title: Parthian Empire

text: Parthian history can also be reconstructed via the Chinese historical records of events. In contrast to Greek and Roman histories, the early Chinese histories maintained a more neutral view when describing Parthia, although the habit of Chinese chroniclers to copy material for their accounts from older works (of undetermined origin) makes it difficult to establish a chronological order of events. The Chinese called Parthia "" (Chinese: 安 息, Old Chinese pronunciation: "'ansjək"), perhaps after the Greek name for the Parthian city Antiochia in Margiana (Greek: Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐν τῇ Μαργιανῇ). However, this could also have been a transliteration of "Arsaces", after the dynasty's eponymous founder. The works and historical authors include the "Shiji" (also known as the "Records of the Grand Historian") by Sima Qian, the "Han shu" (Book of Han) by Ban Biao, Ban Gu, and Ban Zhao, and the "Hou Han shu" (Book of Later Han) by Fan Ye. They provide information on the nomadic migrations leading up to the early Saka invasion of Parthia and valuable political and geographical information. For example, the "Shiji" (ch. 123) describes diplomatic exchanges, exotic gifts given by Mithridates II to the Han court, types of agricultural crops grown in Parthia, production of wine using grapes, itinerant merchants, and the size and location of Parthian territory. The "Shiji" also mentions that the Parthians kept records by "writing horizontally on strips of leather," that is, parchment.


title: Parthian Empire

text: Compared with the earlier Achaemenid Empire, the Parthian government was notably decentralized. An indigenous historical source reveals that territories overseen by the central government were organized in a similar manner to the Seleucid Empire. They both had a threefold division for their provincial hierarchies: the Parthian marzbān, xšatrap, and dizpat, similar to the Seleucid satrapy, eparchy, and hyparchy. The Parthian Empire also contained several subordinate semi-autonomous kingdoms, including the states of Caucasian Iberia, Armenia, Atropatene, Gordyene, Adiabene, Edessa, Hatra, Mesene, Elymais, and Persis. The state rulers governed their own territories and minted their own coinage distinct from the royal coinage produced at the imperial mints. This was not unlike the earlier Achaemenid Empire, which also had some city-states, and even distant satrapies who were semi-independent but "recognised the supremacy of the king, paid tribute and provided military support", according to Brosius. However, the satraps of Parthian times governed smaller territories, and perhaps had less prestige and influence than their Achaemenid predecessors. During the Seleucid period, the trend of local ruling dynasties with semi-autonomous rule, and sometimes outright rebellious rule, became commonplace, a fact reflected in the later Parthian style of governance.


title: Parthian Empire

text: The King of Kings headed the Parthian government. He maintained polygamous relations, and was usually succeeded by his first-born son. Like the Ptolemies of Egypt, there is also record of Arsacid kings marrying their nieces and perhaps even half-sisters; Queen Musa is said by Josephus to have married her own son, though this would be an extreme and isolated case. Brosius provides an extract from a letter written in Greek by King Artabanus II in 21 AD, which addresses the governor (titled "archon") and citizens of the city of Susa. Specific government offices of Preferred Friend, Bodyguard and Treasurer are mentioned and the document also proves that "while there were local jurisdictions and proceedings to appointment to high office, the king could intervene on behalf of an individual, review a case and amend the local ruling if he considered it appropriate."


title: Parthian Empire

text: The hereditary titles of the hierarchic nobility recorded during the reign of the first Sasanian monarch Ardashir I most likely reflect the titles already in use during the Parthian era. There were three distinct tiers of nobility, the highest being the regional kings directly below the King of Kings, the second being those related to the King of Kings only through marriage, and the lowest order being heads of local clans and small territories.


title: Parthian Empire

text: By the 1st century AD, the Parthian nobility had assumed great power and influence in the succession and deposition of Arsacid kings. Some of the nobility functioned as court advisers to the king, as well as holy priests. Strabo, in his "Geographica", preserved a claim by the Greek philosopher and historian Poseidonius that the Council of Parthia consisted of noble kinsmen and magi, two groups from which "the kings were appointed." Of the great noble Parthian families listed at the beginning of the Sassanian period, only two are explicitly mentioned in earlier Parthian documents: the House of Suren and the House of Karen. The historian Plutarch noted that members of the Suren family, the first among the nobility, were given the privilege of crowning each new Arsacid King of Kings during their coronations.


title: Parthian Empire

text: The Parthian Empire had no standing army, yet were able to quickly recruit troops in the event of local crises. There was a permanent armed guard attached to the person of the king, comprising nobles, serfs and mercenaries, but this royal retinue was small. Garrisons were also permanently maintained at border forts; Parthian inscriptions reveal some of the military titles granted to the commanders of these locations. Military forces could also be used in diplomatic gestures. For example, when Chinese envoys visited Parthia in the late 2nd century BC, the "Shiji" maintains that 20,000 horsemen were sent to the eastern borders to serve as escorts for the embassy, although this figure is perhaps an exaggeration.


title: Parthian Empire

text: The main striking force of the Parthian army was its cataphracts, heavy cavalry with man and horse decked in mailed armor. The cataphracts were equipped with a lance for charging into enemy lines, but were not equipped with bows and arrows which were restricted to horse archers. Due to the cost of their equipment and armor, cataphracts were recruited from among the aristocratic class who, in return for their services, demanded a measure of autonomy at the local level from the Arsacid kings. The light cavalry was recruited from among the commoner class and acted as horse archers; they wore a simple tunic and trousers into battle. They used composite bows and were able to shoot at enemies while riding and facing away from them; this technique, known as the Parthian shot, was a highly effective tactic.


title: Parthian Empire

text: The heavy and light cavalry of Parthia proved to be a decisive factor in the Battle of Carrhae where a Parthian force defeated a much larger Roman army under Crassus.


title: Parthian Empire

text: Light infantry units, composed of levied commoners and mercenaries, were used to disperse enemy troops after cavalry charges.


title: Parthian Empire

text: The size of the Parthian army is unknown, as is the size of the empire's overall population. However, archaeological excavations in former Parthian urban centers reveal settlements which could have sustained large populations and hence a great resource in manpower. Dense population centers in regions like Babylonia were no doubt attractive to the Romans, whose armies could afford to live off the land.


title: Parthian Empire

text: Usually made of silver, the Greek drachma coin, including the tetradrachm, was the standard currency used throughout the Parthian Empire. The Arsacids maintained royal mints at the cities of Hecatompylos, Seleucia, and Ecbatana. They most likely operated a mint at Mithridatkert/Nisa as well. From the empire's inception until its collapse, drachmas produced throughout the Parthian period rarely weighed less than 3.5 g or more than 4.2 g. The first Parthian tetradrachms, weighing in principle around 16 g with some variation, appear after Mithridates I conquered Mesopotamia and were minted exclusively at Seleucia.


title: Parthian Empire

text: Although Greek culture of the Seleucids was widely adopted by peoples of the Near East during the Hellenistic period, the Parthian era witnessed an Iranian cultural revival in religion, the arts, and even clothing fashions. Conscious of both the Hellenistic and Persian cultural roots of their kingship, the Arsacid rulers styled themselves after the Persian King of Kings and affirmed that they were also "philhellenes" ("friends of the Greeks"). The word "philhellene" was inscribed on Parthian coins until the reign of Artabanus II. The discontinuation of this phrase signified the revival of Iranian culture in Parthia. Vologases I was the first Arsacid ruler to have the Parthian script and language appear on his minted coins alongside the now almost illegible Greek. However, the use of Greek-alphabet legends on Parthian coins remained until the collapse of the empire.


title: Parthian Empire

text: Greek cultural influence did not disappear from the Parthian Empire, however, and there is evidence that the Arsacids enjoyed Greek theatre. When the head of Crassus was brought to Orodes II, he, alongside Armenian king Artavasdes II, were busy watching a performance of "The Bacchae" by the playwright Euripides (c. 480–406 BC). The producer of the play decided to use Crassus' actual severed head in place of the stage-prop head of Pentheus.


title: Parthian Empire

text: On his coins, Arsaces I is depicted in apparel similar to Achaemenid satraps. According to A. Shahbazi, Arsaces "deliberately diverges from Seleucid coins to emphasize his nationalistic and royal aspirations, and he calls himself Kārny/Karny (Greek: Autocrator), a title already borne by Achaemenid supreme generals, such as Cyrus the Younger." In line with Achaemenid traditions, rock-relief images of Arsacid rulers were carved at Mount Behistun, where Darius I of Persia (r. 522–486 BC) made royal inscriptions. Moreover, the Arsacids claimed familial descent from Artaxerxes II of Persia ("r". 404–358 BC) as a means to bolster their legitimacy in ruling over former Achaemenid territories, i.e. as being "legitimate successors of glorious kings" of ancient Iran. Artabanus II named one of his sons Darius and laid claim to Cyrus' heritage. The Arsacid kings chose typical Zoroastrian names for themselves and some from the "heroic background" of the Avesta, according to V.G. Lukonin. The Parthians also adopted the use of the Babylonian calendar with names from the Achaemenid Iranian calendar, replacing the Macedonian calendar of the Seleucids.


title: Parthian Empire

text: The Parthian Empire, being culturally and politically heterogeneous, had a variety of religious systems and beliefs, the most widespread being those dedicated to Greek and Iranian cults. Aside from a minority of Jews and early Christians, most Parthians were polytheistic. Greek and Iranian deities were often blended together as one. For example, Zeus was often equated with Ahura Mazda, Hades with Angra Mainyu, Aphrodite and Hera with Anahita, Apollo with Mithra, and Hermes with Shamash. Aside from the main gods and goddesses, each ethnic group and city had their own designated deities. As with Seleucid rulers, Parthian art indicates that the Arsacid kings viewed themselves as gods; this cult of the ruler was perhaps the most widespread.


title: Parthian Empire

text: The extent of Arsacid patronage of Zoroastrianism is debated in modern scholarship. The followers of Zoroaster would have found the bloody sacrifices of some Parthian-era Iranian cults to be unacceptable. However, there is evidence that Vologases I encouraged the presence of Zoroastrian magi priests at court and sponsored the compilation of sacred Zoroastrian texts which later formed the Avesta. The Sasanian court would later adopt Zoroastrianism as the official state religion of the empire.


