Life.

Born in the village of Pitelli near La Spezia, Scelsi spent most of his time in his mother's old castle where he received education from a private tutor who taught him Latin, chess and fencing. Later, his family moved to Rome and his musical talents were encouraged by private lessons with Giacinto Sallustio. In Vienna, he studied with Walther Klein, a pupil of Arnold Schoenberg. He became the first exponent of dodecaphony in Italy, although he did not continue to use this system.  In the 1920s, Scelsi made friends with intellectuals like Jean Cocteau and Virginia Woolf, and traveled abroad extensively. He first came into contact with non-European music in Egypt in 1927. His first composition was "Chemin du coeur" (1929). Then followed "Rotativa", first conducted by Pierre Monteux at Salle Pleyel, Paris, on 20 December 1931.  In 1937, he organised a series of concerts of contemporary works, introducing the music of (among others) Paul Hindemith, Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Sergei Prokofiev to an Italian audience for the first time. Due to the enforcement of racial laws under the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini, which prevented the performance of works by Jewish composers, these concerts did not continue for long. Scelsi refused to comply, and gradually distanced himself from Italy. In 1940, when Italy entered the war, Scelsi was in Switzerland, where he remained until the end of the conflict, composing and honing his conception of music. He married Dorothy Kate Ramsden, a divorced Englishwoman.  Back in Rome after the war, his wife left him (eventually inspiring "Elegia per Ty"), and he underwent a profound psychological crisis that eventually led him to the discovery of Eastern spirituality, and also to a radical transformation of his view of music. In this so-called second period, he rejected the notions of composition and authorship in favour of sheer improvisation. His improvisations were recorded on tape and later transcribed by collaborators under his guidance. They were then orchestrated and filled out by his meticulous performance instructions, or adjusted from time to time in close collaboration with the performers.  Scelsi came to conceive of artistic creation as a means of communicating a higher, transcendent reality to the listener. In this view, the artist is considered a mere intermediary. For this reason, Scelsi never allowed his image to be shown in connection with his music; he preferred instead to identify himself by a line under a circle, as a symbol of Eastern provenance. Some photographs of Scelsi have emerged since his death.  One of the earliest interpreters Scelsi closely worked with was the singer Michiko Hirayama, whom he met in 1957 in Rome. From 1962 to 1972 he wrote the extensive song cycle "Canti del Capricorno" directly for her in view of her special and unique vocal range. The writing process of the piece set an example for Scelsi's very personal way of working: developing pieces through improvisation, recording, and then making a final transcription.  From the late 1970s, he met several leading interpreters who have promoted his music all over the world and gradually opened the gates to wider audiences, such as the Arditti String Quartet, the cellist Frances-Marie Uitti, and the pianists Yvar Mikhashoff and Marianne Schroeder.  Scelsi was a friend and a mentor to Alvin Curran (whose "VSTO" is a tribute) and other expatriate American composers such as Frederic Rzewski who were residing in Rome during the 1960s (Curran, 2003, in NewMusicBox). Scelsi also collaborated with other American composers including John Cage, Morton Feldman, and Earle Brown (who visited him in Rome).  Frances-Marie Uitti, dedicatee of all Scelsi's cello works, collaborated intensively with him for over 10 years editing and then recording La Trilogia, a massive 3 part work of 45 minutes in length which Morton Feldman called his "autobiography in sound". It was first premiered in Festival di Como, and recorded on Fore records (Raretone) with Scelsi in the studio and later for Etcetera Records. A more recent acclaimed version with several of the Latin Prayers is to be found on ECM under the title Natura Renovatur. Uitti also transcribed many of the chamber works for contrabass, contrabass and cello, viola, and two improvisations based on the ondiolina tapes that are found under the title Voyages.  Alvin Curran recalled that: "Scelsi... came to all my concerts in Rome even right up to the very last one I gave just a few days before he died. This was in the summer time, and he was such a nut about being outdoors. He was there in a fur coat and a fur hat. It was an outdoor concert. He waved from a distance, beautiful sparking eyes and smile that he always had, and that's the last time I saw him" (Ross, 2005).  Scelsi died of a cerebral hemorrhage on 9 August 1988, in Rome.

Music.

Scelsi remained largely unknown for most of his career. A series of concerts in the mid to late 1980s finally premiered many of his pieces to great acclaim, notably his orchestral masterpieces in October 1987 in Cologne, about a quarter of a century after those works had been composed and less than a year before the composer's death. Scelsi was able to attend the premieres and personally supervised the rehearsals. The impact caused by the late discovery of Scelsi's works was described by Belgian musicologist Harry Halbreich:  Dutch musicologist Henk de Velde, alluding to Adorno speaking of Alban Berg, called Scelsi "the Master of the yet smaller transition," to which Harry Halbreich added that "in fact, his music is "only" transition."  Scelsi was also an idol of Ennio Morricone's Gruppo di Improvvisazione di Nuova Consonanza, whose sixteen-minute track 'Omaggio a Giacinto Scelsi' features on their live album 'Musica Su Schemi', released in 1976.  The music of Scelsi was heard by millions in Martin Scorsese's "Shutter Island", in which excerpts of his two works "Quattro pezzi su una nota sola" and "Uaxuctum" (3rd movement) were featured alongside the music of his contemporaries György Ligeti, Krzysztof Penderecki, John Cage and Morton Feldman.

Bibliography.

The French company published writings of Giacinto Scelsi in three volumes, the majority of which are now out of print:

Giacinto Scelsi (; 8 January 1905 9 August 1988) was an Italian composer who also wrote surrealist poetry in French.


Life.

Spee was born at Kaiserswerth on the Rhine. On finishing his early education at Cologne, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1610, and pursued extensive studies and activity as a teacher at Trier, Fulda, Würzburg, Speyer, Worms and Mainz, where he was ordained a Catholic priest in 1622. He became professor at the University of Paderborn in 1624. From 1626 he taught at Speyer, Wesel, Trier and Cologne, and preached at Paderborn, Cologne and Hildesheim.  An attempt to assassinate Spee was made at Peine in 1629. He resumed his activity as professor and priest at Paderborn and later at Cologne, and in 1633 removed to Trier. During the storming of the city by the imperial forces in March 1635 (in the Thirty Years' War), he distinguished himself in the care of the suffering, and died soon afterwards of a plague infection contracted while ministering to wounded soldiers in a hospital. His name is often incorrectly cited as "Friedrich von Spee".

Publications.

Spee's literary activity was largely confined to the last years of his life, the details of which are relatively obscure. Two of his works were not published until after his death: "Goldenes Tugendbuch" (Golden Book of Virtues), a book of devotion highly prized by Leibniz, and "Trutznachtigall" (Rivaling the Nightingale), a collection of fifty to sixty sacred songs, which take a prominent place among religious lyrics of the 17th century and have been repeatedly printed and updated through the present.

Cautio Criminalis.

His principal work "Cautio Criminalis" is a passionate plea on behalf of those accused of witchcraft. The book was first printed anonymously in 1631 at Rinteln and attributed to an "unknown Roman theologian ["Incerto Theologo Romano"]." It is based on his own experiences in the time and place (along the Rhine) that experienced some of the most intense and fatal witch-hunts. Spee was present as a Jesuit confessor during sessions of torture and executions. "If the reader will allow me to say something here, I confess that I myself have accompanied several women to their deaths in various places over the years and I am now so certain of their innocence that I feel there's no effort that would not be worth my undertaking to try to reveal this truth."  Spee wrote in direct opposition to many of the most well-known witch-phobic writers of his time and, like those works and most others in the witch-phobic lineage going back to the 15th century, Spee also wrote in Latin. "I pronounce from my soul that for a long time I have not known what trust I can place in those authors, Remy, Binsfeld, Delrio, and others... since virtually every one of their teachings concerning witches is based on no other foundations than fables or confessions extracted through torture."  Spee pleaded for measures of reform, such as a new German imperial law on the subject, and liability to damages on the part of the judges. "Cautio Criminalis" contains 51 "doubts" ["dubiorum"] which Spee discussed and carefully de-constructed. Amongst his more notable conclusions were:  Spee was particularly concerned about cases where a person was tortured and forced to denounce (accuse) accomplices, who were then tortured and forced to denounce more accomplices, until everyone was under suspicion:

Legacy.

"Cautio Criminalis" helped bring an end to witch-hunting. The moral impact created by the publication was considerable. Already within the 17th century, a number of new editions and translations had appeared. Among the members of Spee's Jesuit order, his treatise found a favorable reception.  Philipp van Limborch was a Dutch Protestant but his influential "History of the Inquisition" (1692) refers favorably to the work of the Jesuit Spee. Limborch was close with the Englishman John Locke as the two pushed for religious toleration.

Hymns.

Spee wrote the lyrics and tunes of dozens of hymns, and is still the most heavily attributed author in German Catholic hymnals today. Although an anonymous hymnist during his lifetime, today he is credited with several popular works including the Advent song "O Heiland, reiß die Himmel auf", the Christmas carols "Vom Himmel hoch, o Engel, kommt" and "", and the Easter hymn "Lasst uns erfreuen" widely used with the 20th-century English texts "Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones" and "All Creatures of Our God and King".

See also.

Other prominent contemporary critics of witch hunts:

Friedrich Spee (also "Friedrich Spee von Langenfeld"; February 25, 1591 – August 7, 1635) was a German Jesuit priest, professor, and poet, most well-known as a forceful opponent of witch trials and one who was an insider writing from the epicenter of the European witch-phobia. Spee argued strongly against the use of torture, and as an eyewitness he gathered a book full of details regarding its cruelty and unreliability. He wrote, "Torture has the power to create witches where none exist."


History.

