The Case of the Fake 20

It all started when my mom came home from shopping at the Central Market. We asked her how it went and she said that it was great and that the lady at a fruit stand that she went to was very nice. My mom told us that the lady told her to watch out for people who can cheat you. She gave my mom a free lemon and helped her pack her bags. My mom also said that the lady accidentally gave her an extra 20 Euro bill when she got her change. When my mom noticed the mistake she returned the extra 20 Euro bill.

Central Market, Florence

When my mom told me what happened I thought there was something fishy going on. Why would the lady talk about people cheating others with money and then give my mom extra money as if she was trying to show that she is not a cheat? I said to my mom, "What if she was cheating you? She tells you to be careful of cheats and then gives you an extra 20 Euros as if trying to hide that she is cheating you?" My mom told me that she doubted it because the women seemed very nice and she had a fair price.

L'ortolano, the fruit stand

It was time for lunch so we left our house to go get some sandwiches. We had to wait in line for a long time because it is very popular place. When we got our sandwiches my mom gave the man the 20 Euro bill. We left to eat our sandwiches outside the store when suddenly the store owner came out. He came up to us and showed that the bill was a fake!!! He showed us the bill and then compared it to his 20. Our bill was a bit shorter and the numbers were a bit crooked. Another difference was when you shine a light at the security thread (a shiny strip on a bill) the fake bill shined in a different way. We were shocked. Then we thought back to where we got the bill. We realized that my mom got it from the fruit stand. I was right all along!

Fake bill (top) and real bill (bottom)

Now we were not sure what to do. Should we go back to the market or should we bring it to the police? I thought it also would be cool to keep it as a souvenir.  We decide that the next day we would go back to the fruit stand and ask for a new 20.  

We were trying to look for the other ways that she was very suspicious. Here's a list of ways:

1. The lady gave my mom a free lemon to seem nice.

2. Gave my mom two 20s to pretend that she was not cheating my mom.

3.She told my mom to be careful of cheats when she seemed suspicious.

What happened in the end:

The next day we went back to the Central Market and went to the fruit stand. My dad took a picture of the store in case we needed to threaten to write a negative review on a website called Tripadvisor. It's a site that tells tourists which places are recommended or not. We went up to the stand and the lady was not there. But a man who had worked there the day before was there. The man who worked at the store asked us what we needed. My mom explained about the fake bill and asked for a new one.  The man said, "Oh, yes" like he already knew about this or that it was no surprise. He went into the cash register and took out a different 20. He took the fake and put it back into the cash register with the other bills.

We return to the scene of the crime

We left and started walking away from the market and realized that he was probably going to give the fake to someone else.  He put the bill back with the other 20s and also acted like he knew about the fake.  We were already pretty far from the market, so we didn't know if we should go back to tell him to rip it up.  It took some decision making, but in the end we thought it was best to go back. We felt like it was the right thing to make sure someone else did not get cheated like we did. We walked all the way back to the fruit stand. I could tell the man was wondering why we came back.  We told him to rip up the fake bill.  He said that he already did and that we can go. We asked him to show us the ripped bill but he didn't. We looked in the garbage for a ripped up bill but we didn't see one. We decided we should give up and go. Then we left the market for the final time. Now we are careful to check all the bills we get and I encourage you to do so too!

Renaissance Art—Paintings

From the 1450's to the 1600's, a new stage of art started.  It was called the Renaissance, which means “rebirth.” People in Europe started to have the idea of recreating the realism of Roman art.  Before the Renaissance, during the Middle Ages, artists made people look unrealistic, flat and awkwardly shaped.  For example, people’s bodies are in impossible positions. Their backs may be too straight, or their necks are too long. To make things look more realistic, Renaissance artists developed special techniques. 

Medieval Madonna and Child (by Cimabue, c.1285)

Renaissance Mother and Child (by Filippo Lippi, c. 1464)

One technique that Renaissance artists used was called linear perspective.  Linear perspective lets the artist create depth in a painting.  In the center of the painting there is a place called the vanishing point.  Actually, it is usually in the center of the painting but it doesn’t have to be.  The vanishing point can be wherever the artist wants observers to direct their focus.  The vanishing point also establishes the point of view in a painting.  As objects approach the vanishing point they get smaller and when they get closer to the viewer they look bigger. That makes the painting look three-dimensional.

School of Athens (Raphael, 1518)

Artists also created depth in paintings with a technique called foreshortening. Foreshortening emphasizes linear perspective on the body.  When artists are trying to show someone’s hand reaching towards you, for example, they would draw the hand large and then make the arm get smaller and smaller until it is accurate to the size of the person’s body.  Comic book artists use foreshortening, too, to show action in a picture.

Lamentation Over the Dead Christ (Mantegna, 1480)

Spiderman (Marvel Comics)

Artists also use light to create depth.  Chiaroscuro is the technique that uses light and shadow to create a sense of where things are compared to the direction of the light. By shading objects you can see their three-dimensional shape.  Chiaroscuro is also used to show emotion.  For example if you see dark shadows around someone you might feel sadness, anger, or fear.

The Incredulity of Saint Thomas (by Caravaggio, 1601)

Putting these techniques together, Renaissance artists created art with emotion and realism. You can see real people from their times and you can imagine what people were feeling about God. You can see how people during the Renaissance were focusing on how everyone is a person. With these paintings we can understand the new ideas people had about life.

Venice, the city of water

Venice is a bunch of islands connected together by bridges and canals.  The city was started when barbarians from the north attacked the Roman Empire and the people of Aquilea retreated to the islands for safety. There they founded Venice. Because they could not build houses on the sand and mud, Venetians struck logs into the ground.  Then they put platforms made of wood or marble on top of the logs. These logs do not rot because there is no oxygen in the salty and sandy water so the bacteria and fungus that makes wood rot cannot grow.  The salt water petrifies the wood as it goes through it and makes the wood hard like stone.

In Venice, people use boats for transportation. One kind of boat that they use is called the gondola. Gondolas are flat so that they can go into the shallow waters of the canals.  But because it is flat, it can easily tip over, so in the front of the boat there is a large piece of metal called the ferro. The ferro keeps the front of the gondola level while the gondolier rows the boat from the back. On the back of the boat there is a decoration similar to the ferro called the risso.  Finally, one side of the gondola is heavier and wider than the other so that when the gondolier is rowing on the other side the boat won’t tip over.

The wood for the gondola is specially picked out.  There cannot be knots in the wood and it cannot be bumpy.  The gondolas are made of eight different kinds of wood:  oak, fir, cherry, larch, walnut, linden, mahogany, and elm. They use different kinds of wood because each wood is best for a different part of the boat. Walnut is used for the frame because it bends well when soaked in water, whereas Larch is used for the bottom of the boat because it is water resistant.

If you visit Venice you can see people regularly using boats as cars, going on bridges over canals and building houses on the water. Now you can appreciate the hard work that goes into building the city and making boats for transportation. 

Islamic Science and Techology

In the 7^th century a religion called Islam began. It was created by someone called the prophet Muhammad in Mecca. Muhammad believed that God sent him to teach people Islam. The book that teaches the beliefs of Islam is called the Qur’an (‘Koran’). People who believe in Islam are called Muslims.  In Arabic Islam means “submission to God.” Early Islam spread throughout the Middle East and moved rapidly to the west across North Africa to southern Spain, to the east through Persia, and to the north to Istanbul.

Islamic scholars made great discoveries and scientific developments.  Muslims started sharing their ideas with places like China, India, and southern Europe.  They also started to learn knowledge from those places.  Both trade and conquest led to greater technology and learning.  Muslims started universities for studying, which helped spread knowledge.  It was the duty of every Muslim to seek knowledge.  Navigational aids for travelers, geographic maps, medical knowledge, ways of measuring and calculating, and tools for agriculture were all encouraged and welcomed.  Books and paper were very important for sharing knowledge.  Arabic language was formed and became the international language of scholarship.  Muslim scholars translated very important works from Greek, Latin, and other languages.  This helped preserve ancient scientific works.  Then the Muslims taught each other.

I saw several different Muslim inventions at the Museum of Islamic Science and Technology in Istanbul. The water clock, for example, was made using water, paper, and a floating rod.  Water would come down from a tube at even amounts of time.  The water would flow into a chamber that had a floating rod.  Behind the floating rod there was something like a ruler that had numbers up to 24 hours.  Every hour the water would flow in and make the rod rise up the clock. 

Another thing that Muslims invented was the water screw.  The water screw was used to bring water from low rivers to higher land. Water would go down a stream and turn a water wheel.  When the water wheel turns, it turns a pole.  The turning pole turns a gear which then turns the water screw.  The water goes into the screw and slowly goes up a tunnel to higher land.   

Water screw invented by Archimedes in Greece

Islamic version of the water screw attached to a water wheel

A third invention that Muslims created was a cannon that shot three giant arrows at one time.  There were cranks in the back of the machine.  A string was wrapped around a pole that was connected to the cranks.  On the front of the machine is something shaped like a bow and arrow, except that it has three bows and three arrows on it. The arrows have notches so that the string will stay in place.  The string that is connected to the crank splits into three strings.  Each string hooks onto an arrow.  When the people turn the crank, the strings on the cranks pull back which pulls back the arrows.  When people let go of the crank the string unwinds and releases the arrows, which shoot out. This invention was used for attacking castles.

A siege bow that shoots only one arrow (similar to the three arrow bow)

In the Early Middle Ages, Europeans lost a lot of the knowledge of ancient Greece and Rome. Muslims rediscovered this knowledge and shared it with Europeans during the Renaissance. The Muslims used those ideas to invent new machines. These inventions helped keep Greek and Roman knowledge alive. 

Drawings of the water screw and siege bow drawn by Leonardo Da Vinci