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The Forum in Rome, dedicated to Julius Caesar, was completed in 46 B.C. as a site for conducting public business generally related to the Roman Senate. Much later, during the 16th century, the site was still usable—Renaissance-era people used it as a hospital. Doctors of the time knew that diseases could be infectious, so they set up protocols for dealing with them and the clothes and tools used to treat ill patients.Prior research has shown that doctors and medical researchers in Italy played a major role in establishing protocols, such disposal of instruments after a single use, and disposing of...

Despite costing €9 million, the campaign has been slammed by art critics and government officials.For many, Botticelli’s Venus embodies the Renaissance ideal of beauty, but have you ever wondered what that might look like today? Italy’s ministry of tourism has launched a campaign that reimagines the iconic figure as an influencer—and it has been swiftly ridiculed on social media. “Hi there, everybody. My name is Venus,” the ad’s digitally altered protagonist announced on her Instagram. “But that’s something you probably already know. I’m 30, ok maybe just a wee bit more than that… And I am a virtual influencer. What...

Henry VIII, who ruled England from 1509 until his death in 1547, was known for his voracious appetite. Portraits of Henry show a man almost as wide as he was tall. When he wasn't marrying, divorcing, or beheading his wives (he was on his sixth marriage when he died at age 58), this medieval ruler dined like a glutton. He enjoyed banquets so much that he extended the kitchen of Hampton Court Palace to fill 55 rooms. The 200 members of the kitchen staff provided meals of up to 14 courses for the 600 people in the king's court. Here...

Director Holly Teti explores “heterotopia” in an outdoor staging of the Scottish playAudience members lounged on picnic blankets or folding chairs as the action unfolded against the University Chapel, framed by falling flower petals, twisting tree branches and a slow, golden sunset.“Double, double, toil and trouble…” the University’s student-run theatre organization Shakespeare on the Lawn mounted a powerful production of “Macbeth” in Pavilion Garden I this weekend, bringing one of the Bard’s greatest tragedies to Grounds for a three-afternoon run. Audience members lounged on picnic blankets or folding chairs as the action unfolded against the University Chapel, framed by...

Researchers with the Nivaagaard Collection in Denmark have pieced together two parts of portrait of a family painted by the Flemish master Cornelis de Vos in 1626, believed to have been skillfully separated at some point between 1830 and 1859 after sustaining damage. Photo courtesy of Nivaagaard Collection March 11 (UPI) -- A mother has been reunited with her son and husband nearly 200 years after they were separated from each other. Researchers with the Nivaagaard Collection in Denmark have pieced together two parts of portrait of a family painted by the Flemish master Cornelis de Vos in 1626, believed...

arch 3 is World Wildlife Day. It is a United Nations International Day to celebrate wild animals and plants on the planet and the contribution that they've made to our lives and the health of the earth. In northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, thousands of Marco Polo Argali sheep were recently spotted migrating across the Pamir Plateau. The species is second-class national protection status in China, and its gradually growing population hovers around 20,000 in Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County.

A mikveh is a bath used for the purpose of ritual immersion to achieve ritual purity in Judaism. The traditional rules regarding the construction of a mikveh are based on those specified in regulations laid down in the Torah and in classical rabbinical literature.The text describes how a mikveh must be connected to a natural spring or well of naturally occurring water, and thus can be supplied by rivers and lakes which have natural springs as their source. A cistern filled by rainwater is also permitted to act as a mikveh’s water supply, so long as the water is never...

Bubbles Red Arrow Five centuries ago, Leonardo da Vinci observed air bubbles deviating from a straight path in a zigzag or spiral motion. However, the cause of this periodic motion remained unknown until now. Researchers from the universities of Seville and Bristol have solved the mystery surrounding the unsteady path of an air bubble rising in water. Professors Miguel Ángel Herrada of the University of Seville and Jens G. Eggers of the University of Bristol have uncovered a mechanism that explains the erratic movement of bubbles rising in water. The findings, published in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National...

The find was discovered in Warwickshire, England, and was subsequently reported to the local Finds Liaison Officer from the Portable Antiquities Scheme, who in turn notified Historic England.Experts have dated the jewellery to the early 16th century AD, with a most likely date of 1521 during his marriage to Catherine (married 1509 until their annulment in 1533)...The jewellery is made from gold, with a heart-shaped pendant attached to a 75-link gold chain. The front of the pendant has been decorated with a motif depicting a red and white Tudor rose, entwined with a pomegranate bush (the symbols of Henry VIII...

On this date in 1547, the Duke of Norfolk was to have been beheaded. But thanks to the previous day’s death of the corpulent 55-year-old King Henry VIII, the duke’s death warrant was never signed, and the condemned noble died in bed … seven years later. A force in the gore-soaked arena of English politics for two generations, Thomas Howard had steered two nieces into the monarch’s bed. Both girls had gone to the scaffold,* and the disgrace of the second, Catherine Howard, brought a collapse in the whole family’s fortunes. Thomas Howard’s son Henry was not as lucky as...

A painting with mysterious origins is likely a Raphael masterpiece, researchers from the U.K. said after using facial recognition technology and artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze the portrait. The Renaissance-era painting, named the de Brécy Tondo, has been studied extensively for more than 40 years. Researchers from the University of Nottingham and University of Bradford used an artificial intelligence facial recognition system developed by Hassan Ugail, a professor of visual computing at Bradford, to determine its likely creator. Instead of DNA, the system uses DNN – a deep neural network – which identifies patterns in images and videos. The system...

Serious Comedy: The Philosophical and Theological Significance of Tragic and Comic Writing in the Western Tradition, Patrick Downey, Davenant Press, 470 pages. ============================================================= Teaching Dante’s Inferno to high schoolers has its share of amusements. The expected outrage over Dante’s condemnation of sodomy, the bafflement over the sodomites’ proximity to the usurers (“What is that?” and then: “Why is that a sin?”), the shock at the gruesomeness, even in our desensitized age. The very concept of sin and punishment is a novelty to many. One student, after grasping what “lustful” meant, lamented “so many people are going to hell!” The most...

How did people live and die during the harshest months of the year? How did they stay warm? What did they eat? How did they keep themselves entertained in an age before modern day luxuries like electric blankets, double glazing, and Netflix? The onset of the Little Ice Age, between 1300 until about 1870 meant that the long, dark winters of the Late Middle Ages were colder and more dangerous. With starvation and death from illness always threatening to strike, winter was a frightening time. Welcome to Medieval Madness.Surviving Winter in the Middle Ages... | MedievalMadness | 178K subscribers |...

Deep in the forests of central France, an unusual architectural experiment is half-way to completion, as a team of masons replicates in painstaking detail the construction of an entire medieval castle. The ­Chateau de Guedelon was started in 1998, after local landowner Michel Guyot wondered whether it would be possible to build a castle from scratch, using only contemporary tools and materials. Today, the walls are rising gradually from the red Burgundy clay. The great hall is almost finished, with only part of the roof remaining, while the main tower edges past the 15m (50ft) mark. Builders use sandstone quarried...

Deep in secluded woodland, an abandoned quarry reveals a landscape seemingly untouched since the dawn of the last millennium. Out of this wood and stone, using 13th century building techniques, a castle is being created.

For most of human history, the disasters wrought by nature were utterly unpredictable, their causes wholly unknown. They were merely a random act of God that could lay waste to whole cities without warning. On the morning of May 20, 1202, thousands of people across an enormous swath of the Earth experienced such destruction.The Forgotten 1202 earthquakeThe History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered1.13M subscribers | 79,737 views | December 12, 2022

[snip] In 1459, a book was written that contained images so bizarre that even 500 years later their meaning is still shrouded in mystery. It depicts improbable medieval siege engines and machines of war. Figures an extraordinary apparatus and blood-thirsty jewels. Why was this manuscript written, and who could have unlocked its full potential? This book will reveal the secrets of a medieval age far more advanced than future generations could ever imagine. [/snip]The Most Violent Medieval Inventions You Won't Believe Existed Fight Book | Absolute History1.66M subscribers | 1,178,367 views | 50:29 | November 6, 2021

n 1636, according to an 1841 account by Scottish author Charles MacKay, the entirety of Dutch society went crazy over exotic tulips. As Mackay wrote in his wildly popular, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, as prices rose, people got swept up in a speculative fever, spending a year’s salary on rare bulbs in hopes of reselling them for a profit. Mackay dubbed the phenomenon “The Tulipomania.”

New evidence, helping to form a 15th-century reconstruction of part of Westminster Abbey, demonstrates how a section of the building was once the focus for the royal family's devotion to the cult of a disemboweled saint and likely contained gruesome images of his martyrdom...Today, only an intricate frame remains from the lost chapel of St. Erasmus. It was demolished in 1502 and little has been known about its role historically...In the end, Elizabeth's last resting place was next to her beloved husband in Windsor in St. George's Chapel, which Edward IV had begun in 1475. Future monarchs have also been...

It is often said that, given an infinite amount of time, monkeys hitting random keys on a typewriter will eventually type the works of Shakespeare. While it may seem far fetched, an unusual experiment has achieved the fabled task. To illustrate how paralysed people can type using a device called a ‘brain-computer interface’, scientists used monkeys to show how it can be done. Two rhesus macaque monkeys (stock picture) typed a passage from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, as well as portions of the New York Times, at 12 words per minute.