May 23rd is World Turtle Day! This tortoise painting was an interesting find in the British portraiture rooms at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Even the signage acknowledges how unusual it is!
January 14th is Feast of the Ass day! Yes, that’s a real thing — it originated as a niche Christian medieval feast day celebrated primarily in France as part of the Feast of Fools. I suppose that feast’s name should’ve prepared me for my encounter with this donkey dish at…
To mark the quincentenary of the birth of the famed Italian natural historian Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522–1605), the Edward Worth Library and the Zoologial Museum of Trinity College Dublin have co-curated a web exhibition called “Reading the Book of Nature,” which juxtaposes images from the Worth Library’s set of Aldrovandi’s natural…
I really need to find out what manuscript this is from LOL…
It’s #WorldLionDay! So, which medieval lion are you today? (I think I’m #8) Ok, but which medieval embroidered lion are you today? (#8 for me again) As noted on the lion’s page on the Medieval Bestiary website, the lion was the king of the beasts and thus was usually the…
A swan fiercely defends its nest against a dog. In later centuries this scuffle was interpreted as a political allegory: the white swan was thought to symbolize the Dutch statesman Johan de Witt (assassinated in 1672) protecting the country from its enemies. This was the meaning attached to the painting…
