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Istanbul's Hagia Sophia (Greek) or Ayasofya (Turkish) was originally constructed as a main Eastern Orthodox church and served in this role from 537 CE until the fall of Constantinople in 1453 (except between 1204 and 1261 when it was converted by the Fourth Crusaders to a Roman Catholic cathedral).<br/><br/> When the Ottoman Turks under Mehmed II conquered Constantinople, the Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque and Christian relics and art were either removed or plastered over. It remained a mosque for almost 500 years, before being converted into a museum between 1931 and 1935.<br/><br/> Famous in particular for its massive dome, it is considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture and influenced the design of numerous mosques in what is now Istanbul.
Anthuenis, or Antoon Claeissens, Claessens, or Claeissins (c.1536 – 1613) was the son of Pieter Claes the elder and painted historical and allegorical subjects, and portraits.<br/><br/> He was a native of Bruges and became a pupil of Pieter Pourbus. He entered the Bruges Guild of Saint Luke in 1575, and became its dean in 1586, 1590, and 1601. His works, several of which are in the Hôtel-de-Ville and churches of Bruges, are distinguished by their fine colouring and finish. In the Hotel-de-Ville is a 'Grand Banquet' with many portraits of magistrates of the time, dated 1574. He died in 1613.<br/><br/> His son, Pieter Anthonie, was dean of the Guild of St. Luke at Bruges in 1607, and died in 1608
Hugo van der Goes (Ghent c. 1430/1440 – Oudergem 1482) was a Flemish painter. He was, along with Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Hans Memling and Dieric Bouts, one of the most important of the Early Netherlandish painters.
Albrecht Dürer (German: 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528) was a German painter, engraver, printmaker, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His high-quality woodcuts (nowadays often called Meisterstiche or 'master prints') established his reputation and influence across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since.<br/><br/> His vast body of work includes altarpieces and religious works, numerous portraits and self-portraits, and copper engravings. The woodcuts, such as the Apocalypse series (1498), retain a more Gothic flavour than the rest of his work. His well-known prints include the Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513), Saint Jerome in his Study (1514) and Melencolia I (1514), which has been the subject of extensive analysis and interpretation. His watercolours also mark him as one of the first European landscape artists, while his ambitious woodcuts revolutionized the potential of that medium.<br/><br/> Dürer's introduction of classical motifs into Northern art, through his knowledge of Italian artists and German humanists, has secured his reputation as one of the most important figures of the Northern Renaissance. This is reinforced by his theoretical treatises, which involve principles of mathematics, perspective and ideal proportions
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. His genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal.<br/><br/> Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance Man, a man of unquenchable curiosity and feverishly inventive imagination. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived.
The Book of Kells (Irish: Leabhar Cheanannais) (Dublin, Trinity College Library, MS A. I. (58), sometimes known as the Book of Columba) is an illuminated manuscript Gospel book in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables. It was created by Celtic monks ca. 800 or slightly earlier. The text of the Gospels is largely drawn from the Vulgate, although it also includes several passages drawn from the earlier versions of the Bible known as the Vetus Latina. It is a masterwork of Western calligraphy and represents the pinnacle of Insular illumination. It is also widely regarded as Ireland's finest national treasure.<br/><br/> The illustrations and ornamentation of the Book of Kells surpass that of other Insular Gospel books in extravagance and complexity. The decoration combines traditional Christian iconography with the ornate swirling motifs typical of Insular art. Figures of humans, animals and mythical beasts, together with Celtic knots and interlacing patterns in vibrant colours, enliven the manuscript's pages. Many of these minor decorative elements are imbued with Christian symbolism and so further emphasise the themes of the major illustrations.<br/><br/> The manuscript today comprises 340 folios and, since 1953, has been bound in four volumes. The leaves are on high-quality calf vellum, and the unprecedentedly elaborate ornamentation that covers them includes ten full-page illustrations and text pages that are vibrant with decorated initials and interlinear miniatures and mark the furthest extension of the anti-classical and energetic qualities of Insular art. The Insular majuscule script of the text itself appears to be the work of at least three different scribes. The lettering is in iron gall ink, and the colours used were derived from a wide range of substances, many of which were imports from distant lands.<br/><br/> The manuscript takes its name from the Abbey of Kells that was its home for centuries. Today, it is on permanent display at the Trinity College Library, Dublin.
Pondicherry was the capital of the former French territories in India. Besides Pondi itself – acquired from a local ruler in 1674 – these included Chandernagore in Bengal (1690); Mahé in Kerala (1725); Yanam in Andhra Pradesh (1731); and Karaikal in Tamil Nadu (1739). Chandernagore was returned to India three years after independence, in 1951, and was absorbed into West Bengal. Returned to India in 1956, the remaining four territories were constituted as the Union Territory of Pondicherry in 1962.<br/><br/> Today Karaikal, Yanam and Mahé are all small seaside resort towns, known chiefly for their cheap beer made possible by Pondicherry's light alcohol taxes. Karaikal, on the Coromandel Coast 100 kilometres south of Pondicherry, is similar to rural Pondi – a prosperous, Tamil-speaking enclave renowned for the abundance of its rice harvests. Yanam, located on the coast of Andhra Pradesh more than 600 kilometres north of Madras, is a tiny, Telugu-speaking town on a branch of the Godavari River. Mahé, on the Malabar Coast of northern Kerala is a quaint, picturesque town, named for its founder, Count Mahé de La Bourdonnais.<br/><br/> In September 2006, the territory changed its official name from Pondicherry to the vernacular original, Puducherry, which means 'New village'.
Oriental carpets more than two centuries old have rarely survived and are rarely represented in Islamic Art since Sunni Islam (and to a lesser extent Shia) eschews representational art in favour of precisely the repetetive geometric symbols and arabesques found, for example, in oriental carpets.<br/><br/> This means that most examples of 17th century and earlier oriental carpets, mainly produced in Muslim lands, are only to be found in paintings from Christian lands where rich oriental carpets were associated with wealth, power and taste.<br/><br/> Such carpets featured as an important decorative feature in paintings from the 14th century onwards, leading to the dichotomy that there are more depictions of oriental carpets produced before the 17th century in European paintings than there are actual oriental carpets surviving from the same period.<br/><br/> Because of this European paintings have proved an invaluable source of reference for the study of the history of carpetmaking and carpets.