istoryworld
The contribution of Greece
The pillar and capital are familiar in Greece from prehistoric times. They feature together, for example, in the sculpture above the Lion Gate at Mycenae, from the 13th century BC. As late as the mid-7th century the pillars in Greek temples are still invariably of wood. But their capitals already divide into the distinct patterns which will become known as Doric and Ionic, the central pair in the classical orders of architecture. Doric, the style of mainland Greece, follows the design featured on the Lion ...
Read More
The spread of printing
An invention as useful as printing, in a Europe of increasing prosperity, readily finds new customers. The first Italian press is founded in 1464, at the Benedictine town of Subiaco in the papal states. Switzerland has a press in the following year. Printing begins in Venice, Paris and Utrecht in 1470, in Spain and Hungary in 1473, in Bruges in 1474 (on a press owned by Caxton, who moves it to London in 1476), in Sweden in 1483. By the end of the century the ...
Read More
Longships
A swift design of boat powered by oars is developed in northwest Europe, from the 5th century onwards, when the Germanic tribes begin raiding by sea. It is best known, in a later form, as the Viking longship. This type of boat features already in the 7th century in the Sutton Hoo ship burial. The shape of the Sutton Hoo ship is known only from the traces left by its timbers in the earth, but a smaller boat of similar kind was found at Nydam ...
Read More
Roman roads
The great network of Roman roads, the arterial system of the empire, is constructed largely by the soldiers of the legions, often with the assistance of prisoners of war or slave labour. The amount of labour involved is vast, for these highways are elaborate technological undertakings. The average width of a Roman road is about 10 yards. Below the paved surface the fabric extends to a depth of 4 or 5 feet in a succession of carefully constructed layers.
Read More
Steps to independence
Increasingly, during these months, colonists are coming to the view that a complete break from Britain may be the only way forward. In May 1776 the revolutionary convention of Virginia votes for independence and instructs the Virginia delegation to present this motion to the Continental Congress. Early in June, in Philadelphia, a small committee is set up to draft a declaration of independence. Its five members include Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. The task of composing the document is left to Jefferson. It is passed ...
Read More
Isfahan
Isfahan is already a city of ancient history and considerable wealth when Shah Abbas decides, in 1598, to turn it into a magnificent capital. It has a Masjid-i-Jami, or Friday Mosque, dating from the Seljuk period (11th-12th century), still surviving today and noted for its fine patterned brickwork. And it has a thriving school of craftsmen skilled in the making of polychrome ceramic tiles. Shah Abbas favours in architecture what comes to seem almost the theme of his city - gently curving domes covered in ...
Read More
The popes at Avignon
In many ways the move to Avignon has a rational justification. This city is close to the main power of the time, France, but it is in another kingdom - that of Naples. It is also the centre of western Europe in a way which Rome could never be. Lines drawn from Britain to Italy and from Germany to Spain would cross close to Avignon. In addition this place is much more secure than Rome. Italy is in a state of anarchy, dominated by warring ...
Read More
Capella Palatina in Palermo
The small palace chapel in Palermo, with its walls covered in bright pictorial mosaic, is one of the most exquisite buildings of the Middle Ages. Known as the Capella Palatina (Latin for 'palace chapel'), it is begun in 1132 and completed in about 1189. The mosaics are in the Greek tradition, created by craftsmen from Constantinople. Christ Pantocrator is in the apse and cupola, in traditional Byzantine style. Round the walls are sequences of scenes from the Old Testament, and from the lives of St ...
Read More
Roman expansion in Italy
Rome reinforces this network of alliances with a sound system of communication. In 312 the first of the great Roman roads, the Via Appia, is built by Appius Claudius to link Rome with an important new ally - the city of Capua, north of Naples. Additional security is provided by small colonies planted at strategic places. In each of them 300 Roman families are settled in a walled encampment, becoming in effect a self-sufficient military outpost. Each family is given its own plot of land; ...
