Sentence-BERT: Sentence Embeddings using Siamese BERT-Networks
Paper • 1908.10084 • Published • 13
How to use DIS-Project/trained_on_all_data_model_push_00 with sentence-transformers:
from sentence_transformers import SentenceTransformer
model = SentenceTransformer("DIS-Project/trained_on_all_data_model_push_00")
sentences = [
"Quali modifiche furono apportate da Cosimo I de' Medici all'Ordine di Parte Guelfa e quali furono le sue conseguenze?",
"The kidnapping of Alan Johnston, a British journalist for the BBC, by the Palestinian Army of Islam in Gaza City took place on 12 March 2007, following which Johnston was held in captivity for 114 days.\n\nHis captivity led to many protests in the Palestinian territories, as well as the British government meeting a Hamas member for the first time. On 15 April unconfirmed reports claiming that he had been murdered surfaced, later declared by Palestinian intelligence sources to be false. A tape claiming to be from Johnston's kidnappers surfaced on 8 May, leading to renewed hope that he would soon be released, and three weeks later a Hamas spokesperson spoke of his hope that Johnston would be freed quickly. Johnston then appeared in a video released online by his alleged kidnappers on 1 June.\n\nHopes were raised for his release in mid-June after Hamas took full control of Gaza and set a deadline for his release, but on 24 June a video of him wearing what he said was an explosive belt was released along with a warning that if attempts were made to rescue him by force it would be detonated. However, on 4 July, Johnston was freed, and left Gaza for Jerusalem.\n\nKidnapping and captivity\nOn 12 March 2007, Johnston's car was found abandoned on a street, shortly after he left his office to drive home. He had entered Gaza from Israel earlier in the day, where he had been for a dental appointment. A business card belonging to Johnston was found at the scene, identifying him as having been in the car, at the time of his kidnapping. The BBC was alerted to his disappearance when he did not make an arranged telephone call.\n\nAccording to Palestinian police, four armed men were spotted near Johnston's car, and Johnston is believed to have been abducted at gunpoint. A state of emergency was declared with checkpoints set up to find Johnston, who was in the final weeks of his posting to Gaza, where he had been stationed for three years.\n\nThere were some reports that negotiations had begun to try to secure Johnston's release, although the BBC strenuously emphasised that it could not independently verify reports that Johnston had been kidnapped. A week after his disappearance, the BBC admitted that it seemed certain now that he had been kidnapped.\n\nOn 21 March, Israeli sources reported that Johnston may have been taken by the same groups that captured Gilad Shalit in June 2006. However, this was strongly denied by both the Popular Resistance Committees.\n\n26 March marked the fact that his kidnapping was now the longest-ever of a foreigner in Gaza since abductions began happening in the Gaza Strip, which led to renewed calls for his release.\n\nIn the midst of his third week in captivity, news agencies began reporting on speculation that Johnston had been kidnapped by a powerful Gaza family with criminal connections, and which was willing to switch support to the other faction in the Palestinian Territories should one displease them. It then emerged that the family might be holding Johnston as a bargaining chip who would be released in return for ten Hamas gunmen who killed members of the family.\n\nOn the day marking the fourth week of his disappearance, a London-based Arab newspaper, Al-Hayat, reported that Gaza authorities were looking into the possibility that Johnston might have staged his own disappearance after hearing that he was soon to be fired. At first, the BBC refused to comment on the report, before issuing a statement, calling on press not to run the article in question \"given that there is absolutely no truth to it\", adding that \"there is no truth in any suggestion that Alan Johnston may have staged his own kidnap, nor that the BBC was about to dismiss him.\"\n\nEarly on 9 May local time, the BBC reported that al-Jazeera in Gaza had received a tape which was purported to be from Johnston's kidnappers. It was sent to the station by a group calling itself the Army of Islam, despite earlier claims by the group that it had not committed the kidnapping. The tape contained still photos, including one of Johnston's BBC card, and demanded \"that Britain free our prisoners, particularly Sheikh Abu Qatada, the Palestinian.\" The BBC said it was investigating the tape and \"welcome any sign that Alan may be alive\", adding its hope that the tape release meant that Johnston would soon be released.\n\nFirst month\nThe Palestinian National Authority condemned the kidnapping, and vowed to \"bring the criminals to justice\", calling the abduction \"despicable\". The Foreign Press Association issued an appeal for Johnston's release, while both Hamas and Fatah also called for Johnston to be freed. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) also voiced their concern at the apparent abduction, blaming it on the \"impunity\" that no-one involved with prior kidnappings had been convicted that \"[encouraged]\" his kidnappers to act.\n\nOn 15 March, the BBC's Middle East bureau chief Simon Wilson issued a statement in Gaza thanking Ismail Haniya, Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian government for trying to help resolve the situation. He also issued a new plea for information on Johnston's whereabouts. In London, the Muslim Council of Britain also put forward an appeal for the release of Johnston, calling on Abbas and Haniya to do their utmost to secure Johnston's freedom, while over 20 Palestinian journalists held a rally on 17 March outside parliament in Gaza in support of Johnston. The rally was also attended by Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti and Wilson. Barghouti said: \"We are opposed to the kidnapping of foreign journalists who serve the Palestinian cause.\"\n\nA week after Johnston went missing, his father made a televised appeal for his release. Speaking from Argyll, Graham Johnston called on his son's abductors to \"let my son go, now, today\". Wilson said that the fact that there had been no information on Johnston for over a week had been \"disappointing\", adding that efforts made to find Johnston would have to be redoubled. He also noted that the BBC's only request was to have \"some firm information\" on Johnston. Deputy Director General of the BBC Mark Byford also called for people with influence to secure Johnston's release, while BBC staff in London held a rally in support of Johnston.\n\nRSF invited Arabic-language news media and bloggers to post banners on their websites that called for Johnston to be freed. RSF also noted that the \"silence\" surrounding Johnston's abduction was \"particularly worrying\".\n\nThe Palestinian Journalists Union in Gaza observed a 24-hour strike on 20 March to protest against Johnston's abduction, and threatened to \"escalate\" its protests until Johnston was released. Foreign and local journalists in Ramallah, West Bank, had held a sit-in a day earlier, at which Barghouti again condemned the kidnapping.\n\nThe BBC said it had received \"assurances\" about the well-being of Johnston, but repeated that it had \"no firm knowledge\" of his condition. It also thanked journalists who demonstrated in a show of support both in the Middle East and back in the UK. European Union foreign policy representative Javier Solana told the BBC on 20 March that the EU was doing all it could to try to establish Johnston's whereabouts. Solana added that the EU had been involved since the day of the kidnapping. British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett told Parliament that London was also doing everything it could, and had brought the issue up with Mahmoud Abbas, saying that Abbas had given her assurances that finding Johnston was \"very much\" a goal of the Palestinian authorities. Journalists also protested in front of Abbas's office to demand that more be done to deal with the situation.\n\nProtests continued on 22 March, demanding more protection of journalists and more be done to prevent violation of press freedoms. Ahmed Abdel Rahman, advisor to Abbas for the PLO, told protesting journalists in Ramallah that there were \"indications of an imminent release\". Twelve days into Johnston's abduction, the Bishop of Lichfield Jonathan Gledhill asked churchgoers to pray for Johnston's release, saying that people were grateful for \"brave journalists\" like Johnston.\n\nMore than 100 people held a rally for Johnston's release thirteen days into his captivity. Simon Wilson again urged those with influence to \"work tirelessly\" to obtain Johnston's freedom. On the day marking the second week since Johnston went missing, Gaza reporters held another strike in solidarity with Johnston. The beginning of Johnston's third week in captivity also led RSF to press the Arab League to issue a new appeal for Johnston's release at an upcoming summit.\n\nIn response to the RSF appeal, at the end of the two-day summit Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal condemned the kidnapping, adding that he hoped the kidnappers would soon release Johnston, saying that this was \"certainly ... not something that anybody, anybody would approve of\" and that Johnston was just \"doing his job\".\n\nAmnesty International and Cardiff University (which Johnston attended) also both issued calls for Johnston's release. The deputy director of the university's journalism centre noted that the kidnapping \"deprived Palestine of an objective reporter relaying its news to the West.\"\n\nA new three-day strike was planned by journalists in the lead-up to the fourth week of Johnston's kidnapping. The strike included a ban on covering all government activities and the Palestinian Authority in general. Simultaneous demonstrations and protests were also planned for 2 April in both Gaza and Ramallah. On the day itself, over three hundred journalists held a demonstration in Gaza with their mouths tied and gagged. They then marched to the city's government area. Another such protest was held in Ramallah in front of Abbas' office.\n\nThe three-day strike meant that a meeting between United States Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Abbas was boycotted by the local media. That same day, UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura added his voice to those calling for Johnston's release. He noted that the situation was \"increasingly disturbing\", and asked authorities to \"do their utmost to obtain his release as quickly as possible\".\n\nOn 4 April, the protesting journalists forced the cancellation of a rare meeting of Parliament in Gaza after the entrance to the Parliament building was blocked by the protesters. Some of the lawmakers then stood and listened to the protest. The next day, Britain's Consul-General in Jerusalem Richard Makepeace met with Prime Minister Haniya, breaking a ban by the European Union on contacts with Hamas. British diplomats stressed that the meeting was only to discuss Johnston's kidnapping and did not \"represent a change of policy\". Makepeace's office emphasised that the meeting was \"strictly for humanitarian reasons\", while Reuters quoted some diplomats as saying that it was generally agreed that the boycott of Hamas could be relaxed in emergencies like kidnappings.\n\nPalestinian children took part in a demonstration on 6 April to call for Johnston's release. The children held banners and carried his picture when demonstrating in the streets. Johnston was also spoken of at Friday prayers. Fresh protests were held in Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin and Gaza City the next day by Palestinian journalists, who held banners condemning Johnston's abduction. The Palestinian Cabinet held a special meeting the next day to discuss Johnston's case, and directed that \"all necessary measures\" should be taken to secure Johnston's freedom.\n\nOn Easter Sunday, 8 April 2007, Archbishop of York John Sentamu included Johnston in his Easter prayers, calling him a \"symbol of ensuring the freedom of the press is not violated\". It was reported the same day that about one thousand British journalists would send protest emails to Abbas over the continued abduction of Johnston.\n\nFour weeks after Johnston's disappearance, his BBC colleagues once again got together in London to show support for the missing reporter. The BBC's head of news-gathering, Fran Unsworth, commented that Johnston was \"incarcerated\", and voiced concerns about Johnston's mental state and general health, adding that \"the longer it goes on the more concerned that we become\".\n\nThe Palestinian government apologised again on 10 April that Johnston was still missing. Mustafa Barghouti repeated that the government was making every effort to find Johnston, and said that the government was \"deeply sorry\", adding that the kidnapping was \"detrimental to our national cause.\"\n\nAlan Johnston Day of Action\nOn 12 April, a full month after Johnston was last seen, the BBC held an \"Alan Johnston Day of Action\" with events in London, Scotland and the Palestinian Territories to mark the day. Director-General of the BBC Mark Thompson gave a news conference in Ramallah, and made another appeal for Johnston's release. He said that Johnston \"had formed many strong friendships\", and was \"held in great affection and regard by those who know him.\" He repeated Fran Unsworth's comments made days earlier, saying that the BBC was \"increasingly concerned about the physical and mental toll\" of Johnston's \"incarceration\". Thompson also said that \"Alan had been looking forward to returning to his staff post in London in the BBC World Service newsroom\" because \"Gaza [had] become an increasingly difficult and chaotic place for journalists to operate in safely\", seemingly dispelling rumours that he had staged his own kidnapping because he did not want to be transferred. He also thanked the Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate for \"highlighting Alan's suffering\", and the people of Gaza.\n\nJohnston's father Graham once again issued a new plea to the kidnappers to free his son. In an open letter, the senior Johnston addressed his son's kidnappers, telling them to \"please think about what this is doing to my family.\" Again, he asked the kidnappers to \"please let my son go now, today.\" Addressing his son, he said that the family \"wanted you to know how distressed and sorry we all are that you were taken,\" adding that despite warnings from his son that being kidnapped was a possibility, \"when it came, it was still a considerable shock.\" He ended the open letter by saying that \"all our heartfelt warmest fondest love is sent to you from all your family and in the fervent hope that you will be released unharmed.\"\n\nBBC World, BBC News 24, Al Jazeera English and Sky News agreed to simulcast a special programme dedicated to bringing the plight of Johnston to people. The thirty-minute broadcast, fronted by Jeremy Bowen, contained reports from Al Jazeera, Sky and CNN International. Bowen began by noting that \"about the only good thing to come out of the last month is the way Alan's colleagues, especially here in the occupied Palestinian territories, have rallied around him.\" It was the first such effort made jointly by global news networks.\n\nReporters Without Borders also organised a rally at Trafalgar Square in central London in support of the missing journalist. The rally was attended by Johnston's parents. A rally was also held in Gaza, calling on the Palestinian government to do more. In a statement, RSF stated that it was \"unacceptable that a journalist should be used as a bargaining chip in an abduction\", and asked \"What are the authorities waiting for to obtain his release?\"\n\nSecond month\nOn 12 April, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon issued a call for Johnston's release, stating that his kidnappers \"should release him unconditionally and immediately.\" The Secretary-General extended his sympathies to Johnston's family and promised to do all in his power to secure Johnston's release.\n\n16 April marked the fifth week since Johnston's disappearance. Despite unconfirmed claims of his execution, new vigils and protests were held for Johnston. BBC staff held its weekly vigils for Johnston, led by Mark Thompson, who confirmed that the BBC was still looking for clarification about Johnston's well-being. Thompson also praised the reporter's family. Journalists also held protests in Beirut, Lebanon, and in Brussels, Belgium outside the European Commission building.\n\nA new protest was held by Palestinian journalists outside the Gaza Parliament on 17 April. However, armed guards outside the building turned violent against the protesters, hitting them with their rifles, leading one journalist to comment that \"we came peacefully, but we are being assaulted now.\" Three journalists were injured. RSF condemned the violence, saying that it was \"outraged by this violence against journalists who had gone to express their fears and emotion about Johnston's fate.\"\n\nOn 18 April, Marwan Barghouti, a Fatah leader in prison in Israel called on Johnston's kidnappers to free the journalist \"from my cell, and in the name of 10,000 prisoners in the occupation jails\". Aidan White, general secretary of the International Federation of Journalists, announced that he would visit Gaza to deliver a letter to the Palestinian Authority, signed by 200 European MPs, which asked the PA to \"make every effort\" to ensure Johnston was freed. The 200 MEPs also called on the European Union to take stronger action. The European Parliament would later unanimously support a resolution on 25 April urging the immediate release of Johnston, with the resolution's proposer saying it sent \"a strong political signal\" for his release.\n\nOn 23 April, various prayer meetings and vigils were held for the missing reporter, exactly six weeks after he went missing. A vigil was held in Islamabad, Pakistan, and an inter-religious service was held at a church in London. The London vigil was attended by a senior rabbi at the west London synagogue, the vicar at the church, Reverend Nicholas Holtam, as well as the chairman of the United Kingdom Muslim Council for Religious and Racial Harmony. The missing journalist's sister also attended the weekly vigil with BBC Scotland staff in Glasgow.\n\nThe next day, Palestinian deputy prime minister Azzam al-Ahmad told Richard Makepeace that Johnston was \"in good health\" and emphasised that the \"government is fully co-ordinating with the presidency and all security services to pursue the extensive efforts to release Johnston\". New protests were held by the National Union of Journalists in London, and by foreign journalists on both ends of the Erez Crossing in Gaza and Israel. In Asia, a protest was held in Bangkok, Thailand on the 49th day since Johnston's disappearance. Azzam al-Ahmad repeated Palestinian claims that Johnston was \"alive\" when meeting with visiting MEPs the same day. However, at this point there had still not been any direct confirmation of Johnston's condition. Later that day, al-Ahmad told a press conference that Johnston's kidnappers had made new demands, all of which had been rejected, and added that the negotiations were at a \"sensitive stage\".\n\nAddressing the United Nations General Assembly, Secretary-General Ban again said that he wanted to \"plead for the immediate release of the BBC journalist Alan Johnston, abducted in Gaza.\" In London, a moment of silence was observed at the Sony Radio Academy Awards ceremony, and John Humphrys, who won the award for news journalist of the year, said that Johnston and other BBC correspondents in danger zones deserved the award more than he did.\n\nOn 2 May, it was revealed that the British Government rejected a proposal by the Palestinian Authority to use force in a possible rescue attempt to free Johnston, due to worries about his safety in such a situation. Ismail Haniyeh also said that progress had been made in negotiations with Johnston's kidnappers, and the kidnappers had lowered their demands for his release. The same day, British Prime Minister Tony Blair was questioned in Parliament about British efforts to free the journalist. Lee Scott, a British MP, had called on Prime Minister Blair to use the time before he stepped down from office to try to free Johnston as well as Gilad Shalit. Blair told the House of Commons that there was \"no conceivable reason for him (Johnston) to be kept\", and that the Government would \"continue to do everything we can to facilitate\" Johnston's release. In Ireland, top Catholic and Muslim leaders also called for his immediate release.\n\nWorld Press Freedom Day, 3 May, was Johnston's 52nd day in captivity. Gatherings were held worldwide for the missing journalist, with vigils in London, Beijing and Jakarta, Indonesia, and a rally outside United Nations headquarters in New York City. Asha-Rose Migiro, the United Nations Deputy Secretary-General, said that there was \"no cause... served\" by the continued detention of Johnston, and a minute's silence was held. The rally at the UN was also attended by UN officials and journalists. At the candlelight vigil in Jakarta, a message from Johnston's father was read out by a British embassy staff member, and it said in part that the family was \"overwhelmed\" with the support it had received. A minute's silence was also observed at a candlelight vigil in Beijing. The same day, at the Natali Prize awards ceremony for news articles on human rights and democracy, European Commissioner for Development & Humanitarian Aid Louis Michel joined calls for Johnston's release.\n\nA news conference was held by Reporters Without Borders on the same day, which brought together former hostages in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza. Steve Centanni, who was held hostage for two weeks in Gaza in 2006, said that his thoughts were with Johnston, and ten top representatives of Europe's Muslims condemned the kidnapping and called for his release.\n\nThe start of Johnston's ninth week in captivity came with reports in a Palestinian newspaper that Johnston's kidnappers had set three requirements for his release. They demanded a plot of land, a $5 million ransom, and the release of Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, imprisoned in Jordan for attempting to carry out a suicide bombing in the 2005 Amman bombings. However, the reports also noted that negotiations for his release remained difficult and that he would not likely be released soon.\n\nRichard Makepeace met a second time with Palestinian Prime Minister Haniya over Johnston's continued incommunicado situation on 8 May. He described the meeting as part of \"continuous contacts over this humanitarian case\", adding that the \"unfortunate incident is of great concern to the British government.\"\n\nCanadian journalists held a protest outside CBC headquarters in Toronto on 10 May to mark Johnston's 60th day in captivity. Many seasoned Canadian journalists spoke of the need to free Johnston, and commented on Johnston's journalism and the deteriorating situation in Gaza, with Brian Stewart commenting that \"we have finally reached the end of the line ... enough is enough.\"\n\nA rally was held outside the equivalent of a Palestinian embassy in Paris on 11 May, attended by RSF activists, BBC staff and the Palestinian representative to France. The representative, Hind Khoury, called the kidnapping a \"cowardly act\" and re-emphasised that the authorities in the Palestinian Authority were doing their best every day to get Johnston freed unharmed.\n\nClaim of execution\nOn 15 April, one day before the fifth week since his disappearance, a previously unknown militant Palestinian group claiming to be linked to al-Qaeda claimed that it had executed him. The group vowed to release a video of the execution, further claiming in a statement that they \"were surprised by the position of the Palestinian Authority, which attempted to hide the case as much as it could and to present the case in an untruthful manner, leading us unfortunately to kill the journalist\".\n\nThe BBC and the Foreign Office immediately confirmed to Agence France-Presse that they were both \"urgently\" investigating the reports, and the BBC added that it was \"deeply concerned about what it is hearing\", highlighting the growing concern for the safety of Alan Johnston. However, the BBC also emphasised that the claims were \"rumour with no independent verification\". A spokesman for 10 Downing Street said that the British government was \"working closely with the Palestinian Authority\" and \"urgently seeking information from them\".\n\nThe Palestinian Interior Ministry raised doubts about the claims, and said that they believed that Johnston was still being held by someone else, and this declaration was an attempt to pressure the Palestinian government. The claims also led to concern among Palestinian journalists that Johnston may have been injured in the kidnapping, and the kidnappers were now looking for reasons to kill the reporter.\n\nJohnston's parents urged the kidnappers to \"end [their] ordeal\", describing the incident as a \"desperately worrying time\". Speculation then emerged that Johnston's kidnappers may have sold the captive on to a third party. Reporters Without Borders also expressed \"deep concern\" about Johnston's fate, saying that the reports of his death \"deeply [disturbing]\" but also advised caution \"as long as there is no evidence confirming that Johnston has been murdered.\"\n\nHowever, a ransom demand was issued on 17 April, which seemingly conflicted with the claims that Johnston had been killed. Asharq Alawsat reported that Johnston's kidnappers wanted US$5 million for his release. On 19 April, President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas told reporters his intelligence services had confirmed that the journalist was still alive, which both the reporter's family and the BBC described as \"good news\".