title: Folate

text: Some evidence links a shortage of folate with clinical depression. Limited evidence from randomized controlled trials showed using folic acid in addition to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) may have benefits. Research found a link between depression and low levels of folate. The exact mechanisms involved in the development of schizophrenia and depression are not entirely clear, but the bioactive folate, methyltetrahydrofolate (5-MTHF), a direct target of methyl donors such as S-adenosyl methionine (SAMe), recycles the inactive dihydrobiopterin (BH) into tetrahydrobiopterin (BH), the necessary cofactor in various steps of monoamine synthesis, including that of dopamine. BH serves a regulatory role in monoamine neurotransmission and is required to mediate the actions of most antidepressants.


title: Folate

text: A complex interaction occurs between folic acid, vitamin B, and iron. A deficiency of folic acid or vitamin B may mask the deficiency of iron; so when taken as dietary supplements, the three need to be in balance.


title: Folate

text: Some studies show iron–folic acid supplementation in children under five may result in increased mortality due to malaria; this has prompted the World Health Organization to alter their iron–folic acid supplementation policies for children in malaria-prone areas, such as India.


title: Folate

text: The biological activity of folate in the body depends upon dihydrofolate reductase action in the liver which converts folate into tetrahydrofolate (THF). This action is rate-limiting in humans leading to elevated blood concentrations of unmetabolized folic acid when consumption from dietary supplements and fortified foods nears or exceeds the U.S. Tolerable Upper Intake Level of 1,000 μg per day.


title: Folate

text: Animals, including humans, cannot synthesize folate and therefore must obtain folate from their diet. All plants and fungi and certain protozoa, bacteria, and archaea can synthesize folate de novo through variations on the same biosynthetic pathway. The folate molecule is synthesized from pterin pyrophosphate, para-aminobenzoic acid, and glutamate through the action of dihydropteroate synthase and dihydrofolate synthase. Pterin is in turn derived in a series of enzymatically catalyzed steps from guanosine triphosphate (GTP), while para-aminobenzoic acid is a product of the shikimate pathway.


title: Folate

text: All of the biological functions of folic acid are performed by THF and its methylated derivatives. Hence folic acid must first be reduced to THF. This four electron reduction proceeds in two chemical steps both catalyzed by the same enzyme, dihydrofolate reductase. Folic acid is first reduced to dihydrofolate and then to tetrahydrofolate. Each step consumes one molecule of NADPH (biosynthetically derived from vitamin B) and produces one molecule of NADP. Mechanistically, hydride is transferred from NADPH to the C6 position of the pteridine ring.


title: Folate

text: A one-carbon (1C) methyl group is added to tetrahydrofolate through the action of serine hydroxymethyltransferase (SHMT) to yield 5,10-methylenetetrahydrofolate (5,10-CH-THF). This reaction also consumes serine and pyridoxal phosphate (PLP; vitamin B) and produces glycine and pyridoxal. A second enzyme, methylenetetrahydrofolate dehydrogenase (MTHFD2) oxidizes 5,10-methylenetetrahydrofolate to an iminium cation which in turn is hydrolyzed to produce 5-formyl-THF and 10-formyl-THF. This series of reactions using the β-carbon atom of serine as the carbon source provide the largest part of the one-carbon units available to the cell.


title: Folate

text: Alternative carbon sources include formate which by the catalytic action of formate–tetrahydrofolate ligase add a 1C unit to THF to yield 10-formyl-THF. Glycine, histidine, and sarcosine can also directly contribute to the THF-bound 1C pool.


title: Folate

text: A number of drugs interfere with the biosynthesis of THF from folic acid. Among them are the antifolate such as the antimicrobial, trimethoprim, the antiprotozoal, pyrimethamine and the chemotherapy drug methotrexate, and the sulfonamides (competitive inhibitors of 4-aminobenzoic acid in the reactions of dihydropteroate synthetase).


title: Folate

text: Valproic acid, one of the most commonly prescribed epilepsy treatment drugs, also used to treat certain psychological conditions such as bipolar disorder, is a known inhibitor of folic acid, and as such, has been shown to cause birth defects, including neural tube defects, plus increased risk for children having cognitive impairment and autism. There is evidence that folate consumption is protective.


title: Folate

text: Tetrahydrofolate's main function in metabolism is transporting single-carbon groups (i.e., a methyl group, methylene group, or formyl group). These carbon groups can be transferred to other molecules as part of the modification or biosynthesis of a variety of biological molecules. Folates are essential for the synthesis of DNA, the modification of DNA and RNA, the synthesis of methionine from homocysteine, and various other chemical reactions involved in cellular metabolism. These reactions are collectively known as folate-mediated one-carbon metabolism.


title: Folate

text: Formyl folate is required for two of the steps in the biosynthesis of inosine monophosphate, the precursor to GMP and AMP. Methylenetetrahydrofolate donates the C1 center required for the biosynthesis of dTMP (2′-deoxythymidine-5′-phosphate) from dUMP (2′-deoxyuridine-5′-phosphate). The conversion is catalyzed by thymidylate synthase.


title: Folate

text: Methyl-THF converts vitamin B to methyl-B (methylcobalamin). Methyl-B converts homocysteine, in a reaction catalyzed by homocysteine methyltransferase, to methionine. A defect in homocysteine methyltransferase or a deficiency of B may lead to a so-called "methyl-trap" of THF, in which THF converts to methyl-THF, causing a deficiency in folate. Thus, a deficiency in B can cause accumulation of methyl-THF, mimicking folate deficiency.


title: Folate

text: Because of the difference in bioavailability between supplemented folic acid and the different forms of folate found in food, the dietary folate equivalent (DFE) system was established. One DFE is defined as 1 μg of dietary folate. 1 μg of folic acid supplement counts as 1.7 μg DFE. The reason for the difference is that when folic acid is added to food or taken as a dietary supplement with food it is at least 85% absorbed, whereas only about 50% of folate naturally present in food is absorbed.


title: Folate

text: The U.S. Institute of Medicine defines Estimated Average Requirements (EARs), Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs), Adequate Intakes (AIs), and Tolerable upper intake levels (ULs) – collectively referred to as Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs). The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) refers to the collective set of information as Dietary Reference Values, with Population Reference Intake (PRI) instead of RDA, and Average Requirement instead of EAR. AI and UL are defined the same as in United States. For women and men over age 18 the PRI is set at 330 μg/day. PRI for pregnancy is 600 μg/day, for lactation 500 μg/day. For children ages 1–17 years the PRIs increase with age from 120 to 270 μg/day. These values differ somewhat from the U.S. RDAs. The United Kingdom's Dietary Reference Value for folate, set by the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food and Nutrition Policy in 1991, is 200 μg/day for adults.


title: Folate

text: The risk of toxicity from folic acid is low because folate is a water-soluble vitamin and is regularly removed from the body through urine. One potential issue associated with high doses of folic acid is that it has a masking effect on the diagnosis of pernicious anaemia due to vitamin B deficiency, and may even precipitate or exacerbate neuropathy in vitamin B12-deficient individuals. This evidence justified development of a UL for folate. In general, ULs are set for vitamins and minerals when evidence is sufficient. The adult UL of 1,000 μg for folate (and lower for children) refers specifically to folic acid used as a supplement, as no health risks have been associated with high intake of folate from food sources. The EFSA reviewed the safety question and agreed with United States that the UL be set at 1,000 μg. The Japan National Institute of Health and Nutrition set the adult UL at 1,300 or 1,400 μg depending on age.


title: Folate

text: Reviews of clinical trials that called for long-term consumption of folic acid in amounts exceeding the UL have raised concerns. Excessive amounts derived from supplements are more of a concern than that derived from natural food sources and the relative proportion to vitamin B may be a significant factor in adverse effects. One theory is that consumption of large amounts of folic acid leads to detectable amounts of unmetabolized folic acid circulating in blood because the enzyme dihydrofolate reductase that converts folic acid to the biologically active forms is rate limiting. Evidence of a negative health effect of folic acid in blood is not consistent, and folic acid has no known cofactor function that would increase the likelihood of a causal role for free FA in disease development. However, low vitamin B status in combination with high folic acid intake, in addition to the previously mentioned neuropathy risk, appeared to increase the risk of cognitive impairment in the elderly. Long-term use of folic acid dietary supplements in excess of 1,000 μg/day has been linked to an increase in prostate cancer risk.


title: Folate

text: For U.S. food and dietary supplement labeling purposes the amount in a serving is expressed as a percent of Daily Value (%DV). For folate labeling purposes 100% of the Daily Value was 400 μg. As of the 27 May 2016 update, it was kept unchanged at 400 μg. Compliance with the updated labeling regulations was required by 1 January 2020 for manufacturers with US$10 million or more in annual food sales, and by 1 January 2021 for manufacturers with lower volume food sales. A table of the old and new adult daily values is provided at Reference Daily Intake.


title: Folate

text: European Union regulations require that labels declare energy, protein, fat, saturated fat, carbohydrates, sugars, and salt. Voluntary nutrients may be shown if present in significant amounts. Instead of Daily Values, amounts are shown as percent of Reference Intakes (RIs). For folate, 100% RI was set at 200 μg in 2011.


title: Folate

text: Folate deficiency can be caused by unhealthy diets that do not include enough vegetables and other folate-rich foods; diseases in which folates are not well absorbed in the digestive system (such as Crohn's disease or celiac disease); some genetic disorders that affect levels of folate; and certain medicines (such as phenytoin, sulfasalazine, or trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole). Folate deficiency is accelerated by alcohol consumption, possibly by interference with folate transport.


title: Folate

text: Folate deficiency may lead to glossitis, diarrhea, depression, confusion, anemia, and fetal neural tube and brain defects. Other symptoms include fatigue, gray hair, mouth sores, poor growth, and swollen tongue. Folate deficiency is diagnosed by analyzing a complete blood count (CBC) and plasma vitamin B and folate levels. A serum folate of 3 μg/L or lower indicates deficiency. Serum folate level reflects folate status, but erythrocyte folate level better reflects tissue stores after intake. An erythrocyte folate level of 140 μg/L or lower indicates inadequate folate status. Serum folate reacts more rapidly to folate intake than erythrocyte folate.


