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Category Archives: Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology
catherine parr: avoiding the tower
There is a story about Henry and his last queen, Catherine Parr, told by the martyrologist John Foxe, which is so extraordinary that it hs often been dismissed as malicious legend, if only because it presents the King as ether … Continue reading
snake: getting jealous for eden
In ancient Talmudic legend, the snake was a symbol of evil that walked upright and hd a brain superior to that of all other animals. It was envy of man that caused the snake to plot his downfall in the … Continue reading
king solomon: bible as divining rod
The boundaries of entire lands and the nature of their ancient civilizations can be made clear by following clues in the Bible. It is almost as if one waves a magic wand over a blank area of the earth, and … Continue reading
pool of gibeon: sacred swords
It was the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls which was the most dramatic of many discoveries which threw light on the beginnings of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It is worth emphasizing that in all this work to date of … Continue reading
henry VIII: spare the rod
Ever since Henry VIII’s death, at the age of fifty-seven, people have asked how a once splendid monarch could come to such a pass. Some historians have suggested that during the last years of the reign he was slowly sinking … Continue reading
philistines: bastards in ashdod
The Bible’s final statement about the Philistines is found in Zechariah, the next-to-lat book of the Old testament, and it is a bitter curse: “And a bastard shall dwell in Ashdod, and I will cut off the pride of the … Continue reading
a dying monarch
Death of Henry VIII… Age had dug deep trenches upon a face once as pink and delicate as a young bride’s; the soft beard of red and gold had given way to coarse white; the sturdy muscular belly was now … Continue reading
audubon: legacy
The fame of his paintings has tended to distract us from the volumes of text Audubon compiled to accompany Robert Havell Jr.’s engraved plates. Much of its ornithological data has been superceded by subsequent studies, but the accounts of his … Continue reading
audubon: birds, birds and more birds
A nuber of the paintings carried detailed instructions for Robert Havell Jr.,the English engraver, to guide him and his colorists in the preparation of the copies, notations which were naturally suppressed in the making of the engraved plates. Occasionally the … Continue reading
monumental stairs
The monumental. Rome, the grandest of Italian hill towns, has an abundance of stairs unequaled anywhere in the world. A complicated topography, and a populace with an insatiable appetite for pomp, spurred architects to devise panoramic staircases for social and … Continue reading
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