Images Dated 16th June 2013

View of Pisa Cathedral with the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Piazza dei Miracoli, Tuscany, Italy

Pisa is a city in Tuscany, Central Italy, straddling the River Arno just before it empties into the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for its leaning tower (the bell tower of the city's cathedral), the city of over 89, 940 residents (around 200, 000 with the metropolitan area) contains more than 20 other historic churches, several medieval palaces and various bridges across the River Arno. Much of the city's architecture was financed from its history as one of the Italian maritime republics.
The Piazza dei Miracoli (Square of Miracles), formally known as Piazza del Duomo (Cathedral Square), is a walled 8.87-hectare area located in Pisa, Tuscany, Italy, recognized as an important center of European medieval art and one of the finest architectural complexes in the world. Considered sacred by the Catholic Church, its owner, the square is dominated by four great religious edifices: the Pisa Cathedral, the Pisa Baptistry, the Campanile, and the Camposanto Monumentale (Monumental Cemetery). Partly paved and partly grassed, the Piazza dei Miracoli is also the site of the Ospedale Nuovo di Santo Spirito (New Hospital of the Holy Spirit), which houses the Sinopias Museum (Museo delle Sinopie) and the Cathedral Museum (Museo dell'Opera del Duomo).
The name Piazza dei Miracoli was coined by the Italian writer and poet Gabriele d'Annunzio who, in his novel Forse che sA? forse che no (1910), described the square as the prato dei Miracoli, or meadow of miracles'. The square is sometimes called the Campo dei Miracoli (Field of Miracles). In 1987, the whole square was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site

© :: Artie | Photography ::

Wet meadow with Cotton Grass -Eriophorum sp.-, Naturschutzgebiet Magnetsrieder Hardt, Magnetsried, Upper Bavaria, Bavaria, Germany

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495801139, Bavaria, Bayern, Color Image, Cotton Grass, Cottongrass, Cottonsedge, Cyperaceae, Day, Deutschland, Eriophorum, Forest, Germany, Grass, Horizontal, Landscape, Magnetsried, Meadow, Nature, Naturschutzgebiet Magnetsrieder Hardt, No People, Oberbayern, Outdoors, Photography, Plant, Sedge, Tree, Upper Bavaria, Wet Meadow, Wetland, Wood, Woodland

Gold, Carnon Stream Works, Perranarworthal, Cornwall, England

Gold is a native element and precious metal which has been prized by mankind for thousands of years for its beauty, malleability and resistance to corrosion. This gold nugget is the largest known to have been found in Cornwall and weighs 1 oz t, 18 dwt. 6 grs. It was found in January 1808 in the Carnon Valley tin-stream works and bought by collector Philip Rashleigh in March of the same year. Rashleigh wrote in his Manuscript (112 Au): Native Gold found in Carnon Stream work in Cornwall weighs - 1 oz. 18 pw. 6 gr. Troy this piece has had all the extra matter picked out except a mite in one place the marks of many others remain. The smoothness of the piece shews the great time it has been washed by the water where it was exposed and the hollow parts more rough gives a proof of its not being manufactured'. In the ownership of Mr Wills, a silversmith from Truro, the find was reported in the Royal Cornwall Gazette on 6th February 1808 this is unquestionably the largest and most beautiful specimen ever found in Cornwall, or probably in any other country'. The paper reported in March 1808 that Rashleigh purchased the specimen from Mr Wills. Mineral analysis undertaken in 2018 indicates that the gold content in the nugget is in the high 90s while other gold nuggets from the Carnon Stream Works, which were analysed, are around the 70s. As a result, it has been suggested that this gold nugget may have been refined and worked into a forgery by the silversmith who sold it to Rashleigh. Rashleigh Collection

© RIC, photographer A.G. Tindle