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Aromatic compound | Table of Content | short description, Heteroarenes, Applications, Benzene ring model, Benzene and derivatives of benzene, Non-benzylic arenes, Monocyclic arenes, Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, Reactions, Substitution, Hydrogenation, Dearomatization, See also, References, External links |
Abbey | Short description | thumb|right|The cloister of Sénanque Abbey, Provence
alt=|thumb|Church of the former Bath Abbey, Somerset
thumb|right|An interior of the Bridgettine's Nådendal Abbey, a medieval Catholic monastery in Naantali, Finland
An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christian monks and nuns.
The concept of the abbey has developed over many centuries from the early monastic ways of religious men and women where they would live isolated from the lay community about them. Religious life in an abbey may be monastic. An abbey may be the home of an enclosed religious order or may be open to visitors. The layout of the church and associated buildings of an abbey often follows a set plan determined by the founding religious order.
Abbeys are often self-sufficient while using any abundance of produce or skill to provide care to the poor and needy, refuge to the persecuted, or education to the young. Some abbeys offer accommodation to people who are seeking spiritual retreat. There are many famous abbeys across the Mediterranean Basin and Europe.
thumb|Abbey of St Catherine, Mount Sinai |
Abbey | Monastic origins of the abbey | Monastic origins of the abbey |
Abbey | Ascetics and anchorites | Ascetics and anchorites
The earliest known Christian monasteries were groups of huts built near the residence of a famous ascetic or other holy person. Disciples wished to be close to their holy man or woman in order to study their doctrine or imitate their way of life.
In the earliest times of Christian monasticism, ascetics would live in social isolation but near a village church. They would subsist whilst donating any excess produce to the poor. However, increasing religious fervor about the ascetic's ways and or persecution of them would drive them further away from their community and further into solitude. For instance, the cells and huts of anchorites (religious recluses) have been found in the deserts of Egypt.
In 312 AD, Anthony the Great retired to the Thebaid region of Egypt to escape the persecution of the Emperor Maximian. Anthony was the best known of the anchorites of his time due to his degree of austerity, sanctity and his powers of exorcism. The deeper he withdrew into the wilderness, the more numerous his disciples became. They refused to be separated from him and built their cells close to him. This became a first true monastic community. According to August Neander, Anthony inadvertently became the founder of a new mode of living in common, Coenobitism. cites Church History, iii. p. 316, Clark's translation. |
Abbey | Laurae and Coenobia | Laurae and Coenobia
At Tabennae on the Nile, in Upper Egypt, Saint Pachomius laid the foundations for the coenobitical life by arranging everything in an organized manner. He built several monasteries, each with about 1,600 separate cells laid out in lines. These cells formed an encampment where the monks slept and performed some of their manual tasks. There were nearby large halls such as the church, refectory, kitchen, infirmary, and guest house for the monk's common needs. An enclosure protecting all these buildings gave the settlement the appearance of a walled village. This layout, known as the laurae (lanes), became popular throughout Israel.
As well as the "laurae", communities known as "caenobia" developed. These were monasteries where monks lived a common life together. The monks were not permitted to retire to the cells of a laurae before they had undergone a lengthy period of training. In time, this form of common life superseded that of the older laurae.
In the late 300s AD, Palladius visited the Egyptian monasteries. He described three hundred members of the coenobium of Panopolis. There were fifteen tailors, seven smiths, four carpenters, twelve camel-drivers and fifteen tanners. These people were divided into subgroups, each with its own "oeconomus". A chief steward was at the head of the monastery.
The produce of the monastery was brought to Alexandria for sale. The moneys raised were used to purchase stores for the monastery or were given away as charity. Twice in the year, the superiors of several coenobia met at the chief monastery, under the presidency of an "archimandrite" (the "chief of the fold" from the word, "miandra" (a sheepfold)) in order to make their reports. Chrysostom recorded the workings of a coenobia in the vicinity of Antioch in Syria. The monks lived in separate huts ("kalbbia") which formed a religious hamlet on the mountainside. They were subject to an abbot, and observed a common rule. |
Abbey | Great Lavra, Mount Athos | Great Lavra, Mount Athos
+ Great Lavra Monastery, Mount Athos(Lenoir, who named it Santa Laura) File:abbey 01.png A. Gateway
B. Chapels
C. Guesthouse
D. Church
E. Cloister
F. Fountain
G. Refectory
H. Kitchen
I. Monks' cells
K. Storehouses
L. Postern gate
M. Tower
The layout of the monastic coenobium was influenced by a number of factors. These included a need for defence, economy of space, and convenience of access. The layout of buildings became compact and orderly. Larger buildings were erected and defence was provided by strong outside walls. Within the walls, the buildings were arranged around one or more open courts surrounded by cloisters. The usual arrangement for monasteries of the Eastern world is exemplified in the plan of the convent of the Great Lavra at Mount Athos.
With reference to the diagram, right, the convent of the Great Lavra is enclosed within a strong and lofty blank stone wall. The area within the wall is between three and four acres (12,000 and 16,000 m2). The longer side is about in length. There is only one entrance, which is located on the north side (A), defended by three iron doors. Near the entrance is a large tower (M), a constant feature in the monasteries of the Levant (Eastern Mediterranean area). There is a small postern gate at L.
The enceinte comprises two large open courts, surrounded with buildings connected with cloister galleries of wood or stone. The outer court, which is the larger by far, contains the granaries and storehouses (K), the kitchen (H) and other offices connected with the refectory (G). Immediately adjacent to the gateway is a two-storied guest-house, entered from a cloister (C). The inner court is surrounded by a cloister (EE) from which one enters the monks' cells (II).
In the centre of this court stands the katholikon or conventual church, a square building with an apse of the cruciform domical Byzantine type, approached by a domed narthex. In front of the church stands a marble fountain (F), covered by a dome supported on columns.
Opening from the western side of the cloister, but actually standing in the outer court, is the refectory (G), a large cruciform (cross shaped) building, about square, decorated within with frescoes of saints. At the upper end is a semicircular recess, similar to the triclinium of the Lateran Palace in Rome, in which is placed the seat of the hegumenos or abbot. This apartment is chiefly used as a meeting place, with the monks usually taking their meals in their separate cells. |
Abbey | Adoption of the Roman villa plan | Adoption of the Roman villa plan
300px|thumb|right|The Abbey of Monte Cassino
Monasticism in the West began with the activities of Benedict of Nursia (born 480 AD). Near Nursia, a town in Perugia, Italy, a first abbey was established at Monte Cassino (529 AD). Between 520 and 700 AD, monasteries were built which were spacious and splendid. All the city states of Italy hosted a Benedictine convent as did the cities of England, France and Spain. By 1415 AD, the time of the Council of Constance, 15,070 Benedictine monasteries had been established.
The early Benedictine monasteries, including the first at Monte Cassino, were constructed on the plan of the Roman villa. The layout of the Roman villa was quite consistent throughout the Roman Empire and where possible, the monks reused available villas in sound repair. This was done at Monte Cassino.
However, over time, changes to the common villa lay out occurred. The monks required buildings which suited their religious and day-to-day activities. No overriding specification was demanded of the monks but the similarity of their needs resulted in uniformity of design of abbeys across Europe. Eventually, the buildings of a Benedictine abbey were built in a uniform lay out, modified where necessary, to accommodate local circumstances. |
Abbey | Abbey of St Gall | Abbey of St Gall
thumb|right|250px|The church of the Abbey of St Gall
The plan of the Abbey of Saint Gall (719 AD) in what is now Switzerland indicates the general arrangement of a Benedictine monastery of its day. According to the architect Robert Willis (architect) (1800–1875) the Abbey's lay out is that of a town of individual houses with streets running between them. The abbey was planned in compliance with the Benedictine rule that, if possible, a monastery should be self-contained. For instance, there was a mill, a bakehouse, stables, and cattle stalls. In all, there were thirty-three separate structures; mostly one level wooden buildings.
The Abbey church occupied the centre of a quadrangular area, about square. On the eastern side of the north transept of the church was the "scriptorium" or writing-room, with a library above.
The church and nearby buildings ranged about the cloister, a court about which there was a covered arcade which allowed sheltered movement between the buildings. The nave of the church was on the north boundary of the cloister.
On the east side of the cloister, on the ground floor, was the "pisalis" or "calefactory". This was a common room, warmed by flues beneath the floor. Above the common room was the dormitory. The dormitory opened onto the cloister and also onto the south transept of the church. This enabled the monks to attend nocturnal services. A passage at the other end of the dormitory lead to the "necessarium" (latrines).
On the south side of the cloister was the refectory. The kitchen, at the west end of the refectory was accessed via an anteroom and a long passage. Nearby were the bake house, brew house and the sleeping-rooms of the servants. The upper story of the refectory was called the "vestiarium" (a room where the ordinary clothes of the monks were stored).
On the western side of the cloister was another two-story building with a cellar on the ground floor and the larder and store-room on the upper floor. Between this building and the church was a parlour for receiving visitors. One door of the parlour led to the cloisters and the other led to the outer part of the Abbey.
Against the outer wall of the church was a school and headmaster's house. The school consisted of a large schoolroom divided in the middle by a screen or partition, and surrounded by fourteen little rooms, the "dwellings of the scholars". The abbot's home was near the school.
To the north of the church and to the right of the main entrance to the Abbey, was a residence for distinguished guests. To the left of the main entrance was a building to house poor travellers and pilgrims. There was also a building to receive visiting monks. These "hospitia" had a large common room or refectory surrounded by bed rooms. Each hospitium had its own brewhouse and bakehouse, and the building for more prestigious travellers had a kitchen and storeroom, with bedrooms for the guests' servants and stables for their horses. The monks of the Abbey lived in a house built against the north wall of the church.
The whole of the southern and western areas of the Abbey were devoted to workshops, stables and farm-buildings including stables, ox-sheds, goatstables, piggeries, and sheep-folds, as well as the servants' and labourers' quarters.
In the eastern part of the Abbey there was a group of buildings representing in layout, two complete miniature monasteries. That is, each had a covered cloister surrounded by the usual buildings such as the church, the refectory, the dormitory and so on. A detached building belonging to each contained a bathroom and a kitchen.
One of the miniature complexes was called the "oblati". These were the buildings for the novices. The other complex was a hospital or infirmary for the care of sick monks. This infirmary complex included a physician's residence, a physic garden, a drug store, and a chamber for the critically ill. There was also a room for bloodletting and purging. The physic garden occupied the north east corner of the Abbey.
In the southernmost area of the abbey was the workshop containing utilities for shoemakers, saddlers (or shoemakers, sellarii), cutlers and grinders, trencher-makers, tanners, curriers, fullers, smiths and goldsmiths. The tradesmen's living quarters were at the rear of the workshop. Here, there were also farm buildings, a large granary and threshing-floor, mills, and malthouse. At the south-east corner of the Abbey were hen and duck houses, a poultry-yard, and the dwelling of the keeper. Nearby was the kitchen garden which complemented the physic garden and a cemetery orchard.
Every large monastery had priories. A priory was a smaller structure or entities which depended on the monastery. Some were small monasteries accommodating five or ten monks. Others were no more than a single building serving as residence or a farm offices. The outlying farming establishments belonging to the monastic foundations were known as "villae" or "granges". They were usually staffed by lay-brothers, sometimes under the supervision of a monk. |
Abbey | Benedictine abbeys in England | Benedictine abbeys in England
thumb|right|200px|The remains of the church of Shrewsbury Abbey
Many of today's cathedrals in England were originally Benedictine monasteries. These included Canterbury, Chester, Durham, Ely, Gloucester, Norwich, Peterborough, Rochester, Winchester, and Worcester. Shrewsbury Abbey in Shropshire was founded as a Benedictine monastery by the Normans in 1083. |
Abbey | Westminster Abbey | Westminster Abbey
thumb|right|200px|Cloisters, Westminster AbbeyWestminster Abbey was founded in the tenth century by Saint Dunstan who established a community of Benedictine monks. The only traces of St Dunstan's monastery remaining are round arches and massive supporting columns of the undercroft and the Pyx Chamber.Abbey history Westminster Abbey organisation website.
