Robin van Persie (; born 6 August 1983) is a Dutch football coach and former professional footballer who played as a striker. Regarded as one of the best strikers of his generation, Van Persie was known for his excellent technique and ball control, intelligent positioning, and vision. He is the all-time top scorer for the Netherlands national team. He is currently an assistant manager at boyhood club Feyenoord in his first managerial role.

Starting his career as a winger, Van Persie made his senior debut for Feyenoord during the 2001–02 season, which culminated with victory in the 2002 UEFA Cup Final; he was also named as the Dutch Football Talent of the Year. After five years with Feyenoord, he fell out with manager Bert van Marwijk, and he joined English club Arsenal in 2004 as a long-term replacement for compatriot Dennis Bergkamp. Van Persie was converted to a striker by manager Arsène Wenger and went on to be a mainstay goalscorer for Arsenal. He scored a club record of 35 goals in 2011 and was club captain for the 2011–12 season, prior to joining rivals Manchester United in July 2012. In his first season, he won the Premier League and his second consecutive Premier League Golden Boot.

After two injury-hit seasons followed, Van Persie fell out of favour at United and he was allowed to leave for Fenerbahçe in July 2015. During his spell in Turkey, Van Persie featured regularly in his first season, but saw limitations in playing time in the following two campaigns after suffering with injuries, with both club and player agreeing to a buyout in January 2018, after which he rejoined Feyenoord on a free transfer. By the end of the season he had helped his boyhood team win the Dutch Cup, his first trophy since the 2013 FA Community Shield.

After representing the Netherlands at under-17, under-19 and under-21 level, Van Persie made his senior international debut in 2005 in a friendly match against Romania. A month later, he scored his first senior international goal in a 4–0 win over Finland. Van Persie has over 100 caps and scored 50 goals for the Netherlands, and from 2013 to 2015 he was the team's captain. He has represented his country at the 2006, 2010 and 2014 FIFA World Cups, and the 2008 and 2012 UEFA European Championships.

Club career

Feyenoord
Born in Rotterdam, Van Persie joined the youth squad of local side SBV Excelsior when he was five, but left for Feyenoord at the age of 16 after falling out with the Excelsior coaching staff over his "petulant" attitude. An injury crisis at Feyenoord meant he was quickly promoted into the first team, and made his debut for the club at 17, the first of 15 total starts during the 2001–02 season. After starting for Feyenoord in the final of the UEFA Cup, Van Persie received the KNVB Best Young Talent award.

The following season, Van Persie signed a three-and-a-half-year professional contract with Feyenoord, and scored five goals in a 6–1 KNVB Cup thrashing of AGOVV Apeldoorn on 6 February 2003. However, clashes with his manager Bert van Marwijk saw Van Persie demoted to the reserve squad. During a match featuring the Feyenoord and Ajax reserves, he was one of several Feyenoord players assaulted by hooligans who had invaded the pitch. Van Persie's rift with Van Marwijk continued when he was sent home on the eve of the 2002 UEFA Super Cup final against Real Madrid after the coach was displeased with Van Persie's body language after being asked to warm up for a Champions League qualifier. Van Persie finished his tumultuous first full season with the first team having scored eight goals in a total of 28 appearances, in addition to finishing runner-up in the KNVB Cup.

Feyenoord unsuccessfully attempted to extend Van Persie's contract during the off-season, and his deteriorating relationship with Van Marwijk led to his spending most of the 2003–04 season on the bench. He again played 28 matches, but finished with two fewer goals than the previous season. Feyenoord shopped him at the end of the campaign but found few takers due to Van Persie's past disciplinary issues. During the January transfer window, the Eredivisie club opened negotiations with Arsenal, who were seeking a long-term replacement for aging veteran Dennis Bergkamp, but both parties could not agree to terms.

Arsenal

2004–05 season
On 17 May 2004, Van Persie signed a four-year deal with Arsenal for £2.75 million, just over half of Feyenoord's original asking price of £5 million. Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger, who planned to convert Van Persie from a left winger to a centre forward as he had successfully done with star player Thierry Henry, said of his new acquisition, "He can play on the left side of midfield, as a creative player behind the main strikers or as a target man." Arsenal had further padded their stable of strikers in January by signing Spanish forward José Antonio Reyes, leaving the two to battle for playing time. Van Persie made his debut and won a trophy in the process, as he came on as a substitute in the 3–1 FA Community Shield victory over Manchester United on 8 August 2004. Van Persie spent most of his time on the bench during earlier parts of the 2004–05 season, and marked his first competitive start on 27 October by scoring Arsenal's opening goal in a 2–1 League Cup win over Manchester City.

He was sent off for the first time, however, in an Arsenal shirt on 26 February during a 1–1 road draw with Southampton, following a lunge at left-back Graeme Le Saux, for which Wenger was seen yelling an obscenity at Van Persie from the sidelines. He then later lambasted his charge in the press. "I do not support Van Persie today, but he did not look out of control at half-time. When the referee has sent off a home player, he is under pressure, so, if any player had to behave, it was him." Meanwhile, Telegraph sportswriter Clive White described Van Persie in his match report as "21 going on nine."

Van Persie was consequently benched for a number of games, starting with Arsenal's upcoming replay in the FA Cup against Sheffield United, and he was reintroduced into the squad only after Henry was out with a calf injury, and his return to the first team saw him score twice in a Cup semi-final win over Blackburn Rovers. He came on as a substitute in the final and scored one of the penalties in the shootout as Arsenal beat Manchester United. The end of Van Persie's season was disrupted by injury, and he finished with ten goals in 41 appearances in all competitions.

2005–06 season

Van Persie's good form at the start of the 2005–06 season earned him the Premier League Player of the Month award for November 2005 after eight goals in eight starts, and he was rewarded with a five-year contract extension until 2011 on 4 January. Two days after signing the contract, however, Van Persie was again hit by injury when an opponent stepped on his foot and broke his toe during an FA Cup match against Cardiff.

Van Persie played the next three matches with a hole cut into his shoe to alleviate the pain until he was finally rested for Arsenal's Premier League match against West Ham United on 1 February. He was an unused substitute in Arsenal's first Champions League final appearance, a 2–1 loss to Barcelona.

2006–07 season
The beginning of the 2006–07 season included an airborne volley against Charlton Athletic that Wenger called "the goal of a lifetime" and was later named BBC Sport's Goal of the Month for September, and he capped off the calendar year by being named the 2006 Rotterdam Sportsman of the Year. His season, however, ended early for the second time in his career on 21 January, when he fractured the fifth metatarsal in his right foot while celebrating his late equalizer in a match against Manchester United.
Although Van Persie was injured for a large part of the season he still managed to finish as Arsenal's top goalscorer with 13 goals in all competitions.

2007–08 season

After Henry departed for Barcelona prior to the 2007–08 season, Van Persie assumed the role as Arsenal's main striker. Following a streak of seven goals in ten regular-season games, Van Persie was sidelined for two months with a knee injury suffered on international duty. He made his comeback in Arsenal's Champions League group stage win over Steaua București on 12 December and made his Premier League return in the win against Chelsea over the weekend. He picked up, however, a recurrent injury that kept him sidelined until January when he played 45 minutes in a League Cup game against Tottenham Hotspur. He was withdrawn at half-time following another injury scare and featured sporadically throughout the rest of the campaign.

2008–09 season

Van Persie opened his 2008–09 account on 31 August with a brace in Arsenal's 3–0 league victory over Newcastle United. On 29 October, he scored his fiftieth career Arsenal goal in a 4–4 home draw with North London derby rivals Tottenham, but was hit with his first red card of the season on 1 November after knocking down goalkeeper Thomas Sørensen with a shoulder charge in a 2–1 loss to Stoke City. Sørensen later admitted to "teasing" Van Persie in an attempt to provoke a reaction. On 30 November, he scored a brace against Chelsea to help Arsenal come from behind and pick up a 2–1 victory at Stamford Bridge. On 21 December 2008, he scored a spectacular goal against Liverpool, which was later named the second BBC Goal of the Month of his career. With captain Cesc Fàbregas injured and regular stand-in skipper Manuel Almunia rested, Van Persie captained Arsenal for the first time on 3 January 2009 for the club's 3–1 FA Cup third round victory over Plymouth Argyle. Van Persie scored Arsenal's first and third goals, while the second was a result of his cross being deflected into the net by a Plymouth player for an own goal.

In January 2009, every Arsenal goal that month was either scored or assisted by Van Persie, which earned him the club's Player of the Month award. His most inspirational display being against Hull City, where he struck the post with a freekick, and provided three assists to his teammates; he later received the Man of the Match award. On 24 February, Van Persie scored a crucial penalty that earned Arsenal a 1–0 win over Roma in the UEFA Champions League Round of 16 encounter, after he was fouled by defender Philippe Mexès. He followed it up with a fifth Champions League goal by converting another penalty against Villarreal in a 3–0 victory.

On the final day of the Premier League, Van Persie scored a brace against Stoke City, which guaranteed him for the second time in his career as Arsenal's top scorer. He had his best season overall for Arsenal as he scored 11 Premier League goals, along with a league-leading 11 assists and a career best of 20 goals in all competitions. Van Persie was named the 2008–09 Arsenal.com Player of the Season.

2009–10 season

With only one year remaining of his contract, Van Persie was in negotiations with Arsenal about an extension for several months in 2009. Finally, it was announced in July that he had signed a new long-term contract with his club, stating, "My heart is with Arsenal and I just can't picture myself in a different shirt." The departure of Emmanuel Adebayor also meant that the Dutchman was now the main striker in Wenger's 4–3–3 system. Van Persie started the 2009–10 season with two assists in the first match against Everton, which led to a 6–1 victory. As one of the first choice penalty and corner takers, he has set up many of Arsenal's goals, including Thomas Vermaelen's debut goal against Everton. He scored his first goal of the season in the 4–2 loss at Eastlands to Manchester City, where he later had his head stomped on by former teammate Adebayor (an act the referee failed to notice, but the FA later charged Adebayor with violent conduct and served him with a three-game suspension).

He then scored goals against Olympiacos, Fulham, Blackburn Rovers, Birmingham City, West Ham United, and Tottenham. Van Persie's excellent form in October did not go unrecognised as he was named Premier League Player of the Month for October, his second such award. On 14 November, however, he injured his ankle in an international friendly and was initially expected to be out for six weeks, but further tests showed that he would be out of action for five months. Van Persie made his return on 14 April, in a 2–1 loss to Tottenham Hotspur. He then scored a header against Blackburn Rovers in the 2–1 defeat, and a goal assisted by Theo Walcott in the 4–0 win over Fulham in the last league game of 2009–10 season.

2010–11 season

Before the start of the 2010–11 season, Van Persie changed his squad number to 10, previously worn by Arsenal and Netherlands legend Dennis Bergkamp. He made his 200th appearance on 28 August but an ankle injury suffered in the same game placed him on the sidelines once again. He returned as a substitute for Arsenal's 1–0 home defeat to Newcastle United on 7 November.

On 1 January 2011, Van Persie scored his first goal of the season in a 3–0 away win over Birmingham City. On 15 January, he added two more goals to his tally in a comfortable 3–0 win over West Ham. This made him only the fourth Dutchman to reach 50 goals in England's top division. Van Persie scored his first career hat-trick in a 3–0 win over Wigan Athletic on 22 January and two goals against Newcastle United in a 4–4 draw on 5 February. Continuing his fine form, he hit a brace the following week against Wolverhampton Wanderers scoring both Arsenal goals in a 2–0 win including a volley from inside the box. The ten goals he scored between 1 January and 12 February set a new Premier League record for most goals scored in the first two months of a calendar year.

Van Persie set the Emirates alight with a goal from an almost impossible angle in Arsenal's fightback against Barcelona in the UEFA Champions League Round of 16, which ended 2–1 in favour of the Gunners. On 27 February 2011, Van Persie captained Arsenal at Wembley Stadium in the League Cup final, scoring the first-half equalizer for the Gunners. It was his first goal at Wembley and his first in a cup final for Arsenal. However, he was later taken off in the second half with a knee injury he picked up while scoring the goal.

On 1 March 2011, he was ruled out for three weeks, which would see him miss the Champions League return leg with Barcelona. However, he recovered in time for the return leg at Camp Nou. During the game, he received a yellow card in the first half for a foul. In the second half, he was controversially sent off after receiving a second yellow card when the referee, Massimo Busacca, deemed him to be time-wasting by taking a shot at goal after the whistle was blown (one second earlier) for offside. Barcelona went on to score twice more and advanced to the quarter finals on a 4–3 aggregate result. Afterwards, Van Persie branded Busacca's decision as a "total joke", claiming that with the noise of the 95,000-strong crowd he could not hear the whistle. On 19 March 2011, he scored the equalizing goal in a 2–2 against West Bromwich Albion at The Hawthorns. The match finished 2–2 with Arsenal still five points behind the current leaders, Manchester United.

On 10 April 2011 in a match against Blackpool, Van Persie put in a Man of the Match performance to give Arsenal a crucial 3–1 win as he set up a goal and scored the third. On 24 April 2011, he became the first player to score in seven successive Premier League away games when he scored against Bolton, beating Didier Drogba's record who was on six successive away games, between August and November 2009. However, the Gunners lost 2–1, all but ending their title hopes. On 1 May he assisted Aaron Ramsey who scored the winning goal against league leaders Manchester United to add a twist to the Premier League. Van Persie was named Premier League Player of the Month for April.

On 8 May 2011, Arsenal lost 3–1 against Stoke City at the Britannia Stadium. Van Persie scored the goal for Arsenal and extended his Premier League record by scoring in an eighth successive away match. In the last home game of the season, he scored against Aston Villa, but Arsenal lost the match 2–1. In the last game of the season away to Fulham, he managed to score in his ninth consecutive away match, bringing his goal tally for the season to a personal record of 18 league goals. He also equalled the record held by Cristiano Ronaldo and Thierry Henry by scoring 18 league goals from the turn of the year to the end of the season. He ended the season just two goals behind joint league top scorers, Carlos Tevez and Dimitar Berbatov in the race for the golden boot, despite being injured for half of the season. He was voted as the second best player of the 2010–11 season on Arsenal's official website and also received the team's Goal of the Season award for his audacious strike in the 2–1 victory over Barcelona in the Champions League.

2011–12 season

Having been appointed vice-captain for the 2010–11 season, Van Persie was promoted to club captain following the transfer of Cesc Fàbregas to FC Barcelona at the start of the 2011–12 season. On 24 August, Van Persie scored his first goal of the 2011–12 season in the second leg of Arsenal's 2–1 away victory against Udinese in a Champions League play off match. On 24 September 2011, he scored twice against Bolton Wanderers to raise his tally for Arsenal to 100 goals, becoming the 17th Arsenal player to reach this milestone.

On 16 October 2011, he scored the fastest goal of the 2011–12 Premier League season, 28 seconds into a home match against Sunderland. He went on to score a late winner from a curling left foot free kick, to put Arsenal 2–1 ahead. After the match, Van Persie stated his dedication to the club after speculation surrounding a future transfer away from the Emirates. On 23 October, he came on as a substitute in the 66th minute replacing Marouane Chamakh and scored two goals against Stoke City. The match ended 3–1 with another home win for Arsenal.

He then continued his scoring run for Arsenal on 29 October by scoring a hat-trick in Arsenal's 5–3 victory against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.  Due to his consistent performances and good goal-scoring form, Van Persie was named the Premier League Player of the Month for October 2011. He continued scoring as he scored Arsenal's opening goal of the match in their 3–0 win over West Bromwich Albion on 5 November along with two assists. After the international break, he scored both Arsenal goals against Norwich City to help the Gunners to a 2–1 win on 19 November 2011. In Van Persie's fifth Champions League match of the season he scored twice in the 49th and 86th minutes to lift Arsenal to a 2–1 victory over Borussia Dortmund and to qualify Arsenal for the knockout phase on 23 November 2011.

After failing to score against Fulham, Van Persie scored again for Arsenal, this time against Wigan Athletic to make the score 4–0 to Arsenal on 3 December 2011. He then added to his tally with the only goal of the game against Everton, an exquisite volley from an Alex Song long ball. The following match, versus Aston Villa, saw him score a penalty and provide an assist. Van Persie's final goal of the 2011 calendar year came in Arsenal's one-goal win over Queens Park Rangers on the last day of the year. The goal took his tally for the year to 35 goals, one short of Alan Shearer's Premier League record.

The following calendar year started in the same fashion for Van Persie, but Arsenal began to falter, losing three consecutive matches against Fulham, Manchester United and Swansea City, even though the Dutchman scored in the latter two. On 29 January, he rescued his team, scoring two penalties against Aston Villa in the fourth round of the FA Cup to help Arsenal to a 3–2 win after falling 2–0 down in a Man of the Match performance. It was also his 120th goal in an Arsenal shirt, equalling fellow Dutch legend Dennis Bergkamp's total. On 4 February, he overtook Bergkamp as the 10th-highest scorer in Arsenal's history, scoring another hat-trick as Arsenal beat Blackburn 7–1 at home, with three close-range goals from crosses by Theo Walcott and Francis Coquelin. He was also credited with two assists in the game as he set up Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain's first Premier League goal and unselfishly passed to Thierry Henry enabling him to score his first Premier League goal since returning on loan.

With Arsenal in unpredictable form, Van Persie was again of supreme importance for Arsenal, this time in the North London derby against Tottenham Hotspur, played on 26 February. Arsenal went 2–0 down at half in the first half, but Van Persie equalised before half-time. In the second half, he gave the assist to Walcott's goal as Arsenal performed a remarkable comeback to win the game 5–2. A week later, Van Persie scored both goals in a 2–1 away win at Liverpool, one being a left-footed volley assisted by Alex Song, similar to the goal he scored against Everton earlier in the campaign. On 11 April 2012, after scoring the penalty against Wolverhampton Wanderers in a 3–0 away win, he became only the second player, after Ian Wright, to score against 17 Premier League clubs in a 20-team campaign. He finished as the top goal-scorer in the Premier League with 30 goals, and became Arsenal's 8th all-time top scorer with 132 goals.

On 4 July 2012, Van Persie announced that he would not be signing a new contract with Arsenal.

Manchester United

2012–13 season

On 15 August 2012, Arsenal announced they had agreed terms with Manchester United for his transfer, but Van Persie had yet to agree to personal terms with the club. On 17 August, Van Persie transferred to Manchester United for an initial £22.5 million, with an additional £1.5 million to follow if United won a Premier League or Champions League title within the next four years. He signed a four-year contract, keeping him at the club until June 2016. Van Persie chose the number 20 shirt after assistant coach Rene Meulensteen convinced him that he would help secure Manchester United's 20th league title.

He made his debut on 20 August, coming on as a 68th-minute substitute for Danny Welbeck in a 1–0 loss to Everton. Five days later, with his first shot for the club, he scored his first Manchester United goal, United's first in a 3–2 home victory over Fulham. On 2 September 2012, he scored his first hat-trick for United in another 3–2 victory over Southampton, helping pull United back from a 2–1 deficit; his third goal was his 100th in the Premier League. Van Persie netted a late penalty on 23 September to give United a 2–1 away win at Anfield against Liverpool, and opened his European account with the club, scoring a brace in the 2–1 away win against CFR Cluj, with both goals assisted by Wayne Rooney.

On 20 October, Van Persie scored United's second goal in a 4–2 win over Stoke City, opening up his body and guiding a cross into the far corner with his left foot. In the next Premier League game against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, he scored his seventh goal in the league, with a sidefoot finish from Antonio Valencia's driven cross to put United 2–0 up. He also played a part in the first goal, firing a shot against the post that cannoned off David Luiz and into the net, in a 3–2 United win. On 3 November, he scored against his former club Arsenal in a 2–1 victory. This meant that he had scored against all 20 current Premier League clubs. On 9 December, Van Persie scored a last minute winner from a deflected free kick in a 3–2 victory over Manchester City, his Manchester derby debut. This goal ended City's unbeaten Premier League record in the 2012–13 season and also their unbeaten home record extending into the previous season.

After scoring against Everton on 10 February 2013, Van Persie went ten games without scoring, finally ending his barren run when he scored a penalty against Stoke on 14 April. Against Queens Park Rangers on 23 February, he had to be substituted after falling against a television camera and injuring a hip, but was fit for United's next match.

On 22 April, he netted a first-half hat-trick against Aston Villa, confirming Manchester United's 20th league title with four games in hand. His second goal came from a Rooney pass from behind the halfway line, which he volleyed into the net from outside the box. Supporters of Manchester United voted Van Persie as the Sir Matt Busby Player of the Year for the 2012–13 season. Van Persie was nominated by UEFA into the 10-man shortlist for the 2012–13 Best Player in Europe award.

2013–14 season

Van Persie kick-started his new campaign by scoring both of Manchester United's goals in their 2–0 win against Wigan Athletic in the Community Shield, securing David Moyes' first honour as club manager. He scored twice more in the first Premier League match of the season, against Swansea City, for the first of which "he chested it down and executed a crisp, instant scissor-kick into the net". On 19 March 2014, Van Persie scored a hat-trick in a 3–0 win over Olympiacos in the second leg of the Champions League second round to send United through to the quarter-finals 3–2 on aggregate.

2014–15 season
Van Persie scored his first goal for the season in his fourth league appearance in a 5–3 defeat to Leicester City on 21 September 2014. He scored again in the next game against West Ham United, helping United win the game 2–1. On 26 October 2014, against Chelsea, Van Persie scored a late equaliser to earn a point for United. In the dying minutes of injury time, Marouane Fellaini's header from Ángel Di María's free-kick was saved by Thibaut Courtois, and Van Persie smashed in the rebound to equalise. Van Persie celebrated the goal by taking his shirt off and was booked for his actions. His goal celebration was also labelled "stupid" by United coach Louis van Gaal.

On 11 January 2015, he suffered an ankle injury in a 1–0 home defeat to Southampton. Following Manchester United's defeat to West Bromwich Albion, which saw Van Persie miss a penalty, he was stripped of his penalty-taking duties by Van Gaal.

Fenerbahçe
On 14 July 2015, Van Persie joined Turkish side Fenerbahçe on a three-year deal for a fee claimed by Fenerbahçe to be £3.84 million. He was assigned the number 10 shirt. He and his former United teammate Nani debuted two weeks later in a goalless home draw against Shakhtar Donetsk in the third qualifying round of the season's Champions League, with Van Persie a 68th-minute substitute for Moussa Sow. His league debut came on 14 August as a 60th-minute substitute for Fernandão in a 2–0 win at Eskişehirspor. Six days later, he scored his first goal for his new club: as a late substitute for Sow, he headed the only goal away to Atromitos Athens in the first leg of the Europa League play-offs, with his first of only two touches in the entire match. Van Persie scored his first domestic goal for the club on his first start on 23 August, finishing Nani's pass for the opening goal in a 1–1 draw at Çaykur Rizespor.

Return to Feyenoord
On 19 January 2018, Van Persie agreed to return to Feyenoord after cancelling his contract with Fenerbahçe. On 28 February, van Persie scored his 300th career goal in a victory that put Feyenoord into the 2017–18 KNVB Cup final. He also scored in the final later on 22 April as Feyenoord defeated 3–0 AZ Alkmaar to claim their 13th trophy.

In October 2018 he announced he would retire from football at the end of the 2018–19 season. On 3 March 2019 he scored his first hat-trick in the Eredivisie in a 4–0 win against FC Emmen.

On 12 May 2019, Van Persie played his last professional match as a footballer in a 2–0 home defeat against ADO Den Haag. He nearly played the entire match before being replaced by Dylan Vente in the 93rd minute of extra time. Feyenoord coach Giovanni van Bronckhorst had previously confirmed that this would be Van Persie's last match despite having one matchday left in that season's Eredivisie.

International career

U21 career
Van Persie was a U-21 international and took part in the 2004 and 2006 European Championship qualifying. Van Persie was used in a wider role as a left wing due to the preference of the experienced Klaas-Jan Huntelaar in the striker role. The Jong Oranje failed to qualify for the 2004 tournament and Van Persie did not participate in the latter as he was already in the senior squad for the FIFA World Cup. He earned his first caps for the Netherlands in less than the span of a week, first in a 2–0 2006 FIFA World Cup qualifying win over Romania on 4 June 2005, and in another qualifier four days later against Finland, which saw him pick up his first international goal in a 4–0 victory.

2006 FIFA World Cup
Despite not being a regular starter for Arsenal, Van Persie was part of coach Marco van Basten's roster for the 2006 World Cup finals. He played in all four of the Netherlands' matches and scored his only goal in the group stage against Ivory Coast via a free kick as Oranje were eliminated in the Round of 16.

UEFA Euro 2008
Van Persie scored a team-best four UEFA Euro 2008 qualifying goals, and was deployed as a winger behind lone striker Ruud van Nistelrooy during the tournament after Van Basten decided to change to a 4–2–3–1 formation. As Wesley Sneijder and Rafael van der Vaart were preferred in the midfield, Van Persie was left to battle with Arjen Robben for the remaining spot on the wing. On 13 June, he scored as a 55th-minute substitute in a 4–1 Group C victory over 2006 World Cup finalists France, and started the next match against Romania, scoring off a pass from Demy de Zeeuw with an excellent volley into the back of the net. He finished with two goals as the Netherlands finished atop their group but again suffered a first knock-out round, second-stage elimination.

2010 FIFA World Cup
In the 2010 World Cup qualifying process, the Netherlands graduated from Group 9 with a 100% record.

Van Persie was included in the preliminary squad for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. On 27 May 2010, Netherlands manager Bert van Marwijk announced that he was in the final squad of 23 participating in the competition.

Van Persie was in the starting line-up for their first match in the competition, a 2–0 victory over Denmark. On 24 June, he scored the first goal against Cameroon in a 2–1 win to ensure that the Netherlands finished as group winners, and was officially named the man of the match. He started every match for Oranje, though he did not increase his goal tally in the following matches. Oranje reached the 2010 World Cup Final, in which he was on the losing side due to Andrés Iniesta's extra time goal.

UEFA Euro 2012

On 2 September 2011, Van Persie scored four goals in a record-breaking 11–0 victory in UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying Group E over San Marino. He entered the Dutch national team's top 10 all-time topscorer ranking with a tally of 25 goals, dislodging Marco van Basten in the process. Van Persie had not scored four goals in a single match for a long while. Van Persie contributed six goals in total during qualifying.

On 13 June 2012, Van Persie scored the Dutch goal in a 2–1 loss to Germany in the European Championship group stage. Having missed two earlier chances, he picked up the ball near the halfway line, turned and ran at the German defence, before firing into the bottom corner from the edge of the penalty area.

2014 FIFA World Cup
Van Persie ended the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualification campaign as top scorer in the UEFA section with 11 goals. In June 2013, he was appointed captain of the Dutch national team by manager Louis van Gaal. On 11 October 2013, he became the Netherlands' top goalscorer of all time in an 8–1 defeat of Hungary, the Dutch's penultimate Group D match, where he scored a hat-trick. This put him on 41 goals in 80 internationals, surpassing the record previously held by Patrick Kluivert.

In the team's opening match of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, Van Persie captained the Netherlands to a 5–1 win over champions Spain in Salvador. He scored twice in the match, one of which was a flying header which was later nominated for FIFA Puskás Award for the most beautiful goal of the year. He was also named man of the match by FIFA. On 18 June, he scored his third goal of the tournament in a 3–2 defeat of Australia, a result that qualified the Netherlands to the knockout stage with one group match remaining.

In the quarter-final, Van Persie scored the Netherlands' first kick in a 4–3 penalty shootout defeat of Costa Rica. He scored his fourth goal of the tournament from a penalty kick in a 3–0 win against Brazil in the third-place play-off. Van Persie was the only player since 1966 in World Cup history to score with his left foot, right foot, and head, as well as scoring from a free kick and a penalty kick.

UEFA Euro 2016
On 28 August 2015, Van Persie was replaced by Arjen Robben as captain of the national team. He replaced Huntelaar for the final three minutes of a 2–1 away win over Kazakhstan in UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying on 10 October, his 100th appearance for the Netherlands. In doing so, Van Persie became the eighth Dutchman to reach the milestone. Three days later, in their final group game, Van Persie came on as a 38th-minute substitute for Jaïro Riedewald away to the Czech Republic and scored an own goal which handed the Czechs victory, despite scoring later on in a 3–2 defeat. The result meant that the Dutch did not qualify for an international tournament for the first time since 2002.

Coaching career
In May 2020, a year after his retirement, Van Persie became an assistant-coach to Dick Advocaat at his former club Feyenoord, where he would help train the club's strikers in an unofficial role. In May 2021, Feyenoord announced that Van Persie would officially join the club from the start of the 2021–22 season in a supporting role as a field coach, while also becoming the co-head coach at the club's under-16 team. For the 2023–24 season, Van Persie was promoted to co-head coach of the club's under-18 team, as well as the under-19 team in the 2023–24 UEFA Youth League.

Personal life

Van Persie was born in Rotterdam to an artistic family. His mother, José Ras, is a painter and jewellery designer who also teaches special needs children. His father, Bob, is a sculptor. After Van Persie's parents divorced he was brought up by his father. At school, Van Persie had serious problems with his behaviour and was excluded from class almost daily.

After joining Arsenal in England, Van Persie settled in Hampstead, an affluent suburb of north London. Van Persie is married to Bouchra (née Elbali), who is Moroccan, and the couple have two children, a son named Shaqueel, born in 2006, and daughter Dina, born in 2009. When asked if this caused him to convert to Islam, Van Persie said, "It's not true. I am not a Muslim, nor a Christian or a Jew. I have been raised liberally. If you want to become a Muslim it should come from the heart. I would not do it just to please my wife. To believe for me is a quest for being a good man."

Style of play

Van Persie started his senior club career as a left winger and possessed an exceptional ball control and was also a talented striker of the ball. He was bought by Arsenal as a long-term replacement for Dennis Bergkamp. Manager Arsène Wenger planned to convert Van Persie from a left winger to a central forward as he had successfully done with star player Thierry Henry. He was at first mostly deployed as a supporting forward in League Cup and FA Cup matches. Due to the retirement of Bergkamp and departure of Freddie Ljungberg, Van Persie was given a starting role to play alongside Henry as a second striker upfront.

The departure of Emmanuel Adebayor and Henry meant the Dutchman was now the main striker in Wenger's 4–3–3 system and very successfully played further upfront as a pure striker, winning the Premier League Golden Boot twice in a row. Van Persie is also a set piece specialist and a vast number of his assists come from both corners and freekicks. He is also a proven direct freekick taker scoring regularly for his club and country. He was also occasionally deployed as a false-9 throughout is career, seemingly as a centre-forward, but given the freedom to drop deep.

Sponsorship
Van Persie has a sponsorship deal with German sportswear and equipment supplier, Adidas. Having previously worn Adidas Predator football boots he made the transition to the Adidas F50 adiZero boots in 2013.

