4-Santa Maria la Blanca. Villálcazar de Sirga-Palencia-Castilla-León

 

Retablo mayor

 

Retablo mayor.

El retablo integra piezas y elementos realizados en diferentes épocas. La parte más antigua es el Calvario que lo remata, tres artísticas tallas (Crucificado, Santa María y San Juan) góticas de hacia 1300. De finales del siglo xv o principios del xvi son las tablas de estilo hispanoflamenco, atribuidas al Maestro Alejo, un pintor de origen alemán. Son 27, representan a santos, escenas hagiográficas y pasajes evangélicos, y se distribuyen en una mazonería de tres cuerpos más banco, cuatro calles y dos entrecalles, con guardapolvos perimetral. La quinta calle, en el centro, está ocupada por una hornacina que acoge a la venerada Virgen de Villasirga, Santa María la Blanca, talla gótica del siglo xiii en la que la Virgen se muestra sedente y con el Niño en brazos. Un doselete con largo chapitel cubre la imagen. Cuando en el siglo xvi se rebajó la altura del presbiterio se añadió al retablo una predela adicional, a modo de sotabanco, obra renacentista de entre 1560 y 1570. Esta parte escultórica es atribuida a Manuel Álvarez con policromía de Francisco de Carracejas.

 

El conjunto tardogótico que puede observarse en la actualidad es el resultado de restauraciones y reformas realizadas en 1945-1946. Entonces se desarmó la estructura y se volvió a armar, variando la situación de las tablas e integrándolas en una nueva mazonería. Así, son de factura moderna el dosel central que acoge a la virgen, su chapitel, las cresterías caladas que separan los cuerpos y los escudos heráldicos del guardapolvos

 

Main altarpiece.

The altarpiece integrates pieces and elements made in different periods. The oldest part is the Calvary that tops it, three artistic carvings (Crucified, Saint Mary and Saint John) from around 1300. From the late 15th century or early 16th century are the Hispano-Flamenco style panels, attributed to Maestro Alejo, a painter of German origin. There are 27 of them, they represent saints, hagiographic scenes and evangelical passages, and they are distributed in a masonry of three sections plus a bench, four streets and two between streets, with perimeter guards. The fifth street, in the center, is occupied by a niche that houses the venerated Virgin of Villasirga, Santa María la Blanca, a Gothic carving from the 13th century in which the Virgin is shown seated with the Child in her arms. A canopy with a long spire covers the image. When the height of the presbytery was lowered in the 16th century, an additional predella was added to the altarpiece, like a sotabanco, a Renaissance work from between 1560 and 1570. This sculptural part is attributed to Manuel Álvarez with polychrome by Francisco de Carracejas.

 

The late Gothic complex that can be seen today is the result of restorations and reforms carried out in 1945-1946. Then the structure was disassembled and reassembled, changing the location of the boards and integrating them into a new masonry. Thus, the central canopy that houses the virgin, her spire, the openwork crests that separate the bodies and the heraldic shields of the overalls are modern in design.

 

Ref:Wikipedia

L'église Saint-Milliau à Ploumilliau.

Construite au 15ème siècle, cet important édifice de style Gothique est admirablement conservé.

Son clocher en granit à campanile ajouré est typique des clochers bretons.

Côtes d'Armor, Bretagne, france.

 

The Saint-Milliau church in Ploumilliau.

Built in the 15th century, this important Gothic building is admirably preserved.

Its granite bell tower with an openwork bell tower is typical of Breton steeples.

Frost and sun; wonderful day!

Still you nap, adorable friend -

It's time, beauty, wake up:

Open closed eyes

Towards northern Aurora,

The star of the north come!

 

Evening, you remember, the blizzard was angry,

On the muddy sky darkened;

The moon is like a pale spot

Through the dark clouds turned yellow,

And you sad sat -

And now ..... look out the window:

... IMAGINE TO BE HERE

ENJOING THIS MAGIC MOMENT LOOKING AT THE MAGIC OF GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE....

 

Milan Cathedral

is the cathedral church of Milan, Italy. Dedicated to St Mary of the Nativity (Santa Maria Nascente), it is the seat of the Archbishop of Milan, currently Cardinal Angelo Scola. The Gothic cathedral took nearly six centuries to complete. It is the largest church in Italy (the larger St. Peter's Basilica is in the State of Vatican City) and the fifth largest in the world.

 

Milan's layout, with streets either radiating from the Duomo or circling it, reveals that the Duomo occupies what was the most central site in Roman Mediolanum, that of the public basilica facing the forum. The first cathedral, the "new basilica" (basilica nova) dedicated to St Thecla, was completed by 355. It seems to share, on a slightly smaller scale, the plan of the contemporaneous church recently rediscovered beneath Tower Hill in London. An adjoining basilica was erected in 836. The old octagonal baptistery, the Battistero Paleocristiano, dates to 335 and still can be visited under the Milan Cathedral. When a fire damaged the cathedral and basilica in 1075, they were rebuilt as the Duomo.

 

Construction begins

In 1386, Archbishop Antonio da Saluzzo began construction of the cathedral. Start of the construction coincided with the ascension to power in Milan of the archbishop's cousin Gian Galeazzo Visconti, and was meant as a reward to the noble and working classes, who had suffered under his tyrannical Visconti predecessor Barnabò. Before actual work began, three main buildings were demolished: the palace of the Archbishop, the Ordinari Palace and the Baptistry of St. Stephen at the Spring, while the old church of Sta. Maria Maggiore was exploited as a stone quarry. Enthusiasm for the immense new building soon spread among the population, and the shrewd Gian Galeazzo, together with his cousin the archbishop, collected large donations for the work-in-progress. The construction program was strictly regulated under the "Fabbrica del Duomo", which had 300 employees led by first chief engineer Simone da Orsenigo. Orsenigo initially planned to build the cathedral from brick in Lombard Gothic style.

 

Visconti had ambitions to follow the newest trends in European architecture. In 1389, a French chief engineer, Nicolas de Bonaventure, was appointed, adding to the church its Rayonnant Gothic, a French style not typical for Italy. He decided that the brick structure should be panelled with marble. Galeazzo gave the Fabbrica del Duomo exclusive use of the marble from the Candoglia quarry and exempted it from taxes. Ten years later another French architect, Jean Mignot, was called from Paris to judge and improve upon the work done, as the masons needed new technical aid to lift stones to an unprecedented height. Mignot declared all the work done up till then as in pericolo di ruina ("peril of ruin"), as it had been done sine scienzia ("without science"). In the following years Mignot's forecasts proved untrue, but they spurred Galeazzo's engineers to improve their instruments and techniques. Work proceeded quickly, and at the death of Gian Galeazzo in 1402, almost half the cathedral was complete. Construction, however, stalled almost totally until 1480, for lack of money and ideas: the most notable works of this period were the tombs of Marco Carelli and Pope Martin V (1424) and the windows of the apse (1470s), of which those extant portray St. John the Evangelist, by Cristoforo de' Mottis, and Saint Eligius and San John of Damascus, both by Niccolò da Varallo. In 1452, under Francesco Sforza, the nave and the aisles were completed up to the sixth bay.

Giovanni Antonio Amadeo on the "Amadeo's Little Spire".

In 1500 to 1510, under Ludovico Sforza, the octagonal cupola was completed, and decorated in the interior with four series of 15 statues each, portraying saints, prophets, sibyls and other characters of the Bible. The exterior long remained without any decoration, except for the Guglietto dell'Amadeo ("Amadeo's Little Spire"), constructed 1507-1510. This is a Renaissance masterwork which nevertheless harmonized well with the general Gothic appearance of the church.

 

During the subsequent Spanish domination, the new church proved usable, even though the interior remained largely unfinished, and some bays of the nave and the transepts were still missing. In 1552 Giacomo Antegnati was commissioned to build a large organ for the north side of the choir, and Giuseppe Meda provided four of the sixteen pales which were to decorate the altar area (the program was completed by Federico Borromeo). In 1562, Marco d' Agrate's St. Bartholomew and the famous Trivulzio candelabrum (12th century) were added.

The plan consists of a nave with four side-aisles, crossed by a transept and then followed by choir and apse. The height of the nave is about 45 meters, the highest Gothic vaults of a complete church (less than the 48 meters of Beauvais Cathedral, which was never completed).

 

The roof is open to tourists (for a fee), which allows many a close-up view of some spectacular sculpture that would otherwise be unappreciated. The roof of the cathedral is renowned for the forest of openwork pinnacles and spires, set upon delicate flying buttresses.

 

The cathedral's five broad naves, divided by 40 pillars, are reflected in the hierarchic openings of the façade. Even the transepts have aisles. The nave columns are 24.5 metres (80 ft) high, and the apsidal windows are 20.7 x 8.5 metres (68 x 28 feet). The huge building is of brick construction, faced with marble from the quarries which Gian Galeazzo Visconti donated in perpetuity to the cathedral chapter. Its maintenance and repairs are very complicated.

FORE MORE INFORMATIONS:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milan_Cathedral

 

FOR THE PLACE:

wikimapia.org/#lang=it&lat=45.464119&lon=9.191753...

  

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“It is an illusion that photos are made with the camera…

 

they are made with the eye, heart and head.”

 

[Henry Cartier Bresson]

 

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Please don't use any of my images on websites, blogs or other media without my explicit written permission.

 

© All rights reserved

 

Borgund Stave Church (Norwegian: Borgund stavkyrkje) is a former parish church of the Church of Norway in Lærdal Municipality in Vestland county, Norway. It was built around the year 1200 as the village church of Borgund, and belonged to Lærdal parish (part of the Sogn prosti (deanery) in the Diocese of Bjørgvin) until 1868, when its religious functions were transferred to a "new" Borgund Church, which was built nearby. The old church was restored, conserved and turned into a museum. It is funded and run by the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Norwegian Monuments, and is classified as a triple-nave stave church of the Sogn-type. Its grounds contain Norway's sole surviving stave-built free-standing bell tower.

 

Borgund Stave Church was built sometime between 1180 and 1250 AD with later additions and restorations. Its walls are formed by vertical wooden boards, or staves, hence the name "stave church." The four corner posts are connected to one another by ground sills, resting on a stone foundation. The intervening staves rise from the ground sills; each is tongued and grooved, to interlock with its neighbours and form a sturdy wall. The exterior timber surfaces are darkened by protective layers of tar, distilled from pine.

 

Borgund is built on a basilica plan, with reduced side aisles, and an added chancel and apse. It has a raised central nave demarcated on four sides by an arcade. An ambulatory runs around this platform and into the chancel and apse, both added in the 14th century. An additional ambulatory, in the form of a porch, runs around the exterior of the building, sheltered under the overhanging shingled roof. The floor plan of this church resembles that of a central plan, double-shelled Greek cross with an apse attached to one end in place of the fourth arm. The entries to the church are in the three shorter arms of the cross.

 

Structurally, the building has been described as a "cube within a cube", each independent of the other. The inner "cube" is formed by continuous columns that rise from ground level to support the roof. The top of the arcade is formed by arched buttresses, knee jointed to the columns. Above the arcade, the columns are linked by cross-shaped, diagonal trusses, commonly dubbed "Saint Andrew's crosses"; these carry arched supports that offer the visual equivalent of a "second storey". While not a functional gallery, this is reminiscent of contemporary second story galleries of large stone churches elsewhere in Europe. Smaller beams running between these upper supporting columns help clamp everything firmly together. The weight of the roof is thus supported by buttresses and columns, preventing downward and outward movement of the stave walls.

 

The roof beams are supported by steeply angled scissor trusses that form an "X" shape with a narrow top span and a broader bottom span, tied by a bottom truss to prevent collapse. Additional support is given by a truss that cuts across the "X", below the crossing point but above the bottom truss. The roof is steeply pitched, boarded horizontally and clad with shingles. The original outer roof would have been weatherproofed with boards laid lengthwise, rather than shingles. In later years wooden shingles became more common. Scissor beam roof construction is typical of most stave churches.

 

Borgund has tiered, overhanging roofs, topped at their intersection by a shingle-roofed tower or steeple. On each of its four gables is a stylised "dragon" head, swooping from the carved roof ridge crests, Hohler remarks their similarity to the carved dragon heads found on the prows of Norse ships. Similar gable heads appear on small bronze church-shaped reliquaries common in Norway and Europe in this period. Borgund's current dragon heads are possible 18th century replacements; similar, original dragon heads remain on older structures, such as Lom Stave Church and nearby Urnes Stave Church. Borgund is one of the only stave churches to have preserved its crested ridge caps. They are carved with openwork vine and entangled plant designs.

 

The four outer dragon heads are perhaps the most distinctive of all non-Christian symbols adorning Borgund Stave Church. Their function is uncertain, and disputed; if pagan, they are recruited to the Christian cause in the battle between Good and Evil. They may have been intended to keep away evil spirits thought to threaten the church building; to ward off evil, rather than represent it,

 

On the lower side panel of the steeple are four carved circular cutouts. The carvings are weather-beaten, tarred and difficult to decipher, and there is disagreement about what they symbolize. Some[who?] believe they represent the four evangelists, symbolised by an eagle, an ox, a lion and a man. Hauglid describes the carvings as "dragons that extend their heads over to the neighboring field's dragon and bite into it", and points out their similarity to carvings at Høre Stave Church.

 

The church's west portal (the nave's main entrance), is surrounded by a larger carving of dragons biting each other in the neck and tail. At the bottom of the half-columns that flank the front entrance, two dragon heads spew vine stalks that wind upwards and are braided into the dragons above. The carving shares similarities with the west portal of Ål Stave Church, which also has kites[clarification needed] in a band braiding pattern, and follows the usual composition[clarification needed] in the Sogn-Valdres portals, a larger group of portals with very clear similarities. Bugge writes that Christian authority may have come to terms with such pagan and "wild scenes" in the church building because the rift could be interpreted as a struggle between good and evil; in Christian medieval art, the dragon was often used as a symbol of the devil himself but Bugge believes that the carvings were protective, like the dragon heads on the church roof.

 

The church interior is dark, as not much daylight enters the building. Some of the few sources of natural light are narrow circular windows along the roof, examples of daylighting. It was supposed that the narrow apertures would prevent the entry of evil spirits. Three entrances are heavily adorned with foliage and snakes, and are only wide enough for one person to enter, supposedly preventing the entry of evil spirits alongside the churchgoers. The portals were originally painted green, red, black, and white.

 

Most of the internal fittings have been removed. There is little in the building, apart from the row of benches that are installed along the wall inside the church in the ambulatory outside of the arcade and raised platform, a soapstone font, an altar (with 17th-century altarpiece), a 16th-century lectern, and a 16th-century cupboard for storing altar vessels. After the Reformation, when the church was converted for Protestant worship, pews, a pulpit and other standard church furnishings were included, however these have been removed since the building has come under the protection of the Fortidsminneforeningen (The Society for the Preservation of Norwegian Ancient Monuments).

 

The interior structure of the church is characterized by the twelve free-standing columns that support the nave's elevated central space. On the long side of the church there is a double interval between the second and third pillars, but with a half pillar resting on the lower bracing beam (the pier) which runs in between. The double interval provides free access from the south portal to the church's central compartment, which would otherwise have been obstructed by the middle bar. The tops of the poles are finished with grotesque, carved human and animal masks. The tie-bars are secured with braces in the form of St. Andrew's crosses with a sun - shaped center and carved leaf shapes along the arms. The crosses reappear in less ornate form as braces along the church walls. On the north and south sides of the nave, a total of eight windows let in small amounts of light, and at the top of the nave's west gable is a window of more recent date - probably from pre-Reformation times. On the south wall of the nave, the inauguration crosses are still on the inside of the wall. The interior choir walls and west portal have engraved figures and runes, some of which date to the Middle Ages. One, among the commonest of runic graffiti, reads "Ave Maria". An inscription by Þórir (Thor), written "in the evening at St. Olav's Mass" blames the pagan Norns for his problems; perhaps a residue of ancient beliefs, as these female beings were thought to rule the personal destinies of all in Norse mythology and the Poetic Edda.

 

The medieval interior of the stave church is almost untouched, save for its restorations and repairs, though the medieval crucifix was removed after the Reformation. The original wooden floor and the benches that run along the walls of the nave are largely intact, together with a medieval stone altar and a box-shaped baptismal font in soapstone. The pulpit is from the period 1550–1570 and the altarpiece dates from 1654, while the frame around the tablet is dated to 1620. The painting on the altarpiece shows the crucifixion in the centre, flanked by the Virgin Mary on the left and John the Baptist on the right. In the tympanum field, a white dove hovers on a blue background. Below the painting is an inscription with golden letters on a black background. A sacrament from the period 1550–1570 in the same style as the pulpit is also preserved. A restoration of the building was carried out in the early 1870s, led by the architect Christian Christie, who removed benches, a second-floor gallery with seating, a ceiling over the chancel, and various windows including two large windows on the north and south sides. As the goal was to return the church to pre-Reformation condition, all post-Reformation interior paintwork was also removed.

 

Images from the 1990s show deer antlers hung on the lower, east-facing pillars. A local story claims that this is all that remains of a whole stuffed reindeer, shot when it tried to enter during a Mass. A travelogue from 1668 claims that a reindeer was shot during a sermon "when it marched like a wizard in front of the other animal carcasses"

 

To the south of the church is a free-standing stave-work bell tower that covers remnants of the mediaeval foundry used to cast the church bell. It was probably built in the mid-13th century. It is Norway's only remaining free-standing stave-work bell tower.It was given a new door around the year 1700 but this was removed and not replaced at some time between the 1920s and 1940s, leaving the foundry pit was exposed. To preserve the interior, new walls were built as cladding on the outside of the stave walls in the 1990s. One of the medieval bells is on display in the new Borgund church.

 

Management

In 1868 the building was abandoned as a church but was turned into a museum; this saved it from the commonplace demolition of stave churches in that period. A new Borgund Church was built in 1868 a short distance south of the old church. The old church has not been formally used for religious purposes since that year. Borgund Stave Church was bought by the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Norwegian Monuments in 1877. The first guidebook in English for the stave church was published in 1898. From 2001, the Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage has funded a program to research, restore, conserve and maintain stave churches.

 

Legacy

The church served as an example for the reconstruction of the Fantoft Stave Church in Fana, Bergen, in 1883 and for its rebuilding in 1997. The Gustav Adolf Stave Church in Hahnenklee, Germany, built in 1908, is modeled on the Borgund church. Four replicas exist in the United States, one at Chapel in the Hills, Rapid City, South Dakota, another in Lyme, Connecticut, the third on Washington Island, Wisconsin, and the fourth in Minot, North Dakota at the Scandinavian Heritage Park.

 

Borgund is a former municipality in Sogn og Fjordane county, Norway. It was located in the southeastern part of the traditional district of Sogn. The 635-square-kilometre (245 sq mi) municipality existed from 1864 until its dissolution in 1964. It encompassed an area in the eastern part of the present-day Lærdal Municipality. The administrative center of Borgund was the village of Steinklepp, just northeast of the village of Borgund. Steinklepp was the site of a store, a bank, and a school. The historical Filefjell Kongevegen road passes through the Borgund area.

 

Location

The former municipality of Borgund was situated near the southeastern end of the Sognefjorden, along the Lærdalselvi river. The lower parts of the municipality were farms such as Sjurhaugen and Nedrehegg. They were at an elevation of about 270 m (890 ft) above sea level. Høgeloft, on the border with the neighboring municipality of Hemsedal, is a mountain in the Filefjell range and it was the highest point in Borgund at 1,920 m (6,300 ft) above sea level. The lakes Eldrevatnet, Juklevatnet, and Øljusjøen were also located near the border with Hemsedal.

 

History

Borgund was established as a municipality in 1864 when it was separated from the municipality of Lærdal. Initially it had a population of 963. During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the Schei Committee. On 1 January 1964, the municipality of Borgund (population: 492) was merged with the Muggeteigen area (population: 11) of the neighboring Årdal Municipality and all of Lærdal Municipality (population: 1,755) were all merged to form a new, larger municipality of Lærdal

 

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway , is a Nordic , European country and an independent state in the west of the Scandinavian Peninsula . Geographically speaking, the country is long and narrow, and on the elongated coast towards the North Atlantic are Norway's well-known fjords . The Kingdom of Norway includes the main country (the mainland with adjacent islands within the baseline ), Jan Mayen and Svalbard . With these two Arctic areas, Norway covers a land area of ​​385,000 km² and has a population of approximately 5.5 million (2023). Mainland Norway borders Sweden in the east , Finland and Russia in the northeast .

 

Norway is a parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy , where Harald V has been king and head of state since 1991 , and Jonas Gahr Støre ( Ap ) has been prime minister since 2021 . Norway is a unitary state , with two administrative levels below the state: counties and municipalities . The Sami part of the population has, through the Sami Parliament and the Finnmark Act , to a certain extent self-government and influence over traditionally Sami areas. Although Norway has rejected membership of the European Union through two referendums , through the EEA Agreement Norway has close ties with the Union, and through NATO with the United States . Norway is a significant contributor to the United Nations (UN), and has participated with soldiers in several foreign operations mandated by the UN. Norway is among the states that have participated from the founding of the UN , NATO , the Council of Europe , the OSCE and the Nordic Council , and in addition to these is a member of the EEA , the World Trade Organization , the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and is part of the Schengen area .

 

Norway is rich in many natural resources such as oil , gas , minerals , timber , seafood , fresh water and hydropower . Since the beginning of the 20th century, these natural conditions have given the country the opportunity for an increase in wealth that few other countries can now enjoy, and Norwegians have the second highest average income in the world, measured in GDP per capita, as of 2022. The petroleum industry accounts for around 14% of Norway's gross domestic product as of 2018. Norway is the world's largest producer of oil and gas per capita outside the Middle East. However, the number of employees linked to this industry fell from approx. 232,000 in 2013 to 207,000 in 2015.

 

In Norway, these natural resources have been managed for socially beneficial purposes. The country maintains a welfare model in line with the other Nordic countries. Important service areas such as health and higher education are state-funded, and the country has an extensive welfare system for its citizens. Public expenditure in 2018 is approx. 50% of GDP, and the majority of these expenses are related to education, healthcare, social security and welfare. Since 2001 and until 2021, when the country took second place, the UN has ranked Norway as the world's best country to live in . From 2010, Norway is also ranked at the top of the EIU's democracy index . Norway ranks third on the UN's World Happiness Report for the years 2016–2018, behind Finland and Denmark , a report published in March 2019.

 

The majority of the population is Nordic. In the last couple of years, immigration has accounted for more than half of population growth. The five largest minority groups are Norwegian-Poles , Lithuanians , Norwegian-Swedes , Norwegian-Syrians including Syrian Kurds and Norwegian-Pakistani .

 

Norway's national day is 17 May, on this day in 1814 the Norwegian Constitution was dated and signed by the presidency of the National Assembly at Eidsvoll . It is stipulated in the law of 26 April 1947 that 17 May are national public holidays. The Sami national day is 6 February. "Yes, we love this country" is Norway's national anthem, the song was written in 1859 by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1832–1910).

 

Norway's history of human settlement goes back at least 10,000 years, to the Late Paleolithic , the first period of the Stone Age . Archaeological finds of settlements along the entire Norwegian coast have so far been dated back to 10,400 before present (BP), the oldest find is today considered to be a settlement at Pauler in Brunlanes , Vestfold .

For a period these settlements were considered to be the remains of settlers from Doggerland , an area which today lies beneath the North Sea , but which was once a land bridge connecting today's British Isles with Danish Jutland . But the archaeologists who study the initial phase of the settlement in what is today Norway reckon that the first people who came here followed the coast along what is today Bohuslân. That they arrived in some form of boat is absolutely certain, and there is much evidence that they could easily move over large distances.

 

Since the last Ice Age, there has been continuous settlement in Norway. It cannot be ruled out that people lived in Norway during the interglacial period , but no trace of such a population or settlement has been found.

 

The Stone Age lasted a long time; half of the time that our country has been populated. There are no written accounts of what life was like back then. The knowledge we have has been painstakingly collected through investigations of places where people have stayed and left behind objects that we can understand have been processed by human hands. This field of knowledge is called archaeology . The archaeologists interpret their findings and the history of the surrounding landscape. In our country, the uplift after the Ice Age is fundamental. The history of the settlements at Pauler is no more than fifteen years old.

 

The Fosna culture settled parts of Norway sometime between 10,000–8,000 BC. (see Stone Age in Norway ). The dating of rock carvings is set to Neolithic times (in Norway between 4000 BC to 1700 BC) and show activities typical of hunters and gatherers .

 

Agriculture with livestock and arable farming was introduced in the Neolithic. Swad farming where the farmers move when the field does not produce the expected yield.

 

More permanent and persistent farm settlements developed in the Bronze Age (1700 BC to 500 BC) and the Iron Age . The earliest runes have been found on an arrowhead dated to around 200 BC. Many more inscriptions are dated to around 800, and a number of petty kingdoms developed during these centuries. In prehistoric times, there were no fixed national borders in the Nordic countries and Norway did not exist as a state. The population in Norway probably fell to year 0.

 

Events in this time period, the centuries before the year 1000, are glimpsed in written sources. Although the sagas were written down in the 13th century, many hundreds of years later, they provide a glimpse into what was already a distant past. The story of the fimbul winter gives us a historical picture of something that happened and which in our time, with the help of dendrochronology , can be interpreted as a natural disaster in the year 536, created by a volcanic eruption in El Salvador .

 

In the period between 800 and 1066 there was a significant expansion and it is referred to as the Viking Age . During this period, Norwegians, as Swedes and Danes also did, traveled abroad in longships with sails as explorers, traders, settlers and as Vikings (raiders and pirates ). By the middle of the 11th century, the Norwegian kingship had been firmly established, building its right as descendants of Harald Hårfagre and then as heirs of Olav the Holy . The Norwegian kings, and their subjects, now professed Christianity . In the time around Håkon Håkonsson , in the time after the civil war , there was a small renaissance in Norway with extensive literary activity and diplomatic activity with Europe. The black dew came to Norway in 1349 and killed around half of the population. The entire state apparatus and Norway then entered a period of decline.

 

Between 1396 and 1536, Norway was part of the Kalmar Union , and from 1536 until 1814 Norway had been reduced to a tributary part of Denmark , named as the Personal Union of Denmark-Norway . This staff union entered into an alliance with Napoléon Bonaparte with a war that brought bad times and famine in 1812 . In 1814, Denmark-Norway lost the Anglophone Wars , part of the Napoleonic Wars , and the Danish king was forced to cede Norway to the king of Sweden in the Treaty of Kiel on 14 January of that year. After a Norwegian attempt at independence, Norway was forced into a loose union with Sweden, but where Norway was allowed to create its own constitution, the Constitution of 1814 . In this period, Norwegian, romantic national feeling flourished, and the Norwegians tried to develop and establish their own national self-worth. The union with Sweden was broken in 1905 after it had been threatened with war, and Norway became an independent kingdom with its own monarch, Haakon VII .

 

Norway remained neutral during the First World War , and at the outbreak of the Second World War, Norway again declared itself neutral, but was invaded by National Socialist Germany on 9 April 1940 .

 

Norway became a member of the Western defense alliance NATO in 1949 . Two attempts to join the EU were voted down in referendums by small margins in 1972 and 1994 . Norway has been a close ally of the United States in the post-war period. Large discoveries of oil and natural gas in the North Sea at the end of the 1960s led to tremendous economic growth in the country, which is still ongoing. Traditional industries such as fishing are also part of Norway's economy.