title: Folate

text: Since folate deficiency limits cell division, erythropoiesis (production of red blood cells) is hindered. This leads to megaloblastic anemia, which is characterized by large, immature red blood cells. This pathology results from persistently thwarted attempts at normal DNA replication, DNA repair, and cell division, and produces abnormally large red cells called megaloblasts (and hypersegmented neutrophils) with abundant cytoplasm capable of RNA and protein synthesis, but with clumping and fragmentation of nuclear chromatin. Some of these large cells, although immature (reticulocytes), are released early from the marrow in an attempt to compensate for the anemia. Both adults and children need folate to make normal red and white blood cells and prevent anemia, which causes fatigue, weakness, and inability to concentrate.


title: Folate

text: Increased homocysteine levels suggest tissue folate deficiency, but homocysteine is also affected by vitamin B and vitamin B, renal function, and genetics. One way to differentiate between folate deficiency and vitamin B deficiency is by testing for methylmalonic acid (MMA) levels. Normal MMA levels indicate folate deficiency and elevated MMA levels indicate vitamin B deficiency. Elevated MMA levels may also be due to the rare metabolic disorder combined malonic and methylmalonic aciduria (CMAMMA).


title: Folate

text: Folate deficiency is treated with supplemental oral folic acid of 400 to 1000 μg per day. This treatment is very successful in replenishing tissues, even if deficiency was caused by malabsorption. People with megaloblastic anemia need to be tested for vitamin B deficiency before treatment with folic acid, because if the person has vitamin B deficiency, folic acid supplementation can remove the anemia, but can also worsen neurologic problems. Cobalamin (vitamin B) deficiency may lead to folate deficiency, which, in turn, increases homocysteine levels and may result in the development of cardiovascular disease or birth defects.


title: Folate

text: The United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service maintains a food composition database from which folate content in hundreds of foods can be searched as shown in the table. The Food Fortification Initiative lists all countries in the world that conduct fortification programs, and within each country, what nutrients are added to which foods, and whether those programs are voluntary or mandatory. In the US, mandatory fortification of enriched breads, cereals, flours, corn meal, pastas, rice, and other grain products began in January 1998. As of 21 December 2018, 81 countries required food fortification with one or more vitamins. The most commonly fortified vitamin – as used in 62 countries – is folate; the most commonly fortified food is wheat flour, followed by maize flour and rice. From country to country, added folic acid amounts range from 0.4 to 5.1 μg/100 g, but the great majority are in a more narrow range of 1.5 to 2.5 μg/100 g. Folate naturally found in food is susceptible to destruction from high heat cooking, especially in the presence of acidic foods and sauces. It is soluble in water, and so may be lost from foods boiled in water. For foods that are normally consumed cooked, values in the table are for folate naturally occurring in cooked foods.


title: Folate

text: "Folic acid fortification" is a process where synthetic folic acid is added to wheat flour or other foods with the intention of promoting public health through increasing blood folate levels in the populace. It is used as it is more stable during processing and storage. After the discovery of the link between insufficient folic acid and neural tube defects, governments and health organizations worldwide made recommendations concerning folic acid supplementation for women intending to become pregnant. Because the neural tube closes in the first four weeks of gestation, often before many women even know they are pregnant, many countries in time decided to implement mandatory food fortification programs. A meta-analysis of global birth prevalence of spina bifida showed that when mandatory fortification was compared to countries with voluntary fortification or no fortification program, there was a 30% reduction in live births with spina bifida, with some countries reporting a greater than 50% reduction.


title: Folate

text: Folic acid is added to grain products in more than 80 countries, either as required or voluntary fortification, and these fortified products make up a significant source of the population's folate intake. Fortification is controversial, with issues having been raised concerning individual liberty, as well as the theorized health concerns described in the Safety section. In the U.S., there is concern that the federal government mandates fortification but does not provide monitoring of potential undesirable effects of fortification. The Food Fortification Initiative lists all countries in the world that conduct fortification programs, and within each country, what nutrients are added to which foods. The most commonly mandatory fortified vitamin – in 62 countries – is folate; the most commonly fortified food is wheat flour.


title: Folate

text: Australia and New Zealand jointly agreed to wheat flour fortification through the Food Standards Australia New Zealand in 2007. The requirement was set at 135 µg of folate per 100 g of bread. Australia implemented the program in 2009. New Zealand was also planning to fortify bread (excluding organic and unleavened varieties) starting in 2009, but then opted to wait until more research was done. The Association of Bakers and the Green Party had opposed mandatory fortification, describing it as "mass medication". Food Safety Minister Kate Wilkinson reviewed the decision to fortify in July 2009, citing as reasons to oppose claims for links between over consumption of folate with increased risk of cancer. In 2012 the delayed mandatory fortification program was revoked and replaced by a voluntary program, with the hope of achieving a 50% bread fortification target.


title: Folate

text: Canadian public health efforts focused on promoting awareness of the importance of folic acid supplementation for all women of childbearing age and decreasing socio-economic inequalities by providing practical folic acid support to vulnerable groups of women. Folic acid food fortification became mandatory in 1998, with the fortification of 150 µg of folic acid per 100 grams of enriched flour and uncooked cereal grains. The results of folic acid fortification on the rate of neural tube defects in Canada have been positive, showing a 46% reduction in prevalence of NTDs; the magnitude of reduction was proportional to the prefortification rate of NTDs, essentially removing geographical variations in rates of NTDs seen in Canada before fortification.


title: Folate

text: While the Food Standards Agency recommended folic acid fortification, and wheat flour is fortified with iron, folic acid fortification of wheat flour is allowed voluntarily rather than required. A 2018 review by authors based in the United Kingdom strongly recommended that mandatory fortification be reconsidered as a means of reducing the risk of neural tube defects.


title: Folate

text: In 1996, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published regulations requiring the addition of folic acid to enriched breads, cereals, flours, corn meals, pastas, rice, and other grain products. This ruling took effect on 1 January 1998, and was specifically targeted to reduce the risk of neural tube birth defects in newborns. There were concerns expressed that the amount of folate added was insufficient.


title: Folate

text: The fortification program was expected to raise a person's folic acid intake level by 70–130 µg/day; however, an increase of almost double that amount was actually observed. This could be from the fact that many foods are fortified by 160–175% over the required amount. Much of the elder population take supplements that add 400 µg to their daily folic acid intake. This is a concern because 70–80% of the population have detectable levels of unmetabolized folic acid in their blood, a consequence of folic acid supplementation and fortification. However, at blood concentrations achieved via food fortification, folic acid has no known cofactor function that would increase the likelihood of a causal role for free FA in disease development.


title: Folate

text: The U.S. National Center for Health Statistics conducts the biannual National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) to assess the health and nutritional status of adults and children in the United States. Some results are reported as What We Eat In America. The 2013–2014 survey reported that for adults ages 20 years and older, men consumed an average of 249 μg/day folate from food plus 207 μg/day of folic acid from consumption of fortified foods, for a combined total of 601 μg/day of dietary folate equivalents (DFEs because each microgram of folic acid counts as 1.7 μg of food folate). For women, the values are 199, 153 and 459 μg/day, respectively. This means that fortification led to a bigger increase in folic acid intake than first projected, and that more than half the adults are consuming more than the RDA of 400 μg (as DFEs). Even so, fewer than half of pregnant women are exceeding the pregnancy RDA of 600 μg/day.


title: Folate

text: Before folic acid fortification, about 4,100 pregnancies were affected by a neural tube defect each year in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in 2015 that since the addition of folic acid in grain-based foods as mandated by the FDA, the rate of neural tube defects dropped by 35%. This translates to an annual saving in total direct costs of approximately $508 million for the NTD-affected births that were prevented.


title: Folate

text: In 2020, it was the 67th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 10million prescriptions.


title: Folate

text: In the 1920s, scientists believed folate deficiency and anemia were the same condition. In 1931, researcher Lucy Wills made a key observation that led to the identification of folate as the nutrient required to prevent anemia during pregnancy. Wills demonstrated that anemia could be reversed with brewer's yeast. In the late 1930s, folate was identified as the corrective substance in brewer's yeast. It was first isolated via extraction from spinach leaves by Herschel K. Mitchell, Esmond E. Snell, and Roger J. Williams in 1941. The term "folic" is from the Latin word (which means leaf) because it was found in dark-green leafy vegetables. Historic names included "L.casei", factor vitamin B after research done in chicks and vitamin M after research done in monkeys.


title: Folate

text: Bob Stokstad isolated the pure crystalline form in 1943, and was able to determine its chemical structure while working at the Lederle Laboratories of the American Cyanamid Company. This historical research project, of obtaining folic acid in a pure crystalline form in 1945, was done by the team called the "folic acid boys", under the supervision and guidance of Director of Research Dr. Yellapragada Subbarow, at the Lederle Lab, Pearl River, NY. This research subsequently led to the synthesis of the antifolate aminopterin, which was used to treat childhood leukemia by Sidney Farber in 1948.


title: Folate

text: In the 1950s and 1960s, scientists began to discover the biochemical mechanisms of action for folate. In 1960, researchers linked folate deficiency to risk of neural tube defects. In the late 1990s, the U.S. and Canadian governments decided that despite public education programs and the availability of folic acid supplements, there was still a challenge for women of child-bearing age to meet the daily folate recommendations, which is when those two countries implemented folate fortification programs. As of December 2018, 62 countries mandated food fortification with folic acid.


title: Folate

text: Veterinarians may test cats and dogs if a risk of folate deficiency is indicated. Cats with exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, moreso than dogs, may have low serum folate. In dog breeds at risk for cleft lip and cleft palate dietary folic acid supplementation significantly decreased incidence.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Split (; ; historically known as Spalato (from Venetian and Italian: ); see other names) is the second-largest city of Croatia, the largest city in Dalmatia and the largest city on the Croatian coast. It lies on the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea and is spread over a central peninsula and its surroundings. An intraregional transport hub and popular tourist destination, the city is linked to the Adriatic islands and the Apennine Peninsula.


