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Villa Di Careggi
The Villa Medici at Careggi is a patrician villa in the hills near Florence, Tuscany, central Italy. History The villa was among the first of a number of Medici villas, notable as the site of the Platonic Academy founded by Cosimo de' Medici, who died at the villa in 1464. Like most villas of Florentine families, the villa remained a working farm that helped render the family self-sufficient. Cosimo's architect there, as elsewhere, was Michelozzo, who remodelled the fortified villa which had something of the character of a castello. Its famous garden is walled about, like a medieval garden, overlooked by the upper-storey loggias, with which Michelozzo cautiously opened up the villa's structure. Michelozzo's Villa Medici in Fiesole has a more outward-looking, Renaissance character. The property was purchased in 1417 by Cosimo de' Medici brother, Lorenzo. At the death of Giovanni di Bicci, Cosimo il Vecchio set about remodelling the beloved villa around its loggia-enclosed ce ...
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Loggia
In architecture, a loggia ( , usually , ) is a covered exterior gallery or corridor, usually on an upper level, but sometimes on the ground level of a building. The outer wall is open to the elements, usually supported by a series of columns or arches. They can be on principal fronts and/or sides of a building and are not meant for entrance but as an outdoor sitting room."Definition of Loggia"
Lexic.us. Retrieved on 2014-10-24.
An overhanging loggia may be supported by a baldresca. From the early , nearly every Italian

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Unesco World Heritage Site
A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, scientific or other form of significance. The sites are judged to contain " cultural and natural heritage around the world considered to be of outstanding value to humanity". To be selected, a World Heritage Site must be a somehow unique landmark which is geographically and historically identifiable and has special cultural or physical significance. For example, World Heritage Sites might be ancient ruins or historical structures, buildings, cities, deserts, forests, islands, lakes, monuments, mountains, or wilderness areas. A World Heritage Site may signify a remarkable accomplishment of humanity, and serve as evidence of our intellectual history on the planet, or it might be a place of great natural beauty. A ...
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Arboretum
An arboretum (plural: arboreta) in a general sense is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, many modern arboreta are in botanical gardens as living collections of woody plants and is intended at least in part for scientific study. In Latin, an ''arboretum'' is a place planted with trees, not necessarily in this specific sense, and "arboretum" as an English word is first recorded used by John Claudius Loudon in 1833 in ''The Gardener's Magazine'', but the concept was already long-established by then. An arboretum specializing in growing conifers is known as a pinetum. Other specialist arboreta include saliceta (willows), populeta (Populus, poplar), and querceta (oaks). Related collections include a fruticetum, from the Latin ''frutex'', meaning ''shrub'', much more often a shrubbery, and a viticetum (from the Latin ''vitis,'' meani ...
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Arbutus
''Arbutus'' is a genus of 12 accepted speciesAct. Bot. Mex no.99 Pátzcuaro abr. 2012.''Arbutus bicolor''/ref> of flowering plants in the family Ericaceae, native to warm temperate regions of the Mediterranean, western Europe, the Canary Islands and North America. The name ''Arbutus'' was taken from Latin, where it referred to ''Arbutus unedo''. Description ''Arbutus'' are small trees or shrubs with red flaking bark and edible red berries.Mabberley, D. J. 1997. ''The plant book: A portable dictionary of the vascular plants''. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Fruit development is delayed for about five months after pollination, so that flowers appear while the previous year's fruit are ripening. Peak flowering for the genus is in April with peak fruiting in October. History The smooth wood of the tree is mentioned by Theophrastus in his ''Enquiry into Plants'' (''Historia Plantarum'') as formerly being used to make weaving spindles. An article on Arbutus tree cultivatio ...
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Sequoiadendron Giganteum
''Sequoiadendron giganteum'' (giant sequoia; also known as giant redwood, Sierra redwood, Sierran redwood, California big tree, Wellingtonia or simply big treea nickname also used by John Muir) is the sole living species in the genus ''Sequoiadendron'', and one of three species of coniferous trees known as Sequoioideae, redwoods, classified in the family Cupressaceae in the subfamily Sequoioideae, together with ''Sequoia sempervirens'' (coast redwood) and ''Metasequoia glyptostroboides'' (dawn redwood). Giant sequoia specimens are the most massive trees on Earth. The common use of the name ''sequoia'' usually refers to ''Sequoiadendron giganteum'', which occurs naturally only in groves on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada mountain range of California. The giant sequoia is listed as an endangered species by the IUCN, with fewer than 80,000 trees remaining. Since its last assessment as an endangered species in 2011, it was estimated that another 13–19% ...
