Madrid · Monarchies · Mores · Society
Let me try to recount this absorbing tale in brief. Juan Carlos I, now a king in retirement, abdicated in favour of his son in the summer of 2014. He is now 86, bears the title of Emeritus King and lives in self-imposed exile outside Spain. The final years
NB! · Madrid · Museums · Observations
The Museo del Jamón. The first cultural institution I visited in Madrid
NB! · Faith · Art · Madrid · Museums
Detail of the Annunciation (the Madrid version, the best known), painted by Fra Beato Angelico in 1435. Look at the wing of the Archangel Gabriel and imagine the level of mastery of a Dominican friar of the early fifteenth century
Art · Madrid · Museums · Society
A Spanish citizen has been arrested in Madrid on suspicion of involvement in a deal to sell a fake Leonardo da Vinci. The fraudster planned to sell in Milan a portrait of the Italian military commander and patron of the arts Gian Giacomo Trivulzio for 1.4 million dollars. The
Faith · Art · Madrid · Museums · Rome
To see an El Greco in the flesh is a great stroke of luck. Of the slightly more than a hundred surviving works by El Greco in the world, Russia holds, for example, just five, and Italy eleven, of which Rome has only two, both in the Palazzo Barberini. These
Faith · Art · Madrid · Museums · Observations · Nature
My grandmother loved "Tsitron" sweets, which had a bright lemon flavour and a pretty wrapper with lemons on it. But it never occurred to me that the citron is a fruit in its own right; I took it for just another name for the lemon. It was thanks
NB! · Art · Madrid · Museums
Faith · Art · London · Madrid · Museums
1468. The first known painting by the Spanish artist Bartolomé Bermejo, who was almost forgotten until the early twentieth century and to this day has not received the worldwide fame his talent deserves. Photo from the Bermejo exhibition at the National Gallery in London, 2019
Art · Madrid · Museums
Francisco Goya, 1821-1823
NB! · Archaeology · The East · Madrid · Museums · People
Architecture · Geography · Maps · Madrid
The Arab (Moorish) and the Christian medieval city in Spain. An interesting piece of graphic work: the two cities are at once very alike and rather different. The Arab city strongly resembles Madrid/Majrit, whose plan is shown in the second image, and the reason is plain: Madrid is the
NB! · Architecture · Madrid