Digger's Republic of Klipdrift Founded / Giorgio Vasari born - July 30

The Diggers' Republic of Klipdrift was founded in South Africa on this day in 1870. / On this day in 1511, artist, architect, and writer Giorgio Vasari was born.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone, it's Eves checking in here to let you
know that you're going to be hearing two different events
in history in this episode, one from me and one
from Tracy V. Wilson. They're both good, if I do
say so myself. One with the show. Welcome to this
day in history class. It's July. The Diggers Republic of

(00:21):
clip Drift was established in South Africa on this day
in eighteen seventy. So a quick caveat on this one.
There's a little historical cloudiness around this event. The republican
question is also called the Diggers Republic and the Diamond
Diggers Republic and sometimes described as not even a republic
at all, and a lot of those sources that we
have on at our third hand that best. But this

(00:43):
one event is like a little snapshot of ongoing international
strife in South Africa over who would get control of
its diamonds. So a huge rush for diamonds started in
South Africa after they were discovered there in eighteen sixty six,
and multiple different peoples and factions were all fighting for

(01:04):
control of the same diamond territory. There were the Boar
also pronounced more like Boor, who were people of Dutch
descent who had colonized South Africa, and there were multiple
different factions within these people. There were also the British
and multiple indigenous peoples, including the Koi Koi and the

(01:24):
Greek Wa. They all were trying to gain access to
this same area until the president of the Transvaal, which
was one of these borer factions, declared that it was
all poor property. Naturally, this infuriated everyone else, and a
group of immigrant miners from Britain, led by Stafford Parker,
fought back. They tried to drive all of the Transvaal

(01:46):
personnel out of the region. Parker had been born in
England in eighteen thirty three and it's not totally clear
when he made his way to South Africa, but he
does seem to have been in the area and working
as a miner by eighteen sixty nine. Once they had
pressed back the Transfall forces, Parker declared the whole area
its own republic, that being the Republic of clip Drift,

(02:08):
named for its capital of clip Drift, and Stafford Parker
was elected as its president. So in some accounts this
hasn't described so much as the establishment of a republic,
has more like the creation of a mutual protection agreement
among the miners, and instead of being the president, Stafford
Parker was more just like the executive of this whole,

(02:28):
of this whole mutual agreement. Regardless of which is more accurate,
the result was the same. About a thousand British miners
moved into the area and they started working out rules
about who could stake claims where and who should have
authority over what. But this self proclaimed republic didn't last
for very long. Were forces kept trying to negotiate to

(02:49):
take it back over, and eventually a British force moved
in and did take it back over, but this was
just the start of ongoing back and forth about who
had control of it. It was eventually absorbed into Greek
Land West and it later became part of the Orange
Free State. And like I said, this was part of
the ongoing conflict between the British and Dutch Boor forces

(03:12):
in South Africa and against South Africa's indigenous peoples, and
these conflicts, which sometimes escalated into all out wars, went
on for decades. Thanks to Christopher Hasciotis for his research
work on today's episode, Antatari Harrison for her audio skills,
and all of these episodes. You can subscribe to This
Day in History Class on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and

(03:33):
wherever else you get your podcasts. Tune in tomorrow for
an event from Foo that is usually overshadowed by Christopher
Columbus's famous voyage. Hey, I'm Eves and welcome to This

(03:54):
Day in History Class, a show that uncovers history one
day at a time. The day was July eleven. Georgio
Vasari was born in Areso, Italy. He would go on

(04:15):
to become a painter, architect, and writer, and his work
would form the foundation for modern art historiography and the
prototype for artists biographies. When he was a boy, Vasari
studied under the artists Guillaume Dumasier and Luca Sirelli. After
he moved to Florence in the fifteen twenties, he began

(04:37):
apprenticing under Andrea del Sarto and Bacco Bandinelli. Vasari said
that Michelangelo also taught him, but it's not clear whether
that's true. Regardless, the two artists knew each other, and
Michelangelo had a huge influence on Variety's work. Vasati painted

(04:57):
in the mannerist style and artistic style that emphasized artificiality
over a realistic depiction. Mannerist works can seem kind of unsettling,
but that's characteristic of the style. As an artist, he
is perhaps best known for his allegorical frescos in the
Palazzo Vecchio, done for Duke Cosimo the First. He also

(05:20):
painted frescos in the dome of the Florence Cathedral, but
Vociety is better known for his work as an architect.
His patronage was drawn largely from the House of Medici.
He renovated the churches Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croce,
and he celebrated for the Uffizi, a building in Florence

(05:40):
that was originally built to house the civic offices, guilds
and Medita court artists. In fifteen sixty four. Vsati also
built the Vciety Corridor, a passage that connects the Ufizzi
with the Palazzo pet But his writing is what he's
best remembered for. In fifteen d his book Lives of

(06:01):
the most Imminent Painters, sculptors and Architects was published, and
enlarged and revised edition was published in fifteen Both editions
were successful. The book was composed as a series of
artists biographies, and it charted the evolution of Italian art,
including people like Giotto and Michelangelo. The biographies were not

(06:26):
completely historically accurate, though, and they contained some unlikely anecdotes.
The most reliable biographies were those of society's contemporaries and
the preceding generation. Still, the book was instrumental in the
emergence of art history as a modern scholarly discipline. It
remains a valuable text on the theory, practice, techniques, and

(06:49):
criticism of art. The book traces the development of art
through Classical Antiquity, the Dark Ages, and the Renaissance. In
the second edition, Masadi spent a little more time on
non Florentine and even non Italian artists. Some of the
most notable changes from the first to the second edition
were the additions to the life of Nicelangelo, who had

(07:12):
died in fifteen sixty four. Because of this book, Vsati
has been called the first art historian. Vasari was financially
well off too. He built a house and narrates so
and he helped found the Florence Academy and Company of
the Arts of Drawing with the help of Cosimo, the
first I'm Eves Jeff Coote and hopefully you know a

(07:34):
little more about history today than you did yesterday. You
can follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at t
D i h C podcast, and if you'd like to
learn more about VSATI, you can listen to the episode
of Stuff you Missed in History Class called Georgio Vasari.

(07:55):
Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you tomorrow. M h.
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