title: Parthian Empire

text: Although Mani (216–276 AD), the founding prophet of Manichaeism, did not proclaim his first religious revelation until 228/229 AD, Bivar asserts that his new faith contained "elements of Mandaean belief, Iranian cosmogony, and even echoes of Christianity ... [it] may be regarded as a typical reflection of the mixed religious doctrines of the late Arsacid period, which the Zoroastrian orthodoxy of the Sasanians was soon to sweep away."


title: Parthian Empire

text: There is scant archaeological evidence for the spread of Buddhism from the Kushan Empire into Iran proper. However, it is known from Chinese sources that An Shigao (fl. 2nd century AD), a Parthian nobleman and Buddhist monk, traveled to Luoyang in Han China as a Buddhist missionary and translated several Buddhist canons into Chinese.


title: Parthian Empire

text: Parthian art can be divided into three geo-historical phases: the art of Parthia proper; the art of the Iranian plateau; and the art of Parthian Mesopotamia. The first genuine Parthian art, found at Mithridatkert/Nisa, combined elements of Greek and Iranian art in line with Achaemenid and Seleucid traditions. In the second phase, Parthian art found inspiration in Achaemenid art, as exemplified by the investiture relief of Mithridates II at Mount Behistun. The third phase occurred gradually after the Parthian conquest of Mesopotamia.


title: Parthian Empire

text: Common motifs of the Parthian period include scenes of royal hunting expeditions and the investiture of Arsacid kings. Use of these motifs extended to include portrayals of local rulers. Common art mediums were rock-reliefs, frescos, and even graffiti. Geometric and stylized plant patterns were also used on stucco and plaster walls. The common motif of the Sasanian period showing two horsemen engaged in combat with lances first appeared in the Parthian reliefs at Mount Behistun.


title: Parthian Empire

text: In portraiture the Parthians favored and emphasized frontality, meaning the person depicted by painting, sculpture, or raised-relief on coins faced the viewer directly instead of showing his or her profile. Although frontality in portraiture was already an old artistic technique by the Parthian period, Daniel Schlumberger explains the innovation of Parthian frontality:


title: Parthian Empire

text: 'Parthian frontality', as we are now accustomed to call it, deeply differs both from ancient Near Eastern and from Greek frontality, though it is, no doubt, an offspring of the latter. For both in Oriental art and in Greek art, frontality was an exceptional treatment: in Oriental art it was a treatment strictly reserved for a small number of traditional characters of cult and myth; in Greek art it was an option resorted to only for definite reasons, when demanded by the subject, and, on the whole, seldom made use of. With Parthian art, on the contrary, frontality becomes the normal treatment of the figure. For the Parthians frontality is really nothing but the habit of showing, in relief and in painting, all figures full-face, even at the expense (as it seems to us moderns) of clearness and intelligibility. So systematic is this use that it amounts to a complete banishment "de facto" of the side-view and of all intermediate attitudes. This singular state of things seems to have become established in the course of the 1st century A.D.


title: Parthian Empire

text: Parthian art, with its distinct use of frontality in portraiture, was lost and abandoned with the profound cultural and political changes brought by the Sasanian Empire. However, even after the Roman occupation of Dura-Europos in 165 AD, the use of Parthian frontality in portraiture continued to flourish there. This is exemplified by the early 3rd-century AD wall murals of the Dura-Europos synagogue, a temple in the same city dedicated to Palmyrene gods, and the local Mithraeum.


title: Parthian Empire

text: Parthian architecture adopted elements of Achaemenid and Greek architecture, but remained distinct from the two. The style is first attested at Mithridatkert/Nisa. The Round Hall of Nisa is similar to Hellenistic palaces, but different in that it forms a circle and vault inside a square space. However, the artwork of Nisa, including marble statues and the carved scenes on ivory rhyton vessels, is unquestionably influenced by Greek art.


title: Parthian Empire

text: A signature feature of Parthian architecture was the "iwan", an audience hall supported by arches or barrel vaults and open on one side. Use of the barrel vault replaced the Hellenic use of columns to support roofs. Although the "iwan" was known during the Achaemenid period and earlier in smaller and subterranean structures, it was the Parthians who first built them on a monumental scale. The earliest Parthian "iwans" are found at Seleucia, built in the early 1st century AD. Monumental "iwans" are also commonly found in the ancient temples of Hatra and perhaps modeled on the Parthian style. The largest Parthian "iwans" at that site have a span of 15 m (50 ft).


title: Parthian Empire

text: The typical Parthian riding outfit is exemplified by the famous bronze statue of a Parthian nobleman found at Shami, Elymais. Standing 1.9 m (6 ft), the figure wears a V-shaped jacket, a V-shaped tunic fastened in place with a belt, loose-fitting and many-folded trousers held by garters, and a diadem or band over his coiffed, bobbed hair. His outfit is commonly seen in relief images of Parthian coins by the mid-1st century BC.


title: Parthian Empire

text: Examples of clothing in Parthian inspired sculptures have been found in excavations at Hatra, in northwestern Iraq. Statues erected there feature the typical Parthian shirt ("qamis"), combined with trousers and made with fine, ornamented materials. The aristocratic elite of Hatra adopted the bobbed hairstyles, headdresses, and belted tunics worn by the nobility belonging to the central Arsacid court. The trouser-suit was even worn by the Arsacid kings, as shown on the reverse images of coins. The Parthian trouser-suit was also adopted in Palmyra, Syria, along with the use of Parthian frontality in art.


title: Parthian Empire

text: Parthian sculptures depict wealthy women wearing long-sleeved robes over a dress, with necklaces, earrings, bracelets, and headdresses bedecked in jewelry. Their many-folded dresses were fastened by a brooch at one shoulder. Their headdresses also featured a veil which was draped backwards.


title: Parthian Empire

text: As seen in Parthian coinage, the headdresses worn by the Parthian kings changed over time. The earliest Arsacid coins show rulers wearing the soft cap with cheek flaps, known as the bashlyk (Greek: "kyrbasia"). This may have derived from an Achaemenid-era satrapal headdress and the pointy hats depicted in the Achaemenid reliefs at Behistun and Persepolis. The earliest coins of Mithridates I show him wearing the soft cap, yet coins from the latter part of his reign show him for the first time wearing the royal Hellenistic diadem. Mithridates II was the first to be shown wearing the Parthian tiara, embroidered with pearls and jewels, a headdress commonly worn in the late Parthian period and by Sasanian monarchs.


title: Parthian Empire

text: As culturally and religiously tolerant as the Parthians were, they adopted Greek as their official language, while Aramaic remained the "lingua franca" in the empire. The native Parthian language, Middle Persian, and Akkadian were also used.


title: Parthian Empire

text: It is known that during the Parthian period the court minstrel ("gōsān") recited poetic oral literature accompanied by music. However, their stories, composed in verse form, were not written down until the subsequent Sassanian period. In fact, there is no known Parthian-language literature that survives in original form; all of the surviving texts were written down in the following centuries. It is believed that such stories as the romantic tale "Vis and Rāmin" and epic cycle of the Kayanian dynasty were part of the corpus of oral literature from Parthian times, although compiled much later. Although literature of the Parthian language was not committed to written form, there is evidence that the Arsacids acknowledged and respected written Greek literature.


title: Parthian Empire

text: There are very few written and archeological sources about the position of women in the Parthian Empire, and the fragmentary information that does exist is only about royal women, whose position shows many similarities to their predecessors in the Achaemenid Empire and their successors in the Sasanian Empire.


title: Parthian Empire

text: The Parthian kings were polygamous and had several wives with the title “queen” (referred to with the Babylonian spelling šarratu or the Greek basilisse), as well as concubines. It is known that kings often married their sisters, but it is unknown if they were the kings' full sisters or half sisters. According to Roman sources, Parthian kings had harems full of female slaves and hetairas secluded from contact with men, and royal women were not allowed to participate in the royal banquets. Whether the royal women lived in seclusion from men is unknown, as no evidence of that has been found, but it is known that women at least participated in the royal banquets as entertainers, as women are shown in archeological images entertaining at such occasions with music and dance.


title: Parthian Empire

text: It is assumed that royal Parthian women could own and manage their own property, land and manufactures, as could their predecessors in the Achaemenid and Seleucid Empire and their successors in the Sasanian Empire. It is fully attested that royal women, as well as noblewomen, accompanied their husbands in battle with their own entourage. This was the reason why female members of the royal family could sometimes be taken captive by enemies and had to be ransomed, such as the famous occasion when the daughter of King Osroes was held captive by emperor Trajan from the occupation of Ctesiphon in 116 until 129, but also the reason why kings sometimes killed the women of his company after a defeat to prevent them from being taken prisoners.


title: Parthian Empire

text: Royal women appear to have been less included in royal representation. Artwork depicts royal women dressed similarly to those of the Achaemenid period: in long-sleeved, many-folded dresses tied by a belt, with a tiara or a veil hanging down their back. While their names and titles did appear in official documents, Parthian women were rarely depicted in art. Only two royal women were ever depicted on Parthian coins: queen Musa of Parthia and queen Anzaze of Elymais. Only two women are known to have ruled the Partian Empire, one as monarch and one as regent. Musa of Parthia is the only woman confirmed to have ruled as queen regnant of the Parthian Empire, while Rinnu, mother of underage king Phraates II, is the only other woman believed to have been a ruler, in her case as a queen regent instead of a queen regnant.


title: Amy Brenneman

text: Amy Frederica Brenneman (born June 22, 1964) is an American actress and producer. She worked extensively in television, coming to prominence as Detective Janice Licalsi in the ABC police drama series "NYPD Blue" (1993–1994). Brenneman next co-created and starred as Judge Amy Gray in the CBS drama series "Judging Amy" (1999–2005). She received five Primetime Emmy Award nominations for these roles.


title: Amy Brenneman

text: In subsequent years, Brenneman has had starring roles as Violet Turner in the Shonda Rhimes medical drama series "Private Practice" (2007–2013), and as Laurie Garvey on the HBO drama series "The Leftovers" (2014–2017). She is also known for her recurring role as Faye Moskowitz on "Frasier" and has starred in various films, including "Heat" (1995), "Fear" (1996), "Daylight" (1996), "Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her" (2000), "Nine Lives" (2005), and "The Jane Austen Book Club" (2007).


title: Amy Brenneman

text: Brenneman was born in New London, Connecticut, to Frederica Joanne (née Shoenfield), a judge of the Connecticut State Superior Court, and Russell Langdon Brenneman Jr., an environmental lawyer. Her aunt was Cold War-era journalist Beryl D. Hines. Her mother was Jewish, and joined a Congregationalist church as an adult. Her father, who was of English, Irish, and Swiss descent, was from a Protestant background.


