1.
Gianicolo
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The Janiculum is a hill in western Rome, Italy. The Janiculum is one of the best locations in Rome for a view of central Rome with its domes. The Villa Lante al Gianicolo by Giulio Romano is an important early building by the Mannerist master, the Janiculum was a center for the cult of the god Janus, its position overlooking the city made it a good place for augurs to observe the auspices. In Roman mythology, Janiculum is the name of an ancient town founded by the god Janus, in Book VIII of the Aeneid by Virgil, King Evander shows Aeneas the ruins of Saturnia and Janiculum on the Capitoline Hill near the Arcadian city of Pallanteum. Virgil uses these ruins to stress the significance of the Capitoline Hill as the center of Rome. According to Livy, the Janiculum was incorporated into ancient Rome during the time of king Ancus Marcius to prevent an enemy from occupying it and it was fortified by a wall, and a bridge was built across the Tiber to join it to the rest of the city. During the war between Rome and Clusium in 508 BC, it is said that the forces of Lars Porsena occupied the Janiculum and laid siege to Rome. The Aurelian Walls were continued up the hill by the emperor Aurelian to include the mills used to grind grain to provide bread flour for the city. The mills were supplied from an aqueduct, where it plunged down a steep hill, thus the site resembles Barbegal, although excavations in the late 1990s suggest that they may have been undershot rather than overshot in design. The mills were in use in AD537, when the Goths besieging the city cut off their water supply, but they were later restored and may have remained in operation until at least the time of Pope Gregory IV. Several monuments to Garibaldi and to the fallen in the wars of Italian independence are on the Janiculum, daily at noon, a cannon fires once from the Janiculum in the direction of the Tiber as a time signal. This tradition goes back to December 1847, when the cannon of the Castel SantAngelo gave the sign to the surrounding belltowers to start ringing at midday, in 1904, the ritual was transferred to the Janiculum and continued until 1939. On 21 April 1959, popular appeal convinced the Commune of Rome to resume the tradition after a twenty-year interruption, the hill is featured in the third section of Ottorino Respighis famous orchestral piece The Pines of Rome. The crest of the Janiculum is dominated by the 1895 equestrian Monument to Garibaldi and this site was chosen for its proximity to the Villa Doria Pamphili, where Garibaldi mounted a military defense of the short-lived Roman Republic in late April 1849. The hill also features a number of statues and monuments of prominent Italians, a 2011 guide published by the local Associazione Amilcare Cipriani group, after an extensive restoration of these monuments, lists a total of 84 busts on the hill
2.
Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere
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The Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere, English, Our Lady in Trastevere) is a titular minor basilica in the Trastevere district of Rome, and one of the oldest churches of Rome. The basic floor plan and wall structure of the date back to the 340s. The first sanctuary was built in 221 and 227 by Pope Callixtus I, the church has large areas of important mosaics from the late 13th century by Pietro Cavallini. It is certainly one of the oldest churches in the city, a Christian house-church was founded here about 220 by Pope Saint Callixtus I on the site of the Taberna meritoria, a refuge for retired soldiers. In 340, when Pope Julius I rebuilt the titulus Callixti on a scale, it became the titulus Iulii in commemoration of his patronage. The church underwent two restorations in the fifth and eighth centuries and in 1140-43 it was re-erected on its old foundations under Pope Innocent II, Innocent II razed the church along with the recently completed tomb of the Antipope Anacletus II, his former rival. Innocent II arranged for his own burial on the formerly occupied by the tomb. The richly carved Ionic capitals reused along its nave were taken either from the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla or the nearby Temple of Isis on the Janiculum. When scholarship during the 19th century identified the faces in their carved decoration as Isis, Serapis and Harpocrates, the inscriptions found in Santa Maria in Trastevere, a valuable resource illustrating the history of the Basilica, were collected and published by Vincenzo Forcella. The present nave preserves its original plan and stands on the earlier foundations. The 22 granite columns with Ionic and Corinthian capitals that separate the nave from the aisles came from the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, as did the lintel of the entrance door. Inside the church are a number of late 13th-century mosaics by Pietro Cavallini on the subject of the Life of the Virgin centering on a Coronation of the Virgin in the apse, domenichinos octagonal ceiling painting, Assumption of the Virgin fits in the coffered ceiling setting that he designed. The fifth chapel to the left is the Avila Chapel designed by Antonio Gherardi and this, and his Chapel of S. Cecilia in San Carlo ai Catinari are two of the most architecturally inventive chapels of the late-17th century in Rome. The lower order of the chapel is fairly dark and employs Borromini-like forms, in the dome, there is an opening or oculus from which four putti emerge to carry a central tempietto, all of which frames a light-filled chamber above, illuminated by windows not visible from below. The church keeps a relic of Saint Apollonia, her head, among those buried in the church are the relics of Pope Callixtus I, Pope Innocent II, Antipope Anacletus II, Cardinal Philippe of Alençon and Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio. The Romanesque campanile is from the 12th century, near the top, a niche protects a mosaic of the Madonna and Child. The mosaics on the façade are believed to be from the 12th century and they depict the Madonna enthroned and suckling the Child, flanked by 10 women holding lamps. This image on the façade showing Mary nursing Jesus is an example of a popular late-medieval
3.
Rioni of Rome
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A rione of Rome is a traditional administrative division of the city of Rome. Rione is an Italian term used since the 14th century to name a district of a town, the term was born in Rome, originating from the administrative divisions of the city. The word comes from the Latin word regio, during the Middle Ages the Latin word became rejones, currently, all the rioni are located in Municipio I of Rome. According to tradition, Servius Tullius, sixth king of Rome, first divided the city into regiones, all but Transtiberim were on the left bank of the river Tiber. During the 12th century a division in 12 parts started being used, though not officially, even if the areas were different from the ancient ones, they still used the same name, regio in Latin and rione in the vulgar language. The limits of the rioni became more definitive and official in the 13th century, their number increased to 13, in this period, anyway, the limits were quite uncertain. The rione was not an entity, but only an administrative one. The chief of a rione was the Caporione, during the Renaissance there was a deep reorganization and expansion of the city, so it became necessary to delimit the rioni exactly. In 1586 Sixtus V added to the 13 rioni another one, Borgo and this situation, thanks to the low population increase, did not change until the 19th century. In 1744 Pope Benedict XIV, because of frequent misunderstanding, decided to replan the administrative division of Rome, the marble plates defining the borders of each rione, many of which still exist, were installed in that year on the facades of houses lying at each riones border. So the smaller rioni were united to the large ones, at this time the French affixed in each street a plate with its name and the areas it belonged to. After Napoleon lost his power there were no significant changes in the organization of the city until Rome became the capital of the newborn Italy, the needs of the new capital caused a great urbanization and an increase of the population, both within the Aurelian walls and outside them. In 1874 the rioni became 15, with the addition of Esquilino, at the beginning of the 20th century some rioni started being split up and the first parts outside the Aurelian walls started being considered part of the city. In 1921 the number of the rioni increased to 22, Prati was the last rione to be established and the only one outside the walls of Urbanus VIII. The latest reform, which is still valid, was made in 1972, Rome was divided in 20 circoscrizioni and 20 rioni constituted the first one. The two remaining, Borgo and Prati, belonged to the XVIIth municipality until 2013, since then they belong too to the first Municipio. Media related to Districts of Rome at Wikimedia Commons
4.
Rome
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Rome is a special comune and the capital of Italy. Rome also serves as the capital of the Lazio region, with 2,873,598 residents in 1,285 km2, it is also the countrys largest and most populated comune and fourth-most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. It is the center of the Metropolitan City of Rome, which has a population of 4.3 million residents, the city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio, along the shores of the Tiber. Romes history spans more than 2,500 years, while Roman mythology dates the founding of Rome at only around 753 BC, the site has been inhabited for much longer, making it one of the oldest continuously occupied sites in Europe. The citys early population originated from a mix of Latins, Etruscans and it was first called The Eternal City by the Roman poet Tibullus in the 1st century BC, and the expression was also taken up by Ovid, Virgil, and Livy. Rome is also called the Caput Mundi, due to that, Rome became first one of the major centres of the Italian Renaissance, and then the birthplace of both the Baroque style and Neoclassicism. Famous artists, painters, sculptors and architects made Rome the centre of their activity, in 1871 Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, and in 1946 that of the Italian Republic. Rome has the status of a global city, Rome ranked in 2014 as the 14th-most-visited city in the world, 3rd most visited in the European Union, and the most popular tourist attraction in Italy. Its historic centre is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, monuments and museums such as the Vatican Museums and the Colosseum are among the worlds most visited tourist destinations with both locations receiving millions of tourists a year. Rome hosted the 1960 Summer Olympics and is the seat of United Nations Food, however, it is a possibility that the name Romulus was actually derived from Rome itself. As early as the 4th century, there have been alternate theories proposed on the origin of the name Roma. There is archaeological evidence of occupation of the Rome area from approximately 14,000 years ago. Evidence of stone tools, pottery and stone weapons attest to about 10,000 years of human presence, several excavations support the view that Rome grew from pastoral settlements on the Palatine Hill built above the area of the future Roman Forum. Between the end of the age and the beginning of the Iron age. However, none of them had yet an urban quality, nowadays, there is a wide consensus that the city was gradually born through the aggregation of several villages around the largest one, placed above the Palatine. All these happenings, which according to the excavations took place more or less around the mid of the 8th century BC. Despite recent excavations at the Palatine hill, the view that Rome has been indeed founded with an act of will as the legend suggests in the middle of the 8th century BC remains a fringe hypothesis. Traditional stories handed down by the ancient Romans themselves explain the earliest history of their city in terms of legend and myth
5.
