Bibliothèque nationale de France in the context of "De Figuris Veneris"

The Idalion Tablet is a 5th-century BC bronze tablet from Idalion (Greek: Ιδάλιον), Cyprus. The script of the tablet is in the Cypriot syllabary and the inscription itself is in the Arcadocypriot dialect of Greek.

The tablet was kept in the ancient official depository of the temple of Athena on the western acropolis of Idalion, where it was discovered in 1850 by a farmer from the village of Dali. It was purchased by Honoré Théodoric d'Albert de Luynes, who donated it to the Bibliothèque nationale de France in 1862. Today it is kept in the BnF Museum in Paris. The script was not deciphered until after the 1870 discovery of the Idalion bilingual.

A national library is a library established by a government as a country's preeminent repository of information. Unlike public libraries, these rarely allow citizens to borrow books. Often, they include numerous rare, valuable, or significant works. A national library is that library which has the duty of collecting and preserving the literature of the nation within and outside the country. Thus, national libraries are those libraries whose community is the nation at large. Examples include the British Library in London, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris.

There are wider definitions of a national library which put less emphasis on the repository character.

The Numismatic Museum of Athens (Greek: Νομισματικό Μουσείο Αθηνών) is one of the most important museums in Greece and it houses a collection of over 500,000 coins, medals, gems, weights, stamps and related artefacts from 1400BC to modern times. The collection constitutes one of the richest in the world, paralleled by those of the British Museum in London, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the Bode Museum in Berlin, and the American Numismatic Society in New York. The museum itself is housed in the mansion of the archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann, formally known as Iliou Melathron (Greek: Ιλίου Μέλαθρον, "Palace of Ilion").

The Council of Clermont was a mixed synod of ecclesiastics and laymen of the Catholic Church, called by Pope Urban II and held from 17 to 27 November 1095 at Clermont, Auvergne, at the time part of the Duchy of Aquitaine.

While the council is known today primarily for the speech Pope Urban gave on the final day, it was primarily a synod focused on implementing the Cluniac reforms, enacting decrees and settling local and regional issues. This also included the extension of the excommunication of Philip I of France for his adulterous remarriage to Bertrade of Montfort and a declaration of renewal of the Truce of God, an attempt on the part of the church to reduce feuding among Frankish nobles.

The Gutenberg Bible, also known as the 42-line Bible, the Mazarin Bible or the B42, was the earliest major book printed in Europe using mass-produced metal movable type. It marked the start of the "Gutenberg Revolution" and the age of printed books in the West. The book is valued and revered for its high aesthetic and artistic qualities and its historical significance.

The Gutenberg Bible is an edition of the Latin Vulgate printed in the 1450s by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz (Holy Roman Empire), in present-day Germany. Out of either 158 or 180 copies that were originally printed, 49 survive in at least substantial portion, 21 of them in entirety; of these, the copy with the earliest visible print date is marked as 15 August 1456. They are thought to be among the world's most valuable books, although no complete copy has been sold since 1978. In March 1455, the future Pope Pius II wrote that he had seen pages from the Gutenberg Bible, displayed in Frankfurt to promote the edition.

Gāndhārī was an Indo-Aryan Prakrit language found mainly in texts dated between the 3rd century BCE and 4th century CE in the region of Gandhāra, located in the northwestern Indian subcontinent. The language was heavily used by the former Buddhist cultures of Central Asia and has been found as far away as eastern China, in inscriptions at Luoyang and Anyang.

Gandhari served as an official language of the Kushan Empire and various central Asian kingdoms, including Khotan and Shanshan. It appears on coins, inscriptions and texts, notably the Gandhāran Buddhist texts. It is notable among the Prakrits for having some archaic phonology, for its relative isolation and independence, for being partially within the influence of the ancient Near East and Mediterranean and for its use of the Kharoṣṭhī script, compared to Brahmic scripts used by other Prakrits.

The Gandhāran Buddhist texts are the oldest Buddhist manuscripts yet discovered, dating from about the 1st century BCE to 3rd century CE and found in the northwestern outskirts of Pakistan. They represent the literature of Gandharan Buddhism and are written in the Gāndhārī language which has been grouped by many scholars in the Dardic language family. The texts constitute the largest collection of Gāndhārī manuscripts known to date and are now housed at the Islamabad Museum in Pakistan.

They were sold to European and Japanese institutions and individuals, and are currently being recovered and studied by several universities. The Gandhāran texts are in a considerably deteriorated form (their survival alone is extraordinary), but educated guesses about reconstruction have been possible in several cases using both modern preservation techniques and more traditional textual scholarship, comparing previously known Pāli and Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit versions of texts. Other Gandhāran Buddhist texts—"several and perhaps many"—have been found over the last two centuries but lost or destroyed.

The Kingdom of Galicia was a political entity located in southwestern Europe, which, at its territorial zenith, occupied the entire northwest of the Iberian Peninsula. In the early 10th century, the Kingdom of Galicia was formed following the division of the Kingdom of Asturias after the death of Alfonso III in 910. His sons split the kingdom, with Ordoño II inheriting Galicia. While Galicia became a distinct political entity, it remained closely tied to the Leonese and Asturian realms through dynastic connections. Later, Ordoño II would integrate Galicia into the Kingdom of León when he inherited the latter. Though the Kingdom of Galicia had moments of semi-independence, it was typically seen as part of the Kingdom of León. Compostela became the capital of Galicia in the 11th century, while the independence of Portugal (1128) determined its southern boundary. The accession of Castilian King Ferdinand III to the Leonese kingdom in 1230 brought Galicia under the control of the Crown of Castile.

Galicia resisted central control and supported a series of alternative claimants, including John of León, Galicia and Seville (1296), Ferdinand I of Portugal (1369) and John of Gaunt (1386) and was not brought firmly into submission until the Catholic Monarchs imposed the Santa Hermandad in Galicia. The Kingdom of Galicia was then administered within the Crown of Castile (1490–1715) and later the Crown of Spain (1715–1833) by an Audiencia Real directed by a Governor which also held the office of Captain General and President. The representative assembly of the Kingdom was then the Junta or Cortes of the Kingdom of Galicia, which briefly declared itself sovereign when Galicia remained free of Napoleonic occupation (except during January–July 1809). The kingdom and its Junta were dissolved by Maria Cristina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Regent of Spain, in 1834.

Mīrzā Muhammad Tarāghāy bin Shāhrukh (Chagatay: میرزا محمد تراغای بن شاهرخ; Persian: میرزا محمد طارق بن شاهرخ), better known as Ulugh Beg (Persian: الغ‌بیک; 22 March 1394 – 27 October 1449), was a Timurid sultan, as well as an astronomer and mathematician.

Ulugh Beg was notable for his work in astronomy-related mathematics, such as trigonometry and spherical geometry, as well as his general interests in the arts and intellectual activities. It is thought that he spoke five languages: Arabic, Persian, Chaghatai Turkic, Mongolian, and a small amount of Chinese. During his rule (first as a governor, then outright) the Timurid Empire achieved the cultural peak of the Timurid Renaissance through his attention and patronage. Samarkand was captured and given to Ulugh Beg by his father Shah Rukh.

Cristoforo Buondelmonti (c. 1385 – c. 1430) was an Italian Franciscan priest, traveler, and was a pioneer in promoting first-hand knowledge of Greece and its antiquities throughout the Western world.