Dali and Prince Faucigny Lucinge

Prince Faucigny Lucinge was an avid collector of art. This post looks at the relationship between the artist Salvador Dali and Prince Faucigny Lucinge.

Dali paints a scene
near Figueres
at 6 years of age

The Persistence of Memory

The Marquis of Dali de Pubol was born Salvador Domingo Felipe Dali i Domenech. His life begins on May 11, 1904, in Figueres, Spain. As Salvador Dali the painter he becomes best known for works like The Basket of Bread, and The Persistence of Memory.  

Dali once described himself as a fish swimming between " the cold water of art and the warm water of science". Like many other artists his artistic talent was somewhat influenced by a lifelong deep interest in science. He studied optics, physics, genetics, natural history, and many other science foundations and his surrealist paintings show the level of abstraction which the Spanish artist was capable of realizing.

Even a few years before his death in 1984 Dali is seriously contemplating the spiritual nature of science which is evident in a painting titled In Search of the Fourth Dimension (1979).

He meets Paul Eluard, aka. Eugene Grindel, one of the founders of the surrealist movement that took hold of the art world in the 1920's and included names like Picasso, Max Ernst, Dali, and others. Eluard was at one time married to Russian born Elena Ivanovna Diakonova who went by the name Gala. Gala meets Dali when they visit him in Spain in 1929. She leaves Eluard and marries Salvador Dali in 1934 after having lived with him since 1929.

In 1929 and 1930 Dali produces two films with Luis Brunuel. ( An Andalution Dog, The Golden Age ).

Dali became a leader of the Surrealists but was expelled from the Surrealist movement after being tried by the members beginning in 1934 for having clashing ideas.

Prince Aymon de Faucigny- Lucinge of Paris.

Aymon de Faucigny
Coat of Arms

In 1903 Joseph Stickney, a wealthy railroad tycoon and land developer dies. His last project was the building of a huge resort in the Bretton Woods of New Hamshire. Joseph Stickney was married to the daughter of a Boston butcher. Caroline Foster Stickney was 34 years old when her 62 year old husband passed on and she goes on to inherit Mount Washington Resort and the rest of the Stickney fortune. Joseph Stickney's funeral was lavish and people like JP Morgan and William Rockefeller were invited to carry the casket to the final resting place. The Hotel near the White Mountain National Forest became famous in 1944 when it hosted the 44 nation conference which led to the signing of the Bretton Woods agreement.

Ten years pass and Carolyn continues to manage the Stickney fortune. In 1912 she meets Prince Faucigny-Lucinge of Paris and soon they are married. The marriage ends in 1922 when the Prince passes away. Carolyn (de facto Princess to her employees) Faucigny Lucinge passes away in 1936.

The Mount Washington Resort story becomes more interesting if one takes into consideration that many people claim that the ghost of the Stickney-Faucigny-Lucinge widow haunts room 314 to this very day.

However there is a problem at this point.

The Dali and Prince Faucigny Lucinge relationship cannot include Aymon de Faucigny Lucinge since he passes away in 1922 and according to Michael Elsohn Ross in Salvador Dali and the Surrealists, the Faucigny Lucinge character who influences collectors towards Dali's work only comes on the scene in the late 1920's.

So which French Prince Faucigny Lucinge is Ross talking about ?

The Prince Aymon de Faucigny Lucinge mentioned in the Stickney story was born to Louis de Faucigny-Lucinge and Amanda ( Henriette Victoria Amanda Marie de Mailly Nesle) on May 31, 1862. He dies at the age of 60 in 1922. Louis is the son of Ferdinand who is the son of the Marquis Amedee (Amedeus) who is the son of Count Joseph Louis

Faucigny Lucinge princes that live in 1930 include Bertrand, Gerard, Rodolphe, Humbert, Rogatien, more ?????

Enter Baba d'Erlanger to help us clarify the Dali and Prince Faucigny Lucinge mystery.

She was a Baroness and her real name was Liliane Marie Mathilde Beaumont. Baroness d'Erlanger was born in 1902 and became a professional mannequin and a socialite who hung out with the artistic crowd.  Her father was Baron Emile Beaumont and he was a wealthy banker. Baba marries Jean Louis de Faucigny Lucinge in 1923.

