Mononymous person town of Stendal, birthplace of the German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann, whom Stendhal admired. In the 20th century, a fourth French writer, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (author of "Gigi", 1945), used her actual surname as her mononym pen name, Colette. Some French actors and singers have used their given name or surname as a stage mononym. In the 17th and 18th centuries, most Italian castrato singers used mononyms as stage names (e.g. Caffarelli, Farinelli). The German writer, mining engineer and philosopher, Georg Friedrich Philipp Freiherr von Hardenberg (1772–1801), became famous as Novalis. The 19th-century Dutch writer Eduard Douwes Dekker (1820–87), better
Sidonie of Poděbrady father died, and he became Duke of Saxony with Sidonie as Duchess consort. Sidonie was a pious Catholic woman who abhorred violence. She therefore refused to accompany her husband during his wars in Groningen and Friesland. In protest, she took her children to Albrechtsburg. In 1495 she founded the religious festival of the Holy Lance, after being freed from a stone disease. Many of her letters of correspondence have been preserved, in which she pleads for the release of prisoners. On 12 September 1500, Albert died, leaving Sidonie a widow. She withdrew from the Saxon court and spent the rest