ITALIAN RENAISSANCE

The Renaissance was a cultural and scholarly

movement which stressed the rediscovery and
application of texts and thought from classical
antiquity, occurring in Europe c. 1400 – c. 1600.
The Renaissance can also refer to the period of
European history spanning roughly the same
dates.
 INTRODUCTIO
N
At the end of the fourteenth century, the impressiveness of gothic architecture began to
wear off.

Europe was coming out of the middle ages, and into the Renaissance.

The architects of the time changed their architecture to fit the era.

They revived many of the ideas from classical (Greek and Roman) architecture.

They did, however, use materials not associated with Greek and Roman architecture such as
brick, and the color red became common.

Artists and architects worked together much more, and many renaissance buildings have
statues, murals, and much more artwork to go with them.

Renaissance architecture began in Florence, Italy in the early fifteenth century.

Italy had never really used gothic architecture, so when gothic became less popular, Italy
had something different for the people to look to.

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 INTRODUCTIO
N
The style spread to the area around Florence, encompassing Rome and Milan.

Then it somehow got up to the Netherlands, and spread to the rest of Europe from there.

Renaissance architecture was somewhat different in the rest of Europe than in Italy, but the
basic principals were the same.

Renaissance architecture did not get to France until nearly 125 years after it began in
Florence.

A common feature of renaissance architecture was the dome.

Almost all renaissance cathedrals had domes. Many domes had paintings or decorations on
the ceilings.

French renaissance architecture had outer walls, and towers, and the domes were usually
only on the inside of a building.

Some good examples of renaissance architecture with domes are the Duomo of Florence,
and St. Peter's cathedral in Rome.

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 INTRODUCTIO
Famous architects and artists such as
N

Michelangelo,
Buonarroti,
Leonardo Di Vinci, and
Filippo Brunelleschi
Andrea Palladio
were shapers of renaissance architecture.

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 IDEA OF REBIRTH AND REVIVAL
OF
Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael and company created some fabulous paintings and
sculptures that we continue to marvel over many centuries later and so on and ART
so forth.

While these were vitally important artists, and their collective work is what usually comes to
mind when one hears the word "Renaissance", as so often happens in life things aren't quite
that simple.

The Renaissance (a word which literally means "born anew") is a name we've given to a
period in Western history during which the arts - so important in Classic cultures - were
revived.

The arts had quite a difficult time remaining important during the Middle Ages, given all of
the territorial struggles that were occurring throughout Europe.

People living then had enough to do merely figuring out how to stay in the good graces of
whomever was ruling them, while the rulers were preoccupied with maintaining or
expanding control.

With the large exception of the Roman Catholic Church, no one had much time or thought
left over to devote toward the luxury of art.

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 IDEA OF REBIRTH AND REVIVAL
OF ART
It will come as no surprise, then, to hear that "the Renaissance" had no clear-cut beginning
date, started first in those areas which had the highest relative levels of political stability and
spread, not like wildfire, but in a series of different phases which occurred between the years
c. 1150 and c. 1600.

The Pre- (or "Proto"-) Renaissance began in a northern enclave of present-day Italy
sometime around 1150 or so.

It didn't, at least initially, represent a wild divergence from any other Medieval art.

What made the Proto-Renaissance important was that the area in which it began was stable
enough to allow explorations in art to develop.

Fifteenth-century Italian Art, often (and not incorrectly) referred to as the "Early
Renaissance", generally means artistic goings-on in the Republic of Florence between the
years 1417 and 1494. (This doesn't mean nothing happened prior to 1417, by the way. The
Proto-Renaissance explorations had spread to include artists throughout northern Italy.)

Florence was the spot, for a number of factors, that the Renaissance period really caught
hold and stuck

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 IDEA OF REBIRTH AND REVIVAL
Sixteenth-century Italian Art is a category which contains three separateOF topics. ART
What we
now call the "High Renaissance" was a relatively brief period which lasted from roughly 1495
to 1527. (This is the little window of time referred to when one speaks of Leonardo,
Michelangelo and Raphael.) The "Late Renaissance" took place between 1527 and 1600
(again, this is a rough time table) and included the artistic school known as Mannerism.
Additionally, The Renaissance thrived in Venice, an area so unique (and supremely
disinterested with Mannerism) that an artistic "school" has been named in its honor.

