The future is now: 10 ideas from past SF applied in present

SF writers have often succeeded in imagining the technology we use today.

Over the years, SFs, whether we're talking about books, comics, serials or movies here, have managed to show us what the technology we will use in the future might look like. This genre has given birth to many important names in literature, among them, Jules Verne managing to combine an easy-to-read style of writing with a boundless imagination; he managed to foresee even aselenization in his book "From the Earth to the Moon".

The development of radio and television has given many writers and writers the opportunity to share their ideas with the general public and even give us a clear picture of how the technology we use will look. Space has created a list of 10 ideas from SF that, in the meantime, have become reality.


1. Star Trek Mobile Phone: The Original Series

The first mobile phone was invented by Motorola in 1973 and weighed 1.1 kilograms; Over time, scientists have been able to consistently reduce the weight of these devices and, more importantly, increase their number of functions.

H&I | The Star Trek prop that predicted the flip phone is back

If the first mobile phone, Motorola DynaTAC, only gave you 35 minutes for calls, the preset phones can work even for a few days without being charged, and some of them can even download in a few seconds a lot of information that initially mobile telephony would have seemed astronomical.


2. Universal Translator, Star Trek: The Original Series

The characters in Star Trek used a device to communicate with the various alien species. Currently, the idea of a device has been replaced by an algorithm, such as the one offered by Skype that allows the translation of the voice from one language to another. Obviously, the current technology does not meet SF standards, but it alone represents solid steps in the right direction.

Star Trek's Universal Translator Version 1.0 Shelly Palmer

Fans of Star Trek (The Original Series) will fondly remember the “Universal Translator.” While Gene Roddenberry’s epic saga was both inspirational and aspirational for some, it set goals for others. How much wireless bandwidth would you need on the Starship Enterprise? How would a medical tricorder work? What kind of storage would you need on Memory Alpha? How did the noise-cancelling for communicators work? Every engineer I know can tell you a story about how he or she was inspired by this amazing 1960s television show.


3. Teleportation, Star Trek: The Original Series

Quantum teleportation moves into the third dimension – Physics World Physics World

The idea behind the teleportation in this series is that a person could be "decomposed" into energy and "recomposed" once they reach their destination. Unfortunately, our scientists have not been able to teleport people, but they have been able to teleport photons, the smallest forms of matter, on the boundary between energy and matter.

Physicists in China and Austria have shown for the first time they can teleport multi-dimensional states of photons. Carrying out experiments using photons encoded via three spatial states, they say their scheme can be extended to arbitrarily high numbers of dimensions and is a vital step in teleporting the entire quantum state of a particle. The work could also improve technology used in quantum communications and quantum computing.

Quantum mechanics forbids the quantum state of one particle from being copied precisely to another particle. But teleportation – the instantaneous transfer of a state between particles separated by a long distance – offers an alternative. The process involves no physical transfer of matter and erases the state of the particle to be copied.


4. 3D Holograms, Star Wars

In the Star Wars universe, some of the communication is done with the help of three-dimensional holograms, such a transmission being the one that removes Obi-Wan Kenobi from his isolation on the desert planet Tatooine.

In real life, in 2018, researchers at Brigham Young University, United States of America managed to create such a hologram, their technology uses fast particles.


5. Bionic members, Star Wars

Star Wars fans know over the course of the nine films many people lose their limbs; however, the confrontation between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader of Cloud City gave us the first picture of how an artificial hand could look and function.

Cybernetics Wookieepedia - Fandom

This scenario seems to be closer to reality now than it was in the 1970s when the series was launched; researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA, have managed to produce an arm that can be controlled with the help of sensors by people whose arms have been amputated.


6. Digital panels, Blade Runner

In this movie, viewers can see a possible version of a Los Angees from the not too distant future; on some of the buildings of this city are a series of giant billboards that would be digital. In 2013, the company Digital Out Of Home (DOOH) was created which develops a similar technology.

7. Artificial intelligence

Currently, artificial intelligence has a variety of applications, starting from art and even to medicine and pharmacology; we can say that researchers in most people do their best to adapt the algorithms to help them in their work, and this is due to their almost unlimited potential.

