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Alpha compositing

In computer graphics, alpha compositing or alpha blending is the process of combining one image with a background to create the appearance of partial or full transparency. It is often useful to render picture elements (pixels) in separate passes or layers and then combine the resulting 2D images into a single, final image called the composite. Compositing is used extensively in film when combining computer-rendered image elements with live footage. Alpha blending is also used in 2D computer graphics to put rasterized foreground elements over a background.

In order to combine the picture elements of the images correctly, it is necessary to keep an associated matte for each element in addition to its color. This matte layer contains the coverage information—the shape of the geometry being drawn—making it possible to distinguish between parts of the image where something was drawn and parts that are empty.

Although the most basic operation of combining two images is to put one over the other, there are many operations, or blend modes, that are used.

History
The concept of an alpha channel was introduced by Alvy Ray Smith and in the late 1970s at the New York Institute of Technology Computer Graphics Lab. Bruce A. Wallace derived the same straight over operator based on a physical reflectance/transmittance model in 1981. A 1984 paper by Thomas Porter and Tom Duff introduced premultiplied alpha using a geometrical approach.

The use of the term alpha is explained by Smith as follows: "We called it that because of the classic linear interpolation formula $$\alpha A + (1-\alpha)B$$ that uses the Greek letter $$\alpha$$ (alpha) to control the amount of interpolation between, in this case, two images A and B". That is, when compositing image A atop image B, the value of $$\alpha$$ in the formula is taken directly from A's alpha channel.

Description
In a 2D image a color combination is stored for each picture element (pixel), often a combination of red, green and blue (RGB). When alpha compositing is in use, each pixel has an additional numeric value stored in its alpha channel, with a value ranging from 0 to 1. A value of 0 means that the pixel is fully transparent and the color in the pixel beneath will show through. A value of 1 means that the pixel is fully opaque.

With the existence of an alpha channel, it is possible to express compositing image operations using a compositing algebra. For example, given two images A and B, the most common compositing operation is to combine the images so that A appears in the foreground and B appears in the background. This can be expressed as A over B. In addition to over, Porter and Duff defined the compositing operators in, held out by (the phrase refers to holdout matting and is usually abbreviated out), atop, and xor (and the reverse operators rover, rin, rout, and ratop) from a consideration of choices in blending the colors of two pixels when their coverage is, conceptually, overlaid orthogonally:

As an example, the over operator can be accomplished by applying the following formula to each pixel:
 * $$\begin{align}\alpha_o &= \phantom{~C_a}\alpha_a + \phantom{C_b}\alpha_b(1 - \alpha_a) \\

C_o &= \frac{ C_a \alpha_a + C_b \alpha_b (1 - \alpha_a) }{\alpha_o} \end{align}$$

Here $$C_o$$, $$C_a$$ and $$C_b$$ stand for the color components of the pixels in the result of the "over", image A, and image B respectively, applied to each color channel (red/green/blue) individually, whereas $$\alpha_o$$, $$\alpha_a$$ and $$\alpha_b$$ are the alpha values of the respective pixels.

The over operator is, in effect, the normal painting operation (see Painter's algorithm). The in and out operators are the alpha compositing equivalent of clipping. The two use only the alpha channel of the second image and ignore the color components. In addition, plus defines additive blending.

Straight versus premultiplied
If an alpha channel is used in an image, there are two common representations that are available: straight (unassociated) alpha and premultiplied (associated) alpha.
 * With straight alpha, the RGB components represent the color of the object or pixel, disregarding its opacity. This is the method implied by the over operator in the previous section.
 * With premultiplied alpha, the RGB components represent the emission of the object or pixel, and the alpha represents the occlusion. The over operator then becomes:
 * $$C_o = C_a + C_b(1 - \alpha_a)$$
 * $$\alpha_o = \alpha_a + \alpha_b(1 - \alpha_a)$$

Comparison
The most significant advantage of premultiplied alpha is that it allows for correct blending, interpolation, and filtering. Ordinary interpolation without premultiplied alpha leads to RGB information leaking out of fully transparent (A=0) regions, even though this RGB information is ideally invisible. When interpolating or filtering images with abrupt borders between transparent and opaque regions, this can result in borders of colors that were not visible in the original image. Errors also occur in areas of semitransparency because the RGB components are not correctly weighted, giving incorrectly high weighting to the color of the more transparent (lower alpha) pixels.

Premultiplied alpha may also be used to allow regions of regular alpha blending (e.g. smoke) and regions with additive blending mode (e.g. flame and glitter effects) to be encoded within the same image. This is represented by an RGBA triplet that express emission with no occlusion, such as (0.4, 0.3, 0.2, 0.0).

Another advantage of premultiplied alpha is performance; in certain situations, it can reduce the number of multiplication operations (e.g. if the image is used many times during later compositing). The Porter–Duff operations have a simple form only in premultiplied alpha. Some rendering pipelines expose a "straight alpha" API surface, but converts them into premultiplied alpha for performance.

One disadvantage of premultiplied alpha is that it can reduce the available relative precision in the RGB values when using integer or fixed-point representation for the color components. This may cause a noticeable loss of quality if the color information is later brightened or if the alpha channel is removed. In practice, this is not usually noticeable because during typical composition operations, such as OVER, the influence of the low-precision color information in low-alpha areas on the final output image (after composition) is correspondingly reduced. This loss of precision also makes premultiplied images easier to compress using certain compression schemes, as they do not record the color variations hidden inside transparent regions, and can allocate fewer bits to encode low-alpha areas. The same “limitations” of lower quantisation bit depths such as 8 bit per channel are also present in imagery without alpha, and this argument is problematic as a result.

Examples
Assuming that the pixel color is expressed using straight (non-premultiplied) RGBA tuples, a pixel value of (0, 0.7, 0, 0.5) implies a pixel that has 70% of the maximum green intensity and 50% opacity. If the color were fully green, its RGBA would be (0, 1, 0, 0.5). However, if this pixel uses premultiplied alpha, all of the RGB values (0, 0.7, 0) are multiplied, or scaled for occlusion, by the alpha value 0.5, which is appended to yield (0, 0.35, 0, 0.5). In this case, the 0.35 value for the G channel actually indicates 70% green emission intensity (with 50% occlusion). A pure green emission would be encoded as (0, 0.5, 0, 0.5). Knowing whether a file uses straight or premultiplied alpha is essential to correctly process or composite it, as a different calculation is required.

Emission with no occlusion cannot be represented in straight alpha. No conversion is available in this case.

Image formats supporting alpha channels
The most popular image formats that support the alpha channel are PNG and TIFF. GIF supports alpha channels, but is considered to be inefficient when it comes to file size. Support for alpha channels is present in some video codecs, such as Animation and Apple ProRes 4444 of the QuickTime format, or in the Techsmith multi-format codec.

The file format BMP generally does not support this channel; however, in different formats such as 32-bit (888-8) or 16-bit (444-4) it is possible to save the alpha channel, although not all systems or programs are able to read it: it is exploited mainly in some video games or particular applications; specific programs have also been created for the creation of these BMPs.

Gamma correction

The RGB values of typical digital images do not directly correspond to the physical light intensities, but are rather compressed by a gamma correction function:

 * $$C_\text{encoded} = C_\text{linear}^{1/\gamma}$$

This transformation better utilizes the limited number of bits in the encoded image by choosing $$\gamma$$ that better matches the non-linear human perception of luminance.

Accordingly, computer programs that deal with such images must decode the RGB values into a linear space (by undoing the gamma-compression), blend the linear light intensities, and re-apply the gamma compression to the result:

 * $$C_o = \left(\frac{ C_a^\gamma \alpha_a + C_b^\gamma \alpha_b (1 - \alpha_a)  }{\alpha_o}\right)^{1/\gamma}$$

When combined with premultiplied alpha, pre-multiplication is done in linear space, prior to gamma compression. This results in the following formula:

 * $$C_o = \left( C_a^\gamma + C_b^\gamma (1 - \alpha_a) \right)^{1/\gamma}$$

Note that the alpha channel may or may not undergo gamma-correction, even when the color channels do.

Other transparency methods
Although used for similar purposes, transparent colors and image masks do not permit the smooth blending of the superimposed image pixels with those of the background (only whole image pixels or whole background pixels allowed).

A similar effect can be achieved with a 1-bit alpha channel, as found in the 16-bit RGBA high color mode of the Truevision TGA image file format and related TARGA and AT-Vista/NU-Vista display adapters' high color graphic mode. This mode devotes 5 bits for every primary RGB color (15-bit RGB) plus a remaining bit as the "alpha channel".

