History.

The area of today's town was settled already in prehistorical era. During the reconstruction of Square of TGM in 2011 ceramic shards and Celtic settlement from 1st century BC were found.  In 9th century a Slavic hillfort was built on cape above the Lužnice river (one of the most important in Bohemia at that time, according to Kosmas's Chronicle). In 1268, Přemysl Otakar II. decided to build his castle there. Jan Lucemburský established a town in castle's surroundings in 1323. In the second half of 16th century were the owners Rožmberks and they rebuilt the castle to renaissance mansion.  Bechyně was the capital of South Bohemian Region until 1776, then it became less important (at first capital of the district and finally nothing).

Ceramic tradition.

Ceramic tradition in Bechyně began in 15th century by small pottery shops. This ceramic tradition has evolved from pottery to a big sanitary ceramic factory of Schweizer Keramik Holding AG Laufen company. There is also the oldest vocational school of ceramics in Bohemia, which is still functioning. Among its student were people like Karel Roden or Karel Kryl.

Tourism.

A local spa, which is here since 17th century, is specialized in body treatment using therapeutic mud.  Fireman museum on Square of TGM has a unique collection of old fire engines.  Bechyně has a rich theatre tradition since 1855, since 1990s there are 5 theatre festivals every year.  Thanks to river Lužnice and brooks Smutná and Židova strouha, Bechyně is visited by many tourists and rafters.

Bechyn, Minnesota.

In the USA in Minnesota is a little town called Bechyn, probably established by people from Bechyně who emigrated to USA to work there. They still say they have Czech origin and celebrate it every year by organizing "Bechyn Czechfest", where they keep old traditions.

Bechyně (, is a town in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. Also known as Bechin or Beching in German. as It is located on the Lužnice River 20 km southwest of Tábor and has a population of around 5,000.


Early life.

Mabillon was born in the town of Saint-Pierremont, then in the ancient Province of Champagne, now a part of the Department of Ardennes. He was the son of Estienne Mabillon (who died in 1692 at the age of 104) and his wife Jeanne Guérin. At the age of 12 he became a pupil at the Collège des Bons Enfants in Reims. Having entered the seminary in 1650, he left after three years and in 1653 became instead a monk in the Maurist Abbey of Saint-Remi. There his dedication to his studies left him ill, and in 1658 he was sent to Corbie Abbey to regain his strength. In 1663 he was transferred again to Saint-Denis Abbey near Paris, and the following year to the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris. This was a move which offered wide opportunities for scholarly acquaintances and Mabillon was to meet and work, among others, with Luc d'Achery, Charles du Fresne, Sieur du Cange, Étienne Baluze, and Louis-Sébastien Le Nain de Tillemont.

As editor and compiler.

At Saint-Germain, Mabillon prepared an edition of the works of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (published in 1667), and also worked on a monumental collection of the lives of the Benedictine Saints, under the title "Acta Ordinis S. Benedicti" (published in nine volumes between 1668 and 1701). The later work was undertaken in collaboration with Dom Luc d'Achery. This monk had long been the librarian of Saint-Germain-des-Prés and was senior to Mabillon. It was upon historical materials which d'Achery had collected that Mabillon drew for his "Acta". A foreword subsequently added by Mabillon used the lives of the saints in order to illustrate the history of the early Middle Ages.

"De re diplomatica".

In 1681, prompted by the doubts raised by the Jesuit Daniel van Papenbroek over the authenticity of supposed Merovingian documents held at the Abbey of Saint-Denis, Mabillon published his "De re diplomatica". This work investigated different types of medieval documents and manuscripts, including scrutiny of their script, style, seals, signatures, "testimonia", and other intrinsic and extrinsic factors, using an acquired "taste" derived from long experience, and consulting the views of other document scholars. Manuscripts from many archives are addressed, and references made to items dating back to Dagobert I (King of the Franks, c.629-639). Concerned often with "distinguishing genuine documents from forgeries" the work is now seen as the foundation work of palaeography and diplomatics. Mabillon writes:  I do not deny that in fact some documents are false and others interpolated, but all of them should not be dismissed for that reason. Rather, it is necessary to devise and hand down rules for distinguishing genuine manuscripts from those that are false and interpolated.... I undertook this task after long familiarity and daily experience with these documents. For almost twenty years I had devoted my studies and energies to reading and examining ancient manuscripts and archives, and the published collections of ancient documents.... I compared and weighed them with one another that I might be able to compile a body of knowledge which was not merely scanty and meager, but as accurate and as well-tested as possible in a field which had not been previously investigated.  This work brought Mabillon to the attention of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who offered him a pension (which he declined), and King Louis XIV. He began to travel throughout Europe, to Flanders, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy, in search of medieval manuscripts and books for the royal library.

Criticism.

Some of the less scholarly monks in Mabillon's own abbey criticized his "Lives" for being too academic; while Armand de Rancé, Abbot of La Trappe, declared that he was breaking the rules of his Order by devoting his life to study rather than manual labour. He also caused trouble by denouncing the veneration of the relics of "unknown saints", wrote a controversial critique of the works of St. Augustine of Hippo, and was accused of Jansenism, but at all times he was supported by the king and the Church.

Later career and legacy.

In 1701 Mabillon was appointed by the king as one of the founding members of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, and in 1704 a supplement to "De re diplomatica" was published. In 1707 he died and was buried in the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, in Paris.  According to Fritz Stern, writing in 1956, Mabillon was the "greatest historical scholar of his century". The Mabillon station of the Paris Métro is named after him.

Dom Jean Mabillon, O.S.B., (23 November 1632 – 27 December 1707) was a French Benedictine monk and scholar of the Congregation of Saint Maur. He is considered the founder of the disciplines of palaeography and diplomatics.


History.

The library was founded in 1648 by King Frederik III, who contributed a comprehensive collection of European works. It was opened to the public in 1793.  In 1989, it was merged with the prestigious Copenhagen University Library (founded in 1482) (UB1). In 2005, it was merged with the Danish National Library for Science and Medicine (UB2), now the Faculty Library of Natural and Health Sciences. The official name of the organization as of 1 January 2006 is The Royal Library, the National Library of Denmark and the Copenhagen University Library. In 2008, the Danish Folklore Archive was merged with the Royal Library.

Librarians.

The first librarian was Marcus Meibom, followed 1663-1671 by Peder Griffenfeld. Later librarians included J. H. Schlegel, Jon Erichsen, Daniel Gotthilf Moldenhawer (1787-1823 notorious for stealing numerous books to enrich the library collections) and Chr. Bruun. Since 1900 the former librarians are H.O. Lange (1901-1924), Carl S. Petersen (1924-1943), Svend Dahl (1943-1952), Palle Birkelund (1952-1982), Torkil Olsen (1982-1986), Erland Kolding Nielsen (1986-2017), followed by the present Director General Svend Larsen.

Items collected.

Books, journals, newspapers, pamphlets and corporate publications, manuscripts and archives, maps, prints and photographs, music scores, documentation of folkways and popular traditions, four annual electronic copies of the Danish Internet by legal deposit.  As of 2017, there Royal Library had 36,975,069 physical units and 2,438,978 electronic titles.

The Royal Library today.

Today, The Royal Library has five sites: The main library at Slotsholmen, Copenhagen harbour (in the Black Diamond), covering all subjects and special collections; one at Nørre Alle, Faculty Library of Natural and Health Sciences; one at Gothersgade, central Copenhagen, Faculty Library of Social Sciences; one at Amager, Faculty Library of Humanities; and, one in Studiestræde, central Copenhagen, The Faculty of Law Library. The annual circulation is 11,400,000 loans (10,900,000 of these are electronic loans). The members are 32,196 active users. The annual budget: 394M Danish Kroner (58M US Dollars), including building expenses and maintenance.  The library is open to anyone above the age of 18 with a genuine need to use the collections. Special rules apply for use of rare and valuable items.

Buildings at the Slotsholmen site.

The old building of the Slotsholmen site was built in 1906 by Hans Jørgen Holm. The central hall is a copy of Charlemagne's Palace chapel in the Aachen Cathedral. The building is still being used by the library. In 1999, a new building adjacent to the old one was opened at Slotsholmen, known as the Black Diamond. The Black Diamond building was designed by Danish architects schmidt hammer lassen. Named for its outside cover of black marble and glass, the Black Diamond building houses a concert hall in addition to the library.  The Black Diamond is formed by two black cubes that are slightly tilted over the street. In between, there is an eight-storey atrium whose walls are white and wave-shaped, with a couple of transversal corridors that link both sides, and balconies on every floor. The atrium's exterior wall is made of glass; so, you can see the sea; and, on the opposite shore, you can see Christianshavn's luxury buildings.  Three bridges connect the Black Diamond with the old part of the Royal Library; those three bridges (two small ones for internal transport and a big one with the circulation desk) go over the road. At the ceiling of the big bridge, there is a huge painting by Danish painter Per Kirkeby.

Significant holdings.

The Royal Library acquires Danish books through legal deposit. The holdings include an almost complete collection of all Danish printed books back from 1482. In 2006, legal deposit was extended to electronic publications and now the library harvests four electronic copies of the Danish Internet each year. The library also holds a large and significant collection of old foreign scholarly and scientific literature, including precious books of high value and of importance for book history, including a rare copy of the Gutenberg Bible.  The library holds treasures which are inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register: A collection of about 2,000 books by and about Carl Linné (1997); the manuscripts and correspondence of Hans Christian Andersen (1997); the Søren Kierkegaard Archives (manuscripts and personal papers) (1997); Guamán Poma de Ayala's "El Primer Nueva Coronica y Buen Gobierno", an autographed manuscript of 1,200 pages including 400 full-page drawings depicting the indigenous point of view on pre-conquest Andean life and Inca rule, the Spanish conquest in 1532, early Spanish colonial rule, and the systematic abuse of the rights of the indigenous populationt (2007). "Biblia Latina". Commonly called the Hamburg Bible or "the Bible of Bertoldus" (MS. GKS 4 2°), a richly illuminated Bible in three very large volumes made for the Cathedral of Hamburg in 1255. The 89 illuminated initials in the book are unique both as expressions of medieval art and as sources to the craft and history of the medieval book. (2011);  Other treasures are the Copenhagen Psalter, the Dalby Book (a Latin Gospel on parchment), the Angers fragment (parts of Denmark's first national chronicle), and maps of the Polar Region. The library also holds important collections of Icelandic manuscripts, primarily in "Den gamle kongelige samling" (The Old Royal Collection) and "Den nye kongelige samling" (The New Royal Collection). Denmark's most outstanding Icelandic collection, the Arnamagnæan Manuscript Collection, is however not a holding of The Royal Library but of the University of Copenhagen.

