By Susanne Houfek – Unless you’re a medievalist you may not know Guillaume de Machaut was an important 14th century French poet and composer. Living from 1300-1377, he was prolific, innovative and influential, creating over 400 poems, 235 ballades, 76 rondeaux, 39 virelais and more, both secular and religious, in […]
By Timothy J. Demy – The legacies of the classical world and late antiquity are many. In the second century CE the early Christian philosopher from Carthage, Tertullian (ca. 160 – ca. 220), asked an oft-repeated (and misunderstood) question “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”De praescritione haereticorum 7). Two disparate cities,”one, a center of […]
By Patrizia Passerini – Sicily is a fascinating and mysterious land, with a history and culture of very ancient origins. Its beauty is sometimes wild, amazing and complex due to the overlapping and mixing of cultures that have alternated over the centuries. Rich in history and art, bright colours and […]
By P. F. Sommerfefdt – Rembrandt’s 1630 painting of the prophet Jeremiah weeping over Jerusalem is an apt image for condensing this historical novel to a singular time and place in history. Historical fiction often falls into one of two pitfalls or both – either too historical and dry in […]
By Patrick Hunt – Annette Giesecke has recently added a wonderful and indispensable book to the corpus of mythology: Classical Mythology A to Z: An Encyclopedia of Gods, Goddesses, Heroes, Heroines, Nymphs, Spirits, Monsters and Places (Black Dog & Leventhal / Hachette Group, 2020). While “beautiful” isn’t the most important […]
Mitylene (Asia Minor) hectae electrum coins, ca. 500 B.C. (image public domain) By John Saul – WHY WAS ONE WORD USED FOR TWO SUBSTANCES? In former times the word electrum designated two substances which to us are very different. One was amber and the other was an alloy of gold […]
By Walter Borden, M.D. The American Founders, including Madison, Jefferson, and Adams in creating our constitution studied the history of republics going back to Carthage, Greece and Rome. Adams in particular cited ancient Greece with long references to Solon, known as “the Law Giver”, one of the Seven Sages, and […]
By Patrizia Passerini – History of Fattoria de Celle Fattoria di Celle is an estate dating back to the 15th century, located in Santomato (near Pistoia) about thirty kilometres from Florence, in the heart of Tuscany. It represents a unique reality, where art, history and nature meet in an amazing venue […]
By Patrick Hunt – Everyone knows Veuve Cliquot Champagne – now in the prestigious LVMH Group – and most know the story of Nicole Barbe Ponsardin, daughter of Baron Nicholas Ponsardin, who founded this grand maison champagne in the 19th century as both a visionary pioneer who helped put champagne […]
P. F. Sommerfeldt – Julius Caesar knew that to destroy the fractured Gauls, his overarching task was to accentuate their tribalism, not their national unity, in order to divide and conquer. History repeats this time and again as Michael Anderson cogently writes on tribalism, the bane of 21st century America. […]