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Vatican Gallery Of Maps
The Gallery of Maps ( Italian: ''Galleria delle carte geografiche'') is a gallery located on the west side of the Belvedere Courtyard in the Vatican containing a series of painted topographical maps of Italy based on drawings by friar and geographer Ignazio Danti. The gallery was commissioned in 1580 by Pope Gregory XIII as part of other artistic works commissioned by the Pope to decorate the Vatican. It took Danti three years (1580–1583) to complete the 40 panels of the 120 m long gallery. Design The panels map the entirety of the Italian peninsula in large-scale frescoes, each depicting a region as well as a perspective view of its most prominent city. It is said that these maps are approximately 80% accurate. With the Apennines as a partition, one side depicts the regions surrounded by the Ligurian and Tyrrhenian Seas and the other depicts the regions surrounded by the Adriatic Sea. After the series of regional maps, there are two general geographical maps: *Anci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pope Gregory XIII
Pope Gregory XIII (, , born Ugo Boncompagni; 7 January 1502 – 10 April 1585) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 13 May 1572 to his death in April 1585. He is best known for commissioning and being the namesake for the Gregorian calendar, which remains the internationally accepted civil calendar to this day. Early biography Youth Ugo Boncompagni was born the son of Cristoforo Boncompagni (10 July 1470 – 1546) and Angela Marescalchi, and paternal grandson of Giacomo Boncompagni and Camilla Piattesi, in Bologna, where he studied law and graduated in 1530. He later taught jurisprudence for some years, and his students included notable figures such as Cardinals Alexander Farnese, Reginald Pole and Charles Borromeo. He had an illegitimate son after an affair with Maddalena Fulchini, Giacomo Boncompagni, but before he took holy orders, making him the last Pope to have left issue. Career before papacy At the age of 36 he was summoned to Rome ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Civitavecchia
Civitavecchia (, meaning "ancient town") is a city and major Port, sea port on the Tyrrhenian Sea west-northwest of Rome. Its legal status is a ''comune'' (municipality) of Metropolitan City of Rome Capital, Rome, Lazio. The harbour is formed by two piers and a breakwater on which stands a lighthouse. History Etruscan era The whole territory of Civitavecchia is dotted with the remains of Etruscan civilization, Etruscan tombs and it is likely that in the centre of the current city a small Etruscan settlement thrived. The Etruscan necropolis of Mattonara, not far from the Molinari factory, is almost certainly from the 7th - 6th century BC and was most likely connected with the nearby necropolis of Scaglia. An ancient port formed by small parallel basins capable of accommodating single vessels was still visible at the end of the 19th century near Forte Michelangelo. An Etruscan settlement on the hill of Ficoncella can still be seen. The first baths of the settlement were built t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Calabria
Calabria is a Regions of Italy, region in Southern Italy. It is a peninsula bordered by the region Basilicata to the north, the Ionian Sea to the east, the Strait of Messina to the southwest, which separates it from Sicily, and the Tyrrhenian Sea to the west. It has 1,832,147 residents as of 2025 across a total area of . Catanzaro is the region's capital. Calabria is the birthplace of the name of Italy, given to it by the Ancient Greeks who settled in this land starting from the 8th century BC. They established the first cities, mainly on the coast, as Greek colonisation, Greek colonies. During this period Calabria was the heart of Magna Graecia, home of key figures in history such as Pythagoras, Herodotus and Milo of Croton, Milo. In Roman times, it was part of the ''Regio III Lucania et Bruttii'', a region of Roman Italy, Augustan Italy. After the Gothic War (535–554), Gothic War, it became and remained for five centuries a Byzantine empire, Byzantine dominion, fully recove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Montferrat
Montferrat ( , ; ; , ; ) is a historical region of Piedmont, in northern Italy. It comprises roughly (and its extent has varied over time) the modern provinces of Province of Alessandria, Alessandria and Province of Asti, Asti. Montferrat is one of the most important wine districts of Italy. It also has a strong literary tradition, including the 18th-century Asti-born poet and dramatist Vittorio Alfieri and the Alessandrian Umberto Eco. The territory is cut in two by the river Tanaro River, Tanaro. The northern part (the Basso Monferrato, "Low Montferrat"), which lies between that river and the Po River, Po, is an area of rolling hills and plains. The southern part (the Alto Monferrato, "High Montferrat") rises from the banks of the Tanaro into the mountains of the Apennine Mountains, Apennines and the drainage divide, water divide between Piedmont and Liguria. On 22 June 2014, Montferrat was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. History Originally a county, it was el ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pope Paul V
Pope Paul V (; ) (17 September 1552 – 28 January 1621), born Camillo Borghese, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 16 May 1605 to his death, in January 1621. In 1611, he honored Galileo Galilei as a member of the papal Accademia dei Lincei and supported his discoveries. In 1616, Pope Paul V instructed Cardinal Robert Bellarmine to inform Galileo that the Copernican theory could not be taught as fact, but Bellarmine's certificate allowed Galileo to continue his studies in search for evidence and use the geocentric model as a theoretical device. That same year Paul V assured Galileo that he was safe from persecution so long as he, the Pope, should live. Bellarmine's certificate was used by Galileo for his defense at the trial of 1633. Trained in jurisprudence, Borghese was made Cardinal-Priest of Sant'Eusebio and the Cardinal Vicar of Rome by Pope Clement VIII. He was elected as Pope in 1605, following the death of Pope Leo XI. Pope ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Siege Of Malta (1565)