Suddenly we know which French Prince Dali was being influenced by. The fashion Baroness turned Princess dies at Cannes in 1945 and Prince Jean Louis the Faucigny Lucinge lives from 1904 to 1992.

Jean Louis was the son of Prince Guy de Faucigny Lucinge who was the son of Prince Charles of Faucigny Lucinge who was the son of Ferdinand ( 1789-1866 ) - Prince of Cystria, who was the son of Amedeus (1755 - 1801) - Marquis de Coligny, who was the son of Joseph Louis (1731-1781) - Count of Lucinge.

The Dali and Prince Faucigny Lucinge is a story that encompasses personalities from Europe that go on to influence the Americas.

Faucigny is a location in Haute-Savoie, France. Haute Savoie translated to the romance language of Arpitan (Franco-Provencal) is Savoue d'Amont. The English know Faucigny as Upper Savoy. Faucigny is located in the Alps mountain range and part of the Rhone-Alps region. 

The borders of Upper Savoy are Geneva, Switzerland on the north, the Swiss county of Valais and the Italian Aosta valley on the east, France's Ain district on the west, and the Savoy district on the south.

The story of the Prince begins in about 1000 BC with Rudolph I of Faucigny.  Rudolph I fathers Aymon through Constance de Beauvoir.

This Aymon de Faucigny is a Count and has a daughter and a son. The son is a Baron named Henry I and the daughter is Beatrix. The mother is Clemencia.

The lineage traces a path into the future and could be traced back into the deeper past if one took the time to research it.

Lucinge is another community in Upper Savoy in France which has been populated since the stoneages. Some say the Etruscans who emerged out of the Mediterranean near Italy came to the area as early as 1000 BC and lived in close proximity with the Celts and Gauls. The Etruscans were perhaps somehow involved with the initial reforms against the Greek ideology. The legend of Mars giving birth to Remus and Romulus may somehow been borne out of the Etruscan mystery but that is only speculation.

Once the Romans have become a super power then the Gauls become a threat that they manage through politics and war in the Gallo-Roman period. The Gaulish culture is one where the Savoy people are Romanized. Here one finds all types of cults based on loose mixes of Celtic religious convictions and Latin monotheism after Constantine.

Belgium before being a European Union nation

What was Belgium before being a European Union nation ?

Belgium Flag

Ceasar, the Roman Emporer, moves to conquer Gaul and mentions the Belgae. Gaul in latin is Gallia and refers to the western region of Europe approximately where France is today.

Ceasar states in 50BC

"...most of the Belgae descend from the Germani and had crossed the Rhine in ancient times because of the fertility of the soil and expelled the Gauls who had inhabited this place. "

Belinos (Belenus)  is a celtic deity somewhat similar to the Greco-Roman Apollo. Likely this is where the term Belga comes from. Bel is also a deity from the pantheon of the Sumerians. Belit is the feminine form of Bel and they are creation deities. Without providing evidence, it is possible to see how Roman emperors who liken themselves to Apollo would be insulted by the presence of people worshipping Bel or Belinos. Belgae is the plural form of Belga and the adjective is Bel-gic. The Gaul was an old French population and Belgium in french is Belgique.

John Koch in Celtic Culture states this about the Belgae people.

The Belgae were a sub group of the Gauls whose territory extended from the Seine to the Rhine, in what is now Belgium, northern France, the rhineland in Germany, Luxembourg, and the southern Netherlands.

The Belgae population was vast and many tribes existed including some of these :

• Morini
• Remi
• Suessiones
• Ambiani
• Parisii
• Bellovaci
• and more

Koch speculates that the term Belga derives from Celtic terms like belgo and bolgom and leads to an theory that the Belgae Celts were a people who swelled like a bag full of fury and released their anger with a vengeance.

The modern name Belgium is  was officially adopted in 1831 when the Netherlands seperated themselves into an independent political entity. Belgium is named after the ancient Gallia Belgica.

After Caesar invades Gallia Belgica the Romans occupy the area for some 500 years and are conquered by the Germanic Franks. At the turn of the first millenium the Vikings had turned the Gallia into groups of feudal domains. French kings and German emperors ruled but their rule was subject to the respect of Counts who ruled fiefdoms. These Counts built fortified castles in places like Flanders and Ghent and ruled has vassals to the kings and emperors. 

