1.
Giotto's Campanile
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Giotto’s Campanile is a free-standing campanile that is part of the complex of buildings that make up Florence Cathedral on the Piazza del Duomo in Florence, Italy. The slender structure is square in plan with 14.45 metre sides and it is 84.7 metres tall and has polygonal buttresses at each corner. The tower is divided into five stages, at that time he was 67 years old. Giotto concentrated his energy on the design and construction of a campanile for the cathedral and he had become an eminent architect, thanks to the growing autonomy of the architect-designer in relation to the craftsmen since the first half of the 13th century. The first stone was laid on 19 July 1334 and his design was in harmony with the polychromy of the cathedral, as applied by Arnolfo di Cambio, giving the tower a view as if it were “painted”. In his design he also applied chiaroscuro and some form of perspective instead of a strict linear drawing of the campanile, and instead of a filigree skeleton of a gothic building, he applied a surface of coloured marble in geometric patterns. When he died in 1337, he had finished the lower floor with its marble external revetment, geometric patterns of white marble from Carrara, green marble from Prato. This lower floor is decorated on three sides with bas-reliefs in hexagonal panels, seven on each side. When the entrance door was enlarged in 1348, two panels were moved to the empty northern side and only later, five more panels were commissioned from Luca della Robbia in 1437. The number “seven” has a meaning in Biblical sense, it symbolizes human perfectibility. It is difficult to attribute artistic paternity to these panels, some may be by Giotto himself, through this work, Giotto has become, together with Brunelleschi and Alberti, one of the founding fathers of Italian Renaissance architecture. Giotto was succeeded as Master of the Works in 1343 by Andrea Pisano and he continued the construction of the bell tower, scrupulously following Giotto’s design. He added, above the level of Giotto, a second fascia. He built two levels, with four niches on each side and each level, but the second row of niches are empty. Construction came to a halt in 1348, year of the disastrous Black Death, Pisano was replaced in his turn by Francesco Talenti who built the top three levels, with the large windows, completing the bell tower in 1359. He did not build the spire designed by Giotto, thus lowering the height of 122 metres to 84.7 metres. The top, with its breathtaking panorama of Florence and the surrounding hills, all the present works of art in the campanile are copies. The originals were removed between 1965 and 1967 and are now on display in the Museo dellOpera del Duomo, behind the cathedral and this series continues on the south side and the east side of the campanile
2.
Florence
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Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the Metropolitan City of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants, Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of the time. It is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, and has called the Athens of the Middle Ages. A turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family, from 1865 to 1871 the city was the capital of the recently established Kingdom of Italy. The Historic Centre of Florence attracts 13 million tourists each year and it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982. The city is noted for its culture, Renaissance art and architecture, the city also contains numerous museums and art galleries, such as the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Pitti, and still exerts an influence in the fields of art, culture and politics. Due to Florences artistic and architectural heritage, it has been ranked by Forbes as one of the most beautiful cities in the world, in 2008, the city had the 17th highest average income in Italy. Florence originated as a Roman city, and later, after a period as a flourishing trading and banking medieval commune. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, it was politically, economically, and culturally one of the most important cities in Europe, the language spoken in the city during the 14th century was, and still is, accepted as the Italian language. Starting from the late Middle Ages, Florentine money—in the form of the gold florin—financed the development of all over Europe, from Britain to Bruges, to Lyon. Florentine bankers financed the English kings during the Hundred Years War and they similarly financed the papacy, including the construction of their provisional capital of Avignon and, after their return to Rome, the reconstruction and Renaissance embellishment of Rome. Florence was home to the Medici, one of European historys most important noble families, Lorenzo de Medici was considered a political and cultural mastermind of Italy in the late 15th century. Two members of the family were popes in the early 16th century, Leo X, catherine de Medici married king Henry II of France and, after his death in 1559, reigned as regent in France. Marie de Medici married Henry IV of France and gave birth to the future king Louis XIII, the Medici reigned as Grand Dukes of Tuscany, starting with Cosimo I de Medici in 1569 and ending with the death of Gian Gastone de Medici in 1737. The Etruscans initially formed in 200 BC the small settlement of Fiesole and it was built in the style of an army camp with the main streets, the cardo and the decumanus, intersecting at the present Piazza della Repubblica. Situated along the Via Cassia, the route between Rome and the north, and within the fertile valley of the Arno, the settlement quickly became an important commercial centre. Peace returned under Lombard rule in the 6th century, Florence was conquered by Charlemagne in 774 and became part of the Duchy of Tuscany, with Lucca as capital. The population began to again and commerce prospered
3.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
4.
