AcharyaChanakya/simple-wikipedia huggingface dataset:
Scene 3 (Largo): Wozzeck talks about it to Marie. She admits that she has a boyfriend. Wozzeck is furious. He is about to hit her when she stops him, saying even her father never dared to hit her. She says: "better a knife in my belly than your hands on me". This gives Wozzeck an idea for revenge.
Scene 4 (Scherzo): Wozzeck sees Marie dancing with the Drum-major in a crowd. Andres asks Wozzeck why he is sitting by himself. A drunkard gives a sermon, then an idiot goes up to Wozzeck and says he can smell blood.
Scene 5 (Rondo): In the barracks at night, Wozzeck cannot sleep. He is keeping Andres awake. The Drum-major comes in. He is drunk. He gets Wozzeck out of bed to fight with him.
Scene 1 (Invention on a Theme): In her room at night, Marie reads to herself from the Bible. She wants to be forgiven.
Scene 2 (Invention on a Single Note (B)): Wozzeck and Marie are walking in the woods by a pond. Marie wants to leave, but Wozzeck stops her. The moon is shining bright red. Wozzeck becomes determined that if he can not have Marie, no one else can, and he stabs her.
Scene 3 (Invention on a Rhythm): People are dancing in a pub. Wozzeck enters, and when he sees Margret, he dances with her and pulls her onto his lap. He insults her, and then asks her to sing him a song. She sings, but then notices blood on his hand and elbow; everyone begins to shout at him, and Wozzeck rushes out.
Scene 4 (Invention on a 6-Note Chord): Wozzeck goes back to the place where he killed Marie. Wozzeck thinks that the knife he killed Marie with will prove that he is the murderer. He throws the knife into the pond. When the blood-red moon appears again, he walks into the pond to try to wash the blood of his body, but he drowns. The Captain and the Doctor, passing by, hear Wozzeck moaning and rush off in fright.
Intermezzo (Invention on a Key (D minor)): This interlude leads to the finale.
Scene 5 (Invention on an Eighth-Note moto perpetuo, "quasi toccata"): The next morning a group of children are playing in the sunshine. People are telling one another that Marie's body has been found. The children all run off to see. Marie and Wozzeck’s little boy has been playing on a toy horse. He stops and runs after the other children to the pond.
Berg saw Büchner's play "Woyzeck" in 1914. It was the first time it had been performed in Vienna. The play had been advertised as "Wozzeck" because people could not read Büchner’s handwriting. This is why Berg uses this spelling for his opera.
Berg knew at once that he wanted to make the play into an opera. Büchner, who had died in 1837 at the age of 23, had left the play unfinished. Berg took fifteen scenes from the play and made them into an opera with three acts. He composed music with a particular form for each scene so that the music develops in a very organised way. He made changes to the libretto himself.
Though Berg began work on the opera in 1914, he was serving in the army during World War I, so he did not have time to continue working on it until 1917. He finished the opera in April 1922. Erich Kleiber conducted the first performance at the Berlin State Opera on 14 December 14 1925. It quickly became famous and was performed in all of the big opera houses in Europe. It was so successful that Berg was able to live off of the money he earned from it.
"Wozzeck" was the first major opera written in a modern 20th century style. A lot of the music is atonal (not in any key) so Berg was able to use this to express the madness of Wozzeck. Sometimes the music becomes more tonal, especially when the story is telling about love and humanity. He also bases some of the music about the soldiers on folksong which he treats in his own special way.
Another musical technique he uses is the leitmotif, in which particular characters or things are linked to particular themes or musical ideas. This technique can be very useful to suggest certain things. For example, there is a leitmotif for the earrings which the Drum major has given to Marie. When the major makes love to Marie we hear this leitmotif. The music makes us realize that he is not forcing her to love him but that she is willing. In another place, the military music tells us that Marie is thinking of the Drum major.
Another leitmotif is the chord we hear when Wozzeck, near the beginning of the opera, talks about “poor folk like us”. The chord we hear is used in other parts of the opera when characters are not strong enough to change their situation in life.
Gram (mythology)
In Norse mythology, Gram is the name of the sword of Sigurd (Siegfried). He used it to kill the dragon Fafnir. It was forged by Weyland the Smith and originally belonged to his father, Sigmund, who received it in the hall of the Volsung after pulling it out of a log into which Odin had stuck it–nobody else could pull it out. The sword was destroyed and reforged at least once. After it was reforged, it clove an anvil in half. See Sigurd for more details on the story of Siegfried and Fafnir.
In the "Nibelungenlied", Siegfried's sword is called Balmung; in Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle, it is called Nothung (Notung in more modern German).
Tantra (Sanskrit: तन्त्र "weave" meaning "continuity"), tantricism or tantrism is the name for a number of traditions from Indian religions. These traditions are usually esoteric in their nature. Tantra exists in Hindu, Bönpo, Buddhist, and Jain forms. Tantra in its various forms has existed in South Asia, China, Japan, Tibet, Korea, Cambodia, Burma, Indonesia and Mongolia.
Tantra is derived from 2 words - "Tanoti" (Liberation of energy) and "Trayati" (Expansion of consciousness).
