Surprised by Time

Rossini's opera, The Siege of Corinth -- L'assedio di Corinto , is not an experience to be undertaken lightly, say, the way one woul...

They sang sometimes with half-closed eyes as we were passing the abandoned island to the west with the prickly pear, past the cape of t...

There are a lot of studioli in paintings of St. Jerome because he was a scholar and scholars need privacy to work. The studioli are small w...

 In 1540, the Minio brothers--Alvise, Almoro, and Francesco-found themselves in severe fina ncial trouble. After several years during whic...

In the summer of 1485, diplomat Giovanni Dario and the Ottoman court had to attend the hunting camp of the Sultan, Beyazid II. The weather w...

I n 1361, the most important woman in the Mediterranean was Fiorenza Sanudo--widow, mother to young Niccolò , heiress to the Duchy of the Ar...

John VIII Palaiologos was a man in frequent crippling pain. He was an oldest son who constantly tried to do the right thing which was neve...

The First Death happened in 1347. The Second Death in 1362. The Third Death in 1373. The Fourth Death in 1381.  The Fifth Death...

These are Theodoros and Andronikos Palaiologos, about six and four, possibly a little older. They are portrayed with their parents, M anuel ...

Antonio Marinato of Padua saunters out of formal Venetian records on 1 March 1480 with holes in his boots and a hole in his stomach, ...