title: Split, Croatia

text: The city was founded as the Greek colony of Aspálathos () in the 3rd or 2nd century BC on the coast of the Illyrian Dalmatae, and in 305 AD, it became the site of the Palace of the Roman emperor Diocletian. It became a prominent settlement around 650 when it succeeded the ancient capital of the Roman province of Dalmatia, Salona. After the sack of Salona by the Avars and Slavs, the fortified Palace of Diocletian was settled by Roman refugees. Split became a Byzantine city. Later it drifted into the sphere of the Republic of Venice and the Kingdom of Croatia, with the Byzantines retaining nominal suzerainty. For much of the High and Late Middle Ages, Split enjoyed autonomy as a free city of the Dalmatian city-states, caught in the middle of a struggle between Venice and Croatia for control over the Dalmatian cities.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Venice eventually prevailed and during the early modern period Split remained a Venetian city, a heavily fortified outpost surrounded by Ottoman territory. Its hinterland was won from the Ottomans in the Morean War of 1699, and in 1797, as Venice fell to Napoleon, the Treaty of Campo Formio rendered the city to the Habsburg monarchy. In 1805, the Peace of Pressburg added it to the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy and in 1806 it was included in the French Empire, becoming part of the Illyrian Provinces in 1809. After being occupied in 1813, it was eventually granted to the Austrian Empire following the Congress of Vienna, where the city remained a part of the Austrian Kingdom of Dalmatia until the fall of Austria-Hungary in 1918 and the formation of Yugoslavia. In World War II, the city was annexed by Italy, then liberated by the Partisans after the Italian capitulation in 1943. It was then re-occupied by Germany, which granted it to its puppet Independent State of Croatia. The city was liberated again by the Partisans in 1944, and was included in the post-war Socialist Yugoslavia, as part of its republic of Croatia. In 1991, Croatia seceded from Yugoslavia amid the Croatian War of Independence.


title: Split, Croatia

text: The name Aspálathos or Spálathos may come from the spiny broom ("Calicotome spinosa", ασπάλαθος in Greek), although it is the related Spanish broom ("Spartium junceum", σπάρτος) that is common in the area.


title: Split, Croatia

text: In Latin, the name became "Spalatum" or "Aspalatum", which in the Middle Ages evolved into "Aspalathum", "Spalathum", "Spalatrum", and "Spalatro" in the Dalmatian language of the city's Romance population. The Croatian term became "Split" or "Spljet", while the Italian-language version, "Spalato", became universal in international usage by the Early Modern Period. In the late 19th century, the Croatian name increasingly came to prominence, and officially replaced "Spalato" in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia after World War I.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Formerly, the name was thought to be related to Latin "palatium" 'palace', a reference to Diocletian's Palace. Various theories were developed, such as the notion that the name derives from "S. Palatium", an abbreviation of "Salonae Palatium". The erroneous "palace" etymologies were notably due to Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, and were later mentioned by Thomas the Archdeacon. The city, however, is several centuries older than the palace.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Although the beginnings of Split are traditionally associated with the construction of Diocletian's Palace in 305, the city was founded several centuries earlier as the Greek colony of Aspálathos, or Spálathos. It was a colony of the polis of Issa, the modern-day town of Vis, itself a colony of the Sicilian city of Syracuse. The exact year the city was founded is not known, but it is estimated to have been in the 3rd or 2nd century BC.


title: Split, Croatia

text: After the Illyrian Wars of 229 and 219 BC, the city of Salona, only a short distance from Spálathos, became the capital of the Roman Province of Dalmatia and one of the largest cities of the late empire with 60,000 people. The history of Spálathos becomes obscure for a while at this point, being overshadowed by that of nearby Salona, to which it would later become successor. The Roman Emperor Diocletian (ruled AD 284 to 305) in 293 began the construction of an opulent and heavily fortified palace fronting the sea, near his home town of Salona, selecting the site of Spálathos (or "Spalatum" in Latin).


title: Split, Croatia

text: The Palace was built as a massive structure, much like a Roman military fortress. The palace and the city of Spalatum which formed its surroundings were at times inhabited by a population as large as 8,000 to 10,000 people.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Between 475 and 480 the Palace hosted Flavius Julius Nepos, the last recognised Emperor of the Western Roman Empire. Salona was lost to the Ostrogothic Kingdom in 493, along with most of Dalmatia, but the Emperor Justinian I regained Dalmatia in 535–536.


title: Split, Croatia

text: The Pannonian Avars sacked and destroyed Salona in 639; the surviving Romans fled to the nearby islands. The Dalmatian region and its shores were at this time settled by tribes of Croats, a South Slavic people subservient to the Avar khagans.


title: Split, Croatia

text: The Salonitans regained the land under Severus the Great in 650 and settled the 300-year-old Palace of Diocletian, which could not be effectively besieged by the Slavic tribes of the mainland. The Emperor Constans II granted them an Imperial mandate to establish themselves in the Palace as the City of Spalatum, which imposed upon the Croatian Slavs - at the time alied of Byzantium against the Avars - a cessation of hostilities. The Temple of Jupiter was rededicated to the Virgin Mary and the remains of the popular Saint Domnius were recovered from the ruins of Salona, later establishing the Cathedral of Saint Domnius as new seat of the Archbishop of Salona.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Until the Sack of Constantinople, Split remained a "de jure" possession of the Byzantine Empire as a Byzantine duchy, administered by the Exarchate of Ravenna and after 751 by Jadera (Zadar).


title: Split, Croatia

text: Its hinterland, however, was now home to the Duchy of the Croats. In this period, an independent Dalmatian language developed from Latin, with a distinct local dialect: to its inhabitants, the city became known as Spalatrum or Spalatro, one of the main Dalmatian city-states.


title: Split, Croatia

text: In 925 Tomislav's Kingdom of Croatia emerged in the hinterland of the city, centered in Nin as an ally of Byzantium against Simeon I of Bulgaria - though without receiving any power from the Emperor over the Dalmatian cities. The rise of the rival Bishopric of Nin, headed by Bishop Gregory, which attempted to institute the "Slavonic" or "Slavic language" as the language of religious service, led to the 925 Synod of Split, at which it was decreed that "no one should presume to celebrate the divine mysteries in the Slavonic language, but only in Latin and Greek, and that no one of that tongue should be advanced to the holy orders".


title: Split, Croatia

text: In 1100, the bell tower which became the main symbol of the city was constructed and dedicated to Saint Domnius, by then regarded as the patron saint of the city.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Throughout the 9th and 10th centuries, Split was raided by the Narentines (a South Slavic confederation recognizing the King of Croatia as their sovereign). Therefore, the city offered its allegiance to Venice and in 998 the Venetian Doge Pietro II Orseolo, led a large naval expedition which defeated the Narentines the same year. After obtaining permission from Emperor Basil II in Constantinople, Orseolo proclaimed himself Duke of Dalmatia.


title: Split, Croatia

text: In 1019 the Byzantine Empire restored direct control over Dalmatia. The title "Duke of Dalmatia" seems to have been dropped at this point by the Venetian doges. In 1069 Peter Krešimir IV, King of Croatia, gained control over Dalmatian islands and cities, including Split, and stretched his rule south to Neretva. The coastal cities retained autonomous administration and were still nominally under Byzantine Empire, but were now subjects of the Croatian king.


title: Split, Croatia

text: After the death of Croatian King Stephen II in 1091, a period of succession crisis followed in Croatia, with King Ladislaus I of Hungary interfering in it. Byzantine Emperor Alexius took advantage of this and joined the old Theme of Dalmatia to the Empire. In 1096 Emperor Alexius, at the time engaged in the First Crusade, granted the administration of Dalmatia to the Doge of Venice.


title: Split, Croatia

text: In 1105 Coloman, King of Hungary, having conquered the Kingdom of Croatia, reneged on its alliance with Venice and moved on the coastal towns, besieging and taking Zadar. Split and Trogir decided then to surrender upon guarantee of their ancient privileges.


title: Split, Croatia

text: The rights granted to the city (and reaffirmed by new charters) were substantial. Split was to pay no tribute, it was to choose its own count and archbishop whom the king would confirm, it preserved its old Roman laws, and appointed its own judge. Dues from trade (which were substantial in the period), were divided between the count, the archbishop, and the king, and no foreigner was to live within the walls of the city against the will of the citizens. These rights were generally upheld by Hungarian kings, but there were inevitable incidents of violation.


title: Split, Croatia

text: After Coloman's death in 1116, the Doge Ordelafo Faliero returned from Outremer and retook all the Dalmatian cities, and also, for the first time, the Croatian cities of coast such as Biograd and Šibenik. In 1117, however, he was defeated and killed in renewed battle with the Hungarians under Stephen II of Hungary, and Split again acknowledged Hungarian rule. But the new Doge, Domenico Michiel, quickly defeated the Hungarians again and restored Venetian authority by 1118. In 1124, while the Doge was engaged against the Byzantine Empire (now hostile to Venice), Stephen II recovered Split and Trogir without resistance. Upon Michele's return in 1127, however, the Doge yet again expelled the Hungarians from the two cities and utterly destroyed Biograd, the favored seat of the Croatian Kings that the Hungarians were attempting to establish as a rival to the Venetian Zadar.


title: Split, Croatia

text: The cities remained in Venetian hands without contest during the reign of Béla II. But in 1141, his successor, King Géza II, having conquered Bosnian lands, marched to Split and Trogir, both voluntarily accepting him as overlord. This turned out to be a definitive conquest, as Venetian rule was not to return to Split for another 186 years.


title: Split, Croatia

text: In that period, however, Split was to see one brief (and final) restoration of Imperial power in Dalmatia. The Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Comnenus began his campaigns against the Kingdom of Croatia and Hungary in 1151, and by 1164, had secured the submission of the Dalmatian cities back under Imperial rule. Having won a decisive victory against Kingdom of Croatia and Hungary in 1167 at the Battle of Sirmium, consolidating his gains, the Emperor suddenly broke with Venice as well, and sent a fleet of 150 ships to the Adriatic. Split was to remain in Byzantine hands until Manuel's death in 1180, when Béla III of Hungary moved to restore Hungarian power in Dalmatia. The city remained loyal to the Empire, resisting the re-establishment of Hungarian rule, and consequently, upon its inevitable submission, was punished with the King's refusal to renew its ancient privileges.


title: Split, Croatia

text: During the 20-year Hungarian civil war between King Sigismund and the Capetian House of Anjou of the Kingdom of Naples, the losing contender, Ladislaus of Naples, sold his disputed rights on Dalmatia to the Venetian Republic for 100,000 ducats. Acting on the pretext, the Republic took over in the city by the year 1420.


