QE1 Portrait Discovered...

Via the Telegraph:

A lost portrait of a young Elizabeth I that was discovered in the attic of a country house has intrigued historians after X-rays revealed that it was painted over an earlier picture of the monarch.
The painting, which had lain unnoticed in the dirty loft for more than a century, depicts the Queen as a pale, pious and austere young woman, and is one of the few pictures to show the 16th century royal in the early years of her reign.
Elizabeth, who is dressed in simple black clothes and clutches a Bible, was believed to have been around 26 when the portrait was painted.
But X-ray scans of the canvas have uncovered an earlier portrait of the monarch, in which she was drawn without the Bible and with a more ostentatious ruff.
"The assumption is that the artist – and we do not know who he is - did an intitial portrait, and either he or the Queen did not like it," said Philip Mould, the London art dealer who owns the work.

Marcus Aurelius Statue in Asia Minor

Via the Telegraph:

The 15-foot statue was originally located in the frigidarium, the coldest and largest room in the Roman baths at Sagalassos, where two other statues have already been found.
Archaeologists now believe the frigidarium contained a gallery of large imperial statues running around its long walls, offering a treasure trove of antique images.
Marcus Aurelius, who was portrayed by Richard Harris in the 2000 film Gladiator, ruled from 161AD to 180AD and won fame for his standing as a Stoic philosopher, as well as for his wise governance of the empire.
Sagalassos, high in the western Toros mountains in the south of the country, was destroyed by an earthquake between 540AD and 620AD, bringing down the baths and filling the cross-shaped frigidarium with rubble.
The large fragments of the statue began to be uncovered on 20 August, when a pair of giant marble legs, broken above the knee and clad in army boots of lion skin, tendrils and Amazon shields, emerged from the debris.
A delicately carved three-foot head, with bulging eyes and ruffled beard, was uncovered next, followed by a five-foot-long right arm bearing a globe.

Meanwhile, in Rome, Fr Philip is settling in and waiting for his medication (!) to arrive from the States:

I noted my disappointment to the current vicar of the house, and he said in a bored tone, "Oh, well, the postman said we had too much mail stacked up, so he will deliver it a little each day." I was just a little stunned at this. . .yes, I'm slowly learning that efficiency and customer service in Italy are not high priorities. I said, "I wonder if the post office could give our postman a larger truck." The vicar, a veteran of Italian living, replied, "No need. He will bring a piece or two at a time." I wondered aloud if I could go to the post office and claim my mail. This caused some gnarled faces at the table. I could almost see their brains trying to wrap themselves around the idea of direct action. The conclusion: "No. Where would you go? They would not give it to you."

Happy birthday...

... Rome.

Founded on the 21st of April, 753 BC.

Applause in the Alexandrian Church

It was a longstanding custom for the congregation to applaud in church, or to shout out signs of their disapproval, when bishops preached to them. There are several indications in the fifth century patristic homilies of the bishops strugling for control over their audience. In the Alexandrian cathedral one of Cyril's avid followers, the lay professor Hierax, had the function of leading the applause during Cyril's sermons. Hierax was a well-known figure, a prominent Christian and a highly visible member of Cyril's entourage. - pp 10-11, St Cyril of Alexandria and the Christological Controversy, John Mc Guckin

Random Theology Stuff...

Firstly, my weird theologian trivia quiz is still ongoing. All but one of the questions have been answered:


2. Which Father of the Church suffered from haemorrhoids?

St Augustine - Correct answer from Lauren, with Quantitative Metathesis providing the reference in his epistles.

As for my spirit, I am well, through the Lord's good pleasure, and the strength which He condescends to impart; but as for my body, I am confined to bed. I can neither walk, nor stand, nor sit, because of the pain and swelling of a boil or tumour. But even in such a case, since this is the will of the Lord, what else can I say than that I am well?

Thank you QM! I'd remembered reading it in a biography of Augustine, but didn't fancy trying to track down exactly where.

3. Which figure in the Early Church was prevented from handing himself over for martyrdom by his mother? How did she stop him?

This was Origen and the correct answer came from Gengulphus

In 202, Origen's father was killed in the outbreak of the persecution during the reign of Septimius Severus. Origen wished to follow in martyrdom, but was prevented only by his mother hiding his clothes.

4. Which medieval spiritual writer was prominent in the court of the Scottish King before becoming a monk?

Aelred of Rieveaulx - well done to Bill7tx.

5. Which Doctor of the Church craved fish on his deathbed?

St Thomas Aquinas - answered correctly by StMichael.

This means that there's one outstanding question, and I'm not at all surprised that it's taking a long time to answer.

