New Light on Shah ʿAbbas and the Construction of Isfahan

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-176
Author(s):  
Charles Melville

The discovery and recent publication of the third volume of the Afḍal al-tawārīkh (The Most Excellent of Histories) by Fazli Beg Khuzani Isfahani (d. after 1640), with its rich layers of new details on the reign of Shah ʿAbbas I (1587–1629), has made possible a search for fresh information on the shah’s architectural patronage and development of the Safavid capital at Isfahan in the early seventeenth century. Apart from several details not recorded elsewhere, Fazli Beg’s chronicle provides a more continuous account of the development of the city than other contemporary sources, which tend instead to concentrate and group the details of the construction of different buildings into the record of a few specific dates, so that it is not always clear when they were initiated or completed. Fazli Beg gives the impression of a city under constant construction, and of the shah’s restless impatience to propel the work forward. The paper also attempts to address the chronological disparities found in the main sources for the period. 


2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 442-457
Author(s):  
Anna Busquets

Abstract During the second half of the seventeenth century, there were at least three embassies between the Spaniards of Manila and the Fujian based Zheng regime. The first embassy took place in 1656 ordered by the Spanish governor in Manila. The ambassadors were two captains of the city, and its aim was to re-establish trade relations, which had been severed many months before. In response, Zheng Chenggong sent his cousin to the Philippine islands to settle several business arrangements regarding Fujianese trade. In 1662, Zheng Chenggong took the initiative of sending the Dominican Victorio Riccio, who worked as missionary in the Catholic mission at Xiamen, as emissary to the Governor of the Philippines, don Sabiniano Manrique de Lara. The third embassy took place in 1663. Thereupon, Zheng Jing, Zheng Chenggong’s successor, sent Riccio to Manila for signing a peace pact and for re-establishing trade. The three embassies were related to the Zheng’s purpose of gaining economic and political supremacy over the Philippines and the South China Seas. In all three cases, the actors, the diplomatic correspondence, the material aspects and the results differed profoundly. The article analyzes the role of individuals as intermediaries and translators while considering the social and cultural effects that these embassies had on the Sino-Spanish relations in Manila.


1987 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 17-26
Author(s):  
Orville K. Larson

The third quarter of the seventeenth century brought considerable changes in the social composition of theatre audiences in Italy. Gone was the exclusiveness of the ducal and academy theatres whose audiences of royalty and nobility attended by invitation only. These were replaced by an audience of a growing bourgeoisie with an ability to pay. As soon as this audience appeared entrepreneurs, quick to recognize the possibilities, opened public playhouses. Theatrical activities became a commercial rather than an artistic, intellectual or political enterprise. Although some vestiges of the past, such as the royal box for important dignitaries, were retained, public theatres soon assumed a more democratic aspect, patronized by audiences who had earned the right to attend by means of personal enterprise rather than by accident or privilege of birth. Foremost in this phenomenon was the city of Venice whose theatrical activities soon became the model. Mercantile families like the Tron, Grimani, Giustinian and Vendramini opened the first public playhouses in the 1630s. Audiences of courtiers and courtesans, Dukes and Doges, Princes and panderers, merchants and magistrates soon became involved in a social mix that would have amazed and scandalised the more formal audiences of earlier times.


1993 ◽  
Vol 107 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-256
Author(s):  
R.J. Baarsen

