Name: Poblamiento del Continente Americano
ISBN: 978-9929-687-90-5

Sepia photograph of an elderly man in round thin-framed glasses looking downward.

Archive · Faith · Books · Observations · Humour

Excerpt from Joseph Brodsky's notebook dating from 1970

The Last Judgement is the Last Judgement, but a man who has lived his life in Russia ought by rights to be admitted to paradise without further ado. From Joseph Brodsky's notebook, 1970

A wooden writing slope in a museum case, with letters, envelopes, an inkwell, a quill and a penknife.

NB! · Books · Museums · Observations

Charlotte Brontë's writing desk with the quills and penknife she used

Charlotte Brontë's writing desk, with a penknife. For the most part she wrote with genuine quills, although the fountain pen had already been invented and was in active use.

NB! · Books · Observations

A Rat in the Head: American Science-Fiction Writer Rog Phillips Knew It All Back in 1959

NB! · Books

Maria Was an Open Book

Art · Books · Madrid · Museums

The mind is its own place

The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. John Milton Illustration: detail from The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch, 1490-1510, Prado, Madrid

Aristocracy · Art · Cinema · Books · Museums

Pigments, inks and gold of the Book of Hours “Golden Book of the Visconti”

The Book of Hours of Gian Galeazzo Visconti: a Latin book of hours commissioned by the first Duke of Milan of the House of Visconti in the late fourteenth century. The Book of Hours, also known as the "Golden Book of Visconti", is lavishly illustrated in the manner

Art · Books · Madrid · Museums

The philosopher Hippolyte Taine has a recollection connected with his impressions of the canvases of Velázquez in Madrid:

“One of my friends, who had returned from Madrid, told me that beside the great pictures of Velázquez that are to be found there, all the others, the most sincere, the most magnificent, seem dead or academic.” In the photograph: one of the two paintings by Velázquez in France, Saint

Books · Mores · People · Humour

There are plenty of anecdotes about the lazy and eccentric character of Ivan Andreyevich Krylov

In his review of the 3rd edition of the translation of Krylov's fables by the British writer, translator and Slavist William Shedden-Ralston, Turgenev described an amusing episode from the life of Ivan Andreyevich Krylov: A large, heavy picture, hanging directly above the spot where Krylov usually sat,

Books · Science · Nature

John F. Kennedy on Humanity's Origin in the Sea and Salt in the Blood

“I really don't know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it's because the sea changes, and the light changes, and the ships change, it's because we all came from the sea. And it is

Archive · Books · Paris

It Is Easy to Ignore the Rain When You Have a Raincoat

It is easy to ignore the rain when you have a raincoat. Truman Capote Photograph by André Kertész, Place Gambetta, Paris, 1929.

Black and white photograph of an elderly man in a flat cap and coat lighting a cigarette, with a canal lock and bare trees behind him.

Books · People · Humour

French writer Albert Simonin lighting a cigarette beside a canal

The Earth Is Round, but There Are Idiots on Every Corner. The French writer Albert Simonin

Engraving of two tattooed men seated on the ground under a tree, with a hut, palms and mountains behind and a Russian and German caption below.

NB! · Art · Maps · Books · Moscow · Museums

Engravings after Tilesius von Tilenau in the Atlas to Krusenstern's Voyage Around the World, 1813

Engravings after drawings by Wilhelm Gottlieb Tilesius von Tilenau. From the “Atlas for the Voyage Round the World of Captain Krusenstern”, 1813. Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts