Speculum Artis

This must surely be the oldest mosaic ever found

I love that there are so many historians here it's not just "Specializes in Victorian England" but like "Specializes in 1850 Victorian England in the fall and how manufacturing affected buttons on women's dresses but only the third one down from the top because the fourth is a WHOLE other thing."

Francesco Raibolini, called "il Francia" St John the Baptist by Palácio Nacional de Sintra (Portugal). A bearded St. John stands in a landscape holding a lamb, wearing what looks like a pretty little négligé but probably isn't :-(

tfw when John the Baptist gets dressed up all special for you

The used books market keeps giving great gratification.
A few marks on the covers but inside are as good as new (as usual)

Photoshop ad for a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie based on Stephen King from the showman Jack Nicholson and Shelly Duvall star He's obsessed with work. She's longing for love. And this winter, they're snowed in together... Jack Nicholson Shelley Duvall Brightly SHINING A Hallmark Channel Original Movie Saturday December 9 8/7c Hallmark CHANNEL

All work and no play…

@speculumartis.bsky.social

I wonder if they too were appointed Secretary of Education by the emperor.

Does anyone know if there is a starter pack for art history about Renaissance/Mannerism/Baroque?

Tintoretto and St. Mark, a long story of love and sake "A servant of some provincial nobleman, bound by a vow, wishing to visit the body of St. Mark but, unable to obtain permission, finally put the fear of his heavenly master above that of his carnal mas...

The final title is "Tintoretto and St. Mark, a matter of love and business" and I dont't know why it appears with the temporary one. Anyway...

www.speculumartis.net/en/2024/11/1...

THE PORTRAIT OF FREEDOM One of the most memorable portraits in art history, that of Juan de Pareja painted by Velazquez, is an image of a slave about to be freed. De Pareja was indeed born in slavery and in this condition wa...

www.speculumartis.net/en/2024/11/1...

All my articles have an original Italian version. The language is selectable from the menu

The Tempest, or The mistery that (maybe) wasn’t there We all know it: the famous Tempest painted by Giorgione in the early sixteenth century, a canvas whose success, at least in our time, is partly due to the search for arcane symbolism, sometimes quite ...

www.speculumartis.net/en/2020/06/0...

BLESSED (BUT NOT TOO MUCH) This time I do not want to talk about a work, at least not directly, but about the story behind it.It was January 28, 1671 when Clement X, who had been elected to the papal throne a year before, with ...

www.speculumartis.net/en/2024/01/2...

Rembrandt and doctor tulp It must have been very cold that January 31 1632 in Amsterdam when Adrian Adrianeszoon, known in the slums as "Het Kindt", was hanged for yet another robbery attempt. Adrian Adrianeszoon had behind hi...

www.speculumartis.net/en/2020/09/2...

THE VAULT OF THE SISTINE CHAPEL: EVOLUTION OF AN IDEA When, in the mid-'70s of the fifteenth century, Sixtus IV decided to rebuild the Cappella Magna, the palatine chapel of the Apostolic Palace, he still did not know exactly what it would look like, let...

www.speculumartis.net/en/2020/06/0...

THE IDEAL CITY OF THE RENAISSANCE “Ho trovato una città di mattoni, ve la restituisco di marmo”Ottaviano Augusto in Svetonio, Vite dei Cesari, Aug., XXVIII, 3 “Quante Città vedevamo noi mentre eravamo fanciulli fatte tutte di asse, le...

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CARAVAGGIO IN GENOA. HYPOTHESIS FOR AN INSPIRATION On the evening of July 29 1605 the young notary Mariano Pasqualone, a native of Accumoli, shows up with a head wound at the offices of the criminal court in Rome to file a complaint.  What he tells is...

www.speculumartis.net/en/2020/09/2...

“Qui alium sequitur nihil invenit” (THE early FRANCESCO BORROMINI) "...a monstrous heap of human bones and coffins broken into fragments lays collected in the middle of the subterraneous area, previously to being removed from the spot". Thus in 1842 Sir George Head d...

www.speculumartis.net/en/2020/11/3...

A BRIEF JOURNEY IN THE MANNERIST SYMBOLISM It is often said, and rightly so, that many Mannerist works are imbued with symbols that are not always easy to recognize and interpret. Let's go and see one of them, and in order not to bother the ov...

www.speculumartis.net/en/2021/09/1...

“STRAINING NATURE” PONTORMO AND THE LOST FRESCOES AT S. LORENZO If you head east from the center of Empoli in the direction of Florence and after the bridge turn left, within a few hundred meters you will find yourself at number 97/99. It is a building that can be...

www.speculumartis.net/en/2021/12/1...

A PIECE OF ITALY IN WESTMINSTER In the heart of London, behind the menacing headquarters of MI5, there is Thorney Street. Looking for a guy with that name would be useless because Thorney was the name of the now forgotten island tha...

www.speculumartis.net/en/2021/04/0...

“THAT ONLY HIMSELF AND NOTHING ELSE RESEMBLES” VICINO ORSINI AND THE SACRED WOOD OF BOMARZO In the context of late Renaissance gardens of the mid-sixteenth century, the Sacred Wood of Bomarzo occupies a position that is both eccentric and exemplary. The apparent contradiction is nourished by...

www.speculumartis.net/en/2021/09/1...