The Sala ore is mainly known for its high silver content though the ore also contained economic amounts of lead and zinc. The zinc was hosted by the mineral sphalerite while lead was hosted by the mineral galena. Silver occurred as a native phase rarely but was mainly hosted by complex antimonides and sulphosalts, dispersed in the matrices of galena and sphalerite, invisible to the naked eye but visible in microscope. The silver content in typical galena-dominated Sala ore was about 0.15% to 1%, the latter being one of the highest contents of silver in galena ever reported. In the sphalerite-dominated ore, the silver content is only about 0.015-0.02%, which was still enough to exploit and would even be at present days, given that a sufficient tonnage of metallurgically advantageous ore could be found.
The bedrock was created about 1.89 billion years ago during the paleoproterozoic era. The host rock to the mined ore is dominated by white dolomitic marble, proximal to the ores commonly rich in skarn minerals such as tremolite, serpentine, diopside and chlorite, giving the dolomitic marble at Sala a characteristic green colour. Approximately 100 meters away from the mine, more pure white dolomitic marble poor in skarn minerals is extracted at the Tistbrottet dolomite quarry.


The mine has had three major heydays, the main one in the early 16th century, a second less significant one in the mid-17th century and a last one in the late 19th century. The last period involved re-organisation of the mine organisation (a transition from state-owned to company-owned) as well as the introduction of several new technological innovations, e.g. leaching methods employed on older mine tailings. These innovations produced temporal production peaks, yet a general lack of high-grade ore made continued production uneconomic which finally led to closure. At most, 5 million tons of rock were mined from which more than 200 million ounces of silver and about 35,000 tons of lead  were extracted. The maximum depth of the mine is 318.6 metres and the length of the mine is ≈700 metres, the width is ≈100 metres.
The town of Sala emerged as a miners settlement near the mine, first in the form of a small mining village in the early days, then moved to its present location on order from the king. The king Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden gave the town its privileges in 1624. Around Sala there are numerous lakes and dams with canals, constructed to supply the mine with hydro-power for driving machines for water pumping, ore hoisting and ore smelting. None of these machines are preserved to present days.
Earlier, granite ('Sala granite') was extracted to be used as bricks for construction material northeast of the mine. Several foundations for the buildings in the mine area are built from Sala granite.
The mine was owned during later years by AB Svenska Metallverken in Västerås and Avesta Jernverks AB that until 1962 extracted lead, zinc and very little silver. The extraction was made in a mine not physically connected to the old mine. Since 1988 the mine is owned by the municipality of Sala and serves as a mining museum.


Today the mine functions mostly as an attraction, where guided tours down in the mine are arranged. In the big empty rooms in the mine, concerts and other entertainment are arranged. One of these rooms can be availed of as a bedroom, allowing for a unique overnight stay. New test-drillings have been made lately, because it is believed that a second silver treasury exists around the old one. During the 18th century people searched for the second treasury, but its depth made it hard to find. Around the old mine, cracks and erosions have caused danger for people visiting restricted areas.
Above ground, the old buildings are still used, but today they are mostly souvenir shops and museums, like an art gallery and a police museum. In July every year, the Mine's days are arranged and in December there are Christmas markets every weekend until Christmas.
In March 2008, the mine was visited by the Swedish crown princess Victoria, who left her signature down in the mine as her father, Carl XVI Gustav of Sweden, had done previously.
In August 2013 a Canadian exploration company applied for a mining lease covering a second zinc-lead-silver ore approximately 100 meters west of the historic mine.


A nobleman of the Salar Jung family of Hyderabad, Nawab Mir Yousuf Ali Khan, Salar Jung III (1889–1949) served as Prime Minister of Hyderabad during the Nizam's rule. He spent a substantial amount of his income, over a period thirty-five years, collecting artefacts from all across the world.
After the Nawab died in 1949, the collections were left behind in his ancestral palace Diwan Devdi. The collection was formerly exhibited there as a private museum, named Salar Jung Museum, which was inaugurated by Jawaharlal Nehru on 16 December 1951.
Old timers believe that the present collection constitutes only half of the original art wealth collected by the Nawab. His employees siphoned off part of it, since the Nawab depended upon his staff to keep a vigil.
In 1968, the museum shifted to its present location at Dar-ul-Shifa, and is administered by a Board of Trustees with the Governor of Telangana as ex officio chairperson under the Salar Jung Museum Act of 1961. Some more art pieces were lost or stolen during the shifting of the museum from Diwan Devdi to the present site.
In 2003, the museum signed a memorandum of understanding with the National Mission for Manuscripts, and was declared a manuscript conservation centre.
In 2006, a fire broke out in an auditorium in the museum premises. However, it was quickly extinguished and none of the artifacts were damaged. After the incident, fire safety facilities were upgraded.


In 1876 on a trip to France the unique "double sculpture " Mephistopheles & Margaretta sculpture was acquired by Salar Jung I. He also traveled to Rome where he purchased a marble statue called Veiled Rebecca.
The Salar Jung family had a history of collecting art, and eventually the collection of art from Salar Jung I, II and III all ended up in the Salar Jung Museum.
European Art from the British, French and Italian schools is displayed. Among the notable artists whose works are displayed are Canaletto, William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Francesco Hayez.
The furniture collection includes pieces from the time of King Louis XIV and Napoleon. Salar Jung III collected about 43,000 artifacts and 50,000 books and manuscripts out of which only few are displayed in today's museum.


The Eastern block houses Japanese artworks, porcelain artifacts, samurai swords and sculptures from China, Japan, Tibet and Burma.


The museum has a famous Quran collection, from around the world in different fonts and designs, called the Quran Written with Gold and Silver. There are many more collections of religious books, as well as Arabic Quran.


A variety and array of clocks greet the visitor in the clock room. There are ancient sundials in the form of obelisks to huge and modern clocks of the twentieth century. Others in the range vary from miniature clocks which need a magnifying glass to imbibe their beauty and complexity to stately grandfather clocks from as far away as France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Britain including the musical clock Salar Jung bought from Cook and Kelvey of England. Every hour, a timekeeper emerges from the upper deck of the clock to strike a gong as many times as it is the hours of the day. The clock is an antique.
The Salar Jung Museum possesses a good number of clocks collected from different European countries such as France, England, Switzerland, Germany, Holland etc. The variety includes the Bird cage clocks, Bracket clocks, Grandfather clocks, Skeleton clocks, etc. The museum is also having some good examples of the clocks of the contemporary period of Louis XV, Louis XVI, and Napoleon 1st of France. The most important clock which attracts the greatest number of visitors every day is, however, a British Bracket clock. It has got a mechanical device by which a miniature toy figure comes out of an enclosure and strikes the gong and then returns to the enclosure at each hour.
The Indian Parliament has declared the museum an Institution of National Importance.


There is a collection of about 600 Coins back from VijayNagar dynasty to Bahmani empire, Moghul empire and Modern India. Few coins are 2300yrs old. Some Punch Mark coins from Kushan dynasty are also preserved. The coins are made of Silver, copper,lead and lead.


The museum building, semicircular in shape with 38 galleries, spread on two floors, displays only a part of the original collection. The ground floor has 20 galleries and the first floor has 18 galleries. The exhibits on different subjects are displayed in separate galleries. Each gallery is huge and has many artifacts on display including ones dating back to the 4th century. There are plans for a new Islamic Gallery, where Islamic artifacts and manuscripts of the Qur'an will be displayed.
Apart from the galleries, there is a reference Library, reading room, publication and education section, chemical conservation lab, sales counter, cafeteria etc.


Saltdean Lido at Saltdean Park Road, Saltdean, in the city of Brighton and Hove, is an Art Deco lido designed by architect R.W.H. Jones. Originally listed at Grade II by English Heritage for its architectural and historical importance, its status was upgraded further to "Grade II*" on 18 March 2011.
The Art Deco design has been described by The Daily Telegraph as "particularly glorious, with its elegant, curved lines – rather like a stately ocean liner."


The pool measures 140 by 66 feet (43 m × 20 m) and can accommodate 500 bathers.


The lido was built in 1937-38 to designs by the architect  Richard Jones, and was hailed as the most innovative design of its type in Britain. With its tea terrace, sun deck, and café perched on the flat roof and distinctive curved wings at either end, it became the only lido to be featured in the Design Museum in London.
In 1958, Butlins attempted to buy the derelict lido for development. The application was opposed by residents and eventually rejected by the Ministry of Housing.
In 1998, the lido was reopened by Sports Minister Tony Banks. The restoration was achieved through a public and private sector partnership costing £2 million. Banks revealed he had a personal link to the Grade II listed building through his mother, who used to visit it during the Second World War. He said: "Open air sites are not able to attract National Lottery funding, so the money for this had to come through private investors having the vision to bring a piece of our heritage back into use."  The reopening ceremony came two days after the lido let in its first visitors for three years.
On 18 March 2011, John Penrose, the Minister for Tourism and Heritage in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, approved the upgrade of Saltdean Lido's listed status from Grade II to the second highest grade, Grade II*.  Such buildings are defined as being "particularly important ... [and] of more than special interest".
On 30 May 2012, it was announced that the ownership of the Lido would be handed back by leaseholder Dennis Audley to Brighton and Hove City Council after legal discussions.
After an extensive campaign by local residents, the Save Saltdean Lido Campaign successfully lobbied the freeholders of the site (Brighton & Hove City Council) to stop housing development and take back the lease on the site.  Following a 9-month procurement process the Saltdean Lido Community Interest Company (set up by the campaign group) took ownership of a 60-year lease in 2014.
The lido reopened in 2017.


The Saltykov Mansion (особняк Салтыкова, Palais Soltikoff) is a Neoclassical palace situated between Palace Embankment and Millionnaya Street in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It was built to the design of Giacomo Quarenghi in the 1780s. A few months before her death, Catherine the Great presented the edifice to Prince Nikolai Saltykov, the tutor of her eldest grandsons.


Catherine the Great initially granted the land to her personal secretary Pyotr Soimonov who soon sold it to the merchant Philipp Grootten (1748-1815). The latter asked Giacomo Quarenghi to build him the mansion whose neo-classical façade can still be seen from across the Neva.

In 1793 Grootten sold the mansion to another merchant, Thomas Sievers, who sold it on to Princess Ekaterina Petrovna Bariatynskaia.
In 1796, the mansion became the property of Count (later Prince) Nikolai Saltykov (Nicholas Soltikoff), the interim head of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. For more than a century (from 1796 to 1918) the mansion remained the property of the Saltykov family.
In 1828 the Saltykovs rented the mansion out fully furnished. It was leased by the Austrian government as its embassy in the Russian capital. From September 1831, for a period of eleven years the Saltykov Mansion was the residence of the Austrian ambassador Charles-Louis de Ficquelmont (1777-1857).
The Saltykov Mansion became the venue for two of the most famous salons of the period: in the evenings the one hosted by Filquemont's wife Dolly (1804-1863) and in the mornings another hosted by her mother Elisabeth Khitrovo (Kutuzov's daughter). The Count was recalled to Vienna in 1840, but the Austrian government continued to rent the Saltykov Mansion until 1855.
Later, the second and the third floors were rented by the Danish diplomat Otten Plessen. In 1863, the British government leased the Saltykov Mansion and it became the British Embassy until 1918.


The Saltykov Mansion is situated in central Saint Petersburg.  It stands on Suvorov Square by Trinity Bridge between the south bank of the Neva and the Field of Mars. Its official address is 4, Palace Embankment. The building fronts Palace Embankment and has its back on Millionnaya Street. Water frontage on the Neva was highly prized by the Russian aristocracy, while Millionnaya Street was considered one of the Russian Empire's grandest addresses.
The façade is a remarkable example of Palladian architecture in Russia. This style, imported by foreign architects, especially during the reign of Empress Catherine II, had become very fashionable with Russian nobility by the 1780s when the mansion was built.
The façade is shaped with great simplicity, combining harmonic proportions and moderate ornamentation that highlight few decorative elements, such as the piano nobile balcony facing the Neva and the palace's pediments.


Sambor Prei Kuk (Khmer: សំបូរព្រៃគុហ៍, Sâmbor Prey Kŭh  [sɑmboː prəj kuʔ]) is an archaeological site in Cambodia located in Kampong Thom Province, 30 km (19 mi) north of Kampong Thom, the provincial capital, 176 km (109 mi) east of Angkor and 206 km (128 mi) north of Phnom Penh. The now ruined complex dates back to the Pre-Angkorian Chenla Kingdom (late 6th to 9th century), established by king Isanavarman I as central royal sanctuary and capital, known then as "Isanapura" (Khmer: ឦសានបុរៈ, Eisanbŏreă  [ʔəjsaːnɓoreaʔ]).  In 2017, Sambor Prei Kuk was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Located on the Eastern bank of the Tonle Sap lake, close to the Steung Saen River, the central part of Sambor Prei Kuk is divided into three main groups. Each group has a square layout surrounded by a brick wall. The structures of the overall archaeological area were constructed at variable times: the southern and north groups (7th century) by Isanavarman I, who is considered a possible founder of the city and the central group (later date).
The buildings of Sambor Prei Kuk are characteristic of the Pre-Angkorean period with a simple external plan. The principal material is brick, but sandstone is also used for certain structures.
Architectural features include numerous prasats, octagonal towers, shiva lingams and yonis, ponds and reservoirs, and lion sculptures. Sambor Prei Kuk is located amidst mature sub-tropical forests with limited undergrowth. The area has been mined and could still contain unexploded ordnance.


The whole compound is made of three clusters classified as group C for Central, N for North and S for South (Michon & Kalay, 2012). They are enclosed in a double-walled encircling 1,000 acre in which there were 150 Hindu temples today mostly in ruins.
Group N: Prasat Sambor (ប្រាសាទសំបូរ) is considered the main temple and it dates from the 7th century. It was dedicated to one of the reincarnations of Shiva known as Gambhireshvara (from Sanskrit गम्भीर - gambhir, profound, deep, solemn - and शिव, shvara, Shiva, Śiva, The Auspicious One).
Group S: Prasat Yeah Puon (ប្រាសាទយាយព័ន្ធ) includes 22 sanctuaries dated from the 7th century (600 - 635 AD) during the reign of Isanavarman I in dedication to Shiva.
Group C: It is occupied by the Central Sanctuary or Prasat Boram (ប្រាសាទបុរាម) with lion sculptures that had inspired the popular name of Prasat Tao (The Lions' Temple). It is, however, the newest group dating the 9th century. The other main feature is the Tower of Ashram Issey, but there were also other constructions (18 temples) now in ruined (Palmer, 2011).


Isanavarman I reigned over the Chenla Kingdom between 616 and 637 AD, taking Isanabura as his capital and it is argued that he built the main temple Prasat Sambor (Group N), as there is an inscription on the site attributed to his reign and dated 13 September 627 AD. The king is also known for sending his first embassy to the court of the Sui Dynasty in China (616-617). Chenla conquered different principalities in the Northwest of Cambodia after the end of the Chinese reign period yǒnghuī (永徽) (i. e. after 31 January 656), which previously (in 638/39) paid tribute to China. An inscription dating from the reign of Isanarvarman I claimed that he was, “the King of Kings, who rules over Suvarnabhumi”. Dr Vong Sotheara, of the Royal University of Phnom Penh, claimed that the inscription would “prove that Suvarnabhumi was the Khmer Empire.”
The last important king in Isanapura was Jayavarman I, whose death caused turmoil to the kingdom at the start of the 8th century, breaking it in many principalities and opening the way to a new time: Angkor. This site is also claimed as an early capital of Jayavarman II (O'Reilly & Jacques, 1990).


After the Lon Nol's coup d'état to Prince Norodom Sihanouk in 1970, US President Richard Nixon ordered a secret bombing of Cambodia to fight the Khmer Rouge guerrillas and any influence of North Vietnam in the country. The US aircraft bombed positions inside the archaeological site, causing craters near the temples, while the guerrillas left several mines on the land that were cleared only in 2008.
This site was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list on 8 July 2017.


The official religion at Sambor Prei Kuk city was Shaivism, one of the four most widely followed sects of Hinduism, which reveres the god Shiva as the Supreme Being and the Lingam (in Sanskrit लिङ्गं, liṅgaṃ, meaning "mark", "sign", or "inference") or Shiva linga representing Shiva to be worshiped in temples. In Cambodia as it is in India, the lingam is a symbol of the energy and potential of god Shiva himself and this phallic symbol is often represented with the Yoni (Sanskrit: योनि yoni, literally "vagina" or "womb"), symbol of goddess Shakti, female creative energy.
Shaivism was the religion of Chenla (ca. 550 - ca. 800 AD), including elements of Hinduism, Buddhism and indigenous ancestor cults. In the Sambor Prei Kuk temples, it is possible to contemplate stone inscriptions in both Sanskrit and Khmer, naming both Hindu and local ancestral deities with Shiva and several altars with the lingam.


Higham, C., 2014, Early Mainland Southeast Asia, Bangkok: River Books Co., Ltd., ISBN 9786167339443
Coedès, George (1968).  Walter F. Vella (ed.). The Indianized States of Southeast Asia. trans.Susan Brown Cowing. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-0368-1.
"Sites in Cambodia, China and India added to UNESCO's World Heritage List". UNESCO. Retrieved 2017-07-08.
Higham, Charles (May 11, 1989). The Archaeology of Mainland Southeast Asia. Cambridge University Press. pp. 265–267. ISBN 9780521275255.
Groupe de Sambor Prei Kuk - UNESCO World Heritage Centre
Gnarfgnarf:Sambor Prei Kuk : a pre-Angkorian gem in the forest, 20 November 2010, retrieved on 3 May 2012
Description Prasat Yeah Puon. Ministry of Tourism of Cambodia. Link retrieved on July 8, 2015 from http://www.tourismcambodia.org/provincial_guide/index.php?view=attdetail&prv=6&att=280
Palmer, B. The Rough Guide to Cambodia. August 1, 2011. p. 211. Link retrieved on July 6, 2015 from https://books.google.it/books?id=oR-Kmnj8wmAC&pg=PA211&dq=Sambor+Prei+Kuk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=0Y6aVZ-qAY_o8AWp-b6QDg&ved=0CD8Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=Sambor%20Prei%20Kuk&f=false
“Coedès. ‟Histories of Cambodia”. Page 11.
IC, Vol. V, p. 23
Wolters, "North-western Cambodia in the seventh century", p. 356 and pp. 374-375
Rinith Taing, “Was Cambodia home to Asia’s ancient ‘Land of Gold’?”, The Phnom Penh Post, 5 January, 2018.
O'Reilly. Early Civilizations of Southeast Asia. December 21, 2005. Page 113.
"Temple Zone of Sambor Prei Kuk, Archaeological Site of Ancient Ishanapura".
Hinduism: Beliefs and Practices, by Jeanne Fowler, pgs. 42–43
Mudaliyar, Sabaratna. "Lecture on the Shiva Linga". Malaysia Hindu Dharma Mamandram. Retrieved 27 March 2012.
Zimmer, Heinrich Robert (1946). Campbell, Joseph, ed. Myths and symbols in Indian art and civilization. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. p. 126. ISBN 0-691-01778-6. But the basic and most common object of worship in Shiva shrines is the phallus or lingam.
Chandler, A History of Cambodia, pp.19-20.


WikiWeb_Samuel Wadsworth Russell House_1

This building was erected in 1828 for Samuel Russell (1789–1862). Russell founded the trading firm of Russell & Company in Canton, China, after serving there as trading representative of the Providence, Rhode Island firm of Edward Carrington & Company. Between 1818 and 1831 Russell made his fortune in the illegal yet highly profitable importation of Turkish and Bengal opium into the port of Canton, and the exportation of fine teas and silks from there to Europe and the United States. In 1828 when his house was built, Russell was in Canton. His friend Samuel D. Hubbard worked with his wife, Mrs. Russell, to supervise the construction of the house. In 1831 Russell returned to Middletown and his new home, where he resided until his death in 1862.
The Russell House was designed by Ithiel Town, one of the period's foremost architects and major proponent of the Greek Revival style in America. David Hoadley (of Curtis and Hoadley), a prominent New Haven builder-architect, supervised the construction. The house has the form of a Greek temple with six full-height Corinthian columns supporting a heavy entablature and low flushboarded pediment. The front (west) wall has five bays with recessed panels between the first and second story windows except in the center bay, where pilasters support a high entablature over the double entrance door. This doorway is surrounded by side and overlights whose frames are decorated with fretwork. The windows on the two-bay side facades are separated vertically by panels like those on the front. Stucco scribed to resemble large-block ashlar covers the brick masonry walls.  The house has a brownstone foundation supported by load-bearing masonry walls and a gable roof.
An antemion decorative motif is used on the portico column capitals, front corner pilasters, and in the attic window screen covers. The heavy entablature has three bands in the architrave; a band of foliated molding under the plain frieze; and a denticulated cornice defined by a bead and reel molding and an elaborate crown molding. Around 1855 the rear portico was enclosed and is now divided by six pilasters (originally square pillars) into five bays of windows with small protruding balconies in the end bays. A two-story north wing, added around 1855, is attributed to Alexander Jackson Davis, a former partner of Ithiel Town. Although not consistent with the symmetry of the whole, it is treated sympathetically through the use of identical pilasters and entablature.
The Russell estate occupied all of the block bounded by High, Court, Pearl and Washington streets. Extensive grounds behind Russell House, sloping down to Pearl Street, were planted with formal gardens, which included boxwood imported from England and plants brought from China by Samuel Russell. A double stair of intricate ironwork was added to the rear of the house at the time the portico was enclosed. It leads from the first floor down to the garden lawn.
The interior is divided by a spacious center hall with two rooms on either side. A stairway with landing is at the end of the hall. The four chimney stacks are placed in the outside wall of each of the rooms off the hall. The south parlors communicate through a set of folding doors, while the original north rooms have been opened up to provide a single large space.
Close attention to detail characterizes the decorative treatment throughout the interior. Trompe-l'œil wall paintings simulate panelling on the walls of the north main rooms, entrance hall, and stairwell. Similarly elaborate decoration is seen in the marble fireplaces, with Ionic columns supporting the mantelpieces, and in the recessed panelling of the doors and folding window shutters. A wide frieze and deep cornice of decorative plaster define the high ceilings of the interior.
The Russell House represents a significant stage in the development of Greek Revival architecture in America. In his work Town and Davis, Architects, Roger Hale Newton mentions the Russell House as "indicative of the hand of Town in its undeniable sophistication." Professor Talbot Hamlin places its design "in the richest Greek vein" and also states that "its Corinthian columns and open plan are urban and magnificent rather than in the simple old tradition." Newton elaborates on the latter point when he says that the communicating suite of parlors with their grand scale "may have reflected an urban development quite contrary... to the prevailing modern provincial places."
The Russell House demonstrates an early attempt by Ithiel Town to match the sophisticated design of an imposing Greek temple form with a compatible interior plan suited to living and entertaining on a grand scale. This plan was used in Town and Davis' later work in New York. Its successful application to the temple form provided a basis for vernacular interpretations of the Greek Revival style, which dominated residential construction until the advent of picturesque architecture.
The construction of the Russell House in 1828 established a standard of luxury and elegance for the residential architecture on High Street during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Although many other imposing homes were built in this area of Middletown, the Russell House was never surpassed in sophistication and grandeur. It stands as a monument to the personal qualities of Samuel Russell and to the exciting era of the China trade, when Russell carried Middletown's mercantile tradition to its greatest heights.


WikiWeb_Samuel Wadsworth Russell House_2

The mansion faces west from the southeast corner of High and Washington Streets. The large scale of execution and the imposing qualities of the architecture enable this building to dominate the surrounding area. High Street during the 19th and early 20th centuries was the most prestigious residential area in Middletown. It is now part of the campus of Wesleyan University.


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After the Russell family retained the house for five generations, in 1937 Thomas Macdonough Russell, Jr. deeded it to Wesleyan University.  The building was used as Honors College until 1996.  The building is currently used as a special events facility and as the home of the University's Philosophy department.


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Middletown, Connecticut Historical and Architectural Resources. Volume III, Card Number 135. John Reynolds. July 1978.


WikiWeb_San Antonio Japanese Tea Garden_0

The San Antonio Japanese Tea Garden, or Sunken Gardens in Brackenridge Park, San Antonio, Texas, opened in an abandoned limestone rock quarry in the early 20th century.  It was known also as Chinese Tea Gardens, Chinese Tea Garden Gate, Chinese Sunken Garden Gate and is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.


WikiWeb_San Antonio Japanese Tea Garden_1

The San Antonio Japanese Tea Garden (also known as the Sunken Gardens) in the U.S. state of Texas was developed on land donated to the city in 1899 by George Washington Brackenridge, president of the San Antonio Water Works Company. The ground was first broken around 1840 by German masons, who used the readily accessible limestone to supply the construction market. Many San Antonio buildings, including the Menger Hotel, were built with the stone from this quarry on the Rock Quarry Road.
In 1880 the Alamo Cement Company was incorporated and produced cement for 26 years in the kiln, the chimney of which still stands today. Supporting the workforce of the quarry was a small "village", populated primarily by Americans who worked the site. They and their families became popular with tourists, who purchased pottery, hand woven baskets, and food.
About 1917, City Parks Commissioner Ray Lambert visualized an oriental-style garden in the pit of the quarry. His engineer, W.S. Delery, developed plans, and work began when several donors paid for it in 1918  Lambert used prison labor to shape the quarry into a complex that included walkways, stone arch bridges, an island and a Japanese pagoda.
At the entrance to the garden, Mexican-born artist Dionicio Rodriguez (1891-1955) replicated a Japanese Torii gate in his unique style of concrete construction that imitated wood.  In 1919, at the city's invitation, Kimi Eizo Jingu, a local Japanese-American artist, moved to the garden. In 1926, they opened the Bamboo Room, where light lunches and tea were sold. Kimi and Miyoshi Jingu maintained the garden, lived in the park, and raised eight children. Kimi was a representative of the Shizuoka Tea Association and was considered an expert in the tea business nationally. He died in 1938, and in 1941 the family was evicted with the rise of anti-Japanese sentiment of World War II.
The garden was renamed the Chinese Tea Garden, to prevent the razing and vandalism of the tea garden during World War II, as many other cities' Japanese tea gardens were being vandalized. A Chinese-American family, Ted and Ester Wu, opened a snack bar in the pagoda until the early 1960s.  In 1984, under the direction of Mayor Henry Cisneros, the city restored the original “Japanese Tea Garden” designation in a ceremony attended by Jingu's children and representatives of the Japanese government.


WikiWeb_San Antonio Japanese Tea Garden_2

For years the garden sat in neglect and disrepair, becoming a target of graffiti and vandalism. Due to limited funding, the city threatened to close the garden, but the community and parks supporters rallied and lobbied to keep it open.
In 2005, the city used about $550,000 in bond money to reroof the pagoda-like Pavilion and the Jingu House.
In 2007, former Councilwoman Bonnie Conner, vice chairwoman of parks projects for the San Antonio Parks Foundation and former Mayor Lila Cockrell, Parks Foundation president, began a $1.6 million restoration campaign to restore the ponds and waterfall in conjunction with the City of San Antonio.
For the public re-opening on March 8, 2008, Jingu family members returned to San Antonio. Mabel Yoshiko Jingu Enkoji, the sixth child of Kimi and Miyoshi Jingu, who was born at the Garden, was the senior Jingu family member at the event.
In 2009, the San Antonio Parks Foundation and the City of San Antonio began work on the $1 million restoration of the historic Jingu house. Work was completed in October 2011. The building is now a Fresh Horizons Creative Catering restaurant, serving light lunches as the Jingu family did in the 1930s.
In recognition of the Tea Garden's origin as a rock quarry that played a prominent role in the development of the cement business, as well as its later redevelopment as a garden, the site is designated a Texas Civil Engineering Landmark, a Registered Texas Historic Landmark, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Sunken Garden amphitheater is located to the south. It comprises 879 permanently installed seats and has the option of adding folding chairs for a total general admittance of 2,700. The general admittance (standing room) to the fenced grounds of the theater is 4,800 spectators. The Parks and Recreation Department's Cultural Program assumed management of the theater in the early 1970s. In early 1984, a $320,000 renovation of the theater was completed.


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"National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
San Antonio Parks Foundation Document. ‘’Japanese Tea Garden at Brackenridge Park.’’  Retrieved 2010-08-14.
San Antonio Parks Foundation. ‘’Park Projects’’,  Retrieved 2010-08-14.
Website of the City of San Antonio Parks and Recreation. Park Histories.   Retrieved 2010-08-14.
Watson Pfeiffer, Maria. "Sunken Garden Theater Rental Information". San Antonio Parks and Recreation. City of San Antonio. Retrieved 8 December 2021.


The Church of San Bonaventura al Palatino is a small 17th century church building in Rome built on Via Marco Colidio the Palatine Hill. It is a Franciscan monastery church built by Francesco Barberini on the request of the Blessed Bonaventura Gran and was completed in 1689.


The San Germán Historic District is a 36-acre (15 ha) historic district located in the western section of the town of San Germán, Puerto Rico. The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1994. The district contains more than 100 significant buildings, including the Church San Germán de Auxerre and the Convento de Porta Coeli.


Spanish colonists established La Villa de San Germán de Auxerre, also known as Nueva Salamanca, in the early years of the 16th century. The town of San Germán grew out of the settlement formally established in 1573, and it is this original urban core, transformed by rapid growth from the 1830s to the 1940s, that comprises the San Germán Historic District.
The district includes numerous homes, among these the noted Victorian-style Juan Ortiz Perichi House on Luna Street, which architect Jorge Rigau once called "one of the best developed spatial sequences in residential architecture in Puerto Rico." Many notable Puerto Ricans came from the San Germán Historic District; among them was Lola Rodríguez de Tió, the well-known poet and pro-independence leader who wrote the lyrics to the revolutionary version of Puerto Rico's national anthem "La Borinqueña".
In late summer 1898, under the command of General Theodore Schwan, the United States Cavalry traveled through Luna Street, during the Spanish-American War, and Puerto Ricans welcomed the Americans in this district and in nearby Mayagüez, with flowers- believing in the promise of prosperity that would come under American rule. Despite wanting to spend the night in San Germán, the Americans decided to continue moving on, to battle the Spanish.
The San Germán Historic District is roughly bounded by Luna, Estrella, Concepción, Javilla, and Ferrocarril Streets in the western section of the town.


A parish church was previously located at the site of the Castello Estense; in 1385, this church along with an entire neighborhood were razed to build the castle. Soon after, by 1405, the church was rebuilt in a former Gothic architecture style, and affiliated with the Order of the Santo Sepolcro.
The facade and windows are narrow and peaked. The portal has spires in relief, atop the spires are St Gabriel and the virgin with Christ in the center. Above below the oculus is a peculiar relief depicting an bizarre episode in the life of the namesake saint, St Julian the Hospitaller (San Giuliano l’Ospitaliere), wherein he unknowingly slays his visiting parents while they sleep.
The reconstruction of the church had been patronized by Galeotto Avogadri, proto-camerlengo of the marchese Nicolò III. The small church had altars dedicated to the Albergatori (inn-keepers), Orefici (jewelers), and of the Arte dei Beccai, which included the trades of fishmongers, butchers, and restauranteers. The church is presently considered the church of journalists, and in 1952, restoration was patronized by Cristiano Nicovich and employed Carlo Savonuzzi.
An inventory in the 18th century recalled an altarpiece for San Giuliano by Giacomo Bambini and Cesare Croma; a Bishop St Eligio attributed to either Scarsella or Pordenone; a St Andrew by Bartolommeo Solati; and a St Luke by Menagatti. In 1846, the church is reserred to as an oratory. It had been, for some decades, deconsecrated.


San Leonardo al Lago is a Roman Catholic church in the neighborhood of Santa Colomba, within the municipal limits of Monteriggioni, a few kilometers outside of Siena, region of Tuscany, Italy.


The church was originally documented as an Augustinian hermitage in 1119, located near the Lake Verano, now known a Pian del Lago. An abbey was established over the next centuries. The church underwent reconstruction during 13th and 14th centuries, gaining a style transitioning between romanesque and gothic. In 1366, the convent was fortified to protect against raiding armies. The tall stone facade has a round oculus but a rounded arch portal. The lateral walls have few but narrow windows.
The church apse contains frescoes depicting the Life of the Virgin (1360-1370) by Lippo Vanni. The refectory contains remains of a fresco depicting the Crucifixion (1445) by Giovanni di Paolo del Grazia.


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The San Mateo County History Museum is located in downtown Redwood City, California. Housed inside the former San Mateo County Courthouse built in 1910, the museum showcases the rich history of San Mateo County and the surrounding area. Operations and funding for the museum are by the San Mateo County Historical Association (SMCHA). The current location of this museum opened on February 6, 1999, however from 1963 until 1998 the museum was located at the College of San Mateo. The building is a product of the City Beautiful Movement (1893-1920) and has a stained-glass dome thought to be the largest of its kind on the West Coast.
Two other museums are operated by the SMCHA including the Woodside Store and the Sánchez Adobe Park.


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The San Mateo County Historical Association was founded in 1935. One of its early members was Dr. Frank Stanger, a history professor at San Mateo Junior College, now the College of San Mateo. Through his efforts, the San Mateo County Historical Museum (now the San Mateo County History Museum) was founded in a College classroom in 1941. As the College grew, so did the Museum. Then in 1998, seeking larger and more publicly accessible quarters, the Historical Association's Board of Directors decided to move the Museum into the old courthouse in downtown Redwood City. The Museum expanded from its 6,000 square-foot original location to 40,000 square feet. Between 1998 and 2006, more than $20 million was spent on the restoration and renovation of the exterior and interior of the museum.


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The San Mateo County Historical Association is known principally for the operation of its San Mateo County History Museum and two historic sites, the Woodside Store and Sánchez Adobe. In 2016, it conducted school programs for nearly 20,000 children at its three locations, plus Folger Stable in Woodside. It provides public access to its archives through its research library at the History Museum. Its collections compose about 420,000 two- and three-dimensional items. It organizes special educational programs for adults and children on a monthly basis. It maintains a creative schedule of changing exhibits at the San Mateo County History Museum. It publishes a journal, La Peninsula. Finally, it acts as a clearinghouse for matters of historic preservation throughout San Mateo County.


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Nature's Bounty explores how the early people of the Peninsula used natural resources to support daily life and how those resources were used to help build San Francisco.
Journey to Work: Pioneering Patters of Growth tells the story of how transportation transformed San Mateo County from frontier to suburb.
Living the California Dream uses an "object theater" to trace the evolution of the California Dream of suburban life using lighting effects on artifacts and video projection to add movement and drama.
Land of Opportunity: The Immigrant Experience in San Mateo County tells the story of immigrants in the County, including arrivals, discrimination experiences, and maintaining previous cultural traditions.
Maverick's features the history of the San Mateo County coast, the science of the 40' Maverick's wave, surfing videos, and a "waverider" where visitors can simulate surfing the waves of Maverick's.
San Mateo County History Makers: Entrepreneurs Who Changed the World features local business minds who have invented, revolutionized and developed unique enterprises that have impacted the lives of people around the world.


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The Association began managing its other two historic sites in 1979. The Woodside Store and Sánchez Adobe were, and still are, San Mateo County Parks, but after the passage of Proposition 13, which resulted in severe cuts to the parks' budget, the Historical Association was enlisted to keep them open to the public. Since that time, the Historical Association has developed outdoor education programs for school groups at the sites.


San Pietro Somaldi is a Gothic- style,  Roman Catholic church located on a Piazza of the same name, near the location of the old medieval walls, in central Lucca, region of Tuscany, Italy.


A Lombard church, it was named in part after a bishop Sumualdo or Summal, who founded the church in 763. It was once property of the Lombard king Aistulf. Reconstruction of a new church started in the 12th-century, and was not complete until 14th-centuries.
The central portal has a sculpted relief depicting St Paul gaining keys (1248) by Guido Bigarelli of Como.


San Pietro in Vinculis is a Romanesque-style, Roman Catholic church in Pisa, region of Tuscany, Italy.


It was built by the Augustinians in 1072-1118 over a pre-existing edifice. The rectory was added a few years later.
The structure follows the Pisane Romanesque style established by Buscheto. It has a nave and two aisles with apses. The façade is articulated by pilaster strips, blind arches, oculi (small circular windows), lozenges and mullioned windows.
In the interior the intarsia pavement lies over a crypt with groin vaults and Roman capitals, perhaps the relic of an ancient market loggia later turned into a Christian temple. It houses a Roman sarcophagus, remains of frescoes and a Crucifix on panel from the 13th century. In the rectory are frescoes from the 13th and 15th centuries and 18th century stuccoes. The bell tower was in origin a civil tower (late 11th-early 12th century).
For years, the church kept a famous manuscript containing a digest of the Corpus Juris Civilis of Emperor Justinian I of the Eastern Roman Empire. The document had fallen into Pisan hands after the sack of Amalfi in 1137. After Pisa fell in 1406, the Florence the document was transferred to the latter city.


The Metropolitan Cathedral of the Holy Savior (Spanish: Catedral Metropolitana de San Salvador) is the cathedral church of the Catholic Archdiocese of San Salvador in San Salvador, El Salvador.


The Cathedral site is the place where the old Temple of Santo Domingo (dedicated to St. Dominic) once stood.  An even greater toll was exacted on Palm Sunday, March 30, 1980, during the funeral of Saint Óscar Romero (who was assassinated Monday, March 24, 1980, while celebrating Mass at a small chapel located in a hospital called "La Divina Providencia"), when 44 people were killed during a stampede after some elements, allegedly members of security forces (although it has never been corroborated) fired on mourners/worshippers and on Romero's funeral cortege, the real gunmen were never identified.  Later, the square in front of the cathedral was the site of rapturous celebrations after the signing of the Chapultepec Peace Accords that ended the Salvadoran Civil War in 1992.  The cathedral was completed and inaugurated on March 19, 1999, and finished off with a festive tiled facade by the Salvadoran master Fernando Llort.
The church was twice visited by Pope John Paul II who said that the cathedral was "intimately allied with the joys and hopes of the Salvadoran people."  During his visits in 1983 and 1996, the Pope knelt and prayed before the tomb of Archbishop Óscar Romero, assassinated in 1980, whose tomb here is a major pilgrim draw. President Barack Obama visited the cathedral and the tomb during his March 2011 trip to Latin America.
In late December 2012, the Archbishop of San Salvador, José Luis Escobar Alas, ordered the removal of the tiled ceramic mural facade of the cathedral without consulting the national government or the artist, the Salvadoran master Fernando Llort. Workers chipped off and destroyed all the 2,700 tiles of the mural.


The festive and colorful facade surrounds a shrine to an image of the Divine Saviour of the World (Jesus, after the Transfiguration, the patron of El Salvador) sculpted by Friar Francisco Silvestre García in 1777. The main altar features an image of the Divine Saviour donated by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1546. The image rests on a four-column baldacchino surrounded by images of the prophets Moses and Elijah, who take part in the Transfiguration story. The main altar is surrounded by eight large paintings showing scenes from the life of Christ painted by Andrés García Ibáñez. Above it all, the bright Churrigueresque cupola stands 148 feet in height, with a 79-foot radius.


"Catedral Metropolitona". Archived from the original on 7 October 2006. Retrieved 4 December 2006.
"Greeting of the Holy Father John Paul II to Catechists in the Cathedral of San Salvador". Vatican. 8 February 1996. Retrieved 23 March 2022.
Heidenry, Rachel (6 January 2012). "Archbishop Orders Destruction of Salvadoran Mural". Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Retrieved 23 March 2022.


San Samuele is a church in Venice, northern Italy. It is located in the eponymous campo near Palazzo Grassi and Palazzo Malipiero. The facade is set back on the campo, but faces and is visible from the Grand Canal. It is named after the Biblical Samuel, because in the interior are housed relics traditionally attributed to him.
The church was built around 1000 by the families Boldù and Soranzo. In the early 12th centuries it was destroyed by two fires and then reconstructed. In 1685 it was again almost entirely rebuilt. The portico on the façade, now closed, is surmounted by a loggia added in 1952.
The interior, over the high altar, houses a 14th-century crucifix attributed to Paolo Veneziano.
San Samuele bears the distinction of being one of only a handful of Roman Catholic churches dedicated to an Old Testament figure. It is also unique in that its late-Gothic apse has remained intact despite the restructuring of its nave and façade in 1685.
The walls and vaults of this apse have been restored starting in 1999, and are one of the few surviving fresco cycles of the early Venetian Renaissance. The cycle depicts eight Sibyls, Greek and Roman female seers who were believed to have predicted events in the life of Christ such as the Annunciation, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. The ceiling's quadripartite vault features Saints Jerome, Augustine, Ambrose and Gregory, the four fathers of the Western church, set in roundels and surrounded by inscriptions, decorative foliage, and putti bearing the instruments of the Passion. Above the high altar, the frescoes occupying the spaces between the ribs of the cupola feature Christ and the four Evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The cycle has traditionally been attributed to the Paduan or Bolognese school.


San Sepolcro is a church in central Parma.


A church on the site is first mentioned in documents from 1275, likely built at the site of a prior structure. The present building was begun in 1506, attributed to work of Bartolomeo Pradesoli and Jacopo di Modena, but the nave was not completed in its present Neoclassic style until the 1700s. The 1616 bell-tower is attributed to the architects Malosso or Simone Moschino. The top was not added till 1753. The wooden ceiling was carved between 1613 and 1617 by Lorenzo Zaniboni and Giacomo Trioli. The canvases of various saints in the interior are attributed to the studio of Lionello Spada. The stations of the Via Crucis were sculpted by  Giuseppe Carra.
Adjacent to the church is the former monastery of the Canons Regular of the Lateran, who officiated at the church from 1257 till 1798, when the order was suppressed. The monastery has a Renaissance cloister designed by Ziliolo da Reggio, the capitals of the columns were sculpted by Antonio Ferrari d'Agrate. In 1566, the monastery received the title of Abbey. The monastery now belongs to the Dominican order.


San Sisto is a Romanesque-style Roman Catholic church in the town of Viterbo in the Region of Lazio. The church was once known as San Sisto fuori la Porta Romana.


The church was erected in the 11th-century, likely on the site of a prior chapel or aedicule. It once had an adjacent palace and monastery, and served as a hostel for pilgrims en route to Rome. The church has undergone a number of reconstructions along the centuries, most notably after much damage from bombing during World War II.

A 19th-century description of the church bemoaned the state of the church:
Later transformations embellished even more brutally, the primitive style of this temple. The vaults were designed to conceal the old skeletal roofs of the aisles: many altars ripped through the majestic nakedness of the walls and insolent masons covered them with mortar giving in to those who can care not a whit how many paintings, inscriptions and other precious memories existed in that place.
The simple facade was reconstructed after the war. The lower of two belltowers dates to the 13th century. The taller belltower, with 19th-century clock, was originally a defensive tower in the city walls. The latest reconstruction removed much of the post-Romanesque additions, including an adjacent nave. The basilica layout has a series of rounded arches, perched on medieval Corinthian columns, flanking the linear central nave, that leads to a series of staircases rising to the altar and apse. The apse once abutted the medieval walls of Viterbo.
The interior contains both a font and an altar derived from Roman spolia. The sole internal altarpiece is a Madonna, Child, and Saints (1457) by Neri di Bicci.


Posteriori trasformazioni sofisticarono, anche più barbaramente, il tipo primigenio di questo tempio. Le volte vennero a celare i vecchi tetti a scheletro delle navate: molteplici altari squarciarono la maestosa nudità delle pareti: ed insolenti scialbatori di calce avranno dato di frego a chi sa quante pitture, iscrizioni e altre preziose memorie di quel luogo.Gli ospizi medioevali e l'Ospedal-grande di Viterbo: memorie storiche, by Cesare Pinzi (1893), page 173.
Viterbo Città d'Arte – Chiesa di San Sisto, Associazione Culturale no-profit Benclaro website, entry curated by Dr. Fulvio Ricci.
Temporo Libero website, entry on church.


The structure was documented as a pieve church in the 10th century as being built at the site of a former first century oratory. The church is built from travertine marble blocks. The present layout and façade date to a reconstruction during the 13th century, after the sack of the town by the troops of Frederick II in 1242.
The façade has a Gothic rose window which was restored in 1924. It has a rounded central portal leading to a basilica layout with three naves. The attached squat square bell-tower once likely housed the pieve's baptistery; it was rebuilt after a lightning bolt razed the prior tower in 1502.
The interior houses some anonymous frescoes from the mid to late 13th century. These once decorated the exterior and interior of the church. Many of those from the right nave were detached and moved to the Museo Diocesano. The transept is elevated relative to the nave, and leads to a pentagonal apse with gothic mullioned windows. The entrance to the Crypt of St Eustachio is from the outside of the church: it contains a cycle of frescoes from the 14th century depicting the Life of the saint and attributed to the Maestro di Offida.


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For centuries the white granite strata on which the church is built has been used as ashlar. Originally there was a chapel here devoted to Our Lady of Sorrows, dating back to the 16th century. In the square women used to bleach the home-made canvas.
Thanks to the many graces occurred, it was decided to build a church as a substitute for the small chapel. In the church was preserved the statue of Our Lady of the Rosary, which was believed miraculous.
The present complex was promoted by the local Pietro Paolo Minola, who received a grace and decided in 1706 to finance the construction of a new sanctuary. The works began in 1725, thanks to the contribution of the inhabitants. In 1748 the church was complete, while the bell tower and the parish house were finished in 1760. The sanctuary was consecrated in 1771 by the bishop of Novara.
The church has a Greek cross design in a Baroque style with two lateral altars; the architecture and the frescos were made by Lorenzo Peracino. The altarpiece, coming from the old sanctuary, is a panel painting by Fermo Stella and represents the Pietà.
In 1998 the complex has been entirely restored.


Sand Point in Somerset, England, is the peninsula stretching out from Middle Hope, an 84.1-hectare (208-acre) biological and geological Site of Special Scientific Interest. It lies to the north of the village of Kewstoke, and the stretch of coastline called Sand Bay north of the town of Weston-super-Mare.  On a clear day it commands views over Flat Holm, of the Bristol Channel, South Wales, Clevedon, the Second Severn Crossing and the Severn Bridge. A line drawn between Sand Point and Lavernock Point in South Wales marks the lower limit of the Severn Estuary and the start of the Bristol Channel.
Middle Hope is a sequence of carboniferous limestone with unusual geological features including a Pleistocene-aged fossil cliff and as a result has been designated as a regionally important geological site. The underlying geology and soil types support scarce plants such as the  smallflower buttercup, honewort, Cheddar pink and Somerset hair grass. Human use of the sites is shown by a bowl barrow and disc barrow from late Neolithic or Bronze Age and the site of a likely motte-and-bailey castle. Woodspring Priory, a former Augustinian priory which was founded in the early 13th century, sits just inland of the rocky promontory. The priory and surrounding land is owned by the National Trust and is a popular place for walking.


Sandgate Castle is an artillery fort originally constructed by Henry VIII in Sandgate in Kent, between 1539 and 1540. It formed part of the King's Device programme to protect England against invasion from France and the Holy Roman Empire, and defended vulnerable point along the coast. It comprised a central stone keep, with three towers and a gatehouse. It could hold four tiers of artillery, and was fitted with a total of 142 firing points for cannon and handguns.
Sandgate was taken by Parliament in 1642 at the start of the first English Civil War, and was seized by Royalist rebels in the second civil war of 1648. The castle was extensively redesigned between 1805 and 1808 during the Napoleonic Wars. The height of the castle was significantly reduced and the keep was turned into a Martello tower; when the work was completed, it was armed with ten 24-pounder (11 kg) guns and could hold a garrison of 40 men.
The castle had begun to suffer damage from the sea by the early 17th century, and by the middle of the 19th century, the receding coastline had reached the edge of the castle walls. The high costs of repair contributed to the government's decision to sell the site off in 1888. It was initially bought by a railway company and then passed into private ownership.
Coastal erosion continued and by the 1950s, the southern part of the castle had been destroyed by the sea. The remaining castle was restored between 1975 and 1979 by Peter and Barbara McGregor, who turned the keep into a private residence. In the 21st century, Sandgate remains in private ownership, and is protected under UK law as a grade I listed building.


Sandgate Castle was built as a consequence of international tensions between England, France and the Holy Roman Empire in the final years of the reign of King Henry VIII. Traditionally the Crown had left coastal defences to the local lords and communities, only taking a modest role in building and maintaining fortifications, and while France and the Empire remained in conflict with one another, maritime raids were common but an actual invasion of England seemed unlikely. Modest defences, based around simple blockhouses and towers, existed in the south-west and along the Sussex coast, with a few more impressive works in the north of England, but in general the fortifications were very limited in scale.
In 1533, Henry broke with Pope Paul III in order to annul the long-standing marriage to his wife, Catherine of Aragon and remarry. Catherine was the aunt of Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, and he took the annulment as a personal insult. This resulted in France and the Empire declaring an alliance against Henry in 1538, and the Pope encouraging the two countries to attack England. An invasion of England appeared certain. In response, Henry issued an order, called a "device", in 1539, giving instructions for the "defence of the realm in time of invasion" and the construction of forts along the English coastline.
Sandgate was intended to defend a vulnerable point along the Kent cliffs, just west of Folkestone, where an enemy force could potentially land and make their way easily further inland. Sandgate's construction was supervised by the Moravian engineer Stefan von Haschenperg, and Thomas Cockys and Richard Keys acted as commissioners for the project. In the initial stages of the work in 1539, a team of 237 men were employed, with masons, quarrymen, limeburners and wood fellers preparing the site; the masons were drawn from as far away as Somerset and Gloucestershire. By the summer, over 500 were at work, including labourers, bricklayers, carpenters and sawyers. After a pause during the winter months, work picked up again in the summer of the next year, with 630 working on the castle that July.
The castle's foundations rested on the underlying shingle of the beach. The walls were made from Kentish ragstone, mostly roughly laid, with some work using finer ashlar, with Caen stone used in the detailing. Most of the ragstone was collected from the local beaches, where there were suitable outcrops to the west and east of the site. 459 tons of Caen stone was recycled from the priories of Christ Church and Horton, which had recently been dissolved by Henry. In total, 147,000 bricks were used, produced at 13 different brickyards, and 44,000 tiles, mostly manufactured in Wye, along with 1,829 loads of lime, 110 tons of coal and 979 tons of timber. The total cost of the project came to £5,584.
At the centre of the new castle was a circular keep, with three ovoid towers and bastions around it on the northwest, northeast and south sides, and a gatehouse to the north. These were surrounded by two curtain walls, forming a triangular inner and outer ward. Covered stone passageways, three storeys high, linked the towers, the keep and the gatehouse. The outer ward was grassed over, with a stone cesspool by the side of the north-east tower, linked by sewers to the inside of the castle. The castle was entered through a doorway in the rear of the gatehouse, originally called the "Half Moon", linked by a stairway in the covered passageway to the keep. There were four tiers of guns in the finished castle, from the ground level up to the roof of the keep, and a total of 142 firing points for cannon and handguns; their design closely resembling those at nearby Walmer and Deal castles.
Sandgate was completed by the autumn of 1540; Henry may have come to the castle when he was visiting Folkestone in May 1542. Elizabeth I visited the fortification in 1573, and also used it to imprison the courtier Thomas Keyes for a period, after he married Lady Mary Grey against the Queen's wishes. In 1593, the castle was reported to be equipped with seven artillery pieces - one culverin, two demi-culverins, three sakers and one minion - along with muskets, bows and arrows.


