1.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
2.
Brescia
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Brescia is a city and comune in the region of Lombardy in northern Italy. It is situated at the foot of the Alps, a few kilometres from the lakes Garda, with a population of 196,480, it is the second largest city in the region and the fourth of northwest Italy. The urban area of Brescia extends beyond the city limits and has a population of 672,822. The city is the capital of the Province of Brescia, one of the largest in Italy. Founded over 3,200 years ago, Brescia has been an important regional centre since pre-Roman times, Brescia is considered the industrial capital of Italy. The metallurgy and the production of tools and firearms are of particular economic significance, along with mechanical. In addition, Brescia is the setting for most of the action in Alessandro Manzonis 1822 play Adelchi, Brescia and its territory will be the European Region of Gastronomy in 2017. Various myths relate to the founding of Brescia, one assigns it to Hercules while another attributes its foundation as Altilia by a fugitive from the siege of Troy. According to another myth, the founder was the king of the Ligures, Cidnus, colle Cidneo was named after that version, and it is the site of the medieval castle. Others scholars attribute the founding of Brescia to the Etruscans, the Gallic Cenomani, allies of the Insubres, invaded in the 7th century BC, and used the town as their capital. The city became Roman in 225 BC, when the Cenomani submitted to the Romans, during the Carthaginian Wars, Brixia was allied with the Romans. During a Celtic alliance against the city remained fateful to the Romans, with their Roman allies the city remain and attacked and destroyed the Insubres by surprise. Subsequently, the city and the tribe entered the Roman world peacefully as faithful allies, in 89 BC, Brixia was recognized as civitas and in 41 BC, its inhabitants received Roman citizenship. Augustus founded a colony there in 27 BC, and he. Roman Brixia had at least three temples, an aqueduct, a theatre, a forum with another temple built under Vespasianus, when Constantine advanced against Maxentius in 312, an engagement took place at Brixia in which the enemy was forced to retreat as far as Verona. In 402, the city was ravaged by the Visigoths of Alaric I, during the 452 invasion of the Huns under Attila, the city was besieged and sacked. Forty years later, it was one of the first conquests by the Gothic general Theoderic the Great in his war against Odoacer, in 568, Brescia was taken from the Byzantines by the Lombards, who made it the capital of one of their semi-independent duchies. The first duke was Alachis, who died in 573, later dukes included the future kings of the Lombards Rothari and Rodoald, and Alachis II, a fervent anti-Catholic who was killed in battle at Cornate dAdda in 688
3.
Portinari Chapel
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The Portinari Chapel is a Renaissance chapel at the Basilica of SantEustorgio, Milan, northern Italy. Peter of Verona, to whom the chapel is consecrated, above the chapel’s altar a donor portrait from 1462, sometimes attributed to Giovanni da Vaprio, depicts Pigello Portinari kneeling in prayer before Peter of Verona. This image may be the origin of the legend that Peter appeared in a vision to Pigello, Pigello Portinari was interred here in 1468, but the saint’s head remained in the sacristy and his tomb was not moved into the chapel until 1737. The chapel is located at the end of the Basilica of SantEustorgio. From the exterior it is a compact cubic brick building with a lower-roofed, the main body of the chapel is surmounted by a dome with sloping tiled roof supporting a high lantern, framed by four turrets. The dome of the apse is protected by an octagonal structure, internally the chapel has architectural features that bear similarity to the Sagrestia Vecchia by Filippo Brunelleschi. These architectonic features are in places richly ornamented with formal motifs in relief, a number of the surfaces have been painted in fresco in the Lombardy manner by Vincenzo Foppa. In the pendentives supporting the dome are tondi with the Doctors of the Church while on the walls are four Scenes from the life of St. Peter of Verona. Above the arch which marks the entrance to the apse is an Annunciation and, facing it above the arch forms the entrance to the chapel. The frescos were rediscovered in 1878 and restored at the beginning of the twentieth century, the head, however, is today conserved in a small adjacent chapel. Edith Wharton, Italian Backgrounds, pp. 164–6, provides a response to the chapel as it was at the start of the twentieth century. A preview of this section, from a 2009 reprint, is available from Google Books
4.
Italian Renaissance
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The term Renaissance is in essence a modern one that came into currency in the 19th century, in the work of historians such as Jules Michelet and Jacob Burckhardt. The French word renaissance means Rebirth, and the era is best known for the renewed interest in the culture of classical antiquity after the period that Renaissance humanists labeled the Dark Ages. Though today perhaps best known for Italian Renaissance art and architecture, the period saw major achievements in literature, music, philosophy, Italy became the recognized European leader in all these areas by the late 15th century, and to varying degrees retained this lead until about 1600. This was despite a turbulent and generally disastrous period in Italian politics, the European Renaissance began in Tuscany, and centred in the city of Florence. It later spread to Venice, where the remains of ancient Greek culture were brought together, the Renaissance later had a significant effect on Rome, which was ornamented with some structures in the new allantico mode, then was largely rebuilt by humanist sixteenth-century popes. The Italian Renaissance peaked in the century as foreign invasions plunged the region into the turmoil of the Italian Wars. However, the ideas and ideals of the Renaissance endured and spread into the rest of Europe, setting off the Northern Renaissance, the Italian Renaissance is best known for its cultural achievements. Accounts of Renaissance literature usually begin with Petrarch and his friend, famous vernacular poets of the 15th century include the renaissance epic authors Luigi Pulci, Matteo Maria Boiardo, and Ludovico Ariosto. 15th century writers such as the poet Poliziano and the Platonist philosopher Marsilio Ficino made extensive translations from both Latin and Greek, the same is true for architecture, as practiced by Brunelleschi, Leon Battista Alberti, Andrea Palladio, and Bramante. Their works include Florence Cathedral, St. Peters Basilica in Rome, yet cultural contributions notwithstanding, some present-day historians also see the era as one of the beginning of economic regression for Italy. By the Late Middle Ages, Latium, the heartland of the Roman Empire. Rome was a city of ancient ruins, and the Papal States were loosely administered, and vulnerable to external interference such as that of France, and later Spain. The Papacy was affronted when the Avignon Papacy was created in southern France as a consequence of pressure from King Philip the Fair of France, in the south, Sicily had for some time been under foreign domination, by the Arabs and then the Normans. Sicily had prospered for 150 years during the Emirate of Sicily, in contrast Northern and Central Italy had become far more prosperous, and it has been calculated that the region was among the richest of Europe. The Crusades had built lasting trade links to the Levant, the main trade routes from the east passed through the Byzantine Empire or the Arab lands and onwards to the ports of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice. Luxury goods bought in the Levant, such as spices, dyes, moreover, the inland city-states profited from the rich agricultural land of the Po valley. From France, Germany, and the Low Countries, through the medium of the Champagne fairs, land and river trade routes brought goods such as wool, wheat, and precious metals into the region. The extensive trade that stretched from Egypt to the Baltic generated substantial surpluses that allowed significant investment in mining, thus, while northern Italy was not richer in resources than many other parts of Europe, the level of development, stimulated by trade, allowed it to prosper
5.
Renaissance
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The Renaissance was a period in European history, from the 14th to the 17th century, regarded as the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages and modern history. It started as a movement in Italy in the Late Medieval period and later spread to the rest of Europe. This new thinking became manifest in art, architecture, politics, science, Early examples were the development of perspective in oil painting and the recycled knowledge of how to make concrete. Although the invention of movable type sped the dissemination of ideas from the later 15th century. In politics, the Renaissance contributed to the development of the customs and conventions of diplomacy, the Renaissance began in Florence, in the 14th century. Other major centres were northern Italian city-states such as Venice, Genoa, Milan, Bologna, the word Renaissance, literally meaning Rebirth in French, first appeared in English in the 1830s. The word also occurs in Jules Michelets 1855 work, Histoire de France, the word Renaissance has also been extended to other historical and cultural movements, such as the Carolingian Renaissance and the Renaissance of the 12th century. The Renaissance was a movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life in the early modern period. Renaissance scholars employed the humanist method in study, and searched for realism, however, a subtle shift took place in the way that intellectuals approached religion that was reflected in many other areas of cultural life. In addition, many Greek Christian works, including the Greek New Testament, were back from Byzantium to Western Europe. Political philosophers, most famously Niccolò Machiavelli, sought to describe life as it really was. Others see more competition between artists and polymaths such as Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, and Masaccio for artistic commissions as sparking the creativity of the Renaissance. Yet it remains much debated why the Renaissance began in Italy, accordingly, several theories have been put forward to explain its origins. During the Renaissance, money and art went hand in hand, Artists depended entirely on patrons while the patrons needed money to foster artistic talent. Wealth was brought to Italy in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries by expanding trade into Asia, silver mining in Tyrol increased the flow of money. Luxuries from the Eastern world, brought home during the Crusades, increased the prosperity of Genoa, unlike with Latin texts, which had been preserved and studied in Western Europe since late antiquity, the study of ancient Greek texts was very limited in medieval Western Europe. One of the greatest achievements of Renaissance scholars was to bring this entire class of Greek cultural works back into Western Europe for the first time since late antiquity, Arab logicians had inherited Greek ideas after they had invaded and conquered Egypt and the Levant. Their translations and commentaries on these ideas worked their way through the Arab West into Spain and Sicily and this work of translation from Islamic culture, though largely unplanned and disorganized, constituted one of the greatest transmissions of ideas in history
6.
House of Sforza
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Sforza was a ruling family of Renaissance Italy, based in Milan. They acquired the Duchy of Milan from the previously ruling Visconti family in the mid-15th century, rising from rural nobility, the Sforzas became condottieri and used this military position to become rulers in Milan. The family governed by force, ruse, and power politics, under their rule the city-state flourished and expanded. Muzio Attendolo, called Sforza, founded the dynasty, a condottiero from Romagna, he served the Angevin kings of Naples and became the most successful dynast of the condottieri. His son Francesco I Sforza ruled Milan, having acquired the title of Duke of Milan after the extinction of the Visconti family in 1447, the family also held the seigniory of Pesaro, starting from Muzio Attendolos second son, Alessandro. The Sforza held Pesaro until 1519, with the death of Galeazzo, muzios third son, Bosio, founded the branch of Santa Fiora, who held the title of count of Cotignola, the Sforza ruled the small county of Santa Fiora in southern Tuscany until 1624. Members of this family held important ecclesiastical and political position in the Papal States. The Sforza became allied with the Borgia family through the marriage between Lucrezia Borgia and Giovanni. This alliance failed as the Borgia annulled the marriage once the Sforzas were no longer needed, in 1499, in the course of the Italian Wars, the army of Louis XII of France took Milan from Ludovico Sforza. After Imperial German troops drove out the French, Maximilian Sforza, son of Ludovico, became Duke of Milan until the French returned under Francis I of France, thomas Harriss character Hannibal Lecter is a descendant of the House of Sforza. In the anime, manga and book series Trinity Blood, one of the Cardinals, Caterina Sforza appears as a non-playable character in the video game Assassins Creed 2 and its sequel, Assassins Creed, Brotherhood. The Sforza figure prominently in the Showtime series on the Borgia family, the house is mentioned in a song about the Borgia Family in the British edutainment TV show Horrible Histories. List of rulers of Milan Gradara House of Visconti Italian Wars Pesaro
7.
Milan
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Milan is a city in Italy, capital of the Lombardy region, and the most populous metropolitan area and the second most populous comune in Italy. The population of the city proper is 1,351,000, Milan has a population of about 8,500,000 people. It is the industrial and financial centre of Italy and one of global significance. In terms of GDP, it has the largest economy among European non-capital cities, Milan is considered part of the Blue Banana and lies at the heart of one of the Four Motors for Europe. Milan is an Alpha leading global city, with strengths in the arts, commerce, design, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, services, research, and tourism. Its business district hosts Italys Stock Exchange and the headquarters of the largest national and international banks, the city is a major world fashion and design capital, well known for several international events and fairs, including Milan Fashion Week and the Milan Furniture Fair. The city hosts numerous cultural institutions, academies and universities, with 11% of the national total enrolled students, Milans museums, theatres and landmarks attract over 9 million visitors annually. Milan – after Naples – is the second Italian city with the highest number of accredited stars from the Michelin Guide, the city hosted the Universal Exposition in 1906 and 2015. Milan is home to two of Europes major football teams, A. C. Milan and F. C. Internazionale, the etymology of Milan is uncertain. One theory holds that the Latin name Mediolanum comes from the Latin words medio, however, some scholars believe lanum comes from the Celtic root lan, meaning an enclosure or demarcated territory in which Celtic communities used to build shrines. Hence, Mediolanum could signify the central town or sanctuary of a Celtic tribe, indeed, the name Mediolanum is borne by about sixty Gallo-Roman sites in France, e. g. Saintes and Évreux. Alciato credits Ambrose for his account, around 400 BC, the Celtic Insubres settled Milan and the surrounding region. In 222 BC, the Romans conquered the settlement, renaming it Mediolanum, Milan was eventually declared the capital of the Western Roman Empire by Emperor Diocletian in 286 AD. Diocletian chose to stay in the Eastern Roman Empire and his colleague Maximianus ruled the Western one, immediately Maximian built several monuments, such as a large circus 470 m ×85 m, the Thermae Herculeae, a large complex of imperial palaces and several other buildings. With the Edict of Milan of 313, Emperor Constantine I guaranteed freedom of religion for Christians, after the city was besieged by the Visigoths in 402, the imperial residence was moved to Ravenna. In 452, the Huns overran the city, in 539, the Ostrogoths conquered and destroyed Milan during the Gothic War against Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. In the summer of 569, a Teutonic tribe, the Lombards, conquered Milan, some Roman structures remained in use in Milan under Lombard rule. Milan surrendered to the Franks in 774 when Charlemagne took the title of King of the Lombards, the Iron Crown of Lombardy dates from this period
8.
Pavia
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Pavia is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, northern Italy,35 kilometres south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It has a population of c, the city was the capital of the Kingdom of the Lombards from 572 to 774. Pavia is the capital of the province of Pavia, known for agricultural products including wine, rice, cereals. Although there are a number of industries located in the suburbs, Pavia is the episcopal seat of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Pavia. The city possesses many artistic and cultural treasures, including several important churches and museums, dating back to pre-Roman times, the town of Pavia, then known as Ticinum, was a municipality and an important military site under the Roman Empire. It was said by Pliny the Elder to have founded by the Laevi and Marici. It was at Pavia in 476 AD that the reign of Romulus Augustulus, ten months after Romulus Augustulus’s reign began, Orestes’s soldiers under the command of one of his officers named Odoacer, rebelled and killed Orestes in the city of Pavia in 476. Without his father Romulus Augustulus was powerless, instead of killing Romulus Augustulus, Odoacer pensioned him off at 6,000 solidi a year before declaring the end of the Western Roman Empire and himself king of the new Kingdom of Italy. Odoacer’s reign as king of Italy did not last long, because in 488 the Ostrogothic peoples led by their king Theoderic invaded Italy and waged war against Odoacer. After fighting for 5 years Theoderic defeated Odoacer and on March 15,493 assassinated Odoacer at a banquet meant to negotiate a peace between the two rulers, with the establishment of the Ostrogoth kingdom based in northern Italy, Theoderic began his vast program of public building. Pavia was among several cities that Theodoric chose to restore and expand and he began the construction of the vast palace complex that would eventually become the residence of Lombard monarchs several decades later. Near the end of Theoderic’s reign the Christian philosopher Boethius was imprisoned in one of Pavia’s churches from 522 to 525 before his execution for treason and it was during Boethius’s captivity in Pavia that he wrote his seminal work the Consolation of Philosophy. Pavia played an important role in the war between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Ostrogoths that began in 535, after the capitulation of the Ostrogothic leadership in 540 more than a thousand men remained garrisoned in Pavia and Verona dedicated to opposing Eastern Roman rule. The resilience of Ostrogoth strongholds like Pavia against invading forces allowed pockets of Ostrogothic rule to limp along until finally being defeated in 561, Pavia and the peninsula of Italy didn’t remain long under the rule of the Eastern Roman Empire for in 568 a new people invaded Italy. This new invading people in 568 were the Lombards, in their invasion of Italy in 568, the Lombards were led by their king Alboin, who would become the first Lombard king of Italy. Alboin captured much of northern Italy in 568 but his progress was halted in 569 by the city of Pavia. Meanwhile Alboin, after driving out the soldiers, took possession of everything as far as Tuscany except Rome and Ravenna and some other fortified places which were situated on the shore of the sea. ”The Siege of Ticinum finally ended with the Lombards capturing the city of Pavia in 572. Pavia’s strategic location and the Ostrogoth palaces located within it would make Pavia by the 620s the main capital of the Lombards’ Kingdom of Pavia, under Lombard rule many monasteries, nunneries, and churches were built at Pavia by the devout Christian Lombard monarchs
9.
Lombardy
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Lombardy is one of the twenty administrative regions of Italy, in the northwest of the country, with an area of 23,844 square kilometres. Milan, Lombardys capital, is the second-largest city and the largest metropolitan area in Italy, the word Lombardy comes from Lombard, which in turn is derived from Late Latin Longobardus, Langobardus, derived from the Proto-Germanic elements *langaz + *bardaz, equivalent to long beard. Some sources derive the second element instead from Proto-Germanic *bardǭ, *barduz, Lombardy referred during the early Middle Ages to the entire territory of Italy ruled by the Lombards, a Germanic tribe who conquered much of the Italian peninsula beginning in the 6th century. During the late Middle Ages, the term shifted meaning and was used to identify the whole of Northern Italy, with a surface of 23,861 km2, Lombardy is the 4th largest region of Italy. It is bordered by Switzerland and by the Italian regions of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol and Veneto, Emilia-Romagna, three distinct natural zones can be fairly easily distinguished in the Lombardy region, mountains, hills and plains – the latter being divided in Alta and Bassa. Inconsistent with the three distinctions above made is the subregion of Oltrepò Pavese, formed by the Apennine foothills beyond the Po River. The mighty Po river marks the border of the region for a length of about 210 km. In its progress it receives the waters of the Ticino River, the other streams which contribute to the great river are, the Olona, the Lambro, the Adda, the Oglio and the Mincio. The numerous lakes of Lombardy, all of glacial origin, lie in the northern highlands, from west to east these are Lake Maggiore, Lake Lugano, Lake Como, Lake Iseo, Lake Idro, then Lake Garda, the largest in Italy. A minor mountainous area, the Oltrepò Pavese, lies south of the Po, in the plains, intensively cultivated for centuries, little of the original environment remains. The most commons trees are elm, alder, sycamore, poplar, willow, in the area of the foothills lakes, however, grow olive trees, cypresses and larches, as well as varieties of subtropical flora such as magnolias, azaleas, acacias. Numerous species of flora in the Prealpine area include some kinds of saxifrage, the Lombard garlic, groundsels bellflowers. The highlands are characterized by the vegetation of the whole range of the Italian Alps. At a lower levels oak woods or broadleafed trees grow, on the slopes beech trees grow at the lowest limits. Shrubs such as rhododendron, dwarf pine and juniper are native to the summital zone, Lombardy has a wide array of climates, due to local variances in elevation, proximity to inland water basins, and large metropolitan areas. In addition, there is a seasonal temperature variation. A peculiarity of the climate is the thick fog that covers the plains between October and February. In the Alpine foothills, characterised by an Oceanic climate, numerous lakes exercise a mitigating influence, in the hills and mountains, the climate is humid continental
10.
Liguria
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Liguria is a coastal region of north-western Italy, its capital is Genoa. The region is popular with tourists for its beaches, towns, Liguria is bordered by France to the west, Piedmont to the north, and Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany to the east. It lies on the Ligurian Sea, the narrow strip of land is bordered by the sea, the Alps and the Apennines mountains. Some mountains rise above 2,000 m, the line runs at an average altitude of about 1,000 m. The highest point of the region is the summit of Monte Saccarello, the winding arched extension goes from Ventimiglia to La Spezia. Of this,3,524.08 km2 are mountainous and 891.95 km2 are hills, Ligurias natural reserves cover 12% of the entire region, or 600 km2 of land. They are made up of one national reserve, six large parks, the continental shelf is very narrow, and so steep it descends almost immediately to considerable marine depths along its 350-kilometre coastline. Except for the Portovenere and Portofino promontories, it is not very jagged. At the mouths of the biggest watercourses there are small beaches, the ring of hills lying immediately beyond the coast together with the sea account for a mild climate year-round. Average winter temperatures are 7 to 10 °C and summer temperatures are 23 to 24 °C, rainfall can be abundant at times, as mountains very close to the coast create an orographic effect. Genoa and La Spezia can see up to 2,000 mm of rain in a year, evidence of Neanderthals living in the area was discovered in the region of Loano, whereas in Ventimiglia, in the grotto of Balzi Rossi, numerous remains were found of Cro-Magnon. According to Classical sources, the Ligurians, once lived in a far broader territory than present-day Liguria, for example, the Greek colony of Massalia, modern Marseille was recorded to lie in Ligurian territory. During the first Punic War, the ancient Ligurians were divided, some of them siding with Carthage, under Augustus, Liguria was designated a region of Italy stretching from the coast to the banks of the Po River. The great Roman roads helped strengthen territorial unity and increase communication, important towns developed on the coast, of which evidence is left in the ruins of Albenga, Ventimiglia and Luni. Between the 4th and the 10th centuries Liguria was dominated by the Byzantines, the Lombards of King Rothari and it was also invaded by Saracen and Norman raiders. In the 10th century, once the danger of pirates decreased, in the 11th and 12th centuries the marches were split into fees, and then with the strengthening of the bishops’ power, the feudal structure began to partially weaken. The main Ligurian towns, especially on the coast, became city-states, inland, however, fiefs belonging to noble families survived for a very long time. Between the 11th century and the 15th century, the Republic of Genoa experienced a political and commercial success
11.
Gentile da Fabriano
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Gentile da Fabriano was an Italian painter known for his participation in the International Gothic painter style. He worked in places in central Italy, mostly in Tuscany. His best-known works are his Adoration of the Magi from the Strozzi Altarpiece, Gentile was born in or near Fabriano, in the Marche. His mother died some time before 1380, and his father, Niccolò di Giovanni Massi, retired to a monastery in the same year, where he died in 1385. Little is known of his formation, one of his first known works, by around 1405, Gentile da Fabriano was working in Venice. He painted a panel for the church of Santa Sofia, now lost, between 1408 and 1409, he painted a fresco in the Doges Palace depicting the naval battle between the Venetians and Otto III. In Venice he knew Pisanello and perhaps Michelino da Besozzo, from 1410–1412 is one of his first masterworks, the Valle Romita Polyptych. In 1410–1411 he was at Foligno, where he frescoed the Palazzo Trinci, in 1414 he moved to Brescia, at the service of Pandolfo III Malatesta, and painted the Broletto Chapel, a work now mostly lost. In the Spring 1420 he was again in Fabriano and his other works in Florence include the Quaratesi Polyptych. In June–August 1425 he was in Siena, where he painted a Madonna with Child, now lost, until October he was in Orvieto, where he painted his fresco of the Madonna and Child in the Cathedral. In 1427 he arrived in Rome, commissioned by Pope Martin V the decoration of the nave of the Basilica of St. John in Lateran, Gentile is known to have died before 14 October 1427. He is commonly said to have buried in the church now called S. Francesca Romana in Florence, but his tomb vanished, there is evidence, however, that he may be buried in the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere, in Rome, the place of his death. He left no works in the Marche, except possibly a Madonna and Child in the Duomo at SantAngelo in Vado and he also left one painting in Venice. Fabio Marcelli, Gentile da Fabriano, Silvana,2005, andrea De Marchi, Gentile da Fabriano. Un viaggio nella pittura italiana alla fine del gotico, Federico Motta,2006, Gentile da Fabriano biography-paintings-curiosity-publications Italian Paintings, Sienese and Central Italian Schools, a collection catalog containing information about Fabriano and his works. 5 paintings of Gentile da Fabriano
12.