Sorbs
The Sorbs are Slavic people. They live mostly in Germany and Poland. There are 60,000 Sorbian people in the world. About 25,000 people speak one of the Sorbian languages.
In Germany and Poland Sorbs do not use the old fashioned words "Wends" or "Wendish" to describe themselves. American and Australian communities often prefer to call themselves "Wends" or "Wendish". They think that “Sorb” and “Sorbian” are bad words.
Upper Sorbian and Lower Sorbian dialects are protected languages in parts of Germany under the European Charter for Minority or Regional Languages
List of Romanian writers
This is a list of Romanian writers.
Almazán
Almazán is a city in Castilla y León, in Spain. The city name comes from Arabic. There it means "The fortified place". It is located about 32 km south of the capital of the province (Valladolid), and about 192 km from Madrid. Today, about 5.700 people live there.
The city has a long history. In it, the Pedro IV of Aragon and Enrique II of Castilla signed the truce between Castillla and Aragon. Juan Hurtado de Mendoza was the majordomo of king Enrique III. The king Enrique IV of Castilla gave the city to him. He also got to supervise the city. Later the duchy was divided into two different parts.
The city itself was governed by the "Alcalde Mayor". He was helped by a committee of people from the city (3 noblemen, and 3 from the Hidalgo class).
The city belonged to the county of Altamira. The counts descended from Hernando de Mendoza.
Diego Laínez was a Jesuit monk who was born in the city. He was a companion to San Ignacio de Loyola. He also succeeded him as head of the Society of Jesus, a Catholic religious order. Laínez later had a large influence in the Council of Trent.
Most of the city is built in a Romanesque style. There are also some examples of Baroque, Renaissance and Gothic art styles.
Some of the notable buildings are:
Ratnasambhava
Ratnasambhava is one of the five Dhyani Buddhas.
His mandala is yellow and is in the southern direction. Ratnasambhava embodies Dharma that changes pride, miserliness and avarice into equanimity. He is shown with his right hand extended down, palm facing outwards. His left hand holds a precious jewel in his lap. He is associated with changing poverty into wealth. Ratnasambhava’s blessings allow us to overcome pride and miserliness, thereby developing inner calm. The wealth-giving Buddhas or Jambhalas are associated with the family of Ratnasambhava.
Hydrangea, common name Hortensia, is a genus of 70-80 species of flowers. The earliest kinds of hydrangea came from southern and eastern Asia.
The colour of the flowers can tell you how much acid is in the soil the plant is growing in.
For example alkaline ones produce pink colored flowers.
A Mandala is a symbol of either a man or a woman in the world.
The Mandala acts as a support for anyone in meditation. The Mandala itself is often illustrated as a palace with four gates, facing the four corners of the Earth. It is a symbol that represents wholeness, and can be seen as a model for the structure of life itself. There are generally symbols within it that represent something.
Margaret (moon)
Margaret is the only prograde non-spherical moon of Uranus. It was found by Scott S. Sheppard, et al. in 2003 and given the designation S/2003 U 3.
Confirmed as Uranus XXIII, it was named after the servant of Hero in William Shakespeare's play "Much Ado About Nothing"
Margaret stands out as the only prograde non-spherical moon of Uranus. The diagram illustrates the orbital parameters of Margaret, unique among the non-spherical moons of Uranus, with inclination on the vertical axis and the eccentricity of the orbits represented by the segments extending from the pericentre to the apocentre.
https//ifarley.net
Joanot Martorell
Joanot Martorell (1413 – 1468) was the Valencian author of the novel "Tirant lo Blanch," which is written in the Valenciandialect (Martorell calls it "the Valencian vernacular" ""vulgar llengua valenciana"" used in the Crown of Aragon). First published in Valencia in 1490, it was reprinted in Barcelona in 1497, and some consider it the first modern novel in Europe.
It deals with the adventures of a knight in the Byzantine Empire with echoes of the real-life Catalan Company. Miguel de Cervantes in the book burning scene of Don Quixote considers it the best knight novel. Martorell himself was a chivalrous man and suffered an early death due to court intrigue, leading to a colleague, Marti Joan de Galba, finishing the novel.
St Albans
St Albans is the main urban area of the City and District of St Albans in Hertfordshire, England. It is 22 miles (35 km) north of London. St Albans is the former Roman town of Verulamium.
It was originally named Verlamion by the Celtic Catuvellauni tribe, and Verulamium by the Romans. It was the first major town on the old Roman road of Watling Street for travellers heading north.
Many of the Roman walls were knocked down by William the Conqueror and used to build St Albans Abbey, otherwise known as St Albans Cathedral. The town had many notable buildings but most were knocked down by Henry VIII. The only building left is the abbey. Though many other buildings have been built nearby Ye Old Fighting Cocks, which claims to be the oldest pub in the UK, a Roman amphitheatre and hypocaust floor, a disused bear baiting square in Verulamium Park, and the imposing Rats Castle at the top of Hatfield Road as well as Roman Verulanium Muesuem
The bones of St. Alban, the first English martyr, were kept in the Abbey in a shrine, but were stolen during the 19th century.They were smuggled out of the country into Munich. A few years ago The German Cathedral sent the shoulder bone of St. Alban and it is kept in the shrine behind a curtain
Now, due to its proximity to London, St. Albans is a commuter town.
