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Title
A name given to the resource
Maths, Politics & Concrete: The Legacy of the Classical World. Online exhibition
Description
An account of the resource
The classicist Richard Hingley wrote ‘the Classical past retains a highly significant relationship to the present’. It is true that no cultural tradition develops in a vacuum and we are all influenced by those who have gone before us. The exhibition Maths, Politics and Concrete: The Legacy of the Classical World aims to highlight some of the influences that the ancient Greeks and Romans have had on western civilisation. Mathematics, democracy, medicine, literature, philosophy, law, architecture and engineering are just some of the areas where western cultural heritage owes much to classical Greece and Rome.
With the reintroduction of many ancient texts to Renaissance Europe, Classical Studies enjoyed a resurgence in the 14th century and consequently, in the 18th and 19th centuries it became central to, what was thought to be, a ‘good’ education. The latter part of the 20th century saw a decline in classical studies as part of mainstream education. Now, however, more than ever before, we have more resources and technology available that enable us to study and appreciate the ancient world of the Greeks and Romans and remind ourselves of some of our cultural roots.
From Homer’s Odyssey and the nascent secular intellectualism of the early Greek philosophers, to the recipe for concrete and the perfection of archway construction, the Classical World has left a legacy which we now take for granted. The exhibition features works by, among others, Ovid, Apollonius, Archimedes, Xenophon and Marcus Aurelius – names not necessarily familiar to all but ones which have definitely shaped the past and are still very important today. Please enjoy yourself as you view volumes from Special Collections and take time to discover how the ancient world has impacted on yours.
*Every effort has been made to contact copyright owners of the images displayed in this online exhibition. If any issues arise from their display, please contact Special Collections, University of Otago, special.collections@otago.ac.nz
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Various collectors
Dublin Core
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Abstract
A summary of the resource.
Publius Vergilius Maro (70-19 BC), or Virgil, was born in the Lombardy region of Italy (at the top of the ‘boot’) and educated in Milan and Rome. Even though Roman writers tended to imitate Greek authors, and Virgil did indeed capitalise on Homer’s <em>Iliad</em> and <em>Odyssey</em>, the<em> Aeneid</em> is a remarkable work in its own right. Virgil is described as having ‘made a unique contribution to the history and culture of the West’ (Griffin) and his<em> Aeneid</em> was widely read by his contemporaries and studied as part of a typical Roman education. The legacy and influence of Virgil’s <em>Aeneid</em> endures in the works of Bede (d. 735 AD), Dante (d. 1321), Milton (d. 1674), T. S. Eliot (d. 1965) and many others.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Virgil
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Oxford: Oxford University Press
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2008
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Private Collection. (<em>Every effort has been made to contact copyright owners of the images displayed in this online exhibition. If any issues arise from their display, please contact Special Collections, University of Otago, special.collections@otago.ac.nz</em>)
Title
A name given to the resource
Aeneid
Greek
Roman
Virgil
-
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Title
A name given to the resource
Maths, Politics & Concrete: The Legacy of the Classical World. Online exhibition
Description
An account of the resource
The classicist Richard Hingley wrote ‘the Classical past retains a highly significant relationship to the present’. It is true that no cultural tradition develops in a vacuum and we are all influenced by those who have gone before us. The exhibition Maths, Politics and Concrete: The Legacy of the Classical World aims to highlight some of the influences that the ancient Greeks and Romans have had on western civilisation. Mathematics, democracy, medicine, literature, philosophy, law, architecture and engineering are just some of the areas where western cultural heritage owes much to classical Greece and Rome.
With the reintroduction of many ancient texts to Renaissance Europe, Classical Studies enjoyed a resurgence in the 14th century and consequently, in the 18th and 19th centuries it became central to, what was thought to be, a ‘good’ education. The latter part of the 20th century saw a decline in classical studies as part of mainstream education. Now, however, more than ever before, we have more resources and technology available that enable us to study and appreciate the ancient world of the Greeks and Romans and remind ourselves of some of our cultural roots.
From Homer’s Odyssey and the nascent secular intellectualism of the early Greek philosophers, to the recipe for concrete and the perfection of archway construction, the Classical World has left a legacy which we now take for granted. The exhibition features works by, among others, Ovid, Apollonius, Archimedes, Xenophon and Marcus Aurelius – names not necessarily familiar to all but ones which have definitely shaped the past and are still very important today. Please enjoy yourself as you view volumes from Special Collections and take time to discover how the ancient world has impacted on yours.
*Every effort has been made to contact copyright owners of the images displayed in this online exhibition. If any issues arise from their display, please contact Special Collections, University of Otago, special.collections@otago.ac.nz
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Various collectors
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Abstract
A summary of the resource.
There is no doubt that Greek culture was greatly influenced by others, especially those from the East and while it is necessary to remember this eastern influence, ancient Greece did develop its own unique culture. After the Battle of Corinth in 146 BC, Greece was finally brought under the control of Rome and despite being defeated,<strong> ‘Greece, the captive, made her savage victor captive, and brought the arts into rustic Latium</strong>’ (Horace, line 156-7 above). The Romans deeply admired the culture of the Greeks and thought it worth emulating. Greek intellectuals came to live in Rome and many children from elite Roman families had Greek tutors. Indeed, ‘by 133 [BC] probably most educated Romans were bilingual’ (Scullard). Horace (65-8 BC), himself a Roman, was educated in Athens.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Horace
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
London: Heinemann
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1947
Identifier
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Brasch PA6393 S2
Title
A name given to the resource
Satires, Epistles and Ars Poetica
Greek
Horace
Roman
-
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Title
A name given to the resource
Unpacking Ruins: architecture from antiquity. Online exhibition
Description
An account of the resource
12 September - 28 November 2002 ~ de Beer Gallery
Central Library, University of Otago
Through the last five hundred years, ancient ruins have been uncovered, rediscovered and reinterpreted. They have provoked architectural inspiration. They have been studied to develop and support theories on how to build and how to value building. They have prompted reflection upon the end of Empire and upon the demise of civilization. In turn, they have provoked thoughts of future civilizations rising.
