NB! · Faith · Art · Observations · Humour

Lucas Cranach shrewdly observed that one small bite of the forbidden fruit was quite enough for Adam and Eve

Fresco detail: a grey-bearded old man in a pink cloak looks over his shoulder, with other figures in yellow and blue robes beside him.

NB! · Art · People · Rome

Daniele da Volterra portrayed his friend Michelangelo as an apostle in a fresco in Rome

Portrait of Michelangelo in the guise of one of Christ's apostles. Michelangelo sat for the portrait for his friend Daniele da Volterra, who later transferred it to a fresco in Rome

NB! · Architecture · Observations

The Fountains of Peterhof in Winter

Cobbled courtyard and a facade of glass blocks set in a black metal frame. A white van is at left, steps of the neighbouring house at right, and a low hedge stands before the entrance.

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Facade of Pierre Chareau’s Maison de Verre in a Paris courtyard

NB! · Geography · Maps · Rome

The Limits of the World Known to Rome by the Year 150

NB! · Archive · Ethnography

Cossack Women, the City of Yekaterinodar, the Kuban, 1900s

Aerial view of a grass-covered hillfort with several rings of earth ramparts surrounded by fields.

NB! · Archaeology · Architecture · Heritage

Maiden Castle in Dorchester, the largest Iron Age fortification in Europe

Maiden Castle in Dorchester, England, is the largest Iron Age fortification in Europe. The castle was built in the 600s BC and is, in principle, still fit for its original purpose: one need only add a palisade and a few simple buildings, and voilà, ready for defence!

NB! · Archaeology · The East · Art

Wrestlers on Greek coins of the 5th–4th centuries BC from Aspendos, an ancient Greco-Roman city in Antalya Province

End wall of a high-rise residential block painted with warped balconies that create the illusion of a bending façade, seen against the evening sky.

NB! · Architecture · Art

Street art by Shozy on the firewall of a residential tower block in Zheleznodorozhny

This house has gone mad. A superb piece of street art on the blind end wall of a multi-storey block of flats in the town of Zheleznodorozhny, by the artist Shozy.

A tablet on a pale wall shows an abstract composition: a yellow blob, a blue wavy line, thin lines and dots on a light blue background. Black headphones hang below.

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Screen with abstract animation and headphones on an exhibition wall

Photo of a screen: a view down a narrow staircase with wrought-iron railings, a brick wall, bundled newspapers and crates at the bottom. Colors are distorted.

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Staircase with railings and bundled newspapers on a TV screen

NB! · Art · Museums · Paris