St Albans School is a public school. It occupies a site to the west of the Abbey, which includes the 14th century Abbey Gateway. The school was founded in AD 948 and is the only school in the English-speaking world to have educated a Pope. Adrian IV was the only Englishman to become Pope.
City of Lancaster
The City of Lancaster (2002 population: 133,914) is a local government district in Lancashire, England. Its main town is Lancaster, from which it obtained its city status. Other towns in the district include Morecambe, Heysham, Slyne, and Carnforth.
The district was made on April 1 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, when the boroughs of Lancaster and Morecambe and Heysham, along with Carnforth urban district, Lancaster Rural District and Lunesdale Rural District joined together.
Vice Chancellor of Germany
The Vice Chancellor is the deputy of the Federal Chancellor. He acts for the Chancellor if he cannot act, or if there is no chancellor. The Vice Chancellor is also a federal minister, and in a coalition government is usually the leader of the minority party.
Peripheral equipment
Peripheral equipment (also called: input and output devices) connects a computer to other things. It gives a computer system more features. Input is anything that goes in and output is anything that goes out. Any device for the computer that the computer can work without is peripheral equipment. This equipment is always separated from the central processing unit (CPU) by a device controller.
Peripheral equipment is necessary for people to interact with a computer system. Some peripheral equipment displays information (such as a computer monitor). Some peripherals, such as touchscreens, work for both input and output.
Peripheral equipment is often labelled I/O device (Input/Output device). I/O devices are connected to a device controller which is connected to the electronics in the computer system. An example of an output device is a set of computer speakers. Computer speakers are plugged into a device controller called an audio device. The device is connected to the rest of the system inside. An example of an input device is a computer mouse. It is connected in the same way as an output device. Most peripherals connect by cable but some connect by Bluetooth radio.
One peripheral device can be connected to many systems.
Sometimes extra memory devices such as a second hard disk can be called peripheral equipment. People who make computer programs call everything except the processor and main memory an I/O device. To an engineer working on the design of a processor, everything except the processor is called an I/O device.
An input device is anything that puts information inside a computer. It is a hardware device that sends information into the CPU. Without any input devices a computer would simply be a display device and not allow users to interact with it, similar to a TV. Below is a listing of different types of computer input devices.
An output device is anything to which the computer sends signals, for example things that display information from the computer or make sound from the computer.
Federal Ministry of Marshall Plan Affairs
The Federal Ministry of Marshall Plan Affairs was one of the first ministries of the Federal Republic of Germany. Its job was to oversee the rebuilding of the new republic using money and aid given by the United States as part of the European Recovery Programme, which was usually called the Marshall Plan.
The only Minister for Marshall Plan Affairs was also the first Federal Vice Chancellor, Franz Blücher.
In 1953 the Ministry was renamed the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation.
The Marshall Plan (officially called the European Recovery Program [ERP]) was a plan of the United States for rebuilding the allied countries of Europe after World War II. One of the main reasons this was done was to stop communism (basically the USSR).
The plan was named after Secretary of State George Marshall, but the plan was worked out by other people in the State Department.
The plan ran for four years beginning in April 1948. During that period US$ 13 billion in economic and technical help were given to help the recovery of the European countries that had joined in the Organization for European Economic Co-operation.
By the time the plan ended, the economy of every member state had grown well past pre-war levels.
In recent years some historians have said that another reason for the plan was to make the United States stronger, and to make the countries of western Europe need the United States. They also say that the United Nations(UN) Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, which helped millions of refugees from 1944 to 1947, it also helped the European postwar recovery.
U.S. Treasury Secretary said that if Europe needed money to rebuild what had been destroyed by the war, they should take it from Germany. This money was called war reparations. Morgenthau said it would also stop Germany from ever being rebuilt, and threatening to start another war. Taking money from Germany was done after World War I. It did not work. Instead of helping other countries it hurt them. This is because companies could not sell the coal and steel that they made because it was coming in free from Germany.
Jean Monnet of France said that France should control the German coal areas of the Ruhr and Saar and use it to rebuild French industry. In 1946 the occupying powers agreed to put strict limits on how quickly Germany could reindustrialize. Limits were placed on how much coal and steel could be produced.
This was the first German industrial plan. It was signed in early 1946 and said that German heavy industry was to be cut down to half% of its 1938 levels by the destroying 1,500 manufacturing plants.
By the end of 1946 governments could see the problems of the plan, and the agreement was changed several times, the last time in 1949. But dismantling factories went on into 1950. Germany had been very important to the economy of Europe for a long time. This meant that a poor Germany was holding back European recovery, because other countries could not sell so many things to Germany. A poor Germany was also expensive for the occupying powers. They had to give Germany food and other things which it needed and could not grow or make for itself anymore.
Because of this the Morgenthau and Monnet plans were rejected.