The earliest signs of human settlement dating back to the 3rd–5th centuries AD have been found on the present theatre hill. Probably to protect that settlement, a wooden stronghold was built on the present Vallimägi. When it changed owners in 1220, the Danes started to erect buildings from stone. A settlement called "Tarvanpea" was first mentioned in the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia in 1226. The new Danish stronghold was called "Wesenbergh" in Middle Low German for the first time in 1252. The battle of Wesenberg between the Danish and German knights and Russians occurred nearby on 18 February 1268.  On 12 June 1302, Rakvere was granted Lübeck rights. When the Danish king sold Danish Estonia to the Livonian Order in 1346, a large castle was built on top of the previous stronghold. The Ordensburg was protected by towers and courtyards. The building of a Franciscan monastery was started in 1508.  During the Livonian War from 1558 to 1581, Rakvere was under Russian rule and was heavily damaged. Sweden, after the disastrous Siege of Wesenberg (1574), captured the town in 1581 before it passed to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1602; Poles destroyed the castle in 1605. After being returned to Swedish control in that year, a mansion was built on the ruins of the monastery. During the Great Northern War, Rakvere was burned down in 1703. With the Capitulation of Estonia and Livonia in 1710 and the subsequent Treaty of Nystad in 1721, Rakvere passed to the Russian Empire, where it remained until Estonia's independence in 1918 following World War I.  During the first period of independence, many prominent buildings were built, such as the market building, the old bank building (current SEB Eesti Ühispank), and Rakvere Gymnasium. In 1930, the town stadium was opened, during the tenure of mayor Heinrich Aviksoo. Local newspapers started to emerge, including the county paper "Virumaa Teataja", which was first published in 1925. The idea of Rakvere's own professional theatre started to take shape as well. The construction of the theatre house was completed at the end of the 1930s and it was festively opened on 24 February 1940. The theatre survived World War II and is active to this day.  Rakvere also has a professional theatre and it is believed that it is the smallest town in Europe which has a professional theatre. Its roots date back to 1882 and it is still active and very popular. The theatre of Rakvere has given Estonia many famous actors and actresses such as Volli Käro, Üllar Saaremäe, Indrek Saar, Ülle Lichtfeldt, Aarne Üksküla etc. It also holds the biannual event "Baltoscandal", which gathers avant-garde plays and groups from all over the world.

Main landmarks.

Tarvas statue.

Rakvere is also known now for its Tarvas statue of an aurochs, which was made by the Estonian sculptor Tauno Kangro. It is thought to be the largest animal statue in the Baltic countries.  It is situated on the edge of Vallimägi hill and was erected for the town's 700th birthday. Along with the granite block it sits on, the statue is seven meters long and four meters high and weighs about seven tons.  The statue is made out of bronze. The names of the companies and private people who financed it are engraved in the granite block.

Rakvere Trinity church.

The Lutheran church of Rakvere, the Trinity church, originally dates from the 15th century and was designed to also be able to function as a stronghold in times of trouble. It was severely damaged during the Livonian War and renovation started only in 1684. During the Great Northern War, the church once more was damaged by fire twice. Renovations were carried out 1727–1730, and again during the middle of the 19th century, when the church received its present look, dominated by its neo-Gothic spire. The interior displays some fine craftsmanship, including a Baroque pulpit from 1690 made by Christian Ackermann.

Twin towns - sister cities.

Rakvere is twinned with:

Rakvere is a town in northern Estonia and the capital of Lääne-Viru County, 20 km south of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea. Until early 20th century Rakvere was more widely known by its historical German name "Wesenberg(h)".


Plagues.

4. Wild animals or flies: Ex. 8:20–32.

The fourth plague of Egypt was of creatures capable of harming people and livestock. The Torah emphasizes that the "‘arob" (עָרוֹב "mixture" or "swarm") only came against the Egyptians and did not affect the Israelites. Pharaoh asked Moses to remove this plague and promised to grant the Israelites their freedom. However, after the plague was gone, the "hardened Pharaoh's heart", and he refused to keep his promise.  Various sources use either "wild animals" or "flies".

10. Death of firstborn: Ex. 11:1–12:36.

Before this final plague God commands Moses to tell the Israelites to mark a lamb's blood above their doors in order that Yahweh will pass over them (i.e., that they will not be touched by the death of the firstborn). Pharaoh orders the Israelites to leave, taking whatever they want, and asks Moses to bless him in the name of the Lord. The passage goes on to state that the passover sacrifice recalls the time when the "passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt".

Composition and theology.

Scholars are in broad agreement that the publication of the Torah took place in the mid-Persian period (the 5th century BCE). The Book of Deuteronomy, composed in stages between the 7th and 6th centuries, mentions the "diseases of Egypt" (Deuteronomy 7:15 and 28:60) but refers to something that afflicted the Israelites, not the Egyptians, and never specifies the plagues.  The traditional number of ten plagues is not actually mentioned in Exodus, and other sources differ; Psalms 78 and 105 seem to list only seven or eight plagues and order them differently. It appears that originally there were only seven (which included the tenth), to which were added the third, sixth, and ninth, bringing the count to ten.  In this final version, the first nine plagues form three triads, each of which God introduces by informing Moses of the main lesson it will teach. In the first triad, the Egyptians begin to experience the power of God; in the second, God demonstrates that he is directing events; and in the third, the incomparability of Yahweh is displayed. Overall, the plagues are "signs and marvels" given by the God of Israel to answer Pharaoh's taunt that he does not know Yahweh: "The Egyptians shall know that I am the ".

Historicity.

Scholars broadly agree that the Exodus is not a historical account, and that the Israelites originated in Canaan and from the Canaanites. The Ipuwer Papyrus, written probably in the late Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt (c. 1991–1803 BCE), has been put forward in popular literature as confirmation of the Biblical account, most notably because of its statement that "the river is blood" and its frequent references to servants running away; however, these arguments ignore the many points on which Ipuwer contradicts Exodus, such as Asiatics arriving in Egypt rather than leaving and the likelihood that the "river is blood" phrase is simply a poetic image of turmoil. Attempts to find natural explanations for the plagues (e.g., a volcanic eruption to explain the "darkness" plague) have been dismissed by biblical scholars on the grounds that their pattern, timing, rapid succession, and above all, control by Moses mark them as supernatural.

Artistic representation.

Visual art.

In visual art, the plagues have generally been reserved for works in series, especially engravings. Still, relatively few depictions in art emerged compared to other religious themes until the 19th century, when the plagues became more common subjects, with John Martin and Joseph Turner producing notable canvases. This trend probably reflected a Romantic attraction to landscape and nature painting, for which the plagues were suited, a Gothic attraction to morbid stories, and a rise in Orientalism, wherein exotic Egyptian themes found currency. Given the importance of noble patronage throughout Western art history, the plagues may have found consistent disfavor because the stories emphasize the limits of a monarch's power, and images of lice, locusts, darkness, and boils were ill-suited for decoration in palaces and churches.

Music.

Taking direct inspiration from the ten plagues, Iced Earth's eleventh studio album "Plagues of Babylon" contains many references and allusions to the plagues. Metallica's song "Creeping Death" (from their second album, "Ride the Lightning") makes references to a few of the plagues, in addition to the rest of the story of the Exodus.  Perhaps the most successful artistic representation of the plagues is Handel's oratorio "Israel in Egypt", which, like his perennial favorite, "Messiah", takes a libretto entirely from scripture. The work was especially popular in the 19th century because of its numerous choruses, generally one for each plague, and its playful musical depiction of the plagues. For example, the plague of frogs is performed as a light aria for alto, depicting frogs jumping in the violins, and the plague of flies and lice is a light chorus with fast scurrying runs in the violins.

The Plagues of Egypt (), in the story of the book of Exodus, are ten disasters inflicted on Egypt by the God of Israel in order to force the Pharaoh to allow the Israelites to depart from slavery; they serve as "signs and marvels" given by God to answer Pharaoh's taunt that he does not know Yahweh: "The Egyptians shall know that I am the ".


Turkish bağlama.

The most commonly used string folk instrument in Turkey, the bağlama has seven strings divided into courses of two, two and three. It can be tuned in various ways and takes different names according to region and size: Bağlama, Divan Sazı, Bozuk, Çöğür, Kopuz Irızva, Cura, Tambura, etc. The cura is the smallest member of the bağlama family: larger than the cura is the tambura, tuned an octave lower. The Divan sazı, the largest instrument in the family, is tuned one octave lower still.  A bağlama has three main parts, the bowl (called "tekne"), made from mulberry wood or juniper, beech, spruce or walnut, the spruce sound board ("göğüs") and a neck of beech or juniper ("sap"). The tuning pegs are known as "burgu" (literally screw). Frets are tied to the "sap" with fishing line, which allows them to be adjusted. The bağlama is usually played with a "mızrap" or "tezene" (similar to a guitar pick) made from cherrywood bark or plastic. In some regions, it is played with the fingers in a style known as "Şelpe" or "Şerpe".  There are also electric bağlamas, which can be connected to an amplifier. These can have either single or double pickups.

Azerbaijani bağlama.

The Azerbaijani saz was mainly used by Ashiqs. The art of Azerbaijani Ashiqs combines poetry, storytelling, dance and vocal and instrumental music into a traditional performance art. This art is one of the symbols of Azerbaijani culture and considered an emblem of national identity and the guardian of Azerbaijani language, literature and music.  Characterized by the accompaniment of the kopuz, a stringed musical instrument, the classical repertoire of Azerbaijani Ashiqs includes 200 songs, 150 literary-musical compositions known as dastans, nearly 2,000 poems and numerous stories.  Since 2009 the art of Azerbaijani Ashiqs has been inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

The kopuz and the bağlama.

The bağlama is a synthesis of historical musical instruments in Central Asia and pre-Turkish Anatolia. It is partly descended from the Turkic komuz. The "kopuz", or "komuz", differs from the bağlama in that it has a leather-covered body and two or three strings made of sheep gut, wolf gut, or horsehair. It is played with the fingers rather than a plectrum and has a fingerboard without frets. "Bağlama" literally translates as "something that is tied up", probably a reference to the tied-on frets of the instrument. The word bağlama is first used in 18th-century texts. The French traveler Jean Benjamin de Laborde, who visited Turkey during that century, recorded that "the bağlama or tambura is in form exactly like the cogur, but smaller." He was probably referring to the smallest of the bağlama family, the cura.  According to the historian Hammer, metal strings were first used on a type of komuz with a long fingerboard known as the "kolca kopuz" in 15th-century Anatolia. This was the first step in the emergence of the çöğür (cogur), a transitional instrument between the komuz and the bağlama. According to 17th-century writer Evliya Çelebi, the cogur was first made in the city of Kütahya in western Turkey. To take the strain of the metal strings the leather body was replaced with wood, the fingerboard was lengthened and frets were introduced. Instead of five hair strings there were now twelve metal strings arranged in four groups of three. Today, the cogur is smaller than a medium-size bağlama.

Bağlama tunings.

There are three string groups, or courses, on the bağlama, with strings double or tripled. These string groups can be tuned in a variety of ways, known as "düzen" (literally, "order"). For the "bağlama düzeni", the most common tuning, the courses are tuned from top downward, A-G-D. Some other "düzen"s are "Kara Düzen" (C-G-D), "Misket Düzeni" (A-D-F#), "Müstezat" (A-D-F), "Abdal Düzeni", and "Rast Düzeni".

Bağlama scale.

