari was a term of augury for an action that rejects or averts an unfavourable omen indicated by a signum, the noun is abominatio, from which English abomination derives. At the taking of formally solicited auspices, the observer was required to acknowledge any potentially bad sign occurring within the templum he was observing, regardless of the interpretation. He might, take actions in order to ignore the signa, including avoiding the sight of them.
The latter tactic required promptness and skill based on discipline, thus the omen had no validity apart from the observation of it. The aedes was the place of a god. It was thus a structure that housed the image, distinguished from the templum or sacred district. Aedes is one of several Latin words that can be translated as shrine or temple, for instance, the Temple of Vesta, as it is called in English, was in Latin an aedes. See the diminutive aedicula, a small shrine, in his work On Architecture, Vitruvius always uses the word templum in the technical sense of a space defined through augury, with aedes the usual word for the building itself. The design of an aedes, he writes, should be appropriate to the characteristics of the deity. Thus in theory, though not always in practice, architectural aesthetics had a theological dimension, the word aedilis, a public official, is related by etymology, among the duties of the aediles was the overseeing of public works, including the building and maintenance of temples.
The temple of Flora, for instance, was built in 241 BC by two aediles acting on Sibylline oracles, the plebeian aediles had their headquarters at the aedes of Ceres. In religious usage, ager was terrestrial space defined for the purposes of augury in relation to auspicia, there were five kinds of ager, Gabinus, peregrinus and incertus. The ager Romanus originally included the space outside the pomerium. According to Varro, the ager Gabinus pertained to the circumstances of the oppidum of Gabii
Roman temple
Ancient Roman temples were among the most important buildings in Roman culture, and some of the richest buildings in Roman architecture, though only a few survive in any sort of complete state. Today they remain the most obvious symbol of Roman architecture and their construction and maintenance was a major part of ancient Roman religion, and all towns of any importance had at least one main temple, as well as smaller shrines. The main room housed the image of the deity to whom the temple was dedicated. Behind the cella was a room or rooms used by attendants for storage of equipment. The ordinary worshipper rarely entered the cella, and most public ceremonies were performed outside, on the portico, with a crowd gathered in the temple precinct. The most common architectural plan had a rectangular temple raised on a podium, with a clear front with a portico at the top of steps. The sides and rear of the building had much less architectural emphasis, there were circular plans, generally with columns all round, and outside Italy there were many compromises with traditional local styles.
The Roman form of temple developed initially from Etruscan temples, themselves influenced by the Greeks, public religious ceremonies of the official Roman religion took place outdoors, and not within the temple building. Some ceremonies were processions that started at, visited, or ended with a temple or shrine, chiefly of animals, would take place at an open-air altar within the templum. Especially under the Empire, exotic foreign cults gained followers in Rome and these often had very different practices, some preferring underground places of worship, while others, like Early Christians, worshipped in houses. The decline of Roman religion was relatively slow, and the temples themselves were not appropriated by the government until a decree of the Emperor Honorius in 415. Santi Cosma e Damiano, in the Roman Forum, originally the Temple of Romulus, was not dedicated as a church until 527. The best known is the Pantheon, which is however highly untypical, being a large circular temple with a magnificent concrete roof.
The English word temple derives from the Latin templum, which was not the building itself. The Roman architect Vitruvius always uses the word templum to refer to the sacred precinct, the more common Latin words for a temple or shrine were sacellum, aedes and fanum. The Etruscans were a people of northern Italy, whose civilization was at its peak in the seventh century BC, the Etruscans were already influenced by early Greek architecture, so Roman temples were distinctive but with both Etruscan and Greek features. Especially in the periods, further statuary might be placed on the roof. As in the Maison Carrée, columns at the side might be half-columns and these steps were normally only at the front, and typically not the whole width of that
San Pietro in Montorio
San Pietro in Montorio is a church in Rome, which includes in its courtyard the Tempietto, a small commemorative martyrium built by Donato Bramante. The Church of San Pietro in Montorio was built on the site of an earlier 9th-century church dedicated to Saint Peter on Romes Janiculum hill, according to tradition, it was the site of his crucifixion. In the 15th century, the ruins were given to the Amadist friars, a branch of the Franciscans, founded by the Blessed Amadeus of Portugal. Commissioned by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain and it is a titular church, whose current title holder, since 1 March 2008, is Cardinal James Francis Stafford. The church is decorated with artworks by prominent 16th- and 17th-century masters, the first chapel on the right contains Sebastiano del Piombos Flagellation and Transfiguration. Michelangelo, who had befriended Sebastiano in Rome, supplied figure drawings that were incorporated into the Flagellation, the second chapel has a fresco by Niccolò Circignani, some Renaissance frescoes from the school of Pinturicchio, and an allegorical sibyl and virtue attributed to Baldassarre Peruzzi.
The fourth chapel has a fresco by Giorgio Vasari. The ceiling of the chapel contains another fresco, the Conversion of St. Paul. The altarpiece is attributed to Giulio Mazzoni, while the monument of Innocenzo Ciocchi Del Monte, Cardinal Giovanni Maria Del Monte. Until 1797, Raphaels final masterpiece, the Transfiguration graced the high altar, the altar currently displays a copy by Cammuccini of Guido Renis Crucifixion of St. Peter. The last chapel on the left contains a Baptism of Christ, attributed to Daniele da Volterra, a pupil of Antoniazzo Romano frescoed the third chapel with the Saint Anne and Child. Dirck van Baburen, a figure of the Dutch Caravaggisti, painted the Entombment for the Pietà Chapel. Baburen worked with another Dutch artist, David de Haen in this chapel, the two other paintings, The Mocking of Christ and The Agony in the Garden are variously attributed to either or both of the artists. The second chapel on the left, the Raimondi Chapel, was designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and it includes Francesco Barattas Saint Francis in Ecstasy and sculptures by Andrea Bolgi and Niccolò Sale.
Rory ODonnell, Lord Tyrconnell, died in 1608, his brother Cathbharr and Hugh, the cause of death in all cases was fever, probably malaria. Their tombs are covered with marble inscribed slabs with coloured borders and they are about 12 feet from the altar on the left as you face it and are normally covered by a carpet. Hugh ONeill, Earl of Tyrone, himself died in 1616 and was buried in the church with much less solemnity, the original simple tombstone was lost in about 1849, but the text of the short inscription was copied, D. O. M. In 1989, Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich laid a new plaque with the same inscription in approximately the original place
.jpg)
_-_Chapiteaux.JPG)