Jacopo Bellini
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Jacopo Bellini was one of the founders of the Renaissance style of painting in Venice and northern Italy. His sons Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, and his son-in-law Andrea Mantegna, were famous painters. Few of Bellinis paintings still exist, but his surviving sketch-books show an interest in landscape and his surviving works show how he accommodated linear perspective to the decorative patterns and rich colors of Venetian painting. Born in Venice, Jacopo had been a pupil of Gentile da Fabriano, in 1411–1412 he was in Foligno, where with Gentile he worked at the Palazzo Trinci frescoes. In 1423 Bellini was in Florence, where he knew the new works by Brunelleschi, Donatello, Masolino da Panicale, in 1424 he opened a workshop in Venice, which he ran right up until his death. Many of his greatest works, including the enormous Crucifixion in the cathedral of Verona, have disappeared, from c.1430 is the panel with Madonna and Child, in the Accademia Carrara, once attributed to Gentile da Fabriano. In 1441, at Ferrara, where he was at the service of Leonello dEste together with Leon Battista Alberti, he executed a portrait of that Marquess, of this period the Madonna dellUmiltà, probably commissioned by one of the brothers of Leonello. Later he contributed with works now lost to the Venetian churches of San Giovanni Evangelista, from 1459 is a Madonna with Blessing Child in the Gallerie dellAccademia. Later he sojourned in Padua, where he trained a young Andrea Mantegna in perspective and classicist themes, of his late phase, a ruined Crucifix in the Museum of Verona and an Annunciation in the church of SantAlessandro of Brescia remain. Eisler, The genius of Jacopo Bellini, the paintings and drawings Chisholm, Hugh. Italian Paintings, Venetian School, a catalog containing information about Bellini
13.
Bonifacio Bembo
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Bonifacio Bembo was an Italian painter and manuscript illuminator of the early-Renaissance period. His father, Giovanni, was a painter during this time. He trained in the late Gothic school, he was influenced by the Renaissance style, at the school, he gained knowledge of the works of Gemistus Pletho and of Neoplatonic ideals. As a painter, Bembo was active in Cremona and Reggio Emilia and he painted for the Castello di Pavia. He was commissioned to paint frescoes in the Calvacabo chapel in the church of Sant Agostino di Cremona in Cremona. Bremo also painted a triptych depicting three religious scenes, a Coronation of Christ and Mary by God the Father, Meeting at the Golden Door, the Coronation Panel is now located in Pinacoteca di Cremona, and the Meeting and Adoration panels are in the Denver Art Museum. During the period 1464-1467, he painted the altarpiece for the Duomo of Cremona depicting the Madonna. This altarpiece was restored in 1507 by Boccaccio Boccaccino and in 1571 by Giulio Campi. In 1472, Bremo, along with artists Zanetto Bugatto and Leonardo Ponzoni, was commissioned to paint the chapel in Santa Maria Presso Vigevano and he also painted the cloister of La Colomba at Cremona. In 1473, Bremo became a citizen of Milan, where he worked alongside Gottardo Scotti, Stefano de Fedeli and he then moved to Pavia where he continued to work with Bugatto and Vincenzo Foppa in a reliquary room of the ducal castle and complete other works. Bembo is often attributed with writing one of the famous Visconti-Sforza tarot decks and he said to have died in 1498. However, recent sources cite his death to be before 1482, the later date may reflect attribution of his works by his brother to Bonifacio. He had two siblings that were painters, an older brother Ambrogio and younger brother Benedetto and his uncle, Giovanni Francesco Bembo, was also a painter. Dizionario degli architetti, scultori, pittori, intagliatori in rame ed in pietra, coniatori di medaglie, musaicisti, gaetano Schiepatti, Digitized by Googlebooks, Jan 24,2007
14.
Padua
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Padua is a city and comune in Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic, the city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, which has a population of c. Padua stands on the Bacchiglione River,40 kilometres west of Venice and 29 km southeast of Vicenza, the Brenta River, which once ran through the city, still touches the northern districts. Its agricultural setting is the Venetian Plain, to the citys south west lies the Euganaean Hills, praised by Lucan and Martial, Petrarch, Ugo Foscolo, and Shelley. It hosts the University of Padua, founded in 1222, where Galileo Galilei was a lecturer, Padua is the setting for most of the action in Shakespeares The Taming of the Shrew. There is a play by the Victorian writer Oscar Wilde, titled The Duchess Of Padua, the original significance of the Roman name Patavium is uncertain. It may be connected with the ancient name of the River Po, additionally, the root pat-, in the Indo-European language may refer to a wide open plain as opposed to nearby hills. The ending -ium, signifies the presence of villages that have united themselves together, Padua claims to be the oldest city in northern Italy. According to a tradition dated at least to the time of Virgils Aeneid and to Livys Ab Urbe Condita, Padua was founded in around 1183 BC by the Trojan prince Antenor. After the Fall of Troy, Antenor led a group of Trojans and their Paphlagonian allies, the Eneti or Veneti, thus, when a large ancient stone sarcophagus was exhumed in the year 1274, officials of medieval commune declared the remains within to be those of Antenor. Nevertheless, archeological remains confirm a date for the foundation of the center of the town to between the 11th and 10th centuries BC. The Roman historian Livy records an invasion of the Spartan king Cleonimos around 302 BC. The Spartans came up the river but were defeated by the Veneti in a naval battle, still later, the Veneti of Padua successfully defended themselves against the aggression of Etruscans and Gauls. According to Livy and Silius Italicus, the Veneti, including those of Padua, formed an alliance with the Romans by 226 BC, against their common enemy, men from Padua fought and died besides the Romans at Cannae. As the Romans advanced northward, Padua was gradually assimilated into the Roman Republic, in 175 BC, Padua requested the aid of Rome in putting down a local civil war. In 91 BC, Padua, along with cities of the Veneti. Around 49 BC, Padua was made a Roman municipium under the Lex Julia Municipalis and its citizens ascribed to the Roman tribe, at that time the population of the city was perhaps 40,000. The city was reputed for its excellent breed of horses and the wool of its sheep, in fact, the poet Martial remarks on the thickness of the tunics made there
15.
Francesco Squarcione
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Francesco Squarcione was an Italian artist from Padua. His pupils included Andrea Mantegna, Cosimo Tura and Carlo Crivelli, there are only two works signed by him, the Madonna with Child and an altarpiece. Squarcione, whose vocation was tailoring, appears to have had a remarkable enthusiasm for ancient art. Based on this collection, he works on commission for which his pupils no less than himself were made available. As many as 137 painters and pictorial students passed through his school, established in 1431, Squarcione taught Mantegna the Latin language and instructed him to study fragments of Roman sculpture. Pupils or followers of Squarcione include Francesco Verla, Pietro Calzetta, and Andrea Bellunello
16.
Pisanello
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He was acclaimed by poets such as Guarino da Verona and praised by humanists of his time who compared him to such illustrious names as Cimabue, Phidias and Praxiteles. Pisanello is known for his resplendent frescoes in large murals, elegant portraits, small easel pictures and he is the most important commemorative portrait medallist in the first half of the 15th century, and can claim to have originated this important genre. He was employed by the Doge of Venice, the Pope in the Vatican and the courts of Verona, Ferrara, Mantua, Milan, Rimini and he stood in high esteem of the Gonzaga and Este families. Pisanello had many of his works wrongly ascribed to other such as Piero della Francesca, Albrecht Dürer and Leonardo da Vinci. While most of his paintings have perished, a many of his drawings. Pisanellos life is shrouded in mystery. He was born between 1380 and 1395 and died between 1450 and 1455 and he was a native of Pisa but spent his early years in San Vigilio sul Lago in the territory of Verona. He was probably given his training by a Veronese painter as his early style is in the tradition of Veronese painting. Between 1415 and 1420, Pisanello was the assistant of the painter and illuminator Gentile da Fabriano from whom he acquired his refined, delicate. Pisanello also acquired from him a taste for precious materials and beautiful fabrics that can be found in his later paintings. The frescoes in the Doges Palace at Venice, on which they worked together, have perished as well as the frescoes in the Basilica of St. John Lateran and the palaces of Mantua and Pavia. In 1422, Pisanello was reported to be in Mantua in the service of young Ludovico Gonzaga and he continued to work for the Gonzaga family till the 1440s. He must also have known Paolo Uccello, the painter of the Battle of San Romano with its many horses. Pisanellos love of drawing horses probably finds its origin in this relationship, but as there is so much unknown of his life, Pisanellos Madonna of the Quail, now in the Museo di Castelvecchio in Verona, is signed by Antonius Pisanus. It is tentatively dated at c, the style is a blend of the styles of Gentile da Fabriano and Stefano da Verona. This might show that Pisanello was also a pupil of the latter in Verona, Pisanello stayed again in Verona in 1424. However, according to scholars, he painted frescoes about hunting and fishing. These were commissioned by the Duke of Milan Filippo Maria Visconti, there is no trace of these frescoes left
17.
Verona
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Verona is a city on the Adige river in Veneto, Italy, with approximately 265,000 inhabitants and one of the seven provincial capitals of the region. It is the second largest city municipality in the region and the third largest in northeast Italy, the metropolitan area of Verona covers an area of 1,426 km2 and has a population of 714,274 inhabitants. Three of Shakespeares plays are set in Verona, Romeo and Juliet, The Two Gentlemen of Verona and it is unknown if Shakespeare ever visited Verona or Italy at all, but his plays have lured many visitors to Verona and surrounding cities many times over. The city has been awarded World Heritage Site status by UNESCO because of its structure and architecture. According to a theory that considers the geographical position of the city, Verona is short for Versus Romae which means In the direction of Rome because as italian people say All roads lead to Rome. The exclamation Vae Romae if understood in Latin means Alas Rome, in fact, to express distress or denounce a disgrace ancient Romans used the Latin interjection vae. So, you explain the famous poem by William Shakespeare There is no world without Verona walls, But purgatory, torture. Hence-banished is banishd from the world, And worlds exile is death, the writer would express a Roman concept through its character named Romeo, a name that invokes Rome, according to which the city of Verona was a boundary between the Roman world and barbaric one. Verona was a place of passage and to horses, for those who wanted to go and had walked the Via Claudia Augusta. So the expression Vae Romae Alas Rome would indicate spirit of the place, another theory is that it is connected to the river. Vera was a name of the river Adige before the adoption of the current name, as in many similar instances in Europe the name of the town is formed with the addition of suffix -ona which means settlement over. The city was sometimes known as Welsch-Bern in German. The precise details of Veronas early history remain a mystery, one theory is it was a city of the Euganei, who were obliged to give it up to the Cenomani. With the conquest of the Valley of the Po the Veronese territory became Roman, Verona became a Roman colonia in 89 BC, and then a municipium in 49 BC when its citizens were ascribed to the Roman tribe Poblilia or Publicia. The city became important because it was at the intersection of several roads, stilicho defeated Alaric and his Visigoths here in 403. But, after Verona was conquered by the Ostrogoths in 489, theoderic the Great was said to have built a palace there. It remained under the power of the Goths throughout the Gothic War, except for a day in 541. The defections that took place among the Byzantine generals with regard to the booty made it possible for the Goths to regain possession of the city, in 552 Valerian vainly endeavored to enter the city, but it was only when they were fully overthrown that the Goths surrendered it
18.
Michelino Molinari da Besozzo
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Michelino Molinari da Besozzo was an Italian painter and illuminator. He worked mostly in Milan and Lombardy, a native of Besozzo, in 1388 he worked in the second cloister of the church of San Pietro in Ciel dOro at Pavia, where he frescoed the Scenes of the Life of St. Augustine. In 1395-1405 he executed the miniatures for a breviary, currently housed in the Library of Avignon in France, a drawing of the Nativity dates to the same period. Other four saints on different parchments, from another breviary, owned by the Cabinet des Dessins of the Louvre Museum, the first dated work from the artist is a miniature with the Funerary Eulogy of Gian Galeazzo Visconti. Michelino worked in the Veneto from 1404 to c, in 1410 he is mentioned in Venice together with Gentile da Fabriano. In 1414, together with other Veneto illuminators, he worked at the Cornaro Codex, the panel of the Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine, signed Michelinus feci and housed in the National Gallery of Siena, dates to c. Another known panel from him is the Marriage of the Virgin now at the Metropolitan Museum of New York City, less precise is the dating of the Offiziolo Bodmer, another breviary. In 1418 he returned to Milan to work in the construction of the citys Duomo, in 1421 he was paid for the altar entitled to Saints Quiricus and Julietta, together with his son, Leonardo da Besozzo. Another commission given to Michelino were the drawings for the glasses of St. Julietta. A fresco depicting the Madonna with Child from c.1430 is in the Abbey of Viboldone, michelinos last known work is the fresco with the Procession of the Magi in the church of Santa Maria di Podone of Milan and fragments in the Rocca Borromeo di Angera. St. Luke Painting the Virgin by Michelino Molinari da Besozzo The Marriage of the Virgin by Michelino Molinari da Besozzo Christ in Majesty by Michelino Molinari da Besozzo
19.
