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Madinat al-Zahra

Madinat al-Zahra or Medina Azahara (مدينة الزهراء) was a fortified palace-city on the western outskirts of Córdoba in present-day Spain. Its remains are a major archaeological site today. The city was built in the 10th century by Abd ar-Rahman III (912–961), a member of the Umayyad dynasty and the first caliph of Al-Andalus. It served as the capital of the Caliphate of Córdoba and its center of government.

The main reason for its construction was politico-ideological: Abd ar-Rahman III had declared himself "caliph" in 929 and the dignity of this new title required the establishment of a new city, a symbol of his power, imitating other eastern Caliphates. It sought to demonstrate his superiority over his great rivals, the Fatimid Caliphs of Ifriqiya in North Africa and the Abbasid Caliphs in Baghdad. The city was built near Córdoba, the existing capital of al-Andalus under Umayyad rule. Construction began in 936–940 and continued in multiple phases throughout his reign and the reign of his son, Al-Hakam II (r. 961–976). The new city included ceremonial reception halls, a congregational mosque, administrative and government offices, aristocratic residences, gardens, a mint, workshops, barracks, service quarters, and baths. Water was supplied through aqueducts. After al-Hakam II's death, however, the city ceased to act as the center of government under the rule of Ibn Abi Amir al-Mansur (Almanzor). Between 1010 and 1013 it was sacked during a civil war and thereafter abandoned, with many of its materials re-used elsewhere.

The ruins of the city were excavated starting in 1911. Only about 10 hectares of the 112 hectares (0.43 sq mi) of the city have been excavated and partially restored, but this area includes the main palaces. A dedicated archeological museum, located on the edge of the site, was opened in 2009. On July 1, 2018, the site was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site with the inscription name "Caliphate City of Medina Azahara".

Name
Popular legend, recorded by historical writers such as al-Maqqari, holds that the city's name, az-Zahra' (or Azahara in Spanish), came from Abd ar-Rahman III's favorite concubine and that a statue of her stood over the entrance (although statuary was present in the city, scholar Marianne Barrucand argues that the existence of this particular statue was unlikely). Scholar Felix Arnold argues that a simpler explanation is that the city's name, which also means the "Flowering City" or "Radiant City", emulated the style of other caliphal cities founded by the Abbasids (e.g. Madinat as-Salam, "City of Peace", now Baghdad) and the Fatimids (e.g. Madinat al-Qahira, "Victorious City", now Cairo). Jonathan Bloom also notes that the name may have been chosen as a riposte to Abd ar-Rahman's main rivals, the Fatimids, because the Fatimids claimed descent from Muhammad's daughter Fatimah, who was also known as az-Zahra ("the Radiant").

Background
Abd ar-Rahman III was a member of the Umayyad dynasty, which had formerly ruled the Islamic world as head of the Umayyad Caliphate. The title "caliph" signified the political and spiritual leader of the whole Muslim world. In 750 the Umayyads were overthrown by the Abbasids, who took on the title of caliphs and established a new capital at Baghdad. In 756 Abd ar Rahman III's ancestor, Abd ar-Rahman I, managed to re-establish the dynasty's power in the Iberian Peninsula in the far western part of the Muslim world, known as Al-Andalus. Although independent from the Abbasids, the new Umayyad rulers in Al-Andalus, based in Cordoba, did not reclaim the title of "caliph" at this time. Instead, they ruled as "emirs", a lower title designating local Muslim rulers, as heads of the Emirate of Cordoba. While Arabic and Islamic culture thrived in Al-Andalus during this period, it was still a relatively decentralized realm and the emir in Cordoba often struggled to keep different factions under control.

When Abd ar-Rahman III came to power as emir in 912, he began to systematically re-establish Umayyad authority over rebel regions within his realm and reinforce his own authority across Al-Andalus through military and diplomatic means. In 929, after years of constant campaigning, Abd ar-Rahman III felt confident enough to declare himself "caliph", a title equal to the Abbasid rulers in Baghdad (whose own power had significantly weakened by this time). This move may also have been in response to the rise of the Fatimid Caliphate in North Africa around the same time, which challenged the Sunni caliphs of Baghdad and also presented a threat to the interests of the Umayyad state in Al-Andalus.

Before the creation of Madinat al-Zahra, the residence and centre of government for the Umayyad emirs had been the Alcázar in the heart of Cordoba, across from which stood the Great Mosque of Cordoba. Many scholars argue that the motives for the construction of a new palace-city must have included a desire to create a capital and residence that would reflect the dignity and grandeur which Abd ar-Rahman III wanted to project around his new caliphate. The creation of such palace-cities also had precedents because both the Abbasids caliphs and the Fatimid caliphs had previously built such cities for themselves.

Construction and development
According to historical sources the new palace-city was founded in 936. It was located about 5 km west of Cordoba. Abd ar-Rahman III's son, al-Hakam, the crown prince and his future successor, was entrusted to oversee the construction. The 16th-century writer Al-Maqqari cites a man named Maslama ibn 'Abdallah as the architect of the city, but it is unclear how large his role was or how much of the city he actually designed. Major construction might not have actually started until 940, and evidence suggests that it occurred in stages, with the overall plan changing as further work was executed. The mosque on the site was completed in 941–942 or in 944–945. By 945, the caliph was already living in the city. The road between the new city and Cordoba was paved in 946. Finally, in 947 the apparatus of state, including the mint (dar al-sikka), was transferred here from Cordoba. Construction in the city nonetheless continued throughout the remaining years of Abd ar-Rahman III's reign (up to 961) and throughout Al-Hakam II's reign (961–976). High-ranking officials under both caliphs were often involved in the construction as well.

The whole city was surrounded by a fortified wall with towers. However, there is evidence that only the palaces were protected by a wall at first and that the outer city wall was added after residential areas had already begun to develop outside the palace. Abd ar-Rahman III also arranged for thousands of antique marble columns to be procured or imported from other sites, mostly from Ifriqiya (despite it being under Fatimid control at the time), to be reused for construction here. Al-Hakam II also reportedly procured many Roman statues and carved sarcophagi, which were used to decorate the grounds.

Several of the major structures that have been excavated and identified on the site were built over earlier structures and thus appear to belong to a different construction phase after the initial construction of the city. The structures known today as the House of Ja'far and the Court of the Pillars were both built over two or three smaller structures which occupied the same spaces. In addition to being larger than their predecessors, they also feature very different layouts, such as a semi-basilical plan (in the House of Ja'far) and a courtyard surrounded by a porticoed gallery (the Court of the Pillars). Antonio Vallejo Triano, who led archeological work at the site between 1985 and 2013, has argued that the Court of the Pillars likely dates from the 950s. Likewise, the large Upper Basilical Hall, also known as the Dar al-Jund ("House of the Army"), is believed to date from this time. The construction of the Salón Rico, or Reception Hall of Abd ar-Rahman III, has been dated to between 953 and 957 thanks to several inscriptions featured in its decoration. The supervisor of the hall's construction was Abdallah ibn Badr, the vizier and highest-ranking official under the caliph at that time. The decoration was executed under the supervision of the caliph's eunuch servant Shunaif, although it's unclear if he was also involved in the design of the hall.

Based on the evidence of these constructions, Vallejo Triano has argued that a fairly significant remodelling of the palace complex took place in the 950s. It followed a trend of larger and more monumental buildings which made use of porticos, arcades, and different basilical layouts. These new structures were often built over older, relatively more modest structures, and were thus designed to increase the impression of the caliph's magnificence through the architecture of his city. Vallejo Triano notes that this period would also coincide with a major reorganization of the state by Abd ar-Rahman III in 955, which is reported by historical sources such as Ibn Idhari. Additionally, Abd ar-Rahman III was likely becoming better-informed about the rich palaces and elaborate court ceremony in the new Fatimid capital, Mahdia, and in the Byzantine capital of Constantinople. For example, some of Abd ar-Rahman III's emissaries to the Byzantine emperor brought back with them gilded bronze sculptures, marble fountain basins decorated with animal figures, and other decorative architectural elements. This growing awareness of other imperial courts and Abd ar-Rahman's desire to match them may explain an increase in the complexity of the ceremonies and court protocols surrounding the caliph around this time, to which historical sources of the time attached great importance, along with an increase in the architectural scale of the new buildings.

Vallejo Triano has also argued that the construction of the House of Ja'far took place slightly later than the other structures of the 950s because its decoration appears to be more evolved. This tentatively supports an earlier hypothesis by Félix Hernández Giménez that this large residence was built for Ja'far, a hajib (chamberlain) of Al-Hakam II between 961 and 971, and for whom the structure is currently named. This also makes it the only major structure in Madinat al-Zahra that has been identified as belonging to the reign of Al-Hakam II.

Life and government within the palace-city
The palaces housed the caliph's household, including a large number of concubines. The residents were served by a large body of slaves, including eunuchs, of mostly European origin. The city also contained a throne hall or audience chamber (the Salón Rico), government offices, workshops that produced luxury objects, the residences of high officials, and – on the lower levels of the city – markets and residential districts for the common workers. The city had a manager, a judge, and a police chief. Under the cultured caliph Al-Hakam II in particular, there was also a library which by some accounts contained hundreds of thousands of volumes in Arabic, Greek, and Latin. The main congregational mosque and one or more small neighbourhood mosques provided religious services.

The palaces were furnished with silks, tapestries, and various luxury objects. Many objects produced in the caliph's official workshops were given as gifts and have made their way into the collections of museums and Christian cathedrals. Among the wonders reported by historical chronicles about the palaces, Al-Maqqari described a domed hall in the palace which contained a pool of liquid mercury which reflected light and could be stirred to create dazzling ripples of light, although the location of this hall has not been found by modern archeologists.

The new caliphate also developed an increasingly elaborate culture of court protocols around the figure of the caliph. Lavish festivals and receptions were hosted to impress foreign ambassadors. The organisation of the city seems to have included a specific path to be followed by foreign guests and dignitaries on their way to the caliph's audience chamber, which was fronted by gardens and pools with vistas over the rest of the city and the valley below. The caliph himself would appear seated at the back and center of his audience chamber, surrounded by courtiers and officials, with the architecture designed to focus on his position. While the caliph increasingly took on an air of aloofness during this period, the protocols did not evolve to the point of hiding him completely from view – by contrast with the Fatimid caliphs in Africa, who were kept hidden behind a veil.