title: Amy Brenneman

text: Brenneman was raised in Glastonbury, Connecticut, where she participated in theatre as a teenager, both in school at Glastonbury High School and with a local theater group. She graduated from Harvard University, where she majored in comparative religion, in 1987. While at Harvard, she co-founded Cornerstone Theatre Company, with which she traveled for several years after graduation.


title: Amy Brenneman

text: Brenneman began her career in the short-lived CBS series "Middle Ages" in 1992. The next year she was cast in her first major role as mob-connected uniformed officer Janice Licalsi on the ABC police drama series "NYPD Blue". Her story arc, which included a romantic relationship with David Caruso's character, ran through the show's first season (1993–1994) and the first few episodes of the second season. She was nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 1994 and for Outstanding Guest Actress the following year.


title: Amy Brenneman

text: After leaving "NYPD Blue", Brenneman made her way into film. In 1995, she appeared in "Bye Bye Love", "Casper", and the critically acclaimed crime drama "Heat". In 1996, Brenneman had the female lead role opposite Sylvester Stallone in disaster thriller "Daylight", and also starred in another thriller, "Fear". In 1997, she played the leading role in the independent drama film "Nevada". The next year she starred in "Your Friends & Neighbors" directed by Neil LaBute. In 1998–1999 season, she returned to television with a recurring role on the NBC comedy "Frasier", as Faye Moskowitz.


title: Amy Brenneman

text: In 1999, Brenneman became creator and executive producer of her own television series "Judging Amy", in which she played the title character. Brenneman portrayed a divorced single mother working as a Family Court Judge in Hartford, Connecticut. The show's concept was based on the real-life experiences of her mother, Frederica Brenneman, as a superior court judge in the state of Connecticut. Frederica Brenneman was one of Harvard Law School's first female graduates and became a juvenile court judge in Connecticut when Amy was 3 years old. Amy has said, "I play my mother's job, not my mother." "Judging Amy" ran on CBS for six seasons and 138 episodes from September 19, 1999, to May 3, 2005, to good ratings. In 2002, she was awarded the Women in Film Lucy Award in recognition of her excellence and innovation in her creative works that have enhanced the perception of women through the medium of television.


title: Amy Brenneman

text: Brenneman starred in ensemble cast film "Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her" directed by Rodrigo García in 2000. In 2005, she starred in another Rodrigo García's independent drama, "Nine Lives". In 2007, Brenneman played the role of Sylvia Avila in "The Jane Austen Book Club" based on 2004 novel of the same name by Karen Joy Fowler. In 2008, Brenneman co-starred in "88 Minutes" alongside Al Pacino.


title: Amy Brenneman

text: In March 2007, Brenneman was cast as Violet Turner in the "Grey's Anatomy" spin-off, "Private Practice". The Shonda Rhimes series ran on ABC from September 26, 2007, to January 22, 2013. She later starred in films "The Face of Love" and "Words and Pictures", and was cast in HBO drama series "The Leftovers" opposite Justin Theroux. Also in 2013, Brenneman played the role of Mary of Guise, the series' lead character's mother, in "Reign".


title: Amy Brenneman

text: In 1995, Brenneman married director Brad Silberling in the garden at her parents' home. They had originally met on the set of "NYPD Blue". Brenneman and Silberling have two children, Charlotte Tucker and Bodhi Russell.


title: Amy Brenneman

text: Brenneman, signed the "We Had Abortions" petition which appears in the October 2006 issue of "Ms. Magazine". The petition contains signatures of over 5,000 women declaring that they had an abortion and were "unashamed of the choice they made."


title: Amy Brenneman

text: In the February 28, 2007, all-star benefit reading of "The Gift of Peace" at UCLA's Freud Playhouse, she portrays an entrepreneur, alongside actors Ed Asner, Barbara Bain, George Coe, Wendie Malick, and James Pickens, Jr. The play was an open appeal and fundraiser for passage of U.S. House Resolution 808, which sought to establish a Cabinet-level "Department of Peace" in the United States government, funded by a two percent diversion of The Pentagon's annual budget.


title: Amy Brenneman

text: In July 2008, Brenneman was nominated as a candidate on the Unite for Strength slate for a place on the national governing board of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) in elections scheduled for 18 September 2008. The bid was successful.


title: Amy Brenneman

text: Brenneman is also a strong supporter of more restrictive gun laws, and in 2009 she hosted the Target for a Safe America gala at the Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles for the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a gun control group that favors restrictive gun laws and supports gun bans.


title: Ohio-class submarine

text: The "Ohio" class of nuclear-powered submarines includes the United States Navy's 14 ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) and its four cruise missile submarines (SSGNs). Each displacing 18,750 tons submerged, the "Ohio"-class boats are the largest submarines ever built for the U.S. Navy. They are the world's third-largest submarines, behind the Russian Navy's Soviet-designed 48,000-ton and 24,000-ton . At 24 Trident II missiles apiece, "Ohio"-class boats carry more missiles than either the Borei class (16, 20 by the Borei II) or the "Typhoon" class (20).


title: Ohio-class submarine

text: Like its predecessor - and subs, the "Ohio"-class SSBNs are part of the United States' nuclear-deterrent triad, along with U.S. Air Force strategic bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles. The 14 SSBNs together carry about half of U.S. active strategic thermonuclear warheads. Although the Trident missiles have no preset targets when the submarines go on patrol, they can be given targets quickly, from the United States Strategic Command based in Nebraska, using secure and constant radio communications links, including very low frequency systems.


title: Ohio-class submarine

text: The lead submarine of this class is . All the "Ohio"-class submarines, except for , are named for U.S. states, which U.S. Navy tradition had previously reserved for battleships and cruisers. The "Ohio" class is to be gradually replaced by the beginning in 2031.


title: Ohio-class submarine

text: The "Ohio"-class submarine was designed for extended strategic deterrent patrols. Each submarine is assigned two complete crews, called the Blue crew and the Gold crew, each typically serving 70-to-90-day deterrent patrols. To decrease the time in port for crew turnover and replenishment, three large logistics hatches have been installed to provide large-diameter resupply and repair access. These hatches allow rapid transfer of supply pallets, equipment replacement modules, and machinery components, speeding up replenishment and maintenance of the submarines. Moreover, the "stealth" ability of the submarines was significantly improved over all previous ballistic-missile subs." Ohio" was virtually undetectable in her sea trials in 1982, giving the U.S. Navy extremely advanced flexibility.


title: Ohio-class submarine

text: The class's design allows the boat to operate for about 15 years between major overhauls. These submarines are reported to be as quiet at their cruising speed of or more as the previous s at , although exact information remains classified. Fire control for their Mark 48 torpedoes is carried out by Mark 118 Mod 2 system, while the Missile Fire Control system is a Mark 98.


title: Ohio-class submarine

text: The "Ohio"-class submarines were constructed from sections of hull, with each four-deck section being in diameter. The sections were produced at the General Dynamics Electric Boat facility, Quonset Point, Rhode Island, and then assembled at its shipyard at Groton, Connecticut.


title: Ohio-class submarine

text: The US Navy has a total of 18 "Ohio"-class submarines which consist of 14 ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), and four cruise missile submarines (SSGNs). The SSBN submarines provide the sea-based leg of the U.S. nuclear triad. Each SSBN submarine is armed with up to 24 Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM). Each SSGN is capable of carrying 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles, plus a complement of Harpoon missiles to be fired through their torpedo tubes.


title: Ohio-class submarine

text: The "Ohio" class was designed in the 1970s to carry the concurrently designed Trident submarine-launched ballistic missile. The first eight "Ohio"-class submarines were armed at first with 24 Trident I C4 SLBMs. Beginning with the ninth Trident submarine, , the remaining boats were equipped with the larger, three-stage Trident II D5 missile. The Trident I missile carries eight multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles, while the Trident II missile carries 12, in total delivering more destructive power than the Trident I missile and with greater accuracy. Starting with in 2000, the Navy began converting its remaining ballistic missile submarines armed with C4 missiles to carry D5 missiles. This task was completed in mid-2008. The first eight submarines had their home ports at Bangor, Washington, to replace the submarines carrying Polaris A3 missiles that were then being decommissioned. The remaining 10 submarines originally had their home ports at Kings Bay, Georgia, replacing the Poseidon and Trident Backfit submarines of the Atlantic Fleet.


title: Ohio-class submarine

text: In 1994, the Nuclear Posture Review study determined that, of the 18 "Ohio" SSBNs the U.S. Navy would be operating in total, 14 would be sufficient for the strategic needs of the U.S. The decision was made to convert four "Ohio"-class boats into SSGNs capable of conducting conventional land attack and special operations. As a result, the four oldest boats of the class—"Ohio", "Michigan", "Florida", and "Georgia"—progressively entered the conversion process in late 2002 and were returned to active service by 2008. The boats could thereafter carry 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles and 66 special operations personnel, among other capabilities and upgrades. The cost to refit the four boats was around US$1 billion (2008 dollars) per vessel. During the conversion of the first four submarines to SSGNs (see below), five of the submarines, , , , , and , were transferred from Kings Bay to Bangor. Further transfers occur as the strategic weapons goals of the United States change.


title: Ohio-class submarine

text: In 2011, "Ohio"-class submarines carried out 28 deterrent patrols. Each patrol lasts around 70 days. Four boats are on station ("hard alert") in designated patrol areas at any given time. From January to June 2014, "Pennsylvania" carried out a 140-day-long patrol, the longest to date.


title: Ohio-class submarine

text: The conversion modified 22 of the 24 diameter Trident missile tubes to contain large vertical launch systems, one configuration of which may be a cluster of seven Tomahawk cruise missiles. In this configuration, the number of cruise missiles carried could be a maximum of 154, the equivalent of what is typically deployed in a surface battle group. Other payload possibilities include new generations of supersonic and hypersonic cruise missiles, and Submarine Launched Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles, the ADM-160 MALD, sensors for antisubmarine warfare or intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions, counter mine warfare payloads such as the AN/BLQ-11 Long Term Mine Reconnaissance System, and the broaching universal buoyant launcher and stealthy affordable capsule system specialized payload canisters.