Bergamo
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Bergamo is a city in Lombardy, Italy, about 40 km northeast of Milan and 30 km from the lakes Como and Iseo. The foothills of the Bergamo Alps begin immediately north of the town, Bergamo is the seat of the Province of Bergamo. With a population of around 120,000, Bergamo is the fourth-largest city in Lombardy, the metropolitan area of Bergamo extends beyond the administrative city limits, spanning over a densely urbanized area with slightly less than 500,000 inhabitants. The Bergamo metropolitan area is part of the broader Milan metropolitan area. As of 2015, Bergamo is the second most visited city in Lombardy after Milan, Bergamo occupies the site of the ancient town of Bergomum, founded as a settlement of the Celtic tribe of Cenomani. In 49 BC it became a Roman municipality, containing c.10,000 inhabitants at its peak, an important hub on the military road between Friuli and Raetia, it was destroyed by Attila in the 5th century. From the 6th century Bergamo was the seat of one of the most important Lombard duchies of northern Italy, together with Brescia, Trento, after the conquest of the Lombard Kingdom by Charlemagne, it became the seat of a county under one Auteramus. An important Lombardic hoard dating from the 6th to 7th centuries was found in the vicinity of the city in the 19th century and is now in the British Museum. From the 11th century onwards, Bergamo was an independent commune, the local Guelph and Ghibelline factions were the Colleoni and Suardi, respectively. Feuding between the two initially caused the family of Omodeo Tasso to flee north c, from 1264, Bergamo was intermittently under the rule of Milan. In 1331, it gave itself to John of Bohemia, after a short conquest by the Malatesta in 1407, in 1428 it fell under the control of the Venetian Republic, remaining part of it until 1797. Between 1797 and 1815, Bergamo and its territory were included in the political entities born in North Italy during the French, notably, the Venetians fortified the higher portion of the town. In 1815, it was assigned to the Austrian Empire, giuseppe Garibaldi freed it in 1859 during the Second Italian War of Independence, when Bergamo became part of the Kingdom of Italy. During the 20th century Bergamo became one of Italys most industrialized cities and it is also one of the few Italian cities that did not suffer major destruction during World War II. Bergamo experiences a subtropical climate characteristic of Northern Italy. While most of Italy is characterized by dry summers with little to no precipitation, Bergamo has the reverse trend, the two parts of the town are connected by funicular/cable car, roads, and foot-paths. Parking spaces are limited in the upper city. The upper city, surrounded by Venetian walls built in the 16th century, Città Alta is an extremely expensive place to live in, with properties being sold for five to twelve thousand euro per square meter
20.
Venice
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Venice is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is situated across a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and these are located in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay that lies between the mouths of the Po and the Piave Rivers. Parts of Venice are renowned for the beauty of their settings, their architecture, the lagoon and a part of the city are listed as a World Heritage Site. In 2014,264,579 people resided in Comune di Venezia, together with Padua and Treviso, the city is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, with a total population of 2.6 million. PATREVE is a metropolitan area without any degree of autonomy. The name is derived from the ancient Veneti people who inhabited the region by the 10th century BC, the city was historically the capital of the Republic of Venice. Venice has been known as the La Dominante, Serenissima, Queen of the Adriatic, City of Water, City of Masks, City of Bridges, The Floating City, and City of Canals. The City State of Venice is considered to have been the first real international financial center which gradually emerged from the 9th century to its peak in the 14th century and this made Venice a wealthy city throughout most of its history. It is also known for its several important artistic movements, especially the Renaissance period, Venice has played an important role in the history of symphonic and operatic music, and it is the birthplace of Antonio Vivaldi. Venice has been ranked the most beautiful city in the world as of 2016, the name Venetia, however, derives from the Roman name for the people known as the Veneti, and called by the Greeks Eneti. The meaning of the word is uncertain, although there are other Indo-European tribes with similar-sounding names, such as the Celtic Veneti, Baltic Veneti, and the Slavic Wends. Linguists suggest that the name is based on an Indo-European root *wen, so that *wenetoi would mean beloved, lovable, a connection with the Latin word venetus, meaning the color sea-blue, is also possible. The alternative obsolete form is Vinegia, some late Roman sources reveal the existence of fishermen on the islands in the original marshy lagoons. They were referred to as incolae lacunae, the traditional founding is identified with the dedication of the first church, that of San Giacomo on the islet of Rialto — said to have taken place at the stroke of noon on 25 March 421. Beginning as early as AD166 to 168, the Quadi and Marcomanni destroyed the center in the area. The Roman defences were again overthrown in the early 5th century by the Visigoths and, some 50 years later, New ports were built, including those at Malamocco and Torcello in the Venetian lagoon. The tribuni maiores, the earliest central standing governing committee of the islands in the Lagoon, the traditional first doge of Venice, Paolo Lucio Anafesto, was actually Exarch Paul, and his successor, Marcello Tegalliano, was Pauls magister militum. In 726 the soldiers and citizens of the Exarchate rose in a rebellion over the controversy at the urging of Pope Gregory II
21.
Francesco I Sforza
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Francesco I Sforza was an Italian condottiero, the founder of the Sforza dynasty in Milan, Italy, and was the fourth Duke of Milan from 1450 until his death. He was the brother of Alessandro, whom he fought alongside. Francesco Sforza was born in San Miniato, Tuscany, one of the seven sons of the condottiero Muzio Sforza. He spent his childhood in Tricarico, the marquisate of which he was granted in 1412 by King Ladislaus of Naples, in 1418, he married Polissena Ruffo, a Calabrese noblewoman. From 1419, he alongside his father, soon gaining fame for being able to bend metal bars with his bare hands. He later proved himself to be a tactician and very skilled field commander. After some successes, he fell in disgrace and was sent to the castle of Mortara as a de facto. He regained his status after leading an expedition against Lucca, in 1431, after a period during which he fought again for the Papal States, he led the Milanese army against Venice, the following year the dukes daughter, Bianca Maria, was betrothed to him. Despite these moves, the wary Filippo Maria never ceased to be distrustful of Sforza, in 1436-39, he served variously both Florence and Venice. In 1440, his fiefs in the Kingdom of Naples were occupied by King Alfonso I, on 25 October 1441, in Cremona, he could finally marry Bianca Maria. The following year, he allied with René of Anjou, pretender to the throne of Naples, Sforza later found himself warring against Francesco Piccinino and, later, the alliance of Visconti, Eugene IV, and Malatesta, who had allegedly murdered Polissena. With the help of Venice, Sforza was again victorious and, in exchange for abandoning the Venetians, after the duke died without a male heir in 1447, fighting broke out to restore the so-called Ambrosian Republic. The name Ambrosian Republic takes its name from St. Ambrose, agnese del Maino, his wifes mother, convinced the condottiero who held Pavia to restore it to him. He also received the seigniory of other cities of the duchy, including Lodi, in 1450, after years of famine, riots raged in the streets of Milan and the citys senate decided to entrust to him the duchy. Sforza entered the city as Duke on 26 February and it was the first time that such a title was handed over by a lay institution. While the other Italian states gradually recognized Sforza as the legitimate Duke of Milan and that did not come to the Sforza Dukes until 1494, when Emperor Maximilian formally invested Francescos son, Ludovico, as Duke of Milan. Under his rule, Sforza modernised the city and duchy, in Milan, he founded the Ospedale Maggiore, restored the Palazzo dellArengo, and had the Naviglio dAdda, a channel connecting with the Adda River, built. During Sforzas reign, Florence was under the command of Cosimo de Medici, after the peace, Sforza renounced part of the conquests in eastern Lombardy obtained by his condottieri Bartolomeo Colleoni, Ludovico Gonzaga, and Roberto Sanseverino after 1451
22.
Genoa
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Genoa is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015,594,733 people lived within the administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of Genoa, over 1.5 million people live in the wider metropolitan area stretching along the Italian Riviera. Genoa has been nicknamed la Superba due to its glorious past, part of the old town of Genoa was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2006. The citys rich history in notably its art, music. It is the birthplace of Christopher Columbus, Niccolò Paganini, Giuseppe Mazzini, Genoa, which forms the southern corner of the Milan-Turin-Genoa industrial triangle of north-west Italy, is one of the countrys major economic centres. The city has hosted massive shipyards and steelworks since the 19th century, the Bank of Saint George, founded in 1407, is among the oldest in the world and has played an important role in the citys prosperity since the middle of the 15th century. Today a number of leading Italian companies are based in the city, including Fincantieri, Selex ES, Ansaldo Energia, Ansaldo STS, Edoardo Raffinerie Garrone, Piaggio Aerospace, the Genoa area has been inhabited since the fifth or fourth millennium BC. In ancient times this area was frequented and inhabited by Ligures, Phoenicians, Phocaeans, Greeks, and Etruscans. The city cemetery, dating from the 6th and 5th centuries BC, testifies to the occupation of the site by the Greeks, but the fine harbour probably saw use much earlier, perhaps by the Etruscans. In the 5th century BC was founded the first oppidum at the foot of the today called the Castle Hill which now is inside the medieval old town. The ancient Ligurian city was known as Stalia, so referred to by Artemidorus Ephesius and Pomponius Mela, Ligurian Stalia was overshadowed by the powerful Marseille and Vada Sabatia, near modern Savona. Stalia had an alliance with Rome through a foedus aequum in the course of the Second Punic War, the Carthaginians accordingly destroyed it in 209 BC. The town was rebuilt and, after the Carthaginian Wars ended in 146 BC. it received municipal rights, the original castrum thenceforth expanded towards the current areas of Santa Maria di Castello and the San Lorenzo promontory. Trades included skins, wood, and honey, goods were shipped to the mainland, up to major cities like Tortona and Piacenza. Among the archeological remains from the Roman period, an amphitheatre was also found, another theory traces the name to the Etruscan word Kainua which means New City and still another from the Latin word ianua, related to the name of the God Janus, meaning door or passage. The latter is in reference to its position at the centre of the Ligurian coastal arch. The Latin name, oppidum Genua, is recorded by Pliny the Elder as part of the Augustean Regio IX Liguria, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Ostrogoths occupied Genoa
23.
Genoa Cathedral
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Genoa Cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral in the Italian city of Genoa. It is dedicated to Saint Lawrence, and is the seat of the Archbishop of Genoa, the cathedral was consecrated by Pope Gelasius II in 1118 and was built between the twelfth century and the fourteenth century as fundamentally a medieval building, with some later additions. The bell tower and dome were built in the sixteenth century, the cathedral was founded probably in the 5th or 6th century AD, devoted to Saint Sirus, bishop of Genoa. Later a church devoted to the Twelve Apostles was built, which was in turn flanked and replaced by a new cathedral dedicated to Saint Lawrence, money came from the successful enterprises of the Genoese fleets in the Crusades. The transferring of the cathedral favored the urbanization of the zone that, with the construction of its walls in 1155, the piazza, in the absence of other public squares and centers of lay power, was the citys only public space for the whole Middle Ages. The cathedral was consecrated by Pope Gelasius II in 1118, after the fire of 1296, provoked by fights between Guelphs and Ghibellines, the building was partly restored and partly rebuilt. Between 1307 and 1312 the façade was completed, the inner colonnades rebuilt with capitals, the Romanesque structures remained pretty untouched, and frescoes of religious subject were also added. Various altars and chapels have been erected between the 14th and 15th centuries, the small loggia on the north-eastern tower of the façade was built in 1455, the opposite one, in Mannerist style, is from 1522. The construction of the finished in the 17th century. The dome and the parts were restored in 1894-1900. The present 7 bells are tuned in the scale of C#. The church also contains 14th-century frescoes in the Byzantine style in the main portal, sculptural works include a statue in the chapel of St. John by Domenico Gagini, a Virgin and a St. John the Baptist by Andrea Sansovino. Other works include works by Matteo Civitali, Taddeo Carlone, the Museum of the Treasury lies under the cathedral and holds a collection of jewellery and silverware from 9 AD up to the present. The cathedral had an escape on February 9,1941. Because of an error, the British battleship HMS Malaya fired a 381 mm armour-piercing shell into the south-eastern corner of the nave. The relatively soft material failed to detonate the fuse and the shell is still there, la grande storia di Genova Enciclopedia. Efthalia Rentetzi, Gli affreschi bizantini nella cattedrale di Genova, una nuova lettura iconografica in“Arte |Documento”
24.