The cloister and buildings lie directly to the south of the church. Parallel to the nave, on the south side of the cloister, was a refectory, with a lavatory at the door. On the eastern side, there was a dormitory, raised on a vaulted substructure and communicating with the south transept and a chapter house (meeting room). A small cloister lay to the south-east of the large cloister. Beyond that was an infirmary with a table hall and a refectory for those who were able to leave their chambers. At the west entrance to the Abbey, there was a house and a small courtyard for the abbot. |
Abbey | St Mary's Abbey, York | St Mary's Abbey, York
In 1055, St Mary's Abbey, York was built in England's north by the Order of Saint Benedict. It followed the common plan. The entrance to the abbey was through a strong gate on the northern side. Close to the entrance was a chapel. This was for visitors arriving at the Abbey to make their devotions. Near the gate was the hospitium (guest hall). The buildings are completely ruined, but the walls of the nave and the cloisters are still visible on the grounds of the Yorkshire Museum.
The Abbey was surrounded by fortified walls on three sides. The River Ouse bordered the fourth side. The stone walls remain as an excellent example of English abbey walls.St.Mary's Abbey York History organisation. |
Abbey | Reforms at the Abbey of Cluny | Reforms at the Abbey of Cluny
thumb|right|250px|Abbey of Cluny in lights
The Abbey of Cluny was founded by William I, Duke of Aquitaine in 910 AD at Cluny, Saône-et-Loire, France. The Abbey was built in the Romanesque style. The Abbey was noted for its strict observance of the Rule of Saint Benedict. However, reforms resulted in many departures from this precedent. The Cluniac Reforms brought focus to the traditions of monastic life, encouraging art and the caring of the poor. The reforms quickly spread by the founding of new abbey complexes and by adoption of the reforms by existing abbeys. By the twelfth century, the Abbey of Cluny was the head of an order consisting of 314 monasteries.
The church at the Abbey was commenced in 1089 AD by Hugh of Cluny, the sixth abbot. It was finished and consecrated by Pope Innocent II around 1132 AD. The church was regarded as one of the wonders of the Middle Ages. At in length, it was the largest church in Christendom until the completion of St Peter's Basilica at Rome. The church consisted of five naves, a narthex (ante-church) which was added in 1220 AD, and several towers. Together with the conventual buildings, it covered an area of twenty-five acres.
In the Dechristianization of France during the French Revolution in 1790 AD, the Abbey church was bought by the town and almost entirely destroyed. As of 2025, however, fragments of the original Abbey still stand and archaeological excavations have intermittently been conducted over the past century, yielding a massively important and rich source of information. |
Abbey | English Cluniac houses | English Cluniac houses
thumb|right|200px|Interior facing east, Paisley Abbey
The first English house of the Cluniac order was built at Lewes, Sussex. It was founded by William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey in about 1077 AD. All but one of the Cluniac houses in Britain were known as priories, symbolizing their subordination to the Abbot of Cluny. All the Cluniac houses in England and Scotland were French colonies, governed by French priors who travelled to the Abbey of Cluny to consult or be consulted (unless the abbot of Cluny chose to come to Britain, which happened rarely). The priory at Paisley was an exception. In 1245 AD it was raised to the status of an abbey, answerable only to the Pope. |
Abbey | Abbeys of the Augustinian Canons | Abbeys of the Augustinian Canons
thumb|right|200px|The nave of St Botolph's Priory, Colchester
The Augustinian (or "Austin") canons were an order of regular clergy within the hierarchy of the Catholic church. They held a position between monks and secular canons. They were known as "Black canons" because of the colour of their habits. In 1105 AD, the first house of the order was established at St Botolph's Priory, Colchester, Essex.
The canons built very long naves to accommodate large congregations. The choirs were also long. Sometimes, as at Llanthony Priory and Christchurch, Dorset (Twynham), the choir was closed from the aisles. At other abbeys of the order, such as Bolton Abbey or Kirkham Priory, there were no aisles. The nave in the northern houses of the order often had only a north aisle (this is the case at Bolton, Brinkburn Priory and Lanercost Priory). The arrangement of the monastic buildings followed the ordinary plan. The prior's lodge was usually attached to the southwest angle of the nave.
The Austin canons' house at Thornton, Lincolnshire had a large and magnificent gatehouse. The upper floors of the gatehouse formed the guest-house. The chapter-house was octagonal in shape. |
Abbey | Augustinian abbeys | Augustinian abbeys |
Abbey | Premonstratensians (Norbertians) | Premonstratensians (Norbertians)
The Premonstratensian regular canons, or "White canons", were of an order founded in 1119 AD by Norbert of Xanten. The order was a reformed branch of the Augustinian canons. From a marshy area in the Forest of Coucy in the diocese of Laon, the order spread widely. Even in Norbert's lifetime, the order had built abbeys in Aleppo, Syria, and in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Of the Abbey of Saint Samuel, Denys Pringle wrote, "The Premonstatensian abbey of Saint Samuel was a daughter house of Prémontré itself. Its abbot had the status of a suffragan of the patriarch of Jerusalem, with the right to a cross, but not to a mitre nor a ring."Pringle, Denys, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: L-Z (excluding Tyre), Cambridge University Press, New York, 1998, p.86 It long maintained its rigid austerity, though in later years the abbey grew wealthier, and its members indulged in more frequent luxuries.
Just after 1140 AD, the Premonstratensians were brought to England. Their first settlement was at Newhouse Abbey, Lincolnshire, near the Humber tidal estuary. There were as many as thirty-five Premonstratensian abbeys in England. The head abbey in England was at Welbeck Abbey but the best preserved are Easby Abbey in Yorkshire, and Bayham Old Abbey in Kent.
The layout of Easby Abbey is irregular due to its position on the edge of a steep river bank. The cloister is duly placed on the south side of the church, and the chief buildings occupy their usual positions around it. However, the cloister garth (quadrangle), as at Chichester, is not rectangular, and thus, all the surrounding buildings are positioned in an awkward fashion. The church follows the plan adopted by the Austin canons in their northern abbeys, and has only one aisle to the north of the nave, while the choir is long, narrow and without an aisle. Each transept has an aisle to the east, forming three chapels.
The church at Bayham Old Abbey had no aisles in the nave or the choir. The latter terminated in a three-sided apse. The church is remarkable for its extreme narrowness in proportion to its length. While the building is long, it is not more than wide. Premonstratensian canons did not care to have congregations nor possessions. Therefore, they built their churches in the shape of a long room. |
Abbey | Cistercian abbeys | Cistercian abbeys
thumb|right|Cistercian Abbey of Sénanque
thumb|right|Cistercian Abbey of Sénanque
thumb|right| Jumièges Abbey, Normandy
The Cistercians, a Benedictine reform group, were established at Cîteaux in 1098 AD by Robert of Molesme, Abbot of Molesme, for the purpose of restoring, as far as possible, the literal observance of the Rule of Saint Benedict. La Ferté, Pontigny, Clairvaux, and Morimond were the first four abbeys to follow Cîteaux's example and others followed. The monks of Cîteaux created the well known vineyards of Clos-Vougeot and Romanée in Burgundy.
The Cistercian principle of rigid self-abnegation carried over to the design of the order's churches and buildings. The defining architectural characteristic of the Cistercian abbeys was extreme simplicity and plainness. Only a single, central tower was permitted, and that was usually very low. Unnecessary pinnacles and turrets were prohibited. The triforium was omitted. The windows were usually plain and undivided, and it was forbidden to decorate them with stained glass. All needless ornament was proscribed. The crosses were made of wood and the candlesticks of iron.
The same principle governed the choice of site for Cistercian abbeys in that a most dismal site might be improved by the building of an abbey. The Cistercian monasteries were founded in deep, well-watered valleys, always standing at a stream's edge. The building might extend over the water as is the case at Fountains Abbey. These valleys, now rich and productive, had a very different appearance when the brethren first chose them as their place of retreat. Wide swamps, deep morasses, tangled thickets, and wild, impassable forests were their prevailing features. Clara Vallis of St Bernard, now the "bright valley" was originally, the "Valley of Wormwood". It was an infamous den of robbers. cites Milman's Lat. Christ. vol. iii. p. 335. |
Abbey | Copts | Copts
The plan of a Coptic Orthodox monastery, from Lenoir, shows a church of three aisles, with cellular apses, and two ranges of cells on either side of an oblong gallery. |
Abbey | See also | See also
Fossanuova Abbey
Clairvaux Abbey
Cîteaux Abbey
Kirkstall Abbey
Loc-Dieu
Rievaulx Abbey
Strata Florida
Abbatial church of Notre-Dame de Mouzon
Gothic cathedrals and churches
List of abbeys and priories
Priory |
Abbey | References | References |
Abbey | Sources | Sources
Attribution
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Abbey | External links | External links
Monastery and abbey index on sacred-destinations.com
Abbeys of Provence, France
Abbey Pages on historyfish.net - info on abbeys and monastic life, images from Photochrom collection
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Abbey | Table of Content | Short description, Monastic origins of the abbey, Ascetics and anchorites, Laurae and Coenobia, Great Lavra, Mount Athos, Adoption of the Roman villa plan, Abbey of St Gall, Benedictine abbeys in England, Westminster Abbey, St Mary's Abbey, York, Reforms at the Abbey of Cluny, English Cluniac houses, Abbeys of the Augustinian Canons, Augustinian abbeys, Premonstratensians (Norbertians), Cistercian abbeys, Copts, See also, References, Sources, External links |
Annales school | short description |
The Annales school () is a group of historians associated with a style of historiography developed by French historians in the 20th century to stress long-term social history. It is named after its scholarly journal Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, which remains the main source of scholarship, along with many books and monographs.See for recent issues The school has been influential in setting the agenda for historiography in France and numerous other countries, especially regarding the use of social scientific methods by historians, emphasizing social and economic rather than political or diplomatic themes.
The school deals primarily with late medieval and early modern Europe (before the French Revolution), with little interest in later topics. It has dominated French social history and heavily influenced historiography in Europe and Latin America. Prominent leaders include co-founders Lucien Febvre (1878–1956), Henri Hauser (1866–1946) and Marc Bloch (1886–1944). The second generation was led by Fernand Braudel (1902–1985) and included Georges Duby (1919–1996), Pierre Goubert (1915–2012), Robert Mandrou (1921–1984), Pierre Chaunu (1923–2009), Jacques Le Goff (1924–2014), and Ernest Labrousse (1895–1988). Institutionally it is based on the Annales journal, the SEVPEN publishing house, the (FMSH), and especially the 6th Section of the École pratique des hautes études, all based in Paris. A third generation was led by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie (1929–2023) and includes Jacques Revel,Since 1978, Revel has taught at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris), where he is (full professor); he served as president of the École from 1995 to 2004. and Philippe Ariès (1914–1984), who joined the group in 1978. The third generation stressed history from the point of view of mentalities, or . The fourth generation of Annales historians, led by Roger Chartier (born 1945), clearly distanced itself from the approach, replaced by the cultural and linguistic turn, which emphasizes the social history of cultural practices.