This exhibition of books and prints of the last four centuries traces changes in the way the West has related to the architecture of antiquity. Works displayed are from the collections of the University of Otago Library. Through text and illustrations the exhibition ponders how the material of the past has variously been unpacked and repackaged.
To unpack - to undo or open, to bring something out of storage.
Ruins, the weathered fragments speak of loss. They tell of the buildings that once were, of the people who made them, and of the cultures from which they arose. They tell of destruction, abandonment and decay. When viewing the larger volumes displayed in this exhibition one cannot help but feel a profound sense of absence. One may be filled with a longing for the past, or could be drawn to reflect upon the inevitably of the future. However, absence and loss are not the intended focus of the exhibition. Rather it is to chronicle how people have attempted to make sense of the ruins, how they have represented them, and how they have used them to understand the times in which they lived.
These volumes, selected from the Special Collections at the University of Otago Library reveal how ruins and fragments of antiquity have been variously cited over the last five hundred years. The 16th century edition of Vitruvius is evidence of the Renaissance search for an authentic voice from antiquity. Works from the century following present theoretical arguments and the search for architectural perfection, with surviving buildings, ruins and texts being compared and debated. Similar analysis has continued long after these works appeared. It is also apt to compare them with the text by Le Corbusier who returned to his youthful perceptions in Greece, Turkey and Italy for inspiration, example and origin.
Travel guides reveal how existing remains became part of the visual vocabulary of the 17th and 18th centuries. Authoritative accounts by British architect-travelers of ruins in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East were published as large folios between 1750 and 1850. The works of Wood and Dawkins in the Levant, of Stuart and Revett in Athens, of Adam in Dalmatia and of Cameron in Italy, follow the scientific archaeological approach of the Frenchman Desgodets. However these journeys were romantic and at times, fanciful, explorations as well. In the published volumes, travelers presented the surviving fragments and reconstituted them into reinvented larger works. In doing so, they changed the Western understanding of architecture and its day-to-day practice.
In considering the fall of empires in the late 18th century, it was inevitable that the survey of ruins would prompt reflection on the future of the West. In 1774 Horace Walpole wrote to Horace Mann,
"The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will perhaps be a Thucylides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and in time a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last some curious traveller from Lima, will visit England, and give a description of the ruins of St Paul's, like editions of Baalbec and Palmyra."
It is not surprising that sixty years later, at a time when the colonisation of New Zealand was actively debated in the Houses of Parliament, Macaulay would speculate upon a future New Zealander surveying the ruins of London. Doré's romantic image of the Mäori, draped in Renaissance gown and sketching, recalls illustrations of Wood and Stuart in the East, and it confirms the city in the line of great imperial centres. However the figure seated on the ruins of London Bridge may have seemed oddly chilling to the Victorian viewers.
The cutaway view of the Bank of England drawn by Joseph Gandy (in the vitrine outside the gallery) may have prompted a similar response. It presents the completed structure opened, clean, and viewed from the eye of God. The sunlit ruin appears timeless.
As well as being an emblem of transience, ruins signal persistence over time. It is this sense of permanence, or at least of a very slow decay, that perhaps provokes a continuing fascination and a pleasure that some recent writers have found in the them.
This exhibition has been curated by Robin Skinner of the School of Architecture, Victoria University Wellington. He was assisted by Elizabeth Tinker, Catherine Robertson and Sarah Jones of the Reference Department of the University of Otago Library.
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Tvtte l'opere d'archittetvra, et prospetiva
Alternative Title
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Tvtte l'opere d'archittetvra, et prospetiva, di Sebastiano Serlio, Bolognese, dove si mettono in disegno tvtte le maniere di edificij, e si trattano di quelle cose, che sono piu necessarie a sapere gli architetti. Con la aggivnta delle inventioni di cinqvanta porte, e gran numero di palazzi publici, e priuati nella citta, & in villa, e varij accidenti, che possono occorrere nel fabricare. Diviso in sette libri. Con vn'indice copiosissimo con molte considerationi, & vn breue discorso sopra questa materia, raccolto da M. Gio. Domenico Scamozzi Vicentino.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Architecture
Illustrated books
Description
An account of the resource
In his seven-volume Tutte l'opere d'architettura that first appeared in 1584, Serlio aimed to provide a practical manual of architecture while avoiding explicit theory. As such the work became one of the most influential of all publications on architecture. The third book which is displayed here, was first printed in 1540. In it Serlio documents and discusses Roman and Renaissance architecture. He measured and reconstructed partial ruins. Serlio did not doubt the value of the lessons from antiquity. In acknowledging that the work of the Greeks was superior to the Romans, he prepared the way for debate in subsequent centuries.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Serlio, Sebastiano
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
G. de' Franceschi: [Venetia]
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1619
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Scamozzi, Giovanni Domenico
Franceschi, Giacomo de'
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Illustrations
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Itb 1619 S [de Beer Special Collections]
Antiquity
Architecture
Renaissance
Roman
Ruins
Special Collections