Archive · Faith · Books · Nature

Ivan Bunin's 1918 poem on field paths and the Lord's question to the prodigal son

And flowers, and bumblebees, and grass, and ears of corn, And azure sky, and noonday heat… The hour will come, and the Lord will ask the prodigal son: “Were you happy in your life on earth?” And I shall forget everything, remembering only these Field paths between the ears of

Aristocracy · Archive · Monarchies · Heritage

The Legendary "Florentine Diamond" and Fifteen Other Habsburg Jewels Thought Lost Were Kept in a Bank Vault in Canada

As it turns out, during the Second World War Empress Zita, widow of the last Austrian emperor, Charles I, took the family jewels out to Quebec, where she found refuge with her children. Only two members of the family knew where the treasures were, and the secret was to be

Painted portrait of a young man with dark hair and sideburns, wearing a dark coat, yellow waistcoat and white jabot, in a gilt frame.

Archive · Books · Humour

Letter from Prince Pyotr Vyazemsky to Alexander Pushkin

The arse, too, is a certain representative of human nature, but it would be absurd for a painter to depict it as a typical attribute of man. Prince Pyotr Andreyevich Vyazemsky in a letter to Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin

NB! · Archive · Mores · Paris

A Child Walks a Little Dog in Montmartre in 1904

NB! · Archive · Mores · Humour

Lapus and Zaya

Lapus and Zaya. So your cloying pet names for one another are officially classic, and have been since 1924. LAPUS AND ZAYA!

Newspaper advertisement with an illustration of a man in a frock coat aiming an electrical device at a bare-chested strongman with crossed arms.

NB! · Archive · Science · Mores · Humour

Early 20th-century advertisement for the Yuvenator electrotherapy apparatus

A memo from an early twentieth-century advertisement for electrotherapy: despair and dejection will do you no good, but electricity will. And, you know, they did not lie

Archive · Monarchies · Society · Saint Petersburg

The Manifesto of 17 October 1905 and Nikolay Shebuyev's satirical journal “Pulemet”

On this day 120 years ago, 17 (30) October 1905, Emperor Nicholas II issued the Supreme Manifesto granting legislative power to the State Duma and establishing the political rights and freedoms of citizens. It proclaimed, in particular: To grant the population the unshakeable foundations of civil liberty, based on the

Archive · Art · Books

Good night!

“Paradiso”, Canto XXVII of the “Divine Comedy”: The Sphere of the Fixed Stars. Edition of c. 1564. Collection of Cornell University Library.

Archive · Art · Museums · Heritage · Paris

The “Mona Lisa” Returns to the Louvre Two Years After the Theft, 1914

The painting was stolen on 21 August 1911 by an Italian, Vincenzo Peruggia, an employee of the Louvre. On 12 December 1913 it was found in Florence

Archive · Books · Nature · Ethnography

A 17th-century English bestiary describes the Florida beast Succarath and how it was caught

In Florida, which is part of the West Indies, there dwells a beast that cannot be passed over in silence on account of its strangeness and ugliness. The natives call it Succarath, and the cannibals Su. It lives chiefly by rivers and along the seashore, and feeds on its prey.

Archive · Books · London · People · Humour

First poem by Agatha Christie, published when she was 14, found in the London newspaper Ealing and Hanwell Post of 8 July 1905

The poem, “Steam versus Electricity”, long remained unknown because Christie, in her memoirs, made a slip and stated that she had been 11 when she wrote it, rather than 14. The poem is devoted to the breakdown of electric trains. In jocular form it describes how a steam locomotive comes

Archive · Art · Museums

Head of the Apollo Belvedere

Pen and ink, c. 1532–1536. Berlin Kupferstichkabinett