Explore the vast range of titles available.

Spanish poet, playwright, and novelist Félix Lope de Vega (1562-1635) was a key figure of Golden Age Spanish literature, second only in stature to Cervantes, and is considered the founder of Spain's classical theater.

The Church of San Giuseppe dei Teatini in Palermo, whose construction began in 1619, is a singular structure in the context of 17th and 18th century international architecture. The unconventional formation of the vaulted basilica comprises a series of colossal monolithic columns both in the aisles and at the crossing where the dome is supported on 10m tall columns. The origin of this unique structure had several strands. The construction of the church was made possible by the discovery of a dense limestone called Billiemi at the end of the 16th century in the area around Palermo. It has aesthetic and structural qualities similar to those of marble enabling it to be used to make robust monoliths. This sparked a revolution in the design of columnar basilicas in Sicily, which reached its peak in the Church of San Giuseppe dei Teatini. The visual impression is that of a skeletal structure supported entirely by slender columns. The construction was also made possible thanks to the application of the advanced techniques for lifting monoliths, which Domenico Fontana had devised for moving the Egyptian obelisk to St Peter's Square in the Vatican in Rome, in 1586. Word of the church and its construction soon spread throughout Europe and was hailed by Giacinto Fortunio in 1655 as a \"miracle of architecture\". Drawing on a contemporary unpublished chronicle of the project, this paper presents the first in-depth historical analysis of the construction of this remarkable building which concerns the crucial role of the Billiemi limestone columns.

This chapter discusses the transport of the Vatican Obelisk from the side of St. Peters to the center of the piazza in front. It treats various proposals for this large engineering project, including that of Camillo Agrippa, and it discusses the tract on the topic by Filippo Pigafetta. It describes the procedures and machines developed by Domenico Fontana, the great engineering spectacle that occurred at the lowering of the obelisk from its original place and its erection in the center of the square. It treats the transport of three other obelisks and the repair of the two great columns, Trajan’s Column and the Column of Marcus Aurelius. It discusses the draining of the Pontine Marshes. It treats issues of financing these and other great projects, and describes the floods of 1589, the condition of starvation of the population in the same year, and the hatred that the Roman population held for Sixtus because of his costly building projects.

\"I was tired of the continual abuse,\" [Ercole Vangeli] told officers, according to Ansa news agency. \"My father was even slapped by them. In the end, I couldn't take it any more.\" Although Vangeli said he acted alone, police found two pistols used in the murders - a 9 calibre and a 7.65 calibre - from a nearby farmhouse and arrested his brother, a son, and another relative. The four were charged with murder. Vangeli's friends expressed shock and described him as a \"good man\" dedicated to his family and work. Those who saw him on the day of the killings said he seemed calm and normal. His defence lawyer, Domenico Talotta, a former mayor of Filandari, stressed the importance of \"keeping in mind the entire context\" in which the killings happened, claiming the community was under the control of the 'Ndrangheta crime syndicate.

Pope Sixtus V, who radically transfigured the image and the urban reality of Rome in the late 16th century, created a model that was soon to influence the Paris of Henry of Navarre and the Sun King, and would later help shape cities as distant as London and Berlin, or even Washington, the capital that was supposed to embody a new Rome and a new Versailles. Secondly, he knew how to choose his collaborators. Foremost among these was the architect Domenico Fontana, on whose work the transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque city was firmly hinged. It was Fontana whose urban vision promoted the development of architecture designed to be seen from afar in a wide, sweeping perspective punctuated with columns, obelisks and fountains. Like Haussmann in Paris nearly 300 years later, Fontana saw the need for opening up major new streets in the name of civic magnificence, and this called for substantial engineering skills. Was there, on the part of Sixtus V, self-glorification in all of this? Of course. Popes must be men before they can become saints. The pedestals of Fontana's obelisks were embellished with celebratory inscriptions, and his buildings in their own right were a proclamation of papal bounty and wisdom: the inscription on the gleaming white marble portal of the Vatican Library, for instance; or the Acquedotto [Felice Peretti] (the reference is to the Pope's Christian name) on the Via Pis, to mention but two of myriad examples.

Hopkins reviews Architecture and Royal Presence: Domenico and Giulio Cesare Fontana in Spanish Naples (1592-1627) by Sabina De Cavi and Studi sui Fontana: Una dinastia di architetti ticinesi a Roma tra Manierismo e Barocco edited by Maccello Fagiolo and Giuseppe Bonaccorso.