Art · Madrid · Museums · Science

The Prado Museum Offers Free Access to Aracne, a Programme That Analyses Painting Canvases to Aid Scholarly Research

The programme took 10 years to develop: it automatically counts the threads of a canvas, which makes it possible to refine attribution and dating. With its help, a painting attributed to Francisco Rizi in a 2023 exhibition has been reattributed to Francisco Herrera the Younger. The programme can be used

NB! · Art · Observations

They say a still life is dead nature. But it feels otherwise

NB! · Archaeology · Museums · Paris · Ethnography

On the bright spring festival of Nauryz, let us recall the exhibition of treasures from the steppes of Kazakhstan at the Musée Guimet in Paris, which is open for its last three days

NB! · London · Observations · Humour

A stop at the US Embassy in London

A stop at the US Embassy in London. Er, so much for the English sense of humour

NB! · Archive · Cinema · People · Rome

Clint Eastwood Skates Around Rome in the Spring of 1964

Art · Museums · Nature

Botticelli's "Primavera" depicts nine figures from classical mythology, following one another across a flowering meadow in an orange and laurel grove

Botticelli's "Primavera" depicts nine figures from classical mythology, following one another across a flowering meadow in an orange and laurel grove. This very masterpiece of the Renaissance has had 138 species of plants precisely identified in it. The composition of the painting remains a riddle, but

Architecture · Geography · Heritage

The Roman Lighthouse of A Coruña in Spain, the Oldest Surviving, and Its Likeness to the Pharos of Alexandria

The oldest surviving lighthouse in the world, A Coruña in Spain, was built by the Romans as early as the 1st century AD. Since then the lighthouse has undergone some changes, having been raised in height and strengthened, but its architectural core has remained unchanged. It is believed that the

NB! · Archive · Monarchies · Nature · Humour

In 1577 Sir Humphrey Gilbert presented Elizabeth I with a narwhal tusk adorned with gold, and said it was the horn of a sea unicorn

In 1577 Sir Humphrey Gilbert presented Elizabeth I with a narwhal tusk adorned with gold, and said it was the horn of a sea unicorn. In principle, one can hardly find fault.

Books · Society · People

Charles Chesnutt, an octoroon under the American law of one drop of blood

The American writer Charles Chesnutt (1858-1932) was classed as an octoroon, by virtue of the peculiar "one-drop rule". Octoroon (or octaroon) is a racial term adopted in the United States for persons with one-eighth African blood, that is, 12%, as in the case of Alexander

NB! · Observations

You're Hired!

Archive · Faith · Art · Books

Christian Faith, bearing New Testament symbols (the crucifix, the keys of Heaven, the attributes of the Eucharist, the papal tiara, the four Evangelists and the Fountain of Life), sheds divine light upon Europe

Christian Faith, bearing New Testament symbols (the crucifix, the keys of Heaven, the attributes of the Eucharist, the papal tiara, the four Evangelists and the Fountain of Life), sheds divine light upon Europe. Faith of the Old Testament, in a horned headdress, with the tablets of the commandments and a

NB! · Monarchies · Observations

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