A Manhattan museum is built around four medieval French cloisters

arts, ideas & societyWikipedia1938 · Fort Tryon Park, Manhattan, New York City

A Manhattan museum is built around four medieval French cloisters

the gist

The Cloisters, in Fort Tryon Park in Upper Manhattan, is the Metropolitan Museum of Art's branch for European medieval art. Its buildings are centred on four French monastery cloisters, Cuxa, Saint-Guilhem, Bonnefont and Trie-sur-Baise, which the sculptor George Grey Barnard bought in France before 1913 and brought to New York. John D. Rockefeller Jr. bought the collection for the Met and gave the hilltop site to the museum in 1931. Designed by Charles Collens to evoke monastic life, it holds about 5,000 works, mostly from the 12th to 15th centuries, including the Unicorn Tapestries. It opened on May 10, 1938.

so what

The Cloisters shows how American collectors moved European monastic architecture across the Atlantic and rebuilt it as a setting for art. It remains one of New York's most atmospheric museums.

Hampi was once one of the world's largest cities, until its Vijayanagara capital was destroyed in 1565

the gist

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.

how it works

The city was built around a fortified core with temples, markets and water structures along the river, supplied by an extensive network of roads and waterworks. When the empire fell, the city was not rebuilt, so its stone monuments were left standing.

so what

Hampi shows how quickly a great city can vanish after a military defeat, and how a ruined capital can remain sacred. Its ruins give historians a view of medieval South Asia that few other sites can match.

fun fact

The name Hampi comes from Pampa, an old name for the Tungabhadra River.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · text CC BY-SA 4.0

Image: Wikimedia Commons

source: Wikipedia ↗

2 min

politicsshortCNA2:01

False allegations about Singapore’s hand in Indonesia’s markets and a made-up meeting

from CNA

CNA Verify has found close to 400 posts pushing falsehoods tying Singapore to Indonesia’s stock market rout and to a secret meeting that never took place. Together, they drew nearly 12 million views, and some were circulated by accounts that appeared to be working in concert, across multiple social media platforms.

Here’s how the disinformation campaign targeting Singapore was uncovered.

on YouTube: CNA ↗