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A Room with a View
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A Room with a View - Background Info
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AVAILABILITY
Project Gutenberg various formats available.
BACKGROUND
A Room with a View is a 1908 novel by English writer E. M. Forster, about a young woman in the restrained culture of Edwardian era England. Set in Italy and England, the story is both a romance and a critique of English society at the beginning of the 20th century.
In a journal entry from July, 1910, E. M. Forster wrote, “However gross my desires, I find that I shall never satisfy them for the fear of annoying others. I am glad to come across this much good in me. It serves instead of purity.” Although Forster wrote this passage some two years after he published A Room with a View, it could have been written at almost anytime during his long life. However much he understood the “holiness of direct desire,” the emotional purity one achieves by following the heart rather than social orthodoxy, he spent his youth and young adulthood, as Lucy Honeychurch nearly did, repressing his sexual desires to adhere to the expectations of society.
Forster was only twenty-nine years old when he published A Room with a View in 1908. He had already published two books,Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905) and The Longest Journey (1907). He was a respected writer, but not yet a famous one, and the themes touched on in his earlier novels—passion and convention, truth and pretense—were now given complexity and eloquence, with the maturity of a more experienced voice, in his third novel.
The first seeds for an Italian novel were planted during an extended trip to Florence that Forster and his mother took in 1901. This journey not only unleashed Forster’s creativity, but also provided a source of spiritual release from the rigid moral codes of English society. His depression over his own self-deception and his increasing mistrust of English middle-class society are mirrored in the conflicted relationship between the cautious, thoroughly English Honeychurches and the impulsive, free-spirited, socialist Emersons. Forster was tormented, like Lucy, with the possibility of becoming one of “the vast armies of the benighted, who follow neither the heart nor the brain, and march to their destiny by catch-words.”
While Lucy embodied Forster’s internal strife, Mr. Emerson was created in the image of a man Forster admired, Edward Carpenter, a social pioneer who believed in equality for women and open expression of homosexual love. First through his published works, and later as a friend, Carpenter was to Forster a beacon of spiritual and sexual liberation who guided him toward a deeper understanding of himself. For Lucy, Mr. Emerson is the “kind old man who enabled her to see the lights dancing in the Arno,” who encourages her to follow her heart’s and her body’s desire, explaining that “love is of the body; not the body, but of the body.” This advice she must heed, as Forster makes sure, in breaking from the fettered world of Windy Corner and choosing truth over deceit.
The happy resolution of A Room with a View did not come easily to Forster. He started work in earnest on the first draft of his novel in 1902, setting the story entirely in Italy. Forster began the final version in 1904, but put it aside to complete Where Angels Fear to Tread and The Longest Journey. Forster would not pick up A Room with a View again until 1907, when he commented to a friend, “It’s bright and merry and I like the story. Yet I wouldn’t and couldn’t finish it in the same style.” Completing the work would require another full year.
The “bright and merry” surface of the novel owes much to the social comedies of Jane Austen and Henry James. Like the heroines of Mansfield Park and Daisy Miller, Lucy begins the novel as a naif on the threshold of adulthood in a strange new world. Forster captures the pretense and manners of her social world with uncanny acuity. As Virginia Woolf wrote, “The social historian will find his books full of illuminating information. . . . Old maids blow into their gloves when they take them off. Mr. Forster is a novelist . . . who sees his people in close contact with their surroundings.” Like his forebears, he described the world around him with remarkable precision and insight.
Forster readily acknowledged his debt to the 19th-century domestic comedy, but said that he “tried to hitch it on to other things”—to the deeper themes of his work, such as the struggle for individuality and the barriers of social class. Forster’s plots and landscapes carry greater metaphorical weight than those of his predecessors: Lucy’s anguish in choosing between George and Cecil becomes a contest of modernity against the middle ages, honesty against hypocrisy, clarity against muddle. This subtext provides a richly textured counterpoint to superficial events. The novel’s ending is not unambiguously joyful. It almost seems that Forster allowed George and Lucy happiness against his own instincts. “Oh Mercy to myself I cried if Lucy didn’t wed,” Forster wrote in a letter as he was writing the final version of the novel.
