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Friday, 14 September 2012

Suetonius Augustus

Suetonius was a waspish commentator. He knew how to put the dagger in, even into Julius Caesar himself, telling us he was anguished by his receding hairline and constantly grooming what few hairs remained. This first of the Caesars wielded so much power that he was able to overrule the Senate and defeat the Armies of the Republic. In the year of his murder in 44 BC he took a new name - ‘Dictator’ - and was eventually deified.His successor, Augustus, could do no wrong in Suetonius’s eyes.It was a time of peace and plenty and became the historian’s benchmark, to which the Caesars who followed could never aspire.Suetonius portrayed Augustus as a pillar of rectitude, living respectably with his wife Livia, appalled when he heard their daughter Julia had been offering herself as a tart to passers-by in Rome.He expelled his only child to a volcanic island for life.The third Caesar, Livia’s son Tiberius, supposedly had unusually large eyes and could see in the dark - making it easier to spot assassins. He spent nine years of his Imperium living in his palace in Capri - accessible only by one small beach - and attended by astrologers and ladies of the night. Hostile sources muttered darkly about vile obscenities taking place, and of transgressors ‘who after long and exquisite tortures were hurled into the sea . . . while Tiberius looked on’.More likely, Tiberius wanted a quiet life far from Rome and from his family, particularly as he had been forced by Augustus to divorce his own wife and marry ‘a sneering harlot’. He became morose, suspicious and increasingly paranoid as younger family members fought among themselves to succeed him.Meanwhile in Rome, he created the first Water Board and expediently solved the city’s financial crisis by printing money and distributing it in loans: 1st century AD quantitative easing.

Suetonius Augustus

Ifla 2012

The International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA), which represents the worldwide profession of landscape architecture, announced today that Mihály Möcsényi is the winner of the Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe Award – the International Federation of Landscape Architects’ premier award – for 2012.The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) is pleased to announce the launch of The Landscape Architect’s Guide to Washington, D.C. This online, mobile-friendly guide will help visitors and locals discover more than 75 historic, modern and contemporary landscapes in Washington, D.C. and Arlington, Va. Expert commentary and more than 800 photos are provided by 20 landscape architects.tur(i)ntogreenis an International design competition launched by the Research and Documentation Centre in Technology, Architecture and City in Developing Countries(CRD-PVS) at the Politecnico di Torino(Italy).

With a distinguished jury and sponsored by the UN-HABITAT within the “I’m a City Changer” campaign, it is open to University students from around the world. Participants are invited to apply their creative talents in developing new multidisciplinary solutions for sustainable and inclusive cities reflecting on new forms of urban management and regeneration through agro – housing and urban – farming models.

Ifla 2012

Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica

Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, Latin for "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy", often referred to as simply the Principia, is a work in three books by Sir Isaac Newton, first published 5 July 1687. After annotating and correcting his personal copy of the first edition, Newton also published two further editions, in 1713 and 1726 The Principia states Newton's laws of motion, forming the foundation of classical mechanics, also Newton's law of universal gravitation, and a derivation of Kepler's laws of planetary motion (which Kepler first obtained empirically). The Principia is "justly regarded as one of the most important works in the history of science" In British institutions such as the Royal Society of London, representations of Isaac Newton and his work changed significantly in the century after his death, reflecting the shifting interests of elite natural philosophers and men of science. His international fame and the continuing relevance of the world system he and his followers erected meant that he was always used as a triumphant figurehead, but according to the intellectual circumstances subtly different aspects of Newtonianism were appropriated.

Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica

Carlotta Valdez

Time is evoked numerous times in Vertigo. In his shipyard building office, old prints of San Francisco hang on the walls. Gavin Elster tells Scottie of his preference for yesteryears. "The things that spell San Francisco to me are disappearing fast... I should have liked to have lived here then— color, excitement, power, freedom." Elster's wife Madeleine is obsessed with the past too, wandering to Golden Gate Park to the Portals of the Past. She visits Mission Dolores graveyard to her great-grandmother Carlotta Valdez's tombstone (1831-1857). She goes to the Legion of Honor and sits at the portrait of Carlotta Valdez staring back into time, buying a nosegay of roses identical to those she's holding. She also mimicks Carlotta's hairstyle down to her spiral bun. In their trip to Big Basin's redwoods , they look at the cross section of a Coastal Redwood that is over a thousand years old . Madeleine points her finger at the outer rings and says "Somewhere in here I was born... and there I died.