Tiber
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It drains a basin estimated at 17,375 square kilometres. The river has achieved lasting fame as the watercourse of the city of Rome. The river rises at Mount Fumaiolo in central Italy and flows in a southerly direction past Perugia. However, it does not form a delta, owing to a strong north-flowing sea current close to the shore, to the steep shelving of the coast. The source of the Tiber consists of two springs 10 metres away from each other on Mount Fumaiolo and these springs are called Le Vene. The springs are in a beech forest 1,268 metres above sea level, during the 1930s, Benito Mussolini placed an antique marble Roman column at the point where the river arises, inscribed QUI NASCE IL FIUME SACRO AI DESTINI DI ROMA. There is an eagle on the top of this column, the first miles of the Tiber run through Valtiberina before entering Umbria. It is probable that the genesis of the name Tiber was pre-Latin, like the Roman name of Tibur, the same root is found in the Latin praenomen Tiberius. There are also Etruscan variants of this praenomen in Thefarie and Teperie, the legendary king Tiberinus, ninth in the king-list of Alba Longa, was said to have drowned in the river Albula, which was afterward called Tiberis. Yet another etymology is from *dubri-, water, considered by Alessio as Sicel and this root *dubri- is widespread in Western Europe e. g. Dover, Portus Dubris. According to the legend, Jupiter made him a god and guardian spirit of the river and this gave rise to the standard Roman depiction of the river as a powerfully built reclining god, also named Tiberinus, with streams of water flowing from his hair and beard. The Tiber was also believed to be the river into which Romulus and Remus were thrown as infants, according to legend, the city of Rome was founded in 753 BC on the banks of the Tiber about 25 kilometres from the sea at Ostia. The island Isola Tiberina in the centre of Rome, between Trastevere and the ancient center, was the site of an important ancient ford and was later bridged. Legend says Romes founders, the twin brothers Romulus and Remus, were abandoned on its waters, the river marked the boundary between the lands of the Etruscans to the west, the Sabines to the east and the Latins to the south. Benito Mussolini, born in Romagna, adjusted the boundary between Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna, so that the springs of the Tiber would lie in Romagna and it was later used to ship stone, timber and foodstuffs to Rome. During the Punic Wars of the 3rd century BC, the harbour at Ostia became a key naval base and it later became Romes most important port, where wheat, olive oil, and wine were imported from Romes colonies around the Mediterranean. Wharves were also built along the riverside in Rome itself, lining the riverbanks around the Campus Martius area, the Romans connected the river with a sewer system and with an underground network of tunnels and other channels, to bring its water into the middle of the city. Wealthy Romans had garden-parks or horti on the banks of the river in Rome up through the first century BC and these may have been sold and developed about a century later
6.
Vatican City
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Vatican City, officially Vatican City State or the State of Vatican City, is a walled enclave within the city of Rome. With an area of approximately 44 hectares, and a population of 842, however, formally it is not sovereign, with sovereignty being held by the Holy See, the only entity of public international law that has diplomatic relations with almost every country in the world. It is an ecclesiastical or sacerdotal-monarchical state ruled by the Bishop of Rome – the Pope, the highest state functionaries are all Catholic clergy of various national origins. Vatican City is distinct from the Holy See, which dates back to early Christianity and is the episcopal see of 1.2 billion Latin. According to the terms of the treaty, the Holy See has full ownership, exclusive dominion, within Vatican City are religious and cultural sites such as St. Peters Basilica, the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican Museums. They feature some of the worlds most famous paintings and sculptures, the unique economy of Vatican City is supported financially by the sale of postage stamps and tourist mementos, fees for admission to museums, and the sale of publications. The name Vatican City was first used in the Lateran Treaty, signed on 11 February 1929, the name is taken from Vatican Hill, the geographic location of the state. Vatican is derived from the name of an Etruscan settlement, Vatica or Vaticum meaning garden, located in the area the Romans called vaticanus ager. The official Italian name of the city is Città del Vaticano or, more formally, Stato della Città del Vaticano, although the Holy See and the Catholic Church use Ecclesiastical Latin in official documents, the Vatican City officially uses Italian. The Latin name is Status Civitatis Vaticanæ, this is used in documents by not just the Holy See. The name Vatican was already in use in the time of the Roman Republic for an area on the west bank of the Tiber across from the city of Rome. Under the Roman Empire, many villas were constructed there, after Agrippina the Elder drained the area and laid out her gardens in the early 1st century AD. In AD40, her son, Emperor Caligula built in her gardens a circus for charioteers that was completed by Nero, the Circus Gaii et Neronis, usually called, simply. Even before the arrival of Christianity, it is supposed that this originally uninhabited part of Rome had long considered sacred. A shrine dedicated to the Phrygian goddess Cybele and her consort Attis remained active long after the Constantinian Basilica of St. Peter was built nearby, the particularly low quality of Vatican water, even after the reclamation of the area, was commented on by the poet Martial. The Vatican Obelisk was originally taken by Caligula from Heliopolis in Egypt to decorate the spina of his circus and is thus its last visible remnant and this area became the site of martyrdom of many Christians after the Great Fire of Rome in AD64. Ancient tradition holds that it was in this circus that Saint Peter was crucified upside-down, opposite the circus was a cemetery separated by the Via Cornelia. Peters in the first half of the 4th century, the Constantinian basilica was built in 326 over what was believed to be the tomb of Saint Peter, buried in that cemetery
7.
Municipio I
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The Municipio I, is an administrative subdivision of the city of Rome. It is the center of the municipality of Rome and it was firstly created by Romes City Council on 19 January 2001 and it has a president who is elected during the mayoral elections. Since 11 March 2013 its borders were modified and was expanded with the incorporation between Municipio I and Municipio XVII, Municipio I is home to the Rioni of Rome, which are the citys historic districts. Municipio I is divided into localities, The localities of Prati, Delle Vittorie. The current majority is formed by Democratic Party and Left Ecology Freedom
8.
Latin
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
9.
Lion
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A lithium-ion battery or Li-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery in which lithium ions move from the negative electrode to the positive electrode during discharge and back when charging. Li-ion batteries use an intercalated lithium compound as one electrode material, the electrolyte, which allows for ionic movement, and the two electrodes are the constituent components of a lithium-ion battery cell. Lithium-ion batteries are common in home electronics and they are one of the most popular types of rechargeable batteries for portable electronics, with a high energy density, tiny memory effect and low self-discharge. Beyond consumer electronics, LIBs are also growing in popularity for military, battery electric vehicle, for example, lithium-ion batteries are becoming a common replacement for the lead–acid batteries that have been used historically for golf carts and utility vehicles. Chemistry, performance, cost and safety characteristics vary across LIB types, handheld electronics mostly use LIBs based on lithium cobalt oxide, which offers high energy density, but presents safety risks, especially when damaged. Lithium iron phosphate, lithium ion manganese oxide battery and lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide offer lower energy density, such batteries are widely used for electric tools, medical equipment and other roles. NMC in particular is a contender for automotive applications. Lithium nickel cobalt aluminum oxide and lithium titanate are specialty designs aimed at particular niche roles, the newer lithium–sulfur batteries promise the highest performance-to-weight ratio. Lithium-ion batteries can pose unique safety hazards since they contain a flammable electrolyte, an expert notes If a battery cell is charged too quickly, it can cause a short circuit, leading to explosions and fires. Because of these risks, testing standards are more stringent than those for acid-electrolyte batteries, there have been battery-related recalls by some companies, including the 2016 Samsung Note 7 recall for battery fires. This article covers just the topics and general principles of lithium-ion batteries. Nearly all facets have elements that are impacted by currently very active development or research, a cell is a basic electrochemical unit that contains the basic components, such as electrodes, separator, and electrolyte. In the case of cells, this is the single cylindrical, prismatic or pouch unit. In this regard, the simplest battery is a cell with perhaps a small electronic circuit for protection. In many cases, distinguishing between cell and battery is not important, however, this should be done when dealing with specific applications, for example, battery electric vehicles, where battery may indicate a high voltage system of 400 V, and not a single cell. The term module is used as an intermediate topology, with the understanding that a battery pack is made of modules. In electrochemistry, the anode is the electrode where oxidation is taking place in the battery, i. e. electrons get free, however, this happens on opposite electrodes during charge vs. discharge. Historically, for lithium cells, which started as single use discharge cells and this is true on discharge, but with a rechargeable system, the negative electrode chemically becomes the cathode while charging
10.
Borgo (rione of Rome)
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Borgo, is the 14th historic district of Rome, Italy. It lies on the west bank of the Tiber, within Municipio I and its coat of arms shows a lion, lying in front of three mounts and a star. These - together with a lion rampant - are also part of the coat of arms of Pope Sixtus V who annexed Borgo as fourteenth rione to the city of Rome. The Borgo is bordered by Vatican City to the west, the Tiber to the east, Prati to the north, the quartiere Aurelio to the southwest and Trastevere to the south. The territory of the quarter includes a part, which is made of the alluvial sands of Tiber, and a hilly zone. In administrative terms, the Borgo, following the city decree n.11 issued on 11 March 2013, before then, he was part of the XVII Municipio, together with the rione of Prati and the quartieri Trionfale and Della Vittoria. The main roads run east-west and are not named Vie, although heavily transformed during the first half of the 20th century, the Borgo maintains its historical importance as a forecourt to Saint Peters Basilica and the Vatican Palace. The territory of the Borgo during the Roman age was part of the fourteenth Regio, Transtiberim, and was named Ager Vaticanus, after the auguries, since it lay outside the Pomerium, and was plagued by malaria, this territory was used as a burial place. Some tombs reached notable proportions, among them, the so-called Terebinthus Neronis, which was a round tomb surmounted by a narrow tower, while the Meta Romuli, was demolished only in 1499. At the foot of the Vatican Hill, two roads started, the Via Cornelia, which joined the Via Aurelia near Tarquinii, and the Via Triumphalis, which met the Via Cassia a few kilometers north. The latter was so named because, beginning with Titus, the Roman Emperors used it to enter the city when celebrating their Triumphs, Emperor Gaius built on the Vatican a circus, which was then enlarged by Nero. The obelisk standing today in St. Peters Square was erected along its raised median, the circus was connected to the city through an archway. Nero also substituted the timber bridge of the Via Triumphalis with a stone bridge, Emperor Hadrian built near the Tiber his huge Mausoleum, which he connected to the left bank of the river with another Bridge, the Pons Ælius. But what changed forever the destiny of the zone was the martyrdom of St. Peter at the foot of the Vatican hill in 67, the saint was buried nearby, and this turned the Vatican into a place of pilgrimage. Above the tomb of the saint, Pope Anacletus built an oratory and this church, known today as Old Saint Peters, soon became one of the centers of Christianity. During the early Middle Ages the bridge of Nero fell into ruins, while the Mausoleum of Hadrian was converted into a stronghold, despite the wars and invasions that plagued Rome during those centuries, the flood of pilgrims to the tomb of the apostle never stopped. Pilgrims of the same nationality gathered together in associations named Scholae, whose task was to host, the most famous were those of the Franks, Saxons, Frisians and Lombards. Each Schola had its own hospice and church, one of the first – the Schola Saxonum - was built during the 8th century by Ina or Ine, king of the West Saxons
11.
Roman Kingdom
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The Roman Kingdom was the period of the ancient Roman civilization characterized by a monarchical form of government of the city of Rome and its territories. The site of the founding of the Roman Kingdom and eventual Republic, the Palatine Hill and hills surrounding it presented easily defensible positions in the wide fertile plain surrounding them. All of these contributed to the success of the city. The Gauls destroyed much of Romes historical records when they sacked the city after the Battle of the Allia in 390 BC, with no contemporary records of the kingdom existing, all accounts of the kings must be carefully questioned. The insignia of the kings of Rome were twelve lictors wielding the fasces bearing axes, the right to sit upon a Curule chair, the purple Toga Picta, red shoes, of all these insignia, the most important was the purple toga. The imperium of the king was held for life and protected him from ever being brought to trial for his actions. As being the owner of imperium in Rome at the time. Also, the laws that kept citizens safe from magistrates misuse of imperium did not exist during the monarchical period, another power of the king was the power to either appoint or nominate all officials to offices. The king would appoint a tribunus celerum to serve as both the tribune of Ramnes tribe in Rome and as the commander of the personal bodyguard. The king was required to appoint the tribune upon entering office, the tribune was second in rank to the king and also possessed the power to convene the Curiate Assembly and lay legislation before it. Another officer appointed by the king was the praefectus urbi, who acted as the warden of the city. When the king was absent from the city, the prefect held all of the powers and abilities. The king even received the right to be the person to appoint patricians to the Senate. The people knew the king as a mediator between them and the gods and thus viewed the king with religious awe and this made the king the head of the national religion and its chief executive. Having the power to control the Roman calendar, he conducted all religious ceremonies and appointed lower religious offices and it is said that Romulus himself instituted the augurs and was believed to have been the best augur of all. Likewise, King Numa Pompilius instituted the pontiffs and through them developed the foundations of the dogma of Rome. They could only be called together by the king and could discuss the matters the king laid before them. While the Curiate Assembly did have the power to pass laws that had submitted by the king
12.
Etruscans
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The Etruscan civilization is the modern name given to a powerful and wealthy civilization of ancient Italy in the area corresponding roughly to Tuscany, western Umbria, and northern Lazio. Culture that is identifiably Etruscan developed in Italy after about 800 BC, the latter gave way in the 7th century BC to a culture that was influenced by ancient Greece, Magna Graecia, and Phoenicia. The decline was gradual, but by 500 BC the political destiny of Italy had passed out of Etruscan hands, the last Etruscan cities were formally absorbed by Rome around 100 BC. Politics were based on the city, and probably the family unit. In their heyday, the Etruscan elite grew very rich through trade with the Celtic world to the north and the Greeks to the south, archaic Greece had a huge influence on their art and architecture, and Greek mythology was evidently very familiar to them. The study also excluded recent Anatolian connection, the ancient Romans referred to the Etruscans as the Tuscī or Etruscī. Their Roman name is the origin of the terms Tuscany, which refers to their heartland, and Etruria, which can refer to their wider region. In Attic Greek, the Etruscans were known as Tyrrhenians, from which the Romans derived the names Tyrrhēnī, Tyrrhēnia, the word may also be related to the Hittite Taruisa. The Etruscans called themselves Rasenna, which was syncopated to Rasna or Raśna, the origins of the Etruscans are mostly lost in prehistory, although Greek historians as early as the 5th century BC, repeatedly associated the Tyrrhenians with Pelasgians. Strabo as well as the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus make mention of the Tyrrhenians as pirates, pliny the Elder put the Etruscans in the context of the Rhaetian people to the north and wrote in his Natural History, Adjoining these the Noricans are the Raeti and Vindelici. All are divided into a number of states, the Raeti are believed to be people of Tuscan race driven out by the Gauls, their leader was named Raetus. Historians have no literature and no original Etruscan texts of religion or philosophy, therefore, much of what is known about this civilization is derived from grave goods, another source of genetic data on Etruscan origins is from four ancient breeds of cattle. Analyzing the mitochondrial DNA of these and seven other breeds of Italian cattle, the other Italian breeds were linked to northern Europe. Etruscan expansion was focused both to the north beyond the Apennine Mountains and into Campania, some small towns in the sixth century BC disappeared during this time, ostensibly consumed by greater, more powerful neighbours. However, it is certain that the structure of the Etruscan culture was similar to, albeit more aristocratic than. The mining and commerce of metal, especially copper and iron, led to an enrichment of the Etruscans and to the expansion of their influence in the Italian peninsula and the western Mediterranean Sea. Here, their interests collided with those of the Greeks, especially in the sixth century BC and this led the Etruscans to ally themselves with Carthage, whose interests also collided with the Greeks. Around 540 BC, the Battle of Alalia led to a new distribution of power in the western Mediterranean, from the first half of the 5th century BC, the new political situation meant the beginning of the Etruscan decline after losing their southern provinces
13.
Pons Sublicius
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The Pons Sublicius is the earliest known bridge of ancient Rome, spanning the Tiber River near the Forum Boarium downstream from the Tiber Island, near the foot of the Aventine Hill. According to tradition, its construction was ordered by Ancus Marcius around 642 BC, Marcius wished to connect the newly fortified Janiculum Hill on the Etruscan side to the rest of Rome, augmenting the ferry that was there. The bridge was part of public projects that included building a port at Ostia. Legend tells us that the bridge was entirely of wood. The name comes from Latin pons, pontis, bridge, as a sublica was a pick, sublicae implies pointed sticks, that is, the bridge was supported by pilings driven into the riverbed. Julius Caesar’s engineers used this construction to bridge the Rhine, the date of its final disappearance is not known, but it is not in classical times. The Via Latina went over the bridge and connected to the Via Cassia, the bridge was a favorite resort for beggars, who used to sit upon it and demand alms, hence the Latin expression aliquis de ponte for a beggar. The bridge was downstream from the Pons Aemilius, a stone bridge with which it is sometimes confused. Between the two, the Cloaca Maxima, or Great Sewer, was effluent into the Tiber, in the drawing by Friedrich Polack included with this article the pile bridge is falsely shown as a pile pier. Presumably some structure existed prior to 1896, which was incorrectly identified. Otherwise the drawing appears to be accurate in the major details, the observer is standing on the Via Ostiensis at the foot of the Aventine, which is at his back. The stone bridge in evidence is the Pons Aemilius, the Servian Wall goes along the bank of the river, is pierced by the Porta Trigemina and starts up the Aventine. Beyond the gate is the Forum Boarium, in the immediate foreground are the docks, or Navalia. The pier is highly unlikely, as any ship tied up at it as shown would be unstable in the force of the current. Moreover, the masts would have to be shipped for passage under the bridges, one can readily see how unsuitable the river was for sea-going traffic and how necessary the port of Ostia would have been to Rome. The opening of the Cloaca Maxima is between the docks and the stone bridge, beyond the bridge you can just see the Aesculapium on Tiber Island. Looming over the scene is the Capitoline, with the temple of Juppiter Capitolinus upon it. The rising ground on the side of the stone bridge is the Janiculum
14.
Roman Republic
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It was during this period that Romes control expanded from the citys immediate surroundings to hegemony over the entire Mediterranean world. During the first two centuries of its existence, the Roman Republic expanded through a combination of conquest and alliance, by the following century, it included North Africa, most of the Iberian Peninsula, and what is now southern France. Two centuries after that, towards the end of the 1st century BC, it included the rest of modern France, Greece, and much of the eastern Mediterranean. By this time, internal tensions led to a series of wars, culminating with the assassination of Julius Caesar. The exact date of transition can be a matter of interpretation, Roman government was headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and advised by a senate composed of appointed magistrates. Over time, the laws that gave exclusive rights to Romes highest offices were repealed or weakened. The leaders of the Republic developed a tradition and morality requiring public service and patronage in peace and war, making military. Many of Romes legal and legislative structures can still be observed throughout Europe and much of the world in modern nation states, the exact causes and motivations for Romes military conflicts and expansions during the republic are subject to wide debate. While they can be seen as motivated by outright aggression and imperialism and they argue that Romes expansion was driven by short-term defensive and inter-state factors, and the new contingencies that these decisions created. In its early history, as Rome successfully defended itself against foreign threats in central and then northern Italy, with some important exceptions, successful wars in early republican Rome generally led not to annexation or military occupation, but to the restoration of the way things were. But the defeated city would be weakened and thus able to resist Romanizing influences. It was also able to defend itself against its non-Roman enemies. It was, therefore, more likely to seek an alliance of protection with Rome and this growing coalition expanded the potential enemies that Rome might face, and moved Rome closer to confrontation with major powers. The result was more alliance-seeking, on the part of both the Roman confederacy and city-states seeking membership within that confederacy. While there were exceptions to this, it was not until after the Second Punic War that these alliances started to harden into something more like an empire and this shift mainly took place in parts of the west, such as the southern Italian towns that sided with Hannibal. In contrast, Roman expansion into Spain and Gaul occurred as a mix of alliance-seeking, in the 2nd century BC, Roman involvement in the Greek east remained a matter of alliance-seeking, but this time in the face of major powers that could rival Rome. This had some important similarities to the events in Italy centuries earlier, with some major exceptions of outright military rule, the Roman Republic remained an alliance of independent city-states and kingdoms until it transitioned into the Roman Empire. It was not until the time of the Roman Empire that the entire Roman world was organized into provinces under explicit Roman control
15.
Demographics of Syria
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In 2011, the Syrian population was estimated at roughly 23 million permanent inhabitants, including people with refugee status from Palestine and Iraq and are an overall indigenous Levantine people. There has been no Syrian census including a question about religion since 1960, in the next census of 1970, the religion statistics were no longer mentioned. 92. 1% Muslims including 75% Sunnis, 11% Alawis, 3% Druzes,7. 8% Christians and 0. 1% Jews, arabic is the official, and most widely spoken, language. Arabic speakers make up 85% of the population, many educated Syrians also speak English and French. Armenian and Turkmen are spoken among the small Armenian and Turkmen populations respectively, aramaic is still spoken in two forms, the Syriac used by Assyrians and Western Neo-Aramaic used by a few inhabitants in the villages of Bakha, Jubbadin and Maloula. 1,500 people of Greek descent lived in Syria, the majority of them were Syrian citizens. 60% of the live in the Aleppo Governorate, the Euphrates valley or along the coastal plain. Overall population density is about 118.3 inhabitants per square kilometre, education is free and compulsory from ages 6 to 11. Schooling consists of 6 years of education followed by a 3-year general or vocational training period. The second 3-year period of training is required for university admission. Total enrollment at schools is over 150,000. The literacy rate of Syrians aged 15 and older is 86. 0% for males and 73. 6% for females, since 1960, censuses have been conducted in 1960,1970,1981,1994 and 2004. More than four million refugees have left the country during the course of the war, most of them fled to neighboring Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq, as well as Germany. The war also affected the birth rate, the annual birth rate in Syria has fallen by more than half since the country plunged into turmoil in March 2011, from about 500,000 births per year before 2011, to about 200,000. Prior to the war, the life span in Syria was 75.9 years. The following demographic statistics are from the CIA World Factbook, unless otherwise indicated,17,951,639 in 2014, a massive decline due to nearly 4 million Syrian refugees leaving the country because of the Syrian Civil War and furthermore because of the death in the war. This is a drop of 9. 7% from the previous year
16.
Augustus
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Augustus was the founder of the Roman Principate and considered the first Roman emperor, controlling the Roman Empire from 27 BC until his death in AD14. He was born Gaius Octavius into an old and wealthy equestrian branch of the plebeian gens Octavia and his maternal great-uncle Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC, and Octavius was named in Caesars will as his adopted son and heir, then known as Octavianus. He, Mark Antony, and Marcus Lepidus formed the Second Triumvirate to defeat the assassins of Caesar, following their victory at the Battle of Philippi, the Triumvirate divided the Roman Republic among themselves and ruled as military dictators. The Triumvate was eventually torn apart by the ambitions of its members. Lepidus was driven into exile and stripped of his position, in reality, however, he retained his autocratic power over the Republic as a military dictator. By law, Augustus held a collection of powers granted to him for life by the Senate, including supreme military command, and it took several years for Augustus to develop the framework within which a formally republican state could be led under his sole rule. He rejected monarchical titles, and instead called himself Princeps Civitatis, the resulting constitutional framework became known as the Principate, the first phase of the Roman Empire. The reign of Augustus initiated an era of peace known as the Pax Romana. Augustus dramatically enlarged the Empire, annexing Egypt, Dalmatia, Pannonia, Noricum, and Raetia, expanding possessions in Africa, expanding into Germania, beyond the frontiers, he secured the Empire with a buffer region of client states and made peace with the Parthian Empire through diplomacy. Augustus died in AD14 at the age of 75 and he probably died from natural causes, although there were unconfirmed rumors that his wife Livia poisoned him. He was succeeded as Emperor by his adopted son Tiberius, Augustus was known by many names throughout his life, At birth, he was named Gaius Octavius after his biological father. Historians typically refer to him simply as Octavius between his birth in 63 until his adoption by Julius Caesar in 44 BC, upon his adoption, he took Caesars name and became Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus in accordance with Roman adoption naming standards. He quickly dropped Octavianus from his name, and his contemporaries referred to him as Caesar during this period, historians. In 27 BC, following his defeat of Mark Antony and Cleopatra and it is the events of 27 BC from which he obtained his traditional name of Augustus, which historians use in reference to him from 27 BC until his death in AD14. While his paternal family was from the town of Velletri, approximately 40 kilometres from Rome and he was born at Ox Head, a small property on the Palatine Hill, very close to the Roman Forum. He was given the name Gaius Octavius Thurinus, his cognomen possibly commemorating his fathers victory at Thurii over a band of slaves. Due to the nature of Rome at the time, Octavius was taken to his fathers home village at Velletri to be raised. Octavius only mentions his fathers equestrian family briefly in his memoirs and his paternal great-grandfather Gaius Octavius was a military tribune in Sicily during the Second Punic War
17.
14 regions of the Augustan Rome
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In 7 BC, Augustus divided the city of Rome into 14 administrative regions. These replaced the four regiones or quarters traditionally attributed to Servius Tullius and they were further divided into official neighborhoods. Originally designated by number, the regions acquired nicknames from major landmarks or topographical features within them, Regio I took its name from the Porta Capena, a gate through the Servian Walls which the Appian Way takes to get into the city. Beginning from this to the south of the Caelian Hill, it runs to the track of the Aurelian Walls. Regio II encompassed the Caelian Hill, Regio IV took its name from the Temple of Peace built in the region by Vespasian. It includes the valley between the Esquiline and the Viminal hills, the area of the Subura, and the Velian Hill. The name of Regio V derives from the Esquiline hill and it contains parts of the Oppian and Cispian and of the Esquiline, plus the plain just outside the Servian walls. The name of Regio VI derives from the passing over the Quirinal Hill. It was a large regio that encompassed also the Viminal Hill, the slopes of the Pincian. Its major landmarks included the Baths of Diocletian, the Baths of Constantine, temples to Quirinus, Salus, and Flora were also located in Regio VI, and the Castra Praetoria. The Aurelian Wall marked most of its eastern and northern edge, with the Argiletum and Vicus Patricius on the south, the name of Regio VII was derived from the via Flaminia which runs between the Servian walls and the future Aurelian Walls. This was an urban street, corresponding to the modern via del Corso. The regio contained part of the Campus Martius on the east of the street plus the Collis Hortulorum, the name derives from the racecourse located in the southern end of the Campus Martius, close to Tiber Island. The region contains part of the Campus Martius, on the west side of via Lata, the Palatine Hill gave its name to Regio X. Regio XI took its name from the Circus Maximus, located in the valley between the Palatine and the Aventine. It contained the Circus Maximus, the Velabrum, as well as the next to the Forum Boarium. Regio XII took its name from the Piscina Publica, a monument that disappeared during the Empire and it had the high ground where the church of San Saba is at present, plus its ramifications towards the Appian Way, where Caracallas baths were. In the 180s, a bank and exchange for Christians operated in the area, Regio XIII contained the Aventine Hill and the plain in front of it, along the Tiber. Here was the Emporium, the first port on the river, Regio XIV contained Tiber Island and all the parts of Rome west beyond the Tiber
18.
Jews
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The Jews, also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating from the Israelites, or Hebrews, of the Ancient Near East. Jews originated as a national and religious group in the Middle East during the second millennium BCE, the Merneptah Stele appears to confirm the existence of a people of Israel, associated with the god El, somewhere in Canaan as far back as the 13th century BCE. The Israelites, as an outgrowth of the Canaanite population, consolidated their hold with the emergence of the Kingdom of Israel, some consider that these Canaanite sedentary Israelites melded with incoming nomadic groups known as Hebrews. The worldwide Jewish population reached a peak of 16.7 million prior to World War II, but approximately 6 million Jews were systematically murdered during the Holocaust. Since then the population has risen again, and as of 2015 was estimated at 14.3 million by the Berman Jewish DataBank. According to the report, about 43% of all Jews reside in Israel and these numbers include all those who self-identified as Jews in a socio-demographic study or were identified as such by a respondent in the same household. The exact world Jewish population, however, is difficult to measure, Israel is the only country where Jews form a majority of the population. The modern State of Israel was established as a Jewish state and defines itself as such in its Declaration of Independence and its Law of Return grants the right of citizenship to any Jew who requests it. The English word Jew continues Middle English Gyw, Iewe, according to the Hebrew Bible, the name of both the tribe and kingdom derive from Judah, the fourth son of Jacob. The Hebrew word for Jew, יְהוּדִי ISO 259-3 Yhudi, is pronounced, with the stress on the syllable, in Israeli Hebrew. The Ladino name is ג׳ודיו, Djudio, ג׳ודיוס, Djudios, Yiddish, ייִד Yid, ייִדן, Yidn. The etymological equivalent is in use in languages, e. g. but derivations of the word Hebrew are also in use to describe a Jew, e. g. in Italian. The German word Jude is pronounced, the corresponding adjective jüdisch is the origin of the word Yiddish, in such contexts Jewish is the only acceptable possibility. Some people, however, have become so wary of this construction that they have extended the stigma to any use of Jew as a noun, a factual reconstruction for the origin of the Jews is a difficult and complex endeavor. It requires examining at least 3,000 years of ancient human history using documents in vast quantities, as archaeological discovery relies upon researchers and scholars from diverse disciplines, the goal is to interpret all of the factual data, focusing on the most consistent theory. In this case, it is complicated by long standing politics and religious, Jacob and his family migrated to Ancient Egypt after being invited to live with Jacobs son Joseph by the Pharaoh himself. The patriarchs descendants were later enslaved until the Exodus led by Moses, traditionally dated to the 13th century BCE, Modern archaeology has largely discarded the historicity of the Patriarchs and of the Exodus story, with it being reframed as constituting the Israelites inspiring national myth narrative. The growth of Yahweh-centric belief, along with a number of practices, gradually gave rise to a distinct Israelite ethnic group
19.
Roman villa
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A Roman villa was a country house built for the upper class in the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. The villa rustica centered on the villa itself, perhaps only seasonally occupied, under the Empire a concentration of Imperial villas grew up near the Bay of Naples, especially on the Isle of Capri, at Monte Circeo on the coast and at Antium. Wealthy Romans escaped the heat in the hills round Rome. Cicero allegedly possessed no fewer than seven villas, the oldest of them, Pliny the Younger had three or four, of which the example near Laurentium is the best known from his descriptions. The Empire contained many kinds of villas, not all of them lavishly appointed with mosaic floors, in the provinces, any country house with some decorative features in the Roman style may be called a villa by modern scholars. Some villas were more like the houses of England or Poland. These early suburban villas, such as the one at Romes Auditorium site or at Grottarossa in Rome, demonstrate the antiquity and it is possible that these early, suburban villas were also in fact the seats of power of regional strongmen or heads of important families. A third type of villa provided the organizational center of the large holdings called latifundia, by the first century BC, the classic villa took many architectural forms, with many examples employing atrium or peristyle, for enclosed spaces open to light and air. Upper class, wealthy Roman citizens in the countryside around Rome and throughout the Empire lived in villa complexes, the villa-complex consisted of three parts. The pars urbana where the owner and his family lived and this would be similar to the wealthy-persons in the city and would have painted walls. The pars rustica where the chef and slaves of the villa worked and lived and this was also the living quarters for the farms animals. There would usually be other rooms here that might be used as store rooms, the villa fructuaria would be the storage rooms. These would be where the products of the farm were stored ready for transport to buyers, storage rooms here would have been used for oil, wine, grain, grapes and any other produce of the villa. Other rooms in the villa might include an office, a temple for worship, several bedrooms, a dining room, Villas were often furnished with plumbed bathing facilities and many would have had an under-floor central heating known as the hypocaust. Smaller in the countryside, even non-commercial villas operated as largely self-supporting units, with associated farms, olive groves, Roman writers refer with satisfaction to the self-sufficiency of their villas, where they drank their own wine and pressed their own oil, a commonly used literary topos. The late Roman Republic witnessed an explosion of villa construction in Italy, especially in the following the dictatorship of Sulla. In Etruria, the villa at Settefinestre has been interpreted as being the centre of one of the latifundia that were involved in agricultural production. At Settefinestre and elsewhere, the housing of such villas was not richly appointed
20.