title: Split, Croatia

text: By this time the population was largely Croatian, while Romance Dalmatian names were not as common, according to the Medieval city archives. The common language was Croatian, but a mixture of the Tuscan and Venetian dialects of the Italian language was also widely spoken by Dalmatian Italian notaries, school teachers, merchants, and officials. The city's autonomy was greatly reduced: the highest authority was a prince and captain ("conte e capitanio"), assigned by Venice.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Split eventually developed into a significant port-city, with important trade routes to the Ottoman-held interior through the nearby Klis pass. Culture flourished as well, Split being the hometown of Marko Marulić, the Croatian national poet. Marulić's most acclaimed work, "Judita" (1501), was an epic poem about Judith and Holofernes, widely held to be the first modern work of Croatian literature. It was written in Split and printed in Venice in 1521.


title: Split, Croatia

text: The advances and achievements were reserved mostly for the aristocracy: the illiteracy rate was extremely high, mostly because Venetian rule showed little interest in educational and medical facilities.


title: Split, Croatia

text: In 1797 Split was ceded to the Habsburg monarchy by the Treaty of Campo Formio, as part of the dissolution and partition of the ancient Republic of Venice.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Split became part of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy in 1805, after the defeat of the Third Coalition at the Battle of Austerlitz and the consequent Treaty of Pressburg. It was included directly in the French Empire in 1806. The same year, Vincenzo Dandolo was named "provveditore generale" and general Auguste de Marmont was named military commander of Dalmatia.


title: Split, Croatia

text: In 1809, after a brief war with France, Austria ceded Carinthia, Carniola, Croatia west of the Sava River, Gorizia and Trieste to France. These territories, along with Dalmatia, formed the Illyrian Provinces. During this period, large investments were undertaken in the city, new streets were built and parts of the ancient fortifications were removed.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Austria, with help from a British force led by Captain William Hoste, occupied Split in November 1813. Following the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the city was officially ceded to Austria.


title: Split, Croatia

text: The Split region became part of the Kingdom of Dalmatia, a separate administrative unit. After the revolutions of 1848 as a result of the romantic nationalism, two factions appeared. One was the pro-Croatian "Unionist faction" (later called the ""Puntari"", "Pointers"), led by the People's Party and, to a lesser extent, the Party of Rights, both of which advocated the union of Dalmatia with the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia which was under Hungarian administration. This faction was strongest in Split, and used it as its headquarters. The other faction was the pro-Italian Autonomist faction (also known as the "Irredentist" faction), whose political goals varied from autonomy within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to a political union with the Kingdom of Italy.


title: Split, Croatia

text: The political alliances in Split shifted over time. At first, the Unionists and Autonomists were allied against the centralism of Vienna. After a while, when the national question came to prominence, they separated. Under Austria, however, Split can generally be said to have stagnated. The great upheavals in Europe in 1848 gained no ground in Split, and the city did not rebel.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Antonio Bajamonti became Mayor of Split in 1860 and – except for a brief interruption during the period 1864–65 – held the post for over two decades until 1880. Bajamonti was also a member of the Dalmatian Sabor (1861–91) and the Austrian Chamber of Deputies (1867–70 and 1873–79). In 1882 Bajamonti's party lost the elections and Dujam Rendić-Miočević, a prominent city lawyer, was elected to the post.


title: Split, Croatia

text: After the end of World War I and the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, the province of Dalmatia, along with Split, became a part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Split was the site of a series of incidents between 1918 and 1920.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Since Rijeka, Trieste and Zadar, the three other large cities on the eastern Adriatic coast, were annexed by Italy, Split became the most important port in the Kingdom. The Lika railway, connecting Split to the rest of the country, was completed in 1925.


title: Split, Croatia

text: The country changed its name to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929, and the Port of Split became the seat of new administrative unit, Littoral Banovina. After the Cvetković-Maček agreement, Split became the part of new administrative unit (merging of Sava and Littoral Banovina plus some Croat populated areas), Banovina of Croatia in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.


title: Split, Croatia

text: In April 1941, following the invasion of Yugoslavia by Nazi Germany, Split was occupied by Italy. Although Split formally became part of the Independent State of Croatia, the Ustaše were not able to establish and strengthen their rule in Split, as Italians assumed all power in Dalmatia. One month later on 18 May 1941, when the Treaties of Rome were signed, Italy formally annexed Split, which was included in the province of Spalato, and large parts of Dalmatia down to Kotor. The Italian Governatorate of Dalmatia hosted 390,000 inhabitants, of which 280,000 Croats, 90,000 Serbs and 5,000 Dalmatian Italians.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Italian rule met heavy opposition from the Croat population as Split became a centre of anti-fascist sentiment in Yugoslavia. The first armed resistance group was organized on 7 May 1941; the 63 member strong 1st Strike Detachment ("Prvi udarni odred") served as the basis for future formations, including the 1st Split Partisan Detachment. Between September and October 1941 alone, ten officials of the Italian fascist occupation were assassinated by the citizens.


title: Split, Croatia

text: On 12 June 1942, a fascist mob attacked the city's synagogue, and destroyed its library and archive. Worshipers were beaten as they left the synagogue and Jewish-owned shops were targeted the following day.


title: Split, Croatia

text: The local football clubs refused to compete in the Italian championship; HNK Hajduk and RNK Split suspended their activities and both joined the Partisans along with their entire staff after the Italian capitulation provided the opportunity. Soon after Hajduk became the official football club of the Partisan movement.


title: Split, Croatia

text: In September 1943, following the capitulation of Italy, the city was temporarily controlled by Tito's brigades with thousands of people volunteering to join the Partisans of Marshal Josip Broz Tito (a third of the total population, according to some sources). 8,000 Italian soldiers from the 15th Infantry Division Bergamo prepared to fight alongside the Yugoslav Partisans against the Waffen SS Prinz Eugen. The Italian General Becuzzi handed over to the Partisans 11 soldiers which they considered as "war criminals; the Partisans also executed up to 41 members of the Italian Police forces, later found in mass graves.


title: Split, Croatia

text: A few weeks later, however, the Partisans were forced into retreat as the Wehrmacht placed the city under the authority of the Independent State of Croatia. The Germans decimated the Italian soldiers as traitors, including three Generals (Policardi, Pelligra and Cigala Fulgosi) and 48 officials (Trelj massacre). In this period the last remaining symbols of Italian heritage in Split, including several Venetian Lions of St. Mark, were erased from the town.


title: Split, Croatia

text: In a tragic turn of events, besides being bombed by axis forces, the city was also bombed by the Allies, causing hundreds of deaths. Partisans finally captured the city on 26 October 1944 and instituted it as the provisional capital of Croatia. On 12 February 1945 the Kriegsmarine conducted a daring raid on the Split harbour, damaging the British cruiser "Delhi". After the war the remaining members of Dalmatian Italians of Split left Yugoslavia towards Italy (Istrian-Dalmatian exodus).


title: Split, Croatia

text: After World War II, Split became a part of the Socialist Republic of Croatia, itself a constituent sovereign republic of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. During the period the city experienced its largest economic and demographic boom. Dozens of new factories and companies were founded with the city population tripling during the period. The city became the economic centre of an area exceeding the borders of Croatia and was flooded by waves of rural migrants from the undeveloped hinterland who found employment in the newly established industry, as part of large-scale industrialization and investment by the Yugoslav Federal Government.


title: Split, Croatia

text: The shipbuilding industry was particularly successful and Yugoslavia, with its Croatian shipyards, became one of the world's top nations in the field. Many recreational facilities were also constructed with federal funding, especially for the 1979 Mediterranean Games, such as the Poljud Stadium. The city also became the largest passenger and military port in Yugoslavia, housing the headquarters of the Yugoslav Navy ("Jugoslavenska ratna mornarica," JRM) and the Army's Coastal Military District (equivalent of a field army). In the period between 1945 and 1990, the city was transformed and expanded, taking up the vast majority of the Split peninsula. In the same period it achieved an as yet unsurpassed GDP and employment level, still above the present day's, growing into a significant Yugoslav city.


title: Split, Croatia

text: When Croatia declared its independence again in 1991, Split had a large garrison of Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) troops (drafted from all over Yugoslavia), as well as the headquarters and facilities of the Yugoslav Navy (JRM). This led to a tense months-long stand-off between the JNA and Croatian National Guard and police forces, occasionally flaring up in various incidents. The most tragic incident occurred on 15 November 1991, when the JRM light frigate "Split" fired a small number of shells at the city and its surroundings. The damage was insignificant but there were a few casualties. Three general locations were bombarded: the old city center, the city airport, and an uninhabited part of the hills above Kaštela, between the airport and Split. JRM sailors, most of them Croats themselves, who had refused to attack Croat civilians were left in the vessel's brig. The JNA and JRM evacuated all of its facilities in Split during January 1992. The 1990s economic recession soon followed.


title: Split, Croatia

text: In the years following 2000, Split finally gained momentum and started to develop again, with a focus on tourism. From being just a transport centre, Split is now a major Croatian tourist destination. Many new hotels are being built, as well as new apartment and office buildings. Many large development projects are being revived, and new infrastructure is being built. An example of one of the latest large city projects is the Spaladium Arena, built in 2009.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Split is situated on a peninsula between the eastern part of the Gulf of Kaštela and the Split Channel. The Marjan hill (), rises in the western part of the peninsula. The Kozjak () and Mosor () ridges protect the city from the north and northeast, and separate it from the hinterland.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Split has a borderline humid subtropical ("Cfa") and Mediterranean climate ("Csa") in the Köppen climate classification, since only one summer month has less than of rainfall, preventing it from being classified as solely humid subtropical or Mediterranean. It has hot, moderately dry summers and mild, wet winters, which can occasionally feel cold, because of the strong northern wind bura. Average annual rainfall is more than . January is the coldest month, with an average low temperature around . November is the wettest month, with a precipitation total of nearly and 12 rainy days. July is the driest month, with a precipitation total of around . Winter is the wettest season; however, it can rain in Split at any time of the year. Snow is usually rare; since record-keeping began the months of December and January have accrued 1 snowy day on average, while February has averaged 2. In February 2012, Split received unusually large amount of snow which caused major problems with traffic. Split receives more than 2,600 sunshine hours annually. July is the hottest month, with an average high temperature around . In July 2017 Croatian firefighters battled to control a forest fire along the Adriatic coast that damaged and destroyed buildings in villages around the city of Split.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Ethnically, Croats make up 96.23% of the population, and 86.15% of the residents of the city are Roman Catholics.