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Cedar Of Lebanon
''Cedrus libani'', the cedar of Lebanon or Lebanese cedar (), is a species of tree in the genus cedrus, a part of the pine family, native to the mountains of the Eastern Mediterranean basin. It is a large evergreen conifer that has great religious and historical significance in the cultures of the Middle East, and is referenced many times in the literature of ancient civilisations. It is the national emblem of Lebanon and is widely used as an ornamental tree in parks and gardens. Description ''Cedrus libani'' can reach in height, with a massive monopodial columnar trunk up to in diameter.Farjon 2010, p. 258 The trunks of old trees ordinarily fork into several large, erect branches.Masri 1995 The rough and scaly bark is dark grey to blackish brown, and is run through by deep, horizontal fissures that peel in small chips. The first-order branches are ascending in young trees; they grow to a massive size and take on a horizontal, wide-spreading disposition. Second-order branche ...
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Carlo De' Medici (cardinal)
Carlo de' Medici (19 March 1595 – 17 June 1666) was the son of Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and Christina of Lorraine. Biography Born in Florence, he had a successful career in the Church, rising to become Cardinal Bishop of Ostia and Dean of the College of Cardinals. De' Medici was raised to the cardinalate by Pope Paul V in the consistory of 2 December 1615 and was made Cardinal Deacon of ''Santa Maria in Domnica''. He was an elector at the papal conclaves of 1621 and 1623 that elected Pope Gregory XV and Pope Urban VIII. He transferred deaconries to that of ''San Nicola in Carcere'' in 1623, and was the Cardinal protodeacon at the conclave of 1644 that elected Pope Innocent X. He was briefly Cardinal Deacon of ''Sant'Eustachio'', before being raised to the order of Cardinal Priests in December 1644, with the title of ''San Sisto''. The next year, de' Medici was raised to Cardinal Bishop of Sabina, but opted for the suburbicarian see of Frascati se ...
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A&C Black
A & C Black is a British book publishing company, owned since 2002 by Bloomsbury Publishing. The company is noted for publishing '' Who's Who'' since 1849. It also published popular travel guides and novels. History The firm was founded in 1807 by Charles and Adam Black in Edinburgh. In 1851, the company purchased the copyrights to Sir Walter Scott's ''Waverly'' novels for £27,000. The company moved to the Soho district of London in 1889. During the years 1827–1903 the firm published the seventh, eighth and ninth editions of the ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. This was purchased from Archibald Constable after his company's failure to publish the seventh edition of the encyclopedia. Adam Black retired in 1870 due to his disapproval of his sons' extravagant plans for its ninth edition. This edition, however, would sell half a million sets and was released in 24 volumes from 1875 to 1889. Beginning in 1839, the firm published a series of travel guides known as ''Black's Guid ...
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Lorenzo De' Medici
Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici (; 1 January 1449 – 8 April 1492) was an Italian statesman, banker, ''de facto'' ruler of the Florentine Republic and the most powerful and enthusiastic patron of Renaissance culture in Italy. Also known as Lorenzo the Magnificent (''Lorenzo il Magnifico'' ) by contemporary Florentines, he was a magnate, diplomat, politician and patron of scholars, artists, and poets. As a patron, he is best known for his sponsorship of artists such as Botticelli and Michelangelo. He held the balance of power within the Italic League, an alliance of states that stabilized political conditions on the Italian peninsula for decades, and his life coincided with the mature phase of the Italian Renaissance and the Golden Age of Florence. On the foreign policy front, Lorenzo manifested a clear plan to stem the territorial ambitions of Pope Sixtus IV, in the name of the balance of the Italian League of 1454. For these reasons, Lorenzo was the subject of the Pazzi conspi ...
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Random House Publishing Group
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. History Random House was founded in 1927 by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer, two years after they acquired the Modern Library imprint from publisher Horace Liveright, which reprints classic works of literature. Cerf is quoted as saying, "We just said we were going to publish a few books on the side at random," which suggested the name Random House. In 1934 they published the first authorized edition of James Joyce's novel ''Ulysses'' in the Anglophone world. ''Ulysses'' transformed Random House into a formidable publisher over the next two decades. In 1936, it absorbed the firm of Smith and Haas—Robert Haas became the third partner until retiring and selling his share back to Cerf and Klopfer in 1956 ...
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Marsilio Ficino
Marsilio Ficino (; Latin name: ; 19 October 1433 – 1 October 1499) was an Italian scholar and Catholic priest who was one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance. He was an astrologer, a reviver of Neoplatonism in touch with the major academics of his day, and the first translator of Plato's complete extant works into Latin. His Florentine Academy, an attempt to revive Plato's Academy, influenced the direction and tenor of the Italian Renaissance and the development of European philosophy. Early life Ficino was born at Figline Valdarno. His father, Diotifeci d'Agnolo, was a physician under the patronage of Cosimo de' Medici, who took the young man into his household and became the lifelong patron of Marsilio, who was made tutor to his grandson, Lorenzo de' Medici. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, the Italian humanist philosopher and scholar was another of his students. Career and thought Platonic Academy During the sessions at ...
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