Art · Mores · Ethnography

Protective caps on children in old paintings shielded heads from falls

Have you noticed the strange caps on children in old paintings? They are not strange caps at all, but protective contrivances meant to keep a child from cracking its head in a fall. The cap was stuffed with swan's down and wool, and most often fastened with ties.

NB! · Aristocracy · Mores · People · Humour

The mother of the composer Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka, Yevgenia Andreyevna Glinka-Zemelka, married her second cousin Ivan Nikolayevich Glinka and became a Glinka, but without the Zemelka

Black-and-white portrait of an elderly man in a cap with a very long beard, in which a small black kitten sits.

NB! · Archive · Mores · People · Humour

Frenchman Louis Coulon, with a beard 3.5 metres long, posed for postcards

The Frenchman Louis Coulon and his beard of three and a half metres, in which a cat could be hidden. And, very likely, a cow. The old gentleman grew his beard and made his living by being photographed for comic postcards

NB! · Monarchies · Mores · Ethnography

Russians dearly loved their long beards and moustaches, which Tsar Peter I took from them

Russians dearly loved their long beards and moustaches, which Tsar Peter I took from them. But people prized these marks of respectability so highly that they carefully kept their shorn beards in order to be buried with them, imagining how dreadful they would look in the coffin with a bare

Archive · Moscow · Mores

“…And in this present year of 746, in Cheese Week, on the Monday, he, Gavrila, went to the Foreign Quarter, to the market called Ladoga, and at that market he, Gavrila, fell in with the runaway soldiers Ivan, surnamed Stromynsky, and Savely… and the said

“…And in this present year of 746, in Cheese Week, on the Monday, he, Gavrila, went to the Foreign Quarter, to the market called Ladoga, and at that market he, Gavrila, fell in with the runaway soldiers Ivan, surnamed Stromynsky, and Savely… and the said Ivan and Savely invited him,

Books · Mores

Origin of the word ciao from Latin sclavus via a Venetian courtesy formula

"In Tuscany someone has begun to use the formula 'I am your slave'," wrote the Italian philologist Niccolò Tommaseo in the first half of the nineteenth century, while working on his Italian dictionary. The universally known Italian greeting "ciao" derives from the Latin word

Faith · Art · Moscow · Mores

The opera "Stiffelio" never became widely known

The opera "Stiffelio" never became widely known. On its appearance in 1850 it was mangled by the censors and consigned to oblivion. The story of a married Protestant pastor capable of forgiving his wife her infidelity provoked a stormy and hostile reaction in Catholic Italy. Years later Verdi

Aristocracy · Archive · Mores

Russian roots of the Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn princes and their living descendants

Princess Yvonne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn, aged 13, and her brother Prince Alexander zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn, aged 12, on holiday in Majorca in 1955. Yvonne sips Dry Sack sherry, Alexander finishes off a cigarette. The photograph is by the models' mother, Princess Marianne, who worked as a professional

Faith · Mores · Rome · Ethnography

The name of February from the Etruscan god Februus and the Roman Lupercalia

In most European languages, February is named after the Roman tradition. In Rome the month was called februarius mensis, after the Etruscan god of the underworld Februus, who was associated with rites of purification (februa, februare, februum), as was the month named in his honour. In mid-February the Romans

Architecture · Art · Mores · Paris

France's first glass house, built for Jean Dalsace between 1928 and 1932

Maison de Verre, the House of Glass: Pierre Chareau's ambitious and avant-garde project in Paris, at 31 Rue Saint-Guillaume. The house was built between 1928 and 1932 for Dr Jean Dalsace, a physician and well-known Communist, and a close friend of the designer Pierre Chareau,

NB! · Archive · Art · Mores

Terrifying Physiognomic Pictures