text:
Talk:Intron

Evolutionary
"Evolutionary kibble"? I think you mean evolutionary "kipple", as per Philip K. Dick.204.209.121.10 18:55, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

This is cited as a piece of evidence in support of evolution. By whom?

 * By just about every book ever written on the subject, which you'd

know if you ever care to read one. --LDC

 * LDC, no need to be rude to him. We clearly do not have a strong understanding on the significance of introns.  It was just recently (relatively) that they were discovered.  Prior to their discovery it was claimed that the human genome contained over 150,000 active genes.  Just in 2004 the NHGRI stated that there was only 20,000 some active genes.  Down from the 35,000 that was believed after the Human Genome Project and that figure was down from the 150,000 that was believed prior to the Human Genome Project.  This all happening very recently.  I accept evolution and common descent, primarily as a philosophical view on reality.... but you are being disingenuous to claim that our understanding of introns can be used as positive evidence for evolution.  It's brash claims like the one you have just made that makes the rest of us in this field look inept.  Again, the role of introns is not close to being even partially understood.  --RobertShapiro(fan)

 * So, Great Master of intron science, please cite at least one if you know every book written on the subject...

 * come one – am I right that you just copied this from a secondary source...

Cf. dead code in most larger software systems...

Where he copied it from is of no improtance. This is established truth. The textbook Biology by Neil A. Campbell and Jane B. Reece states that introns may be spliced out in differnent ways to combine different exons from one gene. This mRNA will code for different proteins with new and possibly novel functions. These new proteins may allow one organism to survive better than another organism of the same species. It will live on to pass on its genetic information while others will not. If that is not evolution than I don't know what is.--Swimmer678 04:11, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

"Junk DNA" is not a well-defined term, of course, but I would hesitate to say that it is synonymous with intron DNA. A lot of noncoding DNA that is never transcribed into RNA in the first place exists, and I believe that it is usually also considered to be "junk" DNA when factoids about how 90% or whatever of human DNA is junk are bandied about. Bryan Derksen

 * Good point. That should be stated within the article. There are in fact many types of non-junk DNA that are in fact vital to gene regulation and expression. So the statement you mention should read that "90% of all DNA does not code for any proteins". We might even want to have a separate article on this.

 * I wasn't trying to imply that the two terms were directly synonymous through the merge -- its just that the article at Junk DNA was mostly about Intron DNA. There is no reason not to have a separate article about the use of the term "junk DNA" while having intron keep to the technical facts. --maveric149

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The diagram a the top is neither informative nor accurate – wouldn't the one beneath it be just as good?

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Group I and group II introns are mentioned. What about pre-mRNA introns? They are the ones that your figure shows. What about mentioning how introns are spliced out?

Also, there are plenty of references showing that introns are not "junk DNA", on the contrary some contain regulatory elements necessary for expression. I think this should be made clear.

 * I think that is made very clear in the third paragraph of the article. --Mike Lin 17:49, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

"Introns are sections of DNA that will be spliced out after transcription" – sounds ambiguous, as if the pieces of DNA will be spliced out. RNA is mentioned later but in my opinion somebody not familiar with terminology might be confusedVicki Doronina 18:01, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Just curious, but could we change the first sentence to something like "introns are transcribed but non translated regions of dna" and contrast them to exons? Seems like it would be less ambiguous than the current wording.

Group II introns in prokaryotic mRNA
The Intron article says that in prokaryotes, introns only occur in tRNA and rRNA. The group II intron article, however, says they occur in mRNA. I realize that this is not necessarily a contradiction, but could someone please clarify it? --aciel (talk) 18:40, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

more introns in "higher" organisms?
The article has a paragraph about how "higher" organisms (whatever that means) have many introns, while some "less advanced" (?) organisms have few introns. Does anyone have any data to suggest that mammals have more introns than other ophistokonts, and that the average land plant has more introns than protists like algae or dinoflagellates? Of course there is a vague connection between organism size and total genome size, but I don't think there is a connection for intron number or density. Ostreoccoccus for example, despite being perhaps the smallest eukaryote, with a relatively compact genome, has a very high intron density. The smallest known eukaryotic genome (nucleomorph) of chloroachnion has an average intron density despite its tininess. Whether or not one subscribes to an introns early or late hypothesis, it is clear that there is an extremely diverse pattern of intron distribution and density that defies a simple explanation of higher organsisms = many introns, lower organisms = few introns Spamburgler (talk) 10:23, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't really know what "higher organism" mean (though it tends to include fungi...) and I doubt the typical reader does, so that word should hopefully be gone from the article. Perhaps it should say that bacteria and some excavates have fewer introns than other organisms? Narayanese (talk) 14:57, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Btw, your removal of mentions of lower and higher organisms in another article was rather messy, with skewed content as a result. Better to read the ref where such exist so that the new version still follows it, or delete whole sentences. Narayanese (talk) 15:03, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Sure, I am happy to change it to read better if I have left it reading poorly – which one(s) are you referring to specifically?Spamburgler (talk) 01:28, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Heh, I'm a little fond of complaining sometimes... was referring to RNA splicing, but I fixed it (I didn't do too well prose-wise though).Narayanese (talk) 04:58, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

"Genes of higher organisms, such as mammals and flowering plants, have numerous introns, which can be much longer than the nearby exons. Some less advanced organisms, such as fungus Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and protists, have very few introns." This is wrong on many levels.

Narayanese (talk) 05:22, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * "which can be much longer than the nearby exons" You're trying to imply exons use to be as long as introns, or even longer?
 * "higher organisms ... Some less advanced organisms, such as fungus Saccharomyces cerevisiae" And since when weren't fungi higher organisms?
 * "protists, have very few introns" No, they don't.
 * " less advanced organisms ... protists" POV-pushing.
 * Oh, and didn't you read the bit about controversial statements needing a reference for inclusion? And apologies if I get a little uncivil, but those 2 sentences should be gone from the article.

 * I see that English is not your native language. That probably explains the confusion.
 * The phrase "which can be much longer" means that in some instances the introns are longer than the exons. It has no time value:  it implies nothing about what existed previously.
 * Loose categorizations of organisms as being "higher" and "lower" in their evolutionary complexity is an English idiom that will have meaning to any biology student above the age of fifteen. It may sound silly to you, but it is not mere speciesism.  (The fungus in question is a single-celled yeast, not a mushroom or other more complex fungus.)
 * Some protists have very few introns. This sentence does not make a sweeping claim that all protists have very few introns.  It is correct as written.
 * I hope that this helps clear up the confusion for you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:24, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * No, didn't really help, I had no problem reading. Now go find a source that says more "advanced" organsims have more introns. Narayanese (talk) 17:10, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

 * , which says that yeasts -- a classic example of a "lower" eukaryote (their words) -- usually have no more than one intron per gene, whereas "higher" (again, their word) are multi-exonic. Happy now?  WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:39, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * That makes them no different from other fungi: fungi have few introns (PMID: 17949488). And why would flowering plants have more introns than other plants? Green algae certainly have no lack of introns (PMID: 18495022) While excavates have rather few introns (PMID: 16638131), the same is not true for rhizaria (PMID: 17618828) or chromalveolates (PMID: 18296415). Narayanese (talk) 22:38, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

 * Flowering plants are listed as examples of a "higher" plant. Fungi are listed as an examples of "lower" organisms.  You have just conceded that the statement is factually correct:  most flowering plants typically have more introns than fungi.
 * Why flowering plants have more introns than some other organisms is something you will have to ask the deity of your choice. Why is not a question that can be answered by the natural sciences, which concerns itself with the less cosmologically fraught questions of whether and how.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:04, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I guess part of the problem here is the use of the non-scientific concept of "higher" and "lower". These are old fashioned terms that may indeed be familiar to 15 year olds, but in fact do not impart meaningful scientific information, other than an erroneous impression of directed evolution, or a religous based view of biology with humans "higher" on the scale. "Higher" is sometimes used to convey multicellularity, or even in some cases size of organism, or in others size of genome. The terms might also imply number of genes – although presumably not in the last 10 years. Alternatively, the term could be used to mean organisms belonging to phyla with slowly evolving gene sequences. In a scientific context the term was sometimes applied to "crown eukaroytes" a grouping that is now generally recognised as not reflecting any genuine phyletic relationship. Clearly, many of these meanings are mutually inconsistent, and we cannot apply the terms here without unecessary ambiguity. The references to yeast/funghi /land plants/green algae/animals highlight the danger of using such ambiguous language. Clearly yeast is closely related to multicellular funghi and animals, and more distantly related to angiosperms, gymnosperms, green algae and other Plantae. The observation (not sure if it is true) that multicellular funghi generally have more introns than S. cerevisiae, and that angiosperms have more than most funghi demonstrates, while some other plantae have much few introns, demonstrates that intron density can be greatly variable within phylogenetic groups. It may follow some interesting trends, but the reduction of this trend to a nonsensical "higher and lower" does it no justice.

Several points of interest are worthy of discussion, and which are unclear in my mind;

1. That some deep branching phyla (eg excavata?) have few introns (may be true, but certainly lots of exceptions, and lots of reversions within recent branching groups)

2. That multicellular organisms have more introns per gene than unicellular organisms (may be true – though probably not enough sampling to know yet).