The musical scale of the bağlama differs from that of many western instruments – such as the guitar – in that it features ratios that are close to quarter tones. The traditional ratios for bağlama frets are listed by Yalçın Tura:  However, as confirmed by Okan Öztürk, instrument makers now often set frets on the bağlama with the aid of fret calculators and tuners based on the 24-tone equal temperament.

The bağlama (, from "bağlamak", "to tie", ) is a stringed musical instrument. It is sometimes referred to as the saz, from the Persian, meaning an instrument. However, the term "saz" actually refers to a family of plucked string instruments, long-necked lutes used in Ottoman classical music, Turkish folk music, Azerbaijani music, Kurdish music, Armenian music and in parts of Syria, Iraq and the Balkan countries.


Performance history.

"A Midsummer Night's Dream" was first performed on 11 June 1960 at the Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh, UK as part of the Aldeburgh Festival. Conducted by the composer, it was directed by the choreographer John Cranko.  The work received wide critical approval following its early performances. Howard Taubman in his review of the Aldeburgh premiere wrote that the orchestral colors of the score conveyed a sense of "soaring illusion" that never wavered and concluded: Not every problem posed by Shakespeare has been solved, but Mr. Britten has accomplished so much that one may safely predict a wide vogue for his latest and happiest opera.  A dissenting voice was Britten's estranged collaborator W. H. Auden. In a letter to Stephen Spender after seeing the 1961 London production, Auden dismissed it as "Dreadful! Pure Kensington".  "Dream" was performed at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 1961, produced by John Gielgud and conducted by Georg Solti. This production was revived six times to 1984.  The English Music Theatre Company staged the opera at Snape Maltings in 1980, directed by Christopher Renshaw and designed by Robin Don; the production was revived at the Royal Opera House for one performance in 1986.  In 2005, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, produced a version directed by Olivia Fuchs at the Linbury Studio Theatre with the Tiffin Boys' Choir. William Towers was Oberon, and Gillian Keith Tytania.  English National Opera's production of 2011, directed by Christopher Alden, set the opera in a mid-20th-century school, with Oberon (Iestyn Davies) and Tytania (Anna Christy) as teachers and Puck and the fairies as schoolboys. Oberon's relationship with Puck (Jamie Manton) is given overtly sexual overtones, and Puck responds with alternate anger and despair to Oberon's new-found interest in Tytania's Changeling boy. The silent older man who stalks the action in the first two acts is revealed to be Theseus (Paul Whelan); reviewers have suggested that in this staging Theseus himself was once the object of Oberon's attentions, and is either watching history repeating itself, or is in fact daydreaming the magical events of the opera prior to his marriage to Hippolyta.  Baz Luhrmann directed a music video of an arrangement of "Now Until the Break of Day" from the finale of act 3 for his 1998 album "Something for Everybody" featuring Christine Anu and David Hobson.

Analysis.

Britten delineated the three tiers of characters, the rustics being given folk-like "simple" music, the lovers a more romantic sound-world and the fairies being represented in a very ethereal way. Almost all of the action now takes place in the woods around Athens, and the fairies inhabit a much more prominent place in the drama. The comic performance by the rustics of "Pyramus and Thisbe" at the final wedding takes on an added dimension as a parody of nineteenth-century Italian opera. Thisbe's lament, accompanied by obbligato flute, is a parody of a Donizetti "mad scene" ("Il dolce suono").  The opera contains several innovations: it is extremely rare in opera that the lead male role is written for the countertenor voice to sing. The part of Oberon was created by Alfred Deller. Britten wrote specifically for his voice, which, despite its ethereal quality, had a low range compared to more modern countertenors. Oberon's music almost never requires the countertenor to sing both at the top of the alto range and "forte".  The plot of the opera follows that of the play, with several alterations. Most of Shakespeare's act 1 is cut, compensated for by the opera's only added line: "Compelling thee to marry with Demetrius." Therefore, much greater precedence is given to the wood, and to the fairies. This is also indicated by the opening "portamenti" strings, and by the ethereal countertenor voice that is Oberon, the male lead, who throughout is accompanied by a characteristic texture of harp and celeste, in the same way that Puck's appearance is heralded by the combination of trumpet and snare-drum.  The opera opens with a chorus, "Over hill, over dale" from Tytania's attendant fairies, played by boy sopranos. Other highlights include Oberon's florid – the exotic celeste is especially notable – aria,"I know a bank" (inspired by Purcell's "Sweeter than roses", which Britten had previously arranged for Pears to sing), Tytania's equally florid "Come now, a roundel", the chorus's energetic "You spotted snakes", the hilarious comedy of "Pyramus and Thisbe", and the final trio for Oberon, Tytania and the chorus.  The original play is an anomaly among Shakespeare's works, in that it is very little concerned with character, and very largely concerned with psychology. Britten follows this to a large extent, but subtly alters the psychological focus of the work. The introduction of a chorus of boy-fairies means that the opera becomes greatly concerned with the theme of purity. It is these juvenile fairies who eventually quell the libidinous activities of the quartet of lovers, as they sing a beautiful melody on the three "motto chords" (also on the four "magic" chords) of the second act: "Jack shall have Jill/Naught shall go ill/The man shall have his mare again/And all shall be well." Sung by boys, it could be considered that this goes beyond irony, and represents an idealised vision of a paradise of innocence and purity that Britten seems to have been captivated by throughout his life.  Britten also pays attention to the play's central motif: the madness of love. Curiously he took the one relationship in the play that is grotesque (that of Tytania and Bottom) and placed it in the centre of his opera (in the middle of act 2). Women in Britten operas tend to run to extremes, being either predators or vulnerable prey, but Tytania is an amalgam; she dominates Bottom, but is herself completely dominated by Oberon and Puck, the couple that are usually considered to really hold power in The Dream. Their cruel pranks eventually quell her coloratura, which until she is freed from the power of the love-juice is fiendishly difficult to sing.  Britten also parodied operatic convention in less obvious ways than "Pyramus and Thisbe". Like many other operas, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" opens with a chorus, but it is a chorus of unbroken boys' voices, singing in unison. After this comes the entrance of the prima donna and the male lead, who is as far away as possible from Wagner's heldentenors, and as close as it is possible to get to Handel's castrati of the 18th century.: "There is an air of baroque fantasy in the music." Britten's treatment of Puck also suggests parody. In opera, the hero's assistant is traditionally sung by baritones, yet here we have an adolescent youth who speaks, rather than sings.  Britten thought the character of Puck "absolutely amoral and yet innocent." Describing the speaking, tumbling Puck of the opera, Britten wrote "I got the idea of doing Puck like this in Stockholm, where I saw some Swedish child acrobats with extraordinary agility and powers of mimicry, and suddenly realised we could do Puck this way."

Recordings.

There are many recordings available, including two conducted by the composer, one a live recording of the 11 June 1960 premiere with the complete original cast, the second a studio recording made in 1967 with some of the original cast, Deller as Oberon, Owen Brannigan as Bottom, and Peter Pears elevated from Flute to Lysander, which omits some music from the lovers' awakening early in act 3.

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Op. 64, is an opera with music by Benjamin Britten and set to a libretto adapted by the composer and Peter Pears from William Shakespeare's play, "A Midsummer Night's Dream". It was premiered on 11 June 1960 at the Aldeburgh Festival, conducted by the composer and with set and costume designs by Carl Toms. Stylistically, the work is typical of Britten, with a highly individual sound-world – not strikingly dissonant or atonal, but replete with subtly atmospheric harmonies and tone painting. The role of Oberon was composed for the countertenor Alfred Deller. Atypically for Britten, the opera did not include a leading role for his partner Pears, who instead was given the comic drag role of Flute/Thisbe.


History.

The Federation was established in Turin on 26 March 1898 as the Federazione Italiana del Football (FIF), on the initiative of a Constituent Assembly established on 15 March by Enrico D'Ovidio. Mario Vicary was elected the first official president of the FIF on 26 March.  When, in 1909, it was suggested to change the Federation's name at an annual board elections held in Milan, the few teams attending, representing less than 50% the active clubs, decided to send a postcard asking all teams to vote for the five new names discussed during the meeting. The new name approved was "Federazione Italiana Giuoco del Calcio" (FIGC), and since then has been the name of the Italian Football Federation. The debut of the Men's National Team was on 15 May 1910, at Arena Civica, wearing a white jersey where Italy defeated France 6–2. The following year, the blue jersey was introduced on the occasion of the match against Hungary, as a tribute to the colour of the House of Savoy.  This Italian Federation was an "amateur" federation respecting FIFA rules when it became a member in 1905. At the end of World War I, the federation had seen impressive development and several footballers were judged to be professional players and banned according to FIFA agreements.
 From 1922 to 1926, new and more severe rules were approved for keeping the "amateur" status real and effective, such as footballers' residence and transfer controls but the best players were secretly paid and moved from other provinces illegally. Foreigners had to live in the country in order to get a residence visa and the players' card. When, in 1926, the Italian Federation Board resigned following a very difficult referees' strike, the fascist Lando Ferretti, president of the Italian Olympic Committee (C.O.N.I.), nominated a Commission to reform all Leagues and federal rules. The Commission signed a document called the ""Carta di Viareggio"" (Rules issued in Viareggio) where football players were recognized as "non-amateurs" and able to apply for refunds for the money they had lost while playing for the football teams. They had to sign the declaration not being professional players so that FIFA rules were respected because for FIGC they were appearing as "amateurs" receiving just refunds. It was the beginning of the professionalism in Italy. The Carta di Viareggio reduced the number of foreign players to be fielded to just one per match so that the majority of Hungarians remained jobless and got back to their country.  Commissioner Bruno Zauli led the FIGC renovation process (1959), with the establishment of three Leagues (Professional, Semi-professional, Amateur) and the creation of the Technical and the Youth Sectors.  Between 1964 and 1980, foreign players were banned from the Italian league, primarily to revive the national team.  In December 1998, the FIGC celebrated its centenary at the Stadio Olimpico in a match featuring Italy vs World XI, with Italy winning 6–2.  The FIGC was placed in administration in May 2006 as a result of the 2006 Italian football scandal and was put under the management of Guido Rossi.
 In May 2006, Rossi was chosen and accepted the role of President of Telecom Italia. This appointment caused angry reactions from club presidents in Italy.
 On 19 September, Rossi resigned as Commissioner of FIGC. On 21 September, Luca Pancalli, head of the Italian Paralympic Committee, was chosen to replace Rossi.
 On 2 April 2007, a new President was elected, with former Vice-President Giancarlo Abete being voted by 264 grand electors out of 271.  Following the 2014 FIFA World Cup Abete resigned and Carlo Tavecchio was elected President of the Federation and Michele Uva as general manager. The new governance began many reforms on the main aspects of Italian football, particularly through the use of young players trained in Italy, on the economic sustainability - financial professional clubs; start the reorganization of the operating structure of the FIGC. In support of the activity and with a view of maximum transparency, the FIGC public a series of documents: Football Report, Integrated Budget (evolution of the Social Report), Management Report, Income Statement of Italian football. On 20 November 2017, Tavecchio resigned as Italian Football Federation president, seven days after Italy failed to qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, the first time since 1958.