Career statistics

Club

International

Honours

Feyenoord
 UEFA Cup: 2001–02
 KNVB Cup: 2017–18; runner-up: 2002–03
 Johan Cruyff Shield: 2018

Arsenal
 FA Cup: 2004–05
 FA Community Shield: 2004
 UEFA Champions League runner-up: 2005–06
 Football League Cup runner-up: 2010–11

Manchester United
 Premier League: 2012–13
 FA Community Shield: 2013

Fenerbahçe
 Turkish Cup runner-up: 2015–16

Netherlands
 FIFA World Cup runner-up: 2010; third place: 2014

Individual
 Dutch Football Talent of the Year: 2001–02
 KNVB Best Young Talent Award: 2001–02
 Premier League Player of the Month: November 2005, October 2009, October 2011, December 2012, April 2013
 BBC Goal of the Month: September 2006, December 2008, December 2011, August 2012, April 2013
 Most assists in the Premier League: 2008–09 (shared)
 Premier League Golden Boot Landmark Award: 2011–12 (10 goals), 2011–12 (20 goals), 2011–12 (30 goals)
 Premier League Golden Boot: 2011–12, 2012–13
 PFA Players' Player of the Year: 2011–12
 PFA Fans' Player of the Year: 2012
 PFA Team of the Year: 2011–12 Premier League, 2012–13 Premier League
 FWA Footballer of the Year: 2011–12
 ESM Team of the Year: 2011–12
Arsenal Player of the Season: 2008–09, 2011–12
 Sir Matt Busby Player of the Year: 2012–13
 BBC Goal of the Season: 2012–13
 FIFA FIFPro World XI shortlist: 2011, 2012, 2013
 FIFA FIFPro World XI 2nd team: 2013
 Premier League 100 Club's Greatest Goal Award
 Netherlands all-time top goalscorer: 50 goals
 Manchester United Goal of the Season: 2012–13 (vs. Aston Villa, 22 April 2013)
 2014 FIFA World Cup qualification Top scorer (11 goals)
 FIFA Puskás Award (3rd place) 2014
 Eredivisie Player of the Month: August 2018

Records

Arsenal
 Most goals in a 38-game league season: 30 goals (in the Premier League, 2011–12)
 Most goals in a calendar year (35), 2011–12
 Most goals scored at the Emirates Stadium: (64)

Manchester United
 Only player to score two 90th-minute winning goals in the Premier League (shared with two players) 2012/13
 The third-fewest matches needed for a player to reach 15 goals (21 matches, behind only Ruud van Nistelrooy (19 matches), Dwight Yorke (20 matches)

Feyenoord
 The oldest player in Eredivisie history with two goals in a Klassieker (35 years, 174 days).

Premier League
 Most Premier League goals scored from the turn of the year to the end of the season (18) 2010/11 (shared with Thierry Henry and Cristiano Ronaldo)
 Number of teams scored against in a season: 17, joint record:
 20-team league:
 Ian Wright (Arsenal, 1996–97)
 Robin van Persie (Arsenal, 2011–12)
 Mohamed Salah (Liverpool, 2017–18)
 Most consecutive away league matches scored in: 9, Robin van Persie (for Arsenal, 1 January 2011 to 22 May 2011)
 Highest goal-scoring Dutch player in Premier League (144 goals)

International
 2014 FIFA World Cup – Only player since 1966 to score with his left foot, right foot, and head, as well as scoring from a free kick and a penalty kick.
 Netherlands male national team all-time top scorer (50)

See also
 List of men's association football players with 50 or more international goals
 List of footballers with 100 or more caps

References

External links

 Robin van Persie – statistics for the Netherlands on voetbalstats.nl

1983 births
Living people
Footballers from Rotterdam
Dutch men's footballers
Men's association football forwards
Excelsior Rotterdam players
Feyenoord players
Arsenal F.C. players
Manchester United F.C. players
Fenerbahçe S.K. footballers
UEFA Cup winning players
Eredivisie players
Premier League players
Süper Lig players
First Division/Premier League top scorers
Netherlands men's youth international footballers
Netherlands men's under-21 international footballers
Netherlands men's international footballers
2006 FIFA World Cup players
UEFA Euro 2008 players
2010 FIFA World Cup players
UEFA Euro 2012 players
2014 FIFA World Cup players
FIFA Men's Century Club
Dutch expatriate men's footballers
Dutch expatriate sportspeople in England
Dutch expatriate sportspeople in Turkey
Expatriate men's footballers in England
Expatriate men's footballers in Turkey
Feyenoord non-playing staff


Janine Claire Belton (born 23 November 1979), is an English former competitive swimmer who represented Great Britain at the Olympics and FINA world championships, and competed for England at the Commonwealth Games, during the 1990s and early 2000s.

Belton is best known for winning a gold medal at the 2001 FINA World Championships as a member of the first-place British women's 4×200-metre freestyle relay team alongside Nicola Jackson, Karen Legg and Karen Pickering.

She represented Great Britain at the 1996 and 2000 Olympic Games, in both instances as a member of the British women's 4×200-metre freestyle relay squad.  In 1996 she swam in the preliminary heats of the 4x200-metre relay; in 2000 she swam in the heats and event final as a member of Britain's sixth-place team.  At the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, she represented England while competing in the women's 200-metre freestyle.

At the British short course national championships in 2001, Karen Legg, Belton, Nicola Jackson and Karen Pickering set a new short course world record of 7:47.14 in the 4x200-metre freestyle relay.

See also
 World record progression 4 × 200 metres freestyle relay

References

Living people
1979 births
English female swimmers
English female freestyle swimmers
Olympic swimmers for Great Britain
Swimmers at the 1996 Summer Olympics
Swimmers at the 2000 Summer Olympics
Swimmers at the 2002 Commonwealth Games
World Aquatics Championships medalists in swimming
Commonwealth Games competitors for England
20th-century English women
21st-century English women


William Frank Ashurst (12 April 1948 – 14 June 2022) was an English professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, and coached in the 1980s. He played at representative level for Great Britain and Lancashire, and at club level for Wigan (two spells), the Penrith Panthers, Wakefield Trinity, and Runcorn Highfield, as a , or , and coached at club level for Wakefield Trinity, Runcorn Highfield and Wigan St Patricks ARLFC (Under-16s).

Early life
Ashurst was born on 12 April 1948, the son of Frank Goulding and Mary Anne Ashurst. He grew up in Ince-in-Makerfield, living with his mother and three elder sisters, and attended Rose Bridge Secondary Modern School.

Ashurst was first introduced to rugby league at the age of 10 when he watched the television broadcast of Wigan's 13-9 victory over Workington Town in the 1958 Challenge Cup Final during the 1957–58 season at Wembley Stadium, London on Saturday 10 May 1958. During his school years, he represented the Wigan Schoolboys teams in both rugby and football, and was offered a trial by Blackburn Rovers before deciding to focus on playing rugby league.

Playing career
Ashurst was signed by Wigan from Rose Bridge in August 1968.

Ashurst played left- in Wigan's 7-4 victory over St. Helens in the 1968 BBC2 Floodlit Trophy Final during the 1968–69 season at Central Park, Wigan on Tuesday 17 December 1968, played left- in the 6-11 defeat by Leigh in the 1969 BBC2 Floodlit Trophy Final during the 1969–70 season at Central Park, Wigan on Tuesday 16 December 1969, played , and was man of the match winning the Harry Sunderland Trophy, in the 12-16 defeat by St. Helens in the Championship Final during the 1970–71 season at Station Road, Swinton on Saturday 22 May 1971, played left- in the 15-8 victory over Widnes in the 1971 Lancashire Cup Final during the 1971–72 season at Knowsley Road, St. Helens, on Saturday 28 August 1971 and played left-, and scored a try in the 13-16 defeat by Workington Town in the 1977 Lancashire Cup Final during the 1977–78 season at Wilderspool Stadium, Warrington, on Saturday 29 October 1977.

Penrith Panthers

In 1973, Ashurst was signed by the Penrith Panthers for a record fee of £15,000, (based on increases in average earnings, this would be approximately £241,100 in 2013). While he played three seasons in the NSWRL, he became a popular figure with the new club and was notable for his prowess as a goal-kicker. This was partially due to his style of kicking: in an era where most Australian goal-kickers would approach the ball straight-on and use their toe to kick, Ashurst went "around the corner" and contacted the football with his instep, soccer-style. This produced both more power and a higher level of accuracy, and by the late 1980s most native Australian goal kickers (save for Mal Meninga) switched over to this method. In 2006, Ashurst was named in the Penrith's "Team of Legends".

Wakefield Trinity
Ashurst returned to Wigan in 1977, but was sold to Wakefield Trinity for another record fee of £18,000 in March 1978, (based on increases in average earnings, this would be approximately £136,200 in 2013). He played left- in Wakefield Trinity's 3-12 defeat by Widnes in the 1979 Challenge Cup Final during the 1978–79 season at Wembley Stadium, London on Saturday 5 May 1979, in front of a crowd of a crowd of 94,218. He retired from playing in 1982 due to a knee injury.

International honours
Bill Ashurst won caps for Great Britain while at Wigan in 1971 against Australia, and in 1972 against France (2 matches).

Coaching career
Ashurst coached Wakefield Trinity while still playing during the 1981–82 season. He then joined Wigan as assistant coach to Alex Murphy. Ashurst also coached Runcorn Highfield between 1987 and 1989. Due to a players' strike, Ashurst came out of retirement to play in a match against former club Wigan in 1988. He was sent off during the game, and made no further appearances as a player.

Honours

Club
Wigan

League Leaders Trophy (1): 1970–71

Lancashire League (1): 1969–70

Lancashire County Cup (1): 1971

BBC2 Floodlit Trophy (1): 1968

Individual
Harry Sunderland Trophy (1): 1971

References

External links
Statistics at wigan.rlfans.com

1948 births
2022 deaths
English rugby league coaches
English rugby league players
Great Britain national rugby league team players
Lancashire rugby league team players
Liverpool City coaches
Liverpool City (rugby league) players
Penrith Panthers players
Penrith Panthers captains
People from Ince-in-Makerfield
Sportspeople from the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan
Rugby league centres
Rugby league players from Wigan
Rugby league second-rows
Wakefield Trinity coaches
Wakefield Trinity players
Wigan Warriors players


The Museo internazionale e biblioteca della musica is a music museum and music library in the Palazzo Aldini Sanguinetti, in the historic center of Bologna, Italy.

Museum

Background
The Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale was founded in 1959 to hold the city's collection of musical objects. It was renamed Museo Internazionale e Biblioteca della Musica in 2004 when the museum's current site, the Palazzo Sanguinetti, opened to the public. The palace was contains frescoes were first completed between the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and provide one of the finest examples of Neoclassical decoration.

The  museum exhibits highlight the rich musical heritage of Bologna. Until recently, much of this collection was warehoused. The palace provides an environment for display and conservation of these items.

The institute is divided between two sites. An ample selection of volumes, paintings, and musical instruments are displayed in the museum halls in Strada Maggiore 34 (Palazzo Sanguinetti), while the bibliographic material is accessible in Piazza Rossini 2 (the ex-Convent of San Giacomo) in rooms attached to the G.B. Martini Conservatory of Music.

The Palazzo Sanguinetti
In the early 16th century, the original core of this building belonged to the Loiani family. In 1569, the property was sold to the brothers, Ercole and Giulio Riario, originally from Savona, but who were related to the della Roveres. Having acquired neighboring land and buildings, Senator Ercole Riario had the home reconstructed and enlarged. The individual homes were united into one structure, and construction on the impressive staircase, which still characterizes the building today, was likely begun. The second major reconstruction was commissioned by Count Antonio Aldini, to whom the Marquis Raffaello Riario Sforza had granted a long-term lease in 1796. Count Aldini tasked the architect Giovanni Battista Martinetti (1774–1830) with modernizing the building. A neighboring house was attached to the tower belonging to the Oseletti family, and the huge 16th-century hall was divide into two rooms, which correspond to the modern museum's two most spacious rooms – the vestibule, or the Room of Virtues, and the Ballroom.

Following the fall of Napoleon and the economic ruin of Aldini, the palace was sold to the Cuban nobleman don Diego Pegnalverd, a former member of the Napoleonic government. Upon his death in 1832, the palazzo passed to the famous tenor, Domenico Donzelli. It is noted that Gioachino Rossini stayed there while his own nearby home was under reconstruction. In 1870 the Sanguinetti family purchased the building. They were responsible for the most recent decorations in the intended library and the “Egyptian Room.” During recent renovations of the palazzo, marvelous frescoes were discovered in these areas.

In 1986 the last heiress, Eleonora Sanguinetti, donated the larger part of the building to the Comune di Bologna in memory – as she wrote in her will – of “my unforgettable father, Dr. Guido Sanguinetti. I ... donate the building in Strada Maggiore 34 in his name and memory, and for the love that he always had for his city and his home, so that it could become a music museum and library.”

Frescoes and decorations
The Palazzo Sanguinetti was decorated by major 18th- and 19th-century Neoclassical painters, such as Pelagio Palagi (1777–1860), Serafino Barozzi (1735–1810), and Antonio Basoli (1774–1848), under the direction of Vincenzo Martinelli (1737–1807). On the ground floor, the landscape fresco (with trompe-l'oeil perspective) is attributed to Luigi Busatti, while the quadratura is the work of Francesco Santini (1763–1840). Santini, with the probable collaboration of Barozzi, also decorated the walls of the grand staircase. On the first floor, the Woodland Room (Room 1), previously used and called the Banquet Room, was decorated by Martinelli: he illustrates landscapes rich with greenery and classical architecture in the distance. These classical elements surround the onlooker in the illusion of a step that supports hermes and statues of Bacchus and Ceres, works by a young Palagi.  The Aeneas Room (Room 2), also by Palagi, depicts stories of the Aeneid on a black, Etruscan background. The Zodiac and Aurora Room (Room 3) depicts the Zodiac signs by  (1774–1814) and a figure of Aurora, attributed to Palagi. The last small room of the east wing (Room 4) is decorated by artists from the Barozzi workshop.  They are also credited with the two rooms (Rooms 6 and 7) that conclude the west wing, which are decorated in oriental style with curtains and pavilions, exotic plants, and feminine figures with small umbrellas. Room 5 is the Ballroom. At the end of the museum tour are two salons in the apartment designed by Aldini; they were the first two rooms to be decorated. The original room (Room 8), is decorated by Antonio Basoli in a neo-gothic style, with figures, statues, and bass reliefs by Pietro Fancelli (1764–1850).

Father Giovanni Battista Martini

The original core of the museum's musical collections is credited to the Conventual Franciscan friar, Giovanni Battista Martini (Bologna, April 24, 1706 – August 3, 1784), an 18th-century music scholar and collector, a theorist and composer, and a teacher of counterpoint. Johann Christian Bach and Wolfgang Amadé Mozart were among his students.

At only 19 years old, Martini was appointed chapel-master of the Church of San Francesco in Bologna. His fame as an excellent teacher and connoisseur of music began to grow when he “won” a dispute with the scholar, Redi, regarding the interpretation of a mysterious canone dell'Animuccia that existed in the choir gallery of the Santa Casa di Loreto, where Redi himself was chapel-master. After this triumph, not content with being only a scholar, he continued his music studies and was an admired composer of sonatas for the harpsichord, canons, and about 500 unpublished musical pieces.

The numerous letters conserved in the library (around 80 volumes with more than 6,500 letters), document the broad network of musicians, aristocrats, singers, and cardinals who had contacts with Martini. Even the Emperor of Austria visited Padre Martini while in Bologna. Martini collected not only manuscripts and musical works of various kinds, but also portraits of musicians displayed on the walls of his library in the Monastery of San Francesco.

Exhibition path

The museum path opens among the lush decorations of the Boschereccia Room with some symbolic works which serve as an introduction to the museum and prepare the visitor for their trip through the musical universe.

Rooms 2 and 3 are dedicated to the spiritual father of the new museum, pictured in an oval by Angelo Crescimbeni: Giambattista Martini, whose priceless moral heritage, both intellectual and material, is celebrated here and made known to the greater public.In Room 3, the relationships between Padre Martini and the stand-out personalities of the music world of the time, such as the young Mozart or Johann Christian Bach, who is represented in the famous portrait by Gainsborough, are displayed. In the same room, one can also admire the famous Sportelli di libreria musicale by Giuseppe Maria Crespi.Room 4 (“The Idea of Music”) follows, which is dedicated to the musical scholars from the 15th century to the 17th century, with important examples of musical treatises, and portraits of their respective authors. This room also contains some musical instruments of great importance, like the unique omnitonum harpsichord  by Vito Trasuntino (Venice 1606).

Some of the more relevant pieces are on display in the following Room 5 (Arts Room), which is dedicated to the “Books for music and instruments of the 16th and 17th centuries.” In this room, rare texts from ranging the 15th century to the famous Harmonice Musices Odhecaton A, the first printed musical book by Ottaviano Petrucci, can be admired. They are kept inside very modern, circular cases in the center of the room, which match the rich decoration of the floors.

Then there are the instruments: lutes; the harmony of flutes by Manfredo Settala of 1650, which represents a real unicum;
the pochette, various little violins used as instruments by dance instructors, the ghironde, the serpentoni, the extraordinary series of horns and cornets from the 16th and 17th centuries, and finally, a unique performance instrument: the tiorba, which is in the shape of a khitára.

Italian opera is the focus of the following room. The 18th century are first in Room 6, dedicated to the famous singer Carlo Broschi, known as Farinelli.

His beautiful portrait, painted by Corrado Giaquinto, dominates the room, together with the portraits of the castrati from various periods and of composers from the time, such as Antonio Vivaldi and Domenico Cimarosa.

Room 7 places the visitor in the 19th century with Gioachino Rossini, whose name is forever tied to Bologna. Portraits, busts, and libretti from the first recitals of Isabella Colbran, a singer and Rossini's first wife, can be found here. Also of interest is the original score of The Barber of Seville and some rather curious personal effects, like a dressing gown and a wig. Finally, one can behold Rossini's grand piano, which was constructed in 1844 by Camille Pleyel.

The path proceeds through the centuries, the musical uses, and styles in Room 8, which is dedicated to “Books for music and instruments in the 18th and 19th centuries.” There are viole d'amore and flutes along with the original scores composed by Torelli, Vivaldi, Bertoni, etc. There are also clarinets and the beautiful Buccin, created in Lyon by Jean Baptiste Tabard (1812–1845).

Concluding the exhibit, Room 9 pays a proper tribute to two important people in the Italian and Bolognese musical culture, Giuseppe Martucci and Ottorino Respighi.  This room displays the composer's portraits, photographs, and a selection of works from the Respighi property, which were donated to the library in 1961 by his widow, Elsa, for the 25th anniversary of his death. In the same room lies the portrait of the musician Arrigo Serato, painted by the famous artist Felice Casorati.

Collections
The first floor of the Palazzo is home to the nine rooms of the exhibition, which illustrates about six centuries of the history of European music. There are over one hundred paintings of famous people from the music world, which are a part of the picture gallery started by Padre Giovanni Battista Martini, more than eighty antique musical instruments, and a large selection of valuable historical documents, such as treatises, volumes, opera libretti, letters, manuscripts, original musical scores, etc.

Library

The collection inherited from Padre Martini constitutes one of the most prestigious collections of music repertory printed between the 16th and 18th centuries because of its incunabula, valuable manuscripts, opera libretti, and for the unique collection of autographs and letters, which are the result of the correspondence Martini painstakingly kept with eminent people, scholars, and musicians of the time.
Saved from the Napoleonic confiscations  due to the intervention of Stanislao Mattei, Martini's disciple and successor, the valuable bibliographic patrimony was donated to the Liceo musicale di Bologna in 1816. The Liceo had been founded in 1804 at the ex-convent of the Agostinians in the church of San Giacomo Maggiore. The library grew considerably throughout the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, thanks to the amount of materials produced from the didactic activity of the Liceo; famous students of the Liceo included Rossini, Donizetti, Respighi and directors Mancinelli, Martucci, and Busoni.

The library also grew because of the valuable items and rare volumes that were acquired by Gaetano Gaspari, who was appointed as librarian in 1855.

Gaspari directed the library for many years with a unique zeal and knowledge. After many years of hard work and constant effort, he was able to excellently organize and card-catalogue all the library material (also from this period came the posthumous publication, the "Library Catalogue of the Liceo Musicale di Bologna", which bears his name and is now also available online).

In 1942, when the Liceo musicale was transformed into a state institution – Regio Conservatorio di Musica – the Comune di Bologna chose to maintain ownership of Padre Martini's bibliographic patrimony and the attached picture gallery.

The Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale was founded in 1959 in order to conserve and make the most of the bibliographic patrimony and portrait gallery.

Picture gallery

There is not much information about the development of the picture gallery, which seems to have had no rivals in Bologna during the 18th century. From the valuable letters of correspondence that Padre Martini kept with different well-known people of the time (for example, musicians that were his students in Bologna, members of the Accademia Filarmonica, music theorists, composers, nobles, illustrious intellectuals, chapel masters, and custodians of Franciscan convents), it is evident that there was a complex network of informers and intermediaries that were responsible for finding the portraits he desired.

Many of the portraits were commissioned to the artists directly by Padre Martini. The painters drew the features of the musicians from engravings of the time. In reality, he wasn't interested in the artistic worth of the paintings as much as their plausible resemblance to the model. He was also more interested in whether they were in harmony with his century's interest in the physiognomic reading of faces with the intention of giving iconographic testimony of the people bonded by one common denominator – music. It was also important that the paintings had a direct relationship with his Library.

It's worth noting that there are many paintings by famous artists present in the collection, including the portrait of Farinelli by Corrado Giaquinto, the portrait of Johann Christian Bach by Gainsborough, and one of Charles Burney by Joshua Reynolds.

It also seems that the prestige of Padre Martini, who was considered the most knowledgeable European expert on the art of music, was so great that it was important for a musician of that time to have their portrait in his gallery. This served as a recognition of the musician's merit.

The picture gallery remained in the convent of San Francesco even after Martini's death, surviving the Napoleonic confiscations thanks to Martini's successor, Padre Stanislao Mattei. Only in 1801 was it transferred to the ex-convent of the Agostinians at the Chiesa di San Giacomo Maggiore. Today, the collection consists of 319 paintings, the majority of which are oil on canvas with some pastels and drawings.