 

Stone Age (before 1700 BC)

When most of the ice disappeared, vegetation spread over the landscape and due to a warm climate around 2000-3000 BC. the forest grew much taller than in modern times. Land uplift after the ice age led to a number of fjords becoming lakes and dry land. The first people probably came from the south along the coast of the Kattegat and overland into Finnmark from the east. The first people probably lived by gathering, hunting and trapping. A good number of Stone Age settlements have been found which show that such hunting and trapping people stayed for a long time in the same place or returned to the same place regularly. Large amounts of gnawed bones show that they lived on, among other things, reindeer, elk, small game and fish.

 

Flintstone was imported from Denmark and apart from small natural deposits along the southern coast, all flintstone in Norway is transported by people. At Espevær, greenstone was quarried for tools in the Stone Age, and greenstone tools from Espevær have been found over large parts of Western Norway. Around 2000-3000 BC the usual farm animals such as cows and sheep were introduced to Norway. Livestock probably meant a fundamental change in society in that part of the people had to be permanent residents or live a semi-nomadic life. Livestock farming may also have led to conflict with hunters.

 

The oldest traces of people in what is today Norway have been found at Pauler , a farm in Brunlanes in Larvik municipality in Vestfold . In 2007 and 2008, the farm has given its name to a number of Stone Age settlements that have been excavated and examined by archaeologists from the Cultural History Museum at UiO. The investigations have been carried out in connection with the new route for the E18 motorway west of Farris. The oldest settlement, located more than 127 m above sea level, is dated to be about 10,400 years old (uncalibrated, more than 11,000 years in real calendar years). From here, the ice sheet was perhaps visible when people settled here. This locality has been named Pauler I, and is today considered to be the oldest confirmed human traces in Norway to date. The place is in the mountains above the Pauler tunnel on the E18 between Larvik and Porsgrunn . The pioneer settlement is a term archaeologists have adopted for the oldest settlement. The archaeologists have speculated about where they came from, the first people in what is today Norway. It has been suggested that they could come by boat or perhaps across the ice from Doggerland or the North Sea, but there is now a large consensus that they came north along what is today the Bohuslän coast. The Fosna culture , the Komsa culture and the Nøstvet culture are the traditional terms for hunting cultures from the Stone Age. One thing is certain - getting to the water was something they mastered, the first people in our country. Therefore, within a short time they were able to use our entire long coast.

 

In the New Stone Age (4000 BC–1700 BC) there is a theory that a new people immigrated to the country, the so-called Stone Ax People . Rock carvings from this period show motifs from hunting and fishing , which were still important industries. From this period, a megalithic tomb has been found in Østfold .

It is uncertain whether there were organized societies or state-like associations in the Stone Age in Norway. Findings from settlements indicate that many lived together and that this was probably more than one family so that it was a slightly larger, organized herd.

 

Finnmark

In prehistoric times, animal husbandry and agriculture were of little economic importance in Finnmark. Livelihoods in Finnmark were mainly based on fish, gathering, hunting and trapping, and eventually domestic reindeer herding became widespread in the Middle Ages. Archaeological finds from the Stone Age have been referred to as the Komsa culture and comprise around 5,000 years of settlement. Finnmark probably got its first settlement around 8000 BC. It is believed that the coastal areas became ice-free 11,000 years BC and the fjord areas around 9,000 years BC. after which willows, grass, heather, birch and pine came into being. Finnmarksvidda was covered by pine forest around 6000 BC. After the Ice Age, the land rose around 80 meters in the inner fjord areas (Alta, Tana, Varanger). Due to ice melting in the polar region, the sea rose in the period 6400–3800 BC. and in areas with little land elevation, some settlements from the first part of the Stone Age were flooded. On Sørøya, the net sea level rise was 12 to 14 meters and many residential areas were flooded.

 

According to Bjørnar Olsen , there are many indications of a connection between the oldest settlement in Western Norway (the " Fosnakulturen ") and that in Finnmark, but it is uncertain in which direction the settlement took place. In the earliest part of the Stone Age, settlement in Finnmark was probably concentrated in the coastal areas, and these only reflected a lifestyle with great mobility and no permanent dwellings. The inner regions, such as Pasvik, were probably used seasonally. The archaeologically proven settlements from the Stone Age in inner Finnmark and Troms are linked to lakes and large watercourses. The oldest petroglyphs in Alta are usually dated to 4200 BC, that is, the Neolithic . Bjørnar Olsen believes that the oldest can be up to 2,000 years older than this.

 

From around 4000 BC a slow deforestation of Finnmark began and around 1800 BC the vegetation distribution was roughly the same as in modern times. The change in vegetation may have increased the distance between the reindeer's summer and winter grazing. The uplift continued slowly from around 4000 BC. at the same time as sea level rise stopped.

 

According to Gutorm Gjessing, the settlement in Finnmark and large parts of northern Norway in the Neolithic was semi-nomadic with movement between four seasonal settlements (following the pattern of life in Sami siida in historical times): On the outer coast in summer (fishing and seal catching) and inland in winter (hunting for reindeer, elk and bear). Povl Simonsen believed instead that the winter residence was in the inner fjord area in a village-like sod house settlement. Bjørnar Olsen believes that at the end of the Stone Age there was a relatively settled population along the coast, while inland there was less settlement and a more mobile lifestyle.

 

Bronze Age (1700 BC–500 BC)

Bronze was used for tools in Norway from around 1500 BC. Bronze is a mixture of tin and copper , and these metals were introduced because they were not mined in the country at the time. Bronze is believed to have been a relatively expensive material. The Bronze Age in Norway can be divided into two phases:

 

Early Bronze Age (1700–1100 BC)

Younger Bronze Age (1100–500 BC)

For the prehistoric (unwritten) era, there is limited knowledge about social conditions and possible state formations. From the Bronze Age, there are large burial mounds of stone piles along the coast of Vestfold and Agder, among others. It is likely that only chieftains or other great men could erect such grave monuments and there was probably some form of organized society linked to these. In the Bronze Age, society was more organized and stratified than in the Stone Age. Then a rich class of chieftains emerged who had close connections with southern Scandinavia. The settlements became more permanent and people adopted horses and ard . They acquired bronze status symbols, lived in longhouses and people were buried in large burial mounds . Petroglyphs from the Bronze Age indicate that humans practiced solar cultivation.

 

Finnmark

In the last millennium BC the climate became cooler and the pine forest disappears from the coast; pine forests, for example, were only found in the innermost part of the Altafjord, while the outer coast was almost treeless. Around the year 0, the limit for birch forest was south of Kirkenes. Animals with forest habitats (elk, bear and beaver) disappeared and the reindeer probably established their annual migration routes sometime at that time. In the period 1800–900 BC there were significantly more settlements in and utilization of the hinterland was particularly noticeable on Finnmarksvidda. From around 1800 BC until year 0 there was a significant increase in contact between Finnmark and areas in the east including Karelia (where metals were produced including copper) and central and eastern Russia. The youngest petroglyphs in Alta show far more boats than the earlier phases and the boats are reminiscent of types depicted in petroglyphs in southern Scandinavia. It is unclear what influence southern Scandinavian societies had as far north as Alta before the year 0. Many of the cultural features that are considered typical Sami in modern times were created or consolidated in the last millennium BC, this applies, among other things, to the custom of burying in brick chambers in stone urns. The Mortensnes burial ground may have been used for 2000 years until around 1600 AD.

 

Iron Age (c. 500 BC–c. 1050 AD)

 

The Einangsteinen is one of the oldest Norwegian runestones; it is from the 4th century

 

Simultaneous production of Vikings

Around 500 years BC the researchers reckon that the Bronze Age will be replaced by the Iron Age as iron takes over as the most important material for weapons and tools. Bronze, wood and stone were still used. Iron was cheaper than bronze, easier to work than flint , and could be used for many purposes; iron probably became common property. Iron could, among other things, be used to make solid and sharp axes which made it much easier to fell trees. In the Iron Age, gold and silver were also used partly for decoration and partly as means of payment. It is unknown which language was used in Norway before our era. From around the year 0 until around the year 800, everyone in Scandinavia (except the Sami) spoke Old Norse , a North Germanic language. Subsequently, several different languages ​​developed in this area that were only partially mutually intelligible. The Iron Age is divided into several periods:

 

Early Iron Age

Pre-Roman Iron Age (c. 500 BC–c. 0)

Roman Iron Age (c. 0–c. AD 400)

Migration period (approx. 400–600). In the migration period (approx. 400–600), new peoples came to Norway, and ruins of fortress buildings etc. are interpreted as signs that there has been talk of a violent invasion.

Younger Iron Age

Merovingian period (500–800)

 

The Viking Age (793–1066)

Norwegian Vikings go on plundering expeditions and trade voyages around the coastal countries of Western Europe . Large groups of Norwegians emigrate to the British Isles , Iceland and Greenland . Harald Hårfagre starts a unification process of Norway late in the 8th century , which was completed by Harald Hardråde in the 1060s . The country was Christianized under the kings Olav Tryggvason , fell in the battle of Svolder ( 1000 ) and Olav Haraldsson (the saint), fell in the battle of Stiklestad in 1030 .

 

Sources of prehistoric times

Shrinking glaciers in the high mountains, including in Jotunheimen and Breheimen , have from around the year 2000 uncovered objects from the Viking Age and earlier. These are objects of organic material that have been preserved by the ice and that elsewhere in nature are broken down in a few months. The finds are getting older as the melting makes the archaeologists go deeper into the ice. About half of all archaeological discoveries on glaciers in the world are made in Oppland . In 2013, a 3,400-year-old shoe and a robe from the year 300 were found. Finds at Lomseggen in Lom published in 2020 revealed, among other things, well-preserved horseshoes used on a mountain pass. Many hundreds of items include preserved clothing, knives, whisks, mittens, leather shoes, wooden chests and horse equipment. A piece of cloth dated to the year 1000 has preserved its original colour. In 2014, a wooden ski from around the year 700 was found in Reinheimen . The ski is 172 cm long and 14 cm wide, with preserved binding of leather and wicker.

 

Pytheas from Massalia is the oldest known account of what was probably the coast of Norway, perhaps somewhere on the coast of Møre. Pytheas visited Britannia around 325 BC. and traveled further north to a country by the "Ice Sea". Pytheas described the short summer night and the midnight sun farther north. He wrote, among other things, that people there made a drink from grain and honey. Caesar wrote in his work about the Gallic campaign about the Germanic tribe Haruders. Other Roman sources around the year 0 mention the land of the Cimbri (Jutland) and the Cimbri headlands ( Skagen ) and that the sources stated that Cimbri and Charyds lived in this area. Some of these peoples may have immigrated to Norway and there become known as hordes (as in Hordaland). Sources from the Mediterranean area referred to the islands of Scandia, Scandinavia and Thule ("the outermost of all islands"). The Roman historian Tacitus wrote around the year 100 a work about Germania and mentioned the people of Scandia, the Sviones. Ptolemy wrote around the year 150 that the Kharudes (Hordes) lived further north than all the Cimbri, in the north lived the Finnoi (Finns or Sami) and in the south the Gutai (Goths). The Nordic countries and Norway were outside the Roman Empire , which dominated Europe at the time. The Gothic-born historian Jordanes wrote in the 5th century about 13 tribes or people groups in Norway, including raumaricii (probably Romerike ), ragnaricii ( Ranrike ) and finni or skretefinni (skrid finner or ski finner, i.e. Sami) as well as a number of unclear groups. Prokopios wrote at the same time about Thule north of the land of the Danes and Slavs, Thule was ten times as big as Britannia and the largest of all the islands. In Thule, the sun was up 40 days straight in the summer. After the migration period , southern Europeans' accounts of northern Europe became fuller and more reliable.

 

Settlement in prehistoric times

Norway has around 50,000 farms with their own names. Farm names have persisted for a long time, over 1000 years, perhaps as much as 2000 years. The name researchers have arranged different types of farm names chronologically, which provides a basis for determining when the place was used by people or received a permanent settlement. Uncompounded landscape names such as Haug, Eid, Vik and Berg are believed to be the oldest. Archaeological traces indicate that some areas have been inhabited earlier than assumed from the farm name. Burial mounds also indicate permanent settlement. For example, the burial ground at Svartelva in Løten was used from around the year 0 to the year 1000 when Christianity took over. The first farmers probably used large areas for inland and outland, and new farms were probably established based on some "mother farms". Names such as By (or Bø) show that it is an old place of residence. From the older Iron Age, names with -heim (a common Germanic word meaning place of residence) and -stad tell of settlement, while -vin and -land tell of the use of the place. Farm names in -heim are often found as -um , -eim or -em as in Lerum and Seim, there are often large farms in the center of the village. New farm names with -city and -country were also established in the Viking Age . The first farmers probably used the best areas. The largest burial grounds, the oldest archaeological finds and the oldest farm names are found where the arable land is richest and most spacious.

 

It is unclear whether the settlement expansion in Roman times, migrations and the Iron Age is due to immigration or internal development and population growth. Among other things, it is difficult to demonstrate where in Europe the immigrants have come from. The permanent residents had both fields (where grain was grown) and livestock that grazed in the open fields, but it is uncertain which of these was more important. Population growth from around the year 200 led to more utilization of open land, for example in the form of settlements in the mountains. During the migration period, it also seems that in parts of the country it became common to have cluster gardens or a form of village settlement.

 

Norwegian expansion northwards

From around the year 200, there was a certain migration by sea from Rogaland and Hordaland to Nordland and Sør-Troms. Those who moved settled down as a settled Iron Age population and became dominant over the original population which may have been Sami . The immigrant Norwegians, Bumen , farmed with livestock that were fed inside in the winter as well as some grain cultivation and fishing. The northern border of the Norwegians' settlement was originally at the Toppsundet near Harstad and around the year 500 there was a Norwegian settlement to Malangsgapet. That was as far north as it was possible to grow grain at the time. Malangen was considered the border between Hålogaland and Finnmork until around 1400 . Further into the Viking Age and the Middle Ages, there was immigration and settlement of Norwegian speakers along the coast north of Malangen. Around the year 800, Norwegians lived along the entire outer coast to Vannøy . The Norwegians partly copied Sami livelihoods such as whaling, fur hunting and reindeer husbandry. It was probably this area between Malangen and Vannøy that was Ottar from the Hålogaland area. In the Viking Age, there were also some Norwegian settlements further north and east. East of the North Cape are the scattered archaeological finds of Norwegian settlement in the Viking Age. There are Norwegian names for fjords and islands from the Viking Age, including fjord names with "-anger". Around the year 1050, there were Norwegian settlements on the outer coast of Western Finnmark. Traders and tax collectors traveled even further.

 

North of Malangen there were Norse farming settlements in the Iron Age. Malangen was considered Finnmark's western border until 1300. There are some archaeological traces of Norse activity around the coast from Tromsø to Kirkenes in the Viking Age. Around Tromsø, the research indicates a Norse/Sami mixed culture on the coast.

 

From the year 1100 and the next 200–300 years, there are no traces of Norwegian settlement north and east of Tromsø. It is uncertain whether this is due to depopulation, whether it is because the Norwegians further north were not Christianized or because there were no churches north of Lenvik or Tromsø . Norwegian settlement in the far north appears from sources from the 14th century. In the Hanseatic period , the settlement was developed into large areas specialized in commercial fishing, while earlier (in the Viking Age) there had been farms with a combination of fishing and agriculture. In 1307 , a fortress and the first church east of Tromsø were built in Vardø . Vardø became a small Norwegian town, while Vadsø remained Sami. Norwegian settlements and churches appeared along the outermost coast in the Middle Ages. After the Reformation, perhaps as a result of a decline in fish stocks or fish prices, there were Norwegian settlements in the inner fjord areas such as Lebesby in Laksefjord. Some fishing villages at the far end of the coast were abandoned for good. In the interior of Finnmark, there was no national border for a long time and Kautokeino and Karasjok were joint Norwegian-Swedish areas with strong Swedish influence. The border with Finland was established in 1751 and with Russia in 1826.

 

On a Swedish map from 1626, Norway's border is indicated at Malangen, while Sweden with this map showed a desire to control the Sami area which had been a common area.

 

The term Northern Norway only came into use at the end of the 19th century and administratively the area was referred to as Tromsø Diocese when Tromsø became a bishopric in 1840. There had been different designations previously: Hålogaland originally included only Helgeland and when Norse settlement spread north in the Viking Age and the Middle Ages, Hålogaland was used for the area north approximately to Malangen , while Finnmark or "Finnmarken", "the land of the Sami", lay outside. The term Northern Norway was coined at a cafe table in Kristiania in 1884 by members of the Nordlændingernes Forening and was first commonly used in the interwar period as it eventually supplanted "Hålogaland".

 

State formation

The battle in Hafrsfjord in the year 872 has long been regarded as the day when Norway became a kingdom. The year of the battle is uncertain (may have been 10-20 years later). The whole of Norway was not united in that battle: the process had begun earlier and continued a couple of hundred years later. This means that the geographical area became subject to a political authority and became a political unit. The geographical area was perceived as an area as it is known, among other things, from Ottar from Hålogaland's account for King Alfred of Wessex around the year 880. Ottar described "the land of the Norwegians" as very long and narrow, and it was narrowest in the far north. East of the wasteland in the south lay Sveoland and in the north lay Kvenaland in the east. When Ottar sailed south along the land from his home ( Malangen ) to Skiringssal, he always had Norway ("Nordveg") on his port side and the British Isles on his starboard side. The journey took a good month. Ottar perceived "Nordveg" as a geographical unit, but did not imply that it was a political unit. Ottar separated Norwegians from Swedes and Danes. It is unclear why Ottar perceived the population spread over such a large area as a whole. It is unclear whether Norway as a geographical term or Norwegians as the name of a ethnic group is the oldest. The Norwegians had a common language which in the centuries before Ottar did not differ much from the language of Denmark and Sweden.

 

According to Sverre Steen, it is unlikely that Harald Hårfagre was able to control this entire area as one kingdom. The saga of Harald was written 300 years later and at his death Norway was several smaller kingdoms. Harald probably controlled a larger area than anyone before him and at most Harald's kingdom probably included the coast from Trøndelag to Agder and Vestfold as well as parts of Viken . There were probably several smaller kingdoms of varying extent before Harald and some of these are reflected in traditional landscape names such as Ranrike and Ringerike . Landscape names of "-land" (Rogaland) and "-mark" (Hedmark) as well as names such as Agder and Sogn may have been political units before Harald.

 

According to Sverre Steen, the national assembly was completed at the earliest at the battle of Stiklestad in 1030 and the introduction of Christianity was probably a significant factor in the establishment of Norway as a state. Håkon I the good Adalsteinsfostre introduced the leasehold system where the "coastal land" (as far as the salmon went up the rivers) was divided into ship raiders who were to provide a longship with soldiers and supplies. The leidange was probably introduced as a defense against the Danes. The border with the Danes was traditionally at the Göta älv and several times before and after Harald Hårfagre the Danes had control over central parts of Norway.

 

Christianity was known and existed in Norway before Olav Haraldson's time. The spread occurred both from the south (today's Denmark and northern Germany) and from the west (England and Ireland). Ansgar of Bremen , called the "Apostle of the North", worked in Sweden, but he was never in Norway and probably had little influence in the country. Viking expeditions brought the Norwegians of that time into contact with Christian countries and some were baptized in England, Ireland and northern France. Olav Tryggvason and Olav Haraldson were Vikings who returned home. The first Christians in Norway were also linked to pre-Christian local religion, among other things, by mixing Christian symbols with symbols of Odin and other figures from Norse religion.

 

According to Sverre Steen, the introduction of Christianity in Norway should not be perceived as a nationwide revival. At Mostratinget, Christian law was introduced as law in the country and later incorporated into the laws of the individual jurisdictions. Christianity primarily involved new forms in social life, among other things exposure and images of gods were prohibited, it was forbidden to "put out" unwanted infants (to let them die), and it was forbidden to have multiple wives. The church became a nationwide institution with a special group of officials tasked with protecting the church and consolidating the new religion. According to Sverre Steen, Christianity and the church in the Middle Ages should therefore be considered together, and these became a new unifying factor in the country. The church and Christianity linked Norway to Roman Catholic Europe with Church Latin as the common language, the same time reckoning as the rest of Europe and the church in Norway was arranged much like the churches in Denmark, Sweden and England. Norway received papal approval in 1070 and became its own church province in 1152 with Archbishop Nidaros .

 

With Christianity, the country got three social powers: the peasants (organized through the things), the king with his officials and the church with the clergy. The things are the oldest institution: At allthings all armed men had the right to attend (in part an obligation to attend) and at lagthings met emissaries from an area (that is, the lagthings were representative assemblies). The Thing both ruled in conflicts and established laws. The laws were memorized by the participants and written down around the year 1000 or later in the Gulationsloven , Frostatingsloven , Eidsivatingsloven and Borgartingsloven . The person who had been successful at the hearing had to see to the implementation of the judgment themselves.

 

Early Middle Ages (1050s–1184)

The early Middle Ages is considered in Norwegian history to be the period between the end of the Viking Age around 1050 and the coronation of King Sverre in 1184 . The beginning of the period can be dated differently, from around the year 1000 when the Christianization of the country took place and up to 1100 when the Viking Age was over from an archaeological point of view. From 1035 to 1130 it was a time of (relative) internal peace in Norway, even several of the kings attempted campaigns abroad, including in 1066 and 1103 .

 

During this period, the church's organization was built up. This led to a gradual change in religious customs. Religion went from being a domestic matter to being regulated by common European Christian law and the royal power gained increased power and influence. Slavery (" servitude ") was gradually abolished. The population grew rapidly during this period, as the thousands of farm names ending in -rud show.

 

The urbanization of Norway is a historical process that has slowly but surely changed Norway from the early Viking Age to today, from a country based on agriculture and sea salvage, to increasingly trade and industry. As early as the ninth century, the country got its first urban community, and in the eleventh century we got the first permanent cities.

 

In the 1130s, civil war broke out . This was due to a power struggle and that anyone who claimed to be the king's son could claim the right to the throne. The disputes escalated into extensive year-round warfare when Sverre Sigurdsson started a rebellion against the church's and the landmen's candidate for the throne , Magnus Erlingsson .

 

Emergence of cities

The oldest Norwegian cities probably emerged from the end of the 9th century. Oslo, Bergen and Nidaros became episcopal seats, which stimulated urban development there, and the king built churches in Borg , Konghelle and Tønsberg. Hamar and Stavanger became new episcopal seats and are referred to in the late 12th century as towns together with the trading places Veøy in Romsdal and Kaupanger in Sogn. In the late Middle Ages, Borgund (on Sunnmøre), Veøy (in Romsdalsfjorden) and Vågan (in Lofoten) were referred to as small trading places. Urbanization in Norway occurred in few places compared to the neighboring countries, only 14 places appear as cities before 1350. Stavanger became a bishopric around 1120–1130, but it is unclear whether the place was already a city then. The fertile Jæren and outer Ryfylke were probably relatively densely populated at that time. A particularly large concentration of Irish artefacts from the Viking Age has been found in Stavanger and Nord-Jæren.

 

It has been difficult to estimate the population in the Norwegian medieval cities, but it is considered certain that the cities grew rapidly in the Middle Ages. Oscar Albert Johnsen estimated the city's population before the Black Death at 20,000, of which 7,000 in Bergen, 3,000 in Nidaros, 2,000 in Oslo and 1,500 in Tunsberg. Based on archaeological research, Lunden estimates that Oslo had around 1,500 inhabitants in 250 households in the year 1300. Bergen was built up more densely and, with the concentration of exports there, became Norway's largest city in a special position for several hundred years. Knut Helle suggests a city population of 20,000 at most in the High Middle Ages, of which almost half in Bergen.

 

The Bjarkøyretten regulated the conditions in cities (especially Bergen and Nidaros) and in trading places, and for Nidaros had many of the same provisions as the Frostating Act . Magnus Lagabøte's city law replaced the bjarkøretten and from 1276 regulated the settlement in Bergen and with corresponding laws also drawn up for Oslo, Nidaros and Tunsberg. The city law applied within the city's roof area . The City Act determined that the city's public streets consisted of wide commons (perpendicular to the shoreline) and ran parallel to the shoreline, similarly in Nidaros and Oslo. The roads were small streets of up to 3 cubits (1.4 metres) and linked to the individual property. From the Middle Ages, the Norwegian cities were usually surrounded by wooden fences. The urban development largely consisted of low wooden houses which stood in contrast to the relatively numerous and dominant churches and monasteries built in stone.

 

The City Act and supplementary provisions often determined where in the city different goods could be traded, in Bergen, for example, cattle and sheep could only be traded on the Square, and fish only on the Square or directly from the boats at the quayside. In Nidaros, the blacksmiths were required to stay away from the densely populated areas due to the risk of fire, while the tanners had to stay away from the settlements due to the strong smell. The City Act also attempted to regulate the influx of people into the city (among other things to prevent begging in the streets) and had provisions on fire protection. In Oslo, from the 13th century or earlier, it was common to have apartment buildings consisting of single buildings on a couple of floors around a courtyard with access from the street through a gate room. Oslo's medieval apartment buildings were home to one to four households. In the urban farms, livestock could be kept, including pigs and cows, while pastures and fields were found in the city's rooftops . In the apartment buildings there could be several outbuildings such as warehouses, barns and stables. Archaeological excavations show that much of the buildings in medieval Oslo, Trondheim and Tønsberg resembled the oblong farms that have been preserved at Bryggen in Bergen . The land boundaries in Oslo appear to have persisted for many hundreds of years, in Bergen right from the Middle Ages to modern times.

 

High Middle Ages (1184–1319)

After civil wars in the 12th century, the country had a relative heyday in the 13th century. Iceland and Greenland came under the royal authority in 1262 , and the Norwegian Empire reached its greatest extent under Håkon IV Håkonsson . The last king of Haraldsätten, Håkon V Magnusson , died sonless in 1319 . Until the 17th century, Norway stretched all the way down to the mouth of Göta älv , which was then Norway's border with Sweden and Denmark.

 

Just before the Black Death around 1350, there were between 65,000 and 85,000 farms in the country, and there had been a strong growth in the number of farms from 1050, especially in Eastern Norway. In the High Middle Ages, the church or ecclesiastical institutions controlled 40% of the land in Norway, while the aristocracy owned around 20% and the king owned 7%. The church and monasteries received land through gifts from the king and nobles, or through inheritance and gifts from ordinary farmers.

 

Settlement and demography in the Middle Ages

Before the Black Death, there were more and more farms in Norway due to farm division and clearing. The settlement spread to more marginal agricultural areas higher inland and further north. Eastern Norway had the largest areas to take off and had the most population growth towards the High Middle Ages. Along the coast north of Stad, settlement probably increased in line with the extent of fishing. The Icelandic Rimbegla tells around the year 1200 that the border between Finnmark (the land of the Sami) and resident Norwegians in the interior was at Malangen , while the border all the way out on the coast was at Kvaløya . From the end of the High Middle Ages, there were more Norwegians along the coast of Finnmark and Nord-Troms. In the inner forest and mountain tracts along the current border between Norway and Sweden, the Sami exploited the resources all the way down to Hedmark.

