Thursday, March 27, 2008
Advice to Women: Be Independent
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Louis XIV: The Sun King
"L'etat c'est moi!" "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer."
Defenestration in Prague
Protestant Bohemian nobles threw two royal governors and a secretary out of the window in Hradcany Palace in 1618. The royal officials survived the 70 foot fall and credited the intercession of the Virgin Mary. The nobles pointed out that their fall was, in fact, cushioned when they landed on a manure pile. (Bohemia's peculiar contribution to the process of political transition!)
Withcraft Hunts: The Burning Time
Strangulation Before Burning
Cristoforo Colombo, aka Cristobal Colon
"Let Christ rejoice on earth, as he rejoices in heaven at the prospect of the salvation of the souls of so many nations hitherto lost. Let us also rejoice as well on account of the exaltation of our faith as on account of the increase of our temporal prosperity." (Letter to Spaish Crown after first voyage to Americas)
Martin Luther: That Meddlesom Monk
“He is a pagan in his denial of free will. The devil in the habit of a monk has brought together ancient errors into on stinking puddle and invented new ones…. His teaching makes for rebellion, division, war, murder, robbery, arson and the collapse of Christendom. He lives the life of a beast.” (HRE Charles V at Diet of Worms) "Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise" (Martin Luther)
Desiderius Erasmus
Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched.
Leo X The Medici Pope
Since God has been pleased to grant us the papacy, let us enjoy it. (Portrait of Leo X with two cardinals by Raphael)
Isabella d'Este, "First Lady of the Renaissance" (portrait by Titian)
During the time of her children's birth her husband now Captain General of the united forces was battling, with the French king Charles VII to keep him from taking territory in Italy. In 1509 he was captured in his sleep and taken to Venice. Isabella refused to allow her son to be taken hostage in return for her husband's freedom, earning his wrath. Made regent by the state she took command of the city's armies and successfully held off the enemy hosts. In 1512 a peace treaty was signed and her husband was released.
Michelangelo's Pieta
"In truth, Wonder herself must marvel that the hand of a craftsman should have been able to execute so divinely and so perfetly...a work so admirable; and it is certainly a miracle that a stone without any shape at the beginning should ever have been reduced to such perfection as Nature is scarcely able to create in the flesh." (Giorgio Vasari)
Burning of Jews 1349
Jews were blamed for the Black Death and often persecuted and killed. Despite the fact that Jews died in proportion to other groups, they were accused of poisoning the wells.
Jean D'Arc by Dante Gabrielle Rossetti (late 19th C.)
A romantic depiction of Joan of Arc
Copernican Cosmology
The Heliocentric Universe
Thomas Hobbes
In a state of nature, human life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." (Leviathan)
John Locke
“The community perpetually retains supreme power.” (Two Treatises on Government)
Rene Descartes
Je pense, donc je suis: I think, therefore I am
Catherine the Great
As Tsarina of Russia, she attempted Enlightened reform. She also expanded the Russian Empire westwards, into Poland, and southwards, at the expense of the Ottoman Empire.
Marie Antoinette
Portrait by Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun
The Execution of Louis XVI
Napoleon Crossing the Alps?
Jaques-Louis David's painting "Napoleon at St. Bernard" (1801-02) is a heroic -- and typically propagandistic -- depiction of Napoleon's invasion of Italy
The Real Crossing of the Alps
Paul Delaroche's painting of 1850 (30 years after Nappy's death) is a much more realistic depiction of the crossing of the Alps -- unlike horses, mules tend not to fall off of mountains!
The Congress of Vienna
From March, 1814 to June 1815, the greatest leaders of the European nations which defeated Napoleon met in Vienna to arrange a permanent peace after more than 20 years of almost constant warfare.
The Romantics: Lord Byron
Gathered a group of romantic figures around him. Died while fighting for Greek independance from the Ottomans.
The Romantics: Mary Shelly
Daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft. Married Percy Bysshe Shelly and wrote Frantenstien.
The Romantics: Beethoven
Beethoven bridged Classicism and Romanticism and revolutionized the Symphonic form,
Karl Marx
Co-author, with Frederick Engels, of the 1848 "Communist Manifesto."
The Great Crucifixion
"The Immortalized Martyr," a depiciton of Lady Liberty -- symbolizing the 1871 Paric Commune and, indeed, France itself -- as a victim of crucifixion.
Queen Victoria and the Cult of Domesticity
The Victorian Age is noted for its development of the ideology of domesticity. The male sphere was outside the home, working to support the family. Women were relegated to the home, raising children and providing a comfortable refuge for her husband. Queen Victoria was upheld as an exemplar of ideology, giving birth to numerous children and being devoted to her husband, Prince Albert.
A Suffragette's Home
The campaign for women's suffrage faced much opposition. This poster, produced by the National League for Opposing Women's Suffrage in Britain, demonstrates what opponents feared would become of homelife if women insisted on struggling for their political equality.
Torturing Women in Prison (1909)
This poster, from the National Women's Social and Political Union, depicts the "Forcible feeding" of British suffragists. The mistreatnment of women engaged in hunger strikes in British prisons aroused great sympathy for the women's movement in both Britain and the United States. "The sensation is most painful," reported a victim in 1909. "The drums of the ears seem to be bursting and there is a horrible pain in the throat and breast. The tube is pushed down twenty inches; [it] must go below the breastbone." The prisoners were generally fed a solution of milk and eggs.
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