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Rococo

Rococo, less commonly Roccoco (, ,  or ), also known as Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and dramatic style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, and trompe-l'œil frescoes to create surprise and the illusion of motion and drama. It is often described as the final expression of the Baroque movement.

The Rococo style began in France in the 1730s as a reaction against the more formal and geometric Louis XIV style. It was known as the "style Rocaille", or "Rocaille style". It soon spread to other parts of Europe, particularly northern Italy, Austria, southern Germany, Central Europe and Russia. It also came to influence other arts, particularly sculpture, furniture, silverware, glassware, painting, music, theatre, and literature. Although originally a secular style primarily used for interiors of private residences, the Rococo had a spiritual aspect to it which led to its widespread use in church interiors, particularly in Central Europe, Portugal, and South America.

Etymology
The word rococo was first used as a humorous variation of the word rocaille by Pierre-Maurice Quays. Rocaille was originally a method of decoration, using pebbles, seashells, and cement, which was often used to decorate grottoes and fountains since the Renaissance. In the late 17th and early 18th century, rocaille became the term for a kind of decorative motif or ornament that appeared in the late Louis XIV style, in the form of a seashell interlaced with acanthus leaves. In 1736 the designer and jeweler Jean Mondon published the Premier Livre de forme rocquaille et cartel, a collection of designs for ornaments of furniture and interior decoration. It was the first appearance in print of the term rocaille to designate the style. The carved or moulded seashell motif was combined with palm leaves or twisting vines to decorate doorways, furniture, wall panels and other architectural elements.

The term rococo was first used in print in 1825 to describe decoration which was "out of style and old-fashioned". It was used in 1828 for decoration "which belonged to the style of the 18th century, overloaded with twisting ornaments". In 1829, the author Stendhal described rococo as "the rocaille style of the 18th century". In the 19th century, the term was used to describe architecture or music which was excessively ornamental. Since the mid-19th century, the term has been accepted by art historians. While there is still some debate about the historical significance of the style, Rococo is now often considered as a distinct period in the development of European art.

Characteristics
Rococo features exuberant decoration, with an abundance of curves, counter-curves, undulations and elements modeled on nature. The exteriors of Rococo buildings are often simple, while the interiors are entirely dominated by their ornament. The style was highly theatrical, designed to impress and awe at first sight. Floor plans of churches were often complex, featuring interlocking ovals; In palaces, grand stairways became centrepieces, and offered different points of view of the decoration. The main ornaments of Rococo are: asymmetrical shells, acanthus and other leaves, birds, bouquets of flowers, fruit, musical instruments, angels and Chinoiserie (pagodas, dragons, monkeys, bizarre flowers and Chinese people).

The style often integrated painting, moulded stucco, and wood carving, and quadratura, or illusionist ceiling paintings, which were designed to give the impression that those entering the room were looking up at the sky, where cherubs and other figures were gazing down at them. Materials used included stucco, either painted or left white; combinations of different coloured woods (usually oak, beech or walnut); lacquered wood in the Japanese style, ornament of gilded bronze, and marble tops of commodes or tables. The intent was to create an impression of surprise, awe and wonder on first view.

Differences between Baroque and Rococo
Rococo tends to have the following characteristics, which Baroque does not:

 * partial abandonment of symmetry, everything being composed of graceful lines and curves, similar to Art Nouveau
 * asymmetrical curves and C-shaped volutes
 * ornamental flowers, e.g. floral festoons
 * occasional use of East Asian motifs (Chinoiserie, Japonisme)
 * warm pastel colours (whitish-yellow, cream-coloured, pearl greys, very light blues)

France
The Rocaille style, or French Rococo, appeared in Paris during the reign of Louis XV, and flourished between about 1723 and 1759. The style was used particularly in salons, a new style of room designed to impress and entertain guests. The most prominent example was the salon of the Princess in Hôtel de Soubise in Paris, designed by Germain Boffrand and Charles-Joseph Natoire (1735 – 1740). The characteristics of French Rococo included exceptional artistry, especially in the complex frames made for mirrors and paintings, which were sculpted in plaster and often gilded; and the use of vegetal forms (vines, leaves, flowers) intertwined in complex designs. The furniture also featured sinuous curves and vegetal designs. The leading furniture designers and craftsmen in the style included Juste-Aurele Meissonier, Charles Cressent, and Nicolas Pineau.

The Rocaille style lasted in France until the mid-18th century, and while it became more curving and vegetal, it never achieved the extravagant exuberance of the Rococo in Bavaria, Austria and Italy. The discoveries of Roman antiquities beginning in 1738 at Herculaneum and especially at Pompeii in 1748 turned French architecture in the direction of the more symmetrical and less flamboyant neo-classicism.

Italy
Artists in Italy, particularly Venice, also produced an exuberant Rococo style. Venetian commodes imitated the curving lines and carved ornament of the French Rocaille, but with a particular Venetian variation; the pieces were painted, often with landscapes or flowers or scenes from Guardi or other painters, or Chinoiserie, against a blue or green background, matching the colours of the Venetian school of painters whose work decorated the salons. Notable decorative painters included Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, who painted ceilings and murals of both churches and palazzos, and Giovanni Battista Crosato who painted the ballroom ceiling of the Ca' Rezzonico in the quadraturo manner, giving the illusion of three dimensions. Tiepolo travelled to Germany with his son during 1752 – 1754, decorating the ceilings of the Würzburg Residence, one of the major landmarks of the Bavarian Rococo. An earlier celebrated Venetian painter was Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, who painted several notable church ceilings.

The Venetian Rococo also featured exceptional glassware, particularly Murano glass, often engraved and coloured, which was exported across Europe. Works included multicolour chandeliers and mirrors with extremely ornate frames.

Southern Germany
In church construction, especially in the southern German-Austrian region, gigantic spatial creations are sometimes created for practical reasons alone, which, however, do not appear monumental, but are characterized by a unique fusion of architecture, painting, stucco, etc., often eliminating the boundaries between the art genres, and are characterised by a light-filled weightlessness, festive cheerfulness and movement. The Rococo decorative style reached its summit in southern Germany and Austria from the 1730s until the 1770s. There it dominates the church landscape to this day and is deeply anchored there in popular culture. It was first introduced from France through the publications and works of French architects and decorators, including the sculptor Claude III Audran, the interior designer Gilles-Marie Oppenordt, the architect Germain Boffrand, the sculptor Jean Mondon, and the draftsman and engraver Pierre Lepautre. Their work had an important influence on the German Rococo style, but does not reach the level of buildings in southern Germany.

German architects adapted the Rococo style but made it far more asymmetric and loaded with more ornate decoration than the French original. The German style was characterized by an explosion of forms that cascaded down the walls. It featured molding formed into curves and counter-curves, twisting and turning patterns, ceilings and walls with no right angles, and stucco foliage which seemed to be creeping up the walls and across the ceiling. The decoration was often gilded or silvered to give it contrast with the white or pale pastel walls.