Catullus
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Not to be confused with Romans named Catulus, see Catulus. Gaius Valerius Catullus was a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote in the style of poetry. His surviving works are still read widely, and continue to influence poetry, Catullus poems were widely appreciated by other poets. He greatly influenced poets such as Ovid, Horace, and Virgil, after his rediscovery in the late Middle Ages, Catullus again found admirers. His explicit writing style has shocked many readers, indeed, Catullus work was never canonical in schools, although his body of work is still frequently read from secondary school to graduate programs across the world. Gaius Valerius Catullus was born to an equestrian family of Verona. The social prominence of the Catullus family allowed the father of Gaius Valerius to entertain Julius Caesar when he was the Promagistrate of both Gallic provinces. Catullus was raised primarily by his mother, Blandus, who exposed him to poetry, in a poem, Catullus describes his happy homecoming to the family villa at Sirmio, on Lake Garda, near Verona, he also owned a villa near the resort of Tibur. Catullus appears to have spent most of his adult years in Rome. He appears to have been acquainted with the poet Marcus Furius Bibaculus, a number of prominent contemporaries appear in his poetry, including Cicero, Caesar and Pompey. In his poems Catullus describes several stages of their relationship, initial euphoria, doubts, separation, and his wrenching feelings of loss. Clodia had several partners, “From the poems one can adduce no fewer than five lovers in addition to Catullus, Egnatius, Gellius, Quintius, Rufus. Yet, a sensitive and passionate Catullus could not relinquish his flame for Clodia, regardless of her obvious indifference to his desire for a deep, in his poems, Catullus wavers between devout, sweltering love and bitter, scornful insults that he directs at her blatant infidelity. His passion for her is unrelenting— yet it is unclear when exactly the couple split up for good, Catulluss poems about the relationship display striking depth and psychological insight. He spent the provincial command year summer 57 to summer 56 BC in Bithynia on the staff of the commander Gaius Memmius, while in the East, he traveled to the Troad to perform rites at his brothers tomb, an event recorded in a moving poem. There survives no ancient biography of Catullus, his life has to be pieced together from scattered references to him in ancient authors. Thus it is uncertain when he was born and when he died, st. Jerome says that he died in his 30th year, and was born in 87 BC. But the poems include references to events of 55 and 54 BC, other authors suggest 52 or 51 BC as the year of the poets death
21.
Julius Caesar
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Gaius Julius Caesar, known as Julius Caesar, was a Roman politician, general, and notable author of Latin prose. He played a role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic. In 60 BC, Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey formed an alliance that dominated Roman politics for several years. Their attempts to power as Populares were opposed by the Optimates within the Roman Senate. Caesars victories in the Gallic Wars, completed by 51 BC, extended Romes territory to the English Channel, Caesar became the first Roman general to cross both the Channel and the Rhine, when he built a bridge across the Rhine and crossed the Channel to invade Britain. These achievements granted him unmatched military power and threatened to eclipse the standing of Pompey, with the Gallic Wars concluded, the Senate ordered Caesar to step down from his military command and return to Rome. Caesar refused the order, and instead marked his defiance in 49 BC by crossing the Rubicon with the 13th Legion, leaving his province, Civil war resulted, and Caesars victory in the war put him in an unrivalled position of power and influence. After assuming control of government, Caesar began a programme of social and governmental reforms and he centralised the bureaucracy of the Republic and was eventually proclaimed dictator in perpetuity, giving him additional authority. But the underlying political conflicts had not been resolved, and on the Ides of March 44 BC, a new series of civil wars broke out, and the constitutional government of the Republic was never fully restored. Caesars adopted heir Octavian, later known as Augustus, rose to power after defeating his opponents in the civil war. Octavian set about solidifying his power, and the era of the Roman Empire began, much of Caesars life is known from his own accounts of his military campaigns, and from other contemporary sources, mainly the letters and speeches of Cicero and the historical writings of Sallust. The later biographies of Caesar by Suetonius and Plutarch are also major sources, Caesar is considered by many historians to be one of the greatest military commanders in history. Caesar was born into a family, the gens Julia. The cognomen Caesar originated, according to Pliny the Elder, with an ancestor who was born by Caesarean section. The Historia Augusta suggests three alternative explanations, that the first Caesar had a head of hair, that he had bright grey eyes. Caesar issued coins featuring images of elephants, suggesting that he favored this interpretation of his name, despite their ancient pedigree, the Julii Caesares were not especially politically influential, although they had enjoyed some revival of their political fortunes in the early 1st century BC. Caesars father, also called Gaius Julius Caesar, governed the province of Asia and his mother, Aurelia Cotta, came from an influential family. Little is recorded of Caesars childhood, in 85 BC, Caesars father died suddenly, so Caesar was the head of the family at 16
22.
Santa Cecilia in Trastevere
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Santa Cecilia in Trastevere is a 5th-century church in Rome, Italy, in the Trastevere rione, devoted to the Roman martyr Saint Cecilia. The first church on site was founded probably in the 3rd century, by Pope Urban I, it was devoted to the young Roman woman Cecilia. Tradition holds that the church was built over the house of the saint, the baptistery associated with this church, together with the remains of a Roman house of the early Empire, was found during some excavations under the Chapel of the Relics. By the late century, at the Synod of 499 of Pope Symmachus. On 22 November 545, Pope Vigilius was celebrating the Feast of the saint in the church, Pope Paschal I rebuilt the church in 822, and moved here the relics of St Cecilia from the Catacombs of St Calixtus. More restorations followed in the 18th century, the Cardinal priest who is currently assigned to the Titulus S. Caeciliae is Gualtiero Bassetti. Since 1527, a community of Benedictine nuns has lived in the next to Santa Cecilia. The inscriptions found in Santa Cecilia, a valuable source illustrating the history of the church, have collected and published by Vincenzo Forcella. The church has a built in 1725 by Ferdinando Fuga, which incloses a courtyard decorated with ancient mosaics, columns. Its decoration includes the coat of arms and the dedication to the cardinal who paid for the facade. The Gothic ciborium is surrounded by four marble columns white and black, decorated with statuettes of angels, saints, prophets, the apse has remains of 9th century mosaics depicting the Redeemer with Saints Paul, Cecilia, Paschal I, Peter, Valerian, and Agatha. The ceiling of Cappella dei Ponziani was decorated God the Father with evangelists by Antonio del Massaro, the Cappella delle Reliquie was frescoed and provided with an altarpiece by Luigi Vanvitelli. The nave is frescoed with the Apotheosis of Santa Cecilia by Sebastiano Conca, the church contains two altarpieces by Guido Reni, Saints Valerian and Cecilia and a Decapitation of Saint Cecilia. Among the most remarkable works is the graphic altar sculpture of St. Cecilia by the late-Renaissance sculptor Stefano Maderno. The pavement in front of the statue encloses a marble slab with Madernos sworn statement that he has recorded the body as he saw it when the tomb was opened in 1599, the statue depicts the three axe strokes described in the 5th-century account of her martyrdom. It also is meant to underscore the incorruptibility of her cadaver and this statue could be conceived as proto-Baroque, since it depicts no idealized moment or person, but a theatric scene, a naturalistic representation of a dead or dying saint. It is striking, because it precedes by decades the similar high-Baroque sculptures of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the Crypt is also noteworthy, decorated with cosmatesque styles, containing the relics of St. Cecilia and her husband St. Valerian. In the apse of the Crypt there are remains of an altar whose inscription indicates that it was dedicated by Pope Gregory VII on 3 June 1080, • Henry James, Roderick Hudson Jacobus Laderchius, S. Cæciliæ virg
23.
Aurelian
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Aurelian was Roman Emperor from 270 to 275. Born in humble circumstances, he rose through the ranks to become emperor. During his reign, he defeated the Alamanni after a devastating war and he also defeated the Goths, Vandals, Juthungi, Sarmatians, and Carpi. Aurelian restored the Empires eastern provinces after his conquest of the Palmyrene Empire in 273, the following year he conquered the Gallic Empire in the west, reuniting the Empire in its entirety. He was also responsible for the construction of the Aurelian Walls in Rome, and his successes were instrumental in ending the Roman Empires Crisis of the Third Century, earning him the title Restitutor Orbis or Restorer of the World. Although Domitian was the first emperor who had demanded to be hailed as dominus et deus. Aurelian was born on 9 September, most likely in 214 AD, the ancient sources are not agreed on his place of birth, although he was generally accepted as being a native of Illyricum. Sirmium in Pannonia Inferior is the location, which was created by Aurelian as Emperor when he abandoned the old trans-Danubian territory of Dacia. The academic consensus is that he was of humble birth and that his father was a peasant-farmer who took his Roman nomen from his landlord, however, it seems that this pleasant extrapolation of dubious facts is now generally accepted as being no more than just that. It is commonly accepted that Aurelian probably joined the army in 235 AD at around age twenty and it is also generally assumed that, as a member of the lowest rank of society - albeit a citizen - he would have enlisted in the ranks of the legions. This would have opened up for him the tres militia - the three steps of the military career - one of the routes to higher equestrian office in the Imperial Service. This could be a more expeditious route to senior military and procuratorial offices than that pursued by ex-rankers and his suggestion has not been taken up by other academic authorities. Whatever his origins, Aurelian certainly must have built up a solid reputation for military competence during the tumultuous mid-decades of the century. His successes as a cavalry commander ultimately made him a member of emperor Gallienus entourage, in 268, Aurelian and his cavalry participated in general Claudius victory over the Goths at the Battle of Naissus. Later that year Gallienus traveled to Italy and fought Aureolus, his former general, driving Aureolus back into Mediolanum, Gallienus promptly besieged his adversary in the city. However, while the siege was ongoing the Emperor was assassinated, one source says Aurelian, who was present at the siege, participated and supported general Claudius for the purple – which is plausible. Aurelian was married to Ulpia Severina, about whom little is known, like Aurelian she was from Dacia. They are known to have had a daughter together, Claudius was acclaimed Emperor by the soldiers outside Mediolanum
24.
