NB! · Archaeology · Architecture · Heritage
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NB! · Faith · People
On this day, 10 February 547, died the sister of St Benedict, St Scholastica
On this day, 10 February 547, died St Scholastica, sister of St Benedict, founder of the first women's monastery. She is buried at Monte Cassino, the monastery founded by Benedict, not far from Rome
Monarchies · Mores · People
Death of Agnès Sorel in 1450 and the Arrest of Jacques Cœur, Accused of Poisoning Her
On 9 February 1450 Agnès Sorel died of puerperal infection. But a rumour was put about at once that she had been poisoned, and the poisoner was named as Jacques Cœur. Which is odd, since Agnès was the patroness of the royal financier: she secured him good commissions and shielded
NB! · Monarchies · Mores · People
Agnes Sorel, her influence over Charles VII and a beauty noted by Pope Callixtus III
The low-born courtesan Agnès Sorel was called a common whore, yet even Pope Callixtus III remarked on her extraordinary beauty. She went about in frank attire, bared one breast and twisted Charles VII round her little finger
NB! · Architecture · Monarchies · Heritage · People
Jacques Cœur, industrialist and financier to Charles VII, peers out of a false window in his astonishing mansion at Bourges
Jacques Cœur, industrialist and financier to Charles VII, peers out of a false window in his astonishing mansion at Bourges. Cœur minted gold écus and kept the king's mistress, Agnès Sorel, supplied with treasures
NB! · Observations
Sic transit gloria mundi
Sic transit gloria mundi. It never hurts to be reminded
NB! · Monarchies · Museums · Mores · Society
The beard token introduced by Peter the Great in 1705, confirming payment of the beard tax (30 to 100 roubles) with the words "The money has been taken"
The beard token introduced by Peter the Great in 1705, confirming payment of the beard tax (30 to 100 roubles) with the words "The money has been taken". Peter died on 8 February 1725, yet the tax was abolished only in 1772
NB! · Architecture · Art · Heritage
Cabinetmakers restore a seventeenth-century cabinet in a restoration workshop
In the restoration workshop. Cabinetmakers restore a seventeenth-century cabinet
Aristocracy · Observations · People
The biography of François-Camille of Lorraine is not so simple; at any rate, the modern vicissitudes of its circulation give cause for alarm about the memory of this nobleman
Quite by chance I discovered that the Russian-language Wikipedia and a multitude of secondary sources on the Runet maintain that Louis de Lorraine, Prince of Lambesc (1692-1743), had one son, Louis-Charles of Lorraine, who inherited his father's title, and five daughters: Jeanne, Louise, Henriette, Camille
NB! · Aristocracy · Faith · Art
The stout gentleman in a sumptuous fur mantle with a crimson lining is Abbé François-Camille of Lorraine, who lived in the eighteenth century and belonged to the ducal house of Guise, a cadet branch of the House of Lorraine
Monarchies · Mores · People
On 7 February 1770, Louis XV formally asked for the hand of Marie Antoinette on behalf of his grandson, Louis XVI
On 7 February 1770, Louis XV formally asked for the hand of Marie Antoinette on behalf of his grandson, Louis XVI. The wedding took place some months later, and by proxy at that, which is to say in the absence of the groom! Then the 14-year-old Marie Antoinette
Coming Up · Archaeology · The East · Museums · Education · Saint Petersburg
Hermitage lecture hall holds lecture series on Khorezm, next one on 12 February
The Hermitage Lecture Hall has launched a lecture series, “The Desert Castles of Khorezm”. Those of you in Saint Petersburg, do drop in for a cup of tea. Khorezm is a millennia-old Asian oasis, where excavations have uncovered settlements lost in the sands, irrigation works and necropolises. The next