Dithering can be used to simulate partial occlusion where only 1-bit alpha is available.

For some applications, a single alpha channel is not sufficient: a stained-glass window, for instance, requires a separate transparency channel for each RGB channel to model the red, green and blue transparency separately. More alpha channels can be added for accurate spectral color filtration applications.

Some order-independent transparency methods replace the over operator with a commutative approximation.

title: Alpha compositing


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Array (data structure)

In computer science, an array is a data structure consisting of a collection of elements (values or variables), of same memory size, each identified by at least one array index or key. An array is stored such that the position of each element can be computed from its index tuple by a mathematical formula. The simplest type of data structure is a linear array, also called one-dimensional array.

For example, an array of ten 32-bit (4-byte) integer variables, with indices 0 through 9, may be stored as ten words at memory addresses 2000, 2004, 2008, ..., 2036, (in hexadecimal:,  ,  , ...,  ) so that the element with index i has the address 2000 + (i × 4). The memory address of the first element of an array is called first address, foundation address, or base address.

Because the mathematical concept of a matrix can be represented as a two-dimensional grid, two-dimensional arrays are also sometimes called "matrices". In some cases the term "vector" is used in computing to refer to an array, although tuples rather than vectors are the more mathematically correct equivalent. Tables are often implemented in the form of arrays, especially lookup tables; the word "table" is sometimes used as a synonym of array.

Arrays are among the oldest and most important data structures, and are used by almost every program. They are also used to implement many other data structures, such as lists and strings. They effectively exploit the addressing logic of computers. In most modern computers and many external storage devices, the memory is a one-dimensional array of words, whose indices are their addresses. Processors, especially vector processors, are often optimized for array operations.

Arrays are useful mostly because the element indices can be computed at run time. Among other things, this feature allows a single iterative statement to process arbitrarily many elements of an array. For that reason, the elements of an array data structure are required to have the same size and should use the same data representation. The set of valid index tuples and the addresses of the elements (and hence the element addressing formula) are usually, but not always, fixed while the array is in use.

The term "array" may also refer to an array data type, a kind of data type provided by most high-level programming languages that consists of a collection of values or variables that can be selected by one or more indices computed at run-time. Array types are often implemented by array structures; however, in some languages they may be implemented by hash tables, linked lists, search trees, or other data structures.

The term is also used, especially in the description of algorithms, to mean associative array or "abstract array", a theoretical computer science model (an abstract data type or ADT) intended to capture the essential properties of arrays.

History
The first digital computers used machine-language programming to set up and access array structures for data tables, vector and matrix computations, and for many other purposes. John von Neumann wrote the first array-sorting program (merge sort) in 1945, during the building of the first stored-program computer. Array indexing was originally done by self-modifying code, and later using index registers and indirect addressing. Some mainframes designed in the 1960s, such as the Burroughs B5000 and its successors, used memory segmentation to perform index-bounds checking in hardware.

Assembly languages generally have no special support for arrays, other than what the machine itself provides. The earliest high-level programming languages, including FORTRAN (1957), Lisp (1958), COBOL (1960), and ALGOL 60 (1960), had support for multi-dimensional arrays, and so has C (1972). In C++ (1983), class templates exist for multi-dimensional arrays whose dimension is fixed at runtime as well as for runtime-flexible arrays.

Applications
Arrays are used to implement mathematical vectors and matrices, as well as other kinds of rectangular tables. Many databases, small and large, consist of (or include) one-dimensional arrays whose elements are records.

Arrays are used to implement other data structures, such as lists, heaps, hash tables, deques, queues, stacks, strings, and VLists. Array-based implementations of other data structures are frequently simple and space-efficient (implicit data structures), requiring little space overhead, but may have poor space complexity, particularly when modified, compared to tree-based data structures (compare a sorted array to a search tree).

One or more large arrays are sometimes used to emulate in-program dynamic memory allocation, particularly memory pool allocation. Historically, this has sometimes been the only way to allocate "dynamic memory" portably.

Arrays can be used to determine partial or complete control flow in programs, as a compact alternative to (otherwise repetitive) multiple  statements. They are known in this context as control tables and are used in conjunction with a purpose built interpreter whose control flow is altered according to values contained in the array. The array may contain subroutine pointers (or relative subroutine numbers that can be acted upon by SWITCH statements) that direct the path of the execution.

Element identifier and addressing formulas
When data objects are stored in an array, individual objects are selected by an index that is usually a non-negative scalar integer. Indexes are also called subscripts. An index maps the array value to a stored object.

There are three ways in which the elements of an array can be indexed:

 * 0 (zero-based indexing): The first element of the array is indexed by subscript of 0.
 * 1 (one-based indexing): The first element of the array is indexed by subscript of 1.
 * n (n-based indexing): The base index of an array can be freely chosen. Usually programming languages allowing n-based indexing also allow negative index values and other scalar data types like enumerations, or characters may be used as an array index.

Using zero based indexing is the design choice of many influential programming languages, including C, Java and Lisp. This leads to simpler implementation where the subscript refers to an offset from the starting position of an array, so the first element has an offset of zero.

Arrays can have multiple dimensions, thus it is not uncommon to access an array using multiple indices. For example, a two-dimensional array  with three rows and four columns might provide access to the element at the 2nd row and 4th column by the expression   in the case of a zero-based indexing system. Thus two indices are used for a two-dimensional array, three for a three-dimensional array, and n for an n-dimensional array.

The number of indices needed to specify an element is called the dimension, dimensionality, or rank of the array.

In standard arrays, each index is restricted to a certain range of consecutive integers (or consecutive values of some enumerated type), and the address of an element is computed by a "linear" formula on the indices.

One-dimensional arrays
A one-dimensional array (or single dimension array) is a type of linear array. Accessing its elements involves a single subscript which can either represent a row or column index.

As an example consider the C declaration  which declares a one-dimensional array of ten integers. Here, the array can store ten elements of type. This array has indices starting from zero through nine. For example, the expressions  and   are the first and last elements respectively.

For a vector with linear addressing, the element with index i is located at the address B + c · i, where B is a fixed base address and c a fixed constant, sometimes called the address increment or stride.

If the valid element indices begin at 0, the constant B is simply the address of the first element of the array. For this reason, the C programming language specifies that array indices always begin at 0; and many programmers will call that element "zeroth" rather than "first".

However, one can choose the index of the first element by an appropriate choice of the base address B. For example, if the array has five elements, indexed 1 through 5, and the base address B is replaced by B + 30c, then the indices of those same elements will be 31 to 35. If the numbering does not start at 0, the constant B may not be the address of any element.

Multidimensional arrays
For a multidimensional array, the element with indices i,j would have address B + c · i + d · j, where the coefficients c and d are the row and column address increments, respectively.

More generally, in a k-dimensional array, the address of an element with indices i1, i2, ..., ik is
 * B + c1 · i1 + c2 · i2 + … + ck · ik.

For example: int a[2][3];

This means that array a has 2 rows and 3 columns, and the array is of integer type. Here we can store 6 elements they will be stored linearly but starting from first row linear then continuing with second row. The above array will be stored as a11, a12, a13, a21, a22, a23.

This formula requires only k multiplications and k additions, for any array that can fit in memory. Moreover, if any coefficient is a fixed power of 2, the multiplication can be replaced by bit shifting.

The coefficients ck must be chosen so that every valid index tuple maps to the address of a distinct element.

If the minimum legal value for every index is 0, then B is the address of the element whose indices are all zero. As in the one-dimensional case, the element indices may be changed by changing the base address B. Thus, if a two-dimensional array has rows and columns indexed from 1 to 10 and 1 to 20, respectively, then replacing B by B + c1 − 3c2 will cause them to be renumbered from 0 through 9 and 4 through 23, respectively. Taking advantage of this feature, some languages (like FORTRAN 77) specify that array indices begin at 1, as in mathematical tradition while other languages (like Fortran 90, Pascal and Algol) let the user choose the minimum value for each index.

Dope vectors
The addressing formula is completely defined by the dimension d, the base address B, and the increments c1, c2, ..., ck. It is often useful to pack these parameters into a record called the array's descriptor or stride vector or dope vector. The size of each element, and the minimum and maximum values allowed for each index may also be included in the dope vector. The dope vector is a complete handle for the array, and is a convenient way to pass arrays as arguments to procedures. Many useful array slicing operations (such as selecting a sub-array, swapping indices, or reversing the direction of the indices) can be performed very efficiently by manipulating the dope vector.

Compact layouts
Often the coefficients are chosen so that the elements occupy a contiguous area of memory. However, that is not necessary. Even if arrays are always created with contiguous elements, some array slicing operations may create non-contiguous sub-arrays from them.

There are two systematic compact layouts for a two-dimensional array. For example, consider the matrix
 * $$A =

\begin{bmatrix} 1 & 2 & 3 \\   4 & 5 & 6 \\    7 & 8 & 9  \end{bmatrix}. $$

In the row-major order layout (adopted by C for statically declared arrays), the elements in each row are stored in consecutive positions and all of the elements of a row have a lower address than any of the elements of a consecutive row:
 * {| class="wikitable"

 * 1 || 2 || 3 || 4 || 5 || 6 || 7 || 8 || 9
 * }
 * }

In column-major order (traditionally used by Fortran), the elements in each column are consecutive in memory and all of the elements of a column have a lower address than any of the elements of a consecutive column:
 * {| class="wikitable"

 * 1 || 4 || 7 || 2 || 5 || 8 || 3 || 6 || 9
 * }
 * }

For arrays with three or more indices, "row major order" puts in consecutive positions any two elements whose index tuples differ only by one in the last index. "Column major order" is analogous with respect to the first index.

In systems which use processor cache or virtual memory, scanning an array is much faster if successive elements are stored in consecutive positions in memory, rather than sparsely scattered. This is known as spatial locality, which is a type of locality of reference. Many algorithms that use multidimensional arrays will scan them in a predictable order. A programmer (or a sophisticated compiler) may use this information to choose between row- or column-major layout for each array. For example, when computing the product A·B of two matrices, it would be best to have A stored in row-major order, and B in column-major order.

Resizing
Static arrays have a size that is fixed when they are created and consequently do not allow elements to be inserted or removed. However, by allocating a new array and copying the contents of the old array to it, it is possible to effectively implement a dynamic version of an array; see dynamic array. If this operation is done infrequently, insertions at the end of the array require only amortized constant time.

Some array data structures do not reallocate storage, but do store a count of the number of elements of the array in use, called the count or size. This effectively makes the array a dynamic array with a fixed maximum size or capacity; Pascal strings are examples of this.

Non-linear formulas
More complicated (non-linear) formulas are occasionally used. For a compact two-dimensional triangular array, for instance, the addressing formula is a polynomial of degree 2.

Efficiency
Both store and select take (deterministic worst case) constant time. Arrays take linear (O(n)) space in the number of elements n that they hold.

In an array with element size k and on a machine with a cache line size of B bytes, iterating through an array of n elements requires the minimum of ceiling(nk/B) cache misses, because its elements occupy contiguous memory locations. This is roughly a factor of B/k better than the number of cache misses needed to access n elements at random memory locations. As a consequence, sequential iteration over an array is noticeably faster in practice than iteration over many other data structures, a property called locality of reference (this does not mean however, that using a perfect hash or trivial hash within the same (local) array, will not be even faster - and achievable in constant time). Libraries provide low-level optimized facilities for copying ranges of memory (such as memcpy) which can be used to move contiguous blocks of array elements significantly faster than can be achieved through individual element access. The speedup of such optimized routines varies by array element size, architecture, and implementation.

Memory-wise, arrays are compact data structures with no per-element overhead. There may be a per-array overhead (e.g., to store index bounds) but this is language-dependent. It can also happen that elements stored in an array require less memory than the same elements stored in individual variables, because several array elements can be stored in a single word; such arrays are often called packed arrays. An extreme (but commonly used) case is the bit array, where every bit represents a single element. A single octet can thus hold up to 256 different combinations of up to 8 different conditions, in the most compact form.

Array accesses with statically predictable access patterns are a major source of data parallelism.

Comparison with other data structures
Dynamic arrays or growable arrays are similar to arrays but add the ability to insert and delete elements; adding and deleting at the end is particularly efficient. However, they reserve linear (Θ(n)) additional storage, whereas arrays do not reserve additional storage.

Associative arrays provide a mechanism for array-like functionality without huge storage overheads when the index values are sparse. For example, an array that contains values only at indexes 1 and 2 billion may benefit from using such a structure. Specialized associative arrays with integer keys include Patricia tries, Judy arrays, and van Emde Boas trees.

Balanced trees require O(log n) time for indexed access, but also permit inserting or deleting elements in O(log n) time, whereas growable arrays require linear (Θ(n)) time to insert or delete elements at an arbitrary position.

Linked lists allow constant time removal and insertion in the middle but take linear time for indexed access. Their memory use is typically worse than arrays, but is still linear.

An Iliffe vector is an alternative to a multidimensional array structure. It uses a one-dimensional array of references to arrays of one dimension less. For two dimensions, in particular, this alternative structure would be a vector of pointers to vectors, one for each row(pointer on c or c++). Thus an element in row i and column j of an array A would be accessed by double indexing (A[i][j] in typical notation). This alternative structure allows jagged arrays, where each row may have a different size—or, in general, where the valid range of each index depends on the values of all preceding indices. It also saves one multiplication (by the column address increment) replacing it by a bit shift (to index the vector of row pointers) and one extra memory access (fetching the row address), which may be worthwhile in some architectures.

Dimension
The dimension of an array is the number of indices needed to select an element. Thus, if the array is seen as a function on a set of possible index combinations, it is the dimension of the space of which its domain is a discrete subset. Thus a one-dimensional array is a list of data, a two-dimensional array is a rectangle of data, a three-dimensional array a block of data, etc.

This should not be confused with the dimension of the set of all matrices with a given domain, that is, the number of elements in the array. For example, an array with 5 rows and 4 columns is two-dimensional, but such matrices form a 20-dimensional space. Similarly, a three-dimensional vector can be represented by a one-dimensional array of size three.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Array (data structure)


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Advance Australia Fair

"Advance Australia Fair" is the national anthem of Australia. Written by Scottish-born Australian composer Peter Dodds McCormick, the song was first performed as a patriotic song in Australia in 1878. It replaced "God Save the Queen" as the official national anthem in 1974, following a nationwide opinion survey, only for "God Save the Queen" to be reinstated in January 1976. However, a plebiscite to choose the national song in 1977 preferred "Advance Australia Fair", which was in turn reinstated as the national anthem in 1984. "God Save the Queen" became the royal anthem (later "God Save the King" on the accession of King Charles III), and is used at public engagements attended by the King or members of the monarchy of Australia. The lyrics of the 1984 version of "Advance Australia Fair" were modified from McCormick's original and its verses were trimmed down from four to two. In January 2021, the official lyrics were changed once again, in recognition of the long habitation of Indigenous Australians.

Origin
"Advance Australia Fair" was published in early December 1878 by Scottish-born Australian composer Peter Dodds McCormick (1833–1916) under the pen-name "Amicus" (which means "friend" in Latin). It was first sung by Andrew Fairfax, accompanied by a concert band conducted by McCormick, at a function of the Highland Society of New South Wales in Sydney on 30 November 1878 (Saint Andrew's Day). The song gained in popularity and an amended version was sung by a choir of around 10,000 at the inauguration of the Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901. In 1907 the Australian Government awarded McCormick £100 for his composition.

In a letter to R.B. Fuller dated 1 August 1913, McCormick described the circumstances that inspired him to write "Advance Australia Fair" to be sung by a large choir with band accompaniment. McCormick had attended a concert at Sydney's Exhibition Building where various national anthems were played.

"This was very nicely done, but I felt very aggravated that there was not one note for Australia. On the way home in a bus, I concocted the first verse of my song & when I got home I set it to music. I first wrote it in the Tonic Sol-fa notation, then transcribed it into the Old Notation, & I tried it over on an instrument next morning, & found it correct. Strange to say there has not been a note of it altered since. Some alteration has been made in the wording, but the sense is the same. It seemed to me to be like an inspiration, & I wrote the words & music with the greatest ease."

The earliest known sound recording of "Advance Australia Fair" appears in The Landing of the Australian Troops in Egypt (c. 1916), a short commercial recording dramatizing the arrival of Australian troops in Egypt en route to Gallipoli.

Before its adoption as Australia's national anthem, "Advance Australia Fair" had considerable use elsewhere. For example, Australia's national broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Commission, used it to announce its radio news bulletins from 1942 to 1952. It was also frequently played at the start or end of official functions. Towards the end of World War II it was one of three songs played in certain picture theatres, along with "God Save the King" and the US national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner.

Influence
Other songs and marches have been influenced by "Advance Australia Fair", such as the Australian vice-regal salute.

Competitions, plebiscite and adoption
In 1973, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and his government, desiring to forge a new nationalism separate from the United Kingdom, decided that Australia needed a national anthem that could represent the country with "distinction", and they held a competition to find one to replace the existing anthem, "God Save the Queen". In January of that year, Whitlam dedicated an entire Australia Day speech to the search for a new anthem, referring to it as a "symbolic expression of our national pride and dignity". The Australia Council for the Arts organised the contest, which was dubbed the "Australian National Anthem Quest". The contest was held in two stages, the first seeking lyrics and the second music, each having a large prize of A$5,000 for the winning entry. Despite around the 2500 entries received for lyrics and 1300 for music, the Council for the Arts could only produce a shortlist of 6 lyrics and no music, reduced from the 12 originally requested. The lyrics selected were "We'll Keep the Faith", "Advance, Australia", "Song of Australia" and three untitled verses. The songs were not well received, with judge David Williamson stating "if you think these are bad, you should have seen the rest of the 2500 or so we rejected". Ultimately, the government did not include any of the new entries in the final vote, with the poll only including "Advance Australia Fair", "Waltzing Matilda" and "The Song of Australia".

In 1974 the Whitlam government performed a nationwide opinion survey to determine the song to be sung on occasions of national significance. Conducted through the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the survey polled 60,000 people (0.05% of Australians at the time) nationally. "Advance Australia Fair" was chosen by 51.4% of respondents and, on 9 April 1974, Whitlam announced in parliament that it was the national anthem. It was to be used on all occasions excepting those of a specifically regal nature. A spokesman for Whitlam later stated that the Government regarded the tune, primarily, as the national anthem. The choice came under attack almost immediately, with an editorial noting that "For Australians, the only consolation is that there will be very few occasions when the words are sung," and the Anglican Dean of Sydney commenting "This second-rate secular song is completely inappropriate for use in churches." Officials in four states said that Advance Australia Fair would not be played at official functions and that "God Save the Queen" would not be replaced, with Sir Harry Budd of New South Wales saying that the lyrics "are foolish and banal and their sentiments ridiculous." During the 1975 election campaign following the dismissal of Whitlam by Sir John Kerr, David Combe proposed that the song be played at the start of the Labor Party's official campaign launch on 24 November 1975 at Festival Hall, Melbourne. Whitlam's speechwriter Graham Freudenberg rejected this idea because, among other reasons, the status of the anthem at that point was still tentative.

On 22 January 1976 the Fraser government reinstated "God Save the Queen" as the national anthem for use at royal, vice-regal, defence and loyal toast occasions. Fraser stated that "Advance Australia Fair", "Song of Australia" or "Waltzing Matilda" could be used for non-regal occasions. This choice was also mocked, with The Age declaring the new anthem as "God Save Australia's Fair Matilda". His government made plans to conduct a national poll to find a song for use on ceremonial occasions when it was desired to mark a separate Australian identity. This was conducted as a plebiscite to choose the National Song, held as an optional additional question in the 1977 referendum on various issues. On 23 May the government announced the results, "Advance Australia Fair" received 43.29% of the vote, defeating the three alternatives, "Waltzing Matilda" (28.28%), "The Song of Australia" (9.65%) and the existing national anthem, "God Save the Queen" (18.78%).

"Advance Australia Fair", with modified lyrics and reduced to two verses (see development of lyrics), was adopted as the Australian national anthem by the Labor government of Bob Hawke, coming into effect on 19 April 1984. At the same time, "God Save the King/Queen" became known as the royal anthem, and continues to be played alongside the Australian national anthem at public engagements in Australia that are attended by the King or any other members of the Royal Family.

Even though any personal copyright of Peter Dodds McCormick's original lyrics has expired, as he died in 1916, the Commonwealth of Australia claims copyright on the official lyrics and particular arrangements of music. Non-commercial use of the anthem is permitted without case-by-case permission, but the Commonwealth government requires permission for commercial use.

The orchestral arrangement of "Advance Australia Fair" that is now regularly played for Australian victories at international sporting medal ceremonies, and at the openings of major domestic sporting, cultural and community events, is by Tommy Tycho, an immigrant from Hungary. It was commissioned by ABC Music in 1984 and then televised by Channel 10 in 1986 in their Australia Day broadcast, featuring Julie Anthony as the soloist.

Legislative basis
The national anthem was changed on 1 January 2021 by proclamation of the Governor-General on the advice of the Federal Executive Council. The change prior to that was on 19 April 1984.

Lyrics
The lyrics of "Advance Australia Fair", as modified by the National Australia Day Council, were officially adopted in April 1984. The lyrics were updated on 1 January 2021 in an attempt to recognise the legacy of Indigenous Australians, with the word "one" in the second line replacing the previous "young". The lyrics are now as follows:

I Australians all let us rejoice, For we are one and free; We've golden soil and wealth for toil, Our home is girt by sea; Our land abounds in Nature's gifts Of beauty rich and rare; In history's page, let every stage Advance Australia fair! In joyful strains then let us sing, Advance Australia fair! II Beneath our radiant Southern Cross, We'll toil with hearts and hands; To make this Commonwealth of ours Renowned of all the lands; For those who've come across the seas We've boundless plains to share; With courage let us all combine To advance Australia fair. In joyful strains then let us sing Advance Australia fair!

Development of lyrics
Since the original lyrics were written in 1878, there have been several changes, in some cases with the intent of altering the anthem's political focus especially in regard to gender neutrality and Indigenous Australians. Some of these have been minor while others have significantly altered the song. The original song was four verses long. For its 1984 adoption as the national anthem, the song was cut from the four verses to two. The first verse was kept largely as the 1878 original, except for the change in the first line from " let us rejoice" to " let us rejoice". The second, third and fourth verses of the original were dropped, in favour of a modified version of the new third verse which was sung at Federation in 1901.

The lyrics published in the second edition (1879) were as follows:

I Australia's sons let us rejoice, For we are young and free; We've golden soil and wealth for toil, Our home is girt by sea; Our land abounds in nature's gifts Of beauty rich and rare; In history's page, let every stage Advance Australia fair. In joyful strains let us sing, Advance, Australia fair. II When gallant Cook from Albion sail'd, To trace wide oceans o'er, True British courage bore him on, Til he landed on our shore. Then here he raised Old England's flag, The standard of the brave; "With all her faults we love her still" "Britannia rules the wave." In joyful strains then let us sing, Advance, Australia fair. III While other nations of the globe Behold us from afar, We'll rise to high renown and shine Like our glorious southern star; From England soil and Fatherland, Scotia and Erin fair, Let all combine with heart and hand To advance Australia fair. In joyful strains then let us sing Advance, Australia fair. IV Should foreign foe e'er sight our coast, Or dare a foot to land, We'll rouse to arms like sires of yore, To guard our native strand; Britannia then shall surely know, Though oceans roll between, Her sons in fair Australia's land Still keep their courage green. In joyful strains then let us sing Advance Australia fair.

The 1901 Federation version of the third verse was originally sung as:

III Beneath our radiant Southern Cross, We'll toil with hearts and hands; To make our youthful Commonwealth, Renowned of all the lands; For loyal sons beyond the seas We've boundless plains to share; With courage let us all combine To advance Australia fair. In joyful strains then let us sing Advance Australia fair!

The lyrics of "Advance Australia Fair", as modified by the National Australia Day Council and officially adopted on 19 April 1984, were as follows:

I Australians all let us rejoice, For we are young and free; We've golden soil and wealth for toil; Our home is girt by sea; Our land abounds in nature's gifts Of beauty rich and rare; In history's page, let every stage Advance Australia Fair. In joyful strains then let us sing, Advance Australia Fair. II Beneath our radiant Southern Cross We'll toil with hearts and hands; To make this Commonwealth of ours Renowned of all the lands; For those who've come across the seas We've boundless plains to share; With courage let us all combine To Advance Australia Fair. In joyful strains then let us sing, Advance Australia Fair.

These lyrics were updated on 1 January 2021 to the current version, in which "young" in the second line is replaced with "one" to reflect the pre-colonial presence of Indigenous Australians, who have lived in Australia much longer than Europeans.

General criticism
In May 1976, after reinstating "God Save the Queen", Fraser advised the Australian Olympic Federation to use "Waltzing Matilda" as the national anthem for the forthcoming Montreal Olympic Games. Fraser responded to criticism of "Waltzing Matilda" compared with "Advance Australia Fair", and countered, "in the second verse... we find these words, 'Britannia rules the waves'." Despite the outcome of the 1977 plebiscite to choose the National Song favouring "Advance Australia Fair", successive Fraser Ministries did not implement the change.

The fourth line of the anthem, "our home is girt by sea", has been criticised for using the so-called archaic word "girt". Additionally, the lyrics and melody of the Australian national anthem have been criticised in some quarters as being dull and unendearing to the Australian people. National Party senator Sandy Macdonald said in 2001 that "'Advance Australia Fair' is so boring that the nation risks singing itself to sleep, with boring music and words impossible to understand".

Political sentiment is divided. Craig Emerson of the Australian Labor Party has critiqued the anthem, former MP Peter Slipper has said that Australia should consider another anthem, in 2011 former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett suggested "I Am Australian", while former Australian Labor Party leader Kim Beazley defended it.

Recognition of Indigenous Australians
The song has been criticised for failing to represent or acknowledge Australia's Indigenous peoples and aspects of the country's colonial past, leading to modification. The lyrics have been accused of celebrating British colonisation and perpetuating the concept of terra nullius; the now-changed second line of the anthem ("for we are young and free") was criticised in particular for ignoring the long history of Indigenous Australians. It has also been suggested that the word "fair" celebrates the "civilising" mission of British colonists.

Since about 2015, public debate about the anthem has increased. Boxer Anthony Mundine stated in 2013, 2017 and 2018 that he would not stand for the anthem, prompting organisers not to play it before his fights. In September 2018 a 9-year-old Brisbane girl was disciplined by her school after refusing to stand for the national anthem; her actions were applauded by some public commenters, and criticised by others. In 2019, several National Rugby League football players decided not to sing the anthem before the first match of the State of Origin series and before the Indigenous All-Stars series with New Zealand; NRL coach and celebrated former player Mal Meninga supported the protesting players and called for a referendum on the subject.

Several alternative versions of "Advance Australia Fair" have been proposed to address the alleged exclusion of Indigenous Australians. Judith Durham of The Seekers and Mutti Mutti musician Kutcha Edwards released their alternative lyrics in 2009, replacing "for we are young and free" with the opening lines "Australians let us stand as one, upon this sacred land". In 2015, Aboriginal Australian soprano Deborah Cheetham declined an invitation to sing the anthem at the 2015 AFL grand final after the AFL turned down her request to replace the words "for we are young and free" with "in peace and harmony". She has advocated for the lyrics being rewritten and endorsed Durham and Edwards' alternative version.

In 2017 the Recognition in Anthem Project was established and began work on a new version, with lyrics written by poet and former Victorian Supreme Court judge Peter Vickery following consultation with Indigenous communities and others. Vickery's proposed lyrics replaced "we are young and free" with "we are one and free" in the first verse, deleted the second and added two new ones; the second verse acknowledging Indigenous history, immigration and calls for unity and respect, and the third adapting lines from the official second verse. It was debuted at the Desert Song Festival in Alice Springs by an Aboriginal choir. Former prime minister Bob Hawke endorsed Vickery's alternative lyrics in 2018. In 2017, the federal government under then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull granted permission for Vickery's lyrics to be sung at certain occasions as a "patriotic song", but said that before making any official change to the anthem, "The Government would need to be convinced of a sufficient groundswell of support in the wider community".

In November 2020, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian proposed changing one word in the opening couplet, from "we are young and free" to "we are one and free", to acknowledge Australia's Indigenous history. The proposal was supported by the federal Minister for Indigenous Australians, Ken Wyatt, and in December 2020 Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that this change would be adopted from 1 January 2021, having received approval from Governor-General David Hurley. The new wording was highlighted in the No case of the official referendum pamphlet of the Voice to Parliament referendum to support arguments against purported "divisive" constitutional changes.

Dharawal lyrics
Lyrics for the anthem have been written twice in the Dharug language, an Australian Aboriginal language spoken around Sydney by the Dharawal people.

A first version was first performed in July 2010, at a Rugby League State of Origin match in Sydney, though there was some opposition:

In December 2020, another setting, in Dharug, followed by the anthem in English, was sung before a Rugby Union international between Australia and Argentina:

Other unofficial variants
In 2011, about fifty different Christian schools from different denominations came under criticism for singing an unofficial version of the song written by the Sri Lankan immigrant Ruth Ponniah in 1988. The song replaced the official second verse of "Advance Australia Fair" with lyrics that were Christian in nature.

"With Christ our head and cornerstone, we'll build our nation's might;

Whose way and truth and light alone, can guide our path aright;

Our lives a sacrifice of love, reflect our master's care;

With faces turned to heav'n above, Advance Australia Fair;

In joyful strains then let us sing, Advance Australia Fair."

Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth Peter Garrett and chief executive of the National Australia Day Council Warren Pearson admonished the schools for modifying the lyrics of the anthem, and the Australian Parents Council and the Federation of Parents and Citizens' Association of NSW called for a ban on the modified song. Stephen O'Doherty, chief executive of Christian Schools Australia, defended the use of the lyrics in response.

title: Advance Australia Fair


text:
Automatic number announcement circuit

An automatic number announcement circuit (ANAC) is a component of a central office of a telephone company that provides a service to installation and service technicians to determine the telephone number of a telephone line. The facility has a telephone number that may be called to listen to an automatic announcement that includes the caller's telephone number. The ANAC facility is useful primarily during the installation of landline telephones to quickly identify one of multiple wire pairs in a bundle or at a termination point.

Operation
By connecting a test telephone set, a technician calls the local telephone number of the automatic number announcement service. This call is connected to equipment at the central office that uses automatic equipment to announce the telephone number of the line calling in. The main purpose of this system is to allow telephone company technicians to identify the telephone line they are connected to.

Automatic number announcement systems are based on automatic number identification. They are intended for use by phone company technicians, the ANAC system bypasses customer features, such as unlisted numbers, caller ID blocking, and outgoing call blocking. Installers of multi-line business services where outgoing calls from all lines display the company's main number on call display can use ANAC to identify a specific line in the system, even if CID displays every line as "line one".

Most ANAC systems are provider-specific in each wire center, while others are regional or state-/province- or area-code-wide. No official lists of ANAC numbers are published, as telephone companies guard against abuse that would interfere with availability for installers.

Exchange prefixes for testing
The North American Numbering Plan reserves the exchange (central office) prefixes 958 and 959 for plant testing purposes. Code 959 with three or four additional digits is dedicated for access to office test lines in local exchange carrier and interoffice carrier central offices. The specifications define several test features for line conditions, such as quiet line and busy line, and test tones transmitted to callers. Telephone numbers are assigned for ring back to test the ringer when installing telephone sets, milliwatt tone (a number simply answers with a continuous test tone) and a loop around (which connects a call to another inbound call to the same or another test number).

ANAC services are typically installed in the 958 range, which is intended for communications between central offices. In some area codes, multiple additional prefixes may be reserved for test purposes. Many area codes reserved 999; 320 was also formerly reserved in Bell Canada territory.

Other carrier-specific North American test numbers include 555-XXXX numbers (such as 555-0311 on Rogers Communications in Canada) or vertical service codes, such as *99 on Cablevision/Optimum Voice in the United States. MCI Inc. (United States) provides ANI information by dialing 800-444-4444.

Telephone numbers
Plant testing telephone numbers are carrier-specific, there is no comprehensive list of telephone numbers for ANAC services. In some communities, test numbers change relatively often. In others, a major incumbent carrier might assign a single number which provides test functions on its network across an entire numbering plan area, throughout an entire province or state, or system-wide.

Some telecommunication carriers maintain toll-free numbers for ANAC facilities. Some national toll-free numbers provide automatic number identification by speaking the telephone number of the caller, but these are not intended for use in identifying the customer's own phone number. They are used for the agent in a call center to confirm the telephone a customer is calling from, so that the customer's account information can be displayed as a "screen pop" for the next available customer service representative.

title: Automatic number announcement circuit


text:
Amerigo Vespucci

Amerigo Vespucci (, ; 9 March 1451 – 22 February 1512) was an Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Florence, from whose name the term "America" is derived.

Between 1497 and 1504, Vespucci participated in at least two voyages of the Age of Discovery, first on behalf of Spain (1499–1500) and then for Portugal (1501–1502). In 1503 and 1505, two booklets were published under his name, containing colourful descriptions of these explorations and other alleged voyages. Both publications were extremely popular and widely read across much of Europe. Although historians still dispute the authorship and veracity of these accounts, at the time they were instrumental in raising awareness of the new discoveries and enhancing the reputation of Vespucci as an explorer and navigator.

Vespucci claimed to have understood, back in 1501 during his Portuguese expedition, that Brazil was part of a fourth continent unknown to Europeans, which he called the "New World". The claim inspired cartographer Martin Waldseemüller to recognize Vespucci's accomplishments in 1507 by applying the Latinized form "America" for the first time to a map showing the New World. Other cartographers followed suit, and by 1538 the name America was permanently affixed to the newly discovered continents.

