Hominis Aevum

Miniature of a man with a sword, clutching a severed head and standing beside the torso of the man he has decapitated.

Decoration: 22 full page miniatures of alchemical subjects in colours and gold with full borders

Apr 13

The Last Judgment is a triptych created by Hieronymus Bosch. Unlike the alternate triptych with the same name, The Last Judgment, only a fragment of this one exists today. It resides at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich.

After being damaged, this fragment was heavily repainted, then the paint was removed in 1936.

Apr 11

Dagger of the Grand Masters of the Knights of St John, presented in 1565 by King Philip II of Spain to Jean de la Valette.

By the time of Queen Elizabeth I most of the earlier problems of invasion, turmoil, and isolation had been resolved and the country settled down to a more secure and prosperous life.

Wandering vagabonds were seen as a threat and laws were passed to curtail their gypsy life. Minstrels and other traveling entertainers no longer had a place in Tudor society. They were equated with “Rogues, Vagabonds, and Sturdy Beggars”. All were subject to punishment, but performers quickly adapted to this statute and the ever changing needs of developing communities. Instead of performing on street corners and village greens, they began working in new more permanent locations designed specifically for such events.

image: Renaissance Festival 2010, MOSI Science Museum, Tampa, Florida, US. Credit - artisandelimage.

Mar 31

The egg was made for Alexander III of Russia, who presented it to his wife, the Empress Maria Feodorovna. It was the last egg that Alexander presented to Maria.

After its confiscation by the Provisional Government, it was sold by Antikvariat for 1,500 rubles to Armand Hammer.

The figure of Christ, holding the crusader flag, has the typical harmony and softness of Perugino’s mature works, with a detailed chest and a bright drapery with deep pleats.

The sarcophagus has its cover correctly painted according to geometrical perspective. The soldiers are also painted with attentions and details, such as the fanciful crest of the helmet.

Mar 26

A DECADE AGO, the Library of Congress paid $10 million to acquire the only known original copy of a 1507 world map that has been called “the birth certificate of America.” The large map, a masterpiece of woodblock printing, has been a star attraction at the library ever since and the object of revived scholarly fascination about the earliest cartography of the New World.

The research has also rescued from obscurity a little-known Renaissance man, the 16th-century globe maker Johannes Schöner, who was responsible for saving the map for posterity.

Mar 25

Colophon of the publisher Aldus Manutius (Italian, 1450-1515), established the Aldine Press in 1493 in Venice to published numerous Greek and Latin classics, greatly contributing to the spread of the Renaissance.

Jean Nicot (1530— 1600/1604)
French diplomat and scholar who introduced tobacco to the French court in the 16th century, which gave rise to the culture of snuffing and to the plant’s eventual dissemination and popularization throughout Europe.

At first, the plant was called Nicotina. But nicotine later came to refer specifically to the particular chemical in the plant.

Mar 20

Without the potato, there would be no colcannon, no Irish stew, no shepherd’s pie, and certainly no McDonald’s fries to dip in your Shamrock Shake. But the potato is an import - potatoes are actually Peruvian, from thousands of years back, and didn’t make their way to Irish soil until the late 1600s.

Which raises the question: What was Irish food like for the 1500 years between Patrick and potatoes?

The short answer is: milky. Every account of what Irish people ate, from the pre-Christian Celts up through the 16th-century anti-British freedom fighters, revolves around dairy. The island’s green pastures gave rise to a culture that was fiercely proud of its cows (one of the main genres of Ancient Irish epics is entirely about violent cattle rustling), and a cuisine that revolved around banbidh, or “white foods.”

Mar 18

A painting of Queen Elizabeth I that portrays her in all her aging glory has recently been authenticated and is in now on display at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.

This is a 16th century copy of now, unfortunately, lost painting by Hieronymus Bosch.

The inscription at the bottom of the painting reads “This is the dance of Luther with his nun”— a (seemingly disapproving) reference to Martin Luther and Katharina von Bora which could not have been made by Bosch who died a year prior to the publication of the 95 theses.