The Belgian-born architect and designer François de Cuvilliés was one of the first to create a Rococo building in Germany, with the pavilion of Amalienburg in Munich, (1734 – 1739), inspired by the pavilions of the Trianon and Marly in France. It was built as a hunting lodge, with a platform on the roof for shooting pheasants. The Hall of Mirrors in the interior, by the painter and stucco sculptor Johann Baptist Zimmermann, was far more exuberant than any French Rococo.

Another notable example of the early German Rococo is Würzburg Residence (1737 – 1744) constructed for Prince-Bishop Johann Philipp Franz von Schönborn of Würzburg by Balthasar Neumann. Neumann had travelled to Paris and consulted with the French rocaille decorative artists Germain Boffrand and Robert de Cotte. While the exterior was in more sober Baroque style, the interior, particularly the stairways and ceilings, was much lighter and decorative. The Prince-Bishop imported the Italian Rococo painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo in 1750 – 1753 to create a mural over the top of the three-level ceremonial stairway. Neumann described the interior of the residence as "a theatre of light". The stairway was also the central element in a residence Neumann built at the Augustusburg Palace in Brühl (1743 – 1748). In that building the stairway led the visitors up through a stucco fantasy of paintings, sculpture, ironwork and decoration, with surprising views at every turn.

In the 1740s and 1750s, a number of notable pilgrimage churches were constructed in Bavaria, with interiors decorated in a distinctive variant of the rococo style. One of the most notable examples is the Wieskirche (1745 – 1754) designed by Dominikus Zimmermann. Like most of the Bavarian pilgrimage churches, the exterior is very simple, with pastel walls, and little ornament. Entering the church the visitor encounters an astonishing theatre of movement and light. It features an oval-shaped sanctuary, and a deambulatory in the same form, filling in the church with light from all sides. The white walls contrasted with columns of blue and pink stucco in the choir, and the domed ceiling surrounded by plaster angels below a dome representing the heavens crowded with colourful Biblical figures. Other notable pilgrimage churches include the Basilica of the Fourteen Holy Helpers by Balthasar Neumann (1743 – 1772).

Johann Michael Fischer was the architect of Ottobeuren Abbey (1748 – 1766), another Bavarian Rococo landmark. The church features, like much of the rococo architecture in Germany, a remarkable contrast between the regularity of the facade and the overabundance of decoration in the interior.

Britain
In Great Britain, rococo was called the "French taste" and had less influence on design and the decorative arts than in continental Europe, although its influence was felt in such areas as silverwork, porcelain, and silks. William Hogarth helped develop a theoretical foundation for Rococo beauty. Though not mentioning rococo by name, he argued in his Analysis of Beauty (1753) that the undulating lines and S-curves prominent in Rococo were the basis for grace and beauty in art or nature (unlike the straight line or the circle in Classicism).

Rococo was slow in arriving in England. Before entering the Rococo, British furniture for a time followed the neoclassical Palladian model under designer William Kent, who designed for Lord Burlington and other important patrons of the arts. Kent travelled to Italy with Lord Burlington between 1712 and 1720, and brought back many models and ideas from Palladio. He designed the furniture for Hampton Court Palace (1732), Lord Burlington's Chiswick House (1729), London, Thomas Coke's Holkham Hall, Norfolk, Robert Walpole's Houghton Hall, for Devonshire House in London, and at Rousham House.

Mahogany made its appearance in England in about 1720, and immediately became popular for furniture, along with walnut wood. The Rococo began to make an appearance in England between 1740 and 1750. The furniture of Thomas Chippendale was the closest to the Rococo style, In 1754 he published "Gentleman's and Cabinet-makers' directory", a catalogue of designs for rococo, chinoiserie and even Gothic furniture, which achieved wide popularity, going through three editions. Unlike French designers, Chippendale did not employ marquetry or inlays in his furniture. The predominant designer of inlaid furniture were Vile and Cob, the cabinet-makers for King George III. Another important figure in British furniture was Thomas Johnson, who in 1761, very late in the period, published a catalogue of Rococo furniture designs. These include furnishings based on rather fantastic Chinese and Indian motifs, including a canopy bed crowned by a Chinese pagoda (now in the Victoria and Albert Museum).

Other notable figures in the British Rococo included the silversmith Charles Friedrich Kandler.

Russia
The Russian rococo style was introduced largely by Empress Elisabeth and Catherine the Great, during the eighteenth century by court architects such as Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli

Rastrelli's work at palaces such as the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg and the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo incorporated many features of western European rococo architecture, including grand rooms ornamented with gold leaf, mirrors, and large windows for natural light on the interiors, and soft pastel colours framed with large hooded windows and cornices on the exteriors featuring rocaille motifs, such as asymmetrical shells and rocks. Plafonds often featured rococo scrollwork surrounding allegorical paintings of ancient Greek and Roman gods and goddesses. Flooring was often inlaid with parquetry designs formed from different woods to create elaborate designs in the woodwork.

Russian orthodox church architecture was also heavily influenced by rococo designs during the eighteenth century, often featuring a square Greek cross design with four equidistant wings. Exteriors were painted in light pastel colours such as blues and pinks, and bell towers were often topped with gilded onion domes.

Frederician Rococo
Frederician Rococo is a form of Rococo which developed in Prussia during the reign of Frederick the Great and combined influences from France, Germany (especially Saxony) and the Netherlands. Its most famous adherent was the architect Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff. Furthermore, the painter Antoine Pesne and even King Frederick himself influenced Knobelsdorff's designs. Famous buildings in the Frederician style include Sanssouci Palace, the Potsdam City Palace, and parts of Charlottenburg Palace.

Decline and end
The art of François Boucher and other painters of the period, with its emphasis on decorative mythology and gallantry, soon inspired a reaction, and a demand for more "noble" themes. While the Rococo continued in Germany and Austria, the French Academy in Rome began to teach the classic style. This was confirmed by the nomination of Jean François de Troy as director of the academy in 1738, and then in 1751 by Charles-Joseph Natoire.

Madame de Pompadour, the mistress of Louis XV contributed to the decline of the Rococo style. In 1750 she sent her brother, Abel-François Poisson de Vandières, on a two-year mission to study artistic and archeological developments in Italy. He was accompanied by several artists, including the engraver Charles-Nicolas Cochin and the architect Soufflot. They returned to Paris with a passion for classical art. Vandières became the Marquis of Marigny, and was named director general of the King's Buildings. He turned official French architecture toward the neoclassical. Cochin became an important art critic; he denounced the petit style of Boucher, and called for a grand style with a new emphasis on antiquity and nobility in the academies of painting and architecture.

The beginning of the end for Rococo came in the early 1760s as figures like Voltaire and Jacques-François Blondel began to voice their criticism of the superficiality and degeneracy of the art. Blondel decried the "ridiculous jumble of shells, dragons, reeds, palm-trees and plants" in contemporary interiors.

