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Milan, City of Splendour and War 1277-1515
Milan’s most important business street had no displays of velvet cloaks, bright bolts of silk, or cloth-of-gold. It was a
Florence in the Golden Age 1469 -1498
Lorenzo de’ Medici was far from handsome. His skin was sallow, his eyes had a short-sighted squint and his nose
Florence, First City of the Renaissance 1200-1480
March 25, 1436, was the Feast of the Annunciation and the city of Florence was decked out for a celebration.
Early Civilizations to Modern Age
Cracks in the Wall of Islam A.D. 656-750
THE FIRST three caliphs — Abu Bakr, Omar and Othman — had all known — Mohammed well. In 656, Othman,
The Abbasids: Glory and Decay 750 -1258 A. D.
UNDER THE Omayyads, who ruled from 661 to 750, Islam had grown into a mighty empire. Arabic had become its
Rival Caliphs and Amirs in the West A.D. 750-1492
IN 750, when the first Abbasid caliph ordered a wholesale massacre of the family that had ruled before him, hardly
Distant Past and New Challenges
Milestones of History
Notre-Dame, Palace of the Virgin (1194 A.D.)
Notre-Dame, Palace of the Virgin, with its clusters of columns, its soaring arches, its superb stone carvings and its matchless
Richard I, the Lion Heart (1194-1204 A. D.)
Richard I, the Lion Heart, fails to capture Jerusalem from the Saracens. The birth of the New Byzantium The first
Fall of Constantinople
Fall of Constantinople begins – the crusaders from the West had taken an oath to free the Holy Land from
