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giraffiti:

    Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

Fortune Cookie

The active army considers these criminals with horror and contempt. Their acts of vandalism and pillage, their crimes, the German mentality with which they regard Russia--stricken down but not yet surrendered--have alienated from them the entire people.

John Reed     Ten Days That Shook the World

“The senseless attempt of the Bolsheviki is on the eve of complete failure. The garrison is disaffected.... The Ministries are idle, bread is lacking. All factions except a handful of Bolsheviki have left the Congress of Soviets. The Bolsheviki are alone! Abuses of all sorts, acts of vandalism and pillage, the bombardment of the Winter Palace, arbitrary arrests--all these crimes committed by the Bolsheviki have aroused against them the resentment of the majority of the sailors and soldiers. The _Tsentroflot_ refuses to submit to the orders of the Bolsheviki....

John Reed     Ten Days That Shook the World

The attempts which have been made to improve and to imitate this book are not to be numbered. It has been done into verse; it has been done into modern English. The Pilgrimage of Tender Conscience, the Pilgrimage of Good Intent, the Pilgrimage of Seek Truth, the Pilgrimage of Theophilus, the Infant Pilgrim, the Hindoo Pilgrim, are among the many feeble copies of the great original. But the peculiar glory of Bunyan is that those who most hated his doctrines have tried to borrow the help of his genius. A Catholic version of his parable may be seen with the head of the virgin in the title-page. On the other hand, those Antinomians for whom his Calvinism is not strong enough, may study the Pilgrimage of Hephzibah, in which nothing will be found which can be construed into an admission of free agency and universal redemption. But the most extraordinary of all the acts of Vandalism by which a fine work of art was ever defaced was committed in the year 1853. It was determined to transform the _Pilgrim's Progress_ into a Tractarian book. The task was not easy; for it was necessary to make two sacraments the most prominent objects in the allegory, and of all Christian theologians, avowed Quakers excepted, Bunyan was the one in whose system the sacraments held the least prominent place. However, the Wicket Gate became a type of baptism, and the House Beautiful of the eucharist. The effect of this change is such as assuredly the ingenious person who made it never contemplated. For, as not a single pilgrim passes through the Wicket Gate in infancy, and as Faithful hurries past the House Beautiful without stopping, the lesson which the fable in its altered shape teaches, is that none but adults ought to be baptized, and that the eucharist may safely be neglected. Nobody would have discovered from the original _Pilgrim's Progress_ that the author was not a Paedobaptist. To turn his book into a book against Paedobaptism, was an achievement reserved for an Anglo-Catholic divine. Such blunders must necessarily be committed by every man who mutilates parts of a great work, without taking a comprehensive view of the whole. Entry: BUNTING

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 "Bulgaria" to "Calgary"     1910-1911