By 1785, Rococo had passed out of fashion in France, replaced by the order and seriousness of Neoclassical artists like Jacques-Louis David. In Germany, late 18th-century Rococo was ridiculed as Zopf und Perücke ("pigtail and periwig"), and this phase is sometimes referred to as Zopfstil. Rococo remained popular in certain German provincial states and in Italy, until the second phase of neoclassicism, "Empire style", arrived with Napoleonic governments and swept Rococo away.

Furniture and decoration
The ornamental style called rocaille emerged in France between 1710 and 1750, mostly during the regency and reign of Louis XV; the style was also called Louis Quinze. Its principal characteristics were picturesque detail, curves and counter-curves, asymmetry, and a theatrical exuberance. On the walls of new Paris salons, the twisting and winding designs, usually made of gilded or painted stucco, wound around the doorways and mirrors like vines. One of the earliest examples was the Hôtel Soubise in Paris (1704 – 1705), with its famous oval salon decorated with paintings by Boucher, and Charles-Joseph Natoire.

The best known French furniture designer of the period was Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier (1695 – 1750), who was also a sculptor, painter. and goldsmith for the royal household. He held the title of official designer to the Chamber and Cabinet of Louis XV. His work is well known today because of the enormous number of engravings made of his work which popularized the style throughout Europe. He designed works for the royal families of Saxony and Portugal.

Italy was another place where the Rococo flourished, both in its early and later phases. Craftsmen in Rome, Milan and Venice all produced lavishly decorated furniture and decorative items.

British Rococo tended to be more restrained. Thomas Chippendale's furniture designs kept the curves and feel, but stopped short of the French heights of whimsy. The most successful exponent of British Rococo was probably Thomas Johnson, a gifted carver and furniture designer working in London in the mid-18th century.

Painting
Elements of the Rocaille style appeared in the work of some French painters, including a taste for the picturesque in details; curves and counter-curves; and dissymmetry which replaced the movement of the baroque with exuberance, though the French rocaille never reached the extravagance of the Germanic rococo. The leading proponent was Antoine Watteau, particularly in The Embarkation for Cythera (1717), Louvre, in a genre called Fête galante depicting scenes of young nobles gathered together to celebrate in a pastoral setting. Watteau died in 1721 at the age of thirty-seven, but his work continued to have influence through the rest of the century. A version of Watteau's painting titled Pilgrimage to Cythera was purchased by Frederick the Great of Prussia in 1752 or 1765 to decorate his palace of Charlottenburg in Berlin.

The successor of Watteau and the Féte Galante in decorative painting was François Boucher (1703 – 1770), the favorite painter of Madame de Pompadour. His work included the sensual Toilette de Venus (1746), which became one of the best known examples of the style. Boucher participated in all of the genres of the time, designing tapestries, models for porcelain sculpture, set decorations for the Paris Opera and Opéra-Comique, and decor for the Fair of Saint-Laurent. Other important painters of the Fête Galante style included Nicolas Lancret and Jean-Baptiste Pater. The style particularly influenced François Lemoyne, who painted the lavish decoration of the ceiling of the Salon of Hercules at the Palace of Versailles, completed in 1735. Paintings with fétes gallant and mythological themes by Boucher, Pierre-Charles Trémolières and Charles-Joseph Natoire decorated the famous salon of the Hôtel Soubise in Paris (1735 – 1740). Other Rococo painters include: Jean François de Troy (1679 – 1752), Jean-Baptiste van Loo (1685 – 1745), his two sons Louis-Michel van Loo (1707 – 1771) and Charles-Amédée-Philippe van Loo (1719 – 1795), his younger brother Charles-André van Loo (1705 – 1765), Nicolas Lancret (1690 – 1743), and Jean Honoré Fragonard (1732 – 1806).

In Austria and Southern Germany, Italian painting had the largest effect on the Rococo style. The Venetian painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, assisted by his son, Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, was invited to paint frescoes for the Würzburg Residence (1720 – 1744). The most prominent painter of Bavarian rococo churches was Johann Baptist Zimmermann, who painted the ceiling of the Wieskirche (1745 – 1754).

Sculpture
The most elaborate examples of rococo sculpture were found in Spain, Austria and southern Germany, in the decoration of palaces and churches. The sculpture was closely integrated with the architecture; it was impossible to know where one stopped and the other began. In the Belvedere Palace in Vienna, (1721 – 1722), the vaulted ceiling of the Hall of the Atlantes is held up on the shoulders of muscular figures designed by Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt. The portal of the Palace of the Marqués de Dos Aguas in Valencia (1715 – 1776) was completely drenched in sculpture carved in marble, from designs by Hipolito Rovira Brocandel.

The El Transparente altar, in the major chapel of Toledo Cathedral is a towering sculpture of polychrome marble and gilded stucco, combined with paintings, statues and symbols. It was made by Narciso Tomé (1721 – 1732), Its design allows light to pass through, and in changing light it seems to move.

Porcelain
A new form of small-scale sculpture appeared, the porcelain figure, or small group of figures, initially replacing sugar sculptures on grand dining room tables, but soon popular for placing on mantelpieces and furniture. The number of European factories grew steadily through the century, and some made porcelain that the expanding middle classes could afford. The amount of colourful overglaze decoration used on them also increased. They were usually modelled by artists who had trained in sculpture. Common subjects included figures from the commedia dell'arte, city street vendors, lovers and figures in fashionable clothes, and pairs of birds.

Johann Joachim Kändler was the most important modeller of Meissen porcelain, the earliest European factory, which remained the most important until about 1760. The Swiss-born German sculptor Franz Anton Bustelli produced a wide variety of colourful figures for the Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactory in Bavaria, which were sold throughout Europe. The French sculptor Étienne-Maurice Falconet (1716 – 1791) followed this example. While also making large-scale works, he became director of the Sevres Porcelain manufactory and produced small-scale works, usually about love and gaiety, for production in series.

Music
A Rococo period existed in music history, although it is not as well known as the earlier Baroque and later Classical forms. The Rococo music style itself developed out of baroque music both in France, where the new style was referred to as style galant ("gallant" or "elegant" style), and in Germany, where it was referred to as empfindsamer Stil ("sensitive style"). It can be characterized as light, intimate music with extremely elaborate and refined forms of ornamentation. Exemplars include Jean Philippe Rameau, Louis-Claude Daquin and François Couperin in France; in Germany, the style's main proponents were C. P. E. Bach and Johann Christian Bach, two sons of J.S. Bach.

In the second half of the 18th century, a reaction against the Rococo style occurred, primarily against its perceived overuse of ornamentation and decoration. Led by Christoph Willibald Gluck, this reaction ushered in the Classical era. By the early 19th century, Catholic opinion had turned against the suitability of the style for ecclesiastical contexts because it was "in no way conducive to sentiments of devotion".

Russian composer of the Romantic era Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky wrote The Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33, for cello and orchestra in 1877. Although the theme is not Rococo in origin, it is written in Rococo style.

Fashion

Rococo fashion was based on extravagance, elegance, refinement and decoration. Women's fashion of the seventeenth-century was contrasted by the fashion of the eighteenth-century, which was ornate and sophisticated, the true style of Rococo. These fashions spread beyond the royal court into the salons and cafés of the ascendant bourgeoisie. The exuberant, playful, elegant style of decoration and design that we now know to be 'Rococo' was then known as le style rocaille, le style moderne, le gout.

