Prof. Boerner's Explorations

by Gerald Boerner

Today we will continue our consideration of the artists who worked during the Renaissance period in Europe. During this time, art was either commissioned or done for the church, which essentially meant the same thing: the churches, monasteries, and other religious organizations gathered together a store of art that reflected the emotions and reality of people.

We are focusing on the advanced in Renaissance Architecture today and the principle artists involved during that period and look at some of their best works. In general, the renaissance represented a transition from highly stylized art of only religious subjects to art that incorporated the sense of light and color available in the new media available. In addition, innovations in the use of perspective gave these artworks a greater sense of reality.

We hope that this will provide you with food for thought regarding the Holy Week celebrations on which we are also focusing this week.  GLB

“A man of eighty has outlived probably three new schools of painting, two of architecture and poetry and a hundred in dress.”
— Lord Byron

“All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks.”
— Gilbert K. Chesterton

“All architecture is shelter, all great architecture is the design of space that contains, cuddles, exalts, or stimulates the persons in that space.”
— Philip Johnson

“All the revision in the world will not save a bad first draft: for the architecture of the thing comes, or fails to come, in the first conception, and revision only affects the detail and ornament, alas!”
— T.E. Lawrence

“Any architectural project we do takes at least four or five years, so increasingly there is a discrepancy between the acceleration of culture and the continuing slowness of architecture.”
— Rem Koolhaas

“Any work of architecture that has with it some discussion, some polemic, I think is good. It shows that people are interested, people are involved.”
— Richard Meier

“Architecture can’t fully represent the chaos and turmoil that are part of the human personality, but you need to put some of that turmoil into the architecture, or it isn’t real.”
— Frank Stella

“After about the first Millennium, Italy was the cradle of Romanesque architecture, which spread throughout Europe, much of it extending the structural daring with minimal visual elaboration..”
— Harry Seidler

Note:
This posting is intended for the educational use of photographers and photography students and complies with the “educational fair use” provisions of copyright law. For readers who might wish to reuse some of these images should check out their compliance with copyright limitations that might apply to that use.

GLB

The Renaissance: Renaissance Architecture (Part 1)

Tempietto di San Pietro in Montorio, Rome, 1502,
by Bramante. This small temple marks the place
where St Peter was put to death. 

Renaissance architecture is the architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 17th centuries in different regions of Europe, in which there was a conscious revival and development of certain elements of ancient Greek and Roman thought and material culture. Stylistically, Renaissance architecture followed Gothic architecture and was succeeded by Baroque architecture.

The Renaissance style places emphasis on symmetry, proportion, geometry and the regularity of parts as they are demonstrated in the architecture of classical antiquity and in particular ancient Roman architecture, of which many examples remained. Orderly arrangements of columns, pilasters and lintels, as well as the use of semicircular arches, hemispherical domes, niches and aedicules replaced the more complex proportional systems and irregular profiles of medieval buildings.

Developed first in Florence, with Filippo Brunelleschi as one of its innovators, the Renaissance style quickly spread to other Italian cities and then to France, Germany, England, Russia and elsewhere.

The word "Renaissance" derived from the term "la rinascita" ("rebirth") which first appeared in Giorgio Vasari’s Vite de’ più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori Italiani (The Lives of the Artists, 1550–68).

Although the term Renaissance was used first by the French historian Jules Michelet, it was given its more lasting definition from the Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt, whose book, Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien 1860, was influential in the development of the modern interpretation of the Italian Renaissance. The folio of measured drawings Édifices de Rome moderne; ou, Recueil des palais, maisons, églises, couvents et autres monuments (The Buildings of Modern Rome), first published in 1840 by Paul Letarouilly, also played an important part in the revival of interest in this period. The Renaissance style was recognized by contemporaries in the term "all’antica", or "in the ancient manner" (of the Romans).

Principle Phases

Historians often divide the Renaissance in Italy into three phases. Whereas art historians might talk of an "Early Renaissance" period, in which they include developments in 14th century painting and sculpture, this is usually not the case in architectural history. The bleak economic conditions of the late 14th century did not produce buildings that are considered to be part of the Renaissance. As a result, the word "Renaissance" among architectural historians usually applies to the period 1400 to ca. 1525, or later in the case of non-Italian Renaissances.

Historians often use the following designations:

• Renaissance (ca. 1400–1500); also known as the Quattrocento and sometimes Early Renaissance
• High Renaissance (ca.1500–1525)
• Mannerism (ca. 1520–1600)

Quattrocento
In the Quattrocento, concepts of architectural order were explored and rules were formulated. (See- Characteristics of Renaissance Architecture, below.) The study of classical antiquity led in particular to the adoption of Classical detail and ornamentation.

Space, as an element of architecture, was utilised differently from the way it had been in the Middle Ages. Space was organised by proportional logic, its form and rhythm subject to geometry, rather than being created by intuition as in Medieval buildings. The prime example of this is the Basilica di San Lorenzo in Florence by Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446).

High Renaissance
During the High Renaissance, concepts derived from classical antiquity were developed and used with greater surety. The most representative architect is Bramante (1444–1514) who expanded the applicability of classical architecture to contemporary buildings. His San Pietro in Montorio (1503) was directly inspired by circular Roman temples. He was, however, hardly a slave to the classical forms and it was his style that was to dominate Italian architecture in the 16th century.

Mannerism
During the Mannerist period, architects experimented with using architectural forms to emphasize solid and spatial relationships. The Renaissance ideal of harmony gave way to freer and more imaginative rhythms. The best known architect associated with the Mannerist style was Michelangelo (1475–1564), who is credited with inventing the giant order, a large pilaster that stretches from the bottom to the top of a façade. He used this in his design for the Campidoglio in Rome.

Prior to the 20th century, the term Mannerism had negative connotations, but it is now used to describe the historical period in more general non-judgmental terms.

From Renaissance to Baroque

As the new style of architecture spread out from Italy, most other European countries developed a sort of proto-Renaissance style, before the construction of fully formulated Renaissance buildings. Each country in turn then grafted its own architectural traditions to the new style, so that Renaissance buildings across Europe are diversified by region.

Within Italy the evolution of Renaissance architecture into Mannerism, with widely diverging tendencies in the work of Michelangelo and Giulio Romano and Andrea Palladio, led to the Baroque style in which the same architectural vocabulary was used for very different rhetoric.