Policlinico of Milan
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The Ca Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico Foundation in Milan, traditionally known as the Policlinico of Milan, is one of the oldest hospitals in Italy, founded by Duke Francesco Sforza in 1456. Today it is a hospital with 900 beds, with wards for adults. There are three different emergency rooms for different categories of patients, the maternity ward has the highest number of births in Lombardy. The programs are concerned with the transfer of therapies from the laboratory to patients. He did so primarily to gain the affection of its people, entering Milan victorious on 25 March 1450, the Duke decided to dedicate a charitable institution to Annunciata. It was then that the new foundation became the Spedale della Nunciata, the completion of the cloisters and their ornamentation was carried out by Giovanni Antonio Amadeo, Solari’s son-in-law and pupil. Although the hospital was founded for the poor, it was from the outset a hospital where people with some hope of recovery were treated, chronic diseases were treated in hospitals outside the city. For this reason the Ospedale Maggiore has always been the centre of information in the city. At the beginning of the 20th century it was decided that the hospital would be moved to a location beyond the canal and this move coincided with the founding of the state University, which took over the old buildings of the Ca Granda, where it remains today. The Ospedale Maggiore moved to a vast area between the streets of Francesco Sforza, Porta Romana, Lamarmora and Commenda, the obstetrics and gynaecology department was the first to be inaugurated, by Luigi Mangiagalli, and the department still bears his name. At the time the hospital moved it had decided that a general hospital would be created in the area of Niguarda. This hospital was designed by Giò Ponti and inaugurated in 1932 and it kept the name Ca Granda, whilst the new general hospital took the name Ospedale Maggiore. Further additions to the institution included the San Carlo Borromeo di Milano. The institution was divided up, giving autonomy to the different institutes, whilst others were founded independently. In 1909 the Adelina brothers and Marco De Marchi founded the Asilo per le madri povere legittime Regina Elena, in 1957 it was converted into a specialist hospital and in 1968 it became the Regina Elena Institute of Obstetrics-Gynaecology and Paediatrics. From 1998 to 2004 the clinical Institutes of Faithful Improvement, Mangiagalli, in 2010 the name of the hospital was changed, reverting to the former Ca Granda. The organisation’s insignia used to bear the scene of the Annunciation, later it was simplified to a picture of the dove of the Holy Spirit. The heraldic representation, still the basis of the Foundation’s current logo, is linked with the Visconti symbol of the flaming
25.
Filarete
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Antonio di Pietro Averlino, also Averulino, known as Filarete, was a Florentine Renaissance architect, sculptor, medallist, and architectural theorist. He is perhaps best remembered for his design of the city of Sforzinda. Antonio di Pietro Averlino was born c.1400 in Florence where he trained as a craftsman. Sources suggest that he worked in Florence under the Italian painter, architect, and biographer Lorenzo Ghiberti, who gave him his more famous name “Filarete” which means “a lover of virtue”. In the mid 15th century, Filarete was expelled from Rome after being accused of attempting to steal the head of John the Baptist and he moved to Venice, there he became a ducal engineer and worked on a variety of architectural projects for the next fifteen years. According to his biographer, Vasari, Filarete died in Rome c, a commission granted by Pope Eugene IV meant that Filarete, over the course of twelve years, cast the bronze central doors for Old St. Peters Basilica in Rome, which were completed in 1445. Although they were created during the Renaissance, the doors have distinct Byzantine influences, in Milan Filarete built the Ospedale Maggiore, the overall form of which was rationally planned as a cross within a square, with the hospital church at the center of the plan. Some of the sections of the much-rebuilt structure show the Gothic detail of Milans quattrocento craft traditions. Filarete also worked on the Castello Sforzesco or Sforza Castle and on the Duomo di Milano or Milan Cathedral, Filarete completed his substantial book on architecture sometime around 1464, which he referred to as his Libro architettonico. Neither he nor his contemporaries ever referred to it as a Trattato. The Libro, which comprises twenty-five volumes, enjoyed a wide circulation in manuscript form during the Renaissance. The most well known and best preserved copy of the Libro is an illustrated manuscript known as the Codex Magliabechiano. The fact that the Codex Magliabechiano is dedicated to Piero de Medici and was conserved in Florence suggests that Filarete was well regarded in his native Florence despite his loyalty to Milan, Filarete argues instead for the use of classical Roman models. The most famous part of his book is his plan for Sforzinda, although Sforzinda was never built, certain aspects of its design are described in considerable detail. The basic layout of the city is an eight-point star, created by overlaying two squares so that all the corners were equidistant and this shape is then inscribed within a perfect circular moat. This shape is iconographic and probably ties to Filarete’s interest in magic, in terms of planning, each of the outer points of the star had towers, while the inner angles had gates. Each of the gates was an outlet of radial avenues that each passed through a market square, all the avenues finally converged in a large square which was centrally located. The town contained three squares – one for the palace, one for the cathredal, and one for the market
26.
Cosimo de' Medici
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Cosimo di Giovanni de Medici was an Italian banker and politician, the first of the Medici political dynasty, de facto rulers of Florence during much of the Italian Renaissance. His power derived from his wealth as a banker, and he was a patron of learning. Cosimo de Medici was born in Florence to Giovanni di Bicci de Medici and he had a twin brother, Damiano, who died shortly after birth. Cosimo also had a brother, Lorenzo the Elder, who was six years his junior. Cosimo inherited both his wealth and his expertise in banking from his father, Giovanni had gone from being a moneylender to joining the bank of his relative, Vieri di Cambio, before founding his own bank, Medici Bank, around 1397. Over the next two decades, the Medici Bank opened branches in Rome, Geneva, Venice, and temporarily in Naples, the branch manager in Rome was a papal depositario generale, managing Church finances in return for a commission. In fifteen years he would make a profit of 290,791 florins, in 1415, Cosimo allegedly accompanied the Antipope John XXIII at the Council of Constance, and in the same year he was named Priore of the Republic. Later he acted frequently as ambassador, showing a prudence for which he became renowned and this gave the Medici family tremendous power, allowing them to threaten defaulting debtors with excommunication, for instance. However, after the Spini Bank went insolvent in 1420, they again secured priority, Giovanni withdrew from the bank in 1420, leaving its leadership to both of his sons. He left them 179,221 florins upon his death in 1429, two-thirds of this came from the business in Rome, while only a tenth came from Florence, even Venice offered better business than Florence. The brothers would earn two-thirds of the profits from the bank, besides the bank, the family owned much land in the area surrounding Florence, including Mugello, the place from which the family originally came. Cosimos power over Florence stemmed from his wealth, which he used to control votes, as Florence was proud of its democracy, he pretended to have little political ambition and did not often hold public office. Enea Piccolomini, Bishop of Siena and later Pope Pius II, said of him, the man he chooses holds office. He it is who decides peace and war and he is king in all but name. Venice sent an envoy to Florence on his behalf, requested they rescind the order of banishment, when they refused, Cosimo settled down in Venice, his brother Lorenzo accompanying him. Cosimo returned a year later in 1434, to influence the government of Florence. Cosimos time in exile instilled in him the need to squash the factionalism that resulted in his exile in the first place. In order to do this, Cosimo, with the help of favorable priors in the Signoria, the Milanese made a brief attempt at democracy before Sforza finally was acclaimed duke by the city in February 1450
27.
Trajan
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Trajan was Roman emperor from 98 to 117 AD. Born in the city of Italica in the province of Hispania Baetica, Trajans non-patrician family was of Italian, Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a legatus legionis in Hispania Tarraconensis, in 89 Trajan supported Domitian against a revolt on the Rhine led by Antonius Saturninus, in September 96, Domitian was succeeded by Marcus Cocceius Nerva, an old and childless senator who proved to be unpopular with the army. After a brief and tumultuous year in power, culminating in a revolt by members of the Praetorian Guard, Nerva was compelled to adopt the more popular Trajan as his heir and he died on 27 January 98 and was succeeded by his adopted son without incident. Early in his reign, he annexed the Nabataean Kingdom, creating the province of Arabia Petraea and his conquest of Dacia enriched the empire greatly, as the new province possessed many valuable gold mines. However, its position north of the Danube made it susceptible to attack on three sides, and it was later abandoned by Emperor Aurelian. Trajans war against the Parthian Empire ended with the sack of the capital Ctesiphon and his campaigns expanded the Roman Empire to its greatest territorial extent. In late 117, while sailing back to Rome, Trajan fell ill and he was deified by the Senate and his ashes were laid to rest under Trajans Column. He was succeeded by his adopted son Hadrian, as an emperor, Trajans reputation has endured – he is one of the few rulers whose reputation has survived nineteen centuries. Every new emperor after him was honoured by the Senate with the wish felicior Augusto, among medieval Christian theologians, Trajan was considered a virtuous pagan. As far as ancient literary sources are concerned, an extant continuous account of Trajans reign does not exist, only fragments remain of the Getiká, a book by Trajans personal physician Titos Statilios Kriton. The Parthiká, a 17-volume account of the Parthian Wars written by Arrian, has met a similar fate, book 68 in Cassius Dios Roman History, which survives mostly as Byzantine abridgments and epitomes, is the main source for the political history of Trajans rule. Besides this, Pliny the Youngers Panegyricus and Dio of Prusas orations are the best surviving contemporary sources and it is certain that much of text of the letters that appear in this collection over Trajans signature was written and/or edited by Trajans Imperial secretary, his ab epistulis. Therefore, discussion of Trajan and his rule in modern historiography cannot avoid speculation, as well as recourse to sources such as archaeology. Marcus Ulpius Traianus was born on 18 September 53 AD in the Roman province of Hispania Baetica, Trajans birthplace of Italica was founded as a Roman military colony in 206 BC, though it is unknown when the Ulpii arrived there. Trajan was the son of Marcia, a Roman noblewoman and sister-in-law of the second Flavian Emperor Titus, and Marcus Ulpius Traianus, Marcus Ulpius Traianus the elder served Vespasian in the First Jewish-Roman War, commanding the Legio X Fretensis. Trajan himself was just one of many well-known Ulpii in a line that continued long after his own death and his elder sister was Ulpia Marciana, and his niece was Salonina Matidia. The patria of the Ulpii was Italica, in Spanish Baetica, as a young man, he rose through the ranks of the Roman army, serving in some of the most contested parts of the Empires frontier
28.
Wallace Collection
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The collection opened to permanent public view in 1900 in Hertford House, and remains there to this day. A condition of the bequest was that no object should ever leave the collection, the Wallace Collection is a non-departmental public body. The Collection numbers nearly 5,500 objects and is best known for its quality and breadth of eighteenth-century French paintings, Sèvres porcelain and French furniture. His father Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, brother of Queen Jane Seymour, had started building the palatial Somerset House on the Strand as his townhouse, the present House in Manchester Square was the townhouse of a later branch of the family. The Wallace Restaurant is now run by Peyton and Byrne as a French-style brasserie, the Wallace Collections Old Master paintings represent some of the finest works of art in the world, executed by most of the leading artists of their period. The paintings include important works from all periods between the fourteenth to the mid-nineteenth century, strengths of the collection include examples by Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyck, Canaletto, Gainsborough, François Boucher, Fragonard, Murillo, Titian, Poussin and Velázquez. The inventory of pictures, watercolours and drawings comprises all the major European schools. M. W, the Wallace Collection contains the richest and most distinguished museum collections of eighteenth-century Sèvres porcelain in the world. It includes 137 vases,80 tea wares,67 useful wares,3 biscuit figures and 130 plaques, one highlight of the collection is the major collection of furniture attributed to André-Charles Boulle, perhaps the best-known cabinet-maker ever to have lived. Joseph Baumhauer –1 item, Bas darmoire, c, 1765–1770, André-Charles Boulle –22 items, Armoire, c. 1700–10, Cabinet avec son pied, c,1667, Cartonnier et pendule, c.1715, Commode, c. 1710, Paire de grande table, c,1713, Paire de coffre de toilette, c. 1720–25, Table à mettre dans un trumeau, c,1705, Martin Carlin –4 items, Paire de Encoignures, c. 1783, Adrien Delorme –2 items, Paire de bibliothèque basse Étienne Doirat –1 item, Commode,1720, Étienne Levasseur –5 items, Grande Bibliothèque, c. 1775, Paire de bibliothèque basse, c.1775 Paire de meubles à hauteur deappui, c.1775 Alexandre-Jean Oppenord –3 items, Bureau plat,1710, Commode, c. 1710, Jean Henri Riesener –10 items, Commode, delivered to Marie-Antoinettes cabinet intérieur de la reine at Versailles,1780, Commode, delivered to Marie-Antoinette for Chateau de Marly, c. 1782, Encoignure, delivered to Marie-Antoinettes cabinet intérieur at Versailles,1783, Secrétaire à abattant, delivered to Marie-Antoinettes cabinet intérieur at Versailles, c. 1783, Secrétaire à abattant, delivered to Marie-Antoinettes Petit Triannon at Versailles,1783, Secrétaire à abattant, delivered to Marie-Antoinettes cabinet intérieur at Versailles, c. 1780, Bureau à cylindre, delivered to the comte dOrsay for the Hôtel dOrsay, 1785–90 Media related to Wallace Collection at Wikimedia Commons Official website
29.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
30.
