Faith · Observations · Heritage

Relics of Paul of Thebes in a Byzantine kaftan in the Church of Julian of Antinoe in Venice

Would you believe that this is the body of a 113-year-old elder who died 1677 years ago? These youthful-looking remains are the relics of one of the first Christian hermits, Saint Paul of Thebes, who lived in the 3rd and 4th centuries. The most interesting detail, to

Archive · Heritage · Society · People

Marx and Engels archive taken out of Germany in 1933 and bought by Posthumus

The Social Democratic Party of Germany once assembled an impressive archive of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, comprising the extensive correspondence between Marx and Engels, other letters, and their manuscripts and notes. In 1933 the Russian historian Boris Ivanovich Nikolaevsky managed to get the party's archive out of

NB! · Archive · Art · Museums · Heritage · Saint Petersburg

A photograph from the Russian Museum archive: this is how large canvases were prepared for conservation and transport, rolled onto perfectly smooth plywood drums, interleaved with thick paper, with the edges of the canvases stitched together

NB! · Architecture · Art · Books · Heritage

The archivolt of the north portal of Modena Cathedral may contain the earliest depiction of a scene from the life of King Arthur, dating to 1120–1130

Books · Monarchies · Museums · Heritage · Paris

In one of the tales in Alexandre Dumas's "A Thousand and One Ghosts" we meet a certain Monsieur Ledru, keeper of an entire collection of royal relics, which he acquired by attending the despoiling of the burial vaults in the Basilica of Saint-Denis and ta

In one of the tales in Alexandre Dumas's "A Thousand and One Ghosts" we meet a certain Monsieur Ledru, keeper of an entire collection of royal relics, which he acquired by attending the despoiling of the burial vaults in the Basilica of Saint-Denis and taking

NB! · Faith · Heritage

The Foot of Saint Catherine of Siena, Patron Saint of Italy, in the Altar of the Right Aisle of the Basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, One of the Largest Churches in Venice

Architecture · Faith · Observations · Heritage · Paris

Church of Saint-Roch in Paris, linked to Anne of Austria, in poor condition

Found the famous Parisian church of Saint-Roch in a sorry state. A church founded in the sixteenth century and rebuilt in the seventeenth under royal patronage. Anne of Austria herself appeared with the infant Louis XIV at the laying of the foundation stone of the new building. Here, in

Architecture · London · Heritage · Mores

Lenin's London House on Percy Circus and the Fate of Its Memorial Plaque

In 1841-53 London's Percy Circus was laid out on the circus plan: 27 curved houses were built wall to wall around the square. The residential complex was conceived as good property for the lower stratum of the middle class, and local history records show that it housed

Bronze sculpture of a seated Rottweiler on a white pedestal with a plaque reading “To Sultan, beloved dog of Countess Panina”, with trees and water behind.

NB! · Aristocracy · Architecture · Heritage · Nature

Monument to Sultan, Countess Sofia Panina's Rottweiler, in the Marfino Estate Park

Monument to the dog Sultan, one of the first Rottweilers in Russia and the companion of Countess Sofia Vladimirovna Panina, an outstanding woman of her time. The sculpture stands in the park of her country estate of Marfino, near Moscow

NB! · Archive · Architecture · Faith · Heritage

Plan of the 42-Metre Church of the Dormition in Kondopoga, Destroyed by Fire Today

A stone sculpture on a cathedral façade with its face drawn over in blue marker and the word KISS written on its robe.

NB! · Architecture · Faith · Art · Heritage

Vandals defaced a 12th-century sculpture on the façade of the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela

Vandals have defaced a 12th-century sculpture on one of the unique façades of the cathedral of the Galician city of Santiago de Compostela. The church is a local shrine and an architectural monument

Faith · Monarchies · Heritage

The stone erected at the place where the mutilated remains of the imperial family were found bears an Old Testament quotation from the Book of Amos: "I will not spare him, because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime"

The stone erected at the place where the mutilated remains of the imperial family were found bears an Old Testament quotation from the Book of Amos: "I will not spare him, because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime". The reference is to an