Aurelian Walls
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The Aurelian Walls are a line of city walls built between 271 AD and 275 AD in Rome, Italy, during the reign of the Roman Emperors Aurelian and Probus. They superseded the earlier Servian Wall built during the 4th century BC, the walls enclosed all the seven hills of Rome plus the Campus Martius and, on the right bank of the Tiber, the Trastevere district. The river banks within the city appear to have been left unfortified. The size of the enclosed area is 1,400 hectares. The full circuit ran for 19 kilometres surrounding an area of 13.7 square kilometres, the walls were constructed in brick-faced concrete,3.5 metres thick and 8 metres high, with a square tower every 100 Roman feet. In the 4th century, remodelling doubled the height of the walls to 16 metres, by 500 AD, the circuit possessed 383 towers,7,020 crenellations,18 main gates,5 postern gates,116 latrines, and 2,066 large external windows. By the third century AD, the boundaries of Rome had grown far beyond the area enclosed by the old Servian Wall, Rome had remained unfortified during the subsequent centuries of expansion and consolidation due to lack of hostile threats against the city. The citizens of Rome took great pride in knowing that Rome required no fortifications because of the stability brought by the Pax Romana and the protection of the Roman Army. However, the need for updated defences became acute during the crisis of the Third Century, when barbarian tribes flooded through the Germanic frontier and the Roman Army struggled to stop them. In 270, the barbarian Juthungi and Vandals invaded northern Italy, further trouble broke out in Rome itself in the summer of 271, when the mint workers rose in rebellion. Several thousand people died in the fighting that resulted. The construction of the walls was by far the largest building project that had taken place in Rome for many decades, the construction project was unusually left to the citizens themselves to complete as Aurelian could not afford to spare a single legionary for the project. The walls were built in the time of only five years. Progress was accelerated, and money saved, by incorporating existing buildings into the structure and these included the Amphitheatrum Castrense, the Castra Praetoria, the Pyramid of Cestius, and even a section of the Aqua Claudia aqueduct near the Porta Maggiore. As much as a sixth of the walls is estimated to have composed of pre-existing structures. An area behind the walls was cleared and sentry passages were built to enable it to be reinforced quickly in an emergency, the actual effectiveness of the wall is disputable, given the relatively small size of the citys garrison. The entire combined strength of the Praetorian Guard, cohortes urbanae, instead, they carried out hit-and-run raids against ill-defended targets. The wall was a deterrent against such tactics, parts of the wall were doubled in height by Maxentius, who also improved the watch-towers
25.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
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Sixtus IV
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Pope Sixtus IV, born Francesco della Rovere, was Pope from 9 August 1471 to his death in 1484. His accomplishments as pope included building the Sistine Chapel and the creation of the Vatican Archives, a patron of the arts, the group of artists that he brought together introduced the Early Renaissance into Rome with the first masterpieces of the citys new artistic age. Sixtus aided the Spanish Inquisition, though he fought to prevent abuses therein and he was famed for his nepotism and was personally involved in the infamous Pazzi conspiracy. Francesco was born to a family of modest means from Liguria, Italy and he was born in Celle Ligure, a town near Savona. He went on to lecture at Padua and many other Italian universities, in 1464, Della Rovere was elected Minister General of the Franciscan order at the age of 50. In 1467, he was appointed Cardinal by Pope Paul II with the church being the Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli. Before his papal election, Cardinal della Rovere was renowned for his unworldliness and had even written learned treatises entitled On the Blood of Christ and On the Power of God. His pious reputation was one of the factors that prompted the College of Cardinals to elect him pope upon the unexpected death of Paul II at the age of fifty-four. Upon being elected pope Della Rovere adopted the name Sixtus – a name that had not been used since the 5th century, one of his first acts was to declare a renewed crusade against the Ottoman Turks in Smyrna. However, after the conquest of Smyrna, the fleet disbanded, some fruitless attempts were made towards unification with the Greek Church. For the remainder of his pontificate, Sixtus turned to temporal issues, Sixtus IV sought to strengthen his position by surrounding himself with relatives and friends. His nephew Pietro Riario also benefited from his nepotism, Pietro became one of the richest men in Rome and was entrusted with Pope Sixtus foreign policy. However, Pietro died prematurely in 1474, and his role passed to Giuliano della Rovere, six of the thirty-four cardinals that he created were his nephews. Francesco Salviati, Archbishop of Pisa and an organizer of the plot, was hanged on the walls of the Florentine Palazzo della Signoria. To this, Sixtus IV replied with an interdict and two years of war with Florence, however, Infessura had partisan allegiances to the Colonna and so is not considered to be always reliable or impartial. However, such accusations are easily dismissed as propaganda, but did nevertheless prompt the noted historian of the Catholic Church, Ludwig von Pastor. Sixtus continued a dispute with King Louis XI of France, who upheld the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, according to which papal decrees needed royal assent before they could be promulgated in France. This was a cornerstone of the claimed for the Gallican Church
27.
Sampietrini
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Sampietrini is the typical kind of pavement found in several cities in Italy. It is made of bevelled stones of basalt, placed one next to the other. The earliest examples were made by trimming large blocks that had used in ancient Roman roads, recently discovered in fifteenth-. The first documented use in Rome of sampietrini stones was during the reign of Pope Pius V, nowadays its use is largely confined to historical or very narrow streets in the centre of Rome, where the traffic is light and slow. Sanpietrini have been the weapon of choice in Italian riots since the 60s, easy to collect, cibin, Ludovica, Selciato Romano, il sampietrino 2005
28.
Benedict XIV
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Pope Benedict XIV, born Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini, served as the Pope of the Catholic Church from 17 August 1740 to his death in 1758. Perhaps one of the greatest scholars in Christendom, yet overlooked, he promoted scientific learning, the baroque arts, reinvigoration of Thomism. In terms of the governance of the Papal States, he reduced taxation, a scholar, he laid the groundwork for the present Vatican Museum. Horace Walpole described him as a priest without insolence or interest, a prince without favorites, Lambertini was born into a noble family of Bologna to Marcello Lambertini and Lucrezia Bulgarini, the third of five children. At the time of his birth, Bologna was the second largest city in the Papal States, at the age of thirteen, he began attending the Collegium Clementianum in Rome, where he studied rhetoric, Latin, philosophy, and theology. During his studies as a man, he often studied the works of St. Thomas Aquinas. While he enjoyed studying at Collegium Clementianum, the bent of his mind was well towards ecclesiastical and civil law, soon after, in 1694 at the age of nineteen, he received the degree of Doctor of Sacred Theology and Doctor Utriusque Juris. On the death of Innocent XII, he was made an advocate by Clement XI. Lambertini was consecrated a bishop in Rome, in the Pauline Chapel of the Vatican Palace, on 16 July 1724, the co-consecrators were Giovanni Francesco Nicolai, titular Archbishop of Myra, and Nicola Maria Lercari, titular Archbishop of Nazianzus. He was made Bishop of Ancona in 1727 and he was created a cardinal in pectore, his name being published on 30 April 1728, and was subsequently made the Cardinal-Priest of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme on 10 May 1728. He also served as the Archbishop of Bologna, after the death of Pope Clement XII, Lambertini attended the papal conclave to choose a successor. It would last for six months, at first Cardinal Ottoboni, dean of the Sacred College, was favored to be elected, but a number of cardinals were opposed to this on account of the cardinal being protector of France. This appears to have assisted his cause for winning the election, which benefited from his reputation for deep learning, gentleness, wisdom. On 17 August 1740 he was elected in the evening and took his new name of Benedict XIV in honour of Pope Benedict XIII. He managed to overcome most of these problems — the Holy Sees disputes with the Kingdom of Naples, Sardinia, Spain, Venice and he had a very active papacy, reforming the education of priests, the calendar of feasts of the Church, and many papal institutions. Perhaps the most important act of Benedict XIVs pontificate was the promulgation of his famous laws about missions in the two bulls, Ex quo singulari and Omnium solicitudinum and this question was especially pressing in the case of an ancestor known not to have been a Christian. The choice of a Chinese translation for the name of God had also been debated since the early 17th century, Benedict XIV denounced these practices in these two bulls. The consequence of this was many of these converts left the Church
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The American University of Rome
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The American University of Rome is a degree-granting American university in Rome, Italy. The school was founded in 1969, making it the oldest American degree-granting university in Rome, AUR is situated near the center of Rome on the Janiculum hill, and has a total student enrollment of around 500. The language of instruction is English, AUR has its origins soon after World War II. David Colin, an American journalist in Italy prior to and during the war, while American students and professors visited Rome, Colin helped foster cultural exchanges between Americans and their Italian counterparts. Over time, informal discussions at his home became more formalized and his wife, Joan Carpenter, assisted Colin with this undertaking. George Tesoro, an Italian who left Italy in 1940 in protest against Mussolini’s fascist regime, as the program grew, The American University in Rome became reality when AUR was incorporated in 1969 in the District of Columbia with its academic headquarters located in Rome, Italy. Upon incorporation, Tesoro served as chairman until 1983, when Joseph D. Ventura, then vice chair, during Venturas time as chairman, the board of trustees became a degree-granting institution from the District of Columbia in 1986. In 1987, a member of the board, Dr. Margaret Giannini, under her 16 years of leadership, the university grew in its student and faculty numbers, curriculum offerings, and financial and management systems. Dr. Giannini initiated AUR’s first accreditation with the Accrediting Council of Independent Colleges and Schools in 1992, after operating from different locations in central Rome for almost 25 years, AUR moved to its current campus in 1993. The campus is located on top of the Janiculum, Romes highest hill, the Carini building, completed in 1970, is one of the works of the Italian architect Paolo Portoghesi called Casa Papanice. The campus includes two gardens centered around the main A and B buildings and the Evans Hall Library, campus computer facilities are located in Building A, Carini building and Evans Hall Library with WiFi areas extending to both gardens and terraces on campus. The American University of Rome is governed a Board of Trustees, President, the highest governing body, the Board of Trustees, is responsible for overseeing the University and maintaining its academic and financial health and welfare. Among other duties the Board appoints the President and has final approval of changes to the proposed by the AUR Senate. The Board is currently led by Gabriel A. Battista, a member since 2006. The current President of the University is Dr. Richard Hodges, AUR is a member of the Association of American International Colleges and Universities and The American International Consortium of Academic Libraries. The American University of Rome is an arts university with a student-faculty ratio of roughly 16,1. AURs undergraduate student body of roughly 500 students is multicultural and representative of over 30 nationalities, the American University of Rome is licensed by the Department of Education of the State of Delaware to award associate, bachelors and masters degrees. AUR offers three degrees and ten bachelors degree programs with 16 concentrations or tracks, two associate degree programs and 18 minors
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American Academy in Rome
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The American Academy in Rome is a research and arts institution located on the Gianicolo in Rome. The academy is a member of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, in 1893, a group of American architects, painters and sculptors met regularly while planning the fine arts section of the 1893 Worlds Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The group discussed the idea of forming an American school for artists in Europe as a place for American artists to study, the program began with institutions such as Columbia University and University of Pennsylvania, who would provide scholarships to artists to fund their travel to Rome. In October 1894 the American School of Architecture opened temporarily at the Palazzo Torlonia, directed by Austin W. Lord, in July 1895, the program moved into the larger Villa Aurora. Renting space out to the American School of Classical Studies and the British & American Archeological Society Library, in 1895, the American School of Architecture in Rome was incorporated in New York state and 10 shares of capital stock were issued. Despite fund-raising efforts and the American School of Classical Studies pulling out of Villa Aurora, McKim made up for the financial loss with his personal funds. These struggles would cause the American School of Architecture to restructure, in June 1897, the institution dissolved itself and formed the American Academy in Rome. Among its incorporators was Charles Moore, the Academy introduced bills to the U. S. Congress to make it a national institution, which was successful. In 1904, the Academy moved into Villa Mirafiore, which was purchased and renovated. They formed an endowment, which raised over a million dollars and these founders included, McKim, Harvard College, The Carnegie Foundation, J. P. Morgan, J. P. Morgan, Jr. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. The Rockefeller Foundation, William K. Vanderbilt, Henry Walters, ever since, the American Academy has always been primarily privately financed. Today, financing comes from donations as well as grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1912, the American School of Classical Studies in Rome merged with the Academy, women were a part of the School of Classical Studies, but were not permitted participation in the School of Fine Arts until after World War II. From 1970 to 1973, art historian Bartlett H. Hayes Jr. was director of the Academy, classicist John H. DArms was both the resident director of the American Academy and a professor in its School of Classical Studies from 1977 to 1980. Between 1980 and 1984, director Sophie Consagra strengthened the Academys ties with the Roman community, mark Robbins became president and CEO of the Academy in January 2014. The Academy serves as a home to visiting U. S. scholars, the Rome Prize includes terms that range from six months to two years fellowships at the academy, a stipend, and work and living space at the 11-acre campus. In addition to Rome Prize Fellows, visiting scholars and artists live and/or work at the Academy for varying periods, the Academy is housed in several buildings. The main building was designed by the firm of McKim, Mead, located under the floor of the basement of the main building lies a segment of the Aqua Traiana that was discovered in 1912-1913