Gian Galeazzo Sforza
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Gian Galeazzo Sforza, also known as Giovan Galeazzo Sforza, was the sixth Duke of Milan. Born in Abbiategrasso, he was seven years old when in 1476 his father, Galeazzo Maria Sforza, was assassinated. His uncle, Ludovico Sforza, acted as regent to the young duke, Ludovico later became the duke after Gian Galeazzos death, which was widely viewed as suspicious. In February 1489, Gian Galeazzo married his cousin Princess Isabella of Naples, nor was there anyone who doubted that if it had been poison, it had been administered through his uncle Ludovico Sforzas machinations …
31.
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
32.
Cicero
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Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman philosopher, politician, lawyer, orator, political theorist, consul, and constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy family of the Roman equestrian order. According to Michael Grant, the influence of Cicero upon the history of European literature, Cicero introduced the Romans to the chief schools of Greek philosophy and created a Latin philosophical vocabulary distinguishing himself as a translator and philosopher. Though he was an orator and successful lawyer, Cicero believed his political career was his most important achievement. During the chaotic latter half of the 1st century BC marked by civil wars, following Julius Caesars death, Cicero became an enemy of Mark Antony in the ensuing power struggle, attacking him in a series of speeches. His severed hands and head were then, as a revenge of Mark Antony. Petrarchs rediscovery of Ciceros letters is often credited for initiating the 14th-century Renaissance in public affairs, humanism, according to Polish historian Tadeusz Zieliński, the Renaissance was above all things a revival of Cicero, and only after him and through him of the rest of Classical antiquity. Cicero was born in 106 BC in Arpinum, a hill town 100 kilometers southeast of Rome and his father was a well-to-do member of the equestrian order and possessed good connections in Rome. However, being a semi-invalid, he could not enter public life, although little is known about Ciceros mother, Helvia, it was common for the wives of important Roman citizens to be responsible for the management of the household. Ciceros brother Quintus wrote in a letter that she was a thrifty housewife, Ciceros cognomen, or personal surname, comes from the Latin for chickpea, cicer. Plutarch explains that the name was given to one of Ciceros ancestors who had a cleft in the tip of his nose resembling a chickpea. However, it is likely that Ciceros ancestors prospered through the cultivation. Romans often chose down-to-earth personal surnames, the family names of Fabius, Lentulus, and Piso come from the Latin names of beans, lentils. Plutarch writes that Cicero was urged to change this name when he entered politics. During this period in Roman history, cultured meant being able to speak both Latin and Greek, Cicero used his knowledge of Greek to translate many of the theoretical concepts of Greek philosophy into Latin, thus translating Greek philosophical works for a larger audience. It was precisely his broad education that tied him to the traditional Roman elite, according to Plutarch, Cicero was an extremely talented student, whose learning attracted attention from all over Rome, affording him the opportunity to study Roman law under Quintus Mucius Scaevola. Ciceros fellow students were Gaius Marius Minor, Servius Sulpicius Rufus, the latter two became Ciceros friends for life, and Pomponius would become, in Ciceros own words, as a second brother, with both maintaining a lifelong correspondence. Cicero wanted to pursue a career in politics along the steps of the Cursus honorum
33.
Basilica of Sant'Eustorgio
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The Basilica of SantEustorgio is a church in Milan in northern Italy, which is in the Basilicas Park city park. It was for years an important stop for pilgrims on their journey to Rome or to the Holy Land. In 1764, when an ancient pillar was removed, a Christian burial was discovered, housing coins of emperor Constans, the church was later rebuilt in Romanesque style. In the 12th century, when Milan was sacked by Frederick Barbarossa and it was only in 1903/4 that fragments of the bones and garments were sent back to SantEustorgios. Nowadays they are in the Three Kings altar nearby the empty Three Kings sarcophagus, still today, in memory of the Three Kings, the bell tower is surmounted by a star instead of the traditional cross. From the 13th century the church was the main Milanese seat of the Dominican Order, the current façade is a 19th-century reconstruction. The interior has a nave and two aisles, covered with groin vaults, of the Romanesque church only parts of the apse remain, while of the original Early Christian building, remains have been excavated also under the apse. To the right side of the nave, the church has chapels commissioned from the 14th century onwards by the families of the city. The first from the entrance is of the 15th century and has a Renaissance sepulchre, the three others are more ancient, having frescoes of the Giotto school and tombs of members of the Visconti family. The high altar is a marble polyptych of the early 15th century, while a similar work is in the right transept. Also noteworthy are a Crucifixion on a table by a Venetian artist of the 13th century, behind the apse is the most striking feature of the church, the Portinari Chapel, one of the most celebrated examples of Renaissance art in Lombardy. It has frescoes by Vincenzo Foppa and a marble sepulchre by Giovanni di Balduccio, the Chapel also houses an important Dominican monument, the Ark of Saint Peter of Verona, which is replete with marble bass-relief images by the sculptor, Giovanni di Balduccio. Stefano Visconti Bonacossa Borri Matteo I Visconti Official website
34.
Peter of Verona
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Saint Peter of Verona O. P. also known as Saint Peter Martyr, was a 13th-century Italian Catholic priest. He was a Dominican friar and a celebrated preacher and he served as Inquisitor in Lombardy, was killed by an assassin, and was canonized as a Catholic saint 11 months after his death, making this the fastest canonization in history. Thomas Agni of Leontino, Dominican archbishop of Cosenza, and later patriarch of Jerusalem, was the first to write a life of the blessed martyr and he lived for many years with Peter of Verona and had been his superior. He was born in the city of Verona into a family perhaps sympathetic to the Cathar heresy. Peter went to a Catholic school, and later to the University of Bologna, Peter joined the Order of the Friars Preachers and became a celebrated preacher throughout northern and central Italy. From the 1230s on, Peter preached against heresy, and especially Catharism, Pope Gregory IX appointed him General Inquisitor for northern Italy in 1234. and Peter evangelized nearly the whole of Italy, preaching in Rome, Florence, Bologna, Genoa, and Como. In 1243 he recommended the new Servite foundation to the pope for approval, in 1251, Pope Innocent IV recognized Peters virtues, and appointed him Inquisitor in Lombardy. He spent about six months in office and it is unclear whether he was ever involved in any trials. His one recorded act was a declaration of clemency for those confessing heresy or sympathy to heresy, in his sermons he denounced heresy and also those Catholics who professed the Faith by words, but acted contrary to it in deeds. Crowds came to him and followed him, conversions were numerous. Because of this, a group of Milanese Cathars conspired to kill him and they hired an assassin, one Carino of Balsamo. Carinos accomplice was Manfredo Clitoro of Giussano, Carino struck Peters head with an axe and then attacked Domenico. Peter rose to his knees, and recited the first article of the Symbol of the Apostles. Offering his blood as a sacrifice to God, according to legend, he dipped his fingers in it and wrote on the ground, Credo in Unum Deum, the first words of the Nicene Creed. The blow that killed him cut off the top of his head, Dominic was carried to Meda, where he died five days afterwards. According to Dominican tradition Peter often conversed with the saints, including the virgin-martyrs Catherine, Agnes, once, when preaching to a vast crowd under the burning sun, the heretics challenged him to procure shade for his listeners. As he prayed, a cloud overshadowed the audience, Peters body was carried to Milan and laid in the Church of SantEustorgio, where an ornate mausoleum, the work of Balduccio Pisano, was erected to his memory. Since the eighteenth century this has been located in the Portinari Chapel, many miracles were attributed to him while alive, and even more after his martyrdom
35.
Galeazzo Maria Sforza
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Galeazzo Maria Sforza was the fifth Duke of Milan from 1466 until his death. He was famous for being lustful, cruel and tyrannical and he was born to Francesco Sforza, a popular condottiero and ally of Cosimo de Medici who would gain the Duchy of Milan in 1450, and Bianca Maria Visconti. He married into the Gonzaga family, on the death of his first wife Dorotea Gonzaga, Galeazzo Maria Sforza was born in Fermo, near the familys castle of Girifalco, the first son of Francesco Sforza and Bianca Maria Visconti. At the death of his father, Galeazzo was in France at the head of an expedition to help King Louis XI of France against Charles I of Burgundy. Called back home by his mother, Galeazzo returned to Italy by a trip under a false name. The false identity was necessary as he had to pass by the territories of the enemy, the Duke of Savoy. He entered Milan on 20 March, acclaimed by the populace, in his first years Galeazzo and his mother ruled jointly, but later his ruthless character pushed him to oust Bianca Maria from Milan. Sforza was famous as a patron of music, under his direction, financial backing and encouragement, his chapel grew into one of the most famous and historically significant musical ensembles in Europe. Composers from the north, especially the Franco-Flemish composers from the present-day Low Countries, came to sing in his chapel and write masses, motets, some of the figures associated with the Sforza chapel include Alexander Agricola, Johannes Martini, Loyset Compère, and Gaspar van Weerbeke. However, most of the singers at the Sforza chapel fled after Galeazzos murder and took positions elsewhere, as a result, Galeazzo Sforza is also known to have had a cruel streak. He was a womanizer who often passed his women on to his courtiers once he was tired of them. Sforza once had a poacher executed by forcing him to swallow an entire hare and he also had a priest who predicted a short reign for Sforza punished by being starved to death. This made him enemies in Milan. There were three principal assassins involved in Sforzas death, Carlo Visconti, Gerolamo Olgiati and Giovanni Andrea Lampugnani, Lampugnani, descended from Milanese nobility, is recognized as the leader of the conspiracy. His motives were based primarily on a dispute, in which Galeazzo had failed to intervene in a matter which saw the Lampugnani family lose considerable properties. Visconti and Olgiati also bore the duke enmity - Olgiati was a Republican idealist, supported by about thirty friends, the three men waited in the church for the duke to arrive for mass. When Galeazzo Sforza arrived, Lampugnani knelt before him, after words were exchanged, Lampugnani rose suddenly and stabbed Sforza in the groin. Olgiati and Visconti soon joined in, as did a servant of Lampugnanis, Sforza was dead within a matter of seconds
36.
