NB! · Geography · Maps · Nature
Alexandr Radayev
Archive · Geography · Books · Mores
Stolnik Pyotr Tolstoy describes Venetian gondolas, how they were built and hired
Gondoliers in Venice are an exclusively male profession, but if this engraving of 1610 is to be believed, women were also admitted to the traditional gondola race. A Russian traveller of that time, the stolnik Pyotr Tolstoy, describes what he saw in Venice as follows: In Venice there are hackney
Art · Books · Observations · Rome
In Concord Small States Grow, in Discord the Greatest Fall to Nothing
Sometimes this thought of the ancient Roman historian Gaius Sallust (Concordia parvae res crescunt, discordia maximae dilabuntur) is rendered more literally: as harmony makes small things grow, so discord brings the great to ruin. Illustration: Pieter Birmann, Roman ruins of the Arch of Titus, 1781–90
NB! · Geography · Maps · New York
The Dutch colony of New Amsterdam in 1660, renamed New York in 1667
New Amsterdam in 1660. In 1667 this Dutch colony would be renamed New York
Art · Museums · Observations · New York
Sculpture of the 1890s that once stood atop Madison Square Garden in New York
Augustus Saint-Gaudens's golden statue of Diana on the grand staircase of the Philadelphia Museum of Art proves that a real longing for beauty, not without a touch of the transcendent, can exist even in a country of such vulgar and ostentatious materialis. This sculpture of the 1890s
NB!
Is This Love?
NB! · Observations · Humour
Thank You for the Invitation, I Shall Not Be Coming
Art · Mores · Paris · People
Surgeon Samuel Pozzi, his romance with Sarah Bernhardt and her 1915 leg amputation
The celebrated surgeon and simply the handsomest man of his day, Samuel Jean Pozzi, captured in an equally celebrated portrait by John Singer Sargent, was the hero of numerous love affairs. One of them bound him to the greatest actress of her age, Sarah Bernhardt. The vivid romance between the
Archive · Faith · Monarchies · Moscow
Spiritual testament of Prince Dmitry Ivanovich on the division of lands among his sons
The Spiritual Testament, that is, the Will of Dmitry Donskoy, Grand Prince of Moscow, Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts. "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, behold, I, the sinful and unworthy servant of God, Dmitry Ivanovich, write this spiritual
NB! · Aristocracy · Art · Monarchies
"Concert Given by the Duc de Nevers in Honour of the Dauphin's Birthday", by the Baroque Italian painter Giovanni Paolo Panini, 1751
NB! · Architecture · Books · London
The Legendary Reading Room of the British Library
NB! · Art · Observations
Three-legged winged bronze chair by Mark Brazier-Jones, 1990
Marc Brazier-Jones, Three-Legged Winged Chair, bronze, 1990. I reckon one ought to take it