Biography.

Duchess in Bavaria.

Born "Elisabeth Amalie Eugenie" on 24 December 1837 in Munich, Bavaria, she was the fourth child of Duke Maximilian Joseph in Bavaria and Princess Ludovika of Bavaria, the half-sister of King Ludwig I of Bavaria. Maximilian was considered to be rather peculiar; he had a childish love of circuses and traveled the Bavarian countryside to escape his duties. The family's homes were the Herzog-Max-Palais in Munich during winter and Possenhofen Castle in the summer months, far from the protocols of court. "Sisi" and her siblings grew up in a very unrestrained and unstructured environment; she often skipped her lessons to go riding about the countryside.  In 1853, Princess Sophie of Bavaria, the domineering mother of 23-year-old Emperor Franz Joseph, preferring to have a niece as a daughter-in-law rather than a stranger, arranged a marriage between her son and her sister Ludovika's eldest daughter, Helene ("Néné"). Although the couple had never met, Franz Joseph's

Empress of Austria.

After enjoying an informal and unstructured childhood, Elisabeth, who was shy and introverted by nature, and more so among the stifling formality of Habsburg court life, had difficulty adapting to the Hofburg and its rigid protocols and strict etiquette. Within a few weeks, Elisabeth started to display health problems: she had fits of coughing and became anxious and frightened whenever she had to descend a narrow steep staircase.  She was surprised to find she was pregnant and gave birth to her first child, a daughter, Archduchess Sophie of Austria (1855–1857), just ten months after her wedding. The elder Archduchess Sophie, who often referred to Elisabeth as a "silly young mother", not only named the child (after herself) without consulting the mother, but took complete charge of the baby, refusing to allow Elisabeth to breastfeed or otherwise care for her own child. When a second daughter, Archduchess Gisela of Austria (1856–1932), was born a year later, the Archduchess took the baby away from Elisabeth as well.  The fact that she had not produced a male heir made Elisabeth increasingly unwanted in the palace. One day she found a pamphlet on her desk

Physical regimen.

At 172 cm (5 feet 8 inches), Elisabeth was unusually tall. Even after four pregnancies she maintained her weight at approximately 50 kg (110 pounds, 7 st 12 lbs) for the rest of her life. She achieved this through fasting and exercise, such as gymnastics and riding.  In deep mourning after her daughter Sophie's death, Elisabeth refused to eat for days; a behavior that would reappear in later periods of melancholy and depression. Whereas she previously had supper with the family, she now began to avoid this; and if she did eat with them, she ate quickly and very little. Whenever her weight threatened to exceed fifty kilos, a "fasting cure" or "hunger cure" would follow, which involved almost complete fasting.

Beauty.

In addition to her rigorous exercise regimen, Elisabeth practiced demanding beauty routines. Daily care of her abundant and extremely long hair, which in time turned from the dark blonde of her youth to chestnut brunette, took at least three hours. Her hair was so long and heavy that she often complained that the weight of the elaborate double braids and pins gave her headaches. Her hairdresser, Franziska Feifalik, was originally a stage hairdresser at the Wiener Burgtheater. Responsible for all of Elisabeth's ornate hairstyles,

Marriage.

Franz Joseph was passionately in love with his wife, but she did not reciprocate his feelings fully and felt increasingly stifled by the rigidness of court life. He was an unimaginative and sober man, a political reactionary who was still guided by his mother and her adherence to the strict Spanish Court Ceremonial regarding both his public and domestic life, whereas Elisabeth inhabited a different world altogether. Restless to the point of hyperactivity, naturally introverted, and emotionally distant from her husband, she fled him as well as her duties of life at court, avoiding them both as much as she could. He indulged her wanderings, but constantly and unsuccessfully tried to tempt her into a more domestic life with him.  Elisabeth slept very little and spent hours reading and writing at night, and even took up smoking,

Birth of a son.

On 21 August 1858, Elisabeth finally gave birth to an heir, Rudolf (1858–1889). The 101-gun salute announcing the welcome news to Vienna also signaled an increase in her influence at court. This, combined with her sympathy toward Hungary, made Elisabeth an ideal mediator between the Magyars and the emperor. Her interest in politics had developed as she matured; she was liberal-minded, and placed herself decisively on the Hungarian side in the increasing conflict of nationalities within the empire.  Elisabeth was a personal advocate for Hungarian Count Gyula Andrássy, who also was rumored to be her lover. Whenever difficult negotiations broke off between the Hungarians and the court, they were resumed with her help. During these protracted dealings, Elisabeth suggested to the emperor that Andrássy be made the Premier of Hungary as part of a compromise,

Hungarian coronation.

After having used every excuse to avoid pregnancy, Elisabeth later decided that she wanted a fourth child. Her decision was at once a deliberate personal choice and a political negotiation: by returning to the marriage, she ensured that Hungary, with which she felt an intense emotional alliance, would gain an equal footing with Austria.  The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 created the dual monarchy of Austria–Hungary. Andrássy was made the first Hungarian prime minister and in return, he saw that Franz Joseph and Elisabeth were officially crowned King and Queen of Hungary in June.

Travels.

After having achieved this victory, Elisabeth did not stay to enjoy it, but instead embarked on a life of travel, and saw little of her children. “If I arrived at a place and knew that I could never leave it again, the whole stay would become hell despite being paradise”. After her son's death, she commissioned the building of a palace on the Island of Corfu which she named the "Achilleion", after Homer's hero Achilles in "The Iliad". After her death, the building was purchased by German Emperor Wilhelm II. Later it was acquired by the nation of Greece (now Greek National Tourism Organization) and converted to a museum.  Newspapers published articles on her passion for riding sports, diet and exercise regimens, and fashion sense. She

Mayerling incident.

In 1889 Elisabeth's life was shattered by the death of her only son Rudolf, who was found dead together with his young lover Baroness Mary Vetsera, in what was suspected to be a murder-suicide on Rudolf's part. The scandal was known as the Mayerling Incident after the location of Rudolf's hunting lodge in Lower Austria, where they were found. Elisabeth never recovered from the tragedy, sinking further into melancholy. Within a few years, she had lost her father, Max Joseph (in 1888), her only son, Rudolf (1889), her sister Duchess Sophie in Bavaria (1897), Helene (1890) and her mother, Ludovika (1892). After Rudolf's death she was thought to have dressed only in black for the rest of her life, although a light blue and cream dress discovered by The Hofburg's Sisi Museum dates to this time. To compound her losses, Count Gyula Andrássy died a year later, on 18 February 1890. "My last and only friend is dead," she lamented. Marie Valerie declared, "...she clung to him with

Assassination.

In 1898, despite warnings of possible assassination attempts, the 60-year-old Elisabeth traveled incognito to Geneva, Switzerland. However, someone from the Hôtel Beau-Rivage revealed that the Empress of Austria was their guest.  At 1:35 p.m. on Saturday 10 September 1898, Elisabeth and Countess Irma Sztáray de Sztára et Nagymihály, her lady-in-waiting, left the hotel on the shore of Lake Geneva on foot to catch the steamship "Genève" for Montreux. Since the empress despised processions, she insisted that they walk without the other members of her entourage.  They were walking along the promenade when the 25-year-old Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni approached them, attempting to peer underneath the empress's parasol. According to Sztáray, as the ship's bell announced the departure, Lucheni seemed to stumble and made a movement with his hand as if he wanted to maintain his balance. In reality, in an act of "propaganda of the deed," he had stabbed Elisabeth with a sharpened needle file that was long (used to file the eyes of industrial needles) that he had inserted into a wooden handle.  Lucheni originally planned to kill the Duke of Orléans; but the Pretender to France's throne had left Geneva earlier for the Valais. Failing to find him, the assassin selected Elisabeth when a Geneva newspaper revealed that the elegant woman traveling under the pseudonym of "Countess of Hohenembs" was the Empress Elisabeth of Austria. I am an anarchist by conviction...I came to Geneva to kill a sovereign, with object of giving an example to those who suffer and those who do nothing to improve their social position; it did not matter to me who the sovereign was whom I should kill...It was not a woman I struck, but an Empress; it was a crown that I had in view.  After Lucheni struck her, the empress collapsed. A coach driver helped her to her feet and alerted the Austrian concierge of the Beau-Rivage, a man named Planner, who had been watching the empress's progress toward the "Genève". The two women walked roughly to the gangway and boarded, at which point Sztáray relaxed her hold on Elisabeth's arm. The empress then lost consciousness and collapsed next to her. Sztáray called for a doctor, but only a former nurse, a fellow passenger, was available. The boat's captain, Captain Roux, was ignorant of Elisabeth's identity and since it was very hot on deck, advised the countess to disembark and take her companion back to her hotel. Meanwhile, the boat was already sailing out of the harbor. Three men carried Elisabeth to the top deck and laid her on a bench. Sztáray opened her dress, cut Elisabeth's corset laces so she could breathe. Elisabeth revived somewhat and Sztáray asked her if she was in pain, and she replied, "No". She then asked, "What has happened?" and lost consciousness again.  Countess Sztáray noticed a small brown stain above the empress's left breast. Alarmed that Elisabeth had not recovered consciousness, she informed the captain of her identity, and the boat turned back to Geneva. Elisabeth was carried back to the Hotel Beau-Rivage by six sailors on a stretcher improvised from a sail, cushions and two oars. Fanny Mayer, the wife of the hotel director, a visiting nurse, and the countess undressed Elisabeth and removed her shoes, when Sztáray noticed a few small drops of blood and a small wound. When they then removed her from the stretcher to the bed she was clearly dead; Frau Mayer believed the two audible breaths she heard the Empress take as she was brought into the room were her last. Two doctors, Dr. Golay and Dr. Mayer arrived, along with a priest, who was too late to grant her absolution. Mayer incised the artery of her left arm to ascertain death, and found no blood. She was pronounced dead at 2:10 p.m. Everyone knelt down and prayed for the repose of her soul, and Countess Sztáray closed Elisabeth's eyes and joined her hands. No matter how reluctant or resentful she was of the title, Elisabeth had been the Empress of Austria for 44 years. When Franz Joseph received the telegram informing him of Elisabeth's death, his first fear was that she had committed suicide. It was only when a later message arrived, detailing the assassination, that he was relieved of that notion. The telegram asked permission to perform an autopsy, and the answer was that whatever procedures were prescribed by Swiss Law should be adhered to.  The autopsy was performed the next day by Golay, who discovered that the weapon, which had not yet been found, had penetrated into Elisabeth's thorax, fractured the fourth rib, pierced the lung and pericardium, and penetrated the heart from the top before coming out the base of the left ventricle. Because of the sharpness and thinness of the file the wound was very narrow and, due to pressure from Elisabeth's extremely tight corseting, the hemorrhage of blood into the pericardial sac around the heart was slowed to mere drops. Until this sac filled, the beating of her heart was not impeded, which is why Elisabeth had been able to walk from the site of the assault and up the boat's boarding ramp. Had the weapon not been removed, she would have lived a while longer, as it would have acted like a plug to stop the bleeding.  Golay photographed the wound, but turned the photograph over to the Swiss Procurator-General, who had it destroyed, on the orders of Franz Joseph, along with the autopsy instruments.  As Geneva shuttered itself in mourning, Elisabeth's body was placed in a triple coffin: two inner ones of lead, the third exterior one in bronze, reposing on lion claws. On Tuesday, before the coffins were sealed, Franz Joseph's official representatives arrived to identify the body. The coffin was fitted with two glass panels, covered with doors, which could be slid back to allow her face to be seen.  On Wednesday morning, Elisabeth's body was carried back to Vienna aboard a funeral train. The inscription on her coffin read, “Elisabeth, Empress of Austria”. The Hungarians were outraged and the words, “and Queen of Hungary” were hastily added. The entire Austro-Hungarian Empire was in deep mourning; 82 sovereigns and high-ranking nobles followed her funeral cortege on the morning of 17 September to the tomb in the Capuchin Church.

Legacy.

Upon her death, Franz Joseph founded the Order of Elizabeth in memory of her.  In the Volksgarten of Vienna, there is an elaborate memorial monument featuring a seated statue of the Empress by, dedicated on 4 June 1907.  On the promenade in Territet Switzerland, there is a monument to the Empress created by in 1902. This town is between Montreux and Chateau Chillon; the inscription mentions her many visits to the area.  Near the location of her assassination at Quai du Mont-Blanc on the shore of Lake Geneva, there is a statue "in memoriam", created by Philip Jackson and dedicated in 1998 on the 100th anniversary of the assassination. A large number of chapels were named in her honour, connecting her to Saint Elisabeth. Various parks were named after her, such as the Empress Elisabeth Park in Meran, South Tyrol.  Various residences that Elisabeth frequented are preserved and open to the public, including her Imperial Hofburg apartment and the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, the Imperial Villa in Bad Ischl, the Achilleion on the Island of Corfu, and her summer residence in Gödöllő, Hungary. Her childhood family summer residence, Possenhofen Castle, houses the Empress Elizabeth Museum. The Empress's specially built railway sleeping car is on display at the Technisches Museum

Portrayal of Elisabeth in the arts.

Stage.

In 1932 the comic operetta "Sissi" premiered in Vienna. Composed by Fritz Kreisler, the libretto was written by Ernst and Hubert Marischka, with orchestrations by Robert Russell Bennett. Although the pet name of the empress was always spelled "Sisi," never "Sissi," this incorrect version of her name persisted in the works about her that followed.  In 1943 Jean Cocteau wrote a play about an imagined meeting between Elisabeth and her

Ballet.

In his 1978 ballet, "Mayerling" Kenneth MacMillan portrayed Elisabeth in a "pas de deux" with her son Prince Rudolf, the

Film.

The 1921 film "Kaiserin Elisabeth von Österreich" was one of the first films to focus entirely on Elisabeth. It was co-written by Elisabeth's niece, Marie Larisch (who played her younger self at the age of 62), and starred Carla Nelsen as the title character. The film later achieved notoriety when a group of con-artists started selling stills from the murder scene as actual photographs of the crime.  Adolf Trotz directed the 1931 German film "Elisabeth of Austria".  In 1936, Columbia Pictures released "The King Steps Out", a film version of the operetta "Sissi", directed by Josef von Sternberg. It starred opera diva Grace Moore and Franchot Tone.  Jean Cocteau directed the 1948 film version of his play "The Eagle with Two Heads". Michelangelo Antonioni's 1981 film "The Mystery of Oberwald" is another adaptation of Cocteau's play.  In the German-speaking world, Elisabeth's name is often associated with a trilogy of romantic films about her life directed by Ernst Marischka which starred a teenage Romy Schneider and made her famous worldwide:  In early dramatizations, Elisabeth appears as peripheral to her husband and son, and so is always shown as a mature character. Schneider's characterization of Elisabeth as a young woman is the first time the "young" empress is seen on screen. The trilogy was the first to explicitly depict the romantic myth of Sissi, and ends abruptly with

Television.

Elisabeth was portrayed in episode 4 of the 1974 British television series "Fall of Eagles". Diane Keen played the young Elisabeth and Rachel Gurney portrayed the empress at the time of Rudolf's death.  The 1992 BBC adaptation of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple mystery "The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side" centers around the shooting of a fictitious film about Elisabeth. The role of the actress portraying the empress was played by Claire Bloom.  The season five finale of the Austrian detective television series "Kommissar Rex" (1994) revolves around a deluded woman affected by myth of the empress. The episode, appropriately, is entitled, "Sisi."  A heavily fictionalized version of Elisabeth's younger years is portrayed in a 1997 animated children's series, "Princess Sissi."  Arielle Dombasle portrayed

Literature.

Constantin (1867–1911) who served as Elisabeth's modern Greek language tutor from 1891 to 1893 and escorted her during her stay in Corfu, published his memoirs of her shortly after her death, in his 1899 "Tagebuchblätter" (Diary Pages). Although he portrayed Elisabeth in an idealistic favourable manner as a fairytale princess come to life, his book greatly displeased the Imperial Court that declared him "persona non grata" and forced him to resign his University teaching position in Vienna and leave Austria.  The story of Elisabeth is told in Susan Appleyard's 2016 ebook, "In a Gilded Cage".  Elisabeth's youth and early adult life are dramatized in the novel "Imperial Waltz" by William S. Abrahams (Dial Press, 1954).  Elisabeth appears as a significant character in Gary Jennings' 1987 novel "Spangle". The novel concerns a circus traveling through Europe at the close of the 19th century, and portrays Elisabeth's interest in circuses and daredevil horseback riding.  Her story inspired the 2003 children's book "The Royal Diaries: Elisabeth, The Princess Bride".  The empress appears in the 1976 romantic fiction novel "Stars in my Heart" by Barbara Cartland.  She features in Alexander Lernet-Holenia's 1960 novel "Mayerling".  She appears in a cameo in the short story "The Road to Charing

Music.

Dutch singer Petra Berger's album "Eternal Woman" includes "If I Had a Wish",

Architecture.

The Empress Elisabeth Bridge over the Elbe, opened in 1855, was named after her.  The Elizabeth

Empress Elisabeth of Austria (born Duchess Elisabeth in Bavaria; 24 December 1837 – 10 September 1898) was Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary by marriage to Emperor Franz Joseph I. She was born into the royal Bavarian House of Wittelsbach. Nicknamed Sisi (also Sissi), she enjoyed an informal upbringing before marrying Emperor Franz Joseph I at the age of sixteen. The marriage thrust her into the much more formal Habsburg court life, for which she was unprepared and which she found uncongenial. Early in the marriage she was at odds with her mother-in-law, Archduchess Sophie, who took over the rearing of Elisabeth's daughters, one of whom, Sophie, died in infancy. The birth of the heir apparent, Crown Prince Rudolf, improved her standing at court, but her health suffered under the strain, and she would often visit Hungary for its more relaxed environment. She came to develop a deep kinship with Hungary, and helped to bring about the dual monarchy of Austria–Hungary in 1867.

伊丽莎白·阿马利亚·欧根妮(,1837年-12月24日-1898年-9月10日),通称「奥匈帝国的伊丽莎白」()或“奥地利的伊丽莎白”,是弗朗茨·约瑟夫一世之妻子,即奥地利帝国皇后兼匈牙利-{王后}-以及波希米亚及克罗地亚王后,她的美貌和魅力征服了整个欧洲,被世人称为「世界上最美丽的皇后」。


Early life and musical activities.

Herschel was born in the Electorate of Hanover in Germany, then part of the Holy Roman Empire, one of ten children of Isaac Herschel by his marriage to Anna Ilse Moritzen, of German Lutheran ancestry. His Jewish descent is acknowledged by his biographer, Edward S. Holden, and it is also indicated by the fact that his grandfather was named Abraham, his father Isaac, and his eldest brother Jacob. His father's family traced its roots back to Jews from Moravia. One source says they had perhaps converted to Christianity in the seventeenth century and they themselves were Lutheran Christians.  Herschel's father was an oboist in the Hanover Military Band. In 1755 the Hanoverian Guards regiment, in whose band Wilhelm and his brother Jakob were engaged as oboists, was ordered to England. At the time the crowns of Great Britain and Hanover were united under King George II. As the threat of war with France loomed, the Hanoverian Guards were recalled from England to defend Hanover. After they were defeated at the Battle of Hastenbeck, Herschel's father Isaak sent his two sons to seek refuge in England in late 1757. Although his older brother Jakob had received his dismissal from the Hanoverian Guards, Wilhelm was accused of desertion (for which he was pardoned by George III in 1782).  Wilhelm, nineteen years old at this time, was a quick student of the English language. In England he went by the English rendition of his name, Frederick William Herschel.  In addition to the oboe, he played the violin and harpsichord and later the organ. He composed numerous musical works, including 24 symphonies and many concertos, as well as some church music. Six of his symphonies were recorded in April 2002 by the London Mozart Players, conducted by Matthias Bamert (Chandos 10048).  Herschel moved to Sunderland in 1761 when Charles Avison immediately engaged him as first violin and soloist for his Newcastle orchestra, where he played for one season. In "Sunderland in the County of Durh: apprill 20th 1761" he wrote his "Symphony No. 8 in C Minor." He was head of the Durham Militia band from 1760 to 1761. He visited the home of Sir Ralph Milbanke at Halnaby Hall near Darlington in 1760, where he wrote two symphonies, as well as giving performances himself. After Newcastle, he moved to Leeds and Halifax where he was the first organist at St John the Baptist church (now Halifax Minster).  In 1766, Herschel became organist of the Octagon Chapel, Bath, a fashionable chapel in a well-known spa, in which city he was also Director of Public Concerts. He was appointed as the organist in 1766 and gave his introductory concert on 1 January 1767. As the organ was still incomplete, he showed off his versatility by performing his own compositions including a violin concerto, an oboe concerto and a harpsichord sonata. On 4 October 1767, he performed on the organ for the official opening of the Octagon Chapel.  His sister Caroline arrived in England on 24 August 1772 to live with William in New King Street, Bath. The house they shared is now the location of the Herschel Museum of Astronomy. Herschel's brothers Dietrich, Alexander and Jakob (1734–1792) also appeared as musicians of Bath. In 1780, Herschel was appointed director of the Bath orchestra, with his sister often appearing as soprano soloist.

