NB! · Archive · Art
A Battle Between the Russian and French Armies
A Battle Between the Russian and French Armies. Mid-nineteenth century, unknown artist
Latest
Archive · Monarchies · Museums
Sword of Francis I, taken after his capture in 1525 and returned to France in 1808
The sword of Francis I has a curious history: it was taken from him by an Italian colonel after his capture in Lombardy in 1525. In the reign of Philip II this sword, with its magnificent hilt, found its way into the Spanish royal armoury. The weapon returned to France
Observations · Education · Society · Humour
As They Used to Say at School: Now a Question to Catch You Out
By way of illustrating the fruits of the finest education in the world, after ten or twenty years of the nosediving standards of television and the media
NB! · Art
A Sketch for Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper"
NB! · Faith · Society · People · Rome
Pope Francis, 88, reported to be in critical condition in a Rome hospital
Science · Nature
The narwhal's horn is a modified male tooth and is not used to break ice
The narwhal's horn is in fact a modified tooth in the male. Males of this marine mammal have two teeth in all; the left one grows out spirally twisted and can reach two or three metres in length. In females these tusks do not erupt at all. Despite
NB! · Architecture · Art · Heritage
The Lions before the Arsenal in Venice: Genuine Antique Sculptures Carried Off from Greece
Archive · Faith · Art · Books · Paris
Commentary on the Apocalypse by Beatus of Liébana, an eleventh-century book
The rider on the pale horse is Death. Exhibition at the National Library of France
Archive · Books · Science · People
One of the most unusual manuscripts submitted for the new season of the Hypertext Prize is a work by the writer and science journalist Sergei Korostelev, "Earth — Venus: The Two Lives of Leonid Xanfomalidi"
It is a large-scale biography of the distinguished Russian astronomer and space researcher Leonid Vasilyevich Xanfomalidi (1932–2019). A Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, he led experiments on the Soviet automatic stations that explored Mars, Venus and Halley's Comet. Venus played a special part in Xanfomalidi&
Observations · Mores · People · Humour
Sarah Bernhardt at Thirty, in Her Coffin
She is not dead. Merely asleep. Or rather, posing for a photograph in the character of a woman lying in a coffin. She died, after all, at 78. Until then she simply liked to lie in a coffin. And she had one installed at home as a bed. A fool
Faith · Books · London · Observations · People
Thomas Eliot and Virginia Woolf were friends for over twenty years, but when Eliot embraced Christianity, or rather, after a period of open hostility to the Church, gradually became a zealous believer, Woolf said: he is dead to all of us
Thomas Eliot and Virginia Woolf were friends for over twenty years, but when Eliot embraced Christianity, or rather, after a period of open hostility to the Church, gradually became a zealous believer, Woolf said: he is dead to all of us. She called his faith in God and the immortality
Art · Museums · Observations · Mores
The "Russian Incredible" exhibition has many paintings before which one stops with a lungful of air
But the painting "Aunt Sasha" by David Petrovich Shterenberg simply will not let go. From the collection of the State Russian Museum. 1922-1923. The Civil War has only just ended. Before us sits a Russian village woman in a cornflower-blue headscarf and blouse. She is no