This picture, the world-famous "Cenacolo" of Leonardo, has been the subject of much erroneous legend and much misdirected experiment. Having through centuries undergone cruel injury, from technical imperfections at the outset, from disastrous atmospheric conditions, from vandalism and neglect, and most of all from unskilled repair, its remains have at last (1904-1908) been treated with a mastery of scientific resource and a tenderness of conscientious skill that have revived for ourselves and for posterity a great part of its power. At the same time its true history has been investigated and re-established. The intensity of intellectual and manual application which Leonardo threw into the work is proved by the fact that he finished it within four years, in spite of all his other avocations and of those prolonged pauses of concentrated imaginative effort and intense self-critical brooding to which we have direct contemporary witness. He painted the picture on the wall in tempera, not, according to the legend which sprung up within twenty years of its completion, in oil. The tempera vehicle, perhaps including new experimental ingredients, did not long hold firmly to its plaster ground, nor that to the wall. Flaking and scaling set in; hard crusts of mildew formed, dissolved and re-formed with changes of weather over both the loosened parts and those that remained firm. Decade after decade these processes went on, a rain of minute scales and grains falling, according to one witness, continually from the surface, till the picture seemed to be perishing altogether. In the 18th century attempts were first made at restoration. They all proceeded on the false assumption, dating from the early years of the 16th century, that the work had been executed in oil. With oil it was accordingly at one time saturated in hopes of reviving the colours. Other experimenters tried various "secrets," which for the most part meant deleterious glues and varnishes. Fortunately not very much of actual repainting was accomplished except on some parts of the garments. The chief operations were carried on by Bellotti in 1726, by Mazza in 1770, and by Barezzi in 1819 and the following years. None of them arrested, some actually accelerated, the natural agencies of damp and disintegration, decay and mildew. Yet this mere ghost of a picture, this evocation, half vanished as it was, by a great world-genius of a mighty spiritual world-event, remained a thing indescribably impressive. The ghost has now been brought back to much of true life again by the skill of the most scrupulous of all restorers, Cavaliere Cavenaghi, who, acting under the authority of a competent commission, and after long and patient experiment, found it possible to secure to the wall the innumerable blistered, mildewed and half-detached flakes and scales of the original work that yet remained, to clear the surface thus obtained of much of the obliterating accretions due to decay and mishandling, and to bring the whole to unity by touching tenderly in with tempera the spots and spaces actually left bare. A further gain obtained through these operations has been the uncovering, immediately above the main subject, of a beautiful scheme of painted lunettes and vaultings, the lunettes filled by Leonardo's hand with inscribed scutcheons and interlaced plait or knot ornaments (_intrecciamenti_), the vaultings with stars on a blue ground. The total result, if adequate steps can be taken to counteract the effects of atmospheric change in future, will remain a splendid gain for posterity and a happy refutation of D'Annunzio's despairing poem, the _Death of a Masterpiece_. Entry: LEONARDO

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 16, Slice 4 "Lefebvre, Tanneguy" to "Letronne, Jean Antoine"     1910-1911

_Physical Features._--Three characteristic physiographic regions are distinctly marked: first the great Colorado Plateau, some 45,000 sq. m. in area, embracing all the region N. and E. of a line drawn from the Grand Wash Cliffs in the N.W. corner of the state to its E. border near Clifton; next a broad zone of compacted mountain ranges with a southern limit of similar trend; and lastly a region of desert plains, occupying somewhat more than the S.W. quarter of the state. The plateau region has an average elevation of 6000-8000 ft. eastward, but it is much broken down in the west. The plateau is not a plain. It is dominated by high mountains, gashed by superb canyons of rivers, scarred with dry gullies and washes, the beds of intermittent streams, varied with great shallow basins, sunken deserts, dreary levels, bold buttes, picturesque mesas, forests and rare verdant bits of valley. In the N.W. there is a giddy drop into the tremendous cut of the Grand Canyon (q.v.) of the Colorado river. The surface in general is rolling, with a gentle slope northward, and drains through the Little Colorado (or Colorado Chiquito), Rio Puerco and other streams into the Grand Canyon. Along the Colorado is the Painted Desert, remarkable for the bright colours--red, brown, blue, purple, yellow and white--of its sandstones, shales and clays. Within the desert is a petrified forest, the most remarkable in the United States. The trees are of mesozoic time, though mostly washed down to the foot of the mesas in which they were once embedded, and lying now amid deposits of a later age. Blocks and logs of agate, chalcedony, jasper, opal and other silicate deposits lie in hundreds over an area of 60 sq. m. The forest is now protected as a national reserve against vandalism and commercialism. Everywhere are evidences of water and wind erosion, of desiccation and differential weathering. This is the history of the mesas, which are the most characteristic scenic feature of the highlands. The marks of volcanic action, particularly lava-flows, are also abundant and widely scattered. Entry: ARIZONA

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Slice 5 "Arculf" to "Armour, Philip"     1910-1911

