Royal Exhibition Building (Melbourne, Australia)

Posted on 2 November, 2019 by Benjie Layug — 6 Comments ↓

Royal Exhibition Building

We took a break from our tour of the Melbourne Museum and proceeded to the foyer, with other tourists, to meet up with our guide for the 2 PM tour of the adjacent Royal Exhibition Building (“the REB”), the largest item in Museum Victoria’s collection. It was drizzling when we crossed over to the other side.The building, sitting on 64 acres at the north-eastern edge of the central business district, is 150 m. long and is flanked by Victoria, Carlton and Rathdowne Streets. When we arrived, the Great Hall was being set up for a scheduled exam, with desks being arranged.

Check out “Melbourne Museum” and “Carlton Gardens”

Here are some interesting trivia regarding this building:

It is the first building in Australia to be awarded UNESCO World Heritage status, being one of the last remaining major 19th-century exhibition buildings in the world.
The building is the largest design of Reed and Barnes Architecture.
When electric lighting was installed in 1888 for the Centennial International Exhibition, it became one of the first in the world that was accessible during night time.
It is the world’s most complete surviving site from the International Exhibition movement 1851–1914
The building is one of the world’s oldest remaining exhibition pavilions
When it was built, the Great Hall was the largest building in Australia, and the highest building in Melbourne.

Plaque Commemorating the Laying of the Foundation Stone

This building, built in 1879-80 as part of the international exhibition movement (between 1851 and 1915, it presented over 50 exhibitions around the globe), is representative of the money and pride Victoria had in the 1870s.

Plaque Commemorating the Centenary of the Melbourne Museum

Designed by architect Joseph Reed of Reed and Barnes Architecture (they also designed the Melbourne Town Hall, the State Library of Victoria and the Baroque style gardens), the Royal Exhibition Building is composed of brick, timber, steel and slate.

The building’s soaring dome

Its soaring dome was modeled on Brunelleschi’s dome at the 15^th century Florence Cathedral while the main pavilions were influenced by the style of Rundbogenstil (a round-arched architectural style combining elements from Byzantine, Romanesque, Lombardic and Italian Renaissance buildings) and several buildings from Normandy, Caen and Paris.

The building, with the scale of the French Beaux Arts, has a Latin cross-shaped cruciform plan. The long, nave-like wings are symmetrically placed east-west about the central dome with a shorter wing to the north.

Grace and Jandy in front of the building

The building consists of a Great Hall, of over 12,000 sq. m., flanked by lower annexes to the north on the east and west sides, and many temporary galleries between. The Great Hall, still in beautiful condition, is crowned by an octagonal drum and dome.

The Great Hall

The dome, rising 68 m. and 18.3 m. across, has a double shell and was formed using a cast iron and timber frame. There was a viewing platform around the dome that allowed visitors to survey the progress of the booming city. Windows in the drum of the dome, at the crossing, bring in sunlight for a bright open space.

Our tour guide

The sober interior, painted in the color scheme of 1901, has murals. The great dome, painted to represent the sky, has the words (surviving from 1888) “Victoria Welcomes All Nations” underneath plus four mottos suitable for a new nation: Dei gracia (“By the Grace of God”), Carpe diem (“Seize the Day”), Aude sapere (“Dare to be Wise”) and Benigno numine (“With Benign Power”). A frieze shows the products of agriculture and hints at the wealth of the new nation.

Pendentive: Hercules

Pendentive: Venus

At the pendentives are the mythological figures of Hercules, Venus, Mars and Mercury while on the arches are lunettes (half-moon shaped spaces where the arches meet cornices) rich with allegorical symbolism representing The Arts Applied to Peace in the north, The Arts Applied to War in the south, Federation (showing Britannia welcoming the six federated states as young women) at the west and Government (showings Knowledge enthroned, surrounded by figures representing the arts, education and defense) in the east.

Lunette: Arts Applied to Peace (North)

Lunette: Government (East)

Eight women, in draped costumes, symbolize the Four Seasons, Night and Morning, and Justice and Truth. Under the dome are plaster heads (including an Indigenous Australian, a Chinese man, and an Indian) from the first decorative scheme of 1880.

Lunette: Arts Applied to War (South)

Lunette: Federation (West)

Throughout the 20th century, smaller sections and wings of the building were subject to demolition and fire. However, the main building, known as the Great Hall, survived.

Justice

Throughout the 1990s and in 2004, it received restoration. Renovations include the timber flooring, building services, externals, and stonework. For safety, most timber staircases have been replaced by concrete. Through all renovations though, the site has continued to be very authentic.

Truth

Here is the historical timeline of the building:

On December 1877, a completion was announced for the design of a suitable building for Melbourne’s proposed international exhibition. Eighteen entries were received and the winner was Joseph Reed
On February 19, 1879, the foundation stone was laid by Victorian governor George Bowen.
Built by David Mitchell (who also built Scots’ Churchand St Patrick’s Cathedral), it was completed in just 18 months.
On October 1, 1880, it was opened by the Marquess of Normanby, the governor, the Melbourne International Exhibition. The walls then were left bare and windows and door joinery colored green.
In 1885, an aquarium, museum and picture gallery was opened at eastern annex of the Exhibition Building.
On August 1, 1888, the building hosted the Centennial International Exhibition celebrating a century of European settlement in Australia. Its decoration was by interior designer John Ross Anderson (also known for the interior design of the ANZ ‘Gothic’ Bank) and the walls were painted for the first time. The exhibition closed on January 31, 1889.
On May 9, 1901, following the inauguration of the Commonwealth of Australia on January 1, the formal opening of the first Parliament of Australia, witnessed by the Duke of Cornwall and York (later King George V) and 12,000 guests, was held there. After the official opening, the Federal Parliament moved to the Victorian State Parliament House. For the next 26 years, Victorian Parliament moved to the Exhibition Building.
In 1902, the building hosted the Australian Federal International Exhibition.
On February 4, 1919, the Exhibition Building was turned into a hospital to treat Melburnians struck down by the Spanish flu.
In 1948, via a vote by members of the Melbourne City Council, it was narrowly decided not to demolish the building.
In 1953, the wing of the building which once housed Melbourne Aquariumburnt down.
In 1956, it was a venue for the 1956 Summer Olympics, hosting the basketball, weightlifting, wrestling, and the fencing part of the modern pentathlon
In the 1970s, the western annex was demolished.
In 1979, the grand ballroom, the last remaining original annex, was demolished amid controversy.
On October 1, 1980 during a visit to Victoria, Princess Alexandraof Kent unveiled a plaque which commemorated both the opening of the new mirror-glass “Centennial Hall” (which replaced the grand ballroom) and the centenary of the building. She also unveiled a second plaque commemorating the bestowal of the title “Royal” on the building by Her Majesty the Queen.
In 1987, the first conservation assessment of the building was undertaken by Alan Willingham.
On July 1, 2004, the Royal Exhibition Building and Carlton Gardens was granted listing as a World Heritage Site. The heritage listing states that “The Royal Exhibition Building is the only major extant nineteenth-century exhibition building in Australia. It is one of the few major nineteenth-century exhibition buildings to survive worldwide.”
In October 2009, Museum Victoria embarked upon a major project to restore the former German Garden (covered by asphalt in the 1950s for car parking) of the Western Forecourt.

Winter

Still in use today as a commercial exhibition venue, the Royal Exhibition Building hosts various exhibitions and other events on a regular basis such as the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show. It is closely tied with events at the The Melbourne Museum which offers regular tours here.

The dome

The Royal Exhibition Building is also used as an exam hall for the University of Melbourne, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne High School, Nossal High School, Mac.Robertson Girls’ High School and Suzanne Cory High School.

However, the building is no longer Melbourne’s largest commercial exhibition centre. The Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre, located in Southbank to the south of the Melbourne central business district, is the modern alternative.

Royal Exhibition Building: 9 Nicholson St. cor. Victoria Parade, Carlton Gardens, Melbourne 3053, Australia. Admission (purchased at Melbourne Museum): $10 (adults), $8 (concession) and $7 (child/member). Tours may not run when the building is in use for certain events and exhibitions. Tel: 13 11 02.

Statue of Liberty National Monument (New York City, U.S.A.)

Posted on 26 June, 2017 by Benjie Layug — 1 Comment ↓

The iconic Statue of Liberty

Our visit to New York City wouldn’t be complete without visiting its iconic Statue of Liberty. After breakfast at our hotel, we all took a taxi to Battery Park in Lower Manhattan, our gateway to Liberty Island, in Upper New York Bay. Though entrance to the national monument is free, we had to pay the cost (US$25.5 for adults and US$16 for children 4 – 12 years old) for the ferry service that all visitors must use.

A Statue Cruises ferry

Since 2007, Statue Cruises has been operating the transportation and ticketing facilities, replacing Circle Line, which had operated the service since 1953. The ferries also depart from Liberty State Park in Jersey City. After paying up, we all boarded our ferry that would take us to Liberty Island.

L-R: Cheska, Kyle (partly hidden), Grace, Jandy and the author at the third level of the ferry

Our ferry would also stop at Ellis Island, north of Liberty Island, making this a combined trip. Both islands, which comprise the Statue of Liberty National Monument, were ceded by New York to the federal government in 1800. To have best views of the Statue of Liberty, we all sat at the third level. Our sailing time to the island took approximately 15 mins.

Check out “Ellis Island Immigration Museum”

This colossal, Neo-Classical copper sculpture, a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States, was designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and built by Gustave Eiffel. An icon of freedom and of the United States, this statue’s foundation and pedestal was aligned so that it would face southeast, greeting ships entering the harbor from the Atlantic Ocean. Thus, it was a welcoming sight to immigrants arriving from abroad as vessels arriving in New York had to sail past it as they proceeded toward Manhattan.

Liberty Island

Here are some interesting trivia regarding the statue:

This robed female figure, representing Libertas (the Roman goddess of freedom), wears a stola and pella (gown and cloak, common in depictions of Roman goddesses) and holds a torch aloft above her head. In her left arm, she carries a tabula ansata (used to evoke the concept of law) inscribed in Roman numerals with “JULY IV MDCCLXXVI” (July 4, 1776), the date of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. A broken chain, lies at her feet, half-hidden by her robes and difficult to see from the ground.
The statue is one of the earliest examples of curtain wall construction, in which the exterior of the structure is not load bearing, but is instead supported by an interior framework.
The pedestal’s poured concrete walls, up to 20 feet (6.1 m) thick (the concrete mass was the largest poured to that time), was faced with Stony Creek granite blocks (from the Beattie Quarry in Branford, Connecticut).
New York’s first ticker-tape parade was held during the statue’s dedication. The parade route, beginning at Madison Square, proceeded to Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan by way of Fifth Avenue and Broadway, with a slight detour so the parade could pass in front of the World building on Park Row. As the parade passed the New York Stock Exchange, traders threw ticker tape from the windows, beginning the New York tradition of the ticker-tape parade. Estimates of the number of people who watched it ranged from several hundred thousand to a million.
Originally, the statue was a dull copper color but, shortly after 1900, a green patina (also called verdigris) caused by the oxidation of the copper skin, began to spread and, by 1906, had entirely covered the statue. The Army Corps of Engineers studied the patina for any ill effects to the statue and concluded that it protected the skin. The statue was painted only on the inside. The Corps of Engineers also installed an elevator to take visitors from the base to the top of the pedestal.
In 1917, during World War I, images of the statue were heavily used in both recruitment posters and the Liberty Bond drives that urged American citizens to support the war financially. This impressed upon the public the war’s stated purpose—to secure liberty and served as a reminder that embattled France had given the United States the statue.
The statue sustained minor damage (mostly to the torch-bearing right arm) on July 30, 1916, during World War I, when German saboteurs detonated carloads of dynamite and other explosives that were being sent to Britain and France for their war efforts, on the Black Tom peninsula in Jersey City, New Jersey, in what is now part of Liberty State Park, close to Bedloe’s Island. Seven people were killed, the statue was closed for ten days and the cost to repair the statue and buildings on the island was about US$100,000. Since 1916, the narrow ascent to the torch was closed for public safety reasons, and it has remained closed ever since.
In 1929, the only successful suicide in the statue’s history occurred when a man climbed out of one of the windows in the crown and jumped to his death, glancing off the statue’s breast and landing on the base.
The statue was only illuminated every night, all night, beginning in 1957. During World War II, the statue, though open to visitors, was not illuminated at night due to wartime blackouts. It was lit briefly on December 31, 1943, and on D-Day, June 6, 1944, when its lights flashed “dot-dot-dot-dash,” the Morse code for V, for victory. From 1944 to 1945, new, powerful lighting was installed and, beginning on V-E Day, the statue was once again illuminated after sunset. The lighting then was for only a few hours each evening.
In 1946, the interior of the statue within reach of visitors was coated with a special plastic so that graffiti could be washed away.
In 1984, when the statue was closed to the public for renovation, workers erected the world’s largest free-standing scaffold,which obscured the statue from view.
The Statue of Liberty was one of the earliest beneficiaries of cause marketing. Its fundraising arm, the Statue of Liberty–Ellis Island Foundation, Inc., raised more than $350 million in donations.
The statue and the island was closed to the public a number of times. From May to December 1938 and from 1984 to 1986 it was closed for renovation and restoration. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the statue and the island was again closed to the public. The island reopened at the end of 2001, the pedestal in August 2004 and the statue on July 4, 2009 (however, only a limited number of people would be permitted to ascend to the crown each day). The statue, including the pedestal and base, closed on October 29, 2011, for installation of new elevators and staircases and to bring other facilities, such as restrooms, up to code. The statue was reopened on October 28, 2012 but closed again a day later due to Hurricane Sandy. The statue and Liberty Island reopened to the public on July 4, 2013. For part of October 2013, Liberty Island, along with other federally funded museums, parks, monuments, construction projects and buildings, was closed to the public due to the United States federal government shutdown of 2013.
The current torch, installed in 1986, has a flame is covered in 24-caratgold which reflects the sun’s rays in daytime. It is lighted by floodlights at night.
is a frequent subject in popular culture. In music, the statue has been evoked to indicate support for American policies, as in Toby Keith‘s song “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American).” In protest and opposition of the Reagan administration, it appeared on the cover of the Dead Kennedys‘ album Bedtime for Democracy.
In 1942, the torch is the setting for the climax of director Alfred Hitchcock‘s movie Saboteur. In the 1968 picture Planet of the Apes, the statue makes one of its most famous cinematic appearances in which it is seen half-buried in sand. In the 1996 science-fiction film Independence Day, it is knocked over while in the 2008 film Cloverfield, the statue’s head is ripped off.
In Jack Finney‘s time-travel novel Time and Again, the right arm of the statue, on display in the early 1880s in Madison Square Park, plays a crucial role.
Hundreds of replicas of the Statue of Libertyare displayed worldwide. A smaller version of the statue, one-fourth the height of the original and standing on the Île aux Cygnes, facing west toward her larger sister, was given by the American community in Paris to that city. A 9.1 m. (30 ft.) tall replica, which once stood atop the Liberty Warehouse on West 64th Street in Manhattan for many years, now resides at the Brooklyn Museum. From 1949–1952, in a patriotic tribute, the Boy Scouts of America, as part of their Strengthen the Arm of Liberty campaign, donated about 200 replicas of the statue, made of stamped copper and 2,500 mm. (100 in.) in height, to states and municipalities across the United States. During the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, a statue known as the Goddess of Democracy, though not a true replica, was temporarily erected. Similarly inspired by French democratic traditions, the sculptors took care to avoid a direct imitation of the Statue of Liberty. A replica of the statue, as well as other recreations of New York City structures, is also part of the exterior of the New York-New York Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
The Statue of Liberty, as an American icon, has been depicted on the country’s coinage and stamps. It appeared on commemorative coins to mark its 1986 centennial and New York’s 2001 entry in the state quartersIn 1997, an image of the statue was chosen for the American Eagle platinum bullion coins and was placed on the reverse (or tails) side of the Presidential Dollar series of circulating coins. Two images of the statue’s torch appear on the current ten-dollar bill. However, the statue’s intended photographic depiction on a 2010 forever stamp instead proved to be the replica at the Las Vegas casino.
Between 1986 and 2000, New York State issued license plates with an outline of the statue to either the front or the side of the serial number. The Women’s National Basketball Association‘s New York Liberty used both the statue’s name and its image in their logo (however, the torch’s flame doubles as a basketball). Beginning in 1997, the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League depicted the statue’s head on their third jersey. The National Collegiate Athletic Association‘s 1996 Men’s Basketball Final Four, played at New Jersey’s Meadowlands Sports Complex, featured the statue in its logo. The Libertarian Party of the United States also uses the statue in its emblem.