title: Ohio-class submarine

text: The missile tubes also have room for stowage canisters that can extend the forward deployment time for special forces. The other two Trident tubes are converted to swimmer lockout chambers. For special operations, the Advanced SEAL Delivery System and the dry deck shelter can be mounted on the lockout chamber and the boat will be able to host up to 66 special-operations sailors or Marines, such as Navy SEALs, or USMC MARSOC teams. Improved communications equipment installed during the upgrade allows the SSGNs to serve as a forward-deployed, clandestine Small Combatant Joint Command Center.


title: Ohio-class submarine

text: On 26 September 2002, the Navy awarded General Dynamics Electric Boat a US$442.9 million contract to begin the first phase of the SSGN submarine conversion program. Those funds covered only the initial phase of conversion for the first two boats on the schedule. Advance procurement was funded at $355 million in fiscal year 2002, $825 million in the FY 2003 budget and, through the five-year defense budget plan, at $936 million in FY 2004, $505 million in FY 2005, and $170 million in FY 2006. Thus, the total cost to refit the four boats is just under $700 million per vessel.


title: Ohio-class submarine

text: In November 2002, "Ohio" entered a dry-dock, beginning her 36-month refueling and missile-conversion overhaul. Electric Boat announced on 9 January 2006 that the conversion had been completed. The converted "Ohio" rejoined the fleet in February 2006, followed by "Florida" in April 2006. The converted "Michigan" was delivered in November 2006. The converted "Ohio" went to sea for the first time in October 2007. "Georgia" returned to the fleet in March 2008 at Kings Bay. These four SSGNs are expected to remain in service until about 2023–2026. At that point, their capabilities will be replaced with Virginia Payload Module-equipped .


title: Ohio-class submarine

text: As part of the New START treaty, four tubes on each SSBN were deactivated in 2017, reducing the number of missiles to 20 per boat.


title: Ohio-class submarine

text: Note: Boats based at Naval Base Kitsap, Washington are operated by the U.S. Pacific Fleet, while boats based at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Georgia are operated by U.S. Fleet Forces Command, (formerly the U.S. Atlantic Fleet).


title: Ohio-class submarine

text: The U.S. Department of Defense anticipates a continued need for a sea-based strategic nuclear force. The first of the current "Ohio"-class SSBNs is expected to be retired by 2029, so the replacement submarine must be seaworthy by that time. A replacement may cost over $4 billion per unit compared to "Ohio"s $2 billion. The U.S. Navy is exploring two options. The first option is a variant of the nuclear-powered attack submarines. The second option is a dedicated SSBN, either with a new hull or based on an overhaul of the current "Ohio"-class.


title: Ohio-class submarine

text: With the cooperation of both Electric Boat and Newport News Shipbuilding, in 2007, the U.S. Navy began a cost-control study. Then in December 2008, the U.S. Navy awarded Electric Boat a contract for the missile compartment design of the "Ohio"-class replacement, worth up to $592 million. Newport News is expected to receive close to 4% of that project. In April 2009, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates stated that the U.S. Navy was expected to begin such a program in 2010. The new vessel was scheduled to enter the design phase by 2014. If a new hull design was to be used, the program needed to be initiated by 2016 to meet the 2029 deadline.


title: Ohio-class submarine

text: The "Columbia"-class was officially designated on 14 December 2016, by Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, and the lead submarine will be . The Navy wants to procure the first "Columbia"-class boat in FY2021, though it's not expected to enter service until 2031.


title: Ohio-class submarine

text: In 2020, Navy officials first publicly discussed the idea of extending the lives of select "Ohio"-class boats at the Naval Submarine League's 2020 conference. During the 2022 conference, Rear Admiral Scott Pappano, the program executive officer for strategic submarines, and Rear Admiral Douglas G. Perry, the director of undersea warfare on the Chief of Naval Operations’ staff, discussed the "Columbia"-class program, and also touched on the possibility of finding "Ohio"-class boats that had sufficient remaining nuclear fuel and were in good enough material state to be given a further extension to their lives.


title: Ohio-class submarine

text: As ballistic-missile submarines, the "Ohio" class has occasionally been portrayed in fiction books and films.


title: Bella ciao

text: "Bella ciao" (; "Goodbye beautiful") is an Italian protest folk song from the late 19th century, originally sung by the mondina workers in protest against the harsh working conditions in the paddy fields of Northern Italy.


title: Bella ciao

text: It is widely assumed that the mondina song was modified and adopted as an anthem of the Italian resistance movement by the partisans who opposed nazism and fascism, and fought against the occupying forces of Nazi Germany, who were allied with the fascist and collaborationist Italian Social Republic between 1943 and 1945 during the Italian Civil War. However, some historians argue that there is little to no evidence that Italian partisans actually sang the song.


title: Bella ciao

text: The origins of the song are unclear, although one hypothesis is that "Bella Ciao" was originally sung as ""Alla mattina appena alzata"" ("In the morning as soon as I woke up") by seasonal workers of paddy fields of rice, especially in Italy's Po Valley from the late 19th century to the first half of the 20th century, with different lyrics. They worked at "mondare" (weeding) the rice fields in northern Italy, to help the healthy growth of young rice plants. This work was performed during the flooding of the fields, from the end of April to the beginning of June every year. During this time, the first stages of their development, the delicate shoots needed to be protected from the difference in temperature between the day and the night. It consisted of two phases: transplanting the plants and pruning the weeds.


title: Bella ciao

text: Mondare was an extremely tiring task, carried out primarily by women known as mondina, from the poorest social classes. They would spend their workdays with bare feet in water up to their knees, and their backs bent continuously. The atrocious working conditions, long hours and very low pay led to constant dissatisfaction and, at times, to rebellious movements and riots in the early years of the 20th century. The struggles against the supervising "padroni" were even harder, with plenty of clandestine workers ready to compromise even further the already low wages just to get work. Besides "Bella ciao", similar songs of the mondina women included "" and "".


title: Bella ciao

text: Other versions of the antecedents of "Bella ciao" appeared over the years, indicating that "Alla mattina appena alzata" must have been composed in the latter half of the 19th century. The earliest written version is dated back to 1906 and comes from near Vercelli, Piedmont.


title: Bella ciao

text: There are no indications of the relevance of "Bella ciao" among the partisan brigades, nor of the very existence of the 'partisan version' prior to the first publication of the text in 1953. There are no traces in the documents of the immediate postwar period nor its presence in important songbooks. It is not, for example, in Pasolini's 1955 nor in the "Canti Politici" of Editori Riuniti of 1962. The 1963 version of Yves Montand shot to fame after the group Il Nuovo Canzoniere Italiano presented it at the 1964 Festival dei Due Mondi at Spoleto both as a song of the mondine and as a partisan hymn, and the latter so "inclusive" that it could hold together the various political souls of the national liberation struggle (Catholics, Communists, Socialists, Liberals...) and even be sung at the end of the Christian Democracy (Democrazia Cristiana) 1975 congress which elected the former partisan Zaccagnini as national secretary".


title: Bella ciao

text: As reported in the text by Roberto Battaglia "History of the Italian Resistance" popular songs of the era were "Fischia il vento" and the aria of the famous Soviet folk song "Katjuša", which became the official anthem of the Garibaldi Partisan Brigades.


title: Bella ciao

text: Even the well-known journalist, former partisan and historian of the partisan struggle, Giorgio Bocca publicly stated:


title: Bella ciao

text: These statements were later certified by Carlo Pestelli in his book "Bella ciao. The song of freedom", in which he reconstructs the origins and spread of the song.


title: Bella ciao

text: Even the historians of the Italian song Antonio Virgilio Savona and Michele Straniero have affirmed that "Bella ciao" was not sung or was rarely sung during the partisan war, but was widespread immediately after the Second World War.


title: Bella ciao

text: Only a few voices, such as that of the historians Cesare Bermani and Ruggero Giacomini, claim that some version of "Bella ciao" was sung by some brigades during the Resistance, although not necessarily in the now popular 'partisan version', of whose existence, as specified above, there is no documentary evidence until the 1950s.


title: Bella ciao

text: The text as sung today was first published in 1953 in the magazine "La Lapa", and then in "L'Unità" in 1957.


title: Bella ciao

text: A possible origin of the melody was identified by researcher Fausto Giovannardi, following the discovery of a Yiddish melody (Koilen song) recorded by a Klezmer accordionist of Ukrainian origin, Mishka Ziganoff, in 1919 in New York. According to the scholar Rod Hamilton of The British Library in London, "Koilen" would be a version of "Dus Zekele Koilen" (The bag of coal), of which there are various versions dating back to the 1920s.


title: Bella ciao

text: One of the most famous recordings is that of the Italian folk singer Giovanna Daffini who recorded both the mondina and the partisan versions. It appears in her 1975 album "Amore mio non piangere". Many artists have recorded the song, including Herbert Pagani, Mary Hopkin, Sandie Shaw, and Manu Chao.


title: Bella ciao

text: In addition to the original Italian, the song has been recorded by various artists in many different languages, including Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Belarusian, Bosnian, Breton, Bengali, Burmese,


title: Bella ciao

text: Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, English, Esperanto, Finnish, German, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Hebrew, Japanese, Kashmiri, Kurdish, Persian, Macedonian, Malayalam, Marathi, Norwegian, Occitan, Punjabi, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Spanish, Syriac, Swedish, Tagalog, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Tibetan, Turkish, Ukrainian and Yiddish.


title: Bella ciao

text: As an internationally known hymn of freedom, it was intoned at many historic and revolutionary events. The song originally aligned itself with Italian partisans fighting against Nazi German occupation troops, but has since become to merely stand for the inherent rights of all people to be liberated from tyranny.


title: Bella ciao

text: In 2017 and 2018, the song received renewed popularity due to the singing of "Bella ciao" multiple times in the Spanish television series "Money Heist". The character Tokyo recounts in one of her narrations, "The life of the Professor revolved around a single idea: Resistance. His grandfather, who had fought against the fascists in Italy, taught him the song and he taught us." The song is played in emblematic moments in the series as a metaphor for freedom. The part 2 finale is also titled "Bella ciao."


title: Bella ciao

text: In 2012, the melody of "Bella ciao" has also been adopted with adapted lyrics as a worldwide environmental activist song ("Do it now"), demanding political action against global warming.


title: Bella ciao

text: The melody is often used as a football chant by Italian ultras groups of Cosenza Calcio, A.S. Livorno and also outside of Italy by Celtic, Royale Union Saint-Gilloise, A.E.K., Portland Timbers, Atlanta United FC, Austin FC, Motherwell, Aris Thessaloniki, Panathinaikos F.C., SK Brann and FC Zürich fans.


