Archaeology · Art · Monarchies · Museums · Mores · Humour

Leather shoes of Henry VIII's era in Holbein's portrait and in museum collections

In Holbein's portrait, Henry VIII is wearing some seriously cool white leather loafers. This type of footwear was popular in Renaissance England, and such slippers became widespread in court circles precisely in the early sixteenth century, though they had to compete with another fashionable model, the heeled shoe.

Museums · Observations · Pop Culture

Trebuchet at Château de Castelnaud and a nearly identical device in China in the 5th century

Remember the trebuchet? A genuine siege engine straight out of Age of Empires, Cossacks and Stronghold: Crusader may be seen, for instance, at the open-air war museum in the French Château de Castelnaud. What I remember the trebuchet for most is its spectacular shot with a dead cow, giving

NB! · Art · Cinema · Monarchies · Museums · Paris · Pop Culture

On 16 October the exhibition "Marie Antoinette, Metamorphosis of an Image" opened in Paris, bringing together hundreds of images of the queen, from the classic portraits of Vigée Le Brun to excerpts from films about Marie Antoinette and the manga "The Ros

Faith · Museums · Observations · Rome

In the cramped corridor of the Church of the Sacred Heart, exhibits testifying to the apparitions of souls in Purgatory are hung right on the walls

In the cramped corridor of the Church of the Sacred Heart, exhibits testifying to the apparitions of souls in Purgatory are hung right on the walls. These are pages from the prayer books of nuns, bearing the fiery fingerprints of their sisters who appeared to those at prayer after death;

Faith · Museums · Observations · Rome

One of the Most Mysterious and Frightening Museums in the World: Rome's Museum of the Souls in Purgatory

This tiny museum holds artefacts that point to the existence of a life after death: the traces of souls that have found their way into Purgatory. In the nineteenth century a chapel for prayers for the dead stood on this spot. After a fire there in 1897, a mark appeared

Framed drawing of a dancer whirling on stage in a full pale orange skirt, with spectators watching from a box on the right.

NB! · Coming Up · Art · Museums · Paris · Humour

Major Toulouse-Lautrec retrospective on view at the Grand Palais

Toulouse-Lautrec asks me to pass it on. Incidentally, there is a large retrospective of his work at the Grand Palais right now

Architecture · Museums · Observations · People · Humour

The legend of a Kremlin messenger at Pasternak's dacha in Peredelkino

Pasternak's house in Peredelkino, of course, comes wreathed in an entire body of legend. As a child I was very fond of this dacha and gave little thought to how real many of the stories told about it might be. Who could think of criticism when people such

Museums · Heritage · Science · People

The fate of Galileo's fingers, tooth and vertebra removed at the 1737 exhumation

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

Louvre cast of Catherine de Medici's tomb brought to Blois, where she was first buried

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

Graffiti on the Museum of Contemporary Russian History facade and damage of 126,000 roubles

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

Debate over the sale of Caligula's ring and private ownership of artefacts

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

A turquoise dress with gold lace on a mannequin, beside a film still of a woman in the same dress and a gold headband.

NB! · Cinema · Museums · Observations · Pop Culture

Exhibition in Boston marking the release of the film “Downton Abbey” closes

The bombshell exhibition marking the release of the Downton Abbey feature film closes tomorrow. All that remains is to bite one's elbows for having failed to get there. But what is one to do? The exhibition was in Boston, after all! 😣