The painter Cimabue's Madonna and Jesus, in Louvre Museum, Paris Who was Cimabue? The painter Cimabue (really Cenno di Pepe, but people call him Cimabue) was born in Florence, Italy, [...]
Façade of Pisa's Duomo We call this kind of building Romanesque because it is a little like Roman architecture, with its columns and round arches. But people built Romanesque buildings around 1000-1200 AD instead [...]
The baptistery of Pisa, Italy When did Pisa build their baptistery? This baptistery is where people baptized their children in medieval Pisa (PEE-za), in Italy. The people of Pisa built their round [...]
The Duomo in Florence (cathedral) Why did Florence want a new cathedral? The Republic of Florence started to plan this cathedral in the late 1200s AD, when Dante was growing up, to replace the old cathedral from [...]
Florence baptistery: the Romanesque baptistery in Florence, Italy Earlier Florence baptistery (700 AD) Probably people had built an earlier, smaller octagonal baptistery here around 700 AD. This is where Catholic priests baptized Christian [...]
Ur was an early city-state. This is the Standard of Ur, from West Asia (2000 BC) What is a city-state? A city-state is like a very small country, with just [...]
History of Democracy: The Pnyx, where Athenian men debated issues and voted What is democracy? Democracy means the rule of the people (in Greek). That is where each individual person [...]
Dome history: the Pantheon (Rome, ca. 120 AD) Okay, you've learned how to build an arch. Now suppose you want to make a dome. How would you do that using [...]