title: Bella ciao

text: In April 2018, supporters from the Portuguese soccer club F.C. Porto adapted the song with the lyrics "" ("Bye bye fifth"), referring to the lost opportunity by rival club S.L. Benfica to win a fifth national championship in a row, a feat only F.C. Porto has achieved in the country.


title: Bella ciao

text: The song was also adapted by Brazilian fans during World Cup 2018 to tease and taunt Argentina about their possible exit in the first round, which eventually did not occur, with references to Argentine players Di María, Mascherano, and Messi (Brazil and Argentina have a well-known football rivalry).


title: Bella ciao

text: The song was the inspiration for the #EleNão movement against right wing Brazilian presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro.


title: Bella ciao

text: During nationwide protests in Colombia in 2019, the anti-fascist song was adapted by demonstrators to oppose the government of Iván Duque of the Centro Democrático party, who have been for years questioned or investigated for systematic violations of the Constitution, the environment, Human Rights and Crimes against humanity. As the presidential period of Duque ends in 2022, since 2019 the song, dubbed as 'Duque Chao', is sung and interpreted in protests in Colombia and by the diáspora, also during the national strike demonstrations of April and May 2021, in which citizens have been killed, injured and disappeared by state police forces.


title: Bella ciao

text: In March 2020, the song once again gained international attention after Europeans and Italians in lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy and Europe sang "Bella ciao" from the balconies of their housing complexes. Also Macedonian singers Aleksandar and Dac in 2020 created a Macedonian language version of the song titled Корона чао (Korona čao).


title: Bella ciao

text: The song is featured in 2021's "Far Cry 6", with lyrics modified in Spanish referring to the game's storyline about guerrilla's movement againts dictatorship.


title: Bella ciao

text: In 2022, the Pressburg Mint (Slovakia) released a commemorative silver coin under the authority of Niue featuring 'El Profesor' from the Money Heist on the reverse, and the full text of the partisan version of the song on the obverse.


title: Bella ciao

text: The song is also a part of the soundtrack available through pre-order for the "By Blood Alone" package of downloadable content for the World War 2-set strategy game "Hearts of Iron IV" by Paradox Interactive, which was released in late September 2022.


title: The Forever Purge

text: The Forever Purge is a 2021 American dystopian action horror film directed by Everardo Valerio Gout and written by series creator James DeMonaco, who also produced along with Jason Blum and Michael Bay. Originally intended as the final installment, it serves as the fifth film in the "Purge" franchise and a direct sequel to 2016's "". The film stars Ana de la Reguera, Tenoch Huerta, Josh Lucas, Cassidy Freeman, Leven Rambin, Alejandro Edda, and Will Patton, and follows a group of people who attempt to escape from the United States after an insurrectionist movement continues committing crimes and murders nationwide after the Purge's ending.


title: The Forever Purge

text: Delayed from an original July 2020 date due to the COVID-19 pandemic, "The Forever Purge" was theatrically released on July 2, 2021, by Universal Pictures. The film grossed $77 million worldwide against its $18 million budget and received mixed reviews from critics, with praise for its performances and action sequences but criticism for its writing. A sixth film is currently in development.


title: The Forever Purge

text: In 2048, eight years after , the New Founding Fathers of America (NFFA) have regained control of the U.S. government and have re-instituted the annual Purge with its original rules. Racial supremacy and nativism have surged nationwide following their re-election, and many outside the ruling party are concerned that the upcoming Purge will inflict more damage on the country than the NFFA realizes. Married migrant couple Juan and Adela illegally cross the border into Texas to escape from a Mexican drug cartel and build a new life, with Juan working as a farmhand on the Tucker family ranch while Adela begins working near Austin.


title: The Forever Purge

text: Ten months later, on the eve of the next annual Purge, Juan and Adela join a migrant community behind a walled sanctuary with armed security to protect them. As the Purge begins, Adela witnesses a nationalist Purger group, who declare themselves to be a "Purge Purification Force" (PPF) that intend to kill those people that they consider non-American. The group passes by without hostility, and the migrant community survives the Purge with no incidents. Come morning, Juan and Adela return to their jobs, but both notice that many of their co-workers did not report to work. Shortly after, Adela is attacked by two Purgers but she is rescued by her boss Darius before both are arrested by police for killing their attackers.


title: The Forever Purge

text: Meanwhile, Juan and fellow migrant co-worker T.T. discover that the Tucker family has been taken hostage by their farmhands, who reveal themselves as Purgers intending to take the ranch for themselves. Ranch owner Caleb Tucker sacrifices himself and distracts the Purgers long enough for Juan and T.T. to rescue his son Dylan, Dylan's pregnant wife Cassie, and his sister Harper, who offer them a ride to search for Adela. Nationwide news struggles to understand why civilians continue to celebrate the Purge after its ending. The group rescue Adela and Darius after the police van carrying them is ambushed by more Purgers. Darius stays behind to search for his family while the others escape from a burning Austin. At a gas station, they hear news reports about chaos, murder, and destruction in all fifty American states, with local emergency services overwhelmed, in an event described as the "Forever Purge". To protect non-Purger civilians, Canada and Mexico have opened their borders for the next six hours, following which the borders will close and entry would be denied. The group decide to escape across the Mexican border through El Paso.


title: The Forever Purge

text: By the time the group arrives in a chaotic El Paso, the NFFA has condemned the Forever Purge after their politicians and representatives are targeted, and invokes martial law across the United States in an effort to contain the violence. Fighting through El Paso, Adela and Cassie are split from the group by military forces while Juan, T.T., Dylan, and Harper are captured by the PPF, with their leader (referred to as "Alpha") offering Dylan and Harper a chance to live if they kill T.T. and Juan. When they refuse, the Purgers murder T.T. before the military intervenes, allowing the group to escape. However, the military is forced to withdraw when their base is destroyed by more Purgers. In response, the Canadian and Mexican governments announce the early closure of their borders, leaving those who tried to cross them vulnerable to the Purgers.


title: The Forever Purge

text: Downtown, Adela protects Cassie from other Purgers, revealing that she and Juan had once been members of a self-defense group who trained them to fight against Mexican drug cartels before they arrived to the United States. The survivors all reunite at a hidden safe-house run by a nearby Native American tribe. Their leader offers to transport everyone across the border as refugees. With the PPF in pursuit, Juan, Adela, and Dylan remain behind with other survivors to make time for the other refugees to escape. Both groups engage in a gunfight until their ammo runs out and draw them in for a close fight with hand weapons. In the ensuing battle, the Purgers are killed and Alpha takes Adela hostage. However, Juan and Dylan work together to subdue and kill Alpha, saving Adela. The trio rejoin the others in a refugee camp on the other side of the Mexican border where Dylan finds Harper and Cassie. The latter reveals that she had given birth during their time apart. After thanking each other for their help in surviving, Dylan introduces Juan and Adela to his infant daughter.


title: The Forever Purge

text: With the entire country in flames, the NFFA is blamed and disbanded for the prolonged violence. News reports indicate that more than two million American people had crossed the Canadian and Mexican borders as refugees while others had rallied to fight back against the Purgers.


title: The Forever Purge

text: In October 2018, James DeMonaco, the creator of the "Purge" franchise, said that he may write another film, and that he thought it would be a "really cool ending" to the series.


title: The Forever Purge

text: In May 2019, Universal Pictures announced the development of the untitled film. DeMonaco was confirmed as writing the screenplay, and produced the film with Sébastien K. Lemercier through their company Man in a Tree Productions. Jason Blum also produced through Blumhouse Productions, along with Michael Bay, Brad Fuller, and Andrew Form through Platinum Dunes. The film is the fifth installment of the franchise, and is a direct sequel to "". In August 2019, it was announced that the film would be directed by Everardo Valerio Gout, who was hired based on his work directing episodes of the 2016 National Geographic series "Mars".


title: The Forever Purge

text: In October 2019, it was announced that Ana de la Reguera would star in the film. In November 2019, Tenoch Huerta was cast as a male lead, and later that month, it was announced that Will Patton and Cassidy Freeman had been added as well. In January 2020, it was reported that Leven Rambin was cast, and Josh Lucas was also reported as playing a lead.


title: The Forever Purge

text: In July 2019, it was announced that the film would be shot in California. It was awarded nearly $6.5 million in tax credits by the California Film Commission, the second film in the franchise to receive credits from California, after "". Production was set to begin in November 2019, with 25 days of filming in San Diego County.


title: The Forever Purge

text: On November 10 and 11, filming took place in downtown Pomona, on a block of storefronts transformed into fictional businesses, including a tavern and a gun store. The next week, filming took place at a theater and an American Legion post in Ontario. Cinematographer Luis Sansans shot the film with Arri Alexa Mini LF cameras and Camtec Falcon large format lenses. Filming wrapped in February 2020.


title: The Forever Purge

text: In April 2020, the film's title was revealed as "The Forever Purge". The film was originally scheduled for a theatrical release in the United States on July 10, 2020, by Universal Pictures. On May 15, 2020, its release was postponed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On July 8, 2020, it was reported that the film had been rescheduled for July 9, 2021. On April 9, 2021, it was reported that the film's American release date had been pushed up a week to July 2.


title: The Forever Purge

text: The film premiered in South Korea on July 10, 2021, at the 25th Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival.


title: The Forever Purge

text: On July 26, 2021, during a midnight showing of "The Forever Purge" at the Regal Edwards movie theater in Corona, California, a gunman opened fire inside the cinema, killing two people. Police responding to the shooting apprehended a suspect later identified as 20-year-old Joseph Jimenez shortly after arriving on the scene. The victims were identified as 18-year-old Rylee Goodrich, who died instantly, and her friend, well-known 19-year-old TikToker Anthony Barajas, who was transported to the nearest hospital and was put on life support before dying from his injuries on July 31, 2021.


title: The Forever Purge

text: In the aftermath of the shooting, the theatre was temporarily closed and all showtimes of the film were removed from its listings. After her autopsy, Goodrich's body was cremated and her ashes scattered into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Seal Beach, California. Universal Pictures and Blumhouse Productions declined to comment.


title: The Forever Purge

text: "The Forever Purge" was released as a video rental on July 23, 2021, was released on digital platforms and on Movies Anywhere on September 14, 2021, and Universal Pictures Home Entertainment/Studio Distribution Services released it on Ultra HD Blu-ray, DVD, and Blu-ray on September 28, 2021. Bonus features will include an alternate ending, deleted scenes and "Collapsing The System: Behind The Forever Purge" featurette. It was also released on DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray in the UK by Universal through Warner Bros. Home Entertainment on October 18, 2021.


