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Delft University of Technology

The Delft University of Technology (TU Delft; Technische Universiteit Delft) is the oldest and largest Dutch public technical university, located in Delft, The Netherlands. It specializes in engineering, technology, computing, design, and natural sciences.

With eight faculties and multiple research institutes, TU Delft educates more than 26,000 students (undergraduate and postgraduate), and employs more than 3,000 doctoral candidates and 4,000 teaching, research, support and management staff (including more than 1,300 faculty members of all ranks).

The university was established on 8 January 1842 by King William II as a royal academy, with the primary purpose of training civil servants for work in the Dutch East Indies. The school expanded its research and education curriculum over time, becoming a polytechnic school in 1864 and an institute of technology (making it a full-fledged university) in 1905. It changed its name to Delft University of Technology in 1986.

Dutch Nobel laureates Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, and Simon van der Meer have been associated with TU Delft. TU Delft is a member of several university federations, including the IDEA League, CESAER, UNITECH International, ENHANCE Alliance, LDE, and 4TU.

Royal Academy (1842–1864)
Delft University of Technology was founded on 8 January 1842 by William II of the Netherlands as Royal Academy for the education of civilian engineers, for serving both nation and industry, and of apprentices for trade. One of the purposes of the academy was to educate civil servants for the colonies of the Dutch East India Company. The first director of the academy was Antoine Lipkens, constructor of the first Dutch optical telegraph, called simply as Lipkens. Royal Academy had its first building located at Oude Delft 95 in Delft. On 23 May 1863 an Act was passed imposing regulations on technical education in the Netherlands, bringing it under the rules of secondary education.

Polytechnic School (1864–1905)
On 20 June 1864, Royal Academy in Delft was disbanded by a Royal Decree, giving a way to a Polytechnic School of Delft (Politechnische School te Delft). The newly formed school educated engineers of various fields and architects, much needed during the rapid industrialization period in the 19th century.

Institute of Technology (1905–1986)
Yet another Act, passed on 22 May 1905, changed the name of the school to Technical College (Institute) of Delft (Technische Hoogeschool Delft, from 1934 Technische Hogeschool Delft), emphasizing the academic quality of the education. Polytechnic was granted university rights and was allowed to award academic degrees. The number of students reached 450 around that time. The official opening of the new school was attended by Queen Wilhelmina on 10 July 1905. First dean of the newly established college was ir. J. Kraus, hydraulic engineer. In 1905, the first doctoral degree was awarded. From 1924 until the construction of the new campus in 1966, the ceremonies were held in the Saint Hippolytus Chapel.

Corporate rights were granted to the college on 7 June 1956. Most of the university buildings during that time were located within Delft city centre, with some of the buildings set on the side of the river Schie, in the Wippolder district.

Student organizations grew together with the university. The first to be established on 22 March 1848 is the Delftsch Studenten Corps housed in the distinctive Sociëteit Phoenix on the Phoenixstraat. This was followed by the Delftsche Studenten Bond (est. 30 October 1897) and the KSV Sanctus Virgilius (est. 2 March 1898). In 1917, Proof Garden for Technical Plantation (Cultuurtuin voor Technische Gewassen) was established by Gerrit van Iterson, which today is known as Botanical Garden of TU Delft. In that period, a first female professor, Toos Korvezee, was appointed.

Delft University of Technology (1986–present)
After the end of World War II, TU Delft increased its rapid academic expansion. Studium Generale was established at all universities in the Netherlands, including TU Delft, to promote a free and accessible knowledge related to culture, technology, society and science. Because of the increasing number of students, in 1974 the first Reception Week for First Year Students (Ontvangst Week voor Eerstejaars Studenten, OWEE) was established, which has become a TU Delft tradition since then.

 On 1 September 1986, the Delft Institute of Technology officially changed its name to Delft University of Technology, underlining the quality of the education and research provided by the institution. In the course of further expansion, in 1987 Delft Top Tech institute was established, which provided a professional master education in management for people working in technology-related companies. On 1 September 1997, the 13 faculties of the TU Delft were merged into 9, to improve the management efficiency of the growing university. In the early 1990s, because the vast majority of the students of the university were male, an initiative to increase the number of female students resulted in founding a separate emancipation commission. As a result, Girls Study Technology (Meiden studeren techniek) days were established. In later years the responsibilities of the commission were distributed over multiple institutes. Since 2006 all buildings of the university are located outside of the historical city center of Delft. The relatively new building of Material Sciences department was sold, later demolished in 2007 to give place for a newly built building of the Haagse Hogeschool. Closer cooperation between TU Delft and Dutch universities of applied sciences resulted in physical transition of some of the institutes from outside to Delft. In September 2009 many institutes of applied sciences from the Hague region as well as Institute of Applied Sciences in Rijswijk, transferred to Delft, close to the location of the university, at the square between Rotterdamseweg and Leeghwaterstraat.

In 2007 the three Dutch technical universities, TU Delft, TU Eindhoven and University of Twente, established a federation, called 3TU.

On 13 May 2008, the building of the Faculty of Architecture was destroyed by fire, presumed caused by a short circuit in a coffee machine due to a ruptured water pipe. Luckily, the architecture library, containing several thousands of books and maps, as well as many architecture models, including chairs by Gerrit Rietveld and Le Corbusier, were saved. The Faculty of Architecture is currently housed in the university's former main building.

Logo
Through the course of the years the logo of the TU Delft changed a number of times, along with its official name. The current logo is based on the three university colors cyan, black and white. The letter "T" bears a stylized flame on top, referring to the flame that Prometheus brought from Mount Olympus to the people, against the will of Zeus. Because of this, Prometheus is sometimes considered as the first engineer, and is an important symbol for the university. His statue stood in the center of the newly renovated TU Delft campus, Mekelpark, until it was stolen in 2012.

Campus
Initially, all of the university buildings were located in the historic city centre of Delft. This changed in the second half of the 20th century with relocations to a separate university neighbourhood. The last university building in the historic centre of Delft was the university library, which was relocated to a new building in 1997. On 12 September 2006, the design of the new university neighbourhood, Mekelpark, was officially approved, giving a green light to the transformation of the area around the Mekelweg (the main road on the university terrain) into a new campus heart. The new park replaced the main access road and redirected car traffic around the campus, making the newly created park a safer place for bicycles and pedestrians.

Mekelpark
A new university neighborhood called Mekelpark (its name commemorating TH Delft professor and WW II resistance fighter, Jan Mekel, who was executed by the Nazis on 2 May 1942 in Sachsenhausen) was opened on 5 July 2009. Mekelpark replaced old parking structures, bike lanes and filling stations, constructed between faculty buildings of the university in the late 1950s. Its 832-meter-long promenade eased the commute between faculty buildings. Both sides of the promenade are covered by stone benches, 1547 meters long in total. Some of the university buildings around the Mekelpark deserve certain attention.

Aula
TU Delft Aula was designed by Van den Broek en Bakema architecture bureau, founded by two TU Delft alumni Jo van den Broek and Jaap Bakema. It was officially opened on 6 January 1966 by Dutch Prime Minister Jo Cals. It is a classical example of a structure built in Brutalist style. TU Delft Aula, which symbolically opens the Mekelpark, houses main university restaurant and store, as well as lecture halls, auditoria, congress center, and administrative offices of the university. All doctoral promotion, honoris causa ceremonies, as well as academic senate meetings take place in the Aula.

Library
The TU Delft Library, constructed in 1997, was designed by Delft-based Mecanoo architecture bureau. It is located behind university aula. The roof of the library is covered with grass, which serves as a natural insulation. The structure lifts from the ground on one side allowing to walk to the top of the building. The library is topped by the steel cone, giving its unique shape. All the walls are completely filled with glass. The library won the Dutch National Steel Prize in 1998 in the buildings of steel and hybrid constructions category. The library is also host of the 4TU.Centre for Research Data, the archive for research data in the technical sciences in the Netherlands.

Cultural and Sports Center
The TU Delft Sports and Culture Center, recently renamed X, is located at Mekelweg 10, at the edge of the Mekelpark. It was designed by architect Vera Yanovshtchinsky and opened to TU Delft students and staff in 1995. Since then it has undergone expansions and renovations.

TU Delft Musea
Three musea are associated with the university: Science Centre Delft, Mineralogy-geology museum and Beijerinck en Kluyver archive.

Science Centre Delft was opened in September 2010 and is located at Mijnbouwstraat 120 in Delft. Science Center Delft is a successor of Technical Exhibition Center. Technical Exhibition Center was established by a group of TU Delft professors with the aim of presenting the recent advances in technology to a wider audience. Parts of the collection were shown outside of Delft: in the Netherlands and abroad, including Israel and Czech Republic. The collection was permanently hosted in the building of former department of geodesy. The historical collections of Technical Exhibition Center were moved Delft Museum of Technology, located at Ezelsveldlaan, in the buildings of the former department of naval architecture (Werktuig- en Scheepsbouwkunde), next to the city center of Delft. As Delft city council together with TU Delft decided to move the collection close to the university campus (currently the building of the former museum are transformed into lofts), Science Centre Delft shows visitors current TU Delft research projects are available, including Eco Runner and Nuna.

Beijerinck en Kluyver archive hosts a collection of documents, exhibits and memorabilia of two scientists historically connected with the university.

Mineralogy-geology museum is a part of TU Delft Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences and contains around 200,000 geological, mineralogical and crystallographical items divided into numerous sub-collections. The oldest items date back to 1842 when the TU Delft (then Delft Royal Academy) was established.

Botanical garden
TU Delft botanical garden dates back to 1917, where Proof Garden for Technical Plantation (Cultuurtuin voor Technische Gewassen) was established by Gerrit van Iterson Jr., TU Delft graduate and assistant to Martinus Beijerinck. Gerrit van Iterson Jr. was the first director of the garden until 1948. Creation of botanical gardens at TU Delft was partially a result of the increasing needs of systematized development of tropical agriculture in then Dutch colony of Dutch East Indies. Over 7000 different species of plants, including tropical and subtropical plants, herbs, and ornamental plants cover the area of almost 2.5 ha. Furthermore, more than 2000 unique species are preserved in university's greenhouses. All facilities of TU Delft botanical garden are open to the public.

Building 28
Building 28 is the main building of Computer Science on campus. It hosts research groups of Intelligent Systems and Software Technology departments, educational and research labs, student study areas, meeting rooms, and the support staff of Computer Science.

Echo (Building 29)
Along with Delft, UNStudio developed the 'Echo' building on the TU campus for interfaculty lecture halls and project rooms, student study areas, Computer Science (Cybersecurity section and Sequential Decision Making section) research offices, and meeting rooms. It is an energy-producing building within the campus of Delft which aims at energy conservation to delve into the future. Echo won the prestigious World Prix Versailles (Campuses category) in 2023.

TU Delft | The Hague
In September 2016, TU Delft inaugurated a new campus in The Hague. The MSc programme Engineering and Policy Analysis (EPA), which teaches students to operate at the intersection of technology and policy when tackling wicked problems, was relocated to this new site to capitalize on its proximity to government ministries, international bodies, and multinational organizations.

TU Delft operates the 5th floor of the Wijnhaven Building at Turfmarkt 99 in The Hague, with the rest of the building being occupied by Leiden University. Originally the Ministry of the Interior's headquarters at Schedeldoekshaven 200, the Wijnhaven Building, named after the historic Wijnhavenkwartier, was converted into Campus The Hague in 2016.

In 2023, TU Delft announced plans to further expand its footprint in The Hague by launching a joint university facility with Leiden University at Spui, set to open in 2025. This new location is expected to accommodate around 600 TU Delft students in the city centre of The Hague.

Faculties
TU Delft comprises eight faculties. These are (official Dutch name and faculty abbreviation are given in brackets):

 * Aerospace Engineering (AE) (Luchtvaart- en Ruimtevaarttechniek (LR)),

 * Applied Sciences (AS) (Technische Natuurwetenschappen (TNW)),

 * Architecture and the Built Environment (Bouwkunde (BK)),

 * Civil Engineering and Geosciences (CEG) (Civiele Techniek en Geowetenschappen (CiTG)),

 * Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EEMCS) (Elektrotechniek, Wiskunde en Informatica (EWI)),

 * Industrial Design Engineering (IDE) (Industrieel Ontwerpen (IO)),

 * Mechanical Engineering (ME) (Mechanical Engineering (ME); previous name: Werktuigbouwkunde, Maritieme Techniek en Technische Materiaal Wetenschappen (3mE)),

 * Technology, Policy and Management (TPM) (Techniek, Bestuur en Management (TBM)).

Education
Since 2004, the TU Delft education system is divided into three tiers: the bachelor's degree, master's degree, and doctorate. The academic year is divided into two semesters: the first semester from September until January and the second semester from the end of January until July. Most of the lectures are available through OpenCourseWare.

Bachelor-level studies
, TU Delft offers 16 BSc programmes. TU Delft students obtain their degree after a three-year study. The test project finalizes the BSc studies. All BSc programmes are taught in Dutch, except for Aerospace Engineering, Applied Earth Sciences, Nanobiology, and Computer Science, which are taught entirely in English, and Electrical Engineering which is taught in a mixture of both.

Master-level studies
TU Delft offers around 40 MSc programmes. The MSc studies take two years to complete.

TU Delft uses the European Credit Transfer System, where each year MSc students are required to obtain 60 ECTS points. An honours track exists for motivated MSc students, who obtained a mark of 7.5 or higher (in Dutch grading scale) and did not fail any courses. This track, associated with 30 ECTS points, is taken alongside the regular MSc programme and must be related to student's regular degree courses or the role of technology in society. The honours track must be completed within the time allowed for the MSc programme.

MSc programmes are also offered through the 3TU federation, Erasmus Mundus programmes, IDEA League joint MSc programs and QuTech Academy.

Doctoral-level studies
Doctoral studies at TU Delft are divided into two phases. The first phase, lasting one year, serves as a trial period during which the doctoral candidate must prove capability for performing research on a doctoral level. The candidate must pass the evaluation performed at the end of the year by his/her promoter in order to continue doing research the following three years. The research the candidate performs must be finalized by submitting a doctoral thesis. The thesis is evaluated by a doctoral committee composed of TU Delft professors and external opponents. Once the thesis has been revised and comments have been taken into account, the candidate gives a formal doctoral defense.

In contrast to US graduate school, other duties such as following lectures and giving TAs form only a small portion of the programme.

Doctoral defense
The doctoral defense is of ceremonial nature and is held in the senate room. It lasts exactly one hour, during which the doctoral candidate must answer all questions from the committee. Sometimes the candidate is accompanied by one or two paranymphs, who theoretically might help defend a question asked by a committee member. The defense is ended by the pedel, who enters the room and says in Latin Hora est (It is time), stamping the university staff on the floor. The committee then moves to a separate room to decide whether to grant the candidate a doctorate or not. Then the committee returns to the room where the defense was held, and if the doctorate is granted the promoter presents the laudation praising the new doctor. The entire ceremony is chaired by the rector or a representative.

Other degree programmes
TU Delft also offers Professional Doctorate in Engineering.

Research Institutes
TU Delft has three officially recognized research institutes: Research Institute for the Built Environment, International Research Centre for Telecommunications-transmission and Radar, and Reactor Institute Delft. In addition to those three institutes, TU Delft hosts numerous smaller research institutes, including the Delft Institute of Microelectronics and Submicron Technology, Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, Materials innovation institute, Astrodynamics and Space Missions, Delft University Wind Energy Research Institute, TU Delft Safety and Security Institute, and the Delft Space Institute, Delft Institute of Applied Mathematics is also an important research institute which connects all engineering departments with respect to research and academia. A complete list of research schools is available on TU Delft website.

Research schools
Important part of Dutch university system are research schools. They combine education, training and research for PhD candidates and postdoctoral researchers in a given field. The main goal of the research schools is to coordinate nationwide research programs in a given area. Research schools of TU Delft cooperate with other universities in the Netherlands. Research schools are required to have an accreditation of Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. TU Delft is taking the lead in ten research schools, and participates in nine. The full list of research schools affiliated with TU Delft is available on TU Delft website, see for example TRAIL Research School.

Media
During an academic year the TU Delft publishes a weekly magazine: Delta, which aims at the student and employee community of the university. The newspaper is predominantly in Dutch, with the last few pages published in English. TU Delta is distributed freely in paper form over the campus and is also available for free on the Internet. Articles focus mainly on current university affairs and student life. The weekly agenda including PhD promotions, inaugural lectures, etc. is also published therein.

Also, approximately four times a year, the TU Delft publishes a magazine devoted only to research conducted by the university, called Delft Outlook. Delft Outlook is published in English, while the same content is published in Dutch in Delft Integraal magazine. Both magazines present interviews with TU Delft researchers, university officials. Columns by some university professors are published therein, as well as alumni letters and excerpts from recently published PhD theses.

Management
TU Delft is governed by the executive board (College van Bestuur), controlled and advised by student council, workers council, board of professors, board of doctorates, assistant staff office, committee for the application of the allocation model, operational committee, advisory council for quality and accreditation, deans of each TU Delft faculty, and directors of TU Delft research centers, research schools and research institutes.

Executive board is chaired academically by the Rector Magnificus. The currently appointed Rector Magnificus, Tim van der Hagen, has held the position since 2018. He replaced Prof. Ir. Karel Ch.A.M. Luyben who was rector for the period 2010 to 2018. Previous Rectors of TU Delft include Prof. K.F. Wakker (1993–1997 and 1998–2002), Prof. J. Blauwendraad (1997–1998) and Prof. J.T. Fokkema (2002–2010). Executive board is accountable to the Supervisory Board, appointed by the Minister of Education, Culture and Science. One of the many tasks of executive board is the approval of management regulations.

Board of professors advises in the matter of academic quality, deciding on the selection of guest lecturers, research fellows as well as revising proposals submitted for royal honors for professors. Board of doctorates appoints supervisors for PhD students, forms promotion committees, determines promotional code, and confers PhD and doctorate Honoris Causa degrees. Committee for the application of the allocation model reports to the executive board regarding allocation model. Further, it controls output data supplied to the executive board. Operational committee is composed of members of the executive board and the s. The committee collaborates on the issues of general importance, related in part to the specific interests of the faculties, and strengthens the unity of the university overall.

Student life
Student life at TU Delft is organized around numerous student societies and corporations. They can be generally categorized into professional societies, social societies and sport societies. More than half of TU Delft students belong to an officially recognized society.

There are two student parties at TU Delft: ORAS (Organisatie Rationele Studenten) and Lijst Bèta (successor of AAG). AAG (Afdeling Actie Groepen) started as an action group of students in the 1960s, willing to have more impact on the quality of education at the then Polytechnic Institute Delft. ORAS became active in the early 1970s as a counterbalance to AAG. After already taking a break from the yearly elections in 2008, AAG did not participate anymore in the elections of 2010 due to disappointing results. In 2011, a new party was established, Lijst Bèta, that got 2 out of the 10 seats in the student counsil. Since then, Lijst Bèta and ORAS compete each year for seats in TU Delft's Students Council (Studenten Raad). Further, all student organizations of TU Delft are associated with The Council of Student Societies Delft VeRa (De VerenigingsRaad) and The Society for Study and Student Matters Delft VSSD (Vereniging voor Studie- en Studentenbelangen Delft).

Apart from bachelor and master student organizations, PhD students of TU Delft have their own organization called Promood (PhD Students Discussion Group Delft) (Promovendi Overleg Delft), which represents TU Delft PhD students at the university. It is also a member of Dutch PhD Students Network (Promovendi Netwerk Nederland).

Each faculty of TU Delft has its own set of professional student organizations. Numerous societies are present at the university, many of them with rich traditions, customs and history. For example, aerospace engineering department hosts Foundation for Students in Airplane Development, Manufacturing and Management (Stichting Studenten Vliegtuigontwikkeling, -bouw en -beheer), while civil engineering department Society for Practical Studies. International professional student organizations are also present at TU Delft, including European Association of Aerospace Students.

Apart from professional student societies, students organize themselves only for the purpose of enriching their social life. Many of the societies have sectarian roots, like a Catholic Wolbodo Student Society, Katholieke Studentenvereniging Sanctus Virgilius Delft, that during the course of the years lost the religious affiliations and accepts students from any denomination. Besides societies which have their roots in religion, there are also general (with no religious bonds) societies. One of these is Sint Jansbrug. These societies accept anyone who studies at the TU Delft or any other higher education facility in the Delft area. Also organization that has its roots in Rover Scout movement Delftsche Zwervers (at the same time the oldest student scouting group in the world) is present or local branch of the European AEGEE.

Student sports are organized around clubs, that focus mostly on single discipline. Those include rowing society D.S.R.V. Laga and rowing club Proteus-Eretes (both with many Olympic medals won by the members of the club) or American football club Delft Dragons.

Research
TU Delft researchers developed many new technologies used today, including GLARE, a fibre metal laminate used in Airbus A380 skin and Vision in Product Design design method. Cees Dekker's lab at TU Delft demonstrated in 1998 the first transistor made out of single nanotube molecule. The Delta Works plan was, in part, a child of TU Delft graduates, including Johan Ringers and Victor de Blocq van Kuffeler. TU Delft was a precursor of the Open design concept.

In architecture, TU Delft is famous for Traditionalist School in Dutch architecture. TU Delft was a home to many prominent microbiologists including Martinus Beijerinck, who in 1898 discovered viruses while working at TU Delft, and Albert Kluyver, father of comparative microbiology, which resulted in the creation of so-called Delft School of Microbiology.