title: Split, Croatia

text: The wider urban area of Split has 293,298 inhabitants, while there are 346,314 people in the Split metropolitan area. The urban area includes the surrounding towns and settlements: Okrug, Seget, Trogir, Kaštela, Solin, Podstrana, Dugi Rat and Omiš, while the metro area adds Marina, Primorski Dolac, Prgomet, Lećevica, Klis, Dugopolje, Dicmo, Trilj and Sinj. The entire Split-Dalmatia County has 454,798 residents, and the whole region of Dalmatia just under a million.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Although the inhabitants of Split ("Splićani") may appear to be a homogeneous body, they traditionally belong to three groups. The old urban families, the "Fetivi," (short for ""Fetivi Splićani"", "real Split natives") are generally very proud of their city, its history and its distinctive traditional speech (a variant of the Chakavian dialect). The "Fetivi," now a distinct minority, are sometimes referred to (semi-derogatorily) as ""Mandrili"" - and are augmented by the so-called "Boduli," immigrants from the nearby Adriatic islands who mostly arrived over the course of the 20th century.


title: Split, Croatia

text: The above two groups are distinct, in the Mediterranean aspects of their ethnicity and traditional Chakavian speech, from the more numerous Shtokavian-speaking immigrants from the rural Zagora hinterland, referred to as the "Vlaji" (a term that sometimes carries negative connotations). The latter joined the Fetivi and Boduli as a third group in the decades since World War II, thronging the high-rise suburbs that stretch away from the centre. By now the "Vlaji" constitute a decided majority of inhabitants, causing a distinct shift in the overall ethnic characteristics of the city. Historically more influenced by Ottoman culture, their population merges almost seamlessly at the eastern border with the Herzegovinian Croats and southern Bosnia and Herzegovina in general. Local jokes have always condemned the Vlaji to playing the role of rural unsophisticates, although it is often conceded that it was their hard work in the industries of the post-WWII era that made modern-day Split what it is now.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Split's economy is still suffering the backlash from the recession caused by the transfer to a market economy and privatization. In the Yugoslav era, however, the city had been a highly significant economic centre with a modern and diverse industrial and economic base, including shipbuilding, food, chemical, plastics, textile, and paper industry, in addition to large revenues from tourism. In 1981 Split's GDP per capita was 37% above the Yugoslav average. Today, most of the factories are out of business (or are far below pre-war production and employment capacity) and the city has been trying to concentrate on commerce and services, consequently leaving an alarmingly large number of factory workers unemployed.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Brodosplit is the largest shipyard in Croatia. It employs around 2,300 people, and has built over 350 vessels, including many tankers, both panamax and non-panamax, as well as container ships, bulk carriers, dredgers, off-shore platforms, frigates, submarines, patrol boats and passenger ships. 80% of the ships built are exported to foreign contractors.


title: Split, Croatia

text: The new A1 motorway, integrating Split with the rest of the Croatian freeway network, has helped stimulate economic production and investment, with new businesses being built in the city centre and its wildly sprawling suburbs. The entire route was opened in July 2005. Today, the city's economy relies mostly on trade and tourism with some old industries undergoing partial revival, such as food (fishing, olive, wine production), paper, concrete and chemicals. Since 1998, Split has been host to the annual Croatia Boat Show.


title: Split, Croatia

text: The University of Split () was founded in 1974. In the last few years it has grown to a large extent. Now it has 18,000 students and is organized in 12 faculties and 1 Academy (Arts Academy – Theatre department, Music department, Fine arts department and design). Split has the biggest university campus in Croatia with all the facilities. It houses all of the faculties, a large student centre with a sports hall, sporting grounds and a university library.


title: Split, Croatia

text: In 1979, the historic center of Split was included into the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. Split is said to be one of the centres of Croatian culture. Its literary tradition can be traced to medieval times, and includes names like Marko Marulić, while in more modern times Split excelled by authors famous for their sense of humor. Among them the most notable is Miljenko Smoje, famous for his TV series "Malo misto" and "Velo misto", with the latter dealing with the development of Split into a modern city.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Despite colorful settings and characters, as well as a cinema tradition that could be traced to early 20th-century works of Josip Karaman, there were relatively few films shot in or around Split. However, the city did produce several famous actors, most notably Boris Dvornik.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Also well known is Ivo Tijardović, and his famous operetta "Little Floramye" (). Both Smoje and Tijardović are famous artists thought to represent the old Split traditions that are slowly dying out due to the city being overwhelmed by large numbers of rural migrants from the undeveloped hinterland.


title: Split, Croatia

text: The Archaeological Museum () main collection is housed at Zrinsko-Frankopanska 25 in Split. There is also a branch building in Solin (Salona and Tusculum Collection) and two regional centres at Vid near Metković (Narona Collection), and on the island of Vis (Issa Collection). The Split Archaeological Museum is the oldest museum institution in Croatia, founded in 1820 by the decree of the Dalmatian government in Zadar. Some 150,000 artifacts cover prehistoric times, the period of Greek colonization of the Adriatic, Roman Provincial and Early Christian era to the early Middle Ages and the period of Croatian popular rulers). Of special interest is the collection of stone inscriptions from Salona and the collections of Graeco-Hellenistic ceramic objects, Roman glass, ancient clay lamps, bone and metal articles, as well as the collection of gems. In addition, the museum houses an extensive collection of ancient and medieval coins, a submarine archaeological collection, and a rich archive library.


title: Split, Croatia

text: The Museum of Croatian Archaeological Monuments () is the only museum in Croatia dedicated to researching and presenting cultural artifacts of the Croats in the Middle Ages, between the 7th and 15th centuries, particularly the time of the early medieval Croatian state from 9th to 12th century. The collection of early medieval wicker, clay figurines, and old Croatian Latin epigraphic monuments is the largest collection of its kind in Europe.


title: Split, Croatia

text: The Split City Museum () at Papalićeva 1, is housed in the former Papalić Palace. The collection presents the urban, cultural, artistic and economic heritage of the city. The museum is also home to the Emanuel Vidović Gallery, dedicated to the most important Split painter of the 20th century.


title: Split, Croatia

text: The Ethnographical Museum () at Severova 1, has a wide range of ethnographic content mainly from Dalmatia. Founded in 1910, the museum collects original and contemporary applications of traditional heritage. They also track contemporary popular culture living with traces of old foundations and preserve and promote the value of folk heritage, renewing them and presenting exhibitions.


title: Split, Croatia

text: The Croatian Maritime Museum () at Glagoljaška 18 – Tvrđava Gripe has a collection of marine equipment and supplies, weapons and navigation equipment, medals, ship models, uniforms and equipment, and related artwork. A permanent exhibition is planned to complete the presentation of military maritime and naval history, with a presentation that covers the period from the arrival of the Slavs to the present day.


title: Split, Croatia

text: The Gallery of Fine Arts (), located at Kralja Tomislava 15, is an art museum that contains works from the 14th century to the present day providing an overview of the artistic developments in the local art scene. The gallery was founded in 1931, and has a permanent exhibition of paintings and sculptures that includes works by major Croatian artists such as Vlaho Bukovac, Mato Celestin Medović, Branislav Dešković, Ivan Meštrović, Emanuel Vidović and Ignjat Job. The gallery also has an extensive collection of icons, and holds special exhibits of works by contemporary artists. In May 2009, the gallery opened its new premises in the old Split Hospital building behind Diocletian's Palace.


title: Split, Croatia

text: The Ivan Meštrović Gallery (), on the Marjan peninsula is an art museum dedicated to the work of the 20th-century sculptor, Ivan Meštrović. The gallery displays some of his most significant work, and the building itself is an art monument. The permanent collection includes works of sculpture, drawings, design, furniture and architecture. The gallery building and grounds were based on original plans by Meštrović himself, and included living and working areas, as well as exhibition spaces. Not far from the Gallery lies Kaštelet-Crikvine, a restored chapel that houses a set of wooden wall panels carved by Ivan Meštrović.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Other notable artists from Split include Oskar Herman, Tina Morpurgo, Emanuel Vidović, and Paško Vučetić.


title: Split, Croatia

text: One of the most recognisable aspects of Split culture is popular music. Notable composers include Josip Hatze, Ivo Tijardović, Zdenko Runjić – some of the most influential musicians in former Yugoslavia. Also, the more notable musicians and bands from Split are Oliver Dragojević, Gibonni, Daleka Obala, Magazin, Severina, Dino Dvornik, Jasmin Stavros, Neno Belan, Goran Karan, Dražen Zečić, Doris Dragović, Jelena Rozga, Tutti Frutti, Siniša Vuco, Meri Cetinić and guitar player Petar Čulić. There is great cultural activity during summers, when the prestigious Split Music Festival is held, followed by the Split Summer ("Splitsko ljeto") theater festival. Since 2013, the Ultra Europe electronic music festival is held at the Poljud stadium in July.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Split also developed a prominent hip hop scene, with notable acts such as The Beat Fleet, Dječaci, Kiša Metaka and ST!llness.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Sportsmen are traditionally held in high regard in Split, and the city is famous for producing many champions. The most popular sports in Split are association football, tennis, basketball, swimming, rowing, sailing, waterpolo, athletics, and handball. Residents of Split prefer to call their city as "the sportiest city in the world".