The Italian Football Federation (; FIGC), known colloquially as "Federcalcio", is the governing body of football in Italy. It is based in Rome and the technical department is in Coverciano, Florence.


History.

The Viterbi algorithm is named after Andrew Viterbi, who proposed it in 1967 as a decoding algorithm for convolutional codes over noisy digital communication links. It has, however, a history of multiple invention, with at least seven independent discoveries, including those by Viterbi, Needleman and Wunsch, and Wagner and Fischer.  "Viterbi path" and "Viterbi algorithm" have become standard terms for the application of dynamic programming algorithms to maximization problems involving probabilities. For example, in statistical parsing a dynamic programming algorithm can be used to discover the single most likely context-free derivation (parse) of a string, which is commonly called the "Viterbi parse". Another application is in target tracking, where the track is computed that assigns a maximum likelihood to a sequence of observations.

Extensions.

A generalization of the Viterbi algorithm, termed the "max-sum algorithm" (or "max-product algorithm") can be used to find the most likely assignment of all or some subset of latent variables in a large number of graphical models, e.g. Bayesian networks, Markov random fields and conditional random fields. The latent variables need in general to be connected in a way somewhat similar to an HMM, with a limited number of connections between variables and some type of linear structure among the variables. The general algorithm involves "message passing" and is substantially similar to the belief propagation algorithm (which is the generalization of the forward-backward algorithm).  With the algorithm called iterative Viterbi decoding one can find the subsequence of an observation that matches best (on average) to a given hidden Markov model. This algorithm is proposed by Qi Wang et al. to deal with turbo code. Iterative Viterbi decoding works by iteratively invoking a modified Viterbi algorithm, reestimating the score for a filler until convergence.  An alternative algorithm, the Lazy Viterbi algorithm, has been proposed. For many applications of practical interest, under reasonable noise conditions, the lazy decoder (using Lazy Viterbi algorithm) is much faster than the original Viterbi decoder (using Viterbi algorithm). While the original Viterbi algorithm calculates every node in the trellis of possible outcomes, the Lazy Viterbi algorithm maintains a prioritized list of nodes to evaluate in order, and the number of calculations required is typically fewer (and never more) than the ordinary Viterbi algorithm for the same result. However, it is not so easy to parallelize in hardware.

Pseudocode.

This algorithm generates a path formula_1, which is a sequence of states formula_2 that generate the observations formula_3 with formula_4, where formula_5 is the number of possible observations in the observation space formula_6.  Two 2-dimensional tables of size formula_7 are constructed:  The table entries formula_18 are filled by increasing order of formula_19:  with formula_22 and formula_23 as defined below. Note that formula_23 does not need to appear in the latter expression, as it's non-negative and independent of formula_25 and thus does not affect the argmax.  function "VITERBI"formula_46  Suppose we are given a hidden Markov model (HMM) with state space formula_57, initial probabilities formula_58 of being in state formula_59 and transition probabilities formula_60 of transitioning from state formula_59 to state formula_62. Say, we observe outputs formula_63. The most likely state sequence formula_64 that produces the observations is given by the recurrence relations  Here formula_66 is the probability of the most probable state sequence formula_67 responsible for the first formula_68 observations that have formula_25 as its final state. The Viterbi path can be retrieved by saving back pointers that remember which state formula_70 was used in the second equation. Let formula_71 be the function that returns the value of formula_70 used to compute formula_66 if formula_74, or formula_25 if formula_76. Then  Here we're using the standard definition of arg max.  The complexity of this implementation is formula_78. A better estimation exists if the maximum in the internal loop is instead found by iterating only over states that directly link to the current state (i.e. there is an edge from formula_25 to formula_62). Then using amortized analysis one can show that the complexity is formula_81, where formula_82 is the number of edges in the graph.

Example.

Consider a village where all villagers are either healthy or have a fever and only the village doctor can determine whether each has a fever. The doctor diagnoses fever by asking patients how they feel. The villagers may only answer that they feel normal, dizzy, or cold.  The doctor believes that the health condition of his patients operates as a discrete Markov chain. There are two states, "Healthy" and "Fever", but the doctor cannot observe them directly; they are "hidden" from him. On each day, there is a certain chance that the patient will tell the doctor he is "normal", "cold", or "dizzy", depending on their health condition.  The "observations" (normal, cold, dizzy) along with a "hidden" state (healthy, fever) form a hidden Markov model (HMM), and can be represented as follows in the Python programming language:  obs = ('normal', 'cold', 'dizzy') states = ('Healthy', 'Fever') trans_p = { emit_p = {  In this piece of code, codice_1 represents the doctor's belief about which state the HMM is in when the patient first visits (all he knows is that the patient tends to be healthy). The particular probability distribution used here is not the equilibrium one, which is (given the transition probabilities) approximately codice_2. The codice_3 represents the change of the health condition in the underlying Markov chain. In this example, there is only a 30% chance that tomorrow the patient will have a fever if he is healthy today. The codice_4 represents how likely each possible observation, normal, cold, or dizzy is given their underlying condition, healthy or fever. If the patient is healthy, there is a 50% chance that he feels normal; if he has a fever, there is a 60% chance that he feels dizzy.  The patient visits three days in a row and the doctor discovers that on the first day he feels normal, on the second day he feels cold, on the third day he feels dizzy. The doctor has a question: what is the most likely sequence of health conditions of the patient that would explain these observations? This is answered by the Viterbi algorithm. def viterbi(obs, states, start_p, trans_p, emit_p):  def dptable(V):  The function codice_5 takes the following arguments: codice_6 is the sequence of observations, e.g. codice_7; codice_8 is the set of hidden states; codice_1 is the start probability; codice_10 are the transition probabilities; and codice_11 are the emission probabilities. For simplicity of code, we assume that the observation sequence codice_6 is non-empty and that codice_13 and codice_14 is defined for all states i,j.  In the running example, the forward/Viterbi algorithm is used as follows: viterbi(obs,  The output of the script is $ python viterbi_example.py Healthy: 0.30000 0.08400 0.00588 Fever: 0.04000 0.02700 0.01512 The steps of states are Healthy Healthy Fever with highest probability of 0.01512 This reveals that the observations codice_7 were most likely generated by states codice_16. In other words, given the observed activities, the patient was most likely to have been healthy both on the first day when he felt normal as well as on the second day when he felt cold, and then he contracted a fever the third day.  The operation of Viterbi's algorithm can be visualized by means of a trellis diagram. The Viterbi path is essentially the shortest path through this trellis.

The Viterbi algorithm is a dynamic programming algorithm for finding the most likely sequence of hidden states—called the Viterbi path—that results in a sequence of observed events, especially in the context of Markov information sources and hidden Markov models (HMM).


Performance history.

The opera was first performed at Glyndebourne in England on 12 July 1946. It is the first work to which Britten applied his term "chamber opera." The opera debuted in the United States on Broadway at the Ziegfeld Theatre in a production staged by Agnes de Mille which opened on 29 December 1948 and closed on 15 January 1949 after 23 performances. The cast notably included Giorgio Tozzi as Tarquinius, Kitty Carlisle as Lucretia, Lidija Franklin as Bianca, Brenda Lewis as the Female Chorus, and Adelaide Bishop as Lucia.  In 1996 the opera was presented at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis directed by Britten expert and friend, Colin Graham. It also appeared in the Opera Company of Philadelphia's 2009 season. In 2013, the opera was performed for the first time by Glyndebourne since its premiere, directed by actress Fiona Shaw. This production opened on tour to great acclaim. Shaw's production premiered at Glyndebourne's festival in 2015 to similar acclaim.

Synopsis.

Prologue.

The Male and Female Choruses explain the situation in Rome: ruled by the foreigner Tarquinius Superbus and fighting off a Greek invasion, the city has sunk into depravity. The two choruses describe their own role as Christian interpreters of the pagan story about to begin. Throughout the opera the Male Chorus will narrate the thoughts of the male characters, and the Female Chorus those of the female characters.

Act 1.

In an armed camp outside Rome, Tarquinius, Collatinus and Junius are drinking together. The previous night, a group of soldiers rode home unexpectedly to Rome to check on their wives, all of whom were caught betraying their husbands, with the single exception of Collatinus' wife Lucretia. Junius, whose wife was among the faithless majority, goads young Tarquinius, the king's son, into testing Lucretia's chastity himself. The impulsive prince calls for his horse and gallops off to the city alone.  At Collatinus' house in Rome, Lucretia is patiently spinning with her servants Bianca and Lucia. She longs for her absent husband. As the women prepare for bed, there is a knock at the door: Tarquinius. Though fearful, they cannot refuse to offer the prince hospitality.

Act 2.

As Lucretia sleeps, Tarquinius creeps into her bedroom and awakens her with a kiss. She begs him to go, but certain that she desires him, he rapes her.  The following morning, Lucia and Bianca are glad to discover that Tarquinius has already left the house. Lucretia enters, calm but obviously devastated. She sends a messenger asking Collatinus to come home. Bianca tries to stop the messenger, but Collatinus arrives at once (accompanied by Junius). He comforts his wife lovingly, but she feels that she will never be clean again. She stabs herself and dies. All mourn. Junius plans to use this crime by the prince to spark a rebellion against the king.  The Female Chorus is left in despair at the moral emptiness of this story. But the Male Chorus tells her that all pain is given meaning, and all sin redeemed, in the suffering of Christ. The two end the opera with a prayer.

The Rape of Lucretia (Op. 37) is an opera in two acts by Benjamin Britten, written for Kathleen Ferrier, who performed the title role. Ronald Duncan based his English libretto on André Obey's play "".


History.

