NB! · Observations

Are you asleep?

Archaeology · Books · Rome

Archaeologists find remains of Caligula's portico in the gardens of Agrippina the Elder in Rome

In Rome, on Piazza Pia, archaeologists have discovered the remains of Caligula's portico. The emperor had this portico built in the gardens of his mother, Agrippina the Elder (the granddaughter of Augustus and the daughter of Agrippa, his closest associate). The gardens occupied almost the whole of the

Art · Museums · Pop Culture · Humour

Hastings plans a contemporary art gallery that can be viewed on skis

Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, whose fortune is estimated at $4.7 billion, is to open an art gallery right on a ski slope, at the 3,433-hectare Powder Mountain resort in Eden, Utah, which he recently acquired. It is planned that the pictures may be viewed without taking

Painting in blue tones: Kremlin walls, towers and a bell tower with golden domes reflected in the dark water of a river.

Art · Moscow

The Moscow Kremlin in a 1920 painting by Leonid Brailovsky

Blue Moscow. Leonid Brailovsky, 1920

NB! · Art · Science

A Speck Spotted in the Eye of the Girl with a Pearl Earring

NB! · Moscow · Observations · Humour

I have two questions: why is the Vakhtangov Theatre on the barello menu? And what shall we order?

The East · Interviews · Museums · Society · Saint Petersburg

Universal museums in the East and perceptions of the Hermitage in the West

I read Mikhail Piotrovsky's recent interview with the journal International Affairs, and here are some extracts. On the role of the East in the present-day cultural field: «It is no accident that in the world that has now revived and is called the East, universal museums are

Sepia drawing of a priest in a cap sitting at a table with a book in a room with a bed and shelves of vessels.

Faith · Art · London · Museums · Observations

Lorenzo Lotto's drawing of a priest in his chambers, held by the British Museum

A priest in his chambers. The room is very much like mine: five hundred years have passed, yet the furnishings and the mood have survived. Lorenzo Lotto, 1491-1556. British Museum

Faith · Observations · Mores

Black vestments and symbols of mortality on the Catholic All Souls' Day

In Catholicism, on the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, it is the custom to wear black vestments with special decoration. This particular liturgical occasion is accompanied by the symbolism of skeletons, the fires of purgatory, decay, transience and even coffins. Modern culture would call this aesthetic “gloomy”, which, however,

NB! · Archive · Books · People

Tolkien used Tengwar, the script he devised for the legendarium of The Lord of the Rings, for entries in his weekly desk calendar

The East · Art · Museums

Knife with a blue glass handle and an ivory sheath inlaid with precious stones

Ottoman Empire, 18th–19th centuries.

Painting of a fluffy black-and-white dog lying on a red patterned cushion with its paws crossed. The artist's signature is visible in the lower left corner.

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Alexandr Radayev