In 1609, the garrison comprised a captain and his lieutenant, five soldiers, two porters and ten gunners. The mortar used in the castle was particularly poor, and had begun to seriously decay by 1616. A survey that year showed the castle to be substantially dilapidated, with the cost of the proposed repairs estimated at £260, and noted that a 100 feet (30 m) gun platform for ten weapons had been built along the southern walls to replace the original southern battery. A 1623 report echoed the same problems, noting that the sea had caused a third of the southern wall to collapse; the necessary repairs, including strengthening the walls, were projected at £560.
Four years later, amid fears of war with France and Spain, the castle's captain, Richard Chalcroft, reported that the fortification was in such a poor condition that "neither habitable or defensible against any assault, nor any way fit to command the roads". An inspection team observed that it was straightforward to climb over the castle's ruined walls and rotten timbers, and that as a result its artillery had been dismounted and placed along the beach instead. The castle was probably not repaired, however, until after 1638.
Sandgate Castle was seized in 1642 by Parliamentary forces at the start of the first English Civil War between the supporters of King Charles I and Parliament, although its captain, Richard Hippesley, remained in post. The war ended in 1646 but, after the few years of unsteady peace, the Second Civil War broke out in 1648. The Parliamentary navy was based in Kent, protected by the other Henrician castles of Walmer, Deal and Sandown, but by May a Royalist insurrection was under way across the county, and the fleet joined the rebellion. Sandgate and its sister castles were occupied by the Royalists. Parliament defeated the wider insurgency at the Battle of Maidstone at the start of June, however, and then sent a force under the command of Colonel Rich to deal with the Kentish castles. Sandgate was still occupied by the Royalists that August, when Rich sent forces to prevent its garrison intervening to disrupt his assault on Deal and Sandown, but was recaptured soon after.
During the interregnum, Hippesley initially continued as captain of Sandgate, until he was replaced in 1653, resulting in complaints from him that he had been unfairly treated and that he was owed money by Parliament. During this period the garrison was increased to include a governor, two corporals, twenty soldiers and three gunners. When Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660, Sandgate and the other Device Forts initially remained at the heart of the south coast defences, but by now their design was antiquated. The garrison was cut back to its pre-war levels, and then reduced further in 1682 to only ten men. Sandgate had fallen into a poor condition, and £200 was assigned in 1663 for the repair of the castle, to be met partially from the proceeds of lands around Sandgate confiscated from former supporters of Parliament.


Sandgate Castle was still in use during the Napoleonic Wars at the start of the 19th century, but was heavily rebuilt. Brigadier-General William Twiss surveyed the south coast in 1804, and proposed building a series of 58 new defensive towers along it, as part of which he proposed converted Sandgate into a "secure sea battery". After some opposition, and many delays within the War Office, the work on the castle finally began in 1805.
The project lowered the height of the castle considerably, destroying much of the fortification in the process. The upper storeys of the keep, the towers, the covered passageways and the gatehouse were all demolished, along with some of the buildings in the inner ward. The resulting rubble was used to backfill the outer ward, raising its height and effectively turning the inner ward into a dry moat. The inner curtain wall was reduced to one storey in height, and the outer curtain wall was refaced. An esplanade and wall-walk were built around the remaining outer walls, which supported at least eight gun emplacements.
The circular keep was turned into a Martello tower, a type of Napoleonic artillery fortification. It was now only two storeys tall, although remaining original interior walls and doorways largely survived untouched. It was accessed on the first floor via an unusual sliding drawbridge, which was supported on rails and could retract into the floor, and the different storeys were linked by a spiral staircase. The ground floor of the keep included a brick-built magazine, and the roof, supported by a central pillar running up through the building, held a single, large gun emplacement.
The north-east and north-west towers, now only one-storey tall, were covered with turf, turning the rear of the outer ward into a flat, grassed esplanade. The southern tower was reduced in height to two storeys, but remained in use as a gun platform. The covered corridors between the keep and the towers were now one-storey high as well, linking to the buried towers in the north-east and north-west bastions. The upper storeys of the gatehouse were rebuilt, although the ground floor remained in its 16th-century condition.
The modified castle was completed by 1808, and held eight 24-pounder (11 kg) guns along the outer wall, a gun on the roof of the southern bastion, and another on top of the keep itself. The new castle could hold a garrison of 40 men.
In 1859, the castle was re-equipped with heavier artillery, a combination of 32-pounder (15 kg) and 68-pounder (31 kg) guns. A new magazine was constructed, comprising a large, brick-built building divided into three rooms for storing gunpowder, specially designed to keep the powder dry. The exterior gun emplacements were also redesigned, reusing the 1806 foundations; the two surviving emplacements, in the north-east and north-west bastions, date from 1859.
Coastal erosion remained a problem. By the middle of the century, the tides had reached the southern edge of the castle, and an 1866 report stated that the walls had been undermined by the sea. Despite protective piles being driven around the castle, it was badly affected by flooding in 1875 and 1878, creating serious fissures in the stonework. The high costs of maintaining the property, combined with its dwindling utility, encouraged the government to sell the castle to the South Eastern Railway company in 1888, who intended to turn it into a railway station. It was then sold to private owners and a small museum was created in the castle, which was sometimes opened to the public for an entry price of one penny.


The receding coast line continued to threaten Sandgate Castle, and severe storms in 1927 and 1950 undermined large parts of the castle. By the time that a new seawall was built in the early 1950s, the southern third of the castle had been entirely destroyed.
In 1975, Peter and Barbara McGregor began to restore the ruins of the castle, with the support of the Department of the Environment, Kent County Council and the British Army. As part of the project, archaeological investigations were carried out between 1975 and 1979 by Edward Harris.
The part of the 1806 esplanade around the northeast bastion was excavated, revealing the lower 16th-century stonework of the tower and the east side of the 1859 magazine, and a retaining wall was built to support the newly exposed walls. This created two levels in the outer bailey: a higher level on the western side, which still covered the northwest tower, and a lower one on the eastern. The keep was turned into a private residence, with a new sun room built on top of the gun platform.
In 2000, Lord Geoffrey Boot and his wife acquired the castle, which is now used by Boot's company, AMT South Eastern Ltd.
The castle is protected under UK law as a grade I listed building. The two 16th-century ledger books from the original construction, written by the project clerk Thomas Busshe, survive in the British Library. They are 350 pages long, and form what the historian Peter Harrington has described as the "most complete building account of any Tudor fortification".


Comparing early modern costs and prices with those of the modern period is challenging. £5,584 in 1540 could be equivalent to between £3.1 and £1,500 million in 2014, depending on the price comparison used. £260 in 1616 could equate to between £44,000 and £13.6 million; £560 in 123 to between £93,000 and £27.7 million; and £200 in 1663 to between £26,800 and £6 million. For comparison, the total royal expenditure on all the Device Forts across England between 1539 and 1547 came to £376,500, with St Mawes, for example, costing £5,018.
One penny in 1900 would be equivalent to £0.48 in 2014.


Sant Feliu (St Felix) is a Romanesque and Gothic-style, Roman Catholic church located in the city of Xàtiva, Valencia, Spain.
The church was erected in 1265, after the capture of the town by King Jaume I of Aragon. It is located near Castell, near the lookout of Bellveret. It is sited on the site of an ancient cathedral.


Sant Pere del Burgal is a Romanesque Benedictine monastery in Escaló, in the municipality of La Guingueta d'Àneu, Pallars Sobirà, Catalonia, Spain. The monastery was first mentioned in a precept of Count Raymond of Toulouse in 859. It later became a priory of the abbey of Roussillon. It fell into decline and was secularized in 1570 and confiscated in 1835. It contains frescoes dated to the 11th century.


Santa Bárbara Castle (Valencian: Castell de Santa Bàrbara, Spanish: Castillo de Santa Bárbara) is a fortification in the center of Alicante, Spain.  It stands on Mount Benacantil (166 m).


Santa Caterina a Magnanapoli is a baroque church dedicated to St. Catherine of Siena on Largo Magnanapoli on the slopes of the Quirinal Hill in Rome.


A group of Dominican tertiary nuns, living in a small house in via Santa Chiara where St. Catherine had died, were looking for larger premises. Lead by Porzia Massimo whose late husband was a Conti, from 1574 they successively acquired parts of properties belonging to the Conti family at Magnanapoli to establish their convent there, financially assisted by Pope Gregory XIII. The originally small community thrived and quickly expanded from 27 nuns in 1574 to 108 in 1626, many of whom from important noble families.
The construction of a church began in 1608, initially at expense of Cardinal Scipione Borghese to a design by Carlo Maderno, but stopped in 1613. Meanwhile, the monastery acquired the Torre delle Milizie in 1619.
In 1628, the building of the current church was begun to a design by Giovanni Battista Soria. In 1631 the chancel and two adjacent chapels were completed. Building then came to a halt until the final portion of the church took shape from 1636 and concluded with the facade in 1641. The consecration of the church by cardinal Alessandro Cesarini took place in 1640.
Another Dominican nuns' convent, Santi Domenico e Sisto, is just a stone's throw away.
When the Via Nazionale was laid out in the 19th century, the street level was lowered. This raised the church entrance to a considerable height above the street. To allow access, a double staircase leading to the portico was built. Under the stairs is the entrance to the Crypt of the Fallen, constructed in 1934 and dedicated to the priests who were killed in the First World War. The crypt contains a bronze crucifix by Romano Romanelli.
Most of the convent was demolished in 1924. The Military Ordinariate, whose headquarters are adjacent to the church, took over the church, and it is now served by diocesan clergy. A restoration occurred in 1992.


The interior is a single nave with a barrel vault and three chapels on each side. The rich decoration, although carried out over a long period of time, appears very homogeneous.


The massive main altar's architecture to the design of the Maltese sculptor Melchiorre Cafà is shaped similar to church facades. It creates an elaborate frame for the large marble relief, also by Cafà and finished by the time of his untimely death in 1667, aged only 31.
The relief, St Catherine in Ecstasy, shows the saint in a very indeterminate stance on a cloud pushed by an angel and some putti, all in white marble (some of the flattest parts of the cloud are in plaster). The scene is embedded in an smooth, polychrome background which forms a concave curve through which it underlines the protagonist's statuesque appearance, seemingly detached from it. Its pieces of differently coloured marble are arranged in such a way that they suggest dematerialised dark clouds opening up to let St. Catherine ascend to heaven. With her floatingly light posture and upwards gaze this ascend seems inevitable, she seems to be drawn heavenwards.
Cafà's work is something new in Roman baroque sculpture. It incorporates lessons learned from Bernini, in particular his Memorial to Maria Raggi (1647) and the Ecstasy of St Theresa (ca. 1652) as well as the use of a polychrome marble background at the relic balconies in the pillars of the crossing of Saint Peter's (1630s). In addition, Cafà pulls together recently finished or contemporary solutions from within the workshop of Ercole Ferrata of which he himself was an essential part, in particular the Statue of St. Catherine for Siena Cathedral, St. Agnes on a Pyre and the concave shaped relief Martyrdom of Sant'Emerenziana (both in Sant'Agnese in Agone). From these ingredients and his own artistic power, Cafà produces a highly emotive pictorial solution unseen before, neither neatly definable as a relief nor as a statue nor as a picture.