The saloon was launched at the 39th Geneva Motor Show in March 1969, replacing the previous largest and most exclusive Fiat saloon, the Fiat 2300. It was a thoroughly modern car, with four-wheel independent suspension (modified MacPherson struts front and rear, with torsion bars in the front and coil springs in the rear).  The Coupé, based on the same platform, was introduced in March 1971 having been designed by Paolo Martin of Pininfarina, who also manufactured the car. With a unique interior design (adopted in the saloon when it was upgraded to the 130B version which also featured the Coupé's enlarged 3235 cc V6), it featured a button-operated mechanism allowing the driver to open the passenger-side door. In addition to this model, there were two one-off variations built, a 2-door estate named "Maremma" and a 4-door saloon named "Opera".  Production of the saloon ended in 1976, with 15,093 produced (including 4 Familiare’s built by Officine Introzzo of Como) The Coupé continued until the following year, and 4,294 were built in total.

Specifications.

Engine and transmission.

Using the "128 type A" motor as a basis, a new crossflow V6 engine, with a 60° vee angle and rubber-toothed-belt driven twin overhead camshafts was developed for the model by Aurelio Lampredi. It became known as the "130 type A" engine with a capacity of 2,866 cc and a power output of at 5,600 rpm.  The engine was uprated to for 1970, which involved raising the compression ratio from 8.3:1 to 9.0:1, increasing the size of the carburettor choke from 42 to 45 mm and reducing back pressure by extending the portion of the exhaust manifold that used individual pipes on each side of the V format engine. This provided useful performance improvements in a market-segment where relatively new models from Mercedes-Benz and Jaguar were setting an increasingly competitive pace.  In 1971, the "130 type B" engine was introduced, featuring a slightly increased bore (102 mm instead of 96 mm), displacing 3,235 cc and producing at 5,600 rpm.  Power was delivered to the rear axle via standard Borg-Warner three-speed automatic transmission, and a five-speed ZF S5-18/3 ZF manual was an option.

Suspension.

Front suspension was a modified MacPherson strut, with longitudinal torsion bars acting at base of the control arms instead of coil springs on the struts, to allow room for the wide V6 and the optional air conditioning. The height of the front suspension is adjustable, using eccentric cams in the ends of the torsion bars, where they are attached to the body.  The rear suspension is a modified Chapman strut, using nearly trailing arms carrying the coil springs, axle shafts as lateral control links, and toe control links, with good wheel geometry control. Axle shafts are connected by universal joints at both the hubs and the limited-slip differential. The rear suspension geometry can be finely tuned.

Steering.

The 130 had ZF power steering. The steering column was adjustable for rake and reach.

Models.

Fiat 130 Saloon type "A".

Launched in 1969, with the 2866 cc engine. The press soon concluded that the was insufficient in view of the weight of about, hence the Fiat 130 berlina type "A" did not compete with the big BMW and Mercedes sedans. Interior design was not ambitious, with rectangular dials in the dashboard, a black plastic centre console and black plastic everywhere.

Fiat 130 Coupé.

Identified as type "BC" on their chassis, the 130 Coupé appeared in 1971 at Geneva motor show exhibiting a completely new 2-door body and a completely new interior. Both exterior and interior styling were the work of Paolo Martin at Pininfarina. The car won a design prize, attributed to Pininfarina, and this helped Pininfarina begin a new life after all those years relying on the "Fiat 1800/Peugeot 404/Austin A60" concepts. Pininfarina extended the Fiat 130 Coupé line with two proposals that were rejected by Fiat: the Maremma in 1974 (2-door shooting brake) and the Opera in 1975 (4-door saloon). Paolo Martin never got involved in these Fiat 130 Coupé variations, as he left the company soon after the design prize in 1971.  The seats were shaped and designed by Paolo Martin with the collaboration of Giovanni Gottin, a specialist established in Turin. The dashboard was redesigned with sporty round dials, using white needles.  The central console was redesigned by Paolo Martin, featuring wooden veneer, a row of switches and soft illumination throughout using state of the art fibre optics. The steering column is adjustable for rake and reach. The driver's seat has a degree of height adjustment. "*stated by Pininfarina production records"

Fiat 130 Berlina type "B".

These cars were improved in 1971, taking on board some Paolo Martin innovations conceived for the Coupé. The steering column, the dashboard, the central console and the ventilation are identical to the Coupé. The seats, the steering wheel and the door panels were improved, but differently from the Coupé. One can say the 1971 "B" version from 1971 is significantly more refined than the "A" version dating from 1969. Retrospectively, if one compares the 130 with big BMW and Mercedes sedans, the Fiat 130 Berlina type "B" may be the winner in terms of interior design and some comfort elements. But if one is considering the dynamic elements like power and ride comfort, the Fiat 130 type "B" is still lagging as the engine is not blessed with fuel injection (somewhat difficult to start—depending on the conditions), the engine does not have hydraulic self-adjusting valves, and the engine is simply not powerful enough. All this combines with a worryingly high fuel consumption. And this lack of dash and lack of efficiency are not compensated for with an extra smooth ride.

Critical appraisal.

British "Motor" magazine reviewed the 130 and decided that the car's strong points were excellent handling and road-holding, smooth ride, very high standard of interior and comfort plus an enormous boot. Against the car were its noisy engine, heavy fuel consumption and price. Motor described ultimate cornering power as very high. The UK's "Autocar" tested the car and described it as a dignified Italian. The overall verdict from "Autocar" was similar to that of "Motor", but they added that the brakes were spongy [and] road noise was obtrusive, though to its credit the car was very well appointed and finished and had first-class visibility. Concerning the handling, the road-testers went on to write, "seldom have we encountered such excellent handling in a car of this size. Its superbly balanced feel inspires tremendous confidence, allowing high averages to be achieved without conscious driver effort". Under a review of the coupe version of the 130, "Car" described the engine as providing a comfortable level of overall performance with good intermediate range torque. According to "Car" the saloon had a less-controlled ride than the coupe and less positive handling, the hard-driven saloon getting "more wallowy at times"

The Fiat 130 is a large six cylinder executive car produced by Italian car manufacturer Fiat from 1969 to 1977. It was available as a 4-door saloon and as a 2-door coupé.


Life.

Born in Florence, he was recognized by the majority of his contemporaries as the only son of Lorenzo II de' Medici (grandson of Lorenzo de' Medici "the Magnificent"). A few believed him to be in fact the illegitimate son of Giulio de' Medici (later Pope Clement VII), nephew of Lorenzo the Magnificent, but at the time that was a minority view.  Alessandro's nickname "il Moro" ("the Moor") is said to derive from his features. Some historians (such as Christopher Hibbert) believe he had been born to a servant of African descent who was working in the Medici household, identified in documents as Simonetta da Collevecchio. The French author Jean Nestor, writing in the 1560s, reported that the claim of a Moorish slave origin was a false rumor first spread by Alessandro's exiled enemies in Naples.  When Emperor Charles V sacked Rome in 1527, a faction of Florentines took advantage of the turmoil in Italy to reinstall the Florentine Republic. Both Alessandro and Ippolito de' Medici fled, along with most of the Medici and their main supporters, including Cardinal Silvio Passerini (the regent for young Alessandro and Ippolito, and de facto ruler of Florence for Pope Clement VII). Eight-year-old Catherine de' Medici was left behind. Michelangelo, then occupied in creating a funerary chapel for the Medici, initially took charge of building fortifications around Florence in support of the Republic; however, he later fled the city, fearing retribution. Eventually Clement made his peace with the Emperor, and in the summer of 1530, following a lengthy siege supported by Imperial troops, the Medici were restored to power. In 1530, Clement VII assigned Florence to nineteen-year-old Alessandro, choosing him for the position over Ippolito (the latter was made a cardinal). In the meantime, Alessandro had become Duke of Penne, an appointment purchased from the Emperor. He arrived in Florence to take up his rule on 5 July 1531, and nine months later was made hereditary Duke of Florence by Charles V (as Tuscany lay outside the Papal States). This signaled the end of the Republic.  Alessandro's many enemies among the Florentine exiles declared that his rule was harsh, depraved and incompetent, an assessment debated by historians. One relic of his rule sometimes pointed out as a symbol of oppression is the massive "Fortezza da Basso", a fortress that is today the largest historical monument of Florence. In 1535, the Florentine opposition sent his cousin Ippolito to appeal to Emperor Charles V against some actions of the duke, but Ippolito died en route. Rumors spread that he had been poisoned at Alessandro's orders.  In a late replay of the kind of medieval civil politics that had long revolved around pope and emperor, commune and lord, Emperor Charles V supported Alessandro against the Florentine exiles. In 1536, Charles V married his natural daughter Margaret of Austria to Alessandro. For his own inclinations, Alessandro seems to have remained faithful to one mistress, Taddea Malaspina, who bore his only children: Giulio de' Medici (c. 1533/37 – 1600), who also had illegitimate issue, and Giulia de' Medici.

Death.

In 1537 his distant cousin Lorenzino de' Medici, nicknamed "Lorenzaccio" ("bad Lorenzo"), assassinated him. (This event is the subject of Alfred de Musset's play "Lorenzaccio".) Lorenzino entrapped Alessandro through the ruse of a promised arranged sexual encounter with Lorenzino's sister Laudomia, a beautiful widow. For fear of starting an uprising if news of his death got out, Medici officials wrapped Alessandro's corpse in a carpet and secretly carried it to the cemetery of San Lorenzo, where it was hurriedly buried.  In Valladolid (Spain), where the imperial court of Charles V was established, a solemn funeral was celebrated.  Lorenzino, in a declaration published later, said that he had killed Alessandro for the sake of the republic. When the anti-Medici faction failed to rise, Lorenzino fled to Venice, where he was killed in 1548. The Medici supporters (called ""Palleschi"" from the balls on the Medici arms) ensured that power then passed to Cosimo I de' Medici, the first of the "junior" branch of the Medici to rule Florence.  Alessandro was survived by two natural children of Taddea's: a son, Giulio (aged four at the time of his father's death) married to Lucrezia Gaetani, and a daughter, Giulia, married firstly to Francesco Cantelmo, the Duke of Popoli, and then to Bernadetto de' Medici, the Prince of Ottajano.

Alessandro de' Medici (22 July 1510 – 6 January 1537), nicknamed "il Moro" ("the Moor") due to his dark complexion, Duke of Penne and also Duke of Florence (from 1532), was ruler of Florence from 1531 to his death in 1537. The first Medici to rule Florence as a hereditary monarch, Alessandro was also the last Medici from the senior line of the family to lead the city. His assassination at the hands of a distant cousin, Lorenzaccio, caused the duchy of Florence to pass to Cosimo I de Medici, from the family's junior branch.


Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany

Biography.

Born in Florence, he was the son of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Eleanor of Toledo. He served as regent for his father Cosimo after he retired from his governing duties in 1564.

Marriage to Joanna of Austria.

