NB! · Art · Monarchies · People
Today's Birthday Boy: Valentin Serov
Today's birthday boy is Valentin Serov. Here is his lithograph "The Coronation of Nicholas II" from the "Coronation Album"
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Archive · Books · Paris · People
Ten years ago Christie's sold Sanson's letter addressed to Jacques-Antoine Dulaure, editor of the "Annales patriotiques", in which he tells the truth about the death of "Citizen Louis Capet" in order to put a stop to conjecture and false claims about how…
Charles-Henri Sanson kept diaries, though it is not known whether they formed the basis of the volumes published in the 1860s. There are grounds for thinking that these may have been a free interpretation of history in another's hand, and that Sanson's grandson may have
NB! · Archive · Monarchies · Paris · People
From the testimony of the executioner Sanson we know of the dignity with which Louis XVI met his death
From the testimony of the executioner Sanson we know of the dignity with which Louis XVI met his death. His last words are held to have forgiven his murderers and to have prayed for the fate of France
NB! · Archive · Monarchies · Paris · People
This portfolio holds the notes of the Parisian executioner Charles-Henri Sanson on the execution of Louis XVI
This portfolio holds the notes of the Parisian executioner Charles-Henri Sanson on the execution of Louis XVI. Sanson executed the king, the queen, Robespierre and Danton. In all, the executioner's tally stands at some 3,000 lives
NB! · Art · London · Monarchies · People
The Tomb of Henry VII and Elizabeth, Who Was the Daughter, Mother, Sister, Niece and Wife of Kings of England and Is the Ancestor of All English and Scottish Monarchs since the Sixteenth Century
NB! · Aristocracy · Archive · Monarchies
An Entry in the Calendar of Margaret Beaufort, Great-Great-Granddaughter of Edward III, on the Day of the Wedding of Her Son Henry VII and Elizabeth of York
An entry in the calendar of Margaret Beaufort, great-great-granddaughter of Edward III, on the day of the wedding of her son Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. The marriage took place on 18 January 1486 and reconciled the warring dynasties, uniting them
Archaeology · Observations · Science
There are two views on the origin of syphilis: that Columbus's sailors brought it from the New World, and that Europeans had known the disease since ancient times
Each version has its evidence: the first epidemic of syphilis did indeed break out after the American expedition, yet diseases resembling syphilis are described by Cornelius Celsus, Claudius Galen and Avicenna, and besides there have been finds of afflicted Neolithic bones. Be that as it may, similar diseases were treated
NB! · The East · Books · Education
It is held that on 17 January 1492
It is held that on 17 January 1492 the first textbook of modern grammar was presented to Isabella I. Yet the first such textbook, though Arabic rather than Spanish, had been written as early as the 8th century by the Persian Sibawayh
NB! · Museums · Observations · Mores · Humour
I look at this little commode from the Château de Chambord and cannot see how such exhibits square with the myth that at Versailles, for instance, courtiers relieved themselves behind curtains in the corridors
I look at this little commode from the Château de Chambord and cannot see how such exhibits square with the myth that at Versailles, for instance, courtiers relieved themselves behind curtains in the corridors. The eternal story of the lift versus the lavatory
NB! · Faith · Art · Mores · Humour
A Nun of Diminished Social Responsibility Captured in Two Paintings, "Nun on Her Knees", by the Eighteenth-Century Austrian Court Painter Martin van Meytens
NB! · Coming Up · Museums · Observations · Palaeontology
Tomorrow at 11.00 the Ulyanovsk Regional Museum of Local Lore will present a 120-million-year-old ichthyosaur skull with four nostrils
Tomorrow at 11.00 the Ulyanovsk Regional Museum of Local Lore will present a 120-million-year-old ichthyosaur skull with four nostrils. I would happily go myself. Those of you in Ulyanovsk, do not miss your chance
Archive · Monarchies · Mores · Humour
A representative delegation arrived from Russia for the wedding of Princess Victoria and Prince Ernst, headed by the Tsarevich Nicholas, with his uncles Paul, Sergei and Vladimir and their Grand Duchesses, the royal family's confessor Father John and even
A representative delegation arrived from Russia for the wedding of Princess Victoria and Prince Ernst, headed by the Tsarevich Nicholas, with his uncles Paul, Sergei and Vladimir and their Grand Duchesses, the royal family's confessor Father John and even a domestic teacher of Russian. Why all this? Most