Does anyone have any knowledge of these specific questions? Spamburgler (talk) 07:09, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

 * "Higher" and "lower" are certainly references to an old-fashioned conception of the Tree of life: more complex organism are "higher" than simpler organisms.  Furthermore, replacing those words with "more complex" and "less complex" doesn't actually improve things.  It's like replacing Mental retardation with Congenital cognitive disability -- it sounds nicer to the modern ear, but the words have the same meaning.  Given that we're making sweeping generalizations, though, the vagueness is not inappropriate.
 * I don't know whether your first statement is true. The second statement is generally true, although there are some notable exceptions.  It's probably also worth mentioning that introns are related to exon size.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:10, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The terms more complex/less complex will lead to an as misleading generalisation as higher organism/lesser organism, even though it's not as ambiguous. As for Spamburgler's questions: With so few sequenced organisms it's hard to tell, although I guess the answer is yes to both, though the big variation (eg 18x more introns per gene in fission yeast than budding yeast) means you couln't really use the info about a group's intron density. Narayanese (talk) 21:40, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
 * But I could add something about how larger eukaryotes (body size, generation time) tend to have more introns than small ones, though it will have to be weakly worded. Narayanese (talk) 15:46, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Wow guys, this is really quite sad. Not only are you in an arguement over semantics, but you're dragging it out to the point where this one segment is taking up about a fourth of the talk page. While it's true that a lot of these are generalizations with exceptions that seem to make them irrefutably untrue, every rule has it's exceptions. One or two examples that go against a generalized trend are not enough to break the trend down. That being said, you guys need to get over yourselves here. if you want to talk genetics, how about this: 75% of our genes are shared with worms, 98% with chimps, and about half with bananas. Why don't you contemplate why, with all those similarities, humans are the only species as of yet capable of fighting over wether someone is right, or right in a slightly different way. have fun with that, my argue-mental friends. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.227.217.60 (talk) 22:05, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Intron vs Noncoding DNA
Hi wikipedians, what is the key difference between introns and noncoding DNA... merge? --Vojtech.dostal (talk) 07:32, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Certainly not! Non-coding DNA includes intergenic regions and untranslated regions of mRNA. Narayanese (talk) 17:34, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, introns are not always non-coding... WKoets (talk) 16:02, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Definition of Introns
I don't think this is elsewhere discussed on this page, but there's a small but imprtant inaccuracy in the definition of an intron, where it states: "(Introns are) DNA regions in a gene that are not translated into proteins." While this is true, I'm not sure it's very accurate, and I suggest that it be modified to something like "(introns are) DNA regions which are removed by the joining of the two flanking exonic sequences, and thus are not represented in the mature RNA product" A bit clumsy i know, but I've got to have dinner... Thoughts? if there are no objections, I'll re-write the above and put it in... Geno-Supremo (talk) 20:11, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

 * The existing statement is accurate as it stands; your complaint seems to be primarily about its precision. The relevant guideline here is WP:MTAA, specifically "Put the most accessible parts of the article up front."  So in technical articles like this one, the leads (should) contain general statements that can be grasped by non-technical people.  Then we can follow up with the precise details.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:45, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

 * What about this wording:
 * An intron is a section of a gene that is not found in the mature RNA formed by the gene. The intron is found in the precursor RNA, but is removed (spliced out of the RNA) during the formation of the mature RNA. The sequences at each side of the intron (the exons) are joined together during the splicing of the intron. Introns are found as non-coding sections of precursor messenger RNAs (pre-mRNA), but also in other RNAs such as long noncoding RNAs. Once the introns have been spliced out of a pre-mRNA, typically by the spliceosome in the cell nucleus, the resulting mRNA sequence is ready to be translated into a protein. The word intron derives from "intragenic regions", and an alternative term is intervening sequence (IVS),
 * The current lead is indeed not accurate, introns are also found in UTRs are noncoding RNAs (are all introns non-coding btw?). Narayanese (talk) 21:49, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

 * Introns are defined as non-coding. When you're dealing with a piece of RNA that has several alternative splicing arrangements, then which bits are considered the introns depends on how it gets spliced.
 * I don't think that, say, a poly-A tail, although a UTR, is normally considered an intron. Even if it is, then it's still a part that is not translated into a protein, which means that the first sentence is actually accurate.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:13, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Introns are not noncoding by definition, they are what is removed by splicing – if any part of the RNA is translated is not relavant. But yes, poly(A) tails have nothing to do with introns. Narayanese (talk) 17:36, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

 * Here are a few actual definitions from actual (medical) dictionaries:
 * "is not expressed (as protein) in protein synthesis"
 * "does not code information for protein synthesis"
 * "noncoding sequence of DNA within a gene"
 * I think I can fairly say that introns are defined (in part) as being non-coding.
 * The first sentence of this article says that introns are "DNA regions in a gene that are not translated into proteins". Do you think this is wrong (e.g., that introns are not in a gene, or that they are actually translated into proteins), or merely incomplete?  WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:54, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Your sources are not up to date. Read the sources in our Wikipedia article, or this nice review, and you'll see that many noncoding RNAs do have introns. Narayanese (talk) 18:04, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Here is a free one if it helps, although it only mentions the splicing of noncoding RNAs in passing. Narayanese (talk) 18:32, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Did you read the first one? The bit about "By customary usage, the term is extended to the corresponding regions in the primary transcript of mRNA prior to maturation..." -- which I interpret as meaning that the "RNA introns" aren't really truly introns, but that we apply the name to them for convenience.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:38, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

Getting back at the above discussion: I really do think the first bit of the article should be changed. An intron doesn't code for the protein that the surrounding exons code for BUT it might code for a maturase (a protein needed for splicing). I can add citation but it is also mentioned in the article under 'Classification'. I will think about a decent sentencence (I am not a native English speaker) and post it here for you to comment on. WKoets (talk) 16:00, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

 * Something like... 'Most genes in eukaryotes, as well as some prokaryote genes, are interrupted by sequences that are not translated into the protein the gene codes for. These intervening sequences are called introns.' or 'An intron is a DNA region within a gene that is not translated into that gene's protein.' Well, something like this but then in decent English. WKoets (talk) 16:15, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

 * Genes don't code for proteins (well a few do, but it's not the norm) Narayanese (talk) 20:01, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
 * (edit: I shouldn't have repeated myself)
 * I must be missing something here. Genes don't code for proteins?  Just what does, then?  Some other protein?  I thought that idea went out of fashion half a century ago.  And what does the gene code for?  A bunch of carbohydrates?  More genes, that also never get translated into proteins?
 * Did you mean that DNA doesn't usually get translated directly into proteins (e.g., without the intervening stages of translation into RNA)? I don't think that's what WKoets meant.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:59, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Genes that don't code for protein are called pseudogenes as far as I know. Again, what I mean is that an intron isn't necessarily non-coding nor functionless and I think it's time the rest of the world grasped that idea as well! WKoets (talk) 09:50, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Out of Date
''Introns may also contain "old code", or sections of a gene that were once translated into a protein, but have since become inactive. It was generally assumed that the sequence of any given intron is Junk DNA with no biological function. More recently, however, this is being disputed.''

I don't think this is strong enough. That at least some introns are functional and adaptive as opposed to relics is now the mainstream view amongst geneticists.

For proof, a few recent journals:

Besides, the journal cited for the more recently ... this is being disputed was published almost 15 years ago.  Jeb us  989 ★ 15:25, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Simple illustration
About Intron: This seems a little too "instructional textbook" rather than "encyclopedia article" to me. What do other people think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:55, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

 * I agree that this section has a weird style Richard☺Decal (talk) 09:24, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

 * I too find this rather... Childish. 81.164.243.42 (talk) 13:28, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

 * I completely disagree. This the first time all night that wikipedia has helped me understand something quickly and easily. Keep it. I don't care if it doesn't fit the style guide, it does its job well. 64.223.122.74 (talk) 03:53, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

 * I came here to say this. Keep this section and start making Wikipedia more like this. There's no point in making text physically accessible to people if the text still doesn't make the concepts "click" as this section did for me. 50.0.7.143 (talk) 03:03, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

 * The section needs to stay. If a little simple, it's an elegant way of conveying the point. I also think that all of Wikipedia should attempt to incorporate this type of teaching tool. Since nucleic acids cannot be seen, many users have difficulty conceptualizing their structure and function. It's similar to the plumbing analogy commonly used to teach people about voltage and current.Kmcgregor123456 (talk) 17:25, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Shouldn't it be moved to RNA_splicing? Klortho (talk) 14:06, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

It's good to have an illustration here but this one is inaccurate. A UTR is part of an exon. Compare this illustration with the one in the Exon article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gene_structure.svg) Mutundis (talk) 23:34, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

This is my attempt at a better illustration IMHO: — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mutundis (talk • contribs) 01:19, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Popular culture?
Is it worth mentioning that some authors (such as Greg Bear) have fictionally hypothesised that introns are used to store memories in cells? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.24.51.92 (talk) 12:13, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Biological functions and evolution
What is the reasoning behind the following statement?: "Since eukaryotes arose from a common ancestor (Common descent), there must have been extensive gain or loss of introns during evolutionary time.[23][24] This process is thought to be subject to selection, with a tendency towards intron gain in larger species due to their smaller population sizes, and the converse in smaller (particularly unicellular) species.[25]" ZFT (talk) 19:29, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Introns are well known in bacterial and archaeal genes, but occur more rarely than in most eukaryotic genomes.[citation needed]

A particularly extreme case is the Drosophila dhc7 gene containing a ≥3.6 Mb intron, which takes roughly three days to transcribe.[9][10]

This is ambiguous. The reference to cases found "more rarely" is then followed by what appears to be an example of "a particularly extreme case", but this turns out to be an example, not of the rarely found cases, but of a genome with particularly abundant introns referred to earlier. Myles325a (talk) 05:27, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

an ambiguity
Introns are well known in bacterial and archaeal genes, but occur more rarely than in most eukaryotic genomes.[citation needed]

A particularly extreme case is the Drosophila dhc7 gene containing a ≥3.6 Mb intron, which takes roughly three days to transcribe.[9][10]

This is ambiguous. The reference to cases found "more rarely" is then followed by what appears to be an example of "a particularly extreme case", but this turns out to be an example, not of the rarely found cases, but of a genome with particularly abundant introns referred to earlier. Myles325a (talk) 05:27, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 19:02, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Textbook references
The article contains references to 14 and 15 year old textbooks. Are references to textbooks really necessary? A good Wikipedia article should be at least as authoritative as a textbook. (I say this as a textbook author.) I suggest replacing textbook references with references to recent reviews in primary literature. Genome42 (talk) 15:00, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Introduction
The introduction is confusing because the first part only refers to introns in protein-coding genes. It also contains references to 14 and 15 year old textbooks and other references that are inappropriate.

