May 25th, 2012 at 11:00AM:
Priceless frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Italy, may be damaged by a nearby construction project, experts say.
The frescoes were painted by Giotto di Bondone around 1305 and are considered a high point in medieval art. They depict the life of Jesus and the Last Judgement and were painted for the private chapel of a rich banker. The figures' lifelike style and naturalistic poses ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
medieval posts
Medieval Frescoes By Giotto Threatened By Construction Project
May 25th, 2012 at 11:00AM:
Priceless frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Italy, may be damaged by a nearby construction project, experts say.
The frescoes were painted by Giotto di Bondone around 1305 and are considered a high point in medieval art. They depict the life of Jesus and the Last Judgement and were painted for the private chapel of a rich banker. The figures' lifelike style and naturalistic poses ...St. Brendan: Did An Irish Monk Come To America Before Columbus?
May 16th, 2012 at 10:30AM: Today is St. Brendan's feast day. To the Irish, St. Brendan needs no introduction. For those less fortunate in their birth, let me tell you that he may have been Ireland's first adventure traveler.
Saint Brendan was an Irish holy man who lived from 484 to 577 AD. Little is known about his life, and even his entry in the Catholic Encyclopedia is rather short. What we do know about him mostly ...Torture Museums Look At The Dark Side Of History
May 13th, 2012 at 9:00AM:
Ah, the Good Old Days, when everyone lived in a perpetual Renaissance Festival quaffing ale and shouting "Huzzah!" It must have been wonderful.
Not!
People died young, the cities were filled with rats and open sewers, and God help you if you ever got arrested. You'd be taken to a torture chamber in order to "confess" while being subjected to various imaginative torture devices, like the ...Overlooked London: Saint Bartholomew The Great Church
Apr 25th, 2012 at 9:00AM: London is a city full of historic churches. Some can be a bit hard to find and get missed by the casual visitor. One of these is Saint Bartholomew the Great in West Smithfield.
Built by a courtier of King Henry I, it has been open for worship since 1143 and was the center of a large complex of church buildings before the Dissolution of Henry VIII took away most of its lands and two-thirds of ...Carlisle Castle Celebrates 1000th Birthday
Apr 24th, 2012 at 10:00AM:
One of England's most besieged castles has turned the ripe old age of 1000 this year.
A new exhibition at Carlisle Castle in Carlisle, England, tells its thousand-year history. Well, approximately a thousand years, since nobody actually knows when the first castle was built here. Like with many great English castles, it got its start with a Roman fort. This fell to ruins and was replaced in ...Archaeologists Discover York Minster's Earliest Church
Apr 7th, 2012 at 10:00AM:
Archaeologists digging in the medieval foundations of York Minster in York, England, have found evidence for an early building that may have been the first church on the site.
The team examined a trench from the original medieval construction site of the present building and found the remains of at least thirty people. They also found two large postholes. These are filled holes in the earth ...Modern Thieves Loot Medieval Castle In England
Mar 29th, 2012 at 10:00AM: Last week we reported on how thieves and vandals are destroying Britain's heritage. They've struck again. A group of thieves sneaked into the grounds of Helmsley Castle near Helmsley, Yorkshire, at night and stole the lead gutters from the visitor center.
Metal theft is a growing problem and police estimate the lead is worth about £1,000 ($1,595) as scrap.
While the castle itself ...Peeing drunks ruining historic buildings in Chester, England
Mar 21st, 2012 at 1:00PM:
The Chester Rows, a set of medieval buildings in downtown Chester, England, are under threat from drunks peeing on them.
This unique set of timber buildings are built atop Roman ruins and offer raised, covered walkways with shops behind them. Unfortunately, these hidden spaces are perfect for drunken louts to relieve themselves. Shopkeepers are complaining about the smell and urine seeping ...The Kensington Runestone and other Viking mysteries in America
Mar 16th, 2012 at 10:00AM:
When I was in the fifth grade, my teacher asked me what I thought was an easy question.
"Who discovered America?"
"The Indians!" I replied.
My teacher frowned at me and asked, "No, what EUROPEAN discovered America?"
"Oh, Leif Erikson. He was a Viking."
Obviously annoyed, my teacher told me, "No! COLUMBUS discovered America."
"But the Vikings came here in the year 1000. ...