Book thefts.

Between 1968 and 1978, the library saw one of the largest book thefts in history. Someone had managed to steal some 1,600 historical books worth more than $50 million, including prints by Martin Luther and first editions by Immanuel Kant, Thomas More and John Milton. The theft remained undetected until 1975. Between 1998 and 2002, the thief succeeded in selling books worth about $2 million at various auctions. The case was finally solved in September 2003, after a stolen book had surfaced at Christie's auction house in London. The thief, a director of the library's oriental department named Frede Møller-Kristensen, had died in January 2003. His family then became careless in selling the remaining books. At a coordinated raid of the family's homes in Germany and Denmark in November 2003, some 1,500 books were recovered. In June 2004, his wife, son, daughter-in-law and a family friend were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 18 months to three years; the friend was acquitted on appeal. In April 2005, a daughter of the thief was also found guilty.

The Royal Library () in Copenhagen is the national library of Denmark and the university library of the University of Copenhagen. It is among the largest libraries in the world and the largest in the Nordic countries. In 2017 it merged with the State and University Library in Aarhus to form a combined national library. The combined library organisation (the separate library locations in Copenhagen and Aarhus are maintained) is known as the Royal Danish Library ().


Plot.

The novel begins in London, where the impoverished French teacher Robert Morgand applies at the travel agency Baker & Company for the post of guide and interpreter on a tour of three archipelagos: the Azores, the Madeira Islands, and the Canary Islands. Because Morgand speaks fluent English, Spanish and Portuguese, he easily wins the job. In the following days, however, Morgand sees an advertisement for a rival agency, Thompson & Company, offering the same tour at a better price. Both travel agents compete until Morgan's employer Baker is forced to cancel its tour. The triumphant Thompson agency, however, also needs an interpreter, so Morgand immediately finds a job, though at far less pay.  Morgand begins his services on the steamer "Seamew". On board are more than a hundred tourists as well as Mr. Thompson himself, the owner of the travel agency. During the voyage it becomes clear that Mr. Thompson, an irresponsible and money-obsessed businessman, has planned neither the ocean voyage nor the visits to land; everything has to be arranged on the spot. Problems build up, food spoils, and travelers become increasingly dissatisfied on the way from the Azores to Madeira. During the voyage, Morgand falls in love with a female passenger, a young American widow named Alice Lindsay. Their romance is threatened by her brother-in-law and rejected admirer, Jack Lindsay, who is pursuing Alice for her money. Meanwhile, Alice Lindsay's nineteen-year-old sister Dolly falls in love with a kindly French officer-on-leave, Roger de Sorgues.  The journey continues through Gran Canaria and Tenerife, where the travelers climb Mount Teide. During the return voyage to Britain, however, the engines of the "Seamew" fail, and the ship is forced to proceed at a much slower pace, driven by sail only. The ship is finally wrecked near Cape Verde, but the survivors make it to the shore and eventually to continental Africa, where they are captured by Bedouins who attempt to ransom them. In the ensuing adventures, Jack Lindsay is killed in battle, but the other survivors are finally rescued. The novel ends happily with a double wedding: Robert Morgand with Alice Lindsay, and Roger de Sorgues with Dolly. The voyage turns out well even for Mr. Thompson, who, despite his creditors and disgruntled passengers, cleverly manages to escape bankruptcy.

Publication history.

The novel was serialized in "Le Journal" from October 17, 1907 to December 25, 1907, and published by Hetzel et Cie in book form the same year. An English translation by I. O. Evans was published in two volumes ("Package Holiday" and "End of the Journey") in 1965.  The publisher's claim that the novel was a posthumous work by Jules Verne was accepted for more than a century, until the discovery of the original manuscript proved Michel Verne's authorship.

The Thompson Travel Agency (, literally "The Agency Thompson & Co.") is a 1907 novel attributed to Jules Verne but written by his son Michel Verne.


History.

In 1809, six students at the Vienna Academy formed an artistic cooperative in Vienna called the Brotherhood of St. Luke or "Lukasbund," following a common name for medieval guilds of painters. In 1810 four of them, Johann Friedrich Overbeck, Franz Pforr, Ludwig Vogel and Johann Konrad Hottinger moved to Rome, where they occupied the abandoned monastery of San Isidoro. They were joined by Philipp Veit, Peter von Cornelius, Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow and a loose grouping of other German-speaking artists. They met up with Austrian romantic landscape artist Joseph Anton Koch (1768–1839) who became an unofficial tutor to the group. In 1827 they were joined by Joseph von Führich (1800–1876) ("illustration above right").  The principal motivation of the Nazarenes was a reaction against Neoclassicism and the routine art education of the academy system. They hoped to return to art which embodied spiritual values, and sought inspiration in artists of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, rejecting what they saw as the superficial virtuosity of later art.  In Rome the group lived a semi-monastic existence, as a way of re-creating the nature of the medieval artist's workshop. Religious subjects dominated their output, and two major commissions allowed them to attempt a revival of the medieval art of fresco painting. Two fresco series were completed in Rome for the Casa Bartholdy (1816–17) (moved to the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin) and the Casino Massimo (1817–29), and gained international attention for the work of the "Nazarenes". However, by 1830 all except Overbeck had returned to Germany and the group had disbanded. Many Nazarenes became influential teachers in German art academies.

Legacy.

The programme of the Nazarenes—the adoption of honest expression in art and the inspiration of artists before Raphael—was to exert considerable influence in Germany, and in England upon the Pre-Raphaelite movement. They were also direct influences on the British artists William Dyce and Frederick Leighton and Ford Madox Brown.

The epithet Nazarene was adopted by a group of early 19th century German Romantic painters who aimed to revive spirituality in art. The name Nazarene came from a term of derision used against them for their affectation of a biblical manner of clothing and hair style.


Origins.

Many scholars of Indian classical music believe that the sarod is a combination of the ancient chitravina, the medieval Indian rabab (aka the seniya rabab) and modern sursingar. Some scholars even contend that a similar instrument may have existed about two thousand years ago in ancient India during the ages of the Gupta kings. In fact, a Gupta period coin depicts the great king Samudragupta playing a veena, which many believe to be the precursor of the sarod. The present Indian Traces of similar Rabab style instruments can also be found in southern India, especially in the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka, where it is known as the swarbat. The folk rabab, an instrument popular in north India, had a wooden fingerboard, its strings were made of silk, cotton or gut, and it was played with a wooden pick. In history, reference is also made to a Sharadiya Veena from which the name Sarod have been derived. The sarod is also believed to have descended from the Afghan rubab, a similar instrument originating in Central Asia and Afghanistan.  The word "sarod" roughly translates to "beautiful sound" or "melody" in Persian. Although the sarod has been referred to as a "bass rubab" its tonal bandwidth is actually considerably greater than that of the rubab, especially in the middle and high registers. Lalmani Misra opines in his "Bharatiya Sangeet Vadya" that the sarod is a combination of the ancient chitravina, the medieval rubab and modern sursingar. Another instrument, the Sur-rabab, is known to exist, which has the characteristics of both the dhrupad rabab/seniya rabab and the sarod. The sur-rabab has the structure of the dhrupad rabab but has a metal fretboard and uses metal strings.  Among the many conflicting and contested histories of the sarod, there is one that attributes its invention to the ancestors of the present-day sarod maestro, Amjad Ali Khan. Amjad Ali Khan’s ancestor Mohammad Hashmi Khan Bangash, a musician and horse trader, came to India with the Afghan rubab in the mid-18th century, and became a court musician to the Maharajah of Rewa (now in Madhya Pradesh). It was his descendants, notably his grandson Ghulam Ali Khan Bangash, a court musician in Gwalior, who changed the rubab into the sarod we know today. A parallel theory credits descendants of Madar Khan, Niyamatullah Khan in particular, with the same innovation around 1820. The sarod in its present form dates back to approximately 1820, when it started gaining recognition as a serious instrument in Rewa, Shahjahanpur, Gwalior and Lucknow. In the 20th century, the sarod was improved significantly by Allauddin Khan and his brother Ayet Ali Khan. They increased the number of chikari (drone) strings and increased the number of tarafdar (sympathetic) strings. However, as is the case with most young, evolving instruments, much work remains to be done in the area of sarod luthiery in order to achieve reliable customization, and precise replication of successful instruments. This reflects the general state of Indian instrument-making in the present day.

Design.

The design of the instrument depends on the school (gharana) of playing. There are three distinguishable types:  The conventional sarod is a 17 to 25-stringed lute-like instrument — four to five main strings used for playing the melody, one or two drone strings, two "chikari" strings and nine to eleven sympathetic strings. The design of this early model is generally credited to Niyamatullah Khan of the Lucknow Gharana as well as Ghulam Ali Khan of the Gwalior-Bangash Gharana. Among the contemporary sarod players, this basic design is kept intact by two streams of sarod playing. Amjad Ali Khan and his disciples play this model, as do the followers of Radhika Mohan Maitra. Both Amjad Ali Khan and Buddhadev Dasgupta have introduced minor changes to their respective instruments which have become the design templates for their followers. Both musicians use sarods made of teak wood, and a soundboard made of goat skin stretched across the face of the resonator. Buddhadev Dasgupta prefers a polished stainless steel fingerboard for the ease of maintenance while Amjad Ali Khan uses the conventional chrome or nickel-plated cast steel fingerboard. Visually, the two variants are similar, with six pegs in the main pegbox, two rounded chikari pegs and 11 (Amjad) to 15 (Buddhadev) sympathetic strings. The descendants of Niyamatullah Khan (namely Irfan Khan and Ghulfam Khan) also play similar instruments. Some of the followers of Radhika Mohan Maitra still carry the second resonator on their sarods. Amjad Ali Khan and his followers have rejected the resonator altogether. These instruments are typically tuned to B, which is the traditional setting.  Another type is that designed by Allauddin Khan and his brother Ayet Ali Khan. This instrument, referred to by David Trasoff as the 1934 Maihar Prototype, is larger and longer than the conventional instrument, though the fingerboard is identical to the traditional sarod. This instrument has 25 strings in all. These include four main strings, four "jod" strings (tuned to "Ni" or "Dha", "R/r", "G/g" and "Sa" respectively), two "chikari" strings (tuned to "Sa" of the upper octave) and fifteen "tarab" strings. The main strings are tuned to "Ma" ("fa"), "Sa" ("do"), lower "Pa" ("so") and lower "Sa", giving the instrument a range of three octaves. The Maihar sarod lends itself extremely well to the presentation of alap with the four "jod" strings providing a backdrop for the ambiance of the raga. This variant is, however, not conducive to the performance of clean right-hand picking on individual strings. The instrument is typically tuned to C.  Sarod strings are either made of steel or phosphor bronze. Most contemporary sarod players use German or American-made strings, such as Roslau (Germany), Pyramid (Germany) and Precision (USA). The strings are plucked with a triangular plectrum ("java") made of polished coconut shell, ebony, cocobolo wood, horn, cowbone, Delrin, or other such materials. Early sarod players used plain wire plectrums, which yielded a soft, ringing tone.