On 18 December 1565, he married Joanna of Austria, youngest daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I and his wife Anne of Bohemia and Hungary, after Princess Elizabeth of Sweden, among others, had been considered. By all reports, it was not a happy marriage. Joanna was homesick for her native Austria, and Francesco was neither charming nor faithful. Joanna died at the age of thirty-one in 1578.

Bianca Cappello.

Soon after Grand Duchess Joanna had died, Francesco went on to marry his Venetian mistress, Bianca Cappello, after aptly disposing of her husband, a Florentine bureaucrat. Because of the quick remarriage and similar occurrences among the Medici (Francesco's younger brother Pietro had reportedly killed his wife), rumours spread that Francesco and Bianca had conspired to poison Joanna. Francesco reportedly built and decorated the Villa di Pratolino for Bianca. She was, however, not always popular among Florentines. They had no legitimate children, but Bianca had borne him a son, Antonio (29 August 1576 – 2 May 1621), in his first wife's lifetime. Following the death of Francesco's legitimate son Filippo in 1582, Antonio was proclaimed heir. Francesco also adopted Bianca's daughter by her first marriage, Pellegrina (1564-?). Like his father, Francesco was often despotic, but while Cosimo had known how to maintain Florentine independence, Francesco acted more like a vassal of the Habsburgs of Austria and Spain. He continued the heavy taxation of his subjects to pay large sums to the empire.  He had an avid interest in manufacturing and sciences. He founded porcelain and stoneware manufacture, but these did not thrive until after his death. He continued his father's patronage of the arts, supporting artists and building the Medici Theater as well as founding the Accademia della Crusca. He was also passionately interested in chemistry and alchemy and spent many hours in his private laboratory and curio collection, the Studiolo in the Palazzo Vecchio, which held his collections of natural items and stones and allowed him to dabble in chemistry and alchemical schemes.  Francesco and Bianca died on 19 and 20 October, both at the Medici Villa in Poggio a Caiano. Although the original death certificates mention malaria, it has been widely speculated that the couple was poisoned, possibly by Francesco's brother Ferdinando. While some early forensic research supported the latter theory, forensic evidence from a study in 2010 found the parasite "Plasmodium falciparum", which causes malaria, in the skeletal remains of Francesco I, which strongly bolstered the infection theory and the credibility of the official documents. Francesco was succeeded by his younger brother Ferdinando.  In 1857, all members of the Medici family were exhumed and reburied in the place where they still lie today. The painter Giuseppe Moricci attended the ceremony and depicted Francesco with a facial droop, a right claw hand appearance, the right shoulder internally rotated, the right calf muscle wasted and a right clubfoot confirmed by orthopaedic footwear within the coffin. These are the signs of a right-sided stroke possibly within the internal capsule. The presence of the orthopaedic footwear suggests that this stroke happened significantly before his death. During life, in his official portraits, the grand duke was always depicted as being in perfect physical condition. The cause of his stroke is not known, but malaria is known to cause this condition  There is a famous portrait of Francesco as a child by Bronzino that hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Francesco's marriage to Bianca and the couple's death was exploited by Thomas Middleton for his tragedy "Women Beware Women", published in 1658.

Children.

Francesco and Joanna had seven children:

Francesco I (25 March 1541 – 19 October 1587) was the second Grand Duke of Tuscany, ruling from 1574 until his death in 1587, a member of the House of Medici.


Childhood.

She was the daughter of Wenceslaus II of Bohemia and Judith of Habsburg. Her mother died when Elizabeth was five years old, and of her ten children only four of them lived to adulthood: Wenceslaus, Anne, Elizabeth and Margaret. Elizabeth and her siblings also had a half-sister called Agnes. Six years after the death of her mother, her father remarried, to a Polish princess called Elizabeth Richeza, from the Piast dynasty. Elizabeth's father then gained the Crown of Poland.  Many notable events occurred during Elizabeth's youth, including a devastating fire at Prague Castle in 1303, the death of her father, and the assassination of her brother Wenceslaus. Elizabeth was orphaned by the age of thirteen and lived with her sister, Anne. Her other sister, Margaret was married at the age of seven to Bolesław III the Generous, after he had come to the court of Bohemia with his mother, Elisabeth of Greater Poland.  Elizabeth went to live with her aunt Kunigunde in a nunnery near Prague Castle. Without a mother, Elizabeth was strongly influenced by her aunt. Her sister-in-law, Viola of Teschen and her stepmother, Elizabeth Richeza, came to live with Anne and Elizabeth until the relationship between the sisters deteriorated.

The fight for the throne.

In 1306, after the murder of Elizabeth's brother Wenceslaus, Elizabeth's brother-in-law Henry became King of Bohemia. Elizabeth was now the only unmarried princess in the family, and at fourteen she was considered a good age to marry, and as a result played an important role in the power struggle for the Kingdom of Bohemia.  The quarrels of the Bohemian throne between Henry of Bohemia and Rudolph of Habsburg resulted in Rudolph taking Bohemia and marrying Queen Elizabeth Richeza. Elizabeth went to live in Prague Castle with her brother's widow, Viola Elisabeth of Cieszyn. However, on Rudolph's death in 1307 the crown returned to her brother-in-law and sister, who wanted Elizabeth to marry the Lord of Bergova (Otto of Löbdaburg) for political reasons. Elizabeth refused to marry Otto and so Elizabeth and Anne fell out with each other.  An opposition group was formed against Henry and Anne, with Elizabeth as the figurehead.

Marriage to John of Luxembourg.

Elizabeth married the son of Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor, John of Luxembourg. She knew Anna and Henry's weaknesses and this marriage was one of them. The wedding took place on 1 September 1310, after John was forced to invade Bohemia. Henry and Anne fled to Carinthia where Anne died in 1313. The coronation of John and Elizabeth took place on 7 February 1311.  The marriage was initially a disaster, as Elizabeth needed to give birth to a son to prevent the inheritance of the descendants of her sisters, Margaret and Agnes, but did not have a son until six years into the marriage, when she gave birth to Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor.  The marriage improved for a while as the succession was safely secured, but after a while, Elizabeth grew jealous of John, who had listened to her but whose political opinions differed to hers. In 1319 an alleged plot was uncovered, to depose John and replace him with their eldest son Charles. John had the culprits punished.  John decided to prevent his wife from interfering in the education of their children, and took the three eldest children: Margaret, Bonne, and Charles, from Elizabeth's custody. Queen Elizabeth then lived at Mělník Castle and young Charles was imprisoned by his own father, before being sent to France in 1323. He never saw his mother again.

Later years.

In total isolation and abandoned by all, Elizabeth left Bohemia and went to live in exile in Bavaria. Her actions were considered an act of open hostility towards John and his nobles. In exile Elizabeth gave birth to her last children, twin daughters Anne and Elizabeth. John did not support Elizabeth during her exile. Elizabeth returned to Bohemia in 1325, with her daughter Anne, Elizabeth having died a few months before. When she returned she was ill, but she lived for another five years. Her final years were affected by her lack of finances, which made her unable to maintain a court. She eventually died of tuberculosis in 1330, at the age of thirty-eight.

Children.

Elizabeth and John were parents to seven children

Elizabeth of Bohemia () (20 January 1292 – 28 September 1330) was a princess of the Bohemian Přemyslid dynasty who became queen consort of Bohemia as the first wife of King John the Blind. She was the mother of Emperor Charles IV, King of Bohemia.


History.

Agadez was founded before the 14th century, and, by growing around trans-Saharan trade, gradually became the most important city of the Tuareg people, supplanting Assodé. The city still sees the arrival of caravans, bringing salt from Bilma.  In 1449 Agadez became a sultanate, but was later conquered by the Songhai Empire, remaining a part of that empire until 1591. At this point, the city had a population of around 30,000 people and was a key passage for the medieval caravans trading between the West African cities of Kano (the source of the Hausa language which is the traditional lingua franca between different ethnic groups in the city, especially in the area of trade, religion and administration) and Timbuktu, and the North African oases of Ghat, Ghadames, and Tripoli, on the Mediterranean shore. Internal fighting led to the gradual decline of the sultanate, and by the mid 19th century the town was a shadow of its former self.  Some contend that Agadez was the furthermost extent of the Ottoman Empire on the African continent until the 19th century, before being occupied by the French colonial empire, though this claim has not been verified by historians. The city was ruled by the French from 1906. A rebellion by Kaocen Ag Mohammed occurred in 1916, but was defeated by French forces. The French, unable to effectively administer this remote region, ruled semi-indirectly via a restored sultan. Later, Agadez became an important location in the Tuareg Rebellion of the 1990s in central and northern Niger.

2007 violence.

As a result of the Second Tuareg Rebellion, sporadic violence and the displacement of thousands of people affected the Agadez area from late 2007 into 2009. All of northern Niger was placed on the United States State Department list of areas which are unsafe for travel by United States citizens, covering late 2007 to the end of 2008. Tourist flights to Agadez were suspended by European airlines for the 2007–2008 tourist season (September – March). The burgeoning tourist industry, which prior to 2007 had surpassed that of Niamey and the rest of the nation, essentially came to an end. The entire region was placed under a Nigerien government "State of Exception" (limiting travel, gatherings, political activities, etc.) in October 2007, renewed through early 2009. Roads to and from Agadez were reported to have been mined, and the government closed the area to international journalists and aid organizations. An unknown number (reported as several thousands) of internally displaced people converged on the city as a result of the unrest.

Immigration towards Europe.

In the 2010s Agadez became a major transit town for West African migrants heading to Libya and then on to Europe. Crackdowns in 2016 slowed the flow of migrants, but recent Displacement Tracking Matrix data showed a daily average of 1,212 individuals crossing at six monitored points in Niger, many of whom would have been coming through Agadez.

Culture and tourism.

Today, Agadez flourishes as a market town and as a centre for the transportation of the uranium mined in the surrounding area. Notable buildings in the city include the Agadez Grand Mosque (originally dating from 1515 but rebuilt in the same style in 1844), the Kaocen Palace (now a hotel), and the Agadez Sultan's Palace. The city is also known for its camel market and its silver and leatherwork.  Some well-known musicians from the town include Tuareg guitar player Bombino and his band Group Bombino, and Group Inerane. Mdou Moctar's film, "Akounak Teggdalit Taha Tazoughai", is set and filmed on location in Agadez.

Airport and military usage.

Agadez's air transport hub, Mano Dayak International Airport, was named after Mano Dayak, the Tuareg leader who is native to the region.  The United States is building Nigerien Air Base 201, a dedicated drone airbase in Agadez from which it can more easily monitor what it calls terrorist activities in West and North Africa, and the Sahel. It was revealed in 2016 that the military base in Niger cost the U.S. $100 million.

Climate.

Agadez has a hot desert climate (Köppen climate classification "BWh").

Agadez, formerly spelled Agadès, is the 5th largest city in Niger, with a population of 110,497 (2012 census). The capital of Agadez Region, it lies in the Sahara desert, and is also the capital of Aïr, one of the traditional Tuareg–Berber federations. The historic centre of the town has been designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.


History.

The Abbey was founded in the 6th century by the son of Clovis I, Childebert I (ruled 511–558). Under royal patronage the Abbey became one of the richest in France, as demonstrated by its ninth-century polyptych; it housed an important scriptorium in the eleventh century and remained a center of intellectual life in the French Catholic church until it was disbanded during the French Revolution. An explosion of saltpetre in storage levelled the Abbey and its cloisters, but the church was spared. the statues in the portal were removed ("illustration") and some destroyed, and in a fire in 1794 the library vanished in smoke. The abbey church remains as the Église de Saint-Germain-des-Prés, one of the oldest churches in Paris.  In 542, while making war in Spain, Childebert raised his siege of Zaragoza when he heard that the inhabitants had placed themselves under the protection of the martyr Saint Vincent. In gratitude the bishop of Zaragoza presented him with the saint's stole. When Childebert returned to Paris, he caused a church to be erected to house the relic, dedicated to the Holy Cross and Saint Vincent, placed where he could see it across the fields from the royal palace on the Île de la Cité.  In 558, St. Vincent's church was completed and dedicated by Germain, Bishop of Paris on 23 December, the very day that Childebert died. Close by the church a monastery was erected. Its abbots had both spiritual and temporal jurisdiction over the suburbs of Saint-Germain (lasting till about the year 1670). The church was frequently plundered and set on fire by Vikings in the ninth century. It was rebuilt in 1014 and rededicated in 1163 by Pope Alexander III to Saint Germain of Paris, the canonized Bishop of Paris and Childeric's chief counsellor. The great wall of Paris subsequently built during the reign of Philip II of France did not encompass the abbey, leaving the residents to fend for themselves. This also had the effect of splitting the Abbey's holdings into two. A new refectory was built for the monastery by Peter of Montereau in around 1239 - he was later the architect of the Sainte-Chapelle.  The abbey church's west end tower was pierced by a portal, completed in the twelfth century, which collapsed in 1604 and was replaced in 1606 by the present classicising portal, by Marcel Le Roy. Its choir, with its apsidal east end, provides an early example of flying buttresses.  It gave its name to the quarter of Saint-Germain-des-Prés that developed around the abbey. This area is also part of the Latin Quarter, because the Abbey donated some of its lands along the Seine—the "Pré aux Clercs" ("fields of the scholars") for the erection of buildings to house the University of Paris, where Latin was the "lingua franca" among students who arrived from all over Europe and shared no other language.  Until the late 17th century, the Abbey owned most of the land in the Left Bank west of the current Boulevard Saint-Michel and had administrative autonomy in it, most clearly for the part outside the walls of Paris.  Louis-César de Bourbon, son of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan, was an abbot here.  In the 17th century the district of Saint-Germain was among the most desirable on the Left Bank. Marguerite de Valois pressured the abbot to donate abbey land to her, too. She built a palace on it, and set a fashionable tone for the area that lasted until the Saint-Honoré district north of the Champs-Élysées eclipsed it in the early eighteenth century. Her palace was located at the current numbers 2-10 rue de Seine. The gardens of the estate extended west to the current rue Bellechasse.  The tomb of philosopher René Descartes is located in one of the church's side chapels.

Former configuration.

At its apogee, the Abbey extended to the area now bordered to the north by the (current) rue Jacob, to the East by the rue de l'Echaudée, to the south by the south side of the Boulevard Saint-Germain and the rue Gozlin, and to the west by the rue St-Benoit.  A lady chapel was build (c. 1244-7), with glazed windows including a scene showing the death of St Germain; this is currently in the collection of Winchester College.  From 1275 to 1636, the pillory of the Abbey was located in the current Place d'Acadie, better known to Parisians as the Mabillon due to the eponymous Métro station located there. This square was therefore called the "Place du Pilori" and the current rue de Buci leading to it was called the "rue du Pilori".  The pillory was removed upon the rebuilding of the Abbey's prison in 1635 (a prison had stood there since the Middle Ages). It was located in what is now the Boulevard Saint-Germain, just west of the current Passage de la Petite Boucherie. In 1675 it was requisitioned for a military prison. The prison was known for its extremely poor condition, for example, in 1836, Benjamin Appert wrote :  The prison was the site of one of the September massacres of 1792 and was eventually destroyed to make way for the Boulevard Saint-Germain.

Saint-Germain-des-Prés () is a parish church located in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés quarter of Paris. Founded by Childebert I in the 540s as the Abbaye Sainte-Croix-Saint-Vincent, by the middle of the 8th century it had taken on the name of Saint Germanus (French: Germain), the man appointed bishop of Paris by Childebert and later canonized. Originally located beyond the outskirts of early medieval Paris, it became a rich and important abbey complex and was the burial place of Germanus and of Childebert and other Merovingian kings of Neustria. At that time, the Left Bank was prone to flooding from the Seine, so much of the land could not be built upon and the Abbey stood in the middle of meadows, or "prés" in French, thereby explaining its appellation, which also serves to distinguish it from the church of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois near the Louvre. The oldest part of the current church is the prominent western tower (partly restored and modified), which was built by Abbot Morard around the year 1000.


Early life and education.

Gyula (Julius) Halász, Brassaï (pseudonym) was born on 9 September 1899 in Brassó, Kingdom of Hungary (today Brașov, Romania) to an Armenian mother and a Hungarian father. He grew up speaking Hungarian and Romanian. When he was three, his family lived in Paris for a year, while his father, a professor of French literature, taught at the Sorbonne.  As a young man, Halász studied painting and sculpture at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts (Magyar Képzőművészeti Egyetem) in Budapest. He joined a cavalry regiment of the Austro-Hungarian army, where he served until the end of the First World War.  He cited Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec as an artistic influence.

Career.

In 1920, Halász went to Berlin, where he worked as a journalist for the Hungarian papers "Keleti" and "Napkelet". He started studies at the Berlin-Charlottenburg Academy of Fine Arts ("Hochschule für Bildende Künste"), now Universität der Künste Berlin. There he became friends with several older Hungarian artists and writers, including the painters Lajos Tihanyi and Bertalan Pór, and the writer György Bölöni, each of whom later moved to Paris and became part of the Hungarian circle.  In 1924, Halasz moved to Paris to live, where he would stay for the rest of his life. He began teaching himself the French language by reading the works of Marcel Proust. Living among the gathering of young artists in the Montparnasse quarter, he took a job as a journalist. He soon became friends with the American writer Henry Miller, and the French writers Léon-Paul Fargue and Jacques Prévert. In the late 1920s, he lived in the same hotel as Tihanyi.  Miller later played down Brassai's claims of friendship. In 1976 he wrote of Brassai: "Fred [Perles] and I used to steer shy of him – he bored us." Miller added that the biography Brassai had written of him was typically "padded", "full of factual errors, full of suppositions, rumors, documents he filched which are largely false or give a false impression."  Halász's job and his love of the city, whose streets he often wandered late at night, led to photography. He first used it to supplement some of his articles for more money, but rapidly explored the city through this medium, in which he was tutored by his fellow Hungarian André Kertész. He later wrote that he used photography "to capture the beauty of streets and gardens in the rain and fog, and to capture Paris by night." Using the name of his birthplace, Halász went by the pseudonym "Brassaï," which means "from Brasso."  Brassaï captured the essence of the city in his photographs, published as his first collection in the 1933 book entitled "Paris de nuit" (Paris by Night). His book gained great success, resulting in being called "the eye of Paris" in an essay by Henry Miller. In addition to photos of the seedier side of Paris, Brassai portrayed scenes from the life of the city's high society, its intellectuals, its ballet, and the grand operas. He had been befriended by a French family who gave him access to the upper classes. Brassai photographed many of his artist friends, including Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Alberto Giacometti, and several of the prominent writers of his time, such as Jean Genet and Henri Michaux.  Young Hungarian artists continued to arrive in Paris through the 1930s and the Hungarian circle absorbed most of them. Kertèsz immigrated to New York City in 1936. Brassai befriended many of the new arrivals, including Ervin Marton, a nephew of Tihanyi, whom he had been friends with since 1920. Marton developed his own reputation in street photography in the 1940s and 1950s. Brassaï continued to earn a living with commercial work, also taking photographs for the U.S. magazine "Harper's Bazaar".  He was a founding member of the Rapho agency, created in Paris by Charles Rado in 1933.  Brassaï's photographs brought him international fame. In 1948, he had a one-man show at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, which travelled to George Eastman House in Rochester, New York; and the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois. MoMA exhibited more of Brassai's works in 1953, 1956, and 1968. He was presented at the Rencontres d'Arles festival in France in 1970 (screening at the Théâtre Antique, "Brassaï" by Jean-Marie Drot), in 1972 (screening "Brassaï si, Vominino" by René Burri), and in 1974 (as guest of honour).

Marriage.

In 1948, Brassaï married Gilberte Boyer, a French woman. She worked with him in supporting his photography. In 1949, he became a naturalized French citizen after years of being stateless.

Death.

Brassaï died on 8 July 1984 at his home on the French Riviera near Nice. He was 84 years old.

Collections.

Brassaï's work is held in the following public collections:

Brassaï (; pseudonym of Gyula Halász; 9 September 1899 – 8 July 1984) was a Hungarian–French photographer, sculptor, medalist, writer, and filmmaker who rose to international fame in France in the 20th century. He was one of the numerous Hungarian artists who flourished in Paris beginning between the world wars.


History.