Dionysos, Greece
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Dionysos is a town and a municipality in northeastern Attica, Greece. The seat of the municipality is the town Agios Stefanos, Dionysos is situated on the northeastern slopes of the forested Penteliko Mountains. It is 5 km south of Agios Stefanos,9 km west of Nea Makri, on the Aegean Sea coast and its built-up area is continuous with those of the neighbouring suburbs Drosia and Rodopoli to the northwest. Motorway 1 and the railway from Athens to Thessaloniki pass through the part of the municipality. There is a station at Agios Stefanos. Dionysos is connected to Kifisia by the 536 Dionysos-Kifisia bus service.360 km2, the town was known by the Arvanitika name Tzamali up until 1928 when it was renamed Dionysos. The local myth is told by ancient writers, Athenaios, Hyginos, Apollodoros. Moved by their hospitality, the stranger revealed to them that he was actually a god, Dionysos, son of Zeus. In order to them, Dionysos gave Ikarios the first grape vine. Unfortunately, some shepherds on Mount Pendeli drank too much of the drink, ‘unwatered’. They suspected that Ikarios had poisoned them, and in their drunken state, when they awoke the next day and found Ikarios dead, they realized their terrible mistake. Fearfully they buried his body under a tree and ran away. The only witness to this crime was Erigone’s little dog, Maera, realizing that her father was dead, Erigone fell into a deep depression and hung herself from a branch of the pine tree. Before she died, she or the god Dionysos called down a curse on the women of Attika. The oracle directed them to find and properly bury the bodies of Ikarios and Erigone, the local inhabitants continued to worship Dionysos for centuries in a festival which included drinking and feasting, singing and dancing, and parading round the village with a goat to sacrifice. In the 6th century BC, a man named Thespis combined many of these elements into a new form of worshipful entertainment which he created. Every year in the month Poseidonia, the Ikarians would host the festival, Τα Εν Αγροις Διονυσια’ to honour their favourite god. Although the deme of Ikaria was most famous for its worship of Dionysos, it was well known for the high quality white marble quarried there
5.
Ancient Greece
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Ancient Greece was a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th-9th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and this was followed by the period of Classical Greece, an era that began with the Greco-Persian Wars, lasting from the 5th to 4th centuries BC. Due to the conquests by Alexander the Great of Macedonia, Hellenistic civilization flourished from Central Asia to the end of the Mediterranean Sea. Classical Greek culture, especially philosophy, had a influence on ancient Rome. For this reason Classical Greece is generally considered to be the culture which provided the foundation of modern Western culture and is considered the cradle of Western civilization. Classical Antiquity in the Mediterranean region is considered to have begun in the 8th century BC. Classical Antiquity in Greece is preceded by the Greek Dark Ages and this period is succeeded, around the 8th century BC, by the Orientalizing Period during which a strong influence of Syro-Hittite, Jewish, Assyrian, Phoenician and Egyptian cultures becomes apparent. The end of the Dark Ages is also dated to 776 BC. The Archaic period gives way to the Classical period around 500 BC, Ancient Periods Astronomical year numbering Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details The history of Greece during Classical Antiquity may be subdivided into five major periods. The earliest of these is the Archaic period, in which artists made larger free-standing sculptures in stiff, the Archaic period is often taken to end with the overthrow of the last tyrant of Athens and the start of Athenian Democracy in 508 BC. It was followed by the Classical period, characterized by a style which was considered by observers to be exemplary, i. e. classical, as shown in the Parthenon. This period saw the Greco-Persian Wars and the Rise of Macedon, following the