Archive · Faith · The East · Monarchies · Moscow

Handwritten charter of the Council of Constantinople on the founding of the Moscow Patriarchate, on parchment with the lead seal of Jeremias II, Patriarch of Constantinople, May 1590

The text is as follows: "Jeremias, by the mercy of God Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome, and Ecumenical Patriarch. Whereas the pious and peaceable Autocrat, Tsar of all the land of Russia, … and lord of other Orthodox Christians, Feodor Ivanovich, … has sought a dignity from us by the election

Aristocracy · Books · London · Society · Humour

"Do you consider the House of Lords a more perfect institution than the House of Commons?" "Naturally"

"Do you consider the House of Lords a more perfect institution than the House of Commons?" "Naturally. In the House of Lords we are never brought into contact with public opinion. That is what makes us a civilised institution." Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance,

NB! · Observations · Humour

Perhaps It Would Have Been Better Simply to Say "I Am Mad About You"

NB! · Geography · Maps · Nature

A Map of the Ecosystems of the Soviet Union

Archive · Geography · Books · Mores

Stolnik Pyotr Tolstoy describes Venetian gondolas, how they were built and hired

Gondoliers in Venice are an exclusively male profession, but if this engraving of 1610 is to be believed, women were also admitted to the traditional gondola race. A Russian traveller of that time, the stolnik Pyotr Tolstoy, describes what he saw in Venice as follows: In Venice there are hackney

Art · Books · Observations · Rome

In Concord Small States Grow, in Discord the Greatest Fall to Nothing

Sometimes this thought of the ancient Roman historian Gaius Sallust (Concordia parvae res crescunt, discordia maximae dilabuntur) is rendered more literally: as harmony makes small things grow, so discord brings the great to ruin. Illustration: Pieter Birmann, Roman ruins of the Arch of Titus, 1781–90

Colour plan of New Amsterdam in 1660 showing the fort, a canal, the town wall, gardens and ships off the shore.

NB! · Geography · Maps · New York

The Dutch colony of New Amsterdam in 1660, renamed New York in 1667

New Amsterdam in 1660. In 1667 this Dutch colony would be renamed New York

A gilded statue of a nude archer drawing a bow stands on a sphere between two columns in a hall niche.

Art · Museums · Observations · New York

Sculpture of the 1890s that once stood atop Madison Square Garden in New York

Augustus Saint-Gaudens's golden statue of Diana on the grand staircase of the Philadelphia Museum of Art proves that a real longing for beauty, not without a touch of the transcendent, can exist even in a country of such vulgar and ostentatious materialis. This sculpture of the 1890s

NB!

Is This Love?

NB! · Observations · Humour

Thank You for the Invitation, I Shall Not Be Coming

Art · Mores · Paris · People

Surgeon Samuel Pozzi, his romance with Sarah Bernhardt and her 1915 leg amputation

The celebrated surgeon and simply the handsomest man of his day, Samuel Jean Pozzi, captured in an equally celebrated portrait by John Singer Sargent, was the hero of numerous love affairs. One of them bound him to the greatest actress of her age, Sarah Bernhardt. The vivid romance between the

Archive · Faith · Monarchies · Moscow

Spiritual testament of Prince Dmitry Ivanovich on the division of lands among his sons

The Spiritual Testament, that is, the Will of Dmitry Donskoy, Grand Prince of Moscow, Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts. "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, behold, I, the sinful and unworthy servant of God, Dmitry Ivanovich, write this spiritual

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