| Famous Sardinians; This is a list of famous people born in the island of Sardinia | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jan 29 2013, 07:01 PM (15,177 Views) | |
| caesium | Jun 15 2013, 05:03 AM Post #11 |
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Giuseppe Brotzu![]() Giuseppe Brotzu was born in Cagliari in 1895, where he obtained a degree in Medicine in 1919. He studied with Donato Ottolenghi, a very well-know scientist in the field of Hygiene, and worked at the Cagliari's Istituto di Igiene for a few years. He then moved to the Medical School of the University of Siena together with his mentor (1923-1928) and, after that, they moved to Bologna (1928-1932). Dr. Brotzu is appointed extraordinary professor for Hygiene at the University of Modena, and then university professor for Hygiene at the University of Cagliari. Later on he will be appointed rector of this same University (1939-1943). Dr. Brotzu will develop his political career all along his academic achievements. He was Sardinia's councillor for Hygiene and Health (1949-1955), and was elected Governor of the autonomous region of Sardinia and mayor of the town of Cagliari. He is very well-known for his discovery of cephalosporin and his fight against malaria in Sardinia. As a politician, Giuseppe Brotzu contributed to fight against this disease and, in order to achieve this goal, he collaborated with the Rockefeller Foundation ; their work was successful in breaking the epidemiological chain transmitting the disease in the island – which was deeply affected by it - thanks to a large disinfection campaign against mosquitoes. Thanks to the discovery of cephalosporin, Dr. Brotzu became one of the most important scientists working in the Italian pharmacologic field of research. He identified cephalosporin while working with his student, Antonio Spanedda (1945), on a number of epidemiological studies on typhus in Cagliari. They mapped the presence of typhus salmonellas in the sewerage system of the town. Giuseppe Brotzu observed that these bacteria did decrease in number upon the flowing of wastewater into the sea. He also observed that bathers did not fall ill with typhus, even though they were drinking contaminated sea water. He then reckoned that microorganisms able to kill salmonellas must have been living in the sea. Laboratory results confirmed his theory: Dr. Brotzu identified mould in seawater, which was later called Cephalosporium acremonium , and which produced substances able to destroy a high number of pathogenic agents, staphylococcuses, streptococcuses, the cholera (V.colerae ) and typhus (S.typhi ) germs, the plague bacterium (which was then called Bacillus pestis ), as well as the brucellosis bacterium (B.melitensis ). Due to lack of funds and suitable instruments, Dr. Brotzu was not able to purify this molecule, which he called micetina : he discovered how effective it was both in vitro and on human beings by administering unrefined extracts of this molecule. Dr. Brotzu wanted the study on this molecule to develop; he then gave a few strains of Cephalosporium acremonium to an English medical officer who gave them to Edward Abraham, one of Fleming’s students, who worked at the University of Oxford. Dr. Abraham purified the active ingredient and patented it by using his name and selling it to well-known pharmaceutical companies, thus ignoring Giuseppe Brotzu’s contribution to this discovery. This scientific discovery would then be acknowledged to the Sardinian scientist by the international scientific community and Giuseppe Brotzu was a Nobel candidate and was awarded the honorary degree by the University of Oxford. |
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| gusana | Jun 16 2013, 04:18 AM Post #12 |
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Michele Schirru![]() Michele Schirru (Italian pronunciation: [miˈkɛle ˈskirru]; (Padria, 19 October 1899 - Rome, 29 May 1931) was a naturalized American anarchist who was executed in Italy for his intent to assassinate Italian Dictator Benito Mussolini. Biography Michele Schirru was born in Padria, Sardinia on October 19, 1899, but raised in Pozzomaggiore. He attended school until he reached the 6th grade, then he was hired as a blacksmith's Apprenticeship. After his father left for the USA to work in New York City, Michele was admitted , self-taught, to the Maritime School of La Spezia , but he was forced to stop his studies because of pneumonia. Decision to Leave