Browse Items (202 total)

The Kunstkamera is Russia's first museum, established by Peter the Great in St. Petersburg. The edifice was designed in the Petrine baroque style that dominated the constructions of Peter's reign, based on Dutch architectural styles of the era.…

The Marekerk in Leiden is an exceptionally interesting study in how values can impact design when it comes to functional buildings, like churches. This is one of several Lutheran churches built in this style in the Netherlands, where Protestantism…

If the Florence Cathedral is symbolic of the religious architecture of the early Renaissance, then the facade of the Palazzo Pitti, also built by the architect Filippo Brunelleschi, is its secular counterpart. Initially commissioned by a banker and…

The Uffizi complex, while not as ornate or grandiose as many other hallmark examples of Renaissance architecture, encompasses many of the more subtle and social aspects of Renaissance art. It was commissioned by Cosimo de Medici to accommodate the…

The Eggenberg Palace, begun in 1625 by Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg, is a very interesting exhibition of the way one man's life was changed by political power in the context of the Thirty Years' War. Before Hans' alterations, this was a rather modest…

What is now the Royal Palace of Amsterdam was originally inaugurated in 1665 as the Town Hall of the City of Amsterdam, to be the "eighth wonder of the world". With the newfound independence from Spain thanks to the Peace of Westphalia, and with the…

Though Europe in the 18th century was wracked by internal conflict between great powers and there was significant focus among European intellectuals on domestic matters such as economic or agricultural policy, the continent by no means withdrew or…

The Palace of Versailles began its life in 1624 as the hunting lodge of Louis XIII, which he later made into a chateau, moving also to vastly expand the lands of the estate. His successor, Louis XIV, had little interest in the chateau until the early…

The Anatomy Theater in Padua was the first permanent anatomical theater in the world, and it remains preserved today. The room is cylindrical, built on two overlapping floors, with the entrance on the first floor. Surrounding the central table on the…

The Chateau Ferney-Voltaire was the home of Voltaire, one of the French Enlightenment's most memorable and illustrious figures, from 1759 until his death in 1778. When Voltaire acquired the property, the 12th century manor house was in ruins, and the…

Authored by Plato’s student Aristotle, Politics is a collection of writings on different political constitutions (though we have a conception of a constitution as a written document, “political constitution” as used by Aristotle is synonymous with…

According to stories the first discovery of “Jesuit’s bark,” or cinchona bark, occurred in the 17th century. As the story goes a large storm passed through a village in Peru, knocking a number of the branches into a pool of standing water. It…