Word: flemish
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...greatest works were permanently lost, including frescoes in Ferrara (after his patron died, they were torn down) and in the Vatican (to make room for Raphael frescoes in the early 16th century). But his surviving works show a subtle mastery that influenced Raphael, Venetian painter Gentile Bellini and visiting Flemish painters along the Adriatic coast. He even inspired 20th century surrealists...
...news flash came right after the evening news on Belgian state television Wednesday: the Flemish Parliament had voted for Flanders' secession from the Kingdom of Belgium. Over the next hour and a half, the trusted TV anchors fielded a spectacular special report: They cut to live footage from the Royal Palace, where an emotional crowd had gathered to protest for the survival of their country. A reporter in Kinshasa, capital of the Congo, commented on rumors that King Albert II had fled to the former Belgian colony. A crowd waved Flemish flags behind the live reporter at the Flemish Parliament...
...with the support of other European powers eager to have a neutral buffer between France and the German principalities. The southern region of the country was for more than a century the richer part, with steel mills, coal mines and the cultural hegemony of the French language; the Flemish spoken in the north was considered little more than a peasant patois. But since the Second World War, Flanders has moved ahead, with higher income, lower unemployment and a more dynamic economy than its southern neighbor. The differences range from social security to birth rates to cultural proclivities, and there...
...national control. A total separation like the so-called "velvet divorce" of the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1992 is impossible because of Brussels: Belgium's capital is in Flanders, but 85% of its residents speak French. That hasn't stopped radical nationalist groups like the xenophobic Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) from pushing for total separation, which may have contributed to the idea being shunned by other parties...
...That lingering and unsavory association of their cause with right-wing radicalism is one reason why more moderate Flemish nationalists are ecstatic about the TV stunt. Frans Crols, managing editor of the Flemish business weekly Trends, was part of a high-profile group of Flemings that last year published a manifesto soberly laying out the case for Flemish independence. "People in Wallonia just put their head in the sand," he says. "It was never discussed in parliament or in French-speaking circles. As a journalist, I think the television show was unethical, but it gave our cause a major marketing...