A style that appeared in the early eighteenth-century was the robe volante, a flowing gown, that became popular towards the end of King Louis XIV's reign. This gown had the features of a bodice with large pleats flowing down the back to the ground over a rounded petticoat. The colour palette was rich, dark fabrics accompanied by elaborate, heavy design features. After the death of Louis XIV the clothing styles began to change. The fashion took a turn to a lighter, more frivolous style, transitioning from the baroque period to the well-known style of Rococo. The later period was known for their pastel colours, more revealing frocks, and the plethora of frills, ruffles, bows, and lace as trims. Shortly after the typical women's Rococo gown was introduced, robe à la Française, a gown with a tight bodice that had a low cut neckline, usually with a large ribbon bows down the centre front, wide panniers, and was lavishly trimmed in large amounts of lace, ribbon, and flowers.

The Watteau pleats also became more popular, named after the painter Jean-Antoine Watteau, who painted the details of the gowns down to the stitches of lace and other trimmings with immense accuracy. Later, the  'pannier'  and  'mantua ' became fashionable around 1718. They were wide hoops under the dress to extend the hips out sideways and they soon became a staple in formal wear. This gave the Rococo period the iconic dress of wide hips combined with the large amount of decoration on the garments. Wide panniers were worn for special occasions, and could reach up to 16 ft in diameter, and smaller hoops were worn for the everyday settings. These features originally came from seventeenth-century Spanish fashion, known as guardainfante, initially designed to hide the pregnant stomach, then reimagined later as the pannier. 1745 became the Golden Age of the Rococo with the introduction of a more exotic, oriental culture in France called a la turque. This was made popular by Louis XV's mistress, Madame de Pompadour, who commissioned the artist, Charles-André van Loo, to paint her as a Turkish sultana.

In the 1760s, a style of less formal dresses emerged and one of these was the polonaise, with inspiration taken from Poland. It was shorter than the French dress, allowing the underskirt and ankles to be seen, which made it easier to move around in. Another dress that came into fashion was the robe a l'anglais, which included elements inspired by the males' fashion; a short jacket, broad lapels and long sleeves. It also had a snug bodice, a full skirt without panniers but still a little long in the back to form a small train, and often some type of lace kerchief worn around the neck. Another piece was the 'redingote', halfway between a cape and an overcoat.

Accessories were also important to all women during this time, as they added to the opulence and the decor of the body to match their gowns. At any official ceremony ladies were required to cover their hands and arms with gloves if their clothes were sleeveless.

Literature
In literature the term is "unhelpfully vague, but usually suggests a cheerful lightness and intimacy of tone, and an elegant playfulness." Principal Rococo literary genres were small forms, such as erotic light poetry (poésie légère or poésie fugitive), sonnet, madrigal and other songs, pastoral, fairy tail, novella, but there were also long narrative poems, for example, Christoph Martin Wieland's German-language masterpiece Oberon.

Predominantly an 18th-century French literature style, influenced by the 17th-century Précieuses school, is represented by Anne Claude de Caylus, the author of the Art of Love P. J. Bernard, Alexandre Masson de Pezay (the narrative poem Zélis' Bathing), Abbé de Favre (the poem Les quatre heures de la toilette des dames), Évariste de Parny, Jean-Baptiste Louvet de Couvray, and other writers. The Rococo had also followers in Italy (Paolo Rolli, Pietro Metastasio) and Germany (Friedrich von Hagedorn, Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim, Johann Uz, Johann Nikolaus Götz), and to a lesser extent, within English and Russian (Ippolit Bogdanovich) writings.

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title: Rococo


text:
1493

Year 1493 (MCDXCIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.

January–December

 * January 19 – Treaty of Barcelona: Charles VIII of France returns Cerdagne and Roussillon to Ferdinand of Aragon.
 * March 1 – Martín Alonso Pinzón returns to the city of Bayona in Spain from the voyage of discovery, sending the first notice about the discovery to the Catholic Monarchs (Christopher Columbus is delayed by a storm in the Azores).
 * March 4 – Christopher Columbus anchors in Lisbon and completes his February 15 letter on the first voyage, conveying the news of his discoveries.
 * March 15 – Christopher Columbus and Martín Alonso Pinzón return to Palos de la Frontera, the original port in Spain from where they started the first voyage of discovery.
 * April 12 – Battle of Anfao: Askia Mohammad I defeats Sonni Baru, and usurps the throne of the Songhai Empire.
 * May 4 – In the papal bull Inter caetera, Pope Alexander VI decrees that all lands discovered 100 leagues (or further west) of the Azores are Spanish.
 * August 19 – Maximilian I succeeds his father, Frederick III, as Holy Roman Emperor.
 * September 9 – Battle of Krbava Field in southern Croatia: Forces of the Ottoman Empire defeat those of the Kingdom of Croatia.
 * September 24 – Christopher Columbus leaves Cádiz on his second voyage of exploration.
 * September 26 – Pope Alexander VI issues the bull Dudum siquidem to the Catholic Monarchs, extending the grant of newly discovered lands he made them in Inter caetera.
 * November 19 – Christopher Columbus lands on the coast of the island of Borinquen, which he renames San Juan (modern-day Puerto Rico).

Date unknown

 * England imposes sanctions on Burgundy for supporting Perkin Warbeck, the pretender to the English throne.
 * James IV of Scotland seizes lands of John MacDonald II, putting an end to the Lord of the Isles.
 * Huayna Capac becomes emperor of the Inca Empire.
 * Leonardo da Vinci creates the first known design for a helicopter.