The collection of musical instruments
The musical instruments displayed in the rooms of the museum originate from the collections of two important Bolognese institutions: the Museo Civico Medievale and the Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale. The core of this collection from the Museo Civico Medievale comes from the Liceo musicale, which was founded in 1804. As Federico Parisini (the Liceo librarian from 1881 to 1891) explained, following the Napoleonic suppressions, “the instruments, many famous musical works, chorus books, rare instruments, and other items related to music were sold publicly.”

The central administration of the Dipartimento del Reno had asked the government of the Repubblica Cisalpina to purchase and conserve the objects that risked being dispersed. The recovered instruments were then entrusted to the Liceo and, in 1881, were finally added to the Museo Civico Medievale, where they have remained until today.

Among the most valuable instruments now displayed in the rooms of the museum is the Trasuntino harpsichord of 1606 (displayed in Room 4). It was constructed for Camillo Gonzaga, the Count of Novellara, and afterwards was passed to Giuseppe Baini (1775–1844), the celebrated author of the first biography of Palestrina. In his will, Baini bequeathed the harpsichord to the Liceo Musicale. Other valuable instruments on display are the Trasuntino monochord, which was built to tune the cymbal, and the 5-reed flute, which is able to mimic several flutes playing in harmony. There is also the polyphonic flute (displayed in Room 5), which bears the mark of Manfredo Settala (1600–1680), a Milanese rector, who was a great collector and famous personality in the cultural panorama of the 17th century.

The origin of the collection of musical instruments in the Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale is more uncertain. The collection includes some particularly important models, such as eight pianos, five of which are grand pianos and three of which are rectangular. These pianos date back to the 17th and 18th centuries. Among these are the priceless Erard from 1811 (that possibly belonged to Paolina Borghese), which was restored for the inauguration of the museum and is now exhibited in Room 8. Also included are Gioachino Rossini's Pleyel piano of 1844 (exhibited in Room 7), and the so-called “spinette of Padre Martini”, a rectangular Glonner from 1780 (displayed in Room 3). Other important instruments on display are the Heckelphon of 1900 (Room 8), various English horns, some cornets, and two oboes.

Services

Library

Though it is to be transferred to a new site, the library is located in Piazza Rossini 2. It is made up of a single reading room, which is shared with the Conservatorio di Musica “G.B. Martini”. The room has 20 seats, twelve of which are exclusively reserved for the consultation of antique and particular texts. There are two microfilm (and one microfilm/microfiches) machines available in the room, and a space for bibliographic and catalogue searches.

Gallery

See also

 List of music museums
 Frate Giambattista Martini
 Rossini
 Martucci
 Farinelli

References

Further reading
 A. Schnoebelen, Padre Martini's Collection of Letters in the Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale in Bologna: An Annotated Index, New York, Pendragon, 1979
 A cura di Lorenzo Bianconi e Paolo Isotta, Museo internazionale e biblioteca della musica, guida al percorso espositivo, Comune di Bologna, 2004

Music museums in Italy
Music libraries
Museums in Bologna
Libraries in Bologna
Music history
Tourist attractions in Bologna


The 2001–02 Pro Tour season was the seventh season of the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour. On 18 August 2001 the season began with parallel Grand Prixs in Kobe and Denver. It ended on 18 August 2002 with the conclusion of the 2002 World Championship in Sydney. The season consisted of 33 Grand Prixs and 6 Pro Tours, held in New York, New Orleans, San Diego, Osaka, Nice, and Sydney. Also Master Series tournaments were held at four Pro Tours. At the end of the season Kai Budde was proclaimed Pro Player of the Year, winning the title by a record margin.

Grand Prixs – Kobe, Denver, Santiago, Singapore, London

GP Kobe (18–19 August)
 Itaru Ishida
 Shuhei Nakamura
 Kei Ikeda
 Takayuki Nagaoka
 Hiroshi Kawasaki
 Ryo Ogura
 Takumi Hasegawa
 Kenshiro Ito

GP Denver (18–19 August)
 Brett Shears
 Danny Mandel
 Brock Parker
 Darwin Kastle
 Sammy Batarseh
 Mike Abraham
 Aaron Knobloch
 Alex Borteh

GP Santiago (25–26 August)
 Matias Gabrenja
 Gerardo Godinez
 Jorge Rodriguez
 Jose Echeverria
 Rodrigo Sanchez
 Brock Parker
 Andrés Hojman
 Juan Ruetter

GP Singapore (1–2 September)
 Albertus Law
 Kelvin Yew Teck Hoon
 Akuma Ding Yuen Leong
 Michihisa Onoda
 Royce Ming Huang Chai
 Lance Chin Wei Yeong
 David Kwan
 Chang Chua

GP London (1–2 September)
 Kai Budde
 Gabriel Nassif
 Helmut Summersberger
 Matt Henstra
 Warren Marsh
 René Kraft
 Antoine Ruel
 Pierre Malherbaud

Pro Tour – New York (7–9 September 2001)

New York was the third time Pro Tour was held in the Team Limited format. Car Acrobatic Team who had been amongst the Top 4 at the previous team Pro Tour returned for another Top 4. The event was won by team Phoenix Foundation consisting of Kai Budde, Dirk Baberowski, and Marco Blume. It was Baberowski's second win and Budde's fourth. The final was also a repeat to the final of Grand Prix London a week before, where Budde had already won against Nassif. Eventually Kai's renewed success led to some memorable quotes. Asked about the favorite to win amongst the final 4 several pros exclaimed something to the extent of the words Gary Wise pronounced, "Kai doesn't lose on Sunday". Randy Buehler's comment "if he wins New Orleans, I guess he is" on the discussion whether Kai is the best player in the history of the game also became a classic when Kai indeed won PT New Orleans.

Tournament data
Prize pool: $202,200
Players: 426 (142 teams)
Format: Invasion Team Sealed (Invasion, Planeshift, Apocalypse) – first day, Invasion Team Rochester Draft (Invasion-Planeshift-Apocalypse) – final two days
Head Judge: Collin Jackson

Top 4

Final standings

* The team entered the tournament as "My Team Part 17", but decided they wanted to have more serious name as a Top4 team and changed it to "Illuminati".

Pro Player of the year standings

Grand Prixs – Warsaw, Minneapolis, Oslo, Vienna, Cape Town, Shizuoka, Montreal, Brisbane

GP Warsaw (8–9 September)
 Rickard Österberg
 Michal Marcik
 David Linder
 Mattias Kettil
 Przemek Oberbek
 Marcin Sados
 Felix Schneiders
 Roman Kubera

GP Oslo (22–23 September)
 Trey Van Cleave
 Anton Jonsson
 Johan Backfjärd
 Sigurd Eskeland
 Svante Landgraf
 Rickard Österberg
 Peter Laier
 Haakon Monsen

GP Minneapolis (29–30 September)
 Dave Humpherys
 Andrew Wolf
 Brian Hegstad
 Brian Davis
 Craig Wescoe
 Cassius Weatherby
 Lee Curtis
 Jacob Janoska

GP Vienna (6–7 October)
 Stephan Meyer
 Eivind Nitter
 Nicolai Herzog
 Gabor Papp
 Matthias Künzler
 Holger Meinecke
 Konrad Zawadzki
 Ladoslav Zupancic

GP Cape Town (6–7 October)
 Ben Seck
 Wagner Kruger
 Justin Polin
 Grant van Dyk
 Andrew Mitchell
 Pieter Loubser
 Robert Thompson
 Peter Klein

GP Shizuoka (13–14 October)
 Kohei Yamadaya
 Masahiko Morita
 Ryouma Shiozu
 Olivier Ruel
 Katsuhiro Mori
 Tsuyoshi Douyama
 Reiji Ando
 Eiho Kato

GP Montreal (13–14 October)
 Mike Turian
 Louis Boileau
 Timothy McKenna
 Brett Shears
 David Rood
 Bob Maher, Jr.
 Peter Szigeti
 Daniel Clegg

GP Brisbane (20–21 October)
 Richard Johnston
 Roger Miller
 Alex Shvartsman
 Egidio De Gois
 Lenny Collins
 Dante Rosati
 Pang Ming Wee
 Daniel Romans

Pro Tour – New Orleans (2–4 November 2001)

After winning Pro Tour New York Kai Budde won New Orleans as well, making him the only player to win back to back Pro Tours. His fifth Pro Tour victory also made him the record money-earner and erased almost all doubt, that Budde is the best player in the history of the game.

Tournament data
Prize pool: $200,130
Players: 355
Format: Extended
Head Judge: Mike Guptil

Top 8

Final standings

Masters – Booster Draft

Pro Player of the year standings

Grand Prixs – Hong Kong, Atlanta, Biarritz, Curitiba, Las Vegas, Sendai, Houston

GP Hong Kong (17–18 November)
 Jeff Fung
 Frederick Salazar
 Tsuyoshi Fujita
 Shinsuke Hayashi
 Bayani Manansala, Jr.
 Steven Shears
 Brian Hegstad
 Ryan Fuller

GP Atlanta (17–18 November)
 Eugene Harvey
 Andrew Johnson
 Brad Swan
 Matt Linde
 Bin Chen
 Antonino De Rosa
 Craig Wescoe
 Alex Borteh

GP Biarritz (24–25 November)
 Nicolas Labarre
 Kai Budde
 Lucio Moratinos
 Joost Vollebregt
 Ferran Vila
 Alexander Witt
 Alexis Dumay
 Olivier Ruel

GP Curitiba (8–9 December)
 Guilherme Svaldi
 Alex Shvartsman
 Antoine Ruel
 Leopoldo Martins
 Raphael Gunther
 Jose Barbero
 José Mangueira
 Eliton Enacio

GP Las Vegas (8–9 December)
 Michael Pustilnik
 Adam Lane
 John Balla
 Sean Fitzgerald
 Kaare Anderson
 Rob Dougherty
 Shannon Krumick
 Scott Gerhardt

GP Sendai (15–16 December)
 Kazuaki Arahori
 Kazuya Hirabayashi
 Mike Long
 Yuki Murakami
 Itaru Ishida
 Kazufumi Abe
 Jin Okamoto
 Katsuhiro Mori

GP Houston (5–6 January)
 Joshua Smith
 Brian Kibler
 William Jensen
 Ben Rubin
 Bob Maher, Jr.
 Alex Shvartsman
 Jonathan Pechon
 Jonathan Job

Pro Tour – San Diego (11–13 January 2002)

The 2002 was won by the French Farid Meraghni. It was the first time a French player won a major tournament after several French players coming in second at Worlds and Pro Tours. Also the tournament is known for Magic veteran Eric Taylor literally eating his hat due to losing a bet about Kai Budde winning Pro Tour New Orleans. Canadian player Ryan Fuller won the Masters.

