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

Geography · Art · Books · Museums · Nature

Andrey Bely’s poem “On the Mountains” about a hunchback and pineapples on a cliff

Mountains in bridal wreaths. I am in raptures and young. On my mountain-tops there is a purifying cold. Here, up to my crag, a white-haired hunchback has dragged himself. He has brought me as a gift pineapples from the subterranean hothouses. He danced in crimson-bright, glorifying the

Aristocracy · Books · London · Society · Humour

"Do you consider the House of Lords a more perfect institution than the House of Commons?" "Naturally"

"Do you consider the House of Lords a more perfect institution than the House of Commons?" "Naturally. In the House of Lords we are never brought into contact with public opinion. That is what makes us a civilised institution." Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance,

Archive · Geography · Books · Mores

Stolnik Pyotr Tolstoy describes Venetian gondolas, how they were built and hired

Gondoliers in Venice are an exclusively male profession, but if this engraving of 1610 is to be believed, women were also admitted to the traditional gondola race. A Russian traveller of that time, the stolnik Pyotr Tolstoy, describes what he saw in Venice as follows: In Venice there are hackney

Art · Books · Observations · Rome

In Concord Small States Grow, in Discord the Greatest Fall to Nothing

Sometimes this thought of the ancient Roman historian Gaius Sallust (Concordia parvae res crescunt, discordia maximae dilabuntur) is rendered more literally: as harmony makes small things grow, so discord brings the great to ruin. Illustration: Pieter Birmann, Roman ruins of the Arch of Titus, 1781–90

NB! · Architecture · Books · London

The Legendary Reading Room of the British Library

NB! · Archive · Faith · Art · Books

The Penitent Harlot Thaïs Burns Her Worldly Goods under the Guidance of Her Spiritual Mentor Paphnutius

The penitent harlot Thaïs burns her worldly goods under the guidance of her spiritual mentor Paphnutius. An illustration from the enigmatic manuscript of the "Smithfield Decretals", a compilation of legal texts commissioned by Pope Gregory IX and dated to the thirteenth century, southern France

Archive · Books · Monarchies · Society

It is very difficult to write about Russia, because at a certain time individual recollections were concealed; through a whimsical policy, the old rulers of that country forbade their subjects to write so much as the slightest word about their native land

In 1689 a Russian nobleman printed the journal of Golitsyn's Crimean campaign: the publication was burned in public, although it contained nothing against the government or the Grand Duke. This custom still held in the time of Peter the Great, and it is hardly surprising that he himself

NB! · Archive · The East · Art · Books · Mores

Life in the Muscovite State in the Sixteenth Century in Engravings from Adam Olearius's "Description of a Journey to Muscovy, to Persia and Back", 1696 Edition

NB! · Archive · Books · Mores · Ethnography

Street Theatre in the Sixteenth-Century Tsardom of Muscovy, as Adam Olearius Saw It

Archive · Books · Moscow · Science · Mores

Dutch barber Quirin suspected of sorcery because of a skeleton on his wall

Adam Olearius, in his "Detailed Description of the Journey of the Holstein Embassy to Muscovy and Persia in 1633, 1636 and 1639", relates the following incident:. "...a barber named Quirinus, a Dutchman and a man of merry disposition, being in the service of the Grand Duke, kept

Faith · Books · Observations

When your time comes to die, as soon as your soul has left the sublunary world and the light of the Sun, go to the right along the sacred meadows and groves of Phersephoneia, taking careful heed of temptations

You will come to the well-built temple of Hades. On the right (on the left) is a spring flowing from the lake of oblivion, Lethe; white waters gush forth there, and beside it stands a white cypress. Do not go near that spring, not even close. Here the descending

Faith · Art · Books

The structure of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise in Dante and the placement of souls by circle

Some Sample Schemes of the Layout of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise according to the Text of Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy" Hell: 9 circles. Purgatory: 6 circles and 3 circles of Ante-Purgatory. Paradise: 9 levels. In Hell there is pitch darkness, in Limbo, half-light. In