The nave's ceiling fresco, Glory of St. Catherine, one of the masterpieces of Luigi Garzi, shows St. Catherine arriving in heaven and concludes the narrative started by Cafà. It was first mentioned in 1713 and is retained by some scholars to be from around that period while others date it considerably earlier.
Garzi had already painted an altarpiece with the subject All Saints in 1674 for the second chapel on the right.
This second chapel on the right was decorated in fresco from 1700-1703 by Giuseppe Passeri who also painted two other altar paintings, Three Archangels as well as Madonna of the Rosary.
The latter, one of Passeri's best works, is in the third chapel on the left which also contains the tomb monuments to Giuseppe Bonanni (1648) and Virginia Primi Bonanni (1650) by Giuliano Finelli.
In the first chapel on the right, Benedetto Luti painted a fresco of Putti in the ceiling and carried out its altarpiece, Communion of St. Mary Magdalen (1706-1708).


In the corridor leading to the sacristy are remains of frescoes by Antoniazzo Romano which came from the original house of the nuns in via St. Chiara. Some time after 1637 they became part of the room of St. Catherine in the Magnanapoli convent. When this was demolished the frescoes were relocated to this corridor. Among the saints shown are St Bridget of Sweden and St Catherine of Alexandria.


The  Palacio de Santa Cruz or Palace of the Holy Cross is a baroque building in central Madrid, Spain. It now houses the Spanish Foreign Ministry. It was used as a jail until the reign of Philip IV of Spain, when it was converted into a palace.
Construction was commissioned in 1629 by Philip IV to house both courts and jail facilities. The architect Juan Gómez de Mora  worked on it from 1629 to 1636, and later other architects like  José de Villareal, Bartolomé Hurtado García, and José del Olmo added elements.
In 1767 it changed from jail to the Palacio de Santa Cruz, due to its proximity to the church of Santa Cruz. A fire destroyed all but the facade in 1791.


Santa Fe Abbey (Spanish: Monasterio de Santa Fe) is a former Cistercian monastery in Zaragoza, Aragon, Spain. It was established on this site in 1341 or 1343, as a resettlement of the original Cistercian foundation of Fuente Clara Abbey, a daughter house of Abbaye de Bonnefont, of 1223, which was obliged to move here from its original site in Alcolea de Cinca in Aragon because of banditry.
The monastery was dissolved either in 1808 or in 1835–37. There are no visible remains of the monastic buildings. The large domed church still on the site was built in the late 18th century (completed 1788).


Santa Luzia Dam (Portuguese: Barragem de Santa Luzia) is a concrete arch dam on the Unhais, a northern tributary of the Zêzere River, located in the municipality Pampilhosa da Serra, in Coimbra District, Portugal. The dam was constructed between 1930 and 1942 and was designed by André Coyne.


Santa Luzia Dam is a 76 m tall and 115 m long arch dam. The volume of the dam is 80.000 m³. The dam contains 2 crest spillways  and one bottom outlet. At full reservoir level the reservoir of the dam (Portuguese: Albufeira da Barragem de Santa Luzia) has a surface area of 2.46 km² and its total capacity is 53.7 Mio m³.
The concrete of the dam is affected by concrete swelling, caused by an alkali–silica reaction, that leads to tensions and cracks in the concrete.


The power plant is one of the smaller hydroelectric power stations in Portugal with a nameplate capacity of 32 MW. Its average annual generation is 55 Mio. kWh. The power station contains four Pelton turbine-generators.


Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta (Italian for Church of Santa Maria Assunta)  is a  Romanesque church in Bominaco, Province of L'Aquila (Abruzzo).


The Church of Saint Mary Help of Christians in Via Tuscolana (Italian: Santa Maria Ausiliatrice, Latin: S. Mariae Auxiliatricis in via Tusculana) is a parish and titular church, minor basilica of Rome.
The titulus S. Mariae Auxiliatricis in via Tusculana was established by Pope Paul VI on June 7, 1967, by the apostolic constitution "Ad gubernacula christianae".


Created parish church on March 25, 1932, with the Apostolic Constitution "Inter pastoralis" of Pope Pius XI and entrusted to the Salesians of Don Bosco, it was designed by architects Nicola Mosso and Giulio Vallotti between 1931 and 1936.


The interior follows a plan of a mix between a Latin cross and Greek cross, with three naves. The walls and ceiling are decorated with frescoes of Baroque inspiration, made by Giuseppe Melle between 1957 and 1965.


Santa Maria dei Servi is a Roman Catholic basilica in Bologna, Italy.
It was founded in 1346, as the church of the Servite Community of the Blessed Virgin Mary and was designed by Andrea da Faenza, a head friar and architect who also assisted Antonio di Vincenzo on the monumental Basilica of San Petronio. In the 20th century,  Pope Pius XII granted the church the status of "basilica".


The basilica is 100 metres long by 20 metres wide. It has the form of a Latin cross but the transepts do not project beyond the aisles. The shallow apse is five segments of an octagon, as is common in Italian Gothic churches.
It was designed in the Gothic style with pointed arches throughout. At the death of Padre Andrea in 1396, the work was not complete. However, the completion in the 15th century saw little change to the design of the basilica itself, which is entirely Gothic in appearance.
The central nave and side aisles are divided from each other by stout round columns with floriate capitals, the shafts being red in colour and the capitals and bases of contrasting pale stone, adding a decorative effect to the very simple architecture. The plastered walls above the arcade are pierced by ocular windows set high under the gothic vault. The vault is of a simple quadrupartite form with the brick ribs in contrast to the infilling.


Externally, the church is very plain, undecorated brick. The facade, which was constructed in several phases, has never been decorated.
A remarkable feature of the church is its courtyard or atrium. This is a feature that was common in Early Christian churches, including the earlier St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, but has almost always disappeared. This is an unusual case of an atrium being built in the 16th century. It appears to have been modelled on the arcade built by Brunelleschi at the Hospital of the Innocents (Ospedale degli Innocenti) in Florence, and later extended to other parts of the large piazza, including the front of the Church of the Assumption.
In the case of Santa Maria dei Servi, the piazza in front of the basilica was quite small—which permitted building a wide arcade around it that encloses the entire square without interruption. The arcade is closed on one side by the conventual buildings, but on two sides it is open to the street, and extends along the entire left side of the building. Where the arcade meets the facade, it forms a "narthex" or wide portico of five arches, stretching across the front of the church. The arcade has a decorative cornice and circular moulding on the spandrels echoes the ocular window in the facade.


The many works of art still housed in the church include a Holy Virgin Enthroned traditionally attributed to Cimabue but thought to be a product of his workshop, remains of 14th-century frescoes by Vitale da Bologna and Lippo di Dalmasio, paintings by Innocenzo da Imola and Francesco Albani, and a marble altarpiece of the Annunciation of Mary (1558) by Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli, a pupil of Michelangelo.
The church also possesses a widely praised pipe organ, made in 1967 by the Tamburini company of Crema, which can be operated with a mechanical action.


Santa Maria della Rosa is a Gothic- style,  Roman Catholic church located on Via della Rosa in central Lucca, region of Tuscany, Italy.


The church as we see it dates from a 1309-1333 construction at the site of an older oratory devoted to an icon of the Madonna, holding a Rose, and with St Peter and St Paul. The church was adjacent to the Roman walls of Lucca. One of the portals has sculpted ornaments of a Dragon breathing roses. The facade remained incomplete till the end of the 15th century.
The main altarpiece is the famous icon of the Madonna of the Rose. The church was visited frequently during 1900 to 1903, by Saint Gemma Galgani. Every April 11, the anniversary of her death is celebrated.
The church also has tombs of Francesco Geminiani and Luigi Boccherini.
Among the paintings is a Noli me Tangere by Domenico Passignano and a Nativity by Federico Zuccari.


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Chiesa di Santa Maria in Valle Porclaneta (Italian for Church of Santa Maria in Valle Porclaneta)  is a  Romanesque church in Rosciolo dei Marsi (a frazione of the comune of Magliano de' Marsi), in western Abruzzo, central Italy.


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The church of Santa Maria in Porclaneta Valley is mentioned for the first time in an 11th century document, when the monastery passed under the jurisdiction of the Montecassino Abbey. It is located on the slopes of Monte Velino, at 1022 meters above the sea level.
The plan of the church, which is in Romanesque style, consists of a central nave ending in an apse; this is separated by two smaller naves by arcades. Before the entrance is a pronaos, which used to lead to the monks' rooms, now partially collapsed. Inside the church is preserved a ambon and a ciborium dated 1150, both attributed to the master Nicodemus; furthermore, there are the remains of the iconostasis that used to separate the presbytery from the hall reserved to the congregation, painted with frescoes.
The ambon is in stone covered by stucco, with a squared pulpit built over trilobed arches, in turn supported by small octagonal columns. The capitals are decorated with human figures mixed with vegetable representations. The sides of the upper pulpit are in turn sculpted with diacons and scenes from the Old Testament, including David fighting the bear and Jonah devoured by the whale. The decoration is similar to that in the church of Santa Maria del Lago at Moscufo, also in Abruzzo.


The Santa Rosa Range is a mountain range in Humboldt County, Nevada, United States.  Most of the range is included within the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest. The highest peaks in the range are Granite Peak (9732 feet, 2966 m) and Santa Rosa Peak (9701 feet, 2957 m). The range extends for approximately 75 miles (120 km) north from Winnemucca Mountain near Winnemucca through eastern Humboldt County to the border with Oregon.  The upper elevations of the southern section of the range are protected as the Santa Rosa-Paradise Peak Wilderness Area.
The eastern side of the range is a ranching district around Paradise Valley, drained by the Little Humboldt River, a tributary of the Humboldt.  The Quinn River Valley is west of the range.  The Owyhee Desert on the edge of the Columbia Plateau extends northeast from the north end of the range.
The range was so named on account of wild roses which grow in the area.


The Church of Santi Domenico e Sisto is one of the titular churches in Rome, Italy in the care of the Roman Catholic Order of Preachers, better known as the Dominicans. It is located at No. 1 Largo Angelicum on the Quirinal Hill on the campus of the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum), of which it is the University Church.
As a titular church it has been held by Cardinal José Tolentino Mendonça since 5 October 2019.