Outside Italy, Baroque architecture was more widespread and fully developed than the Renaissance style, with significant buildings as far afield as Mexico and the Philippines.

Characteristics of Renaissance Architecture

Raphael’s unused plan for
St. Peter’s Basilica

The obvious distinguishing features of Classical Roman architecture were adopted by Renaissance architects. However, the forms and purposes of buildings had changed over time. So had the structure of cities. Among the earliest buildings of the reborn Classicism were churches of a type that the Romans had never constructed. Neither were there models for the type of large city dwellings required by wealthy merchants of the 15th century. Conversely, there was no call for enormous sporting fixtures and public bath houses such as the Romans had built. The ancient orders were analysed and reconstructed to serve new purposes.

Plan

The plans of Renaissance buildings have a square, symmetrical appearance in which proportions are usually based on a module. Within a church the module is often the width of an aisle. The need to integrate the design of the plan with the façade was introduced as an issue in the work of Filippo Brunelleschi, but he was never able to carry this aspect of his work into fruition. The first building to demonstrate this was St. Andrea in Mantua by Alberti. The development of the plan in secular architecture was to take place in the 16th century and culminated with the work of Palladio.

Sant’Agostino, Rome, Giacomo di Pietrasanta, 1483

Façade

Façades are symmetrical around their vertical axis. Church façades are generally surmounted by a pediment and organized by a system of pilasters, arches and entablatures. The columns and windows show a progression towards the center. One of the first true Renaissance façades was the Cathedral of Pienza (1459–62), which has been attributed to the Florentine architect Bernardo Gambarelli (known as Rossellino) with Alberti perhaps having some responsibility in its design as well.

Domestic buildings are often surmounted by a cornice. There is a regular repetition of openings on each floor, and the centrally placed door is marked by a feature such as a balcony, or rusticated surround. An early and much copied prototype was the façade for the Palazzo Rucellai (1446 and 1451) in Florence with its three registers of pilasters.

Columns and Pilasters

Classical Orders, engraving from the
Encyclopédie vol. 18. 18th century.

The Roman orders of columns are used:- Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Composite. The orders can either be structural, supporting an arcade or architrave, or purely decorative, set against a wall in the form of pilasters. During the Renaissance, architects aimed to use columns, pilasters, and entablatures as an integrated system. One of the first buildings to use pilasters as an integrated system was in the Old Sacristy (1421–1440) by Brunelleschi.

Arches

Arches are semi-circular or (in the Mannerist style) segmental. Arches are often used in arcades, supported on piers or columns with capitals. There may be a section of entablature between the capital and the springing of the arch. Alberti was one of the first to use the arch on a monumental scale at the St. Andrea in Mantua.

Vaults

Vaults do not have ribs. They are semi-circular or segmental and on a square plan, unlike the Gothic vault which is frequently rectangular. The barrel vault, is returned to architectural vocabulary as at the St. Andrea in Mantua.

Domes

The Dome of St Peter’s Basilica,
Rome. photo- Wolgang Stuck, 2004

The dome is used frequently, both as a very large structural feature that is visible from the exterior, and also as a means of roofing smaller spaces where they are only visible internally. Domes had been used only rarely in the Middle Ages, but after the success of the dome in Brunelleschi’s design for the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore and its use in Bramante’s plan for St. Peter’s Basilica (1506) in Rome, the dome became an indispensable element in church architecture and later even for secular architecture, such as Palladio’s Villa Rotonda.

Ceilings

Roofs are fitted with flat or coffered ceilings. They are not left open as in Medieval architecture. They are frequently painted or decorated.

Doors

Doors usually have square lintels. They may be set within an arch or surmounted by a triangular or segmental pediment. Openings that do not have doors are usually arched and frequently have a large or decorative keystone.

Windows

Windows may be paired and set within a semi-circular arch. They may have square lintels and triangular or segmental pediments, which are often used alternately. Emblematic in this respect is the Palazzo Farnese in Rome, begun in 1517.

Courtyard of Palazzo Strozzi, Florence

In the Mannerist period the “Palladian” arch was employed, using a motif of a high semi-circular topped opening flanked with two lower square-topped openings. Windows are used to bring light into the building and in domestic architecture, to give views. Stained glass, although sometimes present, is not a feature.

Walls

External walls are generally of highly-finished ashlar masonry, laid in straight courses. The corners of buildings are often emphasised by rusticated quoins. Basements and ground floors were often rusticated, as modeled on the Palazzo Medici Riccardi (1444–1460) in Florence. Internal walls are smoothly plastered and surfaced with white-chalk paint. For more formal spaces, internal surfaces are decorated with frescoes.

Details

Courses, mouldings and all decorative details are carved with great precision. Studying and mastering the details of the ancient Romans was one of the important aspects of Renaissance theory. The different orders each required different sets of details. Some architects were stricter in their use of classical details than others, but there was also a good deal of innovation in solving problems, especially at corners. Moldings stand out around doors and windows rather than being recessed, as in Gothic Architecture. Sculptured figures may be set in niches or placed on plinths. They are not integral to the building as in Medieval architecture.

Influences on the Development of Renaissance Architecture in Italy

Italy of the 15th century, and the city of Florence in particular, was home to the Renaissance. It is in Florence that the new architectural style had its beginning, not slowly evolving in the way that Gothic grew out of Romanesque, but consciously brought to being by particular architects who sought to revive the order of a past "Golden Age". The scholarly approach to the architecture of the ancient coincided with the general revival of learning. A number of factors were influential in bringing this about.

The Romanesque Baptistery of Florence
was the object of Brunelleschi’s
studies of perspective

Architectural

Italian architects had always preferred forms that were clearly defined and structural members that expressed their purpose. Many Tuscan Romanesque buildings demonstrate these characteristics, as seen in the Florence Bapistery and Pisa Cathedral.

Italy had never fully adopted the Gothic style of architecture. Apart from the Cathedral of Milan, largely the work of German builders, few Italian churches show the emphasis on vertically, the clustered shafts, ornate tracery and complex ribbed vaulting that characterise Gothic in other parts of Europe.

The presence, particularly in Rome, of ancient architectural remains showing the ordered Classical style provided an inspiration to artists at a time when philosophy was also turning towards the Classical.^[13]

Political

In the 15th century, Florence, Venice and Naples extended their power through much of the area that surrounded them, making the movement of artists possible. This enabled Florence to have significant artistic influence in Milan, and through Milan, France.