Astronomy.

Herschel's reading in natural philosophy during the 1770s indicates his personal interests but also suggests an intention to be upwardly mobile socially and professionally. He was well-positioned to engage with eighteenth-century "philosophical Gentleman" or philomaths, of wide-ranging logical and practical tastes. Herschel's intellectual curiosity and interest in music eventually led him to astronomy. After reading Robert Smith's "Harmonics, or the Philosophy of Musical Sounds" (1749), he took up Smith's "A Compleat System of Opticks" (1738), which described techniques of telescope construction. He also read James Ferguson's "Astronomy explained upon Sir Isaac Newton's principles and made easy to those who have not studied mathematics" (1756) and William Emerson's "The elements of trigonometry" (1749), "The elements of optics" (1768) and "The principles of mechanics" (1754).  Herschel took lessons from a local mirror-builder and having obtained both tools and a level of expertise, started building his own reflecting telescopes. He would spend up to 16 hours a day grinding and polishing the speculum metal primary mirrors. He relied on the assistance of other family members, particularly his sister Caroline and his brother Alexander, a skilled mechanical craftsperson.  He "began to look at the planets and the stars" in May 1773 and on 1 March 1774 began an astronomical journal by noting his observations of Saturn's rings and the Great Orion Nebula (M42). The English Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne visited the Herschels while they were at Walcot (which they left on 29 September 1777). By 1779, Herschel had also made the acquaintance of Sir William Watson, who invited him to join the Bath Philosophical Society. Herschel became an active member, and through Watson would greatly enlarge his circle of contacts.

Double stars.

Herschel's early observational work soon focused on the search for pairs of stars that were very close together visually. Astronomers of the era expected that changes over time in the apparent separation and relative location of these stars would provide evidence for both the proper motion of stars and, by means of parallax shifts in their separation, for the distance of stars from the Earth. The latter was a method first suggested by Galileo Galilei. From the back garden of his house in New King Street, Bath, and using a, (f/13) Newtonian telescope "with a most capital speculum" of his own manufacture, in October 1779, Herschel began a systematic search for such stars among "every star in the Heavens", with new discoveries listed through 1792. He soon discovered many more binary and multiple stars than expected, and compiled them with careful measurements of their relative positions in two catalogues presented to the Royal Society in London in 1782 (269 double or multiple systems) and 1784 (434 systems). A third catalogue of discoveries made after 1783 was published in 1821 (145 systems).  The Rev. John Michell of Thornhill published work in 1767 on the distribution of double stars, and in 1783 on "dark stars" (black holes), that may have influenced Herschel. After Michell's death in 1793, Herschel bought a ten-foot-long, 30-inch reflecting telescope from Michell's estate.  In 1797, Herschel measured many of the systems again, and discovered changes in their relative positions that could not be attributed to the parallax caused by the Earth's orbit. He waited until 1802 (in "Catalogue of 500 new Nebulae, nebulous Stars, planetary Nebulae, and Clusters of Stars; with Remarks on the Construction of the Heavens") to announce the hypothesis that the two stars might be "binary sidereal systems" orbiting under mutual gravitational attraction, a hypothesis he confirmed in 1803 in his "Account of the Changes that have happened, during the last Twenty-five Years, in the relative Situation of Double-stars; with an Investigation of the Cause to which they are owing". In all, Herschel discovered over 800 confirmed double or multiple star systems, almost all of them physical rather than optical pairs. His theoretical and observational work provided the foundation for modern binary star astronomy; new catalogues adding to his work were not published until after 1820 by Friedrich Wilhelm Struve, James South and John Herschel.

Uranus.

In March 1781, during his search for double stars, Herschel noticed an object appearing as a disk. Herschel originally thought it was a comet or a stellar disc, which he believed he might actually resolve. He reported the sighting to Nevil Maskelyne the Astronomer Royal. He made many more observations of it, and afterwards Russian Academician Anders Lexell computed the orbit and found it to be probably planetary.  Herschel agreed, determining that it must be a planet beyond the orbit of Saturn. He called the new planet the "Georgian star" (Georgium sidus) after King George III, which also brought him favour; the name did not stick. In France, where reference to the British king was to be avoided if possible, the planet was known as "Herschel" until the name "Uranus" was universally adopted. The same year, Herschel was awarded the Copley Medal and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1782, he was appointed "The King's Astronomer" (not to be confused with the Astronomer Royal).  On 1 August 1782 Herschel and his sister Caroline moved to Datchet (then in Buckinghamshire but now in Berkshire). There he continued his work as an astronomer and telescope maker. He achieved an international reputation for their manufacture, profitably selling over 60 completed reflectors to British and Continental astronomers.

Deep sky surveys.

From 1782 to 1802, and most intensively from 1783 to 1790, Herschel conducted systematic surveys in search of "deep-sky" or non-stellar objects with two, and telescopes (in combination with his favoured 6-inch-aperture instrument). Excluding duplicated and "lost" entries, Herschel ultimately discovered over 2,400 objects defined by him as nebulae. (At that time, nebula was the generic term for any visually diffuse astronomical object, including galaxies beyond the Milky Way, until galaxies were confirmed as extragalactic systems by Edwin Hubble in 1924.)  Herschel published his discoveries as three catalogues: "Catalogue of One Thousand New Nebulae and Clusters of Stars" (1786), "Catalogue of a Second Thousand New Nebulae and Clusters of Stars" (1789) and the previously cited "Catalogue of 500 New Nebulae..." (1802). He arranged his discoveries under eight "classes": (I) bright nebulae, (II) faint nebulae, (III) very faint nebulae, (IV) planetary nebulae, (V) very large nebulae, (VI) very compressed and rich clusters of stars, (VII) compressed clusters of small and large [faint and bright] stars, and (VIII) coarsely scattered clusters of stars. Herschel's discoveries were supplemented by those of Caroline Herschel (11 objects) and his son John Herschel (1754 objects) and published by him as "General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters" in 1864. This catalogue was later edited by John Dreyer, supplemented with discoveries by many other 19th-century astronomers, and published in 1888 as the "New General Catalogue" (abbreviated NGC) of 7,840 deep-sky objects. The NGC numbering is still the most commonly used identifying label for these celestial landmarks.  He discovered NGC 12, NGC 13, NGC 14, NGC 16, NGC 23, NGC 24 (work in progress).

Works with his sister Caroline.

Following the death of their father, William suggested that Caroline join him in Bath, England. In 1772, Caroline was first introduced to astronomy by her brother.  Caroline spent many hours polishing the mirrors of high performance telescopes so that the amount of light captured was maximized. She also copied astronomical catalogues and other publications for William. After William accepted the office of King's Astronomer to George III, Caroline became his constant assistant.  In October 1783, a new 20-foot telescope came into service for William. During this time, William was attempting to observe and then record all of the observations. He had to run inside and let his eyes readjust to the artificial light before he could record anything, and then he would have to wait until his eyes were adjusted to the dark before he could observe again. Caroline became his recorder by sitting at a desk near an open window. William would shout out his observations and she would write them down along with any information he needed from a reference book.  Caroline began to make astronomical discoveries in her own right, particularly comets. In 1783, William built her a small Newtonian reflector telescope, with a handle to make a vertical sweep of the sky. Between 1783 and 1787, she made an independent discovery of M110 (NGC 205), which is the second companion of the Andromeda Galaxy. During the years 1786–1797, she discovered or observed eight comets. She found fourteen new nebulae and, at her brother's suggestion, updated and corrected Flamsteed's work detailing the position of stars. She also rediscovered Comet Encke in 1795.  Caroline Herschel's eight comets were published between 28 August 1782 to 5 February 1787. Five of her comets were published in "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society". William was even summoned to Windsor Castle to demonstrate Caroline's comet to the royal family. William recorded this phenomenon himself, terming it "My Sister's Comet." She wrote letters to the Astronomer Royal to announce the discovery of her second comet, and wrote to Joseph Banks upon the discovery of her third and fourth comets.  The "Catalogue of stars taken from Mr Flamsteed's observations" contained an index of more than 560 stars that had not been previously included. Caroline Herschel was honoured by the Royal Astronomical Society for this work in 1828.  Caroline also continued to serve as William Herschel's assistant, often taking notes while he observed at the telescope. For her work as William's assistant, she was granted an annual salary of £50 by George III. Her appointment made her the first female in England to be honored with a government position. It also made her the first woman to be given a salary as an astronomer.  In June 1785, owing to damp conditions, William and Caroline moved to Clay Hall in Old Windsor. On 3 April 1786, the Herschels moved to a new residence on Windsor Road in Slough. Herschel lived the rest of his life in this residence, which came to be known as Observatory House. It was demolished in 1963.  William Herschel's marriage in 1788 caused a lot of tension in the brother-sister relationship. Caroline has been referred to as a bitter, jealous woman who worshipped her brother and resented her sister-in-law for invading her domestic life. With the arrival of Mary, Caroline lost her managerial and social responsibilities in the household, and with them much of her status. Caroline destroyed her journals between the years 1788 to 1798, so her feelings during this period are not entirely known. According to her memoir, Caroline then moved to separate lodgings, but continued to work as her brother's assistant. When her brother and his family were away from their home, she would often return to take care of it for them. In later life, Caroline and Lady Herschel exchanged affectionate letters.  Caroline continued her astronomical work after William's death in 1822. She worked to verify and confirm his findings as well as putting together catalogues of nebulae. Towards the end of her life, she arranged two-and-a-half thousand nebulae and star clusters into zones of similar polar distances. She did this so that her nephew, John, could re-examine them systematically. Eventually, this list was enlarged and renamed the "New General Catalogue". In 1828, she was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society for her work.

Herschel's telescopes.

The most common type of telescope at that time was the refracting telescope, which involved the refraction of light through a tube using a convex glass lens. This design was subject to chromatic aberration, a distortion of an image due to the failure of light of different component wavelengths to converge. Optician John Dollond (1706–1761) tried to correct for this distortion by combining two separate lenses, but it was still difficult to achieve good resolution for far distant light sources.  Reflector telescopes, invented by Isaac Newton in 1668, used a single concave mirror rather than a convex lens. This avoids chromatic aberration. The concave mirror gathered more light than a lens, reflecting it onto a flat mirror at the end of the telescope for viewing. A smaller mirror could provide greater magnification and a larger field of view than a convex lens. Newton's first mirror was 1.3 inches in diameter; such mirrors were rarely more than 3 inches in diameter.  Because of the poor reflectivity of mirrors made of speculum metal, Herschel eliminated the small diagonal mirror of a standard newtonian reflector from his design and tilted his primary mirror so he could view the formed image directly. This "front view" design has come to be called the Herschelian telescope.  The creation of larger, symmetrical mirrors was extremely difficult. Any flaw would result in a blurred image. Because no one else was making mirrors of the size and magnification desired by Herschel, he determined to make his own. This was no small undertaking. He was assisted by his sister Caroline and other family members. Caroline Herschel described the pouring of a 30-foot-focal-length mirror:  Herschel is reported to have cast, ground, and polished more than four hundred mirrors for telescopes, varying in size from 6 to 48 inches in diameter. Herschel and his assistants built and sold at least sixty complete telescopes of various sizes. Commissions for the making and selling of mirrors and telescopes provided Herschel with an additional source of income. The King of Spain reportedly paid £3,150 for a telescope.  An essential part of constructing and maintaining telescopes was the grinding and polishing of their mirrors. This had to be done repeatedly, whenever the mirrors deformed or tarnished during use. The only way to test the accuracy of a mirror was to use it.

40ft telescope.

The largest and most famous of Herschel's telescopes was a reflecting telescope with a 491⁄2-inch-diameter (1.26 m) primary mirror and a focal length. The 40-foot telescope was, at that time, the largest scientific instrument that had been built. It was hailed as a triumph of "human perseverance and zeal for the sublimest science".  In 1785 Herschel approached King George for money to cover the cost of building the 40-foot telescope. He received £4,000. Without royal patronage, the telescope could not have been created. As it was, it took five years, and went over budget.  The Herschel home in Slough became a scramble of "labourers and workmen, smiths and carpenters". A 40-foot telescope tube had to be cast of iron. The tube was large enough to walk through. Mirror blanks were poured from Speculum metal, a mix of copper and tin. They were almost four feet (1.2 m) in diameter and weighed 1,000 pounds (454 kg). When the first disk deformed due to its weight, a second thicker one was made with a higher content of copper. The mirrors had to be hand-polished, a painstaking process. A mirror was repeatedly put into the telescope and removed again to ensure that it was properly formed. When a mirror deformed or tarnished, it had to be removed, repolished and replaced in the apparatus. A huge rotating platform was built to support the telescope, enabling it to be repositioned by assistants as a sweep progressed. A platform near the top of the tube enabled the viewer to look down into the tube and view the resulting image.  In 1789, shortly after this instrument was operational, Herschel discovered a new moon of Saturn: Mimas, only 250 miles (400 km) in diameter. Discovery of a second moon (Enceladus) followed, within the first month of observation.  The 40-foot (12.2-metre) telescope proved very cumbersome, and in spite of its size, not very effective at showing clearer images. Herschel's technological innovations had taken him to the limits of what was possible with the technology of his day. The 40-foot would not be improved upon until the Victorians developed techniques for the precision engineering of large, high-quality mirrors. William Herschel was disappointed with it. Most of Herschel's observations were done with a smaller, reflector. Nonetheless, the 40-foot caught the public imagination. It inspired scientists and writers including Erasmus Darwin and William Blake, and impressed foreign tourists and French dignitaries. King George was pleased.  Herschel discovered that unfilled telescope apertures can be used to obtain high angular resolution, something which became the essential basis for interferometric imaging in astronomy (in particular aperture masking interferometry and hypertelescopes).

Reconstruction of the 20-foot telescope.

In 2012, the BBC television programme "Stargazing Live" built a replica of the 20-foot telescope using Herschel's original plans but modern materials. It is to be considered a close modern approximation rather than an exact replica. A modern glass mirror was used, the frame uses metal scaffolding and the tube is a sewer pipe. The telescope was shown on the programme in January 2013 and stands on the Art, Design and Technology campus of the University of Derby where it will be used for educational purposes.

Life on other celestial bodies.

Herschel was sure that he had found ample evidence of life on the Moon and compared it to the English countryside. He did not refrain himself from theorising that the other planets were populated, with a special interest in Mars, which was in line with most of his contemporary scientists. During Herschel's time, scientists tended to believe in a plurality of civilised worlds; in contrast, most religious thinkers referred to unique properties of the earth. Herschel went so far to speculate that the interior of the sun was populated.

Sunspots, climate and wheat yields.

Herschel examined the correlation of solar variation and solar cycle and climate. Over a period of 40 years (1779–1818), Herschel regularly observed sunspots and their variations in number, form and size. Most of his observations took place in a period of low solar activity, the Dalton Minimum, when sunspots were relatively few in number. This was one of the reasons why Herschel was not able to identify the standard 11-year period in solar activity. Herschel compared his observations with the series of wheat prices published by Adam Smith in "The Wealth of Nations".  In 1801, Herschel reported his findings to the Royal Society and indicated five prolonged periods of few sunspots correlated with the price of wheat. Herschel's study was ridiculed by some of his contemporaries but did initiate further attempts to find a correlation. Later in the 19th century, William Stanley Jevons proposed the 11-year cycle with Herschel's basic idea of a correlation between the low number of sunspots and lower yields explaining recurring booms and slumps in the economy.  Herschel's speculation on a connection between sunspots and regional climate, using the market price of wheat as a proxy, continues to be cited. According to one study, the influence of solar activity can actually be seen on the historical wheat market in England over ten solar cycles between 1600 and 1700. The evaluation is controversial and the significance of the correlation is doubted by some scientists.

Further discoveries.

In his later career, Herschel discovered two moons of Saturn, Mimas and Enceladus; as well as two moons of Uranus, Titania and Oberon. He did not give these moons their names; they were named by his son John in 1847 and 1852, respectively, after his death. Herschel measured the axial tilt of Mars and discovered that the martian ice caps, first observed by Giovanni Domenico Cassini (1666) and Christiaan Huygens (1672), changed size with that planet's seasons. It has been suggested that Herschel might have discovered rings around Uranus.  Herschel introduced but did not create the word "asteroid", meaning "star-like" (from the Greek "asteroeides", "aster" "star" + "-eidos" "form, shape"), in 1802 (shortly after Olbers discovered the second minor planet, 2 Pallas, in late March), to describe the star-like appearance of the small moons of the giant planets and of the minor planets; the planets all show discs, by comparison. By the 1850s 'asteroid' became a standard term for describing certain minor planets.  From studying the proper motion of stars, the nature and extent of the solar motion was first demonstrated by Herschel in 1783, along with first determining the direction for the solar apex to Lambda Herculis, only 10° away from today's accepted position. Herschel also studied the structure of the Milky Way and was the first to propose a model of the galaxy based on observation and measurement. He concluded that it was in the shape of a disk, but incorrectly assumed that the sun was in the centre of the disk. This Heliocentric view was eventually replaced by Galactocentrism due to the work of Harlow Shapley, Heber Doust Curtis and Edwin Hubble in the 1900s. All three men used significantly more far-reaching and accurate telescopes than Herschel's.

Discovery of infrared radiation in sunlight.

On 11 February 1800, Herschel was testing filters for the Sun so he could observe sunspots. When using a red filter he found there was a lot of heat produced. Herschel discovered infrared radiation in sunlight by passing it through a prism and holding a thermometer just beyond the red end of the visible spectrum. This thermometer was meant to be a control to measure the ambient air temperature in the room. He was shocked when it showed a higher temperature than the visible spectrum. Further experimentation led to Herschel's conclusion that there must be an invisible form of light beyond the visible spectrum.

Biology.

Herschel used a microscope to establish that coral was not a plant – as many at the time believed – because it lacked the cell walls characteristic of plants. It is in fact an animal, a marine invertebrate.

Family and death.

On 8 May 1788, William Herschel married the widow Mary Pitt (née Baldwin) at St Laurence's Church, Upton in Slough. They had one child, John, born at Observatory House on 7 March 1792. William's personal background and rise as man of science had a profound impact on the upbringing of his son and grandchildren. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1788. In 1816, William was made a Knight of the Royal Guelphic Order by the Prince Regent and was accorded the honorary title 'Sir' although this was not the equivalent of an official British knighthood. He helped to found the Astronomical Society of London in 1820, which in 1831 received a royal charter and became the Royal Astronomical Society. In 1813, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.  On 25 August 1822, Herschel died at Observatory House, Windsor Road, Slough, after a long illness. He was buried at nearby St Laurence's Church, Upton, Slough. Herschel's epitaph is Caroline was deeply distressed by his death, and soon after his burial she returned to Hanover, a decision she later regretted. She had lived in England for fifty years. Her interests were much more in line with her nephew John Herschel, also an astronomer, than with her surviving family in Hanover. She continued to work on the organization and cataloguing of nebulae, creating what would later become the basis of the "New General Catalogue". She died on 9 January 1848.

Memorial.

William Herschel lived most of his life in Slough, a town then in Buckinghamshire. He died in the town and was buried under the tower of the Church of St Laurence, Upton-cum-Chalvey, near Slough.  Herschel is quite respected in Slough and there are several memorials to him and his discoveries. In 2011 a new bus station, the design of which was inspired by the infrared experiment of William Herschel, was built in the centre of Slough.  His house at 19 New King Street in Bath, Somerset, where he made many telescopes and first observed Uranus, is now home to the Herschel Museum of Astronomy.

Musical works.

Herschel's complete musical works were as follows:  Various vocal works including a "Te Deum", psalms, motets and sacred chants along with some catches. Keyboard works for organ and harpsichord:

Frederick William Herschel, (; ; 15 November 1738 – 25 August 1822) was a German-born British astronomer, composer and brother of fellow astronomer Caroline Herschel, with whom he worked. Born in the Electorate of Hanover, Herschel followed his father into the Military Band of Hanover, before migrating to Great Britain in 1757 at the age of nineteen.

弗里德里希·威廉·赫歇尔爵士,FRS,KH(,英语:Frederick William Herschel,1738年-11月15日-1822年-8月25日),出生于德国汉诺威,英国天文学家及音乐家,曾作出多项天文发现,包括天王星等。被誉为「恒星天文学之父」。


Etymology and folklore.

The word "Etna" is from the Greek αἴθω ("aithō"), meaning "I burn", through an iotacist pronunciation. In Classical Greek, it is called ("Aítnē"), a name given also to Catania and the city originally known as Inessa. In Latin it is called "Aetna". In Arabic, it was called'(the Mountain of Fire).  It is also known as "Mungibeddu" in Sicilian and "Mongibello" or "Montebello" in Italian (the Italian word literally means "beautiful mountain"). According to another hypothesis, the term "Mongibello" comes from the Latin "Mulciber" ("qui ignem mulcet", "who placates the fire"), one of the Latin names of the Roman god Vulcan. Another theory is that "Mongibello" came from the Italian word "monte" plus the Arabic word "jabal", both meaning "mountain."  Today, the name "Mongibello" is used for the area of Mount Etna containing the two central craters, and the craters located southeast and northeast of the volcanic cone.  The name Mongibel is found in Arthurian Romance, as the name of the otherworld castle (or realm) of Morgan le Fay and her half-brother, King Arthur, localised at Etna, according to traditions concerning them derived from the stories told by the Breton "conteurs" who accompanied the Norman occupiers of Sicily. What were originally Welsh conceptions concerning a dwarf king of a paradisal, Celtic underworld became attached to the quasi-historic figure of Arthur as "Ruler of the Antipodes" and were then transplanted into a Sicilian milieu, by Bretons impressed by the already otherworldly associations of the great, volcanic mountain of their new home. Mediaevalist Roger Sherman Loomis quotes passages from the works of Gervase of Tilbury and Caesarius of Heisterbach (dating from the late twelfth century) featuring accounts of Arthur's returning of a lost horse which had strayed into his subterranean kingdom beneath Etna. Caesarius quotes as his authority for the story a certain canon Godescalcus of Bonn, who considered it a matter of historical fact of the time of Emperor Henry's conquest of Sicily "circa" 1194. Caesarius employs in his account the Latin phrase "in monte Gyber" ("within Etna") to describe the location of Arthur's kingdom.  The "Fada de Gibel" of the Castle of "Gibaldar" (Fairy of Etna) appears in Jaufre, the only surviving Arthurian romance in the Occitan language, the composition of which is dated to between 1180 and 1230. However, in Jaufre, while it is clear from her name that the fairy queen in question is Morgan le Fay, the rich underworld queendom of which she is the mistress is accessed, not through a fiery grotto on the slopes of Etna, but through a 'fountain' (i.e., a spring) – a circumstance more in keeping with Morgan's original watery, rather than fiery, associations, before her incorporation into the folklore of Sicily. For another Sicilian conception of the fairy realm or castle of Morgan le Fay – see Fata Morgana (mirage) re. an optical phenomenon common in the Strait of Messina.

History of volcanic eruptions.

Geological history.

Volcanic activity first took place at Etna about 500,000 years ago, with eruptions occurring beneath the sea off the ancient coastline of Sicily. About 300,000 years ago, volcanism began occurring to the southwest of the summit (centre top of the volcano), then activity moved towards the present centre 170,000 years ago. Eruptions at this time built up the first major volcanic edifice, forming a stratovolcano in alternating explosive and effusive eruptions. The growth of the mountain was occasionally interrupted by major eruptions, leading to the collapse of the summit to form calderas.  From about 35,000 to 15,000 years ago, Etna experienced some highly explosive eruptions, generating large pyroclastic flows, which left extensive ignimbrite deposits. Ash from these eruptions has been found as far away as south of Rome's border, to the north.  Thousands of years ago, the eastern flank of the mountain experienced a catastrophic collapse, generating an enormous landslide in an event similar to that seen in the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. The landslide left a large depression in the side of the volcano, known as 'Valle del Bove' (Valley of the Ox). Research published in 2006 suggested this occurred around 8,000 years ago, and caused a huge tsunami, which left its mark in several places in the eastern Mediterranean. It may have been the reason the settlement of Atlit Yam (Israel), now below sea level, was suddenly abandoned around that time.  The steep walls of the valley have suffered subsequent collapses on numerous occasions. The strata exposed in the valley walls provide an important and easily accessible record of Etna's eruptive history.  The most recent collapse event at the summit of Etna is thought to have occurred about 2,000 years ago, forming what is known as the Piano Caldera. This caldera has been almost entirely filled by subsequent lava eruptions but is still visible as a distinct break in the slope of the mountain near the base of the present-day summit cone.  Mount Etna is moving towards the Mediterranean Sea at an average rate of per year, the massif sliding on an unconsolidated layer above the older sloping terrain.

Eruptions.

Historical eruptions.

Eruptions of Etna follow a variety of patterns. Most occur at the summit, where there are five distinct craters – the Northeast Crater, the Voragine, the Bocca Nuova, and the Southeast Crater Complex (2). Other eruptions occur on the flanks, which have more than 300 vents ranging in size from small holes in the ground to large craters hundreds of metres across. Summit eruptions can be highly explosive and spectacular but rarely threaten the inhabited areas around the volcano. In contrast, flank eruptions can occur down to a few hundred metres altitude, close to or even well within the inhabited areas. Numerous villages and small towns lie around or on cones of past flank eruptions. Since the year AD 1600, at least 60 flank eruptions and countless summit eruptions have occurred; nearly half of these have happened since the start of the 20th century. Since 2000, Etna has had four flank eruptions – in 2001, 2002–2003, 2004–2005, and 2008–2009. Summit eruptions occurred in 2006, 2007–2008, January–April 2012, in July–October 2012 and again in December 2018.  The first known record of eruption at Etna is that of Diodorus Siculus.  In 396 BC, an eruption of Etna reportedly thwarted the Carthaginians in their attempt to advance on Syracuse during the Second Sicilian War.  A particularly violent explosive (Plinian) summit eruption occurred in 122 BC, and caused heavy tephra falls to the southeast, including the town of Catania, where many roofs collapsed. To help with reconstruction after the devastating effects of the eruption, the Roman government exempted the population of Catania from paying taxes for ten years.  The Roman poet Virgil gave what was probably a first-hand description of an eruption in the "Aeneid".  During the first 1500 years AD, many eruptions went unrecorded (or records have been lost); among the more significant are: (1) an eruption in about 1030 AD near Monte Ilice on the lower southeast flank, which produced a lava flow that travelled about 10 km, reaching the sea north of Acireale; the villages of Santa Tecla and Stazzo are built on the broad delta built by this lava flow into the sea; (2) an eruption in about 1160 (or 1224), from a fissure at only elevation on the south-southeast flank near the village of Mascalucia, whose lava flow reached the sea just to the north of Catania, in the area now occupied by the portion of the city named Ognina.  Rabban Bar Sauma, a Chinese traveller to the West, recorded the eruption of Etna on 18 June 1287.  The 1669 eruption, Etna's most destructive since 122 BC, started on 11 March 1669 and produced lava flows that destroyed at least 10 villages on its southern flank before reaching the city walls of the town of Catania five weeks later, on 15 April. The lava was largely diverted by these walls into the sea to the south of the city, filling the harbour of Catania. A small portion of lava eventually broke through a fragile section of the city walls on the western side of Catania and destroyed a few buildings before stopping in the rear of the Benedictine monastery, without reaching the centre of the town. Contrary to widespread reports of up to 15,000 (or even 20,000) human fatalities caused by the lava, contemporaneous accounts written both in Italian and English mention no deaths related to the 1669 eruption (but give very precise figures of the number of buildings destroyed, the area of cultivated land lost, and the economic damage). Therefore, it is uncertain where the enormous number of fatalities can be attributed. One possibility is confusion between this eruption and an earthquake that devastated southeast Sicily (including Catania) 24 years later in 1693. A study on the damage and fatalities caused by eruptions of Etna in historical times reveals that only 77 human deaths are attributable with certainty to eruptions of Etna, most recently in 1987 when two tourists were killed by a sudden explosion near the summit.

Recent eruptions.

A large lava flow from an eruption in 1928 led to the destruction of a population centre for the first time since the 1669 eruption. The eruption started high on Etna's northeast flank on 2 November. Then new eruptive fissures opened at decreasing elevations down the flank of the volcano. The third and most vigorous of these fissures opened late on 4 November at an unusually low elevation, approximately above sea-level, in a zone known as Ripe della Naca. The village of Mascali, lying down-slope of the Ripe della Naca, was almost completely destroyed in two days. Only a church and a few surrounding buildings survived in the north part of the village, called Sant'Antonino or "il quartiere". During the last days of the eruption, the flow interrupted the Messina-Catania railway line and destroyed the train station of Mascali. The event was used by Benito Mussolini's fascist regime for propaganda purposes, with the evacuation, aid, and rebuilding operations being presented as models of fascist planning. Mascali was rebuilt on a new site, and its church contains the Italian fascist symbol of the torch, placed above the statue of Jesus Christ. Other major 20th-century eruptions occurred in 1949, 1971, 1979, 1981, 1983 and 1991–1993. In 1971, lava buried the Etna Observatory (built in the late 19th century), destroyed the first generation of the Etna cable-car, and seriously threatened several small villages on Etna's east flank. In March 1981, the town of Randazzo on the northwestern flank of Etna narrowly escaped destruction by unusually fast-moving lava flows. That eruption was remarkably similar to one in 1928 that destroyed Mascali. The 1991–1993 eruption saw the town of Zafferana threatened by a lava flow, but successful diversion efforts saved the town with the loss of only one building a few hundred metres from the town's margin. Initially, such efforts consisted of the construction of earth barriers built perpendicularly to the flow direction; it was hoped that the eruption would stop before the artificial basins created behind the barriers would be completely filled. Instead, the eruption continued, and lava surmounted the barriers, heading directly toward Zafferana. Engineers then decided to use explosives near the source of the lava flow, to disrupt a very efficient lava tube system through which the lava travelled for up to without losing significant heat or fluidity. The main explosion on 23 May 1992 destroyed the tube and forced the lava into a new artificial channel, far from Zafferana, and it would have taken months to re-establish a long lava tube. Shortly after the blasting, the rate of lava emission dropped, and during the remainder of the eruption (until 30 March 1993) the lava never advanced close to the town again.  Following six years (1995–2001) of unusually intense activity at the four summit craters of Etna, the volcano produced its first flank eruption since 1991–1993 in July–August 2001. This eruption, which involved activity from seven distinct eruptive fissures mostly on the south slope of the volcano, was a mass-media eruption because it occurred at the height of the tourist season and numerous reporters and journalists were already in Italy to cover the G8 summit in Genoa. It also occurred close to one of the tourist areas on the volcano, and thus was easily accessible. Part of the "Etna Sud" tourist area, including the arrival station of the Etna cable car, were damaged by this eruption, which otherwise was a rather modest-sized event by Etna standards.  In 2002–2003, a much larger eruption threw up a huge column of ash that could easily be seen from space and fell as far away as Libya, south across the Mediterranean Sea. Seismic activity in this eruption caused the eastern flanks of the volcano to slip by up to two metres, and many houses on the flanks of the volcano experienced structural damage. The eruption also completely destroyed the tourist station Piano Provenzana, on the northeastern flank of the volcano, and part of the tourist station "Etna Sud" around the Rifugio Sapienza on the south flank. Footage from the eruptions was recorded by Lucasfilm and integrated into the landscape of the planet Mustafar in the 2005 film "". The Rifugio Sapienza is near the site of a cable car station which had previously been destroyed in the 1983 eruption; it has now been rebuilt. Following a slow and non-destructive lava outflow on the upper southeastern flank between September 2004 and March 2005, intense eruptions occurred at the Southeast Crater in July–December 2006. These were followed by four episodes of lava fountaining, again at the Southeast Crater, on 29 March 11 April 29 April and 7 May 2007. Ash emissions and Strombolian explosions started from a vent on the eastern side of the Southeast Crater in mid-August 2007.  On 4 September 2007, a major episode of lava fountaining occurred from the new vent on the east side of the Southeast Crater, also producing a plume of ash and scoriae which fell over the east flank of the volcano. A lava flow travelled about into the uninhabited Valle del Bove. This eruption was visible far into the plains of Sicily, ending the following morning between the hours of 5 to 7 a.m. local time. Catania-Fontanarossa Airport shut down operations during the night for safety precautions.  An eruption on the morning of 13 May 2008, immediately to the east of Etna's summit craters was accompanied by a swarm of more than 200 earthquakes and significant ground deformation in the summit area. The eruption continued at a slowly diminishing rate for 417 days, until 6 July 2009, making this the longest flank eruption of Etna since the 1991–1993 eruption that lasted 473 days. Previous eruptions, in 2001, 2002–2003, and 2004–2005 had lasted 3 weeks, 3 months, and 6 months, respectively. Lava flows advanced 6.5 km during the first few days of this eruption but thereafter stagnated at many minor distances from the vents; during the last months of the eruption lava rarely advanced more than 1 km downslope.  Through January 2011 to February 2012, the summit craters of Etna were the site of intense activity. Frequent eruptions and ash columns forced the authorities to shut down the Catania airport on several occasions. The July 2011 episode also endangered the Sapienza Refuge, the main tourist hub on the volcano, but the lava flow was successfully diverted. In 2014, a flank eruption started involving lava flows and strombolian eruptions. This was the first flank eruption since 2008–09  On 3 December 2015, an eruption occurred which climaxed between 03:20 and 04:10 local time. The Voragine crater exhibited a lava fountain which reached in height, with an ash plume which reached in height. The activity continued on the following days, with an ash plume that reached in height that forced Catania airport to shut down for a few hours. Volcanic gas emissions from this volcano are measured by a Multi-Component Gas Analyzer System, which detects pre-eruptive degassing of rising magmas, improving prediction of volcanic activity.  An eruption on 16 March 2017 injured 10 people, including a BBC News television crew, after magma exploded upon contact with snow.  An eruption on 24 December 2018, following a dyke intrusion at shallow depth, spewed ash into the air, forcing the closure of airspace around Mount Etna. Two days later, a magnitude 4.9 earthquake shook the nearby city of Catania, damaging buildings and injuring four people.

Volcanic explosivity index of recent eruptions.

The Global Volcanism Program has assigned a volcanic explosivity index (VEI) to all of Mount Etna's eruptions since January 1955:

Smoke rings.

In the 1970s Etna erupted smoke rings, one of the first captured events of this type, which are extremely rare. This happened again in 2000. Video footage of 8 June 2000 event was captured by naturalist filmmaker Geoff Mackley. Another event occurred on 11 April 2013.

Geopolitical boundaries.

The borders of ten municipalities (Adrano, Biancavilla, Belpasso, Bronte (from two sides), Castiglione di Sicilia, Maletto, Nicolosi, Randazzo, Sant'Alfio, Zafferana Etnea) meet on the summit of Mount Etna, making this point one of elevenfold complexity.

Facilities.

Etna is one of Sicily's main tourist attractions, with thousands of visitors every year. The most common route is through the road leading to Sapienza Refuge ski area, lying at the south of the crater at elevation of 1910 m. From the Refuge, a cableway runs uphill to an elevation of 2500 m, from where the crater area at 2920 m is accessible.  Ferrovia Circumetnea – Round-Etna railway – is a narrow-gauge railway constructed between 1889 and 1895. It runs around the volcano in a 110-km long semi-circle starting in Catania and ending in Riposto 28 km north of Catania.  There are two ski resorts on Etna: one at the Sapienza Refuge, with a chairlift and three ski lifts, and a smaller one on the north, at Piano Provenzana near Linguaglossa, with three lifts and a chairlift.  Sapienza Refuge was the finish of Stage 9 of the 2011 Giro d'Italia and Stage 4 of the 2017 Giro.

Mount Etna, or Etna ( or ; or ; ; ), is an active stratovolcano on the east coast of Sicily, Italy, in the Metropolitan City of Catania, between the cities of Messina and Catania. It lies above the convergent plate margin between the African Plate and the Eurasian Plate. It is the highest active volcano in Europe outside the Caucasus and the highest peak in Italy south of the Alps with a current height of, though this varies with summit eruptions. Etna covers an area of with a basal circumference of. This makes it by far the largest of the three active volcanoes in Italy, being about two and a half times the height of the next largest, Mount Vesuvius. Only Mount Teide on Tenerife in the Canary Islands surpasses it in the whole of the European–North-African region west of the Black Sea. In Greek mythology, the deadly monster Typhon was trapped under this mountain by Zeus, the god of the sky and thunder and king of gods, and the forges of Hephaestus were said also to be underneath it.

埃特纳火山(),是欧洲著名的活火山,属层状火山。它位于意大利西西里岛东海岸的墨西拿和卡塔尼亚之间,是欧洲最高的活火山,海拔3326米,其高度随喷发活动而变化。埃特纳火山下部为一个巨大的盾形火山,上部为高约300米的火山渣锥,面积约1190平方公里,底部周长约140公里。由于埃特纳火山处于亚欧板块和非洲板块交汇处,一直活动频繁,其喷发史可以追溯到公元前1500年,迄今为止已喷发过200多次。2002年10月28日曾大规模喷发。


History.

In 1084 Bishop Hugh of Grenoble offered Bruno, the former Chancellor of the Diocese of Reims, a solitary site in the mountains of his diocese, in the valley of Chartreuse. There Bruno and six companions built a hermitage, consisting of a few log cabins opening towards a gallery that allowed them access to the communal areas, the church, refectory, and chapter room without having to suffer too much from inclement conditions.  Six years later, Bruno's former pupil, Pope Urban II, requested his services. He would only live in Rome for a few short months however, before leaving to establish a new hermitage in the forests of Calabria, in the south of Italy, with a few new companions. He died there on 6 October 1101.  In 1132, an avalanche destroyed the first hermitage, killing 7 monks under the snow. The fifth prior of Chartreuse, Guiges, rebuilt the hermitage.

Carthusians in Britain.

There were ten Carthusian monasteries in the British Isles before the Reformation, with one in Scotland and nine in England. The first was founded by Henry II of England in 1181 at Witham Friary, Somerset as penance for the murder of St. Thomas Becket. St. Hugh of Lincoln was its first prior. The third Charterhouse built in Britain was Beauvale Priory, remains of which can still be seen in Beauvale, Greasley, Nottinghamshire.  The Carthusians, as with all Catholic religious orders, were variously persecuted and banned during the Reformation. The abolition of their priories, which were sources of charity in England, particularly reduced their numbers. This was followed by the French Revolution which had a similar effect in France.  A few fragments remain of the Charterhouse in Coventry, mostly dating from the 15th century, and consisting of a sandstone building that was probably the prior's house. The area, about a mile from the centre of the city, is a conservation area, but the buildings are in use as part of a local college. Inside the building is a medieval wall painting, alongside many carvings and wooden beams. Nearby is the river Sherbourne that runs underneath the centre of the city.  The best preserved remains of a medieval Charterhouse in the UK are at Mount Grace Priory near Osmotherley, North Yorkshire. One of the cells has been reconstructed to illustrate how different the lay-out is from monasteries of most other Christian orders, which are normally designed with communal living in mind.  The London Charterhouse gave its name to Charterhouse Square and several streets in the City of London, as well as to the Charterhouse School which used part of its site before moving out to Godalming, Surrey. Nothing remains at Hull or Sheen, although Hull Charterhouse is an alms house which shared the site of the monastery. Axholme, Hinton, and Witham have slight remains.  Perth Charterhouse, the single Carthusian Priory founded in Scotland during the Middle Ages, was located in Perth. It stood just west of the medieval town and was founded by James I (1406–1437) in the early 15th century. James I and Joan Beaufort, Queen of Scots (died 1445) were both buried in the priory church, as was Queen Margaret Tudor (died 1541), widow of James IV of Scotland. The Priory, said to have been a building of 'wondrous cost and greatness' was sacked during the Scottish Reformation in 1559, and swiftly fell into decay. No remains survive above ground, though a Victorian monument marks the site. The Perth names Charterhouse Lane and Pomarium Flats (built on the site of the Priory's orchard) recall its existence.  St Hugh's Charterhouse, Parkminster, West Sussex has cells around a square cloister approximately 400 m (one quarter mile) on a side, making it the largest cloister in Europe. It was built to accommodate two communities which were expelled from the continent.

Charterhouse.

The monastery is generally a small community of hermits based on the model of the 4th century Lauras of Palestine. A Carthusian monastery consists of a number of individual cells built around a cloister. The individual cells are organised so that the door of each cell comes off a large corridor.  The focus of Carthusian life is contemplation. To this end there is an emphasis on solitude and silence. Carthusians do not have abbots — instead, each charterhouse is headed by a prior and is populated by two types of monks: the choir monks, referred to as hermits, and the lay brothers. This reflects a division of labor in providing for the material needs of the monastery and the monks. For the most part, the number of brothers in the Order has remained the same for centuries, as it is now: seven or eight brothers for every ten fathers. Humility is a characteristic of Carthusian spirituality. The Carthusian identity is one of shared solitude.

Choirmonks.

Each hermit, a monk who is or who will be a priest, has his own living space, called a cell, usually consisting of a small dwelling. Traditionally there is a one-room lower floor for the storage of wood for a stove and a workshop as all monks engage in some manual labour. A second floor consists of a small entryway with an image of the Virgin Mary as a place of prayer and a larger room containing a bed, a table for eating meals, a desk for study, a choir stall, and a kneeler for prayer. Each cell has a high walled garden wherein the monk may meditate as well as grow flowers for himself and/or vegetables for the common good of the community, as a form of physical exercise. Next to the door is a small revolving compartment, called a "turn", so that meals and other items may be passed in and out of the cell without the hermit having to meet the bearer. Most meals are provided in this manner, which the hermit then eats in the solitude of his cell. There are two meals provided for much of the year: lunch and supper. During seasons or days of fasting, just one meal is provided. The hermit makes his needs known to the lay brother by means of a note, requesting items such as a fresh loaf of bread, which will be kept in the cell for eating with several meals. Carthusians observe a perpetual abstinence from meat.  The hermit spends most of his day in the cell: he meditates, prays the minor hours of the Liturgy of the Hours on his own, eats, studies and writes, and works in his garden or at some manual trade. Unless required by other duties, the Carthusian hermit leaves his cell daily only for three prayer services in the monastery chapel, including the community Mass, and occasionally for conferences with his superior. Additionally, once a week, the community members take a long walk in the countryside during which they may speak. On Sundays and solemn feast days a community meal is taken in silence. Twice a year there is a day-long community recreation, and the monk may receive an annual visit from immediate family members.

Lay brothers.

There always have been brothers in the charterhouse. When Saint Bruno retired to the Chartreuse, two of his companions were secular ones: Andrew and Guerin. They also live a life of solitary prayer and join in the communal prayer and Mass in the chapel. However, the lay brothers are monks under slightly different types of vows and spend less time in contemplative prayer and more time in manual labour. The lay brothers provide material assistance to the choir monks: cooking meals, doing laundry, undertaking physical repairs, providing the choir monks with books from the library and managing supplies. The life of the brothers complements that of the choir monks, and makes the fathers' lives of seclusion possible.  During the brothers' seven-year formation period, some time is given each day to the study of the Bible, Theology, Liturgy, and Spirituality. They can continue their studies throughout their lives. All of the monks live lives of silence.  The Carthusians do not engage in work of a pastoral or missionary nature. Unlike most monasteries, they do not have retreatants, and those who visit for a prolonged period are people who are contemplating entering the monastery. As far as possible, the monks have no contact with the outside world.  Carthusian nuns live a life similar to the monks, but with some differences. Choir nuns tend to lead somewhat less eremitical lives, while still maintaining a strong commitment to solitude and silence.

Modern Carthusians.

Today, the monastery of the Grande Chartreuse is still the Motherhouse of the Order. There is a museum illustrating the history of the Carthusian order next to Grande Chartreuse; the monks of that monastery are also involved in producing Chartreuse liqueur. Visits are not possible into the Grande Chartreuse itself, but the 2005 documentary "Into Great Silence" gave unprecedented views of life within the hermitage.  Today, Carthusians live very much as they originally did, without any relaxing of their rules. Generally, those wishing to enter must be between the ages of twenty-one and forty-five. Nowadays, medical examinations are considered necessary before the Novitiate and Profession. The Carthusian novice is introduced to the "Lectio divina" method of prayer. In the 21st century, the Sélignac Charterhouse was converted into a house in which lay people could come and experience Carthusian retreats, living the Carthusian life for shorter periods (an eight-day retreat being fixed as the absolute minimum, in order to enter at least somewhat into the silent rhythm of the charterhouse).

Liturgy.

Before the Council of Trent in the 16th century, the Catholic Church in Western Europe had a wide variety of rituals for the celebration of Mass. Although the essentials were the same, there were variations in prayers and practices from region to region or among the various religious orders.  When Pope Pius V made the Roman Missal mandatory for all Catholics of the Latin Church, he permitted the continuance of other forms of celebrating Mass that had an antiquity of at least two centuries. The rite used by the Carthusians was one of these, and still continues in use in a version revised in 1981. Apart from the new elements in this revision, it is substantially the rite of Grenoble in the 12th century, with some admixture from other sources. According to current Catholic legislation, priests can celebrate the traditional rites of their order without further authorization.  A feature unique to Carthusian liturgical practice is that the bishop bestows on Carthusian nuns, in the ceremony of their profession, a stole and a maniple. This may be a vestigial remnant of ordination of deaconesses in antiquity. The nun is also invested with a crown and a ring. The nun wears these ornaments again only on the day of her monastic jubilee and on her bier after her death. At Matins, if no priest or deacon is present, a nun assumes the stole and reads the Gospel; and although in the time of the Tridentine Mass the chanting of the Epistle was reserved to an ordained subdeacon, a consecrated nun sang the Epistle at the conventual Mass, though without wearing the maniple. For centuries Carthusian nuns retained this rite, administered by the diocesan bishop four years after the nun took her vows.

Formation.

The formation of a Carthusian begins with 6 to 12 months of postulancy, where the postulant lives the life of a monk but without having professed any kind of vows. This is followed by 2 years of novitiate, where the novice wears a black cloak over the white Carthusian habit. Subsequently, the novice takes simple vows and becomes a junior professed for 3 years, during which the professed wears the full Carthusian habit. The simple vows may be renewed for another 2 years. Finally, the Carthusian performs a solemn profession and becomes a solemnly-professed Carthusian.

Locations of monasteries.

, there are 23 extant charterhouses, 18 for monks and 5 for nuns, on three continents: Argentina (1), Brazil (1), France (6), Germany (1), Italy (3), Korea (2), Portugal (1), Slovenia (1), Spain (4), Switzerland (1), the United Kingdom (1) and the United States (1). The two in Korea, one of monks and one of nuns, are of recent construction.

The Carthusians, also known as the Order of Carthusians () or the Order of Saint Bruno, are an enclosed religious order of the Roman Catholic Church. The order was founded by Bruno of Cologne in 1084 and includes both monks and nuns. The order has its own rule, called the "Statutes", and their life combines both eremitical and cenobitic monasticism. The motto of the Carthusians is "Stat crux dum volvitur orbis", Latin for "The Cross is steady while the world is turning."

加尔都西会(;),又名嘉都西会、沙特勒斯修会,天主教称加多森会,是一个封闭的天主教教会,由圣勃路诺创立于1084年,兼收男女。该教会是一个群居的隐修会,很少与外界接触,也并不派遣任何传教士。其名取自沙特勒斯山脉,圣勃路诺正是在这里创建了第一所加尔都西会隐修院。在宗教改革时一度遭禁,加上后来的法国大革命等动荡,其人数大幅下降。


History.

A church dedicated to "'Our Lady' (Kirche zu unser Liebfrauen)" was first built in the 11th century in a Romanesque style, outside the city walls and surrounded by a graveyard. The Frauenkirche was the seat of an archpriest in the Meissen Diocese until the Reformation, when it became a Protestant church. This first Frauenkirche was torn down in 1727 and replaced by a new, larger church with a greater capacity. The Frauenkirche was re-built as a Lutheran (Protestant) parish church by the citizenry. Even though Saxony's Prince-elector, Frederick August I, had converted to Catholicism to become King of Poland, he supported the construction which not only gave an impressive cupola to the Dresden townscape but also reassured the Saxonians that their ruler was not going to force the principle "cuius regio, eius religio" upon them.  The original Baroque church was built between 1726 and 1743, and was designed by Dresden's city architect, George Bähr, who did not live to see the completion of his greatest work. Bähr's distinctive design for the church captured the new spirit of the Protestant liturgy by placing the altar, pulpit, and baptismal font directly centre in view of the entire congregation.  In 1736, famed organ maker Gottfried Silbermann built a three-manual, 43-stop instrument for the church. The organ was dedicated on 25 November and Johann Sebastian Bach gave a recital on the instrument on 1 December.  The church's most distinctive feature was its unconventional high dome, high, called "die Steinerne Glocke" or "Stone Bell". An engineering feat comparable to Michelangelo's dome for St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, the Frauenkirche's 12,000-ton sandstone dome stood high resting on eight slender supports. Despite initial doubts, the dome proved to be extremely stable. Witnesses in 1760 said that the dome had been hit by more than 100 cannonballs fired by the Prussian army led by Friedrich II during the Seven Years' War. The projectiles bounced off and the church survived. The completed church gave the city of Dresden a distinctive silhouette, captured in famous paintings by Bernardo Bellotto, a nephew of the artist Canaletto (also known by the same name), and in "Dresden by Moonlight" (1839) by Norwegian painter Johan Christian Dahl.  In 1849, the church was at the heart of the revolutionary disturbances known as the May Uprising. It was surrounded by barricades, and fighting lasted for days before those rebels who had not already fled were rounded up in the church and arrested.  For more than 200 years, the bell-shaped dome stood over the skyline of old Dresden, dominating the city.  Burials include Heinrich Schütz and George Bähr.

Destruction.

On 13 February 1945, Anglo-American allied forces began the bombing of Dresden in World War II. The church withstood two days and nights of the attacks, and the eight interior sandstone pillars supporting the large dome held up long enough for the evacuation of 300 people who had sought shelter in the church crypt, before succumbing to the heat generated by some 650,000 incendiary bombs that were dropped on the city. The temperature surrounding and inside the church eventually reached. The dome finally collapsed at 10 a.m. on 15 February. The pillars glowed bright red and exploded; the outer walls shattered and nearly 6,000 tons of stone plunged to earth, penetrating the massive floor as it fell.  The altar, a relief depiction of Jesus' Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives by Johann Christian Feige, was only partially damaged during the bombing raid and fire that destroyed the church. The altar and the structure behind it, the chancel, were among the remnants left standing. Features of most of the figures were lopped off by falling debris and the fragments lay under the rubble.  The building vanished from Dresden's skyline, and the blackened stones would lie in wait in a pile in the centre of the city for the next 45 years as Communist rule enveloped what was now East Germany. Shortly after the end of World War II, residents of Dresden had already begun salvaging unique stone fragments from the Church of Our Lady and numbering them for future use in reconstruction. Popular sentiment discouraged the authorities from clearing the ruins away to make a car park. In 1966, the remnants were officially declared a "memorial against war", and state-controlled commemorations were held there on the anniversaries of the destruction of Dresden.  In 1982, the ruins began to be the site of a peace movement combined with peaceful protests against the East German regime. On the anniversary of the bombing, 400 citizens of Dresden came to the ruins in silence with flowers and candles, part of a growing East German civil rights movement. By 1989, the number of protesters in Dresden, Leipzig, and other parts of East Germany had increased to tens of thousands. On 9 November 1989, the Berlin Wall "fell" and the inner German border dividing East and West Germany toppled. This opened the way to German reunification.

Promoting reconstruction and funding.

During the last months of World War II, residents expressed the desire to rebuild the church. However, due to political circumstances in East Germany, the reconstruction came to a halt. The heap of ruins was conserved as a war memorial within the inner city of Dresden, as a direct counterpart to the ruins of Coventry Cathedral, which was destroyed by German bombing in 1940 and also serves as a war memorial in the United Kingdom. Because of the continuing decay of the ruins, Dresden leaders decided in 1985 (after the Semperoper was finally finished) to rebuild the Church of Our Lady after the completion of the reconstruction of the Dresden castle.  The reunification of Germany, brought new life to the reconstruction plans. In 1989, a 14-member group of enthusiasts headed by Ludwig Güttler, a noted Dresden musician, formed a Citizens' Initiative. From that group emerged a year later The Society to Promote the Reconstruction of the Church of Our Lady, which began an aggressive private fund-raising campaign. The organisation grew to over 5,000 members in Germany and 20 other countries. A string of German auxiliary groups were formed, and three promotional organisations were created abroad.  The project gathered momentum. As hundreds of architects, art historians and engineers sorted the thousands of stones, identifying and labeling each for reuse in the new structure, others worked to raise money. IBM provided a key element by contracting with RTI International, a nonprofit research institute in Research Triangle Park NC to create an interactive virtual reality representation of the Church. The VR drew donations large and small, helping to make the project possible.  Günter Blobel, a German-born American, saw the original Church of Our Lady as a boy when his refugee family took shelter in a town just outside Dresden days before the city was bombed. In 1994, he became the founder and president of the nonprofit "Friends of Dresden, Inc.", a United States organization dedicated to supporting the reconstruction, restoration, and preservation of Dresden's artistic and architectural legacy. In 1999, Blobel won the Nobel Prize for medicine and donated the entire amount of his award money (nearly US$1 million) to the organization for the restoration of Dresden, to the rebuilding of the Frauenkirche and the building of a new synagogue. It was the single largest individual donation to the project.  In Britain, the Dresden Trust has Prince Edward, Duke of Kent as its royal patron and the Bishop of Coventry among its curators. Dr. Paul Oestreicher, a canon emeritus of Coventry Cathedral and a founder of the Dresden Trust, wrote: "The church is to Dresden what St. Paul's is to London". (Referring to St. Paul's Cathedral.) Additional organizations include France's Association Frauenkirche Paris and Switzerland's Verein Schweizer Freunde der Frauenkirch.  Rebuilding the church cost €180 million. Dresdner Bank financed more than half of the reconstruction costs via a "donor certificates campaign", collecting almost €70 million after 1995. The bank itself contributed more than seven million Euros, including more than one million donated by its employees. Over the years, thousands of watches containing tiny fragments of Church of Our Lady stone were sold, as were specially printed medals. One sponsor raised nearly €2.3 million through symbolic sales of individual church stones.  Funds raised were turned over to the "Frauenkirche Foundation Dresden", with the reconstruction backed by the State of Saxony, the City of Dresden and the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Saxony.  The new golden tower cross was funded officially by "the British people and the House of Windsor". It was made by the British silversmith company Grant Macdonald of which the main craftsman on the project was Alan Smith whose father was one of the bomber pilots responsible for the destruction of the church.

Reconstruction.

Using original plans from builder Georg Bähr in the 1720s, the Dresden City Council decided to proceed with reconstruction in February 1992. A rubble-sorting ceremony started the event in January 1993 under the direction of church architect and engineer Eberhard Burger. The foundation stone was laid in 1994, and stabilized in 1995. The crypt was completed in 1996 and the inner cupola in 2000. Seven new bells were cast for the church and rang for the first time for the Pentecost celebration in 2003. The exterior was completed ahead of schedule in 2004 and the painted interior in 2005. The intensive efforts to rebuild this world-famous landmark were completed in 2005, one year earlier than originally planned, and in time for the 800-year anniversary of the city of Dresden in 2006.  The church was reconsecrated with a festive service one day before Reformation Day. The rebuilt church is a monument reminding people of its history and a symbol of hope and reconciliation.  As far as possible, the church – except for its dome – was rebuilt using original material and plans, with the help of modern technology. The heap of rubble was documented and carried off stone by stone. The approximate original position of each stone could be determined from its position in the heap. Every usable piece was measured and catalogued. A computer imaging program that could move the stones three-dimensionally around the screen in various configurations was used to help architects find where the original stones sat and how they fit together.  Of the millions of stones used in the rebuilding, more than 8,500 original stones were salvaged from the original church and approximately 3,800 reused in the reconstruction. As the older stones are covered with a darker patina, due to fire damage and weathering, the difference between old and new stones will be clearly visible for many years after reconstruction.  Two thousand pieces of the original altar were cleaned and incorporated into the new structure.  The builders relied on thousands of old photographs, memories of worshippers and church officials, and crumbling old purchase orders detailing the quality of the mortar or pigments of the paint (as in the 18th century, copious quantities of eggs were used to make the color that provides the interior with its almost luminescent glow).  When it came time to duplicate the oak doors of the entrance, the builders had only vague descriptions of the detailed carving. Because people (especially wedding parties) often posed for photos outside the church doors, they issued an appeal for old photographs and the response—which included entire wedding albums—allowed artisans to recreate the original doors.  The new gilded orb and cross on top of the dome was forged by Grant Macdonald Silversmiths in London using the original 18th-century techniques as much as possible. It was constructed by Alan Smith, a British goldsmith from London whose father, Frank, was a member of one of the aircrews who took part in the bombing of Dresden. Before travelling to Dresden, the cross was exhibited for five years in churches across the United Kingdom including Coventry Cathedral, Liverpool Cathedral, St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh, and St Paul's Cathedral in London. In February 2000, the cross was ceremonially handed over by The Duke of Kent, to be placed on the top of the dome a few days after the 60th commemoration of D-Day on 22 June 2004. The external structure of the Frauenkirche was completed. For the first time since the last war, the completed dome and its gilded cross grace Dresden's skyline as in centuries prior. The cross that once topped the dome, now twisted and charred, stands to the right of the new altar.  Builders decided not to reproduce the 1736 Gottfried Silbermann organ, despite the fact that the original design papers, description, and details exist, giving rise to the Dresden organ dispute ("Dresdner Orgelstreit"). When installed, the Silbermann organ had three manuals with 43 ranks and over the years had been remodeled and expanded to five manuals with 80 ranks. Daniel Kern of Strasbourg, Alsace, completed a 4,873 pipe organ for the structure in April 2005 and it was inaugurated in October of that year. The Kern organ contains all the stops which were in the Silbermann organ and attempts to recreate their sounds. The Kern work contains 68 stops and a fourth swell manual in the symphonic 19th century style which is apt for the organ literature composed after the baroque period.  A bronze statue of reformer and theologian Martin Luther, which survived the bombings, has been restored and again stands in front of the church. It is the work of sculptor Adolf von Donndorf from 1885.  There are two devotional services every day and two liturgies every Sunday. Since October 2005, there has been an exhibition on the history and reconstruction of the Frauenkirche at the Stadtmuseum (City Museum) in Dresden's Alten Landhaus.

Since the re-opening.

Since re-opening, the Church of Our Lady has been a tourist destination in Dresden. In the first three years, seven million people have visited the church as tourists and to attend worship services. The project has inspired other revitalization projects throughout Europe, including the Dom-Römer Project in Frankfurt, the City Palace of Potsdam, and the City Palace, Berlin. In 2009, US President Barack Obama visited the church after a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the Grünes Gewölbe.

Criticisms of reconstruction methods.

Architectural historian Mark Jarzombek complained that unidentifiable parts of the ruins were placed in arbitrary locations in the new building. As a result, he said, the socialist monument to the bombing was, in essence, dispersed throughout the fabric of the building.

The Dresden Frauenkirche (,, "Church of Our Lady") is a Lutheran church in Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony. An earlier church building was Catholic until it became Protestant during the Reformation.

德累斯顿圣母教堂(Dresdner Frauenkirche)是德国萨克森州首府德累斯顿的一座路德会教堂。该处原址早期的教堂建筑是罗马天主教教堂,直到宗教改革期间被改为新教徒教堂,并在18世纪被更大的巴洛克式路德派建筑所取代。它被认为是新教宗教建筑的杰出典范,并以阿尔卑斯山以北最大的石制圆顶闻名。现在它也是德国与从前的敌国和解的标志。