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Thomas More College of Liberal Arts
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The Thomas More College of Liberal Arts is located in Merrimack, New Hampshire, United States. The college emphasizes classical education in the Roman Catholic intellectual tradition and is named after Saint Thomas More, the school has approximately 100 students. It is endorsed by The Newman Guide to Choosing a Catholic College, Thomas More College was founded in 1978, with political science professor Peter Sampo as its first president. Sampo had been a co-founder and president of both Cardinal Newman College in St. Louis and Magdalen College, also in New Hampshire. The curriculum, designed by educators Donald and Louise Cowan, associated with the University of Dallas, in 2009, the curriculum was revised under president William Fahey in an effort to improve its chronological approach to topics and strengthen the presentation of Catholic themes. Distinct majors in literature, political science, and philosophy were phased out in favor of a liberal arts program. In 2011, the announced its intention to move to a larger tract of land in Groton, Massachusetts. The relocation plan was abandoned in August 2015, after the college administration projected it would have required a ten-year fundraising campaign, Peter V. Sampo, 1978-2006 Jeffrey Nelson, 2006-2009 William Fahey, 2009-current The core curriculum at Thomas More College is similar to a Great Books program. Students read the works of Western literature, philosophy. Students earn a B. A. degree in Liberal Arts without a major concentration, part of the sophomore year is spent in Rome, Italy. For admissions to the college, Thomas More College accepts the Classic Learning Test as alternatives to the SAT, in 2010, the college started a program of teaching students practical skills in art and music, using the medieval guild system as a model. The college is accredited by the New England Association of Schools, in December 2009, NEASC placed the college on probation on the ground that it was not meeting NEASCs standards for financial resources. The period of probation ended in 2011, the college has sponsored the Centre for Faith and Culture at Oxford, England, publisher of Second Spring, a journal on faith and culture, since 2007. The two colleges, in turn, appoint representatives to the board of directors of Sophia Institute
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University of Waterloo School of Architecture
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The School of Architecture is one of the professional schools of the University of Waterloo. It offers a program in architecture accredited by the Canadian Architectural Certification Board at the masters level. It is part of the Faculty of Engineering and is located on a campus in Cambridge, Ontario. Some of Canadas most prominent architects are graduates of the school, the school moved to a former factory building in Cambridge in September 2004, to provide more space for the school as well as to spur economic activity in the downtown area. It was designed by Levitt Goodman Architects, Waterloo offers an integrated two-degree professional architecture program, accredited by the CACB and NAAB. The majority of the coursework is completed in the Bachelor of Architectural Studies program. The B. A. S. is a five-year, pre-professional honours degree in architecture, Design Studios and courses in Cultural History, Building Technology and Environmental Design comprise the core of the curriculum. Students must complete five semesters of practical, architecture-related work experience as part of the universitys co-op program, students most often find employment in Canada, the United States, and Europe. The M. Arch. is the degree granted by the school. A design or research thesis is the component of the program. Students who have completed the B. A. S. program may enter directly into the M. Arch, founded in 1979 by Rick Haldenby, the Rome Program is offered to all undergraduate students in the fall term of fourth year. The studio is located on one floor of a 16th-century palazzo located next to Piazza di Santa Maria in Trastevere, the Waterloo Rome Program shares an exchange program with the Università G. dAnnunzio - Chieti e Pescara. In the Spring and Summer semesters, the studio is utilized by Pratt Institute. Partner, Thomas W. Ventulett III Distinguished Chair in Architectural Design, Georgia Institute of Technology College of Architecture
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Pratt Institute
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It originated in 1887 with programs primarily in engineering, architecture, and fine arts. U. S. News & World Report lists Pratt as one of the top 20 colleges in the Regional Universities North category. Princeton Review recognizes Pratt as being one of the best colleges in the northeast, Pratt Institute was founded in 1887 by American industrialist Charles Pratt, who was a successful businessman and oil tycoon and was one of the wealthiest men in the history of Brooklyn. In 1867 Pratt established Charles Pratt and Company, in 1874 Pratt’s companies were purchased by John D. Rockefeller and became part of his Standard Oil trust while Pratt continued to run the companies himself. Pratt, an advocate of education, wanted to provide the opportunity for working men and women to better their lives through education, even though Pratt never had the opportunity to go to college himself, he wanted to create an affordable college accessible to the working class. In 1884 Pratt began purchasing parcels of land in his affluent home town of Clinton Hill for the intention of opening a school, the school would end up being built only two blocks from Charles Pratt’s residence on Clinton Avenue. From his fortunes with Astral Oil and Charles Pratt and Company, in May 1887 the New York State Legislature granted Charles Pratt a charter to open the school, on October 17,1887, the Institute opened to 12 students in the Main Hall. Tuition was $4 per class per term, the college was one of the first in the country open to all people, regardless of class, color, and gender. In the early years, the Institute’s mission was to offer education to those who never had it offered to them before, Pratt sought to teach people skills that would allow them to be successful and work their way up the economic ladder. Specifically, many programs were tailored for the growing need to train workers in the changing economy with training in design. Early programs sought to teach students a variety of such as architectural engineering, mechanics, dressmaking. Graduates of the school were taught to become engineers, mechanics, drawing, whether freehand, mechanical, or architectural, thought of as being a universal language, united such diverse programs and thus all programs in the school had a strong foundation in drawing. In addition, the curriculum at the Institute was to be complemented by a large Liberal Arts curriculum. Students studied subjects such as history, mathematics, physics, and literature in order to understand the world in which they will be working in. Six months after inception the school had an enrollment of nearly 600 students, by the first anniversary of the school there were 1,000 students in attendance. In five years time the school had nearly 4,000 students, in 1888 Scientific American said of the school that “it is undoubtedly the most important enterprise of its kind in this country, if not in the world”. Andrew Carnegie even visited Pratt for inspiration and used the school as a model in developing Carnegie Technical Schools, now Carnegie Mellon University. As public interest grew in the school and demand increased the school began adding new programs including the Pratt High School, Library School, Music Department, and Department of Commerce
34.
Sergio Leone
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Sergio Leone was an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter, credited as the inventor of the Spaghetti Western genre. Leones film-making style includes juxtaposing extreme close-up shots with lengthy long shots. born in Rome, Leone was the son of the cinema pioneer Vincenzo Leone and the silent film actress Edvige Valcarenghi. During his schooldays, Leone was a classmate of his musical collaborator Ennio Morricone for a time. After watching his work on film sets, Leone began his own career in the film industry at the age of 18 after dropping out of law studies at the university. Working in Italian cinematography, he began as an assistant to Vittorio de Sica during the movie The Bicycle Thief in 1948, Leone began writing screenplays during the 1950s, primarily for the sword and sandal historical epics, popular at the time. When director Mario Bonnard fell ill during the production of the 1959 Italian epic The Last Days of Pompeii, starring Steve Reeves, Leone was asked to step in and complete the film. As a result, when the time came to make his directorial debut with The Colossus of Rhodes. His film A Fistful of Dollars was based upon Akira Kurosawas Edo-era samurai adventure Yojimbo, Leones film elicited a legal challenge from the Japanese director, though Kurosawas film was in turn probably based on the 1929 Dashiell Hammett novel, Red Harvest. A Fistful of Dollars is also notable for establishing Clint Eastwood as a star, until that time Eastwood had been an American television actor with few credited film roles. The look of A Fistful of Dollars was established by its Spanish locations, the film paid tribute to traditional American western films, but significantly departed from them in storyline, plot, characterization and mood. The characters were also morally ambiguous by appearing generously compassionate, or nakedly and brutally self-serving, relationships revolved around power and retributions were emotion-driven rather than conscience-driven. According to Christopher Fraylings book Something to do with Death, Leone knew a deal about the American Old West. It fascinated him as a child, which carried into his adulthood, the films featured innovative music scores by Ennio Morricone, who worked closely with Leone in devising the themes. Leone had a way of shooting scenes with Morricones music ongoing. In addition, Clint Eastwood stayed with the series, joined later by Eli Wallach, Lee van Cleef. Based on the success of The Man with No Name trilogy, the film was shot mostly in Almería, Spain and Cinecittà in Rome. It was also shot in Monument Valley, Utah. The film starred Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda, Jason Robards, Once Upon a Time in the West emerged as a long, violent, dreamlike meditation upon the mythology of the American Old West, with many stylistic references to iconic western films
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Spaghetti Westerns
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The term was used by American critics and other countries because most of these Westerns were produced and directed by Italians. According to veteran Spaghetti Western actor Aldo Sambrell, the phrase Spaghetti Western was coined by Spanish journalist Alfonso Sánchez, the denomination for these films in Italy is western allitaliana. Italo-Western is also used, especially in Germany, the term Eurowesterns may be used to also include Western movies that were produced in Europe but not called Spaghetti Westerns, like the West German Winnetou films or Ostern Westerns. The majority of the films were international co-productions between Italy and Spain, and sometimes France, Germany, Israel, Yugoslavia, or the United States. These movies were released in Italian, but as most of the films featured multilingual casts and sound was post-synched. Over six hundred European Westerns were made between 1960 and 1978 and these are consistently listed among the best Westerns of any variety. Sergio Leones A Fistful of Dollars established the Spaghetti Western as a kind of Western. In this seminal film the hero enters a town that is ruled by two outlaw gangs and ordinary social relations are non-existent and he betrays and plays the gangs against one another in order to make money. Then he uses his cunning and exceptional skill to assist a family threatened by both gangs. His treachery is exposed and he is beaten, but in the end he defeats the remaining gang. Leone moved on from borrowing and established his own oft imitated style, Leones films and other core Spaghetti Westerns are often described as having eschewed, criticised or even demythologized many of the conventions of traditional U. S. Westerns. This was partly intentional and partly the context of a different cultural background, use of pathos received a big boost with Sergio Corbuccis influential Django. However, in the years use of cunning and irony became more prominent. This was seen in Leones next two Westerns, with their emphasis on unstable partnerships, Ennio Morricones music for A Fistful of Dollars and later Spaghetti Westerns was just as seminal and imitated. It expresses a similar duality between quirky and unusual sounds and instruments on the one hand, and sacral dramatizing for the big scenes on the other. Most Spaghetti Westerns were made on low budgets, using inexpensive locales, gods Gun was filmed in Israel. In the 1960s, critics recognized that the American genres were rapidly changing, the genre most identifiably American, the Western, seemed to be evolving into a new rougher form. For many critics, Sergio Leones films were part of the problem, Leones Dollars Trilogy was not the beginning of the Spaghetti Western cycle in Italy, but for Americans Leones films represented the true beginning of the Italian invasion of an American genre
36.