In the movie Blade Runner, we are presented with the idea of synthetic people who need artificial intelligence to function; the existence of these algorithms tends to play an important role in the unfolding of the film.


8. Space Stations, 2001: A Space Odyssey

In the 1968 film, we are presented with the idea of ​​a space station, located on the Earth's low orbit, where astronauts experience microgravity. Starting with 1998, this idea began to take shape and in reality, with the construction of the International Space Station, a laboratory dedicated to microgravity studies.

Washington, DC, April 2, 1968.  The Uptown Theater.  Opening night.  The world eagerly awaits the premiere of Stanley Kubrick’s latest epic film.  Four years in the making with noted science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, the film has been delayed and is over budget.  Two days later, 2001: A Space Odyssey opens in New York and Los Angeles, and in other US cities the following week.  Anticipation runs high, given the talent involved and the near total secrecy surrounding the film during production and editing, which Kubrick was still finishing just a few days before opening day.  Even Clarke didn’t see the finished product until the premiere.


9. Tablets, 2001: A Space Odyssey

The tablets we use today appeared in 2010, however in 1964, in 2001: A Space Odyssey, the creators introduced the concept of "newspads". These devices were used by the scientists in the movie and, like Samsung, these were the first true tablets and not the iPads.


10. Cars without driver, Total Recall

This 1984 film presents a concept that scientists from a multitude of research institutions and private companies are actively working on: creating an algorithm that allows cars to travel safely, without the need for a driver at steering wheel. NASA seems to be interested in this property, and that would allow it to build more efficient robots that explore space.

The futuristic cars of Total Recall, behind the scenes hemmings.com

A long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away? No, wrong movie), reader Greg Allen caught our post on the Boonie Bug and sent in some screengrabs from the classic Arnold Schwarzenegger film Total Recall guessing that the Johnnycab was based on a Boonie Bug. It wasn’t, but that post did inspire James Belohovek to get in touch with us. James did some work on the Johnny in the Johnnycab and had a chance to take plenty of pictures on set during the filming of the movie.

You may also like : Star Wars Day: May The Force Be With You. "Isolation does not stop fans of the series around the world from celebrating Star Wars Day"

The death of Ragnar Lodbrok and his sons' vengeance in the last episodes from season 4

When king Ælla of Northumbria learns of the pillaging army, he musters an overwhelming force and defeats Ragnar's army. Ragnar is dressed in a silken jacket which Aslaug had made and nothing can pierce it. Finally, he is taken prisoner and thrown into a snake pit. However, as the snakes do not bite him, the Englishmen take off his clothes and then the snakes kill him for good.

Ragnar's sons attack England but Ivar does not want to fight as the English army is too large; he fears they will lose and will have to go home again. Ivar, however, stays in England and asks Ælla for wergild, claiming that he can not go home without some compensation to show his brothers.

King Ælla of Northumbria (Ivan Kaye) photo: wikia

Ivar only asks for as much land as he can cover with an ox's hide. He cuts it into such a fine long string of hide that he can encircle an area large enough for a city. When this is done, he lays the foundations for a city which becomes York. He allies himself with all of England and finally all the chieftains in the region become loyal to Ivar and his brothers.

Then, Ivar tells his brothers to attack England. During the battle Ivar sides with his brothers and so do many of the English chieftains with their people, out of loyalty to Ivar. Ælla is taken captive and in revenge Ragnar's sons carve the blood eagle from him.

Ivar becomes king over north-eastern England which his forefathers owned (i.e. Ivar Vidfamne and Sigurd Ring), and he has two sons, Yngvar and Husto. They obey their father Ivar and torture king Edmund the Martyr and take his realm.

An 1857 painting by August Malmström depicting King Aella's messenger before Ragnar Lodbrok's sons. photo: wikipedia

Ragnar's sons pillage in England, Wales, France and Italy, until they come to the town of Luna in Italy. When they come back to Scandinavia, they divide the kingdom so that Björn Ironside has Uppsala and Sweden, Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye has Zealand, Scania, Halland, Viken, Agder, all the way to Lindesnes and most of Oppland, and Hvitserk receives Reidgotaland (Jutland) and Wendland.

Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye marries king Ælla's daughter Blaeja and they have a son named Harthacnut, who succeeds his father as the king of Zealand, Scania and Halland, but Viken rebels and breaks loose. Harthacanute has a son named Gorm, who is big and strong but not as wise as his ancestors.

Other articles on the same theme:

• Ragnar Lothbrok (Travis Fimmel) meet his fate and dies in a pit of snakes in Episode 15 of Vikings Season 4

• Over a millennium ago, the real Ragnar Lodbrok ran a legendary battle that would ensure them a place in history

• Top 8: Famous Vikings you should know about

• 1013: The year when the vikings invaded and conquered England

Story source: 

The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Wikipedia. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Inferno "Historical Review and facts"

Original Dante's Inferno photo: pinterest

Wikipedia Storyline of the movie Inferno 

Academy Award winner Ron Howard returns to direct the latest bestseller in Dan Brown's (Da Vinci Code) billion-dollar Robert Langdon series, Inferno 2016, which finds the famous symbologist (again played by Tom Hanks) on a trail of clues tied to the great Dante himself. 

Tom Hanks and Felicity Jones in Inferno (2016) photo: imdb.com

When Langdon wakes up in an Italian hospital with amnesia, he teams up with Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones), a doctor he hopes will help him recover his memories. Together, they race across Europe and against the clock to stop a madman from unleashing a global virus that would wipe out half of the world's population.

Among Langdon's personal belongings, Langdon and Sienna find a "Faraday pointer", a miniature image projector with a modified version of Sandro Botticelli's Map of Hell, which itself is based on Dante's Inferno. 

"Faraday pointer" Photo: thepediablog.com

They soon realize this is the first clue in a trail left by Bertrand Zobrist (Ben Foster), a billionaire geneticist who believed that rigorous measures were necessary to reduce the Earth's growing population, and who committed suicide after being chased by armed government agents.

Circles of Hell in Dante's Inferno photo: Visually.ly

Langdon and Sienna figure out that Zobrist, who is obsessed with Dante, has created a virus he has dubbed "Inferno", with the potential of decimating the world's population. In the meantime, they have been traced by both Vayentha and the World Health Organization (WHO), who try to raid the apartment, forcing them to flee again. Langdon's knowledge of Dante's work and history, and of hidden passages in Florence, allows the two to follow clues such as letters and phrases which lead to various locations in Florence and Venice, while evading the assassin and WHO. Along the way, Langdon discovers that he stole and hid the Dante Death Mask, a crucial clue, an event he also has no memory.

A recreated death mask of Dante Alighieri in Palazzo Vecchio, Florence photo: wikipedia.org

Vayentha reports to her employer Harry Sims (Irrfan Khan), the CEO of a private security company called "The Consortium", who is acting on behalf of Zobrist. The WHO agents are headed by Elizabeth Sinskey (Sidse Babett Knudsen), an old lover of Langdon's, and are trying to prevent the release of the virus. Zobrist has provided Sims with a video message about the virus, to be broadcast after it has been released. Shocked by its content, Sims allies with Sinskey to prevent the outbreak. 

However, Langdon and Sienna are contacted by Christoph Bouchard (Omar Sy), a man purporting to be working for WHO, warning them that Sinskey has a double agenda and is after the Inferno virus for her own profit. The three cooperate for a while, until Langdon realizes that Bouchard is lying and seeking to profit from Inferno himself, forcing the duo to flee on their own again.

Langdon figures out that the virus is in the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. With that knowledge, Sienna abandons Langdon, revealing that she was Zobrist's lover and that she will ensure the release of the virus. Zobrist and Sienna used to play treasure hunt games; this trail was the backup plan in case something happened to Zobrist. 

Langdon is recaptured by Bouchard, but is rescued by Sims and re-teams with Sinskey, who asked him for help in interpreting the imagery from the Faraday pointer. Sims reveals he was hired by Sienna to kidnap Langdon when Zobrist had been killed, and drugged with benzodiazepine to induce a memory loss; the events in the hospital were all staged.

They realize the virus is in a plastic bag hidden under water in the Basilica Cistern in Istanbul. 