It is unknown whether Vespucci was ever aware of these honours. In 1505, he was made a subject of Castile by royal decree and in 1508, he was appointed to the newly created position of piloto mayor (master navigator) for Spain's Casa de Contratación (House of Trade) in Seville, a post he held until his death in 1512.

Biography

Vespucci was born on 9 March 1451, in Florence, a wealthy Italian city-state and a center of Renaissance art and learning.

Family and education
Amerigo Vespucci was the third son of Nastagio Vespucci, a Florentine notary for the Money-Changers Guild, and Lisa di Giovanni Mini. The family resided in the District of Santa Lucia d'Ognissanti along with other families of the Vespucci clan. Earlier generations of Vespucci had funded a family chapel in the Ognissanti church, and the nearby Hospital of San Giovanni di Dio was founded by Simone di Piero Vespucci in 1380. Vespucci's immediate family was not especially prosperous but they were politically well-connected. Amerigo's grandfather, also named Amerigo Vespucci, served a total of 36 years as the chancellor of the Florentine government, known as the Signoria; and Nastagio also served in the Signoria and in other guild offices. More importantly, the Vespuccis had good relations with Lorenzo de' Medici, the powerful de facto ruler of Florence.

Amerigo's two older brothers, Antonio and Girolamo, were sent to the University of Pisa for their education; Antonio followed his father to become a notary, while Girolamo entered the Church and joined the Knights Hospitaller in Rhodes. Amerigo's career path seemed less certain; instead of following his brothers to the university, he remained in Florence and was tutored by his uncle, Giorgio Antonio Vespucci, a Dominican friar in the monastery of San Marco. Fortunately for Amerigo, his uncle was one of the most celebrated humanist scholars in Florence at the time and provided him with a broad education in literature, philosophy, rhetoric, and Latin. He was also introduced to geography and astronomy, subjects that played an essential part in his career. Amerigo's later writings demonstrated a familiarity with the work of the classic Greek cosmographers, Ptolemy and Strabo, and the more recent work of Florentine astronomer Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli.

Early career
In 1478, Guido Antonio Vespucci led a Florentine diplomatic mission to Paris and invited his younger cousin, Amerigo Vespucci, to join him. Amerigo's role is not clear, but it was likely as an attache or private secretary. Along the way they had business in Bologna, Milan, and Lyon. Their objective in Paris was to obtain French support for Florence's war with Naples. Louis XI was noncommittal and the diplomatic mission returned to Florence in 1481 with little to show for their efforts.

After his return from Paris, Amerigo worked for a time with his father and continued his studies in science. In 1482, when his father died, Amerigo went to work for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, head of a junior branch of the Medici family. Although Amerigo was twelve years older, they had been schoolmates under the tutelage of Giorgio Antonio Vespucci. Amerigo served first as a household manager and then gradually took on increasing responsibilities, handling various business dealings for the family both at home and abroad. Meanwhile, he continued to show an interest in geography, at one point buying an expensive map made by the master cartographer Gabriel de Vallseca.

Seville
In 1488, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco became dissatisfied with his Seville business agent, Tomasso Capponi. He dispatched Vespucci to investigate the situation and provide an assessment of a suggested replacement, Florentine merchant Gianotto Berardi. Vespucci's findings have been lost but Capponi returned to Florence around this time and Berardi took over the Medici business in Seville. In addition to managing Medici's trade in Seville, Berardi had his own business in African slavery and ship chandlery.

By 1492 Vespucci had settled permanently in Seville. His motivations for leaving Florence are unclear; he continued to transact some business on behalf of his Medici patrons but more and more he became involved with Berardi's other activities, most notably his support of Christopher Columbus's voyages. Berardi invested half a million maravedis in Columbus's first voyage, and he won a potentially lucrative contract to provision Columbus's large second fleet. However, profits proved to be elusive. In 1495, Berardi signed a contract with the crown to send 12 resupply ships to Hispaniola but then died unexpectedly in December without completing the terms of the contract.

Vespucci was the executor of Berardi's will, collecting debts and paying outstanding obligations for the firm. Afterwards he was left owing 140,000 maravedis. He continued to provision ships bound for the West Indies, but his opportunities were diminishing; Columbus's expeditions were not providing the hoped-for profits, and his patron, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco Medici, was using other Florentine agents for his business in Seville.

Sometime after he settled in Seville, Vespucci married a Spanish woman, Maria Cerezo. Very little is known about her; Vespucci's will refers to her as the daughter of celebrated military leader Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba. Historian Fernández-Armesto speculates that she may have been Gonzalo's illegitimate offspring and a connection that would have been very useful to Vespucci. She was an active participant in his business and held power of attorney for Vespucci when he was away.

Voyages and alleged voyages

The evidence for Vespucci's voyages of exploration consists almost entirely of a handful of letters written by him or attributed to him. Historians have differed sharply on the authorship, accuracy and veracity of these documents. Consequently, opinions also vary widely regarding the number of voyages undertaken, their routes, and Vespucci's roles and accomplishments. Starting in the late 1490s Vespucci participated in two voyages to the New World that are relatively well-documented in the historical record. Two others have been alleged but the evidence is more problematic. Traditionally, Vespucci's voyages are referred to as the "first" through "fourth", even by historians who dismiss one or more of the trips.

Alleged voyage of 1497–1498
A letter, addressed to Florentine official Piero Soderini, dated 1504 and published the following year, purports to be an account by Vespucci of a voyage to the New World, departing from Spain on 10 May 1497, and returning on 15 October 1498. This is perhaps the most controversial of Vespucci's voyages, as this letter is the only known record of its occurrence, and many historians doubt that it took place as described. Some question the authorship and accuracy of the letter and consider it to be a forgery. Others point to the inconsistencies in the narrative of the voyage, particularly the alleged course, starting near Honduras and proceeding northwest for 870 leagues (about 3190 mi)—a course that would have taken them across Mexico to the Pacific Ocean.

Certain earlier historians, including contemporary Bartolomé de las Casas, suspected that Vespucci incorporated observations from a later voyage into a fictitious account of this supposed first one, so as to gain primacy over Columbus and position himself as the first European explorer to encounter the mainland. Others, including scholar Alberto Magnaghi, have suggested that the Solderini letter was not written by Vespucci at all, but rather by an unknown author who had access to the navigator's private letters to Lorenzo de' Medici about his 1499 and 1501 expeditions to the Americas, which make no mention of a 1497 voyage. The Soderini letter is one of two attributed to Vespucci that were edited and widely circulated during his lifetime.

Voyage of 1499–1500

In 1499, Vespucci joined an expedition licensed by Spain and led by Alonso de Ojeda as fleet commander and Juan de la Cosa as chief navigator. Their intention was to explore the coast of a new landmass found by Columbus on his third voyage and in particular investigate a rich source of pearls that Columbus had reported. Vespucci and his backers financed two of the four ships in the small fleet. His role on the voyage is not clear. Writing later about his experience, Vespucci gave the impression that he had a leadership role, but that is unlikely, due to his inexperience. Instead, he may have served as a commercial representative on behalf of the fleet's investors. Years later, Ojeda recalled that "Morigo Vespuche" was one of his pilots on the expedition.

The vessels left Spain on 18 May 1499 and stopped first in the Canary Islands before reaching South America somewhere near present-day Suriname or French Guiana. From there the fleet split up: Ojeda proceeded northwest toward modern Venezuela with two ships, while the other pair headed south with Vespucci aboard. The only record of the southbound journey comes from Vespucci himself. He assumed they were on the coast of Asia and hoped by heading south they would, according to the Greek geographer Ptolemy, round the unidentified "Cape of Cattigara" and reach the Indian Ocean. They passed two huge rivers (the Amazon and the Para) which poured freshwater 25 mi out to sea. They continued south for another 40 leagues (about 150 mi) before encountering a very strong adverse current which they could not overcome. Forced to turn around, the ships headed north, retracing their course to the original landfall. From there Vespucci continued up the South American coast to the Gulf of Paria and along the shore of what is now Venezuela. At some point they may have rejoined Ojeda but the evidence is unclear. In the late summer, they decided to head north for the Spanish colony at Hispaniola in the West Indies to resupply and repair their ships before heading home. After Hispaniola they made a brief slave raid in the Bahamas, capturing 232 natives, and then returned to Spain.

