Pennsylvania is known for its atypical religious history, but when you start to investigate, you begin to realize just how unusual this history is. For instance, there is a legacy of German Christian mysticism extending back to hermits who lived in the 1600s. In central Pennsylvania, this expression was dramatically marked by the foundation of […]
German Christian Mysticism – The Ephrata Cloister Read More »
My most favorite ghost stories these days come from historian Robin Fleming’s new book, _The Material Fall of Roman Britain_. Nothing captures the immediacy of the disappeared Empire in the hinterlands of Rome’s remote northwest like it. Practically none of the evidence from this time comes from written documents, so Fleming utilizes archaeology to tell
The Complexity of the “Venus Mosaic” Read More »
Where I live in south-central Pennsylvania, farmers and outdoor enthusiasts are well aware of new invasive species posing a threat to our forests and crops, like the Emerald ash borer and the Spotted lanternfly. It is easy to be lured into a myopic idea that the migration of fauna and flora mostly affects humans today
Ancient Roman Farming and Invasive Species Read More »
How you carry and cook your food and water has been the most important question of the day for most humans since Neolithic times. (A quick backpacking trip can serve to remind oneself of this truth.) So when containers change, it means your life does too, and this was certainly the case for the British
Changing Pottery of Ancient Britain Read More »
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 »
Renaissance Italy’s wealthiest groups competed for power in many ways, amongst them through women’s jewelry. It was a complex Game-of-Thrones-esque time, when many different ambitions came into play — the moralizing Franciscans who preached against conspicuous displays of wealth, the male merchants who often vied with the nobles for political control, and the elite women
Renaissance Italy’s Competition of Power Through Jewelry Read More »
You probably recognize the bird in this 13th-century Medieval illumination as the legendary Phoenix, who lived for 500 years and then cast itself into flames in order to be reborn. Medieval people had never seen such beasts, of course, but loved to imagine that fantastical creatures lived far away in exotic lands — and the
Medieval Phoenix and Prester John Read More »
Lots of animals love to play — many of us mammals will forgo food and sleep just to take part in exploratory fun. Humans have excelled at a specific type of play that comes in the form of games.Games are more formal than most types of play. They involve rules and have uncertain outcomes .
Ancient Chinese Board Game “Go” Read More »
Most of us cherish the beauty of wilderness, and I venture that a lot of our feelings come from our knowledge that humans have put the environment in great danger — therefore, any non-human engineered landscapes we now consider especially precious.But people have not always looked at the non-human world in the same way: although
The Beauty of Ancient Roman Wilderness 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
Maria Sibylla Merian Read More »
King Arthur never actually lived, but stories about him were extremely popular in Medieval Europe. One of the most well known today is _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_. The poem survives in only one manuscript that dates to the late 14th century. The language is Middle English, but belongs to a conservative rural dialect
“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” Read More »
This painted screen by American artist Thomas Wilmer Dewing is representative of the Aesthetic movent in art that emerged out of the mid-19th century. Posing itself in opposition to repressive and overbearing strains of the Victorian culture of the age, Aesthetics valued sensuous and beautiful artwork. Conservative Victorians turned their noses up at Aestheticism, but
Dewing’s “Morning Glories” Read More »
This sweet painting by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller from 1854 is called _Grandmother with Three Grandchildren_. In it , three cheery young girls surround a seated older woman, eyes gazing on some scrap of paper she is holding. All four females are comfortable with each other, and wear relaxed and happy expressions. The image of
The Grandmother Thesis Read More »
This is the title page for one of the most fascinating and popular books of the Italian Renaissance – _De rerum natura_, or, _On the Nature of Things_, by the Ancient Roman Lucretius. The expense of the artwork and skill of the miniaturist – the copier was an Augustinian friar for Pope Sixtus IV dating
“On the Nature of Things” Read More »
Here you see a picture of Achilles making sacrifices to Zeus. It is a unique image, coming from a 5th-century CE manuscript thought to be the only one from Antiquity illustrating Homer’s epic poem _The Illiad_. The scarcity of such depictions belies the importance of Homer on Ancient Roman culture, because all educated people would
Homer and Christianity Read More »
Today’s post is about paint colors — with the growth of modern chemistry (particularly Germany in the 1800s and beyond), making artificial pigments of various hues has been relatively easy. But it was not always so. Purple of course was the most famously sought-after hue, but I am featuring two others here: ultramarine (as used
The Complexity of Paint Colors Through History Read More »
On August 19, 2021, American artist Chuck Close passed away from cardiopulmonary failure. His works appear in museums around the world and are easily recognizable as oversized portraits that take up entire walls. Early in his career he focused on super-realistic faces that cannot be distinguished from photographs even from close up, like the first
American Artist Chuck Close Read More »
The Ancient Romans had a litany of holidays for all sorts of occasions. Every August 23 were the Vulcanalia, festivities honoring the Roman deity Vulcan, featured here in this palm-sized bronze relief from the 2nd or 3rd century CE.Worship of Vulcan shows the way that Romans often bifurcated their attitudes towards their deities. Vulcan was
Ancient Roman Vulcanalia Festivities Read More »
Time is relative: Einstein taught us that. What scientists measure with careful instruments and observation we know intuitively — our brains carefully examine novel experiences and gloss over the ordinary, so that even our own sense of what takes longer or shorter is subjective.Ainissa Ramirez posits that the malleable nature of time can also appear
Nature of Time in Musical Culture Read More »
This is a post about two Irish songs that deal with memory. 1994 was the release date of The Cranberries’ “Zombie” and Sinead O’Connor’s “Famine,” and both emerged out of The Troubles, a period of about thirty years (late 1960s to 1998), when tension in Northern Ireland between forces that favored independence and those who
Irish Songs of Memory and Activism Read More »