Playing technique.

The lack of frets and the tension of the strings make the sarod a very demanding instrument to play, as the strings must be pressed hard against the fingerboard.  There are two approaches to stopping the strings of the sarod. One involves using the tip of one's fingernails to stop the strings, and the other uses a combination of the nail and the fingertip to stop the strings against the fingerboard.  Fingering techniques and how they are taught depends largely on the personal preferences of musicians rather than on the basis of school affiliation. Radhika Mohan Maitra, for example, used the index, middle and ring finger of his left hand to stop the string, just like followers of Allauddin Khan do. Maitra, however, made much more extensive use of the third fingernail for slides and hammers. Amjad Ali Khan, while a member of approximately the same stylistic school as Radhika Mohan, prefers to use just the index and middle fingers of his left hand. Amjad Ali is, however, pictured circa 1960 playing with all three fingers.

The sarod or sarode is a stringed instrument, used mainly in Hindustani music on the Indian subcontinent. Along with the sitar, it is among the most popular and prominent instruments. The sarod is known for a deep, weighty, introspective sound, in contrast with the sweet, overtone-rich texture of the sitar, with sympathetic strings that give it a resonant, reverberant quality. It is a fretless instrument able to produce the continuous slides between notes known as meend (glissandi), which are important in Indian music.


Precedents and proposals.

The idea of a bridge crossing the Bosphorus dates back to antiquity. For Emperor Darius the Great of the Achaemenid Empire (522 BC–485 BC), as recorded by the Greek writer Herodotus in his Histories, Mandrocles of Samos once engineered a pontoon bridge across the Bosphorus, linking Asia to Europe, enabling Darius to pursue the fleeing Scythians as well as position his army in the Balkans to overwhelm Macedon. Leonardo da Vinci proposed a suspension bridge to Sultan Bayezid II in 1502 or 1503. The first modern project for a permanent bridge across the Bosphorus was proposed to Sultan Abdul Hamid II of the Ottoman Empire by the Bosphorus Railroad Company in 1900, which included a rail link between the continents.

Construction.

The decision to build a bridge across the Bosphorus was taken in 1957 by Prime Minister Adnan Menderes. For the structural engineering work, a contract was signed with the British firm Freeman Fox & Partners in 1968. The bridge was designed by the British civil engineers Gilbert Roberts, William Brown and Michael Parsons, who also designed the Humber Bridge, Severn Bridge, and Forth Road Bridge. Construction started in February 1970 and ceremonies were attended by President Cevdet Sunay and Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel. The bridge was built by the Turkish firm Enka Construction & Industry Co. along with the co-contractors Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company (England) and Hochtief AG (Germany). Thirty-five engineers and 400 men worked on the project.  The bridge was completed on 30 October 1973, one day after the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Turkey, and opened by President Fahri Korutürk and Prime Minister Naim Talu. The cost of the bridge was US$200 million ($ in dollars).  Upon the bridge's opening, much was made of its being the first bridge between Europe and Asia since the pontoon bridge of Xerxes in 480 BCE. That bridge, however, spanned the Hellespont (Dardanelles), some distance away from the Bosphorus, and was the second bridge after the above-mentioned bridge built by Emperor Darius I The Great across the Bosphorus in 513 BCE.

Operation.

The bridge highway is eight lanes wide. Three standard lanes, one emergency lane and one pedestrian lane serve each direction. On weekday mornings, most commuter traffic flows westbound to Europe, so four of the six lanes run westbound and only two eastbound. Conversely, on weekday evenings, four lanes are dedicated to eastbound traffic and two lanes, to westbound traffic.  For the first three years, pedestrians could walk over the bridge, reaching it with elevators inside the towers on both sides. No pedestrians or commercial vehicles, such as trucks, are allowed to use the bridge today.  Today, around 180,000 vehicles pass daily in both directions, with almost 85% being cars. On 29 December 1997, the one-billionth vehicle passed the bridge. Fully loaded, the bridge sags about in the middle of the span.  It is a toll bridge, and a toll plaza with 13 toll booths is situated near the bridge on the Asian side. A toll is charged for passing from Europe to Asia, but not for passing in the reverse direction.  Since 1999, some of the toll booths (#9 - #13), located to the far left as motorists approach them, are unmanned and equipped only with a remote payment system (Turkish: OGS) in order to not delay traffic. In addition to OGS, another toll pay system with special contactless smart cards (Turkish: KGS) was installed at specific toll booths in 2005.  Since 3 April 2006, toll booths accept no cash but only OGS or KGS. An OGS device or KGS card can be obtained at various stations before reaching the toll plazas of highways and bridges. In 2006 the toll was 3.00 TL or about $2.00.  Since April 2007, a computerised LED lighting system of changing colours and patterns, developed by Philips, illuminates the bridge at night.  In 2012, KGS was replaced with the new HGS system, which uses radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology.

History.

Every October, the annual Intercontinental Istanbul Eurasia Marathon crosses the bridge on its way from Asia to Europe. During the marathon, the bridge is closed to vehicular traffic.  In October, visitors participate in the 'fun run' and cross the bridge on foot. Many take picnics to enjoy the view.  The bridge was depicted on the reverse of the Turkish 1000 lira banknotes of 1978-1986.  On 15 May 2005 at 07:00 local time, U.S. tennis star Venus Williams played a show game with Turkish player İpek Şenoğlu on the bridge, the first tennis match played on two continents. The event promoted the upcoming 2005 WTA Istanbul Cup and lasted five minutes. After the exhibition, they both threw a tennis ball into the Bosphorus.  On 17 July 2005 at 10:30 local time, British Formula One driver David Coulthard drove his Red Bull racing car across the bridge from the European side to the Asian side, then, after turning with a powerslide at the toll plaza, back to the European side for show. He parked his car in the garden of Dolmabahçe Palace where his ride had started. While crossing the bridge with his Formula 1 car, Coulthard was picked up by the automatic surveillance system and charged with a fine of 20 Euros because he passed through the toll booths without payment. His team agreed to pay for him.  On 5 November 2013, World No. 1 golfer Tiger Woods, visiting for the 2013 Turkish Airlines Open golf tournament held between 7 and 10 November, was brought to the bridge by helicopter and made a couple of show shots on the bridge, hitting balls from the Asian side to the European side on one side of the bridge, which was closed to traffic for about one hour.  On 15 July 2016, the bridge was blocked by a faction of the Turkish Armed Forces during a coup attempt. They also arrested civilians and police officers. Some tanks ran over vehicles. The soldiers involved surrendered to police and to civilians the next day.  On 25 July 2016, prime minister Binali Yıldırım announced that the bridge would be renamed as the "15 Temmuz Şehitler Köprüsü" (July 15 Martyrs Bridge).

The Bosphorus Bridge (), known officially as the 15 July Martyrs Bridge () and unofficially as the First Bridge (), is one of the three suspension bridges spanning the Bosphorus strait (Turkish: "Boğaziçi") in Istanbul, Turkey, thus connecting Europe and Asia (alongside Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge and Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge). The bridge extends between Ortaköy (in Europe) and Beylerbeyi (in Asia).


Early life.

Crivelli was born around 1430–35 in Venice to a family of painters and received his artistic formation there and in Padua. The details of Crivelli's career are still sparse: He is said to have studied under Jacobello del Fiore, who was painting as late as 1436; at that time Crivelli was probably only a boy. He also studied at the school of Vivarini in Venice, then left Venice for Padua, where he is believed to have worked in the workshop of Francesco Squarcione and then, after being sentenced in 1457 to a six-month prison term for an affair with a married woman, left in 1459 for Zadar in Dalmatia (now part of Croatia, but then a Venetian territory).

Career.

He was master of his own shop when sent to prison for adultery in 1457. The dates he signed on the pictures that survive extend from 1468 on an altarpiece in the church of San Silvestro at Massa Fermana near Fermo to 1493 on "The Dead Christ between St John, the Virgin and Mary Magdalene" in Milan's Brera Gallery.  Though the artist advertised his Venetian origins with his signature, often some variation on "Carolus Crivellus Venetos" ("Carlo Crivelli of Venice"), Crivelli seems to have worked chiefly in the March of Ancona, and especially in and near Ascoli Piceno. Only two pictures can be found today in Venice, both in the church of San Sebastiano.  He painted in tempera only, despite the increasing popularity of oil painting during his lifetime, and on panels, though some of his paintings have been transferred to canvas. His predilection for decoratively punched gilded backgrounds is one of the marks of this conservative taste, in part imposed by his patrons. Of his early polyptychs, only one, the altarpiece from Ascoli Piceno, dated 1473, survives in its entirety in its original frame, and still in its original location (the city's Cathedral). All the others have been disassembled and their panels and predella scenes are divided among several museums.  An amorphous band of contemporaries, imitators and followers, termed "Crivelleschi", reflect to varying degrees aspects of his style.

Work.

Unlike the naturalistic trends arising in Florence during his lifetime, Crivelli's style continues to represent the courtly International Gothic sensibility. His urban settings are jewel-like and full of elaborate allegorical detail. He favored verdant landscape backgrounds, and his works can be identified by his characteristic use of fruits and flowers as decorative motifs, often depicted in pendant festoons, which are also a hallmark of the Paduan studio of Francesco Squarcione, where Crivelli may have worked.  His paintings have a linear quality identified with his Umbrian contemporaries. Crivelli is a painter of marked individuality. Unlike Giovanni Bellini, his contemporary, his works are not "soft", but clear and definite in contour with marked attention to detail. His use of "trompe l'oeil", often compared with that found in the works of Northern Renaissance painters like Rogier van der Weyden, includes raised objects, such as jewels and armor modeled in gesso on the panel.  Commissioned by the Franciscans and Dominicans of Ascoli, Crivelli's work is exclusively religious in nature. His paintings consist largely of "Madonna and Child" images, "Pietà", and the altarpieces known as polyptychs that were increasingly unfashionable. Often filled with images of suffering, such as gaping wounds in Christ's hands and side and the mouths of mourners twisted in agony, Crivelli's work fulfills the spiritual needs of his patrons. These ultra-realistic, sometimes disturbing qualities have often led critics to label Crivelli's paintings "grotesque", much like his fellow Northern Italian painter, Cosimo Tura. His work attracted numerous prestigious commissions and must have appealed to the taste of his patrons.  Carlo Crivelli died in the Marche (probably Ascoli Piceno) around 1495. Vittorio Crivelli, with whom he occasionally collaborated, was his younger brother. Pietro Alemanno, a painter who immigrated to the March of Ancona from Germany/Austria, was his pupil and collaborator. Donato Crivelli, who was also a pupil of Jacobello and was working in 1459, may be of the same family as Carlo.

Reputation.

His work fell out of favor following his death and Vasari's "Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects", which is notably Florentine in its outlook, does not mention him. He had something of a revival, especially in the UK, during the time of the pre-Raphaelite painters, several of whom, including Edward Burne-Jones, admired his work. His reputation faded with that movement, but recent writings on his work and a rehanging of his work in the National Gallery, London, have brought him renewed attention.  Susan Sontag in "Notes on "Camp"" (1992) wrote: "Camp is the paintings of Carlo Crivelli, with their real jewels and trompe-l'oeil insects and cracks in the masonry."  Another of his principal pictures is in San Francesco di Matelica.

Carlo Crivelli (Venice c. 1430 – Ascoli Piceno 1495) was an Italian Renaissance painter of conservative Late Gothic decorative sensibility, who spent his early years in the Veneto, where he absorbed influences from the Vivarini, Squarcione and Mantegna. He left the Veneto by 1458 and spent most of the remainder of his career in the March of Ancona, where he developed a distinctive personal style that contrasts with that of his Venetian contemporary Giovanni Bellini.


History.

When the "Kunstkammer" (Art Chamber) of the Electors of Saxony in Dresden was founded by Augustus, Elector of Saxony in 1560, paintings were subordinate to collectors' pieces from science, other art works and curiosities. It was not until the beginning of the 18th century that Augustus II the Strong and his son Frederick Augustus II started to collect paintings systematically. Over a period of less than 60 years, these two art-loving Electors of Saxony, who were also Kings of Poland, expanded the collections significantly. In 1745, the 100 best pieces of the collection belonging to the Duke of Modena (Francesco III) were purchased, arriving in Dresden the following year.  As the fast-growing painting collection soon required more space for storage and presentation, it was moved from Dresden Castle to the adjacent "Stallgebäude" (the Electors’ Stables Building) in 1747.  In the meantime the collection had achieved European fame. Paintings from all over Europe, especially from Italy, Paris, Amsterdam and Prague, were acquired and sent to Dresden. The purchasing activities of the Electors were crowned by the acquisition of Raphael’s "Sistine Madonna" in 1754. The Dresden painting gallery became not only one of the most famous Old Masters collections in Northern European, but also a prototyp of the modern museums that would emergence in the late 18th century.  In 1838, the architect Gottfried Semper was invited by a gallery commission working for King Frederick Augustus II, to design an appropriate architectural setting for the collection. The new gallery wing of the Zwinger was consequently built from 1847 to 1854. On 25 September 1855, the "Neues Königliches Museum" (New Royal Museum) opened in the Semper Gallery where it is still located today.  Due to shortage of space, the Modern Department of the museum with paintings from the 19th and 20th centuries moved into a separate building on Brühl's Terrace, laying the foundations for what is now known as the New Masters Gallery.  When World War II was imminent in 1938, the museum was closed. The artworks were mostly safely stored away when the gallery building itself was severely damaged in the bombing of Dresden on 13 February 1945. At the end of the war in 1945, most of the paintings were confiscated by the Red Army and transported to Moscow and Kiev. On their return to Dresden in 1955, part of the collection was displayed on the ground floor of the still partly destroyed Semper Gallery. The Old Masters Gallery re-opened in 1960 after the reconstruction of the gallery building was completed. While the most important paintings survived this period, the losses were significant. Records from 1963 state that 206 paintings had been destroyed and 507 were missing. Of these, some 450 are still missing today.

Collection.

Some 750 paintings, or 40 percent of the entire collection, are exhibited in the gallery. They date from the 15th to the 18th centuries. Paintings from the 19th century onwards are displayed in the New Masters Gallery ("Gemäldegalerie Neue Meister") in the Albertinum.  Renaissance and Baroque masterpieces by Italian painters such as Raphael, Titian, Giorgione, Correggio, Tintoretto and Guercino are displayed. The collection contains a large number of 17th-century Flemish and Dutch paintings by Rubens, Rembrandt, Jordaens, Van Dyck and Vermeer. Outstanding works by German, French and Spanish painters are also among the gallery's attractions.  With 58 paintings by Lucas Cranach the Elder and Lucas Cranach the Younger, the gallery houses the world's largest collection of Cranach paintings. Panels and canvases of the early Renaissance are also exhibited, including the recently restored "Saint Sebastian" by Antonello da Messina.  The color of the walls is used to structure the collection. Italian artwork is exhibited in rooms with deep red walls. Dutch and Flemish paintings are shown on green backgrounds. Spanish and French pictures from the 17th century are displayed on gray walls.  The Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister receives more than 500,000 visitors a year.

The Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister (, "Old Masters Gallery") in Dresden, Germany, displays around 750 paintings from the 15th to the 18th centuries. It includes major Italian Renaissance works as well as Dutch and Flemish paintings. Outstanding works by German, French and Spanish painters of the period are also among the gallery's attractions.


Early life.

Taimanov was born in Kharkiv, where his parents studied at the time. They moved to Leningrad when he was six months old. His father Evgeny Zakharovich Taimanov was half-Cossack and half-Jewish; his family escaped to Kharkiv from Smolensk during the World War I. He was a student at the Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute and later made a career as a head engineer at the Kirov Plant and the Hydraulic Plant, but left it to work as an engineer at the Leningrad Conservatory and various Leningrad theaters after his brother and his wife's relatives were imprisoned in 1937. Taimanov's mother Serafima Ivanovna Ilyina came from an Orthodox Russian family; she studied at the Kharkiv National Kotlyarevsky University of Arts. As a piano teacher she later introduced her son to music. Mark was the eldest of three children. When he was nine, he performed as a young violinist in the Soviet children's film "Beethoven Concerto" that was released in 1937. During the Great Patriotic War he and his father evacuated to Tashkent shortly before the Siege of Leningrad started; his mother along with his two siblings decided to stay in the city and had to survive the siege up till their evacuation in March 1942.

Chess career.

He was awarded the International Master title in 1950, and the International Grandmaster title in 1952 by FIDE. He played in the Candidates Tournament in Zurich in 1953, where he tied for eighth place. He was regularly in the world's top 20 players for over 25 years.

Soviet team play.

He represented Leningrad in internal Soviet regional team competitions, scoring (+36−24=56) in 116 games, across 15 events, between 1948 and 1983. He represented the sports society "Burevestnik" (Students) in internal Soviet club team competitions.

Soviet championships.

He played in 23 USSR Chess Championships (a record equalled by Efim Geller), tying for first place twice. In 1952 he lost the playoff match to Mikhail Botvinnik, who was World Champion at the time. In 1956, after finishing equal with Yuri Averbakh and Boris Spassky in the tournament proper, he won a match-tournament ahead of them, for the title.

Loss to Fischer.

Taimanov lost to Bobby Fischer in the 1971 Candidates quarterfinal by the unprecedented score of 6–0. About this match, Taimanov later recalled that Fischer "was an incredibly tough defender" and that "the third game proved to be the turning point of the match". After his loss to Fischer, the Soviet government was embarrassed, and, as Taimanov later put it in a 2002 interview, found it "unthinkable" that he could have lost the match so badly to an American without a "political explanation". Soviet officials took away Taimanov's salary and no longer allowed him to travel overseas. The official reason given for punishing Taimanov was that he had brought a book by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn into the country, but that explanation was merely a bureaucratic pretext. The officials later "forgave" Taimanov, and lifted the sanctions against him. Fischer's overwhelming match wins later in 1971, first by 6–0 against Bent Larsen, then by 61⁄2–21⁄2 against Tigran Petrosian, may have helped contribute to their change of mind. Taimanov considered this match "the culminating point" of his chess career and later wrote a book about the match, titled "How I Became Fischer's Victim".

International teams.

Taimanov represented the USSR in international team play with enormous success. At the 1956 Chess Olympiad in Moscow, as first reserve he scored (+6−0=5), winning team gold and board bronze medals. This was his only Olympiad appearance.  Taimanov represented the USSR four times in the European Team Chess Championship. At Vienna 1957, he played board seven, scored (+2−0=3), winning team and board gold medals. At Oberhausen 1961, he played board eight, scored (+6−0=3), and won team and board gold medals. At Hamburg 1965, he played board seven, scored (+3−1=4), and won team and board gold medals. At Kapfenberg 1970, he played board six, scored (+4−0=2), and won team and board gold medals.  In the inaugural Russia (USSR) vs Rest of the World team match, Belgrade 1970, he played board seven, and scored (+2−1=1) against Wolfgang Uhlmann.

Chess legacy.

Taimanov was one of the few players to have beaten six world champions (Botvinnik, Vasily Smyslov, Mikhail Tal, Tigran Petrosian, Spassky, and Anatoly Karpov). Opening variations are named after Taimanov in the Sicilian Defence, Modern Benoni and Nimzo-Indian Defence. He wrote books on two of his named variations, as well as an autobiographical best games collection. Taimanov's favorite chess players were Alexander Alekhine, Mikhail Tal, and Garry Kasparov.

Major chess writings.

Note that several of Taimanov's books are available in Russian, German, and English languages.

Music career.

Taimanov was a top concert pianist in the Soviet Union. With his first wife, Lyubov Bruk, he formed a piano duo, some of whose recordings were included in the Philips and Steinway series "Great Pianists of the 20th Century". Taimanov personally knew composer Dmitri Shostakovich, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and pianist Sviatoslav Richter.

Personal life and death.

Taimanov married four times. He remarried late in life, and became the father of twins at the age of 78. Fifty-seven years separate his oldest child and his twins.  His younger sister Irina Taimanova (born 1941) is a prominent opera director, TV presenter and professor at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory.  Taimanov died on 28 November 2016 in Saint Petersburg, at the age of 90.

Mark Evgenievich Taimanov (; 7 February 1926 – 28 November 2016) was one of the leading Soviet and Russian chess players, among the world's top 20 players from 1946 to 1971. Also a prolific chess author, Taimanov was awarded the title of Grandmaster in 1952 and in 1956 won the USSR Chess Championship. Several chess variations are named after him. A modern Renaissance man, Taimanov was also a world-class concert pianist.


Early life.

According to official Turkish sources and interviews with Sabiha Gökçen, she was the daughter of Mustafa Izzet Bey and Hayriye Hanım, both of whom were of Bosniak origin. During Atatürk's visit to Bursa in 1925, Sabiha, who was only twelve years old, asked for permission to talk with Atatürk and expressed her wish to study at a boarding school. After learning her story and about her miserable living conditions, Atatürk decided to adopt her and asked Sabiha's brother for permission to take her to the Çankaya Presidential Residence in Ankara, where Sabiha would live with Atatürk's other adoptive daughters, Zehra, Afet and Rukiye. Sabiha attended the Çankaya Primary School in Ankara and the Üsküdar American Academy in Istanbul.  In February 2004 an article in the newspaper "Agos", headlined "The Secret of Sabiha Hatun", contained an interview with Hripsime Sebilciyan, a former resident of Gaziantep, who claimed to be Gökçen's niece and that Gökçen herself was of Armenian ancestry. Mustafa Kemal had also adopted Gökçen, who was in an orphanage shortly after the Armenian Genocide. According to Turkish-Armenian linguist Pars Tuğlacı, who deemed Sebilciyan's claim false, Gökçen herself found out about her Armenian roots while in Ankara, when members of her family contacted her from Beirut. It is claimed that Gökçen visited her Armenian relatives in Beirut and had four brothers, Sarkis, Boğos, Haçik and Hovhannes.  However, along with Turkish sources and interviews with Sabiha, her adopted sister Ülkü Adatepe, also in an interview, disputed these claims and reiterated that Sabiha and her both parents, Mustafa İzzet Bey and Hayriye Hanım, were of Bosniak ancestry.  After the introduction of the Surname Law, Atatürk gave her the family name Gökçen on 19 December 1934. 'Gök' means sky in Turkish and Gökçen means 'belonging or relating to the sky'. However, she was not an aviator at that time, and it was only six months later that Sabiha developed a passion for flying.

Career.

Atatürk attached great importance to aviation and for that purpose oversaw the foundation of the Turkish Aeronautical Association in 1925. He took Sabiha along with him to the opening ceremony of "Türkkuşu" ("Turkishbird") "Flight School" on 5 May 1935. During the airshow of gliders and parachutists invited from foreign countries, she got very excited. As Atatürk asked her whether she would also want to become a skydiver, she nodded "yes indeed, I am ready right now". Atatürk instructed Fuat Bulca, the head of the school, to enroll her as the first female trainee. She was meant to become a skydiver, but she was much more interested in flying, so she earned her pilot's licence. Gökçen was sent to Russia, together with seven male students, for an advanced course in glider and powered aircraft piloting. However, when she was in Moscow, she learned the news that her sister Zehra had died, and with collapsed morale, she immediately returned to Turkey, isolating herself from social activities for some time.  As girls were not being accepted by the Turkish War Academies in those years, Sabiha Gökçen was provided, on Atatürk's orders, with a personalized uniform, and attended a special education programme of eleven months at the "Tayyare Mektebi" (Aviation School) in Eskişehir in the academic year 1936-1937. After receiving her flight patents (diploma) she trained to become a war pilot at the 1st Airplane Regiment in Eskişehir for six months.  She improved her skills by flying bomber and fighter planes at the 1st Aircraft Regiment in Eskişehir Airbase and gained experience after participating in the Aegean and Thrace exercises in 1937. In that same year, she took part in military operations at the Dersim rebellion and became the first Turkish female air force combat pilot. A report of the General Staff mentioned the "serious damage" that had been caused by her 50 kg bomb to a group of fifty fleeing "bandits" and she was awarded with a "takdirname" (letter of appreciation). She was also awarded the Turkish Aeronautical Association's first ""Murassa" (Jeweled) Medal" for her superior performance in this operation.  In 1938, she carried out a five-day flight around the Balkan countries to great acclaim. In the same year, she was appointed "chief trainer" of the Türkkuşu Flight School of the Turkish Aeronautical Association, where she served until 1954 as a flight instructor and became a member of the association's executive board. She trained four female aviators, Edibe Subaşı, Yıldız Uçman, Sahavet Karapas and Nezihe Viranyalı. Sabiha Gökçen flew around the world for a period of 28 years until 1964. Her book entitled ""A Life Along the Path of Atatürk"" was published in 1981 by the Turkish Aeronautical Association to commemorate Atatürk's 100th birthday.  Throughout her career in the Turkish Air Force, Gökçen flew 22 different types of aircraft for more than 8,000 hours, 32 hours of which were active combat and bombardment missions.

Controversies.

Gökçen made headlines and sparked controversy, in 2004, when Hrant Dink, a journalist of Turkish-Armenian descent, published an interview with a person claiming to be Sabiha's niece that claimed that she was of Armenian origin. Many rightfully contested the matter, including her adopted sister and the last living daughter of Atatürk, Ülkü Adatepe, disputing this during an interview and stating that Sabiha was of Bosniak ancestry. According to Adatepe, Sabiha's mother Hayriye and father Mustafa İzzet were ethnic Bosniaks. The notion that Gökçen could have been Armenian caused controversy in the country; the Turkish General Staff said the debate "mocked national values" and was "not conducive to social peace". Hrant Dink, the journalist who wrote the article, came under criticism, most notably from newspaper columnists and Turkish nationalist groups. A US consul dispatch leaked by WikiLeaks and penned by an official from the consulate in Istanbul observed that the entire affair "exposed an ugly streak of racism in Turkish society." It is also believed that the affair was one of the reasons that led to Hrant Dink's assassination in Istanbul in January 2007.

Legacy and recognition.

Sabiha Gökçen International Airport in Istanbul is named after her.  She is recognized as the first female combat pilot by The Guinness Book of World Records.  She was selected as the only female pilot for the poster of ""The 20 Greatest Aviators in History"" published by the United States Air Force in 1996.  That year, she was also honored at the Air Command and Staff College's Gathering of Eagles at Maxwell Air Force Base. The program encourages the study of aviation history by emphasizing the contributions of aviation pioneers.  She was the subject of a Google Doodle honouring her birthday which was displayed in Turkey on 22 March 2009.

Sabiha Gökçen (; 22 March 1913 – 22 March 2001) was a Turkish aviator. She was the world's first female fighter pilot, aged 23. Others such as Marie Marvingt and Evgeniya Shakhovskaya preceded her as military pilots in other roles, but not as fighter pilots and without military academy enrollment. She was an orphan, and one of the thirteen adopted children of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.


Biography.

Claude Goudimel was born in Besançon, France. Few details of his life are known until he is documented in Paris in 1549, where he was studying at the University of Paris; in that year he also published a book of chansons. In the early 1550s he worked with printer, and may have still been studying at the University of Paris until 1555; by 1555 he was also Du Chemin's partner in the publishing business.  Goudimel moved to Metz in 1557, converting to Protestantism, and is known to have been associated with the Huguenot cause there; however he left Metz due to the increasing hostility of the city authorities to Protestants during the Wars of Religion. First he settled in his native town of Besançon, and later moved to Lyon.  It is supposed Goudimel was murdered in Lyon in August 1572, during the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, along with much of the Huguenot population of the city. His last letter to his close friend and poet Melissus showing Goudimel sick with fever on August 23, 1572, allowed M. Weckerlin to suppose that instead of dying in the massacre of Saint Barthelemy, the master could have died quite simply in his bed. However, there is no definitive evidence to support or contradict either theory of his passing.  The death of Goudimel inspired among the versifiers of this time a respectable number of epitaphs, sonnets and other famous pieces in French, Latin and Greek. That by J. Posthius begins with these lines:  'Claudius, the sweet,  was preferred above the song of the swans, and [was] the Orpheus of our time.'

Music and influence.

Goudimel is most famous for his four-part settings of the psalms of the Genevan Psalter, in the French versions of Clément Marot. In one of his four complete editions he puts - unlike other settings at the time - the melody in the topmost voice, the method which has prevailed in hymnody to the present day. In addition he composed masses, motets, and a considerable body of secular chansons, almost all of which date from before his conversion to Protestantism (probably around 1560).  In 1554, he became the editor of a large collection of masses, motets and Magnificat of several composers, a collection printed by Nicolas Duchemin, and in which Goudimel appeared as the author of seven Latin and Catholic works. In the year following, Goudimel, still at Duchemin's, brought out a book of pieces for four voices of his composition on the Odes of Horace. However, he felt some contrition about setting work of the pagan poet, and in 1557 he wrote: "To Monsieur de La Bloctière, Mr. Claude Belot, Angevin, advocate in the court of Parliament of Paris, C. Goudimel, his good friend, wishes good health. Sir,... [I] present to you this third book of Music of mine on the divine verses of the divine and royal Prophet. Also in no way could I choose the man, who seems to me to favor this little work of better heart than you, who alone amiably forced me to change, even quit, the profane lyre of the profane poet Horace, to memorize in hand and boldly undertake to touch and wield the sacred harp of our great David."  Goudimel's stay in Metz lasted several years. It was there that he addressed, in 1564, the dedication of his first complete psalter to "Mgr Roger de Bellegarde, ordinary gentleman of the king's room," and, in 1565, that of the second psalter to "Mgr d'Auzances, knight of the Order and lieutenant general of the king." On March 18, 1565, he was named godfather of a child at the reformed church of this city. in 1566, he published his seventh book of psalms in the form of motets. It was, therefore, after his departure from Paris that the celebrities Adrien le Roy and Robert Ballard published his masses in 1558; and it was also during his time in Metz that Goudimel began to concentrate all of his artistic ability in the various musical interpretations of the French translation of the psalms by Clément Marot and Théodore de Bèze. He worked on the continuation of his large collection of motet-shaped psalms, and wrote almost simultaneously two different versions of the complete psalter, each containing one hundred and fifty psalms.  Goudimel's style tends to be homophonic, with an intriguing use of syncopated rhythm and melisma and staggered voice entries to bring out inner parts, especially in the chansons. His Psalm settings, however, are more polyphonic, characteristic of the moderate contrapuntal style exemplified by the chansons of Jacques Arcadelt, an approximate contemporary.  The widespread claim that he taught Palestrina is now regarded as untenable. His Opera Omnia extends to 14 volumes, though several of his works are fragmentary, missing one or more voices.