The Gallia Belgica was a bustling trading ground and traders were making connections far into other areas. Feudalism fades away and towns begin to pop up everywhere along the trading routes. Flemish cloth was being loaded on merchant ships and was being exported along with lead, tin, coal, and more. The small towns became evermore powerful as the craftsman started to unite and the Flemish counts were losing their dominion.

The French kings were seeing opportunity here and tried to gain total control of Flanders.

In 1302 war broke out and the Battle of the Golden Spurs brought French Knights and Flemish militia together. The Flemish rebels won the battle and Flanders gained independence.

In the century following Burgundian dukes ruled the Gallia Belgica. At this time we get the term Conditor Belgii which translates to Belgiums founder. This title is given to Philip the Good who ruled from 1419 to 1467. Philip the Good ruled from Brussels and was amongst the wealthiest Europeans. In his age the first University is founded in the area and much great art and architecture provides cultural evidence of the rise of the Belgic people.

Gallia Belgica is part of the Low countries of western Europe. In 1519 new Roman Emperor was crowned. Charles the fifth ruled out of Spain. Earlier in life Charles V was risen to the position of Duke of Brabant and as such ruled the Low countries. He too ruled from Brussels as Duke of Brabant. As Roman Emporer he ruled from Spain. In later life he returns to rule from Brussels.

Interesting to this day and age the Belgium city of Brussels is the de facto capital city of the European Union. Belgium is today one of the seventeen nations trading the Euro and Eurozone member.

In the Dukes age Catholics and Protestants were setting the stage for the religious reformations that would change the Christian world. Charles was on the Catholics side and flooded the Low countries with Catholic mercenaries.

The Roman Emperor of Spain marked the area as the Spanish Netherlands and forced protestants out. Many of these protestants ended up in Plymouth where they embarked on a journey to the New World which will in a few centuries become the United States of America.

It is when Charles V hands over the Spanish Netherlands to Archduke Albert of Austria, husband of Infanta Isabella, daughter of Charles V, that the low countries boundaries truly start to emerge.

By 1650 the economic foundation of the low countries, mostly the cloth industry, had been lost to England. Poverty was rampant. Rebellion was met with war and the low countries or Spanish Netherlands were annexed to Austrian rulers.

This brings on the Austrian Hapsburg dynasty followed by a French conquest by Napoleon in the early 1800's.

The Battle of Waterloo in Brussels is resolved through the creation of the Netherlands United Kingdom. The Benelux nations of the UK are Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

In 1830 the Benelux nation is dissolved at the London Conference and Belgium receives its independence. The Saxe-Coburg Leopold I becomes the first king of the monarchy of Belgium. His son succeeds him. The Saxe-Coburg-Gotha lineage formed through the merger of Saxon stock and Frankish stock.

Under the Leopold's Belgiums economy boomed mostly through industrial power and Belgian expansion into Africa. In 1908 Congo, Africa was annexed to Belgium.

King Albert I saw Belgium through the first world war. King Leopald III saw them through WW II.

In 1952 Belgium is one of the six nations that founds the European Coal and Steel Community. The ECSC is the first pillar of what will become the European Union.  Belgium traded its own currency called the Belgium Franc until 1999 when it was amongst the first European Union nations to enter the Eurozone and to trade the Euro exclusively. By 2002 the process was complete and the Belgium Franc was pulled out of circulation.

And that was Belgium before being a European Union nation.

Typos are free.

  

Greece before being a European Union nation

What was Greece before being a European Union nation ?

Greek modern flag

The neolithic stoneage people knew of the small island in the Mediterranean sea which today we call Crete. The Heraklion Archeological Museum is full of ancient Greek history that dates back to at least 6300 BC. Crete is one of several peripheral islands that are closely knitted into Greek history.

Heraklion is largest city of Crete and Crete is the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean.

Greece borders the Aegean sea, the Mediterranean sea, and the Ionian sea. These borders provided great defense in the old world. History is full of records of sea battles between Greece, the Turks, the Romans, and others.

By 1500 BC the Minoans had made their mark on Crete. The Minoans are sometimes credited with creating the first civilization in Europe. They began influencing the island in about 2700 BC and were skilled bronze workers. These people of Crete named by Arthur Evans after the mythical king Minos were conquered by the Mycenaean. The Minoan palaces were taken down and replaces in time. Mycenae was a fortified palace in the Peloponnese. The most popular Mycenaean King was likely Agememnon who is the legendary warlord who took his loyal followers into the Trojan war.

Initially the Mycenaeans and the Minoans were heavily involved in international trade and both were exceptional sea voyagers. However the Kings of Mycenae who ruled from the north of Argos came to dominate the suzerains of King Minos.

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Some legends have it that the lineage patron of Mycenae was none other than Perseus who was fathered by Zeus and mothered by Danae.

Perseus went to the cave of Graeae where strange women shared one eye and stole this oracle from them. " I have your eye", he said, " and if you don't direct me to the Nymph of the North........"  This type of tale is the mystery behind the beginnings of the Greek culture. These are the stories of Medusa's serpents and of dragon's lairs and of one eyed cyclops and gorgons.

By 1000 BC the Mycenaeans have all but disappeared and Greece is in a dark age. When Homer comes of age in about 700 or 800 BC he is recounting the poiesis of Genesis and defining the villains and heroes who existed before the dark age.

After the dark age a slew of city states such as Sparta, Corinth, and Athens, rose into prominence. Each city state had its own political system  but when the whole was threatened they would come together has one ( riding on the back of Perseus ) to defend the greater whole.

The Persian Empire led by King Xerxes starts invading the Greek Empire by 500 BC and the Greco-Persian wars continue to to plague the city states of Greece for about 50 years. At this time the forefathers of the great Greek philosopher Plato are amongst the leaders of the courts of Greece.

On the footsteps of the Persian wars came a generation of Peloponnesian war.

Plato is born in 427 BC and witnesses the tyranny of this period in Greece. This is the age of synthesis in Greece where oligarchical rule is about to merge with democracy. Plato writes a great thesis called the Republic which goes on to be used as a foundation for political ideology and continues to be studied today.

Plato also founds a great school called the Academy which is often considered the first University.

Alexander the Great follows on the footsteps of Greeks like Plato and Aristotle, and Democrates.......

Alexander the Great Macedon built an Empire for the Greeks but on his death the legacy quickly crumbled. His empire was divided between Ptolemy who received Egypt, Seleucus who received Persia, and Antigonus who received Greece and the league of cities loyal to Greece.

Then the Romans came.

The Roman story starts in a legend devoted to Remus and Romulas and the god Mars and possibly to the age of Homer. By 300 BC the people of Rome are building fortunes by conquering small territories where they can graze pasture to trade. In 146 BC the Romans go into battle with the Corinthians and conquer Greece.

In the early Christian era Paul of Tarsus, one of the apostles, is recorded as having preached for converts in Corinth and Athens.

The Roman influence in Greece is prominent for several hundred years. During this time Greece is no more than a Roman province. In the later part of this period Greece is further divided into smaller provinces ; Macedonia, Creta, Thessalia,.........and the pagan culture is being menaced by monotheist goths. The Christian Goths were productive in converting pagan Roman and Greek speaking Romans of Byzantine. The last straw for the Roman pagan force might be the conversion of Emporer Constantine in 313 AD.  

Constantine is also responsible for moving the Roman capital to Constantinople which is on the border of the Byzantium world where Greek speaking Romans rule. By 550 AD the population of Constantinople has risen to nearly 1 million while the population of Rome, the old capital is now at about 30 thousand.

Persians, Langobards, Avars, and Slavs continue to threaten the Greek Romans until about 800 AD when Greece begins to see new economic recovery and the restoration of architecture and of cities. Still it remains a part of the Byzantine Empire and continues to be tossed around by political crisis.

The Greeks lose Constantinople in the 13th century when Latin crusaders conquered the capital. The Ottomans destroyed the last of the Byzantine Empire by 1450 AD.

With the Ottoman Empire came the Turks and the Ottomans ruled Greece until the Battle of Navarino in 1827. By this time many Greek Romans had converted to Islam.

This 1827 war was fought six years after the Annunciation of the Theotokos when Greeks began a rebellion for independence. France, Britain, and Russia helped the Greek independence cause.  From 1832 to 1947 Greece expanded as a monarchy led by kings. The initial independence efforts had attempted republic rule but European forces pushed for a kingdom of Greece.