I propose editing the introduction to make it more accurate and more relevant.Genome42 (talk) 15:03, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Junk DNA
A good case can be made that introns are mostly junk DNA but that case isn't made in the article. That needs to be fixed.

I have proposed creating a separate Wikipedia entry on Junk DNA and I am actively working on it. The proposal is being discussed in the Talk section on the Noncoding DNA page. Please add your views on this proposal, which I think is long overdue.Genome42 (talk) 15:35, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

On the accuracy of splicing
I'm working on a new section with the tentative title "On the accuracy of splicing." The goal is to present the evidence showing that splicing is quite error-prone and that cells are expected to contain large numbers of incorrectly spliced transcripts due to mistakes in splicing. This is important because these splicing artifacts are easily detected by modern techniques and their sequences are entered into the transcript databases. Most of them are recognized and ignored by genome annotators but a significant number have made it into the standard reference genome. This leads to considerable confusion about alternative splicing because it is often assumed, without evidence, that these transcripts are biologically relevant leading to rather extraordinary claims about the prevalence of alternative splicing. Those false (IMHO) claims are prominently mentioned in this article but the counter-arguments also have to be addressed in order to provide balance.

Here's a blog post that I published two years ago. It discusses the problem and the pervasive bias in the scientific literature.

https://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2020/04/alternative-splicing-function-vs-noise.html

Genome42 (talk) 14:09, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I added a section on splicing accuracy. Now we need to work on showing that there is considerable controversy over the number of human genes that have produce multiple biologically functional products by alternative splicing. Genome42 (talk) 20:55, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I added a section on splicing accuracy. Now we need to work on showing that there is considerable controversy over the number of human genes that have produce multiple biologically functional products by alternative splicing. Genome42 (talk) 20:55, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Intron


text:
Talk:Vapor pressure

old question
I think the last mentioned temperature is not the melting point but the triple point. Is that correct?

 * Actually, no. When the vapor pressures of liquid and solid are equal only if the two phases (liquid and solid) are in equilibrium. If these pressures are also equal to the total pressure, then the gas phase is in equilibuim, too ( three phase -> triple point) -- Olof

And another question: to which substances does this discussion apply? Wood for instance doesn't have a vapor pressure, does it?

 * Sure it does. This is why I put wood in the garage for a year before putting it in the fireplace:  some of its components ( water ) sublimate. However, wood is a multicomponent material, so it is better to think of vapor pressures of each of its components. -- Olof

And yet another one: what is the vapor pressure of solid water at 50 degrees Celcius? AxelBoldt

 * Higher than the vapor pressure of liquid water at 50 degrees Celsius. The fact that we know that it is higher doesn't imply that we are able to actually measure the value, although it could be estimated by extrapolating data from the temperature range where water is stable.

 * I've got to admit, though, that this page is quite confusing, and could use a better explanation of all the concepts. -- Olof

comparing and contrasting the dependence of the temperature.......
In a simple distillation, am I correct in assuming that the temperature of the liquid and vapor are equal? I am trying to compare and contrast the dependence of temperature on the distillate volume of cyclohexane and toluene. I find it easy to compare the temperature with the mixture, but would like to find some contrasting factors.
 * Email is charlespr01@hotmail.com Chuck

Technical accessibility
This article could use some work to make it more accessible to people who are not already familiar with the principles of thermodynamics and kinetic theory. I'm sure that schoolchildren and even adults who haven't had basic science education would find the explication of fundamental concepts here to be quite helpful. I've already drafted similar improvements for Phase (matter) (see my 10 July 2005 edits there), which are illustrative of what I have in mind. -- Beland 13:29, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Collection of Gas over water
Perhaps a mention should be made about how Vapor Pressure affects the Collection of a Gas over water? In High School Chemistry this is the main use we have for Vapor pressure. Interpretivechaos 02:00, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Hey you posted on my birthday. But yeah, I agree. I'll add it eventually. --M1ss1ontomars2k4 02:14, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Vapor Pressure & Temperature
If we know the Vapor Pressure of a liquid at a given temperature, is there a way to recalculate the vapor pressure at a new temperature.

As an example, I believe toluene has a VP of around 22 at 68degrees. If it was say 80 degrees or 40 degrees can we calculate what the new vapor pressure is?

HAZMAT

 * Vapour pressure relates to temperature in a non-linear way, but you can still predict the vapour pressure using the Clausius-Clapeyron_relation or the Antoine equation.

 * Clausius -
 * $$\ln \frac{P_2}{P_1} = \frac{-\Delta H_{vap}}{R} * \left (\frac{1}{T_2} - \frac{1}{T_1} \right)$$
 * where P is in torr and T is in Kelvin and R is the gas constant (~8.3145 J mol-1 K-1) and ΔHvap is 38.06 kJ/mol.

 * I am apparently really bad at using TeX and preview is randomly breaking on it. ln ( P2 / P1) = -ΔHvap / (RT) * (1/T2 - 1/T1)

 * Plugging stuff in (assuming your VP listed is in.. i have no idea really atm? bar? I'm going to go with bar, and that you mean celsius)

 * P2 = e^([-38060 J/mol / 8.3145 J/(molK)] * [1/293.15K - 1/277.594K]) * 22 bar
 * or $$ P_2 = e^{\frac{-38060 \frac{J}{mol}}{8.3145 \frac{J}{molK}} * \left ( \frac{1}{293.15K} - \frac{1}{277.594K} \right ) } * 22 bar$$
 * P2 = 52.777

 * There are other ways of using this relation to do the same thing using calculus aswell.

 * Antoine - You just look up the numbers and plug them in really. Just make sure you have the correct units/correct formula.  Sometimes it is ln, sometimes it is log, sometimes it is kelvin, sometimes it is celsius and various other variations —kotepho 2006-03-19 21:03Z

'notes'?
Yes, we need a better column title than 'notes', but 'Boiling Point' is simply misleading. Using 'Boiling point' implies that the temperature listed in the column is the temperature at which liquid and gas coexist, as temperature is changed at constant pressure. That's not what these temperatures in this column are. Instead, this column is used to note the temperature at which the given vapor pressure is measured.

-- Olof

P-v diagram
So, the vapor pressure is the ordinate value of the horizontal lines in a P-v diagram? (Double-checking) Tito xd (?!? - cool stuff) 21:49, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

MAJOR ouch with equating vapor pressure with saturation vapor pressure. A solid or liquid can exert a vapor pressure below the saturation limit!!! The saturation vapor pressure is a special case where the vapor pressure reaches its maximum value. Therefore saturation vapor pressure (aka saturated vapor pressure) symbol p0 really needs its own section.Softwarestorage (talk) 01:46, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to delete section on "Examples of vapor Pressure"
This article is meant to explain what vapor pressure is, its relation to temperature and to boiling point, its units and its usages. There is really no reason to have picked 14 substances at random and provide their vapor pressures at some single specific temperature.

This is an encyclopedia article ... not a data handbook. Hundreds of substances and their vapor pressures across a range of temperatures can be found in data handbooks such as the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, Perry's Chemical Engineers' Handbook and Lange's  Handbook of Chemistry. Similar data is also readily available online at the NIST Chemistry WebBook website. So why does this article need a section on "Examples of vapor pressures"?? I propose that section should be deleted. mbeychok (talk) 07:57, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

 * Since no one has responded or raised any objections, I am proceeding to remove the section on "Examples of vapor pressures". mbeychok (talk) 03:57, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

 * The unit chapter is also rather useless, in my opinion. It is simply a duplicate of the table in in the Pressure article (where it belongs). What do you think? --WilfriedC (talk) 18:25, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

 * Hi, WilfriedC: Yes, the table is the same as the one in the Pressure article. That table is really the template   and that template was developed so that it could be used in multiple articles where it would be useful. It wasn't meant to be used in only one article. In my opinion, it serves a useful function in this article for those who won't take the time (or not know how) to go to the Pressure article. mbeychok (talk) 02:23, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

 * I had a look at the article before you deleted the "Examples of vapor pressure" table, and I am of the opinion that those examples contribute a lot to the quality of the article, because they help the reader to gain an idea of the order of magnitude the vapor pressure can be, and why some well-known substances behave in certain ways, in vacuum (for instance). Hence I raise my objection to that deletion. Blind cyclist (talk) 19:38, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Since no one has responded or raised any objections, I am proceeding to restore the section on "Examples of vapor pressures". Note that I have waited much longer, after proposing this change, than the editor who so quickly deleted it. Blind cyclist (talk) 10:24, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

 * Blind cyclist, that dig about "editor who so quickly deleted it" was unwarranted. That editor (me) explained that vapor pressure data (or examples, if you wish) are readily and abundantly available in handbooks and online in the NIST Chemistry Webbook. Your only reason seems to be that you thought some randomly chosen examples would be helpful. That is what eventually "dumbs down" most technical articles in WP. mbeychok (talk) 16:16, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
 * The article already states that all liquids boil when their vp reaches the pressure of the environment. I don't see any need to keep the helium entry. The only useful information in there is the boiling point of He, clearly out of context. I am going to remove the entry. Kbrose (talk) 18:12, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

 * First of all, it wasn't a dig, and anyone can see it: you proposed a change and then moved to implement it after only 2 days. I would be surprised if you would argue with this. What I wouldn't be surprised and in fact expect you to argue about, is the usefulness of those examples. Throughout my studies of material science, I found such examples (of any physical characteristic) most enlighting, as they allowed me to realize the inner workings on atomic and molecular level, by comparing other properties of given example substances. I don't know whether the vapor pressure data are readily available or not, but it is conceivable that they will not be online at a certain point (just as many references already aren't). So that's another argument to keep the table where it is, instead of relying on the availability of outside sources. Furthermore, it's much nicer to have a number of substances with differing vapor pressures listed in the same place where the subject is discussed, rather than having to search for them somewhere else. Finally, I completely disagree that "this is what eventually dumbs down most technical articles". Besides, this isn't just a "technical article", it is supposed to have a degree of educative methodology, and I am of the opinion that examples are essential in that context. Blind cyclist (talk) 00:21, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

 * Opposed. The table is very useful and educational and give the interested reader a sense of variability of pressure and a sense for the property as it relates to some common substances. I ordered the table according to increasing pressure to enhance the illustrative power. Kbrose (talk) 01:11, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I am in favor of the Examples section, but the Helium entry doesn't belong there. The vapor pressure is 1 atm, because the chosen temperature is the boiling point of helium. That's not a property of helium; every liquid has a vapor pressure of 1 atm at its boiling point. Spiel496 (talk) 18:58, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * First of all, the statement that "every liquid has a vapor pressure of 1 atm at its boiling point" is not quite correct. A liquid at boiling point has a vapor pressure equaling that of the environment. Second, and more importantly, the example for Helium should stay to illustrate just this very point.Blind cyclist (talk) 10:29, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I have now added an explanation for the vapor pressure of Helium boiling point. But I am quite surprised that people feel happy to just come and delete things at will, without any consultation. Deleting should be hard and debated, not as easy as you do it. Don't wonder when outsiders are outraged at deletionism.Blind cyclist (talk) 10:57, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Vapour pressure data examples of electrolyte solutions missing
Some data on the most typical electrolyte solution (NaCl) could be illustrative to the specific of electrolytes vs nonelectrolytes.--82.137.15.167 (talk) 12:40, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

This is supposed to be an encyclopedia article, not some incomprehensible, esoteric technical essay by an anonymous visitor.
I am deleting the section added by an anonymous visitor entitled "Technical Explanation fo Vapor Pressure" (the excessive capitalization was by the anonymous visitor ... not by me).

It is completely unnecessary and esoteric essay. Here are but a few quotes from that section:
 * "sigmoidal behavior", "mathematical inevitability" and this prize bit of gobbledy-gook "Eliminating the unstable region of the equation of state curve using the equilibrium criteria that the chemical potentials of all phases present in a system must be equal, we see that there is one pressure a on a given isotherm at which the specific volume of the substance takes on two values."

99% of the people reading this article won't understand what in the heck that section was talking about. mbeychok (talk) 21:50, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

What is the normal boiling point of propane??
There is a discrepency between this page and the one for volatility regarding the normal boiling point of propane. This page says its -42.1 deg C and the volatility page has it listed as -43.7 deg C. Which is correct? 69.63.82.50 (talk) 17:32, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
 * The volatility page misquoted its number as deg C, when in fact it used the F value. I changed it to the correct value in C. Kbrose (talk) 19:41, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Saturated Air !!!!! ?????
'air at sea level, saturated with water vapor at 20 °C'. The author commits a common solecism by imagining that 'saturation' refers to a state of the air, whereas in fact it refers to a state of the water vapour in the air. 'Saturated air', to be consistent with the definition given earlier in the section, should be understood to be gaseous air in equilibrium with liquid air. '...air... saturated with water vapour' should be replaced by '..air containing saturated water vapour..'. This kind of muddled thinking undermines the authority of the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.32.49.157 (talk) 06:48, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Category
This (really nice!) article has three different categories within chemistry! That seems excessive. Anyway, two of those, namely Category:Chemical properties and Category:Physical chemistry have a common subcategory, which seems even more to the point: Category:Thermodynamic properties. I'm going to move it to that subcategory. 83.92.159.225 (talk) 00:27, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Referencing
In-line reference citations should be provided for each section, and preferably for each paragraph, to improve WikiProject Engineering quality classification.Thewellman (talk) 22:24, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Mistake in introduction
In the introduction there is written: "In plain terms, a liquid evaporates at all pressures below its vapor pressure, while remaining stable at pressure above the vapor pressure."

That's not true! If liquids were stable at pressures above its vapor pressure, then your wet cloths would not dry under normal conditions. There would also be no clouds and some other minor problems.

Right: A liquid is evaporating at pressures above its vapor pressure, while at pressures below its vapor pressure it is boiling.

As my English is not that good, I don't want to change it directly in the article.

--LordOider (talk) 18:21, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Four articles for one phenomenon
… namely, Saturated fluid, Vapor pressure, Saturation vapor density and Vapor–liquid equilibrium, IMHO is too many articles. I propose to reduce the number of articles to no more than two (but not necessarily to merge all this into one article). Incnis Mrsi (talk) 06:43, 6 August 2012 (UTC) For two resulting articles, I can propose the following configuration: There will be two article: one about the equilibrium and its implementations. Another will be focused on the gas phase, with its properties. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 09:56, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
 * "Vapor pressure" absorbs "Saturation vapor density" and is moved to a new title (currently a redirect to "Saturated fluid"). Rationale: currently there is a large article about a property (pressure) of a fluid (the [saturated] vapor) which is not defined explicitly.
 * "Saturated fluid" is merged into "Vapor–liquid equilibrium" (because the latter is necessary to understand the former), except aforementioned redirect (and its spelling variants).

 * I agree with the idea of ending up with two article rather than four. However, I strongly disagree that the title of the Vapor pressure article should be changed. mbeychok (talk) 15:29, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

 * The Title of Vapor Pressure should be kept, because As a Perfumer, and not a Chemist, "Vapor Pressure" is something that needs to be learned, and that is the subject searched for by my profession seeking to learn how it relates to Perfumery. - Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pkiler (talk • contribs) 15:39, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Even if the article title is changed, a redirect will be maintained to the page, so Perfumers and Chemists and Anyone Else For That Matter can easily find it. The more important concern is not what term is used by a specific group (e.g. perfumers, ant farm owners, sanitation workers, etc.) but rather what the most common term is overall.  However, I think "vapor pressure" is the more common term in general, so I would support keeping that title.  138.16.21.199 (talk) 16:25, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
 * With mergers "Saturated fluid" → "Vapor–liquid equilibrium" proceeded and "Vapor pressure" ↔ "Vapor–liquid equilibrium" rejected, the only remaining question is the fate of "Saturation vapor density". Merge it to "Vapor pressure", remain intact, or what? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 16:32, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
 * This user (Incnis Mrsi) has gone off the radar, and so an anonymous removal of their suggested merging shall occur. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.188.89.232 (talk) 06:34, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
 * There seemed to be developing consensus. Why is there a need to rush the discussion?--Yannick (talk) 16:39, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Since I referred to this discussion when redirected the, I reiterate here: “Vapor–liquid equilibrium” is the only valid target for redirect, because it is this equilibrium what is necessary to understand before understanding what is a “saturated fluid”. Such edits as are purely degrading: a saturated fluid is not necessarily a vapour. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 20:52, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

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Vapour pressure
Vapour pressure is directly proportional to the temperature 223.190.115.134 (talk) 06:29, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Which the article clearly states. Vsmith (talk) 13:58, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

 * Not true. P(vap) is not proportional to T and the article doesn't say it is. The intro says "increases non-linearly" per the Clausius-Clapeyron equation, and the more accurate Antoine equation given below is also non-linear. A typical graph is in the section Boiling point of water, and is evidently much closer to exponential than to linear.

 * Of course, in absence of any liquid a vapour at low pressure behaves approximately as an ideal gas so that P α T. But that is not what vapour pressure means. Vapour pressure is the pressure of a gas in equilibrium with the liquid. If T is increased, more liquid becomes vapour so that P increases much more rapidly than linearly. Dirac66 (talk) 01:46, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

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

title: Talk:Vapor pressure


text:
Mutiny on the Bounty (novel)

Mutiny on the Bounty is a 1932 novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, based on the mutiny against Lieutenant William Bligh, commanding officer of the Bounty in 1789. It has been made into several films and a musical. It was the first of what became The Bounty Trilogy, which continues with Men Against the Sea, and concludes with Pitcairn's Island.

Plot introduction
The novel tells the story through a fictional first-person narrator by the name of Roger Byam, based on a crew member Peter Heywood. Byam, although not one of the mutineers, remains with the Bounty after the mutiny. He subsequently returns to Tahiti and is eventually arrested and taken back to England to face a court-martial. He and several other members of the crew are eventually acquitted.

Characters in Mutiny on the Bounty

 * Roger Byam – main protagonist, loosely based on the life of midshipman Peter Heywood; but with differences in the book it is claimed that Byam's only living relative was his mother who died of shock after William Bligh had accused her son of being an active mutineer; in fact, Heywood had several siblings; his mother survived his court-martial- although his sister Nessy Heywood did die a year after his acquittal
 * William Bligh – Lieutenant and commander of the Bounty
 * Fletcher Christian – eventual mutineer

Film, TV and theatrical adaptations

 * Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
 * Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)
 * The Bounty (1984)
 * A musical based on the same story appeared in the West End during the 1980s. It was written by and starred David Essex.

Other
An earlier work, Les Révoltés de la Bounty (The Mutineers of the Bounty), was published by Jules Verne in 1879.

title: Mutiny on the Bounty (novel)


text:
Raphael

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (March 28 or April 6, 1483 – April 6, 1520), now generally known in English as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur. Together with Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period.

His father was court painter to the ruler of the small but highly cultured city of Urbino. He died when Raphael was eleven, and Raphael seems to have played a role in managing the family workshop from this point. He trained in the workshop of Perugino, and was described as a fully trained "master" by 1500. He worked in or for several cities in north Italy until in 1508 he moved to Rome at the invitation of Pope Julius II, to work on the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican. He was given a series of important commissions there and elsewhere in the city, and began to work as an architect. He was still at the height of his powers at his death in 1520.

