Posts

Posted on

N is for Navigators

1400 map of the Atlantic, from Treaty of Tordesillas. Photo by kajmeister in Lisbon.

Have you ever wondered why the Brazilians speak Portuguese? All of South and Central America were overrun with Spanish colonizers–except for Brazil.

The pope brokered a deal with the countries on the Iberian Peninsula to split the world in two halves. The Portuguese got everything to the east, and the Spanish got everything to the west. Easy peasy. The Treaty of Tordesillas.

The Royal Bastard of Fond Memory

Portugal is the stubborn left arm of land on the Iberian Peninsula, never willing to be absorbed. They have their own language, distinctive music, and naval heroes. They timed their independence well, coming together as a country when Spain was still a shattered group of provinces. It helped to have a royal bastard who reigned for nearly half a century.

Continue reading “N is for Navigators”
Posted on

M is for Marble

The marble-tiled floor of St. Marks in Venice. Photo by kajmeister.

It’s just rock. A geological anomaly of a particular type of creature squeezed in a certain way than pushed out of place by a few tectonic events. Voila! A sculptor’s paradise; an architect’s dream. Imagine the floor! They did…

What Is that Stuff?

Ever since Italians noticed that they had mountains full of this really pretty stone, they’ve been sending blocks of it over to wherever sculptors are drooling. Lots of sculpture is carved from granite, which is cheaper and does last, but not as smooth. Marble forms because limestone is getting heated to “really extreme temperatures” so that minerals within the rock get fused together. In a purty way!

More marble flooring in St. Mark’s. Photo by KK.

Why Is It There?

As Luca Lotelli and Sam Anderson explained in a fascinating NY Times piece, the Italian Apuan alps is the site of one of the oldest quarries of white marble in the world. Cosimo de Medici extracted stone here for marble that the Renaissance artists used.

Continue reading “M is for Marble”
Posted on

L is for Leonardo (and the Giant Horse of Francesco Sforza)

Da vinci’s sketches of the horse, from the Royal Collection Trust.

A 28-year-old offered his services to Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, in 1480. The letter writer provided visions of weapons design and military engineering, tasks close in mind to a man whose province had repeatedly churned through turmoil in recent decades The duke’s brother had been assassinated in church and his young son assumed the title, under Uncle Ludovico’s watchful eye. Better armaments might help fend off the numerous challenges from the French, Burgundians, Guelphs (or Ghibellines? or both?), Ottomans–you name it, and there was a threat.

Plus, Ludovico wanted to erect a giant commemorative statue to his grandfather. The letter writer said he could paint a little and knew something about sculpting.

Sketchy Ideas

The letter, of course, came from Leonardo Da Vinci. Even though Da Vinci had been apprenticed in an artist’s studio for a dozen years and opened his own studio for a few more, he had not yet completed a major work. Wikipedia calls Da Vinci a polymath, meaning he knew how to do everything. At this point in his life, he hadn’t been able to do much of it yet. But he had a lot of ideas. And he had heard about the horse.

Continue reading “L is for Leonardo (and the Giant Horse of Francesco Sforza)”