The Statue of Liberty seen from our ferry

Édouard René de Laboulaye, French law professor and politician, president of the French Anti-Slavery Society, a prominent and important political thinker of his time and an ardent supporter of the Union in the American Civil War, was said to have commented in 1865 that any monument raised to U.S. independence would properly be a joint project of the French and U.S. peoples and he inspired Bartholdi to create the statue. Due to the post-war instability in France, work on the statue did not commence until the early 1870s and, in 1875, Laboulaye proposed that the French finance the statue with the U.S. providing the site and building the pedestal.

Frederic Auguste Bartholdi

Before the statue was fully designed, Bartholdi completed the head and the torch-bearing arm. For publicity, the torch-bearing arm was exhibited at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia and, from 1876 to 1882, in Madison Square Park in Manhattan before it was returned to France to join the rest of the statue.

The torch-bearing arm

The head was exhibited at the 1878 Paris World’s Fair. To experience a changing perspective on the statue, Bartholdi gave it bold Classical contours and applied simplified modeling, reflecting the huge scale of the project and its solemn purpose. The statue was first built in France.

The statue’s head

Aside from Bartholdi, the following were also involved in the construction of the statue:

Architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, the chief engineer of the project and Bartholdi’s friend and mentor, designed a brick pier within the statue, to which the skin would be anchored. After consultations with by the Paris firm of Gaget, Gauthier et Cie (Cie is the French abbreviation analogous to Co.), the metalwork foundry, Viollet-le-Duc chose copper sheets, the metal which would be used for the skin, and repoussé, the method used to shape it, in which the sheets were heated and then struck with wooden hammers. An advantage of this choice was that the entire statue would be light for its volume. The head and arm had been built with assistance from Viollet-le-Duc, who fell ill in 1879 and soon died, leaving no indication of how he intended to transition from the copper skin to his proposed masonry pier.
Gustave Eiffel, the innovative designer and builder of the Eiffel Tower, and structural engineer, Maurice Koechlin, decided to abandon the proposed masonry pier and instead build an iron truss To prevent galvanic corrosionbetween the copper skin and the iron support structure, Eiffel insulated the skin with asbestos impregnated with shellac. To make it easier for visitors to reach the observation point in the crown, Eiffel included two interior spiral staircases. He also provided access to an observation platform surrounding the torch. As the pylon tower arose, Eiffel and Bartholdi coordinated their work carefully so that completed segments of skin would fit exactly on the support structure. The components of the pylon tower were built in the Eiffel factory in the nearby Parisian suburb of Levallois-Perret.
Joachim Goschen Giæver, a Norwegian immigrant civil engineer, designed the structural framework for the Statue of Liberty. Working from drawings and sketches produced by Gustave Eiffel, he did the design computations, detailed fabrication and construction drawings, and oversight of construction.
Ferdinand de Lesseps, builder of the Suez Canal, succeeded Laboulaye (upon his death in 1883) as chairman of the French committee.
Richard Morris Hunt designed the pedestal on Bedloe Island. Containing elements of classical architecture, including Doric portals, as well as some elements influenced by Aztec architecture, its large mass is fragmented with architectural detail, in order to focus attention on the statue. In form, it is a truncated pyramid, 19 m. (62 ft.) square at the base and 12 m. (39.4 ft.) at the top, with four sides identical in appearance.
Charles Pomeroy Stone, a former army general, oversaw the construction work on the pedestal.
Frederick Law Olmsted, renowned landscape architect and co-designer of New York’s Central Park and Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, supervised a cleanup of Bedloe’s Island in anticipation of the dedication.
Gutzon Borglum, who later sculpted Mount Rushmore, redesigned the torch, replacing much of the original copper with stained glass.

Check out “Eiffel Tower“

In a symbolic act, the first rivet placed into the skin, fixing a copper plate onto the statue’s big toe, was driven by United States Ambassador to France Levi P. Morton. The completed statue was formally presented to Ambassador Morton at a ceremony in Paris on July 4, 1884. By January 1885, after sufficient progress on the pedestal pedestal (its cornerstone was laid in 1884 and it was completed on April 1886) had occurred, the Statue of Liberty was disassembled and crated for its ocean voyage to New York City on board the French steamer Isère.

Liberty Island Pier

On June 17, 1885, the statue safely reached the New York port, with 200,000 people lining the docks and hundreds of boats putting to sea to welcome the French vessel. Upon arrival, it was assembled on the on what was then called Bedloe’s Island (officially renamed Liberty Island in 1956 by an Act of Congress).

The statue’s pedestal

A dedication ceremony on October 28, 1886, presided over by President Grover Cleveland (a former New York governor), marked the statue’s completion. Until 1901, the statue was administered by the United States Lighthouse Board and then by the Department of War. Since 1933, it has been maintained by the National Park Service. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge used his authority under the Antiquities Act to declare the statue a National Monument.

Liberty Island Pavilion

Diorama of Bartholdi inside pavilion

In 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the statue transferred to the National Park Service (NPS) and, in 1937, the NPS gained jurisdiction over the rest of Bedloe’s Island. In 1965, nearby Ellis Island was made part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument by proclamation of President Lyndon Johnson. In 1984, the Statue of Liberty was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The author with grandson Kyle

At the western end of Liberty Island is a group of statues, all works of Maryland sculptor Phillip Ratner, honoring those closely associated with the Statue of Liberty.

Emma Lazarus

Two Americans— Joseph Pulitzer (publisher of the New York World, a New York newspaper, who announced a drive to raise $100,000 for the statue) and poet Emma Lazarus (whose sonnet, “The New Colossus,” is uniquely identified with the Statue of Liberty)—and three Frenchmen—Bartholdi, Eiffel, and Laboulaye—are depicted.

Grace and Jandy

Kyle and Cheska

The statue has the following physical characteristics:

Height of copper statue – 46 m. (151 ft., 1 in.)
Foundation of pedestal (ground level) to tip of torch – 93 m. (305 ft., 1 in.)
Heel to top of head – 34 m. (111 ft., 1 in.)
Height of hand – 5 m. (16 ft., 5 in.)
Index finger – 2.44 m. (8 ft., 1 in.)
Circumference at second joint – 1.07 m. (3 ft., 6 in.)
Head from chin to cranium – 5.26 m. (17 ft., 3 in.)
Head thickness from ear to ear – 3.05 m. (10 ft.)
Distance across the eye – 0.76 m. (2 ft., 6 in.)
Length of nose – 1.48 m. (4 ft., 6 in.)
Right arm length – 12.8 m. (42 ft.)
Right arm greatest thickness – 3.66 m. (12 ft.)
Thickness of waist – 10.67 m. (35 ft.)
Width of mouth – 0.91 m. (3 ft.)
Tablet, length – 7.19 m. (23 ft., 7 in.)
Tablet, width – 4.14 m. (13 ft., 7 in.)
Tablet, thickness – 0.61 m. (2 ft.)
Height of pedestal – 27.13 m. (89 ft.)
Height of foundation – 19.81 m. (65 ft.)
Weight of copper used in statue – 27.22 tons (60,000 lbs.)
Weight of steel used in statue – 113.4 tons (250,000 lbs.)
Total weight of statue – 204.1 tons (450,000 lbs.)
Thickness of copper sheeting – 2.4 mm. (3/32 of an inch)

Back at Liberty Island Pier for ferry to Ellis Island

Statue of Liberty National Monument: Liberty Island, New York Harbor, New York City 10004, United States.Tel: +1 646 356 2150. Open daily (except December 25), 8:30 AM – 7 PM.

All ferry riders are subject to security screening, similar to airport procedures, prior to boarding. Visitors intending to enter the statue’s base and pedestal must obtain a complimentary museum/pedestal ticket along with their ferry ticket. You can buy tickets online at www.statueoflibertytickets.com.

Those wishing to climb the staircase within the statue to the crown purchase a special ticket, which may be reserved up to a year in advance. A total of 240 people per day are permitted to ascend: ten per group, three groups per hour. Large bags are not allowed on Liberty or Ellis Islands. Backpacks, strollers and large umbrellas are not permitted in the Monument. Climbers may bring only medication and cameras—lockers are provided for other items—and must undergo a second security screening.

Church of Our Lady of the Assumption (Sta. Maria, Ilocos Sur)

Posted on 18 February, 2017 by Benjie Layug — Leave a reply

Santa Maria’s fortress-like, earthquake Baroque-style Church of Our Lady of the Assumption, together with the convent and separate bell tower, were built on roughly 1.25 hectares on a 19 m. (60 ft.) high hill surrounded by a 1.6 m. thick defensive retaining wall on all sides like a fortress, The wall is augmented by stone buttresses every 10 m..

Church of Our Lady of the Assumption

The church is a National Historical Landmark (by virtue of Executive Order nos. 260 on August 1, 1973, 376 on January 14, 1974 and 1515 on June 11, 1978) and was also chosen as a UNESCO World Heritage Site on December 11, 1993 as part of the Baroque Churches of the Philippines, a collection of four Baroque Spanish-era churches.

NHI Plaque

It was probably built by Fr. Alejandro Peyrona before the close of the 18th century, totally burned by fire in 1822, reconstructed in 1824, restored in 1859 by Fr. Lorenzo Rodriguez and finished in 1889 by Fr. Juan Zallo. During the revolution, the church was a rebel stronghold.

The grand stairway

The church is 99 m. (325 ft.) long and 22.7 m. (74 ft.) wide and is approached by climbing a wide 85-step, 4-flight piedra china (granite) stairway, the first and second flight having 20 steps each, the third 22 and the fourth 21 plus two additional steps. The gently rising stairway, with three landings, tapers from 13 m, wide at street level to 1.5 m. narrower at the top. It has a sweeping view of the lower plains and the town of Santa Maria.

View of Sta. Maria town

The simple, solid brick façade, with its three windows and one blind niche, has a recessed arched entrance framed by a pair of exaggerated rectangular pilasters, dividing the whole façade into three well-defined planes, and thick, massive walls with delicately carved side entrances (with few openings) and heavy circular buttresses or corner drums that end up in decorative urn-like finials. A stringcourse extends from one corner drum to the other across the façade, .

Side entrance

The eastern and western side of the outer walls are reinforced by 13 huge quadrangular buttresses, typical of Earthquake Baroque architecture.

Huge quadrangular buttresses typical of Earthquake Baroque architecture

The first buttress from the front is adorned by a huge bas relief, visible as one ascends the front stairway, retelling how the statue of Our Lady of Assumption was found on top of a tree.

According to tradition, the statue was washed up on the beach, undamaged from the wreck of a Spanish galleon. It was installed on the original ermita (chapel) built at the foot of the mountain. It would periodically disappear, only to be subsequently found on the same guava tree on top of the knoll where the church now stands.

Huge relief retelling how the statue of Our Lady of Assumption was found on top of a tree

The middle buttress on the eastern wall (back) is built like a staircase for easy maintenance of the roof, back when thatched roof was the norm in Philippine churches (now lighter corrugated galvanised iron roofing is used).

Middle buttress built like a staircase for easy maintenance of the roof

The main entrance and the blind niche on the curvilinear, cock comb-shaped open pediment (topped by a small cupola) have circular arched forms. Lateral ones have segmental pediments.

The church interior

Inside is a long single nave with 9 pairs of Ionic pilasters dividing the interior elevation into 8 bays. Wind chimes hang from the lamps inside and the huge altar features some fine old tiles. A series of smaller altars, 3 on each side of the apse, flank the main altar. There’s also a pulpit and a lectern. The church houses the statue of the one-meter tall, dark Virgin of Santa Maria.

The main altar

The church pulpit

The celebrated, 4-storey, squat leaning bell tower, consisting of stacked octagonal horizontal cross-sections of decreasing diameter (typical of Earthquake Baroque church towers), stands separately near the middle of the nave. Covered by a dome with balustrade that is capped by a cupola (with a cross on top), this Chinese pagoda-like tower is decorated with single pilasters, finials and blind and real semicircular arched fenestrations. A clock, on the third level, faces the stairway for churchgoers to see.

The 4-storey, octagonal bell tower

The tower was built in 1810, during the renovation of the church, and furnished with a bell the following year. After the bell tower was remodeled in 1863, its foundation gradually settled down and, today, the imposing structure is slightly leaning or tilting.

The currently roofless onvent

Partly blocking the frontal view of the façade of the church and accessible from the church by an elevated stone walkway (underneath which is a gate that leads to the back courtyard) is the convent. Damaged during the 1880 earthquake, it was rebuilt by Fr. Benigno Fernandez and greatly renovated in 1895. An 8 m. high stone fence, erected in 1859 by Fr. Rodriguez, surrounds the buildings.