The Great Siege of Malta ( Maltese: ''L-Assedju l-Kbir'') occurred in 1565 when the Ottoman Empire attempted to conquer the island of Malta, then held by the Knights Hospitaller. The siege lasted nearly four months, from 18 May to 8 September 1565. The Knights Hospitaller had been headquartered in Malta since 1530, after being driven out of Rhodes, also by the Ottomans, in 1522, following the siege of Rhodes. The Ottomans first attempted to take Malta in 1551 but failed. In 1565, Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Sultan, made a second attempt to take Malta. The Knights, who numbered around 500 together with approximately 6,000 footsoldiers, withstood the siege and repelled the invaders. This victory became one of the most celebrated events of sixteenth-century Europe, to the point that Voltaire said: "Nothing is better known than the siege of Malta." It undoubtedly contributed to the eventual erosion of the European perception of Ottoman invincibility, although the Mediterr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul The Apostle
Paul, also named Saul of Tarsus, commonly known as Paul the Apostle and Saint Paul, was a Apostles in the New Testament, Christian apostle ( AD) who spread the Ministry of Jesus, teachings of Jesus in the Christianity in the 1st century, first-century world. For his contributions towards the New Testament, he is generally regarded as one of the most important figures of the Apostolic Age, and he also founded Early centers of Christianity, several Christian communities in Asia Minor and Europe from the mid-40s to the mid-50s AD. The main source of information on Paul's life and works is the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament. Approximately half of its content documents his travels, preaching and miracles. Paul was not one of the Twelve Apostles, and did not know Jesus during his lifetime. According to the Acts, Paul lived as a Pharisees, Pharisee and participated in the Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire, persecution of early Disciple (Christianity), disciples ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sardinia
Sardinia ( ; ; ) is the Mediterranean islands#By area, second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, and one of the Regions of Italy, twenty regions of Italy. It is located west of the Italian Peninsula, north of Tunisia and 16.45 km south of the French island of Corsica. It has over 1.5 million inhabitants as of 2025. It is one of the five Italian regions with some degree of Autonomous administrative division, domestic autonomy being granted by a Regions of Italy#Autonomous regions with special statute, special statute. Its official name, Autonomous Region of Sardinia, is bilingual in Italian language, Italian and Sardinian language, Sardinian: / . It is divided into four provinces of Italy, provinces and a Metropolitan cities of Italy, metropolitan city. Its capital (and largest city) is Cagliari. Sardinia's indigenous language and Algherese dialect, Algherese Catalan language, Catalan are referred to by both the regional and national law as two of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Corsica
Corsica ( , , ; ; ) is an island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the Regions of France, 18 regions of France. It is the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fourth-largest island in the Mediterranean and lies southeast of the Metropolitan France#Hexagon, French mainland, west of the Italian Peninsula and immediately north of the Italian island of Sardinia, the nearest land mass. A single chain of mountains makes up two-thirds of the island. , it had a population of 355,528. The island is a Single territorial collectivity, territorial collectivity of France, and is expected to achieve "a form of autonomy" in the near future. The regional capital is Ajaccio. Although the region is divided into two administrative Departments of France, departments, Haute-Corse and Corse-du-Sud, their respective regional and departmental Territorial collectivity, territorial collectivities were merged on 1 January 2018 to form the single territorial collectivity of Corsica. Corsican aut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pope Urban VIII
Pope Urban VIII (; ; baptised 5 April 1568 – 29 July 1644), born Maffeo Vincenzo Barberini, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 6 August 1623 to his death, in July 1644. As pope, he expanded the papal territory by force of arms and advantageous politicking, and was also a prominent patron of the arts, commissioning works from artists like Gian Lorenzo Bernini and a reformer of Church missions. His papacy also covered 21 years of the Thirty Years' War. The massive debts incurred during his pontificate greatly weakened his successors, who were unable to maintain the papacy's longstanding political and military influence in Europe. He was also an opponent of Copernicanism and was involved in the Galileo affair, which saw the astronomer tried for heresy. He is the last pope to date to take the papal name ''Urban''. Biography Early life Maffeo Vincenzo Barberini was born in April 1568, the son of Antonio Barberini, a Florentine nobleman, and C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oda Nobunaga
was a Japanese ''daimyō'' and one of the leading figures of the Sengoku period, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods. He was the and regarded as the first "Great Unifier" of Japan. He is sometimes referred as the "Demon Daimyō" and "Demon King of the Sixth Heaven". Nobunaga was an influential figure in Japanese history and is regarded as one of the three great unifiers of Japan, along with his Affinity (medieval), retainers, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu. Nobunaga paved the way for the successful reigns of Hideyoshi and Ieyasu by consolidating power, as head of the very powerful Oda clan, through a series of wars against other ''daimyō'' beginning in the 1560s. The period when Nobunaga and Hideyoshi were in power is called the Azuchi–Momoyama period. The name "Azuchi–Momoyama" comes from the fact that Nobunaga's castle, Azuchi Castle, was located in Azuchi, Shiga; while Fushimi Castle, where Hideyoshi lived after his retirement, was located in Momoyama. Nob ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Azuchi Screens
The Azuchi Screens () are a set of six panel folding screen, folding-screens depicting Azuchi Castle and its nearby Azuchi, Shiga, town. Oda Nobunaga gifted them to Alessandro Valignano and, via the Tenshō embassy, Tenshō Embassy, were presented to Pope Pope Gregory XIII, Gregory XIII. They were displayed in the Vatican Museums, Vatican collections, where they were admired by visitors. However, they disappeared from historical record. Their fate is unknown and they are considered to be lost. The screens were seminal works in the development of Japanese folding screens. Variations on the name are or . History The second half and the start of the seventeenth century saw the unification of Japan through the conquests of three great military leaders: Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu. This era is also called the Azuchi-Momoyama period, after the sites of the great castles of Nobunaga and Hideyoshi. The period saw a rapid development in Japanese castle constr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