The Renaissance in Northern Europe struggled to come into being, mostly due to the
stranglehold Gothic art maintained for centuries and the fact that this geographical region
was slower to gain political stability than was northern Italy.

Nonetheless, the Renaissance did occur here, beginning around the middle of the fourteenth
century and lasting until the Baroque movement (c. 1600).

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IDEA OF REBIRTH AND REVIVAL OF ART
- in brief
Between 1400 to 1600 AD, a return to classical ideas ushered an "age of "awakening" in Italy
and northern Europe.

This period is known as the Renaissance, which means born anew in French.

Renaissance architecture was inspired by architecture of classical Greece and Rome.

Earlier Gothic architecture was asymmetrical and complex.

Renaissance architecture was highly symmetrical and carefully proportioned.

Phases of the Renaissance

The Renaissance did not arrive overnight - For more than five centuries, artists in Northern
Italy were exploring new ideas.

During the early 1500s, Italy saw an explosion of talent and innovation. This period is called
the High Renaissance.

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IDEA OF REBIRTH AND REVIVAL OF ART
– in brief
Over the next century, Renaissance ideas crept north through Europe, gradually replacing
the earlier Gothic approaches to art and architecture.

During the 1600s, Renaissance ideas evolved into the more heavily ornamented Baroque
style.

Long after the Renaissance period ended, architects were inspired by Renaissance ideas.

In the 1700s and early 1800s, fashionable architects designed stately Neoclassical buildings.

A century later, American architects like Richard Morris Hunt designed grand Renaissance
Revival style homes that resembled palaces and villas from Renaissance Italy.

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The
ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTERISTICS
obvious distinguishing features of Classical Roman architecture were adopted by
Renaissance architects.

However, the forms and purposes of buildings had changed over time, as 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.

Symmetry

Renaissance architecture is based on the classical book by Vetruvius, "Ten Books on

Architecture," which advocated symmetry. Order and symmetry during the Italian

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Renaissance resulted in many buildings that are balanced and congruent.
Plan ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTERISTICS
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.

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FaçadeARCHITECTURAL CHARACTERISTICS
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.

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 ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTERISTICS
Columns and Pilasters
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.

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Arches ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTERISTICS
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.

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DomesARCHITECTURAL CHARACTERISTICS
Huge, spherical, convex structures crowned many large buildings during the Italian
Renaissance.

The dome especially became elemental to churches of the Italian Renaissance.

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

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CeilingsARCHITECTURAL CHARACTERISTICS
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.

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 ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTERISTICS
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.

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Details ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTERISTICS
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.

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Brunelleschi
Filippo Brunelleschi 1377 – April 15, 1446) was one of the foremost
architects and engineers of the Italian Renaissance.

He is perhaps most famous for inventing linear perspective and designing

the dome of the Florence Cathedral, but his accomplishments also included
bronze artwork, architecture (churches and chapels, fortifications, a hospital, etc),
mathematics, engineering (hydraulic machinery, clockwork mechanisms, theatrical
machinery, etc) and even ship design. His principal surviving works are to be found in
Florence, Italy.

Very little is known about the early life of Brunelleschi; the only sources are Antonio Manetti
and Giorgio Vasari.

According to these sources, Filippo's father was Brunellesco di Lippo, a lawyer, and his
mother was Giuliana Spini. Filippo was the middle of their three children.

The young Filippo was given a literary and mathematical education intended to enable him to
follow in the footsteps of his father, a civil servant.

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Brunelleschi
Being artistically inclined, however, Filippo enrolled in the Arte della Seta, the silk merchants'
Guild, which also included goldsmiths, metalworkers, and bronze workers.

He became a master goldsmith in 1398. It was thus not a coincidence that his first important
building commission, the Ospedale degli Innocenti came from the guild to which he
belonged.

In 1401, Brunelleschi entered a competition to design a new set of bronze doors for the
baptistery in Florence.

Along with another young goldsmith, Lorenzo Ghiberti, he produced a gilded bronze panel,
depicting the Sacrifice of Isaac.

His entry made reference to the Greco-Roman Boy with Thorn, whilst Ghiberti used a naked
torso for his figure of Isaac.

