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Mosaic in the Roman empire
Mosaic spreads through the Hellenistic world, and is brought by Greek craftsmen to Italy - as revealed in the amazing examples from Pompeii (for example, the dramatic image of Alexander and Darius in battle). The Romans carry the art further afield. Soon, throughout the empire, rich villas have impressive mosaic floors. They are often laid by local craftsmen (invariably the tesserae are from materials of the surrounding district). Many of the views are charming scenes of life in and around a villa. The images are ...
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Baroque Rome
During these same years Bernini's great contribution to the exterior of St Peter's is also under construction. The open space in front of the church, where pilgrims gather to hear the pope's Easter address, needs to be enclosed in some way to form a welcoming piazza. Bernini achieves a perfect solution in the form of an open curving colonnade. The four concentric rows of columns provide covered walkways and a shape for the piazza, but they do so without closing it in - for there ...
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Moghul domes
Throughout his early career, much of it spent in rebellion against his father, Shah Jahan's greatest support has been his wife, Mumtaz Mahal. But four years after he succeeds to the throne this much loved companion dies, in 1631, giving birth to their fourteenth child. The Taj Mahal, her tomb in Agra, is the expression of Shah Jahan's grief. Such romantic gestures are rare among monarchs (the Eleanor Crosses come to mind as another), and certainly none has ever achieved its commemorative purpose so brilliantly. ...
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The unsettling and the settled
The regions bordering the Asian shores of the Mediterranean are where mankind appears first to have settled in villages and towns - a development requiring at least the beginnings of agriculture. Two of the earliest settlements to deserve the name of towns are Jericho in Palestine and Catal Huyuk in Anatolia. For the emergence of a more developed society, justifying the name of civilization, history suggests that there is one incomparable advantage, indeed almost a necessity - the proximity of a large river, flowing through ...
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Romanesque
By the time of the period properly considered Romanesque, many variations of its Roman origins have evolved. Seeking out the sources of Romanesque is a complex academic exercise. One well-established line of influence comes through Ravenna to Aachen; Justinian's 6th-century church of San Vitale inspires Charlemagne's early 9th-century chapel. Charlemagne's chapel in Aachen, with its classical columns and round striped arches, also recalls the little baptistery at Fréjus. And both are echoed in the full flowering of the Romanesque style, as seen in the 12th-century ...
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Romantic Scotland
Scott surpasses himself in the cause of romantic Scotland when he organizes the festivities, in 1822, for the first visit of a British monarch to Edinburgh since the union of 1707. A year after his coronation in Westminster, George IV travels to the north of his realm. The ageing reprobate appears in the role of a Scottish chieftain, wearing tartan (banned until quite recently) and thus launching the 19th-century craze for Highland dress.The nation's love affair with romantic Scotland reaches its climax in 1856, when ...
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Baroque Rome
The Baldacchino rises above an altar at which only the pope conducts mass. Visible between the columns, from the point of view of the congregation, is Bernini's other dramatic contribution to the interior of St Peter's. This is a golden tableau, a piece of pure theatre, above the altar at the far end of the church. Its central feature is the papal throne of St Peter, held aloft among the clouds.Sculpted golden rays stream up from St Peter's throne towards heaven. In an extra dimension ...
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Greek and Roman gods
In both Greece and Rome the many gods of the pantheon have their own local shrines. The most important of these are magnificent buildings, set in elaborate architectural precincts. Famous examples are the temple to Apollo at Delphi, and the Parthenon, sacred to Pallas Athene, in Athens. Priests attend to the needs of the god, whether by preparing ceremonial food or drink or by decorating and anointing the cult statue, and they supervise the temple rituals. The role of ordinary worshippers consists largely in bringing ...
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Fortification and siege
The towns which Sargon marches to attack are well fortified - a precaution which has been considered necessary in this part of the world for many centuries. The tower at Jericho dates from not long after 8000 BC. Uruk, a neighbouring city of Ur, provides itself in about 2700 BC with more than 5 miles (8 km) of protective walls. The tools of siege warfare - ladders to scale the walls, shovels and picks to undermine them - are not invented for this purpose. Only ...
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Pharos at Alexandria
The sun god Helios features also in the last of the seven wonders. This is the lighthouse put up on the island of Pharos at Alexandria (as a result pharos becomes the Greek word for any lighthouse). It consists of a three-tier stone tower, said to be more than 120 metres high, which has within it a broad spiral ramp leading up to a platform where fires burn at night. They are reflected out to sea by metal mirrors. Above the fires is a huge ...