The Marshall Plan ended in 1952. Ideas to extend it were stopped because of the cost of the Korean War and rearmament. U.S. Republicans hostile to the plan had also gained seats in the 1950 Congressional elections.
The Marshall Plan has been described as "the most unselfish act in history." However, this may not be the case. The United States benefited from the plan because part of the agreement for giving the aid was that the country would have to open up their economies to US companies.
"Historical revisionist" historians, such as Walter LaFeber, during the 1960s and 1970s said that the plan was American economic imperialism. That means, that it was an attempt to gain control over Western Europe just as the Soviets controlled Eastern Europe.
Tyler Cowen, economist, has said that nations receiving the most aid from the Marshall Plan (Britain, Sweden, Greece) saw the least returns and grew the least between 1947 and 1955. Those nations who received little (e.g. Austria) grew the most.
When he looked at West Germany's economy from 1945 to 1951, German analyst Werner Abelshauser decided that foreign aid was not needed to start the recovery or to keep it going. Cowen found that the economic recoveries of France, Italy, and Belgium, started before the Marshall Plan. Belgium relied heavily on free market economic policies after its liberation in 1944, and had the fastest recovery. It also did not have the severe housing and food shortages seen in the rest of continental Europe.
The Ninety-Five Theses on the Power of Indulgences, commonly known as The Ninety-Five Theses, was written by Martin Luther.
Luther argued that the Church should not sell indulgences. Because many people agreed, Luther became very popular, paving the way for the Protestant Reformation.
On October 31, 1517, Luther approached the church authorities with his pressing call for reform. On this day he presented them with his theses. When the bishops did not respond, Luther circulated his theses privately. The theses spread quickly and were printed in Nuremberg, Leipzig, and Basel.
Most recently, in February 2007, the media reported that a handwritten note by Luther's secretary Georg Rörer, found in the university library at Jena, appeared to confirm the traditional account of Luther's nailing the theses to the door. As of February 2007, this new find has yet to be assessed by scholars.
An indulgence, in Roman Catholic theology, means that temporal punishment (punishment here on Earth) for sins which have already been forgiven is taken from the sinner.
The indulgence is given by the church after the sinner has confessed and received absolution.
Indulgences replaced the severe penances of the early church.
The basis of indulgences was said to be that the church has a "treasury of merit". This came from past Christians who had been even better than was required to gain salvation. Their good deeds were kept in a kind of bank that the Pope could draw from. He could give or sell the merit to others whose sins prevented them from being saved.
During the crusades, the Pope promised "full indulgence" to those who volunteered to fight the Muslims. This meant that if they became soldiers in the Pope's army and died, they would go to heaven even if they had done evil things.
By 1500, indulgences had developed into a printed letter that said that having paid money a person had received full pardon for all their sins. Even people who had died and were suffering in purgatory could be instantly freed if a living person paid for the indulgence. The money was used for building a church in Rome, with some of it going to local princes or secular leaders.
This extreme abuse of indulgences caused Martin Luther to protest against them. Luther said that it is better to give money to the poor and repent of one's sins instead of paying money to the Church. This was the starting point for the Protestant Reformation (1517). Soon after, at the Council of Trent, the Catholic Church tried to respond to the problems that led to the Reformation and the sale of indulgences was stopped.
In modern times, the idea of indulgences has occasionally been used by the Catholic Church, but only as a reward for certain pious acts, and not as a full pardon for sins.
Prospero (moon)
Prospero is a small retrograde non-spherical moon of Uranus found on 1999-07-18 by the astrophysicist Matthew Holman and his team, and given designation S/1999 U 3. Confirmed as Uranus XVIII it was named after the sorcerer Prospero in William Shakespeare's play "The Tempest".
The orbital parameters suggest that it may belong, together with Sycorax and Setebos to the same dynamic cluster, suggesting common origin.
However, this suggestion does not appear to be supported by the observed colours. The moon appears grey in the visible light
, similar to Setebos but different from Sycorax (which is "light red").
Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos
Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos (5 January, 1744 - 27 November, 1811) was a Spanish neoclassical statesman, writer, and philosopher.
Involved in the disgrace of his friend, Francisco de Cabarrús, Jovellanos spent the years 1790 to 1797 in a sort of prison at Gijon where he wrote.
In 1797 he came back and refused the post of ambassador to Russia, but accepted to become minister of grace and justice.
Joseph Bonaparte, on mounting the Spanish throne, made Jovellanos lots of offers but he refused them all and joined a patriotic party.
When he was involved in the fall of the party he was sent back to Gijon. The vessel in which he sailed was compelled by stress of weather to put in at Vega de Navia (now Puerto de Vega) in Asturias where died on November 27 1811.
The Empire State Building is a skyscraper in Manhattan, New York City, United States. It is tall and has 102 floors. Named after the popular nickname for New York, the Empire State, it is one of the most famous landmarks in the US. When the Empire State Building opened on May 1, 1931, it was the world's tallest building.
