Archive · Books · Science · Saint Petersburg

On a Saint Petersburg Rooftop During the Solar Eclipse of 1912

On a Saint Petersburg rooftop during the solar eclipse of 1912. Photograph by Vladimir Vasilyevich Lebedev. In his book Sixty Years at the Telescope, the Pulkovo astronomer Gavriil Adrianovich Tikhov describes this eclipse thus: “On the seventeenth of April 1912 a partial solar eclipse was observed at Pulkovo. I prepared

Old photograph of a man in a hat and a small boy asleep side by side on a garden daybed beside a rustic log fence.

NB! · Archive · Books · People

J. R. R. Tolkien with his three-year-old son Christopher in a photograph from 1928

Professor J. R. R. Tolkien and his three-year-old son Christopher, 1928

Archive · Books · Science · Education

"For most people the appearance of books matters more than the beauties of science

"For most people the appearance of books matters more than the beauties of science. Some go so far as to extol and praise the bookbinders more than the authors. They boast that, thanks to their efforts, this craft has attained in the Academy the greatest perfection, while on the

Archive · Books · People · Humour

"Nine-tenths of writers will die off, nobody will remember them, such is their specific (weight)

"Nine-tenths of writers will die off, nobody will remember them, such is their specific (weight). Whereas I shall shine through the ages. You have seen to it that Gorky wants for nothing, and Tolstoy receives 36,000 roubles a month. Why am I not provided for in the

NB! · Archive · Architecture · Faith · Art · Saint Petersburg

Huge cartoons with the composition for the painting of the drum of the main dome of Saint Isaac's Cathedral

Archive · Geography · Maps

The Sea of Okhotsk on a 1715 map and its earlier names from Lama to Penzhinsky

Lamskoe vel Penschinskoe more on the map Generalis Totius Imperii Russorum of 1715: that is to say, here is the Sea of Okhotsk, which has other names too. Namely: Akiyan, Lamskoe, Kamchatskoe, Lalayskoe, Penzhinskoe, or simply Lama, the oldest of those known. Lama was what the local people, the Tungus,

NB! · Archive · Monarchies · Pop Culture

Mood: Elizabeth II through the Lens of François-Marie Banier, 1992

Black and white photograph of a line of schoolboys waiting while a woman in a white coat gives one of them a spoonful from a bottle.

Archive · Observations · Mores · Education

French schoolchildren queuing for fish oil in a 1948 photograph by Robert Doisneau

French schoolchildren waiting for their weekly dose of cod liver oil, 1948. Photo by Robert Doisneau. I honestly don't know whether I have a genuine memory of being given cod liver oil at nursery school too, or whether it is a memory slot imported from my parents'

Archive · Observations · Paris

The Farewell of the French Cuirassiers Leaving Paris in 1914

The end of the age of chivalry

Archive · Art · Moscow · Museums

Jewish Museum opens first monographic exhibition of Lyubov Popova in 35 years

The Jewish Museum, housed in the Constructivist building of the Bakhmetevsky Garage, has opened the first monographic exhibition of Lyubov Popova in 35 years, "Lyuba, Lyubochka. Lyubov Sergeyevna Popova. 1889–1924". The exhibition presents more than 280 works, many of them shown for the first time. It offers

Archive · Faith · Art

The Church as a ship of saints in the Piccolomini Breviary illustration, Lombardy, circa 1475

An allegory of the Church as a ship, which provokes rejection and hostility from the people on the shore. The ship is filled with saints. The mast is the cross of Jesus Christ, crowned with the nest of a pelican feeding its young with its own blood. On the keel

NB! · Archive · Faith · Art · Books