Some recent projects being developed at the university include:

Vehicles

 * Superbus, project aiming to design a high speed bus reaching top speeds of 250 km/h;
 * Nuna, solar-powered race car and six times winner of the World Solar Challenge;
 * TU Delft Solar Boat Team, solar-powered boat that 'flies' using hydrofoils;
 * DUT Racing, electrical Formula Student project having won multiple competitions and at one point held the Guinness World Record for fastest accelerating electric vehicle;
 * Project MARCH, a student team building an exoskeleton for paraplegics and participating as the first Dutch exoskeleton team at the Cybathlon.
 * DelFly, Micro air vehicle and the smallest ornithopter so far fitted with a camera;
 * Nova Electric Racing, electric motorcycle team and winner of MotoE 2017;
 * Fhybrid, world's first hydrogen-powered scooter;
 * Forze, hydrogen fuel cell-powered racing car;
 * Eco-Runner vehicle participating in Eco-marathon;

Other

 * Flame, first humanoid robot possessing the ability to walk as humans;
 * Somnox Sleep Robot an automatically-breathing capsule-shaped robot starting prototyping in 2015.
 * Kitepower, converting wind energy into electricity using kites;
 * Tribler, an open source peer-to-peer client with online TV functionalities;
 * Nix package manager and NixOS, an open source functional package manager and a Linux distribution based upon it;
 * Delfi-C3, CubeSat satellite constructed by TU Delft students, and the Delfi-n3Xt launched 21 October 2013;
 * Stratos II+, a sounding rocket developed by Delft Aerospace Rocket Engineering which in October 2015 broke the European altitude record achieved by amateur rockets by reaching an altitude of 21,457 meters;
 * Glaciogenic Reservoir Analogue Studies Project (GRASP)
 * The Ocean Cleanup, a project aimed at developing a method of cleaning up the oceanic garbage patches;
 * as well as iGEM TU Delft, a student team competing in the largest international student competition in synthetic biology, where they became Grand Prize winners in 2015 and 2017.
 * Quantum computing, topological insulators and applications

Students
The majority of TU Delft's students are male. In 2021, among all students of the university (MSc and BSc level) 30% were women. The biggest imbalance between men and women is seen in the Mechanical engineering faculty, while the smallest is seen at Industrial Design and Architecture departments. Despite many efforts of the university to change that imbalance, the number of women studying at TU Delft has stayed relatively constant over the years.

Since 2002, the number of students admitted to TU Delft has increased rapidly (from approximately 2,200 in 2002 to almost 3,700 in 2009). The same applies to the total student population (from approximately 13,250 in 2002 to almost 16,500 in 2009). In 2022, nearly 27 thousand students were enrolled.

The number of international students has also increased steadily. In 2021, 29% of all students at TU Delft came from abroad; nearly three quarters of those came from Europe. The largest proportion of international students at TU Delft in 2022 come from China (14%), followed by India (11.4%) and Belgium (7.4%). The faculties with the highest percentage number of international students study at Aerospace Engineering (46%) and Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, and Computer Science (38%).

Due to TU Delft's presence, the city of Delft has one of the biggest populations of Iranians in the Netherlands. It resulted in one of the biggest Iranian protests against the Iranian government in Europe, with many protests organized at TU Delft campus by Iranian TU Delft students during 2009 Iranian Election Protests.

Faculty
TU Delft is a home to 437 faculty, with more than 3,375 academic staff. The responsibility of TU Delft professors is lecturing, guiding undergraduate and graduate students, as well as performing original research in their respective fields.

Many notable people were TU Delft faculty. In science, Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, a 1913 Nobel Laureate in physics, a discoverer of superconductivity, was a former TU Delft faculty member, working as an assistant to Johannes Bosscha. Discoverer of the Prins reaction Hendrik Jacobus Prins, co-founders of National Research Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science Hendrik Anthony Kramers and David van Dantzig, developer of the iodide process Jan Hendrik de Boer, discoverer of the particle spin Ralph Kronig, discoverer of the Einstein–de Haas effect Wander Johannes de Haas and discoverer of hafnium Dirk Coster, all were at some point the faculty members of the university. Faculty members of Delft School of Microbiology were the founder of modern microbiology Martinus Beijerinck and the father of comparative microbiology Albert Kluyver.

In engineering, the inventor of penthode and gyrator Bernard Tellegen and Balthasar van der Pol developer of Van der Pol oscillator, were TU Delft faculty. Currently Vic Hayes, and the father of Wi-Fi, is affiliated with the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management. STS-61A of the Space Shuttle Challenger crew member Wubbo Ockels was professor of Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Delft University of Technology. TU Delft faculty geologist were Berend George Escher, Johannes Herman Frederik Umbgrove, discoverer of Bushveld complex Gustaaf Adolf Frederik Molengraaff and discoverer of gravity anomalies above the sea level Felix Andries Vening Meinesz.

Since TU Delft is a home to a major architecture school in the Netherlands, many important architects were a faculty of the university, including Hein de Haan, founder of Traditionalist School in Architecture Marinus Jan Granpré Molière, Bent Flyvbjerg, co-founder of Mecanoo architects bureau Francine Houben, co-founder of MVRDV architects bureau Winy Maas and Nathalie de Vries, co-founder of Team 10 Jacob B. Bakema and Aldo van Eyck, as well as Herman Hertzberger and Jo Coenen. Some notable designers were faculty of TU Delft, including Paul Mijksenaar, developer of visual information systems for JFK, LaGuardia and Schiphol airports.

Political figures that were faculty of TU Delft include former mayor of Lisbon Carmona Rodrigues, former mayor of Sarajevo Kemal Hanjalić, and the first Dutch prime minister of the Netherlands after World War II Wim Schermerhorn.

Notable alumni
Two TU Delft alumni were awarded Nobel Prize and one recipient has been affiliated with TU Delft: Jacobus van 't Hoff was awarded first Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1901 for his work with solutions. Simon van der Meer was awarded Nobel Prize in physics in 1984 for his work on stochastic cooling and one has been affiliated with TU Delft, Heike Kamerlingh Onnes in 1913 for studies related to liquefaction of helium in the quest for the lowest temperature on Earth.

Some of the mathematicians include Jan Arnoldus Schouten, contributor to the tensor calculus. Chemists and TU Delft alumni include Willem Alberda van Ekenstein, Dutch chemist and discoverer of Lobry-de Bruyn-van Ekenstein transformation. TU Delft alumni and computer scientists include Adriaan van Wijngaarden, developer of Van Wijngaarden grammar and co-designer of ALGOL. Famous TU Delft alumni electrical engineers include Jaap Haartsen, developer of Bluetooth.

Political figures that studied at TU Delft include Karien van Gennip, Dutch secretary of state for economic affairs, Anton Mussert, Dutch politician of World War II era and founder of National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands, Abdul Qadeer Khan, father of Pakistan nuclear program, and Dutch politician Wim Dik. Famous TU Delft alumni architects include Erick van Egeraat, Herman Hertzberger and Hein de Haan. Dutch designers that graduated at TU Delft include Alexandre Horowitz, designer of Philishave, and Adrian van Hooydonk, Dutch automobile designer and head of design at BMW.

TU Delft alumni executives include Jeroen van der Veer, former CEO of Royal Dutch Shell, Ben van Beurden former CEO of Royal Dutch Shell, Frits Philips, fourth chairman of the board of directors of Philips and Gerard Philips, co-founder of Philips. Laurens van den Acker is a Dutch automobile designer and the vice president of Renault Corporate Design.

Other interesting TU Delft alumni include Lodewijk van den Berg, Dutch-American payload specialist on STS-51B mission and Prince Friso of Orange-Nassau, member of the Dutch royal family. Other interesting figures that studied at TU Delft were mathematician Diederik Korteweg, responsible for Korteweg–de Vries equation, who studied at TU Delft before moving to University of Amsterdam and painter Maurits Cornelis Escher who studied at TU Delft for a year. Thomas Jan Stieltjes, co-developer of Riemann–Stieltjes integral studied at TU Delft but never passed his final exams. The internationally renowned graphic designer and industrial designer Piet Zwart studied at the university 1913–1914.

TU Delft alumni who are currently a faculty of other universities include Wilhelmus Luxemburg, Dutch mathematician and California Institute of Technology professor, as well as Walter Lewin, Dutch physicist and former MIT professor, and Alexander van Oudenaarden, Dutch biophysicist, a director of the Hubrecht Institute.

Honoris Causa Laureates
In 1906 TU Delft obtained the right to award PhD degrees. This also marked the date since when the university was able to award honorary doctorates. Between 1906 and 2006 exactly 100 honoris causa degrees have been awarded. Honorary doctoral degrees are awarded to people that presented extraordinary contributions in their respective fields. Some of the most recognized recipients of TU Delft honorary doctorate include:
 * Gerard Philips (1917), co-founder of Philips corporation,
 * Hendrik Antoon Lorentz (1918), winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics known for work on electromagnetic radiation,
 * Prince Bernhard (1951), prince of the Netherlands,
 * John Douglas Cockcroft (1959), winner of Nobel Prize in Physics for work on atom splitting,
 * Santiago Calatrava (1997) architect.

Overall rankings
TU Delft was 47th worldwide in QS WUR 2024, 48th worldwide in THE WUR 2024, 169th worldwide in USNEWS 2022-2023, and 151-200th worldwide in ARWU 2022. It was the 78th best-ranked university worldwide in 2022 in terms of aggregate performance across THE, QS, and ARWU, as reported by ARTU.

TU Delft was 43rd worldwide in the THE World Reputation Rankings 2022.

It was also the 15th most international university worldwide in 2023 according to THE.

Subject /Area rankings
TU Delft is ranked a top university for Engineering and Technology worldwide, being positioned for this subject at 10th place in 2022 by QS World University Rankings, at 21st place in 2022 by Times Higher Education World University Rankings, and respectively at 21st and 7th place for Engineering and Civil Engineering accordingly in 2020 by U.S. News & World Report Best Global University Ranking.

In the field of Civil and Structural Engineering, TU Delft has been ranked among the world's top 2 in 2022, in the field of Architecture among the world's top 2 since 2012, and in the field of Mechanical Engineering in the top 5 since 2022 by QS World University Rankings.

Affiliations and partner universities
TU Delft has formed partnerships with leading universities across Europe for student exchange and combined degree programs.