Designed by the architects named Shreve, Lamb & Harmon Associates, it was built at a time when many people were trying to make the world's tallest building, but the Empire State Building won. The old Waldorf-Astoria Hotel was destroyed so that the Empire State Building could be built. The Empire State Building was completed in 410 days. It opened on May 1, 1931, when United States President Herbert Hoover pushed a button in Washington, D.C. to turn on the lights. The Empire State Building's design was based on the 21-story Reynolds Building in Winston-Salem, built in 1929. In the 1930s, the Empire State Building was called the "Empty State Building" because not many people worked in the building.
The Empire State Building became the tallest building in New York City and the world until the first World Trade Center towers passed it in 1970. When these towers were brought down in the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Empire State Building was again the tallest building in New York. It stopped being New York's tallest building in 2012 when the new One World Trade Center was built.
On Saturday, July 28, 1945, a plane crashed into the building due to heavy fog and started a fire, but the building was only damaged a little. 14 people (3 in the plane) were killed in the accident.
The Empire State Building is at 350 Fifth Avenue. The building has its own ZIP Code, 10118. There is a big Art Deco lobby with shops at Fifth Avenue. People can also go to a lobby on 34th Street. The Empire State Building has 73 elevators.
The 80th, 86th, and 102nd floors have places where people can look at the city from high above. There is a steel mast on the top of the Empire State Building. The builders wanted to have an airship station on the roof, but the station was not opened. Today, people cannot go to the mast. The mast has a radio transmitter. The Empire State Building also lights up at night.
Calvià
Calviá is a village on the island of Mallorca and it has some of the most beautiful beaches on the island.
The village of Calvià has an area of and an altitude of . There are almost 50,000 inhabitants.
Tourism is the main source of income in this city. In summer there are many tourist coming to this city, especially from the United Kingdom.
Felanitx
Felanitx is on the east side of Majorca close to Porto Colom on the coast. It is from Palma.
It is the centre of a very touristic area (there are more than 2.300 hotel rooms), especially in summer.
There are 17,000 inhabitants.
It is the home town of the famous painter Miquel Barceló, who has just worked in the cathedral of Palma.
St. Peter's Basilica
St. Peter's Basilica, which is called "Basilica di San Pietro in Vaticano" in Italian, is a large church in the Vatican City, in Rome, Italy. It is often called "the greatest church in Christendom". In Catholic tradition, St. Peter's Basilica is believed to be the burial place of Saint Peter, who was one of the twelve apostles of Jesus. It is believed that Saint Peter was the first Bishop of Rome.
Although the Bible does not say that the apostle Peter went to Rome, other Roman Christians who were alive in the 1st century AD have written about him. Catholics believe that after Peter was killed, his body was buried in a cemetery where the basilica now stands. A tomb has been found below the altar of the basilica, and there were some bones, but no-one can say for certain if they are the bones of St. Peter.
A church was built here in the 4th century AD. The building that stands here now was begun on April 18, 1506 and was finished in 1626. Many Popes have been buried there. Although many people think St. Peter's is a cathedral, it is not, because it does not have a bishop. The pope is the Bishop of Rome, and although he usually uses St. Peter's as his main church, because he lives in the Vatican, his bishop's throne is in a different church, the cathedral of "Saint John Lateran". Large important churches like St. Peter's are often called basilicas. There are four ancient basilicas in Rome that were begun by the Emperor Constantine soon after he made Christianity the legal religion of the Roman Empire in the early 4th century AD (300s). The basilicas are "St. Peter's Basilica", "St. John Lateran", "Santa Maria Maggiore" and "St. Paul outside the Walls".
St. Peter's is famous for many reasons:
One of the books of the Bible, called the Acts of the Apostles, tells what happened to the disciples of Jesus after he was put to death by crucifixion in the 1st century AD. One of his twelve disciples became the leader. His name was Simon Peter and he was a fisherman from Galilee. Peter became one of the most important people in starting the Christian Church. Another important disciple was Paul of Tarsus, who travelled to many places and wrote lots of letters to teach and to encourage people in the new Christian groups that began to spring up in many different parts of the Roman Empire. St. Paul travelled to Rome. It is believed that St. Peter also travelled to Rome and that both Paul and Peter were put to death there as Christian martyrs. St. Paul was beheaded with a sword. Peter was crucified up-side-down. It is believed that the body of St. Peter was buried in a cemetery near the Via Cornelia, a road leading out of the city, on the hill called Vaticanus. Peter's grave was marked, by a red rock, the symbol of his name. The place where Peter died was marked, in the 1400s, by a little round temple called the "Tempietto" designed by Bramante.
St. Peter is very important in Roman Catholic tradition because Peter is believed to have been the head of the Christian Church in Rome, and so he was the first bishop. The Gospel of Matthew (chapter 16, verse 18) tells that Jesus said these words to Peter:
The name Peter means a "rock". The Roman Catholic Church believes that Jesus made Peter the head of the Christian Church, and so all the Bishops of Rome (the Popes) must be the leaders of the Christian Church throughout the whole world. The Protestant and Orthodox churches believe that Jesus was speaking about the important words Peter had just said: ""You are the Christ and the Son of the Living God"" (Matthew 16:16), and that this "Confession of Faith" is the rock that the Christian Church is built on.
