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Antonio Piaggio
Padre Antonio Piaggio (1713 – ca. 1796/7) was an Italian priest and scholar, who invented a machine to unroll carbonized scrolls from Herculaneum in the 1750s, and spent the years 1779-1795 recording the activity of Vesuvius in a diary, for Sir William Hamilton. Herculaneum papyri In 1752, the Villa of the Papyri was discovered in the city of Herculaneum, having been buried during the AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius. The rolled papyri scrolls had been carbonised and then preserved by the hot volcanic deposits, and many efforts were made to try and unroll and decipher them. Piaggio, who was a priest and curator of manuscripts in the Vatican, was brought to Naples to assist, and invented a simple machine to unroll the manuscripts using silk threads attached to the edge of the papyrus. The unrolling was partially successful, but proved to be rather destructive for the fragile scrolls, yet vastly improving on the prevailing practice of eviscerating or scraping the scrolls. Vesuvius F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Hamilton (diplomat)
Sir William Hamilton, KB, PC, FRS, FRSE (13 December 1730 – 6 April 1803) was a British diplomat, politician, antiquarian and vulcanologist who served as the Envoy Extraordinary to the Kingdom of Naples from 1764 to 1800. After sitting in the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1761 to 1764, he began working as a diplomat, succeeding Sir James Gray as the British ambassador to the Kingdom of Naples. While in Italy, Hamilton became involved in studying local volcanoes and collecting antiquities, becoming a fellow of the Royal Society and being given the Copley Medal. His second wife was Emma Hamilton, who was famed as the mistress of Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson. Early life and career Hamilton was born on 13 December 1730 (or 12 January 1731) in either London or at Park Place, Berkshire, the fourth son of Lord Archibald Hamilton (1673–1754), Governor of Jamaica, and Lady Jane Hamilton (before 1704–1753), daughter of the 6th Earl of Abercorn (near 1661–1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lady Dorothea Banks
Dorothea Banks, Lady Banks (''née'' Hugessen, 8 November 1758 – 1828) was an English heiress and collector of ceramics. Her collection of ceramics, which she displayed in the dairy of her home at Spring Grove, is recorded in her ''Dairy Book.'' Like the ephemera collection of her sister-in-law Sarah Sophia Banks, it is informative about women collectors in the Georgian period. Biography She was born Dorothea Hugessen on 8 November 1758, one of two daughters of William Western Hugessen of Proveden, Kent, and his wife Thomazine, ''née'' Honywood, the daughter of Sir John Honywood. She was a 'well-acred heiress' at the time of her marriage to scientist Sir Joseph Banks on 23 March 1779, and she was described by Banks' colleague Daniel Solander as 'rather handsome, very agreable, chatty & laughs a good deal.' Art collection Dorothea converted the dairy on their property at Spring Grove into an exhibition-house for her collection of ceramics. Banks said that she was 'a littl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Year Of Death Uncertain
A year is a unit of time based on how long it takes the Earth to orbit the Sun. In scientific use, the tropical year (approximately 365 solar days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45 seconds) and the sidereal year (about 20 minutes longer) are more exact. The modern calendar year, as reckoned according to the Gregorian calendar, approximates the tropical year by using a system of leap years. The term 'year' is also used to indicate other periods of roughly similar duration, such as the lunar year (a roughly 354-day cycle of twelve of the Moon's phasessee lunar calendar), as well as periods loosely associated with the calendar or astronomical year, such as the seasonal year, the fiscal year, the academic year, etc. Due to the Earth's axial tilt, the course of a year sees the passing of the seasons, marked by changes in weather, the hours of daylight, and, consequently, vegetation and soil fertility. In temperate and subpolar regions around the planet, four seasons are gen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1790s Deaths
Year 179 ( CLXXIX) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Aurelius and Veru (or, less frequently, year 932 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 179 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman empire * The Roman fort Castra Regina ("fortress by the Regen river") is built at Regensburg, on the right bank of the Danube in Germany. * Roman legionaries of Legio II ''Adiutrix'' engrave on the rock of the Trenčín Castle (Slovakia) the name of the town ''Laugaritio'', marking the northernmost point of Roman presence in that part of Europe. * Marcus Aurelius drives the Marcomanni over the Danube and reinforces the border. To repopulate and rebuild a devastated Pannonia, Rome allows the first German colonists to enter territory controlled by the Roman Empire. Asia * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1713 Births
Events January–March * January 17 – Tuscarora War: Colonel James Moore leads the Carolina militia out of Albemarle County, North Carolina, in a second offensive against the Tuscarora. Heavy snows force the troops to take refuge in Fort Reading, on the Pamlico River. * February 1 – Skirmish at Bender, Moldova: Charles XII of Sweden is defeated by the Ottoman Empire. * February 4 – Tuscarora War: The Carolina militia under Colonel James Moore leaves Fort Reading, to continue the campaign against the Tuscarora. * February 25 – Frederick William I of Prussia begins his reign. * March 1 – Tuscarora War: Colonel James Moore's Carolina militia lays siege to the Tuscaroran stronghold of Fort Neoheroka, located a few miles up Contentnea Creek from Fort Hancock. * March 20 – Tuscarora War: Colonel James Moore's Carolina militia launches a major offensive against Fort Neoheroka. * March 23 – Tuscarora War: Fort Neoheroka falls to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (baptized 23 March 16095 May 1664) was an Italian Baroque painter, printmaker and draftsman, of the Genoese school (painting), Genoese school. He is best known now for his etchings, and as the inventor of the printmaking technique of monotyping. He was known as ''Il Grechetto'' in Italy and in France as ''Le Benédette''. He painted portraits, history paintings and landscapes, but came to specialize in rural scenes with more animals than human figures. Noah's ark and the animals entering the Ark was a favourite subject of his, and he devised a number of other new subjects from the early parts of the Old Testament with the patriarchs and their animals. Biography Castiglione was born in Genoa. The biographer of Genoese painters, Raffaele Soprani says his parents had him placed in the studio of Giovanni Battista Paggi. Wittkower describes him as a "passionate student" of Anthony van Dyck, who arrived in 1621, and Peter Paul Rubens, who stayed in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Museum