\n\nThird month\n\nOn 12 May, the second month to the day of the kidnap, Archbishop of York John Sentamu appealed to Johnston's captors to set him free in an appeal broadcast on al-Jazeera. The International Press Institute also repeated its call at its annual global meeting in Istanbul for Johnston's release.\n\nThe next day, Iran joined international condemnations of the kidnap, with a foreign ministry spokesman, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, saying that kidnapping was not acceptable to Iran, and that Iran rejected kidnapping as a \"matter of principle.\"\n\nJohnston's 45th birthday, on 17 May, saw gatherings of journalists and politicians at rallies worldwide, in Hong Kong, Tehran, Ramallah and Moscow. The British Government also confirmed that it was holding discussions with an arrested Islamic cleric, Abu Qatada, whom Johnston's alleged kidnappers demanded be freed, after Qatada offered to travel to Gaza to help free Johnston. The BBC had earlier reacted to Qatada's offer by saying that they \"[welcomed] any assistance from any individual who might be in a position to influence the release of Alan Johnston\".\n\nThe BBC also broadcast special reports, interviews and birthday greetings to the missing journalist on BBC radio and television in the possibility that Johnston had access to either.\n\nA Palestinian government spokesman of Hamas said on 27 May that he had hope for Johnston to soon be released. Ghazi Hamad said that he \"[knew]\" Johnston to be \"well and healthy\", adding that no-one \"has tried to harm or hurt him\". Hamad also said that he hoped \"to make [Johnston's release] very, very fast.\"\n\nOn 29 May, a Sudanese al-Jazeera cameraman who had been held without charge at Guantanamo Bay since 2001 issued a statement through his lawyer asking for Johnston's release. Sami Mohy El Din Muhammed Al Hajj's letter compared his extrajudicial detention by the US to Johnston's captivity. \"What the Americans are doing to me is very, very wrong ... this is not a lesson that Muslims should copy.\"\n\nOn 1 June, a video was released by the Palestinian Army of Islam saying that it was holding Johnston. Johnston appeared in the video and said that he had been treated well and was in good health, but it is unclear when the video was taken, and whether he said what he did under duress.\n\nFourth month\nOn 16 June, after Hamas had taken full control of Gaza following attacks on Fatah positions, a Hamas spokesman told a news conference that it had told the Army of Islam to free Johnston \"immediately\" and had \"warned against not setting him free\", describing Johnston as the Palestinians' guest.\n\nA spokesman claiming to speak for the Army of Islam said that while there had been \"developments\" in discussions, \"if things get worse we will get closer to God by killing this journalist.\"\n\nReporters Without Borders immediately expressed its concern at the threat to kill Johnston, saying in a press release that they were \"very worried\" about \"the irrational demands being made by Johnston's abductors, the radicalisation of their position and their threat to kill him\". Hamas reacted to the claim by issuing an ultimatum against the kidnappers, warning that it would use military force to free Johnston if he was not freed by the end of Monday, 18 June, to which the Foreign Office expressed deep concern. Kim Howells of the Foreign Office noted that the situation had to be \"handled with great delicacy\", and that \"we hope that they are not using this as some sort of publicity stunt to win favour with some elements in the West.\" Johnston himself, however, said he felt they had been \"...the key factor in creating the conditions in which I could be freed.\"\n\nHamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar announced on 19 June, Johnston's 99th day in captivity, that he had secured a promise from the Army of Islam to release Johnston by 25 June, after Hamas extended its ultimatum for his release. This news came ahead of planned global events by the BBC and RSF to mark Johnston's 100th day in captivity.\n\nThe Jerusalem Post reported on 22 June that Johnston had not yet been freed because the leader of the group claiming to hold Johnston wanted assurances that he and his clan members would not be killed. Mumtaz Dagmoush and a brother of his were wanted by Hamas on charges of being involved with the murder of Hamas members. However, a Hamas source told the Jerusalem Post that \"we will negotiate with them about their safety only after they release the journalist\".\n\nOn 24 June, Ismail Haniyeh, a senior political leader of Hamas, said that Johnston had been seen on video with explosives strapped around his waist. The BBC confirmed that it was \"aware\" of the video, and appealed again for his release, saying that it was \"very distressing for Alan's family and colleagues to see him being threatened in this way\".\n\nOn the day 16 weeks into Johnston's captivity, Hamas announced that it had arrested members of the Army of Islam, saying that the arrests took place since \"peaceful means failed to free\" Johnston. It also announced that an Army of Islam spokesman was among those detained after he allegedly shot at Hamas militants. Two days later Hamas forces began surrounding the area the Dugmush clan was known to control in Gaza. Whilst members of Hamas' Executive Forces claimed that the operation was the start of an attempt to free Johnston by force, the BBC reiterated its request that the journalist not be freed by military action.\n\nPrint and online petitions\nTo mark the twenty-first day of Johnston's kidnapping, three hundred British media personalities signed an advertisement, organised by the BBC, that was published in The Guardian. The advertisement states that the signatories \"demand the immediate release of BBC \nGaza correspondent, Alan Johnston\". The advertisement \"[asks] again that everyone with influence on this situation increase their efforts, to ensure that Alan is freed quickly and unharmed.\"\n\nIt was signed by most editors of British national newspapers, including Alan Rusbridger, Robert Thomson, John Witherow, Patience Wheatcroft, Will Lewis, Paul Dacre and Richard Wallace. Other signatories included David Dimbleby, Sir David Frost, Jon Snow, Christiane Amanpour and Al Jazeera's Wadah Khanfar.\n\nThat same day, the BBC news website created an online version of the petition to allow people from across the world to sign it. The petition closed a few days later on 5 April. The petition was later re-opened on 12 April, a full month after Johnston's kidnapping.\n\nOn 3 July, the online petition registered its 200,000th signatory calling for Johnston's release.\n\nRelease \nOn 4 July, Johnston was freed by his captors and handed over to Hamas officials. Johnston said he was \"tired\", but \"in good health\", and thanked those who pushed for his release. He also confirmed that he had access to the BBC World Service for much of his captivity and had heard the worldwide calls for his release on shows like World Have Your Say and Newshour. He described his captivity as an \"appalling experience\".\n\nJohnston met with Haniya immediately after being freed before leaving for Jerusalem. He later also met Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad in Ramallah before returning home, arriving in London on 7 July from Tel Aviv.\n\nReactions\nReaction to the news from around the world that Johnston had been freed was positive:\nJohnston's father Graham described the family as being \"absolutely overjoyed\" after receiving the phone call from the BBC that Johnston had been freed.\nThe BBC said in a statement that they were \"delighted and extremely relieved\" that Johnston had been freed safely, and thanked \"all of those who worked tirelessly – here and in the wider Middle East – to secure his freedom.\" Sir Michael Lyons, chairman of the BBC, praised Johnston's \"remarkable courage\".\n Gordon Brown, British Prime Minister, said that he and the whole country would \"welcome the news\" that Johnston had been freed, while British Foreign Secretary David Miliband described abductions as \"an abhorrent crime\" and recognised the role of Mahmoud Abbas, Ismail Haniyeh and Hamas in achieving Johnston's freedom.\n\nA senior aide to Abbas, Yasser Abd Rabbo, described the release as having been staged by Hamas and the Army of Islam as a public relations exercise. Abbas himself said that he was \"very happy for the release of our friend\".\nIsmail Haniyeh described Johnston as \"the friend of the Palestinian people\", emphasising that freeing him had been Hamas' main priority. Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal said that \"as Palestinians, [we are] very happy to reach this point, which is the release of Mr Alan Johnston.\"\nIsraeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev expressed solidarity with Johnston's family, saying that Israel knew \"how difficult it has been for his family and friends\", and expressed hope that Gilad Shalit would similarly soon be freed.\nBernard Kouchner, French Foreign Minister, said he was \"delighted\" with Johnston's release, and noted that Johnston's release ought to \"encourage all of the parties concerned to commit themselves to creating a climate favourable to the resumption of peace negotiations\".\nThe UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon released a statement through his spokesman, in which he said he was \"profoundly relieved\" that Johnston had been freed, and commended Johnston's \"dignity and resilience in captivity\".\nJohnston himself has expressed a desire to \"return to obscurity\" now that he is released.\n\nSee also\n\n2006 Fox journalists kidnapping\nSteve Centanni\nJohn McCarthy\nYvonne Ridley\nGilad Shalit\nOlaf Wiig\n2014 kidnapping and murder of Israeli teenagers\nKidnapping and murder of Vittorio Arrigoni (captors arrested and sentenced to prison terms by Hamas, 2011)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nBBC News Profile: Alan Johnston\nAlan Johnston: My kidnap ordeal\nBBC News: Alan Johnston petition\nBBC News: The Editors Blog: How You Can Help\nGuardian Unlimited: Comment is free – commentary by Lalia El-Haddad on Johnston's kidnapping\nCNN: Behind the scenes – commentary by Ben Wedeman on Johnston's kidnapping\nLetter to Alan and his abductors – regular commentator for the BBC and director of a Palestinian NGO's letter to Johnston\nModerated BBC \"Have Your Say\" forum for comments to Alan Johnston\nFree Alan Johnson website\nReporters Without Borders campaign for Johnston\n\nJohnston, Alan\nKidnappings by Islamists\nHistory of Palestine (region)\nTerrorist incidents in the Palestinian territories\n2007 crimes in the Palestinian territories\n2007 in the United Kingdom\nHistory of Gaza City\nMarch 2007 events in Asia\nJohnston, Alan\nLiving people",
"La Magna Grecia (, pronuncia ; , pronuncia classica ) è l'area geografica della penisola italiana mediterranea che fu anticamente colonizzata dai Greci a partire dall'VIII secolo a.C. \n\nVarie le ipotesi sull’origine del nome: il termine si spiegherebbe con la prosperità e lo splendore culturale ed economico della regione al tempo dei pitagorici (VI-V sec. a.C.); o sarebbe stato dato dai coloni achei alla regione d’insediamento in contrapposizione all’angusta madrepatria. Precisamente, sebbene l'espressione Megálē Hellás sia attestata per la prima volta relativamente tardi, nel III secolo a.C. da Timeo di Tauromenio e poi nel II secolo a.C. in un passo dello storico greco Polibio, si ritiene tuttavia che la genesi del concetto sottostante sia avvenuta nel V secolo a.C., che segna l'apogeo della storia della Magna Grecia, in relazione ai fatti politici, economici, culturali e artistici raggiunti in quel periodo. La denominazione Megale Hellas non è una definizione di origine popolare ed emotiva ma è stata motivatamente creata dagli Achei pitagorici e si riferisce, orgogliosamente, alla rete di colonie fondato o controllate dagli stessi Achei tra fine VI e metà del V secolo sotto la regìa di Crotone; questa polis achea, dopo aver distrutto Sibari nel 510 a.C., e prima ancora insieme alle altre achee la ionica Siris, guida in accordo con altre realtà storico-politiche un ancor più grande 'impero' che abbraccia etnicamente fino a Poseidonia gran parte dell'Italia meridionale continentale (esclusa Reggio a sud e Taranto a nord).\n\nStoria\n\nOrigini \n\nDopo la colonizzazione del Mar Egeo, tra il X e l'VIII secolo a.C., genti di origine greca (mercanti, contadini, allevatori, artigiani) comparvero nella parte meridionale dell'Italia (le attuali Basilicata, Calabria, Campania e Puglia) nell'ambito di un flusso migratorio originato da singole città della Grecia antica, motivato sia dall'interesse per lo sviluppo delle attività commerciali, che da tensioni sociali dovute all'incremento della popolazione a cui la magra produzione agricola non riusciva a dare sostentamento. Queste genti stabilirono la colonia di Pithecussai sull'attuale isola d'Ischia, poi giunte sulle coste Italiche fondarono diverse città quali Kyme e Metapontion, poi Taras e Rhegion.\n\nPer tradizione, la località dove stabilirsi era individuata seguendo l'indicazione che dava l'Oracolo del Santuario di Apollo a Delfi, che veniva interrogato dall'ecista, colui che era stato posto a capo degli aspiranti coloni. Per i discendenti delle genti greche stabilitesi nella Penisola italiana, questo fu il periodo in cui fu raggiunta la massima ricchezza economica, a cui s'aggiunse lo splendore in campo culturale ed artistico, avendo seguito l'evoluzione della Civiltà Greca, in letteratura, filosofia e arte, con punte di sviluppo spesso superiori alla stessa madrepatria.\n\nCome conseguenza di questa realtà di grande splendore, le zone colonizzate nella penisola italiana ci sono state tramandate col nome di Magna Grecia (Megàle Hellàs): un nome che volle testimoniare l'orgoglio per aver dato vita, lontano dalla Grecia, ad una comunità di Greci che aveva raggiunto così alti livelli in campo sociale, culturale ed economico, da poter essere considerata, in confronto, più grande della stessa madrepatria. Dunque verso il III secolo a.C., si cominciò a definire le colonie greche dell'Italia meridionale come facenti parte della Magna Grecia (Megàle Hellàs). Riferimento che si presume sia stato coniato nelle colonie stesse, per mostrare la loro grandezza in relazione alla vecchia Grecia.\n\nIl termine Magna Grecia si riferisce quindi alle popolazioni e civiltà, piuttosto che ad un'entità territoriale e politica.\n\nLa Sicilia e la Calabria, a partire dall'VIII secolo a.C., videro numerose colonie greche (come Zankle, Naxos, Selinus, Rhegion, Sybaris, Kroton, ecc).\n\nLe differenti stirpi \nLe genti originarie della città di Calcide della grande isola Eubea, fondarono prima Pithecusa (Ischia), poi Kyme (Cuma) in Campania, quest'ultima insieme a coloni provenienti da Cuma eolica, e tra il 756 ed 730 a.C. le due città di Zancle (Messina) e Rhegion (Reggio), rispettivamente sulla sponda messinese e quella reggina dello Stretto che separa le due terre.\n\nNegli anni successivi, Greci di stirpe achea diedero vita sul versante jonico prima a Sybaris (Sibari, 720 a.C.) e poi a Kroton (Crotone 710 a.C.), spinti dalla necessità di sfuggire carestie e sovrappopolazione. Sempre sullo Ionio, secondo fonti tramandate dallo storico Eusebio di Cesarea, alcuni coloni spartani fondarono la città di Taras (Taranto, 706 a.C.).\n\nFra il 710 a.C. e il 690 a.C., un gruppo di Locresi, condotti da Evante, provenienti dalle regioni della Grecia sul golfo di Crisa, fondarono Lokroi Epizephyroi (Locri Epizefiri), ultima città fondata in Calabria da gente proveniente direttamente dalla Grecia.\n\nIn una data sconosciuta fra l'VIII e il VI secolo a.C. gli ateniesi, di stirpe ionica, fondarono Skylletion (nei pressi dell'odierna Catanzaro).\n\nLe sub-colonie \nNel tempo le nuove città, per ragioni politiche, di sovrappopolazione, commerciali e di controllo del territorio, ampliarono la loro presenza in Italia, espandendo di fatto la civiltà greca a tutto il territorio oggi chiamato Calabria, allora conosciuto come Enotria o Italia, e ad altre zone.\n\nI reggini fondarono Pyxus (Policastro Bussentino) in Lucania; i locresi fondarono Medma (Rosarno) passando da Città-forte (Polistena) e Hipponion (Vibo Valentia) nell'attuale Calabria; i sibariti rivitalizzarono i centri indigeni di Laos e Skydros in Calabria e fondarono Poseidonia (Paestum), in Campania; i crotoniati fondarono Terina e parteciparono alla fondazione di Kaulon (vicino a Monasterace marina) in Calabria; gli zanclei fondarono Metauros (Gioia Tauro) in Calabria, i Tarantini insieme ai Thurioti fondarono Heracleia (Policoro) in Lucania nel 434 a.C.\n\nI Tarantini fondarono anche Gallipoli (Kallípolis, dal greco \"bella città\"), il cui precedente nome era Anxa (insediamento messapico situato nei pressi dell’attuale territorio di Alezio).\n\nNel tentativo di espandersi in Messapia ed in Peucezia, continue furono le aggressioni dei Tarantini condotte ai danni dei vicini Peucezi e Messapi. Tuttavia, l'influenza di Taranto sulle popolazioni indigene, portò nel corso dei secoli ad un processo di ellenizzazione di queste ultime, che assorbirono svariati aspetti della cultura e civiltà greca.\n\nNonostante le diverse vittorie dei Tarantini su Peucezi e Messapi nel corso della storia, con il conseguente controllo di molte aree dell’attuale territorio pugliese (tanto che i Tarantini, come testimoniato da Pausania, poterono erigere un donario a Delfi che celebrava le vittorie su questi ultimi, di cui sono ancora presenti i resti) , essi patirono anche alcune sconfitte, come quella subita (insieme ai loro alleati Reggini guidati da Micito) per opera dei Messapi nel 473 a.C. (annoverata dallo storico greco Erodoto come una tra le più gravi sconfitte inflitte a popolazioni di stirpe greca per via dell’ingente numero di perdite umane). \n\nNel 360 a.C. circa, Archita da Taranto, la cui politica era indirizzata al totale controllo del meridione della penisola italiana, lo spinse ad incentivare le spese relative all’esercito, potenziandone anche l’armamento, grazie anche alle sue invenzioni di natura meccanica e balistica , che rappresentano l’origine dell’artiglieria. Alla testa delle sue armate intraprese una brillante operazione militare contro i Messapi ed i loro alleati, i Peuceti e i Lucani, che lo portò alle conquiste di Mesagne, Brindisi, Egnazia, nonché al controllo di diverse città e villaggi pugliesi. L’impresa gli valse la nomina a capo della Lega Italiota. Riuscì in questo modo a rompere l’unità politica della dodecapoli messapica, dando inizio al declino della \"Lega Messapica\". \n\nNel 338 a.c., il re spartano Archidamo III, accorso in aiuto di Taranto in uno dei tentativi di espansione, trovò la sconfitta e la morte, secondo la testimonianza di Plutarco, sotto le mura della città messapica di Mendonion (l'odierna Manduria). Questa sconfitta, portò ad una crisi nell’aristocrazia tarantina e ad un cambio di governo: dal regime aristocratico di stampo spartano si passò ad un governo di tipo democratico e alla nascita della Costituzione Tarantina.\n\nNel 335 a.C., in occasione di una guerra contro i Lucani, i Bruzi e i Sanniti, i Tarantini con Alessandro I detto il molosso, riuscirono a riconquistare le città di Brentesion, Siponto (Manfredonia), Heraclea, Arpi (Foggia), Cosentia e Paestum. \n\nSarà l'arrivo delle legioni romane avvenuto tra il 290 ed il 280 a.C., dopo un iniziale trattato di non belligeranza tra Taranto e Roma, le 3 guerre tarantine (o guerre pirriche) con l’arrivo di Pirro in aiuto di Taranto, il consequenziale controllo su gran parte dei territori dell’Italia meridionale che culminò con la caduta di Taranto nel 272 a.c. nella terza guerra contro Roma (dopo le prime due, ad Heraclea ed Ausculum Apulum che avevano visto i Tarantini e Pirro vittoriosi) a sancire il passaggio sotto la protezione della medesima di tutte le città greche della penisola italiana che divennero alleate dello Stato Romano. \n\nLa conquista definitiva della Magna Grecia e delle popolazioni meridionali native da parte di Roma dovette aspettare ancora per ben due secoli e si concluse definitivamente solo con la cosiddetta guerra sociale (dal latino socius - alleato), e la concessione della cittadinanza romana a tutti i cittadini della Magna Grecia e dei territori limitrofi.\n\nL'integrazione della Magna Grecia nel dominio della Repubblica romana rappresentò l'inizio di varie evoluzioni sociali per quest'ultima. La forte presenza ellenica avrebbe in seguito influenzato culturalmente la stessa società romana.\n\nColonie siculo-greche nell'Adriatico \n\nUn intenso programma di colonizzazione fu intrapreso da Siracusa, all'epoca della tirannide di Dionisio il grande, intorno al 387-385 a.C. Questo fenomeno interessò tutto l'Adriatico, e in particolare portò alla fondazione in Italia di Ankón (Ancona) e di Adrìa (Adria); nella costa dalmata vide la fondazione di Issa (attuale Lissa), Pharos (attuale Cittavecchia di Lesina), Dimos (attuale Lesina); nella costa albanese venne fondata invece Lissos (attuale Alessio). Issa a sua volta poi fondò Tragyrion (attuale Traù), Korkyra Melaina (attuale Curzola) ed Epetion (attuale Stobreč, sobborgo di Spalato).\n\nCon questo programma di colonizzazione Dionisio il Grande si assicurò un controllo totale sulle rotte adriatiche che portavano il grano verso la madrepatria, permettendo così a Siracusa di competere con gli Etruschi in questo commercio. Inoltre risolse un grave problema di politica interna, mandando a popolare la colonia di Ankón con dissidenti politici.\n\nPrima della colonizzazione siracusana, già erano presenti nell'Adriatico orientale alcune colonie greche: nell'attuale territorio albanese sorgevano Apollonia e Epidamnos-Dyrrachion (attuale Durazzo); nell'odierno territorio croato era invece la colonia di Epidayron (attuale Ragusavecchia).\n\nLe colonie adriatiche siracusane non vengono annoverate in senso stretto come parte della Magna Grecia.\n\nCittà della Magna Grecia \n\nSegue un elenco di città della Magna Grecia, elencate - per comodità di indicizzazione - secondo la regione italiana attuale.\n\nCalabria\n\nCampania\n\nBasilicata\n\nPuglia\n\nColonie greche in Italia non appartenenti alla Magna Grecia\n\nColonie greche in Sicilia \n\nLe città siceliote (sikeloe in greco), cioè le colonie greche in Sicilia, non sono da considerarersi appartenenti alla Magna Grecia, poichè la denominazione è da collocarsi solo per l'italia continentale. La confusione deriva da un passaggio apparentemente ambiguo di Strabone (VI 1, 2) e da taluni la Sicilia viene associata alla Magna Grecia, ma non ha ragione per esserlo.\n\nDi seguito si elencano le principali colonie identificate:\n\nLe date di fondazione \nCronologia della fondazione delle principali città della Magna Grecia e della Sicilia, secondo gli storici antichi e gli studi archeologici moderni:\n\nCronologia della fondazione delle altre colonie greche italiane, secondo gli storici antichi e gli studi archeologici moderni:\n\nPeculiarità delle poleis magnogreche\n\nOrganizzazione amministrativa \nL'organizzazione amministrativa della Magna Grecia e della Sicilia greca, è stata ereditata dalle poleis elleniche, riprendendo il concetto di \"città-stato\" amministrate dall'aristocrazia. Le città della Magna Grecia erano indipendenti come le poleis greche, disponevano di un nutrito esercito e vi era un reggente che governava o un sistema di governo democratico. Vi furono anche casi di tirannia come nella poderosa Siracusa, retta dal tiranno Dionisio che combatté i Cartaginesi sino alla sua morte, ad Atene, in seguito ad un malore. La flotta era un'arma micidiale che i coloni della Magna Grecia utilizzarono e dunque numerose città erano situate in riva al mare e disponevano di grandi porti dove erano ancorate centinaia di navi.\n\nEconomia \nNelle città della Magna Grecia, si sviluppò subito il commercio, l'agricoltura e l'artigianato. Inizialmente orientato alle indigene popolazioni italiche, il commercio fu subito un ottimo canale di scambio con i greci della madrepatria che importava dal grano ai manufatti, dalle opere letterarie al marmo e così via. I coloni entrarono in contatto anche con i Cartaginesi che però si rivelarono presto dei temibili nemici.\n\nCultura \nDalla madre patria Grecia, l'arte, la letteratura e la filosofia influenzarono in modo decisivo la vita delle colonie. In Magna Grecia e nella Sicilia greca si diede molto credito alla cultura. Basti pensare che nelle poleis si raggiunse un tasso di ingegneria ed istruzione pari a quello della madrepatria. I coloni ellenici, dopo aver sottomesso le popolazioni indigene, stabilirono biblioteche e centri di studi che formarono abili filosofi, letterati e medici. Pitagora di Samo si trasferì a Crotone dove fondò la sua scuola nel 530 a.C. \nVisitarono la Magna Grecia, fra gli altri, Eschilo, Erodoto, Senofane e Platone. \n\nTra i personaggi illustri nati in Magna Grecia ricordiamo: i filosofi Parmenide di Elea, Zenone di Elea, Gorgia di Lentini ed Empedocle di Agrigento; i pitagorici Filolao di Crotone, Archita di Taranto, Liside di Taranto, Echecrate e Timeo di Locri; il matematico Archimede di Siracusa; gli storici Ippi di Reggio, Glauco di Reggio e Lico; i poeti Teocrito di Siracusa, Stesicoro, Ibico di Reggio, Senocrito di Locri, Nosside di Locri, Alessi di Thuri e Leonida di Taranto; i medici Timoteo, Alcmeone di Crotone e Democède di Crotone; gli scultori reggini Pitagora e Clearco; il pittore Zeusi, il musicologo Aristosseno di Taranto ed il legislatore Zaleuco di Locri.\n\nSport \nLe colonie inviavano atleti di tutte le discipline ai giochi che si tenevano periodicamente ad Olimpia e Delfi in Grecia. Inoltre i coloni della Magna Grecia tenevano molto ai giochi ellenici dove potevano dare prova ai greci della loro appartenenza allo stesso luogo d'origine, della loro forza fisica e delle capacità nei giochi praticati anche dai loro avi decine di generazioni prima. E per questo i più grandi sovrani esigevano che venissero addestrate squadre da inviare in Grecia. Lo sport era dunque un canale di comunicazione con la penisola ellenica, un mezzo con il quale le colonie della Magna Grecia facevano sentire la propria voce. Spesso era un movimento gestito più dalla politica che dalla dedizione per la lotta, il lancio del disco e per tutte le altre attività che si praticavano durante quelle importanti prove agonistiche. Gli italioti ed i sicelioti ebbero grandi successi nelle competizione sportive in madrepatria. Basti pensare che gli atleti di Crotone vinsero 20 titoli in 26 Olimpiadi tra il 588 a.C. e il 488 a.C., tanto da essere secondi solo a Sparta, davanti ad Atene.\n\nNote\n\nBibliografia \n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \nMichele Manfredi-Gigliotti, TEΡENHΩN, Memorie storiche sull'antica città di Terina, Editrice Pungitopo, Messina 1984.\n·Michele Manfredi-Gigliotti, Λυκόφρων kὰι ώkιναρώs, Licofrone e il fiume Savuto, Ma.Per. Editrice, Campora San Giovanni, 2010.\n Michele Manfredi-Gigliotti, TEMHSH, Memorie storiche sull'antica città di Temesa, con particolare riguardo all'individuazione del suo sito, Cosenza, Edizioni Brenner 1994.\n Michele Manfredi-Gigliotti, Il tempio arcaico di contrada Imbelli, Amantea, frazione Campora San Giovanni, provincia di Cosenza, Caltanissetta, Società Nissena di Storia Patria 2015.\n\nVoci correlate \n Guerre greco-puniche\n Colonie nell'antichità\n Colonizzazione greca\n Colonizzazione greca in Occidente\n Monetazione incusa\n\nAltri progetti\n\nCollegamenti esterni \n \n \n\n \nMagna Grecia\nStoria della Basilicata\nStoria della Campania\nStoria della Calabria\nStoria della Puglia",