Italy [edit] He spent 14 months of active service fighting in WWI until the end of the war. He remained from the end of WWI until the day he came back home to Pozzomaggiore in May of 1920, eighteen months later, as a soldier in the Italian Army. Michele Schirru was disappointed by the abandonment of the PSI's factory occupations of 1919-1920, as he himself clearly expressed in his manifesto. Disappointed because of the... abandonment of these occupations, because of the betrayal of the PSI he describes how he decided to leave Italy. From his manifesto: "When the workers, submitting to the cowardly betrayal of the Socialist Party and General Confederation of Labour leadership, returned the factories to their legal owners, I was one of those who felt disgusted and humiliated at the missed opportunity and for the precious energies that had been squandered in vain. So I decided to expatriate, feeling that there was nothing more to be done in Italy." He traveled to France, then in November of 1920 he moved to the USA, and became a US citizen in 1926. There he made a living in New York City as a vendor at Arthur Avenue. |
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| Raingirl | Jun 19 2013, 12:58 AM Post #13 |
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Amedeo Nazzari![]() Amedeo with the daughter Evelina Amedeo Nazzari (10 December 1907, in Cagliari – 6 November 1979) was an actor. Nazzari was one of the leading figures of Italian classic cinema, often considered a local variant of the Australian-American star Errol Flynn. Although he emerged as a star during the Fascist era, Nazzari's popularity continued well into the post-war years. Early career Amedeo Nazzari was born as Salvatore Amedeo Buffa in Cagliari, Sardinia in 1907 and he later adopted as his professional name the name of his maternal grandfather, Amedeo Nazzari, a person who had been the President of the Court of Appeal of Vicenza in Venetia and later took the same position in Cagliari. Although Salvatore Amedeo eventually moved to Rome, he always retained a slight trace of his native Sardinian accent. While Nazzari was keen on gaining film contracts much of his early experience was in the theatre. He entered a contest organised by Twentieth Century Fox to find an Italian actor to fill the boots of the recently deceased screen star Rudolph Valentino, but lost out to Alberto Rabagliati. He was rejected after screen tests by Italian professionals, who found him too tall, thin and thought he had a too gloomy expression. Nazzari made his debut in Ginevra degli Almieri (1935), following a recommendation from Elsa Merlini. His first read role came with the 1936 film Cavalry, and he followed it up with The Castiglioni Brothers (1937). His breakthrough came with the 1938 film Luciano Serra, Pilot (1938) where he played a First World War veteran who returns to fight for Italy during the Abyssinian War. Nazzari was transformed into a matinee idol, the most bankable star of Italian cinema. Following the film, Nazzari was invited to join the Fascist Party by Benito Mussolini, but declined saying "Thank You Duce! I would prefer not to concern myself with politics, occupied as I am with more pressing artistic commitments". Stardom Despite declining to join the party Nazzari, along with a handful of other actor such as Fosco Giachetti, was considered the model of a Male Hero. Most of his film roles from this point present him as a masculine (often military) figure. His emergence as a star coincided with a major drive by the Italian government to rebuild the country's film industry which had declined since its heyday in the silent era. This policy involved large-scale government funding of films and the construction of the massive Cinecittà studio complex in Rome. The number of films produced each year climbed rapidly, with Nazarri a particularly prolific actor (making six films in 1939 and eight in 1941).