culture
In Torun is full of beautiful places!
Torun is one of the most beautiful cities in Poland, situated on the North of the country on the banks of the Vistula river. Gothic architectural monuments located in the Old town of Torun, in 1997 were listed as a world heritage site by UNESCO. During the second World war, the city is not substantially affected, so all the old buildings and the building retains its original appearance.
Archaeological excavations confirm that the first settlements on the territory of present city was founded in 1100 BC but the name Torun gave the settlement the knights of the Teutonic order, who arrived here in the early thirteenth century. and who built a castle here. Toruń city rights received in 1233 over the centuries, the city remained an important center of trading routes and several times changed its owners: toruń was a part of not only Poland, but also Prussia and Sweden.
Torun – the city is famous for gingerbread, a genuine Gothic structures and Nicolaus Copernicus. Here, in 1473 G. was born the famous astronomer and mathematician, the author of the geocentric system of the world, which marked the beginning of the 1st scientific revolution. The Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun is one of the most prestigious Universities in Poland. Continue reading
Gothic cathedrals
Gothic, Gothic style arose and dominated the Western artistic culture immediately after romance. Gothic art originated in France around 1140 years and spread throughout Europe in the next century. The term “Gothic” applied to the late, high or classical ages. Gothic style served primarily the Church. The Gothic period is considered to be one of the greatest in the history of European art and culture.
Gothic style is most clearly represented in the architecture.
A characteristic feature of the Gothic style steel ribbed vaults. The medieval churches of the Romanesque style had a powerful stone arches, which were very heavy. They sought to shore, to push the walls outward, which could bring down the building. To keep such arches, the walls of the Romanesque buildings had to be thick and heavy. At the beginning of the 12th century, masons developed the ribbed vaults: slender stone arches, placed diagonally, transversely and longitudinally. These arches could rely just on columns, walls ceased to be load-bearing structures. In the construction so there was a real revolution. Continue reading
The BRONZE AGE (around the 2nd Millennium BC)
With the improvement of method of production, there are new tools made of copper and bronze. Occurs the first major social division of labor, increasing wealth inequality. Then the craft separated from agriculture, is the second major division of labor. All this played a crucial role in the development of civilization. In the Nile valley, in Mesopotamia and China established a slave system, the first class of the state. All this led to the development of different spheres of human spiritual activity.
The overwhelming significance of monumental architecture associated with the development of religious beliefs, the cult of ancestors and nature. These were megalithic structures – menhirs (gr. meg). – a large, lit – rock) – single cigar-shaped stone pillars with a height up to 20 m (Brittany, France); sometimes they stretched in parallel rows for several miles (“the Stone army” – the Caucasus, Armenia; the alley of menhirs in Brittany); Continue reading
