Hand-coloured engraving of a smiling man in an armchair with a swollen leg on a stool, surrounded by small black demons.

NB! · Science · Mores · Humour

Gout in caricature: a disease that betrayed a prosperous way of life

No one will laugh at the touch of gout. Still, people felt no embarrassment in speaking of this malady, which betrayed their prosperous and leisurely way of life

Nativity scene on a staircase in a Baroque interior, with figures of the three kings on red cloth, fir trees and moss, and Mary and Joseph at the top.

NB! · Architecture · Faith · Heritage · Rome

Nativity scene on the Holy Stairs in Bonn, a copy of the Roman shrine

A nativity scene in Bonn has been set up on the famous Holy Stairs, an exact copy of the Roman relic. According to legend, Jesus once climbed this staircase in Pontius Pilate's palace, before it was brought to Rome in the time of Saint Helena

NB! · Art · Observations · Humour

The New Year has begun splendidly, and at last I have found an excellent cat for the front door

The New Year has begun splendidly, and at last I have found an excellent cat for the front door. The eighteenth century remains my favourite by far, and this is, well,

NB! · Observations

Forgive Me

Faith · Monarchies · Observations · Pop Culture

Citroën Lictoria given by André Citroën to Pius XI, the first modern popemobile

This six-cylinder Citroën Licorne was presented to Pope Pius XI by André Citroën himself on the fiftieth anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood. The car was fitted out specially for the Pope, and two hundred people worked on the project. For the bodywork, a non-standard burgundy was

Dark maroon vintage car with a gilded radiator grille and headlamp, and a white and yellow Vatican flag on the fender. Red rope barriers surround it.

NB!

Vintage Citroën car with a Vatican flag on display in a museum hall

NB! · Archive · Faith · Ethnography

Members of the Russian Doukhobor sect in Saskatchewan in 1907: the Doukhobors fled persecution at home, with the sponsorship of Leo Tolstoy and other benefactors, and founded a flourishing diaspora in Canada

Observations · Society

Council of Republics Declared the USSR Defunct on 26 December 1991

I understand you already have no shortage of news hooks, but on 26 December 1991 the Council of Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted a declaration on the cessation of the existence of the USSR in connection with the formation of the CIS. Just in case, I

NB! · Art · Museums · Humour

"Why is the child kissing a naked woman?" "Pay no attention, he is a pupil of Michelangelo"

NB! · Humour

"You've lost weight." "Thanks"

NB! · Art · Books · Mores

The girl with a squirrel is no accident in the engraving illustrating the tale from the Canterbury Tales of decrepit January and his young and faithless May, who cuckolds the old man under his very nose

Engraving of a woman in a lace and ribbon-trimmed dress holding a squirrel with a bushy tail on her arm.

NB! · Art · London · Science · Mores · Nature · Humour

The squirrel in women's portraits of early modern England and the spread of leprosy by rodents

In Early Modern England the squirrel symbolised prostitution, so this rodent in a woman's portrait augurs nothing good. Though it has recently been proved that squirrels also spread leprosy

Alexandr Radayev