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Monthly digest for July on discoveries, restoration, art and science

Fet begged to “drive the living boat off with a single push”, to catch the fleeting before it vanishes. The monthly digest has a more modest task, though the same one: to hold on to what matters before the flood of news washes it away. Here is the main news

NB! · The East · Books · Mores · Humour

Gaspard Drouville observes that Persian women, though they wear the chador, and even when covered from head to foot, possess a peculiar art of recognising one another from a great distance, whereas their husbands often walk right beside them and cannot te

NB! · Books · Nature

The Enraged Elephant from an Old Book

Archaeology · Science

Genetics Confirms That Smallpox Reached the Americas with European Colonisation

Researchers from Trinity College Dublin have for the first time reconstructed and analysed genomes of the smallpox virus from remains found in the Americas. The material was obtained from two people who lived in the colonial era in the north of present-day Chile. The analysis showed that the viruses

Art · Observations · Science · Society

An article in the journal of the American Psychological Association examines how accusing an artist of a crime changes the public's attitude to his works

Participants in the experiment were asked to assess a work of art, then told that its author stood accused of one crime or another, and asked to assess the work afresh, being asked along the way whether the display of this work ought to be restricted. The upshot was that

Faith · Art · Nature

Il Salvatore salvato, the Saved Saviour: a sculpture carved from the trunk of a centuries-old olive tree killed by Pierce's disease

The sculpture Il Salvatore salvato, the Saved Saviour, carved from the trunk of a centuries-old olive tree that died of Pierce's disease. The crucifix stands on the Salento peninsula, in a burnt olive grove from which, shortly before the fire, the trunk of the dead ancient tree

Art · Heritage · New York · Society

The heirs of the Jewish art dealer Oscar Stettiner continue to go to law over Modigliani's 1918 "Seated Man with a Cane", which they consider their rightful property, believing it to have been seized from the estate of their forebear during…

A couple of weeks ago the court ordered the present owner of the disputed painting, the art dealer David Nahmad, to return it to Stettiner's heirs. Now it has further ruled that the heirs are entitled to interest for the period preceding the judgment in the case of

The East · Geography · Observations · Society

The author on the risk of Spain losing control over the Strait of Gibraltar

One must understand that the feral hordes now storming Spain are making their way not to the mainland part of the kingdom, but to Spain's African possessions. And this is not about the arrival of yet more multitudes of thousands in Europe, since they are arriving there quite

Archaeology · Art · Books · Museums

The Blinding of Polyphemus at the Sperlonga Museum and the Rhodian Sculptors

Head of Odysseus from the sculptural group “The Blinding of Polyphemus”, found in 1957 in the grotto of the villa of the Emperor Tiberius at Sperlonga. The work illustrates the episode from the “Odyssey” in which the hero and his companions blind the Cyclops Polyphemus. Because of its stylistic closeness

NB! · Observations · Society · Paris

I wonder whether, forty years from now, people will post photographs of Macron in the same spirit in which we post snapshots of Chirac?

The East · Books · Mores

Gaspard Drouville on how Persians sleep on the floor and make their beds

The Persians sleep on the floor. Beds are made up every evening, cleared away every morning and stored in the closets for the whole day. According to the rank and wealth of the persons concerned, they are made of one mattress or of many, of broadcloth, of a fine chintz

NB! · Archive · Paris · Pop Culture

Alexandr Radayev