The main scholarly outlet has been the journal ("Annals of Economic and Social History"), founded in 1929 by Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch, which broke radically with traditional historiography by insisting on the importance of taking all levels of society into consideration and emphasized the collective nature of mentalities. Its contributors viewed events as less fundamental than the mental frameworks that shaped decisions and practices. However, informal successor as head of the school was Le Roy Ladurie. Multiple responses were attempted by the school. Scholars moved in multiple directions, covering in disconnected fashion the social, economic, and cultural history of different eras and different parts of the globe. By the time of the crisis the school was building a vast publishing and research network reaching across France, Europe, and the rest of the world. Influence spread out from Paris, but few new ideas came in. Much emphasis was given to quantitative data, seen as the key to unlocking all of social history.One of numerous spin-off journals was (1986– ), devoted to quantitative history. However, the Annales ignored the developments in quantitative studies underway in the U.S. and Britain, which reshaped economic, political, and demographic research. An attempt to require an Annales-written textbook for French schools was rejected by the government.Hunt (1986) By 1980 postmodern sensibilities undercut confidence in overarching metanarratives. As Jacques Revel notes, the success of the Annales school, especially its use of social structures as explanatory forces, contained the seeds of its own downfall, for there is "no longer any implicit consensus on which to base the unity of the social, identified with the real".Jacques Revel and Lynn Hunt, "Microanalysis and the Construction of the Social", in Histories: French Constructions of the Past, ed. by Jacques Revel and Lynn Hunt (1995) 480. The Annales school kept its infrastructure, but lost its .On the decline of Annales, see Hunt (1986); for a summary of the movement, see Burke, French Historical Revolution, 106–107. |
Annales school | The journal | The journal
The journal began in Strasbourg as ; it moved to Paris and kept the same name from 1929 to 1939. It was successively renamed (1939–1942, 1945), (1942–1944), (1946–1994), and (1994– ).
In 1962, Braudel and Gaston Berger used Ford Foundation money and government funds to create a new independent foundation, the (FMSH), which Braudel directed from 1970 until his death. In 1970, the 6th Section and the Annales relocated to the FMSH building. FMSH set up elaborate international networks to spread the Annales gospel across Europe and the world. In 2013, it began publication of an English language edition, with all the articles translated.
The scope of topics covered by the journal is vast and experimental—there is a search for total history and new approaches. The emphasis is on social history, and very long-term trends, often using quantification and paying special attention to geographySee Lucien Febvre, (1922), translated as A Geographical Introduction to History (London, 1932). and to the intellectual world view of common people, or "mentality" (). Little attention is paid to political, diplomatic, or military history, or to biographies of famous men. Instead the Annales focused attention on the synthesizing of historical patterns identified from social, economic, and cultural history, statistics, medical reports, family studies, and even psychoanalysis. |
Annales school | Origins | Origins
The Annales was founded and edited by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre in 1929, while they were teaching at the University of Strasbourg and later in Paris. These authors, the former a medieval historian and the latter an early modernist, quickly became associated with the distinctive Annales approach, which combined geography, history, and the sociological approaches of the (many members of which were their colleagues at Strasbourg) to produce an approach which rejected the predominant emphasis on politics, diplomacy and war of many 19th and early 20th-century historians as spearheaded by historians whom Febvre called Les Sorbonnistes. Instead, they pioneered an approach to a study of long-term historical structures () over events and political transformations.Colin Jones, "Olwen Hufton's 'Poor', Richard Cobb's 'People', and the Notions of the longue durée in French Revolutionary Historiography", Past & Present, 2006 Supplement (Volume 1), pp. 178–203 in Project Muse Geography, material culture, and what later Annalistes called , or the psychology of the epoch, are also characteristic areas of study. The goal of the Annales was to undo the work of the Sorbonnistes, to turn French historians away from the narrowly political and diplomatic toward the new vistas in social and economic history.J.H. Hexter, "Fernand Braudel and the Monde Braudellien", Historians, pp. 61
Co-founder Marc Bloch (1886–1944) was a quintessential modernist who studied at the elite École Normale Supérieure, and in Germany, serving as a professor at the University of Strasbourg until he was called to the Sorbonne in Paris in 1936 as professor of economic history. Bloch's interests were highly interdisciplinary, influenced by the geography of Paul Vidal de la Blache (1845–1918) and the sociology of Émile Durkheim (1858–1917). His own ideas, especially those expressed in his masterworks, French Rural History (, 1931) and Feudal Society, were incorporated by the second-generation Annalistes, led by Fernand Braudel. |
Annales school | Precepts | Precepts
Georges Duby, a leader of the school, wrote that the history he taught:
relegated the sensational to the sidelines and was reluctant to give a simple accounting of events, but strove on the contrary to pose and solve problems and, neglecting surface disturbances, to observe the long and medium-term evolution of economy, society and civilisation.Georges Duby, Le dimanche de Bouvines (1973), forward
The Annalistes, especially Lucien Febvre, advocated a , or , a complete study of a historic problem. |
Annales school | Postwar | Postwar
Bloch was shot by the Gestapo during the German occupation of France in World War II for his active membership of the French Resistance, and Febvre carried on the Annales approach in the 1940s and 1950s. It was during this time that he mentored Braudel, who would become one of the best-known exponents of this school. Braudel's work came to define a "second" era of Annales historiography and was influential throughout the 1960s and 1970s, especially for his work on the Mediterranean region in the era of Philip II of Spain.
Braudel developed the idea, often associated with Annalistes, of different modes of historical time: (the quasi motionless history) of historical geography, the history of social, political and economic structures (), and the history of men and events, in the context of their structures.
While authors such as Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Marc Ferro and Jacques Le Goff continue to carry the Annales banner, today the Annales approach has been less distinctive as more and more historians do work in cultural history, political history and economic history. |
Annales school | {{lang | Bloch's (1924)Translated as The Royal Touch: Monarchy and Miracles in France and England (1990) looked at the long-standing folk belief that the king could cure scrofula by his thaumaturgic touch. The kings of France and England indeed regularly practiced the ritual. Bloch was not concerned with the effectiveness of the royal touch—he acted instead like an anthropologist in asking why people believed it and how it shaped relations between king and commoner. The book was highly influential in introducing comparative studies (in this case France and England), as well as long durations ("longue durée") studies spanning several centuries, even up to a thousand years, downplaying short-term events. Bloch's revolutionary charting of mentalities, or , resonated with scholars who were reading Freud and Proust. In the 1960s, Robert Mandrou and Georges Duby harmonized the concept of history with Fernand Braudel's structures of historical time and linked mentalities with changing social conditions. A flood of studies based on these approaches appeared during the 1970s and 1980s. By the 1990s, however, history had become interdisciplinary to the point of fragmentation, but still lacked a solid theoretical basis. While not explicitly rejecting history, younger historians increasingly turned to other approaches. |
Annales school | Braudel | Braudel
Fernand Braudel became the leader of the second generation after 1945. He obtained funding from the Rockefeller Foundation in New York and founded the 6th Section of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, which was devoted to the study of history and the social sciences. It became an independent degree-granting institution in 1975 under the name École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS). Braudel's followers admired his use of the approach to stress slow, and often imperceptible effects of space, climate and technology on the actions of human beings in the past. The Annales historians, after living through two world wars and incredible political upheavals in France, were deeply uncomfortable with the notion that multiple ruptures and discontinuities created history. They preferred to stress inertia and the longue durée. Special attention was paid to geography, climate, and demography as long-term factors. They believed the continuities of the deepest structures were central to history, beside which upheavals in institutions or the superstructure of social life were of little significance, for history lies beyond the reach of conscious actors, especially the will of revolutionaries. They rejected the Marxist idea that history should be used as a tool to foment and foster revolutions. In turn the Marxists called them conservatives.Olivia Harris, "Braudel: Historical Time and the Horror of Discontinuity". History Workshop Journal (2004) (57): 161–174. Fulltext: OUP. Only Ariès was a true conservative—indeed a royalist.
Braudel's first book, (1949) (The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II) was his most influential. This vast panoramic view used ideas from other social sciences, employed effectively the technique of the longue durée, and downplayed the importance of specific events and individuals. It stressed geography but not . It was widely admired, but most historians did not try to replicate it and instead focused on their specialized monographs. The book dramatically raised the worldwide profile of the Annales School.
In 1951, historian Bernard Bailyn published a critique of , which he framed as dichotomizing politics and society. |
Annales school | Regionalism | Regionalism
Before Annales, French history supposedly happened in Paris. Febvre broke decisively with this paradigm in 1912, with his sweeping doctoral thesis on . The geography and social structure of this region overwhelmed and shaped the king's policies.
The Annales historians did not try to replicate Braudel's vast geographical scope in . Instead they focused on regions in France over long stretches of time. The most important was the study of The Peasants of Languedoc by Braudel's star pupil and successor Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie.Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, The Peasants of Languedoc, (1966, translated 1977) excerpt and text search The regionalist tradition flourished especially in the 1960s and 1970s in the work of Pierre Goubert in 1960 on Beauvais and René Baehrel on Basse-Provence. Annales historians in the 1970s and 1980s turned to urban regions, including Pierre Deyon (Amiens), Maurice Garden (Lyon), Jean-Pierre Bardet (Rouen), Georges Freche (Toulouse), Gregory Hanlon (Agen and Layrac), and Jean-Claude Perrot (Caen). By the 1970s the shift was underway from the earlier economic history to cultural history and the history of mentalities.Ernst Hinrichs, "Provinzen, Landschaften, Regionen in Der Modernen Französischen Geschichtswissenschaft – Ein Essay", Blätter Für Deutsche Landesgeschichte 1994 130: 1–12. Fulltext: online edition |
Annales school | Impact outside France | Impact outside France
The Annales school systematically reached out to create an impact on other countries. Its success varied widely.Burke, French Historical Revolution (1990) ch 5. The Annales approach was especially well received in Italy and Poland. Franciszek Bujak (1875–1953) and Jan Rutkowski (1886–1949), the founders of modern economic history in Poland and of the journal (1931– ), were attracted to the innovations of the Annales school. Rutkowski was in contact with Bloch and others, and published in the Annales. After the Communists took control in the 1940s Polish scholars were safer working on the Middle Ages and the early modern era rather than contemporary history. After the "Polish October" of 1956 the Sixth Section in Paris welcomed Polish historians and exchanges between the circle of the Annales and Polish scholars continued until the early 1980s. The reciprocal influence between the French school and Polish historiography was particularly evident in studies on the Middle Ages and the early modern era studied by Braudel.Anita Krystyna Shelton, The Democratic Idea in Polish History and Historiography (1989). Even the Marxist journal , founded in 1953, had an Annales flavor.
In South America the Annales approach became popular. From the 1950s Federico Brito Figueroa was the founder of a new Venezuelan historiography based largely on the ideas of the Annales School. Brito Figueroa carried his conception of the field to all levels of university study, emphasizing a systematic and scientific approach to history and placing it squarely in the social sciences. Spanish historiography was influenced by the "Annales School" starting in 1950 with Jaume Vicens Vives (1910–1960).Nil Santiáñez-Tió, "Temporalidad y discurso histórico: Propuesta de una renovación metodológica de la historia de la literatura española moderna". [Temporality and Historical Discourse: Proposal of a Methodological Renewal of the History of Modern Spanish Literature]. Hispanic Review 1997 65(3): 267–290. Fulltext: in Jstor In Mexico, exiled Republican intellectuals extended the Annales approach, particularly from the Center for Historical Studies of El Colegio de México, the leading graduate studies institution of Latin America.
British historians, apart from a few Marxists, were generally hostile. Academic historians decidedly sided with Geoffrey Elton's The Practice of History against Edward Hallett Carr's What Is History? One of the few British historians who were sympathetic towards the work of the Annales school was Hugh Trevor-Roper. Among American academics, founding figure in American history of technology Lynn White Jr. dedicated his seminal and controversial book Medieval Technology and Social Change to Annales founder Marc Bloch. Both the American and the Annales historians picked up important family reconstitution techniques from French demographer Louis Henry.Burke, French Historical Revolution (1990), pp 56, 96–100.
