Audio
IMAGE: Boston City Seal
Transcript
IMAGE: Boston City Seal
DESCRIPTION: This image shows the seal of the city of Boston. Designed in black and white, the main part of the seal is a circle with text and images inside of it. The image inside the circle is not that large, so it is difficult to see fine detail. Located from the middle of the circle and towards the top part is a line drawing of the city of Boston. Theoretically, this is what Boston looked like in 1822 when it changed from being a town into a city. There are many buildings depicted in this image with towers or steeples rising into the sky. There are markings in the upper portion of the image to indicate fair weather clouds. Above the image is text that follows the curve of the circle. Written in Latin, it is the motto of the city of Boston. This text starts at the left middle side of the circle and ends at the right middle side of the circle. The text reads: “SICUT PATRIBUS, SIT DEUS NOBIS” which means “God be with us as he was with our fathers. "Under the image and centered are three lines of text. They read as: Bostonia Condita AD Sixteen thirty Bostonia is Boston in Latin. Condita has a few different meanings, but in this instance should be interpreted as founded. Sixteen thirty is the year that the first permanent settlement of people from Europe took hold in what is now known as Boston. Underneath these three lines of text is another line of Latin that follows the curve of the bottom of the circle stretching from the middle left to the middle right. This line of text states: CIVITATIS REGIMINE DONATA AD. 1822 which means The CITY GOVERNMENT DONATED in 1822. Around the main circle of the seal is a laurel wreath. A laurel wreath is a round wreath made of connected branches and leaves of the bay laurel, an aromatic broadleaf evergreen. It is a symbol of triumph and is worn around the head, or as a garland around the neck. It has two branches which are tied together at the bottom center by a ribbon and then each extends around its side of the circle. They do not meet at the top of the circle, but rather have one leave at the end of each branch angled towards the other.
RELATED TEXT: Faneuil Hall, owned by the City of Boston, is a unit of Boston National Historical Park. It is preserved through the cooperation of the City of Boston and the National Park Service.
Description
Audio description of the image appearing on the front panel of the brochure.
Duration
2 minutes, 22 seconds
Credit
UniDescription/Gould and Pollock
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