Ultimately Lucy was more successful in fulfilling her desires than Forster ever was. As he composed A Room with a View in 1907, Forster was still more than six years away from writing his great celebration of homosexual love, Maurice, and his first fully realized romance lay even further in the future. How did this repressed desire color the development of the novel? The critical literature has shown great interest in the erotic undertones of the men’s bath at Sacred Lake and possible veiled references to Mr. Beebe’s homosexuality (“somewhat chilly in his attitude toward the other sex”). Some even believe that the entire work is a homosexual romance with Lucy as “a boy en travesti.” In the end the object of desire is probably less important than the passionate sentiment. What is remarkable, as critic Claude Summers notes, is that Forster’s wrestling with homosexual desire should give rise to one of the richest depictions of heterosexual love in the English language.
Certainly A Room with a View can be appreciated from this perspective as a story of sexual awakening that provides insight into Forster’s deeply felt struggle with his own sexuality. But it can be read on other levels as well. As a domestic comedy in the tradition of Jane Austen, it brilliantly skewers the world of Edwardian manners and social codes, providing some of Forster’s most riotous and revealing portraits in the characters of Cecil Vyse and Charlotte Bartlett. It also can be enjoyed as a book about the contradictions and conflicts of being human: how we reconcile our inner lives with outside expectations, and how it is possible, by opening one’s mind, to find faith and love in unexpected places. (Copied from A Room with a View Reader’s Guide)
What more can I say? Except that the Merchant-Ivory-Jhabvala film captures the book perfectly, with Helena Bonham-Carter, Judi-Dench-and-Maggie-Smith (an inseparable team, 2 halves of a whole.) I saw the film, then read the book, so that would be 1985. Time to read it again. And it also led me to other Forster books, A Passage to India, Howards End and Where Angels Fear to Tread. The last was an early film of Helen Mirren.
quoted from The Reader's Guide:"As a domestic comedy in the tradition of Jane Austen"
I didn't see it as a comedy.
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That team always produced films very faithful to their sources. Their like will never appear again in the film industry.
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Verlag Karl Baedeker, founded by Karl Baedeker on July 1, 1827, is a German publisher and pioneer in the business of worldwide travel guides. The guides, often referred to simply as "Baedekers" (a term sometimes used to refer to similar works from other publishers, or travel guides in general), contain, among other things, maps and introductions; information about routes and travel facilities; and descriptions of noteworthy buildings, sights, attractions and museums, written by specialists.
source wikipedia. More can be read about the founder, etc. at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baedeker
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The Arno is a river in the Tuscany region of Italy. It is the most important river of central Italy after the Tiber.
source: wikipedia. More can be read at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/arno
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The Guelphs and Ghibellines (/ɡwɛlfs/; /ˈɡɪbɪlaɪnz/, also US: /ˈɡɪbəliːnz/, /ˈɡɪbələnz/; Italian: guelfi e ghibellini [ˈɡwɛlfi e ɡɡibelˈliːni]) were factions supporting the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, respectively, in the Italian city-states of central and northern Italy. During the 12th and 13th centuries, rivalry between these two parties formed a particularly important aspect of the internal politics of medieval Italy. The struggle for power between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire had arisen with the Investiture Controversy, which began in 1075 and ended with the Concordat of Worms in 1122. The division between the Guelphs and Ghibellines in Italy, however, persisted until the 15th century.
source: wikipedia. More can be read at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/guelphs...
