Amedei of Tuscany, Italy is probably the world's finest chocolate manufacturer. The small company was founded by a brother and sister, Alessio and Cecilia Tessieri in 1990, and manufactures chocolate from the start to finish, selecting the finest cocoa beans primarily from Venezuela and the Caribbean (Jamaica, Trinidad, Grenada), Ecuador and Madagascar and turning them into chocolate - in contrast to large chocolate companies which buy blocks of chocolate from large commercial factories which use low grade cocoa beans from large plantations and refined sugar to make the chocolate they then sell on. Research Amedei
A fraternity is an association of people who unite to promote their common interest, business or pleasure. In this wide sense it includes all secret and benevolent societies, the monastic and sacerdotal congregations, the orders of knighthood, and also guilds, trades-unions, and the like. In a limited sense it is applied to religious societies for pious practices and benevolent objects.
Fraternities were often formed during the middle ages, from a desire of imitating the holy orders. Many of these societies, which did not obtain or did not seek the acknowledgment of the church, had the appearance of separatists, which subjected them to the charge of heresy. The pious fraternities which were formed under the direction of the church, or were acknowledged by it, were either required by their rules to afford assistance to travellers, to the unfortunate, the distressed, the sick, and the deserted, on account of the inefficiency of the police, and the want of institutions for the poor, or to perform certain acts of penitence and devotion. Of this description were the Fratres Pontifices, a brotherhood that originated in Tuscany in the 12th century, where they maintained establishments on the banks of the Arno, to enable travellers to cross the river, and to succour them in case of distress. A similar society was afterwards formed in France, where they built bridges and hospitals, maintained ferries, kept the roads in repair, and provided for the security of the highways. Similar to these were the Knights and Companions of the Santa Hermandad (or Holy Brotherhood) in Spain; the Familiars and Cross-bearers in the service of the Spanish Inquisition; the Calendar Brothers in Germany; the Alexiaus in Germany, Poland, and the Netherlands, etc.
The professed object of the Alexians, so called from Alexius, their patron saint, was to visit the sick and imprisoned; to collect alms for distribution; to console criminals, and accompany them to the place of execution; to bury the dead, and to cause masses to be said for those who had been executed, or for persons found dead. There were also Gray Penitents (an old fraternity of an order existing as early as 1264 in Rome, and introduced into France under Henry III), the black fraternities of Mercy and of Death; the Red, the Blue, the Green, and the Violet Penitents, so called from the colour of their cowl; the divisions of each were known by the colours of the girdle or mantle. The fraternity of the Holy Trinity was founded at Rome in 1548 by Philip de' Neri for the relief of pilgrims and the cured dismissed from the hospitals. The Brothers of Charity were another fraternity whose hospitals were found in all the principal cities of Catholic Christendom. Research Fraternity
The Treaty of San Ildefonso was a secret treaty between France and Spain, signed on October the 1st, 1800, by which Louisiana was retroceded by Spain to France in consideration of an agreement advantageous to the royal family of Spain relative to Tuscany. This treaty was directly instrumental in bringing about the purchase of Louisiana by the United States in 1803. Research Treaty of San Ildefonso
Celestine II was a pope. He was a native of Tuscany, who had studied under Abelard, filled the papal chair for five months in 1143 to 1144. He granted absolution to Louis VII of France, and removed the interdict which for three years was laid upon that country. Research Celestine II
Christoph Willibald Ritter Von Gluck was a German composer of operas. He was born in 1714 at Bavaria and died in 1787. When a boy he became a chorister, and acquired some skill on the harpsichord and organ. At eighteen years of age he went to Prague to enter the university, where he maintained himself by the exercise of his musical gifts.
By degrees he attracted the attention of several Bohemian nobles, and Prince Lobkowitz assisted him when he went to Vienna to pursue his musical studies, The Lombardian prince di Melzi then took him to Milan, where he studied under Giovanni Battista Sammartini, a famous organist and composer.
In 1740 he was employed to compose an opera for the court theatre of Milan. The text chosen for him was the Artaxerxes of Metastasio, and the opera was a triumph, in spite of the innovations of style which the author introduced.