Hildebert (or Ansius), a canon of Auxerre, petitioned Abbot Stephen Harding of Cîteaux to found a monastery in a place he had selected for this purpose. Accordingly in 1114 Saint Stephen sent twelve monks under the guidance of Hugh of Mâcon, the first abbot and a friend and kinsman of Bernard of Clairvaux, to establish the new foundation. Under Abbot Hugh and his successor, Guichard, the new monastery developed such a reputation for sanctity that it attracted sufficient numbers to be able to establish another twenty-two Cistercian monasteries.  Many members of the community of Pontigny went on to occupy high positions in the church and many distinguished personages sought refuge there. Amongst the former were, for example, Blessed Hugh of Mâcon, Bishop of Auxerre (d. 1151); Girard Mainard, Cardinal Bishop of Praeneste (d. 1202); and Robert, Cardinal Titular of St. Pudentiana (d. 1294). The latter included three Archbishops of Canterbury: Saint Thomas Becket,and Stephen Langton. Saint Edmund of Abingdon was taken ill here on his way to a conclave in Rome, and died and was buried in the Abbey.  Over the centuries, however, the original strict discipline relaxed, especially from 1456, when the abbey was given "in commendam". In 1569 it was pillaged and burnt by the Huguenots, only the relics of Saint Edmund being saved. Partly restored, it continued in existence until it was suppressed during the French Revolution. The monastic buildings were largely destroyed, but the church was saved, due to the respect in which the cult of Saint Edmund was still held, and continued in use after the Revolution as a parish church.  In 1843 a community of the Fathers of St. Edmund was established here by J. B. Muard.  In 1909 the remaining southern wing (refectory and dormitories of the lay brothers) was bought by the philosopher Paul Desjardins, who from 1910 to 1914 held meetings every year at the abbey, known as "Decades of Pontigny", or conferences of ten days' duration, where the intellectual élite of Europe met including inter alia Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, T. S. Eliot, Thomas Mann, Heinrich Mann, Nikolai Berdyaev. Between 1922 and 1939, after the end of World War I, Desjardins reorganized the conferences to evaluate the future of Europe, annually bringing together such notables as Charles du Bos, Roger Martin du Gard, André Gide, Paul Langevin, André Malraux, François Mauriac, Jacques Rivière and Alice Voinescu, among others.

Burials.

Among the burials in the abbey church are the following:

Viticulture.

Next to their religious duties the monks of Pontigny were also much occupied in the cultivation of vineyards. They established the original vineyard from which the present Chablis wine traces its descent.

Pilgrims' Route.

The abbey is a stopping-point on one of the pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela.

Pontigny Abbey (), the church of which in recent decades has also been the cathedral of the Mission de France, otherwise the Territorial Prelature of Pontigny (), was a Cistercian monastery located in Pontigny on the River Serein, in the present diocese of Sens and department of Yonne, Burgundy, France. Founded in 1114, it was the second of the four great daughter houses of Cîteaux Abbey. It was suppressed in 1791 in the French Revolution and destroyed except for the church. In 1843 it was re-founded as a community of the Fathers of St. Edmund. In 1909 it passed into private ownership. In 1941 it became the mother house of the Mission de France, a territorial prelature.


Biography.

Anne was the daughter of Polish Duke Henry II of Świdnica-Jawor from the Silesian branch of the Piast dynasty. Her mother was Katherine of Hungary, the daughter of Charles I of Hungary. In his autobiography written in Latin, which covers only his youth prior to marrying Anna, emperor Charles mentions "civitatem Swidnitz" and "dux Swidnicensis", as depicted in the coat of arms room of his Wenzelschloss castle at Lauf an der Pegnitz near Nuremberg.  Anne's father died when she was four years old, and her childless uncle, Bolko II, Duke of Świdnica-Jawor became her guardian. She was brought up and educated by her mother at Visegrád in Hungary. At the age of 11, Anne had been promised to Wenceslaus, newborn son and successor to Charles IV. After the infant Wenceslaus and his mother Anna of the Palatinate died, the now-widowed Emperor asked to marry Anne himself. The planned marriage was part of the strategies devised by Charles and his then-deceased father John to gain control of the Piast Duchies of Silesia as "vedlejší země" ("neighboring countries") for the Kingdom of Bohemia. Anne's uncle, Louis I of Hungary, the future King of Poland, was able to assist her by renouncing his rights to Świdnica in favor of the House of Luxemburg.  At the instigation of archbishop Arnošt of Pardubice, Pope Innocent VI issued a dispensation for the marriage, which was required because of the degree of relationship between the bride and groom (they were second cousins once removed through their common ancestors Rudolf I of Germany and Gertrude of Hohenberg). The two were married on 27 May 1353, when Anne was 14; her new husband was 37. The wedding was attended by Anne's guardian Bolko II of Świdnica, Duke Albert II of Austria, King Louis of Hungary, Margrave Louis of Brandenburg, Duke Rudolf of Saxony, an envoy of King Casimir III of Poland, and an envoy of the Republic of Venice.  On 28 July 1353, Anna was crowned Queen of Bohemia in Prague by Archbishop Arnošt of Pardubice. On 9 February 1354, in Aachen, she was crowned German queen. As part of the coronation of Charles as Holy Roman Emperor on 5 April 1355, in the Roman Basilica of Saint Peter, Anne was crowned Empress of the Holy Roman Empire. She was thereby the first Queen of Bohemia to become Empress.  In 1358, Anne bore a daughter, Elisabeth, who was named after Elisabeth of Bohemia (1292–1330). In February 1361 she became mother of the desired successor to the throne, Wenceslaus, who was born in Nuremberg, and baptized on 11 April in the Sebalduskirche by the Archbishops of Prague, Cologne, and Mainz. She did not live to see the coronation of the two-year-old Wenceslaus, however. At age 23, she died in childbirth on 11 July 1362. She is buried in St. Vitus Cathedral. The emperor married Elisabeth of Pomerania one year later. The Duchies of Świdnica and Jawor passed to Bohemia after Bolko's death in 1368.

Anna of Schweidnitz (Świdnica) (also known as Anne or Anna of Świdnica,,, ) (Świdnica, 1339 – 11 July 1362 in Prague) was Queen of Bohemia, German Queen, and Empress of the Holy Roman Empire. She was the third wife of Emperor Charles IV.


Description.

"Vinca" plants are subshrubs or herbaceous, and have slender trailing stems long but not growing more than above ground; the stems frequently take root where they touch the ground, enabling the plant to spread widely. The leaves are opposite, simple broad laneolate to ovate, long and broad; they are evergreen in four species, but deciduous in the herbaceous "V. herbacea", which dies back to the root system in winter.  The flowers, produced through most of the growing season, are salverform (like those of "Phlox"), simple, broad, with five usually violet (occasionally white) petals joined together at the base to form a tube. The fruit consists of a pair of divergent follicles; the dry fruit dehisces along one rupture site to release seeds.

Gardens.

Two of the species, "Vinca major" and "Vinca minor", are extensively cultivated as a flowering evergreen ornamental plant. Because the plants are low and spread quickly, they are often used as groundcover in garden landscapes and container gardens. They are also traditionally used in older cemeteries as an evergreen maintenance-free ground cover. Many cultivars are available, with different plant, leaf, and flower colors, sizes, and habits.

Invasive plant species.

Although attractive, both "Vinca major" and "Vinca minor" may be invasive in some regions where they are introduced species because the rapid spreading chokes out native plant species and alters habitats. Areas affected include parts of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States, especially coastal California.

Medicinal use.

The vinca alkaloids include at least 86 alkaloids extracted from plants in the genus "Vinca". The chemotherapy agent vincristine is extracted from a closely related species, "Catharanthus roseus", and is used to treat some leukemias, lymphomas, and childhood cancers, as well as several other types of cancer and some non-cancerous conditions. Vinblastine is a chemical analogue of vincristine and is also used to treat various forms of cancer. Dimeric alkaloids such as vincristine and vinblastine are produced by the coupling the smaller indole alkaloids vindoline and catharanthine. In addition, the nootropic agent vincamine is derived from "Vinca minor". Vinorelbine, a newer semi-synthetic chemotherapeutic agent, is used in the treatment of non-small-cell lung cancer and is prepared either from the natural products leurosine or catharanthine and vindoline, in both cases by first preparing anhydrovinblastine.

Species.

Accepted species:

Vinca (; Latin: "vincire" "to bind, fetter") is a genus of flowering plants in the family Apocynaceae, native to Europe, northwest Africa and southwest Asia. The English name periwinkle is shared with the related genus "Catharanthus" (and also with the common seashore mollusc, "Littorina littorea").


Life and music.

Eduard Strauss' style was individual and did not attempt to emulate the works of his other brothers or his contemporaries. But he was primarily remembered and recognized as a dance music conductor rather than as a major composer in the, and his popularity was overshadowed by that of his elder brothers. Realising this, he stamped his own mark with the quick polka, known in German as the "polka-schnell". Among the more popular polkas that he penned for the Strauss Orchestra, which he continued to conduct until its disbandment on 13 February 1901, were "", Op. 45, "Ausser Rand und Band", Op. 168, and "Ohne Bremse", Op. 238. He also found time to pen a few lovely waltzes, of which only a handful survived obscurity. The most famous is probably "Doctrinen", Op.79.  Strauss's musical career was pervaded with rivalry, not only from his brothers, but also from the military bandmaster and dance music composer Karl Michael Ziehrer, who even formed a rival orchestra called "Formerly Eduard Strauss Orchestra", and began giving concerts in Vienna under this new title. Eduard Strauss successfully filed a court action against Ziehrer for the improper and misleading use of his name, but Ziehrer would eventually surpass the Strauss family in popularity in Vienna, particularly after the deaths of his more talented brothers, Johann Strauss II and Josef Strauss. Their rivalry was to extend until the Strauss Orchestra was disbanded.  Strauss married Maria Klenkhart on 8 January 1863 and had two sons, Johann Strauss III and Josef Eduard Strauss. The elder son, Johann Strauss III, was to lead the Strauss revival well into the 20th century. Josef Eduard's son, Eduard Strauss II, was active as conductor.  However, personal setbacks in the 1890s, such as the death of brother Johann Strauss II in 1899, and his realization that his immediate family had squandered his personal fortune, led Eduard Strauss to decide on retirement. Eduard Strauss engaged in the final tour of his musical career to North America in 1899 and in 1901, disbanded the Strauss Orchestra, and returned to Vienna, where he died in 1916. He retired from public life and never actively took part in any public musical activity, although he did document his family memoirs titled "Erinnerungen" in 1906. He is buried in Zentralfriedhof (Vienna) cemetery.  Since 1825, the Strauss Orchestra Archives collected the compositions of not only Eduard, but of Johann II and the rest of the Strauss family. In 1907, Eduard instructed that the archives be burned. Eighty years later, conductors Alfred Walker and Klaus Heymann managed to put together a semi-complete collection of Johann's works (according to Johann Strauss II: The Complete Orchestral Edition).

Eduard "Edi" Strauss (15 March 1835 – 28 December 1916) was an Austrian composer who, together with his brothers Johann Strauss II and Josef Strauss made up the Strauss musical dynasty. He was the son of Johann Strauss I and Maria Anna Streim. The family dominated the Viennese light music world for decades, creating many waltzes and polkas for many Austrian nobility as well as dance-music enthusiasts around Europe. He was affectionately known in his family as 'Edi'.