Giotto depicts Sylvester driving demons out of Arezzo at the request of Francis

The Expulsion of the Demons from Arezzo. Scenes from the Life of Saint Francis.

Giotto (1266-1337).

The life of Francis of Assisi contains a story of how, on approaching the city of Arezzo, whose inhabitants were gripped by mutual enmity, Francis saw the walls and buildings of the city literally teeming with demons, who were inciting the people to malice and rejoicing in their quarrels. Then the holy father summoned Sylvester, a man of God, and asked him to go to the city walls with prayers and to command the demons, in God's name, to leave the city. Sylvester did so, and peace returned to Arezzo.

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Pope Leo XIV on the courage to do good, to forgive and to enter into dialogue

Our time needs men and women who have the courage to do good, even when it involves sacrifice. Draw near to those who are lonely, support the weary and seek out those who have lost their way. Have the courage to forgive, to begin anew and to enter into dialogue.

Old colour photograph with cracks: adults and children resting on the grass on a slope under a tree.

Orientalist Grigory Kozakov with relatives and children at a picnic near the village of Zhikharevka in 1903

The Orientalist Grigory Alexandrovich Kozakov, surrounded by his relatives, his daughter-in-law Countess Anna Nikolayevna Tolstaya, the children and their tutor, at a picnic near the village of Zhikharevka in 1903

Konstantin Ivanov's Cosmonautics Day poster, published in Moscow in 1977

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Signs of violent death found on skulls from burials beside the royal tombs at Abydos

An American archaeologist has carried out a forensic analysis of skulls of people who were buried beside the tombs of Egypt's first kings at Abydos, and has found on many of them traces of violent death. Abydos in Upper Egypt served as the burial place of the kings

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Pope Leo XIV on the courage to do good, to forgive and to enter into dialogue

Orientalist Grigory Kozakov with relatives and children at a picnic near the village of Zhikharevka in 1903

Konstantin Ivanov's Cosmonautics Day poster, published in Moscow in 1977

Signs of violent death found on skulls from burials beside the royal tombs at Abydos