Classical period was the Hellenistic period, during which Greek culture and power expanded into the Near and Middle East. This period begins with the death of Alexander and ends with the Roman conquest, Herodotus is widely known as the father of history, his Histories are eponymous of the entire field. Herodotus was succeeded by authors such as Thucydides, Xenophon, Demosthenes, Plato, most of these authors were either Athenian or pro-Athenian, which is why far more is known about the history and politics of Athens than those of many other cities. Their scope is limited by a focus on political, military and diplomatic history, ignoring economic. In the 8th century BC, Greece began to emerge from the Dark Ages which followed the fall of the Mycenaean civilization, literacy had been lost and Mycenaean script forgotten, but the Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet, modifying it to create the Greek alphabet. The Lelantine War is the earliest documented war of the ancient Greek period and it was fought between the important poleis of Chalcis and Eretria over the fertile Lelantine plain of Euboea. Both cities seem to have suffered a decline as result of the long war, a mercantile class arose in the first half of the 7th century BC, shown by the introduction of coinage in about 680 BC
6.
Aristotle
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Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist born in the city of Stagira, Chalkidice, on the northern periphery of Classical Greece. His father, Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, at seventeen or eighteen years of age, he joined Platos Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of thirty-seven. Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the request of Philip II of Macedon, teaching Alexander the Great gave Aristotle many opportunities and an abundance of supplies. He established a library in the Lyceum which aided in the production of many of his hundreds of books and he believed all peoples concepts and all of their knowledge was ultimately based on perception. Aristotles views on natural sciences represent the groundwork underlying many of his works, Aristotles views on physical science profoundly shaped medieval scholarship. Their influence extended from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages into the Renaissance, some of Aristotles zoological observations, such as on the hectocotyl arm of the octopus, were not confirmed or refuted until the 19th century. His works contain the earliest known study of logic, which was incorporated in the late 19th century into modern formal logic. Aristotle was well known among medieval Muslim intellectuals and revered as The First Teacher and his ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics. All aspects of Aristotles philosophy continue to be the object of academic study today. Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues – Cicero described his style as a river of gold – it is thought that only around a third of his original output has survived. Aristotle, whose means the best purpose, was born in 384 BC in Stagira, Chalcidice. His father Nicomachus was the physician to King Amyntas of Macedon. Aristotle was orphaned at a young age, although there is little information on Aristotles childhood, he probably spent some time within the Macedonian palace, making his first connections with the Macedonian monarchy. At the age of seventeen or eighteen, Aristotle moved to Athens to continue his education at Platos Academy and he remained there for nearly twenty years before leaving Athens in 348/47 BC. Aristotle then accompanied Xenocrates to the court of his friend Hermias of Atarneus in Asia Minor, there, he traveled with Theophrastus to the island of Lesbos, where together they researched the botany and zoology of the island. Aristotle married Pythias, either Hermiass adoptive daughter or niece and she bore him a daughter, whom they also named Pythias. Soon after Hermias death, Aristotle was invited by Philip II of Macedon to become the tutor to his son Alexander in 343 BC, Aristotle was appointed as the head of the royal academy of Macedon. During that time he gave not only to Alexander
7.