Various members of the caliph's family, or other wealthy elites, also built their own villas and palaces in the countryside around Cordoba during this period of prosperity in the 10th century. This was a tradition which had existed since the early days of the Emirate and possibly derived from the Roman villa tradition. The caliph even kept some family members in such villas in order to distance them from the center of power in Madinat al-Zahra, providing them with a generous stipend so they wouldn't cause trouble.

Construction of Madinat az-Zahira by Almanzor
When Al-Hakam II died in 976 he was succeeded by his son Hisham II, who was 14 or 15 years old at the time and had little political experience. Consequently, de facto political power was assumed by Ibn Abi Amir, a strongman who appropriated for himself both the post of hajib (chamberlain) and wazir (vizier) and who adopted the regnal title "al-Mansur" (or Almanzor in European sources). In 978 or 979 (368 AH), after he had secured the monopoly of power, he ordered the construction of a new palace city for himself which rivaled Madinat al-Zahra in beauty. Al-Mansur called his palace with a very similar name: Madinat Az-Zahira ("the Shining City"). The location of the palace, which has never been excavated, is still debated: it may have been between Cordoba and Madinat az-Zahra to the west, but the most common hypothesis is that it was built a short distance east of Cordoba, near the banks of the Guadalquivir River, in order to draw the focus of power away from the earlier Umayyad palaces. The new palace took only two years to build. When it was ready Al-Mansur moved the center of government there, leaving the old Madinat al-Zahra in disuse and confining the young caliph Hisham to the old Alcázar in Cordoba instead.

Decline and destruction
On the death of Al-Mansur in 1002, his eldest son Abd al-Malik al-Muzaffar succeeded to power. When al-Muzaffar in turn died in 1008, his brother Abd ar-Rahman, also known as Sanchuelo ("Little Sancho", as his mother Abda was a daughter of Sancho, the king of Navarre) came to power. Less politically able than his father and brother, he tried to appropriate for himself the inheritance of the caliphate from Hisham, which aroused serious opposition. In an attempt to avoid these problems, he set out for a military campaign to the Christian north almost right away. When he crossed the border into Christian territory in February 1009, his opponents broke into the old Alcázar and forced Hisham II to abdicate to another member of the Umayyad family, Muhammad. At the same time, Madinat al-Zahira, the palace built by Al-Mansur and the center of government, was pillaged and destroyed.

The next few years were chaotic and resulted in multiple violent confrontations and regime changes between different factions, known as the Fitna (civil war). Between 1010 and 1013 Cordoba was besieged by Berber factions, and by the end of this period Madinat al-Zahra, the city of Abd ar-Rahman III, had been pillaged and left in ruins. For many years afterwards the city continued to be looted by people for its building materials, which nearly erased it from existence. Over time its remains were buried and its location was not identified again until the 19th century, with excavations beginning in 1911.

Geography
Located 4 miles west of Córdoba in the foothills of the Sierra Morena, oriented north-to-south on the slopes of Jabal al-Arus (meaning Bride Hill), and facing the valley of the Guadalquivir river, is Madinat az-Zahra, billed as the Versailles of the Middle Ages. It was chosen for its outstanding landscape values, allowing a hierarchical construction program so the city and the plains beyond its feet were physically and visually dominated by the buildings of the Alcázar (citadel).

There was also a quarry of limestone, used for the primary construction, though other stones from an area 50 km around were also used. The city's construction led to a road, water and supply infrastructure partly preserved until today in the form of remains of roads, quarries, aqueducts and bridges.

The topography played a decisive role in shaping the city. Taking full advantage of the uneven terrain, the palace city of Madinat az-Zahra was distributed in three terraces. Unlike the labyrinthine and chaotic character typical of Muslim urbanism, the site of the city adopted a rectangular shape comprising an area of 112 hectares. It extended 1500 m per side from east to west and about 750 m from north to south, just warped on the north side by the need to adapt to the difficult topography of the terrain.

Its location in the foothills of Sierra Morena made it possible to design an urban program in which the location and physical relationships between the various constructions were expressive of the role of each in the setting. The palace was located at a higher level, and staggered its buildings along the side of the mountain in an expression of clear preeminence over the urban hamlets and the congregational mosque spread across the plains below. Following the terraces, the first corresponds to the residential area of the caliph, next comes the official area including the houses of the viziers, the guard-room, administrative offices and gardens. Next is the city proper, with housing, crafts, and the great mosque of the two lower terraces separated by another wall in order to isolate the upper palace complex. Archaeological research has revealed an urban morphology characterized by the existence of large areas of undeveloped land, which serves to empty the entire southern front of the fortress, ensuring privacy and maintaining an open, idyllic country landscape. The only spaces built on the lowest level are two broad bands: the western, with an urban management orthogon, and the eastern, with less rigid planning.

There were two complexes outside but close by the city, one a large villa at the centre of a large agricultural estate, later given to the state treasurer. The other, Turruñuelos, was a huge rectangular building, perhaps a barracks.

Overview
The city covered an almost rectangular area measuring 1.5 km long (roughly from east to west) and 750 wide (roughly from north to south). Its perimeter was protected by a thick stone wall with square bastions. Today only about 10 of the 112 hectares (0.43 sq mi) of the city have been excavated and restored, although this area includes the main palaces. The highest point of the city was at the centre of its northern wall (near the palaces), which is 215 meters above sea level, while the lowest point, to the south and nearer to the river, is 70 meters lower. Most of the site slopes gradually down towards the river except in the central northern zone where there were three distinct levels or terraces built into the hillside, with height differences of 10 meters or more between them. The two upper levels were known as the "Alcázar" (al-Qasr in Arabic). Most of the modern excavations have focused on the Alcázar and its palaces, and these are the areas visitors can access today.

According to historical Arabic sources, the three levels of the city had distinct functions: the uppermost level housed the private palaces of the caliph and his closest associates, the middle terrace housed the buildings of the state administration and the residences of high officials, and the much larger lower level was for the common people and the army. This design expressed the social and political hierarchy of the caliphate through the topography of the city itself. In practice, however, the division between levels was not so clear-cut as there were also many differences in elevation within each level. There also appears to be a division between the eastern and western sectors of the Alcázar, separated by a north-south axis that was aligned with the northern gate of the city. The eastern zone comprised the "official" sector, occupied by administrative and reception buildings, and the western zone served as the "private" sector, occupied by private residences of the caliph and his court.

The lower level
The city's lower level was much larger than the Alcázar area and occupied most of the space within the perimeter wall. It was further divided into three zones. The western zone, about 200 meters wide from east to west, housed the army and its barracks. The central zone, about 600 meters wide and located to the south of the palaces above, was occupied by gardens and orchards. The eastern zone, about 700 meters wide, was an urbanized area that housed the general population and including the main congregational mosque and the markets. Recent excavations have also uncovered the remains of a smaller neighborhood mosque in the southeastern part of the city. Aside from the North Gate which led to the palaces, at least two other gates in the city's outer wall are known: the Bab al-Qubba ("Gate of the Dome") in the middle of the southern wall and the Bab al-Shams ("Gate of the Sun") in the eastern wall.

The congregational mosque
The city's main congregational mosque (sometimes referred to as the Aljama Mosque) was located on the lower level just east of the Upper Garden and Salón Rico complex. It could be reached from the palaces via a covered ramp passage in the eastern wall of the Upper Garden's terrace. Other roads led to the mosque from the rest of the city around it. Like the Great Mosque of Cordoba, a private passage allowed for the caliph to enter the mosque directly into the maqsura, the privileged area near the mihrab. The mosque had a rectangular floor plan aligned northwest to southeast, in accordance with the qibla (direction of prayer). This orientation is notably different from the southern qibla orientation of the much older Great Mosque of Cordoba, which reflects that conceptions of the qibla changed over time in this part of the Islamic world. Outside the mosque, on its northwest side and near the entrance, is a set of facilities which provided for the ritual of ablutions. The mosque building was divided between an open courtyard (sahn) to the northwest and an interior prayer hall to the southeast. The mosque was entered via three gates that led into the courtyard and were located on the courtyard's central axes: two lateral gates (to the northeast and southwest) and one on the main central axis of the mosque itself (to the northwest). The latter gate was flanked on one side by a minaret with a square base. This is the earliest evidence of such a minaret being used in the architecture of al-Andalus, as it is older even than the minaret Abd ar-Rahman III later built for the Great Mosque in Cordoba. The base of the minaret measures 5 meters per side, and according to historical sources (Al-Maqqari in particular) it originally stood approximately 20 meters high. The mosque's prayer hall was divided by rows of arches into five parallel "naves". Archeological evidence has shown that the arches were double-tiered, emulating the same design feature seen in the Great Mosque of Cordoba. The middle nave, in front of what would have been the mihrab (wall niche symbolizing the direction of prayer), was wider than the other four naves of the mosque.

North Gate
The northern gate of the city, Bab al-Jibal ("Gate of the Mountains"), was located at the highest point of the city and granted access directly into the middle of the Alcázar or palace area of the city. It is also known as the North Gate (Puerta Norte in Spanish). It had a bent entrance layout and was defended by a tower. Today it acts as the main entrance to the site for visitors and tourists. To the west of the gate was the caliph's private palace (the Dar al-Mulk) and to the east was the administrative district and the Upper Basilical Hall (the Dar al-Jund).

Bab al-Sudda (eastern portico)
The official and ceremonial entrance to the palace areas, however, was located further east and was known as Bab al-Sudda ("Forbidden Gate" or "Gate of the Threshold"). This gate formed one end of the long road which led between the palaces and the city of Cordoba to the east, and it is believed to be the entrance where ambassadors or guests were received. The gate consisted of a monumental portico: a long row of huge horseshoe arches running roughly north-to-south. It was fronted by a large open esplanade, known today as the Plaza de Armas (a later Spanish term) but referred to in sources as a ḫaṣṣa (open area), probably originally serving a similar function as a mechouar (a term later used in the Maghreb) or a maydan. It would have hosted public ceremonies, military parades, and executions. On top of the gate's portico structure was a viewing platform where the caliph could sit and observe events on the plaza below. Inside the gate, a ramped street then led up to the terrace of the Upper Basilical Hall.