_The New Empire._--The epithet "new" is generally attached to this period, and "empire" instead of "kingdom" marks its wider power. The glorious XVIIIth Dynasty seems to have been closely related to the XVIIth. Its first task was to crush the Hyksos power in the north-east of the Delta; this was fully accomplished by its founder Ahmosi (dialectically Ahmasi, Amosis or Amasis I.) capturing their great stronghold of Avaris. Amasis next attacked them in S.W. Palestine, where he captured Sharuhen after a siege of three years. He fought also in Syria and in Nubia, besides overcoming factious opposition in his own land. The principal source for the history of this time is the biographical inscription at El Kab of a namesake of the king, Ahmosi son of Abana, a sailor and warrior whose exploits extend to the reign of Tethmosis I. Amenophis I. (Amenhotp), succeeding Amasis, fought in Libya and Ethiopia. Tethmosis I. (c. 1540 B.C.) was perhaps of another family, but obtained his title to the throne through his wife Ahmosi. After some thirty years of settled rule uninterrupted by revolt, Egypt was now strong and rich enough to indulge to the full its new taste for war and lust of conquest. It had become essentially a military state. The whole of the administration was in the hands of the king with his vizier and other court officials; no trace of the feudalism of the Middle Kingdom survived. Tethmosis thoroughly subdued Cush, which had already been placed under the government of a viceroy. This province of Cush extended from Napata just below the Fourth Cataract on the south to El Kab in the north, so that it included the first three nomes of Upper Egypt, which agriculturally were not greatly superior to Nubia. Turning next to Syria, Tethmosis carried his arms as far as the Euphrates. It is possible that his predecessor had also reached this point, but no record survives to prove it. These successful campaigns were probably not very costly, and prisoners, plunder and tribute poured in from them to enrich Egypt. Tethmosis I. made the first of those great additions to the temple of the Theban Ammon at Karnak by which the Pharaohs of the Empire rendered it by far the greatest of the existing temples in the world. The temple of Deir el Bahri also was designed by him. Towards the end of his reign, his elder sons being dead, Tethmosis associated Hatshepsut, his daughter by Ahmosi, with himself upon the throne. Tethmosis I. was the first of the long line of kings to be buried in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings of Thebes. At his death another son Tethmosis II. succeeded as the husband of his half-sister, but reigned only two or three years, during which he warred in Nubia and placed Tethmosis III., his son by a concubine Esi, upon the throne beside him (c. 1500 B.C.). After her husband's death the ambitious Hatshepsut assumed the full regal power; upon her monuments she wears the masculine garb and aspect of a king though the feminine gender is retained for her in the inscriptions. On some monuments of this period her name appears alone, on others in conjunction with that of Tethmosis III., while the latter again may appear without the queen's; but this extraordinary woman must have had a great influence over her stepson and was the acknowledged ruler of Egypt. Tethmosis, to judge by the evidence of his mummy and the chronology of his reign, was already a grown man, yet no sign of the immense powers which he displayed later has come down to us from the joint reign. Hatshepsut cultivated the arts of peace. She restored the worship in those temples of Upper and Lower Egypt which had not yet recovered from the religious oppression and neglect of the Hyksos. She completed and decorated the temple of Deir el Bahri, embellishing its walls with scenes calculated to establish her claims, representing her divine origin and upbringing under the protection of Ammon, and her association on the throne by her human father. The famous sculptures of the great expedition by water to Puoni, the land of incense on the Somali coast, are also here, with many others. At Karnak Hatshepsut laboured chiefly to complete the works projected in the reigns of Tethmosis I. and II., and set up two obelisks in front of the entrance as it then was. One of these, still standing, is the most brilliant ornament of that wonderful temple. A date of the twenty-second year of her reign has been found at Sinai, no doubt counted from the beginning of the co-regency with Tethmosis I. Not much later, in his twenty-second year, Tethmosis III. is reigning alone in full vigour. While she lived, the personality of the queen secured the devotion of her servants and held all ambitions in check. Not long after her death there was a violent reaction. Prejudice against the rule of a woman, particularly one who had made her name and figure so conspicuous, was probably the cause of this outbreak, and perhaps sought justification in the fact that, however complete was her right, she had in some degree usurped a place to which her stepson (who was also her nephew) had been appointed. Her cartouches began to be defaced or her monuments hidden up by other buildings, and the same rage pursued some of her most faithful servants in their tombs. But the beauty of the work seems to have restrained the hand of the destroyer. Then came the religious fanaticism of Akhenaton, mutilating all figures of Ammon and all inscriptions containing his name; this made havoc of the exquisite monuments of Hatshepsut; and the restorers of the XIXth Dynasty, refusing to recognize the legitimacy of the queen, had no scruples in replacing her names by those of the associate kings Tethmosis I., II. or III. These acts of vandalism took place throughout Egypt, but in the distant mines of Sinai the cartouches of Hatshepsut are untouched. In the royal lists of Seti I. and Rameses II. Hatshepsut has no place, nor is her reign referred to on any later monument.[20] Entry: 1

