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Michelangelo is certainly the most representative artist of the XVI century: a sculptor, painter, architect, and poet. He lived to a great age, and enjoyed great fame in his lifetime. Titian, and Venetian painting generally, was very
much influenced by his vision, and he is responsible in large measure for the
development of Mannerism.
Michelangelo di Ludovico di Lionardo di Buonarroti Simoni was born in 1475;
at Caprese, in Casentino. His family Buonarroti Simoni, are mentioned in the
Florentine chronicles as early as the XII century. In 1488, at the age of 13,
he entered the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio. Thus he came under the influence
of Masaccio, because his teacher, Ghirlandaio, not only looked to Masaccio for
ideas on religious scenes, but actually imitated certain elements of his designs.
After less than a year he moved to the academy set up by Lorenzo the Magnificent.
From 1489 till 1492, he lived in the Palazzo Medici in Via Larga, where he could
study “antique and good statues” and could meet the sophisticated
humanists and writers of the Medici circle. Ravensburger HistoryRavensburger Spieleverlag GmbH is a German game company and market leader in the European jigsaw puzzle market.
The company was founded by Otto Robert Maier with seat in Ravensburg, a town in Upper Swabia in southern Germany. He began publishing in 1883 with his first author contract. He started publishing instruction folders for craftsmen and architects, which soon acquired him a solid financial basis. His first board game appeared in 1884, named "Journey around the world".
At the turn of the 20th century, his product line broadened to include picture books, books, children’s activity books, Art Instruction manuals, non-fiction books, and reference books as well as children’s games, Happy Families and activity kits. In 1900, the Ravensburger blue triangle trademark was registered with the Imperial Patent office. As of 1912, many board and activity games had an export version that was distributed to Western Europe, the countries of the Danube Monarchy as well as Russia.
Before the First World War, Ravensburger had around 800 products. The publishing house was damaged during the Second World War and continued to produce games in the years of the reconstruction. The company focused on children's games and books and specialized books for art, architecture and hobbies, and from 1962 grew strongly. The company started to produce jigsaw puzzle games in 1964, and in the same year opened subsidiaries in Austria, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. In 1977 the company split into a book publishing arm and a game publishing arm.
Today there are approximately 1,800 available books and 850 games as well as puzzles, hobby products and CD-ROM titles at Ravensburger and its subsidiaries, which include Alea for "hobby and ardent game players" and FX Schmid for games and children's books. Ravensburger products are exported to more than fifty countries.
In September 2010, Ravensburger broke Educa's record for the world's largest jigsaw puzzle of 24,000 pieces. Ravensburger's new puzzle design by late pop artist Keith Haring titled, 'Keith Haring: Double Retrospect' breaks the Guinness Book of World Records measuring 17' × 6' built from 32,256 pieces and comes with its own dolly cart for toting. |
