istoryworld
Italian Gothic
Italy comes late to the Gothic style but makes of it something very much its own. To move from the west façade of Chartres cathedral to the equivalent in Siena or Orvieto, dating from two centuries later, is like seeing a play which has been adapted to the extragant demands of opera. These two Italian façades of the early 14th-century, encrusted with ornament and bright with pictorial panels, glow in the warm Italian sun like enormous trinkets. When Italian builders follow the northern Gothic style ...
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Sack of Constantinople
The Venetians, from their long links with Constantinople, can appreciate the treasures of Byzantium. They loot rather than destroy. St Mark's in Venice is graced today by many rich possessions brought back in 1204 - parts of the Pala d'Oro, the porphyry figures known as the tetrarchs, and above all the four great bronze horses. The crusaders, mainly French and Flemish, are less refined in their tastes. They tend to smash what they find. They ride their horses into Santa Sophia, tear down its silken ...
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The caravan
This trade route brings prosperity to Petra, a natural stronghold just north of the Gulf of Aqaba on the route from the Red Sea up to the Mediterranean coast. In the heyday of the kingdom of Israel, around 1000 BC, this important site is occupied by the Edomites - bitter enemies of the Israelite kings, David and Solomon. In the 4th century BC the Edomites are displaced by an Arab tribe, the Nabataeans. They soon come into conflict with new neighbours in Mesopotamia, the Seleucid ...
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Wives of Henry VIII
Less than three weeks after the annulment of the marriage to Anne of Cleves, and on the very day when Thomas Cromwell is executed, Henry marries one of Anne's ladies-in-waiting - the 19-year-old Catherine Howard. For a year Henry is enchanted with his young bride. Then he discovers that she has had affairs both before and during her marriage. She is beheaded in 1542. Finally, in 1543, he marries his third Catherine. Already twice widowed herself, and now aged thirty-one, Catherine Parr is an intelligent ...
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Henry IV
After winning his kingdom in nine years of continuous war, Henry IV brings France twelve years of very productive peace. The state's finances are put on a sound footing, industry and commerce are encouraged (an ambitious scheme for a network of inland waterways includes the beginning of the Briare canal) and the army is strengthened.In his foreign policy Henry takes the same conciliatory approach as with the bitterly opposed religious factions in France. His aim is to achieve peace on France's borders. To this end ...
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Descendants of Thutmose
Like his predecessors, Thutmose III is a passionate builder, adding greatly to the splendours of Karnak. His great grandson Amenhotep III continues the tradition, diverting attention to the southern part of Thebes, at Luxor, where he begins the great temple to Amen-Re.During a century and a half Thutmose I and his descendants have done great honour to this traditional god of the pharaohs, the blend of Amen (the local god of Thebes) and the earlier sun god Re. But the status of the Theban god ...
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Greek architecture in the colonies
Many of the most impressive buildings from this early period are outside the Greek mainland. Between about 530 and 460 the people of Paestum, a Greek colony in southern Italy, build three great temples. All three survive, providing a powerful image of the sturdy confidence already achieved in the Doric style. The famous optical tricks of Greek architecture are already in use: the gradual swelling of a column from top and bottom to its central point to avoid its seeming wasp-waisted (technically called entasis) and ...
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Assyrian reliefs
Egyptian sculpture, both in relief and in the round, has achieved an exquisite stillness. The marble figures of the Cyclades seem eternally patient. The Olmec civilization in America provides some rare examples of naturalistic figures in the round. But much more is possible. Mesopotamia takes the next step. Assyrian sculptors of the 7th century BC demonstrate with great conviction how a complex sense of drama and movement can be captured in stone.
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Caesar's heir
Gaius Octavius, known to history first as Octavian and then as Augustus Caesar, is born in 63 BC in a relatively obscure patrician family. His only evident advantage in life is that his grandmother is Julia, sister of Julius Caesar. His great-uncle sees talent in the boy and encourages him. Octavian is an 18-year-old student at Apollonia (in what is now Albania) when news comes in 44 BC that his uncle has been assassinated in Rome. Soon there is further information. In his will Caesar ...
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Exploration and settlement
Local exploration of the coasts of Australia begins in 1796 when George Bass and Matthew Flinders undertake a series of journeys in open whaleboats. In 1798 Bass sails round Tasmania, proving it to be an island (separated from the mainland by the strait which now bears his name).In 1802 Flinders charts the entire south coast of the continent from Cape Leeuwin to Bass Strait. In the following year he continues his exploration up the east coast and round the northeast tip of the continent into ...
