For those who skipped a great many lessons, let me remind you that we began October with an introductory course in alchemy, and then spoke

📌 about works of art stolen by the Nazis

📌 about the fate of Pompeii after the eruption of Vesuvius

📌 about why one should not refuse Donald Trump

📌 about the turbulence in the Anglican Church following the appointment of Sarah Mullally as Archbishop of Canterbury

📌 about the place of beauty and ugliness in the modern world

📌 we recalled the standard Soviet club; where would we be without nostalgia for the USSR?

📌 we discussed the much-talked-of premiere of Kirill Serebrennikov’s Hamlet at the Théâtre du Châtelet

📌 and the Gerhard Richter retrospective at the Fondation Louis Vuitton

📌 we spoke of how to keep one’s dignity even on the scaffold, and of how modern France has lost its own, dancing on the bones of Marie Antoinette

📌 the month did not pass without sad news, for example, the closure of the Antico Caffè, the oldest café in Rome

📌 and about the thrifty methods of restoration

📌 yet alongside the robberies of French museums, the worst news of the month was the desecration of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome