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La Finta Pazza
''La finta pazza'' (''The feigned madwoman'') is an opera composed by Francesco Sacrati to a libretto by Giulio Strozzi. Its premiere in Venice during the Carnival season of 1641 inaugurated the Teatro Novissimo. It became one of the most popular operas of the seventeenth century. History Venice, 1641 On 30 May 1640, the decision was made to create a new opera house in Venice, to compete with the existing three opera houses, the Teatro San Cassiano, the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo, and the Teatro San Moisè. The Teatro Novissimo marked the first time that a building was created specifically for opera. Early in 1641, before the opera had been performed for the first time, the libretto was already printed. This was highly unusual and a first for Venice, but would become standard practice at the Teatro Novissimo. Giulio Strozzi was already a well-established libretto writer at the time, and had in 1627 collaborated with Claudio Monteverdi on '' La finta pazzi Licori'', an aborted ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lost Operas By Claudio Monteverdi
The Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643), in addition to a large output of church music and madrigals, wrote prolifically for the stage. His theatrical works were written between 1604 and 1643 and included List of operas by Claudio Monteverdi, operas, of which three—''L'Orfeo'' (1607), ''Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria'' (1640) and ''L'incoronazione di Poppea'' (1643)—have survived with their music and librettos intact. In the case of the other seven operas, the music has disappeared almost entirely, although some of the librettos exist. The loss of these works, written during a critical period of early opera history, has been much regretted by commentators and musicologists. Opera, as a musical and theatrical genre, began to emerge during the early part of Monteverdi's career, initially as a form of courtly entertainment. With other composers, he played a leading part in its development into the main form of public musical theatre. His first opera, ''L'Orfeo'', wr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cardinal Mazarin
Cardinal Jules Mazarin (, also , , ; 14 July 1602 – 9 March 1661), born Giulio Raimondo Mazzarino () or Mazarini, was an Italian cardinal, diplomat and politician who served as the chief minister to the Kings of France Louis XIII and Louis XIV from 1642 to his death. In 1654, he acquired the title Duke of Mayenne and in 1659 that of 1st Duke of Rethel and Nevers. After serving as a papal diplomat for Pope Urban VIII, Mazarin offered his diplomatic services to Cardinal Richelieu and moved to Paris in 1640. After the death of Richelieu in 1642, Mazarin took his place as first minister and then of Louis XIII in 1643. Mazarin acted as the head of the government for Anne of Austria, the regent for the young Louis XIV. Mazarin was also made responsible for the king's education until he came of age. The first years of Mazarin in office were marked by military victories in the Thirty Years' War, which he used to make France the main European power and establish the Peace of West ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arsenal In Venice
The Venetian Arsenal ( it, Arsenale di Venezia) is a complex of former shipyards and armories clustered together in the city of Venice in northern Italy. Owned by the state, the Arsenal was responsible for the bulk of the Venetian republic's naval power from the late Middle Ages to the early modern period. It was "one of the earliest large-scale industrial enterprises in history". Overview Construction of the Arsenal began around 1104, during Venice's republican era. It became the largest industrial complex in Europe before the Industrial Revolution, spanning an area of about , or about fifteen percent of Venice.Giove, S., Rosato, P. & Breil, M.A multicriteria approach for the evaluation of the sustainability of re-use of historic buildings in Venice" ''Sustainability indicators and environmental valuation paper - Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.'' October 2008. Accessed 30 January 2010. Surrounded by a rampart, laborers and shipbuilders regularly worked within the Arsenal, bui ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tour De Nesle
The Tour de Nesle () was one of the four large guard towers on the old city wall of Paris, constructed at the beginning of the 13th century by Philip II of France and demolished in 1665. The tower was situated on the left (south) bank of the Seine facing the old castle of the Louvre on the opposite bank. Originally known as the ''Tour Hamelin'', it was a cylindrical structure of approximately 10 metres in diameter. The height was around 25 metres, with a stair turret reaching higher still. Later, the tower was incorporated into the Hôtel de Nesle, a medieval mansion. On the right bank of the Seine river was a similar tall tower: the Tour du Coin (corner tower). The towers protected the upstream approach to the Île de la Cité. In 1308, Philip IV bought the tower from Amaury de Nesle. In 1314, a scandal known as the Tour de Nesle affair implicated the daughters-in-law of Philip IV, who were accused of adultery. Many of the alleged liaisons were said to have occurred in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Padua
Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 214,000 (). The city is sometimes included, with Venice (Italian ''Venezia'') and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area (PATREVE) which has a population of around 2,600,000. Padua stands on the Bacchiglione, Bacchiglione River, west of Venice and southeast of Vicenza. The Brenta River, which once ran through the city, still touches the northern districts. Its agricultural setting is the Venetian Plain (''Pianura Veneta''). To the city's south west lies the Colli Euganei, Euganaean Hills, praised by Lucan and Martial, Petrarch, Ugo Foscolo, and Percy Bysshe Shelley, Shelley. Padua appears twice in the UNESCO World Heritage List: for its Botanical Garden of Padua, Botanical Garden, the most anc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pont Neuf
The Pont Neuf (, "New Bridge") is the oldest standing bridge across the river Seine in Paris, France. It stands by the western (downstream) point of the Île de la Cité, the island in the middle of the river that was, between 250 and 225 BC, the birthplace of Paris, then known as Lutetia and, during the medieval period, the heart of the city. The bridge is composed of two separate spans, one of five arches joining the left bank to the ''Île de la Cité'', another of seven joining the island to the right bank. Old engraved maps of Paris show that the newly built bridge just grazed the downstream tip of the ''Île de la Cité''; since then, the natural sandbar building of a mid-river island, aided by stone-faced embankments called ''quais'', has extended the island. Today the tip of the island is the location of the ''Square du Vert-Galant'', a small public park named in honour of Henry IV, nicknamed the "Green Gallant". The name ''Pont Neuf'' was given to distinguish it fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henri IV
Henry IV (french: Henri IV; 13 December 1553 – 14 May 1610), also known by the epithets Good King Henry or Henry the Great, was King of Navarre (as Henry III) from 1572 and King of France from 1589 to 1610. He was the first monarch of France from the House of Bourbon, a cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty. He was assassinated in 1610 by François Ravaillac, a Catholic zealot, and was succeeded by his son Louis XIII. Henry was the son of Jeanne III of Navarre and Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme. He was baptised as a Catholic but raised in the Protestant faith by his mother. He inherited the throne of Navarre in 1572 on his mother's death. As a Huguenot, Henry was involved in the French Wars of Religion, barely escaping assassination in the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. He later led Protestant forces against the French royal army. Henry became king of France in 1589 upon the death of Henry III, his brother-in-law and distant cousin. He was the first Fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Place Dauphine
The Place Dauphine is a public square located near the western end of the Île de la Cité in the first arrondissement of Paris. It was initiated by Henry IV in 1607, the second of his projects for public squares in Paris, the first being the Place Royale (now the Place des Vosges). He named it for his son, the Dauphin of France and future Louis XIII, who had been born in 1601. From the "square", actually triangular in shape, one can access the middle of the Pont Neuf, a bridge which connects the left and right banks of the Seine by passing over the Île de la Cité. A street called, since 1948, Rue Henri-Robert, forty metres long, connects the Place Dauphine and the bridge. Where they meet, there are two other named places, the Place du Pont-Neuf and the Square du Vert-Galant. History The Place Dauphine was laid out in 1607–10, when the Place Royale was still under construction. It was among the earliest city-planning projects of Henri IV, and was on a site created from par ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Skyros
Skyros ( el, Σκύρος, ), in some historical contexts Latinized Scyros ( grc, Σκῦρος, ), is an island in Greece, the southernmost of the Sporades, an archipelago in the Aegean Sea. Around the 2nd millennium BC and slightly later, the island was known as The Island of the Magnetes where the Magnetes used to live and later Pelasgia and Dolopia and later Skyros. At it is the largest island of the Sporades, and has a population of about 3,000 (in 2011). It is part of the regional unit of Euboea. The Hellenic Air Force has a major base in Skyros, because of the island's strategic location in the middle of the Aegean. Municipality The municipality Skyros is part of the regional unit of Euboea. Apart from the island Skyros, it consists of the small inhabited island of Skyropoula and a few smaller uninhabited islands. The total area of the municipality is . Geography The north of the island is covered by a forest, while the south, dominated by the highest mountain, called ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flora (mythology)
Flora ( la, Flōra) is a Roman mythology, Roman goddess of flowers and of the season of Spring (season), spring – a symbol for nature and flowers (especially the may-flower). While she was otherwise a relatively minor figure in Roman mythology, being one among several Fertility goddess, fertility goddesses, her association with the spring gave her particular importance at the coming of springtime, as did her role as goddess of youth. She was one of the fifteen deities who had their own flamen, the ''Floralis'', one of the ''flamines minores''. Her Ancient Greece, Greek counterpart is Chloris (nymph), Chloris. Etymology The name ''Flōra'' descends from Proto-Italic language, Proto-Italic ''*flōsā'' ('goddess of flowers'), itself a derivation from Proto-Italic ''*flōs'' ('flower'; cf. Latin ''flōs'', ''flōris'' 'blossom, flower'). It is cognate with the Osci, Oscan goddess of flowers ''Fluusa'', demonstrating that the cult was known more widely among Italic peoples. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicolas Cochin
Nicolas Cochin (1610–1686), called the Elder, was a French draughtsman and engraver. He was born at Troyes in 1610, the son of a painter named Noel Cochin. About 1635, he went to Paris, where he died in 1686. He often imitated and copied Jacques Callot, but chose for his model Stefano della Bella, some of whose drawings he engraved. Like these two artists he excelled in small figures, which he grouped and delineated with lifelike animation. His specialty was topography, including battles, sieges, and encampments. He engraved several hundred subjects, the most important of which are those he executed for the "Glorieuses Conquêtes de Louis le Grand", called the "Grand Beaulieu", published between 1676 and 1694. The best of these plates may be the "Siege of Arras", engraved on 16 plates by Cochin and Jean Frosne. Cochin is the best of the engravers whom Troyes has produced. His drawing is firm, and his engraving fine and delicate. His plates are marked with his name in full, or wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis XIV
, house = Bourbon , father = Louis XIII , mother = Anne of Austria , birth_date = , birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France , death_date = , death_place = Palace of Versailles, Versailles, France , burial_date = 9 September 1715 , burial_place = Basilica of Saint-Denis , religion = Catholicism (Gallican Rite) , signature = Louis XIV Signature.svg Louis XIV (Louis Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was King of France from 14 May 1643 until his death in 1715. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest of any sovereign in history whose date is verifiable. Although Louis XIV's France was emblematic of the age of absolutism in Europe, the King surrounded himself with a variety of significant political, military, and cultural figures, such as Bossuet, Colbert, Le Brun, Le Nôtre, Lully, Mazarin, Molière, Racine, Turenne, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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