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Villa and country seat
Palladio's skill in applying his classical principles brings him commissions for public buildings in Vicenza and churches in Venice. But it is his villas for private patrons which win him lasting influence and fame. Most of these villas are built in Venice's hinterland, the Veneto. Palladio's designs for them become widely known after he publishes I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura ('The Four Books of Architecture') in 1570. The purpose of this work is to explain the principles of Roman design, following the example of his master, ...
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Salisbury, Chamberlain and empire
The imperial conference held at the time of the queen's Diamond Jubilee, in 1897, is a much more weighty affair than its predecessor ten years earlier. This time the prime ministers of the colonies have made the long journey to attend the festivities in person. And the colonial secretary, Joseph Chamberlain (appointed to this office in 1895), is a man with a passionate commitment to strengthening the commercial and political ties between the increasingly self-governing colonies.His prime minister, Lord Salisbury, is a less ardent imperialist. ...
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Trial and execution of Charles I
On 2 January 1649 the House of Commons resolves that it is treason for a king to wage war against parliament. At the same time the members pass a bill setting up a High Court to judge Charles Stuart on this charge of treason. The House of Lords rejects the bill, so on January 4 the commons resolve that the House of Commons, assembled in parliament, is the supreme authority in the land and that its enactments have the force of law whether or not ...
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The first farmers
The earliest place known to have lived mainly from the cultivation of crops is Jericho. By around 8000 BC this community, occupying a naturally well-watered region, is growing selected forms of wheat (emmer and einkorn are the two varieties), soon to be followed by barley. Though no longer gatherers, these people are still hunters. Their source of meat is wild gazelle, cattle, goat and boar. It is no accident that Jericho is also the first known town, with a population of 2000 or more. A ...
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Michelangelo the painter
Michelangelo's concept for the ceiling of the chapel is as bold as his execution of the figures. An elaborate architectural perspective draws the eye up past alcoves, in which huge figures sit, to ever-receding panels which eventually display a series of narrative scenes. These vast but distant-seeming panels along the centre of the ceiling (each about 10 by 18 feet) tell the story at the start of Genesis - from God's creation of the universe to the famous spark of life (from the Creator's finger ...
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Carracks, galleons and galleys
From 1570 Hawkins experiments with a design in which the high forecastle is eliminated. He proves that a ship with high stern and relatively low bow is faster and more manoeuvrable. With an official post on the Navy Board, he is able to improve the English fleet dramatically before the encounter with the Spanish Armada in 1588 - when the agility of the English vessels wins the day. Hawkins' 'low-charged' design, which acquires the general name of galleon, becomes the standard form for all large ...
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Mosaic in the Roman empire
The great Roman villa near Piazza Armerina in Sicily, built in about AD 300, has mosaic floors which were probably laid by craftsmen from north Africa. Originally they covered some 4200 square yards. Of their many lively scenes none has given more delight than the group of bikini-clad maidens playing a musical game with a ball. The mosaics of Piazza Armerina are of the early 4th century. By that time the bishop of Aquileia in northern Italy is adapting this Roman art form to his ...
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Roman portraits and Christian ivories
One Roman triumphal portrait achieves, by contrast, a heroic quality which will make it extremely influential in later times. It is the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, originally standing on the Capitol in Rome. Made of gilded bronze (and a superb achievement of bronze casting), it is probably created to celebrate victories in the east in AD 162-4. Its mood will greatly appeal to European princes and generals from the Renaissance onwards. But in the intervening centuries sculpture is mainly used by Christian artists for ...
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Maori and the first Europeans
New Zealand is the last major temperate region of the globe to be reached by humans. The indigenous people, the Maori, are believed to have arrived by about800. Their language is Polynesian, relating to the dialects of Tahiti and Hawaii. Their own legends describe their arrival in a great fleet of canoes from a land called Hawaiki.New Zealand is first visited by Europeans in 1642, when Abel Tasman makes a brief attempt to land - resulting in a clash with the Maori and several deaths. ...
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Henry II
In the centre, at court, the royal administration is strengthened by several significant innovations - among them the development of the exchequer. This is a regular meeting of the nation's finance committee, held round a table with a chequered pattern of squares. The squares are used as an abacus for instant calculations of revenue. Often chaired by the king himself, and attended by the great officers of state, this committee is a more professional and centralized method of government than the relatively impromptu arrangements of ...
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