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Florence (/ˈflɒrəns/ FLOR-əns; Italian: Firenze [fiˈrɛntse] (About this sound listen))[2] is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2013, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.[3]
Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of that era.[4] It is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, and has been called "the Athens of the Middle Ages".[5] A turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family and numerous religious and republican revolutions.[6] From 1865 to 1871 the city was the capital of the recently established Kingdom of Italy. The Florentine dialect forms the base of Standard Italian and it became the language of culture throughout Italy[7] due to the prestige of the masterpieces by Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini.
source: wikipedia. More can be read at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence
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Giotto di Bondone[1] (c. 1270 – January 8, 1337),[2][3] known mononymously as Giotto (Italian: [ˈdʒɔtto]) and Latinised as Giottus, was an Italian painter and architect from Florence during the Late Middle Ages. He worked during the "Gothic or Proto-Renaissance"[2] period.
Giotto's contemporary, the banker and chronicler Giovanni Villani, wrote that Giotto was "the most sovereign master of painting in his time, who drew all his figures and their postures according to nature" and of his publicly recognized "talent and excellence".[4]
In his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, Giorgio Vasari described Giotto as making a decisive break with the prevalent Byzantine style and as initiating "the great art of painting as we know it today, introducing the technique of drawing accurately from life, which had been neglected for more than two hundred years".[5]
Source: wikipedia. Much more can be read at https:/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giotto
Oh Thanks Deborah, referring to this thread is very convenient as I make my way through the novel
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Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi (c. 1445[2] – May 17, 1510), known as Sandro Botticelli (Italian: [ˈsandro bottiˈtʃɛlli]), was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. He belonged to the Florentine School under the patronage of Lorenzo de' Medici, a movement that Giorgio Vasari would characterize less than a hundred years later in his Vita of Botticelli as a "golden age". Botticelli's posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th century; since then, his work has been seen to represent the linear grace of Early Renaissance painting.
As well as the small number of mythological subjects which are his best known works today, he painted a wide range of religious subjects and also some portraits. He and his workshop were especially known for their Madonna and Childs, many in the round tondo shape. Botticelli's best-known works are The Birth of Venus and Primavera, both in the Uffizi in Florence. He lived all his life in the same neighbourhood of Florence, with probably his only significant time elsewhere the months he spent painting in Pisa in 1474 and the Sistine Chapel in Rome in 1481–82.[3]
source: wikipedia. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandro_...
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Giorgione (/ˌdʒɔːrdʒiˈoʊneɪ, -ni/, US: /ˌdʒɔːrˈdʒoʊni/; Italian: [dʒorˈdʒoːne]; born Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco; c. 1477/8–1510[2]) was an Italian painter of the Venetian school in the High Renaissance from Venice, whose career was ended by his death at a little over 30. Giorgione is known for the elusive poetic quality of his work, though only about six surviving paintings are affirmatively acknowledged to be his. The uncertainty surrounding the identity and meaning of his work has made Giorgione one of the most mysterious figures in European art.
Together with Titian, who was probably slightly younger, he founded the distinctive Venetian school of Italian Renaissance painting, which achieves much of its effect through colour and mood, and is traditionally contrasted with Florentine painting, which relies on a more linear disegno-led style.
source: wikipedia. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgione
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Apoxyomenos (the "Scraper") is one of the conventional subjects of ancient Greek votive sculpture; it represents an athlete, caught in the familiar act of scraping sweat and dust from his body with the small curved instrument that the Romans called a strigil.
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Fra Angelico (born Guido di Pietro; c. 1395[2] – February 18, 1455) was an Early Italian Renaissance painter described by Vasari in his Lives of the Artists as having "a rare and perfect talent".[3]
He was known to contemporaries as Fra Giovanni da Fiesole (Brother John of Fiesole) and Fra Giovanni Angelico (Angelic Brother John). In modern Italian he is called il Beato Angelico (Blessed Angelic One);[4] the common English name Fra Angelico means the "Angelic friar".
source: wikipedia. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fra_Ang...
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Born in Florence, Robbia was the son of Marco della Robbia, whose brother, Luca della Robbia, popularized the use of glazed terra-cotta for sculpture. Andrea became Luca's pupil, and was the most important artist of ceramic glaze of the times.
He carried on the production of the enamelled reliefs on a much larger scale than his uncle had ever done; he also extended its application to various architectural uses, such as friezes and to the making of lavabos, fountains and large retables. One variety of method was introduced in his enamelled work. Sometimes he omitted the enamel on the face and hands of his figures, especially in those cases where he had treated the heads in a realistic manner; as, for example, in the tympanum relief of the meeting of St Domenic and St Francis in the loggia of the Florentine hospital of San Paolo, a design suggested by a fresco of Fra Angelico's in the cloister of St Mark's.
source wikiepedia. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_...
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Guido Reni (Italian pronunciation: [ˌɡwiːdo ˈrɛːni]; 4 November 1575 – 18 August 1642) was an Italian painter of high-Baroque style. He painted primarily religious works, as well as mythological and allegorical subjects. Active in Rome, Naples, and his native Bologna, he became the dominant figure in the Bolognese School, and his eclectic classicism was widely influential.
source wikipedia. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guido_Reni
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The Uffizi Gallery (Italian: Galleria degli Uffizi, pronounced [ɡalleˈriːa deʎʎ ufˈfittsi]) is a prominent art museum located adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy. One of the most important Italian museums, and the most visited, it is also one of the largest and best known in the world, and holds a collection of priceless works, particularly from the period of the Italian Renaissance.
After the ruling house of Medici died out, their art collections were gifted to the city of Florence under the famous Patto di famiglia negotiated by Anna Maria Luisa, the last Medici heiress. The Uffizi is one of the first modern museums. The gallery had been open to visitors by request since the sixteenth century, and in 1765 it was officially opened to the public, formally becoming a museum in 1865.[3]
source wikipedia. Read more at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uffizi
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Dazio is a comune (municipality) in the Province of Sondrio in the Italian region Lombardy, located about 80 kilometres (50 mi) northeast of Milan and about 20 kilometres (12 mi) west of Sondrio. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 380 and an area of 3.7 square kilometres (1.4 sq mi).[1]
Dazio borders the following municipalities: Ardenno, Civo, Morbegno, Talamona.
source: wikipedia
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The Torre del Gallo is a historical building located in Florence, Italy, located at Pian de' Giullari, in the hills of Arcetri, on top of a ridge overlooking the city where there is a magnificent panorama.
source: wikipedia. Pictures are available there. Read more at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torre_d...
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The Decameron (Italian: Decameron [deˈkaːmeron; dekameˈrɔn; dekameˈron] or Decamerone [dekameˈroːne]), subtitled Prince Galehaut (Old Italian: Prencipe Galeotto [ˈprentʃipe ɡaleˈɔtto; ˈprɛntʃipe]), is a collection of novellas by the 14th-century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375). The book is structured as a frame story containing 100 tales told by a group of seven young women and three young men sheltering in a secluded villa just outside Florence to escape the Black Death, which was afflicting the city. Boccaccio probably conceived of The Decameron after the epidemic of 1348, and completed it by 1353. The various tales of love in The Decameron range from the erotic to the tragic. Tales of wit, practical jokes, and life lessons contribute to the mosaic. In addition to its literary value and widespread influence (for example on Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales), it provides a document of life at the time. Written in the vernacular of the Florentine language, it is considered a masterpiece of classical early Italian prose.[1]
source wikipedia
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A dryad (/ˈdraɪ.æd/; Greek: Δρυάδες, sing.: Δρυάς) is a tree nymph or tree spirit in Greek mythology. Drys signifies "oak" in Greek, and dryads are specifically the nymphs of oak trees, but the term has come to be used for all tree nymphs in general.[1] They were normally considered to be very shy creatures except around the goddess Artemis, who was known to be a friend to most nymphs.
source wikipedia
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In Greek mythology, a satyr (UK: /ˈsætə/, US: /ˈseɪtər/;[1] Greek: σάτυρος satyros,[2] pronounced [sátyros]) is the member of a troop of ithyphallic male companions of Dionysus; they usually have horse-like ears and tails, as well as permanent, exaggerated erections.[3] Early artistic representations sometimes include horse-like legs, but, in 6th-century BC black-figure pottery, human legs are the most common.[4] The faun is a similar woodland-dwelling creature from Roman mythology, which had the body of a man, but the legs, horns, and tail of a goat.[5] In myths, both are often associated with pipe-playing. Greek-speaking Romans often used the Greek term saturos when referring to the Latin faunus, and eventually syncretized the two. (The female "Satyresses" were a later invention of poets.) They are also known for their focus sexual desires. They were characterized by the desire to have sexual intercourse with as many women as possible, known as satyriasis.[6]
source wikipedia
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In Greek religion and mythology, Pan (/pæn/;[1] Ancient Greek: Πάν, Pan) is the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, nature of mountain wilds and rustic music, and companion of the nymphs.[2] He has the hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat, in the same manner as a faun or satyr. With his homeland in rustic Arcadia, he is also recognized as the god of fields, groves, and wooded glens; because of this, Pan is connected to fertility and the season of spring. The ancient Greeks also considered Pan to be the god of theatrical criticism and impromptus.[3] The word "panic" is a tribute to the god.
source: wikipedia
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LORENZO DE’ MEDICI, born at Florence; son of Piero di Cosimo de’ Medici and Lucrezia Tornabuoni; has been surnamed “the Magnificent”; one of the most distinguished scholars of his age; well versed in every branch of art and science, and no mean poet both in Latin and in the vernacular. He succeeded his father in 1469 and, on the death of his brother Giuliano in the Pazzi conspiracy, became the supreme power in Florence. He preserved peace and a balance of power in Italy for 23 years, and kept his Florentines contented and amused by repeated festivities. The most reputed scholars and artists flocked to his court; he died at Careggi, and is buried in Florence. He wrote a quantity of secular verse, some Laudi, and a Sacra rappresentazione di San Giovanni e Paolo. His love lyrics strike a personal note, and his Canti Carnascialeschi were imitated by Politian and other poets of his court.
source:elfinspell
read more at: www.elfinspell.com/MediciPoem.html
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The House of Medici (/ˈmɛdɪtʃi/ MED-i-chee; Italian pronunciation: [ˈmɛːditʃi]) was an Italian banking family, political dynasty and later royal house that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the first half of the 15th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of Tuscany, gradually rising until they were able to fund the Medici Bank. The bank was the largest in Europe during the 15th century, seeing the Medici gain political power in Florence — though officially they remained citizens rather than monarchs.
The Medici produced three Popes of the Catholic Church: Pope Leo X (1513–1521), Pope Clement VII (1523–1534), and Pope Leo XI (1605);[2] two regent queens of France—Catherine de' Medici (1547–1559) and Marie de' Medici (1600–1610). In 1531, the family became hereditary Dukes of Florence. In 1569, the duchy was elevated to a grand duchy after territorial expansion. The Medicis ruled the Grand Duchy of Tuscany from its inception until 1737, with the death of Gian Gastone de' Medici. The grand duchy witnessed degrees of economic growth under the earlier grand dukes, but by the time of Cosimo III de' Medici, Tuscany was fiscally bankrupt.
The Medicis's wealth and influence initially derived from the textile trade guided by the guild of the Arte della Lana. Like other families ruling in Italian signorie, the Medicis dominated their city's government, were able to bring Florence under their family's power, and created an environment where art and humanism could flourish. They, along with other families of Italy—such as the Visconti and Sforza of Milan, the Este of Ferrara, and the Gonzaga of Mantua—inspired and fostered the birth of the Italian Renaissance.
source wikipedia. Read more at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_o...
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Fiesole (Italian pronunciation: [ˈfjɛːzole]) is a town and comune of the Metropolitan City of Florence in the Italian region of Tuscany, on a scenic height above Florence, 8 kilometres (5 mi) northeast of that city. The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio is set in the slopes of Fiesole.
Since the 14th century the city has always been considered a getaway for the upper class of Florence and up to this day Fiesole remains the richest municipality in the whole of Tuscany. [1]
source: wikipedia. Read more at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiesole
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Settignano is a frazione on a hillside northeast of Florence, Italy, with views that have attracted American expatriates for generations.[citation needed] The little borgo of Settignano carries a familiar name for having produced three sculptors of the Florentine Renaissance, Desiderio da Settignano and the Gamberini brothers, better known as Bernardo Rossellino and Antonio Rossellino. The young Michelangelo lived with a sculptor and his wife in Settignano—in a farmhouse that is now the "Villa Michelangelo"— where his father owned a marble quarry. In 1511 another sculptor was born there, Bartolomeo Ammannati. The marble quarries of Settignano produced this series of sculptors.
Roman remains are to be found in the borgo which claims connections to Septimius Severus—in whose honor a statue was erected in the oldest square in the 16th century, destroyed in 1944— though habitation here long preceded the Roman emperor. Settignano was a secure resort for estivation for members of the Guelf faction of Florence. Giovanni Boccaccio and Niccolò Tommaseo both appreciated its freshness, among the vineyards and olive groves that are the preferred setting for even the most formal Italian gardens.
source: wikipedia. Read more at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settignano
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Baldovinetti was born in Florence to a family of a rich merchant. In 1448 he was registered as a member of the Guild of St. Luke: "Alesso di Baldovinetti, dipintore."[1]
He was a follower of the group of scientific realists and naturalists in art which included Andrea del Castagno, Paolo Uccello and Domenico Veneziano. Tradition says that he assisted in the decorations of the church of S. Egidio, however no records confirm this. These decoration were carried out during the years 1441–1451 by Domenico Veneziano and in conjunction with Andrea del Castagno. That he was commissioned to complete the series at a later date (1460) is certain.
source: wikipedia. Read more at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alesso_...
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Cook's idea to offer excursions came to him while "walking from Market Harborough to Leicester to attend a meeting of the Temperance Society".[3] With the opening of the extended Midland Counties Railway, he arranged to take a group of temperance campaigners from Leicester Campbell Street railway station to a teetotal rally in Loughborough, eleven miles away. On 5 July 1841, Thomas Cook escorted around 500 people, who paid one shilling each for the return train journey, on his first excursion. During the following three summers he planned and conducted outings for local temperance societies and Sunday school children.
Statue near Leicester railway station
On 4 August 1845 he arranged for a party to travel from Leicester to Liverpool. In 1846, he took 350 people from Leicester on a tour of Scotland. In 1851 he arranged for 150,000 people to travel to the Great Exhibition in London. Four years later, he planned his first excursion abroad, when he took two groups on a 'grand circular tour' of Belgium, Germany and France, ending in Paris for the Exhibition. During the 1860s he took parties to Switzerland, Italy, Egypt and the United States.
Thomas Cook & Son[edit]
Nile cruise poster from 1922
In 1872, he formed a partnership with his son, John Mason Cook, and renamed the travel agency as Thomas Cook & Son.[2] They acquired business premises on Fleet Street, London. The office also contained a shop which sold essential travel accessories, including guide books, luggage, telescopes and footwear. Thomas saw his venture as both religious and social service; his son provided the commercial expertise that allowed the company to expand.
In accordance with his beliefs, he and his wife also ran a small temperance hotel above the office. Their business model was refined by the introduction of the 'hotel coupon' in 1868. Detachable coupons in a counterfoil book were issued to the traveller. These were valid for either a restaurant meal or an overnight hotel stay provided they were on Cook's list.
source: wikipedia. Read more at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_...