Births

 * January 2 – Louis de Bourbon de Vendôme, French cardinal (d. 1557)
 * January 6 – Olaus Petri, Swedish clergyman (d. 1552)
 * January 9 – Johann of Brandenburg-Ansbach, Viceroy of Valencia, German noble (d. 1525)
 * January 25 – Maximilian Sforza, Duke of Milan (d. 1530)
 * January 26
 * Min Bin, king of Arakan (d. 1554)
 * Giovanni Poggio, Italian cardinal and diplomat (d. 1556)
 * Ippolita Maria Sforza, Italian noble (d. 1501)
 * February 9 – Helen of the Palatinate, Duchess of Pomerania (d. 1524)
 * March 15 – Anne de Montmorency, Constable of France (d. 1567)
 * April 11 – George I, Duke of Pomerania from the House of Griffins (d. 1531)
 * April 25 – Giovanni Gaddi, Italian priest (d. 1542)
 * May 5 – Alessandro Pasqualini, Italian architect (d. 1559)
 * May 6 – Girolamo Seripando, Catholic cardinal (d. 1563)
 * June 5 – Justus Jonas, German Protestant reformer (d. 1555)
 * June 10 – Anton Fugger, German merchant (d. 1560)
 * September 28 – Agnolo Firenzuola, Italian poet and litterateur (d. 1543)
 * September 29 – Yi Gwang-sik, Korean politician and general (d. 1563)
 * October 14 – Shimazu Tadayoshi, Japanese warlord (d. 1568)
 * October 17 – Bartolommeo Bandinelli, Renaissance Italian sculptor (d. 1560)
 * November 11 – Bernardo Tasso, Italian courtier and poet (d. 1569)
 * November 11 or December 17 – Paracelsus, born Philippus von Hohenheim, Swiss physician and scientist (d. 1541)
 * November 17 – John Neville, 3rd Baron Latimer, English politician (d. 1543)
 * November 25 – Osanna of Cattaro, Dominican visionary and anchoress (d. 1565)
 * December 9 – Íñigo López de Mendoza, 4th Duke of the Infantado (d. 1566)
 * December 25 – Antoinette de Bourbon, French noblewoman (d. 1583)
 * December 27 – Johann Pfeffinger, German theologian (d. 1573)
 * December 31 – Eleonora Gonzaga, Duchess of Urbino, Italian politically active duchess (d. 1570)
 * date unknown
 * Jobst II, Count of Hoya (d. 1545)
 * Simon Grynaeus, German scholar and theologian (d. 1541)
 * Matsudaira Shigeyoshi, Japanese general (d. 1580)
 * probable
 * Jean du Bellay, French cardinal and diplomat (d. 1560)
 * Robert Maxwell, 5th Lord Maxwell, Scottish statesman (d. 1546)

Deaths

 * May – Pietro Antonio Solari, Italian architect (b. 1450)
 * May 10 – Colin Campbell, 1st Earl of Argyll, Scottish politician (b. c. 1433)
 * May 14 – Nannina de' Medici, member of de' Medici family (b. 1448)
 * June 14 – Ermolao Barbaro, Italian scholar (b. 1454)
 * August 19 – Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1415)
 * September 9 – Mirko Derenčin, Croatian leader
 * October 11 – Eleanor of Naples, Duchess of Ferrara (b. 1450)
 * October 22 – James Douglas, 1st Earl of Morton
 * November 6 – Andrey Bolshoy, Russian prince (b. 1446)
 * date unknown
 * Ahmad Zarruq, Moroccan scholar and Sufi sheikh (b. 1442)
 * James Blount, English soldier
 * Isabel Bras Williamson, Scottish merchant (b. 1430)
 * Kim Si-seup, Korean scholar and author (b. 1435)
 * Martín Alonso Pinzón, Spanish navigator and explorer (b. c. 1441)
 * Tupac Inca Yupanqui, Inca ruler of Tahuantinsuyu

title: 1493


text:
IOM

IOM may refer to:
 * Indian Order of Merit, a military and civilian decoration in British India.
 * Infraorbital margin, the lower margin of the eye socket
 * Institute of Medicine, a not-for-profit, non-governmental American organization founded in 1970
 * Institute of Medicine, Nepal, a medical school in Kathmandu, Nepal
 * Institute of Occupational Medicine in the UK
 * Institute for Organization Management, an Affiliate organization of the United States Chamber of Commerce
 * Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences
 * Integrated Object Model, an Application Programming Interface used in SAS (software) 9.1+ Integration Technologies
 * International Organization for Migration, a United Nations agency
 * International One Metre (radiosailing), a class of radio sailing boat
 * Intraoperative monitoring (neurophysiogical testing during surgery)
 * IOM soybeans, an industrial designation for soybeans from the U.S. states of Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan
 * ISDN-oriented Modular Interface
 * Isle of Man, a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea
 * Isle of Man Airport, its IATA airport code
 * Jupiter (mythology), or Jupiter Optimus Maximus, king of the Roman gods

title: IOM


text:
User:DanKeshet

Dan Keshet lives in Austin, Texas, USA. You can email him by combining his first and last name and adding gmail.

Multi-licensing
I agree to multi-license all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

title: User:DanKeshet


text:
Silicate

A silicate is any member of a family of polyatomic anions consisting of silicon and oxygen, usually with the general formula, where 0 ≤ x < 2. The family includes orthosilicate SiO4(4-) (x = 0), metasilicate SiO3(2-) (x = 1), and pyrosilicate Si2O7(6-) (x = 0.5, n = 2). The name is also used for any salt of such anions, such as sodium metasilicate; or any ester containing the corresponding chemical group, such as tetramethyl orthosilicate. The name "silicate" is sometimes extended to any anions containing silicon, even if they do not fit the general formula or contain other atoms besides oxygen; such as hexafluorosilicate [SiF6](2-).Most commonly, silicates are encountered as silicate minerals.

For diverse manufacturing, technological, and artistic needs, silicates are versatile materials, both natural (such as granite, gravel, and garnet) and artificial (such as Portland cement, ceramics, glass, and waterglass).

Structural principles
In most silicates, silicon atom occupies the center of an idealized tetrahedron whose corners are four oxygen atoms, connected to it by single covalent bonds according to the octet rule. The oxygen atoms, which bears some negative charge, link to other cations (Mn+). This Si-O-M-O-Si linkage is strong and rigid, which properties are manifested in the rock-like silicates. The silicates can be classified according to the length and crosslinking of the silicate anions.

Isolated silicates
Isolated orthosilicate anions have the formula. A common mineral in this group is olivine ((Mg,Fe)2SiO4).

Two or more silicon atoms can share oxygen atoms in various ways, to form more complex anions, such as pyrosilicate.

Chains
With two shared oxides bound to each silicon, cyclic or polymeric structures can result. The cyclic metasilicate ring is a hexamer of SiO32-. Polymeric silicate anions of can exist also as long chains.

In single-chain silicates, which are a type of inosilicate, tetrahedra link to form a chain by sharing two oxygen atoms each. A common mineral in this group is pyroxene.

Double-chain silicates, the other category of inosilicates, occur when tetrahedra form a double chain (not always but mostly) by sharing two or three oxygen atoms each. Common minerals for this group are amphiboles.

Sheets
In this group, known as phyllosilicates, tetrahedra all share three oxygen atoms each and in turn link to form two-dimensional sheets. This structure does lead to minerals in this group having one strong cleavage plane. Micas fall into this group. Both muscovite and biotite have very weak layers that can be peeled off in sheets.

Framework
In a framework silicate, known as a tectosilicate, each tetrahedron shares all 4 oxygen atoms with its neighbours, forming a 3D structure. Quartz and feldspars are in this group.

Silicates with non-tetrahedral silicon
Although the tetrahedron is a common coordination geometry for silicon(IV) compounds, silicon may also occur with higher coordination numbers. For example, in the anion hexafluorosilicate, the silicon atom is surrounded by six fluorine atoms in an octahedral arrangement. This structure is also seen in the hexahydroxysilicate anion that occurs in thaumasite, a mineral found rarely in nature but sometimes observed among other calcium silicate hydrates artificially formed in cement and concrete structures submitted to a severe sulfate attack in argillaceous grounds containing oxidized pyrite.