 * IDEA League: strategic alliance between TU Delft, ETH Zurich, RWTH Aachen, Chalmers University and Politecnico di Milano.
 * CESAER: non-profit institution of leading universities in Europe
 * EUA: forum of universities for cooperation and exchange in higher education
 * Leiden-Delft-Erasmus alliance: a strategic alliance between Leiden University, TU Delft, and Erasmus University Rotterdam in the areas of education, research and valorisation
 * 4TU: federation of four leading Dutch technical universities TU Delft, TU Eindhoven, Wageningen University and University of Twente
 * UNITECH International: non-profit organization aiming to prepare Engineers for their professional future through exchange
 * SEFI: leading organization for providing information exchange in Europe
 * SAE: network of eight Dutch universities that supports universities cultural collections and heritage
 * ATHENS: network of European universities supporting one week exchange sessions
 * PEGASUS: network of European Aeronautical universities
 * ENHANCE Alliance: network of European Technical universities; TU Delft, Chalmers University of Technology, ETH Zurich, Gdańsk University of Technology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Polytechnic University of Milan, Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen, Technische Universität Berlin, Universitat Politècnica de València, Politechnika Warszawska.

TU Delft has partnered with many universities worldwide for exchanges.

title: Delft University of Technology


text:
Curtis Island National Park

Curtis Island National Park is on Curtis Island, Queensland, Australia, in the Gladstone Region, 474 km northwest of Brisbane and 40 km southeast of Rockhampton.

The island features coastal heaths, littoral rainforest, sand dunes and beach ridges and salt flats. The national park encompasses the Cape Capricorn headland.

No facilities are provided for campers. Bush camping is permitted in three camp grounds.

The island is home to a variety of bird species.

The average elevation of the terrain is 16 metres.

Heritage listings
Curtis Island has a number of heritage-listed sites, including:
 * Sea Hill Point: Sea Hill Light

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

title: Curtis Island National Park


text:
Imagism

Imagism was a movement in early-20th-century poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. It is considered to be the first organized modernist literary movement in the English language. Imagism has been termed "a succession of creative moments" rather than a continuous or sustained period of development. The French academic René Taupin remarked that "it is more accurate to consider Imagism not as a doctrine, nor even as a poetic school, but as the association of a few poets who were for a certain time in agreement on a small number of important principles".

The Imagists rejected the sentiment and discursiveness typical of Romantic and Victorian poetry. In contrast to the contemporary Georgian poets, who were generally content to work within that tradition, Imagists called for a return to more Classical values, such as directness of presentation, economy of language, and a willingness to experiment with non-traditional verse forms; Imagists used free verse. A characteristic feature of the form is its attempt to isolate a single image to reveal its essence. This mirrors contemporary developments in avant-garde art, especially Cubism. Although these poets isolate objects through the use of what the American poet Ezra Pound called "luminous details", Pound's ideogrammic method of juxtaposing concrete instances to express an abstraction is similar to Cubism's manner of synthesizing multiple perspectives into a single image.

Imagist publications appearing between 1914 and 1917 featured works by many of the most prominent modernist figures in poetry and other fields, including Pound, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), Amy Lowell, Ford Madox Ford, William Carlos Williams, F. S. Flint, and T. E. Hulme. The Imagists were centered in London, with members from Great Britain, Ireland and the United States. Somewhat unusually for the time, a number of women writers were major Imagist figures.

Pre-Imagism
The origins of Imagism are to be found in two poems, Autumn and A City Sunset by T. E. Hulme. These were published in January 1909 by the Poets' Club in London in a booklet called For Christmas MDCCCCVIII. Hulme was a student of mathematics and philosophy; he had been involved in setting up the club in 1908 and was its first secretary. Around the end of 1908, he presented his paper A Lecture on Modern Poetry at one of the club's meetings. Writing in A. R. Orage's magazine The New Age, the poet and critic F. S. Flint (a champion of free verse and modern French poetry) was highly critical of the club and its publications.

From the ensuing debate, Hulme and Flint became close friends. In 1909, Hulme left the Poets' Club and started meeting with Flint and other poets in a new group which Hulme referred to as the "Secession Club"; they met at the Eiffel Tower restaurant in London's Soho to discuss plans to reform contemporary poetry through free verse and the tanka and haiku and through the removal of all unnecessary verbiage from poems. The interest in Japanese verse forms can be contextualized by the late Victorian and Edwardian revival of Chinoiserie and Japonism as witnessed in the 1890s vogue for William Anderson's Japanese prints donated to the British Museum as well as in the influence of woodblock prints on paintings by Monet, Degas and van Gogh. Direct literary models were available from a number of sources, including F. V. Dickins's 1866 Hyak nin is'shiu, or, Stanzas by a Century of Poets, Being Japanese Lyrical Odes, the first English-language version of the Hyakunin Isshū, a 13th-century anthology of 100 waka, the early 20th-century critical writings and poems of Sadakichi Hartmann, and contemporary French-language translations.

The American poet Ezra Pound was introduced to the group in April 1909 and found their ideas close to his own. In particular, Pound's studies of early European vernacular poetry had led him to an admiration of the condensed, direct expression that he detected in the writings of Arnaut Daniel, Dante, and Guido Cavalcanti, amongst others. For example, in his 1911–12 series of essays I gather the limbs of Osiris, Pound writes of Daniel's line "pensar de lieis m'es repaus" ("it rests me to think of her"), from the canzone En breu brizara'l temps braus: "You cannot get statement simpler than that, or clearer, or less rhetorical". These criteria—directness, clarity and lack of rhetoric—were to be amongst the defining qualities of Imagist poetry. Through his friendship with Laurence Binyon, Pound had already developed an interest in Japanese art by examining Nishiki-e prints at the British Museum, and he quickly became absorbed in the study of Japanese verse forms.

In a 1915 article in La France, French critic Remy de Gourmont described the Imagists as descendants of the French Symbolists. Pound emphasised that influence in a 1928 letter to the French critic and translator René Taupin. He pointed out that Hulme was indebted to the Symbolist tradition, via W. B. Yeats, Arthur Symons and the Rhymers' Club generation of British poets and Mallarmé. Taupin concluded in his 1929 study that however great the divergence of technique and language "between the image of the Imagist and the 'symbol' of the Symbolists[,] there is a difference only of precision". In 1915, Pound edited the poetry of another 1890s poet, Lionel Johnson. In his introduction, he wrote

Early publications and statements of intent
In 1911, Pound introduced two other poets to the Eiffel Tower group: his former fiancée Hilda Doolittle, who by then was writing under her initials, H.D., and H.D.'s future husband Richard Aldington. These two were interested in exploring Greek poetic models, especially Sappho, an interest that Pound shared. The compression of expression that they achieved by following the Greek example complemented the proto-Imagist interest in Japanese poetry, and, in 1912, during a meeting with them in the British Museum tea room, Pound told H.D. and Aldington that they were Imagistes and even appended the signature H.D. Imagiste to some poems they were discussing.

When Harriet Monroe started her Poetry magazine in 1911, she had asked Pound to act as foreign editor. In October 1912, he submitted thereto three poems each by H.D. and Aldington under the Imagiste rubric, with a note describing Aldington as "one of the 'Imagistes'". This note, along with the appendix note ("The Complete Poetical Works of T. E. Hulme") in Pound's book Ripostes (1912), are considered to be the first appearances of the word "Imagiste" (later anglicised to "Imagist") in print.

Aldington's poems, Choricos, To a Greek Marble, and Au Vieux Jardin, were in the November issue of Poetry, and H.D.'s, Hermes of the Ways, Priapus, and Epigram, appeared in the January 1913 issue, marking the beginning of the Imagism movement. Poetry's April issue published Pound's haiku-like "In a Station of the Metro":

":The apparition of these faces in the crowd :
 * Petals on a wet, black  bough."

The March 1913 issue of Poetry contained A Few Don'ts by an Imagiste and the essay entitled Imagisme both written by Pound, with the latter attributed to Flint. The latter contained this succinct statement of the group's position, which he had agreed with H.D. and Aldington:

"# Direct treatment of the "thing", whether subjective or objective.
 * 1) To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation.
 * 2) As regarding rhythm: to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of the metronome."

Pound's note opened with a definition of an image as "that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time". Pound goes on to state,"It is better to present one Image in a lifetime than to produce voluminous works". His list of "don'ts" reinforced his three statements in "Imagism", while warning that they should not be considered as dogma but as the "result of long contemplation". Taken together, these two texts comprised the Imagist programme for a return to what they saw as the best poetic practice of the past. F. S. Flint commented "we have never claimed to have invented the moon. We do not pretend that our ideas are original."

The 1916 preface to Some Imagist Poets comments "Imagism does not merely mean the presentation of pictures. Imagism refers to the manner of presentation, not to the subject."

Des Imagistes
Determined to promote the work of the Imagists, and particularly of Aldington and H.D., Pound decided to publish an anthology under the title Des Imagistes. It was first published in Alfred Kreymborg's little magazine The Glebe and was later published in 1914 by Albert and Charles Boni in New York and by Harold Monro at the Poetry Bookshop in London. It became one of the most important and influential English-language collections of modernist verse. Included in the thirty-seven poems were ten poems by Aldington, seven by H.D., and six by Pound. The book also included work by Flint, Skipwith Cannell, Amy Lowell, William Carlos Williams, James Joyce, Ford Madox Ford, Allen Upward and John Cournos.

Pound's editorial choices were based on what he saw as the degree of sympathy that the writers displayed with Imagist precepts, rather than active participation in a group. Williams, based in the United States, had not participated in any of the discussions of the Eiffel Tower group. However, he and Pound had long been corresponding on the question of the renewal of poetry along similar lines. Ford was included at least partly because of his strong influence on Pound, as the younger poet made the transition from his earlier, Pre-Raphaelite-influenced style towards a harder, more modern way of writing. The anthology included the poem I Hear an Army by James Joyce, which was sent to Pound by W. B. Yeats.

Some Imagist Poets
An article on the history of Imagism was written by Flint and published in The Egoist in May 1915. Pound disagreed with Flint's interpretation of events and the goals of the group, causing the two to cease contact with each other. Flint emphasised the contribution of the Eiffel Tower poets, especially Edward Storer. Pound, who believed that the "Hellenic hardness" that he saw as the distinguishing quality of the poems of H.D. and Aldington was likely to be diluted by the "custard" of Storer, was to play no further direct role in the history of the Imagists. He went on to co-found the Vorticists with his friend, the painter and writer Wyndham Lewis.

Around this time, the American Imagist Amy Lowell moved to London, determined to promote her own work and that of the other Imagist poets. Lowell was a wealthy heiress from Boston, whose brother Abbott Lawrence Lowell was President of Harvard University from 1909 to 1933. She was an enthusiastic champion of literary experiment who was willing to use her money to publish the group. Lowell was determined to change the method of selection from Pound's autocratic editorial attitude to a more democratic manner. The outcome was a series of Imagist anthologies under the title Some Imagist Poets. The first of these appeared in 1915, planned and assembled mainly by H.D. and Aldington. Two further issues, both edited by Lowell, were published in 1916 and 1917. These three volumes featured most of the original poets, plus the American John Gould Fletcher, but not Pound, who had tried to persuade Lowell to drop the Imagist name from her publications and who sardonically dubbed this phase of Imagism "Amygism".

Lowell persuaded D. H. Lawrence to contribute poems to the 1915 and 1916 volumes, making him the only writer to publish as both a Georgian poet and an Imagist. Marianne Moore also became associated with the group during this period. With World War I as a backdrop, the times were not easy for avant-garde literary movements (Aldington, for example, spent much of the war at the front), and the 1917 anthology effectively marked the end of the Imagists as a movement.

After Imagism
In 1929, Walter Lowenfels jokingly suggested that Aldington should produce a new Imagist anthology. Aldington, by now a successful novelist, took up the suggestion and enlisted the help of Ford and H.D. The result was the Imagist Anthology 1930, edited by Aldington and including all the contributors to the four earlier anthologies with the exception of Lowell, who had died, Cannell, who had disappeared, and Pound, who declined. The appearance of this anthology initiated a critical discussion of the place of the Imagists in the history of 20th-century poetry.

Of the poets who were published in the various Imagist anthologies, Joyce, Lawrence and Aldington are now primarily remembered and read as novelists. Marianne Moore, who was at most a fringe member of the group, carved out a unique poetic style of her own that retained an Imagist concern with compression of language. William Carlos Williams developed his poetic along distinctly American lines with his variable foot and a diction he claimed was taken "from the mouths of Polish mothers". Both Pound and H.D. turned to long form poetry, but retained the hard edge to their language as an Imagist legacy. Most of the other members of the group are largely forgotten outside the context of Imagism.

Legacy
Despite the movement's short life, Imagism would deeply influence the course of modernist poetry in English. Richard Aldington, in his 1941 memoir, writes: "I think the poems of Ezra Pound, H.D., Lawrence, and Ford Madox Ford will continue to be read. And to a considerable extent T. S. Eliot and his followers have carried on their operations from positions won by the Imagists."

On the other hand, the American poet Wallace Stevens found shortcomings in the Imagist approach: "Not all objects are equal. The vice of imagism was that it did not recognize this." With its demand for hardness, clarity and precision and its insistence on fidelity to appearances coupled with its rejection of irrelevant subjective emotions Imagism had later effects that are demonstratable in T. S. Eliot's Preludes and Morning at the Window and in Lawrence's animal and flower pieces. The rejection of conventional verse forms in the nineteen-twenties owed much to the Imagists' repudiation of the Georgian Poetry style.

Imagism, which had made free verse a discipline and a legitimate poetic form, influenced a number of poetry circles and movements. Its influence can be seen clearly in the work of the Objectivist poets, who came to prominence in the 1930s under the auspices of Pound and Williams. The Objectivists worked mainly in free verse. Clearly linking Objectivism's principles with Imagism's, Louis Zukofsky insisted, in his introduction to the 1931 Objectivist issue of Poetry, on writing "which is the detail, not mirage, of seeing, of thinking with the things as they exist, and of directing them along a line of melody." Zukofsky was a major influence on the Language poets, who carried the Imagist focus on formal concerns to a high level of development. In his seminal 1950 essay Projective Verse, Charles Olson, the theorist of the Black Mountain poets, wrote "One perception must immediately and directly lead to a further perception", his credo derived from and supplemented the Imagists.

Among the Beats, Gary Snyder and Allen Ginsberg in particular were influenced by the Imagist emphasis on Chinese and Japanese poetry. Williams also had a strong effect on the Beat poets, encouraging poets like Lew Welch and writing an introduction for the book publication of Ginsberg's Howl (1955).

title: Imagism


text:
Giacomo Carissimi

(Gian) Giacomo Carissimi (baptized 18 April 1605 – 12 January 1674) was an Italian composer and music teacher. He is one of the most celebrated masters of the early Baroque or, more accurately, the Roman School of music. Carissimi established the characteristic features of the Latin oratorio and was a prolific composer of masses, motets, and cantatas. He was highly influential in musical developments in northern European countries through his pupils, like Kerll in Germany and Charpentier in France, and the wide dissemination of his music.

Biography
Carissimi's exact birthdate is not known, but it was probably in 1604 or 1605 in Marino near Rome, Italy. Of his early life almost nothing is known. Giacomo's parents, Amico (1548–1633, a cooper by trade) and Livia (1565–1622), were married on 14 May 1595 and had four daughters and two sons; Giacomo was the youngest.

Nothing is known of his early musical training. His first known appointments were at Tivoli Cathedral, under the maestri di cappella Aurelio Briganti Colonna, Alessandro Capece and Francesco Manelli; from October 1623 he sang in the choir, and from October 1624 to October 1627 he was the organist. In 1628 Carissimi moved north to Assisi, as maestro di cappella (chapel master) at the Cathedral of San Rufino. In 1628 he obtained the same position at the church of Sant'Apollinare belonging to the Collegium Germanicum in Rome, which he held until his death. This was despite his receiving several offers to work in very prominent establishments, including an offer to take over from Claudio Monteverdi at San Marco di Venezia in Venice. In 1637 he was ordained a priest.

In 1656 Christina of Sweden, who was then living in Rome, appointed Carissimi as her maestro di cappella del concerto di camera. Lars Englund of Uppsala University has hypothesized that Christina’s early involvement with Carissimi's music, and other church music from Rome, "was part of a deliberate self-transformation, from a ruling Lutheran regent to a Catholic Queen without a land."

Carissimi seems to have never left Italy at all during his entire lifetime. He died in 1674 in Rome.

Carissimi's successor as maestro di cappella at the Collegium Germanicum in 1686 described him as tall, thin, very frugal in his domestic affairs, with very noble manners towards his friends and acquaintances, and prone to melancholy.

Music
The great achievements generally ascribed to Carissimi are the further development of the recitative, introduced by Monteverdi, which is highly important to the history of dramatic music; the further development of the chamber cantata, by which Carissimi superseded the concertato madrigals which had themselves replaced the madrigals of the late Renaissance; and the development of the oratorio, of which he was the first significant composer.

Carissimi's position in the history of church, vocal and chamber music is somewhat similar to that of Francesco Cavalli in the history of opera. While Luigi Rossi was his predecessor in developing the chamber cantata, Carissimi was the composer who first made this form the vehicle for the most intellectual style of chamber music, a function which it continued to perform until the death of Alessandro Scarlatti, Emanuele d'Astorga and Benedetto Marcello.

Carissimi is also noted as one of the first composers of oratorios, with Jephte as probably his best-known work, along with Jonas. These works and others are important for establishing the form of oratorio unaccompanied by dramatic action, which maintained its hold for 200 years. The name comes from their presentation at the Oratory of Santissimo Crocifisso in Rome. He may also be credited for having given greater variety and interest to the instrumental accompaniments of vocal compositions. Charles Burney and John Hawkins both published specimens of his compositions in their works on the history of music, while Henry Aldrich collected an almost complete set of his compositions, which are currently housed at the library of Christ Church, Oxford. The British Museum also possesses numerous works by Carissimi. Most of his oratorios are in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.

Carissimi was active at the time when secular music was about to usurp the dominance of sacred music in Italy. The change was decisive and permanent. When Carissimi began composing, the influence of the previous generations of Roman composers was still heavy (for instance, the style of Palestrina) and when his career came to a close the operatic forms, as well as the instrumental secular forms, were predominant. In addition, Carissimi was important as a teacher, and his influence spread far into Germany and France. Much of the musical style of Johann Caspar Kerll and Marc-Antoine Charpentier, for instance, was influenced by Carissimi.

Oratorios

 * Baltazar, oratorio for 5 voices, 2 violons & continuo
 * Dives Malus (The wicked rich man) also known as Historia Divitis for 2 sopranos, tenor, bass (c. 1640), about the Rich man and Lazarus.
 * Ezechia, oratorio for 5 voices, 2 violons & continuo
 * Jephte, oratorio for 6 voices & continuo 1648
 * Jonas, oratorio for soloists, SATB double chorus, 2 violins & continuo
 * Judicium Extremum, oratorio for soloists, chorus & continuo
 * Judicium Salomonis, oratorio for 4 voices, 2 violins & continuo
 * Vanitas Vanitatum, oratorio for 5 voices, 2 violins & continuo
 * Oratorio Della Santissima Vergine

Cantatas

 * Piangete, aure, piangete, cantata for soprano & continuo
 * Così volete, così sarà, cantata for soprano & continuo 1640
 * Vittoria, mio core (Amante sciolto d'amore), cantata for soprano & continuo 1646
 * Ferma Lascia Ch'Io Parli (Lamento della Regina Maria Stuarda), cantata for soprano & continuo 1650
 * Sciolto havean dall'alte sponde (I naviganti), cantata for 2 sopranos, baritone & continuo 1653
 * Apritevi inferni (Peccator penitente), cantata for soprano & continuo 1663

Motets

 * Lamentationes Jeremiae Prophetae, motet for mezzo-soprano, soprano & continuo
 * Exulta, gaude, filia Sion, motet for 2 sopranos & continuo 1675
 * Exurge, cor meum, in cithara, motet for soprano, 2 violins, viole & continuo 1670
 * Ardens est cor nostrum [meum], motet for soprano, alto, tenor, bass & continuo 1664
 * Desiderata nobis, motet for alto, tenor, bass & continuo 1667

Masses

 * Missa "Sciolto havean dall'alte sponde," mass for 5 voices & continuo

In popular culture
Samuel Pepys was delighted with Carissimi's music. His Diary records that he met "Mr. Hill, and Andrews, and one slovenly and ugly fellow, Seignor Pedro, who sings Italian songs to the theorbo most neatly, and they spent the whole evening in singing the best piece of musique counted of all hands in the world, made by Seignor Charissimi, the famous master in Rome. Fine it was, indeed, and too fine for me to judge of."

Carissimi is the viewpoint character for the "Euterpe" series of short stories by Enrico M. Toro within the 1632 series of books edited by Eric Flint.

title: Giacomo Carissimi


text:
Francesco Cavalli

Francesco Cavalli (born Pietro Francesco Caletti-Bruni; 14 February 1602 – 14 January 1676) was a Venetian composer, organist and singer of the early Baroque period. He succeeded his teacher Claudio Monteverdi as the dominant and leading opera composer of the mid 17th-century. A central figure of Venetian musical life, Cavalli wrote more than forty operas, almost all of which premiered in the city's theaters. His best known works include Ormindo (1644), Giasone (1649) and La Calisto (1651).

Life
Cavalli was born at Crema, then an inland province of the Venetian Republic. He became a singer (boy soprano) at St Mark's Basilica in Venice in 1616, where he had the opportunity to work under the tutorship of Claudio Monteverdi. He became second organist in 1639, first organist in 1665, and in 1668 maestro di cappella. He took the name "Cavalli" from his patron, Venetian nobleman Federico Cavalli. Though he wrote prolifically for the church, he is chiefly remembered for his operas. He began to write for the stage in 1639 (Le nozze di Teti e di Peleo) soon after the first public opera house opened in Venice, the Teatro San Cassiano. He established so great a reputation that he was summoned to Paris from 1660 (when he revived his opera Xerse) until 1662, producing his Ercole amante. He died in Venice at the age of 73.