Upper Basilical Hall (Dar al-Jund)
The structure known today as the "Upper Basilical Hall" has been identified, tentatively, as the Dar al-Jund ("House of the Army" in Arabic), a name mentioned in literary sources. It was probably built in the 950s during a new program of construction and state reform.

The exact function of this large structure is uncertain, but scholars and archeologists have traditionally assumed that it had an administrative or official (semi-public) function, such as a reception chamber for ceremonies and for ambassadors on their way to see the caliph. The Dar al-Jund is mentioned in historical sources as an assembly hall for the officers of the caliph's army. Felix Arnold, an archeologist and scholar on the topic of Islamic palace architecture in the region, suggests that the building's size means that it must have been the main audience hall of Madinat al-Zahra, which might identify it instead with either the Majlis ash-Sharqi ("Eastern Hall") or Majlis al-Gharbi ("Western Hall") mentioned in historical sources.

The building is located near the northeastern corner of the excavated area today, on a terrace west of the Bab al-Sudda entrance. It consists of a large basilica-type structure to the north adjoined to a large open courtyard to the south. Visitors to the city reached this area by walking up a ramped street that started on the central axis of the Bab al-Sudda gate and climbed its way to the terrace above, bending 180 degrees several times along the way. The ramp was wide enough and its slope gentle enough to allow visitors to remain on horseback, and was even lined with benches where they could sit and wait their turn to enter. It ended at a small porticoed court, where the visitors were possibly assigned to new guides, and from which they then entered into the courtyard of the Dar al-Jund along its middle axis. Felix Arnold suggests that this overall layout had a precedent in the older Alcázar of Cordoba, where visitors coming from the main public entrance to the west arrived into a courtyard or garden in front of the Majlis al-Kamil ("Perfect Hall"), the main audience chamber of the palace. The courtyard of the Dar al-Jund measures 54.5 meters wide and 51 meters deep. Its northern side is occupied by the broad entrance façade of the main hall, its western and eastern sides were occupied by narrow porticos, and its southern side was closed by a simple wall. The main hall stood 1.2 meters above the level of the courtyard. Stairs and ramps leading to its platform were located at the northern corners of the courtyard – the stairs were for those on foot, the ramps for horses. The remains of the courtyard were converted into a garden in the 1960s. The main hall itself is the largest interior space ever documented in the historic palace architecture of the western Islamic world, being large enough to accommodate up to 3000 people. The hall is composed of five parallel rectangular chambers, placed side-by-side and open to each other through various archways. Each chamber is about 20 meters long (from north to south) and 6.8 meters wide, with the exception of the central chamber which is about 7.5 meters wide. Each hall opens onto a sixth chamber to the south, perpendicular to the others, which is about 30 meters long (from east to west) and 6.9 meters wide, with a smaller square chamber located at either end. This south hall opens onto the courtyard to the south through five broad archways. Other auxiliary rooms are present nearby. The decoration of the building was plain in comparison with other royal edifices in the city. The walls were made of stone and plastered, with little ornamentation other than a red dado near the base, while the floors were paved in brick instead of stone. Only the capitals of the columns were ornately carved. However, the walls may have originally been covered with ornamental furnishings such as tapestries and curtains may have been draped across the arches.

The precise intentions of the hall's design are ambiguous, as the chambers are all connected to each other but in slightly different ways. The central chamber is wider than the others and its entrance from the south is marked by a triple archway instead of a double archway like the other four parallel chambers, which actually made the openings between the columns narrower for the central chamber than for the others. The three middle chambers are also each connected to each other though a wide central door flanked by triple archways with columns, while the two outermost chambers at the sides are connected to the inner chambers through three simple doors. During official receptions, the caliph likely sat in the middle of the back wall of the central chamber. Antonio Vallejo Triano argues that the overall design of the building suggests that the two outermost chambers, along with the southern chamber at the front, formed a U-shaped space around the three central chambers and that the latter formed a privileged space for the caliph's audience. He also adds that there is archeological evidence that the spaces of the two outermost chambers were actually divided into two stories. Felix Arnold, in a slightly different interpretation, suggests that visitors entered the building from the sides and then entered the central chamber by moving from the outermost chambers to the central one, with each wall of doors and archways acting as a "screen" through which they passed closer to the caliph.

Dar al-Mulk
The Dar al-Mulk or "Royal House" is a palace described in historical sources. Archeologists have identified it, tentatively, with the structure located on the highest terrace of the city, in the northwest extremity of the excavated area today. It is believed to have been one of the earliest structures built on the site and it was one of the first to be excavated in 1911. Historical sources also record that the Dar al-Mulk was repurposed in 972 to serve as a venue where prince Hisham, the future successor of al-Hakam II, was educated. The main structure consisted of three parallel rectangular halls oriented east-west. The halls were entered from the south: the southern walls of the first two halls each had three openings or doorways of equal size aligned in a row. The third hall, at the back, was much smaller and had only one door, which was aligned with the middle doors of the other two halls. Each hall was also flanked on both sides by small square (or nearly square) chambers. The first main hall may have served as an entrance hall, the second one may have been a reception room, and the third hall may have been a private sitting area whose side rooms served as bedrooms. The second and third halls have been partly reconstructed today, but the first (southernmost) hall has been lost. It stood at the very edge of the terrace, 15 meters above the ground of the next level below. In front of the eastern corner of this hall, however, are the remains of a staircase that led down to the terrace below. On the east side of the main structure is another apartment consisting of a courtyard, a portico of arches, and a hall, which was built over a former bathhouse

The building was richly decorated. The doorways, some rectangular and some arched, were framed with geometric and vegetal (arabesque) decoration, and the floors were paved with geometric patterns. The exterior façade of the building, which faced south over the edge of the terrace wall, had three decorated doorways as well as a blind arcade of false windows above. Felix Arnold notes that because the doorways of the three halls were aligned with each other and faced outwards from the edge of the palace terrace, they would have offered views of the distant horizon across the valley, but not onto a private garden or courtyard as was typical in many Islamic palaces in the history of the region. He notes, however, that such elevated halls with distant views had precedents in the old Alcázar of Cordoba as well as at ar-Rusafa, an older Umayyad palatial estate in the countryside of Cordoba.

Court of the Pillars and nearby buildings
Located on a lower level southeast of the Dar al-Mulk, the Court of the Pillars is a structure centered around a large square courtyard which is ringed with a portico on all sides. On three sides of the courtyard, behind the portico, are wide rectangular halls. A staircase in the northwest corner led to a second story with a similar layout. Various Roman sculptures, including sarcophagi, were also discovered in this building. Among the notable finds are the fragments of a sarcophagus known as the Sarcophagus of Meleager, which has been reconstructed and kept at the site today. The building itself was built over what were initially two smaller houses. Its construction may date to the 950s, either at the same time as or after the construction of the Salón Rico. To the north of this building is another residential complex, and east of that (close to the north gate) are two other courtyard houses separated by a ramp between them.

The function of all these courtyard buildings, which were not typical of other structures in Madinat al-Zahra, is uncertain. They may have been the residences of state officials or they may have been used as guesthouses for important visitors. Art historian Susan Calvo Capilla has also suggested that the presence of Roman sculptures in the Court of the Pillars, which included representations of the Muses and philosophers, may indicate that the space was used for education and intellectual activities, with the sculptures placed here as a deliberate reference to ancient sciences. The Court of the Clocks, located to southeast near the Salón Rico, was similarly decorated with Roman sculptures.

House of the Water Basin
The House of the Water Basin (Vivienda de la Alberca in Spanish) is a structure located south of the Court of the Pillars. It was part of a complex of residences which stood between the Dar al-Mulk and the Salon Rico. The house is believed to date from the first years of construction at Madinat al-Zahra, although parts of the floor plan were likely modified afterwards. Antonio Vallejo Triano has proposed that this house was a residence of al-Hakam II before he became caliph in 961. The site was excavated by Félix Hernández Jiménez and Rafael Manzano Martos between 1975 and 1982 and, as of 2018, was still being examined by archeologists.

The building is laid out along an east-west axis and is centered around a square courtyard. Its original entrance was on the north side and led directly into the courtyard. On both the west and east sides were two rectangular chambers, one behind the other, whose entrances were aligned with the central axis of the courtyard. Smaller chambers were also located along the sides of the building. Behind the eastern chambers was a private bathhouse or hammam which consisted of three chambers of decreasing size, heated using the traditional Roman hypocaust system under its marble floors. Marble decoration was added to the bath by Ja'far in 961-62.

The courtyard of the house was occupied by two symmetrical sunken gardens and by a water basin at the middle of the courtyard's western side, after which the house is named. The gardens were surrounded by raised walkways that ran around the edge of the courtyard and were split by another walkway down the middle between them. Water channels also ran along the edges of the courtyard and brought water to the basin. The gardens were planted with low-growing plants like lavender, oleander, myrtle, basil, and celery. The main halls on either side were accessed through an arcade with three horseshoe arches resting on columns, partly reconstructed today. The arches are framed by an alfiz filled with carved vegetal ornamentation. D. Fairchild Ruggles, a scholar of historic Islamic gardens, indicates that the garden of this house is also known as the "Prince's Garden" and may have been enjoyed by elite residents of the palaces.

House of Ja'far
The large "House of Ja'far" was built over what were originally three smaller houses. It is located between the Court of the Pillars to the northwest and the Salón Rico to the southeast. Because of its more evolved decoration its construction has been dated to after 961, during the reign of al-Hakam II, which may support a hypothesis by Félix Hernández Giménez that this large residence was built for the eponymous Ja'far, a hajib (chamberlain) of Caliph al-Hakam II between 961 and 971. It was excavated in 1970 by Hernandez Giménez. The decorated portico of the main courtyard has been reconstructed since 1996 under the direction of Antonio Vallejo Triano.