In 1377, the return of the Pope from Avignon and re-establishment of the Papal court in Rome, brought wealth and importance to that city, as well as a renewal in the importance of the Pope in Italy, which was further strengthened by the Council of Constance in 1417. Successive Popes, especially Julius II, 1503–13, sought to extend the Pope’s temporal power throughout Italy.

Commercial

In the early Renaissance, Venice controlled sea trade over goods from the East. The large towns of Northern Italy were prosperous through trade with the rest of Europe, Genoa providing a seaport for the goods of France and Spain; Milan and Turin being centers of overland trade, and maintaining substantial metalworking industries. Trade brought wool from England to Florence, ideally located on the river for the production of fine cloth, the industry on which its wealth was founded. By dominating Pisa, Florence gained a seaport, and also maintained dominance of Genoa. In this commercial climate, one family in particular turned their attention from trade to the lucrative business of money-lending. The Medici became the chief bankers to the princes of Europe, becoming virtually princes themselves as they did so, by reason of both wealth and influence. Along the trade routes, and thus offered some protection by commercial interest, moved not only goods but also artists, scientists and philosophers.

Religious

Pope Sixtus IV, 1477, builder of the
Sistine Chapel. Fresco by
Melozzo da Forlì in the
Vatican Palace.

The return of the Pope from Avignon in 1377 and the resultant new emphasis on Rome as the center of Christian spirituality, brought about a boom in the building of churches in Rome such as had not taken place for nearly a thousand years. This commenced in the mid 15th century and gained momentum in the 16th century, reaching its peak in the Baroque period. The construction of the Sistine Chapel with its uniquely important decorations and the entire rebuilding of St Peter’s, one of Christendom’s most significant churches, was part of this process.

In wealthy republican Florence, the impetus for church-building was more civic than spiritual. The unfinished state of the enormous cathedral dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary did no honour to the city under her patronage. However, as the technology and finance were found to complete it, the rising dome did credit not only to the Blessed Virgin, its architect and the Church but also the Signoria, the Guilds and the sectors of the city from which the manpower to construct it was drawn. The dome inspired further religious works in Florence.

Philosophic

Four Humanist philosophers under the patronage of the Medici:
Marsilio Ficino, Cristoforo Landino, Angelo Poliziano and
Demetrius Chalcondyles. Fresco by Domenico Ghirlandaio.

The development of printed books, the rediscovery of ancient writings, the expanding of political and trade contacts and the exploration of the world all increased knowledge and the desire for education.

The reading of philosophies that were not based in Christian theology led to the development of Humanism through which it was clear that while God had established and maintained order in the Universe, it was the role of Man to establish and maintain order in Society.

Civil

Cosimo de’ Medici the Elder,
head of the Medici Bank,
sponsored civic building programs.
Fresco by Bronzino.

Through Humanism, civic pride and the promotion of civil peace and order were seen as the marks of citizenship. This led to the building of structures such as Brunelleschi’s Hospital of the Innocents with its elegant colonnade forming a link between the charitable building and the public square, and the Laurentian Library where the collection of books established by the Medici family could be consulted by scholars.

Some major ecclesiastical building works were also commissioned, not by the church, but by guilds representing the wealth and power of the city. Brunelleschi’s dome at Florence Cathedral, more than any other building belonged to the people of the city because the construction of each of the eight segments was achieved by a different sector of the city.

Patronage

As in the Platonic academy of Athens, it was seen by those of Humanist understanding that those people who had the benefit of wealth and education ought to promote the pursuit of learning and the creation of that which was beautiful. To this end, wealthy families—the Medici of Florence, the Gonzaga of Mantua, the Farnese in Rome, the Sforzas in Milan—gathered around them people of learning and talent, promoting the skills and creating employment for the most talented artists and architects of their day.

Architectural Theory

During the Renaissance, architecture became not only a question of practice, but also a matter for theoretical discussion. Printing played a large role in the dissemination of ideas.

• The first treatise on architecture was De re aedificatoria (English: On the Art of Building) by Leon Battista Alberti in 1450. It was to some degree dependent on Vitruvius’ De architectura, a manuscript of which was discovered in 1414 in a library in Switzerland. De re aedificatoria in 1485 became the first printed book on architecture.
• Sebastiano Serlio (1475 – c. 1554) produced the next important text, the first volume of which appeared in Venice in 1537; it was entitled "Regole generali d’architettura [...]" (or "General Rules of Architecture"). It is known as Serlio’s "Fourth Book" since it was the fourth in Serlio’s original plan of a treatise in seven books. In all, five books were published.
• In 1570, Andrea Palladio (1508 –1580) published I Quattro Libri dell’Architettura (The Four Books of Architecture) in Venice. This book was widely printed and responsible to a great degree of spreading the ideas of the Renaissance through Europe. All these books were intended to be read and studied not only by architects, but also by patrons.

To Be Continued

We will continue our examination of Renaissance Architecture on Monday, with the consideration of the specific architectural styles during the different phases of the Renaissance.

References

Background and biographical information is from Wikipedia articles on:

Wikipedia: Renaissance… 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance

Wikipedia: Renaissance Architecture… 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_architecture

Web Sites and Blogs:

Brainy Quote: Architectural Quotes…  
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/architecture.html

by Gerald Boerner

Good Friday represents the “anti-climax” of Holy Week, the day on which Jesus was betrayed by Judus, tried, and crucified on the Cross. To some this represents the low point of the week, but to others it represents the hope of the future in that the resurrection of Christ from the dead gives hope to the believer of his/her own resurrection at the second-coming of Christ. Let us take time to worship and thank the Lord for his gift of the Lamb of God that took away our sins, as death could not keep him down, but he overcame it on Easter morning.  GLB

“Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.”
— Bible, I Peter 2:24

“The cross was two pieces of dead wood; and a helpless, unresisting Man was nailed to it; yet it was mightier than the world, and triumphed, and will ever triumph over it.”
— Augustus William Hare

“All His life long Christ was the light of the world, but the very noontide hour of His glory was that hour when the shadow of eclipse lay over all the land, and He hung on the Cross dying in the dark.”
— Author Unknown

“At His eventide "it was light," and, "He Endured the Cross, despising the shame" and, lo! the shame flashed up into the very brightness of glory, and the very ignominy and the suffering were "the jewels of His crown.”
— Author Unknown

“Exalt the Cross! God has hung the destiny of the race upon it. Other things we may do in the realm of ethics, and on the lines of philanthropic reforms; but our main duty converges into setting that one glorious beacon of salvation, Calvary’s Cross, before the gaze of every immortal soul.”
— Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

“So shall we join the disciples of our Lord, keeping faith in Him in spite of the crucifixion, and making ready, by our loyalty to Him in the days of His darkness, for the time when we shall enter into His triumph in the days of His light. And the beauty of it is that the same method runs throughout the disciples’ work which ran through His work.”
— Phillips Brooks

“When God’s children pass under the shadow of the cross of Calvary, they know that through that shadow lies their passage to the great white throne. For them Gethsemane is as paradise. God fills it with sacred presences; its solemn silence is broken by the music of tender promises, its awful darkness softened and brightened by the sunlight of Heavenly faces and the music of angel wings.”
— Frederic William Farrar

“Yet once more that cross moves closer, and yet more intensely and eagerly He who hangs upon it seems to speak to us, and the burden of His words is: ‘I bring to you that which is highest and best for time and eternity; I bring to you the assurance that there is no grief and no sorrow that is not always in the Father’s sight and may not be turned into blessing. I bring to you a power by which evil thoughts and tendencies may be destroyed. I bring to you whose memories are full of sad and bad recollections the assurance that no life can have been so wicked, no past so foul, no strength so far gone as to cut off from the love of God and His willingness to save.’ ”
— Amory Howe Bradford

Holy Week: Good Friday & the Crucifixion

‘Good Friday, also called Holy Friday, Black Friday, Great Friday, is a holiday observed primarily by Christians commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, his death at Calvary, and his Resurrection from the grave [he is risen]. The holiday is observed during Holy Week as part of the Paschal Triduum on the Friday preceding Easter Sunday, and often coincides with the Jewish observance of Passover.

Based on the scriptural details of the Sanhedrin Trial of Jesus, the Crucifixion of Jesus was most probably on a Friday. The estimated year of Good Friday is AD 33, by two different groups, and originally as AD 34 by Isaac Newton via the differences between the Biblical and Julian calendars and the crescent of the moon. A third method, using a completely different astronomical approach based on a lunar Crucifixion darkness and eclipse model (consistent with Apostle Peter’s reference to a "moon of blood" in Acts 2:20) arrives at the same date, namely Friday April 3, AD 33.

Biblical accounts

"The Judas Kiss" by
Gustave Doré, 1866.

According to the accounts in the Gospels, Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane by the Temple Guards through the guidance of his disciple, Judas Iscariot. Judas received money (30 pieces of silver) (Matthew 26:14-16) for betraying Jesus and told the guards that whomever he kisses is the one they are to arrest. Jesus is brought to the house of Annas, who is the father-in-law of the current high priest, Caiaphas. There he is interrogated with little result, and sent bound to Caiaphas the high priest, where the Sanhedrin had assembled (John 18:1-24).

Conflicting testimony against Jesus is brought forth by many witnesses, to which Jesus answers nothing. Finally the high priest adjures Jesus to respond under solemn oath, saying "I adjure you, by the Living God, to tell us, are you the Anointed One, the Son of God?" Jesus testifies in the affirmative, "You have said it, and in time you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Almighty, coming on the clouds of Heaven." The high priest condemns Jesus for blasphemy, and the Sanhedrin Trial of Jesus concurs with a sentence of death (Matthew 26:57-66). Peter, waiting in the courtyard, also denies Jesus three times to bystanders while the interrogations were proceeding. Jesus already knew that Peter would deny him three times. See the article Sanhedrin Trial of Jesus regarding the two trials, one at night, the other in the morning and how their timing may affect the day of Good Friday.

A Good Friday procession in Bombay by Indian Roman Catholics,
depicting the Way of the Cross

In the morning, the whole assembly brings Jesus to the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, under charges of subverting the nation, opposing taxes to Caesar, and making himself a king (Luke 23:1-2). Pilate authorizes the Jewish leaders to judge Jesus according to their own Law and execute sentencing; however, the Jewish leaders reply that they are not allowed by the Romans to carry out a sentence of death (John 18:31).

Pilate questions Jesus, and tells the assembly that there is no basis for sentencing. Upon learning that Jesus is from Galilee, Pilate refers the case to the ruler of Galilee, King Herod, who was in Jerusalem for the Passover Feast. Herod questions Jesus but receives no answer; Herod sends Jesus back to Pilate. Pilate tells the assembly that neither he nor Herod have found guilt in Jesus; Pilate resolves to have Jesus whipped and released (Luke 23:3-16).

It was a custom during the feast of Passover for the Romans to release one prisoner as requested by the Jews. Pilate asks the crowd whom they would like to be released. Under the guidance of the chief priests, the crowd asks for Barabbas, who had been imprisoned for committing murder during an insurrection. Pilate asks what they would have him do with Jesus, and they demand, "Crucify him" (Mark 15:6-14). Pilate’s wife had seen Jesus in a dream earlier that day; she forewarns Pilate to "have nothing to do with this righteous man" (Matthew 27:19).

Pilate has Jesus flogged, then brings him out to the crowd to release him. The chief priests inform Pilate of a new charge, demanding Jesus be sentenced to death "because he claimed to be God’s son." This possibility filled Pilate with fear, and he brought Jesus back inside the palace and demanded to know from where he came (John 19:1-9).

Antonio Ciseri’s depiction of
Ecce Homo with Jesus and
Pontius Pilate,
19th century.

Coming before the crowd one last time, Pilate declares Jesus innocent, washing his own hands in water to show he has no part in this condemnation. Nevertheless, Pilate hands Jesus over to be crucified in order to forestall a riot (Matthew 27:24-26) and ultimately to keep his job. The sentence written is "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews." Jesus carries his cross to the site of execution (assisted by Simon of Cyrene), called the place of the Skull, or "Golgotha" in Hebrew and in Latin "Calvary". There he is crucified along with two criminals (John 19:17-22).

Jesus agonizes on the cross for six hours. During his last 3 hours on the cross, from noon to 3pm, there is darkness over the whole land.^[9] With a loud cry, Jesus gives up his spirit. There is an earthquake, tombs break open, and the curtain in the Temple is torn from top to bottom. The centurion on guard at the site of crucifixion declares, "Truly this was God’s Son!" (Matthew 27:45-54)

Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Sanhedrin and secret follower of Jesus, who had not consented to his condemnation, goes to Pilate to request the body of Jesus (Luke 23:50-52). Another secret follower of Jesus and member of the Sanhedrin named Nicodemus brought about a hundred pound weight mixture of spices and helped wrap the body of Christ (John 19:39-40). Pilate asks confirmation from the centurion whether Jesus is dead (Mark 15:44). A soldier pierced the side of Jesus with a lance causing blood and water to flow out (John 19:34), and the centurion informs Pilate that Jesus is dead (Mark 15:45).

Joseph of Arimathea takes the body of Jesus, wraps it in a clean linen shroud, and places it in his own new tomb that had been carved in the rock (Matthew 27:59-60) in a garden near the site of crucifixion. Nicodemus (John 3:1) also came bringing 75 pounds of myrrh and aloes, and places them in the linen with the body of Jesus, according to Jewish burial customs (John 19:39-40). They rolled a large rock over the entrance of the tomb (Matthew 27:60). Then they returned home and rested, because at sunset began Shabbat (Luke 23:54-56). On the third day, Sunday, which is now known as Easter Sunday (or Pascha), Jesus rose from the dead.

In the Roman Catholic Church

The Catholic Church treats Good Friday as a fast day, which in the Latin Rite of the Church is understood as having only one full meal (but smaller than a regular meal – often substituting meat with fish) and two collations (a smaller repast, two of which together do not equal one full meal). In countries where Good Friday is not a day of rest from work, the afternoon liturgical service is usually put off until a few hours after the recommended time of 3 p.m.

Crucifix prepared for veneration
on Good Friday.

The Roman Rite ordinarily has no celebration of Mass after that of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday evening until that of the Easter Vigil unless a special exemption is granted for rare solemn or grave occasions by the Vatican or the local bishop, and the only sacraments celebrated are Baptism (for those in danger of death), Penance and Anointing of the Sick. While there is no celebration of the Eucharist, Holy Communion is distributed to the faithful only in the Service of the Passion of the Lord, but can be taken at any hour to the sick who are unable to attend this service.

The altar remains completely bare, without cross, candlesticks or altar cloths. It is customary to empty the holy water fonts in preparation of the blessing of the water at the Easter Vigil. Traditionally, no bells are rung on Good Friday or Holy Saturday until the Easter Vigil.

The Celebration of the Passion of the Lord takes place in the afternoon, ideally at three o’clock, but for pastoral reasons a later hour may be chosen. The vestments used are red (more commonly) or black (more traditionally). Before 1970, they were black except for the Communion part of the rite, for which violet was used, and before 1955 black was used throughout. If a bishop celebrates, he wears a plain mitre.

The liturgy consists of three parts: the Liturgy of the Word, the Veneration of the Cross, and Holy Communion.

The first part, the Liturgy of the Word, consists of the reading or chanting of Isaiah 52:13-53:12, Hebrews 4:14-16, 5:7-9, and the Passion account from the Gospel of John, which is often divided between more than one singer or reader. This part concludes with a series of prayers: for the Church, the Pope, the clergy and laity of the Church, those preparing for baptism, the unity of Christians, the Jewish people, those who do not believe in Christ, those who do not believe in God, those in public office, those in special need.

The second part of the Good Friday liturgy is the Veneration of the Cross: a crucifix, not necessarily the one that is normally on or near the altar at other times, is solemnly displayed to the congregation and then venerated by them, individually if possible, while special chants are sung.

Communion from the Blessed
Sacrament on Good Friday
(Our Lady of Lourdes,
Philadelphia).

The third and last part is Holy Communion according to a rite based on that of the final part of Mass, beginning with the Our Father, but omitting the ceremony of "Breaking of the Bread" and its related chant, the "Agnus Dei." The Eucharist, consecrated at the Mass of Holy Thursday is distributed at this service. Before the reform of Pope Pius XII, only the priest received Communion in the framework of what was called the "Mass of the Presanctified", which included the usual Offertory prayers, with the placing of wine in the chalice, but which omitted the Canon of the Mass.

Priest and people then depart in silence, and the altar cloth is removed, leaving the altar bare except for the cross and two or four candlesticks.

The Way of the Cross,
celebrated at the Colosseum
in Rome on Good Friday.

In addition to the prescribed liturgical service, the Stations of the Cross are often prayed either in the church or outside, and a prayer service may be held from midday to 3.00 p.m., known as the Three Hours’ Agony. In countries such as Malta, Italy, Philippines, Puerto Rico and Spain, processions with statues representing the Passion of Christ are held.

In Polish churches, a tableau of Christ’s Tomb is unveiled in the sanctuary. Many of the faithful spend long hours into the night grieving at the Tomb, where it is customary to kiss the wounds on the Lord’s body. A life-size figure of Christ lying in his tomb is widely visited by the faithful, especially on Holy Saturday. The tableaux may include flowers, candles, figures of angels standing watch, and the three crosses atop Mt Calvary, and much more. Each parish strives to come up with the most artistically and religiously evocative arrangement in which the Blessed Sacrament, draped in a filmy veil, is prominently displayed.

Acts of Reparation to Jesus Christ

The Roman Catholic tradition includes specific prayers and devotions as acts of reparation for the sufferings and insults that Jesus suffered during his Passion on Good Friday. These Acts of Reparation to Jesus Christ do not involve a petition for a living or deceased beneficiary, but aim to repair the sins against Jesus. Some such prayers are provided in the Raccolta Catholic prayer book (approved by a Decree of 1854, and published by the Holy See in 1898) which also includes prayers as Acts of Reparation to the Virgin Mary.

In his encyclical Miserentissimus Redemptor on reparations, Pope Pius XI called Acts of Reparation to Jesus Christ a duty for Catholics and referred to them as "some sort of compensation to be rendered for the injury" with respect to the sufferings of Jesus.

Pope John Paul II referred to Acts of Reparation as the "unceasing effort to stand beside the endless crosses on which the Son of God continues to be crucified".

Anglican Communion

The 1662 Book of Common Prayer did not specify a particular rite to be observed on Good Friday but local custom came to mandate an assortment of services, including the Seven Last Words from the Cross and a three-hour service consisting of Matins, Ante-communion (using the Reserved Sacrament in high church parishes) and Evensong. In recent times revised editions of the Prayer Book and Common Worship have re-introduced pre-Reformation forms of observance of Good Friday corresponding to those in today’s Roman Catholic Church, with special nods to the rites that had been observed in the Church of England prior to the Henrican, Edwardian and Elizabethan reforms, including Creeping to the Cross.

Other Protestant Traditions

Many Protestant communities hold special services on this day as well. In the German Lutheran tradition from the 16th to the 20th century, this was the most important holiday, and abstention from all worldly works was expected. Lutheranism had no restrictions on the celebration of Holy Communion on Good Friday; on the contrary, it was a prime day on which to receive Holy Communion, and services were often accentuated by special music such as the St Matthew Passion by Lutheran Johann Sebastian Bach. Mid-20th century Lutheran liturgical practice moved away from Holy Communion celebrated on Good Friday, and among the major North American Lutheran bodies today, Holy Communion may not be celebrated on Good Friday, but rather on Maundy Thursday. However, the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod in its official service book, Lutheran Service Book, does permit the offering of the Eucharist also on Good Friday. Moravians hold a Lovefeast on Good Friday as they receive Holy Communion on Maundy Thursday. The Methodist Church also commemorates Good Friday with a service of worship, often based on the Seven Last Words from the Cross.

Some Baptist, Pentecostal, many Sabbatarian and non-denominational churches oppose the observance of Good Friday, instead observing the Crucifixion on Wednesday to coincide with the Jewish sacrifice of the Passover Lamb (which Christians believe is an Old Testament pointer to Jesus Christ). A Wednesday Crucifixion of Jesus Christ allows for Christ to be in the tomb ("heart of the earth") for three days and three nights as he told the Pharisees he would be (Matthew 12:40), rather than two nights and a day if he had died on a Friday.

Scriptural Reading

Our deliverance is at hand. In this reading from the Letter to the Hebrews, St. Paul explains that the New Covenant, like the Old, had to be sealed in blood. This time, however, the blood is not the blood of calves and goats that Moses offered at the foot of Mount Sinai, but the Blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. Christ is both the Sacrifice and the High Priest; by His death, He has entered Heaven, where He "may appear now in the presence of God for us."

Hebrews 9:11-28

But Christ, being come an high priest of the good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hand, that is, not of this creation: Neither by the blood of goats, or of calves, but by his own blood, entered once into the holies, having obtained eternal redemption.

For if the blood of goats and of oxen, and the ashes of an heifer being sprinkled, sanctify such as are defiled, to the cleansing of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who by the Holy Ghost offered himself unspotted unto God, cleanse our conscience from dead works, to serve the living God?

And therefore he is the mediator of the new testament: that by means of his death, for the redemption of those trangressions, which were under the former testament, they that are called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance. For where there is a testament, the death of the testator must of necessity come in. For a testament is of force, after men are dead: otherwise it is as yet of no strength, whilst the testator liveth. Whereupon neither was the first indeed dedicated without blood.

For when every commandment of the law had been read by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying: This is the blood of the testament, which God hath enjoined unto you. The tabernacle also and all the vessels of the ministry, in like manner, he sprinkled with blood. And almost all things, according to the law, are cleansed with blood: and without shedding of blood there is no remission.

It is necessary therefore that the patterns of heavenly things should be cleansed with these: but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Jesus is not entered into the holies made with hands, the patterns of the true: but into heaven itself, that he may appear now in the presence of God for us. Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holies, every year with the blood of others: For then he ought to have suffered often from the beginning of the world: but now once at the end of ages, he hath appeared for the destruction of sin, by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment: So also Christ was offered once to exhaust the sins of many; the second time he shall appear without sin to them that expect him unto salvation.

• Source: Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition of the Bible (in the public domain)

References

Background and biographical information is from Wikipedia articles on:

Wikipedia: Holy Week… 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Week

Wikipedia: Good Friday… 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Friday

About.com: Scriptural Reading for the Thursday of Holy Week…
http://catholicism.about.com/od/lentenreadings/qt/Reading_FrHW.htm

GIGA Quote: Good Friday…
http://www.giga-usa.com/quotes/topics/good_friday_t001.htm

by Gerald Boerner

We have all heard about Ponce de León’s quest for the Fountain of Youth in the Americas. After Columbus’ discover of the West Indies, other explorers arrived to harvest the vast treasures that were thought to exist in this new land. Never mind that the American Indians, the First Peoples, had been here for many, many years and the land was not up for the grab.

The search for a Fountain of Youth was a legend that had been around for a long time. Ponce de León went to Florida in search of this mythical source of eternal youth and did not find it. People today are still searching for that magical cream or treatment that will preserve their youthful appearance.

Will we ever find this miracle thing? Probably not, but the cosmetic companies, snake oil salesmen, and the gullible consumer will not give up the search. A word to the wise: beware of miracle cures, they don’t exist!  GLB

“To find joy in work is to discover the fountain of youth.”
— Pearl Buck

“If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.”
— Pearl Buck

“One faces the future with one’s past.”
— Pearl Buck

“All things are possible until they are proved impossible – and even the impossible may only be so, as of now.”
— Pearl Buck

“Let woman out of the home, let man into it, should be the aim of education. The home needs man, and the world outside needs woman.”
— Pearl Buck

“Order is the shape upon which beauty depends.”
— Pearl Buck

“Seeing the show is like a visit to the fountain of youth for parents and the children.”
— Cathy Rigby

“So it really does have a sort of bittersweet quality. Kids like to have adventures and to believe they can fly, but there’s also that fear about people leaving you.”
— Cathy Rigby

The Fountain of Youth

The Fountain of Youth is a legendary spring that reputedly restores the youth of anyone who drinks of its waters. Tales of such a fountain have been recounted across the world for thousands of years, appearing in Herodotus, the Alexander romance, and the stories of Prester John. Stories of a similar waters were also evidently prominent among the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean during the Age of Exploration, who spoke of the restorative powers of the water in the mythical land of Bimini.

The legend became particularly prominent in the 16th century, when it became attached to the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León, first Governor of Puerto Rico. According to an apocryphal story that features a combination of New World and Eurasian elements, Ponce de León was searching for the Fountain of Youth when he traveled to what is now Florida in 1513. Since then the fountain has been frequently associated with Florida.

Early accounts

Al-Khidr and Alexander watch the
Water of Life revive a salted fish

Herodotus mentions a fountain containing a very special kind of water located in the land of the Ethiopians, which gives the Ethiopians their exceptional longevity. A story of the “Water of Life” appears in the Eastern versions of the Alexander romance, which describes Alexander the Great and his servant crossing the Land of Darkness to find the restorative spring. The servant in that story is in turn derived from Middle Eastern legends of Al-Khidr, a sage who appears also in the Qur’an. Arabic and Aljamiado versions of the Alexander Romance were very popular in Spain during and after the period of Moorish rule, and would have been known to the explorers who journeyed to America. These earlier accounts clearly inspired the popular medieval fantasy The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, which also mentions the fountain. Due to the influence of these tales, the Fountain of Youth legend remained popular through the European Age of Exploration.

There are countless indirect sources for the tale as well. Eternal youth is a gift frequently sought in myth and legend, and stories of things such as the philosopher’s stone, universal panaceas, and the elixir of life are common throughout Eurasia and elsewhere. An additional hint may have been taken from the account of the Pool of Bethesda in the Gospel of John, in which Jesus heals a man at the pool in Jerusalem. Rig Veda 1.85 10. They forced up the fountain with their power; they split open even the mountain on its solid base. Blowing their reed-pipe, the Maruts who give fine gifts performed joyous deeds in the ecstasy of drinking Soma. 11. They forced up the fountain in a stream that shot to the side; they poured out the spring for the thirsty Gotama. Shining brilliantly, they came to him with aid. They fulfilled the desire of the sage in their own ways.

Bimini

The native stories about the curative spring were related to the mythical land of Bimini or Beniny (hence Bimini), a land of wealth and prosperity. The spring was purportedly located on an island called Boinca. Although subsequent interpretations suggested the land was located in the vicinity of the Bahamas, the natives were referring to a location in the Gulf of Honduras. The islands of Bimini in the Bahamas were known as La Vieja during the Ponce expedition. According to legend, the Spanish heard of Bimini from the Arawaks in Hispaniola, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. Sequene, an Arawak chief from Cuba, had purportedly been unable to resist the lure of Bimini and its restorative fountain. He gathered a troupe of adventurers and sailed north, never to return. Word spread among Sequene’s more optimistic tribesmen that he and his followers had located the Fountain of Youth and were living in luxury in Bimini.

Bimini and its curative waters were widespread subjects in the Caribbean. Italian-born chronicler Peter Martyr d’Anghiera (Peter Martyr) told of them in a letter to the pope in 1513, though he didn’t believe the stories and was dismayed that so many others did.

Ponce de León and Florida

In the 16th century the story of the Fountain of Youth became attached to the biography of the conquistador Juan Ponce de León. According to the story, Ponce de León heard of the land of Bimini from the people of Puerto Rico when he conquered the island. Growing dissatisfied with his material wealth, he launched an expedition to locate it, and in the process discovered Florida. Though he was one of the first Europeans to set foot on the American mainland, he never found the Fountain of Youth.

The story is apocryphal. Ponce de León does not mention the fountain in his writings throughout the course of his expedition. While he may well have heard of the Fountain and believed in it, his name was not associated with the legend in writing until after his death. That connection is made in Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo’s Historia General y Natural de las Indias of 1535, in which he wrote that Ponce de León was looking for the waters of Bimini to cure his impotence. Some researchers have suggested that Oviedo’s account may have been politically inspired to generate favor in the courts. A similar account appears in Francisco López de Gómara’s Historia General de las Indias of 1551. In the Memoir of Hernando D’Escalante Fontaneda in 1575, the author places the restorative waters in Florida and mentions de León looking for them there; his account influenced Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas’ history of the Spanish in the New World. Fontaneda had spent seventeen years as an Indian captive after being shipwrecked in Florida as a boy. In his Memoir he tells of the curative waters of a lost river he calls “Jordan” and refers to de León looking for them. However, Fontaneda makes it clear he is skeptical about these stories he includes, and says he doubts de León was actually looking for the fabled stream when he came to Florida.

It is Herrera who makes that connection definite in the romanticized version of Fontaneda’s story included in his Historia general de los hechos de los Castellanos en las islas y tierra firme del Mar Oceano. Herrera states that local caciques paid regular visits to the fountain. A frail old man could become so completely restored that he could resume “all manly exercises… take a new wife and beget more children.” Herrera adds that the Spaniards had unsuccessfully searched every “river, brook, lagoon or pool” along the Florida coast for the legendary fountain. It would appear the Sequene story is likewise based on a garbling of Fontaneda.

Fountain of Youth Today

Postcard from the Fountain of Youth in St. Augustine

The city of St. Augustine, Florida is home to the Fountain of Youth National Archaeological Park, a tribute to the spot where Ponce de León is traditionally said to have landed. The tourist attraction was created by Luella Day McConnell in 1904. “Diamond Lil”, as she was known, fabricated stories to amuse and appall the city’s residents and tourists until her death in 1927.

Though the fountain situated there is not “the” Fountain, this does not stop tourists from drinking its water. The park exhibits native and colonial artifacts to celebrate St. Augustine’s Timucuan and Spanish heritage.

In the book Weird Florida, part of the Weird U.S. series by Mark Moran and Mark Sceurman, author Charlie Carlson says he conversed with members of a supposed St. Augustine-based secret society claiming to be the protectors of the Fountain of Youth, which has granted them extraordinary longevity. They claimed Old John Gomez, a protagonist in the Gasparilla legend from Florida folklore, had been one of their members. In August 2006, popular American magician David Copperfield claimed he had discovered a true “Fountain of Youth” amid a cluster of four small islands in the Exuma chain of the Bahamas which he recently purchased for roughly $50 million. “I’ve discovered a true phenomenon,” he told Reuters. “You can take dead leaves, they come in contact with the water, they become full of life again. … Bugs or insects that are near death, come in contact with the water, they’ll fly away. It’s an amazing thing, very, very exciting.” Copperfield, who turned 50 in September 2006, says that he hired scientists to conduct an examination of the “legendary” water, but as of now, the fountain remains off limits to outside visitors.

The Fountain of Youth lives on as a metaphor for anything that potentially increases longevity. It is a frequently used plot device in age regression stories. Nathaniel Hawthorne used the Fountain in “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment” to demonstrate that positive thinking is a far better remedy than deluded journeys to Florida for legendary cures; Orson Welles directed and starred in a 1958 TV program based on the legend; and Tim Powers featured it in On Stranger Tides, a novel of 18th century pirate-voodoo adventure. In 1953, the Walt Disney Company created a cartoon entitled Don’s Fountain of Youth, in which Donald Duck had supposedly discovered the famous fountain and can’t resist pretending to his nephews that it really works. In 1974 Marvel Comics featured the Fountain (which works if bathed in, but cripples if drunk from) in Man-Thing and later The Savage She-Hulk, and in 2005 the Fountain turned up in the DC Comics series Day of Vengeance. The fountain and its waters form the main plot device in Microsoft and Ensemble Studio’s Age of Empires III campaign “Blood, Ice and Steel”. Recently, characters in the 2006 Darren Aronofsky film The Fountain search for the Tree of Life to cure a brain tumor. Jorge Luis Borges refers to the Fountain of Life in a short story in the book The Aleph, in which the people who are immortal get tired of it and eventually start looking for the Fountain of Death to reverse their immortality.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the fourth installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, is set to be based on a journey in search of the Fountain of Youth. This was alluded to at the end of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End where Captain Jack Sparrow had taken the map from Captain Hector Barbossa. The film is scheduled for filming in summer 2010, then released in 2011.

Likely Origins of the Legend

According to tradition, the natives of Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and Cuba told the early Spanish explorers that in Bimini (Beniny), a land to the north, there was a river, spring or fountain where waters had such miraculous curative powers that any old person who bathed in them would regain his youth. About the time of Columbus’s first voyage, says the legend, an Arawak chief named Sequene, inspired by the fable of the curative waters, had migrated from Cuba to southern Florida. It seems that other parties of islanders had made attempts to find Bimini, which was generally described as being in the region of the Bahamas.

Juan Ponce de Leon (1460-1521), who had been with Columbus on his second voyage in 1493 and who had later conquered and become governor of Puerto Rico, is supposed to have learned of the fable from the Indians. The fable was not new, and probably Pence de Leon was vaguely cognizant of the fact that such waters had been mentioned by medieval writers, and that Alexander the Great had searched for such waters in eastern Asia. A similar legend was known to the Polynesians, whose tradition located the fountain of perpetual youth in Hawaii.

As described to the Spanish, Bimini not only contained a spring of perpetual youth but teemed with gold and all sorts of riches. The fact that the party of Arawaks who had gone in that direction had never returned was taken as evidence that they must have found the happy land!

In that age of discovery, when new wonders and novelties were disclosed every year, not only the Spanish explorers but also men of learning accepted such stories with childlike credulity. Pietro Martire d’Anghiera (1472-1528), an Italian geographer and historian who moved to Spain in 1487 and who is known as “Peter Martyr” wrote to Pope Leo X in 1513: “Among the islands of the north side of Hispaniola, there is about 325 leagues distant, as they say who have searched the same, in which is a continual spring of running water, of such marvelous virtue that the water thereof being drunk, perhaps with some diet, maketh old men young again.” The chronicler himself discounted the tale, but he told his Holiness that “they have so spread this rumor for a truth through all the court, that not only all the people, but also many of them whom wisdom or fortune hath divided from the common sort, think it to be true.”

Ponce de Leon, who had become wealthy in the colonial service, equipped three ships at his own expense and set out to find the land of riches and perhaps the mythical fountain that would restore his health and make him young again. It is a common, mistake to suppose that he was then an old man. He was only about fifty-three.

Ponce de Leon, like most of the other early Spanish explorers and conquerors, was looking primarily for gold, slaves and other “riches,” and it is not likely that he actually put much stock in the fable of the fountain of youth, if he had heard about it at all.

That fable was not associated with de Leon’s name until long afterwards, when Hernando de Escaiante de Fontaneda told it in his account of Florida. In 1545 Fontaneda, at the age of thirteen, was shipwrecked on the coast of Florida and spent seventeen years as a captive of the Indians. He was finally rescued, probably by the French in northeastern Florida, and later returned to the peninsula as an interpreter for Menendez in 1565. Antonio de Herrera y Tordesilias (1540?-1625) had access to Fontaneda’s manuscript and incorporated the story in his history of the Indies.

Whether any Europeans had visited Florida before Ponce de Leon’s first expedition is not known for certain. Some authorities suppose that both John Cabot and Amerigo Vespucci had explored and mapped part of the coast. At any rate, Alberto Cantino’s Spanish map of 1502 indicated a peninsula corresponding to Florida.

On March 27, 1513 (not 1512 as often stated), after searching vainly for Bimini among the Bahamas, Ponce de Leon sighted the North American mainland, which he took to be an island, and on April 2 he landed somewhere on the eastern coast. Nobody knows for certain where he first set foot on Florida soil. Some suppose that it was north of St. Augustine, while others think it was as far south as Cape Canav- eral. Either because the discovery was made during the Easter season, or because he found flowers on the coast, or for both reasons, he named the country La Florida. In Spanish, Easter Sunday is la pascua florida, literally “the flowery passover.” “And thinking that this land was an island they named it La Florida because they discovered it in the time of the flowery festival.”

Other Events on this Day

• In 1513…
  Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León lands in Florida.
• In 1865…
  Confederate president Jefferson Davis and most of his cabinet flee Richmond, Virginia, as Union troops draw near the capital.
• In 1902…
  The Electric Theater, the first American theater devoted to showing motion pictures, opens in Los Angeles.
• In 1917…
  Woodrow Wilson calls for a declaration of war against Germany, saying, “The world must be made safe for democracy”.
• In 1953…
  The journal Nature publishes a paper by British scientist Francis Crick and American James Watson, describing a double helix structure for DNA.

Dates and events based on:

William J. Bennett and John Cribb, (2008) The American Patriot’s Almanac Daily Readings on America. (Kindle Edition)

Background information is from Wikipedia articles on:

Wikipedia: Fountain of Youth… 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_of_Youth

The Progress Report: Florida’s Fountain of Youth—Likely Origin of the Legend…
http://www.progress.org/fountain.htm

Brainy Quote: Cathy Rigby Quotes…
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/c/cathy_rigby.html

Brainy Quote: Pearl Buck Quotes…
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/p/pearlsbuc125874.html