Faith · Art · Books

The Book of Job on the friends' seven days of silence and Job's curse on the day of his birth

And when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came every one from his own place: Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite; for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to

Aristocracy · Archive · Faith · Moscow · Mores

The Military Governor of Moscow, Yury Vladimirovich Dolgorukov, Was a Great Friend of the Eminent Grandee Stepan Stepanovich Apraksin, Formerly Military Governor of Smolensk and Known Above All for His Lavish Receptions at His House on…

According to the account of Elizaveta Petrovna Yankova, Apraksin and Dolgorukov had a rather peculiar agreement: whichever of them died first was to give a sign to the other, who remained among the living, and to appear to him three times before his death, to announce that the hour had

Faith · Art · Observations · Ethnography

Folk sayings for Evdokia's Day and a fresco from St George's Church in Staro Nagoričane

15 March, the day of the Hieromartyr Theodotus, Bishop of Cyrenia, is marked in the folk calendar as Fedot the Wind-Bringer, Fedot the Snow-Drift, Fedot of Spring, Gale-Whirlers. Evdokia never asked Fedot, and got the spring ready anyway. And he: now he tears the roof off the

NB! · Archive · Faith · Monarchies · People · Pop Culture

Princess Diana at the funeral service for the fashion designer Gianni Versace in Milan Cathedral, the Duomo, 22 July 1997

Faith · Art

Saint Francis Preaching to the Birds

Two panels of a Crucifixion triptych, circa 1374

Architecture · Faith · Heritage · Paris

Damaged Notre-Dame limestone to be raffled for France's endangered religious heritage

Notre-Dame de Paris is raffling about fifty stones from its historic façade among those who donate €40 or more to the cathedral's restoration before 4 April 2025. Fragments of limestone that proved too badly damaged for reuse have been cut into pieces weighing from 800 grams, each

Archive · Architecture · Faith · Books · Rome

The Raising of the Obelisk in the Vatican

"On the Vatican Temple and Its Origin", Carlo Fontana

NB! · Archive · Faith · Art

The Holy Trinity from the Fifteenth-Century Book of Hours of the Earl of Ormond

Faith · Art

Angels Help Human Souls Ascend to Paradise

"The Ascent of the Blessed", Hieronymus Bosch, 1505-1515, from the cycle "The Blessed and the Damned"

Archive · Faith · Art · Observations · Humour

Hansken and other known elephants in Europe, and doubts over six elephants in Mantua

A festive float drawn by three pairs of elephants at Mantua, during the celebrations in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1640. Most probably we are looking at a diverting fantasy, for elephants in the Europe of that age could be counted on the fingers of one hand. To

Archive · Architecture · Faith · Paris

Cathedral without its spire, draped in mourning for the funeral of the Duke of Orléans

The oldest photograph of Notre-Dame de Paris is a seven-centimetre daguerreotype of 1842 by Marc-Antoine Gaudin. If you have noticed, the cathedral is captured without its famous spire: it was taken down in the eighteenth century, having grown badly decrepit over six hundred years. The spire was

NB! · Faith · The East · Monarchies · Society · Humour

Something of interest about the Western powers and their tender concern for Eastern Europe and Christian civilisation: in the nineteenth century the Russian Empire could several times have wrested Constantinople from the Ottomans, but France and Great Bri