The building consists of three areas which each had their own internal courtyard. The first, the larger southern portion, is believed to have been dedicated to official business and receptions. It was entered from the west and was centered around a square courtyard paved in violet limestone. A second story may have also existed here, as suggested by the presence of a staircase. On the east side of the courtyard is an elaborately decorated portico, reconstructed since 1996, which led to three rectangular receptions rooms on the other side. Behind these rooms were smaller square rooms. One of those rooms included a latrine, while another gave access to the other parts of the house. These other areas were accessed by passing through a smaller square courtyard in the northeast part of the house which had a circular water basin at its center. On the north side of this courtyard was a private apartment, occupying the northeast corner of the house. On the west side of the courtyard was a larger rectangular courtyard, surrounded by rooms, which served as a service area used by servants and staff. Antonio Vallejo Triano has argued that the plan of the house indicates that it was not a family dwelling but rather designed for a single high-ranking occupant.

The service area
To the north of the House of Ja'far is a complex of rooms and houses which have been classified as a service area, although little is known of how the palace servants were organized. There appear to be two main buildings that make up the complex. The presence of kitchens is indicated by the discovery of stone ovens in some of the rooms. Private latrines have also been discovered in the eastern building, which suggest that it belonged to a higher-status residence within the complex.

Salón Rico (Reception Hall of Abd ar-Rahman III)
The Reception Hall of Abd ar-Rahman III, known by its Spanish name as the Salón Rico ("Rich Hall"), is the most richly decorated structure discovered at Madinat al-Zahra. It was part of a larger palace complex which was built to the south of the Upper Basilical Hall. Its construction has been dated to between 953 and 957, thanks to several inscriptions found in its decoration. The supervisor of the hall's construction was Abdallah ibn Badr, the vizier and highest-ranking official under the caliph at that time. The decoration was executed under the supervision of the caliph's eunuch servant Shunaif, although it's unclear if he was also involved in the design of the hall. It was excavated by Rafael Castejón and Félix Hernandez Giménez in 1946 and has since been reconstructed. The hall was fronted by the Upper Garden and by a large water basin, with which it formed a unified design.The Salón Rico faced south across the gardens and stood on a platform that was elevated above the adjoining walkways. It was accessed via ramps on either side. The building's front façade features an arcade of five arches which was aligned with the water basin in front. The building's interior has a basilical form with some general similarities to the Upper Basilical Hall. Behind the front arcade is a transversal entrance hall, which in turn leads to the central hall. The central hall is 17.5 meters long and 20.4 meters wide and is divided into three naves by two arcades of six horseshoe arches resting on slender columns. The two side naves are 5.9 meters wide while the central nave is slightly wider at 6.5 meters. Each nave can be accessed from the entrance hall at the front through arcades of two or three arches. The back wall is marked with three decorative blind arches. This central hall is flanked on either side by a square chamber and a rectangular chamber, which were separated from the central hall by solid walls pierced by a single door. Two other doors on either side were later blocked up and turned into decorative niches. The entrance hall to the south is also flanked by square chambers on either side. The building today is covered by sloped wooden roofs built by Félix Hernandez Giménez, but it is not known exactly what kind of roofing or ceiling it originally had.

During audiences the caliph sat at the middle of the back wall, in front of the central blind arch. He would have sat on a divan while his brothers and highest officials stood or sat on either side. Other court officials would have been lined up along the arcades on either side of the central hall. The dimensions of the central hall conform to that of an equilateral triangle whose summit is placed at the center of the back wall and whose base corresponds to the total width of the hall. Felix Arnold notes that these proportions are frequently used in Islamic architecture and are also found in the audience hall of one of the Fatimid palaces in Mahdia. These proportions had the practical benefit of allowing the caliph sitting at the back of the hall to be able to see the entire width of the hall within his field of vision without having to turn his head. The central hall is notable for its outstanding ornamentation, which is carved onto stone panels or slabs attached to the surfaces of walls. As a result of this technique, the stone used for the decoration does not correspond to the stone used for the structure of the building itself, which Antonio Vallejo Triano notes is an innovation that treats the carved stone panels like a "skin" for the hall. The carved panels are mostly made of limestone, while the columns are marble and the floor is paved in marble. The ornamentation is generally divided into three zones: the lower parts of the walls are covered with large panels; the middle zone is occupied primarily by the arches of the arcades, which have voussoirs of alternating colours and motifs, framed by a decorated alfiz; and the upper areas of the walls are covered by horizontal friezes that run just below the ceiling. In general, the motifs are predominantly vegetal arabesques. The larger lower panels frequently feature elaborate representations of the tree of life, which may draw on models from Abbasid art in the east while adapting them to local Andalusi styles.

On either side of the Salón Rico was a long line of various buildings that ran along the northern edge of the Upper and Lower Gardens. Beneath the buildings on the west side was an underground passage, known today as the Camino de Ronda, which may have served as the substructure for the buildings above and which linked the Salón Rico with the Lower Garden. The structures to the east of the Salón Rico included a large bath complex.

The Upper Garden and the Central Pavilion
The Upper Garden (Jardín Alto in Spanish) stretches out in front of the Salón Rico and occupies an elevated terrace that is 10 meters higher than the surrounding areas on the east, south, and west. The terrace is artificial, though the builders probably used an existing spur of the hills to start. Its walls are reinforced with rectangular buttresses at regular intervals. On its east side was the Lower Garden and on its west side was the congregational mosque. The latter was reached via a covered path along the terrace wall, and to the south is another large unexcavated garden. The eastern wall of the terrace is aligned with the portico of Bab al-Sudda while its north and south borders are aligned with those of the older Lower Garden to the east. Although it may have been initially intended to have a perfectly square layout, which would have measured 133 by 133 meters, the western side of the garden was extended on top of the Lower Garden, giving it a final width of 153.5 meters instead. The final width corresponds to the base of an equilateral triangle whose summit could be placed at the center of the Salón Rico's façade, similar to the proportions found inside the caliph's reception hall. Felix Arnold suggests that these dimensions are therefore a deliberate part of the design.

The garden itself was for purely aesthetic purposes. Along with the Lower Garden, it is among the earliest examples of the traditional four-part Islamic garden, also known as chahar bagh in the Persian tradition. Around its edge ran a walkway 4 meters wide. Two other walkways split the garden into four quadrants of slightly unequal size (the northern ones being larger). This evidence suggests that the original garden was divided into perfectly equal quadrants but that the east-west path was moved south to its current position in order to accommodate the creation of the Central Pavilion. This change would also explain why the east-west path of the garden is not aligned with the east-west path of the Lower Garden to the east or with the location of a possible pavilion on that side of the garden. The gardens were sunken about 50 to 70 centimeters below the level of the walkways so that the low-growing plants did not impede views. The area has been replanted in modern times, which has impeded archaeobotanical studies, but there is evidence that herbs and shrubs were originally planted, including: myrtle, lavender, hackberry, oleander, basil, alexanders, jujube, and heather.

At the middle of the garden's northern side is a large water basin measuring 19 by 19 meters and 2 meters deep. The gardens slope gently from north to south so that this water basin could be used to irrigate them. Water channels ran along the walkways to distribute water. To the south of this basin, near the middle of the gardens, was the large "Central Pavilion" whose construction has been dated to 956 or 957. Very little of its remains have been preserved in comparison to other structures like the Salón Rico and as a result it is still being investigated (as of 2018). It consisted of a rectangular building divided into three naves or parallel halls, aligned roughly north-to-south, with its main entrance facing the Salón Rico. The building stood on a platform one meter higher than the surrounding walkways, and on all four sides was a small water basin which rose to the same height as the platform. The water basins may have been designed and placed so that any observer looking out from inside the pavilion would have seen the reflection of the sky in the water, while an observer from outside would have seen the pavilion reflected in the water. Likewise, the placement of the pavilion in relation to the Salón Rico meant that both buildings would have been reflected in the larger northern water basin. These pools of water would have also reflected light into both buildings through their front archways. They might also have given the impression to observers inside them, when looking out, that the buildings were "floating" on water, since every main entrance was fronted by water.

The Lower Garden
The Lower Garden (Jardin Bajo in Spanish) stood on a lower level on the east side of the Upper Garden and south of the Dar al-Mulk. It has not been completely excavated but it is known to have had an equal four-part division much like the Upper Garden's initial design. It was one of the largest in the city and was probably created during the first phase of construction at Madinat al-Zahra, shortly after its foundation. The garden was originally 125 meters long from north to south and 180 meters wide from east to west, but when the Upper Garden was built to the east its width was reduced by 22 meters. It was surrounded by a walkway 4 meters wide, and two more walkways intersected in the middle of the gardens. The gardens in between the walkways were sunken, as with other examples in the city. It is not clear what they were planted with, but limited evidence suggests once again that they were planted with herbs and shrubs similar to those of the Upper Garden, as well as flax.

At the middle of the garden's eastern edge, along the wall of the Upper Garden, was a rectangular buttress that is much larger than the other buttresses along the Upper Garden wall. At the base of this buttress was a water basin into which water from the Upper Garden probably cascaded from above. A pavilion may have also existed on top of it, with views over the Lower Garden from above, but not enough remains have been preserved to prove this.

Water infrastructure
The palace was built where the 1st century Roman aqueduct running from the Sierra Morena to Cordoba ran, but this was several metres below the palace, so a new spur was constructed further back to bring permanent running water to the higher levels. In turn, the section of the old Roman aqueduct now diverted was used as a main sewer for a highly complex system of small channels carrying away rain and waste water. Many food and ceramic remains have been found here. In addition to the aqueducts, several new bridges were built (of which two survive today) in order to serve the new roads between the new palace-city and Cordoba.

