On November 5, 1963, an enigmatic stone sculpture dating back almost 2,600 years was discovered in Hirschlanden, now a district of Ditzingen in the German state of Baden-Wurttemberg. It is a statue of a warrior measuring 1.50 meters in height and depicting the figure in an upright position and with clear signs of his high […]
Art
Posted inArt
Singerie, the pictorial genre originated in Middle Ages depicting monkeys imitating human behavior
Reading the title of this article, more than one may wonder what madness this is, but seeing the accompanying images will understand it better… unless you run off in search of a psychiatrist. Jokes aside, since the Modern Age, it became fashionable among painters to create paintings with scenes of everyday life (playing cards, going […]
Posted inArt, Culture
The History of the Prinkipo Orphanage, the Largest Wooden Building in Europe
Büyükada is the largest of the nine Princes’ Islands located in the Sea of Marmara, so close to the city of Istanbul that they are considered its neighborhoods. Its barely 5 square kilometers, where motorized vehicles are prohibited, boast some historical monuments, Byzantine churches and monasteries, along with a mosque, an abandoned amusement park, and […]
Posted inArt, Prehistory
The Bjørnstad Ship, the largest Bronze Age rock carving in Northern Europe
In Sarpsborg, Norway, one of the most impressive prehistoric rock carvings can be found. Known as the Bjørnstad Ship (Bjørnstadskipet) after the farm where it is located, it measures 4 meters long and 1.5 meters high, occupying the main part of a 40-meter-wide rock wall and being the largest Bronze Age rock carving in Northern […]
Posted inAncient Rome, Art
The Extraordinary Tomb of the Haterii, a Roman Family who Adorned it with Reliefs of the Monuments they Built
Located next to the ancient Via Labicana, about 8.4 kilometers southeast of Rome, the Tomb of the Haterii is one of the most beautifully decorated tombs that have survived from the Roman Empire. Built between 100 and 120 AD, it offers a fascinating insight into funerary art and customs of the early imperial period. The […]
Posted inAntiquity, Art
The Warrior of Capestrano: The Strange Iron Age Sculpture Representing the Second King of Rome
In September 1934, a farmer was tending to his fields in the municipality of Capestrano, in the Abruzzo region of Italy, when his tools came across fragments of stone that would soon reveal themselves to be part of a grand sculpture. After notifying the authorities, archaeological excavations began, uncovering one of the masterpieces of pre-Roman […]
Posted inArt, Modern Era
When the Olympic Games included competitions in architecture, painting, sculpture, literature, and music
Jean Jacoby was a Luxembourgish painter; Alex Diggelmann, a Swiss poster artist; the Danish Josef Petersen was a writer; the Hungarian Alfréd Hajós, an architect; the British John Copley, an engraver; the Belgian Josue Dupon, a sculptor, just like the American Walter Winans. Can you imagine what they all had in common, apart from a […]
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Cesare Borgia, Machiavelli’s model for his Renaissance prince and alleged inspiration for Leonardo’s face of Christ
Cesare Borgia, commonly known as the Duke of Valentinois, gained his state through his father’s fortune, and lost it with that same fortune, despite employing every imaginable means and doing everything that a prudent and skillful man should do to establish himself in a state acquired with the help of arms and the support of […]
Posted inAncient Greece, Archaeology, Art
The Colossus of Dionysus and the kouroi of Flerio, Greek statues from the 6th century B.C. that remain unfinished in the quarries of Naxos.
The island of Naxos is the largest of the Cyclades in extension, famous and coveted since ancient times for its wealth and its white marble, with quarries exploited until today (only those of crystalline marble). As it happens in Egyptian quarries, where obelisks remain, or in those of Rapa Nui, with half-finished moai, in those […]
Posted inArt, Middle Ages
The Chartres Cathedral’s great labyrinth
About 80 kilometers southwest of Paris stands the city of Chartres, one of whose main cultural attractions is its Gothic cathedral built between 1194 and 1220. It was built in the same place where other churches and cathedrals had been before, the first one around 360 A.D., all of them destroyed by fires: the first […]