 

There are no censuses or other records of population and settlement in the Middle Ages. At the time of the Reformation, the population was below 200,000 and only in 1650 was the population at the same level as before the Black Death. When Christianity was introduced after the year 1000, the population was around 200,000. After the Black Death, many farms and settlements were abandoned and deserted, in the most marginal agricultural areas up to 80% of the farms were abandoned. Places such as Skien, Veøy and Borgund (Ålesund) went out of use as trading towns. By the year 1300, the population was somewhere between 300,000 and 560,000 depending on the calculation method. Common methods start from detailed information about farms in each village and compare this with the situation in 1660 when there are good headcounts. From 1300 to 1660, there was a change in the economic base so that the coastal villages received a larger share of the population. The inland areas of Eastern Norway had a relatively larger population in the High Middle Ages than after the Reformation. Kåre Lunden concludes that the population in the year 1300 was close to 500,000, of which 15,000 lived in cities. Lunden believes that the population in 1660 was still slightly lower than the peak before the Black Death and points out that farm settlement in 1660 did not reach the same extent as in the High Middle Ages. In 1660, the population in Troms and Finnmark was 6,000 and 3,000 respectively (2% of the total population), in 1300 these areas had an even smaller share of the country's population and in Finnmark there were hardly any Norwegian-speaking inhabitants. In the High Middle Ages, the climate was more favorable for grain cultivation in the north. Based on the number of farms, the population increased 162% from 1000 to 1300, in Northern and Western Europe as a whole the growth was 200% in the same period.

 

Late Middle Ages (1319–1537)

Due to repeated plague epidemics, the population was roughly halved and the least productive of the country's farms were laid waste. It took several hundred years before the population again reached the level before 1349 . However, those who survived the epidemics gained more financial resources by sharing. Tax revenues for the state almost collapsed, and a large part of the noble families died out or sank into peasant status due to the fall in national debt . The Hanseatic League took over trade and shipping and dominated fish exports. The Archbishop of Nidaros was the country's most powerful man economically and politically, as the royal dynasty married into the Swedish in 1319 and died out in 1387 . Eventually, Copenhagen became the political center of the kingdom and Bergen the commercial center, while Trondheim remained the religious center.

 

From Reformation to Autocracy (1537–1660)

In 1537 , the Reformation was carried out in Norway. With that, almost half of the country's property was confiscated by the royal power at the stroke of a pen. The large seizure increased the king's income and was able, among other things, to expand his military power and consolidated his power in the kingdom. From roughly the time of the Reformation and in the following centuries, the state increased its power and importance in people's lives. Until around 1620, the state administration was fairly simple and unspecialised: in Copenhagen, the central administration mainly consisted of a chancellery and an interest chamber ; and sheriffs ruled the civil (including bailiffs and sheriffs) and the military in their district, the sheriffs collected taxes and oversaw business. The accounts were not clear and without summaries. The clergy, which had great power as a separate organization, was appointed by the state church after the Reformation, administered from Copenhagen. In this period, Norway was ruled by (mainly) Danish noble sheriffs, who acted as intermediaries between the peasants and the Oldenborg king in the field of justice, tax and customs collection.

 

From 1620, the state apparatus went through major changes where specialization of functions was a main issue. The sheriff's tasks were divided between several, more specialized officials - the sheriffs retained the formal authority over these, who in practice were under the national administration in Copenhagen. Among other things, a separate military officer corps was established, a separate customs office was established and separate treasurers for taxes and fees were appointed. The Overbergamtet, the central governing body for overseeing mining operations in Norway, was established in 1654 with an office in Christiania and this agency was to oversee the mining chiefs in the Nordenfjeld and Sønnenfjeld areas (the mines at Kongsberg and Røros were established in the previous decades). The formal transition from county government to official government with fixed-paid county officials took place after 1660, but the real changes had taken place from around 1620. The increased specialization and transition to official government meant that experts, not amateurs, were in charge of each area, and this civil service meant, according to Sverre Steen that the dictatorship was not a personal dictatorship.

 

From 1570 until 1721, the Oldenborg dynasty was in repeated wars with the Vasa dynasty in Sweden. The financing of these wars led to a severe increase in taxation which caused great distress.

 

Politically-geographically, the Oldenborg kings had to cede to Sweden the Norwegian provinces of Jemtland , Herjedalen , Idre and Särna , as well as Båhuslen . As part of the financing of the wars, the state apparatus was expanded. Royal power began to assert itself to a greater extent in the administration of justice. Until this period, cases of violence and defamation had been treated as civil cases between citizens. The level of punishment was greatly increased. During this period, at least 307 people were also executed for witchcraft in Norway. Culturally, the country was marked by the fact that the written language became Danish because of the Bible translation and the University of Copenhagen's educational monopoly.

 

From the 16th century, business became more marked by production for sale and not just own consumption. In the past, it was particularly the fisheries that had produced such a large surplus of goods that it was sold to markets far away, the dried fish trade via Bergen is known from around the year 1100. In the 16th century, the yield from the fisheries multiplied, especially due to the introduction of herring in Western Norway and in Trøndelag and because new tools made fishing for herring and skre more efficient. Line fishing and cod nets that were introduced in the 17th century were controversial because the small fishermen believed it favored citizens in the cities.

 

Forestry and the timber trade became an important business, particularly because of the boom saw which made it possible to saw all kinds of tables and planks for sale abroad. The demand for timber increased at the same time in Europe, Norway had plenty of forests and in the 17th century timber became the country's most important export product. There were hundreds of sawmills in the country and the largest had the feel of factories . In 1680, the king regulated the timber trade by allowing exports only from privileged sawmills and in a certain quantity.

 

From the 1520s, some silver was mined in Telemark. When the peasants chased the German miners whereupon the king executed five peasants and demanded compensation from the other rebellious peasants. The background for the harsh treatment was that the king wanted to assert his authority over the extraction of precious metals. The search for metals led to the silver works at Kongsberg after 1624, copper in the mountain villages between Trøndelag and Eastern Norway, and iron, among other things, in Agder and lower Telemark. The financial gain of the quarries at that time is unclear because there are no reliable accounts. Kongsberg ma

Among the first Europeans to use the site now bounded by Bowen Bridge Road, O'Connell Terrace, Brookes Street and Gregory Terrace, was by the Acclimatisation Society of Queensland in 1863. The Society used the site to grow and propagate the plants and seeds sent from other parts of the colony and around the world. They built an office and boardroom, bush-house and glasshouse, and had an orchard and gardens for decorative plants. Various introduced animals were kept and grazed on the site. It seems the plantings were extensive and quickly developed - by 1871 the Society's garden was seen as a place of public institution and recreation. In 1887 the creek in the lower area, where the railway now runs, was damned to form a series of decorative ponds. The Society played an important role in the beginnings of commercial agriculture in Queensland, and introduced or trialed many crops including mango trees, ginger plants, sugar cane, olive trees and choco vines.

 

As Brisbane developed, the Society's grounds came under some pressure from other prospective users. In 1875, 23 acres of land was leased as an exhibition ground to the Queensland National Agricultural and Industrial Association. Brisbane's first Exhibition Building was opened at the junction of Gregory Terrace and Bowen Bridge Road on 22 August 1876. When the timber building was destroyed by fire in June 1888, a competition was immediately organised to design a more permanent Exhibition Building on the same site. The competition was held and prizes were awarded, however a new building did not immediately proceed. Financial difficulties and the possibility of importing a prefabricated building from England delayed the project until 1890. The passing of the National Association and Acclimatisation Society Act in 1890 legally allowed the National Association to become owners of the land they occupied and also empowered them to borrow money from the Government to erect its new building.

 

The original design competition had been won by the architect GHM Addison, who proposed a building estimated to cost around £20 000. Amendments to the original brief meant that in 1890 the new Exhibition Building was redesigned by Addison and a T-shaped building, accommodating an exhibition hall, concert hall and basement dining room was built.

 

The foundation stone was laid on 25 April 1891 and the entire building was expeditiously completed by August of the same year. The building was built of brick with a corrugated iron roof. The glazed bricks were locally manufactured by James Campbell, who also produced the terracotta elements. The roof framing and iron were imported from England. The Concert Hall occupied the shaft section of the T shaped building with the Exhibition Hall located at the top. On the northern side of the Exhibition Hall was a colonnaded verandah, with access to the hall through french doors. Half the area beneath the Exhibition Hall was a large open dining room with an adjacent kitchen. The basement was built of dark glazed bricks with the upper walls being red and cream bricks. Both the Exhibition Hall and the Concert Hall had projecting porte cocheres - the Concert Hall one decorated with terracotta tiles. An openwork terracotta parapet ran along the tops of the brick walls, punctuated by the caps of abutments that ran up the walls. The principal facades of the Exhibition and Concert Halls were each marked by a pair of towers.

 

Addison's original drawings show a brick boundary wall topped by metal railing, with densely planted shrubberies behind the wall. However this treatment of the grounds did not immediately proceed and the surroundings remained in a fairly undeveloped state until plans for the grounds were prepared in 1897 by Leslie G. Corrie, architect for the Queensland International Exhibition. These plans showed a formal layout of carriage drive, pathways, shrubbery, flower beds and a fountain. Bush houses abutting and extending from the northern side of the Exhibition Building framed and terminated the avenue approach from the exhibition grounds. The main entrance remained from Bowen Bridge Road with the carriage drive running in front of the Concert Hall porte cochere, around into the porte cochere of the Exhibition Hall then curving out to the gate on Gregory Terrace. Shrubberies existed along Bowen Bridge Road and Gregory Terrace between the fence and drives. A formal arrangement of grass-edged flower beds, with a fountain as the centrepiece of one, were laid out within the curve of the carriage drive.

 

Records indicate that the National Association continued to experience financial problems following the erection of the new building. In 1897 the responsibility of repaying the government loan, combined with the depressed economic conditions of the 1890s, caused the Association to go into liquidation and the government to take over ownership of the building.

 

In 1900 the Brisbane City Council, following the purchase of the Concert Hall's purpose built organ, leased the hall from the Government and organised a program of regular concerts and civic functions. At the same time, the Queensland Museum decided to move to and adapt the Exhibition Hall for a museum, after twenty years in a comparatively smaller purpose built building in William Street. Tenders for altering the Exhibition Hall into a museum were called in March 1899 and involved the construction of a gallery within the main hall, addition of a line of windows in the main northern wall to light the new gallery and modifications to the basement dining room to provide offices, preparation and storage spaces. The boundary wall and fence along Bowen Bridge Road and Gregory Terrace were completed soon after and the grounds around the building were developed as an ornamental strolling garden. From 1897 to 1929 John Jordan, Curator of the Museum Gardens, is thought to have played an important role in the design and development of the grounds. Photographs from the period show the gardens as well established, with a layout and planting character recognisable as very similar to that existing today.

 

In 1930, following the opening of its City Hall auditorium, the Brisbane City Council vacated the Concert Hall and the space was converted to an art gallery. Further alterations involving the enclosure of the Museum's porte cochere were also carried at this time. The space was occupied until 1974 when the collection was moved to a temporary location in the city while a purpose built gallery was completed on the South Bank precinct. The Queensland Museum then expanded into the space and remained in the building until 1987 when they also moved to the South Bank precinct.

 

Several outbuildings have been constructed in the Old Museum grounds, particularly during the 1960's. The main ones are:

 

- A bomb shelter, built of brick during World War 2

 

- A large steel shed, built 1968

 

- The conservation buildings, built of stud construction in the 1960s and 70s

 

- The spirit store, built of brick in the 1970s

 

- The education building, built of brick in the 1970s

 

- The demountable building, put up in the 1970s

 

Since the Queensland Museum moved out of the building, it has been the temporary home of the Queensland Youth Orchestra, the Restaurant and Caterers Association and various other short term activities. Only minor changes have been made to the building to accommodate these uses.

 

Source: Queensland Heritage Register.

Amar, Paul, (1919-2017), Algeria

 

A French Sephardic Jew and Roman Catholic, Paul Amar was born in Algiers, Algeria. At the age of 17 he went to Paris to learn the trade of hairdressing. In 1945, at the end of the Second World War during which he served as a soldier, he got married, became the father of two children and returned to Algiers to work as a taxi driver. But during the Algerian war, in 1962, he was repatriated to the French capital, where he again worked as a taxi driver. Twelve years later, aged 55, he discovered objects made from shells by chance in a souvenir shop.

Since then, he has embarked on the creation of an initial series of three-dimensional pictures using shells. He eats shellfish in all its forms in order to have sufficient stocks available. In a small room in his apartment used as a studio – he lives in a council flat in Paris – he grinds down and carves mussels, winkles and coral and decorates them with openwork. He subsequently assembles them with glue, then covers them with acrylic paint or nail varnish. Finally, he attaches them to lengths of wire arranged side by side in box-type frames. The pictures are presented in the form of high and low reliefs and are illuminated from within by light bulbs that the artist conceals in sea urchin shells. Ornamentation with vivid, pearly colours saturates the scenes and makes them verge on the sacred.

 

www.artbrut.ch/en_GB/author/amar-paul

The national Natural History collection was founded at the British Museum in 1756, though it wasn't until the appointment of Richard Owen (coiner of the word 'dinosaur') as Superintendent of the natural history departments in 1856 that it was valued as a public resource; Owen was also responsible for the collection gaining its own premises here in South Kensington.

 

Designed by Alfred Waterhouse in a flamboyant Romanesque style, the 'British Museum (Natural History)' was built 1873-80, opening in 1881. It wasn't until 1963 that the Natural History Museum became independent of the British Museum, and the formal name was only changed in 1992.

 

It's the railings* which caught my eye here, and specifically the gilded lions atop the openwork wrought iron piers. These are the famous British Museum Lions, designed in 1852 by Alfred Stevens for low railings outside the British Museum. Though those railings were removed in 1896, the lions were used extensively elsewhere – both the original castings and copies made later. As a design classic resolving the problem of how to portray a lion on such a narrow base, examples of Stevens' Lion are held by the collections of both the British Museum and the V&A. I've also seen the lions on the railings of the Law Society and war memorials in Bath and Leicester.

 

*: The gates, gatepiers and railings are Grade I Listed, independently of the (also Grade I Listed) Museum itself.

La iglesia de San Gil Abad es un templo gótico de la ciudad de Burgos en la provincia homónima, de la comunidad autónoma de Castilla y León, España. Su austero aspecto exterior, debido a que estuvo incluido en la muralla de la ciudad, no permite adivinar la belleza y riqueza de su interior, que reúne el más valioso conjunto gótico de la ciudad después del de la Catedral. La iglesia tiene acceso desde la calle de San Gil y se sitúa al lado de la Puerta del mismo nombre, cerca de la ladera oriental del cerro del Castillo.

Actualmente, está considerada como BIC (Bien de Interés Cultural) (fue declarada Monumento histórico-artístico perteneciente al Tesoro Artístico Nacional mediante decreto de 3 de junio de 1931).

En 2015, en la aprobación por la Unesco de la ampliación del Camino de Santiago en España a «Caminos de Santiago de Compostela: Camino francés y Caminos del Norte de España», España envió como documentación un «Inventario Retrospectivo - Elementos Asociados» (Retrospective Inventory - Associated Components) en el que en el n.º 1047 figura la iglesia de San Gil Abad.

La fábrica es de planta de cruz latina, con tres naves de tres tramos, más transepto y profunda cabecera triple y cuadrada. La nave central y las naves laterales, de menor altura que la anterior, se espacian con seis pilares de núcleo cilíndrico y finas columnillas adosadas. El abovedamiento es sencillo, con algún tramo octopartito. En el primer tramo central de los pies se levanta un coro alto, sobre bóveda muy plana. La cabecera se cierra con ábside de tres paños.

En el sobrio hastial occidental se abren un rosetón con tracería curva formando una estrella de ocho puntas y una portada apuntada abocinada, cuyo dintel adopta la forma de un arco escarzano. En el tímpano, esculturas de la Virgen flanqueada por, probablemente, San Gil y otro santo no identificado. En el brazo meridional del transepto hay otra portada gótica que muestra la Epifanía en el tímpano sobre escenas de la Huida a Egipto.

A la iglesia inicial se le agregaron a lo largo del tiempo una serie de capillas:

 

Capilla de la Natividad de María: Obra quizás del maestro Juan de Matienzo, fue contratada en 1529 por Juan de Castro y su esposa Inés de Lerma. Su fábrica responde a la tipología de capillas funerarias inspiradas en el modelo catedralicio de los Condestables. Tras cruzar su elegante arco de entrada, volteado sobre dos bellas pilastras de estilo plateresco y obra de Juan de Vallejo, se pasa al interior, cubierto con bóveda octogonal estrellada, de plementería calada (abierta en 1980) en su claraboya circular central, y apoyada sobre pechinas con forma de concha.

El retablo, de traza plateresca y sabor tardogótico en la decoración, está dedicado a la Natividad de María y consta de doce escenas narrativas tratadas con gran minuciosidad; a sus flancos, dos sepulcros manieristas bajo arcosolio correspondientes a los fundadores, Juan de Castro e Inés de Lerma Polanco, fallecidos ambos en 1548, y a los padres de él, Juan García de Castro y Teresa de Múgica. A la derecha de la entrada a la capilla se sitúa el sepulcro del hijo de los fundadores, el canónigo Jerónimo de Castro, fallecido en 1573, primer patrono de la capilla, efigiado orante y acompañado por San Miguel y el Ángel Custodio. Es una obra asignada a Juan de Vallejo. Completan las obras contenidas en esta capilla, entre otros, una pila bautismal y dos cuadros con escenas de la vida de San Gil.

En la nave del Evangelio se suceden dos sepulcros adosados al muro. Uno, renacentista, corresponde a Alonso Pisquer y a su hijo Diego, en el que se representa la imposición de la casulla a San Ildefonso. Es obra de Francisco de Colonia. El que sigue es gótico, hecho en pizarra, y en él están yacentes Diego de Frías (+1490) y su esposa Marina García de Espinosa (+1516), cuyo frente tiene a los santos Pedro, Pablo y Santiago. Este sepulcro fue realizado por Simón de Colonia, padre del anterior.

 

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iglesia_de_San_Gil_Abad_(Burgos)

  

Iglesia de San Gil Abad is a church in Burgos, Spain. It dates to the 14th-15th century. It was declared a Bien de Interés Cultural site by decree of 3 June 1931

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Gil_Abad

 

The church of San Gil Abad is a Gothic temple in the city of Burgos in the province of the same name, in the autonomous community of Castilla y León, Spain. Its austere exterior appearance, because it was included in the city wall, does not allow one to guess the beauty and richness of its interior, which brings together the most valuable Gothic complex in the city after that of the Cathedral. The church has access from Calle de San Gil and is located next to the Gate of the same name, near the eastern slope of Cerro del Castillo.

Currently, it is considered as BIC (Asset of Cultural Interest) (it was declared a Historic-Artistic Monument belonging to the National Artistic Treasure by decree of June 3, 1931).

In 2015, in the approval by Unesco of the extension of the Camino de Santiago in Spain to "Caminos de Santiago de Compostela: French Way and Northern Spanish Ways", Spain sent as documentation a "Retrospective Inventory - Associated Elements" (Retrospective Inventory - Associated Components) in which the church of San Gil Abad is listed at number 1047.

The factory has a Latin cross plan, with three naves of three sections, a transept and a deep triple and square header. The central nave and the lateral naves, shorter than the previous one, are spaced with six pillars with a cylindrical core and fine attached columns. The vaulting is simple, with some octopartite section. In the first central section of the feet a high choir rises, on a very flat vault. The headboard closes with an apse of three panels.

In the sober western gable there is a rose window with curved tracery forming an eight-pointed star and a flared pointed portal, whose lintel takes the shape of a segmental arch. On the tympanum, sculptures of the Virgin flanked by, probably, Saint Gil and another unidentified saint. On the southern arm of the transept there is another Gothic portal showing the Epiphany on the tympanum on scenes from the Flight into Egypt.

A series of chapels were added to the initial church over time:

 

Chapel of the Nativity of Mary: Perhaps a work of the master Juan de Matienzo, it was hired in 1529 by Juan de Castro and his wife Inés de Lerma. Its factory responds to the type of funerary chapels inspired by the cathedral model of the Constables. After crossing its elegant entrance arch, turned over two beautiful Plateresque pilasters and the work of Juan de Vallejo, one passes inside, covered with an octagonal starry vault, with openwork plementery (opened in 1980) in its central circular skylight, and supported on shell-shaped pendentives.

The altarpiece, with a Plateresque design and a late Gothic flavor in the decoration, is dedicated to the Nativity of Mary and consists of twelve narrative scenes treated with great detail; to its flanks, two Mannerist tombs under arcosolio corresponding to the founders, Juan de Castro and Inés de Lerma Polanco, both of whom died in 1548, and his parents, Juan García de Castro and Teresa de Múgica. To the right of the entrance to the chapel is the tomb of the son of the founders, Canon Jerónimo de Castro, who died in 1573, the first patron of the chapel, a prayerful effigy and accompanied by Saint Michael and the Guardian Angel. It is a work assigned to Juan de Vallejo. The works contained in this chapel are completed, among others, by a baptismal font and two paintings with scenes from the life of Saint Gil.

In the nave of the Gospel there are two tombs attached to the wall. One, Renaissance, corresponds to Alonso Pisquer and his son Diego, in which the imposition of the chasuble on San Ildefonso is represented. It is the work of Francisco de Colonia. The one that follows is Gothic, made of slate, and in it lie Diego de Frías (+1490) and his wife Marina García de Espinosa (+1516), whose forehead is Saints Pedro, Pablo and Santiago. This tomb was made by Simón de Colonia, father of the previous one.

 

The golden throne that Howard Carter discovered in the Antechamber beneath the hippopotamus couch is similar to the chair belonging to Sitamun. The style was popular for royal chairs of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Instead of female torsos protruding from the seat, however, the more traditional lions are in their place. Carved of wood, the armchair is covered in gold, and there is some silver overlay as well. Colored glass, faience, calcite, and semi-precious stones are used for the inlays.

 

The carved plant motif between the feline-form legs has been removed by the robbers, but the delicate openwork design of the arms remains intact. On either side, a winged cobra wears the double crown and rests on a basket. Her outstretched wings enclose the hieroglyphs for the "king of Upper and Lower Egypt" followed by the sign for infinity (shen). A cartouche of the king is at the end of her wings on either side of the chair.

 

The back of the chair is supported by three vertical struts; the outer two are carved with the king's Aton name, the middle one with that of the queen. Four hooded cobra with solar disks rise up in pairs between each of the supports. A carved and gilded scene with birds in a thicket appears on the outer surface of the back of the seat. In the triangular opening formed between the diagonal of the back and the vertical support on each side is a hooded cobra. The one on the left wears the red crown of Lower Egypt, while the one on the right has the white crown of Upper Egypt.

 

The iconography relates to Atonist doctrines, but the names of the king and queen appearing on the chair use both the earlier (Aton) and later (Amon) forms. Such a combination indicate that the chair was probably produced rather early in Tutankhamun's reign, during the period of transition to the orthodox religion. TOUR EGYPT

 

Belfry of Bruges a medieval bell tower in the Markt and Burg Quarter, central Bruges, Flanders, Belgium.

 

The Belfry of Bruges in the centre of Bruges, Belgium. One of the city's most prominent symbols, the belfry formerly housed a treasury and the municipal archives, and served as an observation post for spotting fires and other danger. A narrow, steep staircase of 366 steps, accessible by the public for an entry fee, leads to the top of the 83 m (272 feet) high building, which leans 87 centimeters to the east.

 

To the sides and back of the tower stands the former market hall, a rectangular building only 44 meters broad but 84 meters deep, with an inner courtyard. The belfry, accordingly, is also known as the Halletoren (tower of the halls). The belfry was added to the market square around 1240, when Bruges was an important centre of the Flemish cloth industry. After a devastating fire in 1280, the tower was largely rebuilt. The city archives, however, were forever lost to the flames.

 

The octagonal upper stage of the belfry was added between 1483 and 1487, and capped with a wooden spire bearing an image of Saint Michael, banner in hand and dragon underfoot. The spire did not last long: a lightning strike in 1493 reduced it to ashes, and destroyed the bells as well. A wooden spire crowned the summit again for some two-and-a-half centuries, before it, too, fell victim to flames in 1741. The spire was never replaced again, thus making the current height of the building somewhat lower than in the past; but an openwork stone parapet in Gothic style was added to the rooftop in 1822.

 

The structure was covered with white and pink marble from the Candoglia quarry in Val D’Ossola. The Cathedral’s roof is covered in openwork pinnacles and spires crowned with sculptures that overlook the city.

 

Фасад здания, его шпили и внутренние помещения, украшены невообразимым числом статуй – 3400. В это число входят изображения исторических личностей, святых, мучеников, пророков и прочих библейских персонажей. Не обошлось и без верных символов средневековья – горгулий и химер. Они, как верные атрибуты готики, угнездились на стенах здания, отгоняя нечисть. Среди наружной отделки здания попадаются весьма любопытные экземпляры, например, изображение Муссолини или же древний прототип статуи Свободы, что ныне стоит в США.

21-21 Design Sight est un musée d'art moderne créé par le grand architecte nippon Tadao Ando et le non moins connu créateur de mode Issey Miyake.

Ici, on est dans la boutique attenante au musée où on vendait, entre autres, ces cache-pots ajourés et modelables.

 

21-21 Design Sight is a museum of modern art created by the great Japanese architect Tadao Ando and the no less famous fashion designer Issey Miyake.

Here, we are in the shop adjoining the museum where we sold, among other things, these openwork and modelable plant pots.

This is Islam's fourth most holiest site

  

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosque_of_Uqba

  

The Great Mosque of Kairouan (جامع القيروان الأكبر), also known as the Mosque of Uqba (Arabic: جامع عقبة‎), is one of the most important mosques in Tunisia, situated in the UNESCO World Heritage town of Kairouan.

Built by the Arab general Uqba ibn Nafi from 670 AD (the year 50 according to the Islamic calendar) at the founding of the city of Kairouan, the mosque is spread over a surface area of 9,000 square metres and it is one of the oldest places of worship in the Islamic world, as well as a model for all later mosques in the Maghreb.[1] The Great Mosque of Kairouan is one of the most impressive and largest Islamic monuments in North Africa,[2] its perimeter is almost equal to 405 metres (1,328 feet). This vast space contains a hypostyle prayer hall, a huge marble-paved courtyard and a massive square minaret. In addition to its spiritual prestige,[3] the Mosque of Uqba is one of the masterpieces of both architecture and Islamic art.[4][5][6]

Under the Aghlabids (9th century), huge works gave the mosque its present aspect.[7] The fame of the Mosque of Uqba and of the other holy sites at Kairouan helped the city to develop and repopulate increasingly. The university, consisting of scholars who taught in the mosque, was a centre of education both in Islamic thought and in the secular sciences.[8] Its role can be compared to that of the University of Paris in the Middle Ages.[9] With the decline of the city of Kairouan from the mid 11th century, the centre of intellectual thought moved to the University of Ez-Zitouna in Tunis.

  

Location and general aspect

  

Map of Kairouan (1916) showing the location of the Great Mosque of Kairouan in the northeast corner of the medina

  

The mosque outside is marked by many buttresses. Here is the northwest corner.