On December 23, 1950, while making his Christmas radio broadcast to the world, Pope Pius XII announced that Saint Peter's tomb had been discovered. Archaeologists had been searching for ten years in a place under the basilica that had been covered up for about a thousand years. They had found part of a small building dating from soon after St. Peter's death, and some bones, but no-one could be sure if they were the bones of St. Peter.
St. Peter's Basilica, as it stand today, was begun in 1506. The first basilica, which is now called "Old St. Peter's Basilica" was begun by the Emperor Constantine between 326 and 333 AD. This was a big wide church in the shape of a Latin Cross, over 103.6 metres (350 feet) long. The central part called the "nave" had two aisles on either side, separated by rows of talls Roman columns. In front of the main entrance was large courtyard with a covered walkway all around. This church had been built over a small "shrine" (little chapel) believed to mark the burial place of St. Peter. The old basilica contained a very large number of tombs and memorials, including those of most of the popes from St. Peter to the 15th century.
By the end of the 15th century (1400s), the old basilica was falling to pieces. Pope Nicholas V, (1447–55), was worried about it and got two architects, Leone Battista Alberti and Bernardo Rossellino, to make plans to restore it or build a new one. But Pope Nicholas had so many political problems that when he died, very little of the work had been done.
In 1505, Pope Julius II decided to "demolish" (pull down) the old St. Peter's and build a basilica that would be the grandest church in the world and make Rome (and himself) famous. He held a competition and invited lots of artists and architects to draw designs. A plan was selected and the build was begun, but Pope Julius did not get his new basilica. In fact, it was not finished for 120 years. The planning and construction (or "building work") lasted through the reigns of 21 popes and 8 architects.
The changing plans for St. Peter's. The architectural terms are explained in the article.
When Pope Julius decided to build the "grandest church in Christendom" the design by Donato Bramante was chosen, and Pope Julius laid the foundation stone in 1506. Bramante's plan was in the shape of an enormous Greek Cross, which means that it had four arms all of equal length, and a large dome at the middle. For the next hundred years, the "groundplan" got changed backwards and forwards between a "Greek Cross" like Bramante's plan and a "Latin Cross" like the old basilica, but one thing never changed, and that was the idea of having an enormous dome at the place where the two arms crossed.
At that time, there were only three very large domes in the whole world. One was far away in Constantinople on the church of Hagia Sophia and not many people in Italy had seen it. The other two domes were both very well known. One was the dome on the temple to the Ancient Roman gods, called the Pantheon. The other dome was built in the early 15th century (1400s) on Florence Cathedral by Filippo Brunelleschi. The dome of the Pantheon is 43.3 metres (142.06 ft) across and the dome of Florence Cathedral is about 42.1 metres (138 ft), but is much taller. Bramante's plan for the dome of St. Peter's was for it to be about as wide as the dome of Florence, and even taller.
No architect with any sense would try to design a dome without first checking out how these other two domes were made. Bramante checked them out. He discovered that the dome of the Pantheon, which had been standing for nearly 1500 years, was made of concrete. So that the concrete wouldn't be too heavy, it was mixed with pumice stone which comes out of a volcano and is full of gas holes so it is very light weight. Bramante learned how to make concrete like the Ancient Romans.
Bramante's dome was to be like the one on the Pantheon. But there was one very big difference between the Pantheon dome and Bramante's design. The Pantheon's dome stands on a round wall like a drum, with only one doorway in it, but Bramante's dome was designed to stand on a drum, which was standing high up on four wide arches. The aches rested on four enormous "piers" (pillars of stone). He had got this idea from Florence Cathedral which had an enormous dome resting on eight big piers. Another idea that Bramante got from Florence Cathedral was the design for the little stone tower which sits on top of the dome and is called the "lantern".
When Pope Julius died in 1513, the next pope, Leo X, called in three architects, Giuliano da Sangallo, Fra Giocondo and Raphael. Sangallo and Fr Giocondo both died in 1515. Raphael made a big change to the plan. Instead of having a Greek Cross, he decided to change the plan to a Latin Cross, which had a long "nave" and "aisles" like the old basilica.
Raphael also died, in his mid-30s, in 1520, before any important changes could be made to the building. The next architect was Peruzzi who like some of the ideas that Raphael had, but did not like the Latin Cross plan. Peruzzi went back to Bramante's Greek Cross plan. But there were so many arguments in the church that the building stopped completely. Then in 1527 Rome was invaded by Emperor Charles V. Peruzzi died in 1536 without his plan being built. The only main parts of the building which had been constructed were Bramante's four big "piers" to hold the dome.
Antonio da Sangallo (known as "Sangallo the Younger") looked at all the different plans by Peruzzi, Raphael and Bramante. He put some of their ideas together in a design that had a very short nave, (not a long one like Raphael's design) and had a big porch at the front. He changed Bramante's dome to be much stronger and also much more decorated. The main new idea that he added were 16 stone ribs to strengthen the dome. This idea came from Florence Cathedral which had eight stone ribs. But Sangallo's plan never got built, either. The main job that he did was to strengthen Bramante's piers which had begun to crack.
