Thursday 3 May 2018 at 13:22
Characterised as manipulative, power-hungry, and even an alter rex, Henry VIII's right-hand man Cardinal Thomas Wolsey has been typically depicted with a body mass to rival his political weight. Katherine Harvey asks whether he was really the glutton of popular legend, and what such an image reveals about the link between the body, reputation, and power in Tudor England.
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/2018/05/03/iconology-of-a-cardinal-was-wolsey-really-so-large/
Monday 30 April 2018 at 17:17
First known recording of the popular African American spiritual performed in 1909 for Victor Studios by the Fisk University Jubilee Quartet.
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/first-recording-of-swing-low-sweet-chariot-1909/
Wednesday 25 April 2018 at 16:25
Highlights from the fantastic collection of Hiroshige prints held at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/utagawa-hiroshige-last-great-master-of-ukiyo-e/
Tuesday 24 April 2018 at 15:11
Twenty-two letters written by Andrew Lang (1844–1912) to bards, poets, and novelists from Homer to Rabelais to Austen.
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/letters-to-dead-authors-1886/
Wednesday 18 April 2018 at 18:28
Benjamin Breen on the remarkable story of George Psalmanazar, the mysterious Frenchman who successfully posed as a native of Formosa (now modern Taiwan) and gave birth to a meticulously fabricated culture with bizarre customs, exotic fashions, and its own invented language.
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/2018/04/18/made-in-taiwan-how-a-frenchman-fooled-18th-century-london/
Tuesday 17 April 2018 at 17:37
Holbein's series of action-packed scenes in which Death intrudes on the everyday lives of people from various levels of society — from pope to physician to ploughman.
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/hans-holbeins-dance-of-death-1523-5/
Wednesday 11 April 2018 at 18:47
Curious and groundbreaking mix of documentary and silent horror cinema, written and directed by Benjamin Christensen.
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/haxan-witchcraft-through-the-ages-1922/
Tuesday 10 April 2018 at 18:35
A collection of fifteenth-century erotica from the Middle East, translated with a lengthy opening essay by the anonymous English Bohemian.
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/the-book-of-exposition/
Thursday 5 April 2018 at 18:25
These wonderful photographs, which make such innovative use of multiple exposure, are from a 1913 book by Theodor Bergquist, Director of the Swedish Gymnastic Institute in the Bavarian spa town of Bad Wörishofen.
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/swedish-house-gymnastics-1913/
Wednesday 4 April 2018 at 18:17
When birds of paradise first arrived to Europe, as dried specimens with legs and wings removed, they were seen in almost mythical terms — as angelic beings forever airborne, nourished by dew and the "nectar" of sunlight. Natalie Lawrence looks at how European naturalists of the 16th and 17th centuries attempted to make sense of these entirely novel and exotic creatures from the East.
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/2018/04/04/fallen-angels-birds-of-paradise-in-early-modern-europe/