Claude Goudimel (c. 1514 to 1520 – between 28 August and 31 August 1572) was a French composer, music editor and publisher, and music theorist of the High Renaissance.


Early life.

Maček was born in Kupinec near Jastrebarsko, southwest of Zagreb. His father Ivan was a Slovene, originally from Lesično, and his mother Ida was of mixed Croatian, on her father's side, and Polish descent on her mother's. At the age of six, Maček started attending elementary school in Kupinec, but continued his education in Zagreb, as his father, a public employee, was transferred there. In Zagreb, Maček enrolled at a gymnasium, which he finished when he was 18 and enrolled at the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb. He earned a law degree at University of Zagreb. After clerking at various Croatian courts he opened a private law practice in 1908 in Sv. Ivan Zelina. He joined the Croatian Peasant Party at its founding.

World War I.

At the outbreak of the World War I, Maček was a reserve officer. As such, he was mobilised into 25th People's Regiment of the Austro-Hungarian Army as a commander of the 3rd company on 27 July 1914. Maček participated in the Serbian Campaign and was wounded in the Battle of Kolubara while crossing the river Kolubara in November. After returning from hospital in Novi Sad to Zagreb before the Christmas, he was decorated for bravery and promoted to the rank of first lieutenant. Due to his astigmatism, he was declared unfit to serve on the battlefield, and was appointed a commander of an engineer company, composed of Poles and Ukrainians. His company prepared defenses of Budapest, and later Austrian-Hungarian port in Pulj, where he served until autumn 1916. From 15 October 1916 until 15 March 1917 he served in occupying forces in Albania.

After World War I.

After World War I, during which he served in the Austro-Hungarian Army, he became a close associate of Stjepan Radić. In 1925, after Radić's visit to Moscow and the Croatian Peasant Party joining the Peasants International, Maček was arrested by the Royal Yugoslav authorities. While in jail, he was elected to the National Assembly. In July 1925, after HSS had joined the government, Maček was released.

HSS leadership and Banovina of Croatia.

Maček became the leader of the party on 13 August 1928 following Radić's assassination. He quickly became a main opponent of King Alexander and was arrested in April 1933 and sentenced to three years in jail for treason.  Maček was released following Alexander's assassination in 1934. His stated aim during that period was to transform Yugoslavia from a unitary state, dominated by ethnic Serbs, into a new form of state organization in which Croatian statehood would be restored. His ideas appealed to a majority of Croats, and the Croatian Peasant Party gradually gained popularity. He nurtured close relations with other opposition parties in Yugoslavia and, although his coalition lost elections in 1938, it remained a force for reckoning. His persistence and political skills finally paid off in August 1939 with Dragiša Cvetković in the Cvetković–Maček Agreement and the creation of the Banovina of Croatia (Banovina), a semi-autonomous entity which contained Croatia and large sections of today's Bosnia and Herzegovina. HSS became part of the coalition government while Maček himself became deputy prime minister of Yugoslavia.

World War II.

This triumph proved to be short-lived as Banovina collapsed along with Yugoslavia when it was invaded by the Axis invasion in April 1941. Seen by Nazi Germany as an ideal leader of a new Axis puppet state—the Independent State of Croatia—Maček was offered the opportunity to become prime minister, but refused the offer twice. He called on the supporters of HSS to respect and co-operate with the new regime of Ante Pavelić, while at the same time delegating Juraj Krnjević to represent the Croatian people in the Yugoslav government-in-exile.  Maček's strategy proved to be detrimental both for his party and himself. In October 1941 he was arrested and interned in Jasenovac concentration camp where he was put under the watch of Ljubo Miloš for some time. Five months later, on 16 March 1942, he was placed under house arrest together with his family at his home in Kupinec. His family shared his internment first in Kupinec, then two months of 1943 (9 January to 9 March) in Luburić's Zagreb apartment (which they shared with Luburić's aged mother and his two sisters), and finally from 9 December 1943 until the collapse of Pavelić's Ustaša regime in May 1945 in his Prilaz 9 house in Zagreb. In the meantime, HSS began to fracture along ideological lines—some of its members joined the Ustaše, while others joined Tito's Partisans. Although bitterly opposed to the former, Maček was equally distrustful of the latter and in 1945 emigrated, first to France, then to the U.S.

Later life.

On 12 June 1945 Maček was received by French foreign minister Georges Bidault who offered him the right of domicile in France. He visited the United States for the first time in 1946 after receiving a visa by order of the Department of State. He was received by mayor David L. Lawrence of Pittsburgh while delivering a speech in that city.

Last years/death.

Maček helped found the International Peasants' Union along with Georgi Mihov Dimitrov in 1947. He was offered the leadership of the numerous Croatian émigré groups, but refused. During 1949, he provided much of the material on Yugoslavia for "Communists Crush Churches in Eastern Europe," edited by Reuben H. Markham.He died of a heart attack in Washington D.C. on 15 May 1964, aged 84. His remains were taken to Croatia in 1996 and buried in the Mirogoj cemetery in Zagreb. He was posthumously awarded the Grand Order of King Dmitar Zvonimir in 2004.

Vladimir "Vladko" Maček (20 June 1879 – 15 May 1964) was a politician in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. As a leader of the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) following the 1928 assassination of Stjepan Radić, Maček had been a leading Croatian political figure until the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941. As a leader of the HSS, Maček played a key role in establishment of the Banovina of Croatia, an autonomous banovina in Yugoslavia in 1939.


History.

The Albertinum was built between 1884 and 1887 by extending a former armoury, or arsenal, that had been constructed between 1559 and 1563 at the same location. The new building was designed by the regional master builder Carl Adolf Canzler in the Renaissance Revival style to house the royal "Collection of Antique and Modern Sculptures". The building was named after the Saxonian King Albert who reigned at the time. In 1889, the Sculpture Collection was moved in and has since remained there.  Damaged in the February 13, 1945 bombing of Dresden in World War II, the Albertinum was restored by 1953.  Besides the Sculpture Collection, the Albertinum has housed the New Masters Gallery ("Galerie Neue Meister") in the upper rooms since 1965. It was also the temporary postwar home of the Numismatic Cabinet ("Münzkabinett") and the Green Vault ("Grünes Gewölbe") until the exhibitions were moved to the rebuilt Dresden Castle in 2002 and 2004, respectively.  The floods of 2002 necessitated renovating the Albertinum and building a new flood-proof depository. After closing in 2006, the building was finally reopened on June 20, 2010 as a "house of the modern" with the New Masters Gallery and the Sculpture Collection, "designed for encounters between painting and sculpture, between the Romantic and the Modern". The most important improvement has been the roofing of the inner courtyard to form an atrium, called "an ark for the art". Furthermore, the glazed walling of the establishment's depositories gives visitors views of the inner workings of a museum.

Museums.

The Albertinum houses the New Masters Gallery ("Galerie Neue Meister") and the Sculpture Collection ("Skulpturensammlung"). The holdings of the two museums, with paintings ranging from Caspar David Friedrich to Ludwig Richter and sculptures from Auguste Rodin to the 21st century, are displayed on three floors in exhibition halls with a modern look.

The Albertinum () is a modern art museum. The sandstone-clad Renaissance Revival building is located on Brühl's Terrace in the historic center of Dresden, Germany. It is named after King Albert of Saxony.


Taxonomy and phylogenetics.

"Laetiporus sulphureus" was first described as "Boletus sulphureus" by French mycologist Pierre Bulliard in 1789. It has had many synonyms and was finally given its current name in 1920 by American mycologist William Murrill. "Laetiporus" means "with bright pores" and "sulphureus" means the colour of sulphur.  Investigations in North America have shown that there are several similar species within what has been considered "L. sulphureus", and that the true "L. sulphureus" may be restricted to regions east of the Rocky Mountains. Phylogenetic analyses of ITS, nuclear large subunit and mitochondrial small subunit rDNA sequences from North American collections have delineated five distinct clades within the core "Laetiporus" clade:

Description.

The fruiting body emerges directly from the trunk of a tree and is initially knob-shaped, but soon expands to fan-shaped shelves, typically growing in overlapping tiers. It is sulphur-yellow to bright orange in color and has a suedelike texture. Old fruitbodies fade to tan or whitish. Each shelf may be anywhere from across and up to thick. The fertile surface is sulphur-yellow with small pores or tubes and produces a white spore print. When fresh, the flesh is succulent with a strong fungal aroma and exudes a yellowish, transparent juice, but soon becomes dry and brittle.

Distribution and habitat.

"Laetiporus sulphureus" is widely distributed across Europe and North America, although its range may be restricted to areas east of the Rockies. It grows on dead or mature hardwoods and has been reported from a very wide variety of host trees, such as "Quercus", "Prunus", "Pyrus", "Populus", "Salix", "Robinia", and "Fagus", occasionally also from conifers, from August to October or later, sometimes as early as June. In the Mediterranean region, this species is usually found on "Ceratonia" and "Eucalyptus". It can usually be found growing in clusters.

Parasitism.

The fungus causes brown cubical rot of heartwood in the roots, tree base and stem. After infection, the wood is at first discolored yellowish to red but subsequently becomes reddish-brown and brittle. At the final stages of decay, the wood can be rubbed like powder between the fingers.

Guinness world record.

A specimen weighing was found in the New Forest, Hampshire, United Kingdom, on 15 October 1990.

Palatability.

Due to its taste, Laetiporus sulphureus has been called the "chicken polypore" and "chicken-of-the-woods" (not to be confused with "Grifola frondosa", the so-called "hen-of-the-woods").  Many people think that the mushroom tastes like crab or lobster leading to the nickname "lobster-of-the-woods". The authors of "Mushrooms in Color" said that the mushroom tastes good sauteed in butter or prepared in a cream sauce served on toast or rice. It is highly regarded in Germany and North America.  Young specimens are edible if they exude large amounts of a clear to pale yellow watery liquid. The mushroom should not be eaten raw. Certain species of deer consume this type of mushroom.