[7] During the era he appeared opposite most of the leading Italian actresses including Alida Valli, Lilia Silvi, Luisa Ferida, Mariella Lotti, Assia Noris, Vera Carmi and Clara Calamai, often more than once. Nazzari was almost always cast as a straightforward hero, and he closely protected his public persona to avoid any negative roles. An exception was the historical comedy-drama film The Jester's Supper (1942) in which he plays a loutish figure. Nazzari made four films with Alida Valli, including Unjustified Absence (1939). Following Italy's entry into the Second World War in 1940, he combined romances and comedies, with occasional more propagandistic productions. Amongst the more political was Bengasi (1942), an anti-British war film set in Libya. Nazzari portrays an Italian patriot who masquerades as a collaborator with the British occupiers of Bengazi in order to steal their battle plans. It was the only time he featured alongside the other great male star of the era, Fosco Giachetti. Later career Star of Italian cinema during the 40's and 50's. He made several melodramas with Raffaello Matarazzo, such as Catene in 1949. Nazzari acts himself in Federico Fellini's Nights of Cabiria. Awards David di Donatello Special David, For a life dedicated to cinema with passionate professionality and extraordinary success. Venice Film Festival Best Actor in the Year of Count Volpi's Concession for Caravaggio, il pittore maledetto, 1941 Nastro d'Argento Best Actor for Il bandito, 1947 |
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| caesium | Jun 29 2013, 09:42 AM Post #14 |
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Renato Soru![]() Renato Soru (born 26 August 1957) is an entrepreneur, the founder of the internet service company Tiscali, based in Cagliari. Forbes listed him as one of the world's richest people, with a net worth of over $4 billion (US) as of September 2001. Soru was born in Sanluri, Sardinia in 1957. He holds a University degree from the Bocconi University in Milan. In 2004 Soru was elected President of the Sardinia Region with the center-left coalition with an audacious program to reinvigorate the economy within the island by introducing external investors, but on 28 November 2008 he resigned from his position. He ran again for President of Sardinia in the February 2009 election but was defeated by the right-wing Popolo della Libertà candidate Ugo Cappellacci. On 20 May 2008 Soru bought the left-wing newspaper l'Unità. |
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| gusana | Jul 3 2013, 08:42 AM Post #15 |
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Flavio Manzoni![]() Flavio Manzoni (born 7 January 1965 in Nuoro, Sardinia) is a sardinian architect and automobile designer of supercars and road cars, who has worked at various companies such as Ferrari, Lancia, Volkswagen, and SEAT. Manzoni studied Architecture at University of Florence, specializing in industrial design. In 1993 he joined the Centro Stile Lancia, and three years later he was made responsible for Interior Design of the marque. He worked on various projects such as the interiors of the Lancia Dialogos and the Maserati 3200 GT. In 1999, he moved to Barcelona to become Interior Design Director at SEAT, and working in the interiors of the production cars SEAT Altea and SEAT León, and the concept cars SEAT Salsa and SEAT Tango. In 2001 Manzoni returned to Lancia and was appointed Design Director. He took charge of the concept cars Lancia Granturismo, Lancia Granturismo Stilnovo and Lancia Fulvia Coupè Concept, great success at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 2003, and the production cars Lancia Ypsilon and Lancia Musa, winning the '"European Automotive Design Award" in 2003 In 2004 he was appointed Director of Design of Fiat, Lancia and Fiat LCV, beginning work on the Fiat Grande Punto, the new Fiat 500, and the Fiat Fiorino/Qubo. 2006 saw a return to the VW group, Manzoni was appointed Director of Creative Design Volkswagen, where he designed the Volkswagen Golf Mk6 and he has defined the new vision of the Skoda, Bentley, Bugatti. Flavio Manzoni has created the concepts of the VW Up!, Space Up!, Space Up! Blue, e-Up! and the VW BlueSport roadster. Amongst the production cars, alongside Walter de Silva, he has designed the recent generation of VW cars. In January 2010 Manzoni was appointed Senior Vice President of Design at Ferrari, with the task of reworking the identity for the Italian brand. As design director, he has been leading the style center team to develop the concept of the Ferrari FF and LaFerrari, then he presented at Paris Motor Show the roadster Ferrari SA Aperta, and the F12 Berlinetta at the Geneva Motor Show in 2012. In 2011 Flavio Manzoni has been included in Hall of Fame of car design at the National Automobile Museum in Turin, Italy. Awards In May 2014 he received the Compasso d'Oro, the oldest and most recognized award in the industrial design field, for the design of F12berlinetta. In December 2014 on Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, the FXXK was presented as the most powerful Ferrari ever. Although partially based on the very first hybrid car produced in Maranello, LaFerrari, the FXXK is in fact a completely new car. In March 2015 under his direction of the Ferrari Style Centre three Ferraris won the Red Dot Award, the prestigious international design competition, for the FXX K, the California T and LaFerrari, In 2016 he won the Red Dot "Best of the Best" award for Product Design for the Ferrari 488. In February 2017 under his direction the Ferrari GTC4Lusso wins the award "Most Beautiful Supercar of the Year", by the jury of the International Automobile Festival in Paris. |
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| Pinkulilly | Jul 8 2013, 08:56 PM Post #16 |
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Francesco Demuro![]() Francesco Demuro (born 6 January 1978), is an operatic tenor. He was born in Porto Torres. By the age of ten, Demuro made his first stage appearance, and by the age of twelve, he had joined the Minicantadores (a group of young singers of traditional Sardinian songs). Between 2003 and 2004 Francesco Demuro studied in the Conservatory in Sassari, and then followed to enrol himself as a private student at the Conservatory in Cagliari where he received lessons by the soprano Elisabetta Scanu with whom he still studies. Demuro has made various recordings, appeared in local TV shows and sung several television theme songs for the broadcasting Videolina and Sardegna1. His debut in Parma with Luisa Miller is a great success for the critics and the audience and it allows him to obtain many invites by important Italian and foreign theatres, he sings Luisa Miller again shortly after in Sassari. Again he debuts in Turin with Rigoletto which he also sings in Hong Kong in a Tournè with the Theatre of Parma and Simon Boccanegra at the Megaron in Athens, Rigoletto and Rosenkavalier in Dresden. He obtained a great success singing Rigoletto at Festival Verdi in Parma and La Boheme in Bari. Recently he obtained great reviews from public and critics in Roberto di Devereux at Las Palmas theatre and in La Traviata at Teatro Municipal in Santiago (Chile), Rigoletto in Parma and Bejing. Future engagements include:Rigoletto in Dresden, La Traviata and La Boheme at Wiener Staatoper, Gianni Schicchi at Coven Garden conducted by Antonio Pappano, La Traviata in Frankfurt, a new Rigoletto in San Francisco, Elisir D’amore at Theatre La Scala in Milan, a new production of Rigoletto in Wien directed by Luc Bondy. |
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| Pinkulilly | Jul 18 2013, 12:30 AM Post #17 |
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Giovanni Matteo De Candia![]() Giovanni Matteo De Candia, also known as Mario (October 18, 1810 – December 11, 1883), was an opera singer. The most celebrated tenor of his era, he was lionized by audiences in Paris and London. Mario was born in Cagliari, Sardinia on 17 October 1810 as Giovanni Matteo De Candia; his inherited heraldic titles were Cavaliere (Knight), Nobile (Nobleman) and Don (Sir) in the Kingdom of Sardinia and subsequently the Kingdom of Italy. His aristocratic family belonged to the Savoyard-Sardinian social elite, part of the Kingdom of Sardinia ruled by the house of Savoy. His relatives were members of the Royal Court of Turin, while his father held the rank of general and was aide-de-camp to King Charles Felix of Sardinia (house of Savoy). In order to free himself from the burdensome ancestral traditions which he had inherited, and to mitigate his father's opposition to a member of the high-born De Candia family pursuing a 'lowly' musical career, the budding singer adopted the one-word stage name of "Mario" when he made his debut on November 30, 1838. Sometimes, however, he is referred to in print by the fuller appellation of "Giovanni Mario" and he was also called "Mario de Candia". Mario's decision to become a professional singer arose from accidental circumstances. He was 12 years old when he moved from Cagliari to Turin, where he studied at the Royal Military Academy. Among his fellow students at the academy was the future Prime Minister of Italy, Camillo Cavour. While serving as a second-lieutenant in the King of Sardinia's Guards in Turin, he got some debt. His father refused to help him and the young man, on November 24, 1836, was expelled from the army . Then he left Piedmont and travelled to Paris. The fugitive