Voyage of 1501–1502

In 1501, Manuel I of Portugal commissioned an expedition to investigate a landmass far to the west in the Atlantic Ocean encountered unexpectedly by a wayward Pedro Álvares Cabral on his voyage around Africa to India. That land would eventually become present-day Brazil. The king wanted to know the extent of this new discovery and determine where it lay in relation to the line established by the Treaty of Tordesillas. Any land that lay to the east of the line could be claimed by Portugal. Vespucci's reputation as an explorer and presumed navigator had already reached Portugal, and he was hired by the king to serve as pilot under the command of Gonçalo Coelho.

Coelho's fleet of three ships left Lisbon in May 1501. Before crossing the Atlantic they resupplied at Cape Verde, where they encountered Cabral on his way home from his voyage to India. This was the same expedition that had found Brazil on its outward-bound journey the previous year. Coelho left Cape Verde in June, and from this point Vespucci's account is the only surviving record of their explorations. On 17 August 1501 the expedition reached Brazil at a latitude of about 6° south. Upon landing it encountered a hostile band of natives who killed and ate one of its crewmen. Sailing south along the coast they found friendlier natives and were able to engage in some minor trading. At 23° S they found a bay which they named Rio de Janeiro because it was 1 January 1502. On 13 February 1502, they left the coast to return home. Vespucci estimated their latitude at 32° S but experts now estimate they were closer to 25° S. Their homeward journey is unclear since Vespucci left a confusing record of astronomical observations and distances travelled.

Alleged voyage of 1503–1504
In 1503, Vespucci may have participated in a second expedition for the Portuguese crown, again exploring the east coast of Brazil. There is evidence that a voyage was led by Coelho at about this time but no independent confirmation that Vespucci took part. The only source for this last voyage is the Soderini letter; but several modern scholars dispute Vespucci's authorship of that letter and it is uncertain whether Vespucci undertook this trip. There are also difficulties with the reported dates and details in the account of this voyage.

Return to Seville
By early 1505, Vespucci was back in Seville. His reputation as an explorer and navigator continued to grow and his recent service in Portugal did not seem to damage his standing with King Ferdinand. On the contrary, the king was likely interested in learning about the possibility of a western passage to India. In February, he was summoned by the king to consult on matters of navigation. During the next few months he received payments from the crown for his services and in April he was declared by royal proclamation a citizen of Castile and León.

From 1505 until his death in 1512, Vespucci remained in service to the Spanish crown. He continued his work as a chandler, supplying ships bound for the Indies. He was also hired to captain a ship as part of a fleet bound for the "spice islands" but the planned voyage never took place. In March 1508, he was named chief pilot for the Casa de Contratación or House of Commerce which served as a central trading house for Spain's overseas possessions. He was paid an annual salary of 50,000 maravedis with an extra 25,000 for expenses. In his new role, Vespucci was responsible for ensuring that ships' pilots were adequately trained and licensed before sailing to the New World. He was also charged with compiling a "model map" based on input from pilots who were obligated to share what they learned after each voyage.

Vespucci wrote his will in April 1511. He left most of his modest estate, including five household slaves, to his wife. His clothes, books, and navigational equipment were left to his nephew Giovanni Vespucci. He requested to be buried in a Franciscan habit in his wife's family tomb. Vespucci died on 22 February 1512.

Upon his death, Vespucci's wife was awarded an annual pension of 10,000 maravedis to be deducted from the salary of the successor chief pilot. His nephew Giovanni was hired into the Casa de Contratación where he spent his subsequent years spying on behalf of the Florentine state.

Naming of America
"A few days ago I wrote you at some length about my return from those new regions we searched for and found with the fleet, at the expense and by the command of the most serene King of Portugal, and which can properly be called a 'New World', since our forebears had absolutely no knowledge of it, nor do any of those who are hearing about it today...On 7 August 1501, we dropped our anchor off the shores of that new land, thanking God with solemn prayers and the celebration of the Mass. Once there, we determined that the new land was not an island but a continent..."

Vespucci's voyages became widely known in Europe after two accounts attributed to him were published between 1503 and 1505. The Soderini letter (1505) came to the attention of a group of humanist scholars studying geography in Saint-Dié, a small French town in the Duchy of Lorraine. Led by Walter Lud, the academy included Matthias Ringmann and Martin Waldseemüller. In 1506, they obtained a French translation of the Soderini letter as well as a Portuguese maritime map that detailed the coast of lands recently discovered in the western Atlantic. They surmised that this was the "new world" or the "antipodes" hypothesized by classical writers. The Soderini letter gave Vespucci credit for discovery of this new continent and implied that the Portuguese map was based on his explorations.

In April 1507, Ringmann and Waldseemüller published their Introduction to Cosmography with an accompanying world map. The Introduction was written in Latin and included a Latin translation of the Soderini letter. In a preface to the Letter, Ringmann wrote "I see no reason why anyone could properly disapprove of a name derived from that of Amerigo, the discoverer, a man of sagacious genius. A suitable form would be Amerige, meaning Land of Amerigo, or America, since Europe and Asia have received women's names."

A thousand copies of the world map were printed with the title Universal Geography According to the Tradition of Ptolemy and the Contributions of Amerigo Vespucci and Others. It was decorated with prominent portraits of Ptolemy and Vespucci and, for the first time, the name America was applied to a map of the New World.

The Introduction and map were a great success and four editions were printed in the first year alone. The map was widely used in universities and was influential among cartographers who admired the craftsmanship that went into its creation. In the following years, other maps were printed that often incorporated the name America. In 1538, Gerardus Mercator used America to name both the North and South continents on his influential map. By this point the name had been securely fixed on the New World.

In 1513 Waldseemüller published a new map with the New World labelled "Terra Incognita" instead of "America", and the accompanying text names Columbus as discoverer. Many supporters of Columbus felt that Vespucci had stolen an honour that rightfully belonged to Columbus. Most historians now believe that Vespucci was unaware of Waldseemüller's map before his death in 1512 and many assert that he was not even the author of the Soderini letter.

Vespucci letters

Knowledge of Vespucci's voyages relies almost entirely on a handful of letters written by him or attributed to him. Two of these letters were published during his lifetime and received widespread attention throughout Europe. Several scholars now believe that Vespucci did not write the two published letters in the form in which they circulated during his lifetime. They suggest that they were fabrications based in part on genuine Vespucci letters.

 * Mundus Novus (1503) was a letter written to Vespucci's former schoolmate and one-time patron, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici. Originally published in Latin, the letter described his voyage to Brazil in 1501–1502 serving under the Portuguese flag. The document proved to be extremely popular throughout Europe. Within a year of publication, twelve editions were printed including translations into Italian, French, German, Dutch and other languages. By 1550, at least 50 editions had been issued.

 * Letter to Soderini (1505) was a letter ostensibly intended for Piero di Tommaso Soderini, the leader of the Florentine Republic. It was written in Italian and published in Florence around 1505. It is more sensational in tone than the other letters and the only one to assert that Vespucci made four voyages of exploration. The authorship and the veracity of the letter have been widely questioned by modern historians. Nevertheless, this document was the original inspiration for naming the American continent in honour of Amerigo Vespucci.

The remaining documents were unpublished manuscripts; handwritten letters uncovered by researchers more than 250 years after Vespucci's death. After years of controversy, the authenticity of the three complete letters was convincingly demonstrated by Alberto Magnaghi in 1924. Most historians now accept them as the work of Vespucci but aspects of the accounts are still disputed.

 * Letter from Seville (1500) describes a voyage made in 1499–1500 while in the service of Spain. It was first published in 1745 by Angelo Maria Bandini.

 * Letter from Cape Verde (1501) was written in Cape Verde at the outset of a voyage undertaken for Portugal in 1501–1502. It was first published by Count Baldelli Boni in 1807. It describes the first leg of the journey from Lisbon to Cape Verde and provides details about Pedro Cabral's voyage to India which were obtained when the two fleets met by chance while anchored in the harbour at Cape Verde.

 * Letter from Lisbon (1502) is essentially a continuation of the letter started in Cape Verde. It describes the remainder of a voyage made on behalf of Portugal in 1501–1502. The letter was first published by Francesco Bartolozzi in 1789.

 * Ridolfi Fragment (1502) is part of a letter attributed to Vespucci but some of its assertions remain controversial. It was first published in 1937 by Roberto Ridolfi. The letter appears to be an argumentative response to questions or objections raised by the unknown recipient. A reference is made to three voyages made by Vespucci, two on behalf of Spain and one for Portugal.

Historiography
Vespucci has been called "the most enigmatic and controversial figure in early American history". The debate has become known among historians as the "Vespucci question". How many voyages did he make? What was his role on the voyages and what did he learn? The evidence relies almost entirely on a handful of letters attributed to him. Many historians have analysed these documents and have arrived at contradictory conclusions.

