Faith · Observations · Heritage · Society · Rome

The author on parishioners' inaction during the desecration of a Christian altar in a church

What happened today in St Peter's Basilica in Rome: I think everyone has already heard of the desecration of the altar, and I shall not repeat in what base manner it was done. A terrible abscess of a neglected disease of modern society. If one tries not to

Book page with black capital letters on grey textured paper reading “Traduit de l’américain par Béatrice Vierne”.

NB! · Observations · Humour

French book translated from American by Béatrice Vierne

Translated from the American. Sheer genius

NB! · Observations · Humour

I Want a Photo Like Pope Benedict's

A high-rise tower under construction, with a crane, behind a glass building above city rooftops under a cloudy sky.

NB! · Architecture · Observations

Reflections on the tastes of people who admire modern high-rise architecture

When I see buildings like this, I wonder what guides the people who find them beautiful. Which books have they read, what did they dream of as children, what films do they love?

Architecture · Faith · Observations · Heritage · Society · Humour

Graffiti appears on Canterbury Cathedral walls at the initiative of the Church of England

Graffiti on the walls of Canterbury Cathedral, the chief Anglican church of Great Britain, built in 1070. This is the cathedral founded by Saint Augustine himself, and its walls have been disfigured with hideous tags. And do you know what? The graffiti on the walls of the Cathedral and Metropolitical

Art · Observations · Paris · Society Pages

All week, everyone I know in Paris has been discussing Kirill Serebrennikov's premiere at the Théâtre du Châtelet, where "Hamlet. Ghosts" was presented

All week, everyone I know in Paris has been discussing Kirill Serebrennikov's premiere at the Théâtre du Châtelet, where "Hamlet. Ghosts" was presented, to a text by Serebrennikov about Hamlet in the context of world culture and modern history. The first thing that distinguishes the production

Observations · Heritage · Mores · Rome

Police seal the Antico Caffe Greco in Rome, a café founded in 1760

The oldest café in Rome has closed. The owners of the building have evicted the cosy Antico Caffè Greco, near the Spanish Steps, where Stendhal, Casanova, Andersen and Schopenhauer once sat, and where, among our own compatriots, Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, for one, left his mark. The long stand-off between

Architecture · Observations · Society · Paris

Trump's triumphal arch project in the District of Columbia and the 1901 McMillan Plan

Trump plans a majestic triumphal arch opposite the Lincoln Memorial, and a pedestrian bridge leading to it with statues of American presidents in niches, for the 250th anniversary of American independence, to be celebrated in 2026. The project is grandiose and, naturally, designed to remain a monument to the Trump

Observations · Society · Paris · Humour

France without a prime minister or budget, Macron isolated, Philippe proposes he resign

Heaven talks of nothing but France without a prime minister or a budget. Macron looks isolated, Édouard Philippe proposes that he leave office and call early elections, Alain Minc calls him a dreadful president, while Le Pen, his long-standing opponent, unlike her former comrades-in-arms, does not support

Art · Observations · Humour

Temperaments in the Engravings of Virgil Solis, a German Renaissance Artist

Russian history is entertaining in that it alternates between epochs of sanguine and choleric temperaments. The former build churches, the latter tear them down, and the melancholics afterwards write: “This was inevitable.” The phlegmatics, for their part, rebind the manuscripts and calmly survive the change of dynasties. The temperaments in

NB! · Art · Books · Observations

An outstanding cover, I consider, for the 1981 edition of the Zadonshchina, designed by Ilya Glazunov

Archaeology · Art · Museums · Observations · Paris

I made a point of going up to the famous Seated Scribe to photograph his eyes: lined with kohl, with pale blue, seemingly glass pupils that are in fact made of quartz, magnesite and an alloy of copper and arsenic

The sculpture is believed to have been created between the Fourth (2543-2436 BC) and Fifth (2435-2306 BC) Dynasties, but the name we give the scribe is conventional, merely one of the versions; the owner of the tomb in which the sculpture was found in 1850 has so far