The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present.Among the national museums in London, sculpture and decorative art, decorative and applied art are in the Victoria and Albert Museum; the British Museum houses earlier art, non-Western art, prints and drawings. The National Gallery holds the national collection of Western European art to about 1900, while art of the 20th century on is at Tate Modern. Tate Britain holds British Art from 1500 onwards. Books, manuscripts and many works on paper are in the British Library. There are significant overlaps between the coverage of the various collections. Established in 1753, the British Museum was the first public national museum. In 2023, the museum received 5,820,860 visitors, 42% more than the previous y ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, recognising excellence in science, supporting outstanding science, providing scientific advice for policy, education and public engagement and fostering international and global co-operation. Founded on 28 November 1660, it was granted a royal charter by Charles II of England, King Charles II and is the oldest continuously existing scientific academy in the world. The society is governed by its Council, which is chaired by the society's president, according to a set of statutes and standing orders. The members of Council and the president are elected from and by its Fellows, the basic members of the society, who are themselves elected by existing Fellows. , there are about 1,700 fellows, allowed to use the postnominal title FRS (Fellow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Banks
Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, (19 June 1820) was an English Natural history, naturalist, botanist, and patron of the natural sciences. Banks made his name on the European and American voyages of scientific exploration, 1766 natural-history expedition to Newfoundland and Labrador. He took part in Captain James Cook's First voyage of James Cook, first great voyage (1768–1771), visiting Brazil, Tahiti, and after 6 months in New Zealand, Australia, returning to immediate fame. He held the position of president of the Royal Society for over 41 years. He advised King George III on the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, sending botanists around the world to Botanical expedition, collect plants, he made Kew the world's leading botanical garden. He is credited for bringing 30,000 plant specimens home with him; amongst them, he was the first European to document 1,400. Banks advocated Colony of New South Wales, British settlement in New South Wales and the colonisation of Australia, as wel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herculaneum Papyri
The Herculaneum papyri are more than 1,800 papyrus scrolls discovered in the 18th century in the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum. They had been Carbonization, carbonized when the villa was engulfed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. The papyri, containing a number of Greek Philosophy, Greek philosophical texts, come from the only surviving library from antiquity that exists in its entirety.Interview with Daniel Delattre: the Herculaneum scrolls given to Consul Bonaparte (2010), Napoleon.org However, reading the scrolls is extremely difficult, and can risk destroying them. The evolution of techniques to do this continues. The majority of classical texts referred to by other classical authors are lo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bay Of Naples
A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, circular bay with a narrow entrance. A ''fjord'' is an elongated bay formed by glacial action. The term ''embayment'' is also used for , such as extinct bays or freshwater environments. A bay can be the estuary of a river, such as the Chesapeake Bay, an estuary of the Susquehanna River. Bays may also be nested within each other; for example, James Bay is an arm of Hudson Bay in northeastern Canada. Some large bays, such as the Bay of Bengal and Hudson Bay, have varied marine geology. The land surrounding a bay often reduces the strength of winds and blocks waves. Bays may have as wide a variety of shoreline characteristics as other shorelines. In some cases, bays have beaches, which "are usually characterized by a steep upper foreshore ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Resina
Ercolano () is a town and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Naples, Campania of Southern Italy. It lies at the western foot of Mount Vesuvius, on the Bay of Naples, just southeast of the city of Naples. The medieval town of Resina () was built on the volcanic material left by the eruption of Vesuvius (79 AD) that destroyed the ancient city of Herculaneum, from which the present name is derived. Ercolano is a resort and the starting point for excursions to the excavations of Herculaneum and for the ascent of Vesuvius by bus. The town also manufactures leather goods, buttons, glass, and wine. History Ancient Herculaneum According to legend, Herculaneum was founded by Hercules, who was returning from one of his Twelve Labours. Historically, it was most likely founded by the Oscans, an Italic tribe of the 8th century BC, and later became part of both the Etruscan and Samnite dominions. Under the control of the Romans, the city was a renowned seaside resort where some of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