Raphael was enormously productive, running an unusually large workshop and, despite his early death at 37, leaving a large body of work. His career falls naturally into three phases and three styles, first described by Giorgio Vasari: his early years in Umbria, then a period of about four years (1504–1508) absorbing the artistic traditions of Florence, followed by his last hectic and triumphant twelve years in Rome, working for two popes and their close associates. Many of his works are found in the Vatican Palace, where the frescoed Raphael Rooms were the central, and the largest, work of his career. The best known work is The School of Athens in the Vatican Stanza della Segnatura. After his early years in Rome, much of his work was executed by his workshop from his drawings, with considerable loss of quality. He was extremely influential in his lifetime, though outside Rome his work was mostly known from his collaborative printmaking.

After his death, the influence of his great rival Michelangelo was more widespread until the 18th and 19th centuries, when Raphael's more serene and harmonious qualities were again regarded as the highest models. Thanks to the influence of art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann, his work became a formative influence on Neoclassical painting, but his techniques would later be explicitly and emphatically rejected by groups such as the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

Background
Raphael was born in the small but artistically significant central Italian city of Urbino in the Marches region, where his father Giovanni Santi was court painter to the Duke. The reputation of the court had been established by Federico da Montefeltro, a highly successful condottiere who had been created Duke of Urbino by Pope Sixtus IV – Urbino formed part of the Papal States – and who died the year before Raphael was born. The emphasis of Federico's court was more literary than artistic, but Giovanni Santi was a poet of sorts as well as a painter, and had written a rhymed chronicle of the life of Federico, and both wrote the texts and produced the decor for masque-like court entertainments. His poem to Federico shows him as keen to demonstrate awareness of the most advanced North Italian painters, and Early Netherlandish artists as well. In the very small court of Urbino he was probably more integrated into the central circle of the ruling family than most court painters.

Federico was succeeded by his son Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, who married Elisabetta Gonzaga, daughter of the ruler of Mantua, the most brilliant of the smaller Italian courts for both music and the visual arts. Under them, the court continued as a centre for literary culture. Growing up in the circle of this small court gave Raphael the excellent manners and social skills stressed by Vasari. Court life in Urbino at just after this period was to become set as the model of the virtues of the Italian humanist court through Baldassare Castiglione's depiction of it in his classic work The Book of the Courtier, published in 1528. Castiglione moved to Urbino in 1504, when Raphael was no longer based there but frequently visited, and they became good friends. Raphael became close to other regular visitors to the court: Pietro Bibbiena and Pietro Bembo, both later cardinals, were already becoming well known as writers, and would later be in Rome during Raphael's period there. Raphael mixed easily in the highest circles throughout his life, one of the factors that tended to give a misleading impression of effortlessness to his career. He did not receive a full humanistic education however; it is unclear how easily he read Latin.

Early life and work
Raphael's mother Màgia died in 1491 when he was eight, followed on August 1, 1494, by his father, who had already remarried. Raphael was thus orphaned at eleven; his formal guardian became his only paternal uncle, Bartolomeo, a priest, who subsequently engaged in litigation with his stepmother. The boy probably continued to live with his stepmother when not staying as an apprentice with a master. He had already shown talent, according to Vasari, who says that Raphael had been "a great help to his father". A self-portrait drawing from his teenage years shows his precocity. His father's workshop continued and, probably together with his stepmother, Raphael evidently played a part in managing it from a very early age. In Urbino, he came into contact with the works of Paolo Uccello, previously the court painter (d. 1475), and Luca Signorelli, who until 1498 was based in nearby Città di Castello.

According to Vasari, Raphael's father placed him in the workshop of the Umbrian master Pietro Perugino as an apprentice "despite the tears of his mother". The evidence of an apprenticeship comes only from Vasari and another source, and has been disputed; eight was very early for an apprenticeship to begin. An alternative theory is that the boy received at least some training from Timoteo Viti, who acted as court painter in Urbino from 1495. Most modern historians agree that Raphael at least worked as an assistant to Perugino from around 1500; the influence of Perugino on Raphael's early work is very clear: "probably no other pupil of genius has ever absorbed so much of his master's teaching as Raphael did", according to Wölfflin. Vasari wrote that it was impossible to distinguish between their hands at this period, but many modern art historians claim to do better and detect his hand in specific areas of works by Perugino or his workshop. Apart from stylistic closeness, their techniques are very similar as well, for example having paint applied thickly, using an oil varnish medium, in shadows and darker garments, but very thinly on flesh areas. An excess of resin in the varnish often causes cracking of areas of paint in the works of both masters. The Perugino workshop was active in both Perugia and Florence, perhaps maintaining two permanent branches. Raphael is described as a "master", that is to say fully trained, in December 1500.

His first documented work was the Baronci altarpiece for the church of Saint Nicholas of Tolentino in Città di Castello, a town halfway between Perugia and Urbino. Evangelista da Pian di Meleto, who had worked for his father, was also named in the commission. It was commissioned in 1500 and finished in 1501; now only some cut sections and a preparatory drawing remain. In the following years he painted works for other churches there, including the Mond Crucifixion (about 1503) and the Brera Wedding of the Virgin (1504), and for Perugia, such as the Oddi Altarpiece. He very probably also visited Florence in this period. These are large works, some in fresco, where Raphael confidently marshals his compositions in the somewhat static style of Perugino. He also painted many small and exquisite cabinet paintings in these years, probably mostly for the connoisseurs in the Urbino court, like the Three Graces and St. Michael, and he began to paint Madonnas and portraits. In 1502 he went to Siena at the invitation of another pupil of Perugino, Pinturicchio, "being a friend of Raphael and knowing him to be a draughtsman of the highest quality" to help with the cartoons, and very likely the designs, for a fresco series in the Piccolomini Library in Siena Cathedral. He was evidently already much in demand even at this early stage in his career.

Influence of Florence
Raphael led a "nomadic" life, working in various centres in Northern Italy, but spent a good deal of time in Florence, perhaps from about 1504. Although there is traditional reference to a "Florentine period" of about 1504–1508, he was possibly never a continuous resident there. He may have needed to visit the city to secure materials in any case. There is a letter of recommendation of Raphael, dated October 1504, from the mother of the next Duke of Urbino to the Gonfaloniere of Florence: "The bearer of this will be found to be Raphael, painter of Urbino, who, being greatly gifted in his profession has determined to spend some time in Florence to study. And because his father was most worthy and I was very attached to him, and the son is a sensible and well-mannered young man, on both accounts, I bear him great love..."

As earlier with Perugino and others, Raphael was able to assimilate the influence of Florentine art, whilst keeping his own developing style. Frescos in Perugia of about 1505 show a new monumental quality in the figures which may represent the influence of Fra Bartolomeo, who Vasari says was a friend of Raphael. But the most striking influence in the work of these years is Leonardo da Vinci, who returned to the city from 1500 to 1506. Raphael's figures begin to take more dynamic and complex positions, and though as yet his painted subjects are still mostly tranquil, he made drawn studies of fighting nude men, one of the obsessions of the period in Florence. Another drawing is a portrait of a young woman that uses the three-quarter length pyramidal composition of the just-completed Mona Lisa, but still looks completely Raphaelesque. Another of Leonardo's compositional inventions, the pyramidal Holy Family, was repeated in a series of works that remain among his most famous easel paintings. There is a drawing by Raphael in the Royal Collection of Leonardo's lost Leda and the Swan, from which he adapted the contrapposto pose of his own Saint Catherine of Alexandria. He also perfects his own version of Leonardo's sfumato modelling, to give subtlety to his painting of flesh, and develops the interplay of glances between his groups, which are much less enigmatic than those of Leonardo. But he keeps the soft clear light of Perugino in his paintings.

Leonardo was more than thirty years older than Raphael, but Michelangelo, who was in Rome for this period, was just eight years his senior. Michelangelo already disliked Leonardo, and in Rome came to dislike Raphael even more, attributing conspiracies against him to the younger man. Raphael would have been aware of his works in Florence, but in his most original work of these years, he strikes out in a different direction. His Deposition of Christ draws on classical sarcophagi to spread the figures across the front of the picture space in a complex and not wholly successful arrangement. Wöllflin detects in the kneeling figure on the right the influence of the Madonna in Michelangelo's Doni Tondo, but the rest of the composition is far removed from his style, or that of Leonardo. Though highly regarded at the time, and much later forcibly removed from Perugia by the Borghese, it stands rather alone in Raphael's work. His classicism would later take a less literal direction.

Vatican "Stanze"
In 1508, Raphael moved to Rome, where he resided for the rest of his life. He was invited by the new pope, Julius II, perhaps at the suggestion of his architect Donato Bramante, then engaged on St. Peter's Basilica, who came from just outside Urbino and was distantly related to Raphael. Unlike Michelangelo, who had been kept lingering in Rome for several months after his first summons, Raphael was immediately commissioned by Julius to fresco what was intended to become the Pope's private library at the Vatican Palace. This was a much larger and more important commission than any he had received before; he had only painted one altarpiece in Florence itself. Several other artists and their teams of assistants were already at work on different rooms, many painting over recently completed paintings commissioned by Julius's loathed predecessor, Alexander VI, whose contributions, and arms, Julius was determined to efface from the palace. Michelangelo, meanwhile, had been commissioned to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling. This first of the famous "Stanze" or "Raphael Rooms" to be painted, now known as the Stanza della Segnatura after its use in Vasari's time, was to make a stunning impact on Roman art, and remains generally regarded as his greatest masterpiece, containing The School of Athens, The Parnassus and the Disputa. Raphael was then given further rooms to paint, displacing other artists including Perugino and Signorelli. He completed a sequence of three rooms, each with paintings on each wall and often the ceilings too, increasingly leaving the work of painting from his detailed drawings to the large and skilled workshop team he had acquired, who added a fourth room, probably only including some elements designed by Raphael, after his early death in 1520. The death of Julius in 1513 did not interrupt the work at all, as he was succeeded by Raphael's last pope, the Medici Pope Leo X, with whom Raphael formed an even closer relationship, and who continued to commission him. Raphael's friend Cardinal Bibbiena was also one of Leo's old tutors, and a close friend and advisor.