Tournament data

Players: 348
Prize Pool: $200,130
Format: Odyssey Rochester Draft (Odyssey)
Head Judge: Mike Donais

Top 8

Final standings

Masters – Standard

Pro Player of the year standings

Grand Prixs – Lisbon, Heidelberg, Fukuoka, Tampa, Antwerp

GP Lisbon (19–20 January)
 Kai Budde
 Patrick Mello
 Olivier Ruel
 Marcio Carvalho
 Stefano Fiore
 Alex Shvartsman
 Tom Van de Logt
 Jelger Wiegersma

GP Heidelberg (9–10 February)
 Kamiel Cornelissen
 Chris Benafel
 Franck Canu
 Thomas Preyer
 Jelger Wiegersma
 Patrick Mello
 Yuri Kolomeyko
 Joost Vollebregt

GP Fukuoka (16–17 February)
 Alex Shvartsman
 Masahiko Morita
 Itaru Ishida
 Jun Ishihara
 Masahiro Kuroda
 Tsuyoshi Fujita
 Yusuke Sasaki
 Shuhei Nakamura

GP Tampa (23–24 February)
 Sol Malka
 Jeff Cunningham
 Koby Kennison
 Mike Emmert
 Antonino De Rosa
 Brian Kibler
 Adam Racht
 Adam Prokopin

GP Antwerp (2–3 March)
 Kai Budde
 Florent Jeudon
 Matthias Jorstedt
 Wolfgang Eder
 Arjan van Leeuwen
 Christoph Lippert
 Jan Schreurs
 Dirk Baberowski

Pro Tour – Osaka (15–17 March 2002)

Tournament data

Players: 277
Prize Pool: $200,130
Format: Odyssey Block Constructed (Odyssey, Torment)
Head Judge: Collin Jackson

Top 8

Final standings

Masters – Team Rochester Draft

Pro Player of the year standings

Grand Prixs – Barcelona, Kuala Lumpur, Naples

GP Barcelona (23–24 March)
 Noah Boeken
 Christoph Lippert
 Olivier Ruel
 Carlos Barrado
 Stan van der Velden
 Reinhard Blech
 Raphaël Lévy
 Franck Canu

GP Kuala Lumpur (30–31 March)
 Ding Yueng Leong
 Chang Chua
 Yujian Zhou
 Veerapat Sirilertvorakul
 Alex Shvartsman
 Nicholas Jonatha Wong
 Tobey Tamber
 Edsel Alvarez

GP Naples (6–7 April)
 Pierre Malherbaud
 Jelger Wiegersma
 Kai Budde
 Olivier Ruel
 Patrick Mello
 Iwan Tan
 Raphaël Lévy
 Christoph Lippert

Pro Tour – Nice (3–5 May 2002)

In Nice Kai Budde lost his first match on a Pro Tour Sunday, after winning his previous five Top 8. His third final day appearance and ensuing 36-point-lead virtually secured him the Pro Player of the Year title, though. The Pro Tour was won by Norwegian Eivind Nitter, while the Masters Series title went to Alexander Witt from the Netherlands.

Tournament data

Players: 332
Prize Pool: $200,130
Format: Odyssey Block Booster Draft (Odyssey-Torment)
Head Judge: Cyril Grillon

Top 8

Final standings

Masters – Extended

Pro Player of the year standings

Grand Prixs – Nagoya, Milwaukee, New Jersey, Sao Paulo, Taipei

GP Nagoya (11–12 May)
1. P.S.2
 Masahiro Kuroda
 Katsuhiro Mori
 Masahiko Morita
2. S.S.D.
 Naoki Kubouchi
 Shuhei Nakamura
 Kimio Imai
3. NAGOYAN
 Ryo Ogura
 Ryoma Shiozu
 Koji Nose
4. N.G.O.K.
 Takayuki Nagaoka
 Tsuyoshi Fujita
 Masayuki Higashino

GP Milwaukee (11–12 May)
 Eric Taylor
 Patrick Chapin
 Mike Turian
 Neil Reeves
 David Petersen
 Brian Kibler
 William Jensen
 Steve Cassell

GP New Jersey (29–30 June)
1. The Jokas
 Eric James
 Kyle Rose
 Norman Woods
2. Illuminati
 Justin Gary
 Zvi Mowshowitz
 Alex Shvartsman
3. Team Cardshark
 Jason Huang
 Paul Sottosanti
 Adam Fischer
4. Lovespell
 Alex Borteh
 Chris Benafel
 Eric Froehlich

GP São Paulo (13–14 July)
 Gabriel Caligaris
 Felipe Desiderati
 Antoine Ruel
 Luis Sérgio Massaro
 Raphael Fontana Günter
 André Barreto
 Michel Shirozono
 Rodrigo Castro

GP Taipei (13–14 July)
 Sheng Hsun Hsia
 Kang Nien Chiang
 Joe Yi Xiang Wang
 Albertus Law
 Morris Song
 Wen-Jien Hwang
 Chang Ming Tung
 Lucifar Sun

2002 World Championships – Sydney (14–18 August 2002)

As Jens Thorén had not scored any points since Nice and he was not on his national team the Pro Tour Player of the Year going to Kai Budde was already a sure thing before the tournament. While Carlos Romão from Brazil became World Champion by defeating Mark Ziegner from Germany in the final, the German team also starring Mark Ziegner won the team competition.

Tournament data
Prize pool: $210,200 (individual) + $162,000 (national teams)
Players: 245
Formats: Standard, Odyssey Booster Draft (Odyssey-Torment-Judgment), Odyssey Block Constructed (Odyssey, Torment, Judgment)
Head Judge: Collin Jackson

Top 8

Final standings

National team competition

  Germany (Mark Ziegner, Kai Budde, Felix Schneiders)
  United States (Andrew Ranks, Eugene Harvey, Eric Franz)

Pro Player of the year final standings

After the World Championship Kai Budde was awarded the Pro Player of the year title. He thus became the only player to win the title more than once. Budde's 117 Pro Points in this season to date is still the only time that a player garnered more than 100 Pro Points in a season, and his lead of 42 Pro Points over the second place is still the greatest ever achieved at the end of a season.

References

Magic: The Gathering professional events


Koora Rajanna is an Indian communist politician. He is the former secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Janashakti Andhra Pradesh unit.

Early life
He was born in Vemulawada village of Karimnagar district in Andhra Pradesh. He studied in Vemulawada till his tenth class and higher education in Hyderabad. In Hyderabad, Rajanna became a member of the Progressive Democratic Students Union, student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist).

Later he became a full-time worker of the party and was forced to go underground when the police cracked down on the movement. Kura Rajaiah alias Rajanna, a native of Boinwada in Vemulawada temple town, is an engineering graduate from Osmania University. He joined the Naxalite movement in 1974 and later founded the Rajanna faction of CPI-ML (Janashakti). He was arrested in September 2006 near a village at Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh. His wife, Rangavalli who herself a leader in the party cadre, died in an encounter on 11 November 1999. Amar alias Kura Devender, state committee secretary, who represented Janashakti in the abortive peace talks with the Andhra Pradesh government in October 2004, is the brother of Rajanna.

During his three-decade long underground life, Rajanna was never arrested by the police.

He was an accused in several cases of murder, extortion, arson and kidnapping. He was also instrumental in supplying arms and ammunition to the erstwhile People's War Group.

References

Indian communists
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people


Vokal was a hip hop fashion brand launched in 1997 by Abayomi Jamil “Yomi” Martin, rapper Cornell "Nelly" Haynes Jr, and Nick Loftis. Vokal's team began selling T-shirts, jerseys, and custom clothing from their homes and car trunks. Nelly and his rap crew St. Lunatics started performing in the area of St. Louis and with Nelly's first solo album release both became known nationwide. The brand essentially grew right along with the career of Nelly and the St. Lunatics and became known worldwide.

History
Vokal was launched in 1997 as a Hip Hop Fashion brand by Yomi Martin, his cousin Cornell “Nelly” Haynes, and Nick Loftis. They wanted to launch a new brand that was not driven by big marketing budgets and that did not have standard logos and designs. Yomi and Nelly were looking for a new innovative brand with daring and unique designs where the clothes speak for themselves.

For their first production, they each paid $100 to have 30 T-shirts made featuring the St. Lunatics. The St. Lunatics are a rap crew from St. Louis, Missouri formed by rapper Nelly and his hometown friends. Yomi Martin sold the shirts for $20 each at a concert of the St. Lunatics. With these sales of these shirts and jerseys at concerts and out of car trunks Vokal began selling successfully within the county limits of St. Louis.

While Yomi Martin was focusing on the Clothing line, Nelly focused on his musical career and that of his group St. Lunatics. Over time, Vokal was officially creating custom jerseys for superstar and co-founder Cornell "Nelly" Haynes Jr, as well as his cousin's Hip Hop group, the St. Lunatics.
With the group's name growing in popularity, Vokal even began touring with the St. Lunatics, representing Vokal and selling clothing after the St. Lunatic's events. Many people wanted to buy what the then-independent artists were wearing. Not only consumers started wearing Vokal but also other independent artists and athletes.

When Nelly's debut album, Country Grammar, spent 7 weeks on top of the U.S. Album Charts and went 9 times platinum, fuelled by the enormous success of the title track. With this debut Vokal was instantly known in the entire United States, Vokal essentially grew right along with the career of Nelly and the St. Lunatics.

The first official collection was launched in 2001 and while Nelly was extremely busy he still had a great influence on the collection for Vokal. This paid off right away because the sales immediately skyrocketed. Not only consumers but also other independent artists and athletes, started wearing Vokal but also other independent artists and athletes.

In June 2004, Vokal shut down production of their clothing following a copyright dispute with their licensee, ALM International Corporation. The company resumed production and went on to produce clothes for three years until 2007 when it seemingly ceased all production for the final time. The shutdown of Vokal has not been addressed since then.

Brand name
The clothing label, titled Vokal, stands for "Very Organized Kids Always Learning". The slogan is  'Vokal, the clothing speaks for itself'.

Vokal gear
At the time, Vokal's team of Yomi and Nelly were creating pieces that were mainly inspired by the home metro, St. Louis, Missouri. They were looking for a new innovative brand that would stand out for its daring and unique designs.

Vokal thrived to have a universal appeal by developing products that could relate to the masses. It started by selling shirts and hats in nightclubs, at events, and literally out of the trunk of a car. This old fashion-selling channel created a buzz and a Vokal explosion in St. Louis. Just three years after the company was established, Vokal had sold more than 50,000 shirts and was well on its way.