Music and influence
Cavalli was the most influential composer in the rising genre of public opera in mid-17th-century Venice. Unlike Monteverdi's early operas, scored for the extravagant court orchestra of Mantua, Cavalli's operas make use of a small orchestra of strings and basso continuo to meet the limitations of public opera houses.

Cavalli introduced melodious arias into his music and popular types into his libretti. His operas have a remarkably strong sense of dramatic effect as well as a great musical facility, and a grotesque humour which was characteristic of Italian opera down to the death of Alessandro Scarlatti. Cavalli's operas provide the only example of a continuous musical development of a single composer in a single genre from the early to the late 17th century in Venice — only a few operas by others (e.g., Monteverdi and Antonio Cesti) survive. The development is particularly interesting to scholars because opera was still quite a new medium when Cavalli began working, and had matured into a popular public spectacle by the end of his career.

More than forty-two operas have been attributed to Cavalli. Manuscript scores of twenty-six are extant, preserved in the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana (Library of St Mark) in Venice. Scores of some of the operas also exist in other locations. In addition, the music of his two last operas (Coriolano and Masenzio), which are clearly attributed to him, is lost. Another twelve or so for which the music is lost have also been attributed to him, but these attributions have either been disproved or remain uncertain. Cristoforo Ivanovich, who published the first chronicle of Venetian opera, Minerva al tavolino (Venice, 1681), attributed most of the anonymous works from the first 15 years of public performances in Venice to Cavalli, and many of these attributions were repeated by subsequent authors. The American musicologist Thomas Walker, writing in The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, considered seven of Ivanovich's attributions and another two by other authors as doubtful.

In addition to operas, Cavalli wrote settings of the Magnificat in the grand Venetian polychoral style, settings of the Marian antiphons, other sacred music in a more conservative manner – notably a Requiem Mass in eight parts (SSAATTBB), probably intended for his own funeral – and some instrumental music.

Sacred works

 * Musiche sacre concernenti messa, e salmi concertati con istromenti, imni, antifone et sonate (Venecia, 1656).
 * Messa, 8vv, 2 vn, vc, otros instrumentos ad libitum ed. R. Leppard (Londres, 1966).
 * Alma redemptoris mater, 2 S, A, T, B, ed. B. Stäblein, Musica divina, iv (Regensburg, 1950).
 * Ave maris stella, A, T, B.
 * Ave regina caelorum, T, B, ed. B. Stäblein, Musica divina, i (Regensburg, 1950).
 * Beatus vir, A, T, B, 2 vn, vc.
 * Confitebor tibi Domine, 8vv, 2 vn, vc
 * Credidi, 2 S, A, T, B, 2 vn, vc
 * Deus tuorum militum, A, T, B, 2 vn, vc
 * Dixit Dominus, 8vv, 2 vn, vc, other insts ad lib
 * Domine probasti, S, A, B, 2 vn, vc
 * Exultet orbis, 4vv, 2 vn, vc
 * In convertendo, 2 S, A, T, B
 * Iste confessor, 2 S, 2 vn, vc
 * Jesu corona virginum, A, T, B, 2 vn, vc
 * Laetatus sum, A, T, B, 2 vn, 3 va, ed. R. Leppard (London, 1969)
 * Lauda Jerusalem, 8vv, 2 vn, vc, other insts ad lib
 * Laudate Dominum, 8vv, 2 vn, vc, ed. R. Leppard (London, 1969)
 * Laudate pueri, 2 S, A, T, B, 2 vn, vc
 * Magnificat, 8vv, 2 vn, vc, other insts ad lib, ed. R. Leppard (London, 1969)
 * Nisi Dominus, 4vv, 2 vn, vc
 * Regina caeli, A, T, B, ed. B. Stäblein, Musica divina, ii (Regensburg, 1950)
 * Salve regina, A, 2 T, B, ed. B. Stäblein, Musica divina, iii (Regensburg, 1950)
 * Canzoni [sonate] a 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12; a 6 y a 12 ed. R. Nielsen (Bologna, 1955)
 * Vesperi, 8vv, bc (Venice, 1675)
 * Vespero della B.V. Maria: Dixit Dominus; Laudate pueri; Laetatus sum; Nisi Dominus; Lauda Jerusalem; Magnificat. ed. G. Piccioli (Milan, 1960); ed. F. Bussi (Milan, 1995)
 * Vespero delle domeniche: Dixit Dominus; Confitebor; Beatus vir; Laudate pueri; In exitu Israel; Laudate Dominum; Credidi; In convertendo; Domine probasti; Beati omnes; De profundis; Memento; Confitebor angelorum; Magnificat, ed. G. Piccioli (Milan, 1960); all ed. F. Bussi (Milan, 1995)
 * Vespero delle cinque Laudate ad uso della cappella di S Marco: Laudate pueri; Laudate Dominum laudate eum; Lauda anima mea; Laudate Dominum quoniam bonus; Lauda Jerusalem; Magnificat, ed. G. Piccioli (Milan, 1960); all ed. F. Bussi (Milan, 1995)
 * Cantate Domino, 1v, bc, 16252; ed. F. Vatielli, Antiche cantate spirituali (Turin, 1922)
 * O quam suavis, 1v, bc, 16453
 * Magnificat, 6vv, 2 vn, bc, 16505; ed. F. Bussi (Milan, 1988)
 * In virtute tua, 3vv, bc, 16561
 * O bone Jesu, 2vv, bc, 16561
 * Plaudite, cantate, 3vv, bc, 16561
 * Missa pro defunctis [Requiem], 8vv, bc, D-Bsb, Dlb; ed. F. Bussi (Milan, 1978)

Operas
Attributions to Cavalli considered doubtful by American musicologist Thomas Walker are indicated in the notes.

Modern performances
Cavalli's music was revived in the twentieth century. The Glyndebourne Opera production of La Calisto, in 1970, is an example. More recently, Hipermestra was performed at Glyndebourne in 2017. The discography is extensive and Cavalli has featured in BBC Radio 3's Composer of the Week series.

title: Francesco Cavalli


text:
Punch

Punch commonly refers to:
 * Punch (combat), a strike made using the hand closed into a fist
 * Punch (drink), a wide assortment of drinks, non-alcoholic or alcoholic, generally containing fruit or fruit juice

Punch may also refer to:

Places

 * Punch, U.S. Virgin Islands
 * Poonch (disambiguation), often spelt as Punch, several places in India and Pakistan

People

 * Punch (surname), a list of people with the name
 * Punch (nickname), a list of people with the nickname
 * Punch Masenamela (born 1986), South African footballer
 * Punch (rapper), 21st century American rapper Terrence Louis Henderson Jr.
 * Punch (singer), South Korean singer Bae Jin-young (born 1993)

Fictional entities

 * Mr. Punch (also known as Pulcinella or Pulcinello), the principal puppet character in the traditional Punch and Judy puppet show
 * Mr. Punch, the masthead image and nominal editor of Punch, largely borrowed from the puppet show
 * Mr. Punch, a fictional character in Neil Gaiman's graphic novel, The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch (1994)
 * Punch, a DC Comics villain and partner of Jewelee's in Punch and Jewelee
 * Punch/Counterpunch, a fictional character in The Transformers

Films

 * Punch (1994 film), a boxing film starring Donald Sutherland
 * Punch (2002 film), a Canadian film
 * Punch (2011 film), a South Korean film
 * Punch (2022 film), a New Zealand film starring Tim Roth
 * Punch, a 1996 American short film starring Sacha Baron Cohen

Music

 * Punch (band), an American punk band
 * Punch Records, a UK music and arts development agency
 * Punch (album), a 2008 album by Punch Brothers featuring Chris Thile
 * Punch, a 2013 album by indie-pop group Autoheart

Periodicals

 * Punch (Danish magazine), an illustrated conservative Danish satirical magazine (1873–1894)
 * Punch (magazine), a former British weekly magazine of humour and satire
 * Adelaide Punch (1878–1884), a satirical magazine published in Adelaide, South Australia
 * Japan Punch (1862–1887), a satirical magazine published in Yokohama, Japan
 * Melbourne Punch (1855–1925), a satirical magazine published in Melbourne, Australia
 * Sydney Punch (1864–1888), a satirical magazine published in Sydney, Australia
 * The Punch (Australia), news website (2009–2013)
 * The Punch, Nigerian daily newspaper

Television

 * Punch (TV series), a 2014 South Korean television drama series
 * Punch, a station identification for the television station BBC Choice, used in 1998
 * Punch! (TV series), a Canadian animated comedy series
 * Producciones PUNCH (often shortened to PUNCH), a Colombian programadora from 1956 to 2000
 * "Punch (Space Ghost Coast to Coast)", an episode of Space Ghost Coast to Coast

Other

 * Punch!, a 2005 manga by Rie Takada
 * Punch, a drinks website owned by Vox Media

Tools

 * Punch (numismatics), an intermediate used in the process of manufacturing coins
 * Punch (tool), a tool used to drive objects such as nails, to pierce workpieces, or to form an impression of the tip on a workpiece
 * Punch (typography), a steel pattern used in casting metal type
 * Hole punch, a common office tool used to create holes in sheets of paper
 * Leather punch, a specialized tool for making holes in leather

Other uses

 * Punch (cigar), the name of two brands of premium cigar
 * Punch Taverns, a United Kingdom pub company
 * Dodona (genus), a group of butterflies commonly known as the Punches, in particular:
 * Dodona eugenes, a Dodona commonly known as the Punch
 * Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH), a NASA constellation of 4 microsatellites to study the Sun
 * Tata Punch, an Indian SUV manufactured by Tata Motors since 2021

title: Punch


text:
Benedetto Marcello

Benedetto Giacomo Marcello (31 July or 1 August 1686 – 24 July 1739) was an Italian composer, writer, advocate, magistrate, and teacher.

Life
Born in Venice, Benedetto Marcello was a member of a noble family and in his compositions, he is frequently referred to anonymously as Patrizio Veneto (Venetian patrician, i.e. aristocrat). Although he was a music student of Antonio Lotti and Francesco Gasparini, his father wanted Benedetto to devote himself to law. Benedetto managed to combine a life in law and public service with one in music. In 1711 he was appointed a member of the Council of Forty (in Venice's central government), and in 1730 he went to Pola as Provveditore (district governor). Due to his health having been "impaired by the climate" of Istria, Marcello retired after eight years in the capacity of Camerlengo (chamberlain) to Brescia where he died of tuberculosis in 1739.