  

Wall and buttresses of the southern side of the mosque

  

Late afternoon panorama of the mosque

  

Located in the north-east of the medina of Kairouan, the mosque is in the intramural district of Houmat al-Jami (literally "area of the Great Mosque").[11] This location corresponded originally to the heart of the urban fabric of the city founded by Uqba ibn Nafi.

But because of the specific nature of the land, crossed by several tributaries of the wadis, the urban development of the city stretched southwards. Then there are the upheavals of Kairouan following Hilalian's invasions in 449 AH (or 1057 AD) and which led to the decline of the city. For all these reasons, the mosque (which occupies the same place since its founding in 670) is not any more situated in the center of the medina, and is thereby positioned on the extremity, near the walls.

The building is a vast irregular quadrilateral, longer (with 127.60 meters) from the eastern side than on the opposite side (with 125.20 meters) and less wide (with 72.70 meters) on the north side (in the middle of which stands the minaret) that the opposite side (with 78 meters). It covers a total area of 9000 m2.

From the outside, the Great Mosque of Kairouan is a fortress-like building, which required as much by its massive ocher walls of 1.90 meters thick composed of well-worked stones, courses of rubble stone and courses of baked bricks,[12] as the square angle towers measuring 4.25 meters on each side and the solid and projecting buttresses that support and bind. More than a defensive role, the buttresses and towers full serve more to enhance the stability of the mosque built on a soil subject to compaction.[13] Although a seemingly harsh, the external facades, punctuated with powerful buttresses and towering porches, some of which are surmounted by cupolas, give to the sanctuary a striking aspect characterized by majestic sobriety.

  

History

  

Evolution

  

At the foundation of Kairouan in 670, the Arab general and conqueror Uqba Ibn Nafi (himself the founder of the city) chose the site of his mosque in the center of the city, near the headquarters of the governor. Around 690, shortly after its construction, the mosque was destroyed[15] during the occupation of Kairouan by the Berbers, originally conducted by Kusaila. It was rebuilt by the Ghassanid general Hasan ibn al-Nu'man in 703.[16] With the gradual increase of the population of Kairouan and the consequent increase in the number of faithful, Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik, Umayyad Caliph in Damascus, charged his governor Bishr ibn Safwan to carry out development work in the city which include the renovation and expansion of the mosque around the years 724–728.[17] In view of its expansion, he pulled down the mosque and rebuilt it with the exception of the mihrab. It was under his auspices that the construction of the minaret began.[18] In 774, a new reconstruction accompanied by modifications and embellishments[19] took place under the direction of the Abbasid governor Yazid Ibn Hatim.[20]

Plan architect of the building.

  

Under the rule of Aghlabid sovereigns, Kairouan was at its apogee, and the mosque profited from this period of stability and prosperity. In 836, Ziadet-Allah I reconstructed the mosque once more:[21] this is when the building acquired, at least in its entirety, the appearance we see today.[22][23] At the same time, the mihrab's ribbed dome on squinches was raised.[24] Around 862-863, Abul Ibrahim enlarged the oratory, with three bays to the north, and added the cupola over the arched portico which precedes the prayer hall.[25] In 875 Ibrahim II built another three bays, thereby reducing the size of the courtyard which was further limited on the three other sides by the addition of double galleries.[26]

The current state of the mosque can be traced back to the reign of Aghlabids—no element is earlier than the ninth century besides the mihrab—except for some partial restorations and a few later additions made in 1025 during the reign of Zirids,[27] 1248 and 1293-1294 under the reign of Hafsids,[28] 1618 at the time of mouradites beys,[29] in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In 1967, major restoration works, executed during five years and conducted under the direction of the National Institute of Archeology and Art, were achieved throughout the monument, and were ended with an official reopening of the mosque during the celebration of Mawlid of 1972.[30]

  

Host stories

  

Several centuries after its founding, the Great Mosque of Kairouan is the subject of numerous descriptions by Arab historians and geographers in the Middle Ages. The stories concern mainly the different phases of construction and expansion of the sanctuary, and the successive contributions of many princes to the interior decoration (mihrab, minbar, ceilings, etc.). Among the authors who have written on the subject and whose stories have survived[31] are Al-Bakri (Andalusian geographer and historian who died in 1094 and who devoted a sufficiently detailed account of the history of the mosque in his book Description of Septentrional Africa), Al-Nuwayri (historian who died in Egypt, 1332) and Ibn Nagi (scholar and historian of Kairouan who died around 1435).

On additions and embellishments made to the building by the Aghlabid sovereign Abul Ibrahim, Ibn Nagi gives the following account :

« He built in the mosque of Kairouan the cupola that rises over the entrance to the central nave, together with the two colonnades which flank it from both sides, and the galleries were paved by him. He then made the mihrab. »[22]

  

Among the Western travelers, poets and writers who visited Kairouan, some of them leave impressions and testimonies sometimes tinged with emotion or admiration on the mosque. From the eighteenth century, the French doctor and naturalist John Andrew Peyssonnel, conducting a study trip to 1724, during the reign of sovereign Al-Husayn Bey I, underlines the reputation of the mosque as a deemed center of religious and secular studies :

« The Great Mosque is dedicated to Uqba, where there is a famous college where we will study the remotest corners of this kingdom : are taught reading and writing of Arabic grammar, laws and religion. There are large rents for the maintenance of teachers. »[32]

At the same time,the doctor and Anglican priest Thomas Shaw (1692–1751),[33] touring the Tunis Regency and passes through Kairouan in 1727, described the mosque as that : " which is considered the most beautiful and the most sacred of Berberian territories ", evoking for example : " an almost unbelievable number of granite columns ".[34]

At the end of the nineteenth century, the French writer Guy de Maupassant expresses in his book La vie errante (The Wandering Life), his fascination with the majestic architecture of the Great Mosque of Kairouan as well as the effect created by countless columns : " The unique harmony of this temple consists in the proportion and the number of these slender shafts upholding the building, filling, peopling, and making it what it is, create its grace and greatness. Their colorful multitude gives the eye the impression of unlimited ".[35] Early in the twentieth century, the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke describes his admiration for the impressive minaret :

« Is there a more beautiful than this still preserved old tower, the minaret, in Islamic architecture ? In the history of Art, its three-storey minaret is considered such a masterpiece and a model among the most prestigious monuments of Muslim architecture. »

  

Architecture and decoration

  

Exterior

  

Enclosure

  

Today, the enclosure of the Great Mosque of Kairouan is pierced by nine gates (six opening on the courtyard, two opening on the prayer hall and a ninth allows access to the maqsura) some of them, such as Bab Al-Ma (Gate of water) located on the western facade, are preceded by salient porches flanked by buttresses and surmounted by ribbed domes based on square tholobate which are porting squinches with three vaults.[12][37] However, Arab geographers and historians of the Middle Ages Al-Muqaddasi and Al-Bakri reported the existence, around the tenth and eleventh centuries, of about ten gates named differently from today. This reflects the fact that, unlike the rest of the mosque, the enclosure has undergone significant changes to ensure the stability of the building (adding many buttresses). Thus, some entries have been sealed, while others were kept.[12]

During the thirteenth century, new gates were opened, the most remarkable, Bab Lalla Rihana dated from 1293, is located on the eastern wall of the enclosure.[12] The monumental entrance, work of the Hafsid sovereign Abu Hafs `Umar ibn Yahya (reign from 1284 to 1295),[38] is entered in a salient square, flanked by ancient columns supporting Horseshoe arches and covered by a dome on squinches.[12] The front facade of the porch has a large horseshoe arch relied on two marble columns and surmounted by a frieze adorned with a blind arcade, all crowned by serrated merlons (in a sawtooth arrangement).[39] Despite its construction at the end of the thirteenth century, Bab Lalla Rihana blends well with all of the building mainly dating from the ninth century.[39]

Enclosure and gates of the Mosque of Uqba

  

Courtyard

  

The courtyard is a vast trapezoidal area whose interior dimensions are approximately 65 by 50 meters.[40] It is surrounded on all its four sides by a portico with double rows of arches, opened by slightly horseshoe arches supported by columns in various marbles, in granite or in porphyry, reused from Roman, Early Christian or Byzantine monuments particularly from Carthage.[14] Access to the courtyard by six side entrances dating from the ninth and thirteenth centuries.

The portico on the south side of the courtyard, near the prayer hall, includes in its middle a large dressed stone pointed horseshoe arch which rests on ancient columns of white veined marble with Corinthian capitals. This porch of seven meters high is topped with a square base upon which rests a semi-spherical ribbed dome ; the latter is ribbed with sharp-edged ribs. The intermediary area, the dodecagonal drum of the dome, is pierced by sixteen small rectangular windows set into rounded niches.[41] The great central arch of the south portico, is flanked on each side by six rhythmically arranged horseshoe arches, which fall on twin columns backed by pillars.[42] Overall, the proportions and general layout of the facade of the south portico, with its thirteen arches of which that in the middle constitutes a sort of triumphal arch crowned with a cupola, form an ensemble with " a powerful air of majesty ", according to the French historian and sociologist Paul Sebag (1919–2004).[43]

Courtyard area and porticoes

  

Details of the courtyard

  

The combination formed by the courtyard and the galleries that surround it covers an immense area whose dimensions are about 90 meters long and 72 meters in width.[44] The northern part of the courtyard is paved with flagstones while the rest of the floor is almost entirely composed of white marble slabs. Near its center is an horizontal sundial, bearing an inscription in naskhi engraved on the marble dating from 1258 AH (which corresponds to the year 1843) and which is accessed by a little staircase ; it determines the time of prayers. The rainwater collector or impluvium, probably the work of the Muradid Bey Mohamed Bey al-Mouradi (1686–1696), is an ingenious system that ensures the capture (with the slightly sloping surface of the courtyard) then filtering stormwater at a central basin furnished with horseshoe arches sculpted in white marble.[45] Freed from its impurities, the water flows into an underground cistern supported by seven meters high pillars. In the courtyard there are also several water wells some of which are placed side by side. Their edges, obtained from the lower parts of ancient cored columns,[46] support the string grooves back the buckets.

  

Minaret

  

A square stone tower rises high above a wall.

  

The minaret, which occupies the center of the northern facade of the complex's enclosure, is 31.5 meters tall and is seated on a square base of 10.7 meters on each side.[47] It is located inside the enclosure and does not have direct access from the outside. It consists of three tapering levels, the last of which is topped with a small ribbed dome that was most probably built later than the rest of the tower.[48] The first and second stories are surmounted by rounded merlons which are pierced by arrowslits. The minaret served as a watchtower, as well as to call the faithful to prayer.[48]

The door giving access to the minaret is framed by a lintel and jambs made of recycled carved friezes of antique origin.[49] There are stone blocks from the Roman period that bear Latin inscriptions. Their use probably dates to the work done under the Umayyad governor Bishr ibn Safwan in about 725 AD, and they have been reused at the base of the tower.[49] The greater part of the minaret dates from the time of the Aghlabid princes in the ninth century. It consists of regular layers of carefully cut rubble stone, thus giving the work a stylistically admirable homogeneity and unity.[50]

The interior includes a staircase of 129 steps, surmounted by a barrel vault, which gives access to the terraces and the first tier of the minaret. The courtyard facade (or south facade) of the tower is pierced with windows that provide light and ventilation,[51] while the other three facades—facing north, east and west—are pierced with small openings in the form of arrowslits.[47] The minaret, in its present aspect, dates largely from the early ninth century, about 836 AD. It is the oldest minaret in the Muslim world,[52][53] and it is also the world's oldest minaret still standing.[54]

Due to its age and its architectural features, the minaret of the Great Mosque of Kairouan is the prototype for all the minarets of the western Islamic world : it served as a model in both North Africa and in Andalusia.[55] Despite its massive form and austere decoration, it nevertheless presents a harmonious structure and a majestic appearance.[51][56]

Minaret

  

Domes

  

The dome over the mihrab (9th century)

The Mosque has several domes, the largest being over the mihrab and the entrance to the prayer hall from the courtyard. The dome of the mihrab is based on an octagonal drum with slightly concave sides, raised on a square base, decorated on each of its three southern, Easter and western faces with five flat-bottomed niches surmounted by five semi-circular arches,[24][57] the niche in the middle is cut by a lobed oculus enrolled in a circular frame. This dome, whose construction goes back to the first half of the ninth century (towards 836), is one of the oldest and most remarkable domes in the western Islamic world.[58]

  

Interior

  

Prayer hall

  

The prayer hall is located on the southern side of the courtyard ; and is accessed by 17 carved wooden doors. A portico with double row of arches precede the spacious prayer hall, which takes the shape of a rectangle of 70.6 meters in width and 37.5 meters depth.[59]

  

The hypostyle hall is divided into 17 aisles of eight bays, the central nave is wider, as well as the bay along the wall of the qibla.[60] They cross with right angle in front of the mihrab, this device, named "T shape", which is also found in two Iraqi mosques in Samarra (around 847) has been adopted in many North African and Andalusian mosques where it became a feature.[61]

The central nave, a sort of triumphal alley which leads to the mihrab,[62] is significantly higher and wider than the other sixteen aisles of the prayer hall. It is bordered on each side of a double row of arches rested on twin columns and surmounted by a carved plaster decoration consisting of floral and geometric patterns.[63]

Enlightened by impressive chandeliers which are applied in countless small glass lamps,[64] the nave opens into the south portico of the courtyard by a monumental delicately carved wooden door, made in 1828 under the reign of the Husainids.[65] This sumptuous door, which has four leaves richly carved with geometric motifs embossed on the bottom of foliages and interlacing stars, is decorated at the typanum by a stylized vase from which emerge winding stems and leaves.[66] The other doors of the prayer hall, some of which date from the time of the Hafsids,[67] are distinguished by their decoration which consists essentially of geometric patterns (hexagonal, octagonal, rectangular patterns, etc.).[59]

  

Columns and ceiling

  

In the prayer hall, the 414 columns of marble, granite or porphyry[68] (among more than 500 columns in the whole mosque),[69] taken from ancient sites in the country such as Sbeïtla, Carthage, Hadrumetum and Chemtou,[59] support the horseshoe arches. A legend says they could not count them without going blind.[70] The capitals resting on the column shafts offer a wide variety of shapes and styles (Corinthian, Ionic, Composite, etc..).[59] Some capitals were carved for the mosque, but others come from Roman or Byzantine buildings (dating from the second to sixth century) and were reused. According to the German archaeologist Christian Ewert, the special arrangement of reused columns and capitals surrounding the mihrab obeys to a well-defined program and would draw symbolically the plan of the Dome of the Rock.[71] The shafts of the columns are carved in marble of different colors and different backgrounds. Those in white marble come from Italy,[59] some shafts located in the area of the mihrab are in red Porphyry imported from Egypt,[72] while those made of greenish or pink marble are from quarries of Chemtou, in the north-west of current Tunisia.[59] Although the shafts are of varying heights, the columns are ingeniously arranged to support fallen arches harmoniously. The height difference is compensated by the development of variable bases, capitals and crossbeams ; a number of these crossbeams are in cedar wood.[59] The wooden rods, which usually sink to the base of the transom, connect the columns together and maintain the spacing of the arches, thus enhancing the stability of all structures which support the ceiling of the prayer hall.[73]

  

The covering of the prayer hall consists of painted ceilings decorated with vegetal motifs and two domes : one raised at the beginning of the central nave and the other in front of the mihrab. The latter, which its hemispherical cap is cut by 24 concave grooves radiating around the top,[74] is based on ridged horns shaped shell and a drum pierced by eight circular windows which are inserted between sixteen niches grouped by two.[57][75] The niches are covered with carved stone panels, finely adorned with characteristic geometric, vegetal and floral patterns of the Aghlabid decorative repertoire : shells, cusped arches, rosettes, vine-leaf, etc.[57] From the outside, the dome of the mihrab is based on an octagonal drum with slightly concave sides, raised on a square base, decorated on each of its three southern, Easter and western faces with five flat-bottomed niches surmounted by five semi-circular arches,[24][57] the niche in the middle is cut by a lobed oculus enrolled in a circular frame.

  

The painted ceilings are a unique ensemble of planks, beams and brackets, illustrating almost thousand years of the history of painting on wood in Tunisia. Wooden brackets offer a wide variety of style and decor in the shape of a crow or a grasshopper with wings or fixed, they are characterized by a setting that combines floral painted or carved, with grooves. The oldest boards date back to the Aghlabid period (ninth century) and are decorated with scrolls and rosettes on a red background consists of squares with concave sides in which are inscribed four-petaled flowers in green and blue, and those performed by the Zirid Dynasty (eleventh century) are characterized by inscriptions in black kufic writing with gold rim and the uprights of the letters end with lobed florets, all on a brown background adorned with simple floral patterns.

The boards painted under the Hafsid period (during the thirteenth century) offers a floral decor consists of white and blue arches entwined with lobed green. The latest, dated the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (mostly dating from the time of the Muradid Beys), are distinguished by an epigraphic decoration consists of long black and red texts on olive green background to those painted from 1618 to 1619, under the reign of Murad I Bey (1613-1631), while those back to the eighteenth century have inscriptions in white naskhi script on an orange background.[76]

  

Mihrab and minbar

  

Close view of the mihrab, whose current state dates from the ninth century

The mihrab, which indicates the Qibla (direction of Mecca), in front of which stands the imam during the prayer, is located in the middle of the southern wall of the prayer hall. It is formed by an oven-shaped niche framed by two marble columns and topped by a painted wooden half-cupola. The niche of the mihrab is two meters long, 4.5 meters high and 1.6 meters deep.[77]

The mosque's mihrab, whose decor is a remarkable witness of Muslim art in the early centuries of Islam, is distinguished by its harmonious composition and the quality of its ornaments. Considered as the oldest example of concave mihrab, it dates in its present state to 862-863 AD.[78]

  

Upper Part of The Mihrab

  

It is surrounded at its upper part by 139 lusterware tiles (with a metallic sheen), each one is 21.1 centimeters square and they are arranged on the diagonal in a chessboard pattern. Divided into two groups, they are dated from the beginning of the second half of the ninth century but it is not determined with certainty whether they were made in Baghdad or in Kairouan by a Baghdadi artisan, the controversy over the origin of this precious collection agitates the specialists. These tiles are mainly decorated with floral and plant motifs (stylized flowers, palm leaves and asymmetrical leaves on bottom hatch and checkered) belong to two series : one polychrome characterized by a greater richness of tones ranging from light gold to light, dark or ocher yellow, and from brick-red to brown lacquer, the other monochrome is a beautiful luster that goes from smoked gold to green gold. The coating around them is decorated with blue plant motifs dating from the eighteenth century or the first half of the nineteenth century. The horseshoe arch of the mihrab, stilted and broken at the top, rest on two columns of red marble with yellow veins, which surmounted with Byzantine style capitals that carry two crossbeams carved with floral patterns, each one is decorated with a Kufic inscription in relief.

  

Detail of the marble cladding

  

The wall of the mihrab is covered with 28 panels of white marble, carved and pierced, which have a wide variety of plant and geometric patterns including the stylized grape leaf, the flower and the shell. Behind the openwork hint, there is an oldest niche on which several assumptions were formulated. If one refers to the story of Al-Bakri, an Andalusian historian and geographer of the eleventh century, it is the mihrab which would be done by Uqba Ibn Nafi, the founder of Kairouan, whereas Lucien Golvin shares the view that it is not an old mihrab but hardly a begun construction which may serve to support marble panels and either goes back to work of Ziadet Allah I (817-838) or to those of Abul Ibrahim around the years 862-863.[79] Above the marble cladding, the mihrab niche is crowned with a half dome-shaped vault made of manchineel bentwood. Covered with a thick coating completely painted, the concavity of the arch is decorated with intertwined scrolls enveloping stylized five-lobed vine leaves, three-lobed florets and sharp clusters, all in yellow on midnight blue background.[80]

The minbar, situated on the right of the mihrab, is used by the imam during the Friday or Eids sermons, is a staircase-shaped pulpit with an upper seat, reached by eleven steps, and measuring 3.93 meters length to 3.31 meters in height. Dated from the ninth century (about 862) and erected under the reign of the sixth Aghlabid ruler Abul Ibrahim (856-863), it is made in teak wood imported from India.[81] Among all the pulpits of the Muslim world, it is certainly the oldest example of minbar still preserved today.[82] Probably made by cabinetmakers of Kairouan (some researchers also refer to Baghdad), it consists of an assembly of more than 300 finely carved wood pieces with an exceptional ornamental wealth (vegetal and geometric patterns refer to the Umayyad and Abbasid models), among which about 90 rectangular panels carved with plenty of pine cones, grape leaves, thin and flexible stems, lanceolate fruits and various geometric shapes (squares, diamonds, stars, etc.). The upper edge of the minbar ramp is adorned with a rich and graceful vegetal decoration composed of alternately arranged foliated scrolls, each one containing a spread vine-leaf and a cluster of grapes. In the early twentieth century, the minbar had a painstaking restoration. Although more than eleven centuries of existence, all panels, with the exception of nine, are originals and are in a good state of conservation, the fineness of the execution of the minbar makes it a great masterpiece of Islamic wood carving referring to Paul Sebag.[83] This old chair of the ninth century is still in its original location, next to the mihrab.

  

Maqsura

  

The maqsura, located near the minbar, consists of a fence bounding a private enclosure that allows the sovereign and his senior officials to follow the solemn prayer of Friday without mingling with the faithful. Jewel of the art of woodwork produced during the reign of the Zirid prince Al-Muizz ibn Badis and dated from the first half of the eleventh century, it is considered the oldest still in place in the Islamic world. It is a cedar wood fence finely sculpted and carved on three sides with various geometric motifs measuring 2.8 meters tall, eight meters long and six meters wide.[84] Its main adornment is a frieze that crowns calligraphy, the latter surmounted by a line of pointed openwork merlons, features an inscription in flowery kufic character carved on the background of interlacing plants. Carefully executed in relief, it represents one of the most beautiful epigraphic bands of Islamic art.[84]

The library is near located, accessible by a door which the jambs and the lintel are carved in marble, adorned with a frieze of floral decoration. The library window is marked by an elegant setting that has two columns flanking the opening, which is a horseshoe arch topped by six blind arches and crowned by a series of berms sawtooth.[85]

  

Artworks

  

The Mosque of Uqba, one of the few religious buildings of Islam has remained intact almost all of its architectural and decorative elements, is due to the richness of its repertoire which is a veritable museum of Islamic decorative art and architecture. Most of the works on which rests the reputation of the mosque are still conserved in situ while a certain number of them have joined the collections of the Raqqada National Museum of Islamic Art ; Raqqada is located about ten kilometers southwest of Kairouan.

From the library of the mosque comes a large collection of calligraphic scrolls and manuscripts, the oldest dating back to the second half of the ninth century. This valuable collection, observed from the late nineteenth century by the French orientalists Octave Houdas and René Basset who mention in their report on their scientific mission in Tunisia published in the Journal of African correspondence in 1882, comprises according to the inventory established at the time of the Hafsids (circa 1293-1294) several Qur'ans and books of fiqh that concern mainly the Maliki fiqh and its sources. These are the oldest fund of Maliki legal literature to have survived.[86]

  

Among the finest works of this series, the pages of the Blue Qur'an, currently exhibited at Raqqada National Museum of Islamic Art, from a famous Qur'an in the second half of the fourth century of the Hegira (the tenth century) most of which is preserved in Tunisia and the rest scattered in museums and private collections worldwide. Featuring kufic character suras are written in gold on vellum dyed with indigo, they are distinguished by a compact graph with no marks for vowels. The beginning of each surah is indicated by a band consisting of a golden stylized leafy foliage, dotted with red and blue, while the verses are separated by silver rosettes. Other scrolls and calligraphic Qur'ans, as that known as the Hadinah's Qur'an, copied and illuminated by the calligrapher Ali ibn Ahmad al-Warraq for the governess of the Zirid prince Al-Muizz ibn Badis at about 1020 AD, were also in the library before being transferred to Raqqada museum. This collection is a unique source for studying the history and evolution of calligraphy of medieval manuscripts in the Maghreb, covering the period from the ninth to the eleventh century.

Other works of art such as the crowns of light (circular chandeliers) made in cast bronze, dating from the Fatimid-Zirid period (around tenth-early eleventh century), originally belonged to the furniture of the mosque. These polycandelons, now scattered in various Tunisian museums including Raqqada, consist of three chains supporting a perforated brass plate, which has a central circular ring around which radiate 18 equidistant poles connected by many horseshoe arches and equipped for each of two landmarks flared. The three chains, connected by a suspension ring, are each fixed to the plate by an almond-shaped finial. The crowns of light are marked by Byzantine influence to which the Kairouanese artisan brought the specificities of Islamic decorative repertoire (geometric and floral motifs).[

  

Role in Muslim civilization

  

At the time of its greatest splendor, between the ninth and eleventh centuries AD, Kairouan was one of the greatest centers of Islamic civilization and its reputation as a hotbed of scholarship covered the entire Maghreb. During this period, the Great Mosque of Kairouan was both a place of prayer and a center for teaching Islamic sciences under the Maliki current. One may conceivably compare its role to that of the University of Paris during the Middle Ages.

In addition to studies on the deepening of religious thought and Maliki jurisprudence, the mosque also hosted various courses in secular subjects such as mathematics, astronomy, medicine and botany. The transmission of knowledge was assured by prominent scholars and theologians which included Sahnun ibn Sa'id and Asad ibn al-Furat, eminent jurists who contributed greatly to the dissemination of the Maliki thought, Ishaq ibn Imran and Ibn al-Jazzar in medicine, Abu Sahl al-Kairouani and Abd al-Monim al-Kindi in mathematics. Thus the mosque, headquarters of a prestigious university with a large library containing a large number of scientific and theological works, was the most remarkable intellectual and cultural center in North Africa during the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries

~1350, oak

Die Orgel der Klosterkirche wurde 1746 bis 1751 durch den Lippstädter Johann Patroclus Möller errichtet. {de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kloster_Marienfeld_(Harsewinkel)#Orgel}

Built from 1746-51 by Johann Patroclus Möller of Lippstadt.

Jaisalmer (Rajasthani: जैसलमेर), nicknamed "The Golden city", is a city in the Indian state of Rajasthan, located 575 kilometres (357 mi) west of the state capital Jaipur. Once known as Jaisalmer state it is a World Heritage Site. The town stands on a ridge of yellowish sandstone, crowned by a fort, which contains the palace and several ornate Jain temples. Many of the houses and temples are finely sculptured. It lies in the heart of the Thar Desert (the Great Indian Desert) and has a population of about 78,000. It is the administrative headquarters of Jaisalmer District.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaisalmer

 

Lodrawa (Lodurva or Lodarva) is a village in Jaisalmer district, Rajasthan, India. It is 15 km to the north-west of Jaisalmer. Lodrawa was the ancient capital of the Bhatti dynasty till 1156 AD, when Rawal Jaisal founded the Jaisalmer state and shifted the capital to Jaisalmer.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lodhruva

Hovander Homestead Park, a roughly 350 acre county park that includes access to Tennant Lake, is located adjacent to Ferndale, Washington and borders the Nooksack River. It is named for the Hovander family, who immigrated from Sweden to the property in 1898 and designed the farmhouse, barn, and other buildings, some of which include distinctive architectural features. The homestead was owned by the Hovander family until 1969 when the Whatcom County government purchased the land from Hokan Hovander's son, Otis, and it officially became a county park in 1971.