"Like Nelly and the music he makes, the designs of Vokal are edgy, unique, and daring with much attention paid to detail," Yomi Martin said. Innovative denim wear and trendy T-shirts are just some of the items in the broad array of fashions in the Vokal line. Vokal wants to set the hottest trends for young menswear. The men's line takes a creative and different approach to casual urban clothing.

"Keep an eye on what I'm wearing," says Nelly. "I'll always be dressed in Vokal."

Distribution
Vokal was sold in select stores in America and Europe.

References

Hip hop fashion
Clothing companies established in 1997
1997 establishments in Missouri


SM U-152 was a German Type U 151 submarine of the Imperial German Navy during World War I.

Built at Hamburg, the submarine was commissioned in October 1917. Initially intended as a submersible merchantman for transporting critical war materiel through the British blockade, she was converted to a combat ship while under construction.

Service history
U-152 was actively employed in the Atlantic during the last year of the conflict. Among her victims were two American schooners, Julia Frances (sunk on 27 January 1918) and A.E. Whyland (sunk on 13 March 1918), the Norwegian barque Stifinder (boarded and scuttled on 13 October 1918), the Spanish Giralda (sunk on 25 January 1918), and the U.S. Navy cargo ship . The latter was sunk, after a two-hour gun battle, with heavy casualties among her crew and passengers, on 30 September 1918. The previous day, 29 September, the submarine had also fought a gun battle with the Navy oiler , but despite being badly damaged the American ship escaped.

After returning to Germany in November 1918, at the end of her final wartime cruise, U-152 was surrendered to the Allies at Harwich on 24 November 1918 in accordance with the requirements of the Armistice with Germany. She was exhibited at Tower Bridge in London in December 1918, and then laid up at Portsmouth. On 30 June 1921, she was towed out into the English Channel and scuttled.

Summary of raiding history

Gallery

Notes

References

Bibliography

Bodo Herzog/Günter Schomaekers: Ritter der Tiefe – Die erfolgreichsten U-Bootkommandanten der Welt. Verlag Welsermühl, Wels und München 1976,

Paul Kemp: Die deutschen und österreichischen U-Boot Verluste in beiden Weltkriegen. Urbes Verlag Hans Jürgen Hansen, Gräfelfing vor München 1998,
 Eberhard Möller / Werner Brack: Enzyklopädie deutscher U-Boote, Von 1904 bis zur Gegenwart, Motorbuch Verlag,

External links
 Naval Historical Center Online Library of Selected Images: U-152

World War I submarines of Germany
German Type U 151 submarines
1917 ships
Ships built in Hamburg
U-boats commissioned in 1917
U-boats sunk in 1921
Maritime incidents in 1921


ProbeVue is IBM's implementation of a lightweight dynamic tracing environment introduced in AIX version 6.1. ProbeVue provides the ability to probe running processes in order to provide statistical analysis as well as retrieve data from the probed process. The dynamic nature of ProbeVue allows it to be used as a global system performance tool while retaining the ability to drill into very specific events on a single process or thread.

Because modifications are not required of a probed process or system and the lightweight design of ProbeVue as a tracing tool, it is suitable for use in a production environment where previous tracing tools would have been performance prohibitive.

Description

ProbeVue provides a series of probe point specifications that are potential events that can be probed. A script written in the Vue language allows the user to define a probe that is a block of code called an action block that will run when those events occur on the system. The execution of the action block can be limited to specific events by use of a conditional statement placed on the probe called a predicate. The code in the action block follows a C-like syntax with a limited set of built in functions.

The following is an example of a probe that is defined for whenever a process with a PID of 123456 enters the read() system call. When that event happens this script will call the built-in printf() function to print a message to its output trace buffers. The first line in the action block is a C-style comment and therefore will not execute in the ProbeVue environment.

@@syscall:*:read:entry
 when ( __pid == 123456)
{
   /* This is a comment: The process with a PID of 123456 has called read(); */
   printf("read() system call entered.\n");
}

Probes like the above sample can be written and run without the extensive testing normally required of a production system. The ProbeVue environment protects the user from errant code or resource hungry tracing frequently seen with previous IBM tracing tools. The runtime compile feature of ProbeVue provides a powerful ad hoc environment for data gathering.

Probe point specifications

Currently IBM provides the following probe providers on AIX 6.1: syscall, uft, interval, trace, and the probevue probes (BEGIN and END). The syscall provider defines probe points for a subset of the available system calls. User Function Tracing (uft) probes can be defined for entry points of functions defined in a C or C++ program. Both syscall and uft probes must include a valid function prototype in the Vue script before function parameters (for the entry probes) or return values (for syscall exit probes only) can be accessed. The interval probes fire on a timer and can be defined on 100 millisecond intervals. The trace provider allows ProbeVue to access traditional trace hooks. Finally the probevue probes called BEGIN and END will fire as the probevue environment itself starts and exits.

The Vue language

Because ProbeVue is designed as a tool to monitor operating system events, the Vue language uses an event driven style that is used to describe how to process data derived from these events.

Like most dynamic tracing languages found on other Unices, the Vue language has a C-like syntax and is frequently presented in this context. Vue's relationship to C has many parallels but deviates most significantly from the imperative nature of C. Some of the contrasts and similarities are shown here.

Data types

Because ProbeVue is used to monitor applications written primarily in C, it supports all C data types as well as C data structures. Vue also supports a String, list, and time stamp data types. The String and list types are both actually arrays, while the time stamp is a high resolution representation of a point in time. Type casting and automatic type promotion during operations with mixed types is similar to C behavior as well.

Pointers to arrays and data structures behave in ProbeVue the same as they would in a C program, with the key difference from C is that when pointers refer to a location in memory they are referencing a location in another process space. To access that memory it is necessary to first copy the memory location into the local ProbeVue environment. If the memory has been paged out, ProbeVue cannot force a page fault to access it. Another difference is that the size of pointers in C are determined at compile time, while in ProbeVue they are determined by the 32 or 64 bitness of the application that is probed.

Floating point data types are valid data types for assignment from a probed process, but cannot be used for floating point mathematical operations.

Data classes

Vue uses scoping rules similar to C, but must also account for the externally derived nature of much of the data in probes. As a result, not all data classes are available or relevant in all probes or all portions of a View script. The basic classifications of data are as follows.

globals - Variables that have scope across the entire Vue script
shell - Variables that follow shell conventions and are read from the Unix environment
kernel - Variables that are provided by the kernel
local - Variables that are local to a probe action block
thread local - Variables that are local to a thread, but have scope across multiple probe action blocks
entry/exit - Variables that are defined by, and local to, the probe
built in - Pre defined variables that have values relevant to the current firing probe

Operators

Vue operators follow C conventions closely with the exception of when used with strings. When used with strings, the + operator performs concatenation, and the == operator is used for comparisons.

Flow control

Vue does not allow the definition of user functions, recursion, or looping constructs but does offer conditional if-then expressions within a probe action block. The lightweight nature of ProbeVue prohibits a Vue script from defining expensive looping or extensive branching operations that could degrade performance.

Tentative tracing

Tentative tracing is a concept that allows the trace output of a block of code to be labeled as tentative. The output of this code can later be committed to the trace buffers as visible output or it can be discarded. This works conceptually much like transaction controls in SQL.

Usage

A Vue script can be invoked with interpreter magic and set executable like a shell script or can be run as input to the probevue command in the form of a command line parameter or stdin input. By convention, Vue scripts have a .e filename extension.

Deficiencies

The Vue language lacks aggregations and instead uses a list data type that offers similar yet limited functionality. The equivalent product from Solaris called DTrace offers an aggregation data type and a powerful set of aggregating functions to represent statistical data. The list data type offers only basic aggregating functions on a single item (as opposed to an associative arrays of aggregations that DTrace offers). The list data type offers a slight simplification over keeping the stats manually but does not allow the list to be reset (say, over an interval) that can easily be done when using manual summaries and basic types. IBM has committed to associative arrays on future versions of the Vue language.

Because of the long development lead time DTrace has over ProbeVue, DTrace has considerably more probe point specifications. IBM has plans to add a considerable number of new probe points in future technology level releases of AIX 6.1 and in the next major AIX release.

See also
 DTrace
 SystemTap

References

External links
 ProbeVue: Extended Users Guide Specification
 ProbeVue QuickSheet
 AIX 6.1 Differences RedBook
 DeveloperWorks article on ProbeVue
 ProbeVue sample scripts and usage notes
 Debugging C++ applications using ProbeVue

IBM operating systems


Adele Island is an island located in the Indian Ocean approximately  North of Ardyaloon off the Kimberley coast in Western Australia.

Description
The island is fish-hook shaped and has a length of  and a width of  and a total area of . It is low-lying and surrounded by extensive sandbanks lying over a limestone platform forming a large lagoon.

History
Nicolas Baudin named the island in 1801 as part of his expedition around Australia. The name of the island was first charted on the Freycinet Map of 1811. It was declared a Nature Reserve in 2001 in recognition of its status as a bird breeding sanctuary. Since then the Department of Environment and Conservation has embarked on a campaign to eradicate the island of the Polynesian Rats that are a constant threat to the native seabirds.

An acetylene-powered lighthouse was built on the island in 1951 it was later upgraded to solar power in 1985.

Birds
The island is classified by BirdLife International as an Important Bird Area for its seabirds and waders.  As well as breeding cormorants and Australian pelicans, globally important bird species breeding or staging on the island are lesser frigatebird with 2000-5700 breeding pairs, brown booby with 1500-8500 breeding pairs, grey-tailed tattler with up to 5500 individuals, and red-necked stint with up to 4100 individuals.

Rolloliths
Rollolith is also found in Adele Island. It is the basic name given to benthic creatures. Rolloliths can be made of barnacles (balanuliths); coral (corallith); vermetulid worms (vermetuliths); red crustose coralline green growth (rhodolith); or bryozoans (bryoliths).

Notes

References

Islands of the Kimberley (Western Australia)
Protected areas of Western Australia
Important Bird Areas of Western Australia
Western Australian places listed on the defunct Register of the National Estate


Cha Lo Border Gate Economic Zone () is a special economic zone in Quảng Bình Province, Vietnam. This zone is located at the border gate between Laos's Khammouane Province and Vietnam's Quảng Bình Province.
Total area is 538 km2, including 5 communes Dân Hoá, Hóa Thanh, Hóa Tiến, Hóa Phúc and Hồng Hoá.  It's connected by road through National Road 12. Preferential investment and taxation are given to the investors and businessmen here.

The management organization of this special economic zone is the Management Unit for Quảng Bình Economic Zones.

See also
Hòn La Economic Zone

References

External links
Khu kinh tế cửa khẩu Cha Lo.
Khu kinh tế cửa khẩu Cha Lo.
establishment of Cha Lo Economic Zone

Quảng Bình province
Foreign trade of Vietnam
Special economic zones