nobleman was made to feel welcome in Parisian salons and in the city's radical milieu, especially in the salon of principessa Cristina Belgiojoso, who he was appreciated as an amateur tenor. For a time he earned his living by giving fencing and riding lessons. People believed him to be a count or a marquis and never he made clear to be only "cavaliere". Operatic career, marriage and death Because he possessed an exceptionally fine natural voice, Mario was encouraged by the composer Giacomo Meyerbeer to become a singer. He took singing lessons from two teachers, a Frenchman named Ponchard and the former Italian tenor Marco Bordogni, and proved so gifted that he was swiftly offered an engagement with the Opéra. The young tenor made his debut there on 30 November 1838 as the hero of Meyerbeer's Robert le diable. Meyerbeer had provided a new recitative and aria for him in the second act (the "Mario-Aria"). Mario's performance generated great excitement, and "a new star was born". Despite scoring an immediate success, owing to the splendid quality of his singing and a dashing stage presence, he did not choose to stay long at the Paris Opéra. In 1839 he was first heard in London, achieving instant success in Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia, who he meet the famous Italian soprano Giulia Grisi.Then he joined the Théâtre Italien, where such illustrious singers as Maria Malibran, Henriette Sontag, Fanny Tacchinardi Persiani, Giulia Grisi, Giovanni Battista Rubini, Antonio Tamburini, and Luigi Lablache regularly performed. His first appearance there was as Nemorino in Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore. From 1841 Mario and Grisi lived together. The acclaim that Mario received in Italian opera surpassed even that which he had won in French opera, and he soon acquired a Europe-wide reputation for the beauty of his singing and the elegance of his bearing. He possessed a handsome face and a lithe figure (he liked to show off his legs in tights), and his lyrical voice, though less dazzling than that of the older, virtuoso tenor Giovanni Battista Rubini nor so powerful as that of his younger rival Enrico Tamberlik, was described as having a gracefulness and a beguiling, velvety softness that made it unique. The music critic and playwright George Bernard Shaw, who was born in 1856 and therefore could not have heard Mario in his prime, said his singing featured a marked vibrato. Mario created few operatic parts, the most notable being that of Ernesto in Donizetti's Don Pasquale (1843). He sang, however, in the première of Rossini's "Stabat Mater" and Verdi wrote for him a new cabaletta for the main tenor aria in I due Foscari for a production in Paris. In established roles, Mario's very greatest performances were as Otello in Rossini's opera of the same name, Gennaro in Lucrezia Borgia, Almaviva in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Fernando in La favorite, the Duke in Rigoletto, Alfredo in La traviata, Manrico in Il trovatore, Lionel in Martha and many others. The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London and the Théâtre Italien in Paris were the scenes of most of his stage triumphs. He sang in London from 1847 until 1867 and again during 1871. Mario also made occasional appearances elsewhere in England in oratorio, for example at the Birmingham Festival of 1849 and at the Hereford Festival of 1855. He undertook, too, a string of concert tours around the United Kingdom. In about 1849 he acquired the "Villa Salviati" in Florence. At his salon there he received many distinguished cultural figures and members of the European nobility. In 1854 he toured America with Giulia Grisi, earning much money and much adulation during their trans-Atlantic jaunt. Never Mario could marry Grisi, because she was married, althoug separated, with Gérard de Melcy and the divorce wasn't permitted. Before to meet Mario, Grisi had also a son, whose father was Lord Frederick Castlereagh, a nephew of the famous Robert Castlereagh. The child was acknowledged by Castlereagh with the name Frederick Ormsby. Mario and Grisi had six daughters. One of these was Cecilia Maria De Candia, who married an Englishman, Sir Godfrey Roberts Pearse, and left an account of her parents' careers. In 1869 Mario lost his wife, the great Grisi, in Berlin, during a trip to Saint-Petersburg. After her death Mario sang at the St.