In 1403, Ghiberti was announced the victor, largely because of his superior technical skill: his
panel showed a more sophisticated knowledge of bronze-casting; it was completed in one
single piece.

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Brunelleschi
Brunelleschi's piece, by contrast, consisted of numerous pieces bolted to the back plate.

Ghiberti went on to complete a second set of bronze doors for the baptistery, whose beauty
Michelangelo extolled a hundred years later, saying "surely these must be the "Gates of
Paradise“.

There is little biographical information about Brunelleschi's life to explain his transition from
goldsmith to architect and, no less importantly, from his training in the gothic or medieval
manner to the new classicism in architecture and urbanism that we now loosely call the
Renaissance and of which Brunelleschi is considered the seminal figure.

By 1400 there emerged an interest in humanitas which contrasted with the formalism of the
medieval period, but initially this new interest in Roman antiquity was restricted to a few
scholars, writers and philosophers; it did not at first influence the visual arts.

Apparently it was in this period (1402–1404) that Brunelleschi and his friend Donatello visited
Rome to study the ancient Roman ruins.

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Brunelleschi
Donatello, like Brunelleschi, had received his training in a goldsmith's workshop, and had
then worked in Ghiberti's studio.

Although in previous decades the writers and philosophers had discussed the glories of
ancient Rome, it seems that until Brunelleschi and Donatello made their journey, no-one had
studied the physical fabric of these ruins in any great detail.

They gained inspiration too from ancient Roman authors, especially Vitruvius whose De
Architectura provided an intellectual framework for the standing structures still visible.

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Michelangelo
Michelangelo was arguably the most famous artist of the Italian
Renaissance, and inarguably one of the greatest artists of all time.

He considered himself a sculptor, primarily, but is equally well known for

the paintings he was induced (grudgingly) to create.

He was also an architect and an amateur poet.

Movement, Style, School or Period:

High to Late Italian Renaissance

Year and Place of Birth:

1475, Caprese (near Florence) in Tuscany

Early Life:
Young Michelangelo, motherless by the age of six, fought long and hard with his father for
permission to apprentice as an artist.

At the age of 12, he began studying under Domenico Ghirlandajo, who was the most
fashionable painter in Florence at the time

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Michelangelo
Fashionable, but extremely jealous of Michelangelo's emerging talent. Ghirlandajo passed
the lad off to be apprenticed to Bertoldo di Giovanni, the sculptor, and here Michelangelo
found the work that became his true passion.

His sculpture came to the attention of the most powerful family in Florence, the Medici, and
he gained their patronage.

Body of Work:
Michelangelo's output was, quite simply, stunning, in quality, quantity and scale.

His most famous statues include the 18-foot David (1501-1504) and the Pietà (1499), but his
sculpture encompassed many other pieces including elaborately decorated tombs.

He did not consider himself a painter, and (justifiably) complained throughout four straight
years of the work, but created one of the greatest masterpieces of all time on the ceiling of
the Sistine Chapel (1508-1512).

Additionally, he painted The Last Judgement (1534-1541) on the altar wall of the same chapel
many years later.

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Michelangelo
As an old man, he was tapped by the Pope to complete the half-finished St. Peter's Church in
the Vatican.

Not all of the plans he drew were utilized but, after his death, architects built the dome still
in use today.

His poetry was very personal and not as grand as his other works, yet is of great value to
those who wish to know Michelangelo.

Accounts of his life seem to portray Michelangelo as a prickly-tempered, mistrusting and

lonely man, lacking in both interpersonal skills and confidence in his physical appearance.

Perhaps that is why he created works of such heartbreaking beauty and heroism that they
are still held in awe these many centuries later.
Year and Place of Death:
1564, Rome

Quote:
"Genius is eternal patience."

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Andrea The Renaissance master Andrea
Palladio is often described as the
Palladio
Born:
most influential and most copied
architect in the Western world.
November 30, 1508 in Padua, Italy
Died:
August 19, 1580 in Vicenza, Italy
Full Name:
Born Andrea Di Pietro della Gondola.
Later named Palladio after the Greek goddess of wisdom.
The new name was given to Palladio by an employer, the scholar Trissino.

Palladio's Early Training:

Apprenticed to a stonecutter when he was 13 years old
Became an assistant in a masonry workshop in Vicenza
Learned the principles of classical architecture when he worked on new additions for a villa
owned by Gian Giorgio Trissino, a leading scholar of the time.

About Andrea Palladio:

Drawing inspiration from classical architecture, Palladio created carefully proportioned,
pedimented buildings that became models for stately homes and government buildings in
Europe and America.

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Andrea
Palladio
One of many architectural features inspired by Palladio is the popular Palladian window.

Palladio's Four Books of Architecture was widely translated, and Palladio's ideas spread
across Europe and into the New World.

American statesman Thomas Jefferson borrowed Palladian ideas when he designed

Monticello, his home in Virginia.

Important Buildings by Palladio:

By the 1540s, Palladio was using classical principles to design a series of country villas and
urban palaces for the nobility of Vicenza.

One of his most famous is Villa Capra, also known as the Rotunda, which was modeled after
the Roman Pantheon.

Palladio also designed the Basilica in Vicenza, and in the 1560s he began work on religious
buildings in Venice.

The great basilica San Giorgio Maggiore is one of Palladio's most elaborate works.

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Andrea Borrowing ideas from
the Classical architecture
Palladio of Greece and Rome,
Palladio developed an
approach to design that
was both beautiful and
practical.

Villa Rotunda Vicenza Town Hall

Villa Rotonda Villa Badoer

Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio lived nearly 500 years ago, yet his works continue
to inspire the way we build today.

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About
Renaissance…
Renaissance architects rejected the intricacy and verticality of the Gothic aesthetic for the
simplicity and balanced proportions of classicism.

Rounded arches, domes, and the classical orders were revived, mainly through the study of
Roman ruins and the manual Ten Books on Architecture by Vitruvius.

Renaissance architecture tends to feature planar classicism (i.e. "flat classicism").

In other words, the walls of a Renaissance building (both exterior and interior) are
embellished with classical motifs (e.g. pilasters, pediments, blind arches) of minor physical
depth, such that they intrude minimally on the two-dimensional appearance of the walls.

Put another way, the walls of a Renaissance building serve as flat canvases for a classical
veneer.

This contrasts with Baroque architecture, in which walls are deeply curved and sculpted
("sculpted classicism").

Planar classicism also tends to divide a wall into neat sections (e.g. with pilasters), whereas a
Baroque wall is treated as a continuous, undulating whole.

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About
Renaissance…
The foremost Renaissance building types were the church, palazzo (urban mansion), and
villa (country mansion).

While the Renaissance flourished in Italy ca. 1400-1600, it only diffused across the rest of
Europe during the latter half of this period.

Architects outside of Italy often clung stubbornly to the Gothic style.

Consequently, much non-Italian Renaissance architecture embodies a fascinating blend of

Gothic intricacy and verticality with Renaissance simplicity and restraint.

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Early Renaissance (1400-
1500)
The two leading Early Renaissance architects were Brunelleschi and Alberti.

Filippo Brunelleschi, the first great architect of the Renaissance, worked primarily in
churches.

His most famous masterpiece is the octagonal brick dome he designed for Florence Basilica
(an Italian Gothic church), an engineering feat of such difficulty (due to the dome's
unprecedented size) that he also had to invent special machines to hoist each section into
place.

This dome is the most famous transitional work between Medieval and Renaissance
architecture.

Although at first glance it appears to be very much a Gothic dome, it is considered a

transitional work due to Brunelleschi's attention to balanced proportions and simple
decoration.

It is crowned by a lantern, a rooftop structure with openings for lighting or ventilation.

(Another common rooftop structure is the belfry, or bell-tower.)

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Early Renaissance (1400-
1500)
Brunelleschi's greatest design for a complete building may be the Basilica of San Lorenzo, a
beautiful example of a Renaissance-style church.

The plain exterior of this work includes a series of blind arches, while the interior is graced
with crisp grey-and-white planar classicism.

Only the columns prevent the interior from being comprised entirely of flat surfaces. (In
many Renaissance churches, broad rectangular piers are used instead of columns, thus
maximizing the surface space for planar classicism.)

Leon Battista Alberti became the leading architectural theorist of the Renaissance with his
own Ten Books on Architecture, which instructed on the adaptation of ancient classical
forms to modern buildings; it became the primary reference manual for Renaissance.

The facade of the Church of Sant'Andrea mimics a triumphal arch. The facade of the Palazzo
Rucellai is neatly divided into rectangular sections (each containing an arched window) with
pilasters and entablatures.

Circular elements, like those above each window of the Palazzo, were a Renaissance
favourite, with many architects of the period regarding the circle as the "perfect shape".

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Early Renaissance

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High Renaissance (1500-
1525)
The High Renaissance represents the pinnacle of classical
Renaissance art and architecture.
restraint and simplicity in

A sense of massive stability was sought, for which the Doric order was considered ideal.

The founder and leader of High Renaissance architecture was Donato Bramante.

His greatest completed work is the Tempietto, a Doric shrine which is held to mark the place
of St Peter's martyrdom.

Despite its small size, the Tempietto is often considered the crowning jewel of High
Renaissance architecture; it is certainly the most famous religious structure of the period.

Bramante's greatest unrealized work is a cross-in-square plan for St. Peter's Basilica (the
foremost church of Roman Catholicism, located in Vatican City).

Following Bramante's death early in its construction, persistent delays led to a string of

architects (including Michelangelo) taking over the project and completely transforming the
original design.

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High Renaissance (1500-
1525)
Antonio da Sangallo, a student of Bramante's, is remembered chiefly for the Palazzo
Farnese, arguably the greatest Renaissance palazzo.

This building follows the typical Renaissance palazzo layout: a three-story rectangular
building with a central courtyard.

A spartan majesty is achieved in the balanced height and breadth of the facade (a two-to-
one rectangle), the absence of vertical divisions, and the broad, unadorned surface above
each row of windows.

The sheer simplicity of the facade emphasizes its variations in wall colours, window shapes,
and pediment shapes.

A popular decorative treatment of the Renaissance palazzo was rustication, in which a

masonry wall is textured rather than smooth.

This can entail leaving grooves in the joints between smooth blocks, using roughly dressed
blocks, or using blocks that have been deliberately textured.

The rustication of a Renaissance palazzo is often differentiated between stories.

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High Renaissance (1500-
1525)

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Late Renaissance (1500-
1525)
Following the severe simplicity and stability of the High Renaissance, the Late Renaissance
witnessed a general relaxation towards greater complexity and dynamism.

Architects began to mould surfaces more freely, straining the flatness of planar classicism.

The term Mannerism is sometimes used as a synonym for Late Renaissance art.

It is also used more specifically to denote a bizarre strain of Late Renaissance art, in which
human anatomy was strangely elongated and figures were placed in complex, unnatural
postures.

In Mannerist architecture, classical forms were distorted, exaggerated, and misplaced, and
perfect symmetry was sometimes violated with subtle asymmetry.

The most famous Mannerist building is the Palazzo del Te in Mantua, by Giulio Romano.

The most obvious mannerist elements are triglyphs that look as though they have slipped
out of place.

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Late Renaissance (1500-
1525)
Additionally, numerous archways feature oversized keystones; some jut downward, thus
breaking the smooth outline of the arch, while others jut upward, intruding on the interior
space of pediments above them.

Yet the foremost villa architect of the Renaissance, Andrea Palladio, was not a Mannerist.

In fact, his simple style could arguably be described as High Renaissance, or nearly so.
Palladio may well be the most influential architect of all time, given the widespread embrace
of his style during the Neoclassical era.

Palladio's most striking innovation was to graft the classical temple front onto residential
architecture.

A true temple front is a portico (covered porch with columns), while a cosmetic temple front
can be formed by a simple pediment. In either case the entrance can be recessed, which
allows for a covered entrance even without a portico.

The common features of Palladio's villas are captured by the term Palladian style.

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Late Renaissance (1500-
1525)
Three standard features of Palladian-style buildings may be identified.

One: the overall plan is a central block flanked with identical wings, which ensures perfect
symmetry; the central block is faced with a temple front.

Two: the interior plan is also symmetrical, with a great hall at the centre

Three: the building has an exposed basement, a major story and an attic story, with stairs
leading up to the main story.

Most of Palladio's villas match this description quite closely. The chief variation is the two-
story villa, which adds a second major story.

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THANK
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