Ennio Morricone
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Ennio Morricone, Grand Officer OMRI is an Italian composer, orchestrator, conductor, and former trumpet player. He composes a wide range of styles, making him one of the most versatile, experimental and influential composers of all time. Since 1946 Morricone has composed over 500 scores for cinema and television, after playing the trumpet in jazz bands in the 1940s, he became a studio arranger for RCA Victor and in 1955 started ghost writing for film and theatre. Throughout his career, he has composed music for such as Paul Anka, Mina, Milva, Zucchero. From 1960 to 1975, Morricone gained international fame for composing music for westerns and his score to 1966s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is considered one of the most influential soundtracks in history and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. With an estimated 10 million copies sold, Once Upon a Time in the West is one of the best-selling scores worldwide and he also scored seven westerns for Sergio Corbucci, Duccio Tessaris Ringo duology and Sergio Sollimas The Big Gundown and Face to Face. Morricone worked extensively for other genres with directors such as Mauro Bolognini, Giuliano Montaldo, Roland Joffé, Roman Polanski. His acclaimed soundtrack for The Mission was certified gold in the United States, the album Yo-Yo Ma Plays Ennio Morricone stayed 105 weeks on the Billboard Top Classical Albums. Morricones best-known compositions include The Ecstasy of Gold, Se Telefonando, Man with a Harmonica, Heres to You and he functioned during the period 1966–1980 as a main member of Il Gruppo, one of the first experimental composers collectives. In 1969, he co-founded Forum Music Village, a recording studio. In 1977, he composed the theme for the 1978 FIFA World Cup. He continued to compose music for European productions, such as Marco Polo, La Piovra, Nostromo, Fateless, Karol and En mai, fais ce quil te plait. Morricones music has been reused in television series, including The Simpsons and The Sopranos, as of 2013, Ennio Morricone has sold over 70 million records worldwide. In 1971, he received a Targa dOro for the sales of 22 million. In 2007, he received the Academy Honorary Award for his magnificent and he has been nominated for a further six Oscars. In 2016, Morricone received his first Academy Award for his score to Quentin Tarantinos film The Hateful Eight, Morricone was born in Rome, the son of Libera Ridolfi and Mario Morricone, a musician. His family came from Arpino, near Frosinone, Morricone, who had four siblings, Adriana, Aldo, Maria and Franca, lived in Trastevere, in the centre of Rome, with his parents. Mario was a player who worked professionally in different light-music orchestras
37.
Monti (rione of Rome)
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Monti is the name of one of the twenty-two Rioni of Rome, rione I, located in Municipio I. The name literally means mountains in Italian and comes from the fact that the Esquiline and the Viminal Hills, and parts of the Quirinal and its logo consists of three green mountains with three tops on a silver background. Today the Esquilino, Castro Pretorio and Celio districts do not belong to it anymore, in ancient times the rione was densely populated, in Monti there were the Forum Romanum and the so-called Suburra, this was the place poor people lived, full of disreputable locals and brothels. In the Middle Ages the situation was different, the Roman aqueducts were damaged. Hence many inhabitants moved to Campus Martius, a level part. From the Middle Ages to the beginning of the 19th century, Monti was not densely populated because of the lack of water and because it was quite far from the Vatican, the center of Christian culture. The area did not become abandoned thanks to the church of San Giovanni in Laterano, still in the Middle Ages the inhabitants of Monti, called monticiani, developed a strong identity, their Roman dialect was different from that spoken in the other rioni. Their main enemies were the people from the other rione with an identity, Trastevere. The Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum is located in Monti History, maps and images of the rione
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Trevi (rione of Rome)
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Trevi is the rione II of Rome, located in Municipio I. Its logo is made of three swords on a red background and this rione, during the Roman republic belonged to the third region, while during the Roman empire was split up into two regions, the VI, called Alta Semita and the VII, called via Lata. During the ancient Roman period, in rione Trevi there were groups of private houses with some monumental buildings. Since that time the area was split up into two parts, a lower one, level and next to the river Tiber, and a higher one on the hills. The first one was one of the center of the activities of the city, while the one was a rich. After the fall of the Roman empire, a lot of people moved away from the hills to settle next to the river, in the lower part. The urbanization followed the people, next to the river Tiber the rione was full of buildings while almost nothing was built again on the hills until the Renaissance. In 1600 urbanization, new streets, churches and fountains caused the rione Trevi to be quite crowded, the Quirinal Hill, partially isolated from the crowded part close to the river, was slowly becoming a center of power thanks to numerous buildings belonging to the Pope. Under the domination of Napoleon, in 1811, the Quirinal Hill was selected to be the center of the power in Rome. The plan was not completed because of the fall of Napoleon, in fact nowadays several ministers are placed in the rione Trevi. This changed completely the appearance of the part of the rione. The most famous monument in the rione is Trevi Fountain, public libraries in Trevi include Romana Sarti and Casa delle Traduzioni. Piazza Barberini Piazza della Pilota Piazza del Quirinale Piazza San Bernardo Piazza San Silvestro Piazza Santi Apostoli Piazza Scanderbeg Piazza di Trevi
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Colonna (rione of Rome)
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Colonna is the III rione of Rome and located at the citys historic center in Municipio I. It takes its name from the Column of Marcus Aurelius in the Piazza Colonna, today the rione covers 0.2689 km2 and as of 2011 had 2547 inhabitants. The rione reaches to one side of the Pincian Hill, during the short-lived Roman Republic of 1798 it also included the hill itself and was called Pincio rather than Colonna. The riones insignia is a now a column representing the Column of Marcus Aurelius on a red background. However, the insignia originally consisted of three azure bands against a silver background
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Ponte (rione of Rome)
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Ponte is the fifth rione of Rome, and is located in Municipio I. Its name comes from Ponte SantAngelo, which connects Ponte with the rione of Borgo and this bridge was built by Emperor Hadrian in 134 AD to connect his mausoleum to the rest of the city. Though Pope Sixtus V changed the limits so that the bridge belongs now to Borgo, not to Ponte any more. Its logo is obviously a bridge, in ancient Rome, the area belonged to the IX Augustan region called Circus Flaminius, that was a part of the Campus Martius. Neros bridge was also called Pons Vaticanus, because it connected the Ager Vaticanus to the bank, later Pons ruptus. In ancient Rome there was a port that was used to carry the materials for temples, the active life of the area went on during the Middle Ages and the modern period, and this activity deleted almost all signs of ancient Rome in the rione. Moreover, the rione was on the edge of Ponte SantAngelo, thus all the streets of Rome were leading there. That is why it was full of locals, restaurants, shops of holy objects, a common event in the area was to see a small procession led by a person dressed in black, covering his face, carrying a crucifix on his shoulders. On a wagon there was a condemned man kissing continuously another image of Jesus. The destination of the procession was the square in front of Ponte SantAngelo, although Ponte was a quite rich area, it was the one most affected by the frequent flooding of the River Tiber. All the narrow leading to the river were lost, to make space for the embankments. La grande guida dei Rioni di Roma, ISBN 88-7983-509-2 History, maps and images of the rione
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Parione
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Parione is the VI rione of Rome. It is located in Municipio I and its logo is a rampant griffon, a Greek mythological creature with the head of an eagle and the body of a lion. It was chosen as a symbol of pride and nobility, during Antiquity, it belonged to the IX Augustan region called Circo Flaminio. In this area Domitianus built his stadium and an Odeon, for musical, under Sixtus IV the rione lost its chaotic look, typical of the Middle Ages, for a cleaner and tidier one, typical of the Renaissance. Recovering buildings, enlarging streets, building the new bridge ponte Sisto connecting Trastevere and Parione, thanks to this renewal, urbanization increased between the 1400 and 1500. In the same period, several artists were asked to renew the front of the greatest buildings, in 1500 most of the commercial activity slowly moved from Campo de Fiori to Piazza Navona, that was the favorite place since it was wider. From 1574 to 1674, the appearance of Piazza Navona changed vastly, thanks to the work of Bernini, Borromini, if one palace was jutting, its front was moved backwards to preserve it
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Regola
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Regola is the 7th rione of Rome, Italy. It is located in Municipio I of the city, the name comes from Arenula, which was the name of the soft sand that the river Tiber left after the floods, and that built strands on the left bank. The logo of the rione is a rampant deer with a turquoise background, during the Roman empire, the area belonged to the Campus Martius. In particular, in the modern Regola there was the Trigarium, emperor Augustus divided Rome into 14 regions, according to this, the modern Regola belonged to the IX region called Circus Flaminius. In the Middle Ages it entered the fourth of the seven new ecclesiastic regions, also because of the very frequent floods of the river Tiber, the area was unhealthy and it was drained at the end of the Middle Ages. In 1586, when rione Borgo was made, the number of rioni increased to 14, and Regola became the VII with the name of Arenule et Chacabariorum. In 1875, after the walls to stop the floods of the Tiber were built, though small, the rione contains many kinds of buildings, palaces, hospitals, churches, embassies, run down prisons and dirty poor houses. Public libraries in Regola include the Biblioteca centrale Centrale dei Ragazzi, media related to Rione VII - Regola at Wikimedia Commons History, maps and images of the rione
Rome/Trastevere travel guide from Wikivoyage