-Petersburg theatre, during this time, his daughters were put under the care of tutors assigned by their godmother, the Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaievna, Duchess of Leuchtenberg and president of the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. Mario bade farewell to the stage at Covent Garden in 1871. But Marios' last performances were concerts in an U.S.A. tournée with Carlotta Patti in 1872-73. Mario spent his last years ensconced in Rome, who he was a friend of prince Odescalchi, but he was in some financial difficulties which now beset him owing to his habitual extravagance. It is said that he used to smoke cigars continually, even when taking a bath. A benefit concert was mounted for Mario in London in 1878, taking and collections reached £ 4000,[8] that provided a pension for the old singer. He died in Rome in 1883 and was buried in his town Cagliari in 1884. A note on the De Candia's ancestral seat In 1847 Mario bought for his mother a home in Sardinia, where Mario's Family lived (his mother and his brother Carlo), situated in Cagliari Old Town (Castello), in Contrada S. Caterina 1, now via Canelles in Cagliari old town (Castello)where until the 16th century stood the Pisan town-walls between the Elephant and the Lion Towers. (see the Land Register in the Archivio di Stato, Cagliari). This house is now a part of a nuns' convent. In an other house in the vicinity, lived his brtothe's Carlo family, at the bottom of Via dei Genovesi, The façade was possibly designed in neoclassical style by the architect Gaetano Cima, or maybe by Carlo De Candia, who had studied architecture in Turin together with Cima. On the first floor there are wide halls with some frescoes and a large terrace with scenic views of the gulf of Cagliari. |
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| caesium | Jul 26 2013, 07:15 PM Post #18 |
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Giovanni Maria Angioy![]() Giovanni Maria Angioy (Sardinian: Juanne Maria Angioy) (21 October 1751, Bono – 22 February 1808, Paris) was a Sardinian politician and patriot and is considered to be a national hero by Sardinian nationalists. Although best known for his political activities, Angioy was a university lecturer, a judge for the Reale Udienza, an entrepreneur and a banker. From 1794 to 1796, Angioy helped guide the Sardinian revolt which was fought to end the feudal privileges and laws that still existed on the island of Sardinia, and to declare the island to be a republic. In 1796, due to persecution by the ruling House of Savoy, he had to escape from Sardinia. Angioy found refuge in France, where he sought support for a French annexation of the island. He died, unsuccessful, in Paris at the age of fifty-six. |
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| Pinkulilly | Jul 27 2013, 02:49 PM Post #19 |
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Renzo Frau![]() Lorenzo Frau, known as ‘Renzo’, was a designer born inCagliari in 1881. He left Sardinia for military service in Milan, which he completed successfully earning the title of lieutenant. He married Savina Pisati and moved to Turin, at the time a real hub of Italian culture. He initially worked as a sales representative for Gribaudi and then for Dermoide Patent, manufacturer of faux leather.Having moved to Great Britain for work, he was able to discover the Chesterfeld model armchairs and immediately imagined its potential,successfully starting to import it into Italy. At the same time, however, he was also attracted by the models of French and Central European style.He therefore decided to create his own artisan production laboratory. It was 1912: Poltrona Frau was created. From the initial work ‘in style’, Frauquickly moved onto direct design. Poltrona Frau became not only a production pole, but also a meeting point for artists and intellectuals. Renzo Frau used these relations to consolidate the brand image: successful models ensued quickly,one after the other. As the First WorldWar brokeout, Frau was called to fght for his country andhis wife Savina bravely took up the reins of the company. Frau’s armchairs thus began entering the most important buildings, also used by the royal family. Renzo Frau met an early death in1926. He left an extensive archive of projects that would allow his wife to coherently pursue Poltrona Frau production in the years to come.
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| Dust Devil | Jul 29 2013, 08:05 PM Post #20 |
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