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Armagnacs and Burgundians
In the early 15th century the political context in both England and France is radically different from the circumstances fifty years earlier at the time of the treaty of Brétigny. In England the new Lancastrian dynasty is more vigorous and belligerent than its predecessors. This is particularly the case after a young king, Henry V, inherits the throne in 1413. In France civil war breaks out in 1407 between two lines within the royal family - the Armagnacs (supporting the legitimate line of the mad ...
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Timur's conquests
Home is Samarkand, the city closest to his birthplace. Timur is busy turning it into a great centre of Muslim architecture and art. Together with the Indian elephants come the best craftsmen of Delhi, who will be set to work in Samarkand - where they join, in 1399, a community of skilled captives from previous expeditions. The conqueror himself, now in his mid-sixties, has more practical business to attend to. Before the end of 1399 he marches west, to restore order in his outlying provinces.
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The sculptures of Chartres
The figures in the north porch of Chartres are added half a century later, from about 1195 to 1220. Recognizably in the same style, they are still unusually tall and thin. But instead of being ethereal figures, they are beginning to stir themselves as human beings. Their predecessors in the west porch are aligned with their pillars, as if pinned to them like rare butterflies. The new figures stand more naturally between the pillars. And they look about. They make gestures. Their creators are beginning ...
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The vaulted stone roof
The vault, like the dome, is among the technical achievements of Roman architecture, but the Romans are content to cover their large rectangular buildings (or basilicas) with wooden roofs. This remains the case with the first Christian churches, based on the Roman basilica. And it is still the case with all rectangular Romanesque churches until the last few decades of the 11th century. Before that time naves are either covered with flat wooden ceilings or are open up to the timbers of the roof. The ...
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The noose tightens
In this situation, and with Hitler's final reserves sent to the eastern front, the Allies meet little opposition when they cross the Rhine at various points on March 22-4 (first the Third US Army led by George Patton in the south, followed by the British and Canadians in the north). Both groups, pressing on east, reach the Elbe in mid-April. On the way they discover the horrors which bring home to the west, more powerfully than ever before, the true nature of the Nazi regime.On ...
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Victoria, Albert and the Great Exhi....
The best of the Victorian age is seen in the extraordinary event of 1851, the Great Exhibition. A brainchild of Prince Albert, its intention and scope is evident in its full title - The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations. This is to be a celebration of the new industrial era and of Britain's leading role in bringing it to pass.Astonishingly the first committee to discuss the proposal, chaired by Albert in January 1850, meets a mere sixteen months before the ...
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Pyramids and Temples
It seems impossible to imagine how the vast cross beams and ceiling stones of the Egyptian temples at Karnak and Luxor should have been settled into place without any lifting gear. But the method is the same as for the pyramids, except that a temple is not solid. Each stone slab is edged up an earth ramp and settled into position. This means that the growing temple becomes part of the ramp. When the structure is finally complete, the entire space between and around the ...
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The emergence of parties
The unanimous election of George Washington in 1789, receiving the vote of every single state elector, is repeated when he stands in 1792 for a second term. But this is the last occasion when there is any such consensus, and in 1796 he resists all pressure to stand for a third term. Instead, on September 19 of that year, he delivers an influential Farewell Address in which he outlines his vision for the nation's future. Party strife begins to emerge during Washington's first term, and ...
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Philip II and Louis IX
The piety of Saint Louis (he is canonized in 1297) is very much in the spirit of his time. He creates one of the most spectacular of Gothic buildings, the Sainte Chapelle, to house a relic - the supposed Crown of Thorns. And he twice goes on crusade to the Middle East, dying in north Africa during the second expedition. Louis' domestic policy to some extent reflects this piety. Solemn edicts are issued against prostitution, gambling and blasphemy. But he also runs an honest and ...
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Easter Island
The famous statues on Easter Island are first described in 1722, the year in which the Dutch admiral Jacob Roggeveen visits and names the island on Easter Day. They must have been carved over a long period, for there are about 600 of them, between 10 and 20 feet high, with the largest weighing some 50 tons. They may have been created at any time between the first arrival of people on the island, probably in about500, and the visit of the Dutch in the ...
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