Monza
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Monza listen is a city and comune on the River Lambro, a tributary of the Po in the Lombardy region of Italy, about 15 kilometres north-northeast of Milan. It is the capital of the Province of Monza and Brianza, Monza is best known for its Grand Prix motor racing circuit, the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, which hosts the Formula One Italian Grand Prix. On 11 June 2004 Monza was designated the capital of the new province of Monza and Brianza, the new administrative arrangement came fully into effect in summer 2009, previously, Monza was a comune within the province of Milan. Monza is the third-largest city of Lombardy and is the most important economic, industrial and administrative centre of the Brianza area, supporting a textile industry, Monza also hosts a Department of the University of Milan Bicocca, a Court of Justice and several offices of regional administration. Monza Park is one of the largest urban parks in Europe, Monza is located in the high plains of Lombardy, between Brianza and Milan, at an altitude of 162 metres above sea level. It is 15 kilometres from the centre of the capital, although when considering the cities borders. Monza is about 40 km from Lecco and Como, Monza shares its position with Milan in the same metro area, and is a big part of its new province. Monza is crossed north to south by the River Lambro. The river enters Monza from the north, between Via Aliprandi and Via Zanzi streets and this is an artificial fork of the river, created for defensive purposes in the early decades of the 14th century. The fork is known as Lambretto and it rejoins the main course of the Lambro as it exits to the south, another artificial stream is the Canale Villoresi, which was constructed in the late 19th century. Precipitation is abundant, with most occurring in the autumn and the least in winter and summer, despite this, during the Roman Empire, Monza was known as Modicia. During the 3rd century BCE, the Romans subdued the Insubres, a Gallo-Celtic tribe, perhaps the Insubres themselves, founded a village on the Lambro. The ruins of a Roman bridge named Ponte dArena can be seen near todays Ponte dei Leoni, Theodelinda, daughter of Garibald I of Bavaria and wife of the Lombard king Authari, chose Monza as her summer residence. Here in 595 she founded an oraculum dedicated to St. John the Baptist, according to this legend, the medieval name of Monza, Modoetia, is derived from these two words. She also had a palace built here, berengar I of Italy located his headquarters in Monza. A fortified castrum was constructed to resist the incursions of the Hungarians, under Berengars reign, Monza enjoyed a certain degree of independence, it had its own system of weights and measures, and could also seize property and mark the deeds with their signatures. Berengar was very evident by the donation of numerous works to the Monza Cathedral, including the famous cross. In 980 Monza hosted Emperor Otto II inside the walled city, the Glossary of Monza, one of the earliest examples of the evolution of Italian language, probably dates to the early 10th century
37.
Donatello
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Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi, better known as Donatello, was an early Renaissance sculptor from Florence. He worked with stone, bronze, wood, clay, stucco and wax, and had several assistants, with four perhaps being a typical number. Though his best-known works were mostly statues in the round, he developed a new, very shallow, type of bas-relief for small works, and a good deal of his output was larger architectural reliefs. Donatello was the son of Niccolò di Betto Bardi, who was a member of the Florentine Arte della Lana, Donatello was educated in the house of the Martelli family. He apparently received his artistic training in a goldsmiths workshop. While undertaking study and excavations with Filippo Brunelleschi in Rome, work that gained the two men the reputation of treasure seekers, Donatello made a living by working at goldsmiths shops. In 1409–1411 he executed the colossal seated figure of Saint John the Evangelist, which until 1588 occupied a niche of the old cathedral façade and this work marks a decisive step forward from late Gothic Mannerism in the search for naturalism and the rendering of human feelings. The face, the shoulders and the bust are still idealized, while the hands, in 1411–13, Donatello worked on a statue of St. Mark for the guild church of Orsanmichele. In 1417 he completed the Saint George for the Confraternity of the Cuirass-makers, the elegant St. George and the Dragon relief on the statues base, executed in schiacciato is one of the first examples of central-point perspective in sculpture. From 1423 is the Saint Louis of Toulouse for the Orsanmichele, Donatello had also sculpted the classical frame for this work, which remains, while the statue was moved in 1460 and replaced by Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Verrocchio. Between 1415 and 1426, Donatello created five statues for the campanile of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, also known as the Duomo. These works are the Beardless Prophet, Bearded Prophet, the Sacrifice of Isaac, Habbakuk, and Jeremiah, from the late teens is the Pazzi Madonna relief in Berlin. In 1425, he executed the notable Crucifix for Santa Croce, this work portrays Christ in a moment of the agony, eyes and mouth partially opened, the body contracted in an ungraceful posture. From 1425 to 1427, Donatello collaborated with Michelozzo on the monument of the Antipope John XXIII for the Battistero in Florence. Donatello made the recumbent bronze figure of the deceased, under a shell, in 1427, he completed in Pisa a marble relief for the funerary monument of Cardinal Rainaldo Brancacci at the church of SantAngelo a Nilo in Naples. In the same period, he executed the relief of the Feast of Herod, the relief is mostly in stiacciato, with the foreground figures are done in bas-relief. Around 1430, Cosimo de Medici, the foremost art patron of his era and this is now Donatellos most famous work, and the first known free-standing nude statue produced since antiquity. Also from this period is the disquietingly small Love-Atys, housed in the Bargello, some have perceived the David as having homo-erotic qualities, and have argued that this reflected the artists own orientation
38.
Mary, mother of Jesus
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Mary, also known by various titles, styles and honorifics, was a 1st-century Galilean Jewish woman of Nazareth and the mother of Jesus, according to the New Testament and the Quran. The gospels of Matthew and Luke in the New Testament and the Quran describe Mary as a virgin, the miraculous birth took place when she was already betrothed to Joseph and was awaiting the concluding rite of marriage, the formal home-taking ceremony. She married Joseph and accompanied him to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, the Gospel of Luke begins its account of Marys life with the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel appeared to her and announced her divine selection to be the mother of Jesus. According to canonical gospel accounts, Mary was present at the crucifixion and is depicted as a member of the early Christian community in Jerusalem. According to the Catholic and Orthodox teaching, at the end of her life her body was assumed directly into Heaven. Mary has been venerated since Early Christianity, and is considered by millions to be the most meritorious saint of the religion and she is claimed to have miraculously appeared to believers many times over the centuries. The Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran churches believe that Mary, there is significant diversity in the Marian beliefs and devotional practices of major Christian traditions. The Roman Catholic Church holds distinctive Marian dogmas, namely her status as the Mother of God, her Immaculate Conception, her perpetual virginity, many Protestants minimize Marys role within Christianity, based on the argued brevity of biblical references. Mary also has a position in Islam, where one of the longer chapters of the Quran is devoted to her. Marys name in the manuscripts of the New Testament was based on her original Aramaic name ܡܪܝܡ. The English name Mary comes from the Greek Μαρία, which is a form of Μαριάμ. Both Μαρία and Μαριάμ appear in the New Testament, in Christianity, Mary is commonly referred to as the Virgin Mary, in accordance with the belief that she conceived Jesus miraculously through the Holy Spirit without her husbands involvement. The three main titles for Mary used by the Orthodox are Theotokos, Aeiparthenos as confirmed in the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, Catholics use a wide variety of titles for Mary, and these titles have in turn given rise to many artistic depictions. For example, the title Our Lady of Sorrows has inspired such masterpieces as Michelangelos Pietà, the title Theotokos was recognized at the Council of Ephesus in 431. However, this phrase in Greek, in the abbreviated form ΜΡ ΘΥ, is an indication commonly attached to her image in Byzantine icons. The Council stated that the Church Fathers did not hesitate to speak of the holy Virgin as the Mother of God, some Marian titles have a direct scriptural basis. For instance, the title Queen Mother has been given to Mary since she was the mother of Jesus, the scriptural basis for the term Queen can be seen in Luke 1,32 and the Isaiah 9,6. Queen Mother can be found in 1 Kings 2, 19-20 and Jeremiah 13, other titles have arisen from reported miracles, special appeals or occasions for calling on Mary
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Jesus
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In Christology, the Person of Christ refers to the study of the human and divine natures of Jesus Christ as they co-exist within one person. There is no discussion in the New Testament regarding the dual nature of the Person of Christ as both divine and human. Hence, since the days of Christianity theologians have debated various approaches to the understanding of these natures. In the period following the Apostolic Age, specific beliefs such as Arianism and Docetism were criticized. On the other end of the spectrum, Docetism argued that Jesus physical body was an illusion, docetic teachings were attacked by St. Ignatius of Antioch and were eventually abandoned by proto-orthodox Christians. However, after the First Council of Nicaea in 325 the Logos, historically in the Alexandrian school of christology, Jesus Christ is the eternal Logos paradoxically humanized in history, a divine Person who became enfleshed, uniting himself to the human nature. The views of these schools can be summarized as follows, Alexandria, Antioch, Logos assumes a specific human being The First Council of Ephesus in 431 debated a number of views regarding the Person of Christ. At the same gathering the council debated the doctrines of monophysitism or miaphysitism. The council rejected Nestorianism and adopted the term hypostatic union, referring to divine, the language used in the 431 declaration was further refined at the 451 Council of Chalcedon. However, the Chalcedon creed was not accepted by all Christians, because Saint Augustine died in 430 he did not participate in the Council of Ephesus in 431 or Chalcedon in 451, but his ideas had some impact on both councils. On the other hand, the major theological figure of the Middle Ages. The Third Council of Constantinople in 680 held that both divine and human wills exist in Jesus, with the divine will having precedence, leading and guiding the human will. John Calvin maintained that there was no element in the Person of Christ which could be separated from the person of The Word. Calvin also emphasized the importance of the Work of Christ in any attempt at understanding the Person of Christ, the study of the Person of Christ continued into the 20th century, with modern theologians such as Karl Rahner and Hans von Balthasar. Balthasar argued that the union of the human and divine natures of Christ was achieved not by the absorption of human attributes, thus in his view the divine nature of Christ was not affected by the human attributes and remained forever divine
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Saint Sebastian
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Saint Sebastian was an early Christian saint and martyr. According to Christian belief, he was killed during the Roman emperor Diocletians persecution of Christians and he is commonly depicted in art and literature tied to a post or tree and shot with arrows. Despite this being the most common depiction of Sebastian, he was, according to legend. Shortly afterwards he went to Diocletian to warn him about his sins and he is venerated in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. The details of Saint Sebastians martyrdom were first spoken of by 4th -century bishop Ambrose of Milan, Ambrose stated that Sebastian came from Milan and that he was already venerated there at that time. Saint Sebastian is a male saint, especially among athletes. In 283, Sebastian entered the army in Rome under Emperor Carinus to assist the martyrs, because of his courage he became one of the captains of the Praetorian Guards under Diocletian and Maximian, who were unaware that he was a Christian. According to tradition, Marcus and Marcellian were twin brothers from a family and were deacons. Both brothers married, and they resided in Rome with their wives, the brothers refused to sacrifice to the Roman gods and were arrested. They were visited by their parents Tranquillinus and Martia in prison, Sebastian succeeded in converting Tranquillinus and Martia, as well as Saint Tiburtius, the son of Chromatius, the local prefect. Another official, Nicostratus, and his wife Zoe were also converted and it has been said that Zoe had been a mute for six years, however, she made known to Sebastian her desire to be converted to Christianity. As soon as she had, her returned to her. Nicostratus then brought the rest of the prisoners, these 16 persons were converted by Sebastian, Chromatius and Tiburtius converted, Chromatius set all of his prisoners free from jail, resigned his position, and retired to the country in Campania. Marcus and Marcellian, after being concealed by a Christian named Castulus, were martyred, as were Nicostratus, Zoe. Sebastian had prudently concealed his faith, but in 286 was detected, Diocletian reproached him for his supposed betrayal, and he commanded him to be led to a field and there to be bound to a stake so that certain archers from Mauritania would shoot arrows at him. And the archers shot at him till he was as full of arrows as an urchin is full of pricks, miraculously, the arrows did not kill him. The widow of Castulus, Irene of Rome, went to retrieve his body to bury it and she brought him back to her house and nursed him back to health. Sebastian later stood by a staircase where the emperor was to pass, Sebastian was said to be a defense against the plague
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Savona