Architectural influence and legacy
Artistically, Madinat al-Zahra played a great role in formulating a distinct Andalusi Islamic architecture (also referred to as Moorish architecture), as well as establishing a more particular "caliphal" style of the 10th century. The congregational mosque of Madinat al-Zahra bears close resemblance to the Great Mosque of Córdoba (at least prior to the latter's expansion by Al-Hakam II), and replicated its rows of two-tiered arches. The horseshoe arch, which had also appeared in the Great Mosque of Cordoba already, became further ubiquitous in Madinat al-Zahra and consolidated its distinctive form: the arch consisted of about three quarters of a circle and was usually contained within a rectangular frame known as an alfiz. The extensive arabesque decoration, carved in relief across many wall surfaces, demonstrates historic influences from Sassanian and Abbasid Iraq, but also notable differences in its details. The basilical royal reception hall, as seen in the Salon Rico, is another novel creation which became a distinctive feature of palace architecture in this region, as it contrasted with the domed and vaulted halls found in the eastern part of the Islamic world.

The Lower Garden and Upper Garden of Madinat al-Zahra are the earliest archeologically-attested examples of a symmetrically-divided garden in the western Islamic world, and among the earliest examples in the Islamic world more generally. They are also the earliest example in the region to combine such gardens with a system of terraces. This type of garden probably drew its origins from Persian gardens (chahar bagh) that existed far to the east and were imported to the west by Umayyad patrons. Among other things, this eastern Umayyad origin is evidenced by the existence of similar gardens discovered at the palace-villa in Syria known as ar-Rusafa, which belonged to the reign of Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik (early 8th century). Another villa known as al-Qasr ar-Rusafa, built by Abd ar-Rahman I near Cordoba in 777, has not been fully studied but probably also featured gardens and pavilions with elevated views. This suggests that there were precedents for this tradition among the Umayyad emirs of Al-Andalus. Courtyards with symmetrically-divided gardens, later known as riyads (or riads), would go on to become a typical feature of later Andalusi palaces, including the Alhambra, as well as in Moroccan architecture and beyond.

Archaeology and conservation
Archeological excavations on the site began in 1911 under the direction of Spanish architect Ricardo Velázquez Bosco. Work continued under Félix Hernández Giménez between 1923 and 1936 and between 1943 and 1975, then under Rafael Manzano Martos between 1975 and 1982, under Antonio Vallejo Triano between 1985 and 2013, and under José Escudero Aranda since 2013. The Salon Rico, the most richly decorated building, was excavated by Rafael Castejón and Félix Hernandez Giménez in 1946. Thanks to the partially preserved walls and many preserved fragments of decoration, it was reconstructed under the supervision of Félix Hernandez Giménez. Restoration of the hall's ornamentation continues today.

Excavation and restoration continues, dependent upon funding by the Spanish government. In 2020, archaeologists discovered a gateway that marked the eastern entrance to the 10th-century palace and which had been missing for more than a thousand years.

The unexcavated portions of the site, which comprise around 90 percent of its total area, are threatened by the illegal construction of housing. According to a report from the New York Times in 2005, the local government in Córdoba was not enforcing a law passed in 1995 that expanded protections for the site against development. As a result, construction companies are putting up houses on these unexcavated areas.

Museum
A new archeological museum dedicated to Medina Azahara was opened in 2009, located on the edge of the site. The museum building was built low, with much of the space underground, to minimize disruption to the views of the landscape from the ruins. The museum, which was designed by the firm Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos, won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2010.

title: Madinat al-Zahra


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User talk:KMM~enwiki

Welcome!

Hello,, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place  on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! DS 02:40, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
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title: User talk:KMM~enwiki


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11 Andromedae

11 Andromedae, abbreviated 11 And, is a single, orange-hued star in the northern constellation of Andromeda. 11 Andromedae is the Flamsteed designation. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 5.44, which is bright enough to be faintly visible to the naked eye. An annual parallax shift of $1.014$ yields a distance estimate of 283 light years. It is moving further from the Earth with a heliocentric radial velocity of +10 km/s.

This is an evolved giant star with a stellar classification of K0 III, which means it has exhausted the supply of hydrogen at its core and turned off the main sequence. It has an estimated 2.57 times the mass of the Sun and has expanded to around 12 times the Sun's radius. It is radiating 63 times the Sun's luminosity from its enlarged photosphere at an effective temperature of 4,874 km/s.

Within Andromeda it is the south-west end of a bright northerly chain (jagged line) asterism – the others being, their order going with numbering, 8, 7, 5 and 3 Andromedae.

title: 11 Andromedae


text: User talk:66.138.141.83

title: User talk:66.138.141.83


text:
Bogo-Indian Defence, Monticelli Trap

In chess, the Monticelli Trap is a combination in the Bogo–Indian Defence, named for Italian champion Mario Monticelli from the game Monticelli versus Prokeš, Budapest 1926. Although it is called a trap because White wins the exchange, Black does obtain some compensation.

The trap begins with the moves:
 * 1. d4 Nf6
 * 2. c4 e6
 * 3. Nf3 Bb4+

 * Black plays the Bogo–Indian Defence.
 * 4. Bd2 Bxd2+
 * 5. Qxd2 b6
 * 6. g3 Bb7
 * 7. Bg2 O-O
 * 8. Nc3 Ne4
 * 9. Qc2 Nxc3
 * 10. Ng5! (see diagram)

Discussion
White threatens mate with 11.Qxh7# as well as 11.Bxb7 winning a bishop and a rook. After either 10...Ne4 11.Bxe4 or 10...Qxg5 11.Bxb7, Black loses the exchange, but obtains compensation in the form of one or more pawns and possibly a weakened white king. It is unclear if the position is a forced win for White.

Former world champion José Raúl Capablanca allowed 10.Ng5 twice in consecutive games as Black against Max Euwe in Amsterdam, 1931, drawing both times. The second game continued:

 * 10...Ne4 11.Bxe4 Bxe4 12.Qxe4 Qxg5 13.Qxa8 Nc6 14.Qb7 Nxd4 15.Rd1 c5 16.e3 Nc2+ 17.Kd2 Qf5 18.Qg2 Nb4 19.e4 Qf6 20.Kc1 Nxa2+ 21.Kb1 Nb4 22.Rxd7 Nc6 23.f4 e5 24.Rhd1 Nd4 25.Rxa7 exf4 26.gxf4 Qxf4 27.Re1 Nf3 28.Re2 Nd4 29.Re1 ½–½

The line has been played several times over the years at the highest levels, including Portisch–Andersson 1983, which ended in a draw, and Aronian–Postny 2005, which White won. The offer of the exchange has in fact been refused by White in grandmaster games (either by 10.Qxc3 or 10.Ng5 Ne4 11.Bxe4 Bxe4 12.Nxe4 ).

title: Bogo-Indian Defence, Monticelli Trap


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Baby, Stop Crying

"Baby, Stop Crying" is a song written by Bob Dylan, released in the summer of 1978 as a single and in a longer album version on Street Legal. The song charted at #13 in the UK and was a top-ten song in much of Europe, although it failed to chart in the United States.

Lyrical interpretation and reception
The song's narrator is a desperate man attempting to play the role of consoler to a despairing woman, asking her for a pistol in the opening verse, and claiming he "can't tell right from wrong". Commenting on the content of this song, Dylan once said, "The man in that song has his hand out and is not afraid of getting it bit".

Dylan scholar Tony Attwood sees the song as having lyrical roots in Robert Johnson's "Stop Breaking Down".

Like many of the tracks from Street Legal, "Baby, Stop Crying" features a saxophone and a trio of female backup singers. According to Billboard the female voices provide an "exciting counterpoint" to Dylan's "raspy" vocal performance. Cash Box said that it "has a tight, repetitive hook, backing singers, strong sax solo and organ work." Record World said that "Old fans will lean toward [Dylan's] customary throaty vocals while new audiences might latch on to the high female background singing that gives it just a touch of r&b."

Live performances
Dylan performed the song live in concert 39 times. All performances were in 1978.

Covers

 * Terrance Simien: Jam the Jazzfest (1998)

title: Baby, Stop Crying


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36 Andromedae

36 Andromedae is a visual binary star system in the northern constellation of Andromeda. The designation is from the star catalogue of English astronomer John Flamsteed, first published in 1712. It is faintly visible to the naked eye with an apparent visual magnitude of 5.45. An annual parallax shift of 26.33 mas yields a distance estimate of about 124 light years. The system is moving closer to the Sun with a radial velocity of −0.8 km/s.

The binary nature of this system was discovered in 1832 by the German-Russian astronomer Wilhelm von Struve. It is a wide binary with an orbital period of 167.5 years and an eccentricity of 0.3. As of 2016, the pair had an angular separation of 0.90 arc seconds along a position angle of 330°.

The primary, component A, is a magnitude 6.12 F-type star with a stellar classification of G8 IV, while the secondary, component B, has a magnitude of 6.54 and is a K-type star of class K3 IV. Their brightness compared to their temperatures indicate they are evolving subgiant stars. However, at least one of the components is subject to flare activity, which may suggest they are instead pre-main sequence stars.

title: 36 Andromedae


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Talk:System flow

This article seems to be specific to WFG at least under this name. It could be inserted in the World Financial Group article, I put a mergeinto template on it to match this one. RJFJR 02:41, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

title: Talk:System flow


text:
Vyacheslav Ivanov (poet)

Vyacheslav Ivanovich Ivanov (Вячесла́в Ива́нович Ива́нов, Venceslao Ivanov; 28 February 1866 – 16 July 1949) was a Russian poet, playwright, Classicist, and senior literary and dramatic theorist of the Russian Symbolist movement. He was also a philosopher, translator, and literary critic.

Born into the lower Russian nobility, the multilingual Ivanov studied Classics, philology, and philosophy. He married the sister of a school friend and aspired to live as a conventional family man, until he discovered the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche while in Rome. Following a surrender to their mutual attraction one night in the Colosseum, Ivanov left his wife and daughter for married Afro-Russian poet Lydia Zinovieva-Annibal. Following their Orthodox ecclesiastical divorces and clandestine remarriage in a Greek Orthodox ceremony at Livorno, Ivanov and Zinovieva-Annibal returned to their homeland and plunged headfirst into Tsarist Russia's literary bohemia.