Basilica Cistern photo: wikipedia.org

The WHO team–along with Langdon, Sims, and Sinskey–race to locate and secure the bag, while Sienna and her allies attempt to detonate an explosive that will rupture the bag and aerosolize the virus. Sims is killed by Sienna, and when Langdon confronts her, she commits suicide in an attempt to release the virus, but the bag is secured in time and Sienna's enforcers are killed. The virus is then taken by WHO, and Langdon goes back to Florence in order to return the Dante Death Mask.

Let's start with the growth of population in History which is the main conspiracy in the movie.

Global human population growth amounts to around 75 million annually, or 1.1% per year. The global population has grown from 1 billion in 1800 to 7 billion in 2012. It is expected to keep growing, and estimates have put the total population at 8.4 billion by mid-2030, and 9.6 billion by mid-2050. 

Population Growth photo: MECOmeter.com

Many nations with rapid population growth have low standards of living, whereas many nations with low rates of population growth have high standards of living.

Population growth rate

The "population growth rate" is the rate at which the number of individuals in a population increases in a given time period, expressed as a fraction of the initial population. Specifically, population growth rate refers to the change in population over a unit time period, often expressed as a percentage of the number of individuals in the population at the beginning of that period.

photo: geourdu.tv

A positive growth rate indicates that the population is increasing, while a negative growth rate indicates that the population is decreasing. A growth ratio of zero indicates that there were the same number of individuals at the beginning and end of the period—a growth rate may be zero even when there are significant changes in the birth rates, death rates, immigration rates, and age distribution between the two times.

Source: ndc.gov.tw

A related measure is the net reproduction rate. In the absence of migration, a net reproduction rate of more than 1 indicates that the population of females is increasing, while a net reproduction rate less than one (sub-replacement fertility) indicates that the population of females is decreasing.


Most populations do not grow exponentially, rather they follow a logistic model. Once the population has reached its carrying capacity, it will stabilize and the exponential curve will level off towards the carrying capacity, which is usually when a population has depleted most its natural resources


Let's continue with Dante Alighieri 1265 – 1321 ( Dante's Inferno )

Durante degli Alighieri simply called Dante  1265 – 1321, was a major Italian poet of the Late Middle Ages. His Divine Comedy, originally called Comedìa (modern Italian: Commedia) and later christened Divina by Boccaccio, is widely considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature.

Dante shown holding a copy of the Divine Comedy, next to the entrance to Hell, the seven terraces of Mount Purgatory and the city of Florence, with the spheres of Heaven above, in Michelino's fresco photo: wikipedia.org

In the late Middle Ages, the overwhelming majority of poetry was written in Latin, and therefore accessible only to affluent and educated audiences. In De vulgari eloquentia (On Eloquence in the Vernacular), however, Dante defended use of the vernacular in literature. 

De vulgari eloquentia photo:Treccani.it

He himself would even write in the Tuscan dialect for works such as The New Life (1295) and the aforementioned Divine Comedy; this choice, although highly unorthodox, set a hugely important precedent that later Italian writers such as Petrarch and Boccaccio would follow. 

First edition to name the poem Divina Comedia, 1555 photo: wikipedia.org

As a result, Dante played an instrumental role in establishing the national language of Italy. Dante's significance also extends past his home country; his depictions of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven have provided inspiration for a large body of Western art, and are cited as an influence on the works of John Milton, Geoffrey Chaucer and Alfred Tennyson, among many others. In addition, the first use of the interlocking three-line rhyme scheme, or the terza rima, is attributed to him.

Dante gazes at Mount Purgatory in an allegorical portrait by Agnolo Bronzino, painted c. 1530 photo: wikipedia.org

Dante has been called "The Father of the Italian language" and one of the greatest poets of world literature.In Italy, Dante is often referred to as il Sommo Poeta ("The Supreme Poet") and il Poeta; he, Petrarch, and Boccaccio are also called "The three fountains" or "The three crowns". 


Exile and death


Pope Boniface quickly dismissed the other delegates and asked Dante alone to remain in Rome. At the same time (November 1, 1301), Charles of Valois entered Florence with the Black Guelphs, who in the next six days destroyed much of the city and killed many of their enemies. 

