[Wikipedia] June 4: Funerary Monument to Sir John Hawkwood

   The Funerary Monument to Sir John Hawkwood is a fresco by Paolo
   Uccello, commemorating English condottiero John Hawkwood, commissioned
   in 1436 for the Florence Cathedral.  The fresco is an important example
   of art commemorating a soldier-for-hire in the Italian peninsula and
   is a seminal work in the development of perspective.  The politics of
   the commissioning and recommissioning of the fresco have been analyzed
   and debated by historians.  The fresco is often cited as a form of
   "Florentine propaganda" for its appropriation of a foreign soldier of
   fortune as a Florentine hero and for its implied promise to other
   condottieri of the potential rewards of serving Florence.  The fresco
   has also been interpreted as a product of internal political
   competition between the Albizzi and Medici factions in Renaissance
   Florence, due to the latter's modification of the work's symbolism and
   iconography during its recommissioning.  The fresco is the oldest
   extant and authenticated work of Uccello, and from a relatively
   well-known aspect of his career compared to the periods before and
   after its creation.  The fresco has been restored (once by Lorenzo di
   Credi, who added the frame) and is now detached from the wall; it has
   been repositioned twice in modern times.

Read the rest of this article:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funerary_Monument_to_Sir_John_Hawkwood

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1037:
   Henry III became Holy Roman Emperor following the death of his
   father, Conrad II.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_III%2C_Holy_Roman_Emperor)

1615:
   Forces under the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu took Osaka Castle in Japan.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osaka_Castle)

1792:
   Royal Navy Captain George Vancouver claimed Puget Sound in the
   Pacific Northwest for Great Britain.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puget_Sound)

1939:
   The German ocean liner SS St.  Louis, carrying 963 Jewish refugees
   seeking asylum from Nazi persecution, was denied permission to land in
   the United States, after already having been turned away from Cuba.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_St._Louis)

1942:
   The Battle of Midway, a major battle in the Pacific Theatre of World
   War II, began with a massive Imperial Japanese strike on Midway Atoll.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Midway)

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Wiktionary's Word of the day:

   gerontic: Of or pertaining to old age or the elderly.
   (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gerontic)

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Wikiquote of the day:

   To insist on one's place in the scheme of things and to live up to
   that place.  To empower others in their reaching for some place in the
   scheme of things.  To do these things is to make fairy tales come
   true.
   -- Robert Fulghum
   (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Image%3AQ_2008-06-04_Robert_Fulghum.ogg)