The Wageningen school centered on Bernard Slicher van Bath was viewed internationally as a Dutch counterpart of the Annales school, although Slicher van Bath himself vehemently rejected the idea of a quantitative "school" of historiography.
The Annales school has been cited as a key influence in the development of World Systems Theory by sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein.Wallerstein, Immanuel M. 2004. World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. |
Annales school | Current | Current
The current leader is Roger Chartier, who is Directeur d'Études at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, Professeur in the Collège de France, and Annenberg Visiting professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania. He frequently lectures and teaches in the United States, Spain, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina. His work in Early Modern European History focuses on the history of education, the history of the book and the history of reading. Recently, he has been concerned with the relationship between written culture as a whole and literature (particularly theatrical plays) for France, England and Spain. His work in this specific field (based on the criss-crossing between literary criticism, bibliography, and sociocultural history) is connected to broader historiographical and methodological interests which deal with the relation between history and other disciplines: philosophy, sociology, anthropology.
Chartier's typical undergraduate course focuses upon the making, remaking, dissemination, and reading of texts in early modern Europe and America. Under the heading of "practices", his class considers how readers read and marked up their books, forms of note-taking, and the interrelation between reading and writing from copying and translating to composing new texts. Under the heading of "materials", his class examines the relations between different kinds of writing surfaces (including stone, wax, parchment, paper, walls, textiles, the body, and the heart), writing implements (including styluses, pens, pencils, needles, and brushes), and material forms (including scrolls, erasable tables, codices, broadsides and printed forms and books). Under the heading of "places", his class explores where texts were made, read, and listened to, including monasteries, schools and universities, offices of the state, the shops of merchants and booksellers, printing houses, theaters, libraries, studies, and closets. The texts for his course include the Bible, translations of Ovid, Hamlet, Don Quixote, Montaigne's essays, Pepys's diary, Richardson's Pamela, and Franklin's autobiography. |
Annales school | See also | See also
École des hautes études en sciences sociales
Historiography
Rural history
Nouvelle histoire
Structuralism
Social history
David Nirenberg § Anti-Judaism |
Annales school | References | References |
Annales school | Further reading | Further reading |
Annales school | About the School | About the School
Aurell i Cardona, Jaume. "Autobiographical Texts as Historiographical Sources: Rereading Fernand Braudel and Annie Kriegel", Biography, Volume 29, Number 3, Summer 2006, pp. 425–445 in Project Muse
Bintliff, John L. (ed.), The Annales School and archaeology, Leicester : Leicester University Press (1991),
Burguière, André. L'École des Annales: Une histoire intellectuelle. Paris: Odile Jacob. 2006. Pp. 366. (English edition) Annales School: An Intellectual History. Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press. 2009. Pp. 309
Burke, Peter. The French Historical Revolution: The Annales School 1929–89, (1990), the major study in English excerpt and text search
Carrard, Philippe. "Figuring France: The Numbers and Tropes of Fernand Braudel", Diacritics, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Autumn, 1988), pp. 2–19 in JSTOR
Carrard, Philippe. Poetics of the New History: French Historical Discourse from Braudel to Chartier, (1992)
Clark, Stuart, ed. The Annales School: Critical Assessments (4 vol, 1999)
Crifò, Giuliano. "Scuola delle Annales e storia del diritto: la situazione italiana", Mélanges de l'École française de Rome, antiquité, vol. No. 93, (1981), pp. 483-494 in Persée
Dewald, Jonathan. Lost Worlds: The Emergence of French Social History, 1815–1970 (2006) 250pp excerpt and text search
Dosse, Francois. New History in France: The Triumph of the Annales, (1994, first French edition, 1987) excerpt and text search
Fink, Carole. Marc Bloch: A Life in History, (1989) excerpt and text search
Forster, Robert. "Achievements of the Annales School", The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 38, No. 1, (Mar., 1978), pp. 58–76 in JSTOR
Friedman, Susan W. Marc Bloch, Sociology and Geography: Encountering Changing Disciplines (1996) excerpt and text search
Harris, Olivia. "Braudel: Historical Time and the Horror of Discontinuity", History Workshop Journal, Issue 57, Spring 2004, pp. 161–174 in Project Muse
Herubel, Jean-Pierre V. M. "Historiography's Horizon and Imperative: Febvrian Annales Legacy and Library History as Cultural History", Libraries & Culture, 39#3 (2004), pp. 293–312 in Project Muse
Hexter, J. H. "Fernand Braudel and the Monde Braudellien", Journal of Modern History, 1972, vol. 44, pp. 480–539 in JSTOR
Hufton, Olwen. "Fernand Braudel", Past and Present, No. 112. (Aug., 1986), pp. 208–213. in JSTOR
Hunt, Lynn. "French History in the Last Twenty Years: the Rise and Fall of the Annales Paradigm". Journal of Contemporary History 1986 21(2): 209–224. Fulltext: in Jstor
Huppert, George. "Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch: The Creation of the Annales". The French Review 55#4 (1982), pp. 510–513 in JSTOR
Iggers, G.G. Historiography in the Twentieth Century: From Scientific Objectivity to the Postmodern Challenge (1997), ch.5
Leroux, Robert, Histoire et sociologie en France: de l'histoire-science à la sociologie durkheimienne, Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 1998.
Long, Pamela O. "The Annales and the History of Technology", Technology and Culture, 46#1 (2005), pp. 177–186 in Project Muse
Megill, Allan. "Coherence and Incoherence in Historical Studies: From the Annales School to the New Cultural History", New Literary History, 35#2 (2004), pp. 207–231 in Project Muse
Rubin, Miri. The Work of Jacques Le Goff and the Challenges of Medieval History (1997) 272 pages excerpts and text search
Moon, David. "Fernand Braudel and the Annales School" online edition
Poirrier, Philippe. Aborder l'histoire, Paris, Seuil, 2000.
Roberts, Michael. "The Annales school and historical writing". in Peter Lambert and Phillipp Schofield, eds. Making History: An Introduction to the History and Practices of a Discipline. (2004), pp 78–92 online edition
Schilling, Derek. "Everyday Life and the Challenge to History in Postwar France: Braudel, Lefebvre, Certeau", Diacritics, Volume 33, Number 1, Spring 2003, pp. 23–40 in Project Muse
Steiner, Frederick. "Material Life: Human Ecology and the Annales School", Landscape Architecture Volume 76, Number 1, pp. 69–75.
Stirling, Katherine. "Rereading Marc Bloch: the Life and Works of a Visionary Modernist". History Compass 2007 5#2: 525–538. in History Compass
Stoianovich, Traian. French Historical Method: The Annales Paradigm, (1976)
Trevor-Roper, H. R. "Fernand Braudel, the Annales, and the Mediterranean", The Journal of Modern History, 44#4 (1972), pp. 468–479 in JSTOR |
Annales school | Major books and essays from the school | Major books and essays from the school
Ariès, Philippe et al. eds, A History of Private Life (5 vols. 1987–94)
Bloch, Marc. Les Rois Thaumaturges (1924), translated as The Royal Touch: Monarchy and Miracles in France and England (1990)
Bloch, Marc. Feudal Society: Vol 1: The Growth and Ties of Dependence (1989); Feudal Society: Vol 2: Social Classes and Political Organisation(1989) excerpt and text search
Bloch, Marc. French Rural History: An Essay on Its Basic Characteristics (1972)
Braudel, Fernand. La Méditerranée et le Monde Méditerranéen à l'Epoque de Philippe II (1949) (translated as The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II excerpt and text search vol. 1)
Braudel, Fernand. Civilisation Matérielle, Economie et Capitalisme XVe–XVIIIe Siècle (3 vol. 1979) (translated as Capitalism and Material Life; excerpt and text search vol. 1; excerpt and text search vol 3)
Burguière, André, and Jacques Revel. Histoire de la France (1989), textbook
Chartier, Roger. Inscription and Erasure: Literature and Written Culture from the Eleventh to the Eighteenth Century (2007) excerpt and text search
Earle, P., ed. Essays in European Economic History, 1500–1800, (1974), translated articles from Annales
Ferro, Marc, ed. Social Historians in Contemporary France: Essays from "Annales", (1972)
Goubert, Pierre. The French Peasantry in the Seventeenth Century (1986) excerpt and text search
Goubert, Pierre. The Ancien Régime, 1600–1750 (1974)
Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel. Montaillou: Cathars and Catholics in a French Village, 1294–1324 (1978) excerpt and text search
Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel. The Peasants of Languedoc (1966; English translation 1974) search
Hunt, Lynn, and Jacques Revel (eds). Histories: French Constructions of the Past. The New Press. 1994. (A collection of 64 essays with many pieces from the Annales). |
Annales school | Historiography from the school | Historiography from the school
Bloch, Marc. Méthodologie Historique (1988); originally conceived in 1906 but not published until 1988; revised in 1996
Bloch, Marc. Apologie pour l'histoire ou Métier d'historien (1949), translated as The Historian's Craft (1953) excerpt of 1992 introduction by Peter Burke (historian), and text search
Braudel, Fernand. Ecrits sur l'histoire (1969), reprinted essays; translated as On History, (1980) excerpt and text search
includes Braudel, Fernand. "Histoire et Science Sociale: La Longue Durée" (1958) Annales E.S.C., 13:4 October–December 1958, 725–753
Braudel, Fernand. "Personal Testimony". Journal of Modern History 1972 44(4): 448–467. in JSTOR
Burke, Peter, ed. A New Kind of History From the Writings of Lucien Febvre, (1973)
Duby, Georges. History Continues, (1991, translated 1994)
Febvre, Lucien. A New Kind of History: From the Writings of Lucien Febvre ed. by Peter Burke (1973) translated articles from Annales
Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel. The Mind and Method of the Historian (1981)
Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel. The Territory of the Historian (1979)
Le Goff, Jacques and Paul Archambault. "An Interview with Jacques Le Goff". Historical Reflections 1995 21(1): 155–185.
Le Goff, Jacques, History and Memory (1996) excerpt and text search
Revel, Jacques, and Lynn Hunt, eds. Histories: French Constructions of the Past, (1995). 654pp
Revel, Jacques, ed. Political Uses of the Past: The Recent Mediterranean Experiences (2002) excerpt and text search
Vovelle, M. Ideologies and Mentalities (1990) |
Annales school | External links | External links
Free access to all issues of the Annales from 1929 to 2002.
Recent issues of Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales (2003–present).
Professor David Moon, "Fernand Braudel and the Annales School" (lecture 2005)
Biography of Fernand Braudel.
Detailed bibliographies of major historians.
Histoire et mesure (1986-200 ), articles on quantitative history. Full text of articles.
Category:20th century
Category:Historical schools
Category:Historiography of France
Category:Historiography
Category:Interdisciplinary historical research |
Annales school | Table of Content | short description, The journal, Origins, Precepts, Postwar, {{lang, Braudel, Regionalism, Impact outside France, Current, See also, References, Further reading, About the School, Major books and essays from the school, Historiography from the school, External links |
Antimatter | Short description | thumb|A cloud chamber photograph of the first observed positron, 2 August 1932.
In modern physics, antimatter is defined as matter composed of the antiparticles (or "partners") of the corresponding particles in "ordinary" matter, and can be thought of as matter with reversed charge and parity, or going backward in time (see CPT symmetry). Antimatter occurs in natural processes like cosmic ray collisions and some types of radioactive decay, but only a tiny fraction of these have successfully been bound together in experiments to form antiatoms. Minuscule numbers of antiparticles can be generated at particle accelerators, but total artificial production has been only a few nanograms. No macroscopic amount of antimatter has ever been assembled due to the extreme cost and difficulty of production and handling. Nonetheless, antimatter is an essential component of widely available applications related to beta decay, such as positron emission tomography, radiation therapy, and industrial imaging.
