I’ve uploaded many Amor and Psyche-related posts to my Tumblr lately. From the cinquecento to about the mid-19th century I have added all the paintings I could find, with a few sculptures, porcelains and other goodies thrown in.
Jean-Étienne Liotard traveled a lot in his life, and it’s not always easy to find out where he was in a given year. I found this tabellaric CV very helpful, it has more details than the other online biographies.
I will no longer post music here on WordPress, I found Tumblr a far better platform for this and have now more than 150 music-related posts there, from Josquin to Hans Zimmer.
I posted and reblogged about twenty William Bouguereau paintings on Tumblr.
This is not my first Blog. I have another, older one: The ISA-Bus. I have never linked to it from here before, since it was for the longest just about computers and video games, and besides, I didn’t update it very much since I started this blog.
Vivat! Crescat! Floreat! is now on Tumblr as well. As befits the medium, I’ll mostly post random stuff there without much comment, but the general theme will be the same as here. Faster, but less thorough.
The Internet Classics Library is a small collection of classic texts in public domain translations, about a floppy full of them: Apuleius, Marc Aurel, Caesar, Lucretius, Tacitus. It was launched by Roger Pearse in 2002.
For the previous post, I sought an online English translation of Boccaccio’s Decameron and found one here. It is the translation of James M. Rigg, first published 1903, rather dated and somewhat difficult to read, but in the public domain.
It is an illusion to think that the Decameron is nothing but a collection of raunchy stories. Many of them are, and these are the ones most popular and best known. But in its entirety, it is a compendium of life, and sometimes a manual of noble deed and noble thought. It ranks with the tales of Homer and the Metamorphoses as a document of European civilization.
Judith Robinson maintains a blog dedicated to depictions of her famous namesake, usually with humorous comments. She writes about it:
that’s what happens when a giggley little girl is bestowed a heavy-weight name like Judith. but it’s time to own my name. to be Shakespearean and wonder “What’s in a name?” to learn about the artwork inspired by the name. to contemplate how a widow in a gleaming gown can decapitate a brute – and not muss her nails. join me in the bumpy ride through history and art and social change, all in the name of Judith.
When I visited it, it already had more than 240 entries. This may be the largest collection of Judith images on the web.
Coats of arms have been used to identify families and sometimes individuals since the Crusades. They follow certain rules and conventions, and can be described precisely in blazons. The Heraldic Primer of the Society for Creative Anachronism gives an introduction to both.
Vivat! Crescat! Floreat! 