At very high pressure, such as exists in the majority of the Earth's crust, even SiO2 adopts the six-coordinated octahedral geometry in the mineral stishovite, a dense polymorph of silica found in the lower mantle of the Earth and also formed by shock during meteorite impacts.

Chemical properties
Silicates with alkali cations and small or chain-like anions, such as sodium ortho- and metasilicate, are fairly soluble in water. They form several solid hydrates when crystallized from solution. Soluble sodium silicates and mixtures thereof, known as waterglass are important industrial and household chemicals. Silicates of non-alkali cations, or with sheet and tridimensional polymeric anions, generally have negligible solubility in water at normal conditions.

Reactions
Silicates are generally inert chemically. Hence they are common minerals. Their resiliency also recommends their use as building materials.

When treated with calcium oxides and water, silicate minerals form Portland cement.

Equilibria involving hydrolysis of silicate minerals are difficult to study. The chief challenge is the very low solubility of SiO44- and its various protonated forms. Such equilibria are relevant to the processes occurring on geological time scales. Some plants excrete ligands that dissolve silicates, a step in biomineralization.

Detection
Silicate anions in solution react with molybdate anions yielding yellow silicomolybdate complexes. In a typical preparation, monomeric orthosilicate was found to react completely in 75 seconds; dimeric pyrosilicate in 10 minutes; and higher oligomers in considerably longer time. In particular, the reaction is not observed with suspensions of colloidal silica.

Zeolite formation and geopolymers polymerisation
The nature of soluble silicates is relevant to understanding biomineralization and the synthesis of aluminosilicates, such as the industrially important catalysts called zeolites. Along with aluminate anions, soluble silicate anions also play a major role in the polymerization mechanism of geopolymers. Geopolymers are amorphous aluminosilicates whose production requires less energy than that of ordinary Portland cement. So, geopolymer cements could contribute to limiting the emissions in the Earth atmosphere and the global warming caused by this greenhouse gas.

title: Silicate


text:
User:Charleschuck

My name is Charles. I've been editing articles on Wikipedia since 2002. (#169)

I used to be mildly active, but have now busied myself so much with other facets of my life — work, home, children, community involvement — that I don't regularly log into wikipedia to make regular edits.

I do occasionally revert vandalism and the like, though, to be honest, I've usually been doing so anonymously.

I started on Wikipedia before there seemed to be a style manual, or namespaces, or the long list of best practices that currently exist. There were personal messages from fellow authors greeting new folk, but no awards filling user pages, no auto greeting bots (or bots at all). Who could have ever believed it is what it has become today?

Articles I had some interest in historically: ...and a number of minor edits on pages related thereto.
 * 386BSD
 * Britpop
 * Mopeds and various tomfoolery
 * Book of Common Prayer
 * Kalamazoo, Michigan

The wonderful thing about Wikipedia is that, years after first editing these or creating some of these, they is much improvement upon what I wrote or added, but I can still see fingerprints of things I had done. There's something comforting in that.

What keeps me busy:
 * Charles Mercadal - personal Web site
 * The Spirit of Albion - radio show I host
 * St. Luke's Church, Kalamazoo - volunteering in various capacities
 * The Diablonet - web hosting project

title: User:Charleschuck


text:
International Organization for Migration

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is a United Nations related organization working in the field of migration. The organization implements operational assistance programmes for migrants, including internally displaced persons, refugees, and migrant workers.

The International Organization for Migration is based in Geneva. Its Director General is Amy Pope.

Historical context and predecessor organizations (1951 to 1989)
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) was founded in 1951 in response to the large number of internally displaced persons and war refugees in Europe after the Second World War. The IOM was initially a logistics agency that organized the transport of nearly one million migrants in the 1950s and has undergone several name changes since its inception. The transition from the Provisional Intergovernmental Committee for the Movement of Migrants from Europe (PICMME) in 1951 to the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration (ICEM) in 1952, to the Intergovernmental Committee for Migration (ICM) in 1980, and finally to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in 1989 reflects the evolution of the IOM's mandate over its existence, becoming the leading intergovernmental organization in the field of migration.

Integration into the United Nations and the present (1990 to date)
In 1992, it was granted observer status at the United Nations General Assembly (GA resolution A/RES/47/4). In September 2016, the United Nations (UN) Member States, through the General Assembly, unanimously adopted a resolution approving the agreement to transform IOM into an affiliated organization of the UN. This agreement has strengthened the relationship between IOM and the UN and improved its ability to fulfill its respective mandates in the interests of migrants and Member States.

The IOM supported the creation of the Global Compact for Migration, the first-ever intergovernmental agreement on international migration which was adopted in Marrakech, Morocco, in December 2018. To support the implementation, follow-up and review of the Global Compact on Migration, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres established the UN Network on Migration in 2019. IOM coordinates the United Nations Network on Migration which includes UNHCR, WFP and UNDP, among others. While the IOM's history tracks the man-made and natural disasters of the past half century, including Kosovo and Timor 1999, and the Asian tsunami, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Pakistan earthquake of 2004/2005, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and the European migrant crisis—its credo that humane and orderly migration benefits migrants and society has steadily gained more international acceptance.

Organization
The organization is headquartered in Geneva, with liaison offices in New York City and Addis Ababa. The Global Migration Data Analysis Centre (GMDAC) is based in Berlin. In 2020, the organization reported that it had over 15,311 employees, with 168 nationalities represented. The highest decision-making body of the IOM is the council, in which all member states are represented. It has rules of procedure and meets at regular intervals to adopt the annual budget and determine the organization's programmatic objectives. The official languages are English, French and Spanish. According to its own figures, the organization's budget in 2020 was around two billion US dollars. This is made up of voluntary contributions from the member states and donations.

Director General
The Director General of the organization is elected by the delegates of the IOM member states for a five-year term. The following table lists the previous directors of the IOM and its predecessor organization, the ICEM. The current Director General is Amy Pope from the United States of America, with Ugochi Daniels from Nigeria serving as Deputy Directors General.

Mandate
The organization's global mandate includes assistance to migrants, including migrant workers, refugees and internally displaced persons. This broad mandate of the organization has earned it praise for flexibility in crisis situations, but also criticism for legal accountability in protection issues. Due to complementary mandates, IOM often cooperates with the UNHCR.

For example IOM coordinates work in response to the situation in Venezuela through the Office of International Organization for Migration Director General's Special Envoy for the Regional Response to the Venezuela Situation working with UNHCR and 17 countries in South and Central America and the Caribbean.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), IOM is one of the central actors in humanitarian aid within the UN system, especially in the context of displacement. IOM's main aid measures include shelter, protection, the provision of basic medical and sanitary care, life safety, coordination, telecommunications and logistics. On the instructions of the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, IOM, together with UNHCR, is primarily responsible for camp coordination and management in humanitarian emergencies. The organization is also active in stabilization, peacebuilding and development in the context of migration.