In theory, a particle and its antiparticle (for example, a proton and an antiproton) have the same mass, but opposite electric charge, and other differences in quantum numbers.
A collision between any particle and its anti-particle partner leads to their mutual annihilation, giving rise to various proportions of intense photons (gamma rays), neutrinos, and sometimes less-massive particleantiparticle pairs. The majority of the total energy of annihilation emerges in the form of ionizing radiation. If surrounding matter is present, the energy content of this radiation will be absorbed and converted into other forms of energy, such as heat or light. The amount of energy released is usually proportional to the total mass of the collided matter and antimatter, in accordance with the notable mass–energy equivalence equation, .
Antiparticles bind with each other to form antimatter, just as ordinary particles bind to form normal matter. For example, a positron (the antiparticle of the electron) and an antiproton (the antiparticle of the proton) can form an antihydrogen atom. The nuclei of antihelium have been artificially produced, albeit with difficulty, and are the most complex anti-nuclei so far observed. Physical principles indicate that complex antimatter atomic nuclei are possible, as well as anti-atoms corresponding to the known chemical elements.
There is strong evidence that the observable universe is composed almost entirely of ordinary matter, as opposed to an equal mixture of matter and antimatter. This asymmetry of matter and antimatter in the visible universe is one of the great unsolved problems in physics. The process by which this inequality between matter and antimatter particles is hypothesised to have occurred is called baryogenesis. |
Antimatter | Definitions | Definitions
Antimatter particles carry the same charge as matter particles, but of opposite sign. That is, an antiproton is negatively charged and an antielectron (positron) is positively charged. Neutrons do not carry a net charge, but their constituent quarks do. Protons and neutrons have a baryon number of +1, while antiprotons and antineutrons have a baryon number of –1. Similarly, electrons have a lepton number of +1, while that of positrons is –1. When a particle and its corresponding antiparticle collide, they are both converted into energy.
The French term for "made of or pertaining to antimatter", , led to the initialism "C.T." and the science fiction term , as used in such novels as Seetee Ship. |
Antimatter | Conceptual history | Conceptual history
The idea of negative matter appears in past theories of matter that have now been abandoned. Using the once popular vortex theory of gravity, the possibility of matter with negative gravity was discussed by William Hicks in the 1880s. Between the 1880s and the 1890s, Karl Pearson proposed the existence of "squirts" and sinks of the flow of aether. The squirts represented normal matter and the sinks represented negative matter. Pearson's theory required a fourth dimension for the aether to flow from and into.
The term antimatter was first used by Arthur Schuster in two rather whimsical letters to Nature in 1898, in which he coined the term. He hypothesized antiatoms, as well as whole antimatter solar systems, and discussed the possibility of matter and antimatter annihilating each other. Schuster's ideas were not a serious theoretical proposal, merely speculation, and like the previous ideas, differed from the modern concept of antimatter in that it possessed negative gravity.
The modern theory of antimatter began in 1928, with a paper by Paul Dirac. Dirac realised that his relativistic version of the Schrödinger wave equation for electrons predicted the possibility of antielectrons. Although Dirac had laid the groundwork for the existence of these “antielectrons” he initially failed to pick up on the implications contained within his own equation. He freely gave the credit for that insight to J. Robert Oppenheimer, whose seminal paper “On the Theory of Electrons and Protons” (Feb 14th 1930) drew on Dirac's equation and argued for the existence of a positively charged electron (a positron), which as a counterpart to the electron should have the same mass as the electron itself. This meant that it could not be, as Dirac had in fact suggested, a proton. Dirac further postulated the existence of antimatter in a 1931 paper which referred to the positron as an "anti-electron". These were discovered by Carl D. Anderson in 1932 and named positrons from "positive electron". Although Dirac did not himself use the term antimatter, its use follows on naturally enough from antielectrons, antiprotons, etc. A complete periodic table of antimatter was envisaged by Charles Janet in 1929.
The Feynman–Stueckelberg interpretation states that antimatter and antiparticles behave exactly identical to regular particles, but traveling backward in time. This concept is nowadays used in modern particle physics, in Feynman diagrams. |
Antimatter | Notation | Notation
One way to denote an antiparticle is by adding a bar over the particle's symbol. For example, the proton and antiproton are denoted as and , respectively. The same rule applies if one were to address a particle by its constituent components. A proton is made up of quarks, so an antiproton must therefore be formed from antiquarks. Another convention is to distinguish particles by positive and negative electric charge. Thus, the electron and positron are denoted simply as and respectively. To prevent confusion, however, the two conventions are never mixed. |
Antimatter | Properties | Properties
There is no difference in the gravitational behavior of matter and antimatter. In other words, antimatter falls down when dropped, not up. This was confirmed with the thin, very cold gas of thousands of antihydrogen atoms that were confined in a vertical shaft surrounded by superconducting electromagnetic coils. These can create a magnetic bottle to keep the antimatter from coming into contact with matter and annihilating. The researchers then gradually weakened the magnetic fields and detected the antiatoms using two sensors as they escaped and annihilated. Most of the anti-atoms came out of the bottom opening, and only one-quarter out of the top.
There are compelling theoretical reasons to believe that, aside from the fact that antiparticles have different signs on all charges (such as electric and baryon charges), matter and antimatter have exactly the same properties.This is a consequence of the CPT theorem This means a particle and its corresponding antiparticle must have identical masses and decay lifetimes (if unstable). It also implies that, for example, a star made up of antimatter (an "antistar") will shine just like an ordinary star.As Dirac said in 1933 It is quite possible that for some of the stars it is the other way about, these stars being built up mainly of positrons and negative protons. In fact, there may be half the stars of each kind. The two kinds of stars would both show exactly the same spectra, and there would be no way of distinguishing them by present astronomical methods. This idea was tested experimentally in 2016 by the ALPHA experiment, which measured the transition between the two lowest energy states of antihydrogen. The results, which are identical to that of hydrogen, confirmed the validity of quantum mechanics for antimatter. |
Antimatter | Origin and asymmetry | Origin and asymmetry
Most things observable from the Earth seem to be made of matter rather than antimatter. If antimatter-dominated regions of space existed, the gamma rays produced in annihilation reactions along the boundary between matter and antimatter regions would be detectable.
Antiparticles are created everywhere in the universe where high-energy particle collisions take place. High-energy cosmic rays striking Earth's atmosphere (or any other matter in the Solar System) produce minute quantities of antiparticles in the resulting particle jets, which are immediately annihilated by contact with nearby matter. They may similarly be produced in regions like the center of the Milky Way and other galaxies, where very energetic celestial events occur (principally the interaction of relativistic jets with the interstellar medium). The presence of the resulting antimatter is detectable by the two gamma rays produced every time positrons annihilate with nearby matter. The frequency and wavelength of the gamma rays indicate that each carries 511 keV of energy (that is, the rest mass of an electron multiplied by c2).
Observations by the European Space Agency's INTEGRAL satellite may explain the origin of a giant antimatter cloud surrounding the Galactic Center. The observations show that the cloud is asymmetrical and matches the pattern of X-ray binaries (binary star systems containing black holes or neutron stars), mostly on one side of the Galactic Center. While the mechanism is not fully understood, it is likely to involve the production of electron–positron pairs, as ordinary matter gains kinetic energy while falling into a stellar remnant.
Antimatter may exist in relatively large amounts in far-away galaxies due to cosmic inflation in the primordial time of the universe. Antimatter galaxies, if they exist, are expected to have the same chemistry and absorption and emission spectra as normal-matter galaxies, and their astronomical objects would be observationally identical, making them difficult to distinguish. NASA is trying to determine if such galaxies exist by looking for X-ray and gamma ray signatures of annihilation events in colliding superclusters.
In October 2017, scientists working on the BASE experiment at CERN reported a measurement of the antiproton magnetic moment to a precision of 1.5 parts per billion. It is consistent with the most precise measurement of the proton magnetic moment (also made by BASE in 2014), which supports the hypothesis of CPT symmetry. This measurement represents the first time that a property of antimatter is known more precisely than the equivalent property in matter.
Antimatter quantum interferometry has been first demonstrated in 2018 in the Positron Laboratory (L-NESS) of Rafael Ferragut in Como (Italy), by a group led by Marco Giammarchi. |
Antimatter | Natural production | Natural production
Positrons are produced naturally in β+ decays of naturally occurring radioactive isotopes (for example, potassium-40) and in interactions of gamma quanta (emitted by radioactive nuclei) with matter. Antineutrinos are another kind of antiparticle created by natural radioactivity (β− decay). Many different kinds of antiparticles are also produced by (and contained in) cosmic rays. In January 2011, research by the American Astronomical Society discovered antimatter (positrons) originating above thunderstorm clouds; positrons are produced in terrestrial gamma ray flashes created by electrons accelerated by strong electric fields in the clouds. Antiprotons have also been found to exist in the Van Allen Belts around the Earth by the PAMELA module.
Antiparticles are also produced in any environment with a sufficiently high temperature (mean particle energy greater than the pair production threshold). It is hypothesized that during the period of baryogenesis, when the universe was extremely hot and dense, matter and antimatter were continually produced and annihilated. The presence of remaining matter, and absence of detectable remaining antimatter, is called baryon asymmetry. The exact mechanism that produced this asymmetry during baryogenesis remains an unsolved problem. One of the necessary conditions for this asymmetry is the violation of CP symmetry, which has been experimentally observed in the weak interaction.
Recent observations indicate black holes and neutron stars produce vast amounts of positron-electron plasma via the jets. |
Antimatter | Observation in cosmic rays | Observation in cosmic rays
Satellite experiments have found evidence of positrons and a few antiprotons in primary cosmic rays, amounting to less than 1% of the particles in primary cosmic rays. This antimatter cannot all have been created in the Big Bang, but is instead attributed to have been produced by cyclic processes at high energies. For instance, electron-positron pairs may be formed in pulsars, as a magnetized neutron star rotation cycle shears electron-positron pairs from the star surface. Therein the antimatter forms a wind that crashes upon the ejecta of the progenitor supernovae. This weathering takes place as "the cold, magnetized relativistic wind launched by the star hits the non-relativistically expanding ejecta, a shock wave system forms in the impact: the outer one propagates in the ejecta, while a reverse shock propagates back towards the star." The former ejection of matter in the outer shock wave and the latter production of antimatter in the reverse shock wave are steps in a space weather cycle.
Preliminary results from the presently operating Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02) on board the International Space Station show that positrons in the cosmic rays arrive with no directionality, and with energies that range from 10 GeV to 250 GeV. In September, 2014, new results with almost twice as much data were presented in a talk at CERN and published in Physical Review Letters. A new measurement of positron fraction up to 500 GeV was reported, showing that positron fraction peaks at a maximum of about 16% of total electron+positron events, around an energy of 275 ± 32 GeV. At higher energies, up to 500 GeV, the ratio of positrons to electrons begins to fall again. The absolute flux of positrons also begins to fall before 500 GeV, but peaks at energies far higher than electron energies, which peak about 10 GeV. These results on interpretation have been suggested to be due to positron production in annihilation events of massive dark matter particles.
Cosmic ray antiprotons also have a much higher energy than their normal-matter counterparts (protons). They arrive at Earth with a characteristic energy maximum of 2 GeV, indicating their production in a fundamentally different process from cosmic ray protons, which on average have only one-sixth of the energy.