title: Split, Croatia

text: The main football club is HNK Hajduk Split, one of the most popular clubs in Croatia supported by a large fan association known as Torcida Split, while RNK Split is the city's second club. Torcida Split is the oldest fan group in Europe estimated 1950. The largest football stadium is the Poljud Stadium (Hajduk's ground), with around 35,000 capacity (55,000 prior to the renovation to an all-seater). Slaven Bilić, Aljoša Asanović, Igor Tudor, and Stipe Pletikosa are some of the famous Split natives who started their careers at Hajduk. Basketball is also popular, and the city basketball club, KK Split, holds the record of winning the EuroLeague three consecutive times (1989–1991), with notable players like Toni Kukoč and Dino Rađa, both of whom are Split natives.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Former WWE wrestler and WWE Hall of Fame member Josip Peruzović, better known as Nikolai Volkoff, was born in Split.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Split's most famous tennis players are the retired 2001 Wimbledon champion Goran Ivanišević, Mario Ančić ("Super Mario"), Nikola Pilić and Željko Franulović. Marina Eraković was also born in Split.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Swimming also has a long tradition in Split, with Đurđica Bjedov (1968 Olympic gold medal and Olympic record in the 100 m breaststroke), Duje Draganja and Vanja Rogulj as the most famous swimmers from the city. As a member of the ASK Split athletics club, the champion Blanka Vlašić also originates from the city. The biggest sports events to be held in Split were the 1979 Mediterranean Games, and the 1990 European Athletics Championships.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Split was one of the host cities of the 2009 World Men's Handball Championship. The city constructed a new sporting arena for the event, the Spaladium Arena. Its capacity is around 12,000 spectators (in basketball events). The cost of the arena was evenly divided between the city and the government. Ivano Balić, two time IHF World Player of the Year is the most famous handball player to come from Split.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Split used to be the home to three top-level water polo clubs, the winners of many domestic and international titles: Jadran (twice LEN Champions League winner), Mornar (LEN Cup Winners' Cup winner) and now defunct POŠK (one LEN Champions League, one LEN Super Cup and two times LEN Cup Winners' Cup winner). Many players from Split have participated at the Olympic Games, World, and European Championships, both for Croatia and Yugoslavia, having won a lot of medals. Several water polo players from Split have been considered the best in the world during their careers: Ratko Rudić, Damir Polić, Milivoj Bebić, and Deni Lušić.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Picigin is a traditional local sport (originating in 1908), played on the famous sandy Bačvice beach. It is played in very shallow water (just ankle-deep) with a small ball. Picigin is played by five players. The ball is the peeled tennis ball. There is a tradition of playing picigin in Split on New Year's Day, regardless of the weather conditions, in spite of the sea temperature rarely exceeding .


title: Split, Croatia

text: RK Nada were the pioneers of rugby union in this part of the World. They were by far the strongest club in the former Yugoslavia and they are also by far the most successful club in modern-day Croatia.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Baseball in Split is one of the city's longest sporting traditions. Although the sport began semi-officially in December 1918 when a group of US sailors from a ship in port introduced the game to some young Croats, it was not until 1972 when a pair of teachers at a local school formed the Salona Baseball Club, named after the ancient Roman city of Salona. The first actual game played in Split was on 9 September 1978 between Split (the new team moved here and was called Nada) and Jezice from Ljubljana, a 20–1 romp for the locals. A schedule of games began in earnest and by 1980 there were regular league games. The next major milestone was in 1983 when the World Baseball Federation (IBAF) accepted Yugoslavia as an official member. The Croatian National Baseball Federation was established in 1989.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Today the Croatian national baseball team (with 10 or more members coming from Split's Nada team) is ranked 25th in the world. Split's team, Nada, plays its home games at the old Hajduk stadium, where the rugby club also plays. Without a mound, it is not a regulation field. The team's main rival is Zagreb and there are teams from half a dozen other cities around the country. In addition to playing other Croatian teams, inter-league games are played and the team travels to Belgrade and other cities to play. Although not a professional team or league, some player/coaches are paid. Several have pro experience and the new coach of the national team was a former major league pitcher with the LA Dodgers. The source material here is from Mladen Cukrov's book "There's No Ball Like Baseball" ("Nima baluna do bejzbola") and from the writer's experience as an assistant coach of the team for several years.


title: Split, Croatia

text: The Split SeaWolves club is the only American football team in Dalmatia. Active from 2008, they are currently still developing and the main focus is on a flag football team.


title: Split, Croatia

text: Split is an important transport center for Dalmatia and the wider region. In addition to the Zagreb-Split freeway (A1), the traffic along the Adriatic coast on the Adriatic Highway from Rijeka to Dubrovnik flows through the city. The local public transport company Promet Split runs bus lines in the city and into the surroundings. There is no tram since the city is unsuitable for it due to its hilly geography but the Split Suburban Railway which runs from the Port of Split to Kaštel Stari.


title: Split, Croatia

text: The Split Airport in Kaštela, located about 20 km outside of Split, is the second largest in Croatia in terms of passenger numbers (3,301,930 in 2019). It has services to national and some European destinations year-round and sees lots of additional seasonal connections in the summer.


title: Split, Croatia

text: The Port of Split, which serves 4 million passengers every year, is the third busiest port in the Mediterranean. It connects Split to the nearby central Dalmatian islands Brač, Hvar and Šolta, as well as the more distant Vis, Korčula, Mljet and Lastovo. There are also routes to Rijeka, Dubrovnik, and Ancona in Italy and additional seasonal routes to further destinations in Italy. Split is also becoming a major cruise ship destination, with over 260 ship visits, carrying 130,000 passengers.


title: Mammoth

text: A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus Mammuthus, one of the many genera that make up the order of trunked mammals called proboscideans. The various species of mammoth were commonly equipped with long, curved tusks and, in northern species, a covering of long hair. They lived from the Pliocene epoch (from around 5 million years ago) into the Holocene at about 4,000 years ago, and various species existed in Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America. They were members of the family Elephantidae, which also contains the two genera of modern elephants and their ancestors. Mammoths are more closely related to living Asian elephants than African elephants.


title: Mammoth

text: The oldest representative of "Mammuthus", the South African mammoth ("M. subplanifrons"), appeared around 5 million years ago during the early Pliocene in what is now southern and eastern Africa. Descendant species of these mammoths moved north and continued to propagate into numerous subsequent species, eventually covering most of Eurasia before migrating into North America around 1.5-1.3 million years ago, becoming ancestral to the Columbian mammoth ("M. columbi"). The last species to emerge, the woolly mammoth ("M. primigenius"), developed about 400,000 years ago in East Asia, with some surviving on Russia's Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean, as well as possibly the Taymyr Peninsula on mainland Siberia, until as recently as roughly 3,700 to 4,000 years ago, still extant during the construction of the Great Pyramid of ancient Egypt.


title: Mammoth

text: The earliest known proboscideans, the clade that contains the elephants, existed about 55 million years ago around the Tethys Sea area. The closest relatives of the Proboscidea are the sirenians and the hyraxes. The family Elephantidae is known to have existed six million years ago in Africa, and includes the living elephants and the mammoths. Among many now extinct clades, the mastodon is only a distant relative of the mammoths, and part of the separate Mammutidae family, which diverged 25 million years before the mammoths evolved.


title: Mammoth

text: The following cladogram shows the placement of the genus "Mammuthus" among other proboscideans, based on hyoid characteristics:


title: Mammoth

text: Since many remains of each species of mammoth are known from several localities, it is possible to reconstruct the evolutionary history of the genus through morphological studies. Mammoth species can be identified from the number of enamel ridges on their molars; the primitive species had few ridges, and the amount increased gradually as new species evolved and replaced the former ones. At the same time, the crowns of the teeth became longer, and the skulls become higher from top to bottom and shorter from the back to the front over time to accommodate this.


title: Mammoth

text: The first known members of the genus "Mammuthus" are the African species "Mammuthus subplanifrons" from the Pliocene and "Mammuthus africanavus" from the Pleistocene. The former is thought to be the ancestor of later forms. Mammoths entered Europe around 3 million years ago; the earliest known type has been named "M. rumanus", which spread across Europe and China. Only its molars are known, which show it had 8–10 enamel ridges. A population evolved 12–14 ridges and split off from and replaced the earlier type, becoming "M. meridionalis". In turn, this species was replaced by the steppe mammoth, "M. trogontherii", with 18–20 ridges, which evolved in East Asia ca. 1.8 million years ago. Steppe mammoth populations replaced "M. meridionalis" in Europe between 1 and 0.7 million years ago. The Columbian mammoth, "M. columbi", evolved from a population of "M. trogontherii" that had entered North America over 1 million years ago. Mammoths derived from "M. trogontherii" evolved molars with 26 ridges between 800,000 and 400,000 years ago in Siberia, becoming the woolly mammoth, "M. primigenius". The woolly mammoth would replace the steppe mammoth in Europe during the late Middle Pleistocene around 200,000 years ago. A 2011 genetic study showed that two examined specimens of the Columbian mammoth were grouped within a subclade of woolly mammoths. This suggests that the two populations interbred and produced fertile offspring. It also suggested that a North American form known as ""M. jeffersonii"" may be a hybrid between the two species.


title: Mammoth

text: By the late Pleistocene, mammoths in continental Eurasia had undergone a major transformation, including a shortening and heightening of the cranium and mandible, increase in molar hypsodonty index, increase in plate number, and thinning of dental enamel. Due to this change in physical appearance, it became customary to group European mammoths separately into distinguishable clusters:


title: Mammoth

text: There is speculation as to what caused this variation within the three chronospecies. Variations in environment, climate change, and migration surely played roles in the evolutionary process of the mammoths. Take "M. primigenius" for example: Woolly mammoths lived in opened grassland biomes. The cool steppe-tundra of the Northern Hemisphere was the ideal place for mammoths to thrive because of the resources it supplied. With occasional warmings during the ice age, climate would change the landscape, and resources available to the mammoths altered accordingly.


title: Mammoth

text: In February 2021, scientists reported that DNA from million-year old mammoth remains had become the oldest ever sequenced.


title: Mammoth

text: The word "mammoth" was first used in Europe during the early 17th century, when referring to "maimanto" tusks discovered in Siberia. John Bell, who was on the Ob River in 1722, said that mammoth tusks were well known in the area. They were called "mammon's horn" and were often found in washed-out river banks. Some local people claimed to have seen a living mammoth, but they came out only at night and always disappeared under water when detected. He bought one and presented it to Hans Sloan who pronounced it an elephant's tooth.


title: Mammoth

text: The folklore of some native peoples of Siberia, who would routinely find mammoth bones, and sometimes frozen mammoth bodies, in eroding river banks, had various interesting explanations for these finds. Among the Khanty people of the Irtysh River basin, a belief existed that the mammoth was some kind of a water spirit. According to other Khanty, the mammoth was a creature that lived underground, burrowing its tunnels as it went, and would die if it accidentally came to the surface.


title: Mammoth

text: The concept of the mammoth as an underground creature was known to the Chinese, who received some mammoth ivory from the Siberian natives; accordingly, the creature was known in China as "yǐn shǔ" 隐鼠, "the hidden rodent".