title: The Forever Purge

text: "The Forever Purge" grossed $44.5 million in the United States and Canada, and $32.5 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $77 million.


title: The Forever Purge

text: In the United States and Canada, "The Forever Purge" was released alongside "" and "Summer of Soul" and was projected to gross around $10 million from 3,051 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $5.4 million on its first day, including $1.3 million from Thursday night previews, the lowest amount of the franchise. It went on to debut to $12.7 million, finishing third at the box office. With the top three films at the box office, "F9", "Family Business", and "The Forever Purge", all having been released by Universal, it marked the first time a single studio had done so since February 2005. The film fell 43.1% in its sophomore weekend to $7.1 million, finishing fourth, then made $4.2 million in its third weekend, finishing in sixth.


title: The Forever Purge

text: On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 49% based on 159 reviews, with an average rating of 5.4/10. The site's critics consensus reads, ""The Forever Purge" fails to fully engage with its most frighteningly timely themes, but the franchise remains largely—albeit bluntly—effective." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 53 out of 100, based on 33 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported 72% of audience members gave it a positive score, with 53% saying they would definitely recommend it.


title: The Forever Purge

text: "The Playlist"s Nick Allen gave the film "D+," writing that it "looks like a cheap TV movie" and that it "displays all that makes these movies a failed experiment in blockbuster exploitation." Reviewing for "The A.V. Club", Anya Stanley gave the film a "D" grade and said, "In "The Forever Purge", we're told a story that a battered nation has heard a lot—a sermon of immigration and class warfare that's too heavy-handed to say anything its prospective audience hasn't been told on countless social media feeds over the last few years." Rick Bentley's review in "Tribune News Service" complained of "a thinly veiled attempt to capitalize on the tensions currently gripping this country. The film’s deep dive into racism comes across as manipulative, trite and uninspired." Dustin Chase wrote in "The Galveston Daily News", ""The Forever Purge" comes to Texas to try to redefine stale franchise." Johnny Oleksinski's review in "The New York Post" stated, "That idea was fun once, maybe even twice, but by the fifth outing the formula has given way to preachiness and predictability."


title: The Forever Purge

text: Writing in "The Detroit News", Adam Gram stated, "the fifth "Purge" talks a big game, employing all sorts of charged political words and theories, but doesn't do anything interesting with them." Peter Vonder Haar's review in "The Houston Press" analyzed, "The biggest problem with "The Forever Purge" is how it abandons the central conceit of the series. Previous movies focused on the protagonists' struggle to survive until the end of the Purge while simultaneously giving us wider looks at the phenomenon itself. Here, with the murderousness extending indefinitely, the characters' situation is indistinguishable from any of a thousand other shoot-em-ups." Candace McMillan wrote in "Seattle Refined", the film "ultimately just a tiresome rehash of an overused adage. It's making an obvious statement about the callous attitude we as Americans take with those less fortunate, without accounting for the many complications and intricacies within our nation as well. But shock, awe, and letdown is all that's left of a franchise that's been bled dry."


title: The Forever Purge

text: Matthew Mongale's review for "The Austin Chronicle" dismissed the film as "pretty much by the numbers", while Nick Rogers in "The Midwest Film Journal" called the film, "The creative exhaustion of a once-engaging franchise." Ian Freer's review for "Empire" wrote, "The fifth Purge outing goes for broke and comes out wanting, working neither as political commentary nor horror-action-thriller."


title: The Forever Purge

text: Although "The Forever Purge" was originally intended to be the final installment of the franchise, producer Jason Blum stated in June 2021 that he intends to make additional "Purge" films, and that he is working on convincing James DeMonaco to continue the story. In July 2021, DeMonaco confirmed his concept for a sixth film to focus on Frank Grillo's character Leo Barnes from "" and "", and to incorporate a worldwide Purge, a concept originally developed for a potential third season of "The Purge" television series.


title: Mach number

text: Mach number (M or Ma) (; ) is a dimensionless quantity in fluid dynamics representing the ratio of flow velocity past a boundary to the local speed of sound.


title: Mach number

text: By definition, at Mach1, the local flow velocity is equal to the speed of sound. At Mach0.65, is 65% of the speed of sound (subsonic), and, at Mach1.35, is 35% faster than the speed of sound (supersonic). Pilots of high-altitude aerospace vehicles use flight Mach number to express a vehicle's true airspeed, but the flow field around a vehicle varies in three dimensions, with corresponding variations in local Mach number.


title: Mach number

text: The local speed of sound, and hence the Mach number, depends on the temperature of the surrounding gas. The Mach number is primarily used to determine the approximation with which a flow can be treated as an incompressible flow. The medium can be a gas or a liquid. The boundary can be traveling in the medium, or it can be stationary while the medium flows along it, or they can both be moving, with different velocities: what matters is their relative velocity with respect to each other. The boundary can be the boundary of an object immersed in the medium, or of a channel such as a nozzle, diffuser or wind tunnel channeling the medium. As the Mach number is defined as the ratio of two speeds, it is a dimensionless number. If  < 0.2–0.3 and the flow is quasi-steady and isothermal, compressibility effects will be small and simplified incompressible flow equations can be used.


title: Mach number

text: The Mach number is named after Moravian physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach, and is a designation proposed by aeronautical engineer Jakob Ackeret in 1929. As the Mach number is a dimensionless quantity rather than a unit of measure, the number comes "after" the unit; the second Mach number is "Mach2" instead of "2Mach" (or Machs). This is somewhat reminiscent of the early modern ocean sounding unit "mark" (a synonym for fathom), which was also unit-first, and may have influenced the use of the term Mach. In the decade preceding faster-than-sound human flight, aeronautical engineers referred to the speed of sound as "Mach's number", never "Mach 1".


title: Mach number

text: Mach number is a measure of the compressibility characteristics of fluid flow: the fluid (air) behaves under the influence of compressibility in a similar manner at a given Mach number, regardless of other variables. As modeled in the International Standard Atmosphere, dry air at mean sea level, standard temperature of , the speed of sound is . The speed of sound is not a constant; in a gas, it increases proportionally to the square root of the absolute temperature, and since atmospheric temperature generally decreases with increasing altitude between sea level and , the speed of sound also decreases. For example, the standard atmosphere model lapses temperature to at altitude, with a corresponding speed of sound (Mach1) of , 86.7% of the sea level value.


title: Mach number

text: As a measure of flow compressibility, the Mach number can be derived from an appropriate scaling of the continuity equation. The full continuity equation for a general fluid flow is:formula_2where formula_3 is the material derivative, formula_4 is the density, and formula_5 is the flow velocity. For isentropic pressure-induced density changes, formula_6 where formula_7 is the speed of sound. Then the continuity equation may be slightly modified to account for this relation:formula_8The next step is to nondimensionalize the variables as such:formula_9where formula_10 is the characteristic length scale, formula_11 is the characteristic velocity scale, formula_12 is the reference pressure, and formula_13 is the reference density. Then the nondimensionalized form of the continuity equation may be written as:formula_14where the Mach number formula_15. In the limit that formula_16, the continuity equation reduces to formula_17 - this is the standard requirement for incompressible flow.


title: Mach number

text: While the terms "subsonic" and "supersonic", in the purest sense, refer to speeds below and above the local speed of sound respectively, aerodynamicists often use the same terms to talk about particular ranges of Mach values. This occurs because of the presence of a "transonic regime" around flight (free stream) M = 1 where approximations of the Navier-Stokes equations used for subsonic design no longer apply; the simplest explanation is that the flow around an airframe locally begins to exceed M = 1 even though the free stream Mach number is below this value.


title: Mach number

text: Meanwhile, the "supersonic regime" is usually used to talk about the set of Mach numbers for which linearised theory may be used, where for example the (air) flow is not chemically reacting, and where heat-transfer between air and vehicle may be reasonably neglected in calculations.


title: Mach number

text: In the following table, the "regimes" or "ranges of Mach values" are referred to, and not the "pure" meanings of the words "subsonic" and "supersonic".


title: Mach number

text: Generally, NASA defines "high" hypersonic as any Mach number from 10 to 25, and re-entry speeds as anything greater than Mach 25. Aircraft operating in this regime include the Space Shuttle and various space planes in development.


title: Mach number

text: For comparison: the required speed for low Earth orbit is approximately 7.5 km/s = Mach 25.4 in air at high altitudes.


title: Mach number

text: At transonic speeds, the flow field around the object includes both sub- and supersonic parts. The transonic period begins when first zones of M > 1 flow appear around the object. In case of an airfoil (such as an aircraft's wing), this typically happens above the wing. Supersonic flow can decelerate back to subsonic only in a normal shock; this typically happens before the trailing edge. (Fig.1a)


title: Mach number

text: As the speed increases, the zone of M > 1 flow increases towards both leading and trailing edges. As M = 1 is reached and passed, the normal shock reaches the trailing edge and becomes a weak oblique shock: the flow decelerates over the shock, but remains supersonic. A normal shock is created ahead of the object, and the only subsonic zone in the flow field is a small area around the object's leading edge. (Fig.1b)


title: Mach number

text: When an aircraft exceeds Mach 1 (i.e. the sound barrier), a large pressure difference is created just in front of the aircraft. This abrupt pressure difference, called a shock wave, spreads backward and outward from the aircraft in a cone shape (a so-called Mach cone). It is this shock wave that causes the sonic boom heard as a fast moving aircraft travels overhead. A person inside the aircraft will not hear this. The higher the speed, the more narrow the cone; at just over M = 1 it is hardly a cone at all, but closer to a slightly concave plane.


title: Mach number

text: At fully supersonic speed, the shock wave starts to take its cone shape and flow is either completely supersonic, or (in case of a blunt object), only a very small subsonic flow area remains between the object's nose and the shock wave it creates ahead of itself. (In the case of a sharp object, there is no air between the nose and the shock wave: the shock wave starts from the nose.)


title: Mach number

text: As the Mach number increases, so does the strength of the shock wave and the Mach cone becomes increasingly narrow. As the fluid flow crosses the shock wave, its speed is reduced and temperature, pressure, and density increase. The stronger the shock, the greater the changes. At high enough Mach numbers the temperature increases so much over the shock that ionization and dissociation of gas molecules behind the shock wave begin. Such flows are called hypersonic.