Actor
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An actor is a person who portrays a character in a performance. Simplistically speaking, the person denominated actor or actress is someone beautiful who plays important characters, the actor performs in the flesh in the traditional medium of the theatre, or in modern mediums such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is ὑποκριτής, literally one who answers, the actors interpretation of their role pertains to the role played, whether based on a real person or fictional character. Interpretation occurs even when the actor is playing themselves, as in forms of experimental performance art, or, more commonly, to act, is to create. Formerly, in societies, only men could become actors. When used for the stage, women played the roles of prepubescent boys. The etymology is a derivation from actor with ess added. However, when referring to more than one performer, of both sexes, actor is preferred as a term for male performers. Actor is also used before the name of a performer as a gender-specific term. Within the profession, the re-adoption of the term dates to the 1950–1960s. As Whoopi Goldberg put it in an interview with the paper, Im an actor – I can play anything. The U. K. performers union Equity has no policy on the use of actor or actress, an Equity spokesperson said that the union does not believe that there is a consensus on the matter and stated that the. subject divides the profession. In 2009, the Los Angeles Times stated that Actress remains the term used in major acting awards given to female recipients. However, player remains in use in the theatre, often incorporated into the name of a group or company, such as the American Players. Also, actors in improvisational theatre may be referred to as players, prior to Thespis act, Grecian stories were only expressed in song, dance, and in third person narrative. In honor of Thespis, actors are commonly called Thespians, the exclusively male actors in the theatre of ancient Greece performed in three types of drama, tragedy, comedy, and the satyr play. Western theatre developed and expanded considerably under the Romans, as the Western Roman Empire fell into decay through the 4th and 5th centuries, the seat of Roman power shifted to Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire. Records show that mime, pantomime, scenes or recitations from tragedies and comedies, dances, from the 5th century, Western Europe was plunged into a period of general disorder
8.
Greek tragedy
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Greek tragedy is a form of theatre from Ancient Greece and Asia Minor. It reached its most significant form in Athens in the 5th century BC, Greek tragedy is widely believed to be an extension of the ancient rites carried out in honor of Dionysus, and it heavily influenced the theatre of Ancient Rome and the Renaissance. Tragic plots were most often based upon myths from the traditions of archaic epics. In tragic theatre, however, these narratives were presented by actors, the most acclaimed Greek tragedians are Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. The origin of the tragedy has been a matter of discussion from ancient times. The primary source of knowledge on the question is the Poetics of Aristotle, Aristotle was able to gather first-hand documentation from theater performance in Attica, which is inaccessible to scholars today. His work is invaluable for the study of ancient tragedy. According to Aristotle, tragedy evolved from the dithyramb, an Ancient Greek hymn. The term τραγῳδία, derived from goat and ᾠδή song, means song of the goats. Others suggest that the term came into being when the legendary Thespis competed in the first tragic competition for the prize of a goat, there are other suggested etymologies for the word tragedy. The Oxford English Dictionary adds to the reference to goat song. J. DAmico, on the hand, suggests that tragoidía does not mean simply song of the goats. Other hypotheses have included an etymology that would define the tragedy as an ode to beer, jane Ellen Harrison pointed out that Dionysus, god of wine was actually preceded by Dionysus, god of beer. Athenian beer was obtained from the fermentation of barley, which is tragos in Greek, thus, it is likely that the term was originally meant to be odes to spelt, and later on, it was extended to other meanings of the same name. She writes, Tragedy I believe to be not the goat-song, but the harvest-song of the cereal tragos, the origin of Greek tragedy is one of the unsolved problems of classical scholarship. Ruth Scodel notes that, due to lack of evidence and doubtful reliability of sources, still, R. P. Winnington-Ingram points out that we can easily trace various influences from other genres. How these have come to be associated with one another remains a mystery however, speculating on the problem, Scodel writes that, Three innovations must have taken place for tragedy as we know it to exist. First, somebody created a new kind of performance by combining a speaker with a chorus, second, this performance was made part of the City Dionysia at Athens
9.
