Art · London · Mores · Humour
The Witch-king of Angmar, Lord of the Nazgûl: no mortal man can kill me! (falls upon the dog, jabs the umbrella into its belly) Dandy in a neck corset: oh heck A sketch of the clash of two styles, or fashion as an obstacle to social distancing London, April
Art · Mores · Nature · Humour
During the quarantine nature was so purified that rare and endemic birds returned to the city gardens, and narwhals and mermaids to the canals of Venice. An illustration of 1790 to a charming poem by the French poet Charles Borde on the male member
Moscow · Observations · Mores
Do you know Furmanny Lane in Moscow? The Helmholtz Institute of Eye Diseases stands there. Well, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, furmanshchiki was the name given to catchers of stray dogs. The word most probably derives from fura, a cart or wagon, a furmanshchik being one who
NB! · Observations · Mores
A festive little cake to an ancient Roman recipe, with honey and sourdough, in honour of 33,333 subscribers! Thank you all for the good company and your interest, and my mother for a touching moment) I love you all 🤍
London · Mores · People
A Dapper Dan of his day, this extravagant fellow was the retired sailor Joseph Johnson, known as Black Joe. After he was wounded in the 1810s, he was struck off the books of the merchant navy, but without the right to a pension. In short, the invalid was left without
Archive · Books · Mores · People
"My father was senselessly, grievously miserly; he hid even my childish money, given to me for the holidays. However often I begged him to buy me some ribbon, a trifle, he never once gave way. Later, when the revolution came, they confiscated this money-box along with everything else.
Monarchies · Mores · People
The Prussian King Frederick William I recruited the tallest men to be found into his regiment, known as His Majesty's Regiment. The minimum height of the soldiers in this regiment was 1 metre 88 centimetres, which is why the formation became known as the Potsdam Giants. One of
Observations · Mores · Humour
The drunkard's cloak: a barrel with holes for the head and arms, in which alcoholics were dressed and sent to walk about town, though sometimes the man in the barrel was also tied to a post. Beside the drunkard stands a quarrelsome woman in a scold's
Observations · Mores · Society
Popular graffiti has of course existed in every age, but it has not always taken such hideous forms. https://theparnassian.com/graffiti-ot-vandalov-tsarskoi-rossii/
Science · Mores · Society · People
The famous laughing old lady with a glass: winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Rita Levi-Montalcini, known not only for her scientific achievements but also for her active political stance, her public engagement and her charisma. Rita's father was against higher education for
Architecture · Monarchies · Mores · People
Perhaps the secret of the beauty of Diane de Poitiers, who managed to seduce and win the heart of Henry II, nineteen years her junior, lay in the fact that she washed every day. Moreover, she washed in the river: in one of the arches of the Château de Chenonceau
Observations · Mores · Ethnography · Humour
If, like the rest of us, you believe in everything under the sun, do take note of the instructions of a jocular English superstition on the colour of wedding dresses, which by various threats and manipulations compels the choice of white, and white alone. To marry in yellow is to