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| Vittoria Accoramboni @Wikipedia |
the Most Beautiful Girl in Rome
"In 1573, such was the problem faced by the raven-haired Vittoria Accoramboni who, at sixteen, was widely acknowledged as the most beautiful girl in Rome. Her face was a perfect ivory oval; her nose and mouth were exquisitely sculpted, and her eyes were dark and expressive. Many who saw her exclaimed that her beauty was a miraculous gift from God." (Herman. Murder in the Garden of God)
Vittoria Tarquini.
la Bombace (the Bomb)
the Father of His People: " . . . His son, Vittorio Amedeo III (f. 1773-96) was religiously devout, politically conservative and temperamentally generous, being a great benefactor and a popular 'Father of his People'. . . ." (Vanished Kingdom: lix)
King Honest-Fellow; King Honest-Man: "Victor Emmanuel seems to have enjoyed D'Azeglio's companionship better than that of any other of his ministers. . . He treated the King with perfect deference, yet with perfect frankness---a combination which Victor Emmanuel prized most of all. Thus, at one of their early interviews D'Azeglio said to him, 'There have been so few honest kings in history that it would be really fine to begin the series.' 'Am I to play the honest king?' Victor Emmanuel asked, laughing. 'Your Majesty has sworn faith to the Statute, and has had regard for Italy and not for Piedmont. Let us continue in this way to hold for certain that in this world king and humble citizen have only one word, and that they ought to abide by that.' 'Well,' rejoined Victor Emanuel, 'this seems to me an easy business.' Thenceforth, the nickname Re galantuomo --- 'King Honest-Fellow,' or 'King-who-keeps-his-word'---became current, and to the end of his life Victor Emanuel acted in such wise as to deserve it." (The Life and Times of Cavour Part One: 109)
the King Who Keeps His Word (It. Re Galantuomo):
--" . . . Victor Emmanuel II, 'the Re Galantuomo' ('the King who keeps his word'), the first King of United Italy, was the most popular Prince of the House of Savoy and the impersonation of Italian ideals. He never lost sight of the one great object of expelling the Austrians and other foreign invaders from Italian soil. . . ." (Melano Rossi: 204)
--"There is no one in history to whom Victor Emmanuel can be aptly compared. . . Perhaps the reason is that he was more honest than these. . . Cognomens, affixed officially or by acclamation in the main are as untruthful as are epitaphs. . . But there has never arisen a whisper to the effect that the Re Galantuomo was not all that his people believed him to be." (Forester: 206)
the Young, the Younger:
the Dragon (Rom. Dracula): " . . . Dracul meant 'devil,' as it still does in Romanian today; in addition it meant 'dragon.' In 1431, the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund invested Vlad the father with the Order of the Dragon, a semi monastic, semi-military organization dedicated to fighting the Turkish infidels. Dracul in the sense of dragon stems from this. It also seems probable that when simple, superstitious peasants saw Vlad the father bearing the standard with the dragon symbol they interpreted it as a sign that he was in league with the devil." (McNally & Florescu: 8)
Count Dracula: "Sigismund bestowed upon Vlad II, prince of Wallachia, official membership in the prestigious Inner Court of the Dragon Order. Vlad II was the father of Vlad III (1432-1476/77), who inspired the name of the vampire 'Count Dracula' in Bram Stroker's 1897 novel Dracula. The name Dracula means 'Son of Dracul,' and was a reference to being invested with the Order of the Dragon, In the Romanian language, the word dracul can mean either 'the dragon' or, especially in the present day, 'the devil.' Vlad acquired the name 'The Impaler' for his preferred method of torture and execution of his enemies by impalement." (Transhumanism: the History of a Dangerous Idea: 22)
the Dragon "As for the son, we now know that he had two nicknames: he was called Vlad Tepes (pronounced tsep-pesh), which means Vlad the Impaler, and he was also called Dracula, a diminutive meaning 'son of the dragon' or 'son of the devil.'"
the Impaler, Impaler Prince: "And indeed, Vlad Tepes did everything in his power to justify such an association. His cruelty was quite out of the ordinary, and he liked nothing so much as impaling people on stakes, whence his nickname Tepes, 'the Impaler'. (Contemporary woodcuts show him sitting down to dinner in the shade of a 'forest' of stakes.) These monstrosities are recounted in a number of German chronicles and, in a somewhat attenuated form, in a Slavonic chronicle. . . ." (Boia: 227)
A Thirteenth Apostle: " . . . Vladimir was characterised as a thirteenth apostle. . . ." (Line: 363)
the Bright Sun: "Sviatoslav's younger son, Vladimir I, later nicknamed the Bright Sun. . . , 980-1015 over a united Rus. At first he reforms paganism by making it into a state cult with Perun as war god. But in 988 he forcibly christianizes the inhabitants of Kiev, an act that helped him marry the beautiful Princess Anne of Constantinople. . . ." (Vajda)
the Equal of the Apostles (Ger. der Apostelgleiche): " . . . The Russian church had decreed him the epithets of 'saint,' and 'equal of the apostles'. . . ." (Chamber's Encyclopaedia, Vol. 1: 10)
the Fair Sun: "Vladimir's memory was also kept alive by innumerable Russian folk ballads and legends, which refer to him as Krasno Solnyshko, that is, the Fair Sun. With him the Varangian (Norse) period of Eastern Slavic history ceases and the Christian period begins." (New World Encyclopedia)
the Great: " . . We are told that Vladimir called arts from Greece, cultivated them in the peaceable periods of his reign, and generously rewarded their professors. His merits, indeed, appear to have been very considerable. He has been extolled by the monks as the wisest as well as the most religious of kings; his zealous exertions in promoting the profession of Christianity throughout his dominions acquired for him the title of saint; and succeeding historians, comparing the virtues of his character with the age in which he lived, have united in conferring upon him the appellation of 'Vladimir the Great.'" (Sears, 1855: 603)
Monomakh:
--" . . . He was named Monomakh after his mother, who was the daughter of the Byzantine emperor Constantine Monomachos (some 20th-century historians dispute the relation, alleging that Soviet scholars invented it for their own purposes). . . ."
--"In 1113, the citizenry of Kiev invited Vladimir Monomakh to take the throne. . . Prince Vladimir, whose surname derived from his Byzantine mother's family, was at the time prince of Pereyaslavl. . . He was also a mighty military leader, who had in the preceding decade led . . . a series of successful campaigns against the Polovtsy of the steppe and had thereby secured the southern frontier. . . ." (Martin: 33)
the Big Nest:
--" . . . He was called Vsevolod the Big Nest because he had a large family and lot of children. . . ." (allempires.com-Vladimir-Suzdal)
--" . . . Vsevolod (ruled 1176-1212) was known as the 'Big Nest' for fathering a brood of 12 children. . . ." (The Way of Russia's Elders)
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