Part of the 8 m. high wall

From the back courtyard, another wide stairway, similar to the front but on the opposite side (also built by Fr. Rodriguez in 1859), leads down to a brick walkway that leads to an old abandoned circular camposanto (cemetery) at the foot of the hill now overwhelmed by exuberant foliage. Within the brick fence of the cemetery are the ruins of a former old brick chapel (ermita) and old graveyards.

The back stairway

Address: Santa Maria – Burgos Rd,, 2705 Santa Maria, Ilocos Sur. Tel: (075) 732-5568. Feast of Our Lady of the Assumption: August 15.

How to Get There: Sta. Maria is located 369.75 kms. from Manila and 38.25 kms. south of Vigan City.

Villa d’Este – Gardens (Tivoli, Italy)

Posted on 26 May, 2016 by Benjie Layug — Leave a reply

The Garden of Villa d’Este

The palatial setting of Villa d’Este is surrounded by a spectacular terraced garden, in the late-Renaissance Mannerist and Baroque style, which took advantage of the dramatic slope but required innovations in bringing a sufficient water supply, which was employed in cascades, water tanks, troughs and pools, water jets and impressive concentration of fountains, water games. This masterpiece of the Italian Garden is included in the UNESCO world heritage list.

Descending into the garden from the villa

Reviving Roman techniques of hydraulic engineering to supply water to a sequence of fountains, the cardinal created a fantasy garden whose architectural elements and water features had an enormous influence on European landscape design and their garden planning and water features such as fountains, nymphs, grottoes, plays of water and music were much copied in the next two centuries, in European gardens from Portugal to Poland to St. Petersburg. The result is one of the series of great 17th century villas with water-play structures in the hills surrounding the Roman Campagna, such as the Villas Aldobrandini and Torlonia in Frascati; the Villa Lante and the Villa Farnese at Caprarola.

Strolling the gardens

Painter, architect, archaeologist and Classical scholar Pirro Ligorio was commissioned to lay out the gardens for the villa, with the assistance of Tommaso Chiruchi (he had worked on the fountains at Villa Lante) of Bologna, one of the most skilled hydraulic engineers of the sixteenth century. In the technical designs for the fountains, Chiruchi was assisted by Claude Venard, a Frenchman who was a manufacturer of hydraulic organs.
From 1605 Cardinal Alessandro d’Estegave the go-ahead to a new progam of interventions. He restored and repaired the vegetation and the waterworks and created a new series of innovations to the layout of the garden and the decorations of the fountains.
From 1660 – 61, works on 2 fountains were carried out involving Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
In the eighteenth century the villa and its gardens passed to the House of Habsburg after Ercole III d’Este bequeathed it to his daughter Maria Beatrice, married to Grand Duke Ferdinand of Habsburg. The gardens were slowly abandoned and The hydraulics fell into disuse and ruin, and many of the collection of ancient sculptures, enlarged under Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, were disassembled and scattered to other sites. This picturesque state of decay continued, without interruption, until the middle of the 19^th century. It was recorded by Carl Blechen and other painters.
In 1851, Cardinal Gustav von Hohelohe, Prince of Hohenlohe-Schillingfürst, obtained the villa, in enfiteusi, from the Dukes of Modena. To pull the complex back from its state of ruin, he launched a series of works. Between 1867 and 1882, the villa once again became a cultural point of reference.

The garden has been celebrated in poetry, painting and music:

The musician Franz Liszt (1811 – 1886), who evoked the garden in his Les Jeux d’Eaux à la Villa d’Este and composed Giochi d’acqua a Villa d’Este for piano while a guest here, gave one of his last concerts here in 1879.
Jean Garrigue‘s volume of poems A Water Walk by Villa d’Este (1959) continues a long tradition of poetry inspired by the gardens.
Kenneth Anger filmed Eaux d’artifice among the water features of the garden.

Villa d’Este’s fame and glory as one of the finest gardens of the Renaissance was established by its extraordinary system of fountains. It has 51 fountains and nymphaeums, 398 spouts, 364 water jets, 64 waterfalls and 220 basins, all fed by 875 m. of canals, channels and cascades, and all working entirely by the force of gravity, without pumps.

The gardens, now part of the Grandi Giardini Italiani, fall away in a series of terraces. The garden plan is laid out on a central axis with subsidiary cross-axes, refreshed by some 500 jets in fountains, pools and water troughs. Originally supplied with water by the Rivellese spring (which supplied a cistern under the villa’s courtyard), it is now supplied with water by the nearby Aniene River, which is partly diverted through the town, a distance of a kilometer.

The Vialone with the Cenacolo in the background

The Vialone, a large, 200 m. long terrace that lies between the villa and the gardens, was constructed between 1568 and 1569. It has a panoramic view of the gardens and countryside beyond and the Cardinals used the space for fireworks, games, spectacles and festivities. Originally shaded by two rows of elm trees (except for the space directly in front of the villa, left empty to preserve the view), the terrace is enclosed at one end by the Fountain of Europa and, at the other, by the Cenacolo, an immense loggia and belvedere, in the form of a triumphal arch, that provided shade beneath in summer, as well as commanding viewpoints of the scenery. Its interior, originally intended to be decorated with stucco decoration, gilding and frescoes, was never finished.

The double loggia in the center of the terrace, made with travertine stone from 1566–1577, is attached to the facade of the villa. Two stairways provide access to the ceremonial salons on the lower floor. Its upper level, created as a terrace for the Cardinal’s apartments, contains a Nymphaeum (grotto) where the Fountain of Leda is located. The original statuary of the fountain, depicting Jupiter and Leda transformed into a swan and four children (Elena, Clytemnestra, Castor and Pollux), was sold in the 18th century and is now in the Galleria Borghese in Rome. The original fountain featured a novel hydraulic trick – water spouting from a vase held by Leda struck a metal disk, causing flashes of light to reflect on the walls of the grotto. The statuary has been replaced by headless statue of Minerva, found in the garden of the Palazzo Manni in Tivoli.

The Fountain of the Tripod, a copy (the original is now in the Louvre) of an ancient Roman fountain in the center of the Vialone, has only been there since 1930. It consists of a marble basin supported by a central column and three pilasters. The Fountain of the Sea Horses, the original fountain on the site, was moved, by Ippolito, from Hadrian’s Villa to his garden. It is now in the Vatican Museum.

The Fountain of Europa, at the northeast end at the top of the garden, was begun by Ippolito but was not finished until 1671. Its design, copying that of the Grand Loggia, consists of a triumphal arch with two orders (Corinthian and Doric) of columns. The large empty niche in the center once held a sculpture Europa Embracing the Bull which is now in the VIlla Albani in Rome.

From Fountain of the Tripod, two ramps lead down to the upper garden and, at either end, there are symmetrical double flights of stairs. The shaded Cardinal’s Walk, attached to the retaining wall of the terrace, leads from one side of the garden to the other, passing by several grottos which are built into the retaining wall. The Grotto of Igea and Aesculpius, at the southeast end of the walk, just below the Fountain of Europa, is decorated with tartar flakes, mosaics and colored fragments of sea shells, and a small portion of the original fresco. It originally held two statues. The statue of Aesculpius, the God of Medicine, is now found in the Louvre while that of Igea, the daughter of Auesculpius and the Goddess of Healing, is now in the Vatican Museum.

The Loggia of Pandora, in the middle of the Cardinal’s Walk, just below the center of the Villa, is covered, with arcades looking out at the garden. It contains a nymphaeum built into the wall and, originally, was decorated with mosaics and with two statues of Minerva and a statue of Pandora carrying a vase (actually a concealed fountain pouring out water) of water (symbolizing the evils of the world). The statues were sold in the 18th century. The staue of Pandora and one of the Minervas are now in the Capitoline Museum. In the 19th century, the nymphaeum was converted into a Christian chapel, a favorite place of the composer Franz Liszt, who dedicated two pieces of music to the chapel.

Fontana del Bicchierone (Fountain of the Great Cup)

The Fountain of the Bicchierone, one of two fountains created for the villa by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, was made between 1660 and 1661 on a commission from Cardinal Rinaldo I d’Este. The basin of the fountain, in the form of a large shell which reaches up to the level of the terrace, has a toothed Bicchierone (cup or chalice) in the center, from which water sprays upwards. Bernini supervised the building of the fountain and, following its inauguration in May 1661, had the height of the spouting water reduced, to avoid blocking the view from the Loggia of Pandora. Though not part of the original design of the garden, the fountain became a link between the architecture of the palace and the garden.

Fontana del Bicchierone (Fountain of the Great Cup)

The Loggetta of the Cardinal, a small ballustraded terrace between the Fountain of the Biccherone and the garden, was said to be the Cardinal’s favorite spot for reading and discussing poetry and art, and watching the construction of the garden around him. Surrounded by high laurel hedges and stone benches, it originally had a large statue (now found in the Louvre), installed shortly after the Cardinal’s death, of Hercules with the boy Achilles in his arms, overlooking the garden below. It was one of three statues of Hercules, in central positions along the central axis, that were all visible when seen from the bottom the garden, aligned with the loggia of the villa at the top.

The Grotto of Diana, at the end of the Cardinal’s Walk, below the Gran Loggia, is a large underground vaulted chamber decorated from 1570-72 by Paolo Caladrino. It is completely covered with mosaics of mythological scenes, with images of fish, dragons, dolphins, pelicans and other animals, as well as the eagles and apples of the d’Este family. The rustic fountain, its central feature, has a statue of the goddess Diana in a large niche decorated with stucco reliefs of landscapes, the sea and a ship. Sold in the 18th century, all of these statues are now in the Capitoline Museum in Rome. Some of the original 16th century majolica floor tiles can still be seen.

A walkway, below the Loggetta of the Cardinal, traverses the garden and passes by three grottoes. The Grotto of Hercules, in the center, is covered by the Loggetta of the Cardinal. Beneath it is a cistern and some of the hydraulic machinery for the fountains below. The grotto once had stucco reliefs of either animals or the labors of Hercules and a statue of Hercules in repose (now in the Vatican Museum).

Mask spouting water in the Grotto of Pomona

The Grotto of Pomona, similar in design to the Grotto of Hercules, has some of its original mosaic decoration still visible. The water from a white marble mask (found when the fountain was restored in 2002) pours into a fountain.

Fontana dell’Ovato (Oval Fountain)

The Oval Fountain (Fontana dell’Ovato) one of the first and among the most famous fountains in the garden, was designed by Pirro Ligorio as a water theater, spraying water in variety of forms. Begun in 1565 and finished in 1570, it was made by fountain engineers Tomasso de Como and Curzio Maccarono, with sculpture by Raffaello Sangallo. A massive stone basin, set against the semicircular back wall, cascades water into the fountain and sprays it into the air while water jets into the basin, from vases in the hands of statues of Nereids, and also sprays in fan shapes from vases in niches in the semicircular wall behind the fountain.

An artificial mountain, rising above the fountain, symbolizes the Tiburtine landscape. The mountain is pierced by three grottoes, each pouring forth water, and is decorated with statues representing the Sibyl Albunesa with her son Melicerte, by Gillis van den Vliete (1568), and statues representing rivers Erculaneo and Anio, by Giovanni Malanca (1566), all of which pour water into the Oval Fountain.

An upper walkway, above the fountain, leads past past the ring of basins and cascades. The Grotto of Venus, the fountain’s own grotto, was designed by Pirro Ligorio and built in 1565–68. It served as a meeting place for guests on hot summer days. A figure of Venus, similar to the Capitoline Venus, and two putti , the original statues of the grotto, are no longer there but traces of the monochrome murals of grotesque figures, tiles and sculpted grotto walls still remain.

The fountain on a side wall, framed within a Doric, contains a sculpture of a sleeping nymph in a grotto guarded by d’Este heraldic eagles, with a bas-relief framed in apple boughs that links the villa to the Garden of the Hesperides.

Flanking the central axis are symmetrical double flights of stairs that lead to the next garden terrace. The Grotto of Diana, richly decorated with frescoes and pebble mosaic, is on one side. Water rom the central Fontana del Bicchierone (“Fountain of the Great Cup”), planned by Bernini in 1660, issues from a seemingly natural rock into a scrolling shell-like cup.

La Rometta (Little Rome)

To descend to the next level, there are stairs at either end. La Rometta (“the little Rome”), an elaborate fountain complex, is at the far left. The boat, with an obelisk mast, symbolizes the Tiburtina island in the Tiber, below the statue of Rome Triumphant.

Hundred Fountains

The water jets of the Hundred Fountains (Cento Fontane), on the next level, fill the full length of a long rustic trough. The Fontana dell’Ovato ends the cross-vista. A visitor may walk behind the water through the rusticated arcade of the concave nymphaeum, which is peopled by marble nymphas by Giambattista della Porta. Above the nymphaeum, the sculpture of Pegasus recalls to the visitor the fountain of Hippocrene on Parnassus, haunt of the Muses.

Hundred Fountains

The 16th-century Fontana di Diana Efesina (Fountain of Diana of Ephesus) has water flowing from her numerous breasts, symbolizing fertility and abundance, both of nature and of intellect.

Fountain of Diana of Ephesus

The central Fontana dei Draghi (Fountain of the Dragons), dominating the central perspective of the gardens, was erected for a visit in 1572 of Pope Gregory XIII whose coat-of-arms features a dragon. It unites the terrace to the next. The sound of this fountain was in contrast to a nearby Uccellario with artificial birds. Central stairs lead down a wooded slope to three rectangular fishponds set on the cross-axis at the lowest point of the gardens. It is terminated, at the right, by the water organ (now brought back into use) and Fountain of Neptune (belonging to the 20th century restorations).

Neptune Fountain

The very formal Fountain of the Owl, at the southwest part of the garden, below the Fountain of Rometta and the Fountain of Proserpina, was built between 1565 and 1569 by Giovanni del Duca, These 3 fountains have terraces connected by stairways, with nymphaeums placed beneath the terraces. Placed on a terrace surrounded by walls with niches, it crowned with the white eagles and lily symbols of the d’Este.

The Fountain of the Owl (a.k.a. Bird’s Fountain)

The fountain, covered with polychrome tiles, has the coat of arms of the d’Este, held by two angels, at the top, above the niche flanked by Ionic columns. Though the architectural elements are intact, the statues of two youths holding a goatskin which poured water into a basin held by three satyrs are missing or were destroyed. The sculpture in the niche, believed lost, was rediscovered during a renovation in 2001–02, hidden under mineral deposits and earth.