Member states
[[File:IOM members and observers.svg|thumb|350px|Member states of the IOM:

As of 2023, the International Organization for Migration has 175 member states and 8 observer states. Member states:• 🇦🇫 Afghanistan
 * alt=|center]]

• 🇦🇱 Albania

• 🇩🇿 Algeria

• 🇦🇴 Angola

• 🇦🇬 Antigua and Barbuda

• 🇦🇷 Argentina

• 🇦🇲 Armenia

• 🇦🇺 Australia

• 🇦🇹 Austria

• 🇦🇿 Azerbaijan

• 🇧🇸 Bahamas

• 🇧🇩 Bangladesh

• 🇧🇧 Barbados

• 🇧🇾 Belarus

• 🇧🇪 Belgium

• 🇧🇿 Belize

• 🇧🇯 Benin

• 🇧🇴 Bolivia

• 🇧🇦 Bosnia and Herzegovina

• 🇧🇼 Botswana

• 🇧🇷 Brazil

• 🇧🇬 Bulgaria

• 🇧🇫 Burkina Faso

• 🇧🇮 Burundi

• Cabo Verde

• 🇰🇭 Cambodia

• 🇨🇲 Cameroon

• 🇨🇦 Canada

• 🇨🇫 Central African Republic

• 🇹🇩 Chad

• 🇨🇱 Chile

• 🇨🇳 China

• 🇨🇴 Colombia

• 🇰🇲 Comoros

• 🇨🇩 Congo

• 🇨🇰 Cook Islands

• 🇨🇷 Costa Rica

• 🇨🇮 Côte d'Ivoire

• 🇭🇷 Croatia

• 🇨🇺 Cuba

• 🇨🇾 Cyprus

• 🇨🇿 Czech Republic

• Democratic Republic of the Congo

• 🇩🇰 Denmark

• 🇩🇯 Djibouti

• 🇩🇲 Dominica

• 🇩🇴 Dominican Republic

• 🇪🇨 Ecuador

• 🇪🇬 Egypt

• 🇸🇻 El Salvador

• 🇪🇷 Eritrea

• 🇪🇪 Estonia

• Eswatini

• 🇪🇹 Ethiopia

• 🇫🇯 Fiji

• 🇫🇮 Finland

• 🇫🇷 France

• 🇬🇦 Gabon

• 🇬🇲 Gambia

• Georgia

• 🇩🇪 Germany

• 🇬🇭 Ghana

• 🇬🇷 Greece

• 🇬🇩 Grenada

• 🇬🇹 Guatemala

• 🇬🇳 Guinea

• 🇬🇼 Guinea-Bissau

• 🇬🇾 Guyana

• 🇭🇹 Haiti

• Holy See

• 🇭🇳 Honduras

• 🇭🇺 Hungary

• 🇮🇸 Iceland

• 🇮🇳 India

• 🇮🇷 Iran

• 🇮🇪 Ireland

• 🇮🇱 Israel

• 🇮🇹 Italy

• 🇯🇲 Jamaica

• 🇯🇵 Japan

• 🇯🇴 Jordan

• 🇰🇿 Kazakhstan

• 🇰🇪 Kenya

• 🇰🇮 Kiribati

• 🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan

• 🇱🇦 Lao People's Democratic Republic

• 🇱🇻 Latvia

• 🇱🇸 Lesotho

• 🇱🇷 Liberia

• 🇱🇾 Libya

• 🇱🇹 Lithuania

• 🇱🇺 Luxembourg

• 🇲🇬 Madagascar

• 🇲🇼 Malawi

• 🇲🇻 Maldives

• 🇲🇱 Mali

• 🇲🇹 Malta

• 🇲🇭 Marshall Islands

• 🇲🇷 Mauritania

• 🇲🇺 Mauritius

• 🇲🇽 Mexico

• 🇫🇲 Micronesia

• 🇲🇳 Mongolia

• 🇲🇪 Montenegro

• 🇲🇦 Morocco

• 🇲🇿 Mozambique

• 🇲🇲 Myanmar

• 🇳🇦 Namibia

• 🇳🇷 Nauru

• 🇳🇵 Nepal

• 🇳🇱 Netherlands

• 🇳🇿 New Zealand

• 🇳🇮 Nicaragua

• 🇳🇪 Niger

• 🇳🇬 Nigeria

• North Macedonia

• 🇳🇴 Norway

• 🇵🇰 Pakistan

• 🇵🇼 Palau

• 🇵🇦 Panama

• 🇵🇬 Papua New Guinea

• 🇵🇾 Paraguay

• 🇵🇪 Peru

• 🇵🇭 Philippines

• 🇵🇱 Poland

• 🇵🇹 Portugal

• Republic of Korea

• Republic of Moldova

• 🇷🇴 Romania

• Russian Federation

• 🇷🇼 Rwanda

• 🇰🇳 Saint Kitts and Nevis

• 🇱🇨 Saint Lucia

• 🇻🇨 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

• 🇼🇸 Samoa

• São Tomé and Príncipe

• 🇸🇳 Senegal

• 🇷🇸 Serbia

• 🇸🇨 Seychelles

• 🇸🇱 Sierra Leone

• 🇸🇰 Slovakia

• 🇸🇮 Slovenia

• 🇸🇧 Solomon Islands

• 🇸🇴 Somalia

• 🇿🇦 South Africa

• 🇸🇸 South Sudan

• 🇪🇸 Spain

• 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka

• 🇸🇩 Sudan

• 🇸🇷 Suriname

• 🇸🇪 Sweden

• 🇨🇭 Switzerland

• 🇹🇯 Tajikistan

• 🇹🇭 Thailand

• Timor-Leste

• 🇹🇬 Togo

• 🇹🇴 Tonga

• 🇹🇹 Trinidad and Tobago

• 🇹🇳 Tunisia

• 🇹🇷 Turkey

• 🇹🇲 Turkmenistan

• 🇹🇻 Tuvalu

• 🇺🇬 Uganda

• 🇺🇦 Ukraine

• 🇬🇧 United Kingdom

• United Republic of Tanzania

• 🇺🇸 United States

• 🇺🇾 Uruguay

• 🇺🇿 Uzbekistan

• 🇻🇺 Vanuatu

• 🇻🇪 Venezuela

• 🇻🇳 Viet Nam

• 🇾🇪 Yemen

• 🇿🇲 Zambia

• 🇿🇼 Zimbabwe

Observer States: • 🇧🇭 Bahrain

• 🇧🇹 Bhutan

• 🇮🇩 Indonesia

• 🇰🇼 Kuwait

• 🇲🇾 Malaysia

• 🇶🇦 Qatar

• 🇸🇲 San Marino

• 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia

Non-Member States: • Brunei

• 🇬🇶 Equatorial Guinea

• 🇭🇰 Hong Kong

• 🇮🇶 Iraq

• 🇱🇧 Lebanon

• Macau

• 🇴🇲 Oman

• 🇸🇬 Singapore

• Syria

• 🇹🇼 Taiwan

• 🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates

2003 Amnesty and Human Rights Watch
In 2003, both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch were critical of the IOM's role in the Australian government's "Pacific Solution" of transferring asylum seekers to offshore detention centres. Human Rights Watch criticized the IOM for operating Manus Regional Processing Centre and the processing centre on Nauru despite not having a refugee protection mandate. Human Rights Watch criticized the IOM for being part of "arbitrary detention" and for denying asylum seekers access to legal advice. Human Rights Watch urged the IOM to cease operation the process centres, which it stated were "detention centres" and to hand management of the centres to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Amnesty International expressed concern that the IOM undertook actions on behalf of governments that negatively impacted the human rights of asylum seekers, refugees and migrants. Amnesty International cited an example of fourteen Kurds in Indonesia who were expelled from Australian waters by Australian authorities and relocated to Indonesia. Amnesty International requested an assurance that the IOM will abide by the principle of non-refoulement.