title: Mammoth

text: Thomas Jefferson, who famously had a keen interest in paleontology, is partially responsible for transforming the word "mammoth" from a noun describing the prehistoric elephant to an adjective describing anything of surprisingly large size. The first recorded use of the word as an adjective was in a description of a large wheel of cheese (the "Cheshire Mammoth Cheese") given to Jefferson in 1802.


title: Mammoth

text: Like their modern relatives, mammoths were quite large. The largest known species reached heights in the region of at the shoulder and weights of up to , while exceptionally large males may have exceeded . However, most species of mammoth were only about as large as a modern Asian elephant (which are about 2.5 m to 3 m high at the shoulder, and rarely exceeding 5 tonnes). Both sexes bore tusks. A first, small set appeared at about the age of six months, and these were replaced at about 18 months by the permanent set. Growth of the permanent set was at a rate of about per year.


title: Mammoth

text: Based on studies of their close relatives, the modern elephants, mammoths probably had a gestation period of 22 months, resulting in a single calf being born. Their social structure was probably the same as that of African and Asian elephants, with females living in herds headed by a matriarch, whilst bulls lived solitary lives or formed loose groups after sexual maturity.


title: Mammoth

text: Scientists discovered and studied the remains of a mammoth calf, and found that fat greatly influenced its form, and enabled it to store large amounts of nutrients necessary for survival in temperatures as low as . The fat also allowed the mammoths to increase their muscle mass, allowing the mammoths to fight against enemies and live longer. Woolly mammoths evolved a suite of adaptations for arctic life, including morphological traits such as small ears and tails to minimize heat loss, a thick layer of subcutaneous fat, long thick fur, and numerous sebaceous glands for insulation , as well as a large brown-fat hump like deposit behind the neck that may have functioned as a heat source and fat reservoir during winter.


title: Mammoth

text: Depending on the species or race of mammoth, the diet differed somewhat depending on location, although all mammoths ate similar things. For the Columbian mammoth, "M. columbi", the diet was mainly grazing. American Columbian mammoths fed primarily on cactus leaves, trees, and shrubs. These assumptions were based on mammoth feces and mammoth teeth. Mammoths, like modern day elephants, have hypsodont molars. These features also allowed mammoths to live an expansive life because of the availability of grasses and trees.


title: Mammoth

text: For the Mongochen mammoth, its diet consisted of herbs, grasses, larch, and shrubs, and possibly alder. These inferences were made through the observation of mammoth feces, which scientists observed contained non-arboreal pollen and moss spores.


title: Mammoth

text: European mammoths had a major diet of C3 carbon fixation plants. This was determined by examining the isotopic data from the European mammoth teeth.


title: Mammoth

text: The arctic tundra and steppe where the mammoths lived appears to have been dominated by forbs, not grass. These were richer in protein and easier to digest than grasses and wooden plants, which came to dominate the areas when the climate became wetter and warmer. This could have been a major contributor to why the arctic megafauna went extinct.


title: Mammoth

text: The Yamal baby mammoth Lyuba, found in 2007 in the Yamal Peninsula in Western Siberia, suggests that baby mammoths, as do modern baby elephants, ate the dung of adult animals. The evidence to show this is that the dentition (teeth) of the baby mammoth had not yet fully developed to chew grass. Furthermore, there was an abundance of ascospores of coprophilous fungi from the pollen spectrum of the baby's mother. Coprophilous fungi are fungi that grow on animal dung and disperse spores in nearby vegetation, which the baby mammoth would then consume. Spores might have gotten into its stomach while grazing for the first few times. Coprophagy may be an adaptation, serving to populate the infant's gut with the needed microbiome for digestion.


title: Mammoth

text: Mammoths alive in the Arctic during the Last Glacial Maximum consumed mainly forbs, such as "Artemisia"; graminoids were only a minor part of their diet.


title: Mammoth

text: The woolly mammoth ("M. primigenius") was the last species of the genus. Most populations of the woolly mammoth in North America and Eurasia, as well as all the Columbian mammoths ("M. columbi") in North America, died out around the time of the last glacial retreat, as part of a mass extinction of megafauna in northern Eurasia and the Americas. Until recently, the last woolly mammoths were generally assumed to have vanished from Europe and southern Siberia about 12,000 years ago, but new findings show some were still present there about 10,000 years ago. Slightly later, the woolly mammoths also disappeared from continental northern Siberia. A small population survived on St. Paul Island, Alaska, up until 3750 BC, and the small mammoths of Wrangel Island survived until about 2000 BC Recent eDNA research of sediments indicates mammoths survived in north central Siberia at least as late as 2000 BC, in continental northeast Siberia until at least 5300 BC, and until at least 6600 BC in North America.


title: Mammoth

text: The warming trend (Holocene) that occurred 12,000 years ago, accompanied by a glacial retreat and rising sea levels, has been suggested as a contributing factor. Forests replaced open woodlands and grasslands across the continent. The available habitat would have been reduced for some megafaunal species, such as the mammoth. However, such climate changes were nothing new; numerous had occurred previously within the ice age of the last several million years without producing comparable megafaunal extinctions, so climate alone is unlikely to have played a decisive role. The spread of advanced human hunters through northern Eurasia and the Americas around the time of the extinctions, however, was a new development, and thus might have contributed significantly.


title: Mammoth

text: Whether the general mammoth population died out for climatic reasons or due to overhunting by humans is controversial. During the transition from the Late Pleistocene epoch to the Holocene epoch, there was shrinkage of the distribution of the mammoth because progressive warming at the end of the Pleistocene epoch changed the mammoth's environment. The mammoth steppe was a periglacial landscape with rich herb and grass vegetation that disappeared along with the mammoth because of environmental changes in the climate. Mammoths had moved to isolated spots in Eurasia, where they disappeared completely. Also, it is thought that Late Paleolithic and Mesolithic human hunters might have affected the size of the last mammoth populations in Europe. There is evidence to suggest that humans did cause the mammoth extinction, although there is no definitive proof. It was found that humans living south of a mammoth steppe learned to adapt themselves to the harsher climates north of the steppe, where mammoths resided. It was concluded that if humans could survive the harsh north climate of that particular mammoth steppe then it was possible humans could hunt (and eventually extinguish) mammoths everywhere. Another hypothesis suggests mammoths fell victim to an infectious disease.


title: Mammoth

text: A combination of climate change and hunting by humans may be a possible explanation for their extinction. "Homo erectus" is known to have consumed mammoth meat as early as 1.8 million years ago, though this may mean only successful scavenging, rather than actual hunting. Later humans show greater evidence for hunting mammoths; mammoth bones at a 50,000-year-old site in South Britain suggest that Neanderthals butchered the animals, while various sites in Eastern Europe dating from 15,000 to 44,000 years old suggest humans (probably "Homo sapiens") built dwellings using mammoth bones (the age of some of the earlier structures suggests that Neanderthals began the practice). However, the American Institute of Biological Sciences notes that bones of dead elephants, left on the ground and subsequently trampled by other elephants, tend to bear marks resembling butchery marks, which have allegedly been misinterpreted as such by archaeologists.


title: Mammoth

text: In 2021, a study using ancient environmental DNA concluded that the extinction of the mammoth was primarily caused by dramatic vegetation changes at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum, due to a changed climate and precipitation regime. During the Last Glacial Maximum, the Arctic would have had a homogeneous flora consisting of mammoth steppe-associated plants, supporting a unique community of grazing mammals, including the mammoth. Increased precipitation following the end of the LGM caused caused a significant paludification of the steppe, which has been linked to a general decrease in species diversity of the region's former inhabitants, and not just mammoths. In addition, the study found mammoths to have persisted on the mainland for far longer than previously thought, with their shrinking distribution roughly tracking the shrinkage of the mammoth steppe; their final mainland refugium, the Taymyr Peninsula, was roughly concurrent with the Wrangel population. The close relationship between decreasing mammoth populations and steppe, as well as the lack of a sudden decline that would be associated with the human overkill hypothesis, indicates that humans and mammoths may have coexisted for millennia, and thus humans may have only played a minor role in the species' extinction.


title: Mammoth

text: Many hypotheses also seek to explain the regional extinction of mammoths in specific areas. Scientists have speculated that the mammoths of Saint Paul Island (Alaska), an isolated enclave where mammoths survived until about 8,000 years ago, died out as the island shrank by 80–90% when sea levels rose, eventually making it too small to support a viable population. Similarly, genome sequences of the Wrangel Island mammoths indicate a sharp decline in genetic diversity, though the extent to which this played a role in their extinction is still unclear. Another hypothesis, said to be the cause of mammoth extinction in Siberia, comes from the idea that many may have drowned. While traveling to the Northern River, many of these mammoths broke through the ice and drowned. This also explains bones remains in the Arctic Coast and some of the New Siberian Islands.


title: Mammoth

text: Dwarfing occurred with the pygmy mammoth on the outer Channel Islands of California, but at an earlier period. Those animals were very likely killed by early Paleo-Native Americans, and habitat loss caused by a rising sea level that split Santa Rosae into the outer Channel Islands.


title: Mammoth

text: One proposed scientific use of this preserved genetic material is to recreate living mammoths. This has long been discussed theoretically but has only recently become the subject of formal effort due to advances in molecular biology techniques and cloning of mammals.


title: Mammoth

text: According to one research team, a mammoth cannot be recreated, but they will try to eventually grow in an "artificial womb" a hybrid elephant with some woolly mammoth traits. Comparative genomics shows that the mammoth genome matches 99% of the elephant genome, so some researchers aim to engineer an elephant with some mammoth genes that code for the external appearance and traits of a mammoth. The outcome would be an elephant-mammoth hybrid with no more than 1% mammoth genes. Other projects are working on gradually adding mammoth genes to elephant cells "in vitro".


title: Madama Butterfly

text: Madama Butterfly (; "Madame Butterfly") is an opera in three acts (originally two) by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa.


title: Madama Butterfly

text: It is based on the short story "Madame Butterfly" (1898) by John Luther Long, which in turn was based on stories told to Long by his sister Jennie Correll and on the semi-autobiographical 1887 French novel "Madame Chrysanthème" by Pierre Loti. Long's version was dramatized by David Belasco as the one-act play "Madame Butterfly: A Tragedy of Japan", which, after premiering in New York in 1900, moved to London, where Puccini saw it in the summer of that year.