AbstractSince 1988, when this journal carried an article on Andrics Bongen (ca. 1732-1792), probably the first cabinet-maker in Amsterdam to have made marquetry furniture in the French style in the third quarter of the eighteenth century, not one item has been added to his small oeuvre. It is therefore still not clear whether Bongen had a long and successful career, nor whether his production was large. This article deals with the eighteenth-century activities of Matthijs Horrix (1735 -1809), a furniture maker who in certain aspects may be regarded as Bongen's Hague counterpart. He, too, hailed from Germany, set up independently in the Netherlands in the 1760s and worked in the French style from the outset of his career. There are however no doubts as to bis success : he was The Hague's best-known furniture maker in the late eighteenth century, with the largest workshop. In the course of the nineteenth century the firm he founded grew into the largest in the Netherlands (note 4). Whereas it cannot be ascertained whether 'French' cabinet-making was ever a dominant trend in Amsterdam, one gets the impression that such was to some extent the case in The Hague after 1760. In the city where the Stadholder's court and foreign embassies were based, the French-oriented court style had been a significant factor since at least the late seventeenth century (notes 5, 6 and 8). Many patrons in The Hague were probably keen on furniture which actually came from France. In 1771 the guild of furniture makers complained to the city council about the influx of furniture imported from abroad; this probably meant imports from France (notes 9 and 10). Several furniture makers in The Hague began to imitate the French models. As early as 1761 Matthijs Franses (ca. 1726-1788), who came from Kempen near Krefeld, advertized that he made and sold a variety of veneered furniture in the French style. His descriptions are not very clear, but mention is made of commodes and tables inlaid with copper (in the Boulle technique?), commodes 'à la Diligence' with gilded bronze mouldings and marble tops, desks and 'Ouvrages en ébène'. Franses says nothing about marquetry featuring different kinds of wood, the most popular decorative technique in Paris around 1760 and the kind of work with which Bongen made his debut in Amsterdam in 1766. It seems likely that Horrix arrived in The Hague around 1761. He was born in 1735, probably in Lobberich near Krefeld (note 25). In a petition submitted in 1764 he stated that he had been apprenticed to a cabinet-maker in The Hague 'for some years'; the period in question was probably not longer than three years (notes 26 and 27). At the beginning of this period, then, Horrix was already 25 years of age or older. In view of the common practice throughout Europe for boys to be apprenticed to a craftsman at the age of fourteen or thereabouts for a period of some six years (note 28), Horrix may have worked in one or more shops elsewhere after his apprenticeship and before his arrival in The Hague. However, no information about this period is available. On May 15 1764, Horrix was enrolled in the Hague guild as a master cabinet-maker (note 33). On January 9th of that year he had acquired citizenship, and on May 5th he had married Elisabeth de la Fosse of The Hague. The wedding was witnessed by


Author(s):  
Herawati M

This study aims to use information technology, uncertainty or moderation duties and interactions between task uncertainty with the use of information technology to end user computing satisfaction. In this study used 70 respondents who actively use computers and working with several companies banking on the city of Padang. The data used are the primary data obtained through questionnaires. The study used three types of variables, the first is the independent variable, namely the utilization of information technology, both moderating variables, namely the uncertainty of the task, the third is the dependent variable is satisfaction of end user computing. The stages of hypothesis testing is done by using a regression model of moderating and statistical t-test. Based on the results of testing the first hypothesis (HI) was found to significantly influence the utilization of information technology to the satisfaction of end user computing. The second hypothesis (H2) testing results found that task uncertainty did not significantly influence the end user computing satisfaction. The third hypothesis (H3) testing found that the interaction or moderation between the use of technology with task uncertainty no significant effect on end user computing satisfaction.


Author(s):  
Howell A. Lloyd

Bodin arrived in Toulouse c.1550, a brief account of the economy, social composition, and governmental institutions of which opens the chapter. There follow comments on its cultural life and identification of its leading citizenry, with remarks on the treatment of alleged religious dissidents by the city itself, and especially on discordant intellectual influences at work in the University, most notably the Law Faculty and the modes of teaching there. The chapter’s second part reviews Bodin’s translation and edition of the Greek poem Cynegetica by Oppian ‘of Cilicia’, assessing the quality of his editorial work, the extent to which allegations of plagiarism levelled against him were valid, and the nature and merits of his translation. The third section recounts contemporary wrangling over educational provision in Toulouse and examines the Oratio in which Bodin argued the case for humanist-style educational provision by means of a reconstituted college there.