This fountain also produced music, thanks to Its ingenious automaton made by the French organ maker Luc Leclerc, installed in 1566, before the Fountain of the Organ on the other side of the garden. It featured wenty painted bronze birds placed in the niche, posed on two metal olive branches. Each bird sang an individual song, produced by piped water and air. A mechanical owl appeared, and the birds stopped singing; then, at the end of the performance, all the birds sang together. This musical feature was admired and copied in other European gardens, and functioned until the end of the 17th century. It needed constant repair due the action of the water on its delicate mechanism, and by the 19th century were completely ruined. The decorative elements of the fountain were completely restored in the 19030s, and restored again in 2001-2002, ^[21]

During the restoration work of 2001–02, the workers found some of the original mechanism that produced the bird songs, including the wind chamber, the tubes that moved the air and water, and the machinery that made the owl move. Using modern materials, Leonardo Lombardi was able to make a new version of the old machinery so the birds can sing and move again.

The series of terraces above terraces and the imposing constructions in the hanging cliffs of the “Valle gaudente” bring to mind the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world plus, the addition of water (including an aqueduct tunneling beneath the city) evokes the engineering skill of the Romans. Its landscape, art and history (which includes the important ruins of ancient villas such as the magnificent Villa Adriana) as well as a zone rich in caves and waterfalls (which display the unending battle between water and stone) is generally considered within the larger and, altogether extraordinary, context of Tivoli itself.

Fountain of the d’Este eagles

Villa d‘ Este: Piazza Trento, 5, 00019 Tivoli, RM, Italy. Tel: 0039 0412719036. Fax: 0039 0412770747. E-mail: villadestetivoli@teleart.org. Website: www.villadestetivoli.info.

Open 8.30 AM – 6.45 PM (May to August), 8:30 AM – 4 PM (January, November, December), 8:30 AM – 4:30 PM (February), 8:30 AM – 5:15 PM (March), 8:30 AM – 6:30 PM (April), 8:30 AM – 5:30 PM (October) and 8:30 AM – 6:15 PM (September). Admission: € 8.00. The visitor can take pictures without any physical contact with the cultural heritage and he cannot use either flash or tripod.

How to Get There:

Taking the blue regional COTRAL busRoma Tivoli-Via Prenestina at the bus terminal just outside Ponte Mammolo station of metro line B; the stop Largo Nazioni Unite is about 100m far from the entrance of the Villa.
Taking the urban train line FL2 (Roma-Pescara Line) from Tiburtina stationto Tivoli station (Stazione Tivoli), then, local bus CAT number 1 or 4/ to Piazza Garibaldi stop; the stop is in Tivoli’s main square in front of the Villa.

Villa d’Este – Villa (Tivoli, Italy)

Posted on 26 May, 2016 by Benjie Layug — Leave a reply

The Villa d’Este, a villa near Rome listed as a UNESCO world heritage site, is a fine example of Renaissance architecture and the Italian Renaissance garden. Since December 2014, it has been run as a State Museum by the Polo Museale del Lazio.

Villa d’Este

Here are some historical trivia regaring the villa:

The Villa d’Este was commissioned by Cardinal Ippolito II d’Este, son ofAlfonso I d’Este and Lucrezia Borgia; grandson of Pope Alexander VI and the appointed governor of Tivoli (from 1550) by Pope Julius III (the villa was the pope’s gift). Cardinal d’Este, after 5 failed bids for the papacy, saw to its construction from 1550 until his death in 1572, when the villa was nearing completion. He drew inspiration (and many statues and much of the marble used for construction) from the nearby Villa Adriana, the palatial retreat of Emperor Hadrian.
The villa was entirely reconstructed to plans ofpainter-architect-archeologist Pirro Ligorio and carried out under the direction of the Ferrarese architect-engineer Alberto Galvani, court architect of the Este.
The rooms of the Palace were decorated under the tutelage of the stars of the late Roman Mannerism, such as Livio Agresti (the chief painter of the ambitious internal decoration) fromForlì, Federico Zuccari, Durante Alberti, Girolamo Muziano, Cesare Nebbia and Antonio Tempesta. The work was almost complete at the time of the Cardinal’s death (1572).
Pirro Ligorio was responsible for the iconographic programs worked out in the villa’s frescos.
In the 18^th century, the lack of maintenance led to the decay of the complex and the villa and its gardens passed to theHouse of Habsburg after Ercole III d’Este bequeathed it to his daughter Maria Beatrice, married to Grand Duke Ferdinand of Habsburg. The villa and its gardens were neglected.
In 1851, Cardinal Gustav von Hohelohe, Prince of Hohenlohe-Schillingfürst, obtained the villa, in enfiteusi, from the Dukes of Modena. To pull the complex back from its state of ruin, he launched a series of works. Between 1867 and 1882, the villa once again became a cultural point of reference.
After World War I, Villa d’Este was purchased for the Italian State, restored, and refurnished with paintings from the storerooms of the Galleria Nazionale, Rome.
During the 1920s, it was restored and opened to the public.
Immediately after World War II, another radical restoration was carried out to repair the damage caused by the bombing of 1944.
During the past 20 years, due to particularly unfavorable environmental conditions, the restorations have continued practically without interruption. Among these is the recent cleaning of the Organ Fountain (also the “Birdsong”).

Entrance

Here, Cardinal Ippolito II d’Este brought back to life the splendor of the courts of Ferrara, Rome and Fontainebleau. The villa is surrounded, on three sides, by a sixteenth-century courtyard sited on the former Benedictine cloister. The central main entrance leads to the Appartamento Vecchio (“Old Apartment”) made for Ippolito d’Este. Its vaulted ceilings was frescoed in secular allegories by Livio Agresti and his students, centered on the grand Sala, with its spectacular view down the main axis of the garden.

Courtyard

To the left and right are suites of rooms. The suite on the left contains Cardinal Ippolito’s’s library and his bedchamber with the chapel beyond, and the private stairs to the lower apartment, the Appartamento Nobile, which gives directly onto Pirro Ligorio’s Cenacolo (Gran Loggia) straddling the graveled terrace with a triumphal arch motif.

Cenacolo (Grand Loggia) with its triumphal arch motif

A series of highly decorated rooms, less formal than the Cardinal’s personal apartments above it, are each decorated with a specific theme, all connected to nature, mythology and water. Reached by a large ceremonial stairway that descends from the courtyard, they have high vaulted ceilings (receiving light from a series of openings to the courtyard above), are connected to each other by a long narrow corridor and were used for private moments in the life of the Cardinal; listening to music or poetry; conversation, reading and religious reflection.

Corridor

The ceiling of the corridor, decorated with late 16th century mosaics representing a pergola inhabited by colorful birds (making it seem a part of the garden) and also features three elaborate rustic fountains containing miniature grottos framed with columns and pediments.

Room of Noah

The Room of Noah, dated to 1571 (at the end of the decoration of the villa) and attributed to Girolamo Muziano (famous for scenes of Venetian landscapes), has walls covered with frescoes designed to resemble tapestries, intertwined with scenes of Classical landscapes, ruins, rustic farm houses, and other scenes covering every inch of the ceiling and walls. The major scenes portrayed are the Four Seasons, allegories of Prudence and Temperance, and the central scene of Noah with the ark shortly after its landing on Mount Ararat, making an agreement with God. A white eagle, the symbol of the d’Este, is prominently shown landing from the Ark.

Room of Moses

The next room is the Room of Moses. The fresco at the center of its ceiling shows Moses striking a rock with his rod, bringing forth water for the people of Israel, an allusion to the Cardinal who brought water to the villa’s gardens by making channels through the rock. Other panels show scenes from the life of Moses, a hydra with seven heads, the emblem of the family of Ercole I d’Este(an ancestor of Ippolito) and fantastic landscapes.

Room of Venus

The Room of Venus originally had, as its centerpiece, a large fountain (a basin of water with a classical statue of a sleeping Venus) with an artificial cliff and grotto framed in stucco. In the 19th century, the basin was removed and the Venus (removed after the death of the Cardinal) was replaced by two new statues of Peace and Religion representing a scene at the grotto of Lourdes. The original terra cotta floor, featuring the white eagle of the d’Este family, is still in place. The 17th century painting on the ceiling of angels offering flowers to Venus is the only other decoration in the room.

First Tiburtine Room

The First and Second Tiburtine Rooms both made before 1569 by a team of painters led by Cesare Nebia, both have a common plan and its decoration illustrates stories from mythology and the history of Tiburtine region (where the villa is located). The walls are covered with painted architectural elements (with the spaces between are filled with floral designs, medals, masks and other insignia), including columns and doors and elaborate painted moldings and sculptural elements.

Second Tiburtine Room

Illustrated in the Second Tiburtine Room is the story of the Tiburtine Sibyl, its main theme, plus the legend of King Annius (the Aniene River, which provides the water for the fountains of the villa, takes his name from him). The Sibyl, King Annius and the personification of the Aniene River, along with the Triumph of Apollo, all appear in the frescoes of the room.

Wall painting detail at First Tiburtine Room

The frescoes of the First Tiburtine Room illustrates the story of three legendary Greek brothers (Tiburtus, Coras and Catillus) who defeated the Sicels, an Italic tribe, and built a new city, Tibur (now Tivoli). Their battle, as well as other events in the founding of the region, is illustrated in the central fresco of the ceiling. The decoration of the room also includes the Tenth Labor of Hercules as well as pairs of gods and goddesses (Vulcan and Venus; Jupiter and Juno; Apollo with Diana; and Bacchus with Circe) in painted niches. On the wall is an illustration of the oval fountain, which Ippolito was building at the time the room was decorated.

Salon of the Fountain

The Salon of the Fountain, designed and made between 1565 and 1570, probably by Girolamo Muziano and his team of artists, was used by Cardinal Ippolito as a reception room for guests, who had just arrived through the garden below, and for concerts and other artistic events. A wall fountain, its central element, was finished in 1568 by Paolo Calandrino. Its basin rests on two stone dolphins. The fountain is covered with multicolored ceramics and sculpture, encrusted with pieces of glass, seashells and precious stones, and is crowned by the white eagle of the d’Este family.

The fountain at the Salon of the Fountain

The central niche has reliefs depicting the fountain, the Tiburtine acropolis and the Temple of the Sibyl. On the other walls are images of the house and unfinished garden and fountains, and a small illustration, on the opposite wall, from the fountain of Ippolito’s villa (now a residence of the Pope) on the Quirinal Hill in Rome. The ceiling paintings are devoted to scenes of mythology with each corner having portraits of a different gods and goddesses (tradition says that the painting of Mercury is a self-portrait of Muziano).

Ceiling fresco at Salon of the Fountain

The central fresco on the ceiling, modeled after a similar work by Raphael in the Loggia of Psyche in the Villa Farnesina, depicts the Synod of the Gods, with Jupiter in the center surrounded by all the gods of Olympus. The hall connects with the loggia, and from there a stairway descends to the garden.

Room of Hercules

The Room of Hercules, dating to 1565–66, was also one by Muziano. The ceiling paintings depict eight of the labors of Hercules, surrounded by depictions of landscapes, ancient architecture, and the graces and the virtues. The ceiling’s central painting shows Hercules being welcomed into Olympus by the gods.

Ceiling fresco of Hercules welcomed to Olympus

The Room of the Nobility, done by Federico Zuccari and his team of painters, has a central ceiling fresco depicting “Nobility on the throne between Liberality and Generosity.” The decoration on the walls includes paintings of busts of Classical philosophers (Diogenes , Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras, etc.), the Graces and Virtues, and Diana of Ephesus (the goddess of Fertility).

Room of the Nobility

The Room of Glory, completed between 1566 and 1577 by Federico Zuccari and eight assistants, with painted illusions of doors, windows, tapestries, sculptures, and of everyday objects used by the Cardinal, is a masterpiece of Roman Mannerist painting. The Allegory of Glory, the central painting of the ceiling, has been lost but there are allegorical depictions of the Virtues, the Four Seasons, and of Religion, Magnanimity, Fortune and Time.

Room of Glory

The Hunting Room, built later than the other rooms (from the end of the 16th or beginning the 17th century), is in a different style. It features hunting scenes, rural landscapes, hunting trophie and, oddly, scenes of naval battles. The “Snail Stairway,” built with travertine stone, descends to the garden. Originally built to access a pallacorda (an ancestor of tennis) court which Ippolito imported into Italy from the French Court, the space where the court was located now houses the cafeteria and bookstore.

Hunting Room

The Villa’s uppermost terrace ends in a balustraded balcony at the left end, with a sweeping view over the plain below. The grounds of the Villa d’Este also house the Museo Didattico del Libro Antico, a teaching museum for the study and conservation of antiquarian books.

L-R: Kyle, Cheska, Grace and Jandy

Villa d‘ Este: Piazza Trento, 5, 00019 Tivoli, RM, Italy. Tel: 0039 0412719036. Fax: 0039 0412770747. E-mail: villadestetivoli@teleart.org. Website: www.villadestetivoli.info.

How to Get There:

Taking the blue regional COTRAL busRoma Tivoli-Via Prenestina at the bus terminal just outside Ponte Mammolo station of metro line B; the stop Largo Nazioni Unite is about 100m far from the entrance of the Villa.
Taking the urban train line FL2 (Roma-Pescara Line) from Tiburtina stationto Tivoli station (Stazione Tivoli), then, local bus CAT number 1 or 4/ to Piazza Garibaldi stop; the stop is in Tivoli’s main square in front of the Villa.

Schonbrunn Palace and Gardens (Vienna, Austria)

Posted on 28 August, 2015 by Benjie Layug — 1 Comment ↓

Schonbrunn Palace

The 1,441-room, Baroque-style Schonbrunn Palace (German: Schloss Schönbrunn), a former imperial summer residence, is one of the most important architectural, cultural and historical monuments in the country. The palace, as well as its gardens, reflect the changing tastes, interests and aspirations of successive Habsburg monarchs.

Entrance court

The complex includes the Tiergarten (an orangerie erected around 1755) and the Palmenhaus, a noteworthy palm house which replaced, by 1882, around 10 earlier and smaller glass houses in the western part of the park.

