At first light, the project of classifying the clouds might seem a bit uninspired, if useful. Not so for Luke Howard (1772–1864), industrial chemist by trade and amateur meteorologist by…

Illustrations of Abū Zayd and his adventures in double meaning. Source link

Still lifes by the artist who seemed to bridge expressionism with the baroque. Source link

As Carlo Menicatti rightly observes, Panciatichi never visited the East nor even Spain or Portugal, which are home to Europe’s Moorish substrate. His travels centred largely around France, Belgium, Germany,…

In 1899, Charles Godfrey Leland published Aradia, “the gospel of the witches”, containing a goddess-orientated creation and saviour narrative, purported to descend from an ancient, hermetic tradition of witchcraft in…

Each January 1st is Public Domain Day, when a new crop of works have their copyrights expire and become free to share and reuse for any purpose. Here's our highlights…

The memoirs of an aristocratic man revolutionised into an anarchist communist. Source link

Wragge’s lecture style was grandiose, a rhetorical squall, a twister that gathered ideas from every discipline his mind roamed over. An observer of a 1902 lecture by Wragge described the…

In 1594, the engraver Jacques de Fornazeris created a striking flight of nine bird portraits. The series marries technical flair with theatrical charm: the specimens are rendered in rich detail and…