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 1 "Edwardes" to "Ehrenbreitstein"     1910-1911

Cherchel was a city of the Carthaginians, who named it Jol. Juba II. (25 B.C.) made it the capital of the Mauretanian kingdom under the name of Caesarea. Juba's tomb, the so-called Tombeau de la Chrétienne (see ALGERIA), is 7½ m. E. of the town. Destroyed by the Vandals, Caesarea regained some of its importance under the Byzantines. Taken by the Arabs it was renamed by them Cherchel. Khair-ed-Din Barbarossa captured the city in 1520 and annexed it to his Algerian pashalik. In the early years of the 18th century it was a commercial city of some importance, but was laid in ruins by a terrible earthquake in 1738. In 1840 the town was occupied by the French. The ruins suffered greatly from vandalism during the early period of French rule, many portable objects being removed to museums in Paris or Algiers, and most of the monuments destroyed for the sake of their stone. Thus the dressed stones of the ancient theatre served to build barracks; the material of the hippodrome went to build the church; while the portico of the hippodrome, supported by granite and marble columns, and approached by a fine flight of steps, was destroyed by Cardinal Lavigerie in a search for the tomb of St Marciana. The fort built by Arouj Barbarossa, elder brother of Khair-ed-Din, was completely destroyed by the French. There are many fragments of a white marble temple. The ancient cisterns still supply the town with water. The museum contains some of the finest statues discovered in Africa. They include colossal figures of Aesculapius and Bacchus, and the lower half of a seated Egyptian divinity in black basalt, bearing the cartouche of Tethmosis (Thothmes) I. This statue was found at Cherchel, and is held by some archaeologists to indicate an Egyptian settlement here about 1500 B.C. Entry: CHERCHEL

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 "Châtelet" to "Chicago"     1910-1911

A better use was made of the study of Greek architecture by William Wilkins (1778-1839), who was in his way a great architect, and whose University College (1827-1828), as designed by him, was a noble and dignified building, of which he only carried out the central block with the cupola and portico. The wings were somewhat altered from his design but not materially spoiled, but the university authorities permitted the vandalism of erecting a low building as a partial return of the quadrangle on the fourth side, for the purposes of a mechanical laboratory, which ruined the appearance of the building.[4] Wilkins's other well-known work is the National Gallery (1832-1838), which he was not allowed to carry out exactly as he wished, and in which the cupola and the "pepperpots" are exceedingly poor and weak. But his details, especially the profiles of his mouldings, are admirably refined, and show the influence of a close study of Greek work. Among other prominent English architects of the classic revival in England are Sir Robert Smirke and Decimus Burton (1800-1881). To Burton we owe the Constitution Hill arch and the Hyde Park screen. The latter is a very graceful erection of its kind; the arch has never been completed by the quadriga group which the architect intended as its crowning feature, though for many years it was allowed to be disfigured by the colossal equestrian statue of Wellington, completely out of scale and crushing the structure. Smirke is kept in memory by his fine façade of the British Museum, which has been much criticized for its "useless" colonnades and the wasted space under them. The criticism is hardly just; for classic colonnades have at least some affinity with the purposes of a museum of antique art, and it conveys the impression of being a frontispiece to a building containing something of permanent value and importance. The early classic revival set its mark also, in a very fine and unmistakable manner, on the capital of the sister island. Dublin is almost a museum of fine classic buildings of the period, among which the most remarkable is the present Bank of Ireland (fig. 85), originally begun as the Parliament House. The beginning of the building belongs to the 18th century, but it was not completed in its present form till 1805, and was the work of five successive architects, only one of them, James Gandon (1743-1823), a man of the first importance; but it was Gandon who in 1790 did most to give the building its effective outline on plan, by introducing one of the curved quadrant walls, the building being subsequently finished in accordance with this suggestion. It is a remarkable combination of symmetry and picturesqueness, and as a one-storey classic building is far superior to Soane's Bank of England, with which a comparison is naturally suggested. Gandon's custom house, with its fine central cupola, is another notable example. Edinburgh too can show examples of the classic revival, and bears the title of "modern Athens" as much from her architectural experiments as from her intellectual claims; she illustrates the application of Greek architecture to modern buildings in two really fine examples, the Royal Institution by W.H. Playfair (1780-1857), and the high school by Thomas Hamilton (1784-1858). It was a pity that she added to these the collection of curiosities on the Calton Hill. Entry: A