Carlotta Valdez

Principia Mathematica Newton

NEWTON, Sir Isaac. Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. Edition tertia aucta et emendate. Edited by Henry Pemberton. London: William & John Innys, 1726.4o (242 x 188 mm). Half-title, privilege leaf, title-page printed in red and black. Engraved portrait frontispiece by George Vertue after Vanderbank, engraved illustration on page 506, woodcut diagrams throughout. Contemporary speckled (rebacked, old spine laid down). Provenance: R. Grassmann (name in ink on front free endpaper); Stettin, Stadtbibliothek (early ink stamp on verso of title).Third edition, the last published in the author's lifetime, and THE BASIS FOR ALL SUBSEQUENT EDITIONS. "Pemberton was invited to superintend the editing of the third edition of the Principia... Pemberton was then about thirty years old and was rightly flattered to get the opportunity to work so closely with the great eighty-year-old Newton. However, Newton often ignored Pemberton's editorial suggestions. Pemberton wrote A View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy, which he had partly read to the dying Newton. It made no great mark but could at least be recommended as being propaedeutic" (DNB). Including Newton's Prefaces to previous editions and his new one mentioning Halley's comet, and many alterations "the most important being the scholium on fluxions, in which Leibnitz had been mentioned by name. This had been considered an acknowledgement of Leibnitz's independent discovery of the calculus. In omitting Leibnitz's name in this edition, Newton was criticised as taking advantage of an opponent whose death had prevented any reply" (Babson). "Newton's Principia (1687) integrates hundreds of physics diagrams so as to fall properly in the text.

Principia Mathematica Newton

Thursday, 13 September 2012

Isaac Newton Principia

In his monumental 1687 work Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, known familiarly as the Principia, Isaac Newton laid out in mathematical terms the principles of time, force, and motion that have guided the development of modern physical science. Even after more than three centuries and the revolutions of Einsteinian relativity and quantum mechanics, Newtonian physics continues to account for many of the phenomena of the observed world, and Newtonian celestial dynamics is used to determine the orbits of our space vehicles.This completely new translation, the first in 270 years, is based on the third (1726) edition, the final revised version approved by Newton; it includes extracts from the earlier editions, corrects errors found in earlier versions, and replaces archaic English with contemporary prose and up-to-date mathematical forms.Newton's principles describe acceleration, deceleration, and inertial movement; fluid dynamics; and the motions of the earth, moon, planets, and comets. A great work in itself, the Principia also revolutionized the methods of scientific investigation. It set forth the fundamental three laws of motion and the law of universal gravity, the physical principles that account for the Copernican system of the world as emended by Kepler, thus effectively ending controversy concerning the Copernican planetary system.The illuminating Guide to the Principia by I. Bernard Cohen, along with his and Anne Whitman's translation, will make this preeminent work truly accessible for today's scientists, scholars, and students.

Isaac Newton Principia

Monday, 10 September 2012

Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts

An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders (marginalia) and miniature illustrations. In the most strict definition of the term, an illuminated manuscript only refers to manuscripts decorated with gold or silver, but in both common usage and modern scholarship, the term is now used to refer to any decorated or illustrated manuscript from the Western traditions. Comparable Far Eastern works are always described as painted, as are Mesoamerican works. Islamic manuscripts are usually referred to as illuminated but can also be classified as painted.

The earliest surviving substantive illuminated manuscripts are from the period AD 400 to 600, initially produced in Italy and the Eastern Roman Empire. The significance of these works lies not only in their inherent art historical value, but in the maintenance of a link of literacy offered by non-illuminated texts as well. Had it not been for the monastic scribes of Late Antiquity, most literature of Greece and Rome would have perished in Europe; as it was, the patterns of textual

The majority of surviving manuscripts are from the Middle Ages, although many illuminated manuscripts survive from the Renaissance, along with a very limited number from Late Antiquity. The majority of these manuscripts are of a religious nature. However, especially from the 13th century onward, an increasing number of secular texts were illuminated. Most illuminated manuscripts were created as codices, which had superseded scrolls. A very few illuminated manuscript fragments survive on papyrus, which does not last nearly as long as vellum or parchment. Most medieval manuscripts, illuminated or not, were written on parchment (most commonly of calf, sheep, or goat skin), but most manuscripts important enough to illuminate were written on the best quality of parchment, called vellum.

Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts