Word: xiv
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Feather on a Head. What is architecture? It was, said Le Corbusier in his book, something that went far beyond style. "The styles of Louis XIV, XV, XVI, or Gothic, are to architecture what a feather is on a woman's head." Essentially, architecture was the "masterly, correct, and magnificent placing of masses brought together in light. Our eyes are made to see forms in light. Cubes, cones, spheres, cylinders or pyramids are the great primary forms which light reveals to advantage...
...Louis XIV was the sun king, Louis XV had all he could do to reign. He was lazy, lecherous and indecisive. History has preserved his notoriety in such personal institutions as the Pare aux Cerfs (the deer park), a town house where, actually, he maintained a private brothel, and, as Author Nicolson puts it, "thereby did much damage to his repute, his constitution, and his power of application." However, one of Louis XV's nightly customs reveals far more about the so-called Age of Reason than his deer park...
Concerned with rehearsing something rushed into production on Louis XIV's orders, L'Impromptu wags a finger in several directions: a little at the King for his capricious commands, a lot at Molière's enemy actors in a rival troupe, a lot more at acting itself. In L'lmpromptu, Molière personally directs the rehearsal, sketches actors' roles, silhouettes their shortcomings, and is now friendly, now irritable, now ironic amid travestied types of people and exaggerated modes of acting. With the Comédie Française players bringing a sense...
...12th century error inserted a nonexistent John XV into the reign of John XIV (983-984). This error was compounded by 1) the inclusion of Antipope John XVI (997-998) in the legitimate succession, and 2) the fact that no John XV ever existed. According to these calculations, the present Pope John XXIII is really John...
Portraitist's Protest. By the time Lorrain died in Rome in 1682, all France had become the servant of Louis XIV, then halfway through his 72-year reign. The function of the artist was to glorify the Sun King, often as a Roman emperor or a god; and the King had his own esthetic dictator to see that this was done...