NB! · Archaeology · Architecture · Heritage

The Roman amphitheatre of the 1st century in Arles survives in fine condition: from the 6th century it served as a fortress with towers and two hundred buildings, but by the 19th century these structures were demolished, restoring the amphitheatre to its

Architecture · Faith · Monarchies · Heritage

The Virgin Mary's Veil at Chartres Cathedral and how the relic reached France

Chartres is the first Gothic cathedral of France, dedicated to the Virgin, where one of the greatest Christian relics is kept: the veil of the Virgin Mary, in which she was clothed when she gave birth to Jesus. The silk camisia has been kept in the city since the 9th

Architecture · Art · Books · Monarchies · Paris

Napoleon's plaster model of a bronze elephant at the Bastille site stood until 1846

Napoleon wished to raise a dazzling monument to his victories: a bronze elephant twenty-four metres high, cast from melted-down cannon, was to adorn the square on the site of the demolished Bastille. The elephant, on a lofty pedestal, stood in the middle of a fountain, and the creature&

NB! · Architecture · Paris · Humour

This is how the elephant was meant to look, according to Jacques Cellerier and Jean Alavoine: with a conservatory in its bottom

Architecture · Books · Paris

Victor Hugo describes the decaying elephant monument at the Place de la Bastille in “Les Misérables”

Foreigners rarely inspected this structure, and passers-by did not look at it at all. The Elephant was crumbling with every year; fallen chunks of plaster left hideous sores on its flanks. The "aediles", as the elegant argot of the salons puts it, had forgotten it since 1814.

NB! · Architecture · Monarchies · Paris

A Monument to Napoleon's Military Genius in the Fountain on the Place de la Bastille

NB! · Archive · Architecture · Faith · Rome

Plan of the Church inside the Colosseum, Carlo Fontana

Architecture · Faith · Heritage · Rome

Bernini's Unbuilt Church for the Colosseum and the Cross of Paolo Posi

One of the creators of Roman Baroque, the great sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), builder of Saint Peter's Square, contemplated the decline of another emblematic monument of Rome: since the fourteenth century the Colosseum had been in a lamentable state, crumbling ever more. Despite its worldwide fame

Marble pulpit with mosaic ornament on columns and lion figures inside a cathedral, with a twisted column and a spiral staircase beside it.

NB! · Architecture · Faith · Heritage

Thirteenth-century pulpit on six lions in the eleventh-century cathedral of Sessa Aurunca, where Pope Leo IX is venerated

A 13th-century ambo on six lions in an 11th-century cathedral. It is curious that in this town, Sessa Aurunca, Pope Leo IX is venerated; it was three months after his death that the Schism of 1054 occurred.

NB! · Architecture · Monarchies · Heritage · Saint Petersburg

Figures from the Millennium of Russia: the first Romanov, Prince Pozharsky Mikhail with his sword drawn in defence of the fatherland amid our soldiers, and Vladimir Sviatoslavich with a cross raised to heaven, lying in the snow

Archive · Architecture · Faith · Heritage

The Church of the Saviour at Nereditsa stood on territory held by our troops, on the line of defence, and for several months the Nazis shelled it from the other bank of the Volkhov, from artillery positions in the Yuriev Monastery

The Church of the Saviour at Nereditsa stood on territory held by our troops, on the line of defence, and for several months the Nazis shelled it from the other bank of the Volkhov, from artillery positions in the Yuriev Monastery. V. F. Antonov, the church's long-standing

NB! · Archive · Architecture · Faith · Heritage