"Figlio del condottiero Giovanni de' Medici, detto delle Bande Nere, e di Maria Salviati, apparteneva per via paterna al ramo cadetto dei Medici detto dei Popolani, discendente da quel Lorenzo de' Medici detto il Vecchio, fratello di Cosimo il Vecchio, primo Signore de facto di Firenze, mentre era discendente per via materna dal ramo principale stesso, in quanto la madre era figlia di Lucrezia de' Medici, a sua volta figlia di Lorenzo il Magnifico, signore di Firenze.\n\nIn questo modo Cosimo I portò al potere il ramo cadetto dei Popolani e diede vita alla linea granducale.\n\nBiografia\n\nGiovinezza e conquista del potere \n\nFiglio del condottiero Giovanni delle Bande Nere e di Maria Salviati, Cosimo salì al potere nel 1537, a soli 17 anni, dopo l'assassinio del duca di Firenze Alessandro de' Medici. Il delitto fu ordito da Lorenzino de' Medici, lontano cugino del duca Alessandro, che, tuttavia, non seppe cogliere l'occasione di sostituirsi al proprio parente e finì col fuggire da Firenze. Nessuna delle famiglie più importanti sembrava essere in grado di prendere il posto dei Medici quando Cosimo, allora pressoché sconosciuto, apparve in città, seguito da pochi servi.\n\nEgli veniva dal Mugello, dove era cresciuto dopo la morte del padre, e riuscì a farsi nominare duca nonostante appartenesse ad un ramo secondario della famiglia. Infatti, vista la sua giovane età ed il suo contegno modesto, molti personaggi influenti della Firenze del tempo speravano di avere a che fare con un giovane debole, svagato, attratto solamente dalla caccia e dalle donne: una persona facile da influenzare. Cosimo venne, quindi, nominato capo del governo con la clausola che il potere sarebbe stato esercitato dal Consiglio dei Quarantotto. Ma Cosimo aveva interamente ereditato lo spirito battagliero del padre e della nonna paterna Caterina Sforza.\n\nInfatti, appena investito del potere e dopo aver ottenuto un decreto che escludeva il ramo di Lorenzino da qualsiasi diritto di successione, esautorò i consiglieri ed assunse l'assoluta autorità. Restaurò il potere dei Medici in modo così saldo che da quel momento governarono Firenze e gran parte della Toscana attuale fino alla fine della dinastia, avvenuta con la morte senza eredi dell'ultimo granduca Medici, Gian Gastone, nel 1737; la struttura del governo creata da Cosimo durò fino alla proclamazione del Regno d'Italia.\n\nIl governo autoritario di Cosimo indusse alcuni importanti cittadini all'esilio volontario. Essi radunarono le loro forze e, col supporto della Francia e degli stati vicini di Firenze, nel tentativo di rovesciare militarmente il governo fiorentino, alla fine del luglio 1537 marciarono su Firenze sotto la guida di Filippo Strozzi.\n\nQuando Cosimo seppe che si stavano avvicinando, inviò le sue migliori truppe, comandate da Alessandro Vitelli, a bloccare i nemici. Lo scontro avvenne nei pressi della rocca di Montemurlo il 1º agosto 1537 e, dopo aver sconfitto l'armata degli esuli, il Vitelli assaltò il castello, dove lo Strozzi e i suoi compari si erano rifugiati. L'assedio durò solamente poche ore e terminò con la caduta degli assediati, dando a Cosimo la sua prima vittoria militare.\n\nI capi della rivolta furono dapprima imprigionati e poi decapitati nel palazzo del Bargello. Per tutta la sua vita Cosimo agì in modo spietato contro chi cercava di opporsi ai suoi piani. Occorre precisare che il suo dispotismo si rivolgeva in massima parte a coloro che ponevano in discussione la sua autorità, e quindi non il popolo, ma quei nobili e ricchi borghesi fiorentini che non tolleravano la sua supremazia e il suo potere. In questa etica assolutista è da includere anche la distruzione, iniziata il 20 ottobre 1561 da parte di Cosimo I, della pregevole Cattedrale di Arezzo, posta fuori dalle mura della città, al Colle del Pionta, per essersi lì fortificato Piero Strozzi il 20 luglio 1554.\n\nMatrimonio \n\nInizialmente Cosimo cercò di sposare Margherita d'Austria, figlia dell'imperatore Carlo V e vedova del duca Alessandro. Ma non ottenne che un secco rifiuto e la pretesa che alla vedova fosse versata una cospicua parte del patrimonio dei Medici. Abbandonato questo progetto, sposò nel 1539 Eleonora di Toledo, figlia di Don Pedro Alvarez de Toledo, marchese di Villafranca e viceré spagnolo di Napoli. Si incontrarono per la prima volta nella villa di Poggio a Caiano e si sposarono con grandi fasti nella chiesa di San Lorenzo: lui aveva 20 anni e lei 17. Grazie a questo matrimonio Cosimo entrò in possesso delle enormi ricchezze della moglie e si garantì l'amicizia politica del viceré di Napoli, uno dei più fidati luogotenenti dell'imperatore. Il Bronzino eseguì molti ritratti di Eleonora, il più famoso dei quali è conservato agli Uffizi.\n\nAssieme a Cosimo, Eleonora ebbe undici figli, assicurando così in teoria la successione e la possibilità di combinare matrimoni con altre importanti case regnanti, anche se l'unico che sopravvisse in maniera duratura fu Ferdinando I. Eleonora morì nel 1562 all'età di soli quarant'anni, assieme ai suoi figli Giovanni e Garzia. I tre furono uccisi dalla malaria, contratta durante un viaggio verso Pisa, dove volevano curarsi dalla tubercolosi, malattia dovuta all'insalubre situazione cittadina, per sfuggire alla quale proprio Eleonora aveva comprato la residenza di Palazzo Pitti in Oltrarno.\n\nPrimi anni di governo \n\nGià dal 1537, iniziò l'inarrestabile ascesa autoritaria di Cosimo I, che inviò a Carlo V il vescovo di Forlì, Bernardo Antonio de Medici, per informarlo di quanto avvenuto alla morte di Alessandro e della successione da parte dello stesso Cosimo, ma soprattutto per confermargli fedeltà, allo scopo di ottenere la conferma imperiale. A partire dal 1543, dopo avere riscattato le ultime fortezze ancora in mano all'imperatore, Cosimo I, secondo un disegno sistematico commisurato alle particolari condizioni dello Stato toscano, esposto ai frequenti passaggi di truppe e minacciato di dentro dal banditismo e dai fuoriusciti fiorentini, avviò una sorprendente attività edilizio-militare:\n intraprese la realizzazione di nuovi presidi, costruendo fortezze a Siena, Arezzo, Sansepolcro e Pistoia. A Sansepolcro, inoltre, fece abbattere tutti i borghetti esterni alle mura, che si espandevano su una superficie considerevole e ospitavano vari edifici, tra cui chiese e ospedali, preferendo fortificare l'antica cerchia muraria piuttosto che allargarla;\n rafforzò le difese di origine medioevale a Pisa, Volterra e Castrocaro, in Romagna, a pochi chilometri da Forlì;\n fece erigere una nuova cinta muraria a Fivizzano a sbarramento dei passi appenninici del Lagastrello e del Cerreto;\n fece fortificare San Piero a Sieve, Empoli, Cortona e Montecarlo, ai confini della Repubblica di Lucca;\n fece costruire ex novo la città-fortezza di Portoferraio (Cosmopoli) nell'isola d'Elba e piazze d'armi, quali Sasso di Simone nel Montefeltro e Terra del Sole (Eliopoli), tra la vecchia fortezza di Castrocaro, destinata ad essere abbandonata, e Forlì, quindi ai confini con lo Stato della Chiesa.\n\nCome indica il nome, Terra del Sole doveva costituire non un semplice luogo fortificato, ma addirittura un piccolo esperimento di città ideale. La breve distanza da Forlì (meno di 10 km) indica, da un lato, la forte penetrazione del potere di Firenze in Romagna (la cosiddetta \"Romagna toscana\"), dall'altro, costituiva un abisso incolmabile, perché il capoluogo romagnolo non cadde mai in potere dei fiorentini e segna, quindi, l'estremo limite della loro espansione.\n\nAltra priorità di Cosimo fu la ricerca di una posizione di maggior indipendenza rispetto alle forze europee. Egli abbandonò la tradizionale posizione di Firenze, di norma alleata con i francesi, per operare dalla parte dell'imperatore Carlo V. I ripetuti aiuti finanziari che Cosimo garantì all'impero gli valsero il ritiro delle guarnigioni imperiali da Firenze e Pisa ed una sempre maggior indipendenza politica.\n\nIl timore di nuovi attentati alla sua persona lo spinsero a crearsi una piccola legione di guardia del corpo personale, composta da svizzeri. Nel 1548 Cosimo riuscì a far uccidere a Venezia Lorenzino de' Medici per mano di Giovanni Francesco Lottini, che assoldò due sicari volterrani. (Grazie ad un nuovo studio di Stefano Dall'Aglio sappiamo che, al contrario, l'intera manovra fu orchestrata dall'imperatore Carlo V, che non poteva perdonare la morte del suo genero, marito della figlia Margherita). Per anni lo aveva fatto inseguire per tutta Europa e con la sua morte tramontava ogni possibile pretesa dinastica contro di lui sul comando della Toscana. L'anno successivo mediò uno scontro tra Siena e l'impero, facendo accettare l'indipendenza della città in cambio della presenza di una guarnigione spagnola al suo interno.\n\nPreferì non intraprendere la conquista di Lucca, fermato dal timore che i lucchesi, gelosi della loro indipendenza, si sarebbero trasferiti altrove con i loro capitali, rovinando il commercio della città (come del resto era avvenuto in precedenza con la conquista di Pisa). D'altro canto, Lucca, unica città imperiale italiana, godeva, anche grazie alla propria ricchezza, di importanti appoggi da parte di potenti stati europei e tentare la sua conquista avrebbe potuto avere effetti imprevedibili sugli equilibri internazionali. Andarono a vuoto, invece, i suoi tentativi per ottenere Pontremoli e la Corsica che, pur di sottrarsi al dominio genovese, avrebbe accettato l'unione con la Toscana, con la quale aveva, se non altro, vincoli culturali e linguistici più profondi.\n\nSapendo di non essere granché amato dai fiorentini, egli li tenne fuori dall'esercito, quindi disarmati, e arruolò soltanto truppe provenienti dagli altri suoi domìni.\n\nConquista di Siena \nNel 1552 Siena si ribellò contro l'impero, scacciò la guarnigione spagnola e fece occupare la città dai francesi. Nel 1553 una spedizione militare, inviata dal viceré di Napoli Don Pedro, aveva tentato di riconquistare la città ma, complice anche la morte dello stesso viceré, l'impresa era stata un fallimento. Nel 1554 Cosimo ottenne il supporto dell'imperatore per muover guerra contro Siena utilizzando il proprio esercito. Dopo alcune battaglie nelle campagne tra le due città e la sconfitta dei senesi a Marciano, Siena fu assediata dai fiorentini. Il 17 aprile 1555, passati molti mesi di assedio, la città, stremata, cadde: la popolazione senese era diminuita da 40.000 a 6.000 abitanti.\n\nSiena rimase sotto protezione imperiale fino al 1557, quando il figlio dell'imperatore, Filippo II di Spagna, la cedette a Cosimo, tenendo per sé i territori di Orbetello, Porto Ercole, Talamone, Monte Argentario e Porto Santo Stefano, che andarono a formare lo Stato dei Presidi. Nel 1559, a seguito del Trattato di Cateau-Cambrésis al termine delle guerre d'Italia franco-spagnole, Cosimo ottenne anche i residui territori della Repubblica di Siena riparata in Montalcino, ultimo presidio dei senesi sotto protezione francese.\n\nOrganizzazione dello stato \nSebbene Cosimo esercitasse il potere in modo dispotico, sotto la sua amministrazione la Toscana fu uno stato al passo coi tempi. Esautorò da ogni carica, anche formale, la maggior parte delle importanti famiglie fiorentine, non fidandosi dei loro componenti. Scelse piuttosto funzionari di umili origini. Una volta ottenuto il titolo di Granduca di Toscana da papa Pio V nel 1569, mantenne la divisione giuridica ed amministrativa tra il Ducato di Firenze (il cosiddetto \"Stato vecchio\") ed il Ducato di Siena (detto \"Stato Nuovo\", quindi tenendo le due zone sapientemente separate e con magistrature proprie. Rinnovò l'amministrazione della giustizia, facendo emanare un nuovo codice criminale. Rese efficienti i magistrati e la polizia. Le sue carceri erano tra le più temute d'Italia. Similmente alle corti dell'Europa dell'epoca, il principe creò la struttura complessa di un casato, ricco di figure professionali e culturali nuove per la storia cittadina e per il suo vissuto personale. Fino agli anni '40-'60 non fu istituita una cassa generale del Granducato che desse puntuale rendiconto delle spese pubbliche e, diversamente dalle corti estense e sabauda, mancarono fonti storiche cospicue e seriali, così come cerimoniali di corte elaborati, con riti, linguaggi, attori e codici espressivi del potere sovrano, fatti che resero la storia medicea di quel periodo assimilabile più a quella di un casato locale che ad una corte principesca.\n\nSpostò la sua dimora da Palazzo Medici (oggi Palazzo Medici Riccardi) a Palazzo Vecchio, in modo che ogni fiorentino avesse ben chiaro che il potere era tutto nelle sue mani. Anni più tardi si trasferì a Palazzo Pitti.\n\nIntrodusse e finanziò la fabbricazione di arazzi. Costruì strade, opere di prosciugamento, porti. Dotò molte città toscane di fortilizi. Rafforzò l'esercito, istituì nel 1561 l'Ordine marinaresco di Santo Stefano, con sede a Pisa nel vasariano Palazzo dei Cavalieri, e migliorò la flotta toscana, partecipando alla battaglia di Lepanto. Con la Legge dell'Unione del 1549 e con ulteriori assegnazioni tra il 1559 ed il 1564 modificó la funzione dell'antico Ordine di Parte Guelfa, sottraendogli funzioni militari e attribuendogli competenza piena nella gestione del territorio granducale dalla regimentazione delle acque alle manutenzione delle aree rurali e boschive. Promosse le attività economiche, sia recuperando antiche lavorazioni (come l'estrazione dei marmi a Seravezza), sia creandone di nuove. I continui aumenti delle tasse, seppur controbilanciati da un incremento dei commerci, posero il germe di uno scontento popolare che si acuirà sempre di più con i suoi successori. Nonostante le difficoltà economiche, fu molto prodigo come mecenate.\n\nProseguì, inoltre, gli studi di alchimia e di scienze esoteriche, la cui passione aveva ereditato dalla nonna Caterina Sforza.\n\nNegli ultimi dieci anni del suo regno rinunciò alla conduzione degli affari interni dello stato in favore di suo figlio Francesco.\n\nGranduca \n\nCosimo si adoperò per ricevere un titolo regale che lo affrancasse dalla condizione di semplice feudatario dell'imperatore e che gli desse quindi maggior indipendenza politica. Non trovando alcun appoggio da parte imperiale, si rivolse al Papato. Già con Paolo IV aveva cercato di ottenere il titolo di re o arciduca, ma invano. Finalmente, nel 1569, dopo aver stipulato un accordo col papa secondo il quale avrebbe messo la sua flotta a servizio della Lega Santa che si stava venendo a formare per contrastare l'avanzata ottomana, Pio V emanò una bolla che lo creava granduca di Toscana. Nel gennaio dell'anno successivo fu incoronato dal papa stesso a Roma. In realtà tale diritto sarebbe spettato all'imperatore, e per questo Spagna e Austria si rifiutarono di riconoscere il nuovo titolo, minacciando di abbandonare la Lega, mentre Francia ed Inghilterra lo ritennero subito valido e, col passare del tempo, tutti gli stati europei finirono per riconoscerlo. Alcuni storici ipotizzano che l'avvicinamento tra Pio V e la conseguente concessione dell'ambito titolo granducale avvenisse con la consegna a tradimento dell'eretico Pietro Carnesecchi, che si era rifugiato a Firenze confidando nella protezione del Duca medesimo.\n\nUltimi anni e morte \nLa morte della moglie nel 1562 e di due dei suoi figli colpiti da malaria lo aveva profondamente segnato. Nel 1564 abdicò a favore del figlio Francesco, ritirandosi nella villa di Castello vicino a Firenze. Guardando anche il profilo umano, c'è da credere che la vita nelle sale ormai vuote di Palazzo Pitti, già occupate dall'amatissima moglie e dai numerosi figli che non gli erano sopravvissuti, lo deprimesse enormemente.\n\nDopo aver frequentato Eleonora degli Albizi, dalla quale ebbe due figli naturali, nel 1570 Cosimo prese in seconde nozze Camilla Martelli come moglie morganatica, che gli diede una figlia, poi legittimata e integrata nella successione. Il peggioramento del suo burrascoso carattere e i continui scontri con i figli (Francesco aveva una visione dello Stato completamente diversa dal padre), a causa della nuova moglie, resero i suoi ultimi anni turbolenti. Morì il 21 aprile 1574, a cinquantacinque anni, già gravemente menomato da un ictus che gli aveva limitato la mobilità e tolto la parola.\n\nNel 1857, durante una prima ricognizione delle salme dei Medici, così venne ritrovato il suo corpo:\n\nCosimo e l'arte \n\nCosimo seppe sfruttare il ruolo anche politico dell'arte, promuovendo numerosi cantieri che cambiarono, in meglio, il volto di Firenze, in modo da portare avanti un'immagine del suo governo come saggio e illuminato, apportatore di prestigio economico e culturale in città.\n\nTra le varie opere da lui compiute, si ricorda la creazione della fabbrica che doveva ospitare le Magistrature, cioè gli uffici amministrativi dello Stato, che, diventata Galleria degli Uffizi sotto il granduca Francesco I de' Medici, è oggi uno dei più importanti e visitati musei del mondo. Ampliò la maestosa costruzione di Palazzo Pitti, che divenne la residenza ufficiale dei granduchi; portò a compimento il Giardino di Boboli, parco della sua residenza. Collegò la sua nuova residenza con Palazzo Vecchio attraverso il Corridoio vasariano.\n\nLa sua corte fu ambita da artisti di grande valore, tra i quali Giorgio Vasari, Agnolo Bronzino, Bartolomeo Ammannati, Benvenuto Cellini. E proprio su consiglio dell'architetto aretino Giorgio Vasari fondò, il 13 gennaio 1563, l'Accademia e Compagnia dell'Arte del Disegno, il cui ruolo e prestigio, certo non confinati negli angusti limiti politico economici del principato toscano, crebbero fra il Cinque e il Seicento grazie allo straordinario contributo di accademici come Michelangelo Buonarroti, Francesco da Sangallo, Benvenuto Cellini, Bartolomeo Ammannati, il Giambologna, Galileo Galilei, ecc.\n\nMentre la Compagnia era una sorta di corporazione cui dovevano aderire tutti gli artisti operanti in Toscana, l'Accademia, costituita solo dalle più eminenti personalità culturali della corte di Cosimo, aveva finalità di tutela e supervisione sull'intera produzione artistica del principato mediceo. Appassionato di archeologia, intraprese ampie ricerche di artefatti etruschi a Chiusi, Arezzo ed in altre città, portando alla luce numerosi oggetti e statue.\n\nCosimo e la scienza \nCosimo I, come tutto il ramo dei Medici che da lui discese, era fortemente appassionato alle scienze naturali: nel 1549, per stupire i sudditi e gli stranieri, nonché per dimostrare il suo interesse nelle meraviglie della natura, fece esporre un capodoglio trovato presso Livorno direttamente nella Loggia dei Lanzi in piazza della Signoria a Firenze.\n\nSotto il suo regno furono fondati gli Orti botanici di Pisa (1544) e di Firenze (1545). Fu autore di studi cosmografici e fece eseguire al monaco Egnazio Danti (1536-1586) le carte geografiche di tutte le terre allora conosciute. La raccolta di meraviglie scientifiche (con forte presenza degli strumenti matematici) iniziata da Cosimo costituisce il nucleo più antico delle collezioni di strumentazione matematica oggi conservate presso il Museo Galileo di Firenze.\n\nDiscendenza \nLa discendenza di Cosimo e Eleonora, sebbene numerosa, non fu certo toccata dalla fortuna, a causa della tubercolosi a Firenze, che richiedeva spesso soggiorni nelle zone costiere, dove invece era presente la malaria. Morirono infatti di febbri malariche i figli Maria (1557), Giovanni (1562) e Garzia (1562), oltre alla stessa Eleonora (1562); altri tre (Pedricco, Antonio e Anna), morirono ancora in fasce; Lucrezia, Duchessa di Ferrara, Modena e Reggio Emilia, morì giovanissima di tubercolosi (anche se i nemici di suo marito, Alfonso II d'Este, insinuarono che fosse stata avvelenata da quest'ultimo, allo scopo di sposare l'arciduchessa Barbara d'Austria, matrimonio politicamente più prestigioso); Francesco I morì misteriosamente insieme alla seconda moglie Bianca Cappello (per molti secoli si è ipotizzato che fossero stati avvelenati da Ferdinando I, ma le ultime analisi scientifiche smentiscono questa ipotesi); Isabella, che per molti anni si ipotizzò che potesse essere morta per mano del marito con l'accusa di adulterio, morì per un’ostruzione biliare; Ferdinando I fu l'unico dei figli legittimi ad avvicinarsi alla vecchiaia e fu per molti anni il terzo Granduca di Toscana, morendo a 59 anni.\n\nCosimo I, inoltre, ebbe alcune storie fuori dal matrimonio e quattro figli illegittimi: da una donna, il cui nome non viene menzionato, ebbe la sua prima figlia, Bia, che però morì a soli 5 anni; da Eleonora degli Albizzi ebbe una figlia nata morta e Giovanni, che fu un militare e un architetto e morì a 54 anni; dall'amante Camilla Martelli, poi moglie morganatica, ebbe Virginia, che verrà legittimata in conseguenza del matrimonio dei genitori nel 1570 e che morirà a 47 anni, affetta da tempo da pazzia.\n\nCon Eleonora di Toledo ebbe undici figli:\nMaria, 3 aprile 1540 – . Si spense a Livorno, probabilmente colpita dalla malaria;\nFrancesco, 25 marzo 1541 – . Sostituì in reggenza il padre Cosimo I dal 1564 e divenne il secondo Granduca di Toscana nel 1574. Morì improvvisamente e misteriosamente nella Villa medicea di Poggio a Caiano;\nIsabella, 31 agosto 1542 – . Duchessa di Bracciano come moglie di Paolo Giordano I Orsini, primo Duca di Bracciano, morì inaspettatamente nella Villa medicea di Cerreto Guidi;\nGiovanni, 29 settembre 1543 – . Cardinale di Santa Romana Chiesa, creato il 31 gennaio 1560 da papa Pio IV\nLucrezia, 14 febbraio 1545 – . Duchessa di Ferrara, Modena e Reggio come moglie di Alfonso II d'Este. Morì di tubercolosi;\nPiero \"Pedricco\", 7 agosto 1546 – 9 giugno 1547;\nGarzia, 5 luglio 1547 – ;\nAntonio, nato e morto nel 1548;\nFerdinando, 30 luglio 1549 – . Cardinale di Santa Romana Chiesa dal 1562, dopo la morte del fratello Francesco I salì sul trono del Granducato di Toscana, diventando il terzo granduca (1587);\nAnna, nata e morta nel 1553;\nPietro, 3 giugno 1554 – . Generale delle galere toscane nel 1573 e ambasciatore fiorentino.\n\nCon Camilla Martelli, moglie morganatica, ebbe una figlia:\nVirginia, 29 maggio 1568 – . Nata fuori dal matrimonio, quindi illegittima, venne legittimata \"per subsequens\" nel 1570, anno del matrimonio tra i due genitori. Fu duchessa di Modena e Reggio come moglie di Cesare d'Este.\n\nCosimo ebbe numerose relazioni extra-coniugali.\nDa una donna rimasta ignota ebbe, prima del matrimonio con Eleonora di Toledo, una figlia:\nBianca \"Bia\", ~1537 – 1º marzo 1542 (5 anni).\n\nDa Eleonora degli Albizi ebbe un figlio:\nGiovanni, 13 maggio 1567 – . Grande di Spagna e ambasciatore fiorentino. Fu anche architetto: è suo, ad esempio, il disegno per la costruzione della Cappella dei Principi nella Basilica di San Lorenzo.\nFiglia nata morta\n\nAscendenza\n\nAscendenza patrilineare \n Medico di Potrone, *1046 †1102\n Bono di Potrone, *1069 †1123\n Bernardo di Potrone, *1049 †1147\n Giambuono de' Medici, *1131 †1192\n Chiarissimo, *1167 †1210, legato a Siena\n Filippo, detto \"Lippo\", *? †?\n Averardo, *? †1286\n Averardo di Averardo, *? †1318, gonfaloniere di Giustizia (1314)\n Salvestro, detto Chiarissimo, *? †1346, legato a Venezia\n Averardo di Chiarissimo, detto \"Bicci\", *1320 †1363\n Giovanni di Bicci, *1360 †1429\n Lorenzo il Vecchio, *1395 †1440\n Pierfrancesco il Vecchio, *1430 †1476\n Giovanni il Popolano, *1467 †1498\n Giovanni delle Bande Nere, *1498 †1526\n Cosimo I, Granduca di Toscana, *1519 †1574\n\nOnorificenze\n\nOnorificenze toscane\n\nOnorificenze straniere\n\nNote\n\nBibliografia \n Giorgio Spini, Cosimo I e l'indipendenza del principato mediceo, Firenze, Vallecchi, 1945.\n Roberto Cantagalli, Cosimo I de' Medici granduca di Toscana, Milano, Mursia, 1985.\n Gregory Murry, The Medicean Succession: Monarchy and Sacral Politics in Duke Cosimo dei Medici's Florence, Harvard University Press, 2014, ISBN 0674725476; ISBN 9780674725478.\n\nAltri progetti\n\nCollegamenti esterni \n \n \n \n\nCavalieri del Toson d'oro\nDuchi di Firenze\nGranduchi di Toscana\nMedici (famiglia)\nSepolti nelle Cappelle medicee\nSignori di Piombino\nGLAM/Museo Galileo\nGran maestri dell'Ordine di Santo Stefano Papa e Martire"
]
embeddings = model.encode(sentences)
similarities = model.similarity(embeddings, embeddings)
print(similarities.shape)
# [4, 4]This is a sentence-transformers model finetuned from microsoft/mpnet-base. It maps sentences & paragraphs to a 768-dimensional dense vector space and can be used for semantic textual similarity, semantic search, paraphrase mining, text classification, clustering, and more.
SentenceTransformer(
(0): Transformer({'max_seq_length': 512, 'do_lower_case': False}) with Transformer model: MPNetModel
(1): Pooling({'word_embedding_dimension': 768, 'pooling_mode_cls_token': False, 'pooling_mode_mean_tokens': True, 'pooling_mode_max_tokens': False, 'pooling_mode_mean_sqrt_len_tokens': False, 'pooling_mode_weightedmean_tokens': False, 'pooling_mode_lasttoken': False, 'include_prompt': True})
)
First install the Sentence Transformers library:
pip install -U sentence-transformers
Then you can load this model and run inference.
from sentence_transformers import SentenceTransformer
# Download from the 🤗 Hub
model = SentenceTransformer("DIS-Project/trained_on_all_data_model_push_00")
# Run inference
sentences = [
'What theory did Cope switch to in order to accommodate functional adaptation for each change in evolution?',
'Alternatives to Darwinian evolution have been proposed by scholars investigating biology to explain signs of evolution and the relatedness of different groups of living things. The alternatives in question do not deny that evolutionary changes over time are the origin of the diversity of life, nor that the organisms alive today share a common ancestor from the distant past (or ancestors, in some proposals); rather, they propose alternative mechanisms of evolutionary change over time, arguing against mutations acted on by natural selection as the most important driver of evolutionary change. \n\nThis distinguishes them from certain other kinds of arguments that deny that large-scale evolution of any sort has taken place, as in some forms of creationism, which do not propose alternative mechanisms of evolutionary change but instead deny that evolutionary change has taken place at all. Not all forms of creationism deny that evolutionary change takes place; notably, proponents of theistic evolution, such as the biologist Asa Gray, assert that evolutionary change does occur and is responsible for the history of life on Earth, with the proviso that this process has been influenced by a god or gods in some meaningful sense.\n\nWhere the fact of evolutionary change was accepted but the mechanism proposed by Charles Darwin, natural selection, was denied, explanations of evolution such as Lamarckism, catastrophism, orthogenesis, vitalism, structuralism and mutationism (called saltationism before 1900) were entertained. Different factors motivated people to propose non-Darwinian mechanisms of evolution. Natural selection, with its emphasis on death and competition, did not appeal to some naturalists because they felt it immoral, leaving little room for teleology or the concept of progress in the development of life. Some who came to accept evolution, but disliked natural selection, raised religious objections. Others felt that evolution was an inherently progressive process that natural selection alone was insufficient to explain. Still others felt that nature, including the development of life, followed orderly patterns that natural selection could not explain.\n\nBy the start of the 20th century, evolution was generally accepted by biologists but natural selection was in eclipse. Many alternative theories were proposed, but biologists were quick to discount theories such as orthogenesis, vitalism and Lamarckism which offered no mechanism for evolution. Mutationism did propose a mechanism, but it was not generally accepted. The modern synthesis a generation later claimed to sweep away all the alternatives to Darwinian evolution, though some have been revived as molecular mechanisms for them have been discovered.\n\nUnchanging forms\n\nAristotle did not embrace either divine creation or evolution, instead arguing in his biology that each species (eidos) was immutable, breeding true to its ideal eternal form (not the same as Plato\'s theory of forms). Aristotle\'s suggestion in De Generatione Animalium of a fixed hierarchy in nature - a scala naturae ("ladder of nature") provided an early explanation of the continuity of living things. Aristotle saw that animals were teleological (functionally end-directed), and had parts that were homologous with those of other animals, but he did not connect these ideas into a concept of evolutionary progress.\n\nIn the Middle Ages, Scholasticism developed Aristotle\'s view into the idea of a great chain of being. The image of a ladder inherently suggests the possibility of climbing, but both the ancient Greeks and mediaeval scholastics such as Ramon Lull maintained that each species remained fixed from the moment of its creation.\n\nBy 1818, however, Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire argued in his Philosophie anatomique that the chain was "a progressive series", where animals like molluscs low on the chain could "rise, by addition of parts, from the simplicity of the first formations to the complication of the creatures at the head of the scale", given sufficient time. Accordingly, Geoffroy and later biologists looked for explanations of such evolutionary change.\n\nGeorges Cuvier\'s 1812 Recherches sur les Ossements Fossiles set out his doctrine of the correlation of parts, namely that since an organism was a whole system, all its parts mutually corresponded, contributing to the function of the whole. So, from a single bone the zoologist could often tell what class or even genus the animal belonged to. And if an animal had teeth adapted for cutting meat, the zoologist could be sure without even looking that its sense organs would be those of a predator and its intestines those of a carnivore. A species had an irreducible functional complexity, and "none of its parts can change without the others changing too". Evolutionists expected one part to change at a time, one change to follow another. In Cuvier\'s view, evolution was impossible, as any one change would unbalance the whole delicate system.\n\nLouis Agassiz\'s 1856 "Essay on Classification" exemplified German philosophical idealism. This held that each species was complex within itself, had complex relationships to other organisms, and fitted precisely into its environment, as a pine tree in a forest, and could not survive outside those circles. The argument from such ideal forms opposed evolution without offering an actual alternative mechanism. Richard Owen held a similar view in Britain.\n\nThe Lamarckian social philosopher and evolutionist Herbert Spencer, ironically the author of the phrase "survival of the fittest" adopted by Darwin, used an argument like Cuvier\'s to oppose natural selection. In 1893, he stated that a change in any one structure of the body would require all the other parts to adapt to fit in with the new arrangement. From this, he argued that it was unlikely that all the changes could appear at the right moment if each one depended on random variation; whereas in a Lamarckian world, all the parts would naturally adapt at once, through a changed pattern of use and disuse.\n\nAlternative explanations of change\n\nWhere the fact of evolutionary change was accepted by biologists but natural selection was denied, including but not limited to the late 19th century eclipse of Darwinism, alternative scientific explanations such as Lamarckism, orthogenesis, structuralism, catastrophism, vitalism and theistic evolution were entertained, not necessarily separately. (Purely religious points of view such as young or old earth creationism or intelligent design are not considered here.) Different factors motivated people to propose non-Darwinian evolutionary mechanisms. Natural selection, with its emphasis on death and competition, did not appeal to some naturalists because they felt it immoral, leaving little room for teleology or the concept of progress in the development of life. Some of these scientists and philosophers, like St. George Jackson Mivart and Charles Lyell, who came to accept evolution but disliked natural selection, raised religious objections. Others, such as the biologist and philosopher Herbert Spencer, the botanist George Henslow (son of Darwin\'s mentor John Stevens Henslow, also a botanist), and the author Samuel Butler, felt that evolution was an inherently progressive process that natural selection alone was insufficient to explain. Still others, including the American paleontologists Edward Drinker Cope and Alpheus Hyatt, had an idealist perspective and felt that nature, including the development of life, followed orderly patterns that natural selection could not explain.\n\nSome felt that natural selection would be too slow, given the estimates of the age of the earth and sun (10–100 million years) being made at the time by physicists such as Lord Kelvin, and some felt that natural selection could not work because at the time the models for inheritance involved blending of inherited characteristics, an objection raised by the engineer Fleeming Jenkin in a review of Origin written shortly after its publication. Another factor at the end of the 19th century was the rise of a new faction of biologists, typified by geneticists like Hugo de Vries and Thomas Hunt Morgan, who wanted to recast biology as an experimental laboratory science. They distrusted the work of naturalists like Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, dependent on field observations of variation, adaptation, and biogeography, as being overly anecdotal. Instead they focused on topics like physiology and genetics that could be investigated with controlled experiments in the laboratory, and discounted less accessible phenomena like natural selection and adaptation to the environment.\n\nVitalism\n\nVitalism holds that living organisms differ from other things in containing something non-physical, such as a fluid or vital spirit, that makes them live. The theory dates to ancient Egypt.\nSince Early Modern times, vitalism stood in contrast to the mechanistic explanation of biological systems started by Descartes. Nineteenth century chemists set out to disprove the claim that forming organic compounds required vitalist influence. In 1828, Friedrich Wöhler showed that urea could be made entirely from inorganic chemicals. Louis Pasteur believed that fermentation required whole organisms, which he supposed carried out chemical reactions found only in living things. The embryologist Hans Driesch, experimenting on sea urchin eggs, showed that separating the first two cells led to two complete but small blastulas, seemingly showing that cell division did not divide the egg into sub-mechanisms, but created more cells each with the vital capability to form a new organism. Vitalism faded out with the demonstration of more satisfactory mechanistic explanations of each of the functions of a living cell or organism. By 1931, biologists had "almost unanimously abandoned vitalism as an acknowledged belief."\n\nTheistic evolution\n\nThe American botanist Asa Gray used the name "theistic evolution" for his point of view, presented in his 1876 book Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism. He argued that the deity supplies beneficial mutations to guide evolution. St George Jackson Mivart argued instead in his 1871 On the Genesis of Species that the deity, equipped with foreknowledge, sets the direction of evolution by specifying the (orthogenetic) laws that govern it, and leaves species to evolve according to the conditions they experience as time goes by. The Duke of Argyll set out similar views in his 1867 book The Reign of Law. According to the historian Edward Larson, the theory failed as an explanation in the minds of late 19th century biologists as it broke the rules of methodological naturalism which they had grown to expect. Accordingly, by around 1900, biologists no longer saw theistic evolution as a valid theory. In Larson\'s view, by then it "did not even merit a nod among scientists." In the 20th century, theistic evolution could take other forms, such as the orthogenesis of Teilhard de Chardin. The evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne calls The BioLogos Foundation the "latest endeavor to forcibly marry science and faith" and "embarrassing in its single-minded fervor to prove that conservative Christianity and evolution are really good buddies."\n\nOrthogenesis\n\nOrthogenesis or Progressionism is the hypothesis that life has an innate tendency to change, developing in a unilinear fashion in a particular direction, or simply making some kind of definite progress. Many different versions have been proposed, some such as that of Teilhard de Chardin openly spiritual, others such as Theodor Eimer\'s apparently simply biological. These theories often combined orthogenesis with other supposed mechanisms. For example, Eimer believed in Lamarckian evolution, but felt that internal laws of growth determined which characteristics would be acquired and would guide the long-term direction of evolution.\n\nOrthogenesis was popular among paleontologists such as Henry Fairfield Osborn. They believed that the fossil record showed unidirectional change, but did not necessarily accept that the mechanism driving orthogenesis was teleological (goal-directed). Osborn argued in his 1918 book Origin and Evolution of Life that trends in Titanothere horns were both orthogenetic and non-adaptive, and could be detrimental to the organism. For instance, they supposed that the large antlers of the Irish elk had caused its extinction.\n\nSupport for orthogenesis fell during the modern synthesis in the 1940s when it became apparent that it could not explain the complex branching patterns of evolution revealed by statistical analysis of the fossil record. Work in the 21st century has supported the mechanism and existence of mutation-biased adaptation (a form of mutationism), meaning that constrained orthogenesis is now seen as possible. Moreover, the self-organizing processes involved in certain aspects of embryonic development often exhibit stereotypical morphological outcomes, suggesting that evolution will proceed in preferred directions once key molecular components are in place.\n\nLamarckism\n\nJean-Baptiste Lamarck\'s 1809 evolutionary theory, transmutation of species, was based on a progressive (orthogenetic) drive toward greater complexity. Lamarck also shared the belief, common at the time, that characteristics acquired during an organism\'s life could be inherited by the next generation, producing adaptation to the environment. Such characteristics were caused by the use or disuse of the affected part of the body. This minor component of Lamarck\'s theory became known, much later, as Lamarckism. Darwin included Effects of the increased Use and Disuse of Parts, as controlled by Natural Selection in On the Origin of Species, giving examples such as large ground feeding birds getting stronger legs through exercise, and weaker wings from not flying until, like the ostrich, they could not fly at all. In the late 19th century, neo-Lamarckism was supported by the German biologist Ernst Haeckel, the American paleontologists Edward Drinker Cope and Alpheus Hyatt, and the American entomologist Alpheus Packard. Butler and Cope believed that this allowed organisms to effectively drive their own evolution. Packard argued that the loss of vision in the blind cave insects he studied was best explained through a Lamarckian process of atrophy through disuse combined with inheritance of acquired characteristics. Meanwhile, the English botanist George Henslow studied how environmental stress affected the development of plants, and he wrote that the variations induced by such environmental factors could largely explain evolution; he did not see the need to demonstrate that such variations could actually be inherited. Critics pointed out that there was no solid evidence for the inheritance of acquired characteristics. Instead, the experimental work of the German biologist August Weismann resulted in the germ plasm theory of inheritance, which Weismann said made the inheritance of acquired characteristics impossible, since the Weismann barrier would prevent any changes that occurred to the body after birth from being inherited by the next generation.\n\nIn modern epigenetics, biologists observe that phenotypes depend on heritable changes to gene expression that do not involve changes to the DNA sequence. These changes can cross generations in plants, animals, and prokaryotes. This is not identical to traditional Lamarckism, as the changes do not last indefinitely and do not affect the germ line and hence the evolution of genes.\n\nCatastrophism\n\nCatastrophism is the hypothesis, argued by the French anatomist and paleontologist Georges Cuvier in his 1812 Recherches sur les ossements fossiles de quadrupèdes, that the various extinctions and the patterns of faunal succession seen in the fossil record were caused by large-scale natural catastrophes such as volcanic eruptions and, for the most recent extinctions in Eurasia, the inundation of low-lying areas by the sea. This was explained purely by natural events: he did not mention Noah\'s flood, nor did he ever refer to divine creation as the mechanism for repopulation after an extinction event, though he did not support evolutionary theories such as those of his contemporaries Lamarck and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire either. Cuvier believed that the stratigraphic record indicated that there had been several such catastrophes, recurring natural events, separated by long periods of stability during the history of life on earth. This led him to believe the Earth was several million years old.\n\nCatastrophism has found a place in modern biology with the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous period, as proposed in a paper by \nWalter and Luis Alvarez in 1980. It argued that a asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous period. The event, whatever it was, made about 70% of all species extinct, including the dinosaurs, leaving behind the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary. In 1990, a candidate crater marking the impact was identified at Chicxulub in the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico.\n\nStructuralism\n\nBiological structuralism objects to an exclusively Darwinian explanation of natural selection, arguing that other mechanisms also guide evolution, and sometimes implying that these supersede selection altogether. Structuralists have proposed different mechanisms that might have guided the formation of body plans. Before Darwin, Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire argued that animals shared homologous parts, and that if one was enlarged, the others would be reduced in compensation. After Darwin, D\'Arcy Thompson hinted at vitalism and offered geometric explanations in his classic 1917 book On Growth and Form. Adolf Seilacher suggested mechanical inflation for "pneu" structures in Ediacaran biota fossils such as Dickinsonia. Günter P. Wagner argued for developmental bias, structural constraints on embryonic development. Stuart Kauffman favoured self-organisation, the idea that complex structure emerges holistically and spontaneously from the dynamic interaction of all parts of an organism. Michael Denton argued for laws of form by which Platonic universals or "Types" are self-organised. In 1979 Stephen J. Gould and Richard Lewontin proposed biological "spandrels", features created as a byproduct of the adaptation of nearby structures. Gerd Müller and Stuart Newman argued that the appearance in the fossil record of most of the current phyla in the Cambrian explosion was "pre-Mendelian" evolution caused by plastic responses of morphogenetic systems that were partly organized by physical mechanisms. Brian Goodwin, described by Wagner as part of "a fringe movement in evolutionary biology", denied that biological complexity can be reduced to natural selection, and argued that pattern formation is driven by morphogenetic fields. Darwinian biologists have criticised structuralism, emphasising that there is plentiful evidence from deep homology that genes have been involved in shaping organisms throughout evolutionary history. They accept that some structures such as the cell membrane self-assemble, but question the ability of self-organisation to drive large-scale evolution.\n\nSaltationism, mutationism\n\nSaltationism held that new species arise as a result of large mutations. It was seen as a much faster alternative to the Darwinian concept of a gradual process of small random variations being acted on by natural selection. It was popular with early geneticists such as Hugo de Vries, who along with Carl Correns helped rediscover Gregor Mendel\'s laws of inheritance in 1900, William Bateson, a British zoologist who switched to genetics, and early in his career, Thomas Hunt Morgan. These ideas developed into mutationism, the mutation theory of evolution. This held that species went through periods of rapid mutation, possibly as a result of environmental stress, that could produce multiple mutations, and in some cases completely new species, in a single generation, based on de Vries\'s experiments with the evening primrose, Oenothera, from 1886. The primroses seemed to be constantly producing new varieties with striking variations in form and color, some of which appeared to be new species because plants of the new generation could only be crossed with one another, not with their parents. However, Hermann Joseph Muller showed in 1918 that the new varieties de Vries had observed were the result of polyploid hybrids rather than rapid genetic mutation.\n\nInitially, de Vries and Morgan believed that mutations were so large as to create new forms such as subspecies or even species instantly. Morgan\'s 1910 fruit fly experiments, in which he isolated mutations for characteristics such as white eyes, changed his mind. He saw that mutations represented small Mendelian characteristics that would only spread through a population when they were beneficial, helped by natural selection. This represented the germ of the modern synthesis, and the beginning of the end for mutationism as an evolutionary force.\n\nContemporary biologists accept that mutation and selection both play roles in evolution; the mainstream view is that while mutation supplies material for selection in the form of variation, all non-random outcomes are caused by natural selection. Masatoshi Nei argues instead that the production of more efficient genotypes by mutation is fundamental for evolution, and that evolution is often mutation-limited. The endosymbiotic theory implies rare but major events of saltational evolution by symbiogenesis. Carl Woese and colleagues suggested that the absence of RNA signature continuum between domains of bacteria, archaea, and eukarya shows that these major lineages materialized via large saltations in cellular organization. Saltation at a variety of scales is agreed to be possible by mechanisms including polyploidy, which certainly can create new species of plant, gene duplication, lateral gene transfer, and transposable elements (jumping genes).\n\nGenetic drift\n\nThe neutral theory of molecular evolution, proposed by Motoo Kimura in 1968, holds that at the molecular level most evolutionary changes and most of the variation within and between species is not caused by natural selection but by genetic drift of mutant alleles that are neutral. A neutral mutation is one that does not affect an organism\'s ability to survive and reproduce. The neutral theory allows for the possibility that most mutations are deleterious, but holds that because these are rapidly purged by natural selection, they do not make significant contributions to variation within and between species at the molecular level. Mutations that are not deleterious are assumed to be mostly neutral rather than beneficial.\n\nThe theory was controversial as it sounded like a challenge to Darwinian evolution; controversy was intensified by a 1969 paper by Dr. Kasra, Jack Lester King and Thomas H. Jukes, provocatively but misleadingly titled "Non-Darwinian Evolution". It provided a wide variety of evidence including protein sequence comparisons, studies of the Treffers mutator gene in E. coli, analysis of the genetic code, and comparative immunology, to argue that most protein evolution is due to neutral mutations and genetic drift.\n\nAccording to Kimura, the theory applies only for evolution at the molecular level, while phenotypic evolution is controlled by natural selection, so the neutral theory does not constitute a true alternative.\n\nCombined theories\n\nThe various alternatives to Darwinian evolution by natural selection were not necessarily mutually exclusive. The evolutionary philosophy of the American palaeontologist Edward Drinker Cope is a case in point. Cope, a religious man, began his career denying the possibility of evolution. In the 1860s, he accepted that evolution could occur, but, influenced by Agassiz, rejected natural selection. Cope accepted instead the theory of recapitulation of evolutionary history during the growth of the embryo - that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, which Agassiz believed showed a divine plan leading straight up to man, in a pattern revealed both in embryology and palaeontology. Cope did not go so far, seeing that evolution created a branching tree of forms, as Darwin had suggested. Each evolutionary step was however non-random: the direction was determined in advance and had a regular pattern (orthogenesis), and steps were not adaptive but part of a divine plan (theistic evolution). This left unanswered the question of why each step should occur, and Cope switched his theory to accommodate functional adaptation for each change. Still rejecting natural selection as the cause of adaptation, Cope turned to Lamarckism to provide the force guiding evolution. Finally, Cope supposed that Lamarckian use and disuse operated by causing a vitalist growth-force substance, "bathmism", to be concentrated in the areas of the body being most intensively used; in turn, it made these areas develop at the expense of the rest. Cope\'s complex set of beliefs thus assembled five evolutionary philosophies: recapitulationism, orthogenesis, theistic evolution, Lamarckism, and vitalism. Other palaeontologists and field naturalists continued to hold beliefs combining orthogenesis and Lamarckism until the modern synthesis in the 1930s.\n\nRebirth of natural selection, with continuing alternatives\n\nBy the start of the 20th century, during the eclipse of Darwinism, biologists were doubtful of natural selection, but equally were quick to discount theories such as orthogenesis, vitalism and Lamarckism which offered no mechanism for evolution. Mutationism did propose a mechanism, but it was not generally accepted. The modern synthesis a generation later, roughly between 1918 and 1932, broadly swept away all the alternatives to Darwinism, though some including forms of orthogenesis, epigenetic mechanisms that resemble Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characteristics, catastrophism, structuralism, and mutationism have been revived, such as through the discovery of molecular mechanisms.\n\nBiology has become Darwinian, but belief in some form of progress (orthogenesis) remains both in the public mind and among biologists. Ruse argues that evolutionary biologists will probably continue to believe in progress for three reasons. Firstly, the anthropic principle demands people able to ask about the process that led to their own existence, as if they were the pinnacle of such progress. Secondly, scientists in general and evolutionists in particular believe that their work is leading them progressively closer to a true grasp of reality, as knowledge increases, and hence (runs the argument) there is progress in nature also. Ruse notes in this regard that Richard Dawkins explicitly compares cultural progress with memes to biological progress with genes. Thirdly, evolutionists are self-selected; they are people, such as the entomologist and sociobiologist E. O. Wilson, who are interested in progress to supply a meaning for life.\n\nSee also\n\n Coloration evidence for natural selection\n History of evolutionary thought\n Objections to evolution\n Extended evolutionary synthesis\n Lysenkoism\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nSources\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\nEvolutionary biology\nHistory of evolutionary biology\nNon-Darwinian evolution',
'In Greek mythology, Phoenix (Ancient Greek: Φοῖνιξ Phoinix, gen. Φοίνικος Phoinikos) was the son of king Amyntor. Because of a dispute with his father, Phoenix fled to Phytia, where he became king of the Dolopians, and tutor of the young Achilles, whom he accompanied to the Trojan War. After Achilles had in anger withdrawn from the war, Phoenix tried to persuade Achilles to return.\n\nPhoenix appears as a character in the Iliad, where Homer has him tell his story. He is also mentioned several times in the Epic Cycle. There were several lost 5th-century BC tragedies titled Phoenix, which presumably told his story, and he appeared as a character in several others. Mentions of Phoenix occur in Pindar, the Palatine Anthology, Lycophron, Ovid and Hyginus, and a brief account of his story is given by the mythographer Apollodorus. Phoenix also appears in many works of ancient art from as early as the 6th century BC.\n\nMythology \nPhoenix was the son of Amyntor. A dispute with his father, concerning his father\'s concubine, resulted in Phoenix fleeing his homeland for Phytia, where he became a vassal of Achilles\' father Peleus, the king. As told in the Iliad, on the urgings of his jealous mother (variously named as Cleobule, Hippodameia, or Alcimede), Phoenix had had sex with his father\'s concubine. Amyntor, discovering this, called upon the Erinyes to curse Phoenix with childlessness. In later accounts of the story, Phoenix was falsely accused by Amyntor\'s concubine, and blinded by his father, but Chiron restored his sight. In either case, Phoenix fled to Phytia, where Peleus made Phoenix a king of the Dolopians, and gave him his young son Achilles to raise.\n\nPhoenix participated in the Calydonian boar hunt, and was said to have given Achilles\' son the name Neoptolemus. As an old man, he went with Odysseus and Nestor to find and recruit Achilles for the Trojan War, and was Achilles\' companion at Troy. After Achilles, in his anger at Agamemnon, had withdrawn from the fighting, Phoenix was part of the unsuccessful embassy sent by Agamemnon to persuade Achilles to return to the battle. After Achilles died, Phoenix was one of those sent to fetch Neoptolemus from Scyros. On his way home from Troy, Phoenix died and was buried by Neoptolemus. His tomb was said to be either in Eion, Macedonia, or in Trachis, Thessaly, nearby the "Phoenix River" which was said to have been named after the hero.\n\nSources\n\nThe Iliad\n\nPhoenix plays an important role in Book 9 of the Iliad of Homer. Achilles, the Greeks\' greatest warrior, has withdrawn from the war because of his great anger at his ill treatment by the Greek commander Agamemnon. Phoenix, who had been in charge of Achilles upbringing, now an old man, has accompanied Achilles to the Trojan War. Phoenix is sent by Agamemnon to Achilles\' tent, as part of an embassy with Ajax and Odysseus, to persuade Achilles to return to the battle. Odysseus speaks first, presenting Agamemnon\'s offer of reconciliation, an appeal which Achilles rejects utterly, saying that he will leave with his ships the next morning. Next Phoenix—who as his tutor, as he reminds Achilles, has taught him "to be both a speaker of words and a doer of deeds"—begins himself a long speech covering 172 lines. Phoenix, "bursting into tears", pleads passionately with Achilles to put down his anger and return to the war. Phoenix\'s speech presents an "exposition of heroic, traditional ethics".\n\nPhoenix begins his appeal, in personal terms, by reminding Achilles how he came to be a second father to Achilles. Phoenix\'s father was Amyntor, the son of Ormenus, and a king in Hellas. When Amyntor forsook his wife, Phoenix\'s mother, for a concubine, at the urging of his jealous mother, Phoenix had sex with Amyntor\'s concubine. To punish this crime Amyntor called upon the Erinyes to curse Phoenix with childlessness. Outraged Phoenix intended to kill Amyntor, but was finally dissuaded. Instead he decided to leave his father\'s kingdom. For nine days some of his friends and family kept watch over him to prevent his leaving, but finally on the tenth day he managed to escape, and fleeing through Hellas, Phoenix came to Phthia, where king Peleus, the father of Achilles, took in Phoenix, and treated him like a son. Peleus made Phoenix a king of the Dolopians. And Phoenix was given charge of the young Achilles, whom Phoenix reared as a son. Having reminded Achilles of all this, Phoenix asks Achilles to "master thy proud spirit; it beseemeth thee not to have a pitiless heart. Nay, even the very gods can bend".\n\nPhoenix next relates two stories meant to persuade Achilles to relent. The first story concerns the Litai ("Prayers"), daughters of Zeus, who follow along after Ate ("Sin"). This story is meant to show Achilles the dangers inherent in refusing prayers of supplication. After telling the story, Phoenix again asks Achilles to "cast aside thine anger" and heed the supplication of his comrads in arms and return to the battle. Phoenix reminds Achilles\' that heroes of old, in their wrath, might be won over by gifts and pleadings. He then recounts the story of the hero Meleager, with its many parallels to Achilles\' situation. Like Achilles, Meleager has withdrawn from battle in anger. Offering gifts, his friends and family beg Meleager to return to the battle, but he refuses them. But when his own household is threatened, finally heeding the pleas of his wife, he returns to the battle, but received no gifts and honors, for doing so. Finally Phoenix urges Achilles not to be like Meleager, but to accept the gifts and honors Agammenon has offered, before it is too late.\n\nBut Achilles, responding to Phoenix, says he has no need of such gifts and has honor enough already. Further he admonishes Phoenix "not to confound my spirit by weeping and sorrowing," on Agamemnon\'s behalf. Nevertheless, Achilles invites Phoenix to stay the night "and at break of day we will take counsel whether to return to our own or to tarry here."\n\nBrief mentions of Phoenix also appear in Books 16, 17, 19, and 23. In Book 16 Phoenix leads a company of Myrmidons into battle. In Book 17, Athena takes Phoenix\'s form, as she urges on Menelaus in the heat of battle. In Book 19, Phoenix is among those comforting Achilles in his tent after the death of Patroclus. In Book 23, Phoenix is an umpire in Patroclus\' funeral games.\n\nEpic Cycle\nBesides the Iliad a few other mentions of Phoenix, from the epic tradition, are found in the Epic Cycle, a collection of epic poems about the Trojan War.\nAccording to scholia to Iliad 19, citing the Epic Cycle, prior to the Trojan War, Phoenix was sent with Odysseus and Nestor to seek out Achilles (who, as it turns out, is hiding on Skyros disguised as a girl) to recruit him for the war. According to the Cypria, (one of the poems in the Epic Cycle) Achilles\' son Neoptolemus, originally named Pyrrhus, was given the name Neoptolemus ("young soldier") by Phoenix, because Achilles was a young man when he went to war. According to Proclus\' summary of the Nostoi, Phoenix, while traveling home from the Trojan War with Neoptolemus, died and was buried by Neoptolemus.\n\nLater sources\nThe late sixth-century early fifth-century BC poet Pindar mentioned Phoenix, saying that he "held a throng of Dolopians, bold in the use of the sling and bringing aid to the missiles of the Danaans, tamers of horses." Phoenix appeared as a character in tragedian Aeschylus\' lost play Myrmidons (c. 490–480), which included an embassy scene, and presumably Phoenix\'s attempt to persuade Achilles to put aside his anger and return to the battlefield.\n\nThe tragedian Sophocles, in his play Philoctetes (409 BC), tells us that after Achilles died at Troy, the Greeks received a prophecy which said that they would never take Troy unless Neoptolemus came to fight for them, so the Greeks sent Phoenix and Odysseus to Scyros to bring Neoptolemus back with them to Troy. A red-figure volute-krater (c. 470 BC), had already depicted Neoptolemus, with Phoenix and Odysseus (all named), saying goodbye to his mother and grandfather Lycomedes on Skyros (Ferrara 44701).\n\nSophocles, and his fellow fifth-century tragedians Euripides, and Ion of Chios, among others, all wrote plays titled Phoenix, now lost, which presumably told the story of Phoenix\'s conflict with his father. Nothing is known about the plays by Sophocles or Ion. However, from an allusion in Aristophanes\' play The Acharnians, Euripides seems to have represented Phoenix as blind. Moreover, evidence indicates that in Euripides\' version of the story, Phoenix is falsely accused of rape by his father\'s concubine, and is blinded by Amyntor in punishment.\n\nThe Cyzicene epigrams, the third book of the Palatine Anthology, refers to the blinding of Phoenix by Amyntor, with Phoenix\'s mother, here named Alcimede, trying to restrain her husband. The poet Lycophron alludes to Phoenix, and his blinding by his father, and the poet Propertius, mentions Chiron restoring Phoenix\'s sight.\n\nLycophron also connects Phoenix with Eion, where he was said to have been buried. Lycophron scholia name Phoenix\'s mother Cleobule, and give the concubine\'s name as either Clytie or Phthia. According to the A scholia to Iliad 9.448, Phoenix\'s mother was named Hippodameia, and the concubine Clytia.\n\nBoth the poet Ovid and the mythographer Hyginus say that Phoenix was one of the heroes to have participated in the hunt for the Calydonian Boar. And Virgil in his Aeneid, has Phoenix and Odysseus, during the sack of Troy, in a temple, in Priam\'s palace, standing guard over Troy\'s treasures.\n\nThe mythographer Apollodorus, probably drawing on Euripides\' Phoenix, says that Phoenix was falsely accused of seducing Amyntor\'s concubine Phthia. Amyntor blinded Phoenix, but Peleus brought Phoenix to the centaur Chiron who restored his sight. Peleus then made Phoenix king of the Dolopians. Apollodorus mentions the embassy of Odysseus, Phoenix, and Ajax, to Achilles. Like Sophocles, Apollodorus says Phoenix and Odysseus were sent to bring Neoptolemus to Troy, and agreeing with Proclus, says that after the war, traveling home with Neoptolemus, Phoenix died and Neoptolemus buried him.\n\nThe Greek comic poet Eubulus wrote a play titled Phoenix, so too did the Latin poet Ennius. The 4th-century AD (?) Greek poet Quintus Smyrnaeus, in his epic poem Posthomerica, has Phoenix welcome Achilles\' son Neoptolemus to Troy, and give a speech telling Neoptolemus about his father. According to the c. 4th-century AD Dictys Cretensis, Achilles, Ajax, and Phoenix were the commanders of the Greek\'s Trojan War fleet.\n\nIconography\n\nPhoenix is depicted in several ancient works of art, from as early as c. 570 BC. He can often be distinguished by his white hair and beard, in contrast to the black of the other figures, as in the red-figure kylix by the Brygos Painter (c. 490 BC), where he is being served wine by Briseis (Louvre G152 shown above).\n\nThe embassy to Achilles, from Book 9 of Homer\'s Iliad, becomes a popular scene on Attic vases of the early fifth century BC, with Phoenix being a prominent figure. A dozen or so Attic vases depict the scene. The earliest of these, c. 490 BC, is a red-figure calyx-krater attributed to the Eucharides Painter (Louvre G163). It depicts, on the left, Phoenix standing behind a seated Odysseus, both facing right, and on the right, Diomedes (rather than the expected Ajax) standing behind a seated Achilles, both facing left, all named by inscription. Though without his usual white hair, Phoenix here is still recognizably older than the other three men. Other vases showing similar embassy scenes include: Antikensammlungen 8770 (shown above), and Louvre G146 (shown right).\n\nPhoenix also appears on several other vases. On a black-figure Tyrrhenian amphora, c. 570 BC, (London 1897.0727.2), Phoenix is shown as part of a scene depicting Polyxena\'s slaughter at the tomb of Achilles. While Neoptolemus cuts Polyxena\'s throat, Phoenix stands on the far right, with his back turned looking away (perhaps disapproving or unable to watch). As noted above, Phoenix appears with Odysseus and Neoptolemos on a red-figure volute-krater (c. 470 BC), in a scene depicting Neoptolemos\' departure from Skyros (Ferrara 44701). Phoenix is probably also depicted on a red-figure kylix, by Euphronios, leading a procession, followed by a woman with hand to head (Thetis?) looking back, Ajax carrying Achilles\' corpse, and a warrior (probably Odysseus) at the rear of the procession (J. Paul Getty Museum 77.AE.20).\n\nPhoenix appears on both sides of an Athenian red-figure stamnos, c. 480 BC, attributed to the Triptolemos Painter (Antikenmuseum BS 477). The B. side is another embassy to Achilles scene. Phoenix, his long white hair tied up in back, stands on the right, behind the seated Achilles. On the A. side, Phoenix on the left, named by inscription, restrains either Ajax or Achilles, while Priam on the right, also depicted with long white hair tied up in the back, restrains Hector. If the warrior being restrained by Phoenix is Ajax, then this would appear to be Ajax\'s dual with Hector from Iliad 7, otherwise this might be Achilles\' dual with Hektor, following the death of Patroclus, although the Iliad does not mention Phoenix\'s involvement in either dual. A related scene occurs on an Athenian red-figure amphora (c. 480 BC) by the Kleophrades Painter (Martin von Wagner Museum L508). On the A. side, Phoenix (named) restrains a warrior (Ajax?), while on the B. side, another old man (Priam?) restrains Hektor (named).\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n Apollodorus, Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.\n Aristophanes, Acharnians, in Acharnians. Knights. Edited and translated by Jeffrey Henderson. Loeb Classical Library No. 178. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1998. Online version at Harvard University Press.\n Boardman, John, Jasper Griffin, Oswyn Murray, The Oxford Illustrated History of Greece and the Hellenistic World, Oxford University Press, 2001. .\n Brill\'s New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World, Volume 11, Phi-Prok, editors: Hubert Cancik, Helmuth Schneider, Brill Publishers, 2007. Online version.\n Collard, Christopher and Martin Cropp (2008b), Euripides Fragments: Oedipus-Chrysippus: Other Fragments, Loeb Classical Library No. 506. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2008. . Online version at Harvard University Press.\n Dictys Cretensis, The Trojan War. The Chronicles of Dictys of Crete and Dares the Phrygian, translated by R. M. Frazer (Jr.). Indiana University Press. 1966. Online version. PDF.\n Gantz, Timothy, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, Two volumes: (Vol. 1), (Vol. 2).\n Goldberg, Sander M., Gesine Manuwald, Fragmentary Republican Latin, Volume II: Ennius, Dramatic Fragments. Minor Works, Edited and translated by Sander M. Goldberg, Gesine Manuwald. Loeb Classical Library No. 537. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2018. Online version at Harvard University Press.\n Grimal, Pierre, The Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Wiley-Blackwell, 1996. .\n Hard, Robin, The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose\'s "Handbook of Greek Mythology", Psychology Press, 2004, . Google Books.\n Homer, The Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.\n Homer, The Odyssey with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, PH.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1919. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.\n Hyginus, Gaius Julius, Fabulae in Apollodorus\' Library and Hyginus\' Fabulae: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology, Translated, with Introductions by R. Scott Smith and Stephen M. Trzaskoma, Hackett Publishing Company, 2007. .\n Kauffmann-Samaras, Aliki, "Phoinix II" in Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC) VIII.1 Artemis Verlag, Zürich and Munich, 1997. . pp. 984–987.\n Kotlinska-Toma, Agnieszka, Hellenistic Tragedy: Texts, Translations and a Critical Survey, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014. .\n Leaf, Walter, The Iliad, Edited, with Apparatus Criticus, Prolegomena, Notes, and Appendices, Vol I, Books I–XII, second edition, London, Macmillan and Co., limited; New York, The Macmillan Company, 1900. Internet Archive.\n Lloyd-Jones, Hugh, Sophocles: Fragments, Edited and translated by Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Loeb Classical Library No. 483. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1996. . Online version at Harvard University Press.\n Lycophron, Alexandra (or Cassandra) in Callimachus and Lycophron with an English translation by A. W. Mair ; Aratus, with an English translation by G. R. Mair, London: W. Heinemann, New York: G. P. Putnam 1921. Internet Archive.\n Matheson, Susan B. (2009), "Old Age in Athenian Vase Painting," in J.H. Oakley and O. Palagia, eds., Athenian Potters and Painters: Papers of the International Conference Held in Athens, March 2007 (Oxford 2009) pp.\xa0191–199.\n Matheson, Susan B. (2014), "The Wretchedness of Old Kings" in Approaching the Ancient Artifact: Representation, Narrative, and Function, Editors: Amalia Avramidou, Denise Demetriou, Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 2014. \n Moore, Mary B., "The Berlin Painter and Troy" in Greek Vases in the J. Paul Getty Museum: Volume 6, J. Paul Getty Museum, 2000. \n Ovid. Heroides. Amores. Translated by Grant Showerman. Revised by G. P. Goold. Loeb Classical Library No. 41. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1977. . Online version at Harvard University Press.\n Ovid, Metamorphoses, Brookes More. Boston. Cornhill Publishing Co. 1922. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.\n The Oxford Classical Dictionary, second edition, Hammond, N.G.L. and Howard Hayes Scullard (editors), Oxford University Press, 1992. .\n Parada, Carlos, Genealogical Guide to Greek Mythology, Jonsered, Paul Åströms Förlag, 1993. .\n Pausanias, Pausanias Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.\n Paton, W. R. (ed.), Greek Anthology, Volume I: Book 1: Christian Epigrams. Book 2: Description of the Statues in the Gymnasium of Zeuxippus. Book 3: Epigrams in the Temple of Apollonis at Cyzicus. Book 4: Prefaces to the Various Anthologies. Book 5: Erotic Epigrams. Translated by W. R. Paton. Revised by Michael A. Tueller. Loeb Classical Library No. 67. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2014. Online version at Harvard University Press.\n Philostratus the Younger, Imagines, in Philostratus the Elder, Imagines. Philostratus the Younger, Imagines. Callistratus, Descriptions. Translated by Arthur Fairbanks. Loeb Classical Library No. 256. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1931. . Online version at Harvard University Press. Internet Archive 1926 edition.\n Pindar, Nemean Odes. Isthmian Odes. Fragments, Edited and translated by William H. Race. Loeb Classical Library No. 485. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1997. . Online version at Harvard University Press.\n Powell, Barry, B., Homer, The Iliad, Translated by Barry B. Powell, Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York, 2014. .\n Proclus, The Epic Cycle, translated by Gregory Nagy, revised by Eugenia Lao, Harvard University\'s Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington DC, November 2, 2020. Online at The Center for Hellenic Studies.\n Propertius, Elegies Edited and translated by G. P. Goold. Loeb Classical Library 18. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1990. Online version at Harvard University Press.\n Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica, edited and translated by Neil Hopkinson, Loeb Classical Library No. 19, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2018. . Online version at Harvard University Press.\n Robertson, Martin, The Art of Vase-Painting in Classical Athens, Cambridge University Press, 1996. \n Rosner, Judith A., "The Speech of Phoenix: Iliad 9.434–605", Phoenix, Vol. 30, No. 4 (Winter, 1976), pp.\xa0314–327. \n Scodel, Ruth, "The Autobiography of Phoenix: Iliad 9.444–95", The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 193, No. 2 (Summer, 1982), pp.\xa0128–136. \n Shapiro, H. A. (1994), Myth Into Art: Poet and Painter in Classical Greece, Routledge, 1994. \n Shapiro, H. A. (2009), "Homer in the City of Erasmus" in American Journal of Archaeology Online Museum Review, Issue 113.1 (January 2009). PDF\n Sophocles, The Philoctetes of Sophocles. Edited with introduction and notes by Sir Richard Jebb, Sir Richard Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1898 Online version at the Perseus Digital Library\n Smith, William; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873). Online version at the Perseus Digital Library\n Sommerstein, Alan H., Aeschylus: Fragments. Edited and translated by Alan H. Sommerstein. Loeb Classical Library No. 505. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2009. . Online version at Harvard University Press.\n Strabo, Geography, translated by Horace Leonard Jones; Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. (1924). Online version at the Perseus Digital Library, Books 6–14\n Swain, S. C. R., "A Note on Iliad 9.524–99: The Story of Meleager", The Classical Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 2 (1988), pp.\xa0271–276. \n Tripp, Edward, Crowell\'s Handbook of Classical Mythology, Thomas Y. Crowell Co; First edition (June 1970). .\n Tzetzes, Scolia eis Lycophroon, edited by Christian Gottfried Müller, Sumtibus F.C.G. Vogelii, 1811. Internet Archive\n Tzetzes, John, Allegories of the Iliad, translated by Adam J. Goldwyn and Dimitra Kokkini, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, Harvard University Press, 2015. .\nVirgil, Aeneid, Theodore C. Williams. trans. Boston. Houghton Mifflin Co. 1910. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library\n West, M. L. (2003), Greek Epic Fragments: From the Seventh to the Fifth Centuries BC. Edited and translated by Martin L. West. Loeb Classical Library No. 497. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2003. . Online version at Harvard University Press.\n\nExternal links\n\nAchaean Leaders',
]
embeddings = model.encode(sentences)
print(embeddings.shape)
# [3, 768]
# Get the similarity scores for the embeddings
similarities = model.similarity(embeddings, embeddings)
print(similarities.shape)
# [3, 3]
dev_evaluatorTripletEvaluator| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| cosine_accuracy | 0.5408 |
| dot_accuracy | 0.4898 |
| manhattan_accuracy | 0.6429 |
| euclidean_accuracy | 0.5204 |
| max_accuracy | 0.6429 |
eval_strategy: epochper_device_train_batch_size: 4per_device_eval_batch_size: 4gradient_accumulation_steps: 4weight_decay: 0.005num_train_epochs: 5warmup_ratio: 0.1fp16: Trueload_best_model_at_end: Truehub_model_id: DIS-Project/trained_on_all_data_trainer_push_00hub_private_repo: Truebatch_sampler: no_duplicatesoverwrite_output_dir: Falsedo_predict: Falseeval_strategy: epochprediction_loss_only: Trueper_device_train_batch_size: 4per_device_eval_batch_size: 4per_gpu_train_batch_size: Noneper_gpu_eval_batch_size: Nonegradient_accumulation_steps: 4eval_accumulation_steps: Nonelearning_rate: 5e-05weight_decay: 0.005adam_beta1: 0.9adam_beta2: 0.999adam_epsilon: 1e-08max_grad_norm: 1.0num_train_epochs: 5max_steps: -1lr_scheduler_type: linearlr_scheduler_kwargs: {}warmup_ratio: 0.1warmup_steps: 0log_level: passivelog_level_replica: warninglog_on_each_node: Truelogging_nan_inf_filter: Truesave_safetensors: Truesave_on_each_node: Falsesave_only_model: Falserestore_callback_states_from_checkpoint: Falseno_cuda: Falseuse_cpu: Falseuse_mps_device: Falseseed: 42data_seed: Nonejit_mode_eval: Falseuse_ipex: Falsebf16: Falsefp16: Truefp16_opt_level: O1half_precision_backend: autobf16_full_eval: Falsefp16_full_eval: Falsetf32: Nonelocal_rank: 0ddp_backend: Nonetpu_num_cores: Nonetpu_metrics_debug: Falsedebug: []dataloader_drop_last: Falsedataloader_num_workers: 0dataloader_prefetch_factor: Nonepast_index: -1disable_tqdm: Falseremove_unused_columns: Truelabel_names: Noneload_best_model_at_end: Trueignore_data_skip: Falsefsdp: []fsdp_min_num_params: 0fsdp_config: {'min_num_params': 0, 'xla': False, 'xla_fsdp_v2': False, 'xla_fsdp_grad_ckpt': False}fsdp_transformer_layer_cls_to_wrap: Noneaccelerator_config: {'split_batches': False, 'dispatch_batches': None, 'even_batches': True, 'use_seedable_sampler': True, 'non_blocking': False, 'gradient_accumulation_kwargs': None}deepspeed: Nonelabel_smoothing_factor: 0.0optim: adamw_torchoptim_args: Noneadafactor: Falsegroup_by_length: Falselength_column_name: lengthddp_find_unused_parameters: Noneddp_bucket_cap_mb: Noneddp_broadcast_buffers: Falsedataloader_pin_memory: Truedataloader_persistent_workers: Falseskip_memory_metrics: Trueuse_legacy_prediction_loop: Falsepush_to_hub: Falseresume_from_checkpoint: Nonehub_model_id: DIS-Project/trained_on_all_data_trainer_push_00hub_strategy: every_savehub_private_repo: Truehub_always_push: Falsegradient_checkpointing: Falsegradient_checkpointing_kwargs: Noneinclude_inputs_for_metrics: Falseeval_do_concat_batches: Truefp16_backend: autopush_to_hub_model_id: Nonepush_to_hub_organization: Nonemp_parameters: auto_find_batch_size: Falsefull_determinism: Falsetorchdynamo: Noneray_scope: lastddp_timeout: 1800torch_compile: Falsetorch_compile_backend: Nonetorch_compile_mode: Nonedispatch_batches: Nonesplit_batches: Noneinclude_tokens_per_second: Falseinclude_num_input_tokens_seen: Falseneftune_noise_alpha: Noneoptim_target_modules: Nonebatch_eval_metrics: Falsebatch_sampler: no_duplicatesmulti_dataset_batch_sampler: proportional| Epoch | Step | Training Loss | loss | dev_evaluator_max_accuracy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.3656 | 100 | 4.8658 | - | - |
| 0.7313 | 200 | 4.3892 | - | - |
| 0.9982 | 273 | - | 4.2133 | 0.6837 |
| 1.0969 | 300 | 4.3572 | - | - |
| 1.4625 | 400 | 4.2538 | - | - |
| 1.8282 | 500 | 3.7372 | - | - |
| 2.0 | 547 | - | 4.3974 | 0.6122 |
| 2.1938 | 600 | 3.7935 | - | - |
| 2.5594 | 700 | 3.156 | - | - |
| 2.9250 | 800 | 3.0318 | - | - |
| 2.9982 | 820 | - | 4.7131 | 0.6122 |
| 3.2907 | 900 | 2.9946 | - | - |
| 3.6563 | 1000 | 2.462 | - | - |
| 4.0 | 1094 | - | 4.9397 | 0.6939 |
| 4.0219 | 1100 | 2.4782 | - | - |
| 4.3876 | 1200 | 2.2449 | - | - |
| 4.7532 | 1300 | 1.9286 | - | - |
| 4.9909 | 1365 | - | 5.3030 | 0.6429 |
@inproceedings{reimers-2019-sentence-bert,
title = "Sentence-BERT: Sentence Embeddings using Siamese BERT-Networks",
author = "Reimers, Nils and Gurevych, Iryna",
booktitle = "Proceedings of the 2019 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing",
month = "11",
year = "2019",
publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
url = "https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.10084",
}
@misc{hermans2017defense,
title={In Defense of the Triplet Loss for Person Re-Identification},
author={Alexander Hermans and Lucas Beyer and Bastian Leibe},
year={2017},
eprint={1703.07737},
archivePrefix={arXiv},
primaryClass={cs.CV}
}
Base model
microsoft/mpnet-base
from sentence_transformers import SentenceTransformer model = SentenceTransformer("DIS-Project/trained_on_all_data_model_push_00") sentences = [ "Quali modifiche furono apportate da Cosimo I de' Medici all'Ordine di Parte Guelfa e quali furono le sue conseguenze?", "The kidnapping of Alan Johnston, a British journalist for the BBC, by the Palestinian Army of Islam in Gaza City took place on 12 March 2007, following which Johnston was held in captivity for 114 days.\n\nHis captivity led to many protests in the Palestinian territories, as well as the British government meeting a Hamas member for the first time. On 15 April unconfirmed reports claiming that he had been murdered surfaced, later declared by Palestinian intelligence sources to be false. A tape claiming to be from Johnston's kidnappers surfaced on 8 May, leading to renewed hope that he would soon be released, and three weeks later a Hamas spokesperson spoke of his hope that Johnston would be freed quickly. Johnston then appeared in a video released online by his alleged kidnappers on 1 June.\n\nHopes were raised for his release in mid-June after Hamas took full control of Gaza and set a deadline for his release, but on 24 June a video of him wearing what he said was an explosive belt was released along with a warning that if attempts were made to rescue him by force it would be detonated. However, on 4 July, Johnston was freed, and left Gaza for Jerusalem.\n\nKidnapping and captivity\nOn 12 March 2007, Johnston's car was found abandoned on a street, shortly after he left his office to drive home. He had entered Gaza from Israel earlier in the day, where he had been for a dental appointment. A business card belonging to Johnston was found at the scene, identifying him as having been in the car, at the time of his kidnapping. The BBC was alerted to his disappearance when he did not make an arranged telephone call.\n\nAccording to Palestinian police, four armed men were spotted near Johnston's car, and Johnston is believed to have been abducted at gunpoint. A state of emergency was declared with checkpoints set up to find Johnston, who was in the final weeks of his posting to Gaza, where he had been stationed for three years.\n\nThere were some reports that negotiations had begun to try to secure Johnston's release, although the BBC strenuously emphasised that it could not independently verify reports that Johnston had been kidnapped. A week after his disappearance, the BBC admitted that it seemed certain now that he had been kidnapped.\n\nOn 21 March, Israeli sources reported that Johnston may have been taken by the same groups that captured Gilad Shalit in June 2006. However, this was strongly denied by both the Popular Resistance Committees.\n\n26 March marked the fact that his kidnapping was now the longest-ever of a foreigner in Gaza since abductions began happening in the Gaza Strip, which led to renewed calls for his release.\n\nIn the midst of his third week in captivity, news agencies began reporting on speculation that Johnston had been kidnapped by a powerful Gaza family with criminal connections, and which was willing to switch support to the other faction in the Palestinian Territories should one displease them. It then emerged that the family might be holding Johnston as a bargaining chip who would be released in return for ten Hamas gunmen who killed members of the family.\n\nOn the day marking the fourth week of his disappearance, a London-based Arab newspaper, Al-Hayat, reported that Gaza authorities were looking into the possibility that Johnston might have staged his own disappearance after hearing that he was soon to be fired. At first, the BBC refused to comment on the report, before issuing a statement, calling on press not to run the article in question \"given that there is absolutely no truth to it\", adding that \"there is no truth in any suggestion that Alan Johnston may have staged his own kidnap, nor that the BBC was about to dismiss him.\"\n\nEarly on 9 May local time, the BBC reported that al-Jazeera in Gaza had received a tape which was purported to be from Johnston's kidnappers. It was sent to the station by a group calling itself the Army of Islam, despite earlier claims by the group that it had not committed the kidnapping. The tape contained still photos, including one of Johnston's BBC card, and demanded \"that Britain free our prisoners, particularly Sheikh Abu Qatada, the Palestinian.\" The BBC said it was investigating the tape and \"welcome any sign that Alan may be alive\", adding its hope that the tape release meant that Johnston would soon be released.\n\nFirst month\nThe Palestinian National Authority condemned the kidnapping, and vowed to \"bring the criminals to justice\", calling the abduction \"despicable\". The Foreign Press Association issued an appeal for Johnston's release, while both Hamas and Fatah also called for Johnston to be freed. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) also voiced their concern at the apparent abduction, blaming it on the \"impunity\" that no-one involved with prior kidnappings had been convicted that \"[encouraged]\" his kidnappers to act.\n\nOn 15 March, the BBC's Middle East bureau chief Simon Wilson issued a statement in Gaza thanking Ismail Haniya, Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian government for trying to help resolve the situation. He also issued a new plea for information on Johnston's whereabouts. In London, the Muslim Council of Britain also put forward an appeal for the release of Johnston, calling on Abbas and Haniya to do their utmost to secure Johnston's freedom, while over 20 Palestinian journalists held a rally on 17 March outside parliament in Gaza in support of Johnston. The rally was also attended by Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti and Wilson. Barghouti said: \"We are opposed to the kidnapping of foreign journalists who serve the Palestinian cause.\"\n\nA week after Johnston went missing, his father made a televised appeal for his release. Speaking from Argyll, Graham Johnston called on his son's abductors to \"let my son go, now, today\". Wilson said that the fact that there had been no information on Johnston for over a week had been \"disappointing\", adding that efforts made to find Johnston would have to be redoubled. He also noted that the BBC's only request was to have \"some firm information\" on Johnston. Deputy Director General of the BBC Mark Byford also called for people with influence to secure Johnston's release, while BBC staff in London held a rally in support of Johnston.\n\nRSF invited Arabic-language news media and bloggers to post banners on their websites that called for Johnston to be freed. RSF also noted that the \"silence\" surrounding Johnston's abduction was \"particularly worrying\".\n\nThe Palestinian Journalists Union in Gaza observed a 24-hour strike on 20 March to protest against Johnston's abduction, and threatened to \"escalate\" its protests until Johnston was released. Foreign and local journalists in Ramallah, West Bank, had held a sit-in a day earlier, at which Barghouti again condemned the kidnapping.\n\nThe BBC said it had received \"assurances\" about the well-being of Johnston, but repeated that it had \"no firm knowledge\" of his condition. It also thanked journalists who demonstrated in a show of support both in the Middle East and back in the UK. European Union foreign policy representative Javier Solana told the BBC on 20 March that the EU was doing all it could to try to establish Johnston's whereabouts. Solana added that the EU had been involved since the day of the kidnapping. British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett told Parliament that London was also doing everything it could, and had brought the issue up with Mahmoud Abbas, saying that Abbas had given her assurances that finding Johnston was \"very much\" a goal of the Palestinian authorities. Journalists also protested in front of Abbas's office to demand that more be done to deal with the situation.\n\nProtests continued on 22 March, demanding more protection of journalists and more be done to prevent violation of press freedoms. Ahmed Abdel Rahman, advisor to Abbas for the PLO, told protesting journalists in Ramallah that there were \"indications of an imminent release\". Twelve days into Johnston's abduction, the Bishop of Lichfield Jonathan Gledhill asked churchgoers to pray for Johnston's release, saying that people were grateful for \"brave journalists\" like Johnston.\n\nMore than 100 people held a rally for Johnston's release thirteen days into his captivity. Simon Wilson again urged those with influence to \"work tirelessly\" to obtain Johnston's freedom. On the day marking the second week since Johnston went missing, Gaza reporters held another strike in solidarity with Johnston. The beginning of Johnston's third week in captivity also led RSF to press the Arab League to issue a new appeal for Johnston's release at an upcoming summit.\n\nIn response to the RSF appeal, at the end of the two-day summit Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal condemned the kidnapping, adding that he hoped the kidnappers would soon release Johnston, saying that this was \"certainly ... not something that anybody, anybody would approve of\" and that Johnston was just \"doing his job\".\n\nAmnesty International and Cardiff University (which Johnston attended) also both issued calls for Johnston's release. The deputy director of the university's journalism centre noted that the kidnapping \"deprived Palestine of an objective reporter relaying its news to the West.\"\n\nA new three-day strike was planned by journalists in the lead-up to the fourth week of Johnston's kidnapping. The strike included a ban on covering all government activities and the Palestinian Authority in general. Simultaneous demonstrations and protests were also planned for 2 April in both Gaza and Ramallah. On the day itself, over three hundred journalists held a demonstration in Gaza with their mouths tied and gagged. They then marched to the city's government area. Another such protest was held in Ramallah in front of Abbas' office.\n\nThe three-day strike meant that a meeting between United States Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Abbas was boycotted by the local media. That same day, UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura added his voice to those calling for Johnston's release. He noted that the situation was \"increasingly disturbing\", and asked authorities to \"do their utmost to obtain his release as quickly as possible\".\n\nOn 4 April, the protesting journalists forced the cancellation of a rare meeting of Parliament in Gaza after the entrance to the Parliament building was blocked by the protesters. Some of the lawmakers then stood and listened to the protest. The next day, Britain's Consul-General in Jerusalem Richard Makepeace met with Prime Minister Haniya, breaking a ban by the European Union on contacts with Hamas. British diplomats stressed that the meeting was only to discuss Johnston's kidnapping and did not \"represent a change of policy\". Makepeace's office emphasised that the meeting was \"strictly for humanitarian reasons\", while Reuters quoted some diplomats as saying that it was generally agreed that the boycott of Hamas could be relaxed in emergencies like kidnappings.\n\nPalestinian children took part in a demonstration on 6 April to call for Johnston's release. The children held banners and carried his picture when demonstrating in the streets. Johnston was also spoken of at Friday prayers. Fresh protests were held in Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin and Gaza City the next day by Palestinian journalists, who held banners condemning Johnston's abduction. The Palestinian Cabinet held a special meeting the next day to discuss Johnston's case, and directed that \"all necessary measures\" should be taken to secure Johnston's freedom.\n\nOn Easter Sunday, 8 April 2007, Archbishop of York John Sentamu included Johnston in his Easter prayers, calling him a \"symbol of ensuring the freedom of the press is not violated\". It was reported the same day that about one thousand British journalists would send protest emails to Abbas over the continued abduction of Johnston.\n\nFour weeks after Johnston's disappearance, his BBC colleagues once again got together in London to show support for the missing reporter. The BBC's head of news-gathering, Fran Unsworth, commented that Johnston was \"incarcerated\", and voiced concerns about Johnston's mental state and general health, adding that \"the longer it goes on the more concerned that we become\".\n\nThe Palestinian government apologised again on 10 April that Johnston was still missing. Mustafa Barghouti repeated that the government was making every effort to find Johnston, and said that the government was \"deeply sorry\", adding that the kidnapping was \"detrimental to our national cause.\"\n\nAlan Johnston Day of Action\nOn 12 April, a full month after Johnston was last seen, the BBC held an \"Alan Johnston Day of Action\" with events in London, Scotland and the Palestinian Territories to mark the day. Director-General of the BBC Mark Thompson gave a news conference in Ramallah, and made another appeal for Johnston's release. He said that Johnston \"had formed many strong friendships\", and was \"held in great affection and regard by those who know him.\" He repeated Fran Unsworth's comments made days earlier, saying that the BBC was \"increasingly concerned about the physical and mental toll\" of Johnston's \"incarceration\". Thompson also said that \"Alan had been looking forward to returning to his staff post in London in the BBC World Service newsroom\" because \"Gaza [had] become an increasingly difficult and chaotic place for journalists to operate in safely\", seemingly dispelling rumours that he had staged his own kidnapping because he did not want to be transferred. He also thanked the Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate for \"highlighting Alan's suffering\", and the people of Gaza.\n\nJohnston's father Graham once again issued a new plea to the kidnappers to free his son. In an open letter, the senior Johnston addressed his son's kidnappers, telling them to \"please think about what this is doing to my family.\" Again, he asked the kidnappers to \"please let my son go now, today.\" Addressing his son, he said that the family \"wanted you to know how distressed and sorry we all are that you were taken,\" adding that despite warnings from his son that being kidnapped was a possibility, \"when it came, it was still a considerable shock.\" He ended the open letter by saying that \"all our heartfelt warmest fondest love is sent to you from all your family and in the fervent hope that you will be released unharmed.\"\n\nBBC World, BBC News 24, Al Jazeera English and Sky News agreed to simulcast a special programme dedicated to bringing the plight of Johnston to people. The thirty-minute broadcast, fronted by Jeremy Bowen, contained reports from Al Jazeera, Sky and CNN International. Bowen began by noting that \"about the only good thing to come out of the last month is the way Alan's colleagues, especially here in the occupied Palestinian territories, have rallied around him.\" It was the first such effort made jointly by global news networks.\n\nReporters Without Borders also organised a rally at Trafalgar Square in central London in support of the missing journalist. The rally was attended by Johnston's parents. A rally was also held in Gaza, calling on the Palestinian government to do more. In a statement, RSF stated that it was \"unacceptable that a journalist should be used as a bargaining chip in an abduction\", and asked \"What are the authorities waiting for to obtain his release?\"\n\nSecond month\nOn 12 April, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon issued a call for Johnston's release, stating that his kidnappers \"should release him unconditionally and immediately.\" The Secretary-General extended his sympathies to Johnston's family and promised to do all in his power to secure Johnston's release.\n\n16 April marked the fifth week since Johnston's disappearance. Despite unconfirmed claims of his execution, new vigils and protests were held for Johnston. BBC staff held its weekly vigils for Johnston, led by Mark Thompson, who confirmed that the BBC was still looking for clarification about Johnston's well-being. Thompson also praised the reporter's family. Journalists also held protests in Beirut, Lebanon, and in Brussels, Belgium outside the European Commission building.\n\nA new protest was held by Palestinian journalists outside the Gaza Parliament on 17 April. However, armed guards outside the building turned violent against the protesters, hitting them with their rifles, leading one journalist to comment that \"we came peacefully, but we are being assaulted now.\" Three journalists were injured. RSF condemned the violence, saying that it was \"outraged by this violence against journalists who had gone to express their fears and emotion about Johnston's fate.\"\n\nOn 18 April, Marwan Barghouti, a Fatah leader in prison in Israel called on Johnston's kidnappers to free the journalist \"from my cell, and in the name of 10,000 prisoners in the occupation jails\". Aidan White, general secretary of the International Federation of Journalists, announced that he would visit Gaza to deliver a letter to the Palestinian Authority, signed by 200 European MPs, which asked the PA to \"make every effort\" to ensure Johnston was freed. The 200 MEPs also called on the European Union to take stronger action. The European Parliament would later unanimously support a resolution on 25 April urging the immediate release of Johnston, with the resolution's proposer saying it sent \"a strong political signal\" for his release.\n\nOn 23 April, various prayer meetings and vigils were held for the missing reporter, exactly six weeks after he went missing. A vigil was held in Islamabad, Pakistan, and an inter-religious service was held at a church in London. The London vigil was attended by a senior rabbi at the west London synagogue, the vicar at the church, Reverend Nicholas Holtam, as well as the chairman of the United Kingdom Muslim Council for Religious and Racial Harmony. The missing journalist's sister also attended the weekly vigil with BBC Scotland staff in Glasgow.\n\nThe next day, Palestinian deputy prime minister Azzam al-Ahmad told Richard Makepeace that Johnston was \"in good health\" and emphasised that the \"government is fully co-ordinating with the presidency and all security services to pursue the extensive efforts to release Johnston\". New protests were held by the National Union of Journalists in London, and by foreign journalists on both ends of the Erez Crossing in Gaza and Israel. In Asia, a protest was held in Bangkok, Thailand on the 49th day since Johnston's disappearance. Azzam al-Ahmad repeated Palestinian claims that Johnston was \"alive\" when meeting with visiting MEPs the same day. However, at this point there had still not been any direct confirmation of Johnston's condition. Later that day, al-Ahmad told a press conference that Johnston's kidnappers had made new demands, all of which had been rejected, and added that the negotiations were at a \"sensitive stage\".\n\nAddressing the United Nations General Assembly, Secretary-General Ban again said that he wanted to \"plead for the immediate release of the BBC journalist Alan Johnston, abducted in Gaza.\" In London, a moment of silence was observed at the Sony Radio Academy Awards ceremony, and John Humphrys, who won the award for news journalist of the year, said that Johnston and other BBC correspondents in danger zones deserved the award more than he did.\n\nOn 2 May, it was revealed that the British Government rejected a proposal by the Palestinian Authority to use force in a possible rescue attempt to free Johnston, due to worries about his safety in such a situation. Ismail Haniyeh also said that progress had been made in negotiations with Johnston's kidnappers, and the kidnappers had lowered their demands for his release. The same day, British Prime Minister Tony Blair was questioned in Parliament about British efforts to free the journalist. Lee Scott, a British MP, had called on Prime Minister Blair to use the time before he stepped down from office to try to free Johnston as well as Gilad Shalit. Blair told the House of Commons that there was \"no conceivable reason for him (Johnston) to be kept\", and that the Government would \"continue to do everything we can to facilitate\" Johnston's release. In Ireland, top Catholic and Muslim leaders also called for his immediate release.\n\nWorld Press Freedom Day, 3 May, was Johnston's 52nd day in captivity. Gatherings were held worldwide for the missing journalist, with vigils in London, Beijing and Jakarta, Indonesia, and a rally outside United Nations headquarters in New York City. Asha-Rose Migiro, the United Nations Deputy Secretary-General, said that there was \"no cause... served\" by the continued detention of Johnston, and a minute's silence was held. The rally at the UN was also attended by UN officials and journalists. At the candlelight vigil in Jakarta, a message from Johnston's father was read out by a British embassy staff member, and it said in part that the family was \"overwhelmed\" with the support it had received. A minute's silence was also observed at a candlelight vigil in Beijing. The same day, at the Natali Prize awards ceremony for news articles on human rights and democracy, European Commissioner for Development & Humanitarian Aid Louis Michel joined calls for Johnston's release.\n\nA news conference was held by Reporters Without Borders on the same day, which brought together former hostages in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza. Steve Centanni, who was held hostage for two weeks in Gaza in 2006, said that his thoughts were with Johnston, and ten top representatives of Europe's Muslims condemned the kidnapping and called for his release.\n\nThe start of Johnston's ninth week in captivity came with reports in a Palestinian newspaper that Johnston's kidnappers had set three requirements for his release. They demanded a plot of land, a $5 million ransom, and the release of Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, imprisoned in Jordan for attempting to carry out a suicide bombing in the 2005 Amman bombings. However, the reports also noted that negotiations for his release remained difficult and that he would not likely be released soon.\n\nRichard Makepeace met a second time with Palestinian Prime Minister Haniya over Johnston's continued incommunicado situation on 8 May. He described the meeting as part of \"continuous contacts over this humanitarian case\", adding that the \"unfortunate incident is of great concern to the British government.\"\n\nCanadian journalists held a protest outside CBC headquarters in Toronto on 10 May to mark Johnston's 60th day in captivity. Many seasoned Canadian journalists spoke of the need to free Johnston, and commented on Johnston's journalism and the deteriorating situation in Gaza, with Brian Stewart commenting that \"we have finally reached the end of the line ... enough is enough.\"\n\nA rally was held outside the equivalent of a Palestinian embassy in Paris on 11 May, attended by RSF activists, BBC staff and the Palestinian representative to France. The representative, Hind Khoury, called the kidnapping a \"cowardly act\" and re-emphasised that the authorities in the Palestinian Authority were doing their best every day to get Johnston freed unharmed.\n\nClaim of execution\nOn 15 April, one day before the fifth week since his disappearance, a previously unknown militant Palestinian group claiming to be linked to al-Qaeda claimed that it had executed him. The group vowed to release a video of the execution, further claiming in a statement that they \"were surprised by the position of the Palestinian Authority, which attempted to hide the case as much as it could and to present the case in an untruthful manner, leading us unfortunately to kill the journalist\".\n\nThe BBC and the Foreign Office immediately confirmed to Agence France-Presse that they were both \"urgently\" investigating the reports, and the BBC added that it was \"deeply concerned about what it is hearing\", highlighting the growing concern for the safety of Alan Johnston. However, the BBC also emphasised that the claims were \"rumour with no independent verification\". A spokesman for 10 Downing Street said that the British government was \"working closely with the Palestinian Authority\" and \"urgently seeking information from them\".\n\nThe Palestinian Interior Ministry raised doubts about the claims, and said that they believed that Johnston was still being held by someone else, and this declaration was an attempt to pressure the Palestinian government. The claims also led to concern among Palestinian journalists that Johnston may have been injured in the kidnapping, and the kidnappers were now looking for reasons to kill the reporter.\n\nJohnston's parents urged the kidnappers to \"end [their] ordeal\", describing the incident as a \"desperately worrying time\". Speculation then emerged that Johnston's kidnappers may have sold the captive on to a third party. Reporters Without Borders also expressed \"deep concern\" about Johnston's fate, saying that the reports of his death \"deeply [disturbing]\" but also advised caution \"as long as there is no evidence confirming that Johnston has been murdered.\"\n\nHowever, a ransom demand was issued on 17 April, which seemingly conflicted with the claims that Johnston had been killed. Asharq Alawsat reported that Johnston's kidnappers wanted US$5 million for his release. On 19 April, President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas told reporters his intelligence services had confirmed that the journalist was still alive, which both the reporter's family and the BBC described as \"good news\".\n\nThird month\n\nOn 12 May, the second month to the day of the kidnap, Archbishop of York John Sentamu appealed to Johnston's captors to set him free in an appeal broadcast on al-Jazeera. The International Press Institute also repeated its call at its annual global meeting in Istanbul for Johnston's release.\n\nThe next day, Iran joined international condemnations of the kidnap, with a foreign ministry spokesman, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, saying that kidnapping was not acceptable to Iran, and that Iran rejected kidnapping as a \"matter of principle.\"\n\nJohnston's 45th birthday, on 17 May, saw gatherings of journalists and politicians at rallies worldwide, in Hong Kong, Tehran, Ramallah and Moscow. The British Government also confirmed that it was holding discussions with an arrested Islamic cleric, Abu Qatada, whom Johnston's alleged kidnappers demanded be freed, after Qatada offered to travel to Gaza to help free Johnston. The BBC had earlier reacted to Qatada's offer by saying that they \"[welcomed] any assistance from any individual who might be in a position to influence the release of Alan Johnston\".\n\nThe BBC also broadcast special reports, interviews and birthday greetings to the missing journalist on BBC radio and television in the possibility that Johnston had access to either.\n\nA Palestinian government spokesman of Hamas said on 27 May that he had hope for Johnston to soon be released. Ghazi Hamad said that he \"[knew]\" Johnston to be \"well and healthy\", adding that no-one \"has tried to harm or hurt him\". Hamad also said that he hoped \"to make [Johnston's release] very, very fast.\"\n\nOn 29 May, a Sudanese al-Jazeera cameraman who had been held without charge at Guantanamo Bay since 2001 issued a statement through his lawyer asking for Johnston's release. Sami Mohy El Din Muhammed Al Hajj's letter compared his extrajudicial detention by the US to Johnston's captivity. \"What the Americans are doing to me is very, very wrong ... this is not a lesson that Muslims should copy.\"\n\nOn 1 June, a video was released by the Palestinian Army of Islam saying that it was holding Johnston. Johnston appeared in the video and said that he had been treated well and was in good health, but it is unclear when the video was taken, and whether he said what he did under duress.\n\nFourth month\nOn 16 June, after Hamas had taken full control of Gaza following attacks on Fatah positions, a Hamas spokesman told a news conference that it had told the Army of Islam to free Johnston \"immediately\" and had \"warned against not setting him free\", describing Johnston as the Palestinians' guest.\n\nA spokesman claiming to speak for the Army of Islam said that while there had been \"developments\" in discussions, \"if things get worse we will get closer to God by killing this journalist.\"\n\nReporters Without Borders immediately expressed its concern at the threat to kill Johnston, saying in a press release that they were \"very worried\" about \"the irrational demands being made by Johnston's abductors, the radicalisation of their position and their threat to kill him\". Hamas reacted to the claim by issuing an ultimatum against the kidnappers, warning that it would use military force to free Johnston if he was not freed by the end of Monday, 18 June, to which the Foreign Office expressed deep concern. Kim Howells of the Foreign Office noted that the situation had to be \"handled with great delicacy\", and that \"we hope that they are not using this as some sort of publicity stunt to win favour with some elements in the West.\" Johnston himself, however, said he felt they had been \"...the key factor in creating the conditions in which I could be freed.\"\n\nHamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar announced on 19 June, Johnston's 99th day in captivity, that he had secured a promise from the Army of Islam to release Johnston by 25 June, after Hamas extended its ultimatum for his release. This news came ahead of planned global events by the BBC and RSF to mark Johnston's 100th day in captivity.\n\nThe Jerusalem Post reported on 22 June that Johnston had not yet been freed because the leader of the group claiming to hold Johnston wanted assurances that he and his clan members would not be killed. Mumtaz Dagmoush and a brother of his were wanted by Hamas on charges of being involved with the murder of Hamas members. However, a Hamas source told the Jerusalem Post that \"we will negotiate with them about their safety only after they release the journalist\".\n\nOn 24 June, Ismail Haniyeh, a senior political leader of Hamas, said that Johnston had been seen on video with explosives strapped around his waist. The BBC confirmed that it was \"aware\" of the video, and appealed again for his release, saying that it was \"very distressing for Alan's family and colleagues to see him being threatened in this way\".\n\nOn the day 16 weeks into Johnston's captivity, Hamas announced that it had arrested members of the Army of Islam, saying that the arrests took place since \"peaceful means failed to free\" Johnston. It also announced that an Army of Islam spokesman was among those detained after he allegedly shot at Hamas militants. Two days later Hamas forces began surrounding the area the Dugmush clan was known to control in Gaza. Whilst members of Hamas' Executive Forces claimed that the operation was the start of an attempt to free Johnston by force, the BBC reiterated its request that the journalist not be freed by military action.\n\nPrint and online petitions\nTo mark the twenty-first day of Johnston's kidnapping, three hundred British media personalities signed an advertisement, organised by the BBC, that was published in The Guardian. The advertisement states that the signatories \"demand the immediate release of BBC \nGaza correspondent, Alan Johnston\". The advertisement \"[asks] again that everyone with influence on this situation increase their efforts, to ensure that Alan is freed quickly and unharmed.\"\n\nIt was signed by most editors of British national newspapers, including Alan Rusbridger, Robert Thomson, John Witherow, Patience Wheatcroft, Will Lewis, Paul Dacre and Richard Wallace. Other signatories included David Dimbleby, Sir David Frost, Jon Snow, Christiane Amanpour and Al Jazeera's Wadah Khanfar.\n\nThat same day, the BBC news website created an online version of the petition to allow people from across the world to sign it. The petition closed a few days later on 5 April. The petition was later re-opened on 12 April, a full month after Johnston's kidnapping.\n\nOn 3 July, the online petition registered its 200,000th signatory calling for Johnston's release.\n\nRelease \nOn 4 July, Johnston was freed by his captors and handed over to Hamas officials. Johnston said he was \"tired\", but \"in good health\", and thanked those who pushed for his release. He also confirmed that he had access to the BBC World Service for much of his captivity and had heard the worldwide calls for his release on shows like World Have Your Say and Newshour. He described his captivity as an \"appalling experience\".\n\nJohnston met with Haniya immediately after being freed before leaving for Jerusalem. He later also met Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad in Ramallah before returning home, arriving in London on 7 July from Tel Aviv.\n\nReactions\nReaction to the news from around the world that Johnston had been freed was positive:\nJohnston's father Graham described the family as being \"absolutely overjoyed\" after receiving the phone call from the BBC that Johnston had been freed.\nThe BBC said in a statement that they were \"delighted and extremely relieved\" that Johnston had been freed safely, and thanked \"all of those who worked tirelessly – here and in the wider Middle East – to secure his freedom.\" Sir Michael Lyons, chairman of the BBC, praised Johnston's \"remarkable courage\".\n Gordon Brown, British Prime Minister, said that he and the whole country would \"welcome the news\" that Johnston had been freed, while British Foreign Secretary David Miliband described abductions as \"an abhorrent crime\" and recognised the role of Mahmoud Abbas, Ismail Haniyeh and Hamas in achieving Johnston's freedom.\n\nA senior aide to Abbas, Yasser Abd Rabbo, described the release as having been staged by Hamas and the Army of Islam as a public relations exercise. Abbas himself said that he was \"very happy for the release of our friend\".\nIsmail Haniyeh described Johnston as \"the friend of the Palestinian people\", emphasising that freeing him had been Hamas' main priority. Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal said that \"as Palestinians, [we are] very happy to reach this point, which is the release of Mr Alan Johnston.\"\nIsraeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev expressed solidarity with Johnston's family, saying that Israel knew \"how difficult it has been for his family and friends\", and expressed hope that Gilad Shalit would similarly soon be freed.\nBernard Kouchner, French Foreign Minister, said he was \"delighted\" with Johnston's release, and noted that Johnston's release ought to \"encourage all of the parties concerned to commit themselves to creating a climate favourable to the resumption of peace negotiations\".\nThe UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon released a statement through his spokesman, in which he said he was \"profoundly relieved\" that Johnston had been freed, and commended Johnston's \"dignity and resilience in captivity\".\nJohnston himself has expressed a desire to \"return to obscurity\" now that he is released.\n\nSee also\n\n2006 Fox journalists kidnapping\nSteve Centanni\nJohn McCarthy\nYvonne Ridley\nGilad Shalit\nOlaf Wiig\n2014 kidnapping and murder of Israeli teenagers\nKidnapping and murder of Vittorio Arrigoni (captors arrested and sentenced to prison terms by Hamas, 2011)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nBBC News Profile: Alan Johnston\nAlan Johnston: My kidnap ordeal\nBBC News: Alan Johnston petition\nBBC News: The Editors Blog: How You Can Help\nGuardian Unlimited: Comment is free – commentary by Lalia El-Haddad on Johnston's kidnapping\nCNN: Behind the scenes – commentary by Ben Wedeman on Johnston's kidnapping\nLetter to Alan and his abductors – regular commentator for the BBC and director of a Palestinian NGO's letter to Johnston\nModerated BBC \"Have Your Say\" forum for comments to Alan Johnston\nFree Alan Johnson website\nReporters Without Borders campaign for Johnston\n\nJohnston, Alan\nKidnappings by Islamists\nHistory of Palestine (region)\nTerrorist incidents in the Palestinian territories\n2007 crimes in the Palestinian territories\n2007 in the United Kingdom\nHistory of Gaza City\nMarch 2007 events in Asia\nJohnston, Alan\nLiving people", "La Magna Grecia (, pronuncia ; , pronuncia classica ) è l'area geografica della penisola italiana mediterranea che fu anticamente colonizzata dai Greci a partire dall'VIII secolo a.C. \n\nVarie le ipotesi sull’origine del nome: il termine si spiegherebbe con la prosperità e lo splendore culturale ed economico della regione al tempo dei pitagorici (VI-V sec. a.C.); o sarebbe stato dato dai coloni achei alla regione d’insediamento in contrapposizione all’angusta madrepatria. Precisamente, sebbene l'espressione Megálē Hellás sia attestata per la prima volta relativamente tardi, nel III secolo a.C. da Timeo di Tauromenio e poi nel II secolo a.C. in un passo dello storico greco Polibio, si ritiene tuttavia che la genesi del concetto sottostante sia avvenuta nel V secolo a.C., che segna l'apogeo della storia della Magna Grecia, in relazione ai fatti politici, economici, culturali e artistici raggiunti in quel periodo. La denominazione Megale Hellas non è una definizione di origine popolare ed emotiva ma è stata motivatamente creata dagli Achei pitagorici e si riferisce, orgogliosamente, alla rete di colonie fondato o controllate dagli stessi Achei tra fine VI e metà del V secolo sotto la regìa di Crotone; questa polis achea, dopo aver distrutto Sibari nel 510 a.C., e prima ancora insieme alle altre achee la ionica Siris, guida in accordo con altre realtà storico-politiche un ancor più grande 'impero' che abbraccia etnicamente fino a Poseidonia gran parte dell'Italia meridionale continentale (esclusa Reggio a sud e Taranto a nord).\n\nStoria\n\nOrigini \n\nDopo la colonizzazione del Mar Egeo, tra il X e l'VIII secolo a.C., genti di origine greca (mercanti, contadini, allevatori, artigiani) comparvero nella parte meridionale dell'Italia (le attuali Basilicata, Calabria, Campania e Puglia) nell'ambito di un flusso migratorio originato da singole città della Grecia antica, motivato sia dall'interesse per lo sviluppo delle attività commerciali, che da tensioni sociali dovute all'incremento della popolazione a cui la magra produzione agricola non riusciva a dare sostentamento. Queste genti stabilirono la colonia di Pithecussai sull'attuale isola d'Ischia, poi giunte sulle coste Italiche fondarono diverse città quali Kyme e Metapontion, poi Taras e Rhegion.\n\nPer tradizione, la località dove stabilirsi era individuata seguendo l'indicazione che dava l'Oracolo del Santuario di Apollo a Delfi, che veniva interrogato dall'ecista, colui che era stato posto a capo degli aspiranti coloni. Per i discendenti delle genti greche stabilitesi nella Penisola italiana, questo fu il periodo in cui fu raggiunta la massima ricchezza economica, a cui s'aggiunse lo splendore in campo culturale ed artistico, avendo seguito l'evoluzione della Civiltà Greca, in letteratura, filosofia e arte, con punte di sviluppo spesso superiori alla stessa madrepatria.\n\nCome conseguenza di questa realtà di grande splendore, le zone colonizzate nella penisola italiana ci sono state tramandate col nome di Magna Grecia (Megàle Hellàs): un nome che volle testimoniare l'orgoglio per aver dato vita, lontano dalla Grecia, ad una comunità di Greci che aveva raggiunto così alti livelli in campo sociale, culturale ed economico, da poter essere considerata, in confronto, più grande della stessa madrepatria. Dunque verso il III secolo a.C., si cominciò a definire le colonie greche dell'Italia meridionale come facenti parte della Magna Grecia (Megàle Hellàs). Riferimento che si presume sia stato coniato nelle colonie stesse, per mostrare la loro grandezza in relazione alla vecchia Grecia.\n\nIl termine Magna Grecia si riferisce quindi alle popolazioni e civiltà, piuttosto che ad un'entità territoriale e politica.\n\nLa Sicilia e la Calabria, a partire dall'VIII secolo a.C., videro numerose colonie greche (come Zankle, Naxos, Selinus, Rhegion, Sybaris, Kroton, ecc).\n\nLe differenti stirpi \nLe genti originarie della città di Calcide della grande isola Eubea, fondarono prima Pithecusa (Ischia), poi Kyme (Cuma) in Campania, quest'ultima insieme a coloni provenienti da Cuma eolica, e tra il 756 ed 730 a.C. le due città di Zancle (Messina) e Rhegion (Reggio), rispettivamente sulla sponda messinese e quella reggina dello Stretto che separa le due terre.\n\nNegli anni successivi, Greci di stirpe achea diedero vita sul versante jonico prima a Sybaris (Sibari, 720 a.C.) e poi a Kroton (Crotone 710 a.C.), spinti dalla necessità di sfuggire carestie e sovrappopolazione. Sempre sullo Ionio, secondo fonti tramandate dallo storico Eusebio di Cesarea, alcuni coloni spartani fondarono la città di Taras (Taranto, 706 a.C.).\n\nFra il 710 a.C. e il 690 a.C., un gruppo di Locresi, condotti da Evante, provenienti dalle regioni della Grecia sul golfo di Crisa, fondarono Lokroi Epizephyroi (Locri Epizefiri), ultima città fondata in Calabria da gente proveniente direttamente dalla Grecia.\n\nIn una data sconosciuta fra l'VIII e il VI secolo a.C. gli ateniesi, di stirpe ionica, fondarono Skylletion (nei pressi dell'odierna Catanzaro).\n\nLe sub-colonie \nNel tempo le nuove città, per ragioni politiche, di sovrappopolazione, commerciali e di controllo del territorio, ampliarono la loro presenza in Italia, espandendo di fatto la civiltà greca a tutto il territorio oggi chiamato Calabria, allora conosciuto come Enotria o Italia, e ad altre zone.\n\nI reggini fondarono Pyxus (Policastro Bussentino) in Lucania; i locresi fondarono Medma (Rosarno) passando da Città-forte (Polistena) e Hipponion (Vibo Valentia) nell'attuale Calabria; i sibariti rivitalizzarono i centri indigeni di Laos e Skydros in Calabria e fondarono Poseidonia (Paestum), in Campania; i crotoniati fondarono Terina e parteciparono alla fondazione di Kaulon (vicino a Monasterace marina) in Calabria; gli zanclei fondarono Metauros (Gioia Tauro) in Calabria, i Tarantini insieme ai Thurioti fondarono Heracleia (Policoro) in Lucania nel 434 a.C.\n\nI Tarantini fondarono anche Gallipoli (Kallípolis, dal greco \"bella città\"), il cui precedente nome era Anxa (insediamento messapico situato nei pressi dell’attuale territorio di Alezio).\n\nNel tentativo di espandersi in Messapia ed in Peucezia, continue furono le aggressioni dei Tarantini condotte ai danni dei vicini Peucezi e Messapi. Tuttavia, l'influenza di Taranto sulle popolazioni indigene, portò nel corso dei secoli ad un processo di ellenizzazione di queste ultime, che assorbirono svariati aspetti della cultura e civiltà greca.\n\nNonostante le diverse vittorie dei Tarantini su Peucezi e Messapi nel corso della storia, con il conseguente controllo di molte aree dell’attuale territorio pugliese (tanto che i Tarantini, come testimoniato da Pausania, poterono erigere un donario a Delfi che celebrava le vittorie su questi ultimi, di cui sono ancora presenti i resti) , essi patirono anche alcune sconfitte, come quella subita (insieme ai loro alleati Reggini guidati da Micito) per opera dei Messapi nel 473 a.C. (annoverata dallo storico greco Erodoto come una tra le più gravi sconfitte inflitte a popolazioni di stirpe greca per via dell’ingente numero di perdite umane). \n\nNel 360 a.C. circa, Archita da Taranto, la cui politica era indirizzata al totale controllo del meridione della penisola italiana, lo spinse ad incentivare le spese relative all’esercito, potenziandone anche l’armamento, grazie anche alle sue invenzioni di natura meccanica e balistica , che rappresentano l’origine dell’artiglieria. Alla testa delle sue armate intraprese una brillante operazione militare contro i Messapi ed i loro alleati, i Peuceti e i Lucani, che lo portò alle conquiste di Mesagne, Brindisi, Egnazia, nonché al controllo di diverse città e villaggi pugliesi. L’impresa gli valse la nomina a capo della Lega Italiota. Riuscì in questo modo a rompere l’unità politica della dodecapoli messapica, dando inizio al declino della \"Lega Messapica\". \n\nNel 338 a.c., il re spartano Archidamo III, accorso in aiuto di Taranto in uno dei tentativi di espansione, trovò la sconfitta e la morte, secondo la testimonianza di Plutarco, sotto le mura della città messapica di Mendonion (l'odierna Manduria). Questa sconfitta, portò ad una crisi nell’aristocrazia tarantina e ad un cambio di governo: dal regime aristocratico di stampo spartano si passò ad un governo di tipo democratico e alla nascita della Costituzione Tarantina.\n\nNel 335 a.C., in occasione di una guerra contro i Lucani, i Bruzi e i Sanniti, i Tarantini con Alessandro I detto il molosso, riuscirono a riconquistare le città di Brentesion, Siponto (Manfredonia), Heraclea, Arpi (Foggia), Cosentia e Paestum. \n\nSarà l'arrivo delle legioni romane avvenuto tra il 290 ed il 280 a.C., dopo un iniziale trattato di non belligeranza tra Taranto e Roma, le 3 guerre tarantine (o guerre pirriche) con l’arrivo di Pirro in aiuto di Taranto, il consequenziale controllo su gran parte dei territori dell’Italia meridionale che culminò con la caduta di Taranto nel 272 a.c. nella terza guerra contro Roma (dopo le prime due, ad Heraclea ed Ausculum Apulum che avevano visto i Tarantini e Pirro vittoriosi) a sancire il passaggio sotto la protezione della medesima di tutte le città greche della penisola italiana che divennero alleate dello Stato Romano. \n\nLa conquista definitiva della Magna Grecia e delle popolazioni meridionali native da parte di Roma dovette aspettare ancora per ben due secoli e si concluse definitivamente solo con la cosiddetta guerra sociale (dal latino socius - alleato), e la concessione della cittadinanza romana a tutti i cittadini della Magna Grecia e dei territori limitrofi.\n\nL'integrazione della Magna Grecia nel dominio della Repubblica romana rappresentò l'inizio di varie evoluzioni sociali per quest'ultima. La forte presenza ellenica avrebbe in seguito influenzato culturalmente la stessa società romana.\n\nColonie siculo-greche nell'Adriatico \n\nUn intenso programma di colonizzazione fu intrapreso da Siracusa, all'epoca della tirannide di Dionisio il grande, intorno al 387-385 a.C. Questo fenomeno interessò tutto l'Adriatico, e in particolare portò alla fondazione in Italia di Ankón (Ancona) e di Adrìa (Adria); nella costa dalmata vide la fondazione di Issa (attuale Lissa), Pharos (attuale Cittavecchia di Lesina), Dimos (attuale Lesina); nella costa albanese venne fondata invece Lissos (attuale Alessio). Issa a sua volta poi fondò Tragyrion (attuale Traù), Korkyra Melaina (attuale Curzola) ed Epetion (attuale Stobreč, sobborgo di Spalato).\n\nCon questo programma di colonizzazione Dionisio il Grande si assicurò un controllo totale sulle rotte adriatiche che portavano il grano verso la madrepatria, permettendo così a Siracusa di competere con gli Etruschi in questo commercio. Inoltre risolse un grave problema di politica interna, mandando a popolare la colonia di Ankón con dissidenti politici.\n\nPrima della colonizzazione siracusana, già erano presenti nell'Adriatico orientale alcune colonie greche: nell'attuale territorio albanese sorgevano Apollonia e Epidamnos-Dyrrachion (attuale Durazzo); nell'odierno territorio croato era invece la colonia di Epidayron (attuale Ragusavecchia).\n\nLe colonie adriatiche siracusane non vengono annoverate in senso stretto come parte della Magna Grecia.\n\nCittà della Magna Grecia \n\nSegue un elenco di città della Magna Grecia, elencate - per comodità di indicizzazione - secondo la regione italiana attuale.\n\nCalabria\n\nCampania\n\nBasilicata\n\nPuglia\n\nColonie greche in Italia non appartenenti alla Magna Grecia\n\nColonie greche in Sicilia \n\nLe città siceliote (sikeloe in greco), cioè le colonie greche in Sicilia, non sono da considerarersi appartenenti alla Magna Grecia, poichè la denominazione è da collocarsi solo per l'italia continentale. La confusione deriva da un passaggio apparentemente ambiguo di Strabone (VI 1, 2) e da taluni la Sicilia viene associata alla Magna Grecia, ma non ha ragione per esserlo.\n\nDi seguito si elencano le principali colonie identificate:\n\nLe date di fondazione \nCronologia della fondazione delle principali città della Magna Grecia e della Sicilia, secondo gli storici antichi e gli studi archeologici moderni:\n\nCronologia della fondazione delle altre colonie greche italiane, secondo gli storici antichi e gli studi archeologici moderni:\n\nPeculiarità delle poleis magnogreche\n\nOrganizzazione amministrativa \nL'organizzazione amministrativa della Magna Grecia e della Sicilia greca, è stata ereditata dalle poleis elleniche, riprendendo il concetto di \"città-stato\" amministrate dall'aristocrazia. Le città della Magna Grecia erano indipendenti come le poleis greche, disponevano di un nutrito esercito e vi era un reggente che governava o un sistema di governo democratico. Vi furono anche casi di tirannia come nella poderosa Siracusa, retta dal tiranno Dionisio che combatté i Cartaginesi sino alla sua morte, ad Atene, in seguito ad un malore. La flotta era un'arma micidiale che i coloni della Magna Grecia utilizzarono e dunque numerose città erano situate in riva al mare e disponevano di grandi porti dove erano ancorate centinaia di navi.\n\nEconomia \nNelle città della Magna Grecia, si sviluppò subito il commercio, l'agricoltura e l'artigianato. Inizialmente orientato alle indigene popolazioni italiche, il commercio fu subito un ottimo canale di scambio con i greci della madrepatria che importava dal grano ai manufatti, dalle opere letterarie al marmo e così via. I coloni entrarono in contatto anche con i Cartaginesi che però si rivelarono presto dei temibili nemici.\n\nCultura \nDalla madre patria Grecia, l'arte, la letteratura e la filosofia influenzarono in modo decisivo la vita delle colonie. In Magna Grecia e nella Sicilia greca si diede molto credito alla cultura. Basti pensare che nelle poleis si raggiunse un tasso di ingegneria ed istruzione pari a quello della madrepatria. I coloni ellenici, dopo aver sottomesso le popolazioni indigene, stabilirono biblioteche e centri di studi che formarono abili filosofi, letterati e medici. Pitagora di Samo si trasferì a Crotone dove fondò la sua scuola nel 530 a.C. \nVisitarono la Magna Grecia, fra gli altri, Eschilo, Erodoto, Senofane e Platone. \n\nTra i personaggi illustri nati in Magna Grecia ricordiamo: i filosofi Parmenide di Elea, Zenone di Elea, Gorgia di Lentini ed Empedocle di Agrigento; i pitagorici Filolao di Crotone, Archita di Taranto, Liside di Taranto, Echecrate e Timeo di Locri; il matematico Archimede di Siracusa; gli storici Ippi di Reggio, Glauco di Reggio e Lico; i poeti Teocrito di Siracusa, Stesicoro, Ibico di Reggio, Senocrito di Locri, Nosside di Locri, Alessi di Thuri e Leonida di Taranto; i medici Timoteo, Alcmeone di Crotone e Democède di Crotone; gli scultori reggini Pitagora e Clearco; il pittore Zeusi, il musicologo Aristosseno di Taranto ed il legislatore Zaleuco di Locri.\n\nSport \nLe colonie inviavano atleti di tutte le discipline ai giochi che si tenevano periodicamente ad Olimpia e Delfi in Grecia. Inoltre i coloni della Magna Grecia tenevano molto ai giochi ellenici dove potevano dare prova ai greci della loro appartenenza allo stesso luogo d'origine, della loro forza fisica e delle capacità nei giochi praticati anche dai loro avi decine di generazioni prima. E per questo i più grandi sovrani esigevano che venissero addestrate squadre da inviare in Grecia. Lo sport era dunque un canale di comunicazione con la penisola ellenica, un mezzo con il quale le colonie della Magna Grecia facevano sentire la propria voce. Spesso era un movimento gestito più dalla politica che dalla dedizione per la lotta, il lancio del disco e per tutte le altre attività che si praticavano durante quelle importanti prove agonistiche. Gli italioti ed i sicelioti ebbero grandi successi nelle competizione sportive in madrepatria. Basti pensare che gli atleti di Crotone vinsero 20 titoli in 26 Olimpiadi tra il 588 a.C. e il 488 a.C., tanto da essere secondi solo a Sparta, davanti ad Atene.\n\nNote\n\nBibliografia \n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \nMichele Manfredi-Gigliotti, TEΡENHΩN, Memorie storiche sull'antica città di Terina, Editrice Pungitopo, Messina 1984.\n·Michele Manfredi-Gigliotti, Λυκόφρων kὰι ώkιναρώs, Licofrone e il fiume Savuto, Ma.Per. Editrice, Campora San Giovanni, 2010.\n Michele Manfredi-Gigliotti, TEMHSH, Memorie storiche sull'antica città di Temesa, con particolare riguardo all'individuazione del suo sito, Cosenza, Edizioni Brenner 1994.\n Michele Manfredi-Gigliotti, Il tempio arcaico di contrada Imbelli, Amantea, frazione Campora San Giovanni, provincia di Cosenza, Caltanissetta, Società Nissena di Storia Patria 2015.\n\nVoci correlate \n Guerre greco-puniche\n Colonie nell'antichità\n Colonizzazione greca\n Colonizzazione greca in Occidente\n Monetazione incusa\n\nAltri progetti\n\nCollegamenti esterni \n \n \n\n \nMagna Grecia\nStoria della Basilicata\nStoria della Campania\nStoria della Calabria\nStoria della Puglia", "Figlio del condottiero Giovanni de' Medici, detto delle Bande Nere, e di Maria Salviati, apparteneva per via paterna al ramo cadetto dei Medici detto dei Popolani, discendente da quel Lorenzo de' Medici detto il Vecchio, fratello di Cosimo il Vecchio, primo Signore de facto di Firenze, mentre era discendente per via materna dal ramo principale stesso, in quanto la madre era figlia di Lucrezia de' Medici, a sua volta figlia di Lorenzo il Magnifico, signore di Firenze.\n\nIn questo modo Cosimo I portò al potere il ramo cadetto dei Popolani e diede vita alla linea granducale.\n\nBiografia\n\nGiovinezza e conquista del potere \n\nFiglio del condottiero Giovanni delle Bande Nere e di Maria Salviati, Cosimo salì al potere nel 1537, a soli 17 anni, dopo l'assassinio del duca di Firenze Alessandro de' Medici. Il delitto fu ordito da Lorenzino de' Medici, lontano cugino del duca Alessandro, che, tuttavia, non seppe cogliere l'occasione di sostituirsi al proprio parente e finì col fuggire da Firenze. Nessuna delle famiglie più importanti sembrava essere in grado di prendere il posto dei Medici quando Cosimo, allora pressoché sconosciuto, apparve in città, seguito da pochi servi.\n\nEgli veniva dal Mugello, dove era cresciuto dopo la morte del padre, e riuscì a farsi nominare duca nonostante appartenesse ad un ramo secondario della famiglia. Infatti, vista la sua giovane età ed il suo contegno modesto, molti personaggi influenti della Firenze del tempo speravano di avere a che fare con un giovane debole, svagato, attratto solamente dalla caccia e dalle donne: una persona facile da influenzare. Cosimo venne, quindi, nominato capo del governo con la clausola che il potere sarebbe stato esercitato dal Consiglio dei Quarantotto. Ma Cosimo aveva interamente ereditato lo spirito battagliero del padre e della nonna paterna Caterina Sforza.\n\nInfatti, appena investito del potere e dopo aver ottenuto un decreto che escludeva il ramo di Lorenzino da qualsiasi diritto di successione, esautorò i consiglieri ed assunse l'assoluta autorità. Restaurò il potere dei Medici in modo così saldo che da quel momento governarono Firenze e gran parte della Toscana attuale fino alla fine della dinastia, avvenuta con la morte senza eredi dell'ultimo granduca Medici, Gian Gastone, nel 1737; la struttura del governo creata da Cosimo durò fino alla proclamazione del Regno d'Italia.\n\nIl governo autoritario di Cosimo indusse alcuni importanti cittadini all'esilio volontario. Essi radunarono le loro forze e, col supporto della Francia e degli stati vicini di Firenze, nel tentativo di rovesciare militarmente il governo fiorentino, alla fine del luglio 1537 marciarono su Firenze sotto la guida di Filippo Strozzi.\n\nQuando Cosimo seppe che si stavano avvicinando, inviò le sue migliori truppe, comandate da Alessandro Vitelli, a bloccare i nemici. Lo scontro avvenne nei pressi della rocca di Montemurlo il 1º agosto 1537 e, dopo aver sconfitto l'armata degli esuli, il Vitelli assaltò il castello, dove lo Strozzi e i suoi compari si erano rifugiati. L'assedio durò solamente poche ore e terminò con la caduta degli assediati, dando a Cosimo la sua prima vittoria militare.\n\nI capi della rivolta furono dapprima imprigionati e poi decapitati nel palazzo del Bargello. Per tutta la sua vita Cosimo agì in modo spietato contro chi cercava di opporsi ai suoi piani. Occorre precisare che il suo dispotismo si rivolgeva in massima parte a coloro che ponevano in discussione la sua autorità, e quindi non il popolo, ma quei nobili e ricchi borghesi fiorentini che non tolleravano la sua supremazia e il suo potere. In questa etica assolutista è da includere anche la distruzione, iniziata il 20 ottobre 1561 da parte di Cosimo I, della pregevole Cattedrale di Arezzo, posta fuori dalle mura della città, al Colle del Pionta, per essersi lì fortificato Piero Strozzi il 20 luglio 1554.\n\nMatrimonio \n\nInizialmente Cosimo cercò di sposare Margherita d'Austria, figlia dell'imperatore Carlo V e vedova del duca Alessandro. Ma non ottenne che un secco rifiuto e la pretesa che alla vedova fosse versata una cospicua parte del patrimonio dei Medici. Abbandonato questo progetto, sposò nel 1539 Eleonora di Toledo, figlia di Don Pedro Alvarez de Toledo, marchese di Villafranca e viceré spagnolo di Napoli. Si incontrarono per la prima volta nella villa di Poggio a Caiano e si sposarono con grandi fasti nella chiesa di San Lorenzo: lui aveva 20 anni e lei 17. Grazie a questo matrimonio Cosimo entrò in possesso delle enormi ricchezze della moglie e si garantì l'amicizia politica del viceré di Napoli, uno dei più fidati luogotenenti dell'imperatore. Il Bronzino eseguì molti ritratti di Eleonora, il più famoso dei quali è conservato agli Uffizi.\n\nAssieme a Cosimo, Eleonora ebbe undici figli, assicurando così in teoria la successione e la possibilità di combinare matrimoni con altre importanti case regnanti, anche se l'unico che sopravvisse in maniera duratura fu Ferdinando I. Eleonora morì nel 1562 all'età di soli quarant'anni, assieme ai suoi figli Giovanni e Garzia. I tre furono uccisi dalla malaria, contratta durante un viaggio verso Pisa, dove volevano curarsi dalla tubercolosi, malattia dovuta all'insalubre situazione cittadina, per sfuggire alla quale proprio Eleonora aveva comprato la residenza di Palazzo Pitti in Oltrarno.\n\nPrimi anni di governo \n\nGià dal 1537, iniziò l'inarrestabile ascesa autoritaria di Cosimo I, che inviò a Carlo V il vescovo di Forlì, Bernardo Antonio de Medici, per informarlo di quanto avvenuto alla morte di Alessandro e della successione da parte dello stesso Cosimo, ma soprattutto per confermargli fedeltà, allo scopo di ottenere la conferma imperiale. A partire dal 1543, dopo avere riscattato le ultime fortezze ancora in mano all'imperatore, Cosimo I, secondo un disegno sistematico commisurato alle particolari condizioni dello Stato toscano, esposto ai frequenti passaggi di truppe e minacciato di dentro dal banditismo e dai fuoriusciti fiorentini, avviò una sorprendente attività edilizio-militare:\n intraprese la realizzazione di nuovi presidi, costruendo fortezze a Siena, Arezzo, Sansepolcro e Pistoia. A Sansepolcro, inoltre, fece abbattere tutti i borghetti esterni alle mura, che si espandevano su una superficie considerevole e ospitavano vari edifici, tra cui chiese e ospedali, preferendo fortificare l'antica cerchia muraria piuttosto che allargarla;\n rafforzò le difese di origine medioevale a Pisa, Volterra e Castrocaro, in Romagna, a pochi chilometri da Forlì;\n fece erigere una nuova cinta muraria a Fivizzano a sbarramento dei passi appenninici del Lagastrello e del Cerreto;\n fece fortificare San Piero a Sieve, Empoli, Cortona e Montecarlo, ai confini della Repubblica di Lucca;\n fece costruire ex novo la città-fortezza di Portoferraio (Cosmopoli) nell'isola d'Elba e piazze d'armi, quali Sasso di Simone nel Montefeltro e Terra del Sole (Eliopoli), tra la vecchia fortezza di Castrocaro, destinata ad essere abbandonata, e Forlì, quindi ai confini con lo Stato della Chiesa.\n\nCome indica il nome, Terra del Sole doveva costituire non un semplice luogo fortificato, ma addirittura un piccolo esperimento di città ideale. La breve distanza da Forlì (meno di 10 km) indica, da un lato, la forte penetrazione del potere di Firenze in Romagna (la cosiddetta \"Romagna toscana\"), dall'altro, costituiva un abisso incolmabile, perché il capoluogo romagnolo non cadde mai in potere dei fiorentini e segna, quindi, l'estremo limite della loro espansione.\n\nAltra priorità di Cosimo fu la ricerca di una posizione di maggior indipendenza rispetto alle forze europee. Egli abbandonò la tradizionale posizione di Firenze, di norma alleata con i francesi, per operare dalla parte dell'imperatore Carlo V. I ripetuti aiuti finanziari che Cosimo garantì all'impero gli valsero il ritiro delle guarnigioni imperiali da Firenze e Pisa ed una sempre maggior indipendenza politica.\n\nIl timore di nuovi attentati alla sua persona lo spinsero a crearsi una piccola legione di guardia del corpo personale, composta da svizzeri. Nel 1548 Cosimo riuscì a far uccidere a Venezia Lorenzino de' Medici per mano di Giovanni Francesco Lottini, che assoldò due sicari volterrani. (Grazie ad un nuovo studio di Stefano Dall'Aglio sappiamo che, al contrario, l'intera manovra fu orchestrata dall'imperatore Carlo V, che non poteva perdonare la morte del suo genero, marito della figlia Margherita). Per anni lo aveva fatto inseguire per tutta Europa e con la sua morte tramontava ogni possibile pretesa dinastica contro di lui sul comando della Toscana. L'anno successivo mediò uno scontro tra Siena e l'impero, facendo accettare l'indipendenza della città in cambio della presenza di una guarnigione spagnola al suo interno.\n\nPreferì non intraprendere la conquista di Lucca, fermato dal timore che i lucchesi, gelosi della loro indipendenza, si sarebbero trasferiti altrove con i loro capitali, rovinando il commercio della città (come del resto era avvenuto in precedenza con la conquista di Pisa). D'altro canto, Lucca, unica città imperiale italiana, godeva, anche grazie alla propria ricchezza, di importanti appoggi da parte di potenti stati europei e tentare la sua conquista avrebbe potuto avere effetti imprevedibili sugli equilibri internazionali. Andarono a vuoto, invece, i suoi tentativi per ottenere Pontremoli e la Corsica che, pur di sottrarsi al dominio genovese, avrebbe accettato l'unione con la Toscana, con la quale aveva, se non altro, vincoli culturali e linguistici più profondi.\n\nSapendo di non essere granché amato dai fiorentini, egli li tenne fuori dall'esercito, quindi disarmati, e arruolò soltanto truppe provenienti dagli altri suoi domìni.\n\nConquista di Siena \nNel 1552 Siena si ribellò contro l'impero, scacciò la guarnigione spagnola e fece occupare la città dai francesi. Nel 1553 una spedizione militare, inviata dal viceré di Napoli Don Pedro, aveva tentato di riconquistare la città ma, complice anche la morte dello stesso viceré, l'impresa era stata un fallimento. Nel 1554 Cosimo ottenne il supporto dell'imperatore per muover guerra contro Siena utilizzando il proprio esercito. Dopo alcune battaglie nelle campagne tra le due città e la sconfitta dei senesi a Marciano, Siena fu assediata dai fiorentini. Il 17 aprile 1555, passati molti mesi di assedio, la città, stremata, cadde: la popolazione senese era diminuita da 40.000 a 6.000 abitanti.\n\nSiena rimase sotto protezione imperiale fino al 1557, quando il figlio dell'imperatore, Filippo II di Spagna, la cedette a Cosimo, tenendo per sé i territori di Orbetello, Porto Ercole, Talamone, Monte Argentario e Porto Santo Stefano, che andarono a formare lo Stato dei Presidi. Nel 1559, a seguito del Trattato di Cateau-Cambrésis al termine delle guerre d'Italia franco-spagnole, Cosimo ottenne anche i residui territori della Repubblica di Siena riparata in Montalcino, ultimo presidio dei senesi sotto protezione francese.\n\nOrganizzazione dello stato \nSebbene Cosimo esercitasse il potere in modo dispotico, sotto la sua amministrazione la Toscana fu uno stato al passo coi tempi. Esautorò da ogni carica, anche formale, la maggior parte delle importanti famiglie fiorentine, non fidandosi dei loro componenti. Scelse piuttosto funzionari di umili origini. Una volta ottenuto il titolo di Granduca di Toscana da papa Pio V nel 1569, mantenne la divisione giuridica ed amministrativa tra il Ducato di Firenze (il cosiddetto \"Stato vecchio\") ed il Ducato di Siena (detto \"Stato Nuovo\", quindi tenendo le due zone sapientemente separate e con magistrature proprie. Rinnovò l'amministrazione della giustizia, facendo emanare un nuovo codice criminale. Rese efficienti i magistrati e la polizia. Le sue carceri erano tra le più temute d'Italia. Similmente alle corti dell'Europa dell'epoca, il principe creò la struttura complessa di un casato, ricco di figure professionali e culturali nuove per la storia cittadina e per il suo vissuto personale. Fino agli anni '40-'60 non fu istituita una cassa generale del Granducato che desse puntuale rendiconto delle spese pubbliche e, diversamente dalle corti estense e sabauda, mancarono fonti storiche cospicue e seriali, così come cerimoniali di corte elaborati, con riti, linguaggi, attori e codici espressivi del potere sovrano, fatti che resero la storia medicea di quel periodo assimilabile più a quella di un casato locale che ad una corte principesca.\n\nSpostò la sua dimora da Palazzo Medici (oggi Palazzo Medici Riccardi) a Palazzo Vecchio, in modo che ogni fiorentino avesse ben chiaro che il potere era tutto nelle sue mani. Anni più tardi si trasferì a Palazzo Pitti.\n\nIntrodusse e finanziò la fabbricazione di arazzi. Costruì strade, opere di prosciugamento, porti. Dotò molte città toscane di fortilizi. Rafforzò l'esercito, istituì nel 1561 l'Ordine marinaresco di Santo Stefano, con sede a Pisa nel vasariano Palazzo dei Cavalieri, e migliorò la flotta toscana, partecipando alla battaglia di Lepanto. Con la Legge dell'Unione del 1549 e con ulteriori assegnazioni tra il 1559 ed il 1564 modificó la funzione dell'antico Ordine di Parte Guelfa, sottraendogli funzioni militari e attribuendogli competenza piena nella gestione del territorio granducale dalla regimentazione delle acque alle manutenzione delle aree rurali e boschive. Promosse le attività economiche, sia recuperando antiche lavorazioni (come l'estrazione dei marmi a Seravezza), sia creandone di nuove. I continui aumenti delle tasse, seppur controbilanciati da un incremento dei commerci, posero il germe di uno scontento popolare che si acuirà sempre di più con i suoi successori. Nonostante le difficoltà economiche, fu molto prodigo come mecenate.\n\nProseguì, inoltre, gli studi di alchimia e di scienze esoteriche, la cui passione aveva ereditato dalla nonna Caterina Sforza.\n\nNegli ultimi dieci anni del suo regno rinunciò alla conduzione degli affari interni dello stato in favore di suo figlio Francesco.\n\nGranduca \n\nCosimo si adoperò per ricevere un titolo regale che lo affrancasse dalla condizione di semplice feudatario dell'imperatore e che gli desse quindi maggior indipendenza politica. Non trovando alcun appoggio da parte imperiale, si rivolse al Papato. Già con Paolo IV aveva cercato di ottenere il titolo di re o arciduca, ma invano. Finalmente, nel 1569, dopo aver stipulato un accordo col papa secondo il quale avrebbe messo la sua flotta a servizio della Lega Santa che si stava venendo a formare per contrastare l'avanzata ottomana, Pio V emanò una bolla che lo creava granduca di Toscana. Nel gennaio dell'anno successivo fu incoronato dal papa stesso a Roma. In realtà tale diritto sarebbe spettato all'imperatore, e per questo Spagna e Austria si rifiutarono di riconoscere il nuovo titolo, minacciando di abbandonare la Lega, mentre Francia ed Inghilterra lo ritennero subito valido e, col passare del tempo, tutti gli stati europei finirono per riconoscerlo. Alcuni storici ipotizzano che l'avvicinamento tra Pio V e la conseguente concessione dell'ambito titolo granducale avvenisse con la consegna a tradimento dell'eretico Pietro Carnesecchi, che si era rifugiato a Firenze confidando nella protezione del Duca medesimo.\n\nUltimi anni e morte \nLa morte della moglie nel 1562 e di due dei suoi figli colpiti da malaria lo aveva profondamente segnato. Nel 1564 abdicò a favore del figlio Francesco, ritirandosi nella villa di Castello vicino a Firenze. Guardando anche il profilo umano, c'è da credere che la vita nelle sale ormai vuote di Palazzo Pitti, già occupate dall'amatissima moglie e dai numerosi figli che non gli erano sopravvissuti, lo deprimesse enormemente.\n\nDopo aver frequentato Eleonora degli Albizi, dalla quale ebbe due figli naturali, nel 1570 Cosimo prese in seconde nozze Camilla Martelli come moglie morganatica, che gli diede una figlia, poi legittimata e integrata nella successione. Il peggioramento del suo burrascoso carattere e i continui scontri con i figli (Francesco aveva una visione dello Stato completamente diversa dal padre), a causa della nuova moglie, resero i suoi ultimi anni turbolenti. Morì il 21 aprile 1574, a cinquantacinque anni, già gravemente menomato da un ictus che gli aveva limitato la mobilità e tolto la parola.\n\nNel 1857, durante una prima ricognizione delle salme dei Medici, così venne ritrovato il suo corpo:\n\nCosimo e l'arte \n\nCosimo seppe sfruttare il ruolo anche politico dell'arte, promuovendo numerosi cantieri che cambiarono, in meglio, il volto di Firenze, in modo da portare avanti un'immagine del suo governo come saggio e illuminato, apportatore di prestigio economico e culturale in città.\n\nTra le varie opere da lui compiute, si ricorda la creazione della fabbrica che doveva ospitare le Magistrature, cioè gli uffici amministrativi dello Stato, che, diventata Galleria degli Uffizi sotto il granduca Francesco I de' Medici, è oggi uno dei più importanti e visitati musei del mondo. Ampliò la maestosa costruzione di Palazzo Pitti, che divenne la residenza ufficiale dei granduchi; portò a compimento il Giardino di Boboli, parco della sua residenza. Collegò la sua nuova residenza con Palazzo Vecchio attraverso il Corridoio vasariano.\n\nLa sua corte fu ambita da artisti di grande valore, tra i quali Giorgio Vasari, Agnolo Bronzino, Bartolomeo Ammannati, Benvenuto Cellini. E proprio su consiglio dell'architetto aretino Giorgio Vasari fondò, il 13 gennaio 1563, l'Accademia e Compagnia dell'Arte del Disegno, il cui ruolo e prestigio, certo non confinati negli angusti limiti politico economici del principato toscano, crebbero fra il Cinque e il Seicento grazie allo straordinario contributo di accademici come Michelangelo Buonarroti, Francesco da Sangallo, Benvenuto Cellini, Bartolomeo Ammannati, il Giambologna, Galileo Galilei, ecc.\n\nMentre la Compagnia era una sorta di corporazione cui dovevano aderire tutti gli artisti operanti in Toscana, l'Accademia, costituita solo dalle più eminenti personalità culturali della corte di Cosimo, aveva finalità di tutela e supervisione sull'intera produzione artistica del principato mediceo. Appassionato di archeologia, intraprese ampie ricerche di artefatti etruschi a Chiusi, Arezzo ed in altre città, portando alla luce numerosi oggetti e statue.\n\nCosimo e la scienza \nCosimo I, come tutto il ramo dei Medici che da lui discese, era fortemente appassionato alle scienze naturali: nel 1549, per stupire i sudditi e gli stranieri, nonché per dimostrare il suo interesse nelle meraviglie della natura, fece esporre un capodoglio trovato presso Livorno direttamente nella Loggia dei Lanzi in piazza della Signoria a Firenze.\n\nSotto il suo regno furono fondati gli Orti botanici di Pisa (1544) e di Firenze (1545). Fu autore di studi cosmografici e fece eseguire al monaco Egnazio Danti (1536-1586) le carte geografiche di tutte le terre allora conosciute. La raccolta di meraviglie scientifiche (con forte presenza degli strumenti matematici) iniziata da Cosimo costituisce il nucleo più antico delle collezioni di strumentazione matematica oggi conservate presso il Museo Galileo di Firenze.\n\nDiscendenza \nLa discendenza di Cosimo e Eleonora, sebbene numerosa, non fu certo toccata dalla fortuna, a causa della tubercolosi a Firenze, che richiedeva spesso soggiorni nelle zone costiere, dove invece era presente la malaria. Morirono infatti di febbri malariche i figli Maria (1557), Giovanni (1562) e Garzia (1562), oltre alla stessa Eleonora (1562); altri tre (Pedricco, Antonio e Anna), morirono ancora in fasce; Lucrezia, Duchessa di Ferrara, Modena e Reggio Emilia, morì giovanissima di tubercolosi (anche se i nemici di suo marito, Alfonso II d'Este, insinuarono che fosse stata avvelenata da quest'ultimo, allo scopo di sposare l'arciduchessa Barbara d'Austria, matrimonio politicamente più prestigioso); Francesco I morì misteriosamente insieme alla seconda moglie Bianca Cappello (per molti secoli si è ipotizzato che fossero stati avvelenati da Ferdinando I, ma le ultime analisi scientifiche smentiscono questa ipotesi); Isabella, che per molti anni si ipotizzò che potesse essere morta per mano del marito con l'accusa di adulterio, morì per un’ostruzione biliare; Ferdinando I fu l'unico dei figli legittimi ad avvicinarsi alla vecchiaia e fu per molti anni il terzo Granduca di Toscana, morendo a 59 anni.\n\nCosimo I, inoltre, ebbe alcune storie fuori dal matrimonio e quattro figli illegittimi: da una donna, il cui nome non viene menzionato, ebbe la sua prima figlia, Bia, che però morì a soli 5 anni; da Eleonora degli Albizzi ebbe una figlia nata morta e Giovanni, che fu un militare e un architetto e morì a 54 anni; dall'amante Camilla Martelli, poi moglie morganatica, ebbe Virginia, che verrà legittimata in conseguenza del matrimonio dei genitori nel 1570 e che morirà a 47 anni, affetta da tempo da pazzia.\n\nCon Eleonora di Toledo ebbe undici figli:\nMaria, 3 aprile 1540 – . Si spense a Livorno, probabilmente colpita dalla malaria;\nFrancesco, 25 marzo 1541 – . Sostituì in reggenza il padre Cosimo I dal 1564 e divenne il secondo Granduca di Toscana nel 1574. Morì improvvisamente e misteriosamente nella Villa medicea di Poggio a Caiano;\nIsabella, 31 agosto 1542 – . Duchessa di Bracciano come moglie di Paolo Giordano I Orsini, primo Duca di Bracciano, morì inaspettatamente nella Villa medicea di Cerreto Guidi;\nGiovanni, 29 settembre 1543 – . Cardinale di Santa Romana Chiesa, creato il 31 gennaio 1560 da papa Pio IV\nLucrezia, 14 febbraio 1545 – . Duchessa di Ferrara, Modena e Reggio come moglie di Alfonso II d'Este. Morì di tubercolosi;\nPiero \"Pedricco\", 7 agosto 1546 – 9 giugno 1547;\nGarzia, 5 luglio 1547 – ;\nAntonio, nato e morto nel 1548;\nFerdinando, 30 luglio 1549 – . Cardinale di Santa Romana Chiesa dal 1562, dopo la morte del fratello Francesco I salì sul trono del Granducato di Toscana, diventando il terzo granduca (1587);\nAnna, nata e morta nel 1553;\nPietro, 3 giugno 1554 – . Generale delle galere toscane nel 1573 e ambasciatore fiorentino.\n\nCon Camilla Martelli, moglie morganatica, ebbe una figlia:\nVirginia, 29 maggio 1568 – . Nata fuori dal matrimonio, quindi illegittima, venne legittimata \"per subsequens\" nel 1570, anno del matrimonio tra i due genitori. Fu duchessa di Modena e Reggio come moglie di Cesare d'Este.\n\nCosimo ebbe numerose relazioni extra-coniugali.\nDa una donna rimasta ignota ebbe, prima del matrimonio con Eleonora di Toledo, una figlia:\nBianca \"Bia\", ~1537 – 1º marzo 1542 (5 anni).\n\nDa Eleonora degli Albizi ebbe un figlio:\nGiovanni, 13 maggio 1567 – . Grande di Spagna e ambasciatore fiorentino. Fu anche architetto: è suo, ad esempio, il disegno per la costruzione della Cappella dei Principi nella Basilica di San Lorenzo.\nFiglia nata morta\n\nAscendenza\n\nAscendenza patrilineare \n Medico di Potrone, *1046 †1102\n Bono di Potrone, *1069 †1123\n Bernardo di Potrone, *1049 †1147\n Giambuono de' Medici, *1131 †1192\n Chiarissimo, *1167 †1210, legato a Siena\n Filippo, detto \"Lippo\", *? †?\n Averardo, *? †1286\n Averardo di Averardo, *? †1318, gonfaloniere di Giustizia (1314)\n Salvestro, detto Chiarissimo, *? †1346, legato a Venezia\n Averardo di Chiarissimo, detto \"Bicci\", *1320 †1363\n Giovanni di Bicci, *1360 †1429\n Lorenzo il Vecchio, *1395 †1440\n Pierfrancesco il Vecchio, *1430 †1476\n Giovanni il Popolano, *1467 †1498\n Giovanni delle Bande Nere, *1498 †1526\n Cosimo I, Granduca di Toscana, *1519 †1574\n\nOnorificenze\n\nOnorificenze toscane\n\nOnorificenze straniere\n\nNote\n\nBibliografia \n Giorgio Spini, Cosimo I e l'indipendenza del principato mediceo, Firenze, Vallecchi, 1945.\n Roberto Cantagalli, Cosimo I de' Medici granduca di Toscana, Milano, Mursia, 1985.\n Gregory Murry, The Medicean Succession: Monarchy and Sacral Politics in Duke Cosimo dei Medici's Florence, Harvard University Press, 2014, ISBN 0674725476; ISBN 9780674725478.\n\nAltri progetti\n\nCollegamenti esterni \n \n \n \n\nCavalieri del Toson d'oro\nDuchi di Firenze\nGranduchi di Toscana\nMedici (famiglia)\nSepolti nelle Cappelle medicee\nSignori di Piombino\nGLAM/Museo Galileo\nGran maestri dell'Ordine di Santo Stefano Papa e Martire" ] embeddings = model.encode(sentences) similarities = model.similarity(embeddings, embeddings) print(similarities.shape) # [4, 4]