Vanished Kingdoms: The Rise and Fall of States and Nations (147 page)

16
. and
17
.
Los Reyes Católicos
: Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile,
c.
1491.

ARAGON

18
. Mattia Preti,
The Battle of El Puig
; Langue d’Aragon Chapel, Valletta. The battle, fought in 1238 near Valencia between Catalans and Moors, was a milestone in the
Reconquista.

BYZANTION

19
. ‘The Ladder to Heaven’: seventh-century Byzantine icon by St John Climacus. Images of the ascetic life and of spiritual perfection underline the theocratic nature of Byzantine civilization.

20
. The Siege of Constantinople, 1453 (fifteenth-century French miniature). The Ottoman Turks deliver the
coup de grâce
to the Roman Empire.

LITVA

21
. Trakai Castle. Lithuania: a fourteenth-century fortress, built by the uncle of Grand Duke Jogaila, who united Lithuania with Poland in 1385.

22
.
Mirsky Zamak
, the Castle of Mir, Belarus: completed in the late sixteenth century by Prince Mikołaj Krzysztof Radziwiłł.

LITVA

23
. Barbara Radziwiłł (1520–51), the tragic wife of Sigismund-August: queen of Poland and grand duchess of Lithuania for six months.

24
. Title page of the Third Lithuanian Statute, 1588.

25
. ‘The Polish Plum Cake’, 1773: cartoon satirizing the First Partition of Poland-Lithuania.

26
. Stanisław-August Poniatowski (r. 1764–95): born at Volchin in White Ruthenia, died in St Petersburg, ‘repatriated’ 1938.

GALICIA

27
.
Stetl Juden
, orthodox Jews, from one of Galicia’s many Jewish towns.

28
. Hutsul man and horse from eastern Galicia.

29
. Polish
Górale
, or ‘Highlanders’, from the Tatra mountains.

GALICIA