Fig. 1 Filippo Lippi, Portrait of a Young Man, ca 1480-5, National Gallery, Washington DC, Andrew Mellon Collection (image courtesy National Gallery of Art) By Andrea M. Gáldy – If it would not look so catty, temptation would be […]
Other News
Ishtar: Etymology of Indo-European ‘Star’ Words
Mesopotamian seal impression of ISHTAR (planet VENUS) – from Sumerian Inanna – standing on feline, Bronze Age, British Museum (image public domain) By Patrick Hunt – We often frequently use words that are many thousands of years old whether we know it or not. Indo-European language etymology is typically not […]
Giovanni Segantini and the Segantini Museum, St. Moritz
Giovanni Segantini, La Natura detail, 1897-8, Segantini Museum, St. Moritz (image public domain) By P. F. Sommerfeldt – Giovanni Segantini (1858-99) was not only a pastoral artist who loved mountains, especially the Alps around the Engadine above St. Moritz, but one who captured their majestic beauty in a landscape shared […]
Proto-Elamites: Master Sculptors of Animals in Antiquity
Proto-Elamite Reclining Gilded Silver Mountain Goat, 3100-2900 BCE, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 7 cm length (image public domain) By Patrick Hunt – How early in ancient art does realism appear? While many ancient cultures transitioning from the Copper Age to Bronze Age in the Ancient Near East and elsewhere […]
Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Woman Beyond Her Time
Marriage of Eleanor and Louis VII and Louis Leaving for Crusade, 15th c., Chroniques de St. Denis (image public domain) By Emmanuel Zilber – Defying so many male imposed status quo “rules”, Eleanor of Aquitaine (ca. 1124-1204) was remarkable, but not only for […]
Translating Alabastron in Mark 14:3: an Archaeological Solution to a Philological Problem?
End of Mark’s Gospel, Codex Vaticanus, Early 4th c., mostly ch. 16 By Patrick Hunt – “While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the […]
Hatchards Bookstore, Piccadilly, London since 1797
Hatchards 1801 facade at 189-90 Piccadilly, London By P. F. Sommerfeldt – Not many booksellers can claim to have been around since 1797. Fewer have hosted so many famous authors for signings and how many have three royal patents? Hatchards was founded in Piccadilly in 1797 and has moved only […]
Renaissance Globalization
Domenico Ghirlandaio, Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints, 1483, Uffizi Gallery, Florence (image pubic domain) By Andrea M. Gáldy – It’s the Globalisation … Kathleen Christian and Leah Clark, eds. European Art and the Wider World 1350-1550. Published by Manchester University Press, Manchester 2017 (Art and its Global Histories Series), […]
Early Byzantine Great Palace Mosaics, Istanbul
Eagle and Snake, Imperial Palace Mosaic Museum, Istanbul, circa 6th c. (image in common domain) By Patrick Hunt – Courtesy of the Nikia and Hippodrome revolts of 532 that destroyed part of the Imperial Palace of Constantine in Constantinople, subsequent rebuilding by Justinian (reigning 527-65) and possibly added to by […]
A Collection to Make (And Break?) A King
A. Van Dyck, Charles I (triple portrait) Royal Collection ca. 1635 By Andrea M. Gáldy – Charles I, the second Stuart king of England, is for most of us the unlucky monarch who lost his head and his throne on […]