Schonbrunn Palace interior

The history of the palace and its vast gardens spans over 300 years. Here are interesting historical trivia regarding the palace:

The name Schönbrunn, meaning “beautiful spring,” has its roots in an artesian well whose waters were consumed by the court. In 1642 came the first mention of the name “Schönbrunn” on an invoice.
The palace had its beginnings as a mansion called Katterburg, erected in 1548.
From the 1740 to the 1750s, during the reign of empress Maria Theresa (who received the estate as a wedding gift), the Schönbrunn Palace, in its present form, was built and remodeled.
Eleonora Gonzaga, wife of Ferdinand II, spent much time there. The area was bequeathed to her as a widow’s residence after the death of her husband.
From 1638 to 1643, Eleonora added a palace to the Katterburg mansion. The origins of the Schönbrunn orangery seem to go back to Eleonora as well.
Franz I commissioned the redecoration of the palace exterior in Neo-Classical style as it appears today.
Franz Joseph, the longest-reigning emperor of Austria, was born at the palace and spent a great deal of his life there. On November 21, 1916, he died there at the age of 86.
On November 1918, following the downfall of the Habsburg monarchy, the palace became the property of newly founded Austrian Republic and was preserved as a museum.
After World War II and during the 1945 to 1955 Allied Occupation of Austria, the palace provided offices for both the British delegation to the Allied Commission for Austria and for the headquarters for the small British military garrison in Vienna.
In 1955, with the reestablishment of the Austrian republic, the palace once again became a museum.
In 1961, the palace was used for the meeting between U.S. president John F. Kennedy and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev.
Since 1992, Schloss Schönbrunn Kultur- und Betriebsges.m.b.H., a limited-liability company wholly owned by the Republic of Austria, administered the palace and gardens, conducting preservation and restoration of all palace properties without state subsidies.
In 1996, Schönbrunn Palace, together with its gardens, was cataloged on the World Heritage List by UNESCO as a remarkable Baroque ensemble and example of synthesis of the arts (Gesamtkunstwerk).
Since the mid-1950s, Schönbrunn has been a major tourist attraction. In 2010, Vienna’s most popular tourist destination was attended by 2,600,000 visitors with the whole Schönbrunn complex (Tiergarten Schönbrunn, Palmenhaus, Wüstenhaus and the Wagenburg) accounting for more than five million visitors.
The palace was recently selected as the main motif of the The Palace of Schönbrunn silver coin, a high value commemorative Austrian 10-euro coin minted on October 8, 2003. The central part of the frontage of the palace, behind one of the great fountains in the open space, is seen at the obverse.
Every year, the Summer Night Concert Schönbrunn is held here.

Check out “Imperial Carriage Museum (Wagenburg)“

The sculpted garden space between the palace and the Sun Fountain is called the Great Parterre. This French garden, a big part of the area, was planned in 1695 by Jean Trehet, a disciple of André Le Nôtre.

The author at the Great Parterre

Rose trellis in Privy Garden

It contains, among other things, a maze and is lined with 32 sculptures, which represent deities and virtues.

Statue of Amphion (Joseph Baptist Hagenauer)

Statue of Gaius Mucius Scaevola (Johann Martin Fischer)

Statue of Janus and Bellona (Johann Christian Wilhelm Beyer)

The garden axis points towards a 60 m. (200 ft.) high hill which, since 1775, has been crowned by the Gloriette structure (Fischer von Erlach had initially planned to erect the main palace on top of this hill) which now houses a café and an observation deck providing panoramic views of the city.

Statue of Mars and Minerva (Veit Königer)

Statue of The Abduction of Helena (Johann Wilhelm Beyer)

Maria Theresa decided that the Gloriette be designed to glorify Habsburg power and the Just War (a war that would be carried out of “necessity” and lead to peace). During the Second World War, the Gloriette was destroyed but was restored in 1947 and, again, in 1995.

Gloriette

The gardens and palace have been the location for many films and television productions. They include:

The Sissi trilogy of 1950s (Sissi, The Young Empress and Fateful Years of an Empress)
A Breath of Scandal (1960) with Sophia Loren, Maurice Chevalier, John Gavin and Angela Lansbury.
The Living Daylights (1987) when James Bond (Timothy Dalton) and Kara Milovy (Maryam d’Abo) are seen briefly riding through the palace garden (the palace is also seen during the end credits).
The comedy The Great Race, starring Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Natalie Wood, was filmed here in 1965.
The television drama The Crown Prince, starring Max von Thun as Crown Prince Rudolf and Klaus Maria Branderer as Kaiser Franz-Josef.
The Austrian television series, Kommissar Rex (1994 to 2004) shot several episodes here.
In the Kuroshitsuji episode 2: His Butler, Omnipotent, Sebastian Michaelis tells his master that he was a guest at the Schönbrunn Palace soirees before his contract was sealed with Ciel as he teaches the young master how to dance.
In 2003, Dutch violinist Andre Rieu and the Johann Strauss Orchestra, along with the Opera Babes used it as the back drop for a version of the European Anthem, “Ode to Joy.”
In the sixth leg of the Amazing Race, 23 teams had to race through the garden’s maze and search for the pit stop located at the Gloriette.

Center, L-R: Vicky, Grace, Isko and Jandy

Schonbrunn Palace and Gardens: Schönbrunner Schloßstraße 47-49, 1130 Wien, Austria. Tel: +43 1 81113239. Open 8:30am-6:30pm. At the official website, tickets can be purchased in advance for tours and tour packages. In addition, many classical concerts, featuring the music of Mozart and his contemporaries, can be enjoyed at the spectacular Orangerie or Schlosstheater halls.

How to Get There: take U1 going to Leopoldau at Keplerplatz, transfer to U4 going to Hütteldorf at Karlsplatz, exit at Schonbrunn

Mirabell Palace and Gardens (Salzburg, Austria)

Posted on 26 August, 2015 by Benjie Layug — 2 Comments ↓

The Grand Parterre of Mirabell Gardens

After checking in and freshening up at Hotel Garni Evido Salzburg City Center, we all met up at the lobby to begin our exploration of the city, starting with the nearby Mirabell Palace and Gardens, a listed cultural heritage monument and part of the Historic Centre of the City of Salzburg UNESCO World Heritage Site. One of the most beautiful Baroque gardens in Europe, it was built along a north-south axis and oriented towards the Hohensalzburg Fortress and the Salzburger Dom cathedral.

View, from Rose Hill, of the Small Parterre, Salzburger Dom and Hohensalzburg Fortress

The palace, outside the medieval walls of Salzburg, was built about 1606 according to Italian and French models, at the behest of Prince-Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau as a residence for his mistress Salome Alt. From their union, 15 children were born, 10 of whom survived. When von Raitenau was deposed and arrested in 1612, Salome and her family were expelled. After Wolf Dietrich’s death, the palace was renamed “Mirabell” (from the Italian word mirabile, bella meaning “amazing” or “wonderful”) by his successor, Markus Sittich von Hohenems.

Mirabell Palace

Prince-Archbishop Franz Anton von Harrach had Mirabell Palace redesigned, according to plans designed by the famous architect Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt, in a lavish Baroque style from 1721 to 1727, integrating the individual buildings into a self-contained complex. On June 1, 1815 the later King Otto of Greece was born here, while his father, the Wittelsbach crown prince Ludwig I of Bavaria served as stadtholder in the former Electorate of Salzburg.

Rosenhugel (Rose Hill)

On April 30, 1818, the palace was damaged by the great fire that swept through the city. A number of frescoes, including those by Johann Michael Rottmayr and Gaetano Fanti, were destroyed by the flames but the masterly grand marble staircase that led into the palace and the marble hall, one of the most precious works of art at Mirabell Palace, survived unscathed.

From about 1818, Mirabell Palace owes its present unassuming Neoclassical appearance to Peter de Nobile, the court’s architectural consultant and director of the Vienna School of Architecture. The edging of the windows, the capitals and stucco work are details that bear witness to the palace’s former splendor. Charming putti (cherubs) decorate the marble balustrade and the sculptures in the niches, all among the finest products of the European Baroque, are the work of the famous Georg Raphael Donner.

The Rape of Persephone

Aeneas and Anchises

On June 3, 1944 Gretl Braun, the sister of Eva Braun (later to marry Adolf Hitler), married SS-Gruppenführer Hermann Fegelein, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler‘s liaison officer on Hitler’s staff, at the Mirabell Palace, with Hitler, Himmler and Martin Bormann as witnesses. Eva made all the wedding arrangements.

Rape of Helen by Paris

Today, Mirabell Palace houses the offices of Salzburg’s mayor and the municipal council (its rooms are not open to the public). The Marble Hall, considered to be one of the most beautiful wedding halls in the world, was formerly the prince-archbishops’ ballroom and a concert venue for Leopold Mozart and his children Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Maria Anna “Nannerl” Mozart. Meetings, awards ceremonies and romantic concerts (Salzburg Palace Concerts) are regularly held here. Mirabell Palace is also a popular location for weddings.

The author at the Grand Panterre

Grace at the Grand Parterre Fountain

The famous, geometrically-arranged Mirabell Gardens was redesigned, under Prince-Archbishop Johann Ernst Graf von Thun, in 1689 based on plans by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, and completely remodeled around 1730 by Franz Anton Danreiter. Noted for its boxwood layouts, it has mythology-themed statues dating from 1730.

Grace and Jandy

The “Grand Parterre,” the oldest part of the Mirabell Gardens that is still preserved, is embraced by a marble railing decorated with vases by Fischer von Erlach.

Vase by Fischer von Erlach

In the heart of the garden is a large fountain, with four statue groups sculpted by Italian sculptor Ottavio Mosto from 1690 around it – “The Rape of Prosperina,” “The Rape of Helena by Paris,” “Aeneas and Anchises,” and “Hercules and Antaeus,” symbolizing the 4 elements (fire, air, earth and water).

Statues of Roman gods and goddesses

On the balustrades are statues of Roman gods and goddesses (Ceres, Pomona. Venus, Vesta, Juno and Chronos, Bacchus, Jupiter, Mars, Hercules, Vulcan, Hermes and Apollo) made by B. van Opstal in 1689.

The Heckentheater (Hedge Theater), a hedge maze located in the main part of the Mirabell Gardens, was created between 1704 and 1718 and is one of the oldest hedge theaters north of the Alps. The Heckentheater is still used for performances in the summer, including concerts of the Salzburg Festival.

The Von Trapp children at the Hedge Theater

The Zwergerlgarten (Dwarf Garden) features a number of misshapen creatures, made of white Untersberg marble, dating back to the time of Archbishop Franz Anton Harrach. In 1854, the gardens were opened to the public by Emperor Franz Joseph I.

Kyle and Cheska at the Small Panterre

The “Small Parterre,” the part of the Mirabell Gardens just along the backside of the Mirabell Palace, is directly attached to the Grand Parterre. At its core is the Pegasus Fountain with a copper statue of Pegasus made in 1661 by Kaspar Gras from Innsbruck for the well on the Kapitelplatz near the Salzburger Dom cathedral.

Pegasus Fountain

There it stayed until 1690. After that time, it was used for the well on the Mirabellplatz Square until the great fire of 1818, and finally transferred to its current location in 1913. From Rosenhügel ( “Rose Hill”), we had a beautiful view all over the Small Parterre towards Salzburger Dom and Hohensalzburg Fortress.

Maria and the Von Trapp children at the Small Panterre

Several scenes from the 1965 movie The Sound of Music were recorded here. Maria (Julie Andrews) and the von Trapp children (Charmian Carr as Liesl, Nicholas Hammond as Friedrich, Heather Menzies as Louisa, Duane Chase as Kurt, Angela Cartwright as Brigitta, Debbie Turner as Marta and Kym Karath as Gretl) sing ‘Do-Re-Mi‘ while dancing around the Pegasus Fountain and using the steps as a musical scale.

Fraulein Maria and the children at the Grand Parterre Fountain

Mirabell Palace and Gardens: Mirabellplatz 4, 5020 Salzburg, Austria. Tel: +43 662 80720. Open Mondays, Wednesdays and Thurdays, 8 AM – 4 PM; Tuesdays and Fridays, 1 – 4 PM. No visit in case of special occasions. The Mirabell Gardens are open daily from approximately 6 AM to dusk. Admission is free. The Hedge Theater and Dwarf Garden are closed during the winter. The Orangerie is open all year round, 9 AM – 4 PM.

Versailles Palace – Queen’s Grand Apartment (France)

Posted on 25 August, 2015 by Benjie Layug — Leave a reply

Queen’s Grand Apartment

The Queen’s Grand Apartment (grand appartement de la reine), a suite of rooms, of exceptional splendor, in the Palace of Versailles that were reserved for the personal use of the queen, overlooks the Parterre du Midi and formed a parallel enfilade with that of the Grand Apartment of the King (grand appartement du roi,).

Check out “Versailles Palace“

The queen’s apartments served as the residence of three queens of France, originally arranged for the use of Marie-Thérèse d’Autriche (wife of Louis XIV, she died not long after moving in, in 1683), by Marie Leczinska (wife of Louis XV) and, finally, for the Austrian archduchess Marie-Antoinette (wife of Louis XVI). Additionally, Princess Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy (Duchesse de Bourgogne), Louis XIV’s granddaughter-in-law and wife of the Petit Dauphin, occupied these rooms from 1697 (the year of her marriage) to her death in 1712.

When Louis Le Vau‘s envelope of the old palace (château vieux) was completed, the Queen’s Grand Apartment came to include a suite of seven enfilade rooms on the first floor in the left wing with a perfectly symmetrical layout that mirrored, almost exactly, the Grand Apartment of the King in the right wing.

The Chapel corresponded to the Salon de Diane in the King’s Grand Apartment, the Salle de Gardes to the Salon of Mars (Salon de Mars), the Antichambre to the Salon of Mercury (Salon de Mercure), the Chambre to the Salon of Apollo (Salon d’Apollon), the Grand Cabinet to the Salon of Jupiter (Salon de Jupiter), the Oratory to the Salon of Saturn (Salon de Saturne) and the Petit Cabinet to the Salon of Venus (Salon de Vénus).

Check out “Versailles Palace – State Apartments of the King”

With regards to the ceiling decoration, those in the Grand Apartment of the King depicted the heroic actions of Louis XIV as allegories from events taken from the antique past while the decoration of the Queen’s Grand Apartment depicted heroines from the antique past and harmonized with the general theme of a particular room’s decor.

The construction of the Hall of Mirrors, which began in 1678, changed the configuration of the Queen’s Grand Apartment. The chapel was transformed into the Queen’s Guards Room (salle des gardes de la reine) and the decorations from the salon de Jupiter were reused here. The Queen’s Guards Room communicates with a loggia that issues from the Queen’s Staircase (escalier de la reine), which corresponded (albeit a smaller, though similarly-decorated example) to the Ambassador’s Staircase (escalier des ambassadeurs ) in the King’s Grand Apartment.

Check out ““Versailles Palace – Hall of Mirrors”

The loggia also provides access to the King’s Grand Apartment. Toward the end of Louis XIV‘s reign, the Queen’s Staircase became the principal entrance to the palace, with the Ambassador’s Staircase used on rare state occasions. In 1752, after the destruction of the Ambassador’s Staircase, the Queen’s Staircase became the main entrance to the palace.

However, this was soon changed when the king decided to set aside all the rooms around the Marble Courtyard for his new apartments, limiting the queen’s space to her State Apartments (which were modified by Marie Leczinska and later Marie-Antoinette) and to a few smaller rooms for more private use, situated behind the official apartments, overlooking two inner courtyards. The Queen’s Apartments consist of the Queen’s Bedchamber (Chambre de la reine), the Nobles’ Room, the Antechamber to the Grand Couvert (formerly the Salle des gardes) and the Queen’s Guard Room (Salle des gardes de la reine).

The Queen’s bed

In 1729, to commemorate the birth of his only son and heir, Louis, Louis XV ordered a complete redecoration of the room. Elements of the Queen’s Bedchamber (chambre de la reine), as it had been used by Marie-Thérèse d’Autriche and Princess Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy, were removed and a new, more modern decor was installed.

During her life at Queen’s Grand Apartment, Marie Leszczynska (1703–1768) annexed the salon de la paid to serve as a music room. In 1770, when Marie-Antoinette married the dauphin (later Louis XVI), she took up residence in these rooms and, upon Louis XVI‘s ascension to the throne in 1774, ordered major redecoration of the Queen’s Grand Apartment which achieved the arrangement that we see today.

The bedchamber ceiling

The Bedchamber, the most important room in the apartments, is where the Queen spent most of her time, where she slept (often with the king) and, in the morning, where she received guests during and after her toilette (like the King’s getting-up ceremony, it was a courtly affair controlled by strict etiquette).

It was also here that the queen gave birth, in public (actually misleading since, in reality, only doctors, ladies in waiting, the governess of the Princes and Princesses of the Realm, the Princesses of the royal family and a few members of the church were allowed to enter) to the Princes and Princesses of the Realm. The queen was placed on a labor bed specially brought in, and was hidden behind a screen or canvas tent.

The bust of Marie Antoinette

After giving birth, she was returned to her own bed while the whole court (waiting in the other rooms in the Apartment whose doors were all symbolically left open) filed through to present their compliments. Between 1682 and 1786, 19 Princes and Princesses of the Realm were born here and two queens died here (Maria-Theresa in 1683 and Marie Leszczyńska in 1768).

The decoration in the room, still reflecting the three queens who once occupied it, features partitions on the ceiling dating back to the reign of queen Marie-Thérèse d’Autriche, a greyscale painting by François Boucher and wood panelling added for Marie Leszczyńska, all elements that survived the reign of Marie-Antoinette who replaced the furniture and fireplace and put up paintings of her mother Empress Maria-Theresa and her brother, Emperor Joseph II.

The jewelry cabinet, commissioned to Schwerdfeger by Marie-Antoinette, is placed in its original position in the alcove to the left of the bed. The 1745 Baillou and Crescent clock Marie-Antoinette placed in the bedchamber has been restored to its place. Other items returned to the room include Sené’s chimney piece, andirons by Boizot and Thomire and the bedspread by Desfarges.

Other pieces of furniture which were sold at an auction that lasted a year, such as the sofa delivered for the Countess of Provence (the queen’s sister-in-law), have been replaced by similar items. The armchairs by Tilliard and folding stools were taken from the suite of rooms belonging to the Countess d’Artois. The fabrics, hanging on the bed and walls, were re-woven in Lyon using the original patterns; the bed and balustrade have been remade and the Savonnerie carpet rewoven using ancient documents.

Queen’s Nobles Room

The Grand Cabinet, now the Nobles’ Room (salon des nobles), was used as a second antechamber where Queen Marie Leszczyńska (and, later, Marie-Antoinette) held formal audiences, seated under a canopy, as well as her Circle (the name given to the times spent in orderly conversation by the ladies of the Court). When not used for formal audiences, the Noble’s Room served as an antechamber to the queen’s bedroom.

Commode

In 1785, Marie-Antoinette, not too fond of the Louis XIV style of the room, entrusted Richard Mique, her architect, with completely redecorating it (except for the ceiling which was kept). Apple-green damask, bordered with a wide gold stripe, were hung on the walls, and new, extremely modern and refined furniture were delivered.

Commode

When making the majestic commodes and corner cupboards for the room, the queen’s favorite cabinetmaker Riesener followed the latest English fashion by abandoning the customary marquetry in favor of large panels of mahogany. In this magnificent collection, the gilded bronze decoration and the small tables in Bleu Turquin marble matched the decoration on the new fireplace.

Mercury Spreading his Influence over the Arts (Michel Corneille)

The ceiling paintings, by Michel Corneille, depicts Mercury Spreading his Influence over the Arts.

Tapestry Portrait of Louis XV (Cozette)

A tapestry portrait of Louis XV by Cozette hangs on the wall, with mythological paintings by Francois Boucher. The mantlepiece ornaments show a Turkish influence while the commodes and corner cupboards, by Riesner and Gouthière, are dated 1786. The overdoors depict Pygmalion and Dibutade by Regnault while the bronze fireplace ornaments are by Gouthière.

Antechamber of the Grand Couvert

Traditionally, public meals at the Royal Table or Grand Couvert (a lavish court ceremony attracting a large number of curious, decently dressed onlookers), taken by the king and members of the royal family, were held at the Royal Table Antechamber, now the Antechamber of the Grand Couvert (Antichambre du Grand Couvert). Privileged duchesses, princesses or those holding important positions sat in front them on stools while the other ladies and people whose rank granted them entry or who were admitted by the ushers stood around them. In the 1680s, the room was sometimes used as a theatre for the château.

Almost every evening, Louis XIV strictly adhered to this ceremonial performance (seated alone at a table in front of the fireplace, his spoon, fork, and knife were brought to him in a golden box and courtiers could watch as he dined) whereas Louis XV, more often, preferred private dinners. Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette only ate at the Royal Table once a week, sitting with their backs to the fireplace. Louis XVI ate well but Marie Antoinette, who was bored, requested that music be played during meals, installing a platform for musicians to this end.

Marie Antoinette and her Children (Elizabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun)

Designed for Queen Marie-Thérèse d’Autriche, the room’s lower panels were made of marble and two famous paintings of Marie Antoinette hang on the walls, including that which includes all her children. Portraits of Louis XVI’s aunts by Madame Labille-Guiard are part of the decor. Above the doors are works by Madeline de Boulogne dated 1675.

Ceiling painting of Darius’ Family at Alexander’s Feet (Charles Le Brun)

The original, very large painting of ancient heroines on the ceiling, illustrating royal virtues, by the artist Claude-François Vignon and Paillet, quickly deteriorated and, in 1814-1815, was replaced with a Veronese canvas Saint Mark Rewarding the Theological Virtues. Later, in 1861, it was substituted by the current, equally large marouflé canvas, Darius’ Family at Alexander’s Feet, a tapestry cartoon painted by Henri Testelin after a work by Le Brun. The gilt stuccos were sculpted by Pierre I Le Gros the Younger and Benoît Massou.

In 2007, due to the bulging of the camaieus on the arches, emergency measures were taken. Between April 2009 and July 2010, the Antechamber of the Grand Couvert was restored, thanks to sponsorship from Martell & Co. Thanks to a 1788 inventory of the furniture in this room (the pieces were well documented but are now lost), the furniture is now as they would have been when the royal family was forced to leave the palace, with Louis XV period seats and stools with Savonnerie manufactory upholstery and a large table placed in the center of the room as it would be when the King and Queen sat down for the Grand Couvert. In order to evoke the royal dinnerware which is close to that used by French royalty but which disappeared during the Revolution, the Louvre lent silverware produced for George III of England by Robert-Joseph Auguste.

Autumn or The Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne

Facing the large windows is the tapestry Autumn or The Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne, was put on deposit here by the Mobilier National from the ensemble in the gallery of the Château de Saint Cloud after cartoons by Pierre Mignard. A deep crimson damask fabric, woven according to the description afforded by a document from the first half of the 18th century, was placed on the walls.

Fireplace

The Queen’s Guard Room, where 12 of the Queen’s Guards (composed of soldiers from the four elite companies of the King’s Guards) were on duty day and night, controlled entry to the Queen’s Apartments from the Queen’s Staircase (also called the “Marble Staircase”). In 1672, the room was used as a Chapel and, in 1676-1681, received its final decoration.

The Marble Staircase

Since the Queen never spent time here and there was therefore no need to modernize it, the Queen’s Guard Room is the only room in the Apartments in which the 17th-century decoration has been fully preserved, still contains the marble paneling, enhanced with gilded bronze designed by Le Brun and executed by Le Gros and Massou, characteristic of the State Apartments’ original condition, as well as the paintings, by Noël Coypel, which were brought here in 1680 from the old Jupiter Drawing Room (later replaced by the War Room).

At dawn on October 6, 1789, a group of rioters demanding bread tried to enter the Queen’s Apartments. Warned by one of the queen’s guards, one of the ladies in waiting managed to bolt the door to the Antechamber of the Grand Couvert and help the queen hurry, through a private corridor, to the king’s apartments, via her private chambers, and flee from the Paris mob.

Queen’s Guards Room (photo: www.chateauversailles.fr)

NOTE:

On January 2016, the Queen’s Apartment was closed for major works and, on April 16, was again open to the public. The revived magnificence of the Rococo style of Marie-Antoinette’s bedchamber or that of the Queen’s Guard Room was restored, thanks to the patronage of American Friends of Versailles and the Société des Amis de Versailles. Today, the tour route passes through the rooms in the opposite direction to the traditional order during our visit, now starting in the bedchamber and ending in the Queen’s Guard Room, which originally marked the entrance to the Queen’s Apartments during the Ancien Régime.

Queen’s Grand Apartment: First Floor, Chateau De Versailles, Place d’Armes, 78000 Versailles, France. Tel: +33 1 30 83 78 00. Website: www.chateauversailles.fr. Open daily (except on Mondays and May 1), from 9:00 AM to 6:30 PM. Last admission is 6 PM while the ticket office closes at 5.45 PM. The estate of Trianon and the Coach Gallery only open in the afternoon while the Park (7 AM to 8:30 PM) and Gardens (8 AM to 8.30 PM, last admission: 7 PM) are open every day. Access to the Gardens is free except on days of fountains shows. You can access the estate of Trianon through the Gardens or through the city. The Petit Trianon is only possible via the Grand Trianon.

Admission: 27 € for Passport with Timed Entry (days with Musical Fountains Shows or Musical Gardens), 20 € for Passport with Timed Entry (without musical fountains show or musical gardens), 12 € for Estate of Trianon ticket(without Musical Fountains Show or Musical Gardens), 10 € for Passport with Timed Entry (free admission, days with Musical Fountains Show or Musical Gardens), 9,50 € for Musical Fountains Show ticket, 8,50 € for Musical Gardens ticket, 28 € for the Fountains Night Show.

How to Get There: The cheapest option for reaching Versailles is by train. There are three train stations in Versailles. RER line C arrives at Versailles Château – Rive Gauche train station, the closest one of the Palace (just 10 minutes’ walk to the Palace). SNCF trains from Gare Montparnasse arrive at Versailles Chantiers train station, which is 18 minutes on foot to the Palace. SNCF trains from Gare Saint Lazare arrive at Versailles Rive Droite train station, 17 minutes on foot to the Palace. RER C and SNCF train times are available on www.transilien.com

Versailles Palace – Gallery of Great Battles (Paris, France)

Posted on 25 August, 2015 by Benjie Layug — Leave a reply

Gallery of Great Battles

The highlight of our visit of the Museum of the History of France is the 120 m. long and 13 m. wide (390 ft. x 43 ft.) Gallery of Great Battles (Galerie des Batailles). Occupying almost the entire the first floor of the Aile du Midi of the of the South Wing of the Palace of Versailles, is the largest room in the palace.

Check out “Versailles Palace“

The author

Joining onto the grand and petit appartements de la reine, it is an epigone of the grand gallery of the Louvre and was intended to glorify nearly 15 centuries of French military history and successes, from the Battle of Tolbiac (traditionally dated 496), won by Clovis I, to the Battle of Wagram (July 5–6, 1809) won by Napoleon I..

Battle of Austerlitz (François Gérard). Widely regarded as the greatest victory achieved by Napoleon, here the Grande Armée of France defeated a larger Russian and Austrian army led by Emperor Alexander I and Holy Roman Emperor Francis II (December 2, 1805). The Battle of Austerlitz brought the War of the Third Coalition to a rapid end, with the Treaty of Pressburg signed by the Austrians later in the month. The battle is often cited as a tactical masterpiece, in the same league as other historic engagements like Cannae or Gaugamela.

Its creation an idea of Louis-Philippe I, it was designed in 1833 and its construction started the same year. The gallery was solemnly inaugurated on June 10, 1837.

Battle of Fleurus (Jean-Baptiste Mauzaisse). This engagement (June 26, 1794), between the army of the First French Republic (under General Jean-Baptiste Jourdan) and the Coalition Army (Britain, Hanover, Dutch Republic, and Habsburg Monarchy), commanded by Prince Josias of Coburg, resulted in an Allied defeat that led to the permanent loss of the Austrian Netherlands and to the destruction of the Dutch Republic. The battle marked a turning point for the French army, which remained ascendant for the rest of the War of the First Coalition.

The gallery replaced apartments which had been occupied in the 17th and 18th centuries by Philippe I, Duke of Orléans (Louis XIV‘s brother) and his second wife, Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate; Philippe II, Duke of Orléans (regent during Louis XV‘s minority) and his wife; Louis d’Orléans, Duke of Orléans (the regent’s son); Princess Maria Josepha of Saxony (1731–1767) as dauphine; Charles X of France (whilst Comte d’Artois) and Princess Élisabeth of France.

Battle of Rivoli (Henri Félix Emmanuel Philippoteaux). A key victory (January 14-15, 1797) in the French campaign in Italy against Austria, here Napoleon Bonaparte’s 23,000 Frenchmen defeated an attack of 28,000 Austrians under General of the Artillery Jozsef Alvinczi, ending Austria’s fourth and final attempt to relieve the Siege of Mantua. Rivoli further demonstrated Napoleon’s brilliance as a military commander and led to the French consolidation of northern Italy.

Its solemn decorative scheme, designed by Frédéric Nepveu and, almost certainly, with advice from architect Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine, evokes the latter’s projects for the Grande Galerie in the Louvre during the Consulat and the Empire.

Check out “Louvre Museum – Grand Gallery“

Battle of Fontenoy (Horace Vernet). A major engagement of the War of the Austrian Succession (May 11, 1745), was a battle fought 8 kms. outside Tournai (Belgium) by a French army of 50,000 under Marshal Saxe which defeated a Pragmatic Army of 52,000, led by the Duke of Cumberland.

Its solemn space, with finely decorated with marble and painted and gilded stuccos, features a wide cornice supporting a coffered painted ceiling lit up by glass, with entablatures supported and punctuated by an avant-corps of Corinthian columns along the length of the gallery. On the walls are 13 bronze tablets inscribed with the names of princes, admirals, constables, marshals and warriors killed or wounded whilst fighting for France.