For most of the remaining years of the Pre-1917 Silver Age of Russian Poetry, Ivanov presided over a weekly literary salon near the Tauride Palace in St. Petersburg. He helped discover the poet Anna Akhmatova and served as a highly influential teacher and mentor to philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev, Symbolist poet and future Russian Orthodox martyr Maria Skobtsova, and Nobel Prize-winning poet and novelist Boris Pasternak.

Similarly to his contemporaries Hugo von Hoffmannsthal and Max Reinhardt in the Germanosphere, Ivanov was a hugely influential avant garde dramatic theorist and sought, under the influence of Ancient Greek, Medieval, and Spanish Golden Age theatre, to blur and even to erase the fourth wall and make the audience into participants in the dramas they attended. The radically innovative theatre director Vsevolod Meyerhold is only one of those who has been enormously influenced by Ivanov's dramatic philosophy.

Following the First World War, the October Revolution, the Russian Civil War, and his 1924 emigration from the Soviet Union to Fascist Italy, Ivanov converted in 1926 to the Russian Greek Catholic Church, which remains one of the smallest of the Eastern Catholic Churches. Ivanov had previously lived a life so hedonistic that he later compared his conversion in a work of Russian poetry to that of St. Augustine.

In 1931, Ivanov successfully defended Christianity in a public debate against Benedetto Croce, which enormously bolstered his intellectual reputation in the West. Ivanov spent the remainder of his life in Rome as a professor at both the Pontifical Oriental Institute and the Russicum, where his students included Bishop Theodore Romzha, Fr. Pietro Leoni, and Fr. Walter Ciszek. His close friends as a refugee included Martin Buber, Sir Isaiah Berlin, Sir Maurice Bowra, and Charles Du Bos.

Since his death in 1949, Ivanov's writing has been praised and referenced by Pope John Paul II, who often referenced Ivanov's metaphor about Roman and Byzantine Christianity representing the two lungs of Christendom. Furthermore, after decades of his writings being banned by government censorship in his homeland, Ivanov has witnessed a great revival of interest since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Early life
Born in Moscow, Ivanov lost his father, a minor civil servant, when he was only five years old and was subsequently raised within the Russian Orthodox Church by his deeply religious mother. He graduated from the First Moscow Gymnasium with a gold medal and entered Moscow University where he studied history and philosophy under Sir Paul Vinogradoff. In 1886, he moved to Berlin University to study Classics, Roman law, and economics under Theodor Mommsen. During his stay in Imperial Germany, he absorbed the poetry and philosophy of German Romanticism, most notably as represented by Novalis, Friedrich Hölderlin, and Goethe. Ivanov's main passionate interest, however, was in researching the connection between the Greek religious cult of Dionysus and his worship during the Bacchanalia with the creation of the theatre of ancient Greece.

In 1886 Ivanov married Darya Mikhailovna Dmitrievskaya, the sister of his close childhood friend Aleksei Dmitrievsky. From 1892 he studied archaeology in Rome, completing his doctoral dissertation there. In 1893 he met Lydia Zinovieva-Annibal, a well-to-do amateur singer, poet, and translator, who had recently separated from her husband. Through their shared descent from 17th-century Afro-Russian military officer and aristocrat Abram Petrovich Gannibal, Lidia was also a distant relation of Russian national poet Alexander Pushkin.

Influenced by his recent discovery and enthusiasm for the philosophical writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, Ivanov and Zinovieva-Annibal surrendered to their mutual attraction, "during a tempestuous night at the Colosseum, which he described in verse as a ritualistic breaking of taboos and regeneration of ancient religious fervor."

In 1895, Ivanov's wife and daughter separated from him almost immediately and, on 15 April 1896, Lidia gave birth to Ivanov's second daughter, who was named Lidia, after her mother.

Both wronged spouses were easily granted Orthodox ecclesiastical divorces, under the terms of which Viacheslav Ivanov and Lidia Zinovieva-Annibal were ruled the guilty parties and were accordingly forbidden a Russian Orthodox wedding. Making use of a common dodge at the time, Ivanov and Lidia dressed in Ancient Greek religious costumes deliberately reminiscent of the cult of Dionysus and were married in a Greek Orthodox ceremony at Livorno in 1899.

Despite the rejection of Christian morality represented by both the adulterous beginning of his relationship with Lidia and their decision, similarly to many other members of Tsarist Russia's literary bohemia, to have an open marriage, Ivanov would paradoxically recall, "Through each other we discovered ourselves - and more than ourselves: I would say that we found God."

They first settled in Athens, then moving to Geneva, and making pilgrimages to Egypt and Palestine. During that period, Ivanov frequently visited Italy, where he studied Renaissance art. The rugged nature of Lombardy and the Alps became the subject of his first sonnets, which were heavily influenced by the medieval poetry of Catholic mystics.

At the turn of the 20th century, Ivanov elaborated his views on the spiritual mission of Rome and the Ancient Greek cult of Dionysus. He summed up his Dionysian ideas in the treatise The Hellenic Religion of the Suffering God (1904), which traces the roots of literature in general and, following Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy, the art of tragedy in particular to ancient Dionysian mysteries. This was because, similarly to his hero Vladimir Soloviev, Ivanov, "understood Nietzsche as a Christian thinker in spite of himself. This explains why he applies New Testament concepts to Nietzsche's fundamentally anti-Christian worldview."

With the assistance of both his ex-wife and the poet and philosopher Vladimir Soloviev, Ivanov's first collection, Lodestars, was published in 1903. It contained many of his pieces written a decade earlier and was praised by the leading critics as a new chapter in Russian Symbolism. The poems were compared to Milton's and Trediakovsky's on account of their detached, calculated archaism. Similarly to his contemporary T.S. Eliot, Ivanov drew heavily, according to literary scholar Robert Bird, upon, "epigraphs from a host of languages ... and in a variety of alphabets", while also experimenting, "in grafting Classical Greek metres and syntax onto Russian verse", and revelling, "in obscure archaisms and recondite allusions to antiquity."

The Tower
After capturing the attention of Russian Symbolist poet Valery Bryusov while delivering a series of lectures on the cult of Dionysus at a short-lived Russian University in Paris in 1903, in 1905 Vyacheslav and Lidia Ivanov made their triumphant return to St Petersburg, where they were much lionized as foreign curiosities. They set up a literary salon known as "Среды Иванова" (Ivanov Wednesdays, better known as "On the Tower", from its location).

According to James H. Billington, "'Viacheslav the Magnificent' was the crown prince and chef de salon of the new society, which met in his seventh-floor apartment 'The Tower,' overlooking the gardens of the Tauride Palace in St. Peterburg. Walls and partitions were torn down to accommodate the increasing numbers of talented and disputatious people who flocked to the Wednesday soirees, which were rarely in full swing until after supper had been served at 2 A.M."

According to his close friend Nikolai Berdyaev, "Ivanov succeeded in combining an intense poetical imagination with an amazing knowledge of Classical philology and Greek religion. He was a philosopher and a theologian; a theosophist and a political publicist. There was no object upon which he could not throw some new and unexpected light."

Nicholas Zernov later wrote about both Ivanov and the meetings in the Tower, "He attracted the intellectuals and the artists who discussed religion, philosophy, literature, and politics; they listened to music and the recitation of poetry. Berdyaev usually presided over these gatherings, but the lead was taken by Ivanov, a man who brought people of the most diverse views and convictions into one fold; Christians and sceptics, monarchists and republicans, Symbolists and Classicists, occultists and mystical anarchists. They were all welcomed as long as they were original, daring and ready to spend hours in stimulating discussions."

Even during the Russian Revolution of 1905 and as the First Duma began meeting across the road, the Tower understandably became the most fashionable literary salon of the Silver Age of Russian Poetry, and was frequented by poets (Alexander Blok), philosophers (Nikolai Berdyayev), artists (Konstantin Somov), and dramatists (Vsevolod Meyerhold). The Ivanovs accordingly exerted an enormous influence upon the Russian Symbolist movement, whose main tenets were formulated in the turreted house.

At the Tower, Ivanov spearheaded a seachange which brought Russian Symbolism radically away from the intentions of Valery Bryusov to emulate French Symbolism and the concept of art for art's sake, towards literary Philhellenism, Neoclassicism, Germanophilia, and, in particular, towards the recent German philosophy and dramatic theories of both Richard Wagner and Friedrich Nietzsche. Ivanov favored the promotion of an ecstatic (in both the religious and philosophical senses) theatre of mass participation. Ivanov regarded drama as having the potential to be the most powerful of the arts and as capable of taking over the liturgical function of the Russian Orthodox Church and restoring religious belief to a society that had lost its faith in Christianity.

Ivanov wrote in an early essay, "Let us take a look at drama, which in modern history has replaced the spectacles of universal and holy events as reflected in miniature and purely signifying forms on the stages of the mystery plays. We know that classical French tragedy is one of triumphs of the transformational, decisive idealistic principle. Calderón, however, is different. In him, everything is but a signification of the objective truth of Divine Providence, which governs human destiny. A pious son of the Spanish Church, he was able to combine all the daring of naive individualism with the most profound realism of the mystical contemplation of divine things."

Future Russian Orthodox nun and martyr Maria Skobtsova was then an acclaimed Symbolist poet and frequent guest at the Ivanov flat. Decades later, while living in Paris as an anti-communist White emigre who had returned to her ancestral religious roots, Skobtsova felt deeply ashamed as she recalled the hedonistic atmosphere among the intellectuals at the Tower. She often expressed the belief that her past self and all her colleagues at the Tower could have learned much from any rural peasant woman praying in her Orthodox parish church. Skobtsova elaborated, "We lived in the middle of a vast country as if on an uninhabited island. Russia was illiterate, whereas our milieu was concentrated all the culture of the world: the Greeks were quoted by heart, we welcomed the French symbolists, we thought of Scandinavian literature as our own, we were familiar with the philosophy, theology, poetry and history of the whole wide world, in this sense we were citizens of the universe, the keepers of mankind's cultural museum. This was Rome in the time of its decline... We played out the last act of the tragedy concerned with the rift between the intelligentsia and the people. Beyond us stretched out the Russian Empire's snowy desert, a country in fetters: it was as ignorant of our delights as of our anguish, while its own delights and anguish had no effect on us.

More recently, Robert Bird has been less critical, "Nomenclature notwithstanding, Russian Symbolism owed far less to French Symbolism (with which, according to Ivanov, it shared 'neither a historical no ideological basis's) than it did to German Romanticism and to the great poets and prose writers of nineteenth-century Russia. It was not so much an artistic movement as a comprehensive worldview, an attempt to give aesthetics a spiritual foundation. The Russian Symbolists sought to preserve the insights and achievements of past civilisations and to build upon them. They viewed human creativity as a continuum, celebrating 'Symbolist' tendencies in the art and culture of civilisations distant both temporally and spatially... According to Symbolist conviction, divisions between various fields of knowledge and artistic disciplines were artificial: poetry was intimately linked not only to painting, music, and drama, but also to philosophy, psychology, religion, and myth. The intellectual cross fertilization that took place at Ivanov's 'Tower', in short, was a social manifestation of Symbolist tenets."

It was at this time that Ivanov wrote the first of his two plays, Tantalus (1905). Like his second, Prometheus (1919), it imitated the dramatic structure and mythological subject-matter of Aeschylean tragedy and was written in obscure and archaic language. It was his unrealised, utopian ideas about theatre, however, that proved far more influential.

The ideas of Aleksei Remizov (who was the literary manager of Vsevolod Meyerhold's New Drama Association at this time), Fyodor Sologub, and the Mystical Anarchism of Georgy Chulkov were all part of this second phase of Russian Symbolism.

Ivanov proposed the creation of a new type of mass theatre, which he called a "collective action," that would be modelled on ancient religious rituals, Athenian tragedy, and the medieval mystery play. Writing in an essay on the mask ("Poèt i Čern") that was published in the magazine Vesy (Libra or The Scales) in 1904, Ivanov argued for a revival of the ancient relationship between the poet and the masses. Inspired by The Birth of Tragedy and Wagner's theory of Gesamtkunstwerk, Ivanov sought to provide a philosophical foundation for his proposals by linking Nietzsche's analysis with Leo Tolstoy's Christian religious movement, and ancient Dionysian dramas with later Christian mystery plays. The idea that both the Apollonian and Dionysian could be synthesized within a concept of universal brotherhood would have been completely alien to Nietzsche, who had always stressed the fundamental differences between the two traditions. Ivanov, however, interpreted Dionysus as an avatar for Jesus Christ. By means of the mask, he argued, the tragic hero appears not as an individual character but rather as the embodiment of a fundamental Dionysian reality, "the one all-human I." By means of hero's example, therefore, staged myth would give the people access to its sense of the "total unity of suffering."

Rejecting theatrical illusion, Ivanov's modern liturgical theatre would offer not the representation of action (mimesis), but action itself (praxis). This would be achieved by overcoming the separation between stage and auditorium, adopting an open space similar to the classical Greek orchêstra, and abolishing the division between the actors and the audience, so that all became co-creating participants in a sacred rite. Ivanov imagined staging such a performance in a hall in which furniture is distributed "by whim and inspiration." Actors would mingle with the audience, handing out masks and costumes, before, singing and dancing as a chorus, collective improvisation would merge all participants into a communal unity.

Thus, he hoped, the theatre would facilitate a genuinely spiritual revolution in culture and society. Writing in Po zvezdam in 1908, Ivanov argued: "The theatres of the chorus tragedies, the comedies and the mysteries must become the breeding-ground for the creative, or prophetic, self-determination of the people; only then will be resolved the problem of fusing actors and spectators in a single orgiastic body. [...] And only, we may add, when the choral voice of such communities becomes a genuine referendum of the true will of the people will political freedom become a reality."

While some, such as the director Meyerhold, enthusiastically embraced Ivanov's ideas (at least insofar as they proposed overcoming the division between actor and audience in a collective improvisation), others were more skeptical. The poet Andrei Bely argued that the realities of a modern, class-divided society could not be abolished by means of masks and costumes, however earnestly adopted: Let's suppose we go into the temple-theatre, robe ourselves in white clothes, crown ourselves with bunches of roses, perform a mystery play (its theme is always the same—God-like man wrestles with fate) and then at the appropriate moment we join hands and begin to dance. Imagine yourself, reader, if only for just one minute, in this role. We are the ones who will be spinning round the sacrificial altar—all of us: the fashionable lady, the up-and-coming stockbroker, the worker and the member of the State Council. It is too much to expect that our steps and our gestures will coincide. While the class struggle still exists, these appeals for an aesthetic democratization are strange.

Splintered Symbolism
His wife's death in 1907 was a great blow to Ivanov. Thereafter the dazzling Byzantine texture of his poetry wore thin, as he insensibly slipped into theosophy and spiritualism, while being preyed upon emotionally and financially by a fraudulent medium who claimed the ability to summon Lydia from the afterlife.

The medium departed for other targets, however, after Ivanov had a dream of his late wife ordering him to marry Vera Shvarsalon, her daughter by her first marriage. Indeed, he married 23-year-old Vera in the summer of 1913; their son Dmitry had been born in 1912. Vera's death in 1920, at the age of 30, broke his heart.

According to an autobiographical sketch written by Anna Akhmatova, Ivanov first met her in 1910. At the time, Akhmatova was still married to Nikolai Gumilev, who first brought her to the turreted house. There, Akhmatova read some of her verse aloud to Ivanov, who ironically quipped, "What truly heavy romanticism."

Moreover, Akhmatova indignantly recalled that Ivanov would often weep as she recited her verse at the Tower, but would later, "vehemently criticize," the same poems at literary salons. Akhmatova would never forgive him for this.

A short time later, Gumilev left his wife for a big game hunting holiday in Ethiopia. In the aftermath, Ivanov, who very likely wanted to have an affair with her, tried very hard to persuade Akhmatova to leave her immature husband, saying, "You'll make him a man if you do." Instead, following his return, Gumilev listened to his wife's poetry for the first time with respect. Furthermore, they departed with Osip Mandelstam to found the Acmeist movement, which rejected Ivanov and Symbolism. Akhmatova's ultimate evaluation of her former admirer was as follows, "Vyacheslav was neither grand nor magnificent (he thought this up himself) but a 'catcher of men.'"

Meanwhile, according to Lazar Fleishman, "The year 1910 marked a crisis in the history of Russian Symbolism. It became clear that the movement was breaking up into two hostile camps. One, headed by Viacheslav Ivanov, constituted the theurgist line (going back to Vladimir Solovyov). The opposite camp, with Valery Bryusov as its major spokesman, rejected all of Symbolism's claims to transcend the limits of art, to fuse art and life, and to subordinate art to religious or mystical goals. Alexander Scriabin's close relations with the Symbolist poets strengthened the theurgist wing of this literary school."

On 19 April 1910, Vsevolod Meyerhold staged Konstantin Balmont's literary translation of Calderón's Adoration of the Holy Cross inside of Ivanov's St Petersburg flat. Many of the most important figures in Russian literature at the time were either present or appearing in the play.

On 18 February 1912, the writer Konstantin Siunnerberg brought Fr. Leonid Feodorov, a priest of the strictly illegal Russian Greek Catholic Church who was on his third secret visit to Russia, to a meeting of the Society of Lovers of the Artistic Word and introduced him to Ivanov. During the subsequent meeting, Ivanov then read aloud an early draft of his essay "Thoughts about Symbolism" and Andrei Bely read aloud his essay "Symbolism". Feodorov later recalled, "The first was quite interesting, the second was a typical example of the chaos reigning in the minds of our intelligentsia... Vyacheslav Ivanov turned out to be a supporter of the Catholic Church and took great interest in the Byzantine Rite. However, his sympathies towards Rome and those of many like him are based on motives of an aesthetic and mystical character, of quite vague and extremely whimsical fantasies."

During an Italian voyage with his wife (1912–13), Ivanov met often with Aurelio Palmieri, an Italian scholar of Eastern Christianity, whose writings were later condemned by the Church as Modernistic. During the same trip Ivanov also routinely defended Catholicism in debates with Vladimir Ern.

Following the Ivanovs' return to Russia in 1913, they made the acquaintances of art critic Mikhail Gershenzon, philosopher Sergei Bulgakov, and composer Alexander Scriabin. He elaborated many of his Symbolist theories in a series of articles, which were finally revised and reissued as Simbolismo in 1936. At that time, he relinquished poetry in favour of translating the works of Sappho, Alcaeus, Aeschylus, and Petrarch into the Russian language.

Ivanov continued, however, to have influence over younger poets and writers. While reading his newly composed paper aloud called, "Symbolism and Immortality" on 10 February 1913, a young Boris Pasternak both echoed and summarized the ideas of both Bely and Ivanov, by saying, "Symbolism achieves realism in religion."

In his diary Cursed Days, Ivan Bunin later recalled, "Once in the spring of 1915, I was walking in the Moscow Zoological Garden and saw a guard... beating a swan with his boot and smashing ducks' heads with the heel of his shoe. When I got home I found V. Ivanov waiting for me. I had to listen to a turgid speech about Russia's 'Christ-like image' and about how, once Russia proved victorious over Germany, this Christ-like Russia would accomplish another great task, i.e., it would spiritually enlighten India -- no less a country than India, which, as regards enlightenment, is three thousand years older than we are!"

After 1917
In 1920, Ivanov moved to Baku, where he held the University Chair of Classical Philology. He concentrated on his scholarly work and completed a treatise Dionysus and Early Dionysianism (published 1923), which earned him a Ph.D. degree in philology. The new Marxist-Leninist government didn't allow Ivanov and his family to emigrate from the Soviet Union, but through the influence of his former protege Anatoly Lunacharsky, exit visas were finally granted in 1924.

Emigration
From Azerbaijan he proceeded to Italy, where he settled first at Pavia, where he was employed as Professor of Russian literature between 1926 and 1934. He was then elected professor of Russian literature at the University of Florence, but the Government of Fascist Italy, refused to allow Ivanov to take up the position. In 1934, Ivanov and his family arrived in Rome, an event he later commemorated in the sonnet Regina Viarum in 1924.