In the course of painting the room, Raphael was clearly influenced by Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling. Vasari said Bramante let him into the chapel secretly. Raphael completed the first section of his work in 1511 and the reaction of other artists to the daunting force of Michelangelo was the dominating question in Italian art for the following few decades. Raphael, who had already shown his gift for absorbing influences into his own personal style, rose to the challenge perhaps better than any other artist. One of the first and clearest instances was the portrait in The School of Athens of Michelangelo himself, as Heraclitus, which seems to draw clearly from the Sybils and ignudi of the Sistine ceiling. Other figures in that and later paintings in the room show the same influences, but as still cohesive with a development of Raphael's own style. Michelangelo accused Raphael of plagiarism and years after Raphael's death, complained in a letter that "everything he knew about art he got from me", although other quotations show more generous reactions.

These very large and complex compositions have been regarded ever since as among the supreme works of the grand manner of the High Renaissance, and the "classic art" of the post-antique West. They give a highly idealised depiction of the forms represented, and the compositions, though very carefully conceived in drawings, achieve "sprezzatura", a term invented by his friend Castiglione, who defined it as "a certain nonchalance which conceals all artistry and makes whatever one says or does seem uncontrived and effortless ...". According to Michael Levey, "Raphael gives his [figures] a superhuman clarity and grace in a universe of Euclidian certainties". The painting is nearly all of the highest quality in the first two rooms, but the later compositions in the Stanze, especially those involving dramatic action, are not entirely as successful either in conception or their execution by the workshop.

Architecture
After Bramante's death in 1514, Raphael was named architect of the new St Peter's. Most of his work there was altered or demolished after his death and the acceptance of Michelangelo's design, but a few drawings have survived. It appears his designs would have made the church a good deal gloomier than the final design, with massive piers all the way down the nave, "like an alley" according to a critical posthumous analysis by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger. It would perhaps have resembled the temple in the background of The Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple.

He designed several other buildings, and for a short time was the most important architect in Rome, working for a small circle around the Papacy. Julius had made changes to the street plan of Rome, creating several new thoroughfares, and he wanted them filled with splendid palaces.

An important building, the Palazzo Branconio dell'Aquila for Leo's Papal Chamberlain Giovanni Battista Branconio, was completely destroyed to make way for Bernini's piazza for St. Peter's, but drawings of the façade and courtyard remain. The façade was an unusually richly decorated one for the period, including both painted panels on the top story (of three), and much sculpture on the middle one.

The main designs for the Villa Farnesina were not by Raphael, but he did design, and decorate with mosaics, the Chigi Chapel for the same patron, Agostino Chigi, the Papal Treasurer. Another building, for Pope Leo's doctor, the Palazzo Jacopo da Brescia, was moved in the 1930s but survives; this was designed to complement a palace on the same street by Bramante, where Raphael himself lived for a time.

The Villa Madama, a lavish hillside retreat for Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, later Pope Clement VII, was never finished, and his full plans have to be reconstructed speculatively. He produced a design from which the final construction plans were completed by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger. Even incomplete, it was the most sophisticated villa design yet seen in Italy, and greatly influenced the later development of the genre; it appears to be the only modern building in Rome of which Palladio made a measured drawing.

Only some floor-plans remain for a large palace planned for himself on the new via Giulia in the rione of Regola, for which he was accumulating the land in his last years. It was on an irregular island block near the river Tiber. It seems all façades were to have a giant order of pilasters rising at least two storeys to the full height of the piano nobile, "a grandiloquent feature unprecedented in private palace design".

Raphael asked Marco Fabio Calvo to translate Vitruvius's Four Books of Architecture into Italian; this he received around the end of August 1514. It is preserved at the Library in Munich with handwritten margin notes by Raphael.

Antiquity
In about 1510, Raphael was asked by Bramante to judge contemporary copies of Laocoön and His Sons. In 1515, he was given powers as Prefect over all antiquities unearthed within, or a mile outside the city. Anyone excavating antiquities was required to inform Raphael within three days, and stonemasons were not allowed to destroy inscriptions without permission. Raphael wrote a letter to Pope Leo suggesting ways of halting the destruction of ancient monuments, and proposed a visual survey of the city to record all antiquities in an organised fashion. The pope intended to continue to re-use ancient masonry in the building of St Peter's, also wanting to ensure that all ancient inscriptions were recorded, and sculpture preserved, before allowing the stones to be reused.

According to Marino Sanuto the Younger's diary, in 1519 Raphael offered to transport an obelisk from the Mausoleum of August to St. Peter's Square for 90,000 ducats. According to Marcantonio Michiel, Raphael's "youthful death saddened men of letters because he was not able to furnish the description and the painting of ancient Rome that he was making, which was very beautiful". Raphael intended to make an archaeological map of ancient Rome but this was never executed. Four archaeological drawings by the artist are preserved.

Other painting projects
The Vatican projects took most of his time, although he painted several portraits, including those of his two main patrons, the popes Julius II and his successor Leo X, the former considered one of his finest. Other portraits were of his own friends, like Castiglione, or the immediate Papal circle. Other rulers pressed for work, and King Francis I of France was sent two paintings as diplomatic gifts from the Pope. For Agostino Chigi, the hugely rich banker and papal treasurer, he painted the Triumph of Galatea and designed further decorative frescoes for his Villa Farnesina, a chapel in the church of Santa Maria della Pace and mosaics in the funerary chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo. He also designed some of the decoration for the Villa Madama, the work in both villas being executed by his workshop.

One of his most important papal commissions was the Raphael Cartoons (now in the Victoria and Albert Museum), a series of 10 cartoons, of which seven survive, for tapestries with scenes of the lives of Saint Paul and Saint Peter, for the Sistine Chapel. The cartoons were sent to Brussels to be woven in the workshop of Pier van Aelst. It is possible that Raphael saw the finished series before his death—they were probably completed in 1520. He also designed and painted the Loggie at the Vatican, a long thin gallery then open to a courtyard on one side, decorated with Roman-style grottesche. He produced a number of significant altarpieces, including The Ecstasy of St. Cecilia and the Sistine Madonna. His last work, on which he was working up to his death, was a large Transfiguration, which together with Il Spasimo shows the direction his art was taking in his final years—more proto-Baroque than Mannerist.

Painting materials
Raphael painted several of his works on wood support (Madonna of the Pinks) but he also used canvas (Sistine Madonna) and he was known to employ drying oils such as linseed or walnut oils. His palette was rich and he used almost all of the then available pigments such as ultramarine, lead-tin-yellow, carmine, vermilion, madder lake, verdigris and ochres. In several of his paintings (Ansidei Madonna) he even employed the rare brazilwood lake, metallic powdered gold and even less known metallic powdered bismuth.

Workshop
Vasari says that Raphael eventually had a workshop of fifty pupils and assistants, many of whom later became significant artists in their own right. This was arguably the largest workshop team assembled under any single old master painter, and much higher than the norm. They included established masters from other parts of Italy, probably working with their own teams as sub-contractors, as well as pupils and journeymen. We have very little evidence of the internal working arrangements of the workshop, apart from the works of art themselves, which are often very difficult to assign to a particular hand.

The most important figures were Giulio Romano, a young pupil from Rome (only about twenty-one at Raphael's death), and Gianfrancesco Penni, already a Florentine master. They were left many of Raphael's drawings and other possessions, and to some extent continued the workshop after Raphael's death. Penni did not achieve a personal reputation equal to Giulio's, as after Raphael's death he became Giulio's less-than-equal collaborator in turn for much of his subsequent career. Perino del Vaga, already a master, and Polidoro da Caravaggio, who was supposedly promoted from a labourer carrying building materials on the site, also became notable painters in their own right. Polidoro's partner, Maturino da Firenze, has, like Penni, been overshadowed in subsequent reputation by his partner. Giovanni da Udine had a more independent status, and was responsible for the decorative stucco work and grotesques surrounding the main frescoes. Most of the artists were later scattered, and some killed, by the violent Sack of Rome in 1527. This did however contribute to the diffusion of versions of Raphael's style around Italy and beyond.

Vasari emphasises that Raphael ran a very harmonious and efficient workshop, and had extraordinary skill in smoothing over troubles and arguments with both patrons and his assistants—a contrast with the stormy pattern of Michelangelo's relationships with both. However though both Penni and Giulio were sufficiently skilled that distinguishing between their hands and that of Raphael himself is still sometimes difficult, there is no doubt that many of Raphael's later wall-paintings, and probably some of his easel paintings, are more notable for their design than their execution. Many of his portraits, if in good condition, show his brilliance in the detailed handling of paint right up to the end of his life.

Other pupils or assistants include Raffaellino del Colle, Andrea Sabbatini, Bartolommeo Ramenghi, Pellegrino Aretusi, Vincenzo Tamagni, Battista Dossi, Tommaso Vincidor, Timoteo Viti (the Urbino painter), and the sculptor and architect Lorenzetto (Giulio's brother-in-law). The printmakers and architects in Raphael's circle are discussed below. It has been claimed the Flemish Bernard van Orley worked for Raphael for a time, and Luca Penni, brother of Gianfrancesco and later a member of the First School of Fontainebleau, may have been a member of the team.

