Faith · Heritage · Rome

In the little Roman basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, in the left aisle of the church, a reliquary is kept containing the skull of the Christian priest Valentine, who may be that very saint glorified in 496

There were several Christian figures of roughly the same period bearing the name Valentine, and alas, there is no way of establishing precisely which of the surviving remains are those of a saint. But the skull from Santa Maria in Cosmedin is venerated by many

Faith · Art · Museums · Paris · Pop Culture

Wooden figure of Saint Mary Magdalene by Gregor Erhart, La Belle Allemande, 1510, Louvre collection

And photographs of Nicole Kidman from Vogue Australia, 1994, shot by Rocky Schenk

Bronze sculpture of a seated, bearded, muscular giant with two small nude figures beside him on a pedestal.

Observations · Mores

A holiday greeting and a reminder that love is the amusement of the gods

Love between two people is the amusement of the gods. Do not forget it. And a happy holiday!

NB! · Geography · Humour

The Geography of the Smoker and the Geography of the Healthy Man

Faith · Museums · Heritage

Forty items, including seven 17th-century icons, return to the Kirillo-Belozersky Museum

Forty historic objects have returned to the Kirillo-Belozersky Museum-Reserve after restoration. Among them are 7 icons of the seventeenth century from the monasteries of the Russian North: Ferapontov, Kirillo-Belozersky and the Nilo-Sorsky Hermitage, restored by specialists of the Saint Tikhon's Orthodox Humanitarian University (PSTGU)

Books · Science · People

Pushkin on Lomonosov's poetry and its influence on literature

In Lomonosov there is neither feeling nor imagination. His odes are tiresome and bombastic. His influence on literature was harmful and is still felt in it today. Pomposity, affectation, an aversion to simplicity and precision, an absence of all national character and originality: such are the traces Lomonosov left behind.

NB! · Faith · Art · Paris

The Conversion of Saint Paul, Laurent de La Hyre, 1637

The Conversion of Saint Paul, Laurent de La Hyre, 1637. Notre-Dame de Paris

Old engraving of a man standing on a sphere, pulled by a thread from a woman on the left and by a chain from a man on the right, with a lute, globe and books below.

NB! · Art · Observations · Education · Humour

A 1608 engraving on the choice between study and entertainment

Study or amusements. 1608. A choice for which we have failed to prepare in 400 years

NB! · Humour

A Very Bad Joke

Observations · Society · People

Do you remember the phrase attributed to Stalin, when he refused to exchange his son from his first marriage, Senior Lieutenant Yakov Dzhugashvili, for the former commander of the 6th Army in the Stalingrad "cauldron", Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus: "I d

This is a fairly commonplace formula for patriotic myths. Something similar is attributed to Barclay de Tolly, who was told of the death of his son during the Battle of Leipzig: "An officer has been killed; I beg you not to interrupt me, for now all children belong to

Geography · Heritage · Society · Humour

If You Dreamed of a Paris Without Crowds of Chinese Tourists

Visit the village in the Chelyabinsk Region, founded in 1842 by the Orenburg Cossack Host and named in honour of the Russian army's victory at Paris. Not far from Paris, one may also visit other monuments to the victories of Russian troops in Europe: the villages of Leipzig,

NB! · Architecture · Art · Paris

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