Every Day Is Special: Renaissance Man

Showing posts with label Renaissance Man. Show all posts

February 17 – Happy Birthday, Jozef Murgas

Posted on February 17, 2016

If someone's called a “Renaissance Man,” he's probably had a lot of occupations, or he's made contributions to several different fields.

Today's famous birthday is a Renaissance Man: an inventor, an architect, a painter, a biologist, and a priest. Since he helped develop wireless telegraphy and other wireless communications, I think we could fudge that “inventor” label towards him being a physicist and engineer, don't you?

Jozef Murgas was born in Tajov, which at the time was in the Kingdom of Hungary, which in turn was part of the Austrian Empire. But Tajov is no longer part of Hungary OR Austria; it's in Slovakia!

Slovakia is in the middle of this map and is
colored a dark brown-red.

During his student days, Murgas was noted for his work in physics and in art. But he was also learning theology (the study of religion), and soon he was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest.

While working as a priest, Murgas studied painting in Budapest (Hungary) and Munich (Germany). But after eight years, Murgas emigrated to the U.S. There he worked as a priest but started to work in electrotechnology, publishing papers, obtaining patents, and starting a company.

Along with all this work on wireless communication, Murgas took care of Slovak immigrants. He founded a community organization that took care of children and youths. He published a newspaper. He had a new library, cemetery, gymnasium, and several schools and playgrounds built. He organized a charity, took political action, wrote articles, and supported the creation of the nation of Czechoslovakia (which has since ceased to exist).

Murgas financed some of this cool stuff by selling paintings he painted.

He continued to do experiments in physics, and he also collected mushrooms, plants, minerals, and insects. His butterfly collection included 9,000 butterflies from all over the world.

I think the main contribution that Murgas made was to make all of the rest of us feel like lazy slugs!

In Pennsylvania, in King's College, there is a museum
exhibit of Murgas's paintings and other works.

Also on this date:

Champion Crab Races Day

National Day in Libya

Medical researcher Rene Laennec's birthday

Anniversary of the first self-starting automobile

Random Acts of Kindness Day

Anniversary of first U.S. street with gas lighting

Basketball superstar Michael Jordan's birthday

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:

February holidays
February birthdays
Historical anniversaries in February

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

March 6 – Happy Birthday, Michelangelo

Posted on March 6, 2014

One of the most famous sculptors of all times, one of the most famous painters of all times, and one of the most famous architects of all time was born on this date in 1475.

Of course, as you probably guessed, they were the same guy. He was also a poet and an engineer. So, yeah: a true “Renaissance Man”!

Of course, we're talking about Michelangelo. Actually, his full name was Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni! He was born in the Republic of Florence, which is now part of Italy.

Michelangelo's story is not one of those typical starving-artist, only-discovered-after-he's-dead stories. Instead, Michelangelo was highly praised even during his lifetime. As a matter of fact, during his lifetime he was sometimes called “the divine one” (but in Italian).

He inspired the Mannerist movement, and he created pieces that were considered masterpieces during his lifetime and still are today, centuries later.

Michelangelo sculpted two of his most famous pieces, Pieta and David, before he was thirty years old. One of his greatest architectural works is the dome and western end of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, and one of his greatest paintings is the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

One might think that, with so many of his works being so large-scale and amazing, Michelangelo didn't make a LOT of works. I mean, can you have quality and quantity? Well...with Michelangelo, yes, you can. He did create many works, and he made a lot of sketches and wrote a lot of letters to others and journaled about his own memories. With all of these sketches and writing, he is the best-documented artist of the 1500s.

Okay, so he was a genius. Do you ever wonder how geniuses get their start?

When Michelangelo was quite young, his mother fell ill, and Michelangelo was sent to live with a stonecutter and his wife. The boy remained there for a while after his mother died, when he was just six years old. There he learned how to handle a chisel and hammer.

Michelangelo just so happened to grow up in the greatest cultural center of Italy, at the time (Florence) so he was surrounded by art. He used to skip his school assignments in order to copy paintings from churches and talk to painters. One of these Florentine painters, a man named Domenico Ghirlandaio, was called to the Vatican to decorate the walls of the Sistine Chapel. When Michelangelo was just thirteen years old, he was apprenticed to Ghirlandaio. When he was fourteen, Michelangelo's father convinced the established artist to pay Michelangelo as an artist (rather than just feed and house him as an apprentice), and soon after than Ghirlandaio chose Michelangelo, as one of his two best pupils, to go to the university-like academy that the ruler of Florence had established.

So the answer to the question, how do geniuses get their start is (in this case at least): young!