There is an ongoing search for larger antimatter nuclei, such as antihelium nuclei (that is, anti-alpha particles), in cosmic rays. The detection of natural antihelium could imply the existence of large antimatter structures such as an antistar. A prototype of the AMS-02 designated AMS-01, was flown into space aboard the on STS-91 in June 1998. By not detecting any antihelium at all, the AMS-01 established an upper limit of 1.1×10−6 for the antihelium to helium flux ratio. AMS-02 revealed in December 2016 that it had discovered a few signals consistent with antihelium nuclei amidst several billion helium nuclei. The result remains to be verified, and , the team is trying to rule out contamination. |
Antimatter | Artificial production | Artificial production |
Antimatter | Positrons | Positrons
Positrons were reported in November 2008 to have been generated by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in large numbers. A laser drove electrons through a gold target's nuclei, which caused the incoming electrons to emit energy quanta that decayed into both matter and antimatter. Positrons were detected at a higher rate and in greater density than ever previously detected in a laboratory. Previous experiments made smaller quantities of positrons using lasers and paper-thin targets; newer simulations showed that short bursts of ultra-intense lasers and millimeter-thick gold are a far more effective source.
In 2023, the production of the first electron-positron beam-plasma was reported by a collaboration led by researchers at University of Oxford working with the High-Radiation to Materials (HRMT) facility at CERN. The beam demonstrated the highest positron yield achieved so far in a laboratory setting. The experiment employed the 440 GeV proton beam, with protons, from the Super Proton Synchrotron, and irradiated a particle converter composed of carbon and tantalum. This yielded a total electron-positron pairs via a particle shower process. The produced pair beams have a volume that fills multiple Debye spheres and are thus able to sustain collective plasma oscillations. |
Antimatter | Antiprotons, antineutrons, and antinuclei | Antiprotons, antineutrons, and antinuclei
The existence of the antiproton was experimentally confirmed in 1955 by University of California, Berkeley physicists Emilio Segrè and Owen Chamberlain, for which they were awarded the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physics. An antiproton consists of two up antiquarks and one down antiquark (). The properties of the antiproton that have been measured all match the corresponding properties of the proton, with the exception of the antiproton having opposite electric charge and magnetic moment from the proton. Shortly afterwards, in 1956, the antineutron was discovered in proton–proton collisions at the Bevatron (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) by Bruce Cork and colleagues.
In addition to antibaryons, anti-nuclei consisting of multiple bound antiprotons and antineutrons have been created. These are typically produced at energies far too high to form antimatter atoms (with bound positrons in place of electrons). In 1965, a group of researchers led by Antonino Zichichi reported production of nuclei of antideuterium at the Proton Synchrotron at CERN. At roughly the same time, observations of antideuterium nuclei were reported by a group of American physicists at the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron at Brookhaven National Laboratory. |
Antimatter | Antihydrogen atoms | Antihydrogen atoms
In 1995, CERN announced that it had successfully brought into existence nine hot antihydrogen atoms by implementing the SLAC/Fermilab concept during the PS210 experiment. The experiment was performed using the Low Energy Antiproton Ring (LEAR), and was led by Walter Oelert and Mario Macri. Fermilab soon confirmed the CERN findings by producing approximately 100 antihydrogen atoms at their facilities. The antihydrogen atoms created during PS210 and subsequent experiments (at both CERN and Fermilab) were extremely energetic and were not well suited to study. To resolve this hurdle, and to gain a better understanding of antihydrogen, two collaborations were formed in the late 1990s, namely, ATHENA and ATRAP.
In 1999, CERN activated the Antiproton Decelerator, a device capable of decelerating antiprotons from to – still too "hot" to produce study-effective antihydrogen, but a huge leap forward. In late 2002 the ATHENA project announced that they had created the world's first "cold" antihydrogen. The ATRAP project released similar results very shortly thereafter. The antiprotons used in these experiments were cooled by decelerating them with the Antiproton Decelerator, passing them through a thin sheet of foil, and finally capturing them in a Penning–Malmberg trap. The overall cooling process is workable, but highly inefficient; approximately 25 million antiprotons leave the Antiproton Decelerator and roughly 25,000 make it to the Penning–Malmberg trap, which is about or 0.1% of the original amount.
The antiprotons are still hot when initially trapped. To cool them further, they are mixed into an electron plasma. The electrons in this plasma cool via cyclotron radiation, and then sympathetically cool the antiprotons via Coulomb collisions. Eventually, the electrons are removed by the application of short-duration electric fields, leaving the antiprotons with energies less than . While the antiprotons are being cooled in the first trap, a small cloud of positrons is captured from radioactive sodium in a Surko-style positron accumulator. This cloud is then recaptured in a second trap near the antiprotons. Manipulations of the trap electrodes then tip the antiprotons into the positron plasma, where some combine with antiprotons to form antihydrogen. This neutral antihydrogen is unaffected by the electric and magnetic fields used to trap the charged positrons and antiprotons, and within a few microseconds the antihydrogen hits the trap walls, where it annihilates. Some hundreds of millions of antihydrogen atoms have been made in this fashion.
In 2005, ATHENA disbanded and some of the former members (along with others) formed the ALPHA Collaboration, which is also based at CERN. The ultimate goal of this endeavour is to test CPT symmetry through comparison of the atomic spectra of hydrogen and antihydrogen (see hydrogen spectral series).
Most of the sought-after high-precision tests of the properties of antihydrogen could only be performed if the antihydrogen were trapped, that is, held in place for a relatively long time. While antihydrogen atoms are electrically neutral, the spins of their component particles produce a magnetic moment. These magnetic moments can interact with an inhomogeneous magnetic field; some of the antihydrogen atoms can be attracted to a magnetic minimum. Such a minimum can be created by a combination of mirror and multipole fields. Antihydrogen can be trapped in such a magnetic minimum (minimum-B) trap; in November 2010, the ALPHA collaboration announced that they had so trapped 38 antihydrogen atoms for about a sixth of a second. This was the first time that neutral antimatter had been trapped.
On 26 April 2011, ALPHA announced that they had trapped 309 antihydrogen atoms, some for as long as 1,000 seconds (about 17 minutes). This was longer than neutral antimatter had ever been trapped before. ALPHA has used these trapped atoms to initiate research into the spectral properties of antihydrogen.
In 2016, a new antiproton decelerator and cooler called ELENA (Extra Low ENergy Antiproton decelerator) was built. It takes the antiprotons from the antiproton decelerator and cools them to 90 keV, which is "cold" enough to study. This machine works by using high energy and accelerating the particles within the chamber. More than one hundred antiprotons can be captured per second, a huge improvement, but it would still take several thousand years to make a nanogram of antimatter.
The biggest limiting factor in the large-scale production of antimatter is the availability of antiprotons. Recent data released by CERN states that, when fully operational, their facilities are capable of producing ten million antiprotons per minute. Assuming a 100% conversion of antiprotons to antihydrogen, it would take 100 billion years to produce 1 gram or 1 mole of antihydrogen (approximately atoms of anti-hydrogen). However, CERN only produces 1% of the anti-matter Fermilab does, and neither are designed to produce anti-matter. According to Gerald Jackson, using technology already in use today we are capable of producing and capturing 20 grams of anti-matter particles per year at a yearly cost of 670 million dollars per facility. |
Antimatter | Antihelium | Antihelium
Antihelium-3 nuclei () were first observed in the 1970s in proton–nucleus collision experiments at the Institute for High Energy Physics by Y. Prockoshkin's group (Protvino near Moscow, USSR) and later created in nucleus–nucleus collision experiments. Nucleus–nucleus collisions produce antinuclei through the coalescence of antiprotons and antineutrons created in these reactions. In 2011, the STAR detector reported the observation of artificially created antihelium-4 nuclei (anti-alpha particles) () from such collisions.
The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer on the International Space Station has, as of 2021, recorded eight events that seem to indicate the detection of antihelium-3. |
Antimatter | Preservation | Preservation
Antimatter cannot be stored in a container made of ordinary matter because antimatter reacts with any matter it touches, annihilating itself and an equal amount of the container. Antimatter in the form of charged particles can be contained by a combination of electric and magnetic fields, in a device called a Penning trap. This device cannot, however, contain antimatter that consists of uncharged particles, for which atomic traps are used. In particular, such a trap may use the dipole moment (electric or magnetic) of the trapped particles. At high vacuum, the matter or antimatter particles can be trapped and cooled with slightly off-resonant laser radiation using a magneto-optical trap or magnetic trap. Small particles can also be suspended with optical tweezers, using a highly focused laser beam.
In 2011, CERN scientists were able to preserve antihydrogen for approximately 17 minutes. The record for storing antiparticles is currently held by the TRAP experiment at CERN: antiprotons were kept in a Penning trap for 405 days. A proposal was made in 2018 to develop containment technology advanced enough to contain a billion anti-protons in a portable device to be driven to another lab for further experimentation. |
Antimatter | Cost | Cost
Scientists claim that antimatter is the costliest material to make. In 2006, Gerald Smith estimated $250 million could produce 10 milligrams of positrons (equivalent to $25 billion per gram); in 1999, NASA gave a figure of $62.5 trillion per gram of antihydrogen. This is because production is difficult (only very few antiprotons are produced in reactions in particle accelerators) and because there is higher demand for other uses of particle accelerators. According to CERN, it has cost a few hundred million Swiss francs to produce about 1 billionth of a gram (the amount used so far for particle/antiparticle collisions). In comparison, to produce the first atomic weapon, the cost of the Manhattan Project was estimated at $23 billion with inflation during 2007.
Several studies funded by NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts are exploring whether it might be possible to use magnetic scoops to collect the antimatter that occurs naturally in the Van Allen belt of the Earth, and ultimately the belts of gas giants like Jupiter, ideally at a lower cost per gram. |
Antimatter | Uses | Uses |
Antimatter | Medical | Medical
thumb|A PET/CT system
Matter–antimatter reactions have practical applications in medical imaging, such as positron emission tomography (PET). In positive beta decay, a nuclide loses surplus positive charge by emitting a positron (in the same event, a proton becomes a neutron, and a neutrino is also emitted). Nuclides with surplus positive charge are easily made in a cyclotron and are widely generated for medical use. Antiprotons have also been shown within laboratory experiments to have the potential to treat certain cancers, in a similar method currently used for ion (proton) therapy. |
Antimatter | Fuel | Fuel
Isolated and stored antimatter could be used as a fuel for interplanetary or interstellar travel as part of an antimatter-catalyzed nuclear pulse propulsion or another antimatter rocket. Since the energy density of antimatter is higher than that of conventional fuels, an antimatter-fueled spacecraft would have a higher thrust-to-weight ratio than a conventional spacecraft.
If matter–antimatter collisions resulted only in photon emission, the entire rest mass of the particles would be converted to kinetic energy. The energy per unit mass () is about 10 orders of magnitude greater than chemical energies,(compared to the formation of water at , for example) and about 3 orders of magnitude greater than the nuclear potential energy that can be liberated, today, using nuclear fission (about per fission reaction or ), and about 2 orders of magnitude greater than the best possible results expected from fusion (about for the proton–proton chain). The reaction of of antimatter with of matter would produce (180 petajoules) of energy (by the mass–energy equivalence formula, ), or the rough equivalent of 43 megatons of TNT – slightly less than the yield of the 27,000 kg Tsar Bomba, the largest thermonuclear weapon ever detonated.
Not all of that energy can be utilized by any realistic propulsion technology because of the nature of the annihilation products. While electron–positron reactions result in gamma ray photons, these are difficult to direct and use for thrust. In reactions between protons and antiprotons, their energy is converted largely into relativistic neutral and charged pions. The neutral pions decay almost immediately (with a lifetime of 85 attoseconds) into high-energy photons, but the charged pions decay more slowly (with a lifetime of 26 nanoseconds) and can be deflected magnetically to produce thrust.