Drawings

Raphael was one of the finest draftsmen in the history of Western art, and used drawings extensively to plan his compositions. According to a near-contemporary, when beginning to plan a composition, he would lay out a large number of stock drawings of his on the floor, and begin to draw "rapidly", borrowing figures from here and there. Over forty sketches survive for the Disputa in the Stanze, and there may well have been many more originally; over four hundred sheets survive altogether. He used different drawings to refine his poses and compositions, apparently to a greater extent than most other painters, to judge by the number of variants that survive: "... This is how Raphael himself, who was so rich in inventiveness, used to work, always coming up with four or six ways to show a narrative, each one different from the rest, and all of them full of grace and well done." wrote another writer after his death. For John Shearman, Raphael's art marks "a shift of resources away from production to research and development".

When a final composition was achieved, scaled-up full-size cartoons were often made, which were then pricked with a pin and "pounced" with a bag of soot to leave dotted lines on the surface as a guide. He also made unusually extensive use, on both paper and plaster, of a "blind stylus", scratching lines which leave only an indentation, but no mark. These can be seen on the wall in The School of Athens, and in the originals of many drawings. The "Raphael Cartoons", as tapestry designs, were fully coloured in a glue distemper medium, as they were sent to Brussels to be followed by the weavers.

In later works painted by the workshop, the drawings are often painfully more attractive than the paintings. Most Raphael drawings are rather precise—even initial sketches with naked outline figures are carefully drawn, and later working drawings often have a high degree of finish, with shading and sometimes highlights in white. They lack the freedom and energy of some of Leonardo's and Michelangelo's sketches, but are nearly always aesthetically very satisfying. He was one of the last artists to use metalpoint (literally a sharp pointed piece of silver or another metal) extensively, although he also made superb use of the freer medium of red or black chalk. In his final years he was one of the first artists to use female models for preparatory drawings—male pupils ("garzoni") were normally used for studies of both sexes.

Printmaking
Raphael made no prints himself, but entered into a collaboration with Marcantonio Raimondi to produce engravings to Raphael's designs, which created many of the most famous Italian prints of the century, and was important in the rise of the reproductive print. His interest was unusual in such a major artist; from his contemporaries it was only shared by Titian, who had worked much less successfully with Raimondi. A total of about fifty prints were made; some were copies of Raphael's paintings, but other designs were apparently created by Raphael purely to be turned into prints. Raphael made preparatory drawings, many of which survive, for Raimondi to translate into engraving.

The most famous original prints to result from the collaboration were Lucretia, the Judgement of Paris and The Massacre of the Innocents (of which two virtually identical versions were engraved). Among prints of the paintings The Parnassus (with considerable differences) and Galatea were also especially well known. Outside Italy, reproductive prints by Raimondi and others were the main way that Raphael's art was experienced until the twentieth century. Baviero Carocci, called "Il Baviera" by Vasari, an assistant who Raphael evidently trusted with his money, ended up in control of most of the copper plates after Raphael's death, and had a successful career in the new occupation of a publisher of prints.

Private life and death

From 1517 until his death, Raphael lived in the Palazzo Caprini, lying at the corner between piazza Scossacavalli and via Alessandrina in the Borgo, in rather grand style in a palace designed by Bramante. He never married, but in 1514 became engaged to Maria Bibbiena, Cardinal Bibbiena's niece; he seems to have been talked into this by his friend the cardinal, and his lack of enthusiasm seems to be shown by the marriage not having taken place before she died in 1520. He is said to have had many affairs, but a permanent fixture in his life in Rome was "La Fornarina", Margherita Luti, the daughter of a baker (fornaro) named Francesco Luti from Siena who lived at Via del Governo Vecchio.

He was made a "Groom of the Chamber" of the Pope, which gave him status at court and an additional income, and also a knight of the Papal Order of the Golden Spur. Vasari claims that he had toyed with the ambition of becoming a cardinal, perhaps after some encouragement from Leo, which also may account for his delaying his marriage.

Raphael died on Good Friday, April 6, 1520, which was possibly his 37th birthday. Vasari says that Raphael had also been born on a Good Friday, which in 1483 fell on March 28, and that the artist died from exhaustion brought on by unceasing romantic interests while he was working on the Loggia. Several other possibilities for his death have been raised by later historians and scientists, such as a combination of an infectious disease and bloodletting. In his acute illness, which lasted fifteen days, Raphael was composed enough to confess his sins, receive the last rites, and put his affairs in order. He dictated his will, in which he left sufficient funds for his mistress's care, entrusted to his loyal servant Baviera, and left most of his studio contents to Giulio Romano and Penni. At his request, Raphael was buried in the Pantheon.

Raphael's funeral was extremely grand, attended by large crowds. According to a journal by Paris de Grassis, four cardinals dressed in purple carried his body, the hand of which was kissed by the Pope. The inscription on Raphael's marble sarcophagus, an elegiac distich written by Pietro Bembo, reads: "Here lies that famous Raphael by whom Nature feared to be conquered while he lived, and when he was dying, feared herself to die."

Critical reception
Raphael was highly admired by his contemporaries, although his influence on artistic style in his own century was less than that of Michelangelo. Mannerism, beginning at the time of his death, and later the Baroque, took art "in a direction totally opposed" to Raphael's qualities; "with Raphael's death, classic art—the High Renaissance—subsided", as Walter Friedländer put it. He was soon seen as the ideal model by those disliking the excesses of Mannerism:"the opinion ...was generally held in the middle of the sixteenth century that Raphael was the ideal balanced painter, universal in his talent, satisfying all the absolute standards, and obeying all the rules which were supposed to govern the arts, whereas Michelangelo was the eccentric genius, more brilliant than any other artists in his particular field, the drawing of the male nude, but unbalanced and lacking in certain qualities, such as grace and restraint, essential to the great artist. Those, like Dolce and Aretino, who held this view were usually the survivors of Renaissance Humanism, unable to follow Michelangelo as he moved on into Mannerism." Vasari himself, despite his hero remaining Michelangelo, came to see his influence as harmful in some ways, and added passages to the second edition of the Lives expressing similar views.

Raphael's compositions were always admired and studied, and became the cornerstone of the training of the Academies of art. His period of greatest influence was from the late 17th to late 19th centuries, when his perfect decorum and balance were greatly admired. He was seen as the best model for the history painting, regarded as the highest in the hierarchy of genres. Sir Joshua Reynolds in his Discourses praised his "simple, grave, and majestic dignity" and said he "stands in general foremost of the first [i.e., best] painters", especially for his frescoes (in which he included the "Raphael Cartoons"), whereas "Michael Angelo claims the next attention. He did not possess so many excellences as Raffaelle, but those he had were of the highest kind..." Echoing the sixteenth-century views above, Reynolds goes on to say of Raphael:

"The excellency of this extraordinary man lay in the propriety, beauty, and majesty of his characters, his judicious contrivance of his composition, correctness of drawing, purity of taste, and the skilful accommodation of other men's conceptions to his own purpose. Nobody excelled him in that judgment, with which he united to his own observations on nature the energy of Michael Angelo, and the beauty and simplicity of the antique. To the question, therefore, which ought to hold the first rank, Raffaelle or Michael Angelo, it must be answered, that if it is to be given to him who possessed a greater combination of the higher qualities of the art than any other man, there is no doubt but Raffaelle is the first. But if, according to Longinus, the sublime, being the highest excellence that human composition can attain to, abundantly compensates the absence of every other beauty, and atones for all other deficiencies, then Michael Angelo demands the preference." Reynolds was less enthusiastic about Raphael's panel paintings, but the slight sentimentality of these made them enormously popular in the 19th century: "We have been familiar with them from childhood onwards, through a far greater mass of reproductions than any other artist in the world has ever had..." wrote Wölfflin, who was born in 1862, of Raphael's Madonnas.

In Germany, Raphael had an immense influence on religious art of the Nazarene movement and Düsseldorf school of painting in the 19th century. In contrast, in England the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood explicitly reacted against his influence (and that of his admirers such as Joshua Reynolds), seeking to return to styles that pre-dated what they saw as his baneful influence. According to a critic whose ideas greatly influenced them, John Ruskin: The doom of the arts of Europe went forth from that chamber [the Stanza della Segnatura], and it was brought about in great part by the very excellencies of the man who had thus marked the commencement of decline. The perfection of execution and the beauty of feature which were attained in his works, and in those of his great contemporaries, rendered finish of execution and beauty of form the chief objects of all artists; and thenceforward execution was looked for rather than thought, and beauty rather than veracity. And as I told you, these are the two secondary causes of the decline of art; the first being the loss of moral purpose. Pray note them clearly. In mediæval art, thought is the first thing, execution the second; in modern art execution is the first thing, and thought the second. And again, in mediæval art, truth is first, beauty second; in modern art, beauty is first, truth second. The mediæval principles led up to Raphael, and the modern principles lead down from him.

By 1900, Raphael's popularity was surpassed by Michelangelo and Leonardo, perhaps as a reaction against the etiolated Raphaelism of 19th-century academic artists such as Bouguereau. Although art historian Bernard Berenson in 1952 termed Raphael the "most famous and most loved" master of the High Renaissance, art historians Leopold and Helen Ettlinger say that Raphael's lesser popularity in the 20th century is made obvious by "the contents of art library shelves ... In contrast to volume upon volume that reproduce yet again detailed photographs of the Sistine Ceiling or Leonardo's drawings, the literature on Raphael, particularly in English, is limited to only a few books". They conclude, nonetheless, that "of all the great Renaissance masters, Raphael's influence is the most continuous."

title: Raphael


text:
Notes on Muscovite Affairs

Notes on Muscovite Affairs (Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii) (1549) was a Latin book by Baron Sigismund von Herberstein on the geography, history and customs of the Grand Duchy of Muscovy. The book was the main early source of knowledge about Russia in Western Europe.

Background
Herberstein was an Austrian diplomat who was twice sent to Russia as Austrian ambassador, in 1517 and 1526. Born in Vipava (German Wippach), Carniola, he was familiar with Slovene, which became important later on his mission in Russia, when he was able to communicate with ordinary Russians as Slovene and Russian are both Slavic languages.

These visits occurred at a time when very little was known about Russia outside the region. The few published descriptions of Russia were in some cases wildly inaccurate.

Historical note on Muscovy and Russia
Muscovy in the 16th century was one of the Russian states which emerged after the collapse of Kievan Rus' under pressure from the Golden Horde. Beginning in the late 15th Century, the Princes of Muscovy began asserting their claim as the sole inheritor of the legacy of Kievan Rus'. Muscovy would annex many of the other Russian principalities and would evolve into the Russian Empire under Peter the Great starting at the end of the 17th century. Russia was the region, Muscovy was the state until it no longer included just Moscow. Muscovy was then ruled by the Muscovite monarchy, starting with Ivan III (1462–1505), who expanded Muscovy, and ending with Ivan IV, who claimed the title "Tsar of Russia".

In this article, Russia and Muscovy are treated as similar entities. In land area there is not much difference between Muscovy and Russia west of the Ural Mountains. Herberstein wrote about Muscovy (region based on Moscow) because that is what it was known as in the West then. We know the area as Russia, so that is how it is referred to here.

Research
Herberstein developed a keen interest in all things Russian, and researched in several ways:
 * using his knowledge of Slavic, he questioned a variety of people on a wide range of topics.
 * careful review of existing publications on Russia, comparing what he read with his own observations. He viewed most publications skeptically, because he knew that most of the authors had not been able to actually visit Russia.
 * corroboration. He was careful to make sure not to accept anything that was not well corroborated. As he wrote, he "did not rely upon this or that man's account, but trusted only to the unvarying statements of many."
 * investigation of Russian written publications, which provided him with information on Russian culture completely unavailable at the time in Europe.

Content
As a result, Herberstein was able to produce the first detailed eyewitness ethnography of Russia, encyclopedic in its scope, providing a view that was very accurate for the time of trade, religion, customs, politics, history and even a theory of Russian political culture.

The book contributed greatly to a European view held for several centuries of Russia as a despotic absolute monarchy. That view was not new, but previous writers had presented an idealized view. Herberstein influenced the development of his view in two ways:
 * He accentuated the absolute power of the monarchy even more than previous works had done. Writing about the Russian Tsar, Herberstein wrote that "in the power he holds over his people the ruler of Muscovy surpasses all the monarchs of the world."
 * He presented a view of Russian political culture quite opposite to that argued by other writers. Although others claimed Russians were fanatically loyal to their ruler and treated in return with great fairness, Herberstein saw and wrote differently.

His investigations made it clear that Muscovy, contrary to the view of fanatical loyalty, had suffered a violent political struggle and that Muscovy had emerged only very recently as the dominant power in the region. Besides the man who achieved the unification of Muscovy, Ivan III was characterized by Herberstein as a cruel tyrant, drunk, and a misogynist, far from being a ruler of great fairness and equity.

His description of Ivan's unification campaign was a series of banishments and forced relocations of whole populations to break the power of regional rulers. That culminated in Ivan's "plan of ejecting all princes and others from the garrisons and fortified places" and all formerly-independent princes of Russia "being either moved by the grandeur of his achievements or stricken with fear, became subject to him.". All was very much at odds with previous-perceived reality but much closer to currently-understood Russian history. Similarly, the previously-touted ideal of the fairness of the Muscovy monarchy was contrasted with Herberstein's depiction of peasants as being in "a very wretched condition, for their goods are exposed to plunder from the nobility and soldiery".

Tsar vs Czar
One final thing for which Herberstein and his book was noted, though not widely understood, was his contribution to a spelling confusion which did not emerge until the end of the 19th century and still causes disagreement: he recorded the spelling of "tsar" (Russian царь, pronounced [t͡sɑrʲ]) as czar. This may cause confusion nowadays because the digraph $⟨cz⟩$ is today only used in the Polish language and is there pronounced as [t͡ʃ]. However, early modern German (as Herberstain spoke and wrote it) and furthermore also pre-20th century Hungarian or the 'mazurizing' dialects of Polish used $⟨cz⟩$ for [t͡s]. Contrary to what the $⟨cz⟩$ might suggest, all Slavonic languages pronounce the title "tsar" with [t͡s], which is always written with a simple $⟨c⟩$, in Latin-writing Slavic languages as well as in the transliterations of Cyrillic-writing ones. English and French moved from the $⟨cz⟩$ spelling to the $⟨ts⟩$ spelling in the 19th century.

English translations
Marshall Poe, who has written extensively on Herberstein and Russian history generally, uses the English title Notes on the Muscovites consistently when translating the Latin title. A slightly more precise English translation of the Latin title would be Notes on Muscovite Affairs, as used for this article. There are one partial and two complete English translations of this work, the most recent one, by J. B. C. Grundy, based itself on a German version.

 * Notes upon Russia: being a translation of the earliest account of that country, entitled Rerum moscoviticarum commentarii by the Baron Sigismund von Herberstein. Translated and edited by R. H. Major, London: Hakluite Society, 1851-1852, 2 vols.; reprint, New York: B. Franklin, 1963
 * Description of Moscow and Muscovy, 1557, Sigmund von Herberstein. Edited by Bertold Picard, translated by J. B. C. Grundy, London: Dent, New York: Barnes & Noble, 1966

External links and references
Online editions:
 * Digital reproduction of the English translation by R. H. Major, 1851-52
 * Digital reproduction of the Latin edition of 1571
 * Digital reproduction of the German edition of 1557
 * Digital reproduction of the Italian edition of 1550
 * Latin text of Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii, together with the early German version
 * For the Russian text of Herberstein's book, see http://stepanov01.narod.ru/library/herb/herb00.htm
 * For searching digital reprints and other online versions of related source materials and maps see the Meeting of Frontiers project at the Library of Congress.

Others:

 * The main English source of information on Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii and Herberstein is Marshall Poe's publications, particularly Herberstein and Origin of the European Image of Muscovite Government, which cites many other contemporary publications such as Giorgio, Fabri and Campense. See also the notes above in the section English Translations.
 * For the derivation of tsar and Herberstein's contribution of czar, see the Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, entry on tsar.

title: Notes on Muscovite Affairs


text:
Talk:Notes on Muscovite Affairs

Old talk
I think the more literal "Commentaries/Notes on Muscovite affairs/matters" would be a better translation, Graham - the commentarii are of res muscoviticae - "Muscovite things/matters" - rather than Muscovitici, Muscovites. User:David Parker

 * I think the Notes on the Muscovites is down to habitual usage. What tends to happen with a lot of these things is that the first translation sticks no matter how wrong it is. So here I give the habitual translation, and I make no attempt to translate it myself.

 * After further digging, it appears that Notes on the Muscovites was the title given to the English translation in 1577, in which case, they translated badly, but that's what they called it. I will have to dig some more to try and confirm this. If it is the case then I will alter the article to show that it was published in English as this. Graham Chapman

 * Looks like a bit of a red herring that one. Poe uses Notes on the Muscovites consistently, but the only other references I can find using the same title are copies of Poe. However the English translation is referred to in several places (even by Poe in bibliographies) as Notes on Russia translation of Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii by R. H. Major, London 1851. I'll change to that and see how we go. Graham Chapman

 * A later translation by by J.B.C. Grundy (edited by Bertold Picard) is titled Description of Moscow and Muscovy, which sounds a bit long-winded but seems far preferable to me, (res muscoviticae can refer to matters of the city of Moscow or the state of Muscovy). I'd have to say, though, that precisely because subsequent translated editions can be so differently titled, I strongly believe the original work's title should be translated literally - it remains, while later editions come and go and pile up under a variety of names. User:David Parker

 * Hmmm. That would have us referring to it by an English title that no-one else uses. That tends to make things difficult in the history world, I would have thought. How is the reader to track anything down by the English name? How about putting both the English titles down? I saw the later one, but I thought the earlier one should take precedence, but both would do fine.

 * Here's another thought - why not put the literal translation AND the titles of BOTH the English versions. And add Poe's usage as well. Then, provided it is clear which is which, everybody's happy! Starts to get a bit long-winded, so I guess that leaves the literal translation in the first paragraph, and the titles of the English translation plus Poe's usage plus an explanation describing the difference between the two in a new para after the first paragraph. Also keep in mind that very few readers speak Latin - most just need an acceptable tag to hang things on that can be used for communication, so we risk losing more from confusion than we gain by being strictly accurate. So maybe all this guff needs to be in a footnote for those who are still awake by then. Graham Chapman

 * Sounds fine by me: the literal translation as a point of information for non-Latinists, and the translated editions (being distinct materials, as I see them - though they're also versions of the same work) for those who may want to trace them: I accept it seems long-winded, but sometimes that's worthwhile for the information: Personally, I think the later editions should be at the end (and who knows, there may be more to follow!). I think the initial translation really is necessary precisely because so few of us are familiar with Latin. Cheers, User:David Parker

 * OK, David, I've made those changes, see what you think, and feel free to change the literal translation. I'll leave it for comment for a day or two, then I'll change related articles to match. I have to say that, having made the changes, I think it looks better this way, so thanks for the suggestions. Graham Chapman

On czar, I wouldn't characterise it as erroneous prior to the 19th or even 20th century: when Herberstein wrote (and for 300 years afterward), there was no correct transliteration, so czar was as correct as any: it is only the development of the modern "ts" transliteration that has made it incorrect. User:David Parker.

 * Seems a good point. I'll change it sometime, if someone else doesn't get there first....done, I've reworded it to change the emphasis quite a bit, both here and in the article on Herberstein. See what you think. Graham Chapman

title: Talk:Notes on Muscovite Affairs