Battle of Rocroi (Francois Joseph Heim, 1834). Fought on May 19, 1643, this major engagement of the Thirty Years’ War was fought between a French army, led by the 21-year-old Duke of Enghien, and Spanish forces, under Gen. Francisco de Melo only five days after the accession of Louis XIV to the throne of France following his father’s death. Rocroi is regarded as the graveyard of the myth of invincibility of the Spanish Tercios, the terrifying infantry units that had dominated European battlefields for 120 years up to that point.

The main contents of the rooms are the 33 vast paintings showing major military events and the greatest battles that had influenced the history of France, some already in existence but mostly specially commissioned for the gallery between 1834 and 1845. All the dynasties (the Merovingians, Carolingians, Capetians, House of Valois, House of Bourbon,etc.) from the history of France are evoked.

Battle of Marsaglia (Eugene Deveria). This battle, in the Nine Years’ War, was fought in Italy on October 4, 1693, between the French army of Marshal Nicolas Catinat and the army of the Grand Alliance under Duke Victor Amadeus II of Savoy. Here, the greatly superior regimental efficiency of the French, and Catinat’s minute attention to details in arraying them, gave the new marshal a victory that was a worthy pendant to Neerwinden.

Louis-Philippe’s skillfully incorporated depictions of the victories by the Revolution and the Empire had a simple message: France had built itself over the course of battles against enemies from both abroad and within; the country is henceforth glorious, at peace and ready to enter a new era built on peace and prosperity. Today it is still one of the most impressive examples of Louis Philippe’s project for Versailles and one of the finest examples of major museum projects of the 19th century.

Entry of Henry IV Into Paris (Francois Gerard)

The four largest paintings were commissions from previous regimes. The 9.58 m. by 5.10 m. Battle of Austerlitz, an oil on canvas by François Pascal Simon Gérard (1770–1837), was commissioned by Napoleon I for the ceiling of the Salle du Conseil d’État at the palais des Tuileries in Paris. Henry IV‘s Entry into Paris, also by Gérard, measures 5.1 m. by 9.58 m. The 5.1 m. by 9.58 m. Battle of Bouvines (1827) and the 5.1 m. by 9.58 m. Battle of Fontenoy (1828), both by Horace Vernet, were commissioned during the Restoration.

Battle of Taillebourg (Eugène Delacroix). This major medieval battle, fought in July 1242, was the decisive engagement of the Saintonge War. It pitted a French Capetian army, under the command of King Louis IX and his younger brother Alphonse of Poitiers, against forces led by King Henry III of England, his brother Richard of Cornwall and their stepfather Hugh X of Lusignan.

All the other works were created especially for the Gallery by great historical painters of the time including Jean Alaux, Francois Bouchot, Louis Charles Auguste Couder (1790-1873), Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863), Devéria Eugène (1805–1865), Eloi Firmin Feron (1802-1876), Fragonard son, Jean-Pierre Franque (1774–1860), François Joseph Heim (1787–1865), Charles-Philippe Larivière (1798–1876), Jean-Baptiste Mauzaisse, François-Édouard Picot (1786–1868), Ary Scheffer (1795–1858), Hendrik Scheffer, Henry Scheffer, Jean-Victor Schnetz, Henri Frederic Schopin and Charles de Steuben. A number of them were of questionable quality, but a few masterpieces, such as the Battle of Taillebourg by Eugène Delacroix, are displayed here.

Battle of Bouvines (Horace Vernet, 1827). Fought on July 27, 1214 near the town of Bouvines in the County of Flanders, it was the concluding battle of the Anglo-French War of 1213–1214. Here, a French army of approximately 7,000 men, commanded by King Philip Augustus, defeated an Allied army of approximately 9,000, commanded by Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV.

The 33 paintings, arranged chronologically, are:

Battle of Tolbiac won by Clovis I over the Alamanni in 496. Artist: Ary Scheffer (1795–1858). Dimensions: 4.15 m. by 4.65 m.
Battle of Poitiers (October 732) showing Charles Martel, Odo the Greatand Abd-el-Rahman. Artist: Charles de Steuben. Date: 1837. Dimensions: 5.42 m. by 4.65 m.
Charlemagne Receiving the Submission of Widukind, King of the Saxons at Paderborn in 785. Artist: Ary Scheffer (1795–1858). Dimensions: 4.65 m. by 5.42 m.
Count Eudes Defending Paris against the Normans in 885. Artist: Jean-Victor Schnetz. Date: commissioned by Louis-Philippe in 1834, signed 1837. Dimensions: 5.42 m. by 4.65 m.
Philippe-Auguste before the Battle of Bouvines (July 27 1214). Artist: Horace Vernet (1789–1863). Date: 1827. Medium: Oil on canvas, Dimensions: 5.1 m. by 9.58 m.
Battle of Taillebourg (July 21, 1242) won by Saint Louis. Artist: Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863). Date: 1837. Dimensions: 4.89 m. by 5.54 m.
Battle of Mons-en-Pévèle (August 18, 1304) won by Philip the Fairagainst the Flemish Army. Artist: Charles-Philippe Larivière (1798–1876). Date: ca. 1839. Dimensions: 4.65 m. by 5.43 m.
Battle of Cassel (August 23, 1328) won by Philippe de Valois, showing Philip and Nicolas Zonnekin. Artist: Hendrik Scheffer. Date: 1837. Dimension: 5.43 m. by 4.65 m.
Battle of Cocherel (May 16, 1364), near Évreux, won by Bertrand du Guesclinover the troops of Charles II of Navarre. Artist: Charles-Philippe Larivière (1798–1876). Dated: ca. 1837. Dimension: 4.25 m. by 2.6 m.
The Entry of Joan of Arc into Orleans (May 8, 1429. Artist: Henry Scheffer. Date: 1843. Medium: Oil on canvas.
Battle of Castillon (July 17 1453) won by the Comte de Dunois over the English forces under Lord Talbot. Artist: Charles-Philippe Larivière (1798–1876). Medium: Oil on canvas.
Battle of Marignan (September 14, 1515) won by Francis I of France, showing Francis ordering his troops to stop pursuing the Swiss. Artist: Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard (1780–1850). Dimensions: 4.65 m. by 5.43 m.
Capture of Calais(January 9, 1558) by Francis, Duke of Guise. Artist: François-Édouard Picot (1786–1868). Dimensions: 4.65 m. by 5.43 m.
Henry IV‘s Entry into Paris (March 22, 1594). Artist: François Pascal Simon Gérard (1770–1837). Dimensions: 5.1 m. by 9.58 m.
Battle of Rocroi (May 19, 1643), the Duc d’Enghien ordering his troops to stop fighting the Spanish, who have come to him to surrender. Artist: François Joseph Heim (1787–1865). Date: 1834. Dimensions: 4.65 m. by 5.43 m.
Battle of Lens (August 20, 1648), victory of the Grand Condé over the Spanish troops commanded by Archduke Leopold. Artist: Jean-Pierre Franque (1774–1860). Date: ca. 1835. Dimensions: 4.65 m. by 5.43 m.
Battle of the Dunes (June 1658) at the Siege of Dunkirk, won by the Maréchal de Turenne over the Spanish. Artist: Charles-Philippe Larivière (1798–1876). Date: 1837. Dimensions: 4.65 m. by 5.43 m.
Capture of Valenciennes (March 17, 1677) by Louis XIV. Artist: Jean Alaux. Medium: Oil on canvas, Date: 1837. Dimensions: 4.65 m. by 4.15 m.
Battle of Marsaglia (October 4, 1693) won by Nicolas Catinat over the Piedmontese troops of Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia assisted by Prince Eugene of Savoy. Artist: Devéria Eugène (1805–1865). Date: 1837. Dimensions: 4.65 m. by 5.43 m.
Battle of Villaviciosa (December 10, 1710) won by Louis Joseph, Duke of Vendôme over Count Guido Starhemberg. Artist: Jean Alaux, known as Le Romain (1786–1864). Date: 1836. Dimensions: 4.65 m. by 5.43 m.
Battle of Denain (July 24, 1712) won by Claude Louis Hector de Villarsover Prince Eugene of Savoy. Artist: Jean Alaux, known as Le Romain (1786–1864). Date: 1839. Dimensions: 4.65 m. by 5.43 m.
The Battle of Fontenoy (May 11, 1745) showing Maurice de Saxe presenting the captured British and Dutch prisoners and colors to Louis XV and the dauphin. Artist: Horace Vernet (1789–1863). Date: 1828. Dimensions: 5.1 m. by 9.58 m.
Battle of Lawfeld (July 2, 1747) shows Louis XV pointing out the village of Lawfeld to Maurice de Saxe. Artist: Pierre Lenfant (1704–1787). Dimensions: 2.75 m. by 2.5 m.
Siege of Yorktown. Général Rochambeau and George Washington give the final orders to attack (October 1781). Artist: Louis Charles Auguste Couder (1790-1873). Date: 1836. Dimension:65 m. by 5.43 m.
Battle of Fleurus (June 26, 1794) won by Jean-Baptiste Jourdan over the Austrian forces led by the princes of Coburg and Orange. Artist: Jean-Baptiste Mauzaisse. Date: 1837. Medium: Oil on canvas. Dimensions: 4.65 m. by 5.43 m.
Battle of Rivoli (January 14, 1797) won by Napoleon Bonaparte. Artist: Henri Félix Emmanuel Philippoteaux (1798–1880). Medium: Oil on canvas. Date: 1844. Dimensions: 4.65 m. by 5.43 m.
Second Battle of Zürich (September 25, 1799), showing André Masséna, the comte Nicolase, Charles Oudinot and Count Honoré Charles Reille. Artist: François Bouchot. Medium: oil on canvas. Date: Commissioned by Louis-Philippe in 1835, signed 1837. Dimension: 5.43 m. by 4.65 m.
Battle of Hohenlinden (December 3, 1800) showing Jean Victor Moreau, Michel Ney, Emmanuel de Grouchy (1835). Artist: Henri Frederic Schopin. Date: 1836. Medium: Oil on canvas. Dimensions: 4.65 m. by 5.43 m.
Battle of Austerlitz (December 2, 1805) – showing Napoleon accompanied by Jean Rapp, oil on canvas, sketch after an original that in 1846 was in the Paillet collection, commissioned by Napoleon I for the ceiling of the Salle du Conseil d’État at the palais des Tuileries in Paris. Dimensions: 9.58 m. by 5.10 m.
Battle of Friedland (June 14, 1807) – showing Napoleon I and Count Nicolas Charles Oudinot. Artist: Horace Vernet. Dimensions: 5.43 m. by 4.65 m.,
Battle of Jena (October 14 1806) – showing Napoleon I, Joachim Murat and Louis Alexandre Berthier. Artist: Horace Vernet. Date: 1836. Dimensions: 5.43 m. by 4.65 m.
Battle of Wagram (July 6, 1809) – showing Napoleon I and the duc d’Istrie. Artist: Horace Vernet. Dimensions: 5.3 m. by 4.65 m.

Some of the 80 busts on display

The gallery, also designed as a Pantheon to national glory, also features a series of 80 busts of officers killed in combat, as well as tables in bronze bearing the names of princes, constables, Maréchals and admirals also killed or wounded for France.

Hall of busts

The busts are placed on supports against the columns and between the paintings. The 80 busts on display are those of:

Joseph-Antoine, prince Poniatowski – Marshal of the Empire (1762–1813). Artist: François-Augustin Caunois (1787–1859).
Adolphe Édouard Casimir Joseph Mortier (Duke of Trévise) – Marshal of the Empire (1768–1835). Artist: Théophile-François Marcel Bra(1797–1863).
Jean-Baptiste Bessières (Duke of Istries) – Marshal of the Empire (1768–1813). Artist: François Masson (1745–1807).
Henri LXI, Prince de Reuss-Schleiz – Général of Brigade in French service (1784–1813). Artist: Charles-François Lebœuf.
Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester – Duke of Narbonne (c 1150–1218). Artist: Jean-Jacques Feuchère(1807–1852).
Robert d’Artois – son of Otto IV and Mahaut d’Artois (died 1317). Artist: Jean-Jacques Flatters (1786–1845).
Hugues Quieret – French admiral, died 1340. Artist: Charles Émile Seurre(1798–1858).
Nicolas Béhuchet – French admiral, died 1340. Artist: Bernard Seurre (1795–1867).
Alexandre-Antoine Hureau – Comte de Sénarmont, Général of Division (1732–1810). Artist: Antoine Laurent Dantan the Elder (1798–1878).
César Charles Étienne, comte Gudin – Général of Division (1768–1812). Artist: Louis-Denis Caillouette (1790–1868)
Walter VI of Brienne, Duke of Athens– Constable of France in 1356 (died 1356). Artist: Justin-Marie Lequien (1796–1882).
Antoine Louis Charles – Comte Lasalle, Général of Division (1775–1809). Artist: Auguste Taunay (1768–1824).
Peter I – Duke of Bourbon(c 1311–1356). Artist: Louis-Eugène Bion (1807–1860).
Jean-Baptiste Cervoni – Général of Division (1765–1809). Artist: Pietro Cardelli (1776–1822).
Jean Lannes(duc de Montebello) – Marshal of the Empire (1769–1809). Artist: François Masson (1745–1807).
Nicolas-Bernard – Général-baron Guiot de Lacour, général of division (1771–1809). Mortally wounded at Wagram (wearing the cross of the Légion d’Honneur and the cross of the Ordre de Saint-Henri of Saxony). Artist: Jean-Baptiste Joseph Debay (1802–1862)
André Bruno de Frévol – Comte de La Coste, général of brigade (1775–1809). Artist: Claude Michel (known as Clodion) (1738–1814). Artist: Claude Michel Clodion.
Prigent de Coëtivy– Sire de Coëtivy, Admiral of France, killed at the Siege of Cherbourg in 1450. Artist: Honore Husson.
Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy(1433–1477). Artist: Charles-François Lebœuf (1792–1865), Nanteuil, also known as Nanteuil-Lebœuf.
Jacques Desjardin – Général of Division (1759–1807), killed at the Battle of Eylau. Artist: Antoine Laurent Dantan (1798–1878)
Joseph Sécret Pascal-Vallongue – Général of Brigade (1763–1806). Artist: Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Debay (1779–1863).
John Stewart – Earl of Buchan, Constable of France, killed at the Battle of Verneuilin 1424. Artist: Charles Rene Laitie.
Jacques Dampierre de Châtillon – Admiral of France, killed at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. Artist: Andre Eugene Oudine.
Charles de Blois – killed at Auray in 1364. Artist: Jacques Augustin Dieudonne.
André de Montalembert– Seigneur d’Essé, killed at the Siege of Terouanne in 1555. Artist: Jean Louis Jaley.
Piero Strozzi – Marshall of France, killed at Thionville in 1553. Artist: Jean Louis Jaley.
Anne – Duc de Montmorency (1572–1567). Artist: James Pradier.
Jacques d’Albon – Seigneur de Saint-André – Marshall of France (c 1505–1562). Artist: Jean-François-Théodore Gechter (1796–1844).
Manassès de Pas, marquis de Feuquières. Lieutenant-Général of the Armies of the King. Killed at Thionvillein 1640. Artist: Philippe Joseph Henri Lemaire.
Armand de Maillé – Marquis de Brézé, Duc de Fronsac, Admiral of France, killed at the Battle of Orbetello in 1646. Artist: Jean-Francois Legendre-Heral.
Jean Baptiste Budes – Baron de Guébriant, Marshall of France, killed at Rothweil, 1643. Artist: Jean-Pierre Cortot.
Jacques Marquis de Castelnau – Marshall of France, killed at Dunkirkin 1653. Artist: Jean-Bernard Deseigneur.
Jean de Gassion– Marshall of France, killed at Lens in 1547. Artist: Jean Alaux
Jacques de Rougé – Marquis du Plessis-Bellière, Lieutenant-Général of the Armies of the King, killed at Castellamare in 1654. Artist: Jean Bernard Duseigneur.
Anthony of Burgundy – Duke of Brabant, Dukeof Limburg, killed at the battle of Agincourt in 1415. Artist: Pierre Simart.
Charles de Créquy, Marshall of France, killed before the fort of Breme, 1636. Artist: Davitan the Younger.
Jean du Caylarde – Marquis de Toiras, killed at Fontanetoin the Milanais, 1636. Artist: Louis-Denis Caillouett.
François, Duke of Beaufort – Admiral of France, killed at the Siege of Candiain 1669. Artist: Michel-Louis Victor Mercier.
Henri de La Tour d’Auvergne– Vicomte de Turenne, Marshall of France, killed near Saltzbach in 1675. Artist: Jean-Jacques Flatters (1786–1845).
Pierre Claude Berbier du Metz – Lieutenant-Général of the Armies of the King, killed at the Battle of Fleurus in 1690. Artist: François Jouffroy.
Nicolas de la Brousse– Comte de Vertillac, marshal general of the king’s camps and armies, killed near Bossu. 1693. Artist: Joseph-Stanislaus Lescorne.
Charles Paris d’Orléans –Duc de Longueville, killed during the Rhine crossing in 1672. Artist: François Jouffroy.
Jean-Baptiste Cassagnet– Marquis de Tilladet, Lieutenant-Général of the Armies of the King, killed at Steenkerque in 1692. Artist: Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Debay (1779–1863).
Claude-Louis-Constant Corbineau – général of brigade (1772–1807). Artist: Philippe Joseph Henri Lemaire(1798–1880).
Jean de Vienne – Admiral of France, killed at the Battle of Nicopolisin 1396. Artist: Francisque Duret (1804–1865).
Gaston of Foix – Duke of Nemours, killed at the battle of Ravennain 1512. Artist: Jacques Augustin Dieudonne.
Jean d’Aumont –Maréchal de France, killed at Combourg in Brittany, 1595. Artist : Auguste-Alexandre Dumont (1801–1884), known as Auguste or Augustin Dumont
André Baptiste de Brancas – Seigneur de Villars, Admiral of France, killed at the Siege of Doullens in 1595. Artist: Victor Thérasse.
James I – Count of La Marche – Constable of France, killed at the Battle of Brignaisin 1361. Artist: Nicolas Bernard Raggi.
Louis d’Armagnac – Duke of Nemours, killed at Gérignole, 1503. Artist: Francois Rude
Pierre du Terrail– Seigneur de Bayard, killed at Rebec, 1524. Artist: Anonymous.
Guillaume Gouffier de Bonnivet– Admiral of France, killed at Pavia in 1525. Artist: Francois Lanno.
Jacques II de Chabannes de La Palice(known as La Palice) – Marshal of France, killed at Pavia in 1525. Artist: Jean Bernard Duseigneur.
Jean de Bourbon – Comte de Soissons, killed at Saint-Quentin in 1557. Artist: Jean-Bernard Duseigneur.
Charles de La Rochefoucauld – Comte de Randan. Artist: Sylvestre-Joseph Brun
Antoine de Bourbon – King of Navarre. Artist: Joseph Marius Ramus.
Anne – Duc de Joyeuse. Artist: Isidore Hippolyte Nicolas Brion.
Claude de Loraine – Duc d’Aumale, Colonel of the Frenchcavalry. Artist: Joseph Stanislas.
Fernand de Nogaret – Seigneur de Lavalette. Artist: Louis Desprez.
Pierre-François, Marquess of Rougé. Lieutenant-Général of the Army of the King, killed at Villinghausen in 1761. Artist: Jean-Baptisten Joseph Debay.
Jacques Christophe Coquille Dugommier – Commander-in-Chief, killed at the Battle of the Black Mountain in 1794 Artist: Antoine-Denis Chaudet.
Amédée Emmanuel François Laharpe. Général of Division, killed in the crossing of the River Po in 1796. Artist: Félix Lecomte.
Jean Gilles André Robert – Général of Brigade, killed at the Battle of Arcolein 1796. Artist: Gois Fils.
Martial Beyrand – Général of Brigade, killed at Castiglionein 1796. Artist: Charles-Louis Corbet.
Charles Abattucci – Général of Division, killed at Huningue in 1796. Artist: Vital Gabriel Dubray.
Jean-Jacques Causse – Général of Brigade, killed at Dego in 1796. Artist: Jacques-Edme Dumont.
Pierre Banel – Général of Brigade, killed at Cossaria, 1796. Artist: Lorenzo Bartolini.
Louis Marie de Caffarelli du Falga – Général of Division, killed at the Siege of Acrein 1799. Artist: François Masson (1745–1807)
Barthélemy Catherine Joubert – Général-in-Chief of the Army of Italy, killed at the Battle of Noviin 1799. Artist: Louis-Simon Boizot.
Dominique Martin Dupuy – Général of Brigade, killed in Cairo in 1798. Artist: Philippe-Laurent Roland.
François Paul Brueys – Comte d’Aigalliers, Vice-Admiral, killed at the Battle of the Nilein 1799. Artist: Jean-Jacques Flatters (1786–1845).
Louis Marie, vicomte de Noailles – Général of Brigade, died of wounds in Havana in 1804. Artist: Dantan Antoîné Laurent.
Jean Louis Debilly. Général of Brigade, killed at the Battle of Jena in 1806. Artist: Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Debay (1779–1863).
Jean Baptiste Kléber– Général-in-Chief (1753–1800). Artist: Philippe Joseph Henri Lemaire (1798–1880).
François Louis de Morlan – killed at the Battle of Austerlitzin 1805. Artist: Julie Charpentier.
Béat Jacques de la Tour Chatillon– Comte de Zurlauben, Lieutenant-Général of the Army of the King, killed at Hochstett in 1704. Artist: François Jouffroy.
Ferdinand, Comte de Marsin – Marshall of France, killed at Turin in 1706. Artist: François Jouffroy.
Louis Joseph de Saint Véran, Marquis de Montcalm – Lieutenant-Général of the Army of the King, killed at the Battle of the Plains of Abrahamin 1759. Artist: Francisque Duret.
Armand de Gontaut – Baron de Biron, Marshall of France, killed at Épernayin 1592. Artist: Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Debay (1779–1863)
James FitzJames – 1st Duke of Berwick, marshal (1671–1734). Artist: Antoine-Laurent Dantan the Elder (1798–1878).

Jandy among the busts of the Gallery of Great Battles

Today, the Royal Serenade and King’s Tour take place in the Gallery of Great Battles.

Battle of Wagram (Horace Vernet). Fought July 5-6, 1809), this military engagement of the Napoleonic Wars ended in a costly but decisive victory for Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte’s French and allied army against the Austrian army under the command of Archduke Charles of Austria-Teschen. The battle led to the breakup of the Fifth Coalition, the Austrian and British-led alliance against France.

Gallery of Great Battles: South Wing, Chateau De Versailles, Place d’Armes, 78000 Versailles, France. Tel: +33 1 30 83 78 00. Website: www.chateauversailles.fr. Open daily (except on Mondays and May 1), from 9:00 AM to 6:30 PM. Last admission is 6 PM while the ticket office closes at 5.45 PM. The estate of Trianon and the Coach Gallery only open in the afternoon while the Park (7 AM to 8:30 PM) and Gardens (8 AM to 8.30 PM, last admission: 7 PM) are open every day. Access to the Gardens is free except on days of fountains shows. You can access the estate of Trianon through the Gardens or through the city. The Petit Trianon is only possible via the Grand Trianon.

Versailles Palace – 1792 Room (France)

Posted on 25 August, 2015 by Benjie Layug — Leave a reply

1792 Room

The 1792 Room, a transition room in the Versailles Palace devoted to September 1792 (a pivotal year of the French Revolution) when the Republic was proclaimed, was developed for the History of France Museum from what had formerly been known as the Room of the Merchants of the Court during the reign of Louis XV.

Check out “Versailles Palace“

It presages the messages of the Gallery of Battles and, beyond it, the 1830 Room, in a trilogy that represents King Louis Philippe’s response to the Hall of Mirrors built by his ancestor, Louis XIV, surrounded by the War and Peace Rooms.

Check out “Versailles Palace – Hall of Mirrors” and “Versailles Palace – Grand Gallery”

Entrance with the portrait of the young Napoleon above the door

The only remnant of the rooms that Louis-Philippe I devoted to the French Revolution, it offers the keys to understanding the king’s political and historic project.

The 1792 Room marks both the end of a world (the French monarchy fell on August 10, 1792) and the beginning of a new era full of hopes as well as worries as the European monarchies were united against France, which found, within itself, the driving forces that would unite to defend it.

In this room, there are paintings of some of the most emblematic battles of the Revolution that evoke the call to arms to defend “the imperiled nation.”

The Battle of Valmy

The Battle of Jemmapes

They include the September 20, 1792 Battle of Valmy (Mauzaisse after Horace Vernet, 1826) and the November 6, 1792 Battle of Jemappes (Henry Scheffer after Horace Vernet, 1821) in which Louis-Philippe I (then known as the Duke of Chartres), participated along with his younger brother Antoine Philippe (the Duke of Montepensier). There’s also The National Guard of Paris Leaves to Join the Army in September 1792 by Léon Cogniet.

Portrait of King Louis Philippe I

Louis-Philippe I also gathered portraits of the many military commanders and heroes of the Revolutionary Wars and Empire Wars, wearing the uniforms and badges of their ranks, who led France to victory such as François Christophe de Kellermann, Charles François Dumouriez, Nicolas Luckner, are featured alongside veterans of the American Revolutionary War Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau and Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette.

Portrait of the Marquis De La Fayette (Joseph-Désiré Court, 1834)

Portrait of Adam Philippe, Comte de Custine

Lining the archways around the windows are portraits of young officers who would become future generals and marshals of the Consulate and the Empire while above the entrance, the portrait of a young Napoleon has pride of place.

Entry of the French Army in Mons (November 7, 1792, Hippolyte Bellangé)

Combat of Anderlecht (November 13, 1792, Hippolyte Bellangé)

There is a subtle hierarchy between the portraits, with King Louis-Philippe I presenting himself as a Revolutionary fighter (being a participant in the two abovementioned battles), heir of the Enlightenment and a proponent of new ideas.

Entry of the French Army in Mons (November 7, 1792, Hippolyte Bellangé)

1792 Room: Chateau De Versailles, Place d’Armes, 78000 Versailles, France. Tel: +33 1 30 83 78 00. Website: www.chateauversailles.fr. Open daily (except on Mondays and May 1), from 9:00 AM to 6:30 PM. Last admission is 6 PM while the ticket office closes at 5.45 PM. The estate of Trianon and the Coach Gallery only open in the afternoon while the Park (7 AM to 8:30 PM) and Gardens (8 AM to 8.30 PM, last admission: 7 PM) are open every day. Access to the Gardens is free except on days of fountains shows. You can access the estate of Trianon through the Gardens or through the city. The Petit Trianon is only possible via the Grand Trianon.

This travel blog, a diary of the author’s local and international travels, aims to provide the reader with news and information on people, places and events that would interest the avid traveler and tourist. But, it also aims to be much more, providing insights on the wonders of this beautiful country, as well as the world, beyond the strict confines of the city. Have a BLAST seeing old churches, exotic temples, educational museums as well as palm-fringed islands; white sand beaches; thundering waterfalls; placid lakes; fiery sunsets; turquoise seas; cathedral-like caves; swirling rivers; majestic mountains; stupendous, amphitheater-like rice terraces; awesome volcanoes and the like. Get to know the movers and shakers in the tourism industry; find out where to titillate the palate; rejuvenate your body; feed your adrenalin, unwind and relax; satisfy your craving for history and culture; and find out what's being celebrated and where.

BENJAMIN “BENJIE” LAYUG, an architect by profession (he finished his B. S. Architecture degree from the University of the Philippines Diliman in 1982), is also a copy editor for two publishing houses; travel writer; blogger; architectural historian; author; concert. movie and musical reviewer (for www.pep.ph); and a motivational speaker.

As a free-lance travel writer, he has, in the past, contributed articles to Travel Update, Philippine Daily Inquirer, COLORS, TODAY, 7107 Islands Magazine, Business Day and Bluprint. He currently writes for Artplus Magazine and the Business Mirror.

He is also the author of the following travel books:

A Philippine Odyssey (New Day Publishers, 2005)
Pathfinder’s Travel Guide: Boracay (Great Books Trading, 2006)
A Tourist Guide to Notable Philippine Churches (New Day Publishers, 2007)
A Tourist to Notable Philippine Historical Landmarks, Monuments and Shrines (New Day Publishers, 2010)
A Tourist Guide to Notable Philippine Museums (New Day Publishers, 2012)

Some of his books now appear in the local library shelves of the National Library of the Philippines, De La Salle University, Ateneo de Manila University, University of Sto. Tomas, U.P. Diliman, Centro Escolar University, San Sebastian College, Miriam College, Silliman University, to name a few, as well as internationally at the National Library of Australia and the University of California Berkeley Library.

Now a senior citizen, he is probably one of the oldest, if not the oldest, active travel blogger in the country today. He also has a lifestyle blog called F.Y.I.:Firing Your Imagination (www.firingyourimagination.blogspot.com). Benjie has traveled to two-thirds (53) of the country’s 81 provinces and over 20 countries in 4 continents.