 

The park has been preserved to show the lives of 20th-century pioneers in the Northwest, as well as to preserve the history of the Hovander family. Hovander Homestead Park was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. In 1978, the park received the National Trust for Historic Preservation award for the preservation of a significant and historic site.

 

In June 1899, Hovander finished his plan for the house and ordered 52,000 board feet of fir and cedar. All of this wood was soaked in linseed oil for two years to cure, which has led to the wood not needing treatment since. In spring 1901, the building of the house began, and the carpentry work was finished by Carl Lindgren, a Swede.

 

In the late 19th century, it was common in the Northwest for settlers to imitate the style of architecture from their previous homes. Many aspects of Scandinavian architecture are present within the house, including the egg and dart trim design, representing fertility, modified to fit a traditional geometric Scandinavian artistic design. Another example is the Star of David openwork design on the porch railings, a very popular design of that time period. Additional examples of Scandinavian influence include the linseed oil treatment, large and open rooms with windows and doorways that are in proportion to the size of the room, and high ceilings.

 

There are no fireplaces in the farmhouse, and it is known to be one of the first houses in Whatcom County to utilize a central heating system. Hovander designed the house with doors between each room that can open and close in multiple directions to direct the flow of heat throughout the house. The house was completed in 1903, and had 6,800 square feet (630 m2) with three bedrooms, a library, a dining room, and a kitchen.

Even though it is almost officially Autumn, it is still fairly warm in New York. Although I welcome the crisp air and beautiful colors that come with Fall, I still feel like holding on to Summertime a little bit longer. With this in mind, I wanted to recreate a scene on a sailboat in a place similar Montauk Point, New York (as best as SL could possibly let me). As I worked on this post, I could imagine the sunlight warming my skin, the smell of salty ocean air and the cool winds that would brush against me. And, since fashion is my passion, I could not help but think of what I would wear. The attire for such a post, requires the cool and casual chic of Mon Tissu. As I am sure you are all well aware, Mon Tissu creates the most amazing clothes on the grid. Their use of extraordinary textures, well rendered mesh and beautifully crafted prims, is undeniable and always leaves me awe struck.For my outfit, I chose their comfy striped 'Slouchy Sweatshirt' that I am totally in love with right now. I adore the hint of skin it reveals as it gently falls off the one shoulder. I paired this gorgeous top with my favorite 'goto' jeans, which are their Nora jeans. They are the quintessential skinny jeans and hug your body in all the right places. To add a finishing touch, I decided to wear Mon Tissu's stunning 'Openwork Wedges'. These shoes are can be worn so many ways and compliment almost any casual look.

For me, this is a style that I would definitely wear in RL and especially for a relaxing day on a sailboat. I hope you like...

 

~Style Info~

Eyes: IKON Kaleido Eyes - Garden (ML) by Ikon Innovia (NEW)

Lashes: Izzie's - Eyelashes v1.03 by Izzie Button

Mascara: *BOOM* Express Mascara (three coats) by Aranel Ah

Hair: >TRUTH< Briony w/Roots - champagne by Truth Hawks

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El Colegio de San Gregorio de Valladolid es la sede principal del Museo Nacional de Escultura. Es uno de los mejores ejemplos de la arquitectura del periodo de los Reyes Católicos. En particular, su patio y su portada son célebres por su refinada ornamentación, las elegantes proporciones y una ostensible simbología del poder.

Igualmente interesante es su historia como institución docente. Destinado a colegio de Teología para frailes dominicos, adquirió una notable autoridad doctrinal y actuó como un semillero espiritual y político de la España renacentista y barroca.

La Universidad de Valladolid fue fundada en el siglo XIII durante el reinado de Alfonso X el Sabio; como en otros países se potenció la aparición de centros colegiales, de modo que tardíamente se creó el Colegio de San Gregorio, que actuaron en paralelo o complementariamente con relación a la vida universitaria. En Valladolid se creó además el Colegio de Santa Cruz también a finales del siglo XV

La creación del Colegio, bajo la advocación del doctor de la Iglesia San Gregorio, fue obra del dominico Alonso de Burgos, obispo de la diócesis de Palencia y confesor de los Reyes Católicos. Alonso de Burgos condicionó su fundación a la obtención de la comunidad dominica de San Pablo de los terrenos para la construcción de su propia capilla funeraria, que serviría igualmente para el alumnado del Colegio. Tal petición se vio satisfecha en 1487: consigue el espacio necesario, lo cual fue confirmado por el Papa Inocencio VIII.

Las obras se iniciaron en 1488 aunque se había comenzado ya la construcción de la capilla funeraria, cuya puerta de entrada se percibe en el crucero sur de la Iglesia conventual de San Pablo.

La fachada fue concebida como un telón o estandarte (arquitectura suspendida). Su compartimentación se organiza con elementos vegetales que evocan los arcos triunfales construidos con madera y enramada, reforzándose su carácter civil y urbano. Dada su significación simbólica, la explicación de los diferentes motivos y elementos que la integran ofrece una gran dificultad, tanto individualmente como en su totalidad y en la relación entre los diferentes elementos.

En el tímpano principal y sobre el dintel decorado con flor de lis aparece la dedicatoria y la ofrenda del Colegio por parte del fraile dominico Alonso de Burgos a san Gregorio Magno en presencia de San Pablo y Santo Domingo.

Destacan las figuras de hombres silvestres cubiertos, o no, de pelo, y con garrotes y escudos; o bien aluden a la costumbre cortesana de disfrazar escuderos con ocasión de fiestas, o bien representan la imagen mítica del «hombre natural», tal como se discutió por esas fechas y entran en diálogo visual con esculturas de caballeros, vestidos con armaduras y portando lanzas y escudos, encarnando la Virtud.

La parte central superior está ocupada por un pilón hexagonal, rebosante de agua, que puede evocar la especulación intelectual como Fuente de la Vida. En torno al pilón, se arremolinan parejas de niños y de él arranca el tronco de un granado, en posible alusión a la Fuente de la Vida y al Árbol de la Ciencia, aparte de la celebración de la reciente conquista del Reino de Granada. Todo el relieve central de la fachada se constituye con esta representación simbólica de un microcosmos, a imagen del Paraíso, lugar hacia donde deberían dirigirse los hombres mediante el conocimiento de las Artes y la Teología.

La presencia del escudo de los Reyes Católicos, sostenido por leones y por el águila de San Juan podría tener una significación política o podría ser una alusión a la dedicación del edificio a la Monarquía, a la que Alonso de Burgos nombró heredera y patrona del Colegio.

El patio del Colegio es de planta cuadrada y representa una de las joyas de estilo hispanoflamenco. Sus dos pisos se levantan sobre pilares helicoidales decorados sus capiteles con medias bolas y lises separados ambos por el tema de la cadena.

En las arquerías del piso superior se encuentra toda la decoración mediante calados pretiles de tracería gótica y cortinas pétreas que al abrirse originan arcos geminados de guirnaldas y follaje, entre los que juguetean niños, concebido con una talla muy plana próxima al estilo renacentista. Un friso de yugos y flechas y las gárgolas es lo único que se conserva de su antiguo coronamiento.

El acceso al piso superior se realiza a través de una sola escalera con pretiles góticos a los que se suceden los paramentos almohadillados de su caja decorada también con el timbre heráldico del fundador y con un artesonado mudéjar, en cuyo friso se pueden observar las iniciales de los Reyes Católicos y que cierra todo su ámbito.

 

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colegio_de_San_Gregorio

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museo_Nacional_de_Escultura

 

The Colegio de San Gregorio is an Isabelline style building located in the city of Valladolid, in Castile and León, Spain, it was formerly a college and now is housing the Museo Nacional de Escultura museum. This building is one of the best examples of the architectural style known as Isabelline, which is the characteristic architectural style of the Crown of Castile region during the Catholic Monarchs' reign (late-15th century to early-16th century).

Among other sections highlights its courtyard and its facade for its refined decoration, elegant proportions and the number of symbologies. It was founded as a teaching institution. Aimed at College of Theology for Dominican friars, it has acquired a doctrinal authority and acted as a spiritual and political hotbed in the Central region of Spain's Renaissance and Baroque periods.

The University of Valladolid was founded in the 13th-century during the Alfonso X of Castile the Wise's reign; as in other countries, the emergence of college centers was potentiated, then belatedly was created the Colegio de San Gregorio, who performed in parallel or complementarily in relation to university life. In Valladolid the Colegio Mayor Santa Cruz was also created also in late 15th-century.

The creation of the College, under the title of the Doctor of the Church Saint Gregory the Great, was work of Dominican Alonso de Burgos, the Catholic Monarchs's confessor and Bishop of the dioceses of Córdoba, Cuenca and Palencia. The foundation of the college was confirmed by with Papal Bull of Pope Innocent VIII in 1487, and accepted as Royal patronage by Queen Isabella the Catholic in 1500, after the founder's death.

It attached to the Convento de San Pablo, which Friar Alonso had been its prior, its foundation was subject to the assignment of the Capilla del Crucifijo (Crucifix's chapel), attached to the Epistle's arm of the Dominican church, to become his own funeral chapel, which later acquired dual function to also serve as a chapel for college.

Work began in 1488 in a process from the inside to outside, being the main facade the last in lift. The Royal shields in the corners of the Large courtyard still do not present the Granada's symbol suggests that this part would be completed before 1492. The building is assumed to completed in 1496.

The facade, plain facing and topped with a crest, stands out above all for its spectacular main facade, which by its stylistic features it sets regarding the workshop of Gil de Siloé, a Flemish origin artist, who was at that time in Burgos dealing with the royal sepulchers of the Miraflores Charterhouse and is known to have been commissioned to make the defunct altarpiece of the chapel, very in connection with which the sculptor had made in the Conception's chapel or of Bishop Acuña in the Cathedral of Burgos and has obvious similarities to the upper of the main facade of San Gregorio.

Perhaps evoking the triumphal arches of the architectures at that time were developing in Central Europe, or perhaps the Islamic Madrasas, architects of this building applying an individually decorated of the Castilian late-Gothic (Isabelline), it has a complex symbolic significance in that mix contemporary figures, saints, allegories, wild men, abundant symbolic of power, etc.

It has two bodies framed by two buttresses. The lower hosts a vain lintel decorated with fleur-de-lys, the founder's symbol repeated often enough, covered with three-centered arch in turn covered by another ogee trefoil.

It draw attention to the "savage men" of the jambs and buttresses, a total of sixteen. Theories about the significance of these figures, present in many buildings of 15th-century, are varied and should be put in relation to the context in which these appear. One of its functions would be simple heraldry sculptures. It is also said that, dressed with shield and mace, were the guardians of the building, beastmen guaranteeing security. Or these could allude to the custom of disguising the squires and lackeys in Court (nobility) festivities in which it presented the "savage" as inferior, in relation, for example, the chivalric romances, which mentions hair covered wild men, degraded men, estranged from the civilized world, not Christianized, and could here be in visual confrontation with the knights who also appear on the main facade, with armor, spears and shields, that would be interpreted as allegories of Virtue. On the contrary, these could also be a positive allusion, the mythical image of man in nature, unpolluted, symbol of purity that evokes the time in a perfect and happy world, with prototype to John the Baptist.

Those on the lower part, flanking the main facade, are completely covered with long hair, carrying weapons and the shields are decorated with demonic figures except in one, which has a Knight order of Calatrava's cross, the same motifs of the soldiers's shields of the second floor, the same iconography already seen for over a century.

However, in the top of the main facade are completely different, with the same attributes but without hair on the body and even two hairless, with a more human aspect, and there are authors who consider the oldest representation in Castile of an American Native, reflecting the effect of the Americas's arrival in the European imagination.

The tympanum, on a lintel, seems to represent the offering of the college by Friar Alonso de Burgos to Saint Gregory the Great in the presence of Saints Dominic and Paul, patrons of the neighboring Dominican convent, a somewhat disconcerting scene, unbalanced, with disproportion between the figures and Saint Paul with a cruciferous nimbus, an exclusive attribute of Christ. It seems to be earlier work than the rest, or even reused from other site.

The upper body is divided into three sections, with the center occupied by a hexagonal pylon which starts a pomegranate tree, referring to the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada's conquest in 1492, swirling around putti playing and jumping. It could be a Fountain of Eternal Youth's representation, hence the children, of the Tree of Knowledge, in relation to the building dedicated to the study, an allegory of the Paradise, the place to which men aspire to reach through the knowledge, an allegory of the Golden Age, in relation to the historical moment that was occurring to the Spanish monarchy.

The pomegranate tree is topped by a big shield of the Catholic Monarchs with the St. John's eagle held by two attitude lions and below the Catholic Monarchs's symbols also appear: the beam and arrows. And the use of the royal heraldry with propaganda purposes in this period reached prominence hitherto unknown, present not only in buildings directly promoted by the Catholic Monarchs but also in many that of their closest collaborators, in that way showing participation and acceptance in the political project undertaken by Isabella I and Ferdinand II in relation to the establishment of a modern state with which to control and organize all their territories under their unique power.

Upper body's side sections have the founder's heraldic decoration and two kings of arms placed at height of the central shield.

Distributed among the distributed arboured throughout the main facade are seen multiple scenes related to the defects to be overcome with the study, in relation to the search for truth and rejection of heresy, the triumph of intelligence over force or the strength to overcome temptation.

(Large courtyard) The Patio Grande was the access to the most important stays of the set. It considered a Hispanic-Flemish (Isabelline) gem, is set in relation to Juan Guas for its similarities to Palacio del Infantado in Guadalajara, although have also located abundant motifs that Bartolomé Solórzano, an active artist at that time in the area, used in the Cathedral of Palencia, seat of the Friar Alonso's bishopric.

It is square with two floors, the lower with slender pillars, perhaps a Solomonic reference in relation to a building as a "temple of wisdom", with capitals of average balls and fleur-de-lis sustaining segmental arches, and the upper with one of the most decorative Isabelline galleries, with parapets openwork with Gothic tracery and geminare arches riddled with garlands and foliage among those appears children playing and where already shown Renassaince influence, of midpoint and a form that goes be more flat.

Then follows a frieze of yokes and arrows on highlighting the imaginative gargoyles.

It has abundant emblems of the Catholic Monarchs and the kingdoms of Navarre and Granada, incorporated into the Crown of Castile during the erection of the building.

The only staircase that connects both floors is rectangular of two sections, Isabelline base, decorated walls with padding of Renaissance influence with the founder's heraldry; an impressive Mudéjar roof on a frieze with the Catholic Monarchs's initials; and neo-Gothic parapets with same trace that the base, added in works in the 1860s to replace the wooden fence that had.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colegio_de_San_Gregorio

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museo_Nacional_de_Escultura,_Vallad...

 

Una de las piezas más importantes del conjunto catedralicio es el sepulcro de Carlos III el Noble y Leonor de Trastámara. Este monumento funerario, está considerado como una obra maestra de la escultura funeraria de principios del siglo XV.

Situado en el centro del segundo tramo de la nave central, presenta forma de lecho sepulcral exento con unas dimensiones de 2,73 metros de largo, 2,12 de ancho y 1,08 de alto. Sobre él, se encuentran las figuras yacentes de los reyes bajo grandes doseles de fina tracería calada, todo ello en alabastro. Los frentes de la cama sepulcral, están cubiertos con 28 figuras de plorantes, cada uno bajo pequeños doseles y separados por columnillas y rematados por pináculos, que a su vez se encuentran sobre un pequeño zócalo. La cama está realizada en mármol oscuro y las figuras tanto de plorantes como de los reyes, así como las arquitecturas, en alabastro.

Los reyes están recostados sobre grandes cojines que aún mantienen parte de la policromía y dorados originales. Muestran una actitud serena, con los ojos abiertos, sus rasgos les representan en la plenitud de su vida, pero sin perder un ápice de realismo. El rey está representado como un hombre maduro, de gran nariz, pequeños labios, con un rostro bondadoso en el que no faltan las arrugas, y en el que vemos también los músculos como los del cuello. Las manos juntas sobre el pecho en posición orante, robustas y a la vez delicadas, en las que observamos un asombroso trabajo de las arrugas y las venas que las recorren, confiriéndoles un realismo nada común.

 

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catedral_de_Pamplona_(Espa%C3%B1a)

www.catedraldepamplona.com/

 

One of the most important pieces in the cathedral complex is the tomb of Charles III the Noble and Eleanor of Trastámara. This funerary monument is considered a masterpiece of funerary sculpture from the early 15th century.

Located in the centre of the second section of the central nave, it is in the form of a free-standing sepulchral bed measuring 2.73 metres long, 2.12 metres wide and 1.08 metres high. Above it are the recumbent figures of the kings under large canopies of fine openwork tracery, all in alabaster. The fronts of the sepulchral bed are covered with 28 figures of plorants, each one under small canopies and separated by small columns and topped by pinnacles, which in turn are on a small plinth. The bed is made of dark marble and the figures of both plorants and kings, as well as the architecture, are in alabaster.

The kings are reclining on large cushions that still retain some of the original polychromy and gilding. They show a serene attitude, their eyes open, their features depicting them in the prime of their lives, but without losing an ounce of realism. The king is depicted as a mature man, with a large nose, small lips, a kindly face with wrinkles and muscles such as those of the neck. His hands are clasped together on his chest in a prayerful position, robust yet delicate, and the wrinkles and veins that run through them give them an uncommon realism.

 

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

 

Monuments historiques: PA00089925

 

Address entered in the Mérimée database:

Grève (rue de la); General-de-Gaulle (rue du)

29590 Le Faou - France

 

Insee code of the municipality: 29053

Finistère [29] - Quimper - Brittany

 

Approximate address taken from GPS coordinates (latitude and longitude):

1 Rue du Général de Gaulle 29590 Le Faou

 

Protected elements:

Church (cad. 1999 AE 20): registration by decree of June 3, 1932

 

History:

The church consists of a nave, a wide double transept, a three-sided apse and gables. To the south, a large porch bears the dates of 1593 and 1613. The bell tower, openwork and elongated, is cushioned by a lantern dome and bears the dates of 1629, 1630, 1634 and 1640.

 

Periods of construction:

16th century, 17th century

 

The Saint-Sauveur church was rebuilt between 1544 and 1680 but retained the furniture of the previous church. And some parts are graded. In particular the “snakes” baptismal font, made of Kersanton stone, considered to be of exceptional interest, and a magnificent stone pietà. The stained glass windows recounting the legendary foundation of the parish, the altar of the rosary and the medallions illustrating the "joyful, glorious, painful mysteries", the Saint-Antoine altar with turrets, that of the "four women", the panels with angels and the carved wooden candlesticks from the 17th century... The church contains many treasures!

Logonna Stone

 

Illustrated explanatory panels (made by the Ar Faou association) evoke the history of the church and its heritage The exterior is also very beautiful: the Logonna stone gives the building a golden hue associated with the Kersanton stone for the statuary elements. You can also see beautiful gargoyles. And the porch protects the wooden statues of the 12 apostles. Finally, the steeple is domed, unlike the other pointed steeples. The church is open every day, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and you can get an explanatory booklet for the visit, at the entrance.

 

L'église du Sacré-Cœur de Cholet a la particularité d'être construite en matériaux locaux : de la brique, du schiste orangé appelé pierre de Pineau, du granit rose de Saint-Macaire-en-Mauges et du granit bleu de Vezins. Par son plan basilical et sa coupole, elle rappelle les édifices romano-byzantins. Elle a pu voir le jour grâce aux dons de nombreux paroissiens.

 

Plusieurs artistes ont participé à la décoration intérieure et extérieure de l'édifice : pour les mosaïques et les vitraux (Charles Mauméjean), pour les sculptures (Fernand Dupré et Charles Maillard).

 

Depuis le 26 août 2011, l'église du Sacré-Cœur est dotée d'un carillon restauré qui compte 10 cloches supplémentaires fondues par le campaniste hollandais Royal Eijsbouts. Il se classe maintenant au 16e rang sur les 113 carillons français avec 49 cloches. Les fenêtres ajourées de la coupole permettent aux cloches d'être entendues de loin. Ce carillon est depuis septembre 2003 classé monument historique au même titre que l'église.

 

Le carillon est resté muet entre 1953 (date du décès du dernier carillonneur en poste, Jacques Vilain) et 2011 date de sa rénovation

The church of the Sacred - Heart of Cholet has the peculiarity to be built in local materials: of the brick, the orange-colored schist called stone of Pineau, some pink granite of Saint-Macaire-en-Mauges and some blue granite of Vezins. By her(its) basilical plan and her(its) dome, her calls back(reminds) the romano-Byzantine buildings. She was able to be born thanks to the gifts(donations) of numerous parishioners.

 

Several artists participated in the interior and exterior design of the building: for mosaics and stained-glass windows (Charles Mauméjean), for sculptures (Fernand Dupré and Charles Maillard).

 

Since August 26th, 2011, the church of the Sacred - Heart is endowed with a restored carillon which account 10 additional bells melted by the Dutch campaniste Royal Eijsbouts. He(it) is now classified in the 16th row(rank) on 113 French carillons with 49 bells. The openwork windows of the dome allow the bells to be heard(understood) by far. This carillon is since "September, 2003 classified as Historic Monument" in the same way as the church.

 

The carillon remained dumb between 1953 (date of the death of the last bell-ringer in office, Jacques Vilain) and 2011 dates its renovation

На ВДНХ мне очень нравится беседка-ротонда, под которой находится небольшой фонтан. Её орнаменты выполнены по мотивам национальных узоров Узбекистана. Особенно красиво смотрится ажурное перекрытие ротонды.

 

В 1964 году этот павильон № 66 получил название «Советская культура». Ранее он носил название "павильон Узбекской ССР".

 

At VDNH I really like the rotunda arbor, under which there is a small fountain. Its ornaments are based on the national patterns of Uzbekistan. Especially beautiful is the openwork roof of the rotunda.

 

In 1964, this pavilion number 66 was named "Soviet Culture". Earlier it was called the "Pavilion of the Uzbek SSR.

 

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Finally getting home after a long day of shopping~ (Both RL and SL :D)

 

I lurveee colors and mixing and matching, and layering. Given the amount of pink in my regular blog posts - its a given that pink is one of my fav colors to work with. Which is why I chose to do a 'pink post' for the Blogger Search contest~

 

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...IMAGINE TO BE HERE....

the most important Italian Gothic Cathedral for YOU

 

EVERYTHING IS REAL HERE !

 

Milan Cathedral

is the cathedral church of Milan, Italy. Dedicated to St Mary of the Nativity (Santa Maria Nascente), it is the seat of the Archbishop of Milan, currently Cardinal Angelo Scola. The Gothic cathedral took nearly six centuries to complete. It is the largest church in Italy (the larger St. Peter's Basilica is in the State of Vatican City) and the fifth largest in the world.

 

Milan's layout, with streets either radiating from the Duomo or circling it, reveals that the Duomo occupies what was the most central site in Roman Mediolanum, that of the public basilica facing the forum. The first cathedral, the "new basilica" (basilica nova) dedicated to St Thecla, was completed by 355. It seems to share, on a slightly smaller scale, the plan of the contemporaneous church recently rediscovered beneath Tower Hill in London. An adjoining basilica was erected in 836. The old octagonal baptistery, the Battistero Paleocristiano, dates to 335 and still can be visited under the Milan Cathedral. When a fire damaged the cathedral and basilica in 1075, they were rebuilt as the Duomo.

 

Construction begins

In 1386, Archbishop Antonio da Saluzzo began construction of the cathedral. Start of the construction coincided with the ascension to power in Milan of the archbishop's cousin Gian Galeazzo Visconti, and was meant as a reward to the noble and working classes, who had suffered under his tyrannical Visconti predecessor Barnabò. Before actual work began, three main buildings were demolished: the palace of the Archbishop, the Ordinari Palace and the Baptistry of St. Stephen at the Spring, while the old church of Sta. Maria Maggiore was exploited as a stone quarry. Enthusiasm for the immense new building soon spread among the population, and the shrewd Gian Galeazzo, together with his cousin the archbishop, collected large donations for the work-in-progress. The construction program was strictly regulated under the "Fabbrica del Duomo", which had 300 employees led by first chief engineer Simone da Orsenigo. Orsenigo initially planned to build the cathedral from brick in Lombard Gothic style.

 

Visconti had ambitions to follow the newest trends in European architecture. In 1389, a French chief engineer, Nicolas de Bonaventure, was appointed, adding to the church its Rayonnant Gothic, a French style not typical for Italy. He decided that the brick structure should be panelled with marble. Galeazzo gave the Fabbrica del Duomo exclusive use of the marble from the Candoglia quarry and exempted it from taxes. Ten years later another French architect, Jean Mignot, was called from Paris to judge and improve upon the work done, as the masons needed new technical aid to lift stones to an unprecedented height. Mignot declared all the work done up till then as in pericolo di ruina ("peril of ruin"), as it had been done sine scienzia ("without science"). In the following years Mignot's forecasts proved untrue, but they spurred Galeazzo's engineers to improve their instruments and techniques. Work proceeded quickly, and at the death of Gian Galeazzo in 1402, almost half the cathedral was complete. Construction, however, stalled almost totally until 1480, for lack of money and ideas: the most notable works of this period were the tombs of Marco Carelli and Pope Martin V (1424) and the windows of the apse (1470s), of which those extant portray St. John the Evangelist, by Cristoforo de' Mottis, and Saint Eligius and San John of Damascus, both by Niccolò da Varallo. In 1452, under Francesco Sforza, the nave and the aisles were completed up to the sixth bay.

Giovanni Antonio Amadeo on the "Amadeo's Little Spire".

In 1500 to 1510, under Ludovico Sforza, the octagonal cupola was completed, and decorated in the interior with four series of 15 statues each, portraying saints, prophets, sibyls and other characters of the Bible. The exterior long remained without any decoration, except for the Guglietto dell'Amadeo ("Amadeo's Little Spire"), constructed 1507-1510. This is a Renaissance masterwork which nevertheless harmonized well with the general Gothic appearance of the church.

 

During the subsequent Spanish domination, the new church proved usable, even though the interior remained largely unfinished, and some bays of the nave and the transepts were still missing. In 1552 Giacomo Antegnati was commissioned to build a large organ for the north side of the choir, and Giuseppe Meda provided four of the sixteen pales which were to decorate the altar area (the program was completed by Federico Borromeo). In 1562, Marco d' Agrate's St. Bartholomew and the famous Trivulzio candelabrum (12th century) were added.

The plan consists of a nave with four side-aisles, crossed by a transept and then followed by choir and apse. The height of the nave is about 45 meters, the highest Gothic vaults of a complete church (less than the 48 meters of Beauvais Cathedral, which was never completed).

 

The roof is open to tourists (for a fee), which allows many a close-up view of some spectacular sculpture that would otherwise be unappreciated. The roof of the cathedral is renowned for the forest of openwork pinnacles and spires, set upon delicate flying buttresses.

 

The cathedral's five broad naves, divided by 40 pillars, are reflected in the hierarchic openings of the façade. Even the transepts have aisles. The nave columns are 24.5 metres (80 ft) high, and the apsidal windows are 20.7 x 8.5 metres (68 x 28 feet). The huge building is of brick construction, faced with marble from the quarries which Gian Galeazzo Visconti donated in perpetuity to the cathedral chapter. Its maintenance and repairs are very complicated.