1. Which famous theologian introduced Henri de Lubac to shark-fin soup in a Parisian Chinese restaurant?
We've had plenty of sensible, but incorrect, guesses so far: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Jean Danielou, Hugo Rahner, Karl Rahner, Yves Congar, and Angelo Cardinal Scola. Also mentioned were Avery Cardinal Dulles and Karol Józef Wojtyla. None of these are correct.

Yesterday I added a clue - the theologian in question was neither French nor German.
I'll post another clue before the end of the week if no one gets the correct answer.

Finally, is it my imagination, or does Church history just become exceedingly weird when the Monophysite controversy broke out. Take this (not-quite) random paragraph from Chadwick's The Church in Ancient Society:

Timothy Salofakiolos (Wobblecap) against Peter Mongos (Stammerer)
In 477 Timothy the Weasel died peacefully in Alexandria; a decision to exile him again, already taken at court, arrived just after his death. News of his impending demise may have reached the capital since control by the government ensured that a Monophysite successor, Peter Mongos, could be consecrated only in secret at midnight and then by a solitary bishop (Theodore of Antinoe) before Timothy Salofakiolos returned from his refuge making baskets in the Pachomian monastery at Canopus. The dead hand of Timothy the Weasel was laid on Peter Mongos' head - by old Alexandrian custom, otherwise attested, and older than the Nicen canon requiring three bishops for a canonical consecration.

Almost like something you'd read ever at the Shrine of the Holy Whapping.
Edited to add: One wonders whether future Church historians will be using the nicknames of Revs John 'Zed' Zuhlsdorf and Hermeneuity Finigan when speaking of the Westminster Succession of 2009.

Ironic Monument Placement...

This plaque is in the Sacristy of St Peter's Basilica.
Due to his interference in Church affairs, Emperor Joseph II was known as the Sacristan-Emperor or the Sacristan of Europe (depending on what language you speak).

On veils and things
Out of curiosity, if any of my readers has an American (Novus Ordo) breviary to hand, I wouldn't mind finding out how the responsorial after the reading from the Book of Exodus in the Office of Readings is translated. The British/Irish/American goes as follows:

Moses put a veil over his face, so that the people of Israel would not see its brightness; all of us, however, reflect the glory of the Lord with uncovered faces; and that same glory, coming from the Lord who is the Spirit, transforms us into his very likeness, in an ever greater degree of glory.
To this very day their minds are covered with the same veil; all of us, however, reflect the glory of the Lord with uncovered faces; and that same glory, coming from the Lord who is the Spirit, transforms us into his very likeness, in an ever greater degree of glory.

Given the recent fuss over certain liturgical prayers, I'm curious as to whether the American translation is significantly different.

For the sake of my blood pressure, please... no discussions in the comment boxes about Judaism, the Pope, changes to the Missal, etc... I'd just like to see the American translation, and I'm too busy to moderate a debate on any touchy issues.

Decisive Self-Induced Austrian Defeat

Via Wikipedia a random tale of military disaster:

The Battle of Karánsebes was an early episode Austro-Turkish War of 1787-1791. Different portions of an Austrian army which was scouting for forces of the Ottoman Empire fired on each other by mistake, in a self-inflicted disaster. The battle took place on the evening of 17 September 1788.
The army of Austria, approximately 100,000 strong, was setting up camp around the town of Karánsebes (now Caransebeş, in modern Romania). The army's vanguard, a contingent of hussars, crossed the Timiş River nearby to scout for the presence of the Ottoman Turks. There was no sign of the Ottoman army, but the hussars did run into a group of Gypsies, who offered to sell schnapps to the war-weary soldiers. The cavalrymen bought the schnapps and started to drink.
Soon afterwards, some infantry crossed the river. When they saw the party going on, the infantry demanded alcohol for themselves. The hussars refused to give them any of the schnapps, and while still drunk, they set up makeshift fortifications around the barrels. A heated argument ensued, and one soldier fired a shot.
Immediately, the hussars and infantry engaged in combat with one another. During the conflict, some infantry began shouting "Turcii! Turcii!" (Romanian for "The Turks! The Turks!"). The hussars fled the scene, thinking that the Ottoman army’s attack was imminent. Most of the infantry also ran away; the army comprised Italians from Lombardy, Slavs from the Balkans, and Austrians, plus other minorities, many of whom could not understand each other. While it is not clear which one of these groups did so, they gave the false warning without telling the others, who promptly fled. The situation was made worse when officers, in an attempt to restore order, shouted "Halt! Halt!" which was misheard by soldiers with no knowledge of German as "Allah! Allah!".
As the cavalry ran through the camps, a corps commander reasoned that it was a cavalry charge by the Ottoman army, and ordered artillery fire. Meanwhile, the entire camp awoke to the sound of battle and, rather than waiting to see what the situation was, everyone fled. The troops fired at every shadow, thinking the Ottomans were everywhere; in reality they were shooting fellow Austrian soldiers. The incident escalated to the point where the whole army retreated from the imaginary enemy, and Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II was pushed off his horse into a small creek.
Two days later, the Ottoman army arrived. They discovered no fewer than 10,000 killed and wounded soldiers.

