In the Press · Faith · Heritage · Society · Paris

Paris court finds Romanian who set fire to Notre-Dame-des-Champs church insane

A Romanian national who set fire to the church of Notre-Dame-des-Champs in Paris last July, as Le Parisien reports, has been declared insane by the Paris Criminal Court. He was already known for similar acts in 2021. He set fire to a statue of Christ, which was

Archaeology · Art · Museums · Observations · Paris

I made a point of going up to the famous Seated Scribe to photograph his eyes: lined with kohl, with pale blue, seemingly glass pupils that are in fact made of quartz, magnesite and an alloy of copper and arsenic

The sculpture is believed to have been created between the Fourth (2543-2436 BC) and Fifth (2435-2306 BC) Dynasties, but the name we give the scribe is conventional, merely one of the versions; the owner of the tomb in which the sculpture was found in 1850 has so far

A winged archangel in armour raises a sword over a fallen dark demon against a golden background, holding scales in his other hand.

Faith · Art

Archangel Michael defeats a demon in a painting by Antonio de Comontes, around 1540

Saint Michael Slaying the Dragon. Antonio de Comontes, c. 1540

Art

Van Haarlem combines two episodes of the myth of Cadmus and the dragon in one painting

The Companions of Cadmus Devoured by the Dragon, Cornelis van Haarlem, 1588. The Greek myth of Cadmus, who came to Boeotia to found the city of Thebes, tells how the companions of Cadmus were slain by an enormous dragon that guarded the sacred spring of Ares. The moment when the

NB! · Observations · Paris

Paris, je t'aime

NB! · Observations

Good Morning and Have a Good Day

Observations

A Man's Character Is His Fate

And the biography on the profile is merely the version prepared for PR

Miniature: an angel in a blue robe and a nude man at left face a dark winged dragon with a red tongue; small figures struggle in the blue water below.

NB!

Angel and a nude figure before a dragon above water, medieval miniature

Faith · Art · Books · Monarchies

Simon Marmion’s Miniatures for the “Visions of Tondal”, Made for Margaret of York around 1470

Miniatures from the "Visions of Tundale" (The Visions of the Knight Tondal), a fifteenth-century illuminated manuscript created by Simon Marmion around 1470 for Margaret of York, wife of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. This twelfth-century Irish text tells of a knight named Tondal (Tundale), who

NB! · Heritage · Society · Paris · Humour

Memorial to the Victims of the First World War in Paris's 15th Arrondissement Adorned with Dustbins and a Compact Rubbish Dump

The memorial to the victims of the First World War in Paris's 15th arrondissement has been adorned with dustbins and a compact rubbish dump. This is what they fought for

NB! · Faith · Society · Rome · Humour

The Vatican has issued a very strange coin to promote vaccination

NB! · Faith

Alexandr Radayev