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Slice 4 "Aram, Eugene" to "Arcueil"     1910-1911

In the forum of Theodosius I. rose a column in his honour, constructed on the model of the hollow columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius at Rome. There also was the Anemodoulion, a beautiful pyramidal structure, surmounted by a vane to indicate the direction of the wind. Close to the forum, if not in it, was the capitol, in which the university of Constantinople was established. The most conspicuous object in the forum of the Bous was the figure of an ox, in bronze, beside which the bodies of criminals were sometimes burnt. Another hollow column, the pedestal of which is now known as Avret Tash, adorned the forum of Arcadius. A column in honour of the emperor Marcian still stands in the valley of the Lycus, below the mosque of Sultan Mahommed the Conqueror. Many beautiful statues, belonging to good periods of Greek and Roman art, decorated the fora, streets and public buildings of the city, but conflagrations and the vandalism of the Latin and Ottoman conquerors of Constantinople have robbed the world of those treasures. Entry: CONSTANTINOPLE

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention"     1910-1911

Owing to the timely submission of the monks to the Turks after the capture of Salonica (1430), their privileges were respected by successive sultans: a tribute is paid to the Turkish government, which is represented by a resident _kaimakam_, and the community is allowed to maintain a small police force. Under the present constitution, which dates from 1783, the general affairs of the commonwealth are entrusted to an assembly ([Greek: oynaxis]) of twenty members, one from each monastery; a committee of four members, chosen in turn, styled _epistatae_ ([Greek: epistatai]), forms the executive. The president of the committee ([Greek: ho protos]) is also the president of the assembly, which holds its sittings in the village of Karyes, the seat of government since the 10th century. The twenty monasteries, which all belong to the order of St Basil, are: Laura ([Greek: ae Laura]), founded in 963; Vatopédi ([Greek: Batopedios]), said to have been founded by the emperor Theodosius; Rossikon ([Greek: 'Rossikon]), the Russian monastery of St Panteleïmon; Chiliándari ([Greek: Chiliantarios]: supposed to be derived from [Greek: chilioi andres] or [Greek: chilia leontaria]), founded by the Servian prince Stephen Nemanya (1159-1195); Iveron ([Greek: ae monae ton Ibaeron]), founded by Iberians, or Georgians; Esphigmenu ([Greek: tou Esphigmenou]: the name is derived from the confined situation of the monastery); Kutlumush ([Greek: Koutloumousae]); Pandocratoros ([Greek: tou Pantokratoros]); Philotheu ([Greek: Philotheou]); Caracallu ([Greek: tou Karakallou]); St Paul ([Greek: tou agiou Paulou]); St Denis ([Greek: tou agiou Dionusiou]); St Gregory ([Greek: tou agiou Graegoriou]); Simópetra ([Greek: Simopetra]); Xeropotámu ([Greek: tou Xaeropotamou]); St Xenophon ([Greek: tou agiou Xenophontos]); Dochiaríu ([Greek: Docheiareiou]); Constamonítu ([Greek: Konstamonitou]); Zográphu ([Greek: tou Zographou]); and Stavronikítu ([Greek: tou Stavronikitou], the last built, founded in 1545). The "coenobian" monasteries ([Greek: koinobia]), each under the rule of an abbot ([Greek: aegoumenos]), are subjected to severe discipline; the brethren are clothed alike, take their meals (usually limited to bread and vegetables) in the refectory, and possess no private property. In the "idiorrhythmic" monasteries ([Greek: idiorrythma]), which are governed by two or three annually elected wardens ([Greek: epitropoi]), a less stringent rule prevails, and the monks are allowed to supplement the fare of the monastery from their private incomes. Dependent on the several monasteries are twelve _sketae_ ([Greek: skaetai]) or monastic settlements, some of considerable size, in which a still more ascetic mode of life prevails: there are, in addition, several farms ([Greek: metochia]), and many hundred sanctuaries with adjoining habitations ([Greek: kellia]) and hermitages ([Greek: askaetaeria]). The monasteries, with the exception