Benedetto Marcello was the brother of Alessandro Marcello, also a notable composer. On 20 May 1728 Benedetto Marcello married his singing student Rosanna Scalfi in a secret ceremony. However, as a nobleman, his marriage to a commoner was unlawful; after his death, the marriage was declared null by the state. Rosanna was unable to inherit his estate, and filed suit in 1742 against Benedetto's brother Alessandro, seeking financial support.

Music
Marcello composed a variety of music including considerable church music, oratorios, hundreds of solo cantatas, duets, sonatas, concertos and sinfonias. Marcello was a younger contemporary of Antonio Vivaldi in Venice and his instrumental music enjoys a Vivaldian flavour.

As a composer, Marcello was best known in his lifetime and is now still best remembered for his Estro poetico-armonico (Venice, 1724–27), a musical setting for voices, figured bass (a continuo notation), and occasional solo instruments, of the first fifty Psalms, as paraphrased in Italian by his friend G. Giustiniani. They were much admired by Charles Avison, who with John Garth brought out an edition with English words (London, 1757). Estro poetico-armonico also represents an important contribution to the history of Jewish liturgical music. Eleven of the Psalms are set to melodies that Marcello apparently transcribed while attending services at several Venetian synagogues. The eleven melodies – six from the Ashkenazic tradition, and five from the Sephardic tradition – are among the earliest notated sources of Jewish liturgy, preceded only by Salamone Rossi's Hashirim Asher L’Shlomo. Perhaps the best known of these melodies is an Ashkenazic melody for Ma'oz Tzur.

The library of the Brussels Conservatoire possesses some interesting volumes of chamber cantatas composed by Marcello for his mistress. Although Benedetto Marcello wrote an opera called La Fede riconosciuta and produced it in Vicenza in 1702, he had little sympathy with this form of composition, as evidenced in his writings (see below).

Benedetto Marcello's music is "characterized by imagination and a fine technique and includes both counterpoint and progressive, galant features"..

With the poet Antonio Schinella Conti he wrote a series of experimental long cantatas – a duet, Il Timoteo, then five monologues, Cantone, Lucrezia, Andromaca, Arianna abandonnata, and finally Cassandra.

Writing
Marcello vented his opinions on the state of musical drama at the time in the satirical pamphlet Il teatro alla moda, published anonymously in Venice in 1720. This little work, which was frequently reprinted, is not only extremely amusing, but is most valuable as a contribution to the history of opera.

"... he directed his satire not against the opera as such but only against the slovenly routine and the abuse that had crept into opera production. He spared nobody and attacked composers, singers, directors alike, down to the last stage hand. The vivid picture he draws would in many ways apply also to the modern operatic 'tradition' which according to Gustav Mahler is identical with 'Schlamperei' (sloppiness). Marcello presented his vitriolic suggestions in an ostensibly serious tone and revealed by implication more about the musical and social aspects of opera than other authors did by factual reports. The bitterest attacks were leveled against the castrati who visibly embodied the most abusive side of opera. Their singing was derisively called 'capon's laughter'. Outside of Italy they were sometimes beaten up in the streets, not because of their singing but because of economic jealousy and the social injustices for which they stood."

Legacy
The composer Joachim Raff wrote an opera entitled Benedetto Marcello, based loosely on the life of Marcello and Scalfi.

The Conservatorio di Musica Benedetto Marcello di Venezia was named after him.

A street in Rome, Largo Benedetto Marcello, is named after him.

Oratorios

 * La Giuditta (premiered in Venice 1709?)
 * Joaz (premiered in Venice 1727?, Florence 1729)
 * Il pianto e il riso delle quattro stagioni dell’anno per la morte, esultazione e coronazione di Maria Assunta in Cielo (premiered in Macerata 1731)
 * Il trionfo della poesia e della musica nel celebrarsi la morte, e la esultazione, e la incoronazione di Maria sempre Vergine Assunta in Cielo (1733, production unknown)

Sacred works

 * Estro poetico-armonico: parafrasi sopra li primi [e secondi] venticinque salmi (translation: G.A. Giustiniani), 8 volumes (Venice 1724–26)
 * 9 Masses for 3–8 voices, including a Requiem in G minor
 * 30 religious works: 4 Antiphons, 3 Graduals, 1 Hymn, 1 setting of the Lamentations of Jeremiah the Prophet (lost), 1 Lesson for the Holy Week (lost), 2 Magnificats for 3–4 voices, 5 Misereres, 8 motets, 3 Offertories, 2 vespers

Theater works

 * La morte d’Adone (Serenata, premiered in Venice 1710 or 1729)
 * La gara amorosa (Serenata, premiered in Venice ca. 1710–12?)
 * Psiché (intreccio scenico musicale, Libretto: Vincenzo Cassani, premiered in Venice 1711/12?)
 * Spago e Filetta (Intermezzi for the tragedy Lucio Commodo, premiered in Venice 1719?)
 * Le nozze di Giove e Giunone (Serenata), 2 versions: Nasce per viver (premiered in Vienna 1725 for Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor), Questo é ’l giorno (shortened version, premiered in Vienna 1716?)
 * Calisto in orsa (Pastorale, Libretto: Carminati?, premiered in 1725?)
 * Arianna (intreccio scenico musicale, Libretto: Cassani, premiered in Venice ca. 1727)

Other vocal works

 * [12] Canzoni madrigalesche et [6] arie per camera for 2–4 voices op. 4 (Bologna 1717)
 * 380 Cantatas (with Texte often by Marcello himself) for 1 voice and basso continuo, 22 with strings (including Carissima figlia, Didone, Gran tiranno è l’amore, Percorelle che pascete, Senza gran pena)
 * 81 duets for 2 voices and basso continuo, 2 with strings (including Timoteo, Clori e Daliso, Clori e Tirsi)
 * 7 Trios for 3 voices and basso continuo
 * 5 Madrigals for 4–5 voices

Concerti and sinfonie

 * 12 Concerti a cinque op. 1 (Venice 1708)
 * 5 Concerti for violins, strings and basso continuo (D major, D major, D major, E-flat major, F major)
 * Concerto in F major for 2 violins, strings and harpsichord (1716/17)
 * Concerto in D major for flute, strings and harpsichord
 * 7 sinfonias (D major, F major, G major, G major, A major, A major, B-flat major)

Sonatas

 * 12 Sonatas for flute and basso continuo op. 2 (Venice 1712); incomplete reprint as op. 1 (London 1732)
 * 6 sonatas for cello and basso continuo „op. 1“ (Amsterdam ca. 1732); also as op. 2 (London 1732)
 * 6 sonatas for 2 cellos or viole da gamba and basso continuo „op. 2“ (Amsterdam ca. 1734)
 * Sonata in G minor for violin and basso continuo
 * Sonata in B-flat major for cello and basso continuo
 * 4 sonatas for flautino (soprano recorder) and basso continuo (C major, G major, G major, G minor; authenticity questioned)

Harpsichord works

 * 12 sonatas for harpsichord op. 3? (Venice ca. 1712–17)
 * 35 sonatas and sonata movements for harpsichord
 * 4 minuets; Suite with 30 Minuets

Selected publications

 * Fantasia ditirambiva eroicomica (or Volo Pindarico, 1708)
 * Lettera famigliare d’un accademico filarmonico et arcade (1716)
 * Sonetti: pianger cercai non già dal pianto onore (Venice 1718)
 * Il teatro alla moda (Venice 1720)
 * A. Dio: Sonetti ... con altre rime, d’argomento sacro e morale (Venice 1731)
 * Il divino Verbo fatto Uomo, o sia L’universale redenzione (at least 21 Canti)

Selected recordings

 * "Il mio bel foco" (song), with Frederica von Stade (mezzo-soprano) and Martin Katz (piano), CBS, 1982
 * Solo cantata Cassandra Kai Wessel (countertenor), David Blunden (harpsichord), Aeon Classics 2010.
 * Opera Arianna Chandos 2000
 * Requiem in the Venetian Manner. Academia de li Musici, dir. Filippo Maria Bressan, Chandos 1999
 * Sonatas for Harpsichord (premiere recording; 2×CD), Roberto Loreggian (harpsichord), "Reconstruction and critical edition" by Alessandro Borin, Chandos 2001

title: Benedetto Marcello


text:
John Ralston Saul

John Ralston Saul (born June 19, 1947) is a Canadian writer, political philosopher, and public intellectual. Saul is most widely known for his writings on the nature of individualism, citizenship and the public good; the failures of manager-led societies; the confusion between leadership and managerialism; military strategy, in particular irregular warfare; the role of freedom of speech and culture; and critiques of the prevailing economic paradigm. He is a champion of freedom of expression and was the International President of PEN International, an association of writers. Saul is the co-founder and co-chair of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, a national charity promoting the inclusion of new citizens. He is also the co-founder and co-chair of 6 Degrees, the global forum for inclusion. Saul is also the husband to the former governor general Adrienne Clarkson, making him the Viceregal consort of Canada during most of her service (1999–2005).

His work is known for being thought-provoking and ahead of its time, leading him to be called a "prophet" by Time and to be included in Utne Reader's list of the world's leading thinkers and visionaries. His works have been translated into 25 languages in 36 countries.

Early life and education
Saul is the son of William Saul, an army officer, and a British mother whose family had a long tradition of military service. He was born in Ottawa, but raised in Alberta and Manitoba before graduating from Oakville Trafalgar High School in Oakville, Ontario. At a young age, he became fluent in both national languages, French and English. By the time he started university at McGill University, Montreal, his father was in Paris and Brussels, working as a military adviser to the Canadian ambassador to NATO.

Career
After completing his undergraduate degree, Saul was accepted into the foreign service, but the death of his father in 1968 changed Saul's career plans. He left the foreign service to attend King's College London, where he wrote his thesis on the modernization of France under Charles de Gaulle, and earned his PhD in 1972. His doctoral thesis, The Evolution of Civil–Military Relations in France after the Algerian War, led him to France for research. There he began to write his first novel, Mort d'un général, a romanticized version of his thesis on de Gaulle's chief of staff. He supported himself by running the French subsidiary of a British investment company.

After helping to set up the national oil company Petro-Canada in 1976, as assistant to its first chair, Maurice F. Strong, Saul published his first novel, The Birds of Prey, in 1977. Strong described Saul as "an invaluable, though unconventional, member of my personal staff."

Through the late 1970s into the 1980s, Saul travelled extensively and regularly spent time with guerrilla armies, spending a great deal of time in North Africa and South East Asia. Out of this time came his novels, The Field Trilogy. It was during those extended periods in Northwest Africa and Southeast Asia where he witnessed fellow writers there suffering government suppression of freedom of expression, which caused him to become interested in the work of PEN International. Between the years of 1990 and 1992, Saul acted as the president of the Canadian centre of PEN International. In 2009, he was elected president of PEN and re-elected for a second and last term in 2012, remaining International President until October 2015.