title: Mach number

text: It is clear that any object traveling at hypersonic speeds will likewise be exposed to the same extreme temperatures as the gas behind the nose shock wave, and hence choice of heat-resistant materials becomes important.


title: Mach number

text: As a flow in a channel becomes supersonic, one significant change takes place. The conservation of mass flow rate leads one to expect that contracting the flow channel would increase the flow speed (i.e. making the channel narrower results in faster air flow) and at subsonic speeds this holds true. However, once the flow becomes supersonic, the relationship of flow area and speed is reversed: expanding the channel actually increases the speed.


title: Mach number

text: The obvious result is that in order to accelerate a flow to supersonic, one needs a convergent-divergent nozzle, where the converging section accelerates the flow to sonic speeds, and the diverging section continues the acceleration. Such nozzles are called de Laval nozzles and in extreme cases they are able to reach hypersonic speeds ( at 20 °C).


title: Mach number

text: An aircraft Machmeter or electronic flight information system (EFIS) can display Mach number derived from stagnation pressure (pitot tube) and static pressure.


title: Mach number

text: When the speed of sound is known, the Mach number at which an aircraft is flying can be calculated by


title: Mach number

text: If the speed of sound is not known, Mach number may be determined by measuring the various air pressures (static and dynamic) and using the following formula that is derived from Bernoulli's equation for Mach numbers less than 1.0. Assuming air to be an ideal gas, the formula to compute Mach number in a subsonic compressible flow is:


title: Mach number

text: The formula to compute Mach number in a supersonic compressible flow is derived from the Rayleigh supersonic pitot equation:


title: Mach number

text: Aircraft flight instruments, however, operate using pressure differential to compute Mach number, not temperature.


title: Mach number

text: Assuming air to be an ideal gas, the formula to compute Mach number in a subsonic compressible flow is found from Bernoulli's equation for (above):


title: Mach number

text: The formula to compute Mach number in a supersonic compressible flow can be found from the Rayleigh supersonic pitot equation (above) using parameters for air:


title: Mach number

text: As can be seen, M appears on both sides of the equation, and for practical purposes a root-finding algorithm must be used for a numerical solution (the equation's solution is a root of a 7th-order polynomial in M and, though some of these may be solved explicitly, the Abel–Ruffini theorem guarantees that there exists no general form for the roots of these polynomials). It is first determined whether M is indeed greater than 1.0 by calculating M from the subsonic equation. If M is greater than 1.0 at that point, then the value of M from the subsonic equation is used as the initial condition for fixed point iteration of the supersonic equation, which usually converges very rapidly. Alternatively, Newton's method can also be used.


title: Caravaggio

text: Michelangelo Merisi (Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi) da Caravaggio, known as simply Caravaggio (, , ; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the final four years of his life he moved between Naples, Malta, and Sicily until his death. His paintings have been characterized by art critics as combining a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, which had a formative influence on Baroque painting.


title: Caravaggio

text: Caravaggio employed close physical observation with a dramatic use of chiaroscuro that came to be known as tenebrism. He made the technique a dominant stylistic element, transfixing subjects in bright shafts of light and darkening shadows. Caravaggio vividly expressed crucial moments and scenes, often featuring violent struggles, torture, and death. He worked rapidly with live models, preferring to forgo drawings and work directly onto the canvas. His inspiring effect on the new Baroque style that emerged from Mannerism was profound. His influence can be seen directly or indirectly in the work of Peter Paul Rubens, Jusepe de Ribera, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, and Rembrandt. Artists heavily under his influence were called the "Caravaggisti" (or "Caravagesques"), as well as tenebrists or "tenebrosi" ("shadowists").


title: Caravaggio

text: Caravaggio trained as a painter in Milan before moving to Rome when he was in his twenties. He developed a considerable name as an artist and as a violent, touchy and provocative man. A brawl led to a death sentence for murder and forced him to flee to Naples. There he again established himself as one of the most prominent Italian painters of his generation. He travelled to Malta and on to Sicily in 1607 and pursued a papal pardon for his sentence. In 1609 he returned to Naples, where he was involved in a violent clash; his face was disfigured, and rumours of his death circulated. Questions about his mental state arose from his erratic and bizarre behavior. He died in 1610 under uncertain circumstances while on his way from Naples to Rome. Reports stated that he died of a fever, but suggestions have been made that he was murdered or that he died of lead poisoning.


title: Caravaggio

text: Caravaggio's innovations inspired Baroque painting, but the latter incorporated the drama of his chiaroscuro without the psychological realism. The style evolved and fashions changed, and Caravaggio fell out of favour. In the 20th century, interest in his work revived, and his importance to the development of Western art was reevaluated. The 20th-century art historian stated: "What begins in the work of Caravaggio is, quite simply, modern painting."


title: Caravaggio

text: Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi or Amerighi) was born in Milan, where his father, Fermo (Fermo Merixio), was a household administrator and architect-decorator to the Marchese of Caravaggio, a town 35 km to the east of Milan and south of Bergamo. In 1576 the family moved to Caravaggio (Caravaggius) to escape a plague that ravaged Milan, and Caravaggio's father and grandfather both died there on the same day in 1577. It is assumed that the artist grew up in Caravaggio, but his family kept up connections with the Sforzas and the powerful Colonna family, who were allied by marriage with the Sforzas and destined to play a major role later in Caravaggio's life.


title: Caravaggio

text: Caravaggio's mother had to raise all of her five children in poverty. She later died in 1584, the same year he began his four-year apprenticeship to the Milanese painter Simone Peterzano, described in the contract of apprenticeship as a pupil of Titian. Caravaggio appears to have stayed in the Milan-Caravaggio area after his apprenticeship ended, but it is possible that he visited Venice and saw the works of Giorgione, whom Federico Zuccari later accused him of imitating, and Titian. He would also have become familiar with the art treasures of Milan, including Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper", and with the regional Lombard art, a style that valued simplicity and attention to naturalistic detail and was closer to the naturalism of Germany than to the stylised formality and grandeur of Roman Mannerism.


title: Caravaggio

text: Following his initial training under Simone Peterzano, in 1592, Caravaggio left Milan for Rome in flight after "certain quarrels" and the wounding of a police officer. The young artist arrived in Rome "naked and extremely needy... without fixed address and without provision... short of money." During this period, he stayed with the miserly Pandolfo Pucci, known as "monsignor Insalata". A few months later he was performing hack-work for the highly successful Giuseppe Cesari, Pope Clement VIII's favourite artist, "painting flowers and fruit" in his factory-like workshop.


title: Caravaggio

text: In Rome, there was a demand for paintings to fill the many huge new churches and palazzi being built at the time. It was also a period when the Church was searching for a stylistic alternative to Mannerism in religious art that was tasked to counter the threat of Protestantism. Caravaggio's innovation was a radical naturalism that combined close physical observation with a dramatic, even theatrical, use of chiaroscuro that came to be known as tenebrism (the shift from light to dark with little intermediate value).


title: Caravaggio

text: Known works from this period include a small "Boy Peeling a Fruit" (his earliest known painting), a "Boy with a Basket of Fruit", and the "Young Sick Bacchus", supposedly a self-portrait done during convalescence from a serious illness that ended his employment with Cesari. All three demonstrate the physical particularity for which Caravaggio was to become renowned: the fruit-basket-boy's produce has been analysed by a professor of horticulture, who was able to identify individual cultivars right down to "...a large fig leaf with a prominent fungal scorch lesion resembling anthracnose ("Glomerella cingulata")."


title: Caravaggio

text: Caravaggio left Cesari, determined to make his own way after a heated argument. At this point he forged some extremely important friendships, with the painter Prospero Orsi, the architect Onorio Longhi, and the sixteen-year-old Sicilian artist Mario Minniti. Orsi, established in the profession, introduced him to influential collectors; Longhi, more balefully, introduced him to the world of Roman street brawls. Minniti served Caravaggio as a model and, years later, would be instrumental in helping him to obtain important commissions in Sicily. Ostensibly, the first archival reference to Caravaggio in a contemporary document from Rome is the listing of his name, with that of Prospero Orsi as his partner, as an 'assistant' in a procession in October 1594 in honour of St. Luke. The earliest informative account of his life in the city is a court transcript dated 11 July 1597, when Caravaggio and Prospero Orsi were witnesses to a crime near San Luigi de' Francesi.


title: Caravaggio

text: "The Fortune Teller", his first composition with more than one figure, shows a boy, likely Minniti, having his palm read by a Romani girl, who is stealthily removing his ring as she strokes his hand. The theme was quite new for Rome and proved immensely influential over the next century and beyond. However, at the time, Caravaggio sold it for practically nothing. "The Cardsharps"—showing another naïve youth of privilege falling the victim of card cheats—is even more psychologically complex and perhaps Caravaggio's first true masterpiece. Like "The Fortune Teller", it was immensely popular, and over 50 copies survived. More importantly, it attracted the patronage of Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte, one of the leading connoisseurs in Rome. For Del Monte and his wealthy art-loving circle, Caravaggio executed a number of intimate chamber-pieces—"The Musicians", "The Lute Player", a tipsy "Bacchus", an allegorical but realistic "Boy Bitten by a Lizard"—featuring Minniti and other adolescent models.


title: Caravaggio

text: Caravaggio's first paintings on religious themes returned to realism and the emergence of remarkable spirituality. The first of these was the "Penitent Magdalene", showing Mary Magdalene at the moment when she has turned from her life as a courtesan and sits weeping on the floor, her jewels scattered around her. "It seemed not a religious painting at all ... a girl sitting on a low wooden stool drying her hair ... Where was the repentance ... suffering ... promise of salvation?" It was understated, in the Lombard manner, not histrionic in the Roman manner of the time. It was followed by others in the same style: "Saint Catherine"; "Martha and Mary Magdalene"; "Judith Beheading Holofernes"; a "Sacrifice of Isaac"; a "Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy"; and a "Rest on the Flight into Egypt". These works, while viewed by a comparatively limited circle, increased Caravaggio's fame with both connoisseurs and his fellow artists. But a true reputation would depend on public commissions, for which it was necessary to look to the Church.


title: Caravaggio

text: Already evident was the intense realism or naturalism for which Caravaggio is now famous. He preferred to paint his subjects as the eye sees them, with all their natural flaws and defects, instead of as idealised creations. This allowed a full display of his virtuosic talents. This shift from accepted standard practice and the classical idealism of Michelangelo was very controversial at the time. Caravaggio also dispensed with the lengthy preparations traditional in central Italy at the time. Instead, he preferred the Venetian practice of working in oils directly from the subject—half-length figures and still life. "Supper at Emmaus", from c. 1600–1601, is a characteristic work of this period demonstrating his virtuoso talent.