On January 1st, 1547 in the reign of Pope Paul III, Michelangelo, who was already over 70, became the architect of St. Peter's. He is the main designer of the building as it stands today. Michelangelo died before the job was finished, but by that time, he had got the construction up to a point where other people could get it finished. Michelangelo had already done a lot of work for the popes, carving figures for the tomb of Pope Julius II, painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling, which took five years, and the enormous fresco the "Last Judgement" on the wall of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo found the popes and the cardinals very difficult to work with. When Pope Paul asked him to be the new architect for St. Peter's, Michelangelo did not want the job. In fact, Pope Paul did not really want Michelangelo. But his first choice, Giulio Romano, died suddenly. Michelangelo told the pope that he would only do the job, if he could do it in whatever way he thought was best.
Michelangelo wrote:
When Michelangelo took over a building site in 1547, the nave of the old basilica was still standing and in use. There were four of the most enormous piers in the world standing where the western part of the old basilica had been. The building work had stopped for so long that weeds and bushes were growing out between the stones of the unfinished building as if it was a cliff. Michelangelo looked at all the plans that had been drawn by some of the greatest architects and engineers of the 16th century. He knew he could do whatever he liked but he had respect for the other designers, especially Bramante. He knew that he was expected to make a design that would be the symbol of the city of Rome, in the same way as Brunelleschi's dome was the symbol of Florence where Michelangelo had lived as a young man. He went back to the Greek Cross idea and re-drew Bramante's plan, making every part of it much stronger and simpler. It had to be strong enough to support the tallest dome in the world.
Michelangelo was a sculptor. When he was going to carve something, he would start by making a clay model. Michelangelo could imagine the building like a lump of clay. What if the building could be pushed and pulled and squeezed? If you could squeeze the corners in, then other bits would bulge out. If you could put your hands around the whole building and squeeze it, then the dome would bulge upwards. The idea of imagining buildings as bendy and bulgy was a completely new one. But other artists like Gianlorenzo Bernini looked at what Michelangelo did at St. Peter's and used this clever new idea in their own work. This is called the Baroque style.
As it stands today, the "Greek Cross" part of the basilica is Michelangelo's design and the "nave", which was added later, is by Carlo Maderna. Comparing Michelangelo's plan with Raphael's plan shows that while the outside-line of Raphael's plan has clear square and round shapes, the outside-line in Michelangelo's plan has lots of changes of direction. That is the way it was built. All around the outside of the building are enormous "pilasters" (which are like giant columns stuck on the building). Almost every pilaster is set at a different angle to the next one as if the flat walls had been folded up. Right around the top of the building is a band called the "cornice". A "cornice" is usually quite flat, but because of all the changes of direction, this cornice ripples like a giant piece of ribbon, tied around the outside of the building. The art historian Helen Gardner wrote that it looked as of the whole building was being held together from top to bottom.
Michelangelo designed the dome again, using ideas from Bramante and Sangallo the Younger. Three important ideas came from the dome that Brunelleschi had built in Florence more than 100 years earlier.
When Michelangelo died in 1564, the walls were being built, the piers had been strengthened and everything was ready for the building of the dome. The Pope wanted Michelangelo's assistant Vignola to finish it, but he was not able to. After twenty years Pope Sixtus V gave the job to the architect Giacomo della Porta and the engineer Domenico Fontana. Giacomo Della Porta successfully built the dome. He made some changes to the design, like adding some lions' heads to the decoration because they were the symbol of Pope Sixtus' family. The main way that the dome is different from the wooden model is that it is much more pointy.
Some writers believe that Michelangelo had changed his mind from his first plan, and did not want the pointy dome. They believe he wanted a round dome which would look more "restful". Other writers believe that Michelangelo wanted the pointed dome, not just because it was safer to build, but also because it looked more exciting, as if the building was pushing upwards. Pope Sixtus V lived just long enough to see the dome finished in 1590. His name is written in gold letters around the inside, just below the lantern.
Pope Clement III, had a cross raised into place on top of the lantern. It took a whole day and everyone in Rome was given a holiday, and all the church-bells of the city were rung. In the arms of the cross are set two lead boxes, one containing a fragment of the True Cross and a bone of Saint Andrew and the other containing medals of the "Holy Lamb".
The dome of St. Peter's rises to a height of 136.57 m (448.06 ft) from the floor of the basilica. It is the tallest dome in the world. Its inside diameter is 41.47 metres (136.06 ft), just slightly smaller than those of the Pantheon and the Florence Cathedral.
Around the inside of the dome is written in letters 2 metres (6.5 ft) high:
In 1602 Pope Paul V put Carlo Maderna in charge of the building. On February 18 1606, workmen began to pull down the rest of the old basilica. Some people were very upset. The building committee felt guilty. They decided that the church was the wrong shape, and that they wanted a Latin Cross plan because it was the symbol of the death of Jesus. They wanted a "nave" which would cover all the Holy Ground where the old building had been. In 1607 Maderna's plans for the nave and the "facade" (the front) were accepted. For the inside, he used very large piers with pilasters like Michelangelo's, but he made a clear join between the two parts of the building. The building work began on May 7 1607 and 700 men were employed to do the work. In 1608, the facade was begun. In December 1614 the building was all finished except for the decorations on the ceiling. Early in 1615 the temporary wall between Michelangelo's building and the new nave was pulled down. All the mess was carted away, and the nave was ready for use by Palm Sunday.