Saul is co-chair of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, which encourages new Canadians to become active citizens. He is patron and former president of the Canadian Centre of PEN International and of the Canadian Academy of Independent Scholars. He is also founder and honorary chair of French for the Future, which encourages bilingual French-English education, chair of the advisory board for the LaFontaine-Baldwin Symposium lecture series, and a patron of Planned Lifetime Advocacy Network. From 1999 until 2006, his wife Adrienne Clarkson was Governor General of Canada, making him Canada's viceregal consort. During this period he devoted much of his time to issues of freedom of expression, poverty, public education and bilingualism.

PEN International
Saul was elected as the international president of PEN International for a three-year term at its Annual Congress in Linz, Austria in October 2009. He was the first Canadian to be elected to that position, which had previously been held by John Galsworthy, Arthur Miller, Heinrich Böll, Mario Vargas Llosa and Homero Aridjis. He campaigned on the need to pay attention to smaller and endangered languages and cultures, arguing that the ultimate removal of freedom of expression was the loss of a language. He put a specific emphasis on endangered indigenous languages. He called for a further decentralization of PEN, which has 144 centres in 102 countries. He argues that literature and freedom of expression are the same thing; that you cannot have one without the other. Saul has testified before the European Parliament Human Rights Commission on the loss of freedom of expression in Tunisia, has spoken before European Council on Refugees in Exile, and has published an essay on writers in exile, which has been translated into several languages.

The Institute for Canadian Citizenship
Saul founded, and currently co-chairs, the Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC) with Adrienne Clarkson. The ICC is a national, non-profit charity that helps accelerate new citizens' integration into Canadian life through original programs, collaborations and unique volunteer opportunities. While its focus is on encouraging new citizens to take their rightful place in Canada, the ICC aims to encourage all citizens – new or not – to embrace active citizenship in their daily life.

Speaking
In addition to his selection as the 1995 Massey lecturer, Saul has delivered other notable lectures. He gave the Harold Innis Lecture in 1994. In 2000 he gave the inaugural LaFontaine-Baldwin Symposium Lecture. Saul delivered the J.D. Young Memorial Lecture "A New Era of Irregular Warfare?" at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario on February 4, 2004. He gave the 2005 IDEAS lecture in Brisbane, Australia, the 2007 Captive Mind Lecture in Kraków, Poland, and in 2008 gave the 33rd Sir Winston Scott Memorial Lecture in Barbados. He also delivered the 2009 McGill Law Journal's Annual Lecture at the McGill Faculty of Law in Montreal on February 3, 2009. Saul also spoke at the Sydney Opera House on August 26, 2012, on the subject "It's Broke: How do we fix it?"

Fiction writing
The Birds of Prey (1977) is a political novel based in Gaullist France. Between 1983 and 1988 Saul then published The Field Trilogy, which deals with the crisis of modern power and its clash with the individual. It includes Baraka, or The Lives, Fortunes and Sacred Honor of Anthony Smith (1983), The Next Best Thing (1986), and The Paradise Eater (1988), which won the Premio Letterario Internazionale in Italy.

De si bons Américains (1994) is a picaresque novel in which he observes the lives of America's nouveaux riches. A vastly reworked and expanded version was published in 2012 as Dark Diversions, Saul's first novel in over fifteen years.

Other fiction writing

 * Baraka (1983)
 * The Next Best Thing (1986)
 * The Paradise Eater (1988)
 * Dark Diversions (2012)

Voltaire's Bastards, The Doubter's Companion and The Unconscious Civilization
Saul's non-fiction began with the trilogy comprising the bestseller Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West (1992), the polemic philosophical dictionary The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense (1994), and the book that grew out of his 1995 Massey Lectures, The Unconscious Civilization (1995). The last won the 1996 Governor General's Award for Non-Fiction Literature.

These books deal with themes such as the dictatorship of reason unbalanced by other human qualities, how it can be used for any ends especially in a directionless state that rewards the pursuit of power for power's sake. He argues that this leads to deformations of thought such as ideology promoted as truth; the rational but anti-democratic structures of corporatism, by which he means the worship of small groups; and the use of language and expertise to mask a practical understanding of the harm caused by this, and what else our society might do. He argues that the rise of individualism with no regard for the role of society has not created greater individual autonomy and self-determination, as was once hoped, but isolation and alienation. He calls for a pursuit of a more humanist ideal in which reason is balanced with other human mental capacities such as common sense, ethics, intuition, creativity, and memory, for the sake of the common good, and he discusses the importance of unfettered language and practical democracy. These attributes are elaborated upon in his 2001 book On Equilibrium.

Reflections of a Siamese Twin
He expanded on these themes as they relate to Canada and its history and culture in Reflections of a Siamese Twin (1998). In this book, he proposed the idea of Canada being a "soft" country, meaning not that the nation is weak, but that it has a flexible and complex identity, as opposed to the unyielding or monolithic identities of other states.

He argues that Canada's complex national identity is made up of the "triangular reality" of the three nations that compose it: First Peoples, francophones, and anglophones. He emphasizes the willingness of these Canadian nations to compromise with one another, as opposed to resorting to open confrontations. In the same vein, he criticizes both those in the Quebec separatist Montreal School for emphasizing the conflicts in Canadian history and the Orange Order and the Clear Grits traditionally seeking clear definitions of Canadian-ness and loyalty.

On Equilibrium
Saul's next book, On Equilibrium (2001), is effectively a fourth, concluding volume to his philosophical quartet. He identifies six qualities as common to all people: common sense, ethics, imagination, intuition, memory, and reason. He describes how these inner forces can be used to balance each other, and what happens when they are unbalanced, for example in the case of a "Dictatorship of Reason".

The Collapse of Globalism
In an article written for Harper's magazine's March 2004 issue, titled The Collapse of Globalism and the Rebirth of Nationalism, he argued that the globalist ideology was under attack by counter-movements. Saul rethought and developed this argument in The Collapse of Globalism and the Reinvention of the World (2005). Far from being an inevitable force, Saul argued that globalization is already breaking down in the face of widespread public opposition and that the world was seeing a rise in nationalism. Following the Great Recession he had predicted, The Collapse of Globalism was re-issued in 2009 with a new epilogue that addressed the economic crisis.

A Fair Country
A Fair Country (2008) is Saul's second major work on Canada. It is organized into four subsections.
 * "A Métis Civilization": This section picks up on the argument that Saul makes in Reflections of a Siamese Twin about the 'triangular reality of Canada'. Drawing on the work of scholars like Harold Innis and Gerald Friesen, Saul argues that contemporary Canada has been deeply influenced and shaped by Aboriginal ideas and the experience of both Francophone and Anglophone immigrants over the 250 years, from 1600 on, during which Aboriginals were either the dominant force in Canada, or equal partners. He argues that Aboriginals are making a rapid "comeback", and that their fundamental influence needs to be recognized in order for non-Aboriginal Canadians to understand themselves.

 * "Peace, Fairness, and Good Government": In this section Saul argues that instead of the phrase "peace, order, and good government", which appears in and has become a touchstone of the 1867 Canadian Constitution, the phrase that dominated previous Canadian documents was "peace, welfare, and good government". Saul suggests that the ensuing emphasis on "order" has not truly represented Canadian origins.

 * "The Castrati": This sections echoes Saul's more general critiques of technocratic and bureaucratic regimes. He also suggests that while current Canadian elites reflect a "disturbing mediocrity" this was not always the case.

 * "An Intentional Civilization": Saul uses the final section of the book to argue for a return to an understanding of Canada as a unique response to particular historical circumstances.

Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine and Robert Baldwin
Saul's contribution to Penguin Canada's Extraordinary Canadians series, of which he serves as general editor, is a double biography of Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine and Robert Baldwin. In it, he argues that Canada did not begin in 1867, but that in fact its foundations were laid by LaFontaine and Baldwin much earlier. The two leaders of Lower and Upper Canada, respectively, worked together after the 1841 Union to lead a reformist movement for responsible government run by elected citizens instead of a colonial governor. But it was during the "Great Ministry" of 1848–51 that the two politicians implemented laws that Saul argues created a more equitable country. They revamped judicial institutions, created a public education system, made bilingualism official, designed a network of public roads, began a public postal system, and reformed municipal governance. Faced with opposition, and even violence, Saul contends that the two men united behind a set of principles and programs that formed modern Canada.

The Comeback
His most recent work, The Comeback: How Aboriginals Are Reclaiming Power and Influence (2014) was a shortlisted nominee for the 2015 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing. The "comeback" that Saul identifies in this new book emphasizes the strides that Aboriginal people have made in reversing years of population decline and "cultural oppression". As recently as seventy years ago it was widely assumed that Indians were disappearing, the victims of disease, starvation and their own ineptitude for modern civilization. Canada's Aboriginal population is growing in numbers and its cultural and political self-confidence seems boundless. In Saul's view, this observation, while obvious to anyone who studies the history, nonetheless needs hammering home. We are far more used to hearing about the dismal lives of Aboriginal people—their family dysfunction, their crime rates, their impoverished communities—than we are to being told they are a success story. Today's Aboriginal population, for all the problems that afflict it, has overcome incredible disadvantages to achieve what Saul calls "a position of power, influence and civilizational creativity" in Canadian society.

Other non fiction writing

 * Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West (1992)
 * The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense (1994)
 * The Unconscious Civilization (1995)
 * Le Citoyen dans un cul-de-sac?: Anatomie d'une société en crise (1996)
 * Reflections of a Siamese Twin: Canada at the End of the Twentieth Century (1997)
 * On Equilibrium: Six Qualities of the New Humanism (2001)
 * The John W. Holmes Memorial Lecture (2004)
 * The Collapse of Globalism and the Reinvention of the World (2005)
 * Joseph Howe and the Battle for Freedom of Speech (2006)
 * A Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada (2008)
 * Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine and Robert Baldwin (2010)
 * The Comeback (2014)
 * Le Grand Retour (2015) – French edition of The Comeback, translated by Daniel Poliquin

Honours
Saul was made a Companion of the Order of Canada (CC) in 1999. He is also a chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France (1996). His 21 honorary degrees range from McGill University and the University of Ottawa to Herzen University in Saint Petersburg, Russia. On October 16, 2019, he received his latest honorary degree from King's College London.

Ribbon bars of John Ralston Saul

Awards

 * Italy's Premio Letterario Internazionale, for The Paradise Eater (1990)
 * Gordon Montador Award, for The Unconscious Civilization (1996)
 * Governor General's Literary Award for Non-fiction, for The Unconscious Civilization (1996)
 * Gordon Montador Award, for Reflections of a Siamese Twin (1998)
 * Pablo Neruda International Presidential Medal of Honour (2004)
 * Manhae Literary Prize (2010)
 * Inaugural Gutenburg Galaxy Award for Literature (2011)
 * Writers' Union of Canada's Freedom to Read Award (2011)

Archives
There is a John Ralston Saul fonds at Library and Archives Canada.

title: John Ralston Saul