Eyeglasses and Concave Lenses in Fifteenth-Century Florence and Milan: New Documents*

1976 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincent Ilardi
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Early History ◽  
Glass Technology ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Optical Instruments ◽  
Early Use ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Time ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Personal Adornment

Five recently discovered documents reveal for the first time that eyeglasses with concave lenses for myopes were manufactured in Florence from at least the middle of the fifteenth century, about one hundred years before they were thought to be in use. This new evidence throws additional light on the development and early use of spectacles and on the early history of optical instruments and glass technology in general. These documents also reveal for the first time that Florence was the leading manufacturing center of high-quality eyeglasses and that spectacles had already become a prestigious item of personal adornment at least at the court of the dukes of Milan. This information should be of interest to historians of art and costume as well.

The Will of Cardinal Giordano Orsini (ob. 1438)

Traditio ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 257-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher S. Celenza
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Italian Renaissance ◽  
Short Introduction ◽  
Renaissance Humanism ◽  
The Third ◽  
Textual History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Will ◽  
First Time

There are many still unstudied aspects of the cultural history of early Quattrocento Rome, especially if we consider the years before 1443, the date of the more or less permanent re-entry into the civitas aeterna of Pope Eugenius IV. The nexus between the still ephemeral papacy and the emerging intellectual movement of Italian Renaissance humanism is one of these aspects. It is hoped that this study will shed some light on this problem by presenting a document that has hitherto not been completely edited: the original will of Cardinal Giordano Orsini. As we shall see, this important witness to the fifteenth century provides valuable information on many fronts, even on the structure of the old basilica of Saint Peter. The short introduction is in three parts. The first has a discussion of the cardinal's cultural milieu with a focus on the only contemporary treatise specifically about curial culture, Lapo da Castiglionchio's De curiae commodis. The second part addresses the textual history of the will as well as some misconceptions which have surrounded it. The third part contains a discussion of the will itself, along with some preliminary observations about what can be learned from the critical edition of the text here presented for the first time.

The Use of Factice in Rubber Manufacture

1936 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 621-625 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. H. Hurlston
Keyword(s):  
Early History ◽  
Intrinsic Properties ◽  
Rubber Content ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Rubber Industry ◽  
History Of

Abstract The two main classes of vulcanized oil substitute or factice are heat-cured brown factice and cold-cured white factice. They were both introduced into the rubber industry at about the same time (1846–1847), the former variety by Anderson and the latter by Parkes. It has been stated (Twiss, Trans. Inst. Rubber Ind., 7, 234 (1931)) that Parkes first opened a proofing factory at Birmingham but that the business was shortly afterwards absorbed by Chas. Macintosh & Co. and transferred to Manchester. This probably dates the commencement of the use of white factice in proofings. The early history of the development of the use of brown factice on a works scale is more obscure. As the name implies, these vulcanized oils were used in the first place as ingredients which could economically substitute part of the crude rubber content of mixings, but as time went on it became apparent to compounders that these materials possessed intrinsic properties which made them almost indispensable in certain mixings, both for ease of manufacture and for high quality of the resultant article. The utility of factices in the general rubber trade is therefore in many respects analogous to that of reclaimed rubbers.

Protogeometric Vases from Amorgos in the Museum of the British School

1989 ◽  
Vol 84 ◽  
pp. 177-185
Author(s):  
R.W.V. Catling ◽  
R.E. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Chemical Analysis ◽  
Early History ◽  
The Other ◽  
The South ◽  
South West ◽  
British School ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Time

Two vases, a cup and an oinochoe, from Arkesine in south-west Amorgos are published for the first time. It is argued that both are probably Middle Protogeometric, one an import from Euboia, the other from the south-east Aegean; chemical analysis supports both attributions. Their implications for the early history of Amorgos are discussed.

The Orpheus Metope from Bassai

1981 ◽  
Vol 76 ◽  
pp. 323-328
Author(s):  
Carlos Arturo Picón
Keyword(s):  
Fifth Century ◽  
Early History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
To Receive ◽  
The Temple

A fruitful combination of excavation, fieldwork, and research has in recent years increased our knowledge of the Temple of Apollo Epikourios at Bassai. In particular, the sculptured frieze which encircled the interior of the cella has been the subject of numerous studies, the most recent being the monograph by C. Hofkes-Brukker and A. Mallwitz published in 1975. The investigations made at Bassai by N. Yalouris and F. A. Cooper have produced important new evidence. As a result of the excavations conducted by Yalouris since 1959, the early history of the sanctuary and of the structures preceding the classical (‘Iktinian’) temple are reasonably clear. Furthermore, Cooper has shown that the ‘Iktinian’ building, the fourth in a series of temples to Apollo on the site, was not designed to receive pedimental sculpture, and that some, if not all, of this temple's akroteria were floral. The traditional attributions of pedimental and akroterial statues must be discarded, along with the theory that the ‘Iktinian’ building was started as early as the middle of the fifth century B.C.Yet, despite this progress, and the fact that the temple is one of the best-preserved monuments from antiquity, many issues remain controversial. Scholars postulate several building phases for the Classical temple. The chronology of the sculptures is still debated, as is the order of the twenty-three frieze-slabs within the cella.

Petrus de Domarto's Missa Spiritus almus and the early history of the four-voice mass in the fifteenth century

1991 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 235-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rob C. Wegman
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Early History ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Church

In 1449, the records of the church of Our Lady at Antwerp mention a new singer, Petrus de Domaro (see Figure 1). He does not reappear in the accounts of 1450, and those of the subsequent years are all lost. Musical sources and treatises from the 1460s to 80s call him, with remarkable consistency, P[etrus] de Domarto, and reveal that he was an internationally famous composer in the third quarter of the fifteenth century.

The early history of the Greek alphabet: new evidence from Eretria and Methone

Antiquity ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 90 (353) ◽  
pp. 1238-1254 ◽  
Author(s):  
John K. Papadopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Early History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Greek Alphabet ◽  
Image Position ◽  
New Evidence

Abstract

New Light on the History of Isaac Newton's Library

The Library ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-97
Author(s):  
Karen Thomson
Keyword(s):  
Early History ◽  
Scholarly Work ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Time ◽  
Plausible Reason

Abstract In the standard scholarly work, The Library of Isaac Newton published by CUP in 1978, John Harrison makes two significant assumptions about the library’s early history which are incorrect. This paper highlights the necessary revisions, including the unnoticed role played by Mrs Jane Musgrave, Jane Austen’s godmother, in the library’s preservation. It also proposes for the first time a plausible reason why John Huggins, Warden of the Fleet Prison, bought the library from the executors immediately after Newton’s death.

Malacca's Early Kings and the Reception of Islam

1964 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 104-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher H. Wake
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Early History ◽  
Current View ◽  
World War ◽  
Considerable Uncertainty ◽  
Conversion To Islam ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World

The sources for the early history of Malacca are so meagre, and often so contradictory, that not only is the detail in some doubt but the whole framework of events rests on an uncertain foundation. Dates ranging from the middle of the fifteenth century back to the eighth have at various times been proposed for the foundation of Malacca, and considerable uncertainty has surrounded both the identity and sequence of the early kings and the time and manner of their conversion to Islam. As a result of evidence which has come to light within the last thirty years, notably the Suma Oriental of Tomé Pires and a partially deciphered inscription, from Sumatra, the current view of the early history of Malacca differs materially from that which was generally held before the second world war. Whereas it was then believed that there were four kings before Sultan Muzaftar Shah and that two or three of them were severally converted to Islam, it is now held that there were only three kings and only one conversion, and that this took place in the reign of the first king, about the year 1414. In view of the nature of the evidence upon which this latest interpretation rests it will be useful to review the king-list and the question of the conversion in some detail.

The Early History of the Sultanate of Angoche

1972 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 397-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. D. D. Newitt
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Early History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Set Up

The sultanate of Angoche on the Moçambique coast was founded probably towards the end of the fifteenth century by refugees from Kilwa. It became a base for Muslim traders who wanted to use the Zambezi route to the central African trading fairs and it enabled them to by-pass the Portuguese trade monopoly at Sofala. The Portuguese were not able to check this trade until they themselves set up bases on the Zambezi in the 1530s and 1540s, and from that time the sultanate began to decline. Internal dissensions among the ruling families led to the Portuguese obtaining control of the sultanate in the late sixteenth century, but this control was abandoned in the following century when the trade of the Angoche coast dwindled to insignificance. During the eighteenth century movements among the Macua peoples of the mainland and the development of the slave trade in the Indian Ocean laid the foundations for the revival of the sultanate in the nineteenth century.

New Evidence for the Early History of Palaepaphos

1983 ◽  
Vol 78 ◽  
pp. 229-233
Author(s):  
F. G. Maier
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Early History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
New Evidence

Material from earlier as well as recent excavations at Palaepaphos is considered; it is now clear that a considerable quantity of pottery was imported from the Aegean during the thirteenth century and earlier; this is summarily described. Evidence for a Chalcolithic settlement is analysed. Finally, pottery from the intervening Middle Bronze Age is advanced as an indication of occupation at Kouklia in MC II–MC III times.

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