FORE MORE INFORMATIONS:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milan_Cathedral

 

FOR THE PLACE:

wikimapia.org/#lang=it&lat=45.464119&lon=9.191753...

  

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they are made with the eye, heart and head.”

 

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“It is an illusion that photos are made with the camera…

 

they are made with the eye, heart and head.”

 

[Henry Cartier Bresson]

 

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Please don't use any of my images on websites, blogs or other media without my explicit written permission.

 

© All rights reserved

 

Happy Monday morning. Hope you all had a nice weekend? May you all have a great day and a wonderful new week.

 

"In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing". ~ Vincent Van Gogh

 

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This famous Buddhist temple, dating from the 8th and 9th centuries, is located in central Java.

 

It was built in three tiers: a pyramidal base with five concentric square terraces, the trunk of a cone with three circular platforms and, at the top, a monumental stupa.

 

The walls and balustrades are decorated with fine low reliefs, covering a total surface area of 2,500 m2. Around the circular platforms are 72 openwork stupas, each containing a statue of the Buddha. The monument was restored with UNESCO's help in the 1970s.

El Colegio de San Gregorio de Valladolid es la sede principal del Museo Nacional de Escultura. Es uno de los mejores ejemplos de la arquitectura del periodo de los Reyes Católicos. En particular, su patio y su portada son célebres por su refinada ornamentación, las elegantes proporciones y una ostensible simbología del poder.

Igualmente interesante es su historia como institución docente. Destinado a colegio de Teología para frailes dominicos, adquirió una notable autoridad doctrinal y actuó como un semillero espiritual y político de la España renacentista y barroca.

La Universidad de Valladolid fue fundada en el siglo XIII durante el reinado de Alfonso X el Sabio; como en otros países se potenció la aparición de centros colegiales, de modo que tardíamente se creó el Colegio de San Gregorio, que actuaron en paralelo o complementariamente con relación a la vida universitaria. En Valladolid se creó además el Colegio de Santa Cruz también a finales del siglo XV

La creación del Colegio, bajo la advocación del doctor de la Iglesia San Gregorio, fue obra del dominico Alonso de Burgos, obispo de la diócesis de Palencia y confesor de los Reyes Católicos. Alonso de Burgos condicionó su fundación a la obtención de la comunidad dominica de San Pablo de los terrenos para la construcción de su propia capilla funeraria, que serviría igualmente para el alumnado del Colegio. Tal petición se vio satisfecha en 1487: consigue el espacio necesario, lo cual fue confirmado por el Papa Inocencio VIII.

Las obras se iniciaron en 1488 aunque se había comenzado ya la construcción de la capilla funeraria, cuya puerta de entrada se percibe en el crucero sur de la Iglesia conventual de San Pablo.

La fachada fue concebida como un telón o estandarte (arquitectura suspendida). Su compartimentación se organiza con elementos vegetales que evocan los arcos triunfales construidos con madera y enramada, reforzándose su carácter civil y urbano. Dada su significación simbólica, la explicación de los diferentes motivos y elementos que la integran ofrece una gran dificultad, tanto individualmente como en su totalidad y en la relación entre los diferentes elementos.

En el tímpano principal y sobre el dintel decorado con flor de lis aparece la dedicatoria y la ofrenda del Colegio por parte del fraile dominico Alonso de Burgos a san Gregorio Magno en presencia de San Pablo y Santo Domingo.

Destacan las figuras de hombres silvestres cubiertos, o no, de pelo, y con garrotes y escudos; o bien aluden a la costumbre cortesana de disfrazar escuderos con ocasión de fiestas, o bien representan la imagen mítica del «hombre natural», tal como se discutió por esas fechas y entran en diálogo visual con esculturas de caballeros, vestidos con armaduras y portando lanzas y escudos, encarnando la Virtud.

La parte central superior está ocupada por un pilón hexagonal, rebosante de agua, que puede evocar la especulación intelectual como Fuente de la Vida. En torno al pilón, se arremolinan parejas de niños y de él arranca el tronco de un granado, en posible alusión a la Fuente de la Vida y al Árbol de la Ciencia, aparte de la celebración de la reciente conquista del Reino de Granada. Todo el relieve central de la fachada se constituye con esta representación simbólica de un microcosmos, a imagen del Paraíso, lugar hacia donde deberían dirigirse los hombres mediante el conocimiento de las Artes y la Teología.

La presencia del escudo de los Reyes Católicos, sostenido por leones y por el águila de San Juan podría tener una significación política o podría ser una alusión a la dedicación del edificio a la Monarquía, a la que Alonso de Burgos nombró heredera y patrona del Colegio.

El patio del Colegio es de planta cuadrada y representa una de las joyas de estilo hispanoflamenco. Sus dos pisos se levantan sobre pilares helicoidales decorados sus capiteles con medias bolas y lises separados ambos por el tema de la cadena.

En las arquerías del piso superior se encuentra toda la decoración mediante calados pretiles de tracería gótica y cortinas pétreas que al abrirse originan arcos geminados de guirnaldas y follaje, entre los que juguetean niños, concebido con una talla muy plana próxima al estilo renacentista. Un friso de yugos y flechas y las gárgolas es lo único que se conserva de su antiguo coronamiento.

El acceso al piso superior se realiza a través de una sola escalera con pretiles góticos a los que se suceden los paramentos almohadillados de su caja decorada también con el timbre heráldico del fundador y con un artesonado mudéjar, en cuyo friso se pueden observar las iniciales de los Reyes Católicos y que cierra todo su ámbito.

 

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colegio_de_San_Gregorio

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museo_Nacional_de_Escultura

 

The Colegio de San Gregorio is an Isabelline style building located in the city of Valladolid, in Castile and León, Spain, it was formerly a college and now is housing the Museo Nacional de Escultura museum. This building is one of the best examples of the architectural style known as Isabelline, which is the characteristic architectural style of the Crown of Castile region during the Catholic Monarchs' reign (late-15th century to early-16th century).

Among other sections highlights its courtyard and its facade for its refined decoration, elegant proportions and the number of symbologies. It was founded as a teaching institution. Aimed at College of Theology for Dominican friars, it has acquired a doctrinal authority and acted as a spiritual and political hotbed in the Central region of Spain's Renaissance and Baroque periods.

The University of Valladolid was founded in the 13th-century during the Alfonso X of Castile the Wise's reign; as in other countries, the emergence of college centers was potentiated, then belatedly was created the Colegio de San Gregorio, who performed in parallel or complementarily in relation to university life. In Valladolid the Colegio Mayor Santa Cruz was also created also in late 15th-century.

The creation of the College, under the title of the Doctor of the Church Saint Gregory the Great, was work of Dominican Alonso de Burgos, the Catholic Monarchs's confessor and Bishop of the dioceses of Córdoba, Cuenca and Palencia. The foundation of the college was confirmed by with Papal Bull of Pope Innocent VIII in 1487, and accepted as Royal patronage by Queen Isabella the Catholic in 1500, after the founder's death.

It attached to the Convento de San Pablo, which Friar Alonso had been its prior, its foundation was subject to the assignment of the Capilla del Crucifijo (Crucifix's chapel), attached to the Epistle's arm of the Dominican church, to become his own funeral chapel, which later acquired dual function to also serve as a chapel for college.

Work began in 1488 in a process from the inside to outside, being the main facade the last in lift. The Royal shields in the corners of the Large courtyard still do not present the Granada's symbol suggests that this part would be completed before 1492. The building is assumed to completed in 1496.

The facade, plain facing and topped with a crest, stands out above all for its spectacular main facade, which by its stylistic features it sets regarding the workshop of Gil de Siloé, a Flemish origin artist, who was at that time in Burgos dealing with the royal sepulchers of the Miraflores Charterhouse and is known to have been commissioned to make the defunct altarpiece of the chapel, very in connection with which the sculptor had made in the Conception's chapel or of Bishop Acuña in the Cathedral of Burgos and has obvious similarities to the upper of the main facade of San Gregorio.

Perhaps evoking the triumphal arches of the architectures at that time were developing in Central Europe, or perhaps the Islamic Madrasas, architects of this building applying an individually decorated of the Castilian late-Gothic (Isabelline), it has a complex symbolic significance in that mix contemporary figures, saints, allegories, wild men, abundant symbolic of power, etc.

It has two bodies framed by two buttresses. The lower hosts a vain lintel decorated with fleur-de-lys, the founder's symbol repeated often enough, covered with three-centered arch in turn covered by another ogee trefoil.

It draw attention to the "savage men" of the jambs and buttresses, a total of sixteen. Theories about the significance of these figures, present in many buildings of 15th-century, are varied and should be put in relation to the context in which these appear. One of its functions would be simple heraldry sculptures. It is also said that, dressed with shield and mace, were the guardians of the building, beastmen guaranteeing security. Or these could allude to the custom of disguising the squires and lackeys in Court (nobility) festivities in which it presented the "savage" as inferior, in relation, for example, the chivalric romances, which mentions hair covered wild men, degraded men, estranged from the civilized world, not Christianized, and could here be in visual confrontation with the knights who also appear on the main facade, with armor, spears and shields, that would be interpreted as allegories of Virtue. On the contrary, these could also be a positive allusion, the mythical image of man in nature, unpolluted, symbol of purity that evokes the time in a perfect and happy world, with prototype to John the Baptist.

Those on the lower part, flanking the main facade, are completely covered with long hair, carrying weapons and the shields are decorated with demonic figures except in one, which has a Knight order of Calatrava's cross, the same motifs of the soldiers's shields of the second floor, the same iconography already seen for over a century.

However, in the top of the main facade are completely different, with the same attributes but without hair on the body and even two hairless, with a more human aspect, and there are authors who consider the oldest representation in Castile of an American Native, reflecting the effect of the Americas's arrival in the European imagination.

The tympanum, on a lintel, seems to represent the offering of the college by Friar Alonso de Burgos to Saint Gregory the Great in the presence of Saints Dominic and Paul, patrons of the neighboring Dominican convent, a somewhat disconcerting scene, unbalanced, with disproportion between the figures and Saint Paul with a cruciferous nimbus, an exclusive attribute of Christ. It seems to be earlier work than the rest, or even reused from other site.

The upper body is divided into three sections, with the center occupied by a hexagonal pylon which starts a pomegranate tree, referring to the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada's conquest in 1492, swirling around putti playing and jumping. It could be a Fountain of Eternal Youth's representation, hence the children, of the Tree of Knowledge, in relation to the building dedicated to the study, an allegory of the Paradise, the place to which men aspire to reach through the knowledge, an allegory of the Golden Age, in relation to the historical moment that was occurring to the Spanish monarchy.

The pomegranate tree is topped by a big shield of the Catholic Monarchs with the St. John's eagle held by two attitude lions and below the Catholic Monarchs's symbols also appear: the beam and arrows. And the use of the royal heraldry with propaganda purposes in this period reached prominence hitherto unknown, present not only in buildings directly promoted by the Catholic Monarchs but also in many that of their closest collaborators, in that way showing participation and acceptance in the political project undertaken by Isabella I and Ferdinand II in relation to the establishment of a modern state with which to control and organize all their territories under their unique power.

Upper body's side sections have the founder's heraldic decoration and two kings of arms placed at height of the central shield.

Distributed among the distributed arboured throughout the main facade are seen multiple scenes related to the defects to be overcome with the study, in relation to the search for truth and rejection of heresy, the triumph of intelligence over force or the strength to overcome temptation.

(Large courtyard) The Patio Grande was the access to the most important stays of the set. It considered a Hispanic-Flemish (Isabelline) gem, is set in relation to Juan Guas for its similarities to Palacio del Infantado in Guadalajara, although have also located abundant motifs that Bartolomé Solórzano, an active artist at that time in the area, used in the Cathedral of Palencia, seat of the Friar Alonso's bishopric.

It is square with two floors, the lower with slender pillars, perhaps a Solomonic reference in relation to a building as a "temple of wisdom", with capitals of average balls and fleur-de-lis sustaining segmental arches, and the upper with one of the most decorative Isabelline galleries, with parapets openwork with Gothic tracery and geminare arches riddled with garlands and foliage among those appears children playing and where already shown Renassaince influence, of midpoint and a form that goes be more flat.

Then follows a frieze of yokes and arrows on highlighting the imaginative gargoyles.

It has abundant emblems of the Catholic Monarchs and the kingdoms of Navarre and Granada, incorporated into the Crown of Castile during the erection of the building.

The only staircase that connects both floors is rectangular of two sections, Isabelline base, decorated walls with padding of Renaissance influence with the founder's heraldry; an impressive Mudéjar roof on a frieze with the Catholic Monarchs's initials; and neo-Gothic parapets with same trace that the base, added in works in the 1860s to replace the wooden fence that had.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colegio_de_San_Gregorio

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museo_Nacional_de_Escultura,_Vallad...

 

The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart.

~ Buddha

 

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This famous Buddhist temple, dating from the 8th and 9th centuries, is located in central Java.

 

It was built in three tiers: a pyramidal base with five concentric square terraces, the trunk of a cone with three circular platforms and, at the top, a monumental stupa.

 

The walls and balustrades are decorated with fine low reliefs, covering a total surface area of 2,500 m2. Around the circular platforms are 72 openwork stupas, each containing a statue of the Buddha.

 

Source :

whc.unesco.org/en/list/592

~1350, oak

~1350, oak

The golden throne that Howard Carter discovered in the Antechamber beneath the hippopotamus couch is similar to the chair belonging to Sitamun. The style was popular for royal chairs of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Instead of female torsos protruding from the seat, however, the more traditional lions are in their place. Carved of wood, the armchair is covered in gold, and there is some silver overlay as well. Colored glass, faience, calcite, and semi-precious stones are used for the inlays.

 

The carved plant motif between the feline-form legs has been removed by the robbers, but the delicate openwork design of the arms remains intact. On either side, a winged cobra wears the double crown and rests on a basket. Her outstretched wings enclose the hieroglyphs for the "king of Upper and Lower Egypt" followed by the sign for infinity (shen). A cartouche of the king is at the end of her wings on either side of the chair.

 

The back of the chair is supported by three vertical struts; the outer two are carved with the king's Aton name, the middle one with that of the queen. Four hooded cobra with solar disks rise up in pairs between each of the supports. A carved and gilded scene with birds in a thicket appears on the outer surface of the back of the seat. In the triangular opening formed between the diagonal of the back and the vertical support on each side is a hooded cobra. The one on the left wears the red crown of Lower Egypt, while the one on the right has the white crown of Upper Egypt.

 

The iconography relates to Atonist doctrines, but the names of the king and queen appearing on the chair use both the earlier (Aton) and later (Amon) forms. Such a combination indicate that the chair was probably produced rather early in Tutankhamun's reign, during the period of transition to the orthodox religion. TOUR EGYPT

 

I was taken to Boroburdur by post-graduate students of Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta.

 

The Borobudur Temple Compounds is one of the greatest Buddhist monuments in the world, and was built in the 8th and 9th centuries AD during the reign of the Syailendra Dynasty. The monument is located in the Kedu Valley, in the southern part of Central Java, at the centre of the island of Java, Indonesia.

 

The main temple is a stupa built in three tiers around a hill which was a natural centre: a pyramidal base with five concentric square terraces, the trunk of a cone with three circular platforms and, at the top, a monumental stupa. Around the circular platforms are 72 openwork stupas, each containing a statue of the Buddha.

 

The vertical division of Borobudur Temple into base, body, and superstructure perfectly accords with the conception of the Universe in Buddhist cosmology. It is believed that the universe is divided into three superimposing spheres, kamadhatu, rupadhatu, and arupadhatu, representing respectively the sphere of desires where we are bound to our desires, the sphere of forms where we abandon our desires but are still bound to name and form, and the sphere of formlessness where there is no longer either name or form. At Borobudur Temple, the kamadhatu is represented by the base, the rupadhatu by the five square terraces, and the arupadhatu by the three circular platforms as well as the big stupa. The whole structure shows a unique blending of the very central ideas of ancestor worship, related to the idea of a terraced mountain, combined with the Buddhist concept of attaining Nirvana.

 

The Temple should also be seen as an outstanding dynastic monument of the Syailendra Dynasty that ruled Java for around five centuries until the 10th century.

 

The temple was used as a Buddhist temple from its construction until sometime between the 10th and 15th centuries when it was abandoned. Since its re-discovery in the 19th century and restoration in the 20th century, it has been brought back into a Buddhist archaeological site.

 

It certainly has outstanding, cultural value.

The Duomo of Milan, sunset at the rooftop.

The Duomo of Milan is a Gothic cathedral that took five centuries to complete; it is also the fourth-largest church and often described as one of the greatest churches in the world. The roof is open to tourists, which allows many close-up views of some spectacular sculptures that would otherwise be unappreciated. The roof of the cathedral is renowned for the forest of openwork pinnacles and spires, set upon delicate flying buttresses.

Milan is one of those cities that I find hard to photograph mainly because it's always inundated with tourists. The piazza where the cathedral is located at seems to be everybody's favorite hangout, even at night when I had hoped the crowd would thin out, it just didn't happen. I was too tired to even think about a pre-dawn shoot the next day, so all hopes for blue hour shots were completely crushed. If it's a consolation at all, the cathedral's rooftop had much lesser crowd than the piazza; in fact, the Duomo has some 3,400 statues gracing its massive exterior.

  

Nikon D200; Lens: 55-200mm/ f 4.0-5.6; Focal Length: 135mm; Exposure: 1/160 sec @ f8; EV: -0.33; ISO 200;

© Yen Baet. All Rights Reserved.

This cross and ring were originally gifts to Pope Pius XII and were later presented by Pope Paul Vi to the United Nations. The openwork gold mount of the cross is set with 12 large round diamonds (approx 59 carats) and enclosed in scrolls paved with 281 diamonds and 145 emeralds. The ring is a heavy platinum mount set with 1 large round diamond (approx 12.75 carats) surrounded by 14 round old-mine diamonds (approximately 5.75 carats). The shank is set with 20 rubies forming 2 crosses on a field of 96 diamonds (approx 2.75 carats)

 

If anyone is actually interested: www.wect.com/Global/story.asp?S=14423232

This hairnet, with its combination of delicate filigree, carefully hammered decorative bust, and spool-shaped beads, is a superb example of the Hellenistic goldsmith's skill. The medallion represents the head of a maenad, one of the female followers of the god Dionysos, wearing spiral earrings, a wreath of vine leaves and grapes, and a panther skin.

 

Greek, Ptolemaic, ca. 200–150 BCE.

 

Met Museum, New York (1987.220)

Furniture ivory plaque carved in relief with a griffin in a floral landscape – Assyrian [9th–8th century BCE]

 

A griffin, a hybrid creature with the head and wings of an eagle and the body and tail of a lion, faces right and extends its beak upwards to nibble on the top of a tripartite palmette tree in this fragmentary low-relief plaque. This piece was found in a large storeroom at Fort Shalmaneser, a royal building at Nimrud that was probably used to store tribute and booty collected by the Assyrians while on military campaign. A forest of papyrus flowers and palmettes surrounds the griffin. The scene is framed by a raised border on three sides that probably also continued on the left edge. The skillful carving technique, evident in details such as the long curled locks hanging from the head, and individually articulated wing feathers, combined with the slender proportions of the body, suggests that this piece can be attributed to the Phoenician style. Two tenons project from the upper and lower edges of this plaque, indicating that it was originally fitted into a frame, likely as part of a piece of furniture. Two fragmentary dowel holes pierce the tenons, probably to secure the ivory to a frame. The West Semitic letters Zayin and Tav are inscribed into the reverse. Known as fitter’s marks, these inscriptions would have served as guides to aid the craftsperson in the piece-by-piece assembly of the piece of furniture to which this plaque originally belonged.

 

Built by the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II, the palaces and storerooms of Nimrud housed thousands of pieces of carved ivory. Most of the ivories served as furniture inlays or small precious objects such as boxes. While some of them were carved in the same style as the large Assyrian reliefs lining the walls of the Northwest Palace, the majority of the ivories display images and styles related to the arts of North Syria and the Phoenician city-states. Phoenician style ivories are distinguished by their use of imagery related to Egyptian art, such as sphinxes and figures wearing pharaonic crowns, and the use of elaborate carving techniques such as openwork and colored glass inlay. North Syrian style ivories tend to depict stockier figures in more dynamic compositions, carved as solid plaques with fewer added decorative elements. However, some pieces do not fit easily into any of these three styles. Most of the ivories were probably collected by the Assyrian kings as tribute from vassal states, and as booty from conquered enemies, while some may have been manufactured in workshops at Nimrud. The ivory tusks that provided the raw material for these objects were almost certainly from African elephants, imported from lands south of Egypt, although elephants did inhabit several river valleys in Syria until they were hunted to extinction by the end of the eighth century B.C.

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Metmuseum 64.37.9

Furniture plaque carved in relief with a griffin in a floral landscape - Assyrian - Neo-Assyrian - The Metropolitan Museum of Art

www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/325668

Among the first Europeans to use the site now bounded by Bowen Bridge Road, O'Connell Terrace, Brookes Street and Gregory Terrace, was by the Acclimatisation Society of Queensland in 1863. The Society used the site to grow and propagate the plants and seeds sent from other parts of the colony and around the world. They built an office and boardroom, bush-house and glasshouse, and had an orchard and gardens for decorative plants. Various introduced animals were kept and grazed on the site. It seems the plantings were extensive and quickly developed - by 1871 the Society's garden was seen as a place of public institution and recreation. In 1887 the creek in the lower area, where the railway now runs, was damned to form a series of decorative ponds. The Society played an important role in the beginnings of commercial agriculture in Queensland, and introduced or trialed many crops including mango trees, ginger plants, sugar cane, olive trees and choco vines.

 

As Brisbane developed, the Society's grounds came under some pressure from other prospective users. In 1875, 23 acres of land was leased as an exhibition ground to the Queensland National Agricultural and Industrial Association. Brisbane's first Exhibition Building was opened at the junction of Gregory Terrace and Bowen Bridge Road on 22 August 1876. When the timber building was destroyed by fire in June 1888, a competition was immediately organised to design a more permanent Exhibition Building on the same site. The competition was held and prizes were awarded, however a new building did not immediately proceed. Financial difficulties and the possibility of importing a prefabricated building from England delayed the project until 1890. The passing of the National Association and Acclimatisation Society Act in 1890 legally allowed the National Association to become owners of the land they occupied and also empowered them to borrow money from the Government to erect its new building.

 

The original design competition had been won by the architect GHM Addison, who proposed a building estimated to cost around £20 000. Amendments to the original brief meant that in 1890 the new Exhibition Building was redesigned by Addison and a T-shaped building, accommodating an exhibition hall, concert hall and basement dining room was built.

 

The foundation stone was laid on 25 April 1891 and the entire building was expeditiously completed by August of the same year. The building was built of brick with a corrugated iron roof. The glazed bricks were locally manufactured by James Campbell, who also produced the terracotta elements. The roof framing and iron were imported from England. The Concert Hall occupied the shaft section of the T shaped building with the Exhibition Hall located at the top. On the northern side of the Exhibition Hall was a colonnaded verandah, with access to the hall through french doors. Half the area beneath the Exhibition Hall was a large open dining room with an adjacent kitchen. The basement was built of dark glazed bricks with the upper walls being red and cream bricks. Both the Exhibition Hall and the Concert Hall had projecting porte cocheres - the Concert Hall one decorated with terracotta tiles. An openwork terracotta parapet ran along the tops of the brick walls, punctuated by the caps of abutments that ran up the walls. The principal facades of the Exhibition and Concert Halls were each marked by a pair of towers.

 

Addison's original drawings show a brick boundary wall topped by metal railing, with densely planted shrubberies behind the wall. However this treatment of the grounds did not immediately proceed and the surroundings remained in a fairly undeveloped state until plans for the grounds were prepared in 1897 by Leslie G. Corrie, architect for the Queensland International Exhibition. These plans showed a formal layout of carriage drive, pathways, shrubbery, flower beds and a fountain. Bush houses abutting and extending from the northern side of the Exhibition Building framed and terminated the avenue approach from the exhibition grounds. The main entrance remained from Bowen Bridge Road with the carriage drive running in front of the Concert Hall porte cochere, around into the porte cochere of the Exhibition Hall then curving out to the gate on Gregory Terrace. Shrubberies existed along Bowen Bridge Road and Gregory Terrace between the fence and drives. A formal arrangement of grass-edged flower beds, with a fountain as the centrepiece of one, were laid out within the curve of the carriage drive.

 

Records indicate that the National Association continued to experience financial problems following the erection of the new building. In 1897 the responsibility of repaying the government loan, combined with the depressed economic conditions of the 1890s, caused the Association to go into liquidation and the government to take over ownership of the building.

 

In 1900 the Brisbane City Council, following the purchase of the Concert Hall's purpose built organ, leased the hall from the Government and organised a program of regular concerts and civic functions. At the same time, the Queensland Museum decided to move to and adapt the Exhibition Hall for a museum, after twenty years in a comparatively smaller purpose built building in William Street. Tenders for altering the Exhibition Hall into a museum were called in March 1899 and involved the construction of a gallery within the main hall, addition of a line of windows in the main northern wall to light the new gallery and modifications to the basement dining room to provide offices, preparation and storage spaces. The boundary wall and fence along Bowen Bridge Road and Gregory Terrace were completed soon after and the grounds around the building were developed as an ornamental strolling garden. From 1897 to 1929 John Jordan, Curator of the Museum Gardens, is thought to have played an important role in the design and development of the grounds. Photographs from the period show the gardens as well established, with a layout and planting character recognisable as very similar to that existing today.

 

In 1930, following the opening of its City Hall auditorium, the Brisbane City Council vacated the Concert Hall and the space was converted to an art gallery. Further alterations involving the enclosure of the Museum's porte cochere were also carried at this time. The space was occupied until 1974 when the collection was moved to a temporary location in the city while a purpose built gallery was completed on the South Bank precinct. The Queensland Museum then expanded into the space and remained in the building until 1987 when they also moved to the South Bank precinct.

 

Several outbuildings have been constructed in the Old Museum grounds, particularly during the 1960's. The main ones are:

 

- A bomb shelter, built of brick during World War 2

 

- A large steel shed, built 1968

 

- The conservation buildings, built of stud construction in the 1960s and 70s

 

- The spirit store, built of brick in the 1970s

 

- The education building, built of brick in the 1970s

 

- The demountable building, put up in the 1970s

 

Since the Queensland Museum moved out of the building, it has been the temporary home of the Queensland Youth Orchestra, the Restaurant and Caterers Association and various other short term activities. Only minor changes have been made to the building to accommodate these uses.

 

Source: Queensland Heritage Register.

El Colegio de San Gregorio de Valladolid es la sede principal del Museo Nacional de Escultura. Es uno de los mejores ejemplos de la arquitectura del periodo de los Reyes Católicos. En particular, su patio y su portada son célebres por su refinada ornamentación, las elegantes proporciones y una ostensible simbología del poder.

Igualmente interesante es su historia como institución docente. Destinado a colegio de Teología para frailes dominicos, adquirió una notable autoridad doctrinal y actuó como un semillero espiritual y político de la España renacentista y barroca.

La Universidad de Valladolid fue fundada en el siglo XIII durante el reinado de Alfonso X el Sabio; como en otros países se potenció la aparición de centros colegiales, de modo que tardíamente se creó el Colegio de San Gregorio, que actuaron en paralelo o complementariamente con relación a la vida universitaria. En Valladolid se creó además el Colegio de Santa Cruz también a finales del siglo XV

La creación del Colegio, bajo la advocación del doctor de la Iglesia San Gregorio, fue obra del dominico Alonso de Burgos, obispo de la diócesis de Palencia y confesor de los Reyes Católicos. Alonso de Burgos condicionó su fundación a la obtención de la comunidad dominica de San Pablo de los terrenos para la construcción de su propia capilla funeraria, que serviría igualmente para el alumnado del Colegio. Tal petición se vio satisfecha en 1487: consigue el espacio necesario, lo cual fue confirmado por el Papa Inocencio VIII.

Las obras se iniciaron en 1488 aunque se había comenzado ya la construcción de la capilla funeraria, cuya puerta de entrada se percibe en el crucero sur de la Iglesia conventual de San Pablo.

La fachada fue concebida como un telón o estandarte (arquitectura suspendida). Su compartimentación se organiza con elementos vegetales que evocan los arcos triunfales construidos con madera y enramada, reforzándose su carácter civil y urbano. Dada su significación simbólica, la explicación de los diferentes motivos y elementos que la integran ofrece una gran dificultad, tanto individualmente como en su totalidad y en la relación entre los diferentes elementos.

En el tímpano principal y sobre el dintel decorado con flor de lis aparece la dedicatoria y la ofrenda del Colegio por parte del fraile dominico Alonso de Burgos a san Gregorio Magno en presencia de San Pablo y Santo Domingo.

Destacan las figuras de hombres silvestres cubiertos, o no, de pelo, y con garrotes y escudos; o bien aluden a la costumbre cortesana de disfrazar escuderos con ocasión de fiestas, o bien representan la imagen mítica del «hombre natural», tal como se discutió por esas fechas y entran en diálogo visual con esculturas de caballeros, vestidos con armaduras y portando lanzas y escudos, encarnando la Virtud.

La parte central superior está ocupada por un pilón hexagonal, rebosante de agua, que puede evocar la especulación intelectual como Fuente de la Vida. En torno al pilón, se arremolinan parejas de niños y de él arranca el tronco de un granado, en posible alusión a la Fuente de la Vida y al Árbol de la Ciencia, aparte de la celebración de la reciente conquista del Reino de Granada. Todo el relieve central de la fachada se constituye con esta representación simbólica de un microcosmos, a imagen del Paraíso, lugar hacia donde deberían dirigirse los hombres mediante el conocimiento de las Artes y la Teología.

La presencia del escudo de los Reyes Católicos, sostenido por leones y por el águila de San Juan podría tener una significación política o podría ser una alusión a la dedicación del edificio a la Monarquía, a la que Alonso de Burgos nombró heredera y patrona del Colegio.

El patio del Colegio es de planta cuadrada y representa una de las joyas de estilo hispanoflamenco. Sus dos pisos se levantan sobre pilares helicoidales decorados sus capiteles con medias bolas y lises separados ambos por el tema de la cadena.

En las arquerías del piso superior se encuentra toda la decoración mediante calados pretiles de tracería gótica y cortinas pétreas que al abrirse originan arcos geminados de guirnaldas y follaje, entre los que juguetean niños, concebido con una talla muy plana próxima al estilo renacentista. Un friso de yugos y flechas y las gárgolas es lo único que se conserva de su antiguo coronamiento.

El acceso al piso superior se realiza a través de una sola escalera con pretiles góticos a los que se suceden los paramentos almohadillados de su caja decorada también con el timbre heráldico del fundador y con un artesonado mudéjar, en cuyo friso se pueden observar las iniciales de los Reyes Católicos y que cierra todo su ámbito.

 

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colegio_de_San_Gregorio

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museo_Nacional_de_Escultura

 

The Colegio de San Gregorio is an Isabelline style building located in the city of Valladolid, in Castile and León, Spain, it was formerly a college and now is housing the Museo Nacional de Escultura museum. This building is one of the best examples of the architectural style known as Isabelline, which is the characteristic architectural style of the Crown of Castile region during the Catholic Monarchs' reign (late-15th century to early-16th century).

Among other sections highlights its courtyard and its facade for its refined decoration, elegant proportions and the number of symbologies. It was founded as a teaching institution. Aimed at College of Theology for Dominican friars, it has acquired a doctrinal authority and acted as a spiritual and political hotbed in the Central region of Spain's Renaissance and Baroque periods.

The University of Valladolid was founded in the 13th-century during the Alfonso X of Castile the Wise's reign; as in other countries, the emergence of college centers was potentiated, then belatedly was created the Colegio de San Gregorio, who performed in parallel or complementarily in relation to university life. In Valladolid the Colegio Mayor Santa Cruz was also created also in late 15th-century.

The creation of the College, under the title of the Doctor of the Church Saint Gregory the Great, was work of Dominican Alonso de Burgos, the Catholic Monarchs's confessor and Bishop of the dioceses of Córdoba, Cuenca and Palencia. The foundation of the college was confirmed by with Papal Bull of Pope Innocent VIII in 1487, and accepted as Royal patronage by Queen Isabella the Catholic in 1500, after the founder's death.

It attached to the Convento de San Pablo, which Friar Alonso had been its prior, its foundation was subject to the assignment of the Capilla del Crucifijo (Crucifix's chapel), attached to the Epistle's arm of the Dominican church, to become his own funeral chapel, which later acquired dual function to also serve as a chapel for college.

Work began in 1488 in a process from the inside to outside, being the main facade the last in lift. The Royal shields in the corners of the Large courtyard still do not present the Granada's symbol suggests that this part would be completed before 1492. The building is assumed to completed in 1496.

The facade, plain facing and topped with a crest, stands out above all for its spectacular main facade, which by its stylistic features it sets regarding the workshop of Gil de Siloé, a Flemish origin artist, who was at that time in Burgos dealing with the royal sepulchers of the Miraflores Charterhouse and is known to have been commissioned to make the defunct altarpiece of the chapel, very in connection with which the sculptor had made in the Conception's chapel or of Bishop Acuña in the Cathedral of Burgos and has obvious similarities to the upper of the main facade of San Gregorio.

Perhaps evoking the triumphal arches of the architectures at that time were developing in Central Europe, or perhaps the Islamic Madrasas, architects of this building applying an individually decorated of the Castilian late-Gothic (Isabelline), it has a complex symbolic significance in that mix contemporary figures, saints, allegories, wild men, abundant symbolic of power, etc.

It has two bodies framed by two buttresses. The lower hosts a vain lintel decorated with fleur-de-lys, the founder's symbol repeated often enough, covered with three-centered arch in turn covered by another ogee trefoil.

It draw attention to the "savage men" of the jambs and buttresses, a total of sixteen. Theories about the significance of these figures, present in many buildings of 15th-century, are varied and should be put in relation to the context in which these appear. One of its functions would be simple heraldry sculptures. It is also said that, dressed with shield and mace, were the guardians of the building, beastmen guaranteeing security. Or these could allude to the custom of disguising the squires and lackeys in Court (nobility) festivities in which it presented the "savage" as inferior, in relation, for example, the chivalric romances, which mentions hair covered wild men, degraded men, estranged from the civilized world, not Christianized, and could here be in visual confrontation with the knights who also appear on the main facade, with armor, spears and shields, that would be interpreted as allegories of Virtue. On the contrary, these could also be a positive allusion, the mythical image of man in nature, unpolluted, symbol of purity that evokes the time in a perfect and happy world, with prototype to John the Baptist.

Those on the lower part, flanking the main facade, are completely covered with long hair, carrying weapons and the shields are decorated with demonic figures except in one, which has a Knight order of Calatrava's cross, the same motifs of the soldiers's shields of the second floor, the same iconography already seen for over a century.

However, in the top of the main facade are completely different, with the same attributes but without hair on the body and even two hairless, with a more human aspect, and there are authors who consider the oldest representation in Castile of an American Native, reflecting the effect of the Americas's arrival in the European imagination.

The tympanum, on a lintel, seems to represent the offering of the college by Friar Alonso de Burgos to Saint Gregory the Great in the presence of Saints Dominic and Paul, patrons of the neighboring Dominican convent, a somewhat disconcerting scene, unbalanced, with disproportion between the figures and Saint Paul with a cruciferous nimbus, an exclusive attribute of Christ. It seems to be earlier work than the rest, or even reused from other site.

The upper body is divided into three sections, with the center occupied by a hexagonal pylon which starts a pomegranate tree, referring to the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada's conquest in 1492, swirling around putti playing and jumping. It could be a Fountain of Eternal Youth's representation, hence the children, of the Tree of Knowledge, in relation to the building dedicated to the study, an allegory of the Paradise, the place to which men aspire to reach through the knowledge, an allegory of the Golden Age, in relation to the historical moment that was occurring to the Spanish monarchy.

The pomegranate tree is topped by a big shield of the Catholic Monarchs with the St. John's eagle held by two attitude lions and below the Catholic Monarchs's symbols also appear: the beam and arrows. And the use of the royal heraldry with propaganda purposes in this period reached prominence hitherto unknown, present not only in buildings directly promoted by the Catholic Monarchs but also in many that of their closest collaborators, in that way showing participation and acceptance in the political project undertaken by Isabella I and Ferdinand II in relation to the establishment of a modern state with which to control and organize all their territories under their unique power.

Upper body's side sections have the founder's heraldic decoration and two kings of arms placed at height of the central shield.

Distributed among the distributed arboured throughout the main facade are seen multiple scenes related to the defects to be overcome with the study, in relation to the search for truth and rejection of heresy, the triumph of intelligence over force or the strength to overcome temptation.

(Large courtyard) The Patio Grande was the access to the most important stays of the set. It considered a Hispanic-Flemish (Isabelline) gem, is set in relation to Juan Guas for its similarities to Palacio del Infantado in Guadalajara, although have also located abundant motifs that Bartolomé Solórzano, an active artist at that time in the area, used in the Cathedral of Palencia, seat of the Friar Alonso's bishopric.

It is square with two floors, the lower with slender pillars, perhaps a Solomonic reference in relation to a building as a "temple of wisdom", with capitals of average balls and fleur-de-lis sustaining segmental arches, and the upper with one of the most decorative Isabelline galleries, with parapets openwork with Gothic tracery and geminare arches riddled with garlands and foliage among those appears children playing and where already shown Renassaince influence, of midpoint and a form that goes be more flat.

Then follows a frieze of yokes and arrows on highlighting the imaginative gargoyles.

It has abundant emblems of the Catholic Monarchs and the kingdoms of Navarre and Granada, incorporated into the Crown of Castile during the erection of the building.

The only staircase that connects both floors is rectangular of two sections, Isabelline base, decorated walls with padding of Renaissance influence with the founder's heraldry; an impressive Mudéjar roof on a frieze with the Catholic Monarchs's initials; and neo-Gothic parapets with same trace that the base, added in works in the 1860s to replace the wooden fence that had.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colegio_de_San_Gregorio

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museo_Nacional_de_Escultura,_Vallad...

 

L'élégant clocher ajouré de 50m est décoré de colonettes, d'ogives et de médaillons présentant les signes du zodiaque ou des guerriers armés.

 

ENGLISH :

The decor of the church, associated with the theme of the Last Judgment, shows a funerary vocation. This is what the four angels herald by the tower. Sounding the horn, they recall the terrible words "Deads, get up and come to hear your judgment."

The elegant openwork tower of 50 m is decorated with columns, ribs and medallions with zodiac signs or armed warriors.

El Colegio de San Gregorio de Valladolid es la sede principal del Museo Nacional de Escultura. Es uno de los mejores ejemplos de la arquitectura del periodo de los Reyes Católicos. En particular, su patio y su portada son célebres por su refinada ornamentación, las elegantes proporciones y una ostensible simbología del poder.

Igualmente interesante es su historia como institución docente. Destinado a colegio de Teología para frailes dominicos, adquirió una notable autoridad doctrinal y actuó como un semillero espiritual y político de la España renacentista y barroca.

La Universidad de Valladolid fue fundada en el siglo XIII durante el reinado de Alfonso X el Sabio; como en otros países se potenció la aparición de centros colegiales, de modo que tardíamente se creó el Colegio de San Gregorio, que actuaron en paralelo o complementariamente con relación a la vida universitaria. En Valladolid se creó además el Colegio de Santa Cruz también a finales del siglo XV

La creación del Colegio, bajo la advocación del doctor de la Iglesia San Gregorio, fue obra del dominico Alonso de Burgos, obispo de la diócesis de Palencia y confesor de los Reyes Católicos. Alonso de Burgos condicionó su fundación a la obtención de la comunidad dominica de San Pablo de los terrenos para la construcción de su propia capilla funeraria, que serviría igualmente para el alumnado del Colegio. Tal petición se vio satisfecha en 1487: consigue el espacio necesario, lo cual fue confirmado por el Papa Inocencio VIII.

Las obras se iniciaron en 1488 aunque se había comenzado ya la construcción de la capilla funeraria, cuya puerta de entrada se percibe en el crucero sur de la Iglesia conventual de San Pablo.

La fachada fue concebida como un telón o estandarte (arquitectura suspendida). Su compartimentación se organiza con elementos vegetales que evocan los arcos triunfales construidos con madera y enramada, reforzándose su carácter civil y urbano. Dada su significación simbólica, la explicación de los diferentes motivos y elementos que la integran ofrece una gran dificultad, tanto individualmente como en su totalidad y en la relación entre los diferentes elementos.

En el tímpano principal y sobre el dintel decorado con flor de lis aparece la dedicatoria y la ofrenda del Colegio por parte del fraile dominico Alonso de Burgos a san Gregorio Magno en presencia de San Pablo y Santo Domingo.

Destacan las figuras de hombres silvestres cubiertos, o no, de pelo, y con garrotes y escudos; o bien aluden a la costumbre cortesana de disfrazar escuderos con ocasión de fiestas, o bien representan la imagen mítica del «hombre natural», tal como se discutió por esas fechas y entran en diálogo visual con esculturas de caballeros, vestidos con armaduras y portando lanzas y escudos, encarnando la Virtud.

La parte central superior está ocupada por un pilón hexagonal, rebosante de agua, que puede evocar la especulación intelectual como Fuente de la Vida. En torno al pilón, se arremolinan parejas de niños y de él arranca el tronco de un granado, en posible alusión a la Fuente de la Vida y al Árbol de la Ciencia, aparte de la celebración de la reciente conquista del Reino de Granada. Todo el relieve central de la fachada se constituye con esta representación simbólica de un microcosmos, a imagen del Paraíso, lugar hacia donde deberían dirigirse los hombres mediante el conocimiento de las Artes y la Teología.

La presencia del escudo de los Reyes Católicos, sostenido por leones y por el águila de San Juan podría tener una significación política o podría ser una alusión a la dedicación del edificio a la Monarquía, a la que Alonso de Burgos nombró heredera y patrona del Colegio.

El patio del Colegio es de planta cuadrada y representa una de las joyas de estilo hispanoflamenco. Sus dos pisos se levantan sobre pilares helicoidales decorados sus capiteles con medias bolas y lises separados ambos por el tema de la cadena.

En las arquerías del piso superior se encuentra toda la decoración mediante calados pretiles de tracería gótica y cortinas pétreas que al abrirse originan arcos geminados de guirnaldas y follaje, entre los que juguetean niños, concebido con una talla muy plana próxima al estilo renacentista. Un friso de yugos y flechas y las gárgolas es lo único que se conserva de su antiguo coronamiento.

El acceso al piso superior se realiza a través de una sola escalera con pretiles góticos a los que se suceden los paramentos almohadillados de su caja decorada también con el timbre heráldico del fundador y con un artesonado mudéjar, en cuyo friso se pueden observar las iniciales de los Reyes Católicos y que cierra todo su ámbito.

 

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colegio_de_San_Gregorio

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museo_Nacional_de_Escultura

 

The Colegio de San Gregorio is an Isabelline style building located in the city of Valladolid, in Castile and León, Spain, it was formerly a college and now is housing the Museo Nacional de Escultura museum. This building is one of the best examples of the architectural style known as Isabelline, which is the characteristic architectural style of the Crown of Castile region during the Catholic Monarchs' reign (late-15th century to early-16th century).

Among other sections highlights its courtyard and its facade for its refined decoration, elegant proportions and the number of symbologies. It was founded as a teaching institution. Aimed at College of Theology for Dominican friars, it has acquired a doctrinal authority and acted as a spiritual and political hotbed in the Central region of Spain's Renaissance and Baroque periods.

The University of Valladolid was founded in the 13th-century during the Alfonso X of Castile the Wise's reign; as in other countries, the emergence of college centers was potentiated, then belatedly was created the Colegio de San Gregorio, who performed in parallel or complementarily in relation to university life. In Valladolid the Colegio Mayor Santa Cruz was also created also in late 15th-century.

The creation of the College, under the title of the Doctor of the Church Saint Gregory the Great, was work of Dominican Alonso de Burgos, the Catholic Monarchs's confessor and Bishop of the dioceses of Córdoba, Cuenca and Palencia. The foundation of the college was confirmed by with Papal Bull of Pope Innocent VIII in 1487, and accepted as Royal patronage by Queen Isabella the Catholic in 1500, after the founder's death.

It attached to the Convento de San Pablo, which Friar Alonso had been its prior, its foundation was subject to the assignment of the Capilla del Crucifijo (Crucifix's chapel), attached to the Epistle's arm of the Dominican church, to become his own funeral chapel, which later acquired dual function to also serve as a chapel for college.

Work began in 1488 in a process from the inside to outside, being the main facade the last in lift. The Royal shields in the corners of the Large courtyard still do not present the Granada's symbol suggests that this part would be completed before 1492. The building is assumed to completed in 1496.

The facade, plain facing and topped with a crest, stands out above all for its spectacular main facade, which by its stylistic features it sets regarding the workshop of Gil de Siloé, a Flemish origin artist, who was at that time in Burgos dealing with the royal sepulchers of the Miraflores Charterhouse and is known to have been commissioned to make the defunct altarpiece of the chapel, very in connection with which the sculptor had made in the Conception's chapel or of Bishop Acuña in the Cathedral of Burgos and has obvious similarities to the upper of the main facade of San Gregorio.

Perhaps evoking the triumphal arches of the architectures at that time were developing in Central Europe, or perhaps the Islamic Madrasas, architects of this building applying an individually decorated of the Castilian late-Gothic (Isabelline), it has a complex symbolic significance in that mix contemporary figures, saints, allegories, wild men, abundant symbolic of power, etc.

It has two bodies framed by two buttresses. The lower hosts a vain lintel decorated with fleur-de-lys, the founder's symbol repeated often enough, covered with three-centered arch in turn covered by another ogee trefoil.

It draw attention to the "savage men" of the jambs and buttresses, a total of sixteen. Theories about the significance of these figures, present in many buildings of 15th-century, are varied and should be put in relation to the context in which these appear. One of its functions would be simple heraldry sculptures. It is also said that, dressed with shield and mace, were the guardians of the building, beastmen guaranteeing security. Or these could allude to the custom of disguising the squires and lackeys in Court (nobility) festivities in which it presented the "savage" as inferior, in relation, for example, the chivalric romances, which mentions hair covered wild men, degraded men, estranged from the civilized world, not Christianized, and could here be in visual confrontation with the knights who also appear on the main facade, with armor, spears and shields, that would be interpreted as allegories of Virtue. On the contrary, these could also be a positive allusion, the mythical image of man in nature, unpolluted, symbol of purity that evokes the time in a perfect and happy world, with prototype to John the Baptist.

Those on the lower part, flanking the main facade, are completely covered with long hair, carrying weapons and the shields are decorated with demonic figures except in one, which has a Knight order of Calatrava's cross, the same motifs of the soldiers's shields of the second floor, the same iconography already seen for over a century.

However, in the top of the main facade are completely different, with the same attributes but without hair on the body and even two hairless, with a more human aspect, and there are authors who consider the oldest representation in Castile of an American Native, reflecting the effect of the Americas's arrival in the European imagination.

The tympanum, on a lintel, seems to represent the offering of the college by Friar Alonso de Burgos to Saint Gregory the Great in the presence of Saints Dominic and Paul, patrons of the neighboring Dominican convent, a somewhat disconcerting scene, unbalanced, with disproportion between the figures and Saint Paul with a cruciferous nimbus, an exclusive attribute of Christ. It seems to be earlier work than the rest, or even reused from other site.

The upper body is divided into three sections, with the center occupied by a hexagonal pylon which starts a pomegranate tree, referring to the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada's conquest in 1492, swirling around putti playing and jumping. It could be a Fountain of Eternal Youth's representation, hence the children, of the Tree of Knowledge, in relation to the building dedicated to the study, an allegory of the Paradise, the place to which men aspire to reach through the knowledge, an allegory of the Golden Age, in relation to the historical moment that was occurring to the Spanish monarchy.

The pomegranate tree is topped by a big shield of the Catholic Monarchs with the St. John's eagle held by two attitude lions and below the Catholic Monarchs's symbols also appear: the beam and arrows. And the use of the royal heraldry with propaganda purposes in this period reached prominence hitherto unknown, present not only in buildings directly promoted by the Catholic Monarchs but also in many that of their closest collaborators, in that way showing participation and acceptance in the political project undertaken by Isabella I and Ferdinand II in relation to the establishment of a modern state with which to control and organize all their territories under their unique power.

Upper body's side sections have the founder's heraldic decoration and two kings of arms placed at height of the central shield.

Distributed among the distributed arboured throughout the main facade are seen multiple scenes related to the defects to be overcome with the study, in relation to the search for truth and rejection of heresy, the triumph of intelligence over force or the strength to overcome temptation.

(Large courtyard) The Patio Grande was the access to the most important stays of the set. It considered a Hispanic-Flemish (Isabelline) gem, is set in relation to Juan Guas for its similarities to Palacio del Infantado in Guadalajara, although have also located abundant motifs that Bartolomé Solórzano, an active artist at that time in the area, used in the Cathedral of Palencia, seat of the Friar Alonso's bishopric.

It is square with two floors, the lower with slender pillars, perhaps a Solomonic reference in relation to a building as a "temple of wisdom", with capitals of average balls and fleur-de-lis sustaining segmental arches, and the upper with one of the most decorative Isabelline galleries, with parapets openwork with Gothic tracery and geminare arches riddled with garlands and foliage among those appears children playing and where already shown Renassaince influence, of midpoint and a form that goes be more flat.

Then follows a frieze of yokes and arrows on highlighting the imaginative gargoyles.

It has abundant emblems of the Catholic Monarchs and the kingdoms of Navarre and Granada, incorporated into the Crown of Castile during the erection of the building.

The only staircase that connects both floors is rectangular of two sections, Isabelline base, decorated walls with padding of Renaissance influence with the founder's heraldry; an impressive Mudéjar roof on a frieze with the Catholic Monarchs's initials; and neo-Gothic parapets with same trace that the base, added in works in the 1860s to replace the wooden fence that had.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colegio_de_San_Gregorio

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museo_Nacional_de_Escultura,_Vallad...

 

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

An exceptionally large and elaborate Gothic cathedral on the main square of Milan, the Duomo di Milano is one of the most famous buildings in Europe. It is the largest Gothic cathedral and the second largest Catholic cathedral in the world.

Milan Cathedral (Italian: Duomo di Milano; Lombard: Domm de Milan) is the cathedral church of Milan, Italy. Dedicated to Santa Maria Nascente (Saint Mary Nascent), it is the seat of the Archbishop of Milan, currently Cardinal Angelo Scola.

The Gothic cathedral took nearly six centuries to complete. It is the fifth largest cathedral in the world, and the largest in the Italian state territory.

The roof is open to tourists, which allows many a close-up view of some spectacular sculpture that would otherwise be unappreciated. The roof of the cathedral is renowned for the forest of openwork pinnacles and spires, set upon delicate flying buttresses.

Native to Mexico. Variation on Cornus florida. The blossoms are 'connected' both top and bottom creating little openwork balls. Growing in the UC Botanical Garden, Berkeley.

Interior da Catedral de Milão.

A text, in english, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Milan Cathedral

Milan Cathedral (Italian: Duomo di Milano; Milanese: Domm de Milan) is the cathedral church of Milan in Lombardy, northern Italy. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Milan, currently Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi.

History:

Milan's layout, with streets either radiating from the Duomo or circling it, reveals that the Duomo occupies the most central site in Roman Mediolanum, that of the public basilica facing the forum. Saint Ambrose's 'New Basilica' was built on this site at the beginning of the 5th century, with an adjoining basilica added in 836. When a fire damaged both buildings in 1075, they were rebuilt as the Duomo.

Um texto, em português, do Site "Fatos e fotos de viagens", que pode ser visto no endereço interata.squarespace.com/jornal-de-viagem/2006/11/27/duom...

In 1386 archbishop Antonio da Saluzzo began construction in a rayonnant Late Gothic style more typically French than Italian. Construction coincided with the accession to power in Milan of the archbishop's cousin Gian Galeazzo Visconti, and was meant as a reward to the noble and working classes which had been suppressed by his tyrannical Visconti predecessor Barnabò. Before actual work began, three main buildings were demolished: the palace of the Archbishop, the Ordinari Palace and the Baptistry of 'St. Stephen at the Spring', while the old church of Sta. Maria Maggiore was exploited as a stone quarry. Enthusiasm for the immense new building soon spread among the population, and the shrewd Gian Galeazzo, together with his cousin the archbishop, collected large donations for the work-in-progress. The construction program was strictly regulated under the "Fabbrica del Duomo", which had 300 employees led by first chief engineer Simone da Orsenigo. Galeazzo gave the Fabbrica exclusive use of the marble from the Candoglia quarry and exempted it from taxes.

In 1389 a French chief engineer, Nicolas de Bonaventure, was appointed, adding to the church its strong Gothic imprint. Ten years later another French architect, Jean Mignot, was called from Paris to judge and improve upon the work done, as the masons needed new technical aid to lift stones to an unprecedented height. Mignot declared all the work done up till then as in pericolo di ruina ("peril of ruin"), as it had been done sine scienzia ("without science"). In the following years Mignot's forecasts proved untrue, but anyway they spurred Galeazzo's engineers to improve their instruments and techniques. Work proceeded quickly, and at the death of Gian Galeazzo in 1402, almost half the cathedral was complete. Construction, however, stalled almost totally until 1480, due to lack of money and ideas: the most notable works of this period were the tombs of Marco Carelli and Pope Martin V (1424) and the windows of the apse (1470s), of which those extant portray St. John the Evangelist, by Cristoforo de' Mottis, and Saint Eligius and San John of Damascus, both by Niccolò da Varallo. In 1452, under Francesco Sforza, the nave and the aisles were completed up to the sixth bay.

In 1500-1510, under Ludovico Sforza, the octagonal cupola was completed, and decorated in the interior with four series of fifteen statues each, portraying saints, prophets, sibyls and other characters of the Bible. The exterior long remained without any decoration, except for the Guglietto dell'Amadeo ("Amadeo's Little Spire"), constructed 1507-1510. This is a Renaissance masterwork which nevertheless harmonized well with the general Gothic appearance of the church.

The famous "Madunina" atop the main spire of the cathedral, a baroque gilded bronze artwork.

During the subsequent Spanish domination, the new church proved usable, even though the interior remained largely unfinished, and some bays of the nave and the transepts were still missing. In 1552 Giacomo Antegnati was commissioned to build a large organ for the north side of the choir, and Giuseppe Meda provided four of the sixteen pales which were to decorate the altar area (the program was completed by Federico Borromeo). In 1562 Marco d' Lopez's St. Bartholomew and the famous Trivulzio candelabrum (12th century) were added.

After the accession of the ambitious Carlo Borromeo to the archbishop's throne, all lay monuments were removed from the Duomo. These included the tombs of Giovanni, Barnabò and Filippo Maria Visconti, Francesco and his wife Bianca, Galeazzo Maria and Lodovico Sforza, which were brought to unknown destinations. However, Borromeo's main intervention was the appointment, in 1571, of Pellegrino Pellegrini as chief engineer— a contentious move, since to appoint Pellegrino, who was not a lay brother of the duomo, required a revision of the Fabbrica's statutes.

Borromeo and Pellegrino strove for a new, Renaissance appearance for the cathedral, that would emphasise its Roman / Italian nature, and subdue the Gothic style, which was now seen as foreign. As the façade still was largely incomplete, Pellegrini designed a "Roman" style one, with columns, obelisks and a large tympanum. When Pellegrini's design was revealed, a competition for the design of the facade was announced, and this elicited nearly a dozen entries, including by Antonio Barca [1].

This design was never carried out, but the interior decoration continued: in 1575-1585 the presbytery was rebuilt, while new altars and the baptistry were added in the nave.

Wooden choirstalls were constructed by 1614 for the main altar by Francesco Brambilla.

In 1577 Borromeo finally consecrated the whole edifice as a new church, distinct from the old Santa Maria Maggiore and Santa Tecla (which had been unified in 1549 after heavy disputes).

At the beginning of the 17th century Federico Borromeo had the foundations of the new façade laid by Francesco Maria Richini and Fabio Mangone. Work continued until 1638 with the construction of five portals and two middle windows. In 1649, however, the new chief architect Carlo Buzzi introduced a striking revolution: the façade was to revert to original Gothic style, including the already finished details within big Gothic pilasters and two giant belfries. Other designs were provided by, among others, Filippo Juvarra (1733) and Luigi Vanvitelli (1745), but all remained unapplied. In 1682 the façade of Santa Maria Maggiore was demolished and the cathedral's roof covering completed.

The ultimate facade with its striking rosy marble revetment

In 1762 one of the main features of the cathedral, the Madonnina's spire, was erected at the dizzying height of 108.5 m. The spire was designed by Francesco Croce and sports at the top a famous polychrome Madonnina statue, designed by Giuseppe Perego that befits the original stature of the cathedral.[2] Given Milan's notoriously damp and foggy climate, the Milanese consider it a fair-weather day when the Madonnina is visible from a distance, as it is so often covered by mist.

On May 20, 1805, Napoleon Bonaparte, about to be crowned King of Italy, ordered the façade to be finished. In his enthusiasm, he assured that all expenses would fall to the French treasurer, who would reimburse the Fabbrica for the real estate it had to sell. Even though this reimbursement was never paid, it still meant that finally, within only seven years, the Cathedral had its façade completed. The new architect, Francesco Soave, largely followed Buzzi's project, adding some neo-Gothic details to the upper windows. As a form of thanksgiving, a statue of Napoleon was placed at the top of one of the spires.

In the following years, most of the missing arches and spires were constructed. The statues on the southern wall were also finished, while in 1829-1858, new stained glass windows replaced the old ones, though with less aesthetically significant results. The last details of the cathedral were finished only in the 20th century: the last gate was inaugurated on January 6, 1965. This date is considered the very end of a process which had proceeded for generations, although even now, some uncarved blocks remain to be completed as statues. The Duomo's main facade is under renovation as of 2007; canvas-covered scaffolding obscures most of the facade.

he cathedral of Milano is often described as one of the greatest churches in the world. The ground plan is of a nave with 5 aisles, crossed by a transept and then followed by choir and apsis. The height of the nave is about 45 meters, the highest Gothic vaults of a complete church (less than the 48 meters of Beauvais Cathedral that was never completed).

The roof is open to tourists (for a fee), which allows many a close-up view of some spectacular sculpture that would otherwise be unappreciated. The roof of the cathedral is renowned for the forest of openwork pinnacles and spires, sitting upon delicate flying buttresses.

The cathedral's five wide naves, divided by forty pillars, are reflected in the hierarchic openings of the facade. Even the transepts have aisles. The nave columns are 24.5 metres (80 ft) high, and the apsidal windows are 20.7 x 8.5 metres (68 x 28 feet). The huge building is of brick construction, faced with marble from the quarries which Gian Galeazzo Visconti donated in perpetuity to the cathedral chapter. Its maintenance and repairs are very complicated.

The interior of the cathedral includes a huge number of monuments and artworks. These include:

* The Archbishop Alberto da Intimiano's sarcophagus, which is overlooked by a Crucifix in copper laminae (a replica).

* The sarcophagi of the archbishops Ottone Visconti and Giovanni Visconti, created by a Campionese master in the 14th century.

* The sarcophagus of Marco Carelli, who donated 35,000 ducati to accelerate the construction of the cathedral.

* The three magnificent altars by Pellegrino Pellegrini, which include the notable Federico Zuccari's Visit of St. Peter to St. Agatha jailed.

* In the right transept, the monument to Gian Giacomo Medici di Marignano, called "Medeghino", by Leone Leoni, and the adjacent Renaissance marble altar, decorated with gilt bronze statues.

* In front of the former mausoleum is the most renowned work of art of the cathedral, the St. Bartholomew statue by Marco D'Agrate.

* The presbytery is a late Renaissance masterpiece composing a choir, a Temple by Pellegrini, two pulpits with giant telamones covered in copper and bronze, and two large organs. Around the choir the two sacristies' portals, some frescoes and a fifteenth-century statue of Martin V by Jacopino da Tradate) can be seen.

* The transepts house the Trivulzio Candelabrum, which is in two pieces. The base (attributed to Nicolas of Verdun, 12th century), characterized by a fantastic ensemble of vines, vegetables and imaginary animals; and the stem, of the mid-16th century.

* In the left aisle, the Arcimboldi monument by Alessi and Romanesque figures depicting the Apostles in red marble and the neo-Classic baptistry by Pellegrini.

* A small red light bulb in the dome above the apse marks the spot where one of the nails from the Crucifixion of Christ has been placed.

* In November-December, in the days surrounding the birthdate of the San Carlo Borromeo, a series of large canvases, the Quadroni are exhibited along the nave.

 

DUOMO - A Catedral de Milão

O Duomo é apenas mais um dos fabulosos exemplos de arquitetura e monumentalidade dirigida ao culto ao divino entre tantas outras catedrais construídas na Europa durante a Idade Média, entre os séculos 9 e 12.

Dizem que o Duomo foi projetado pelo pintor, escultor, arquiteto, engenheiro, cientista e inventor italiano Leonardo da Vinci, nascido em Vinci e falecido em Amboise, na França.

Igrejas como as de Chartres , Amiens e Notre Dame de Paris (França), Sevilha e Santiago de Compostela (Espanha), Colônia (Alemanha) e o Duomo de Milão (Itália) são o exemplo máximo do estilo gótico — caracterizado pelo uso das ogivas (cruzamento de arcos), que possibilitavam a construção de altas estruturas. No apogeu do fervor católico, elas foram projetadas usando medidas que reproduziam as proporções do corpo humano.

Situado no centro da cidade , o Duomo é o marco zero geográfico da cidade e ponto de partida para se conhecer a cidade. Muitas de suas atrações estão nas proximidades ou vizinhanças.

Pode-se visitar internamente a igreja e seu telhado. Todos os dias, de 7 às19h de junho a setembro, e de 9 às 16h, de outubro a maio. Para ingressar na igreja nada se paga, mas para subir ao seu telhado paga-se o preço de 4 Euros, por elevador.

Duomo é uma gigantesca igreja catedral, uma das maiores em estilo gótico em todo o mundo, em dimensões, pois tem cerca de 160 m de comprimento por 92 de largura. Suas dimensões representam aquilo que mais impressiona e provoca admiração a quem a visita, num primeiro olhar.

igreja começou a ser construída no Século 14 mas só foi concluída 500 (!!) anos depois.

Uma das coisas mais interessantes a ser fazer em toda Milão é visitar o telhado do Duomo, todo em placas de mármore, da mesma pedra de sua fachada, suas esculturas (santos, gárgulas e agulhas) e de onde se tem uma bela vista de toda a cidade.

A fachada do Duomo não tem apenas um estilo arquitetônico: eles vão do gótico ao renascentista, com alguns elementos neoclássicos.

Ainda no exterior, antes de entrar na igreja, não deixe de observar o rendilhado que envolve as janelas-vitrais e também as belíssimas e enormes portas de bronze, nas quais estão esculturas em baixos e altos-relevos que mostram cenas da história da cidade.

O que mais impressiona no interior é a altura dos enormes pilares góticos que suportam o telhado de toda a igreja e que delimitam suas naves laterais, secundárias e principal, além do altar-mór. Elas enquadram os vitrais igualmente gigantescos e belíssimos.

O interior não impressiona tanto quanto o exterior, ainda que seja solene, grandioso e tenha cinco naves e 52 gigantescas colunas de pedra.

Também o maravilhoso piso de mármore de três ou quatro tonalidades, que formam belos desenhos, dão, na nave central, a verdadeira impressão das dimensões desta fabulosa igreja. Observe o piso (de preferência ajoelhado nele) posisionando-se de costas para o altar-mór e olhando para o portão principal.

Em Milão quase tudo gira ao redor do Duomo, a Catedral de Milão, a terceira maior igreja da cristandade depois da Basílica de São Pedro, em Roma, e da Catedral de Sevilha.

No telhado as centenas de agulhas altíssimas, de arcos e gárgulas, estátuas e cariátides esculpidos em mármore impressionam tanto quanto sua fachada, vista do nível da rua. A mais magestosa das imagens é a estatua dourada da Madonnina do Perego, situada no topo da agulha maior, onde foi colocada em 1744.

Uma visita ao seu telhado dá-nos a dimensão exata da grandiosidade do trabalho de construção desta monumental escultura e nos leva a imaginar o quão difícil deve ter sido, compreendendo-se porque ela iniciou-se em 1386 e terminou em 1887!

O Duomo di Milano é um monumento símbolo do patrimônio Lombardo, dedicado à Santa Maria Nascente e situado na praça central da cidade de Milão, Itália. É uma das mais célebres e complexas construções em estilo Gótico do mundo.

Leia mais sobre a catedral de Milão no endereço www.maconaria.net/portal/index.php?view=article&catid...

the metro station Elektrozavodskaya of the Moscow metro is a pylon three-vaulted deep-laid. Elektrozavodskaya metro station was opened on May 15 , 1944 . The station's decoration is dedicated to the theme "Front and rear in the Great Patriotic War".

 

The vaulted ceiling of the station hall has 318 original round light windows with lamps mounted in 6 rows, and rests on rectangular massive pylons covered with a smooth cornice.

 

The pylons are lined with white Prokhor-Balandinsky marble and richly decorated with architectural details. A marble belt with an outrigger plate visually divides the pylon horizontally. Carved triglyphs with triangular grooves, lattice niches, marble cornice and bas-reliefs characterize the compositional unity.

 

The track walls are lined with red marble "salieti", the base is olive-black "davalu".

 

The checkerboard pattern of the floor and the ribbon of the meander are formed by slabs of yellow-gray Yantsev granite and labradorite. The floor between the pylons and the track platforms is finished with dark gray Zhezhel granite. On the side of the central hall, comfortable benches are installed at each pylon.

 

On the pylons of the central hall there are high reliefs made of Prokhor-Baladinsky marble (sculptor G. I. Motovilov) on the theme of everyday work of workers in industry, transport and agriculture during the harsh war years. Openwork bronze grilles on the pylons hide the ventilation holes.

 

The ground lobby is a squat hexagonal structure with a massive flattened dome on a low drum. In the vaulted niche of the pavilion (on the side of Bolshaya Semenovskaya Street) there is a sculptural group "Metrostroevtsy in the face" (sculptor M. G. Manizer): 3 figures of tunnellers with tools.

 

Inside, the lobby is lined with red marble "salieti" and decorated with medallions with bas-relief portraits of the founders of electrical engineering by G. I. Motovilov.

 

All scientists are depicted with the attributes of their discoveries: William Gilbert (introduced the term "electricity" into science) — with a ball of amber, Benjamin Franklin — with a lightning rod, Michael Faraday — with a prototype of an electric machine, Alexander Stepanovich Popov — with a lightning detector, Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov — with a Yablochkov candle, Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov — with a pen and paper.

 

from the metro station Elektrozavodskaya you can go to the railway station Elektrozavodskaya on Elektrozavodskaya Street on Bolshaya Semyonovskaya street . also, from the Elektrozavodskaya metro station, you can transfer to the Elektrozavodskaya metro station of the Bolshaya koltsevaya metro line (line 11) so far, it temporarily serves the Nkrasovskaya line of the Moscow metro (line 15) as for the transfer , it is still ground - based for this , passengers need to climb a deep escalator to the ground pavillon and then get out of the subway and walk a little . what about the underground landing from the Elektrozavodskaya Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya line (line 3) to the metro station Elektrozavodskaya , Bolshaya koltsevaya line( line 11) , then it may open at the end of 2022 at the beginning of 2023

   

The “Duomo di Milano” is a mastepiece of gothic italian art. This cathedral took five centuries to complete and is the fourth-largest church in the world. The roof is open to visitors, and it is renowned for the forest of openwork pinnacles and spires (about 134), with about 2400 statues, set upon delicate flying buttresses.

 

HDR from 3 shots, processed with Photomatix 3.2.5 for Mac OS X

 

Tour of Europe 04 2016

 

Day 12

After a nice meal, night fell we stroll onto the market where all the s are showing off the beauty of all the buildings.

 

The belfry of Bruges is a medieval bell tower in the historical centre of Bruges, Belgium

 

It served as an observation post for spotting fires and other danger.

A narrow, steep staircase of 366 steps, accessible by the public leads to the top of the 83 m (272 feet) high building, which leans about a metre (3 ft) to the east.

 

The belfry was added to the market square around 1240, when Bruges was prospering as an important centre of the Flemish cloth industry.

After a devastating fire in 1280, the tower was largely rebuilt.

 

The octagonal upper stage of the belfry was added between 1483 and 1487, and capped with a wooden spire bearing an image of Saint Michael, banner in hand and dragon underfoot. The spire did not last long: a lightning strike in 1493 reduced it to ashes, and destroyed the bells as well. A wooden spire crowned the summit again for some two-and-a-half centuries, before it, too, fell victim to flames in 1741.

The spire was never replaced again, thus making the current height of the building somewhat lower than in the past; but an openwork stone parapet in Gothic style was added to the rooftop in 1822.

 

The bells in the tower regulated the lives of the city dwellers, announcing the time, fire alarms, work hours, and a variety of social, political, and religious events. Eventually a mechanism ensured the regular sounding of certain bells, for example indicating the hour. Which is still the case!

 

In the 16th century the tower received a carillon, allowing the bells to be played by means of a hand keyboard. Starting from 1604, the annual accounts record the employment of a carilloneur to play songs during Sundays, holidays and market days.

 

In 1675 the carillon comprised 35 bells, designed by Melchior de Haze of Antwerp. After the fire of 1741 this was replaced by a set of bells cast by Joris Dumery, 26 of which are still in use.

There were 48 bells at the end of the 19th century, but today the bells number 47, together weighing about 27.5 tonnes. The bells range from weighing two pounds to 11,000 pounds.

(info Wikipedia)

  

I wish you a day full of beauty and thank you for your visit, Magda, (*_*)

 

For more of my other work visit here: www.indigo2photography.com

Please do not use this image on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit permission. © All rights reserved

  

El Colegio de San Gregorio de Valladolid es la sede principal del Museo Nacional de Escultura. Es uno de los mejores ejemplos de la arquitectura del periodo de los Reyes Católicos. En particular, su patio y su portada son célebres por su refinada ornamentación, las elegantes proporciones y una ostensible simbología del poder.

Igualmente interesante es su historia como institución docente. Destinado a colegio de Teología para frailes dominicos, adquirió una notable autoridad doctrinal y actuó como un semillero espiritual y político de la España renacentista y barroca.

La Universidad de Valladolid fue fundada en el siglo XIII durante el reinado de Alfonso X el Sabio; como en otros países se potenció la aparición de centros colegiales, de modo que tardíamente se creó el Colegio de San Gregorio, que actuaron en paralelo o complementariamente con relación a la vida universitaria. En Valladolid se creó además el Colegio de Santa Cruz también a finales del siglo XV

La creación del Colegio, bajo la advocación del doctor de la Iglesia San Gregorio, fue obra del dominico Alonso de Burgos, obispo de la diócesis de Palencia y confesor de los Reyes Católicos. Alonso de Burgos condicionó su fundación a la obtención de la comunidad dominica de San Pablo de los terrenos para la construcción de su propia capilla funeraria, que serviría igualmente para el alumnado del Colegio. Tal petición se vio satisfecha en 1487: consigue el espacio necesario, lo cual fue confirmado por el Papa Inocencio VIII.

Las obras se iniciaron en 1488 aunque se había comenzado ya la construcción de la capilla funeraria, cuya puerta de entrada se percibe en el crucero sur de la Iglesia conventual de San Pablo.

La fachada fue concebida como un telón o estandarte (arquitectura suspendida). Su compartimentación se organiza con elementos vegetales que evocan los arcos triunfales construidos con madera y enramada, reforzándose su carácter civil y urbano. Dada su significación simbólica, la explicación de los diferentes motivos y elementos que la integran ofrece una gran dificultad, tanto individualmente como en su totalidad y en la relación entre los diferentes elementos.

En el tímpano principal y sobre el dintel decorado con flor de lis aparece la dedicatoria y la ofrenda del Colegio por parte del fraile dominico Alonso de Burgos a san Gregorio Magno en presencia de San Pablo y Santo Domingo.

Destacan las figuras de hombres silvestres cubiertos, o no, de pelo, y con garrotes y escudos; o bien aluden a la costumbre cortesana de disfrazar escuderos con ocasión de fiestas, o bien representan la imagen mítica del «hombre natural», tal como se discutió por esas fechas y entran en diálogo visual con esculturas de caballeros, vestidos con armaduras y portando lanzas y escudos, encarnando la Virtud.

La parte central superior está ocupada por un pilón hexagonal, rebosante de agua, que puede evocar la especulación intelectual como Fuente de la Vida. En torno al pilón, se arremolinan parejas de niños y de él arranca el tronco de un granado, en posible alusión a la Fuente de la Vida y al Árbol de la Ciencia, aparte de la celebración de la reciente conquista del Reino de Granada. Todo el relieve central de la fachada se constituye con esta representación simbólica de un microcosmos, a imagen del Paraíso, lugar hacia donde deberían dirigirse los hombres mediante el conocimiento de las Artes y la Teología.

La presencia del escudo de los Reyes Católicos, sostenido por leones y por el águila de San Juan podría tener una significación política o podría ser una alusión a la dedicación del edificio a la Monarquía, a la que Alonso de Burgos nombró heredera y patrona del Colegio.

El patio del Colegio es de planta cuadrada y representa una de las joyas de estilo hispanoflamenco. Sus dos pisos se levantan sobre pilares helicoidales decorados sus capiteles con medias bolas y lises separados ambos por el tema de la cadena.

En las arquerías del piso superior se encuentra toda la decoración mediante calados pretiles de tracería gótica y cortinas pétreas que al abrirse originan arcos geminados de guirnaldas y follaje, entre los que juguetean niños, concebido con una talla muy plana próxima al estilo renacentista. Un friso de yugos y flechas y las gárgolas es lo único que se conserva de su antiguo coronamiento.

El acceso al piso superior se realiza a través de una sola escalera con pretiles góticos a los que se suceden los paramentos almohadillados de su caja decorada también con el timbre heráldico del fundador y con un artesonado mudéjar, en cuyo friso se pueden observar las iniciales de los Reyes Católicos y que cierra todo su ámbito.

 

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colegio_de_San_Gregorio

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museo_Nacional_de_Escultura

 

The Colegio de San Gregorio is an Isabelline style building located in the city of Valladolid, in Castile and León, Spain, it was formerly a college and now is housing the Museo Nacional de Escultura museum. This building is one of the best examples of the architectural style known as Isabelline, which is the characteristic architectural style of the Crown of Castile region during the Catholic Monarchs' reign (late-15th century to early-16th century).

Among other sections highlights its courtyard and its facade for its refined decoration, elegant proportions and the number of symbologies. It was founded as a teaching institution. Aimed at College of Theology for Dominican friars, it has acquired a doctrinal authority and acted as a spiritual and political hotbed in the Central region of Spain's Renaissance and Baroque periods.

The University of Valladolid was founded in the 13th-century during the Alfonso X of Castile the Wise's reign; as in other countries, the emergence of college centers was potentiated, then belatedly was created the Colegio de San Gregorio, who performed in parallel or complementarily in relation to university life. In Valladolid the Colegio Mayor Santa Cruz was also created also in late 15th-century.

The creation of the College, under the title of the Doctor of the Church Saint Gregory the Great, was work of Dominican Alonso de Burgos, the Catholic Monarchs's confessor and Bishop of the dioceses of Córdoba, Cuenca and Palencia. The foundation of the college was confirmed by with Papal Bull of Pope Innocent VIII in 1487, and accepted as Royal patronage by Queen Isabella the Catholic in 1500, after the founder's death.

It attached to the Convento de San Pablo, which Friar Alonso had been its prior, its foundation was subject to the assignment of the Capilla del Crucifijo (Crucifix's chapel), attached to the Epistle's arm of the Dominican church, to become his own funeral chapel, which later acquired dual function to also serve as a chapel for college.

Work began in 1488 in a process from the inside to outside, being the main facade the last in lift. The Royal shields in the corners of the Large courtyard still do not present the Granada's symbol suggests that this part would be completed before 1492. The building is assumed to completed in 1496.

The facade, plain facing and topped with a crest, stands out above all for its spectacular main facade, which by its stylistic features it sets regarding the workshop of Gil de Siloé, a Flemish origin artist, who was at that time in Burgos dealing with the royal sepulchers of the Miraflores Charterhouse and is known to have been commissioned to make the defunct altarpiece of the chapel, very in connection with which the sculptor had made in the Conception's chapel or of Bishop Acuña in the Cathedral of Burgos and has obvious similarities to the upper of the main facade of San Gregorio.

Perhaps evoking the triumphal arches of the architectures at that time were developing in Central Europe, or perhaps the Islamic Madrasas, architects of this building applying an individually decorated of the Castilian late-Gothic (Isabelline), it has a complex symbolic significance in that mix contemporary figures, saints, allegories, wild men, abundant symbolic of power, etc.

It has two bodies framed by two buttresses. The lower hosts a vain lintel decorated with fleur-de-lys, the founder's symbol repeated often enough, covered with three-centered arch in turn covered by another ogee trefoil.

It draw attention to the "savage men" of the jambs and buttresses, a total of sixteen. Theories about the significance of these figures, present in many buildings of 15th-century, are varied and should be put in relation to the context in which these appear. One of its functions would be simple heraldry sculptures. It is also said that, dressed with shield and mace, were the guardians of the building, beastmen guaranteeing security. Or these could allude to the custom of disguising the squires and lackeys in Court (nobility) festivities in which it presented the "savage" as inferior, in relation, for example, the chivalric romances, which mentions hair covered wild men, degraded men, estranged from the civilized world, not Christianized, and could here be in visual confrontation with the knights who also appear on the main facade, with armor, spears and shields, that would be interpreted as allegories of Virtue. On the contrary, these could also be a positive allusion, the mythical image of man in nature, unpolluted, symbol of purity that evokes the time in a perfect and happy world, with prototype to John the Baptist.

Those on the lower part, flanking the main facade, are completely covered with long hair, carrying weapons and the shields are decorated with demonic figures except in one, which has a Knight order of Calatrava's cross, the same motifs of the soldiers's shields of the second floor, the same iconography already seen for over a century.

However, in the top of the main facade are completely different, with the same attributes but without hair on the body and even two hairless, with a more human aspect, and there are authors who consider the oldest representation in Castile of an American Native, reflecting the effect of the Americas's arrival in the European imagination.

The tympanum, on a lintel, seems to represent the offering of the college by Friar Alonso de Burgos to Saint Gregory the Great in the presence of Saints Dominic and Paul, patrons of the neighboring Dominican convent, a somewhat disconcerting scene, unbalanced, with disproportion between the figures and Saint Paul with a cruciferous nimbus, an exclusive attribute of Christ. It seems to be earlier work than the rest, or even reused from other site.

The upper body is divided into three sections, with the center occupied by a hexagonal pylon which starts a pomegranate tree, referring to the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada's conquest in 1492, swirling around putti playing and jumping. It could be a Fountain of Eternal Youth's representation, hence the children, of the Tree of Knowledge, in relation to the building dedicated to the study, an allegory of the Paradise, the place to which men aspire to reach through the knowledge, an allegory of the Golden Age, in relation to the historical moment that was occurring to the Spanish monarchy.

The pomegranate tree is topped by a big shield of the Catholic Monarchs with the St. John's eagle held by two attitude lions and below the Catholic Monarchs's symbols also appear: the beam and arrows. And the use of the royal heraldry with propaganda purposes in this period reached prominence hitherto unknown, present not only in buildings directly promoted by the Catholic Monarchs but also in many that of their closest collaborators, in that way showing participation and acceptance in the political project undertaken by Isabella I and Ferdinand II in relation to the establishment of a modern state with which to control and organize all their territories under their unique power.

Upper body's side sections have the founder's heraldic decoration and two kings of arms placed at height of the central shield.

Distributed among the distributed arboured throughout the main facade are seen multiple scenes related to the defects to be overcome with the study, in relation to the search for truth and rejection of heresy, the triumph of intelligence over force or the strength to overcome temptation.

(Large courtyard) The Patio Grande was the access to the most important stays of the set. It considered a Hispanic-Flemish (Isabelline) gem, is set in relation to Juan Guas for its similarities to Palacio del Infantado in Guadalajara, although have also located abundant motifs that Bartolomé Solórzano, an active artist at that time in the area, used in the Cathedral of Palencia, seat of the Friar Alonso's bishopric.

It is square with two floors, the lower with slender pillars, perhaps a Solomonic reference in relation to a building as a "temple of wisdom", with capitals of average balls and fleur-de-lis sustaining segmental arches, and the upper with one of the most decorative Isabelline galleries, with parapets openwork with Gothic tracery and geminare arches riddled with garlands and foliage among those appears children playing and where already shown Renassaince influence, of midpoint and a form that goes be more flat.

Then follows a frieze of yokes and arrows on highlighting the imaginative gargoyles.

It has abundant emblems of the Catholic Monarchs and the kingdoms of Navarre and Granada, incorporated into the Crown of Castile during the erection of the building.

The only staircase that connects both floors is rectangular of two sections, Isabelline base, decorated walls with padding of Renaissance influence with the founder's heraldry; an impressive Mudéjar roof on a frieze with the Catholic Monarchs's initials; and neo-Gothic parapets with same trace that the base, added in works in the 1860s to replace the wooden fence that had.

 

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