The first church at the site, Santa Maria a Magnanapoli, was built sometime before the year 1000.
The present church was built at the order of Dominican Pope Pius V. Construction on the church began in 1569 and on a convent for Dominican nuns in 1575. The original plan was the work of Giacomo della Porta though during the long construction period that stretched until 1663 several other architects were involved. The lower part of the church was designed by Nicola Torriani, and the upper part by Torriani or Vincenzo della Greca. Della Greca constructed the Baroque travertine façade in 1646, with his brother Felice.
The façade contains four statues. The two upper statues representing Saint Dominic (1170–1221) and Saint Pope Sixtus II (r. 257–258) are by Marcantonio Canini. The two lower statues depict St. Thomas Aquinas and Saint Peter of Verona, were sculpted by Stefano Maderno.
The exterior double staircase built in 1654 is the design of architect Orazio Torriani.


In 1649 Gian Lorenzo Bernini made designs for this church including the high altar and the first chapel on the right upon entering. The altar of this chapel and the sculpture group Noli me tangere were executed by Bernini's pupil Antonio Raggi on the designs by Bernini.
The ceiling painting of the Apotheosis of St Dominic was produced in 1674 by Domenico Maria Canuti, with trompe-l'œil framing by Enrico Haffner.
The altarpiece in the third chapel on the south side, by Pier Francesco Mola, depicts St Dominic's Vision. In the second chapel on the north side is Francesco Allegrini's 1532 The Mystical Marriage of St Catherine. In the third chapel on the north side is the 1460 Madonna and Child by Benozzo Gozzoli, a pupil of Fra Angelico.


The church has functioned as the university church for the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) since the Dominicans were able to re-acquire the convent complex from the Italian government in 1927 after its expropriation from the Order in 1870 due to the Laws of suppression of religious orders. The church is used to celebrate the solemn inauguration of each academic year, the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas and the official closing of the academic year. It closes during the university's summer break except for the feast of St. Dominic on 7 August. Other than during public functions, visits need to be arranged by prior appointment.


The church has been the subject of or appeared in numerous works of art. Antonio Canaletto made a pen and ink study with grey wash and black chalk, today in the collection of the British Museum, described as depicting "the Church of SS Domenico e Sisto, Rome; with a sweeping double staircase to the entrance, in the foreground a man bowing to two approaching ladies."
In 1906, American painter John Singer Sargent completed an oil painting of the exterior staircase and balustrade of the church. Sargent described the ensemble as "a magnificent curved staircase and balustrade, leading to a grand façade that would reduce a millionaire to a worm".  Sargent used the architectural features from this painting later in a portrait of Charles William Eliot, President of Harvard University. Sargent also made several preliminary pencil sketches of the balustrade and staircase.
The Church as also been depicted by Ettore Roesler Franz and Eero Saarinen.
The Church and stair feature in the 1950 film Prima comunione by director Alessandro Blasetti.


Santi Ippolito e Cassiano (Pieve dei Santi Ippolito e Cassiano) is located in San Casciano, a village in the municipality of Cascina, Tuscany, Italy.
It is recorded in a document dated April 12, 970, being part of the Archives of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Pisa and probably also in another document dating back to June, in the year 857.


Santissimo Salvatore is a Baroque-style Roman Catholic church in central Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy.


A 12th-century church at the site once hosted the Canons Regular monks of Santa Maria di Reno. The church was constructed in its present form in 1605-1623 under the direction of the Barnabite priest Giovanni Ambrogio Mazenta, assisted by the architect Tommaso Martelli. It contains eight chapels, four on each side. The only feature from the prior structure to remain was the 16th-century bell tower. The facade has three copper statues by Orazio Provaglia, along with four evangelist statues attributed to Giovanni Tedeschi.  The church is presently closed to the public and only open to prearranged tours.
This first chapel, hosts a canvas of the Beatified Archangel Canetoli refuses the role of archbishop of Florence from Giuliano de’ Medici by Ercole Graziani the Younger. The flanking statues of Saints Augustine and Jerome are sculpted by Tedeschi.
The next chapel has four sculptures by Tedeschi and Clemente Molli.  An altarpiece depicts the Resurrection by Giovanni Andrea Donducci (il Mastellata) .
The third chapel has an altarpiece of the Madonna della Vittoria or Madonna del Monte (14th century) attributed to Lippo di Dalmasio or perhaps Simone de’Crocifissi while the vault frescoes are by the 19th century painters Alessandro Guardassoni and Luigi del Samoggia, crowned by the Pope via a formal decree in 1875.
The fourth chapel has a large canvas depicting The Miracle of the Beirut Crucifix (1579) by Jacopo Coppi also known as Jacopo del Meglio. There is also a Virgin at the Temple of St Thomas Becket of Canterbury (mid-1500s) by Girolamo da Treviso. Becket had studied in Bologna. One of the masterpieces of art in the church is the polyptcyh by Vitale da Bologna from 1353. It shows the Virgin being crowned in between two saints.
The first chapel on the left has a canvas of St John the Baptists and Saints (1532) by il Garofalo. The next chapel has an Ascension (1600s) by Carlo Bononi restored by Camillo Tarozzi. Just before the third chapel is this skilfully carved walnut pulpit from 1926 by Carlo Bordoni and Ferdinando Rossi.
The third chapel has a canvas depicting the Crucifixion and Saints (1539) by Innocenzo da Imola, flanked by sculptures by Andrea Guerra and Giovanni Tedeschi. The last chapel on the transept presents Alessandro Tiarini’s Nativity scene which sources indicate may have been destined for the main altar.
Right in the center of the nave is a marble tablet marking the tomb of the painter Guercino, buried here in 1666.
The altar is the work of Camillo Ambrosi. Above and behind are four paintings of prophets while the main altarpiece depicts Jesus the Savior in Glory, the painting was a collaboration between Giovanni Francesco Gessi and Guido Reni. There are also four paintings depict the Story of The Crucifix of Beirut, again another collaboration work between Giacomo Cavedone and Francesco Brizzi.
The Story of the Crucifix of Beirut is a tale recounted in Jacobus de Voragine's  Golden Legend, tells of events of year 320 in the Roman city of Berytus (Beirut). A stolen crucifix begins to bleed and causes the local population (Jews) who had been persecuting Christians, to convert.


Iglesia de Santo Domingo is a church in Oviedo, region of Asturias, Spain. It was established in 1518.


The church was originally constructed in the 11th and 12th century in a Romanesque style with a polychrome marble facade.  The interior featured three aisles.  In the 14th century, the exterior was renovated.  Of the original facade, only the marble work around the portal remains.  Between 1631 and 1655, the interior of the church was renovated to convert the three aisles to an open hall.  A crypt was added and the interior was redesigned to include a choir.
In 1373, the church was temporarily used by Boccaccio to deliver lectures on the Divine Comedy.
The annexed diocesan museum houses a panel with a Madonna by Giotto. Inside the church are artworks by Matteo Rosselli (Vision of San Lorenzo); Niccolò Lapi; Giottino; Mariotto di Nardo; Ferdinando Tacca (bronze bas-relief of Martyrdom of San Stefano, 1656); Francesco Bianchi Buonavita; Cigoli (Copy of Santi di Tito's Deposition); Francesco Curradi (Death of Santa Cecilia before Urban I, 1641); Francesco Morosini (St Paul on Road to Tarsus); Mauro Soderini (St Zanobi resuscitates a child, 1745), and Santi di Tito (Madonna and Saints, after 1585).


The Santuario della Consolata or, in its full name, the Church of the Virgin of the Consolation is a Marian sanctuary and minor basilica in central Turin, Piedmont, Italy. Colloquially, the sanctuary is known as La Consolata.
It is located on the intersection of Via Consolata and Via Carlo Ignazio Giulio.
Dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of Our Lady of Consolation, the church was raised to the rank of a Basilica minor by Pope Pius X on 7 April 1906.


The Benedictine Order were the first monastic order to settle in this location. A church at the site, probably dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, stood adjacent to the ancient Roman walls of the city. It is held that in the 5th century, Bishop Maximus erected a church dedicated to Saint Andrew with a small chapel to the Virgin with an icon. The icon, however, became the object of great veneration.
Pious legends claim that a blind pilgrim in the 12th century had his vision restored by the icon of the Virgin in the church. Inside the church, ex votos document centuries of miracles attributed to the Virgin. In 929 the Marquis Adalbert ordered the construction of a monastery and endowed it with some territories. The Romanesque bell tower dates to about this time, and was built next to the foundation of one of the corner turrets of the old Roman fort which later became Turin.
The shrine was bombed by the Royal Air Force of Britain on 13 August 1943. It was awarded the Golden Rose by Pope Francis in 2015.


The church was originally built in the style of a basilica. Over the years the church and the icon of Our Lady of Consolation were rebuilt respectively restored by various religious orders. In 1448 the prior of Sant'Andrea expanded the church building one bay to the west. With the increased popularity of devotion to Our Lady of Consolation, the church changed from a parish to a shrine.
The first major reconstruction leading to the present church was commissioned in 1678 by Marie Jeanne Baptiste of Savoy-Nemours.  Architect Guarino Guarini and engineer Antonio Bertola created the elliptical shape of the church nave, and added a new hexagonal chapel on the north side to accommodate the venerated icon of Mary.
The architect Filippo Juvarra in 1729-1740 added the North presbytery, thus creating a church with two apparent axis: a main altar on the east, while retaining the famed icon as a chapel to the north. This period also saw the decoration of the dome by Giovanni Battista Crosato.
The neoclassical facade, portico, and burial crypt on the south–north axis date from 1845-1860 with contributions by Pietro Anselmetti; further additions were made in 1899-1904 under the guidance of Carlo Ceppi.
The interior has a jubilantly polychrome rococo decoration with colored marbles and solomonic columns. The Juvarra altar has two marble angels in adoration by Carlo Antonio Tantardini. The interior has a sculpture of two praying queens by Vincenzo Vela. Outside the church is a statue of a virgin and child on a column.
The church serves as a burial place for a number of saints affiliated with Turin: Giuseppe Cafasso and Leonardo Murialdo, as well as the Blessed Giuseppe Allamano, rector (1880-1926) and founder of the Mission Institute of the Consolata. Every June 20, a procession of the icon of the Virgin takes place in the streets of the city.
The church is an eclectic collection of architecture, and includes portions of an ancient Roman wall, a Romanesque bell-tower, a baroque set of domes, almost Byzantine, sheltering a gothic icon, with two porticos, one of which has Neoclassic severity. The clashing of Guarini's and Juvarra's often mathematical architecture with the highly decorated interior, stubbornly magnetic to a ritualistic popular piousness, leads to a modern synthesis with immanent overtones.


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The Sanctuary of the Madonna of the Oak or Santuario della Madonna della Querce is a Renaissance-style, Roman Catholic church located about a kilometer from the center of the town of Lucignano, in the region of Tuscany, Italy. The church is in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Arezzo-Cortona-Sansepolcro.