title: Madama Butterfly

text: The original version of the opera, in two acts, had its premiere on 17 February 1904 at La Scala in Milan. It was poorly received, despite having such notable singers as soprano Rosina Storchio, tenor Giovanni Zenatello and baritone Giuseppe De Luca in lead roles. This was due in part to a late completion by Puccini, which gave inadequate time for rehearsals. Puccini revised the opera, splitting the second act in two, with the Humming Chorus as a bridge to what became Act III, and making other changes. Success ensued, starting with the first performance on 28 May 1904 in Brescia.


title: Madama Butterfly

text: Puccini wrote five versions of the opera. The original two-act version, which was presented at the world premiere at La Scala on 17 February 1904, was withdrawn after the disastrous premiere. Puccini then substantially rewrote it, this time in three acts. This second version was performed on 28 May 1904 in Brescia, where it was a great success, with Solomiya Krushelnytska as Cio-Cio-san. It was this second version that premiered in the United States in 1906, first in Washington, D.C., in October, and then in New York in November, performed by Henry Savage's New English Opera Company (so named because it performed in English-language translations).


title: Madama Butterfly

text: In 1906, Puccini wrote a third version, which was performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York on 11 February 1907. Later that year, Puccini made several changes in the orchestral and vocal scores, and this became the fourth version, which was performed in Paris.


title: Madama Butterfly

text: Again in 1907, Puccini made his final revisions to the opera in a fifth version, which has become known as the "Standard Version" and is the one which is most often performed around the world. However, the original 1904 version is occasionally performed, such as for the opening of La Scala's season on 7 December 2016, with Riccardo Chailly conducting.


title: Madama Butterfly

text: Premieres of versions of "Madam Butterfly" in major opera houses throughout the world include the Teatro de la Opera de Buenos Aires on 2 July 1904, under Arturo Toscanini, this being the first performance in the world outside Italy. Its first performance in Britain was in London on 10 July 1905 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, while the first US performance was presented in English on 15 October 1906, in Washington, D.C., at the Columbia Theater. The first performance in New York took place on 12 November of the same year at the Garden Theatre. The Metropolitan Opera first performed the opera on 11 February 1907 under the supervision of the composer with Geraldine Farrar as Cio-Cio-San, Enrico Caruso as Pinkerton, Louise Homer as Suzuki, Antonio Scotti as Sharpless, with Arturo Vigna conducting; Farrar would sing 95 performances as Cio-Cio-San at the Met between 1907 and her retirement in 1922. "Madama Butterfly" has since been heard virtually every season at the Met except for a hiatus during World War II from 1942 through 1945 due to the hostilities between the United States and Japan. The first Australian performance was presented at the Theatre Royal in Sydney on 26 March 1910, starring Amy Eliza Castles.


title: Madama Butterfly

text: Between 1915 and 1920, Japan's best-known opera singer Tamaki Miura won international fame for her performances as Cio-Cio-San. A memorial to this singer, along with one to Puccini, can be found in the Glover Garden in the port city of Nagasaki, where the opera is set.


title: Madama Butterfly

text: In 1904, a U.S. naval officer named Pinkerton rents a house on a hill in Nagasaki, Japan, for himself and his soon-to-be wife, "Butterfly". Her real name is Cio-Cio-San (from the Japanese word for ; "-san" is a plain honorific). She is a 15-year-old Japanese girl whom he is marrying for convenience, and he intends to leave her once he finds a proper American wife, since Japanese divorce laws are very lax. The wedding is to take place at the house. Butterfly had been so excited to marry an American that she had earlier secretly converted to Christianity. After the wedding ceremony, her uninvited uncle, a "bonze", who has found out about her conversion, comes to the house, curses her and orders all the guests to leave, which they do while renouncing her. Pinkerton and Butterfly sing a love duet and prepare to spend their first night together.


title: Madama Butterfly

text: Three years later, Butterfly is still waiting for Pinkerton to return, as he had left shortly after their wedding. Her maid Suzuki keeps trying to convince her that he is not coming back, but Butterfly will not listen to her. Goro, the marriage broker who arranged her marriage, keeps trying to marry her off again, but she does not listen to him either. The American consul, Sharpless, comes to the house with a letter which he has received from Pinkerton which asks him to break some news to Butterfly: that Pinkerton is coming back to Japan, but Sharpless cannot bring himself to finish it because Butterfly becomes very excited to hear that Pinkerton is coming back. Sharpless asks Butterfly what she would do if Pinkerton were not to return. She then reveals that she gave birth to Pinkerton's son after he had left and asks Sharpless to tell him.


title: Madama Butterfly

text: From the hill house, Butterfly sees Pinkerton's ship arriving in the harbour. She and Suzuki prepare for his arrival, and then they wait. Suzuki and the child fall asleep, but Butterfly stays up all night waiting for him to arrive.


title: Madama Butterfly

text: Suzuki wakes up in the morning and Butterfly finally falls asleep. Sharpless and Pinkerton arrive at the house, along with Pinkerton's new American wife, Kate. They have come because Kate has agreed to raise the child. But, as Pinkerton sees how Butterfly has decorated the house for his return, he realizes he has made a huge mistake. He admits that he is a coward and cannot face her, leaving Suzuki, Sharpless and Kate to break the news to Butterfly. Agreeing to give up her child if Pinkerton comes himself to see her, she then prays to statues of her ancestral gods, says goodbye to her son, and blindfolds him. She places a small American flag in his hands and goes behind a screen, killing herself with her father's seppuku knife. Pinkerton rushes in, but he is too late, and Butterfly dies.


title: Madama Butterfly

text: This is a synopsis of the standard version of the opera, with its arias, duets, trios, choruses, etc. The synopsis is organized into the 34 tracks that constitute most recordings.


title: Madama Butterfly

text: 1. A short orchestral prelude with a busy, fugal opening theme, followed by a second theme of more overtly Japanese character, leads straight into the opening scene.


title: Madama Butterfly

text: 2. "E soffitto e pareti" ("And ceiling and walls"). Pinkerton and Goro are inspecting a small house which sits on a hill and overlooks the bay. Goro has found the house for Pinkerton and his bride, and is showing him the house, with its sliding doors and small garden. The butler, the cook and the bride's maid, Suzuki, enter the garden and are introduced to Pinkerton. After they leave, Goro tells Pinkerton that everything is now ready and that his intended bride, Butterfly, will arrive soon, as will the American consul, the marriage registrar and all the bride's relatives, except her uncle. Her uncle is a priest and refuses to attend the wedding ceremony. Sharpless, the American consul, has climbed up the hill from the city. He enters the garden, greets Pinkerton and Goro, and admires the view that overlooks Nagasaki's harbor and the sea. Pinkerton tells Sharpless that he has just purchased the little house for 999 years, with the right every month to cancel the agreement. Pinkerton explains that, in Japan, the law is very loose.


title: Madama Butterfly

text: 3. "Dovunque al mondo" ("Throughout the world"). As the orchestra plays the opening flourish to "The Star-Spangled Banner" (a musical theme which will characterize Pinkerton throughout the opera), Pinkerton tells Sharpless that, throughout the world, the Yankee wanderer is not satisfied until he captures the flowers of every shore and the love of every beautiful woman. "So I am marrying in the Japanese style: for 999 years, but with the right to cancel the marriage each month". Sharpless is critical of Pinkerton's beliefs, but they stand and agree, "America forever". Pinkerton tells Goro to bring Butterfly to him. When Goro leaves, Sharpless asks Pinkerton if he is really in love.


title: Madama Butterfly

text: 4. "Amore o grillo" ("Love or fancy"). Pinkerton admits to Sharpless that he does not know whether he is really in love or just infatuated, but he is bewitched with Butterfly's innocence, charm and beauty; she is like a butterfly fluttering around and then landing with silent grace, so beautiful "that I must have her, even though I injure her butterfly wings". Sharpless tells Pinkerton that he heard Butterfly speak, when she visited the consulate, and he asks Pinkerton not to pluck off her delicate wings. However, Pinkerton tells Sharpless that he will do "no great harm, even if Butterfly falls in love." Sharpless takes his glass of whisky and offers a toast to Pinkerton's family at home, to which Pinkerton adds, "and to the day when I will have a real wedding and marry a real American bride." Goro re-enters to tell Pinkerton and Sharpless that Butterfly's friends are coming.


title: Madama Butterfly

text: 5. "Ancora un passo" ("One step more"). Butterfly can be heard guiding her friends to the top of the hill, jubilantly telling them that "Over land and sea, there floats the joyful breath of spring. I am the happiest girl in Japan, or rather in the world." Butterfly and her friends enter the garden. She recognizes Pinkerton and points him out to her friends, and all bow down before him.


title: Madama Butterfly

text: 6. "Gran ventura" ("May good fortune attend you"). Butterfly greets Pinkerton, who asks about her difficult climb up the hill. Butterfly says that, for a happy bride, the wait is even more difficult. Pinkerton thanks her for the compliment but cuts her off as she continues to compliment him further. Butterfly tells Pinkerton and Sharpless that her family is from Nagasaki and was once very wealthy.


title: Madama Butterfly

text: 7. "L'Imperial Commissario" ("The Imperial Commissioner"). Goro announces the arrival of both the Grand Commissioner and the Registrar of marriages. Butterfly greets her relatives, who have arrived for the wedding. Pinkerton laughs at the sight and whispers to Sharpless, "This is a farce: all these will be my new relatives for only a month." Sharpless tells him that, even though he considers the marriage contract a farce, she considers it very real. Meanwhile, Butterfly tells her relatives how much she loves Pinkerton. One of her cousins says that Goro first offered Pinkerton to her, but she refused. Butterfly's relatives say that he is like a king, so rich and so handsome, and then, at a sign from Butterfly, all her friends and relatives bow to Pinkerton and walk out to the garden. Pinkerton takes Butterfly's hand and leads her into the house.


title: Madama Butterfly

text: 8. "Vieni, amor mio!" ("Come, my love!"). From her sleeve, Butterfly brings out to show Pinkerton all of her treasures, which include only a few handkerchiefs, a mirror, a sash, and other trinkets. Then she shows him a long, narrow case, which she tells him holds her only sacred treasure, but she cannot open it, because there are too many people around. Goro whispers to Pinkerton that the case contains a "gift" from the Mikado to Butterfly's father, inviting him to commit seppuku. Butterfly continues to show Pinkerton her other little treasures, including several little statues: "They are the spirits of my ancestors."