Acting
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Acting involves a broad range of skills, including a well-developed imagination, emotional facility, physical expressivity, vocal projection, clarity of speech, and the ability to interpret drama. Acting also demands an ability to employ dialects, accents, improvisation, observation and emulation, mime, many actors train at length in specialist programmes or colleges to develop these skills. The vast majority of actors have undergone extensive training. Actors and actresses will often have many instructors and teachers for a range of training involving singing, scene-work, audition techniques. Most early sources in the West that examine the art of acting discuss it as part of rhetoric, one of the first actors is believed to have been an ancient Greek called Thespis of Icaria. Writing two centuries after the event, Aristotle in his Poetics suggests that Thespis stepped out of the dithyrambic chorus, when Thespis stepped out from the chorus, he spoke as if he was the character. To distinguish between different modes of storytelling—enactment and narration—Aristotle uses the terms mimesis and diegesis. From Thespis name derives the word thespian, a professional actor is someone who is paid to act. Professional actors sometimes undertake unpaid work for a variety of reasons, amateur actors are those who do not receive payment for performances. Not all people working as actors in film, television, or theatre are professionally trained, bob Hoskins, for example, had no formal training before becoming an actor. Conservatories and drama schools typically offer two- to four-year training on all aspects of acting, universities mostly offer three- to four-year programs, in which a student is often able to choose to focus on acting, whilst continuing to learn about other aspects of theatre. Other approaches may include a more physically based orientation, such as that promoted by practitioners as diverse as Anne Bogart, Jacques Lecoq, Jerzy Grotowski. Classes may also include psychotechnique, mask work, physical theatre, improvisation, regardless of a schools approach, students should expect intensive training in textual interpretation, voice, and movement. Applications to drama programmes and conservatories usually involve extensive auditions, anybody over the age of 18 can usually apply. Training may also start at a young age. Acting classes and professional schools targeted at under-18s are widespread and these classes introduce young actors to different aspects of acting and theatre, including scene study. Increased training and exposure to public speaking allows humans to maintain calmer, by measuring a public speaker’s heart rate maybe one of the easiest ways to judge shifts in stress as the heart rate increases with anxiety. As actors increase performances, heart rate and other evidence of stress can decrease and this is very important in training for actors, as adaptive strategies gained from increased exposure to public speaking can regulate implicit and explicit anxiety
10.
W. S. Gilbert
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Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for the fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan. The most famous of these include H. M. S, Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and one of the most frequently performed works in the history of musical theatre, The Mikado. The popularity of works was supported for over a century by year-round performances of them, in Britain and abroad, by the repertory company that they founded. Eleven of the Savoy operas continue to be performed in the English-speaking world and beyond by opera companies, repertory companies, schools. Lines from these works have become part of the English language, such as short, sharp shock, What, and Let the punishment fit the crime. Gilberts creative output included over 75 plays and libretti, and numerous stories, poems and lyrics. He also began to write burlesques and his first comic plays, developing a unique absurdist and he also developed a realistic method of stage direction and a reputation as a strict theatre director. M. S. Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance, in the 1880s, Gilbert focused on the Savoy operas, including Patience, Iolanthe, The Mikado, The Yeomen of the Guard and The Gondoliers. Gilbert won the lawsuit, but the argument caused hurt feelings among the partnership. Although Gilbert and Sullivan were persuaded to collaborate on two last operas, they were not as successful as the previous ones, in later years, Gilbert wrote several plays, and a few operas with other collaborators. He retired, with his wife and ward, Nancy McIntosh, to a country estate, Gilbert died of a heart attack while attempting to rescue a young woman to whom he was giving a swimming lesson in the lake at his home. Gilbert was born at 17 Southampton Street, Strand, London and his father, also named William, was briefly a naval surgeon, who later became a writer of novels and short stories, some of which were illustrated by his son. Gilberts mother was the former Anne Mary Bye Morris, the daughter of Thomas Morris, Gilberts parents were distant and stern, and he did not have a particularly close relationship with either of them. They quarrelled increasingly, and following the break-up of their marriage in 1876, his relationships with them, especially his mother, Gilbert was nicknamed Bab as a baby, and then Schwenck, after his fathers godparents. As a child, Gilbert travelled to Italy in 1838 and then France for two years with his parents, who returned to settle in London in 1847. He then attended Kings College London, graduating in 1856, instead he joined the Civil Service, he was an assistant clerk in the Privy Council Office for four years and hated it. In 1859 he joined the Militia, a volunteer force formed for the defence of Britain, with which he served until 1878. In 1863 he received a bequest of £300 that he used to leave the service and take up a brief career as a barrister
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