2022 Refugee Council of Australia
In 2022, the role that the IOM played in housing refugees in Indonesia was described by the Refugee Council of Australia as presenting a "humanitarian veneer while carrying out rights-violating activities on behalf of Western nations” by researchers Asher Hirsch and Cameron Doig in The Globe and Mail.

The community housing that the IOM operated, using Australian government funding, was described by the Refugee Council of Australia "inhumane conditions, solitary confinement, lack of basic essentials and medical care, physical and sexual abuse, and severe overcrowding". Rohingya John Joniad described the housing as an "open prison".


text:
Talk:George Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach

Untitled
To User:David Parker You apparently had some info that he was not duke of Prussia and filed it under rubbish. A 1588 coin III Gross Ar (Triplex Silver Groschen) clearly identifies Georg Friedrich as Duc and Dvx Prvssiae. I had added this on the Georg Friedrich site. That was removed. I re-inserted it on Talk/G.

Moved from Georg Friedrich to Georg Friedrich, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, as the former could be anybody. User:Opera hat, 11.52, 11th March 2005

Links?
I was looking at the entry for the film The Piano Teacher (La Pianiste) based on the Elfriede Jelinek novel. There is a list there of actors appearing in the film, some of whom have links to their own Wikipedia entries. One of those links brought me here. Now what I would like to know is: If Georg Friedrich died in 1603, how come he plays "man in drive-in" in a film from 2001?

Needless to say, I understand that there has been a mistake with the links, perhaps there is no entry for the actor and the Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach was the closest thing. I'm not sure how to fix it so I'll leave this comment here and a similar one on the Piano Teacher entry and hopefully it can be sorted out!

Nothingbutmeat 07:07, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


text:
History of Burgundy

The history of Burgundy stretches back to the times when the region was inhabited in turn by Celts, Romans (Gallo-Romans), and in the 5th century, the Roman allies the Burgundians, a Germanic people perhaps originating in Bornholm (Baltic Sea), who settled there and established the Kingdom of the Burgundians.

This Burgundian kingdom was conquered in the 6th century by another Germanic tribe, the Franks, who continued the kingdom of Burgundy under their own rule.

Later, the region was divided between the Duchy of Burgundy (to the west) and the County of Burgundy (to the east). The Duchy of Burgundy is the better-known of the two, later becoming the French province of Burgundy, while the County of Burgundy became the French province of Franche-Comté, literally meaning free county.

The situation is complicated by the fact that at different times and under different geopolitical circumstances, many different entities have gone by the name of 'Burgundy'. Historian Norman Davies has commented that "[f]ew subjects in European history have created more havoc than that summarized by the phrase 'all the Burgundies'." In 1862, James Bryce compiled a list of ten such entities, a list which Davies himself extends to fifteen, ranging from the first Burgundian kingdom founded by Gunther in the fifth century, to the modern French région of Burgundy.

History
The Burgundians, who migrated into the Western Roman Empire as it collapsed, are generally regarded as a Germanic people, possibly originating in Bornholm (modern Denmark). (A fringe theory suggests that the Burgundians may have been the Βουρουγουνδοι Bourougoundoi later alluded to by the Aeolian historian Agathias, as a component of Eurasian steppe peoples, namely the "Scythian or Huns" and, by implication, Turkic peoples like the Bulgars). While they were dominated by the Huns for a time and adopted some of their cultural practices, Agathias may have confused or conflated the Burgundians with the Lombards, who apparently had more significant ties to the Huns and Bulgars.

In 411, the Burgundians crossed the Rhine and established a kingdom at Worms. Amidst repeated clashes between the Romans and Huns, the Burgundian kingdom eventually occupied what is today the borderlands between Switzerland, France, and Italy. In 534, the Franks defeated Godomar, the last Burgundian king, and absorbed the territory into their growing empire.

During and after the dissolution of the Frankish Empire a number of polities existed at different times and covering different areas. During the late 9th century there were three Burgundies: The two kingdoms of Upper and Lower Burgundy were reunited in 933 as the Kingdom of Burgundy. This kingdom in turn was absorbed into the Holy Roman Empire under Conrad II in 1032, and known from the 12th century as the Kingdom of Arles. The Duchy of Burgundy was annexed by the French throne in 1004.
 * 1) the Kingdom of Upper (Transjurane) Burgundy around Lake Geneva,
 * 2) the Kingdom of Lower Burgundy in Provence,
 * 3) the Duchy of Burgundy west of the Saône.

During the Middle Ages, Burgundy was the seat of some of the most important Western churches and monasteries, among them Cluny, Cîteaux, and Vézelay.

During the 12th and 13th centuries, the County of Burgundy emerged from the area previously within the Kingdom of Upper Burgundy. It became known as the Free County of Burgundy or Franche-Comté.

During the Hundred Years' War, King John II of France gave the duchy to his youngest son, Philip the Bold, rather than leaving it for his successor on the French throne. Following a personal union between the Duchy and the County of Burgundy, the "Two Burgundies" soon became a major rival to the French throne. The Dukes of Burgundy succeeded in assembling an empire stretching from Switzerland to the North Sea, in large part by marriage. This Burgundian State consisted of a number of fiefdoms on both sides of the (then largely symbolic) border between the Kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire. Its economic heartland was in the Low Countries, particularly Flanders and Brabant. The Burgundian court outshone the French court both economically and culturally. In Belgium and in the south of the Netherlands, the expression "Burgundian lifestyle" is still used to denote enjoyment of life, good food, and extravagant spectacle.

In 1477, at the battle of Nancy during the Burgundian Wars, the last duke Charles the Bold was killed in battle, and the Duchy itself was annexed by France. In the late 15th and early 16th centuries, the other Burgundian territories provided a power base for the rise of the Habsburgs, after Maximilian of Austria married the surviving daughter of the ducal family, Mary. After her death, her husband moved his court first to Mechelen and later to the palace at Coudenberg, Brussels, and from there ruled the remnants of the empire, the Low Countries (Burgundian Netherlands) and Franche-Comté, then still an imperial fief. The latter territory was ceded to France in the Treaty of Nijmegen of 1678.

With the French Revolution in the end of the 18th century, the administrative units of the regions disappeared, but were reconstituted during the Fifth Republic in the 1970s. The modern-day administrative région includes most of the former duchy.

title: History of Burgundy