Famiglie guelfe e ghibelline di Asti. Affresco liberamente tratto dalla cavalcata guelfa e cavalcata ghibellina del pittore it:Ottavio Baussano. Sala consigliare del Comune di Asti. photo: wikipedia.org

A new Black Guelph government was installed, and Cante de' Gabrielli da Gubbio was appointed podestà of the city. In March 1302, Dante, a White Guelph by affiliation, along with the Gherardini family, was condemned to exile for two years and ordered to pay a large fine.

Dante was accused of corruption and financial wrongdoing by the Black Guelphs for the time that Dante was serving as city prior (Florence's highest position) for two months in 1300.The poet was still in Rome in 1302 where the Pope, who had backed the Black Guelphs, had "suggested" that Dante stay. 

German: Papst Bonifatius VIII. photo: wikipedia.org

Florence under the Black Guelphs therefore considered Dante an absconder.Dante did not pay the fine, in part because he believed he was not guilty and in part because all his assets in Florence had been seized by the Black Guelphs. 

He was condemned to perpetual exile; if he returned to Florence without paying the fine, he could have been burned at the stake. (In June 2008, nearly seven centuries after his death, the city council of Florence passed a motion rescinding Dante's sentence.)

He took part in several attempts by the White Guelphs to regain power, but these failed due to treachery. Dante, bitter at the treatment he received from his enemies, also grew disgusted with the infighting and ineffectiveness of his erstwhile allies and vowed to become a party of one. 

He went to Verona as a guest of Bartolomeo I della Scala, then moved to Sarzana in Liguria. Later he is supposed to have lived in Lucca with a woman called Gentucca, who made his stay comfortable (and was later gratefully mentioned in Purgatorio, XXIV, 37).

Some speculative sources claim he visited Paris between 1308 and 1310, and other sources even less trustworthy took him to Oxford: these claims, first occurring in Boccaccio's book on Dante several decades after his death, seem inspired by readers who were impressed with the poet's wide learning and erudition. 

Dante, poised between the mountain of purgatory and the city of Florence, displays the incipit Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita in a detail of Domenico di Michelino's painting, Florence, 1465. photo: wikipedia.org

Evidently, Dante's command of philosophy and his literary interests deepened in exile and when he was no longer busy with the day-to-day business of Florentine domestic politics, and this is evidenced in his prose writings in this period, but there is no real evidence that he ever left Italy. Dante's Immensa Dei dilectione testante to Henry VII of Luxembourg confirms his residence "beneath the springs of Arno, near Tuscany" in March 1311.

In 1310, Holy Roman Emperor Henry VII of Luxembourg marched into Italy at the head of 5,000 troops. Dante saw in him a new Charlemagne who would restore the office of the Holy Roman Emperor to its former glory and also retake Florence from the Black Guelphs. 

He wrote to Henry and several Italian princes, demanding that they destroy the Black Guelphs. Mixing religion and private concerns in his writings, he invoked the worst anger of God against his city and suggested several particular targets that were also his personal enemies. It was during this time that he wrote De Monarchia, proposing a universal monarchy under Henry VII.

Statue of Dante in the Piazza Santa Croce in Florence, Enrico Pazzi, 1865 photo: wikipedia.org

At some point during his exile, he conceived of the Comedy, but the date is uncertain. The work is much more assured and on a larger scale than anything he had produced in Florence; it is likely he would have undertaken such a work only after he realized his political ambitions, which had been central to him up to his banishment, had been halted for some time, possibly forever. It is also noticeable that Beatrice has returned to his imagination with renewed force and with a wider meaning than in the Vita Nuova; in Convivio (written c.1304–07) he had declared that the memory of this youthful romance belonged to the past.

An early outside indication that the poem was under way is a notice by Francesco da Barberino, tucked into his Documenti d'Amore (Lessons of Love), written probably in 1314 or early 1315. Speaking of Virgil, Francesco notes in appreciative words that Dante followed the Roman classic in a poem called "Comedy" and that the setting of this poem (or part of it) was the underworld; hell.The brief note gives no incontestable indication that he himself had seen or read even the Inferno or that this part had been published at the time, but it indicates composition was well under way and that the sketching of the poem might have begun some years before. (It has been suggested that a knowledge of Dante's work also underlies some of the illuminations in Francesco da Barberino's earlier Officiolum [c. 1305–08], a manuscript that came to light only in 2003) 

We know that the Inferno had been published by 1317; this is established by quoted lines interspersed in the margins of contemporary dated records from Bologna, but there is no certainty as to whether the three parts of the poem were each published in full or, rather, a few cantos at a time. Paradiso seems to have been published posthumously.

Illustration for Paradiso (of The Divine Comedy) by Paul Gustave Louis Christophe Doré photo: wikipedia.org

In Florence, Baldo d'Aguglione pardoned most of the White Guelphs in exile and allowed them to return. However, Dante had gone too far in his violent letters to Arrigo (Henry VII) and his sentence was not revoked.

In 1312 Henry assaulted Florence and defeated the Black Guelphs, but there is no evidence that Dante was involved. Some say he refused to participate in the assault on his city by a foreigner; others suggest that he had become unpopular with the White Guelphs, too, and that any trace of his passage had carefully been removed. Henry VII died (from a fever) in 1313, and with him any hope for Dante to see Florence again. He returned to Verona, where Cangrande I della Scala allowed him to live in certain security and, presumably, in a fair degree of prosperity. Cangrande was admitted to Dante's Paradise (Paradiso, XVII, 76).

During the period of his exile Dante corresponded with Dominican theologian Fr. Nicholas Brunacci [1240-1322] who had been a student of Thomas Aquinas at the Santa Sabina studium in Rome, and later at Paris and of Albert the Great at the Cologne studium.

Brunacci became lector at the Santa Sabina studium, forerunner of the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, and later served in the papal curia.


In 1315, Florence was forced by Uguccione della Faggiuola (the military officer controlling the town) to grant an amnesty to those in exile, including Dante. But for this, Florence required public penance in addition to a heavy fine. Dante refused, preferring to remain in exile. When Uguccione defeated Florence, Dante's death sentence was commuted to house arrest on condition that he go to Florence to swear he would never enter the town again. 

He refused to go, and his death sentence was confirmed and extended to his sons. He still hoped late in life that he might be invited back to Florence on honorable terms. For Dante, exile was nearly a form of death, stripping him of much of his identity and his heritage. He addressed the pain of exile in Paradiso, XVII (55–60), where Cacciaguida, his great-great-grandfather, warns him what to expect:

Illustration for Paradiso (of The Divine Comedy) by Paul Gustave Louis Christophe Doréphoto: wikipedia.org

.. Tu lascerai ogne cosa diletta
più caramente; e questo è quello strale
che l'arco de lo essilio pria saetta.
Tu proverai sì come sa di sale
lo pane altrui, e come è duro calle
lo scendere e 'l salir per l'altrui scale ...

 
... You shall leave everything you love most:
this is the arrow that the bow of exile
shoots first. You are to know the bitter taste
of others' bread, how salty it is, and know
how hard a path it is for one who goes
ascending and descending others' stairs ...

As for the hope of returning to Florence, he describes it as if he had already accepted its impossibility (in Paradiso, XXV, 1–9):

Se mai continga che 'l poema sacro
al quale ha posto mano e cielo e terra,
sì che m'ha fatto per molti anni macro,
vinca la crudeltà che fuor mi serra
del bello ovile ov'io dormi' agnello,
nimico ai lupi che li danno guerra;
con altra voce omai, con altro vello
ritornerò poeta, e in sul fonte
del mio battesmo prenderò 'l cappello ...

If it ever comes to pass that the sacred poem
to which both heaven and earth have set their hand
so as to have made me lean for many years
should overcome the cruelty that bars me
from the fair sheepfold where I slept as a lamb,
an enemy to the wolves that make war on it,
with another voice now and other fleece
I shall return a poet and at the font

of my baptism take the Laurel wreath

Mural of Dante in the Uffizi Gallery, by Andrea del Castagno, c. 1450 photo: wikipedia.org

Alighieri accepted Prince Guido Novello da Polenta's invitation to Ravenna in 1318. He finished Paradiso, and died in 1321 (aged 56) while returning to Ravenna from a diplomatic mission to Venice, possibly of malaria contracted there. He was buried in Ravenna at the Church of San Pier Maggiore (later called San Francesco). Bernardo Bembo, praetor of Venice, erected a tomb for him in 1483.

Dante's tomb in Ravenna, built in 1780 photo: wikipedia.org

On the grave, some verses of Bernardo Canaccio, a friend of Dante, dedicated to Florence:
Parvi Florentia mater amoris

Florence, mother of little love

Now that we know about Dante we continue with historical analysis. In the movie Inferno 2016 Robert Langdon ( Tom Hanks ) speaks about: 

Hall of the Five Hundred (Palazzo Vecchio, Florence),
Giorgio Vasari Battle of Marciano (also known as the Battle of Scannagallo) see below:

The Battle of Scannagallo by Giorgio Vasari, in the Palazzo Vecchio of Florence. photo: wikipedia.org

The battle occurred in the countryside of Marciano della Chiana, near Arezzo, Tuscany, on August 2, 1554, during the Italian War of 1551. The battle marked the defeat of the Republic of Siena in its war against the Duchy of Florence, and resulted in Siena losing its independence and being absorbed into the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.

Photo: pinterest

In 1554, Cosimo I de' Medici, with the support of Emperor Charles V, launched a grand campaign to conquer Florence's last remaining rival in Tuscany, the Republic of Siena. His army was under the command of Gian Giacomo Medici, Marquess of Marignano, best known as "Medeghino" ("Small Medici"). The Florentine-Imperial troops were divided into three corps: Federico Barbolani di Montauto, with 800 men, landed in southern Tuscany to conquer the area of Grosseto; Rodolfo Baglioni, with 3,000 men, invaded the Val di Chiana to conquer Chiusi, Pienza and Montalcino; and the main corps under Medeghino himself, consisting of 4,500 infantry, 20 cannons, and 1,200 sappers, was deployed at Poggibonsi for the main attack against Siena.

Photo: leonardodavinci.cc

In the movie Inferno, Langdon talk about: Enrico Dandolo, Black Plague also know as Bubonic plague or Black Death, Plague of Justinian and population development in History.


Let's continue with Enrico Dandolo

Enrico Dandolo (anglicised as Henry Dandolo and Latinized as Henricus Dandulus; c. 1107 – May 1205) was the 41st Doge of Venice from 1192 until his death. He is remembered for his blindness, piety, longevity, and shrewdness, and is infamous for his role in the Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople in which he, at age ninety and blind, led the Venetian contingent.

An engraving of Enrico Dandolo, from the early 19th century. photo: wikipedia.org

Born in Venice, he was the son of the powerful jurist and member of the ducal court, Vitale Dandolo. Dandolo had served the Republic in diplomatic roles (as ambassador to Ferrara and bailus in Constantinople) for many years.

Dandolo was from a socially and politically prominent Venetian family. His father Vitale was a close adviser of Doge Vitale II Michiel, while an uncle, also named Enrico Dandolo, was patriarch of Grado, the highest-ranking churchman in Venice. Both these men lived to be quite old, and the younger Enrico was overshadowed until he was in his sixties.

Dandolo Preaching the Crusade by Gustave Doré photo: wikipedia.org

Dandolo's first important political roles were during the crisis years of 1171 and 1172. In March 1171 the Byzantine government had seized the goods of thousands of Venetians living in the Empire, and then imprisoned them all. Popular demand forced the doge to gather a retaliatory expedition, which however fell apart when struck by the plague early in 1172. Dandolo had accompanied the disastrous expedition against Constantinople led by Doge Vitale Michiel during 1171-1172. 

Upon returning to Venice, Michiel was killed by an irate mob, but Dandolo escaped blame and was appointed as an ambassador to Constantinople in the following year, as Venice sought unsuccessfully to arrive at a diplomatic settlement of its disputes with Byzantium. Renewed negotiations begun twelve years later finally led to a treaty in 1186, but the earlier episodes seem to have created in Enrico Dandolo a deep and abiding hatred for the Byzantines.