title: Caravaggio

text: In 1599, presumably through the influence of Del Monte, Caravaggio was contracted to decorate the Contarelli Chapel in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi. The two works making up the commission, "The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew" and "The Calling of Saint Matthew", delivered in 1600, were an immediate sensation. Thereafter he never lacked commissions or patrons.


title: Caravaggio

text: Caravaggio's tenebrism (a heightened chiaroscuro) brought high drama to his subjects, while his acutely observed realism brought a new level of emotional intensity. Opinion among his artist peers was polarised. Some denounced him for various perceived failings, notably his insistence on painting from life, without drawings, but for the most part, he was hailed as a great artistic visionary: "The painters then in Rome were greatly taken by this novelty, and the young ones particularly gathered around him, praised him as the unique imitator of nature, and looked on his work as miracles."


title: Caravaggio

text: Caravaggio went on to secure a string of prestigious commissions for religious works featuring violent struggles, grotesque decapitations, torture and death. Most notable and technically masterful among them was "The Taking of Christ" (circa 1602) for the Mattei family, only rediscovered in the early 1990s, in Ireland, after two centuries unrecognised. For the most part, each new painting increased his fame, but a few were rejected by the various bodies for whom they were intended, at least in their original forms, and had to be re-painted or found new buyers. The essence of the problem was that while Caravaggio's dramatic intensity was appreciated, his realism was seen by some as unacceptably vulgar.


title: Caravaggio

text: His first version of "Saint Matthew and the Angel", featuring the saint as a bald peasant with dirty legs attended by a lightly clad over-familiar boy-angel, was rejected and a second version had to be painted as "The Inspiration of Saint Matthew". Similarly, "The Conversion of Saint Paul" was rejected, and while another version of the same subject, the "Conversion on the Way to Damascus", was accepted, it featured the saint's horse's haunches far more prominently than the saint himself, prompting this exchange between the artist and an exasperated official of Santa Maria del Popolo: "Why have you put a horse in the middle, and Saint Paul on the ground?" "Because!" "Is the horse God?" "No, but he stands in God's light!"


title: Caravaggio

text: Other works included "Entombment", the "Madonna di Loreto" ("Madonna of the Pilgrims"), the "Grooms' Madonna", and the "Death of the Virgin". The history of these last two paintings illustrates the reception given to some of Caravaggio's art and the times in which he lived. The "Grooms' Madonna", also known as "Madonna dei palafrenieri", painted for a small altar in Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome, remained there for just two days and was then taken off. A cardinal's secretary wrote: "In this painting, there are but vulgarity, sacrilege, impiousness and disgust...One would say it is a work made by a painter that can paint well, but of a dark spirit, and who has been for a lot of time far from God, from His adoration, and from any good thought..."


title: Caravaggio

text: The "Death of the Virgin", commissioned in 1601 by a wealthy jurist for his private chapel in the new Carmelite church of Santa Maria della Scala, was rejected by the Carmelites in 1606. Caravaggio's contemporary Giulio Mancini records that it was rejected because Caravaggio had used a well-known prostitute as his model for the Virgin. Giovanni Baglione, another contemporary, tells that it was due to Mary's bare legs—a matter of decorum in either case. Caravaggio scholar John Gash suggests that the problem for the Carmelites may have been theological rather than aesthetic, in that Caravaggio's version fails to assert the doctrine of the Assumption of Mary, the idea that the Mother of God did not die in any ordinary sense but was assumed into Heaven. The replacement altarpiece commissioned (from one of Caravaggio's most able followers, Carlo Saraceni), showed the Virgin not dead, as Caravaggio had painted her, but seated and dying; and even this was rejected, and replaced with a work showing the Virgin not dying, but ascending into Heaven with choirs of angels. In any case, the rejection did not mean that Caravaggio or his paintings were out of favour. The "Death of the Virgin" was no sooner taken out of the church than it was purchased by the Duke of Mantua, on the advice of Rubens, and later acquired by Charles I of England before entering the French royal collection in 1671.


title: Caravaggio

text: One secular piece from these years is "Amor Vincit Omnia", in English also called "Amor Victorious", painted in 1602 for Vincenzo Giustiniani, a member of Del Monte's circle. The model was named in a memoir of the early 17th century as "Cecco", the diminutive for Francesco. He is possibly Francesco Boneri, identified with an artist active in the period 1610–1625 and known as Cecco del Caravaggio ('Caravaggio's Cecco'), carrying a bow and arrows and trampling symbols of the warlike and peaceful arts and sciences underfoot. He is unclothed, and it is difficult to accept this grinning urchin as the Roman god Cupid—as difficult as it was to accept Caravaggio's other semi-clad adolescents as the various angels he painted in his canvases, wearing much the same stage-prop wings. The point, however, is the intense yet ambiguous reality of the work: it is simultaneously Cupid and Cecco, as Caravaggio's Virgins were simultaneously the Mother of Christ and the Roman courtesans who modeled for them.


title: Caravaggio

text: Caravaggio led a tumultuous life. He was notorious for brawling, even in a time and place when such behavior was commonplace, and the transcripts of his police records and trial proceedings fill many pages.


title: Caravaggio

text: Bellori claims that around 1590–1592, Caravaggio, already well known for brawling with gangs of young men, committed a murder which forced him to flee from Milan, first to Venice and then to Rome.


title: Caravaggio

text: On 28 November 1600, while living at the Palazzo Madama with his patron Cardinal Del Monte, Caravaggio beat nobleman Girolamo Stampa da Montepulciano, a guest of the cardinal, with a club, resulting in an official complaint to the police. Episodes of brawling, violence, and tumult grew more and more frequent. Caravaggio was often arrested and jailed at Tor di Nona.


title: Caravaggio

text: After his release from jail in 1601, Caravaggio returned to paint first "The Taking of Christ" and then "Amor Vincit Omnia". In 1603, he was arrested again, this time for the defamation of another painter, Giovanni Baglione, who sued Caravaggio and his followers Orazio Gentileschi and Onorio Longhi for writing offensive poems about him. The French ambassador intervened, and Caravaggio was transferred to house arrest after a month in jail in Tor di Nona.


title: Caravaggio

text: Between May and October 1604, Caravaggio was arrested several times for possession of illegal weapons and for insulting the city guards. He was also sued by a tavern waiter for having thrown a plate of artichokes in his face.


title: Caravaggio

text: An early published notice on Caravaggio, dating from 1604 and describing his lifestyle three years previously, recounts that "after a fortnight's work he will swagger about for a month or two with a sword at his side and a servant following him, from one ball-court to the next, ever ready to engage in a fight or an argument, so that it is most awkward to get along with him."


title: Caravaggio

text: In 1605, Caravaggio was forced to flee to Genoa for three weeks after seriously injuring Mariano Pasqualone di Accumoli, a notary, in a dispute over Lena, Caravaggio's model and lover. The notary reported having been attacked on 29 July with a sword, causing a severe head injury. Caravaggio's patrons intervened and managed to cover up the incident.


title: Caravaggio

text: Upon his return to Rome, Caravaggio was sued by his landlady Prudenzia Bruni for not having paid his rent. Out of spite, Caravaggio threw rocks through her window at night and was sued again.


title: Caravaggio

text: In November, Caravaggio was hospitalized for an injury which he claimed he had caused himself by falling on his own sword.


title: Caravaggio

text: On 29 May 1606, Caravaggio killed a young man, possibly unintentionally, resulting in him fleeing Rome with a death sentence hanging over him. Ranuccio Tommasoni was a gangster from a wealthy family. The two had argued many times, often ending in blows. The circumstances are unclear, whether a brawl or a duel with swords at Campo Marzio, but the killing may have been unintentional.


title: Caravaggio

text: Many rumors circulated at the time as to the cause of the fight. Several contemporary "avvisi" referred to a quarrel over a gambling debt and a pallacorda game, a sort of tennis, and this explanation has become established in the popular imagination. Other rumors, however, claimed that the duel stemmed from jealousy over Fillide Melandroni, a well-known Roman prostitute who had modeled for him in several important paintings; Tommasoni was her pimp. According to such rumors, Caravaggio castrated Tommasoni with his sword before deliberately killing him, with other versions claiming that Tommasoni's death was caused accidentally during the castration. The duel may have had a political dimension, as Tommasoni's family was notoriously pro-Spanish, while Caravaggio was a client of the French ambassador.


title: Caravaggio

text: Caravaggio's patrons had hitherto been able to shield him from any serious consequences of his frequent duels and brawling, but Tommasoni's wealthy family was outraged by his death and demanded justice. Caravaggio's patrons were unable to protect him. Caravaggio was sentenced to beheading for murder, and an open bounty was decreed, enabling anyone who recognized him to legally carry the sentence out. Caravaggio's paintings began to obsessively depict severed heads, often his own, at this time.


title: Caravaggio

text: Good modern accounts are to be found in Peter Robb's "M" and Helen Langdon's "Caravaggio: A Life". A theory relating the death to Renaissance notions of honour and symbolic wounding has been advanced by art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon. Whatever the details, it was a serious matter.


title: Caravaggio

text: Caravaggio was forced to flee Rome. He moved just south of the city, then to Naples, Malta, and Sicily.


title: Caravaggio

text: Following the death of Tomassoni, Caravaggio fled first to the estates of the Colonna family south of Rome, then on to Naples, where Costanza Colonna Sforza, widow of Francesco Sforza, in whose husband's household Caravaggio's father had held a position, maintained a palace. In Naples, outside the jurisdiction of the Roman authorities and protected by the Colonna family, the most famous painter in Rome became the most famous in Naples.


title: Caravaggio

text: His connections with the Colonnas led to a stream of important church commissions, including the "Madonna of the Rosary", and "The Seven Works of Mercy". "The Seven Works of Mercy" depicts the seven corporal works of mercy as a set of compassionate acts concerning the material needs of others. The painting was made for and is still housed in the church of Pio Monte della Misericordia in Naples. Caravaggio combined all seven works of mercy in one composition, which became the church's altarpiece. Alessandro Giardino has also established the connection between the iconography of "The Seven Works of Mercy" and the cultural, scientific and philosophical circles of the painting's commissioners.