Read More
Pacific islands
During the 18th century the maritime powers of northwest Europe make an increasingly coherent effort to discover which remote islands may be lurking in the middle of the vast Pacific. Dutch, French and English vessels undertake voyages of discovery, gradually filling in the map.Islands are regularly discovered during the century. Among the better known, Easter Island is reached by the Dutch in 1722, Tahiti by the English in 1767, the New Hebrides by the French in 1768, and New Caledonia and Hawaii by the English ...
Read More
Romanesque
Vézelay is a pilgrimage church (the monks here have on show the bones of Mary Magdalene), and many of the Romanesque churches of France are on the great pilgrimage routes which develop at this period - particularly those leading to Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain. An innovation of architectural significance in French Romanesque relates to the pilgrims. The ambulatory, a passage behind the altar following the curve of the apse, makes possible the addition of several small chapels to contain relics. The pilgrims can ...
Read More
Five weeks to war
This action brings in the fifth of the European powers. Britain's Entente Cordiale does not commit her to come to the defence of France, and many in the German high command expect her not to do so. But the violation of the neutrality of Belgium introduces an element which the Germans have either overlooked or have considered insignificant. Britain was one of the powers guaranteeing (in 1831 and again in 1839), to protect Belgium as 'an independent and perpetually neutral state'.Under this obligation Britain declares ...
Read More
Ancient Anatolia
Anatolia, linking Asia and Europe, has a long and distinguished record as a centre of civilization - from one of the world's first towns (Catal Huyuk), through the successive periods of Hittites and Trojans, Ionians and Lydians, Romans and Byzantines. But the region acquires its present identity and name, as Turkey, more recently - with the arrival of Turkish tribes to confront the Byzantine empire in the 11th century AD.
Read More
Venetian sunset
Canaletto lives in England from 1746 to 1755, painting views of the Thames in London and of his aristocratic patrons' country seats. His practice of painting large topographical views is continued by his nephew, Bernardo Bellotto, who leaves Venice in 1747 and thereafter works mainly in Dresden and Vienna. In Venice, from about 1760, the demand of the tourists for views is met at a simpler and cheaper level by Francesco Guardi. His small canvases, more vague and informal than Canaletto's topographical studies, are notable ...
Read More
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 ...
Read More
The conqueror's declining years
In 1401, in Syria, Timur defeats a Mameluke army from Egypt. He then takes and destroys Damascus, despatching a new consignment of talented craftsmen back to Samarkand. Later in the same year Baghdad is stormed and sacked, and 20,000 of its population massacred. In 1402 the aged warrior advances into Anatolia. He defeats an army of Ottoman Turks near Ankara, capturing their sultan, Bayazid I (who dies in Timur's care). He then moves on west, as far as the Aegean, to take Izmir from the ...
Read More
Wives of Henry VIII
It is not known whether there is any basis to this accusation, but those accused of being her lovers (including her own brother) are executed on May 17. Anne is beheaded on May 19. On the very next day Henry is betrothed to one of Anne's ladies-in-waiting, Jane Seymour. They marry on May 30. The following year, in October, Jane does at last produce the long-awaited male heir, the future Edward VI. But she herself dies twelve days later. Henry's next marriage also leads to ...
Read More
Byzantine icons
From843 icons recover their special position in Greek Orthodox Christianity, never again to lose it. The screen between the nave and the altar sanctuary in an Orthodox church is dedicated to the display of holy images - as its name iconostasis specifically states. As other regions are converted to the Greek religion, in the Balkans and in Russia, the veneration of images spreads. Indeed to many people nowadays, after a millennium of the rich tradition of Russian Orthodox Christianity, the word 'icon' suggests first and ...
Read More
Caesaw'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 ...
Read More
The Arabic script
A stele, or inscribed column, is set up at Tema in northwest Arabia. Dating from the 5th century BC, its inscription is the earliest known example of the writing which evolves a millennium later into the Arabic script. The script is developed from the 1st century BC by the Nabataeans, a people speaking a Semitic language whose stronghold at Petra, on a main caravan route, brings them prosperity and the need for records. Writing is not much needed by the nomads of Arabia, but when ...
Read More