In the U.S. it is beginning to feel for many that we are on the last lap of the COVID-19 pandemic — and for those of us lucky enough to have had the vaccine, gratitude is a common emotion. In the 17th century, several European countries endured a horrific bout of plague, caused by that […]
Vienna, Austria’s “Pestaule Column” Read More »
“The Veiled Christ” is famed among art historians, and with good reason. Crafted in 1752 by the artist Giuseppe Sanmartino, the sculpture seems to defy the medium it was made of, with the fabric of the shroud covering Christ’s body appearing translucent and thin — you can see nail holes in his hands, the contours
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The sculpture you see here shows two decidedly feminine figures, standing shoulder-to-shoulder as they face the sea, their hair whipping in the breeze. It is an utterly modern imagining of two real-life woman pirates from the early 1700’s, and says even more about 2020, when this artwork was unveiled, than it does about the actual
Female Pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read Read More »
Princeton University is one of the world’s greatest — wandering around this campus, I felt humbled thinking about the intellectual giants that made this place their home over the last century: Toni Morrison, Albert Einstein, Woodrow Wilson . . . The list is long.Princeton began in 1746 as the College of New Jersey and didn’t
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I have another person to add to my list of imaginary attendees in my hypothetical dinner party. Might I introduce to you one Margaret Lucas Cavendish (d.1673)?.Margaret’s life shows just how much human potential has been wasted by limiting women’s access to education. She gleaned hers through conversations of the men around her — her
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Today’s post is about a single flower, a kind that no longer exists. But at one point, the “Semper Augustus” tulip swayed stock markets, comprised the fortunes of rich men, and exemplified the highest expression of commodified beauty.From 1600 to about 1720, the Dutch Republic commanded the highest per capita income in the world, garnered
“Semper Augustus” Tulip Read More »
Two fancy skeletons are my features today: one an homage, the other the actual man (as far as believers thought). Here I bring you the decorated corpse of Saint Maximus, brought to the village of Bürglen, Germany, in 1682. Turns out that in the Catholic Counter-Reformation, bedazzling the bones of the saints was all the
Saint Maximus’s Decorated Skeleton Read More »
Those of us who love travelling to new places enjoy the sensation of adventure and the way it makes us open to learning new things, but few of us today risk our lives for such experiences. However, Maria Sibylla Merian was different. In 1699, this affluent 52-year old divorced mother of two left her affluent
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This statue of Spanish scientist and theologian Michael Servetus was only erected in Geneva in 2011, which I suppose is better late than never. And the reason we can be judgy here is because it was the Genevan government that had Servetus burned at the stake for religious heresy — and that had happened about
Michael Servetus, Scientist Killed by Religious Zealots Read More »
This is the frontispiece of John Milton’s (of _Paradise Lost_ fame) _Areopagitica_, a treatise promoting free speech by arguing against licensing, aka mandating that publications must have official government/religious approval. Published in 1644, Milton’s world was not one that guaranteed the right to free expression. Instead, both in England and in the nascent colonies, there
_Areopagitica_, Milton, and Free Speach Read More »
This Ancient scientist was championed by intellectuals across time, and by the 1600s was known in Europe as one of the most important alchemists of Ancient history: Cleopatra “Chrysopoeia” the Alchemist (aka not the Pharaoh). Thought to have been active in the third century BCE, Cleopatra was praised in the early 1600s as being one
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This is King Charles II of England and Scotland (d. 1685), dressed in very fancy clothes which made him look very civilized and not at all the sort of person who would consume crushed human skull as part of his medical regimen. But there you are, because, as it turns out, 17th-century English folks did
“The King’s Drops” of King Charles II Read More »
By the end of this post, you are likely to know more than you ever thought you would about an extremely coveted medical treatment popularized in Early Modern Europe: Human Skull Moss, aka “usnea”.It was made up of exactly what it sounds like — you can see an example here from the Berlin Botanical Museum.
Human Skull Moss – “Usnea” Read More »
We’ve all heard about the toxic use of lead in cosmetics in history: it whitened the skin, which aristocrats from Ancient Roman times well into the 1800s thought was a good look. Of course, it also poisoned the users. The Early Modern employment of “Venetian Ceruse” was particularly popular, and was a combination of lead,
Venetian Ceruse in European Aristocratic Life Read More »
This isn’t my first history post dealing with farting, and it probably won’t be my last, but it’s going to be a good one. Ripe for the times, one might say . . . .The famed satirical writer Jonathan Swift (d 1745), most known today for his essay “A Modest Proposal”, also penned an essay
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We who have been raised in a culture with microscopes and electronic microscopes take for granted the existence of a universe of minutiae that shape our surroundings (SARS-COV2, to pick an example we are all exhausted about). Before Antony van Leeuwenhoek developed his microscope around 1668, however, this was impossible.And so it was that a
William Ramesey’s Illustrations of Parasites Read More »
This fascinating weapon is a parrying dagger from Italy dating to 1600. Today it is in Britain’s Wallace Collection, a museum with an extensive armor and sword collection, but back in the day it would have been used by a duelist who fought with a rapier in the other hand.This dagger is unusual for several
Parrying Dagger from Italy Read More »
“They will see that there is in it nothing more than Natural, and nomore than the necessary result of the Motions of the Sun and Moon.” — so wrote astronomer Edmond Halley about the solar eclipse that he predicted for 1715. For millennia, eclipses – especially solar eclipses — had been considered frightening events that
Pictured here is a circular plaque, commemorating the location of Fort Duquesne in 1774. Today not even ruins remain, but the location is memorable, lying at the tip of a spit of land called “the Point,” right at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers in downtown Pittsburgh. As can be surmised from
History geek that I am, I unsurprisingly find athletic activities with antique lineages highly compelling. But getting a handle on what many early sports were like is difficult because evidence is lacking, and this is certainly the case with capoeira. The painting you see here is “Capoeira or the Dance of War,” by Johann
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