Today, over 1 million people visit David every year. But it was revered in its own time too - 16th Century Renaissance painter Giorgio Vasari said that it surpassed "all ancient and modern statues, whether Greek or Latin, that have ever existed."

Michelangelo said of his method: "In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it."

You have bewitched me body and soul.
And I love … I love … I love you.
I never wish to be parted from you from this day on.

Pride and prejudice (2005).

I'm very bored so let's talk Rome

According to tradition, Rome was founded by Romulus and Remus in 753 BCE. They were twin brothers, sons of a human mother and the god of war, Mars. After their birth, the king ordered them killed. They were placed in a basket and put into the Tiber River - left to die from exposure in the outdoors. But their basket washed up on the river bank where they were found by a female wolf. The wolf nursed the hungry babies and cared for them until they were found by a shepherd.

The shepherd and his wife raised the babies as their own. Romulus and Remus grew up and helped overthrow the king who had ordered their death. They wanted to build their own city along the Tiber River where their basket had washed ashore. They disagreed about where it should be, and Romulus killed Remus during their quarrels. Romulus built the city of Rome on one of the seven hills along the Tiber - the Palatine hill - and lived a long life as king of Rome.

around 300 years later the last king of Rome Lucius Tarquinius Superbus drew his last breath, thus establishing the Roman republic.

the ancient state centred on the city of Rome that began in 509 BCE, when the Romans replaced their monarchy with elected magistrates.

The early Roman Republic (509–264 BCE) and the preceding regal period (753–509 BCE) are the most poorly documented periods of Roman history. Historical writing in Rome did not begin until the late 3rd century BCE, when Rome had already completed its conquest of Italy, established itself as a major power of the ancient world, and become involved in a gigantic struggle with Carthage for control of the western Mediterranean.

During the early Roman Republic, important new political offices and institutions were created, and old ones were adapted to cope with the changing needs of the state. According to the ancient historians, these changes and innovations resulted from a political struggle between two social orders, the patricians and the plebeians, that began during the first years of the republic and lasted for more than 200 years.

The two consuls (who had come to replace the king) were primarily generals whose task it was to lead Rome’s armies in war. In times of military emergency, when unity of command was sometimes necessary, Rome appointed a dictator in place of the consuls, who, however, could not hold supreme military command for longer than six months.

The Senate, which may have existed under the monarchy and served as an advisory council for the king, now advised both magistrates and the Roman people. Although in theory the people were sovereign and the Senate only offered advice, in actual practice the Senate wielded enormous power because of the collective prestige of its members.

During the republic there were two different popular assemblies, the centuriate assembly and the tribal assembly. The centuriate assembly was military in nature; it voted on war and peace and elected all those magistrates who exercised imperium (military power). The tribal assembly was a nonmilitary civilian assembly that elected those magistrates who did not exercise imperium. It did most of the legislating and sat as a court for serious public offenses.

In 451 BCE Rome received its first written law code, inscribed upon 12 bronze tablets and publicly displayed in the forum. Its provisions concerned such matters as legal procedure, debt foreclosure, paternal authority over children, property rights, inheritance, and funerary regulations. This so-called Law of the Twelve Tables was to form the basis of all subsequent Roman private law.


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