Charged pions ultimately decay into a combination of neutrinos (carrying about 22% of the energy of the charged pions) and unstable charged muons (carrying about 78% of the charged pion energy), with the muons then decaying into a combination of electrons, positrons and neutrinos (cf. muon decay; the neutrinos from this decay carry about 2/3 of the energy of the muons, meaning that from the original charged pions, the total fraction of their energy converted to neutrinos by one route or another would be about ). |
Antimatter | Weapons | Weapons
Antimatter has been considered as a trigger mechanism for nuclear weapons. A major obstacle is the difficulty of producing antimatter in large enough quantities, and there is no evidence that it will ever be feasible. Nonetheless, the U.S. Air Force funded studies of the physics of antimatter in the Cold War, and began considering its possible use in weapons, not just as a trigger, but as the explosive itself. |
Antimatter | See also | See also
Antihypernuclei – Antimatter hypernucleus
|
Antimatter | References | References |
Antimatter | Further reading | Further reading
FAQ from CERN with information about antimatter aimed at the general reader, posted in response to antimatter's fictional portrayal in Angels & Demons. |
Antimatter | External links | External links
Freeview Video 'Antimatter' by the Vega Science Trust and the BBC/OU
CERN Webcasts (RealPlayer required)
What is Antimatter? (from the Frequently Asked Questions at the Center for Antimatter–Matter Studies)
What is direct CP-violation?
Animated illustration of antihydrogen production at CERN from the Exploratorium.
"Mining for Neutrinos", costly experiment to study neutrinos & anti-neutrinos. New York Times science article, updated Sept. 2, 2024
Category:Quantum field theory
Category:Fictional power sources
Category:Articles containing video clips |
Antimatter | Table of Content | Short description, Definitions, Conceptual history, Notation, Properties, Origin and asymmetry, Natural production, Observation in cosmic rays, Artificial production, Positrons, Antiprotons, antineutrons, and antinuclei, Antihydrogen atoms, Antihelium, Preservation, Cost, Uses, Medical, Fuel, Weapons, See also, References, Further reading, External links |
Casa Batlló | Short description | () is a building in the center of Barcelona, Spain. It was designed by Antoni Gaudí, and is considered one of his masterpieces. A remodel of a previously built house, it was redesigned in 1904 by Gaudí (but the actual construction works hadn’t begun at this point) and has been refurbished several times since. Gaudí's assistants Domènec Sugrañes i Gras, Josep Canaleta and Joan Rubió also contributed to the renovation project.
The local name for the building is (House of Bones), as it has a visceral, skeletal organic quality. It is located on the in the Eixample district, and forms part of a row of houses known as the (or , the "Block of Discord"), which consists of four buildings by noted architects of Barcelona.
Like everything Gaudí designed, is only identifiable as in the broadest sense. The ground floor, in particular, has unusual tracery, irregular oval windows and flowing sculpted stone work. There are few straight lines, and much of the façade is decorated with a colorful mosaic made of broken ceramic tiles (). The roof is arched and was likened to the back of a dragon or dinosaur. A common theory about the building is that the rounded feature to the left of centre, terminating at the top in a turret and cross, represents the lance of Saint George (patron saint of Catalonia, Gaudí's home), which has been plunged into the back of the dragon.
In 2005, became an UNESCO World Heritage Site. |
Casa Batlló | History | History |
Casa Batlló | Initial construction (1877) | Initial construction (1877)
thumb|left|upright|Antoni Gaudí in 1910
The building that is now was built in 1877, commissioned by Lluís Sala Sánchez. It was a classical building without remarkable characteristics within the eclecticism traditional by the end of the 19th century. The building had a basement, a ground floor, four other floors and a garden in the back. |
Casa Batlló | Batlló family | Batlló family
thumb|right|The Batlló family
The house was bought by Josep Batlló in 1903. The design of the house made the home undesirable to buyers but the Batlló family decided to buy the place due to its centralized location. It is located in the middle of , which in the early 20th century was known as a very prestigious and fashionable area. It was an area where the prestigious family could draw attention to themselves.
In 1906, Josep Batlló still owned the home. The Batlló family was very well known in Barcelona for its contribution to the textile industry in the city. Josep Batlló i Casanovas was a textile industrialist who owned a few factories in the city. Batlló married Amàlia Godó Belaunzarán, from the family that founded the newspaper La Vanguardia. Josep wanted an architect that would design a house that was like no other and stood out as being audacious and creative. Both Josep and his wife were open to anything and they decided not to limit Gaudí. Josep did not want his house to resemble any of the houses of the rest of the Batlló family, such as Casa Pía, built by the Josep Vilaseca. He chose the architect who had designed Park Güell because he wanted him to come up with a risky plan. The family lived on the principal floor of until the middle of the 1950s. |
Casa Batlló | Renovation (1904-1906) | Renovation (1904-1906)
thumb|The atrium; Gaudí convinced Batlló to let him expand the central well of the building to let in light, instead of rebuilding.
In 1904, Josep Batlló hired Gaudí to design his home; at first his plans were to tear down the building and construct a completely new house. Gaudí convinced Josep that a renovation was sufficient and was also able to submit the planning application the same year. The building was completed and refurbished in 1906. He completely changed the main apartment which became the residence for the Batlló family. He expanded the central well in order to supply light to the whole building and also added new floors. In the same year the Barcelona City Council selected the house as a candidate for that year's best building award. The award was given to another architect that year despite Gaudí's design. |
Casa Batlló | Refurbishments | Refurbishments
Josep Batlló died in 1934 and the house was kept in order by the wife until her death in 1940. After the death of the two parents, the house was kept and managed by the children until 1954. In 1954, an insurance company named Seguros Iberia acquired Casa Batlló and set up offices there. In 1970, the first refurbishment occurred mainly in several of the interior rooms of the house. In 1983, the exterior balconies were restored to their original colour and a year later the exterior façade was illuminated in the ceremony of La Mercè. |
Casa Batlló | Multiple uses | Multiple uses
In 1993, the current owners of Casa Batlló bought the home and continued refurbishments throughout the whole building.In 1999, the elevator was reformed to adapt it to modern standards preserving its original appearance. The project was by Joan Bassegoda Nonell and collaborators Bibiana Sciortino and Mario Andruet. Two years later, in 1995, Casa Batlló began to hire out its facilities for different events. More than 2,500 square meters of rooms within the building were rented out for many different functions. Due to the building's location and the beauty of the facilities being rented, the rooms of Casa Batlló were in very high demand and hosted many important events for the city. |
Casa Batlló | Design | Design
thumb|Casa Batlló fireplace seat |
Casa Batlló | Overview | Overview
The local name for the building is Casa dels ossos (House of Bones), as it has a visceral, skeletal organic quality. The building looks very remarkable — like everything Gaudí designed, only identifiable as Modernisme or Art Nouveau in the broadest sense. The ground floor, in particular, is rather astonishing with tracery, irregular oval windows and flowing sculpted stone work.
It seems that the goal of the designer was to avoid straight lines completely. Much of the façade is decorated with a mosaic made of broken ceramic tiles (trencadís) that starts in shades of golden orange moving into greenish blues. The roof is arched and was likened to the back of a dragon or dinosaur. A common theory about the building is that the rounded feature to the left of centre, terminating at the top in a turret and cross, represents the lance of Saint George (patron saint of Catalonia, Gaudí's home), which has been plunged into the back of the dragon. |
Casa Batlló | Loft | Loft
thumb|right|150px|The loft, originally a service area, has sixty catenary arches
The loft is considered to be one of the most unusual spaces. It was formerly a service area for the tenants of the different apartments in the building which contained laundry rooms and storage areas. It is known for its simplicity of shapes and its Mediterranean influence through the use of white on the walls. It contains a series of sixty catenary arches that creates a space which represents the ribcage of an animal. Some people believe that the “ribcage” design of the arches is a ribcage for the dragon's spine that is represented in the roof. |
Casa Batlló | The Atrium (light well) | The Atrium (light well)
thumb|Atrium (light well)
The Atrium or the light well is in the central part of the house and delivers air and lighting to all corners of the house. Gaudí had an obsession with light and how it reflected off certain surfaces. The wall of the atrium has different tones of blue as well as a diamond textile pattern all around the walls. The blue tiles allow an equal distribution of light to all the floors. The well has windows with wooden splits to allow them to be open and closed for ventilation. Gaudí wanted to make the bottom of the well feel like the bottom of the sea. The skylight allows light to come in and reflect off the ceramic tiles into the windows to naturally illuminate the house. The blue tiles are more intensely colored at the top and get opaquer towards the bottom. The diamond textiles match the rest of the house's use of different, functional shapes. |
Casa Batlló | Noble floor and museum | Noble floor and museum
thumb|left|Interior of the Noble Floor, which currently houses a museum open to the public
The noble floor is larger than seven-hundred square meters. It is the main floor of the building. The noble floor is accessed through a private entrance hall that uses skylights resembling tortoise shells and vaulted walls in curving shapes. On the noble floor there is a spacious landing with direct views of the blue tiling of the building well. On the Passeig de Gracia side is Batlló's study, a dining room, and a secluded spot for courting couples, decorated with a mushroom-shaped fireplace. The elaborate and animal-like décor continues throughout the whole noble floor.
In 2002, as part of the celebration of the International Year of Gaudí, the house opened its doors to the public and people were allowed to visit the noble floor. Casa Batlló met with great unanticipated success, and visitors became eager to see the rest of the house. Two years later, in celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of the beginning of work on Casa Batlló, the fifth floor was restored and the house extended its visit to the loft and the well. In 2005, Casa Batlló became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. |
Casa Batlló | Roof | Roof
right|thumb|Four chimney stacks on the roof, with the dragon's spine roof arch behind
The roof terrace is one of the most popular features of the entire house due to its famous dragon back design. Gaudí represents an animal's spine by using tiles of different colors on one side. The roof is decorated with four chimney stacks designed to prevent backdraughts. |
Casa Batlló | Exterior façade | Exterior façade
thumb|left|150px|The façade has three distinct sections.
The façade has three distinct sections which are harmoniously integrated. The lower ground floor with the main floor and two first-floor galleries are contained in a structure of Montjuïc sandstone with undulating lines. The central part, which reaches the last floor, is a multicolored section with protruding balconies. The top of the building is a crown, like a huge gable, which is at the same level as the roof and helps to conceal the room where there used to be water tanks. This room is currently empty. The top displays a trim with ceramic pieces that has attracted multiple interpretations. |
Casa Batlló | Roof tile | Roof tile
thumb|150px|Roof architecture and ceramic tiles, with tower and bulb in the background
The roof's arched profile recalls the spine of a dragon with ceramic tiles for scales, and a small triangular window towards the right of the structure simulates the eye. Legend has it that it was once possible to see the Sagrada Família through this window, which was being built simultaneously. As of 2022, the partial view of the Sagrada Família is available from this vantage point, with its spires visible over newer buildings. The tiles were given a metallic sheen to simulate the varying scales of the monster, with the color grading from green on the right side, where the head begins, to deep blue and violet in the center, to red and pink on the left side of the building. |
Casa Batlló | Tower and bulb | Tower and bulb
One of the highlights of the façade is a tower topped with a cross of four arms oriented to the cardinal directions. It is a bulbous, root-like structure that evokes plant life. There is a second bulb-shaped structure similarly reminiscent of a thalamus flower, which is represented by a cross with arms that are actually buds announcing the next flowering. The tower is decorated with monograms of Jesus (JHS), Maria (M with the ducal crown) and Joseph (JHP), made of ceramic pieces that stand out golden on the green background that covers the façade. These symbols show the deep religiosity of Gaudí, who was inspired by the contemporaneous construction of his basilica to choose the theme of the holy family.