Allergic effects.

Some people have experienced gastrointestinal upset after eating this mushroom, and it should not be consumed raw.  Severe adverse reactions can occur, including vomiting and fever, in about 10% of the population, but this is now thought to be the result of confusion with morphologically similar species such as "Laetiporus huroniensis", which grows on hemlock trees, and "L. gilbertsonii", which grows on "Eucalyptus".

Medicinal.

The fungus produces the Laetiporus sulphureus lectin (LSL) which exhibits haemolytic and haemagglutination activities. Haemolytic lectins are sugar-binding proteins that lyse and agglutinate cells. These biochemical activities are promoted when bound to carbohydrates.

Cultivation.

Compared with species such as "Agaricus bisporus" (Swiss Brown mushroom) and the oyster mushroom, commercial cultivation of "Laetiporus" is non-existent except for outdoor log cultivation.

Laetiporus sulphureus is a species of bracket fungus (fungi that grow on trees) found in Europe and North America. Its common names are crab-of-the-woods, sulphur polypore, sulphur shelf, and chicken-of-the-woods. Its fruit bodies grow as striking golden-yellow shelf-like structures on tree trunks and branches. Old fruitbodies fade to pale beige or pale grey. The undersurface of the fruit body is made up of tubelike pores rather than gills.


Life.

Born in Warsaw, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz was a son of the painter, architect and an art critic Stanisław Witkiewicz. His mother was Maria Pietrzkiewicz Witkiewiczowa. Both of his parents were born in the Samogitian region of Lithuania. His godmother was the internationally famous actress Helena Modrzejewska.  Witkiewicz was reared at the family home in Zakopane. In accordance with his father's antipathy to the "servitude of the school," he was home-schooled and encouraged to develop his talents across a range of creative fields. Against his fathers wishes he studied at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts with Józef Mehoffer and Jan Stanisławski.  Witkiewicz was close friends with composer Karol Szymanowski and, from childhood, with Bronisław Malinowski and Zofia Romer. Romer was romantically linked to both Bronisław Malinowski and Witkiewicz. He had a tumultuous affair with prominent actress Irena Solska who according to Anna Micińska is represented as the heroine Akne Montecalfi in his first novel, "The 622 Downfalls of Bungo or The Demonic Woman", 1911. According to Micińska he also represented himself as the character Bungo and Malinowski as the Duke of Nevermore. The unfinished novel, which was not published until 1972, also describes erotic encounters between Bungo and the Duke of Nevermore. Taught wet plate photography by his father, it was during this period that he also began producing the intimate portrait photography for which he is known; producing striking portraits of his circle in Zakopane and many self-portraits.  In 1914 following a crisis in Witkiewicz's personal life due to the suicide of his fiancée, for which he blamed himself, he was invited by Malinowski to act as draftsman and photographer on his anthropological expedition to the then Territory of Papua, by way of Ceylon and Australia. The venture was interrupted by the onset of World War I. After quarrelling with Malinowski in Australia, Witkiewicz who was by birth a subject of the Russian Empire, travelled to St Petersburg (then Petrograd) from Sydney and was commissioned as an officer in the Pavlovsky Regiment of the Imperial Russian Army. His ailing father, a Polish patriot, was deeply grieved by his son's decision and died in 1915 without seeing him again.  In July 1916 he was seriously wounded in the battle on Stokhid River in what is now Ukraine and was evacuated to St Petersburg where he witnessed the Russian Revolution. He claimed that he worked out his philosophical principles during an artillery barrage, and that when the Revolution broke out he was elected political commissar of his regiment. His later works would show his fear of social revolution and foreign invasion, often couched in absurdist language. He had begun to support himself through portrait painting and continued to do so on his return to Zakopane in Poland. He soon entered into a major creative phase, setting out his principles in "New Forms in Painting" and "Introduction to the Theory of Pure Form in the Theatre". He associated with a group of "formist" artists in the early 1920s and wrote most of his plays during this period. Of about forty plays written by Witkiewicz between 1918 and 1925, twenty-one survive, and only "Jan Maciej Karol Hellcat" met with any public success during the author's lifetime. The original Polish manuscript of "The Crazy Locomotive" was also lost; the play, back-translated from two French versions, was not published until 1962. After 1925, and taking the name 'Witkacy', the artist ironically re-branded his portrait painting which provided his economic sustenance as "The S.I. Witkiewicz Portrait Painting Company", with the tongue in cheek motto: "The customer must always be satisfied". Several of the so-called grades of portraits were offered, from the merely representational to the more expressionistic and the narcotics-assisted. Many of his paintings were annotated with mnemonics listing the drugs taken while painting a particular painting, even if this happened to be only a cup of coffee. He also varied the spelling of his name, signing himself "Witkac, Witkatze, Witkacjusz, Vitkacius" and "Vitecasse" — the last being French for "breaks quickly".  In the late 1920s he turned to novel-writing, writing two works, "Farewell to Autumn" and "Insatiability". The latter, his major work, encompasses geopolitics, psychoactive drugs, and philosophy. In 1935 he was awarded the Golden Laurel of the Polish Academy of Literature for his novels.  During the 1930s, Witkiewicz published a text on his experiences of narcotics, including peyote, and pursued his interests in philosophy writing, "Concepts and Principles Implied by the Concept of Existence" 1935. He also promoted emerging writers such as Bruno Schulz.

Death.

Shortly after Poland was invaded by Germany in September 1939, Witkiewicz escaped with his young lover Czesława to the rural frontier town of Jeziory, in what was then eastern Poland. After hearing the news of the Soviet invasion of Poland on 17 September 1939, Witkacy committed suicide on 18 September by taking a drug overdose and trying to slit his wrists. He convinced Czesława to attempt suicide with him by consuming Luminal, but she survived. The film "Mystification" 2010, written and directed by Jacek Koprowicz proposed that Witkiewicz faked his own death and lived secretly in Poland until 1968.

Legacy.

Witkiewicz had died in some obscurity but his reputation began to rise soon after the war, which had destroyed his life and devastated Poland. Outside of Poland his work was discussed as a precursor to post-ww2 European drama in Martin Esslin's influential "Theatre of the Absurd" 1961, and later in Hans-Theis Lehmann's "Postdramatic Theatre" 2006. collected his surviving dramatic writings in two volumes in "Dramaty" (Dramas) 1962 which revived interest in his plays in Poland. Through his translations and scholarship, Daniel Gerould introduced English-language audiences to the writings of Witkiewicz.  Czesław Miłosz framed his argument in "The Captive Mind" around a discussion of Witkiewicz's novel, "Insatiability". The artist and theater director Tadeusz Kantor was inspired by the "Cricot" group, through which Witkiewicz had presented his final plays in Kraków. Kantor brought many of the plays back into currency, first in Poland and then internationally, including "The Cuttlefish" (1956) and "The Water Hen" (1969). Visual artist Paulina Olowska produced Witkiewicz's "Mother" at the Tate Modern in 2015.  Films which have Witkiewicz as the subject include "Tumor Witkacego" 1985, "Mystification" 2010 and "Witkacy and Malinowski: a cinematic séance in 23 scenes" 2017. Films based on his works include "Ludiot i kalugericata" 1968,"Farewell to Autumn" 1990, "Insatiability" 2003,"Madame Tutli-Putli" 2007 and "Nursery Rhyme of a Madman" 2017.  Witkiewicz's paintings and pastel drawings are in the collections of the National Museum, Warsaw, the National Museum, Kraków, Museum of Literature, Warsaw and the Museum of Central Pomerania with 125 works in Słupsk Castle. The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney hold important examples of his photography.  In the postwar period, Communist Poland's Ministry of Culture decided to exhume Witkiewicz's body, move it to Zakopane, and give it a solemn funeral. This was carried out according to plan, though no one was allowed to open the coffin that had been delivered by the Soviet authorities.  On 26 November 1994, the Polish Ministry of Culture and Art ordered the exhumation of the presumed grave of Witkiewicz in Zakopane. Genetic tests on the remaining bones proved that the body had belonged to an unknown woman — a final absurdist joke, fifty years after the publication of Witkacy's last novel.

Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (; 24 February 188518 September 1939), commonly known as Witkacy, was a Polish writer, painter, philosopher, theorist, playwright, novelist, and photographer active before World War I and during the interwar period.


History.

The Norwegian Forest cat is adapted to survive Norway's cold weather. Its ancestors may include black and white shorthair cats brought to Norway from Great Britain some time after 1000 AD by the Vikings, and longhaired cats brought to Norway by Crusaders. These cats could have reproduced with farm and feral stock and may have eventually evolved into the modern-day Norwegian Forest breed. The Siberian and the Turkish Angora, longhaired cats from Russia and Turkey, respectively, are also possible ancestors of the breed. Norse legends refer to the "skogkatt" as a "mountain-dwelling fairy cat with an ability to climb sheer rock faces that other cats could not manage." Since the Norwegian Forest cat is a very adept climber, author Claire Bessant believes that the "skogkatt" folktale could be about the ancestor of the modern Norwegian Forest breed. The name "Norse skogkatt" is used by some breeder and fancier organisations for the modern breed.  Most likely the ancestors of the Norwegian Forest cat served as ships' cats (mousers) on Viking ships. The original landrace lived in the Norwegian forests for many centuries, but were later prized for their hunting skills and were used on Norwegian farms, until they were discovered in the early twentieth century by cat enthusiasts.  In 1938 the first organisation devoted to the breed, the Norwegian Forest Cat Club, was formed in Oslo, Norway. The club's movement to preserve the breed was interrupted by World War II. Owing to cross-breeding with free-ranging domestic cats during the war, the Norwegian Forest cat became endangered and nearly extinct until the Norwegian Forest Cat Club helped the breed make a comeback by developing an official breeding program. In the 1950s, King Olaf V declared them the official cat of Norway. Since the cat did not leave Norway until the 1970s, it was not registered as a breed in the Fédération Internationale Féline (FIFe), the pan-European federation of cat registries, until Carl-Fredrik Nordane, a Norwegian cat fancier, took notice of the breed, and made efforts to register it. The breed was registered in Europe by the 1970s, and in the American Cat Fanciers Association in 1994. In 1978, it was recognized in Sweden as an official breed, and in 1989, they were accepted as a breed in the United Kingdom by the Norwegian Cat Club of Britain.  The Norwegian Forest breed is very popular in Norway and Sweden. Since 2003, it has been the fifth most popular cat breed in France, where there are about 400 to 500 births per year.