Ivanov later explained his reasons for becoming a refugee by stating, "I was born free, and the silence there (i.e. in Soviet Russia) leaves an aftertaste of slavery."

For this reason, according to Robert Bird, "Eloquently conversant in all the major European languages, with erudition of rare breadth and depth, Ivanov allied himself with representatives of the religious and cultural revival that occurred in many countries between the wars."

While teaching the Old Church Slavonic liturgical language, the vernacular Russian language, and Russian literature at the Pontifical Oriental Institute, Ivanov and his children were formally received as Eastern Rite Catholics into the Russian Greek Catholic Church.

On 17 March 1926, Ivanov pronounced a prayer for reunification composed by his hero Vladimir Soloviev followed by a standard abjuration under oath of all theological principles upon which Russian Orthodoxy differs from Catholicism. In a 1930 open letter in French explaining his conversion to Charles Du Bos, Ivanov recalled, "When I pronounced the Creed, followed by a formula of adherence, I felt Orthodox in the full sense of the word for the first time in my life, in full possession of the sacred treasure that had belonged to me since my baptism, the joy of which had, however, been encumbered for many years by a sense of growing anguish and by the consciousness that I had been severed by the other half of this living treasure of sanctity and grace, that, like a consumptive, I had been breathing with only one lung."

In his 1937 interview for the Russicum's newspaper, Ivanov argued that, prior to their Great Schism, Latin and Byzantine Christianity were "two principles that mutually complement each other." After blaming, similarly to Fyodor Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov, the lack of an indigenous tradition of active monasticism for the failure of the Russian Orthodox Church to mount a far more effective challenge to the regressive secularization of pre-1917 Russian culture, Ivanov concluded, "The Church must permeate all branches of life: social issues, art, culture, and just everything. The Roman Church corresponds to such criteria and by joining this Church I become truly Orthodox." Literary scholar Robert Bird confirms that Ivanov, whose greatest influences were Vladimir Soloviev and Fyodor Dostoevsky, viewed his conversion to the Russian Greek Catholic Church, "as an extension rather than a rejection of Russian Orthodoxy. This decision was in a sense preordained by the philosophy of Vladimir Soloviev."

Despite his lack of a steady income and worries about the health of his son Dmitri, "by the early 1930s, Ivanov had become a minor star in the European intellectual firmament."

In 1931, Ivanov's intellectual status was further buttressed by a successful defense of Christianity during a debate against Benedetto Croce, who had travelled with a large entourage from Milan especially for the occasion.

Beginning on 11 February 1936, Ivanov began teaching on Tuesdays as professor of Church Slavonic and eventually of many other subjects at the Russicum, a Byzantine Rite Catholic major seminary and Russian-language immersion school in Rome, which Pope Pius XI had established in 1929 to train priests of the Russian Greek Catholic Church for missionary work in the Soviet Union and the Russian diaspora. Ivanov's students at the Russicum included future Greek Catholic Martyr Bishop Theodore Romzha, as well as Gulag survivors and memoirists Frs. Walter Ciszek and Pietro Leoni.

Ivanov's lectures at the Russicum on Russian literature were considered so challenging that only native Russian speakers and those seminarians most advanced in learning the language attended. Between 1939 and 1940, Ivanov gave a celebrated series of lectures on the novels of Dostoevsky and, during Russian Christmas in 1940, he gave a reading of several of his own works of Christian poetry about the Nativity of Jesus Christ.

According to former Russicum seminarian Gustav Wetter, Ivanov once summarized the main tenets of Russian Symbolism during a lecture with two quotations. The first was from the German national poet Goethe, "Alles vergängliche ist nur ein Gleichnis" ("Everything ephemeral is only a reflection"). The second principle, according to Ivanov, was the ascent of the human mind, "a realibus ad realiora" ("From what is real to what is more real.") Gustav Wetter later recalled of Ivanov's lecture, "These two principles engraved themselves in my soul. Symbolism began to play a huge role in my own thought."

Furthermore, according to Fr. Constantin Simon, Ivanov's, "services as a translator, whose golden pen deftly transformed elegant Latin into an equally refined Church Slavonic, were eagerly sought by the Jesuits of the Russian Apostolate as well as by the Vatican. In addition to Biblical texts, Ivanov prepared Church Slavonic translations of, among other prayers, the litanies to the Sacred Heart and Immaculate Heart, the Salve Regina, the texts of the Jesuit vows, and the invocations to the Little Flower."

According to Robert Bird, "In the emigration, Ivanov proved himself the consummate European, writing essays for leading journals in sophisticated German, Italian, and French. Though his reputation never reached the heights that it had in Russia, these essays attracted a highly literate, if small coterie of admirers, including Martin Buber, Ernst Robert Curtius, Charles Du Bos, Gabriel Marcel, and Giovanni Papini."

According to Fr. Constantin Simon, "He was active as a poet and scholar until his very last day. Besides his poetry, Ivanov also wrote tragedies for the theatre on mythological subjects Tantalus and Prometheus, a few prose works, translations of mostly Greek and Italian poetry and literary criticism. His Roman years brought forth his Roman Sonnets (1924) and his Roman Diary (1944)."

According to Fr. Constantin Simon, "His posthumous mystical allegory, Povest' o Svetomire tsareviche: Skazanie starce-inoke (The Tale of Tsarevich Svetomir, as Told by a Holy Monk) is held by some to contain the key to the whole of his artistic life and quest. The Neoplatonic and Nietzschean tones of his earlier work with their essentially pagan philosophy involving successive epiphanies of the Godhead is muted in his later works, in the light of his rediscovered Christian faith."

According to Robert Bird, both Ivanov's 1926 conversion to Catholicism and his decision to isolate himself, "from the main currents of émigré and Soviet life", later helped contribute to, "an image of near-sanctity". Furthermore, "The late reawakening of Ivanov's poetic muse in 1944 serves as an eloquent reminder that, in the final analysis, he remained, first and foremost, a lyric poet held captive by eternity and struggling to define a place in history."

In his 1944 Roman Diary, Ivanov composed poetry that drew upon the traditional feast days as set within the differing liturgical calendars of the Russian and Roman Rites, as well as the Christian theology and spiritual symbols of both traditions, while also pondering the violence and chaos of life in Rome during the Second World War. Copies of the poems Roman Diary contained secretly made their way back to the Soviet Union through the medium of Samizdat, where Eugenia Gertsyk embraced them as the fulfillment of her long standing hopes that Ivanov, like his hero Goethe, "would achieve... clarity and wisdom in old age."

Ivanov died in Rome, after a short illness, in his apartment at three o’clock in the afternoon on 16 July 1949. Although he died a believing Catholic, he had arranged to be buried with two of his poetic heroes, John Keats and Percy Shelley, at the Cimitero Acattolico. Ivanov lies buried not far from the graves of fellow Russian exiles Karl Briullov and Alexander Ivanov.

Legacy
Following his death, the reading of Ivanov's writings continued to be encouraged by C.M. Bowra and Sir Isaiah Berlin, whom he both had met in 1946. Through the influence of both Englishmen, an English translation of Ivanov's book of Dostoevsky scholarship was published as Freedom and the Tragic Life in 1952. Ivanov's final volume of Russian poetry, Svet vechernii ("The Evening Light") was published posthumously in 1962.

In Russian Thinkers, Sir Isaiah Berlin wrote that after Ivan Turgenev, "This search for one's place in the moral and social universe continued as a central tradition in Russian literature virtually until the revolt in the 1890s of the neo-classical Aesthetes and the Symbolists under Ivanov and Balmont, Annensky and Blok. But these movements, splendid as their fruit was, did not last long as an effective force. And the Soviet revolution returned, albeit in a crude and distorted utilitarian form, to the canons of Belinsky and the social criteria of art."

This is why, according to Robert Bird, following Vyacheslav Ivanov's defection with his family to the West, "In the Soviet Union... his works were not republished for decades, and it became inadvisable - if not wholly impossible - to study them. His name became a footnote to other, more 'acceptable' currents in pre-revolutionary literature. With the fall of the Soviet Union, Ivanov became the beneficiary of renewed attention. His books were republished and he has repeatedly been the subject of essays, monographs, and conferences."

In particular, since the fall of Communism, one of the most widely circulated of Ivanov's published writings has been his Russian language commentary on the Christian Bible, which was written in Rome, following his conversion from Russian Orthodoxy to the Russian Greek Catholic Church.

title: Vyacheslav Ivanov (poet)


text:
15 Andromedae

15 Andromedae, abbreviated 15 And, is a single, variable star in the northern constellation of Andromeda. 15 Andromedae is the Flamsteed designation, while its variable star designation is V340 And. Its apparent visual magnitude is 5.55, which indicates it is faintly visible to the naked eye. Its estimated distance from the Earth is 252 light years, and it is moving further away with a heliocentric radial velocity of 13 km/s.

Depending on the source, this star has been classified as a giant star with a stellar classification of A1 III, an A-type main-sequence star with a class of A1 Va, or a Lambda Boötis star with a class of kA1hA3mA0.5 Va+. It is a Delta Scuti variable that changes in brightness by 0.03 magnitude. Two variability cycles, with periods 0.0403 and 0.0449 days, have been observed, a common feature for Lambda Boötis stars. The star is around 130 million years old and has a high rotation rate, showing a projected rotational velocity of 105 km/s. It has 2.7 times the mass of the Sun and is radiating 27 times the Sun's luminosity from its photosphere at an effective temperature of 9,225 K.

This system has an excess emission of infrared radiation that suggests the presence of an orbiting disk of dust at a distance of around 50 AU from the host star.

title: 15 Andromedae


text:
User talk:Setochan

Chinkyaku
Welcome to Wikipedia! Just saw you in the create log, so I thought I'd say 'Hi'! Tel Janin 02:42, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Chinkyaku! and arigatou, Tel Janin-sama. ~Setochan --Kiki 00:22, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:Setochan