During the following years Dandolo twice travelled as ambassador to King William II of Sicily, and then in 1183 returned to Constantinople to negotiate the restoration of the Venetian quarter in the city. Read More about Enrico Dandolo 


Black Plague also know as Bubonic plague or Black Death

The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 75 to 200 million people and peaking in Europe in the years 1346–1353.

Spread of the Black Death in Europe (1346–1353) wikipedia.org

Although there were several competing theories as to the etiology of the Black Death, analysis of DNA from victims in northern and southern Europe published in 2010 and 2011 indicates that the pathogen responsible was the Yersinia pestis bacterium, probably causing several forms of plague.

Yersinia pestis (200x magnification). The bacterium which causes bubonic plague photo: wikipedia.org

The Black Death is thought to have originated in the arid plains of Central Asia, where it then travelled along the Silk Road, reaching Crimea by 1343. From there, it was most likely carried by Oriental rat fleas living on the black rats that were regular passengers on merchant ships. 

A hand showing how acral gangrene of the fingers due to bubonic plague causes the skin and flesh to die and turn black photo: wikipedia.org

Spreading throughout the Mediterranean and Europe, the Black Death is estimated to have killed 30–60% of Europe's total population. In total, the plague may have reduced the world population from an estimated 450 million down to 350–375 million in the 14th century. The world population as a whole did not recover to pre-plague levels until the 17th century. The plague recurred occasionally in Europe until the 19th century.

The Oriental rat flea (Xenopsylla cheopis) engorged with blood. This species of flea is the primary vector for the transmission of Yersinia pestis, the organism responsible for bubonic plague in most plague epidemics. Both male and female fleas feed on blood and can transmit the infection. photo: wikipedia.org

The plague created a series of religious, social, and economic upheavals, which had profound effects on the course of European history. 

The 12th-century French physician Gilles de Corbeil's On the Signs and Symptoms of Diseases (Latin: De signis et sinthomatibus egritudinum) uses the phrase "black death" (atra mors) to refer to a pestilential fever (febris pestilentialis).

Worldwide distribution of plague-infected animals 1998 photo: wikipedia.org

Writers contemporary with the plague referred to the event as the "Great Mortality"or the "Great Plague"

There are no exact figures for the death toll; the rate varied widely by locality. In urban centres, the greater the population before the outbreak, the longer the duration of the period of abnormal mortality. It killed some 75 to 200 million people in Eurasia. According to medieval historian Philip Daileader in 2007:

Skeletons in a mass grave from 1720–1721 in Martigues, France, yielded molecular evidence of the orientalis strain of Yersinia pestis, the organism responsible for bubonic plague. The second pandemic of bubonic plague was active in Europe from AD 1347, the beginning of the Black Death, until 1750. photo: wikipedia.org

The trend of recent research is pointing to a figure more like 45–50% of the European population dying during a four-year period. There is a fair amount of geographic variation. In Mediterranean Europe, areas such as Italy, the south of France and Spain, where plague ran for about four years consecutively, it was probably closer to 75–80% of the population. 

In Germany and England ... it was probably closer to 20% Read More about The Black Death


Plague of Justinian

The Plague of Justinian (541–542) was a pandemic that afflicted the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, especially its capital Constantinople, the Sassanid Empire, and port cities around the entire Mediterranean Sea. One of the deadliest plagues in history, this devastating pandemic resulted in the deaths of an estimated 25 million (at the time of the initial outbreak that was at least 13% of the world's population) to 50 million people (in two centuries of recurrence). Recent investigations relate this severe plague epidemic to extreme weather events of 535–536 considered as an example of volcanic winter.

A map of the Byzantine Empire in 550 (a decade after the Plague of Justinian) with Justinian's conquests shown in green photo: wikipedia.org

Recent research has confirmed that the cause of the pandemic was Yersinia pestis, the bacterium responsible for bubonic plague. The plague's social and cultural impact during the period of Justinian has been compared to that of the similar Black Death that devastated Europe 600 years after the last outbreak of Justinian plague. The principal historian during the 6th century, Procopius, viewed the pandemic as worldwide in scope. Genetic studies point to China as having been the primary source of the contagion Read More about Plague of Justinian.

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