Trajan’s Forum and Market: A Roman Architectural Marvel
Trajan’s Forum: An Architectural Wonder of Ancient Rome
Trajan’s Forum was built by order of Emperor Trajan with the spoils of war from the conquest of Dacia, which ended in 106 AD.1 Records indicate that the Forum was inaugurated in 112 AD, a year before Trajan’s Column. The construction of this monumental complex required extensive excavations. Workers removed the sides of the Quirinal and Capitoline Hills, which closed the valley occupied by the Imperial Forums to the Campus Martius.
It is possible
Read MoreRamon Llull, Catalan Chronicles, and Tirant lo Blanc
Ramon Llull
Ramon Llull (1232-1316) was born in Mallorca into a noble family. He devoted himself to troubadour love poetry. Around the age of 30, he experienced a profound personal and spiritual crisis that led to a radical change in his life. He retired to Randa for nine years, devoted to study, to prepare for the mission he believed Jesus had entrusted to him. This mission became a program of action with three objectives:
- Converting unbelievers to Christianity.
- Writing books that demonstrated Christian
Medieval Spanish Literature: Lyrical and Epic Poetry
Medieval Spanish Lyrical Poetry
Lyrical poetry served as a medium for poets to express their subjectivity, inner feelings, and personal experiences. Popular lyrical texts were often anonymous and transmitted orally. Written texts are preserved in Mozarabic, derived from the Latin language spoken by Christians within the territory occupied by Muslims.
Mozarabic Lyrical
Some folk songs were collected at the end of longer poems written in Arabic or Hebrew. These compositions were called moaxajas. The
Read More17th Century Spanish Baroque Poetry: Themes and Styles
17th Century Spanish Baroque Poetry
The Baroque poets reflect the contradiction between the ideal and light classical revival and a new pessimistic and disillusioned outlook.
Themes in Baroque Poetry
Love remains the favorite theme, but it is linked to a reflection on the transience of life, death, and the passage of time.
The passage of time is reflected in the short life of the rose and the lily, and in ancient ruins.
They continue using mythological themes, but choose tragic stories starring an antihero.
Read MoreSpanish Novels: 1940s-1950s and Novecentismo Analysis
The Novel of the 1940s
The novel reflects the bitter everyday life and an existential approach. The main themes are loneliness, maladjustment, frustration, and death. Marginal, uprooted, disoriented, and distressed characters abound.
- Camilo José Cela: The Family of Pascual Duarte. This work initiates tremendismo, exploring the story in its most crude aspects: poverty, violence, etc. Pascual Duarte is a peasant dominated by vengeful and violent instincts, who ends up becoming a serial murderer.
- Carmen
Caravaggio’s Final Years: Naples, Melancholy, and Masterpieces
Caravaggio’s Final Years in Naples
Movement heads in different directions, with a diagonal that takes us out of the scene on the opposite side. They are not smooth bodies or envelopes, but have spots that show the beginning of the decomposition of the body.
Naples, October 1609
He lives in the palace of Constance Sforza Colonna, Marchioness of Caravaggio (returns to his origins: his father was an architect of the Sforza family and protected by the Marquis of Caravaggio).
Some of his works were destroyed
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