In 1515, Sebastian Cabot became one of the first to question Vespucci's accomplishments and express doubts about his 1497 voyage. Later, Bartolomé de las Casas argued that Vespucci was a liar and stole the credit that was due Columbus. By 1600, most regarded Vespucci as an impostor and not worthy of his honours and fame. In 1839, Alexander von Humboldt after careful consideration asserted the 1497 voyage was impossible but accepted the two Portuguese-sponsored voyages. Humboldt also called into question the assertion that Vespucci recognized that he had encountered a new continent. According to Humboldt, Vespucci (and Columbus) died in the belief that they had reached the eastern edge of Asia. Vespucci's reputation was perhaps at its lowest in 1856 when Ralph Waldo Emerson called Vespucci a "thief" and "pickle dealer" from Seville who managed to get "half the world baptized with his dishonest name".

Opinions began to shift somewhat after 1857 when Brazilian historian Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen wrote that everything in the Soderini letter was true. Other historians followed in support of Vespucci including John Fiske and Henry Harrisse.

In 1924, Alberto Magnaghi published the results of his exhaustive review of Vespucci's writings and relevant cartography. He denied Vespucci's authorship of the 1503 Mundus Novus and the 1505 Letter to Soderini, the only two texts published during his lifetime. He suggested that the Soderini letter was not written by Vespucci, but was cobbled together by unscrupulous Florentine publishers who combined several accounts – some from Vespucci, others from elsewhere. Magnaghi determined that the manuscript letters were authentic and based on them he was the first to propose that only the second and third voyages were true, and the first and fourth voyages (only found in the Soderini letter) were fabrications. While Magnaghi has been one of the chief proponents of a two-voyage narrative, Roberto Levellier was an influential Argentinian historian who endorsed the authenticity of all Vespucci's letters and proposed the most extensive itinerary for his four voyages.

Other modern historians and popular writers have taken varying positions on Vespucci's letters and voyages, espousing two, three, or four voyages and supporting or denying the authenticity of his two printed letters. Most authors believe that the three manuscript letters are authentic while the first voyage as described in the Soderini letter draws the most criticism and disbelief.

A two-voyage thesis was accepted and popularized by Frederick J. Pohl (1944), and rejected by Germán Arciniegas (1955), who posited that all four voyages were truthful. Luciano Formisiano (1992) also rejects the Magnaghi thesis (acknowledging that publishers probably tampered with Vespucci's writings) and declares all four voyages genuine, but differs from Arciniegas in details (particularly the first voyage). Samuel Morison (1974) flatly rejected the first voyage but was noncommittal about the two published letters. Felipe Fernández-Armesto (2007) calls the authenticity question "inconclusive" and hypothesizes that the first voyage was probably another version of the second; the third is unassailable, and the fourth is probably true.

Legacy
Vespucci's historical importance may rest more with his letters (whether or not he wrote them all) than his discoveries. Burckhardt cites the naming of America after him as an example of the immense role of the Italian literature of the time in determining historical memory. Within a few years of the publication of his two letters, the European public became aware of the newly discovered continents of the Americas. According to Vespucci:

"Concerning my return from those new regions which we found and explored...we may rightly call a new world. Because our ancestors had no knowledge of them, and it will be a matter wholly new to all those who hear about them, for this transcends the view held by our ancients, inasmuch as most of them hold that there is no continent to the south beyond the equator, but only the sea which they named the Atlantic and if some of them did aver that a continent there was, they denied with abundant argument that it was a habitable land. But that this their opinion is false and utterly opposed to the truth...my last voyage has made manifest; for in those southern parts I have found a continent more densely peopled and abounding in animals than our Europe or Asia or Africa, and, in addition, a climate milder and more delightful than in any other region known to us, as you shall learn in the following account."

title: Amerigo Vespucci


text:
Aristide Maillol

Aristide Joseph Bonaventure Maillol (December 8, 1861 – September 27, 1944) was a French sculptor, painter, and printmaker.

He began his career as a painter and developed an early interest in the decorative arts. He became primarily interested in sculpture from his early 40s. Maillol was one of the most famous sculptors of his time. His work inspired artists such as Picasso, Henri Matisse and Henry Moore.

Biography
Maillol was born in Banyuls-sur-Mer, Roussillon. He decided at an early age to become a painter, and moved to Paris in 1881 to study art. After several applications and several years of living in poverty, his enrollment in the École des Beaux-Arts was accepted in 1885, and he studied there under Jean-Léon Gérôme and Alexandre Cabanel. His early paintings show the influence of his contemporaries Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and Paul Gauguin.

Gauguin encouraged his growing interest in decorative art, an interest that led Maillol to take up tapestry design. In 1893 Maillol opened a tapestry workshop in Banyuls, producing works whose high technical and aesthetic quality gained him recognition for renewing this art form in France. He began making small terracotta sculptures in 1895, and within a few years his concentration on sculpture led to the abandonment of his work in tapestry. In July 1896, Maillol married Clotilde Narcis, one of his employees at his tapestry workshop. Their only son, Lucian, was born that October.

Maillol's first major sculpture, A Seated Woman, was modeled after his wife. The first version (in the Museum of Modern Art, New York) was completed in 1902, and renamed La Méditerranée. Maillol, believing that "art does not lie in the copying of nature", produced a second, less naturalistic version in 1905. In 1902, the art dealer Ambroise Vollard provided Maillol with his first exhibition.

The subject of nearly all of Maillol's mature work is the female body, treated with a classical emphasis on stable forms. The figurative style of his large bronzes is perceived as an important precursor to the greater simplifications of Henry Moore, and his serene classicism set a standard for European (and American) figure sculpture until the end of World War II.

Josep Pla said of Maillol, "These archaic ideas, Greek, were the great novelty Maillol brought into the tendency of modern sculpture. What you need to love from the ancients is not the antiquity, it is the sense of permanent, renewed novelty, that is due to the nature and reason."

His important public commissions include a 1912 commission for a monument to Cézanne, as well as numerous war memorials commissioned after World War I.

Maillol served as a juror with Florence Meyer Blumenthal in awarding the Prix Blumenthal (1919–1954) a grant awarded to painters, sculptors, decorators, engravers, writers, and musicians.

He made a series of woodcut illustrations for an edition of Vergil's Eclogues published by Harry Graf Kessler in 1926–27. He also illustrated Daphnis and Chloe by Longus (1937) and Chansons pour elle by Paul Verlaine (1939).

He died in Banyuls at the age of eighty-two, in an automobile accident. While driving home during a thunderstorm, the car in which he was a passenger skidded off the road and rolled over. A large collection of Maillol's work is maintained at the Musée Maillol in Paris, which was established by Dina Vierny, Maillol's model and platonic companion during the last 10 years of his life. His home a few kilometers outside Banyuls, also the site of his final resting place, has been turned into a museum, the Musée Maillol Banyuls-sur-Mer, where a number of his works and sketches are displayed.

Three of his bronzes grace the grand staircase of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City: Summer (1910–11), Venus Without Arms (1920), and Kneeling Woman: Monument to Debussy (1950–55). The third, the artist's only reference to music, is a copy of an original created for the French city of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Claude Debussy's birthplace.

Nazi-looted art
During the German occupation of France, dozens of artworks by Maillol were seized by the Nazi looting organization known as the E.R.R. or Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce. The Database of Art Objects at the Jeu de Paume lists thirty artworks by Maillol. The German Lost Art Foundation database lists 33 entries for Maillol. The German Historical Museum's database for artworks recovered by the Allies at the Munich Central Collecting Point has 13 items related to Maillol. Maillol's sculpture "Head of Flora" was found in the stash of Cornelius Gurlitt, son of Hitler's art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt together with lithographs, drawings and paintings.

A photograph from May 24, 1946 shows "Six men, members of the Monuments, Fine Arts & Archives section of the military, prepare Aristide Maillol's sculpture Baigneuse à la draperie, looted during World War II for transport to France. Sculpture is labeled with sign: Wiesbaden, no. 31."

Jewish art collectors whose artworks by Maillol were looted by Nazis include Hugo Simon, Alfred Flechtheim and many others.

Works

 * Mme Henry Clemens van de Velde (c. 1899)
 * The Mediterranean (1902-05)
 * Action in Chains (1905)
 * Flora, Nude (1910)
 * L'Été sans bras (1911)
 * Bathing Woman with Raised Arms (1921)
 * Nymph (1930)
 * The Mountain (1937)
 * L'Air (1938)
 * The River (1938–43)
 * Harmonie (1944)

title: Aristide Maillol