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NB! · Aristocracy · Archive · Observations · Mores
For some time I have been gathering material on twins among the aristocracy and the royal houses
For some time I have been gathering material on twins among the aristocracy and the royal houses. One of the most remarkable and touching stories is, perhaps, that of the Faucher brothers, who lived in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.
Archive · Faith · Society · People · Rome
In 1938 Pope Pius XI, known for having refused to excommunicate Hitler, delivered a speech in defence of the Jews to a group of Belgian pilgrims:
"We know well from the Catholic Mass that Abraham is our patriarch and forefather. Antisemitism is incompatible with the lofty ideals of Christianity. It is a movement in which we Christians can have no part whatever. No, no, I tell you that it is impossible and impermissible for a
Archive · London · Observations · Mores · Nature
Byron's 1813 visit to Chunee the elephant and the animal's killing in 1826
On 14 November 1813 Byron paid a visit to Chunee, London's celebrated elephant. The seven-tonne giant was the star of the menagerie at Exeter Change. The elephant would take off visitors' hats, accept a coin and hand it back, and open doors. Byron was delighted by
Archive · Cinema · Observations · Science
The Italian method of nose reconstruction shown in the series “Knick” with Clive Owen
Remember the note on two ways of growing a nose? Someone has written to tell me that the Italian method was shown in the fullest detail in the series The Knick with Clive Owen. I have not heard of that episode myself, but we can watch a little of it
Archive · Books · Moscow · Mores
"All four of us sisters wore mourning for two years
"All four of us sisters wore mourning for two years. Nowadays the proprieties are observed poorly, but in my time everything was done strictly, and according to the proverb, 'count your kinship and render it its honour', kinship was reckoned most exactly, and when a relation died,
Archive · Monarchies · Observations · Society · Paris · People
The French intellectual of the late nineteenth century Henri Vaugeois, known as one of the founders of the monarchist organisation Action Française, was an advocate, as he put it himself, of an “anti-Semitic, anti-Masonic, anti-parliamentary and anti-demo
The French intellectual of the late nineteenth century Henri Vaugeois, known as one of the founders of the monarchist organisation Action Française, was an advocate, as he put it himself, of an “anti-Semitic, anti-Masonic, anti-parliamentary and anti-democratic” nationalism. In short, the full set of an obscurantist
NB! · Archive · Science
The Indian method and Tagliacozzi's method of nose reconstruction, plate of 1848
Two methods of restoring a lost nose, 1848. The left-hand method was called the Indian; the right was devised by the Italian surgeon Gaspare Tagliacozzi in the 16th century. The patient was obliged to go about for two weeks with an arm strapped to his head
Archive · Observations · Mores · Education · Saint Petersburg
Anna Tyutcheva criticises the moral education at Smolny, where her sisters studied
Fyodor Tyutchev's eldest daughter thought Smolny an unsuitable place for her sisters: "I was struck by the shortcomings of the upbringing given to children in this institution. The education received there was altogether very weak, but the moral upbringing was especially badly arranged." Anna Fyodorovna herself
NB! · Archive · Mores · Ethnography
Masquerade costumes of spring, the sun and a witch in a fashion plate of 1880
1880. Costumes of spring, the little sun and the witch. The sun has a golden fringe over the groin area, the witch a skirt of snakes and bats. Accordingly, the little girl in flowers is spring.
NB! · Archive · Faith · Art · Monarchies
A Hairy Knight from a Fourteenth-Century Bible Made for Wenceslaus, King of Germany and Bohemia
A hairy knight from a fourteenth-century Bible made for Wenceslaus, King of Germany and Bohemia. In his hands the knight holds a gules shield with a silver lion, the ancient coat of arms of Bohemia
Archive · London · Observations · Mores · Humour
An 1860 Ladies' Guide to Beauty offered Englishwomen a curious recipe for reducing the size of the bust
An 1860 Ladies' Guide to Beauty offered Englishwomen a curious recipe for reducing the size of the bust. Ladies who were not troubled by any general plumpness of constitution, yet suffered from an excessive development of the bosom, might resolve the difficulty by means of a surgical operation. The