The bulb was broken when it was delivered, perhaps during transportation. Although the manufacturer committed to re-do the broken parts, Gaudí liked the aesthetic of the broken masonry and asked that the pieces be stuck to the main structure with lime mortar and held in with a brass ring. |
Casa Batlló | Central section | Central section
thumb|left|150px|The central part of the façade evokes the surface of a lake with water lilies.
The central part of the façade evokes the surface of a lake with water lilies, reminiscent of Monet's Nymphéas, with gentle ripples and reflections caused by the glass and ceramic mosaic. It is a great undulating surface covered with plaster fragments of colored glass discs combined with 330 rounds of polychrome pottery. The discs were designed by Gaudí and Jujol between tests during their stay in Majorca, while working on the restoration of the Cathedral of Palma. |
Casa Batlló | Balcony | Balcony
Finally, above the central part of the façade is a smaller balcony, also iron, with a different exterior aesthetic, closer to a local type of lily. Two iron arms were installed here to support a pulley to raise and lower furniture. |
Casa Batlló | Main floor | Main floor
The façade of the main floor, made entirely in sandstone, and is supported by two columns. The design is complemented by joinery windows set with multicolored stained glass. In front of the large windows, as if they were pillars that support the complex stone structure, there are six fine columns that seem to simulate the bones of a limb, with an apparent central articulation; in fact, this is a floral decoration. The rounded shapes of the gaps and the lip-like edges carved into the stone surrounding them create a semblance of a fully open mouth, for which the Casa Batlló has been nicknamed the "house of yawns". The structure repeats on the first floor and in the design of two windows at the ends forming galleries, but on the large central window there are two balconies as described above. |
Casa Batlló | Gallery | Gallery |
Casa Batlló | See also | See also
List of Gaudí buildings
List of Modernista buildings in Barcelona
Confidant from the Batlló House |
Casa Batlló | References | References |
Casa Batlló | Bibliography | Bibliography
|
Casa Batlló | External links | External links
Works of Antoni Gaudí UNESCO Collection on Google Arts and Culture
Casa Batlló Store
Official Virtual Tour
Casa Batlló pictures at barcelona-tourist-guide.com
Casa Batlló description
Casa Batllo at Gaudidesigner.com
(Spanish)
Category:1877 establishments in Spain
Category:Antoni Gaudí buildings
Category:Art Nouveau houses
Category:Buildings and structures with azulejos in Catalonia
Category:Eixample
Category:Houses completed in 1877
Category:Houses in Catalonia
Category:Modernisme architecture in Barcelona
Category:Passeig de Gràcia
Category:Tourist attractions in Barcelona
Category:Visionary environments
Category:World Heritage Sites in Catalonia |
Casa Batlló | Table of Content | Short description, History, Initial construction (1877), Batlló family, Renovation (1904-1906), Refurbishments, Multiple uses, Design, Overview, Loft, The Atrium (light well), Noble floor and museum, Roof, Exterior façade, Roof tile, Tower and bulb, Central section, Balcony, Main floor, Gallery, See also, References, Bibliography, External links |
Park Güell | Short description | Park Güell ( ; ) is a privatized complex of parks, gardens and architectural elements in the Gràcia district of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. The site is located in the La Salut neighborhood on the southern side of a hill known as the Turó del Carmel, part of the Collserola mountain range. The separate Parc del Carmel is located on the northern side of the hill.
In the midst of Barcelona's late 19th and early 20th-century urban expansion, Eusebi Güell, a Catalan industrialist and art patron, sought to commission a new park. Güell commissioned the design of the park to the renowned architect, Antoni Gaudí, widely regarded as a central figure of the aesthetic movement of Catalan modernism.
Park Güell was built between 1900 and 1914 and was officially opened to the public in 1926. In 1984, UNESCO declared the park a World Heritage Site, recognizing it as part of the "Works of Antoni Gaudí" architectural series. |
Park Güell | Description | Description
In addition to reflecting the distinct aesthetic sensibilities, artistic influences, and visual language present throughout Gaudí's career, Park Güell captures a particular moment in his artistic evolution. The park is associated with his naturalist phase, which occurred in the first decade of the 20th century. During this period, Gaudí's study of nature and organic shapes began to influence him creatively. Reflecting this shift, Gaudí introduced a series of new structural solutions rooted in geometric analysis.
Gaudí expanded upon these geometric forms to create his characteristically imaginative, ornamental style. Rooted in the Baroque, his works are characterized by a structural richness of forms and volumes, free of the rational rigidity of classical conventions. In designing Park Güell, Gaudí put these structural innovations into practice, for example by incorporating park benches that curve and undulate. Gaudi further elaborated on this characteristic style in the creation of the enormous Sagrada Família (Basilica and Expiatory Church of the Holy Family).
Güell and Gaudí originally conceived the space not as a public park, but as a private community of luxurious homes equipped with all the latest modern amenities to fulfill the needs of its residents both artistically and physically. They envisioned a community strongly influenced by symbolism and Park Güell's common spaces (stairways, plazas, terraces, gardens) are designed to express physically the political and religious ideals of both patron and architect. For example, there are noticeable concepts originating from political Catalanism, most notably in the entrance stairway where the Catalan countries are represented, and Catholicism, as Monumento al Calvario, originally designed to be a chapel. In addition to Gaudí's reinterpretation of classical architectural elements such as columns, colonnades, and porticos, Park Güell also contains numerous references to Greek mythology. Some have suggested that Güell and Gaudí's conception of the park was inspired by the Temple of Apollo of Delphi.
The meaning of these symbols continues to be the subject of speculation. To some, Park Güell represents a spatial nexus of complex iconography that Gaudí intentionally applied to the project. Interpretations range from expressions of political vindication to religious exaltation, laden with mythologic, historical, and philosophical references. Others claim that Park Güell displays masonic influences in spite of the fact that both Güell and Gaudí embraced traditional Catholicism. |
Park Güell | Origins as a housing development | Origins as a housing development
thumb|upright|The Gaudí House Museum
The park was originally part of a housing development project initiated by Count Eusebi Güell, which did not achieve commercial success. Influenced by the English garden city movement, the development incorporated the English term "Park" into its name (Catalan: Parc Güell, Spanish: Parque Güell). The site selected was a rocky hill with sparse vegetation, known as Muntanya Pelada (English: Bare Mountain). A large country house, referred to as Larrard House or Muntaner de Dalt House,was already located on the property. The area bordered an upper-class neighborhood called La Salut ("The Health"). Güell aimed to utilize the site's fresh air and scenic views, positioning it as an attractive location away from industrial pollution. The original plan proposed dividing the land into sixty triangular lots intended for luxury housing. In 1906, Güell moved into Larrard House, a move understood to have been intended to promote the development. However, only two houses were ultimately constructed, and neither was designed by Antoni Gaudí.
One of these houses was built as a display home, but upon completion was put up for sale in 1904. However, because no buyers came forward, Güell suggested that Gaudí purchase the home with his own savings. Gaudí agreed and moved in with his family and his father in 1906. This house, in which Gaudí lived from 1906 until his death in 1926, was built in 1904 by Francesc Berenguer, himself a modernist architect and associate of Gaudí's. It contains original works by Gaudí and several of his collaborators. Since 1963, it has been open to the public as the Gaudí House Museum (Catalan: Casa Museu Gaudí). In 1969, it was declared to be a historical artistic monument of national interest. |
Park Güell | Municipal garden | Municipal garden
left|thumb|Gaudí's multicolored mosaic salamander, popularly known as El Drac (English: the dragon), facing the main entrance following its restoration due to a vandalism incident in February 2007
left|thumb|Gaudí's mosaic work on the main terrace
Parc Güell has since been converted into a municipal garden. It is accessible by metro, although the closet metro stations (Vallcarca and Lesseps) are located some distance from the site at the base of Turó de Carmel. It can also be reached by city buses or commercial tourist buses. In October 2013 an entrance fee was introduced for the Monumental Zone (main entrance, terrace, viaducts, and areas featuring mosaics), though citizens of Barcelona may enter free of charge. Limited tickets are available, though these often sell out in advance. La Torre Rosa, Gaudí's home converted into a museum featuring furniture that he designed, can be visited for another entrance fee. However, there is a reduced rate for those wishing to see both Gaudí's house and the Sagrada Família Church.
The entrance is flanked by two gatehouses, both of which were designed by Gaudí. These two buildings make up the Porter's Lodge pavilion. One of these buildings contains a small room with a telephone booth. The other, while once being the porter's house, is now a permanent exhibition of the Barcelona City History Museum (Catalan: Museu d'Història de Barcelona).
The focal point of the park is the main terrace, enclosed by a long bench in the form of a sea serpent. The curves of the serpent bench from a number of enclaves, designed to foster social interaction. The design of the benches was the work not of Gaudí, but of his often overlooked collaborator Josep Maria Jujol.
Another prominent feature found throughout the park are the series of elevated pathways, originally intended to service the houses, designed by Gaudí to jut out from the steep hillside or rest on Viaducts. These structures often serve as the roofs for lower footpaths in arcades formed underneath. To further minimize the intrusion of these roads, Gaudí had them constructed using a local stone, rendering them as an extension of landscape. Echoing natural forms, the columns and branching vaults supporting the roadways were carved to resemble tree trunks. Similar to his previous work on the Church of Colònia Güell, Gaudí used curved vaulting and the alignment of sloping columns to form inverted catenary arch shapes, which function as ideal compression structures.
At the park's high point, there is a stone hill composed of steps leading up to a platform on which stands three large crosses. This is a calvary, officially named "El Turó de les Tres Creus". Two of the crosses point north–south and east–west, while the third and tallest cross points skyward. From this vantage, it is possible to view the main city in panorama, including the Sagrada Família, Agbar Tower, and Montjuïc area in the distance.
Park Güell supports a wide variety of wildlife, notably several of Barcelona's non-native parrots in addition to sightings of the short-toed eagle. The park also supports a population of hummingbird hawk moths. |
Park Güell | Gallery of images | Gallery of images |
Park Güell | See also | See also
List of Gaudí buildings
List of Modernisme buildings in Barcelona
Urban planning of Barcelona
Parks and gardens of Barcelona |
Park Güell | References | References |
Park Güell | External links | External links
Works of Antoni Gaudí UNESCO Collection on Google Arts and Culture
Park Güell Official Website
Category:Antoni Gaudí buildings
Category:Buildings and structures completed in 1914
Category:Buildings and structures in Barcelona
Category:Culture in Barcelona
Category:Modernisme architecture in Barcelona
Category:Gràcia
Guell
Category:Visionary environments
Category:Buildings and structures with azulejos in Catalonia
Category:Tourist attractions in Barcelona
Category:World Heritage Sites in Catalonia |
Park Güell | Table of Content | Short description, Description, Origins as a housing development, Municipal garden, Gallery of images, See also, References, External links |
Casa Milà | Short description | Casa Milà (, ), popularly known as La Pedrera (, ; "the stone quarry") in reference to its unconventional rough-hewn appearance, is a Modernista building in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It was the last private residence designed by architect Antoni Gaudí and was built between 1906 and 1912.
The building was commissioned in 1906 by and his wife . At the time, it was controversial because of its undulating stone facade, twisting wrought iron balconies, and design by Josep Maria Jujol. Several structural innovations include a self-supporting stone façade, and a free-plan floor, underground garage and the spectacular terrace on the roof.
In 1984, it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Since 2013 it has been the headquarters of the Fundació Catalunya La Pedrera, which manages visits to the building, exhibitions and other cultural and educational activities at Casa Milà. |
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