From 1944 to 1944 Greece was fighting a civil war. The US (NATO)  supported Greek political names who looked to fight a military party with communist ideals.

Once this war ended the US pumped a lot of money into Greece to promote economic growth. However the balance of power between Communism and Constitutional Democracy has continued to flare up and all types of political powers have tried to influence the rule of law including the CIA.

In 1973 the Monarchy in Greece was ruled has a dictatorship after some coup d'etat ( complicated situation that needs more research ).

In 1975 the Monarchy was abandoned and ironically enough King Constantine the Second was the last Monarch. The new government of Greece was a Democratic Republic

There you have a limited "Greece before being a European nation " story.

Greece joined the European Union in 1981 and on January 1, 2001 became a fully accredited Eurozone nation and the Greek Drachma went the way of the DoDo bird when the Euro become the official currency traded on the interal markets of Greece and in international trade.

The 2010 Greek economic crisis is truly testing the wisdom behind the single currency European concept.

Greece before being a European Union nation is certainly full of details and the more one digs, the more one wants to know.

Turkish flag in Cyprus

Why is this Turkish flag carved in a Cyprus mountain ?

Turkish flag in Cyprus

NE MUTLU TURKUM DIYENE generally translates to "Proud is he who calls himself a Turk" and this phrase is sometimes referred to as the national slogan of Turkey. It is one such motto. Turkish people have other mottos such as " Sovereignty rests unconditionally with the nation ", and " Peace in the homeland, peace in the world ".

Cyprus has been for generations a political hotspot battled between Greek nationalists and Turkish nationalists.

There are at least two mountains around Kaimakli that have the Turkish flag carved into them.

Search Kaimakli on Wikipedia and you get this...

Buyuk Kaimakli is a large North Eastern suburb located within the municipality of Nicosia since 1968 and borders the Green Line which divides the Capital between the Government controlled Greek areas and Turkish occupied suburb of Omorphita ( Kucuk Kaimakli ) . The population of the area was 10864 in 2001.

Northern Cyprus, or Kuzey Kibris in Turkish, is known officially as TRNC or the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.  Kuzey Kibris was made a de facto independent republic in 1983 but this recognition is only respected by Turkish authorities. The Turk military sieged the north when the Greek Cypriots from the south tried to annex the island to Greece.

Tough story with many details..........

flags of the seventeen nations of the eurozone

This page serves as a quick review of the flags of the seventeen nations of the eurozone.

Finland

Belgium

Cyprus

Greece

Spain

Slovania

Slovakia

France




Germany




Malta




Netherlands



Portugal

Ireland



Italy



Luxembourg

Austria

Cyprus before being a European Union nation

How was Cyprus before before being a European Union nation ?

Cyprus Flag

Cyprus is an island with a land mass that stretches about 150 miles in length and fifty miles in width. It is a mountainous Mediterranean island that peaks about 7000 feet above sea level. There are artifacts from the stone ages proving that small tribes used the island as a base of survival. Within the mountainous terrain of the island thickly populated with Cyprus trees copper was found abundantly by early explorers who used the wood to burn ore refining processes. It is believed that the seafaring shipbuilding Phoenician had claimed Cyprus as theirs and probably had Ethiopian slave labourers working for them while being supplied by the Egyptians. The Phoenician began their culture in about 2500 BC and were likely descendants of the Canaanites. They inhabited the lands of Palestine, Syria, and Israel, and became the most influential seafarers of their time. The Phoenician expanded into the islands of the Mediterranean. Cyprus was one such island.

The Greeks came to the island sometime after the Phoenician and called Cyprus by several names; Paphos, Acamantis, Asphelia, Cyprus, and more. In old biblical records it is named Citium or Chittim. By 1250 BC the Greeks were settled in communities but for many centuries the ruling class were either Assyrian, Persian, or Egyptian.

The Egyptians seem to have conquered Cyprus in about 600 BC. Alexander the Great, the Greek conquerer claimed Cyprus and when he died in 323 BC, Cyprus was given to one of one of his generals. That general was Ptolemy I, the son of Lagus received the island. During the Greek period the island of Cyprus was a devotion to the goddess Venus and it is said that it's population was as abundant in beautiful women as it was in great Cyprus trees. In the classical Greek period, which ends at approximately the same time as Alexander dies, Cyprus was the island where Aphrodite was born. She later moves to Mount Olympus to join the other deities. Mount Olympus is the highest point of the Troodos mountains on Cyprus.



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The Ptolemaics rule Cyprus of almost 3 centuries but the Romans then make Cyprus one of its provinces and the first Roman governor is Cato. Until about 600 AD it remains a Roman province. According to biblical references Paul the Apostles and Barnabas come to Chittim to raise the monotheistic flag and sew the seeds of Christianity. By about 350 AD the Cypriot population had almost completely converted from paganism to the one God faith.

When Islam came on the scene in the 7th century AD the Arabs began raiding the Christian dominated island of Cyprus but the then Islamic Caliph and the Archbishop signed a treaty that made provisions for a joint sharing of the Cypriot island rule.

The truce was broken at the end of the first millenia when the Byzantines declared Cyprus as theirs. Byzantines were basically Greek speaking Romans who ruled the Eastern Roman Empire and Byzantium starts in the time of Constantine ( the emporer who converted to Christianity in about 300 AD).

By 1200 AD the crusaders put an end to the Byzantines under the lead of Richard the Lionheart of England and the Templar Knights bought Cyprus from the English. Story goes that the Knights of Templar were unable to keep the financial books in order and the Mediterranean island was turned over to the King of Jerusalem. The Jerusalem king in question was Guy de Lusignan and was actually a Christian French speaking dispossesed royal. King Lusignan takes possession of Cyprus and the island population grew with French immigrants and basically any one who would help repopulate the island which Lusignan governed under feudal law. The Lusignan period ends with Caterina Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus until 1489.

The island of Cyprus after Queen Cornaro is ruled by Venetian who had began earnestly expanding Italy. The crusader state of Cyprus was annexed to Venice. In the 16th century the Venetian were fighting with the Ottoman Turks and in 1571 Cyprus fell to the Turks. It remained a Turkic state until 1878.

From 1878 the British take over Cyprus from the Ottoman but agree to pay the Ottoman Sultan a duty which he is to use to pay off European creditors. For a time there were rumours that Cyprus would be merged with Greece but that never materialized. The British held Cyprus until 1960.

The 1959 Zurich Agreement leads to the 1960 independence of the Republic of Cyprus. Over time the population of Cyprus had become balanced between Turks and Greeks. The amnesty of the Zurich agreement made provisions for Turkish Cypriots and for Greek Cypriots and acted as a treatise of alliance.

Now Cyprus was a sovereign nation with a constitution of its own. From 1960 until 2007 the Central Bank of Cyprus tried to manage the Cypriot current account by influencing the Cypriot pound which was legal tender.

The Cypriot pound was legal tender until Cyprus joined the European Union on May 1, 2004, and further adopted the Eurozone currency on January 1, 2008. The Cypriot pound is now out of circulation and Cyprus is one of the seventeen nations trading under a single currency in the Euro Zone.

Malta before being a European Union nation

What was Malta like before being a European Union nation ?

Malta is an island in the Mediterranean sea. It is one of a group of seven island of which only 3 are populated by humans. The whole of Malta is the seven islands which are situated south of Italy and midway between Sicily and the north coast of Africa. It stands to reason that the currency of Malta before it became one of the seventeen nations trading the Euro was the Maltese Lira.

The three populated archipelago islands of Malta

1. Malta - 246 square kms
2. Gozo - 67 square kms 
3. Comino - 3 square kms

Malta is actually the Republic of Malta and the history of the name is said to come from the age of the Phoenicians who found the islands accomodating as an haven (Malat). 

The Maltese archipelago islands abound in ancient history. Malta is synonymous with legends such as the Maltese Cross, the Knights of Malta, the Seven fortresses of Malta, the neolithic structures left as artifacts dating some 7000 years into the past.


