Faith · Observations · Heritage · Rome
Paid a visit to the Holy Infant in Santa Maria in Aracoeli. Touching pilgrims go on bringing their notes, petitions for wishes granted and for healing, to the copy of the original stolen in 1984, while the genuine Infant, carved from Gethsemane wood, is kept in a secret room in
Museums · Heritage · Science · People
When Galileo's body was exhumed in 1737, 95 years after his death, three fingers, a tooth and one vertebra were removed from the coffin. The vertebra is kept at the University of Padua, where Galileo taught, but the fingers and the tooth vanished for almost a century from
Monarchies · Museums · Heritage · People
A cast of Catherine de' Medici's tomb effigy from Saint-Denis has recently been brought to Blois from the Louvre. The queen was first buried in the Church of Saint-Sauveur within the walls of the Château de Blois, after a ceremonial effigy of her, fitted with
Moscow · Museums · Observations · Heritage · Humour
I hear on the Kultura news that vandals have defiled the façade of the Museum of Contemporary Russian History. I think: well, blimey! I watch the report, and what they show is a tiny bit of graffiti beside a mascaron of a disgruntled lion. Good heavens, what a desecration! The
Archaeology · Museums · Observations · Heritage · Society
Meanwhile, I observe a debate flaring up over the sale of Caligula's ring, to the effect that such objects ought to belong to museums rather than to private persons. I simply cannot see what the quarrel is about, given that the piece at present belongs to a private
Faith · Art · Museums · Heritage · Humour
When You've Already Been Crucified, but Your Supervisor Still Asks About Your VAK Publications. Some good news: a remarkable medieval crucifix of copper alloy, the work of Limoges craftsmen, has returned to York, where it was long kept at St Mary's Abbey, now no more. The
Architecture · Faith · Observations · Heritage
Another Baroque iconostasis, this time a Russian one, of the 1730s-1740s. Though in a very sorry state, even if the Dormition Cathedral of 1508 in Rostov the Great does belong to the Russian Orthodox Church. A church on this spot was already reckoned old in the 1100s, new cathedrals
Art · Moscow · Museums · Observations · Heritage
Speaking of cultural heritage, an appeal to help save the museum of the sculptor Anna Golubkina keeps turning up in my Instagram feed. The most curious thing is that the appeal comes from the Tretyakov Gallery, hardly a destitute institution, which in theory ought to have the money for this
Archaeology · The East · Heritage · Society
Turkish authorities have confirmed that in October they will flood one of humanity's oldest permanent settlements, the city of Hasankeyf on the banks of the Tigris. The city, where Mesopotamian civilisation, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Turks and the Ottomans have all left their mark, still preserves Neolithic
NB! · Architecture · Observations · Heritage · Humour
When next I wax rapturous over the gardens and parks of the Moscow-region country estates, please remind me what the garden and kitchen garden of the Château de Villandry look like, for instance. And do remind me, while you are at it, to light a candle so that Russia
Aristocracy · Heritage · Mores
The working chair of Prince Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov, made by his serfs. Nikolai Borisych loved rarities and everything he had spotted on his many journeys (he visited the courts of numerous monarchs and counted Voltaire and Saint-Germain among his friends), and he would bring these things home and try
Aristocracy · Art · Monarchies · Moscow · Heritage
The most emblematic Chaumet jewel connected with Russia is the sun tiara created for Nicholas II's niece Irina Alexandrovna Romanova, acknowledged as one of the most beautiful princesses in Europe. In 1914 Irina married Felix Yusupov. The tiara was a gift from Princess Zinaida Yusupova, who had assembled