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Girolamo Savonarola (Italian: [dʒiˈrɔːlamo savonaˈrɔːla]; 21 September 1452 – 23 May 1498) was an Italian Dominican friar and preacher active in Renaissance Florence. He was known for his prophecies of civic glory, the destruction of secular art and culture, and his calls for Christian renewal. He denounced clerical corruption, despotic rule and the exploitation of the poor. He prophesied the coming of a biblical flood and a new Cyrus from the north who would reform the Church. In September 1494, when Charles VIII of France invaded Italy, and threatened Florence, such prophecies seemed on the verge of fulfilment. While Savonarola intervened with the French king, the Florentines expelled the ruling Medici and, at the friar's urging, established a "popular" republic. Declaring that Florence would be the New Jerusalem, the world centre of Christianity and "richer, more powerful, more glorious than ever",[1] he instituted an extreme puritanical campaign, enlisting the active help of Florentine youth.
source: wikipedia. Much more at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girolam...
Wow, thanks for all the work on background!
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You are very welcome. Of course this is just a taste. To see pictures, etc. follow the links. I’m not a strong technical so couldn’t figure out how to get the pictures to post.
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Asceticism (/əˈsɛtɪsɪzəm/; from the Greek: ἄσκησις áskesis, "exercise" or "training") is a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from sensual pleasures, often for the purpose of pursuing spiritual goals. Ascetics may withdraw from the world for their practices or continue to be part of their society, but typically adopt a frugal lifestyle, characterised by the renunciation of material possessions and physical pleasures, and time spent fasting while concentrating on the practice of religion or reflection upon spiritual matters.[3]
Asceticism is classified into two types. "Natural asceticism" consists of a lifestyle where material aspects of life are reduced to utmost simplicity and a minimum but without maiming the body or harsher austerities that make the body suffer, while "unnatural asceticism" is defined as a practice that involves body mortification and self infliction of pain such as by sleeping on a bed of nails.[4]
wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asceticism
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An epigram is a brief, interesting, memorable, and sometimes surprising or satirical statement. The word is derived from the Greek: ἐπίγραμμα epigramma "inscription" from ἐπιγράφειν epigraphein "to write on, to inscribe",[1] and the literary device has been employed for over two millennia.
wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigram
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John Ruskin (8 February 1819 – 20 January 1900) was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, as well as an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and political economy.
His writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. He penned essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters and even a fairy tale. He also made detailed sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, and architectural structures and ornamentation.
The elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art gave way in time to plainer language designed to communicate his ideas more effectively. In all of his writing, he emphasised the connections between nature, art and society.
wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ru...
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Vittoria Accoramboni (15 February 1557 – 22 December 1585) was an Italian noblewoman. Her life became the basis for John Webster's play The White Devil and several novels.
Biography[edit]
She was born in Gubbio in Umbria, the tenth child in a family belonging to the minor nobility of Gubbio, who migrated to Rome with a view to bettering their fortunes. After refusing several offers of marriage for Vittoria, her father betrothed her to Francesco Peretti, a man of no position, but a nephew of Cardinal Montalto, who was regarded as likely to become pope.
Vittoria was admired and worshipped by the cleverest and most brilliant men in Rome, and being luxurious and extravagant although poor, she and her husband were soon plunged in debt. Among her most fervent admirers was Paolo Giordano I Orsini, Duke of Bracciano, one of the most powerful men in Rome. Her brother Marcello, wishing to see her the duke's wife, had Peretti murdered (1581). The duke himself was suspected of complicity, inasmuch as he was believed to have murdered his first wife, Isabella de' Medici. Now that Vittoria was free he made her an offer of marriage, which she willingly accepted, and they were married shortly after.
wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vittori...
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A virago is a woman who demonstrates exemplary and heroic qualities. The word comes from the Latin word virāgō ((genitive virāginis) meaning variously 'a man-like, vigorous, heroic maiden, a female warrior, heroine..'[1] from vir meaning 'man' (cf. virile and virtue) to which the suffix -āgō is added, a suffix that creates a new noun of the third declension with feminine grammatical gender.