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The Phoenicians make there mark starting about 4000 years in the past, the Greeks 3000 thousand years ago, the Romans and Carthaginians came next. Religious text tells us that Saint Paul was shipwrecked on the island of Malta. The Romans and the Christian Goths ( East Germanic tribes ) took their turn at using the haven properties of the archipelago in the Mediterranean. By about 900 AD the Arabs took to the Malta islands but by 1100 AD the Military Hospitaller Knights of Malta took refuge on the Maltese archipelago and retained it until the mid 1500's when the Turks took over. Napoleon Boneparte seized Malta as he travelled towards Egypt in 1797 but by 1800 Malta was part of the British Empire.

Fast forward to 1964 and Malta gained its independence from the United Kingdom. A decade later the Maltese population was ruled by a republic but continued to be a member of the Commonwealth Nations.

By 1970 Malta had joined the United Nations and the Council of Europe which is a precedent of the European Union. By 1974 the Republic of Malta was born. ( A republic is a form of government which is rooted in the ideas of the Greek philosopher Plato and which suggests that the people of a nation are the biggest factor in how rules of law are mandated and enforced. ) A republic is similar to a democracy but the devil is in the details which need to be more deeply studied to be better understood.

In 1993 the European Union is born from the older EC, EEC, and ECSC foundations. Malta joins the EU on May 1, 2004. On January 1, 2008 Malta adopts the Euro currency as its official and sovereign currency and the Maltese Lira is taken out of circulation.

Note - Maltese Honey somehow plays a role in this Malta before being a European Union nation story but we leave it for another time. Bees and the ancient world somehow have a mystery all their own.

Eurozone currencies before the Euro

What were the seventeen nations of eurozone currencies before the Euro became their shared single form of money ?

1. Belgium used the Belgian Frank
2. Austria used Austrian Schilling
3. France used the French Franc
4. Ireland used the Irish Pound or Irish Punt
5. Germany used the Deutsche Mark
6. Slovania used the Slovanian Tolar
7. Slovakia used the Slovak Koruna
8. Greece used the Greek Drachma
9. Italy used the Italian Lira
10. Portugal used the Portuguese Escudo
11. Spain used the Spanish Peseta
12. Luxembourg used the Luxembourgish Franc
13. The Netherlands used the Dutch Guilder
14. Estonia used the Estii Kroon
15. Cyprus used the Cypriot Pound
16. Finland used the Finnish Markka
17. Malta used the Maltese Lira

The matter of Eurozone currencies before the Euro is more complicated as one digs deeper into the history of the seventeen nations currently signed on to the EMU conventions.

Seventeen nations of Euro Area

Who are the seventeen nations of the Euro Area ?

To be a member of the eurozone or euro area a nation must be trading the currency known as the Euro and to trade the Euro a country must be a member of the European Union but not all members of the EU currently trade the Euro and some countries that are not in the EU do trade to Euro.

It's a complicated matter.

The current seventeen nations of the euro area are listed here.

1. Belgium
2. Germany
3. Ireland
4. Greece
5. Spain
6. Portugal
7. France
8. Finland
9. Italy
10. Luxemberg
11. Netherlands
12. Cyprus
13. Austria
14. Malta
15. Slovania
16. Slovakia
17. Estonia - transitioning from ERM II nation trading the Estii Kroon to trading the Euro in January 2011

Seventeen nations history

Not everyone is fortunate enough to be able to afford to travel to Europe but if you like to keep up to what is going on with the EU and with the EMU and Euro area then this blog might just be for you.

Knowing that there are seventeen nations that currently trade the Euro currency is general knowledge but understanding the way that these nations came into being gives meaning to that understanding.

For example did you know that some of the most beautiful architecture in Austria is seen in the palaces of the Hapsburg family who provided the roots of the Hapsburg dynasty?

Did you know that the Baltic State of Estonia was until 1991 under the rule of the Soviet Union ?

Did you know that Slovania used the Tolar as a currency of trade until it joined the euro area ?

Did you know that Franco-German rivalry has played out in western Europe for hundreds of years and that France and Germany are members of the seventeen nations that strive to compete under sovereign rules governed by the European Union and the EMU ?

Did you know that Ireland is a euro zone member but that the UK and Britain isn't while both are members of the 27 member European Union ?

Seventeen nations history facts and trivia could fill many volumes.

We think that getting to know who the seventeen nations of the eurozone are can help us to better understand who we are so this seventeen nations blog provides an ongoing journal of our learning about the EU and the Euro area and the use of currency in Europe.