Information Renaissance

"Working Mother"

This entry is to continue my ideas regarding the “Working Mother” and the “Renaissance Woman.” In the early Renaissance period women were to fit a mold, be a loyal wife and mother. Later in the Renaissance period women began to break that mold. They began promoting the arts, and focusing on education. It was very difficult to break this mold, as they were looked at as if they were distasteful. As I jump ahead to the 21st century and think about the “Working Mother,” I wonder if women are still fighting to break that mold. Have we really progressed as much as we think we have? I know from personal experience, I have had to justify my career and educational choices to my family and friends because I am a wife and mother; whereas my husband is never questioned for his educational or career aspirations. My Christian background also teaches that a woman’s place is in the home. It seems like women today are still fighting to be a Renaissance woman.

More on Taj

The Taj rises on a high red sandstone base topped by a huge white marble terrace on which rests the famous dome flanked by four tapering minarets. Within the dome lies the jewel-inlaid cenotaph of the queen. So exquisite is the workmanship that the Taj has been described as "having been designed by giants and finished by jewellers". The only asymmetrical object in the Taj is the casket of the emperor which was built beside the queen’s as an afterthought. The emperor was deposed by his son and imprisoned in the Great Red Fort for eight years but was buried in the Taj. During his imprisonment, he had a view of the Taj. As a tribute to a beautiful woman and as a monument for enduring love, the Taj reveals its subtleties when one visits it without being in a hurry. The rectangular base of Taj is in itself symbolic of the different sides from which to view a beautiful woman. The main gate is like a veil to a woman’s face which should be lifted delicately, gently and without haste on the wedding night. In indian tradition the veil is lifted gently to reveal the beauty of the bride. As one stands inside the main gate of Taj, his eyes are directed to an arch which frames the Taj. The dome is made of white marble, but the tomb is set against the plain across the river and it is this background that works its magic of colours that, through their reflection, change the view of the Taj. The colours change at different hours of the day and during different seasons. Like a jewel, the Taj sparkles in moonlight when the semi-precious stones inlaid into the white marble on the main mausoleum catch the glow of the moon. The Taj is pinkish in the morning, milky white in the evening and golden when the moon shines. These changes, they say, depict the different moods of woman. Different people have different views of the Taj but it would be enough to say that the Taj has a life of its own that leaps out of marble, provided you understand that it is a monument of love. As an architectural masterpiece, nothing could be added or substracted from it. http://www.angelfire.com/in/myindia/tajmahal.html

TajMahal - Symbol of love

Agra, once the capital of the Mughal Empire during the 16th and early 18th centuries, is one and a half hours by express train from New Delhi. Tourists from all over the world visit Agra not to see the ruins of the red sandstone fortress built by the Mughal emperors but to make a pilgrimage to Taj Mahal, India’s most famous architectural wonder, in a land where magnificent temples and edificies abound to remind visitors about the rich civilization of a country that is slowly but surely lifting itself into an industrialized society. The postcard picture of Taj Mahal does not adequately convey the legend, the poetry and the romance that shroud what Rabindranath Tagore calls "a teardrop on the cheek of time". Taj Mahal means "Crown Palace" and is in fact the most well preserved and architecturally beautiful tomb in the world. It is best described by the English poet, Sir Edwin Arnold, as "Not a piece of architecture, as other buildings are, but the proud passions of an emperor’s love wrought in living stones." It is a celebration of woman built in marble and that’s the way to appreciate it. Taj Mahal stands on the bank of River Yamuna, which otherwise serves as a wide moat defending the Great Red Fort of Agra, the center of the Mughal emperors until they moved their capital to Delhi in 1637. It was built by the fifth Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan in 1631 in memory of his second wife, Mumtaz Mahal, a Muslim Persian princess. She died while accompanying her husband in Burhanpur in a campaign to crush a rebellion after giving birth to their 14th child. The death so crushed the emperor that all his hair and beard were said to have grown snow white in a few months. When Mumtaz Mahal was still alive, she extracted four promises from the emperor: first, that he build the Taj; second, that he should marry again; third, that he be kind to their children; and fourth, that he visit the tomb on her death anniversary. He kept the first and second promises. Construction began in 1631 and was completed in 22 years. Twenty thousand people were deployed to work on it. The material was brought in from all over India and central Asia and it took a fleet of 1000 elephants to transport it to the site. It was designed by the Iranian architect Ustad Isa and it is best appreciated when the architecture and its adornments are linked to the passion that inspired it. It is a "symbol of eternal love". http://www.angelfire.com/in/myindia/tajmahal.html

"Festina Lente" ("Hurry Slowly")--Motto of Renaissance Publisher Aldus Manutius

"Festina Lente" ("Hurry Slowly")--is the wonderful paradoxical motto of the European renaissance publisher Aldus Manutius.

Aldus Manutius, from the Wikipedia entry on him, lived from 1449/1450 till 1515 Common Era (CE). He is credited with inventing or at least popularizing the italic typeface.

In 1995 Brigham Young University Library had an exhibition of books published by Manutius. The following is from the exhibition's introduction, giving the historical context and importance of this extraordinary information networker in his time, and ours:

The invention of movable type in the mid-fifteenth century and the subsequent development of printing amounted to a vast change in western European thought and habits comparable to that wrought by the information revolution of our own day. Aldus Manutius and his heirs, although not originators of that change, rode the crest of the wave and decisively influenced not only the subsequent course of printing itself, but the general course of ideas in their time. In a very real sense they, along with a few other select printers, determined what the intellectuals of their time would read; thus, their impact on Renaissance thought was extraordinary.

Before he died, Aldus published works in areas as diverse as the interests of his day. From his press came Greek and Latin classical texts, grammars, religious writings, contemporary secular writings, popular works, political and scientific writings, history, and geography. This was the age of discovery, both intellectually and geographically. The West was exploding with the knowledge of new peoples, new lands, new cultures, and new ideas. The Aldine Press stood at the center, recapturing the past and recording the present.

In his nearly twenty years as a printer, Aldus labored tirelessly at the press and left to the world a rich legacy of beautiful books and scholarly texts. These books are still admired for their attractive typography, clean lines, and good design as well as their scholarly contributions. Through his publications, Aldus contributed to the survival of many ancient texts and greatly facilitated the diffusion of the values, enthusiasm, and scholarship of the Italian Renaissance across the rest of Europe. In Aldus was an alliance of printer and scholar, who demonstrated to the printing world that scholarly books could be produced finely as well as profitably; and he convinced the scholarly world of the value of printing.

"In Aldus was an alliance of printer and scholar," the introduction says, just above.

So what about the alliance of technology expert and scholar in our era? We hope at the Center for Information and Communication Sciences that we're about the work of producing leaders for the information renaissance today.

Aldus Manutius is a great role model.