The word virago has almost always had an association with cultural gender transgression. A virago, of whatever excellence, was still identified by her gender. There are recorded instances of viragos (such as Joan of Arc) fighting battles, wearing men's clothing, or receiving the tonsure.[2] The word virago could also be used disparagingly, to imply that a virago was not excellent or heroic, but was instead violating cultural norms. Thus virago joined pejoratives such as termagant,[3] mannish, amazonian and shrew to demean women who acted aggressively or like men.
wikipedia
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Götterdämmerung (German: [ˈɡœtɐˌdɛməʁʊŋ] (About this sound listen); Twilight of the Gods),[1] WWV 86D, is the last in Richard Wagner's cycle of four music dramas titled Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung, or The Ring for short). It received its premiere at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 17 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of the Ring.
The title is a translation into German of the Old Norse phrase Ragnarök, which in Norse mythology refers to a prophesied war among various beings and gods that ultimately results in the burning, immersion in water, and renewal of the world. However, as with the rest of the Ring, Wagner's account diverges significantly from his Old Norse sources.
wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Götterd...
If you ever find yourself in the Lake District, by all means go to the Ruskin House museum—it is fascinating! And take the water taxi.I am still finishing Middlemarch but hope to dive in to join the discussion by the end of the month.
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Phaethon, challenged by his playmates, sought assurance from his mother that his father was the sun god Helios. She gave him the requested assurance and told him to turn to his father for confirmation. He asked his father for some proof that would demonstrate his relationship with the sun. When the god promised to grant him whatever he wanted, he insisted on being allowed to drive the sun chariot for a day.[6] Placed in charge of the chariot, he was unable to control the horses. The Earth was in danger of being burnt up and, to prevent this disaster, Zeus was forced to strike down the chariot with a thunderbolt and kill Phaethon in the process.[7]
wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaethon
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Francesco Francia, whose real name was Francesco Raibolini (1447 – January 5, 1517), was an Italian painter, goldsmith, and medallist from Bologna, who was also director of the city mint.[1][2]
He may have trained with Marco Zoppo and was first mentioned as a painter in 1486. His earliest known work is the Felicini Madonna, which is signed and dated 1494. He worked in partnership with Lorenzo Costa, and was influenced by Ercole de' Roberti's and Costa's style, until 1506, when Francia became a court painter in Mantua, after which time he was influenced more by Perugino and Raphael. He himself trained Marcantonio Raimondi and several other artists; he produced niellos, in which Raimondi first learnt to engrave, soon excelling his master, according to Vasari. Raphael's Santa Cecilia is supposed to have produced such a feeling of inferiority in Francia that it caused him to die of depression. However, as his friendship with Raphael is now well-known, this story has been discredited.
wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances...
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Piero della Francesca (Italian pronunciation: [ˈpjɛːro della franˈtʃeska] About this sound listen (help·info); c. 1415[1] – 12 October 1492) was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. As testified by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, to contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting is characterized by its serene humanism, its use of geometric forms and perspective. His most famous work is the cycle of frescoes The History of the True Cross in the church of San Francesco in the Tuscan town of Arezzo.
wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piero_d...
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Also known as the virgin goddess of wisdom, Pallas Athene was ranked so high by the Greeks that only Jupiter/Zeus out-ranked her. Of course the reason for this is the fact that it was Jupiter who "birthed" her, at least according to Homeric legend which declared she sprang from the head of her father as a full-grown warrior queen, clad in armor and bellowing a victory shout. Only to someone like Jupiter would such a woman be considered "Daddy's Little Girl."
wikipedia www.valkyrieastrology.com/Makeover/as...
It's also an artwork by Klimt
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The Saronic Gulf (Greek: Σαρωνικός κόλπος, Saronikós kólpos) or Gulf of Aegina in Greece is formed between the peninsulas of Attica and Argolis and forms part of the Aegean Sea. It defines the eastern side of the isthmus of Corinth, being the eastern terminus of the Corinth Canal, which cuts across the isthmus.
wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saronic...
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Mount Parnassus is a sacred mountain in central Greece, near Delphi. The name "Parnassus" in literature typically refers to its distinction as the home of poetry, literature and, by extension, learning.
wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parnass...