Breed description.

The Norwegian Forest cat is strongly built and larger than an average cat. Adult females of this breed will typically weigh 3.6 – 8 kg (8 - 18 lbs), while males tend to weigh 4.5 to 9 kg (10 - 20 lbs). The breed has a long, sturdy body, long legs and a bushy tail. The coat consists of a long, glossy, thick and water-repellent top layer and a woolly undercoat and is thickest at the legs, chest and head. The profile of the breed is generally straight. Their water-resistant coat with a dense undercoat developed to help the cat survive in the harsh Scandinavian climate.  Those cats that live primarily outdoors become swift and effective hunters, but the breed can also adapt to indoor life. If bought from a registered breeder in the US, they tend to cost from $800 to $1500. The cats usually live to be 14 to 16 years old. As they are heavy-boned and tall, they eat more food than most other domestic breeds.

Personality.

They are friendly, intelligent, and generally good with people. The Norwegian Forest cat has a lot of energy. Although they are muscular, they tend not to do well with dogs and high-energy pets. They get easily afraid and do not like having high-energy pets around. They are very interactive cats who enjoy being part of their family environment and love to play games.

Health issues.

Kidney and heart diseases have been reported in the breed. In an experiment directed by John C. Fyfea, Rebeccah L. Kurzhals, and others, it was concluded that a complex rearrangement in the breed's Glycogen branching enzyme (GBE1) can cause both a perinatal hypoglycemic collapse and a late-juvenile-onset neuromuscular degeneration in glycogen storage disease type IV in the breed. This disorder, while rare, can prove fatal to cats that have it. There are DNA tests available for GSD IV, and it is highly recommended (some cat associations obligate their Norwegian Forest cat breeder members) to carry out the DNA test before using such animals for breeding. PawPeds provide a pedigree database which comes together with health programmes, through publishing each single cat's test result, to provide useful information for breeders to make a well-informed breeding decision. The breed has also been known to suffer from hip dysplasia, which is a rare, partially hereditary disease of the hip joint.  Patella luxation is found more in the British Shorthair, Abyssinian and Devon Rex breeds, but it is recognized in Norwegian Forest cats as well. It is a condition in which patella moves out of its original physiological position.  A pedigree with 871 Norwegian Forest cats show that familial cardiomyopathy in this breed. There is also high prevalence of eosinophilic granuloma complex in Norwegian Forest cats which is suggestive of a genetic background.  The main factors causing Toxoplasma gondii seropositivity on cats are age, raw meat and outdoor access. A study shows that T. gondii seropositivity varies by cat breeds. Norwegian Forest cats have a relatively high rate of Toxoplasma gondii seropositivity (4.66%) comparing with other pure-bred cats (Birman:4.16%, British Shorthair: 3.39%, Korat: 2.03%, Ocicat: 4.26%, Siamese: 2.57%), but slightly lower than Persian cats(6.99%).  Glycogen storage disease type IV due to branching enzyme deficiency was found in an inbred family of Norwegian forest cats.

The Norwegian Forest cat ( or ) is a breed of domestic cat originating in Northern Europe. This natural breed is adapted to a very cold climate, with a top coat of glossy, long, water-shedding hairs and a woolly undercoat for insulation. Although this is uncertain, the breed's ancestors may have been a landrace of short-haired cats brought to Norway by the Vikings around 1000 AD, who may also have brought with them long-haired cats, like those ancestral to the modern Siberian and Turkish Angora. During World War II, the breed became nearly extinct until efforts by the Norwegian Forest Cat Club helped the breed by creating an official breeding program. It was registered as a breed with the European Fédération Internationale Féline in the 1970s, when a local cat fancier, Carl-Fredrik Nordane, took notice of the breed and made efforts to register it. Currently, the Norwegian Forest breed is very popular in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland and France.


Overview.

The lineage was founded by Constantine Angelos, a minor noble from Philadelphia (Asia Minor), who married Theodora Komnene, a daughter of emperor Alexios I Komnenos. According to the 12th-century historian John Zonaras, Constantine was brave, skilled and handsome, but of lowly origin. The family's surname, "Angelos", is commonly held to have derived from the Greek word for "angel", but such an origin is rarely attested in Byzantine times, and it is possible that their name instead derives from A[n]gel, a district near Amida in Upper Mesopotamia. The historian Suzanne Wittek-de Jongh suggested that Constantine was the son of a certain "patrikios" Manuel Angelos, whose possessions near Serres were confirmed by a chrysobull of Emperor Nikephoros III (), but this is considered unlikely by most scholars.  Constantine and Theodora had seven children, three sons and four daughters. Through his sons, Constantine was the progenitor of the Angelos dynasty, which produced three Byzantine emperors in 1185–1204, as well as the "Angelos Komnenos Doukas" dynasty that ruled over Epirus and Thessalonica in the 13th–14th centuries.  Constantine's third son Andronikos Doukas Angelos was the progenitor of the imperial Angelos dynasty. In 1185, Andronikos' son Isaac II Angelos deposed Andronikos I Komnenos and was proclaimed Byzantine Emperor. Irene Angelina, a daughter of Isaac II Angelos, married Philip of Swabia, King of the Germans. Their daughters married into a number of western European royal and princely families. Many of the extant aristocratic families of Europe are, therefore, descendants of the Angeloi. Isaac was deposed by his brother Alexios III Angelos, who was in turn overthrown by Alexios IV Angelos with the aid of the Fourth Crusade. Under the corrupt and dissolute reign of the Angelos dynasty, the Byzantine empire deteriorated and soon fell prey to Latin crusaders and Venetians in the Fourth Crusade.  The Angelos line was continued by the descendants of Constantine's eldest son, John Doukas. After the fall of Constantinople and the establishment of the Latin Empire in 1204, John Doukas' illegitimate son, Michael I Komnenos Doukas, founded the Despotate of Epirus, choosing the city of Arta as its capital. In 1224, Michael's half-brother Theodore captured the Kingdom of Thessalonica from the crusaders and proclaimed himself as the legitimate Byzantine emperor ("basileus") in Thessalonica. However, Theodore was defeated and captured by John II Asen in the Battle of Klokotnitsa in 1230, and the Empire of Thessalonica quickly declined. During Theodore's captivity, his brother Manuel ruled over Thessalonica, succeeded by Theodore's sons John and Demetrios. Eventually, the city was lost to the Nicaean emperor John III Doukas Vatatzes in 1246, marking the end of the rule of the Angeloi in Thessalonica.  In 1230, Theodore's nephew Michael II, son of Michael I, established himself as ruler of Epirus and Thessaly. After the death of Michael II in 1271, Epirus was ruled by his legitimate son Nikephoros I, while Thessaly was given to his illegitimate son John I Doukas. In 1318, Nicholas Orsini murdered Nikephoros' son Thomas, ending the rule of the family in Epirus. In Thessaly, John I Doukas was succeeded by his son Constantine, followed by John II, who ruled from 1302/03 until his death in 1318. In the same year, the south of Thessaly was seized by the Catalan Grand Company and annexed to the Duchy of Athens, while the north passed to a series of autonomous magnates.  Having re-established Byzantine control over Epirou and Thessaly in 1340, emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos appointed the "pinkernes" (cup-bearer) John Angelos, a nephew of "megas domestikos" John Kantakouzenos, to the governorship of Epirus. John extended his rule to Thessaly in 1342, but died from the plague in 1348. Epirus and Thessaly were conquered by the Serbian ruler Stefan Dušan soon afterwards.  Descendants of John Angelos continued to govern Thessaly under Simeon Uroš and John Uroš. John Uroš, the last Nemanjić, abdicated in favour of Alexios Angelos Philanthropenos, the "kaisar" of Thessaly. Alexios' brother Manuel Angelos Philanthropenos was the last Byzantine Greek ruler of Thessaly.  After the Ottoman conquest of Thessaly in 1394, the Angeloi Philanthropenoi took refuge in Serbia. A grandson of either Alexios or Manuel, Mihailo Anđelović, served as an official at the court of Đurađ and Lazar Branković. Mihailo's brother Mahmud, captured in his infancy by Ottoman soldiers, was brought to Edirne, where he converted to Islam. He later rose to the highest ranks of the Ottoman Empire, becoming beylerbey of Rumelia in 1451 and Grand Vizier in 1455. Thus, in the negotiations between Serb despot Lazar Branković and Mehmed II in 1457, the two sides were represented by the brothers Mihailo and Mahmud Anđelović.

The Angelos family (; ), feminine form Angelina (), plural Angeloi (), was a Byzantine Greek noble lineage which gave rise to three Byzantine emperors who ruled between 1185 and 1204. From the 13th to the 14th century, a branch of the family ruled Epiros, Thessaly and Thessaloniki under the name of Komnenos Doukas.


Description.

"Cardamine pratensis" is a herbaceous, hairless, perennial plant growing to 40–60 cm tall, with pinnate leaves 5–12 cm long with 3–15 leaflets, each leaflet about 1 cm long. The flowers are produced on a spike 10–30 cm long, each flower 1–2 cm in diameter with four very pale violet-pink (rarely white) petals. The style of the fruit is short or longish. It grows best close to water.  Its common name "cuckooflower" derives from the formation of the plant's flowers at around the same time as the arrival each spring of the first cuckoos in the British Isles.

Distribution.

The species is commonly found throughout the British Isles.  Recorded in Ireland from all 40 of the "vice-counties" (a system adopted by Praeger in 1901).

Cultivation.

It is grown as an ornamental plant in gardens, and has become naturalised in North America as a result of cultivation. In some European countries, including parts of Germany, the plant is now under threat.  It is a food plant for the orange tip butterfly ("Anthocharis cardamines") and makes a valuable addition to any garden which aims at attracting wildlife. It was once used as a substitute for watercress.

Folklore.

In folklore it was said to be sacred to the fairies, and so was unlucky if brought indoors. It was not included in May Day garlands for the same reason.

Additional general information.

It is the county flower of the English county of Cheshire.

Cardamine pratensis, the cuckoo flower, lady's smock, mayflower, or milkmaids, is a flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae, native throughout most of Europe and Western Asia. The specific name "pratensis" is Latin for "meadow".