of Rossikón (St Panteleïmon) and the Serbo-Bulgarian Chiliándari and Zográphu, are occupied exclusively by Greek monks. The large _skete_ of St Andrew and some others belong to the Russians; there are also Rumanian and Georgian _sketae_. The great monastery of Rossikón, which is said to number about 3000 inmates, has been under a Russian abbot since 1875; it is regarded as one of the principal centres of the Russian politico-religious propaganda in the Levant. The tasteless style of its modern buildings is out of harmony with the quaint beauty of the other monasteries. Furnished with ample means, the Russian monks neglect no opportunity of adding to their possessions on the holy mountain; their encroachments are resisted by the Greek monks, whose wealth, however, was much diminished by the secularization of their estates in Rumania (1864). The population of the holy mountain numbers from 6000 to 7000; about 3000 are monks ([Greek: kalogeroi]), the remainder being lay brothers ([Greek: kosmikoi]). The monasteries, which are all fortified, generally consist of large quadrangles enclosing churches; standing amid rich foliage, they present a wonderfully picturesque appearance, especially when viewed from the sea. Their inmates, when not engaged in religious services, occupy themselves with husbandry, fishing and various handicrafts; the standard of intellectual culture is not high. A large academy, founded by the monks of Vatopedi in 1749, for a time attracted students from all parts of the East, but eventually proved a failure, and is now in ruins. The muniment rooms of the monasteries contain a marvellous series of documents, including chrysobulls of various emperors and princes, _sigilla_ of the patriarchs, _typica_, iradés and other documents, the study of which will throw an important light on the political and ecclesiastical history and social life of the East from the middle of the 10th century. Up to comparatively recent times a priceless collection of classical manuscripts was preserved in the libraries; many of them were destroyed during the War of Greek Independence (1821-1829) by the Turks, who employed the parchments for the manufacture of cartridges; others fell a prey to the neglect or vandalism of the monks, who, it is said, used the material as bait in fishing; others have been sold to visitors, and a considerable number have been removed to Moscow and Paris. The library of Simopetra was destroyed by fire in 1891, and that of St Paul in 1905. There is now little hope of any important discovery of classical manuscripts. The codices remaining in the libraries are for the most part theological and ecclesiastical works. Of the Greek manuscripts, numbering about 11,000, 6618 have been catalogued by Professor Spyridion Lambros of Athens; his work, however, does not include the MSS. in some of the _sketae_, or those in the libraries of Laura and Vatopedi, of which catalogues (hitherto unpublished) have been prepared by resident monks. The canonic MSS. only of Vatopedi and Laura have been catalogued by Benessevich in the supplement to vol. ix. of the _Bizantiyskiy Vremennik_ (St Petersburg, 1904). The Slavonic and Georgian MSS. have not been catalogued. Apart from the illuminated MSS., the mural paintings, the mosaics, and the goldsmith's work of Mount Athos are of infinite interest to the student of Byzantine art. The frescoes in general date from the 15th or 16th century: some are attributed by the monks to Panselinos, "the Raphael of Byzantine painting," who apparently flourished in the time of the Palaeologi. Most of them have been indifferently restored by local artists, who follow mechanically a kind of hieratic tradition, the principles of which are embodied in a work of iconography by the monk Dionysius, said to have been a pupil of Panselinos. The same spirit of conservatism is manifest in the architecture of the churches, which are all of the medieval Byzantine type. Some of the monasteries were seriously damaged by an earthquake in 1905. Entry: ATHOS

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Slice 8 "Atherstone" to "Austria"     1910-1911

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