2020 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-168
Author(s):  
Kirsten Dickhaut

AbstractThe machine theatre in France achieves its peak in the second half of the seventeenth century. It is the construction of machines that permits the adequate representation of the third dimension on stage. This optical illusion is created by flying characters, as heroes, gods, or demons moving horizontally and vertically. The enumeration indicates that only characters possessing either ethically exemplary character traits or incorporating sin are allowed to fly. Therefore, the third dimension indicates bienséance – or its opposite. According to this, the following thesis is deduced: The machine theatre illustrates via aesthetic concerns characterising its third dimension an ethic foundation. Ethic and aesthetics determine each other in the context of both, decorum and in theatre practice. In order to prove this thesis three steps are taken. First of all, the machine theatre’s relationship to imitation and creation is explored. Second, the stage design, representing the aesthetic benefits of the machines in service of the third dimension, are explained. Finally, the concrete example of Pierre Corneille’s Andromède is analysed by pointing out the role of Pegasus and Perseus.


2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Wright

This study reconstructs the connected history of socio-economic and intellectual practices related to property in seventeenth-century Bengal. From the perspective of socio-economic practices, this study is concerned with the legal transfer of immovable property between individuals. From the perspective of intellectual practice, this study is concerned with how property was understood as an analytical category that stood in a particular relation to an individual. Their connected history is examined by analysing socio-economic practices exemplified in a number of documents detailing the sale and donation of land and then situating these practices within the scholarly analysis of property undertaken by authors within the discipline of nyāya—the Sanskrit discipline dealing primarily with ontology and epistemology. In the first section of the essay, I undertake a detailed examination of available land documents in order to highlight particular conceptions of property. In the second section of the essay, I draw out theoretical issues examined in nyāya texts that relate directly to the concepts expressed in the land documents. In the third and final section of the essay, I discuss the shared language and shared concepts between the documents and nyāya texts. This last section also addresses how the nyāya analysis of property facilitates a better understanding of claims in the documents and what nyāya authors may have been doing in writing about property.


2014 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 362-392
Author(s):  
Diana Looser

In the closing scene of René-Charles Guilbert de Pixérécourt's melodramaLa Tête de mort; ou, Les Ruines de Pompeïa(1827), audiences at Paris's Théâtre de la Gaîté were presented with the spectacular cataclysm of an erupting Mount Vesuvius that invaded the city and engulfed the hapless characters in its fiery embrace. “The theatre,” Pixérécourt writes, “is completely inundated by this sea of bitumen and lava. A shower of blazing and transparent stones and red ash falls on all sides…. The red color with which everything is struck, the terrible noise of the volcano, the screaming, the agitation and despair of the characters … all combine to form this terrible convulsion of nature, a horrible picture, and altogether worthy of being compared to Hell.” A few years later, in 1830, Daniel Auber's grand operaLa Muette de Portici(1828), which yoked a seventeenth-century eruption of Vesuvius with a popular revolt against Spanish rule in Naples, opened at the Théâtre de Monnaie in Brussels. The Belgian spectators, inspired by the opera's revolutionary sentiments, poured out into the streets and seized their country's independence from the Dutch. These two famous examples, which form part of a long genealogy of representing volcanic eruptions through various artistic means, highlight not only the compelling, immersive spectacle of nature in extremis but also the ability of stage scenery to intervene materially in the narrative action and assimilate affective and political meanings. As these two examples also indicate, however, the body of scholarship in literary studies, art history, and theatre and performance studies that attends to the mechanical strategies and symbolic purchase of volcanic representations has tended to focus mainly on Europe; more research remains to be undertaken into how volcanic spectacles have engaged with non-European topographies and sociopolitical dynamics and how this wider view might illuminate our understanding of theatre's social roles.


Istoriya ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (9 (107)) ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Maya Petrova

The paper deals the construction of Aachen as a symbol of the power of Charlemagne (742/4 — 814). It discusses the poetic Carolingian texts, which played an important role in the formation of the medieval ideology of the unity of the City and the power of its creator. It is shown that the most striking example of the statement of such a worldview is the third book (v. 1—536) of the anonymous epic poem (not fully preserved), known in the early Middle Ages under the title “Charlemagne and Pope Leo” (Karolus Magnus et Leo Papa). It is noted that this text, containing a description of the construction of the Second Rome — Aachen, influenced the subsequent Carolingian poetic tradition, serving as a turning point in the development of narrative poetry during the reign of Charlemagne.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document