The façade was designed by Maderna. It is 114.69 metres (376.28 ft) wide and 45.55 metres (149.44 ft) high and is built of pale grey travertine stone, with a giant Corinthian columns and a central triangular pediment. Along the roof-line are statues of Christ, John the Baptist, and eleven of the apostles.
Inside the main doors is a portico (a long hall) which runs across the front of the building and has five doors leading into the basilica. Its has a long curving roof decorated with gold. The light that comes through the doors shines on the beautifully patterned marble floor. At each end of the portico, set between columns, is a statue of a figure on horseback. They are Charlemagne sculpted by Cornacchini (18th century) to the south and Emperor Constantine by Bernini (1670) to the north. Maderna's last work at St. Peter's was to design a sunken crypt called the "Confessio" under the dome, where people can go to be nearer the burial place of the apostle. All around its marble handrail are 95 bronze lamps.
As a young boy Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) visited St. Peter's and said that one day he wanted to build "a mighty throne for the apostle". His wish came true. As a young man, in 1626, Pope Urban VIII asked him to work as architect for the basilica. Bernini spent the next fifty years thinking of new and beautiful things to design. He is thought of as the greatest architect and sculptor of the Baroque period.
Bernini's first work at St. Peter's was to design the "baldacchino" which is like a tent or "pavilion" above the High Altar. This amazing thing is 30 metres (98 ft) tall and is probably the largest piece of bronze in the world. It stands underneath the dome and has four huge bronze twisted columns decorated with olive leaves and bees, because bees were the symbol of Pope Urban. Pope Urban had a niece that he loved very much and he got Bernini to put her face and the face of her new-born baby boy on the columns as well.
Bernini had a great idea for Bramante's great big piers. He had four hollow "niches" carved into them where four huge statues could stand. The basilica owns some precious relics: a piece of the True Cross of Jesus, a veil that a woman wiped the face of Jesus with, while he was carrying the cross, the spear that was used to pierce Jesus side, and the bones of St. Andrew, the brother of St. Peter. No-one knows for sure whether these things are real or not, but for hundreds of years they have been precious. Bernini's plan was the make four marble statues of the four Holy people: St. Helena who found the cross, St. Longinus who was the soldier with the spear, St Veronica who wiped Jesus' face and St. Andrew. (See below)
Bernini's next job was to make a special throne out of bronze, to hold an ancient wood and ivory throne that had been at the basilica for more than 500 years. It is called the "Cattedra Petri" or "throne of St. Peter". The bronze throne, with the old wooden throne inside it, is held up high at the end of the basilica, by four important saints who are called "Doctors of the Church" because they were all great writers and teachers. The statues are made of bronze. They are Saints Ambrose and Augustine for the Church of Rome and Saints Athanasius and John Chrysostum for the Orthodox Church. Above the chair is a window which is made not from glass but thin translucent stone called alabaster. The Dove of the Holy Spirit is in the middle of the window with rays of light spreading out into the basilica through a sculpture of golden clouds and angels. Bernini designed this to look like a window into Heaven. There was a great celebration when the chair was put in place on January 16, 1666.
Bernini's last work for St. Peter's, 1676, was to decorate of the Chapel of the Sacrament. He designed a miniature version of Bramante's Tempietto, and made it in gilt bronze. On either side is an angel, one gazing in adoration and the other looking towards the viewer in welcome. Bernini died in 1680 in his 82nd year.
To the east of the basilica is the "Piazza di San Pietro" (St. Peter's Place). The piazza was designed by Bernini and built between 1656 and 1667. It was not an easy job because the designer had lots of things to think about. Firstly, many people complained that Maderna's "facade" on St. Peter's looked too wide, so Bernini wanted to make it look narrower, not wider. Secondly, in the old square left over from the Old St. Peter's, Pope Sixtus V had a monument set up. This monument was a precious Ancient Egyptian "obelisk" (which is like a tall column, but with four flat sides). From its base to the top of the cross (that the pope had put on top) it was 40 metres (131 ft) high, and had been brought to Rome in ancient times. The obelisk really should be at the center of the new square, but it was not in quite the right place, and was very difficult to move without breaking. The third problem was that Maderna had built a fountain to one side of the obelisk, and Bernini needed to make another fountain to match it, otherwise the design would look unbalanced.
Bernini solved the problem by making two areas, instead of one huge one. The first area is an almost-square area right in front of the facade. It is cleverly designed with sloping sides that make the building look taller and not so wide. The second part of the piazza is oval. It has the obelisk at the center with two fountains on either side at the widest part. The two parts of the piazza are surrounded by a "colonnade" (covered walk-way) which is carried on tall columns. All around are large statues of saints which seem to look down on the thousands of visitors that come to the square every day. The colonnade is in two great arcs that seem to stretch out like loving arms, welcoming people to the Basilica. In recent times some buildings were demolished, making another square, to match the one near the piazza.