Faith · Interviews · Observations · People

Pope Francis tells Italian television he hopes hell is empty, calling it a personal view

Pope Francis says he likes to think that hell is empty. Yesterday evening, in an interview with Italian television, Francis said, verbatim: "What I am about to say is not dogma, but something personal: I like to think of hell as empty, and I hope that this is the

Archive · Monarchies · Mores · People

Catherine's letter to Poniatowski on the request of captive Peter a week before his killing

The arrested Peter III asked Catherine for the Negro who used to amuse him, his favourite dog, a violin, a Bible and a few novels. True, Catherine herself tells Poniatowski in a letter that Peter also asked for his mistress, Elizaveta Vorontsova, but she refused to send her, though she

London · Mores · People · Humour

The legend of Thomas Hardy's heart eaten by a cat and its rejection by biographers

The Cat That Won the Poet's Heart. One of the strangest burial stories is attributed to the funeral of the English poet Thomas Hardy in 1928. Hardy lived to the age of 87. His body was cremated, and his ashes were interred in Poets' Corner in Westminster

Aristocracy · Monarchies · Society · People

"The Russian state has this advantage over others, that it is governed directly by God Himself; otherwise it is impossible to understand how it exists"

Count Münnich

Observations · Society · People

Yury Solomin and his successors as Russia's Minister of Culture from 1991

Yury Solomin was Russia's Minister of Culture during the collapse of the USSR, though only very briefly: less than a month at the end of 1991. This was still the Ministry of Culture of the RSFSR. By then Solomin was already artistic director of the Maly Theatre. It

NB! · Art · People

Marcel Duchamp and Max Ernst's Chess Set

NB! · Archive · People · Nature

This is what Hachiko looked like (1923–1935)

NB! · Art · People

Good Morning in the Sun of Belle-Île, 1905, with Jean Puy

NB! · Cinema · People · Pop Culture · Society Pages

A 23-year-old Drew Barrymore in a Dior gown from John Galliano's collection at the premiere party for the 1998 costume romance "Ever After: A Cinderella Story"

Books · Education · People

When asked about her lack of an academic degree, the American writer and historian Barbara Tuchman replied that Herodotus, Thucydides, Gibbon, Macaulay and Parkman had held no doctorates

In her words, the demands of a conventional academic career can dull the imagination, smother enthusiasm and stifle the style of one's prose.

NB! · Faith · Art · People

“The Adoration of the Magi”, by the sixteenth-century Flemish painter Jan Mostaert, who worked at the court of Margaret of Austria in the Southern Netherlands

Monarchies · Observations · People · Humour

Catherine II twice taken out of the palace in the first days after the overthrow of Peter III

I love the French language for its elegance. How do you like this subtle, refined characterisation of Catherine the Great: "usurpatrice"? It is known that in the first days after the overthrow of Peter III, Catherine II slept badly; she was even twice got out of bed and