L'Anse aux Meadows: A Viking colony in Canada
Mar 15th, 2012 at 10:00AM:
The Vikings were some of the best sailors of the Middle Ages. They sailed all over the Mediterranean, far up the rivers of Russia and across the north Atlantic to colonize Iceland and Greenland. For a long time archaeologists wondered if they ever made it to other parts of North America besides Greenland. Although some Viking sagas mention a land called Vinland to the west of Greenland, no ...New stretch of Great Wall of China found using Google Earth
Mar 3rd, 2012 at 1:00PM:
A British researcher scanning through images from Google Earth has discovered a new section of the Great Wall of China.
Surprisingly, this part of the famous wall isn't in China, but rather Mongolia. The Great Wall is actually comprised of several walls built in various centuries by several different rulers starting in the fifth century B.C., or perhaps earlier.
When Great Wall expert ...Genghis Khan exhibit in Chicago the biggest ever
Feb 27th, 2012 at 3:00PM: A new exhibition at the Field Museum in Chicago spotlights the world's greatest conqueror.
Genghis Khan brings together the largest collection of 13th century Mongol artifacts ever. The exhibition traces the career of Genghis Khan from his birth in 1162, to a noble but obscure family, through his conquest of an empire that was larger than the Roman Empire. In fact, it was the largest ever, ...2012 is shaping up to be a big year for Islamic art
Feb 27th, 2012 at 2:00PM: This year, several major exhibitions and new galleries are focusing on Islamic art.
The biggest news comes from Paris, where the Louvre is building a new wing dedicated to Islamic art. This is the biggest expansion to the museum since the famous glass pyramid. The new wing will have room to display more than 2500 artifacts from the Louvre's permanent collection as well as notable loans. It will ...New trail for medieval church paintings in England
Feb 13th, 2012 at 2:00PM: The church of St Mary the Virgin in the little village of Lakenheath, Suffolk, England, contains a treasure trove of medieval church paintings. They were discovered 130 years ago when Victorian workmen were cleaning off centuries of grime and lime wash from the walls.
What they found was a series of detailed paintings of religious subjects painted from c.1220-c.1610. The church was repainted ...Photo of the Day: Sunset over Bruges
Feb 12th, 2012 at 6:00PM:
The Belgian city of Bruges is famous for its stunning medieval architecture - it's a fact made all the more apparent by today's photo, taken by Flickr user clee130. Taken at sunset, the city's gothic cathedral spires (that's the Church of Our Lady on the left, and St. Salvator's Cathedral on the right) and angular roofs are bathed by the warm glow of an ethereal, golden light.
Taken any ...Mistra: a medieval ghost town in southern Greece
Feb 10th, 2012 at 12:00PM: On a steep hill overlooking the Vale of Sparta in southwestern Greece stands the last capital of the Roman Empire.
In 395 AD, beset by enemies, the empire split into western and eastern halves. The Western Roman Empire was soon overwhelmed. The east flourished. Its capital was at Constantinople, modern Istanbul. Known as the Byzantine Empire, it developed a distinctive style of art and ...Sparta: Greece's ancient warrior city
Feb 8th, 2012 at 10:00AM: After having seen Athens and Corinth, I couldn't resist visiting one of the other great city-states of ancient Greece: Sparta.
Sparta needs no introduction. It's a star player on the History and Discovery channels and that schlocky pseudo-historical film 300. While I wanted to see the ancient ruins where brave warriors once strode, my main reason for going was to explore nearby Mistra, a ...The Athens War Museum
Feb 6th, 2012 at 9:00AM:
This is a Heckler & Koch MP5 9mm submachine gun with gold plated parts. It was given by the Defense Minister of Kuwait to former Greek Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou, probably as a thank you for his nation's help in liberating Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm. It's one of a case of Papandreou's personal weapons on display at the Athens War Museum.
Greece has a long and proud ...Athens day trip: Acrocorinth, one of Greece's greatest castles
Feb 1st, 2012 at 12:00PM:
Greece is justly famous for its ancient monuments. The Acropolis, Delphi, and other Classical sites are the reason most history lovers come to this ancient land. The medieval period, however, produced many equally impressive monuments and it's a shame they're so often overlooked. Greece is filled with giant castles, remote monasteries, and lovely churches decorated with gold mosaics and richly ...Greek museums face the economic crisis
Feb 1st, 2012 at 10:00AM: It's not easy being the caretaker of Greece's heritage these days. Greek museums are facing budget cuts, strikes, reduced staff, even loss of visitors due to riots. The National Archaeological Museum had many rooms closed during the peak tourist season last summer due to budget cuts, and strikes are regularly closing all publicly owned museums.
Take the Byzantine and Christian Museum in Athens. ...