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Savona listen is a seaport and comune in the northern Italian region of Liguria, capital of the Province of Savona, in the Riviera di Ponente on the Mediterranean Sea. Savona used to be one of the seats of the Italian iron industry, having iron-works and foundries, shipbuilding, railway workshops, engineering shops. One of the most celebrated former inhabitants of Savona was the navigator Christopher Columbus, columbuss house, a cottage situated in the Savona hills, lay between vegetable crops and fruit trees. It is one of residences in Liguria associated with Columbus. Inhabited in ancient times by Ligures tribes, it came under Roman influence in c.180 BC, at the fall of the Western Roman Empire, it passed under Lombard rule in 641 AD after a short period as an Ostrogoth and then Byzantine possession. Later it recovered as county seat in the Carolingian Empire, in the 10th century its bishops were counts of Savona, but later the countship passed to the marquesses of Monferrato and afterwards to the marquesses Del Vasto. After a long struggle against the Saracens, Savona acquired independence in the 11th century, Savona was the center of religious culture due to the work of two important monasteries, Dominican and Franciscan. Subsequently, it fought against Genoa before being conquered in 1528. The Genoese destroyed the town and buried the port. It then shared the fortunes of the Republic of Genoa until Napoleonic times, in 1809 the city received Pope Pius VII, prisoner of Napoleon Bonaparte, for a few years. Between April and mid-May 1800, Austrian forces besieged the city while a small British naval force maintained a blockade, subsequently, Savona was annexed to the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont. Eventually, it part of unified Italy. The Cattedrale dellAssunta, built after Genoese demolition of the old cathedral and it kept the relics of Saint Valentine. The construction was commissioned by Giovanni DAria and his brother Michele, the chapel is architecturally similar to the chapel dedicated to the Cardinal Pietro Riario in the Basilica of the Santi Apostoli, Rome. After years of deterioration, in 1765-1767 a reconstruction was ordered by the Genovese Doge Francesco Maria Della Rovere and this updated the chapel in a Rococo style, with ceiling painted by Paolo Gerolamo Brusco. The Cathedral has a noteworthy 16th-century carved wooden choir seats, the church of Nostra Signora di Castello has a large altarpiece by Vincenzo Foppa and Ludovico Brea painted in 1490. The Sanctuary of Nostra Signora della Misericordia, the Torre Leon Pancaldo, built in the 14th century and also known as Torretta, is the symbol of the town. The Torre del Brandale, also known as Campanassa and towers Corsi, the Priamar fortress, built by the Genoese in 1542 after their conquest of Savona, on the area of the old cathedral and old city and later used as a prison and military priso
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Pope Julius II
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Pope Julius II, nicknamed The Fearsome Pope and The Warrior Pope, born Giuliano della Rovere, was Pope from 1 November 1503 to his death in 1513. In addition to a military policy, he personally led troops into battle on at least two occasions. There is disagreement about Juliuss year of birth, for some sources put it as late as 1453, Giuliano della Rovere was the son of Rafaello della Rovere. Francesco della Rovere was his uncle and he was educated among the Franciscans by his uncle, who took him under his special charge and later sent him to a Franciscan friary in Perugia with the purpose of obtaining knowledge of the sciences. After his uncle was elected Pope Sixtus IV, della Rovere was promoted to be cardinal, taking the title as that formerly held by his uncle. With his uncle he obtained great influence, and in addition to the archbishopric of Avignon he held no fewer than eight bishoprics, including Lausanne from 1472. In June 1474, della Rovere led an army to Todi and Spoleto, around this time, in 1483, an illegitimate daughter was born, Felice della Rovere. Della Rovere, jealous and angry, accused Borgia of being elected over him, in 1494 he joined Charles VIII of France who was undertaking a military expedition into Italy. This was, in Andrew Greeleys view, almost certainly by means of bribery with money, but also, per Ott, Ullman, and Hughes, with promises. Giuliano Della Rovere thenceforth took the name of his fourth century predecessor, Julius I, indeed, on the day of his election, he declared I will not live in the same rooms as the Borgias lived. He desecrated the Holy Church as none before and he usurped the papal power by the devils aid, and I forbid under the pain of excommunication anyone to speak or think of Borgia again. His name and memory must be forgotten and it must be crossed out of every document and memorial. All paintings made of the Borgias or for them must be covered over with black crepe, all the tombs of the Borgias must be opened and their bodies sent back to where they belong—to Spain. The Borgias apartments remained sealed until the 19th Century, the combination was, however, at first little more than nominal, and was not immediately effective in compelling the Venetians to deliver up more than a few unimportant places in the Romagna. With a campaign in 1506, he led an army to Perugia and Bologna. The refusal of Pope Clement VII to grant the annulment led to the English Reformation, the same year, he founded the Swiss Guard to provide a constant corps of soldiers to protect the Pope. On Palm Sunday,1507, Julius II entered Rome, both as a second Julius Caesar, heir to the majesty of Romes imperial glory, and in the likeness of Christ, whose vicar the pope was, and who in that capacity governed the universal Roman Church. Julius, who modelled himself after his namesake Caesar, would lead his army across the Italian peninsula under the imperial war-cry
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Andrea Mantegna
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Andrea Mantegna was an Italian painter, a student of Roman archeology, and son-in-law of Jacopo Bellini. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with perspective and his flinty, metallic landscapes and somewhat stony figures give evidence of a fundamentally sculptural approach to painting. He also led a workshop that was the producer of prints in Venice before 1500. Mantegna was born in Isola di Carturo, Republic of Venice close to Padua, second son of a carpenter, at the age of eleven he became the apprentice of Francesco Squarcione, Paduan painter. Squarcione, whose vocation was tailoring, appears to have had a remarkable enthusiasm for ancient art. All the while, he continued undertaking works on commission for which his pupils no less than himself were made available, as many as 137 painters and pictorial students passed through Squarciones school, which had been established towards 1440 and which became famous all over Italy. Padua was attractive for artists coming not only from Veneto but also from Tuscany, such as Paolo Uccello, Filippo Lippi, Mantegnas early career was shaped indeed by impressions of Florentine works. At the time, Mantegna was said to be a favorite pupil, Squarcione taught him Latin and instructed him to study fragments of Roman sculpture. The master also preferred forced perspective, the results of which may account for some of Mantegnas later innovations. However, at the age of seventeen, Mantegna separated himself from Squarcione and he later claimed that Squarcione had profited from his work without paying the rights. His first work, now lost, was an altarpiece for the church of Santa Sofia in 1448. After a series of coincidences, Mantegna finished most of the work alone, though Ansuino and this series was almost entirely lost in the 1944 allied bombings of Padua. The most dramatic work of the cycle was the work set in the worms-eye view perspective. The sketch of the St. Stephen fresco survived and is the earliest known preliminary sketch which still exists to compare to the corresponding fresco, the drawing shows proof that nude figures were used in the conception of works during the Early Renaissance. In the preliminary sketch, the perspective is less developed and closer to a more average viewpoint however, despite the authentic look of the monument, it is not a copy of any known Roman structure. Luke and other saints for the church of S. Giustina, as the young artist progressed in his work, he came under the influence of Jacopo Bellini, father of the celebrated painters Giovanni Bellini and Gentile Bellini, and of a daughter Nicolosia. In 1453 Jacopo consented to a marriage between Nicolosia and Mantegna, trained as he had been in the study of marbles and the severity of the antique, Mantegna openly avowed that he considered ancient art superior to nature as being more eclectic in form. As a result, the painter exercised precision in outline, privileging the figure, overall, Mantegnas work thus tended towards rigidity, demonstrating an austere wholeness rather than graceful sensitivity of expression
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Pastiglia
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Pastiglia, an Italian term meaning pastework, is low relief decoration, normally modelled in gesso or white lead, applied to build up a surface that may then be gilded or painted, or left plain. The technique was used in a variety of ways in Italy during the Renaissance, on frames and furniture the technique is in origin a cheaper imitation of woodcarving, metalwork or ivory carving techniques. In white lead pastiglia on caskets, the matter is usually classical. White lead bound with oil or egg yolk was also the most common pigment for white paint, white lead pastiglia is very delicate and used for small areas only, but can produce very fine detail. It was mainly used on small caskets and boxes, sections were typically pre-moulded, doubtless from metal matrices to judge from the crisp detail, and glued on when hard. The wood from which the box was made was normally alder. It seems the term pastiglia for this dates to the 17th century. White lead pastiglia was a north Italian speciality, produced between about 1450 and 1550, six workshops were identified by Patrick M. Venice is also thought to have produced them. Other workshops identified by De Winter include the Workshop of the main Berlin casket, the subjects were typically classical, drawn from both mythology and Ancient Roman history, but biblical ones are also found. Compositions can often be shown to be borrowed from another medium, such as prints or bronze plaquettes, and sections from the mould can be found repeated. De Winter catalogued 115 white lead pastiglia caskets, only 10 of which were over 20 cm high or deep, another of this relatively large type was sold at auction in 2010. Both panel paintings and gilded frames had a flat layer of gesso as part of their preparation. Another additive technique was to pipe the gesso from a bag through a nozzle, like icing a cake, to give long round lines. It was then always gilded or painted, usually the former, in Gothic architectural frames for polyptychs, pastiglia is very commonly used to decorate small flat areas such as spandrels and behind scalloped edges. The technique is described at the end of the technical handbook by Cennino Cennini, whose own paintings made use of it, although he does not use the term himself. With the decline of the style it became rarer within paintings, as opposed to frames. Such highlights are seen on paintings by Pisanello, who was the leading medalist of his day. Similar pastiglia medallions on horse-harness are found in the fresco Saint George and the Princess, and it was perhaps more common in decorating secular palaces than churches, but the vast majority of Gothic palace decorations are now lost
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Sgraffito
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The Italian past participle sgraffiato is also used, especially of pottery. Sgraffito and sgraffiti come from the Italian word graffiare, ultimately from the Greek γράφειν, related terms include graffito and graffiti. Sgraffito on walls has been used in Europe since classical times, it was popularized in Italy in the 15th and 16th centuries, in combination with ornamental decoration these techniques formed an alternative to the prevailing painting of walls. Of late there has been a growing interest in this old technique. The technical procedure is simple, and the procedures are similar to the painting of frescoes. Most of their work has now weathered away, during the 16th century, the technique was brought to Germany by the master builders of the Renaissance and taken up with enthusiasm. As a simple art, old examples of sgraffito can be found in the wide surroundings of Wetterau. In Germany, the technique is most predominant in Bavaria, the use of sgraffito was common in the creation of housing façades for the purposes of advertising. The technique was used in Thuringia, the Engadin, Austria and Transylvania. In Catalonia, sgraffito was implemented in the early 20th century by the Noucentista neo-classical architects, another use of sgraffito is seen in its simplified painting technique. One coat of paint is left to dry on a canvas or sheet of paper, another coat of a different color is painted on top of the first layer. The artist then uses a knife or oil stick to scratch out a design. This can also be achieved by using oil pastels for the first layer, sometimes a first coat of paint is not needed, and the wet coat scraped back reveals the canvas. This cannot be achieved by using the oil pastel method and this technique is often used in art classes to teach the sgraffito technique to novice art students. The English artist Heywood Sumner has been identified as this eras pioneer of the technique, for example his work at the 1892 St Marys Church, Sunbury, Surrey. Sumners work is sgraffito per se, scratched plaster, but the term has come to encompass a variety of techniques for producing exterior graphic decoration, St. Benets Chaplaincy at Queen Mary, University of London
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Biblical Magi
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They are regular figures in traditional accounts of the nativity celebrations of Christmas and are an important part of Christian tradition. According to Matthew, the one of the four Canonical gospels to mention the Magi. Although the account does not mention the number of Magi, the three gifts has led to the assumption that there were three men. In Eastern Christianity, especially the Syriac churches, the Magi often number twelve and their identification as kings in later Christian writings is probably linked to Psalms 72,11, May all kings fall down before him. For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage. When King Herod heard this, he was frightened and all Jerusalem with him, then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage. When they had heard the king, they set out, and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, when they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a not to return to Herod. This maximum interval explained Herods command at Matthew 2, 16–18 that the Massacre of the Innocents included boys up to two years old, more recent commentators, not tied to the traditional feast days, may suggest a variety of intervals. The wise men are mentioned twice shortly thereafter in verse 16, in reference to their avoidance of Herod after seeing Jesus, the star which they followed has traditionally become known as the Star of Bethlehem. The Magi are popularly referred to as wise men and kings, the word magi is the plural of Latin magus, borrowed from Greek μάγος magos, as used in the original Greek text of the Gospel of Matthew. Greek magos itself is derived from Old Persian maguŝ from the Avestan magâunô, the term refers to the Persian priestly caste of Zoroastrianism. As part of their religion, these priests paid particular attention to the stars and gained a reputation for astrology. The King James Version translates the term as wise men, the translation is applied to the wise men led by Daniel of earlier Hebrew Scriptures. The same word is given as sorcerer and sorcery when describing Elymas the sorcerer in Acts 13, 6–11, although the Magi are commonly referred to as kings, there is nothing in the account from the Gospel of Matthew that implies that they were rulers of any kind. Early readers reinterpreted Matthew in light of these prophecies and elevated the Magi to kings, by AD500 all commentators adopted the prevalent tradition that the three were kings
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Vincenzo Civerchio
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Vincenzo Civerchio or Civercio was an Italian painter of the Renaissance, born at Crema, and active also in Brescia. One of his works is at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D. C. others in the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan and he is said to be an imitator of Bernardino Butinone, Bernardino Zenale, and influenced by Vincenzo Foppa. Luigi Donato of Como is said to have been a pupil, bartolomeo di Cassino Pinacoteca di Brera Pacioli. net This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Civerchio, Vincenzo
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