In 1742 he wrote Demofoonte for Milan; Demetrio and Ipermnestra for Venice; in 1743 Artamene for Cremona, and Siface for Milan; in 1744 Fedra for the same theatre;
and in 1745 Allessandro nell' Indie for Turin, all founded on classical subjects. Invited to London, he produced La Caduta de Giganti (Fall of the Giants), which was not a success. In London Gluck became deeply impressed with the majestic character of Handel's airs and choruses, and with the simple but natural dramatic style of Dr. Arne. This visit to London, and a short trip to Paris, helped to develop that lyric genius which was destined to create a new order of musical composition.
After producing many pieces of the usual class of opera at Paris, Vienna, Rome, and Naples, he returned to Vienna. The Trionfo di Glelia (1762) was the last of his operas in his first style. However well pleased the public was with his music, he was not so. He felt himself continually cramped by the character of the libretti of Metastasio, who had hitherto furnished him with texts, which were rather lyrical dramatic poems than genuine dramas. The composer at last found a poet in the person of Raniero Calzabigi, who sympathized with him in his ideas, and the result of their co-operation was the Orfeo ed Euridice, performed publicly for the first time in 1762. This opera marked a new era. The fame it acquired at once it never lost. Various works of lighter character filled up the interval between this year and 1766, when his second great opera of Alceste was produced, which raised public feeling to the point of enthusiasm.
In his dedication of this work to the Grand-duke Leopold of Tuscany he enunciates the principles of the new school, which shortly were that the opera should be a musical drama, not a concert in costume; that the text must be descriptive of real passion; that the music must voice fully the spirit of the text; that in accompaniments the instruments must be used to strengthen the expression of the vocal parts by their peculiar characters, or to heighten the general dramatic effect by employing them in contrast to the voice. Gluck now became convinced that his system must be tested on a wider field, and believed that the Royal Opera in Paris offered all a composer could demand. A Frenchman of culture and genius, Bailly du Rollet, adapted Racine's Iphigenie en Aulide for musical treatment, and after a considerable amount of opposition from the musical critics of the old Italian and French school, at that time represented in Paris by Piccini, the piece was brought out in 1774. The intensest excitement prevailed; all Paris took sides, and for a long time the Gluckists and Piccinists contended with much bitterness, but ultimately the victory remained with the Gluckists.
Shortly after the production of the Iphigenie, the Orfeo was adapted for and put on the French stage, and was followed by the Armide in 1777, by the Iphigenie en Tauride in 1779, Gluck's last important work, and by many considered his greatest. It ends the series of works which gave a direction to the operatic genius of Mehul and Cherubini in France, and of Mozart and Beethoven in Germany. Research Christoph Von Gluck
Faustus Socinus was an Italian theologian. He was born in 1539 at Siena and died in 1604. Poorly educated, he wandered for a while in France and Switzerland before entering the service of the daughter of the grand duke of Tuscany. Having studied theology for three years at Basel, in 1579 he went to Poland, where he vigorously promulgated his rationalistic and anti-Trinitarian views, especially at the Synod of Brest Litovsk. His book, 'On Jesus Christ the Servant' published in 1598 caused a riot in Krakow during which he was almost killed. Research Faustus Socinus
Francesco Berni was an Italian burlesque poet. He was born in 1497 at Tuscany and died in 1536. He took orders, and about 1530 became a canon of the FlorenceCathedral, where he lived until his death in 1536. A vague story asserts that Francesco Berni, who was intimate with both Alessandro de'Medici and Ippolito de'Medici, was requested by each to poison the other, and that on his refusal he was poisoned himself by Alessandro. He takes the first place among the Italian comic poets. He wrote good Latin verses, and his rifacimento of Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato is an admirable work of its class. Research Francesco Berni
Galileo Galilee was an Italian physicist. He was born in 1564 at Pisa and died in 1642. The son of a Florentine nobleman, his father intended him to go into medicine and procured for him an excellent education in literature and the arts, and in 1581 he entered the University of Pisa.
At nineteen the swinging of a lamp in Pisacathedral led him to investigate the laws of the oscillation of the pendulum, which he subsequently applied in the measurement of time; and in 1586 the works of Archimedes suggested his invention of the hydrostatic balance. He now devoted his attention exclusively to mathematics and natural science, and in 1589 was made professor of mathematics in the University of Pisa.
In 1592 he was appointed professor of mathematics in Padua, where he continued eighteen years, and his lectures acquired European fame. Here he made the important discovery that the spaces through which a body falls, in equal times, increase as the numbers 1, 3, 5, 7. If he did not invent he improved the thermometer, and made some interesting observations on the magnet. To the telescope, which in Holland remained not only imperfect but useless, he gave a new importance. He noted the irregularity of the moon's surface, and taught his scholars to measure the height of its mountains by their shadow.
A particular nebula he resolved into individual stars, and conjectured that the Milky Way might be resolved in the same manner. His most remarkable discovery was that of Jupiter's satellites in 1610, and he observed, though imperfectly, the ring of Saturn. He also detected the sun's spots, and inferred, from their regular advance from east to west, the rotation of the sun, and the inclination of its axis to the plane of the ecliptic.
In 1610 Cosmo II, grand-duke of Tuscany, appointed him grand-ducal mathematician and philosopher, and with increased leisure he lived sometimes in Florence, and sometimes at the country seat of his friend Salviata, where he gained a decisive victory for the Copernican system by the discovery of the varying phases of Mercury, Venus, and Mars. In 1611 he visited Rome for the first time, where he was honourably received; but on his return to Florence he became more and more involved in controversy, which gradually took a theological turn.
The, monks preached against him, and in 1616 he found himself again obliged to proceed to Rome, where he is doubtfully said to have pledged himself to abstain from promulgating his astronomical views. In 1623 Galileo replied to an attack upon him in his Saggiatore, a masterpiece of eloquence, which drew upon him the fury of the Jesuits. In 1632, with the permission of the pope, he published a dialogue expounding the Copernican system as against the Ptolemaic. A congregation of cardinals, monks, and mathematicians, all sworn enemies of Galileo, examined his work, condemned it as highly dangerous, and summoned him before the tribunal of the Inquisition. The veteran philosopher was compelled to go to Rome early in 1633, and was condemned to renounce upon his knees the truths he had maintained. At the moment when he arose, he is said (but this is doubtful) to have exclaimed, in an undertone, stamping his foot, 'E pur si muove!' (and yet it moves!). Upon this he was sentenced to the dungeons of the Inquisition for an indefinite time, and every week, for three years, was to repeat the seven penitential psalms of David. After a few days' detention his sentence of imprisonment was commuted to banishment to the villa of the Grand-duke of Tuscany at Rome, and then to the archiepiscopal palace at Sienna.
He was afterwards allowed to return to his residence at Arcetri, near Florence, where he employed his last years principally in the study of mechanics and projectiles. The results are found in two important works on the laws of motion, the foundation of the present system of physics and astronomy. At the same time he tried to make use of Jupiter's satellites for the calculation of longitudes; and though he brought nothing to perfection in this branch, he was the first who reflected systematically on such a method of fixing geographical longitudes. He was at this time afflicted with a disease in his eyes, one of which was wholly blind and the other almost useless, when, in 1637, he discovered the libration of the moon.
Domestic troubles and disease embittered the last years of Galileo's life. After his death his remains were ultimately deposited in the church of Sta. Croce, at Florence. Research Galileo
Giovanni Battista Guarini was an Italian poet. He was born in 1537 at Ferrara and died in 1612. After having studied at Ferrara, Pisa, and Padua, and lectured in his native city on Aristotle, he entered the service of Duke Alphonso II of Ferrara, who sent him on various important missions. Having lost the favour of the prince he retired into private life, but was recalled in 1585 to the office of secretary of state. Two years after he retired a second time. In 1597 he entered the service of Ferdinand I, grand-duke of Tuscany, a post which he soon resigned. His propensity to litigiousness necessitated his residence at Venice, Padua, and Rome. In 1605 he went as an ambassador of his native city to the court of Rome, to congratulate Paul V on his elevation. Guarini is one of the most elegant authors of Italy, as is especially shown in his Pastor Fido (Faithful Shepherd), a famous pastoraldrama. Research Giovanni Guarini
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Amedei