Do not disturb...

As today is the Station at S.Maria Maggiore, I thought I'd share with you one of my favourite little-known Roman funerary monuments. The above simple monument is that of the family of Bartolomeo Sacchi, also known as Platina, the humanist, Papal historian and Vatican librarian. It's tucked away in a little alcove to the left of the high altar.
The interesting bit is the second Latin inscription:

Quisquis es, si pius, Platynam et suos ne vexes, anguste jacent, et soli volunt esse.

which roughly translates as Whoever you might be, if you are an upright man you will not disturb Platina and his family who lie tightly-packed and wish to remain alone.
Click on the photo for an enlargement. I'd be fascinated to learn what the Greek text underneath says.

Philosopher Murdered!

Via the Telegraph:

After 500 years, one of Renaissance Italy's most enduring murder mysteries has been solved by forensic scientists.
Ever since Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, a mystical and mercurial philosopher at the court of Lorenzo de' Medici, suddenly became sick and died in 1494, it has been rumoured that foul play was involved.
He gained notoriety when, at the age of 23, he offered to defend 900 of his opinions on philosophy and religion against all-comers.
His subsequent tract, The Oration on the Dignity of Man, has been called the "manifesto of the Renaissance".
However, he died aged 31 - two years after Lorenzo - together with a man who might have been his lover, Antonio Ambrosini, who was also known as Poliziano.
Last July, a team of scientists from the universities of Bologna, Pisa and Lecce exhumed the two corpses and subjected them to a battery of tests.
The scientists used biomolecular technology and scanning equipment as well as DNA analysis to find a cause.
Yesterday they concluded that both men had been poisoned with arsenic, after finding a toxic quantity in their bones.

There's a surprising footnote:

However, Pico's close friendship with Girolamo Savonarola, the fanatical Dominican friar, appears to have earned him the enmity of Lorenzo's son, Piero de' Medici.

The Truth about Shergar?

In the Telegraph there is this interesting, but gruesome article claiming to reveal the truth about the kidnapped racehhorse Shergar. For those of you who've never heard of this mystery, here's a brief explanation:

Shergar (born 1978. Sire: Great Nephew, Dam: Sharmeen) was an acclaimed racehorse, and winner of the 1981 Epsom Derby by a record 10 lengths, the longest winning margin in the race's 226-year history. This victory earned him a spot in The Observer newspaper's 100 Most Memorable Sporting Moments of the Twentieth Century. A bay colt with a distinctive white blaze, Shergar was named European Horse of the Year in 1981 and was retired from racing that September.

Two years later, on February 8, 1983, he was kidnapped by masked gunmen from the Ballymany Stud, near The Curragh in County Kildare, Ireland. The generally accepted account is that Shergar was abducted by an IRA unit who killed him a few days later when negotiations for a £2 million ransom had stalled and the horse was becoming uncontrollable. His remains have never been found. The incident has been the inspiration for several books, documentaries, and a movie.

Incompetence in the Russian Navy - 1904

This article caught my eye:

Zinovy “Mad Dog” Rozhestvensky was charged with taking 46 warships of the Russian Baltic Fleet 18,000 miles round the world to relieve Port Arthur, in Manchuria, from Japanese forces. This operation got off to an inauspicious start when one of the warships opened fire on an approaching steamer carrying a message from the Tsar promoting Rozhestvensky to the post of vice-admiral.
Within days, the manoeuvres had almost succeeded in unintentionally triggering war with Britain. Passing through Dogger Bank, the Russian fleet sighted some small craft on the horizon. The logical and correct explanation was that they were Hull fishing boats. However, the Russian sailors decided they must be Japanese torpedo boats (off Grimsby) and started shelling them. One trawler was sunk and four others damaged. Only the bewildering inaccuracy of Russian marksmanship (the Orel fired 500 shells and missed with every one of them) prevented serious slaughter.
In Britain, there were calls for vengeance. The Royal Navy was put on alert and a cruiser squadron dispatched to “escort” the Russian fleet as far as the Bay of Biscay.
After the Russian fleet docked at Tangier to resupply, its departure was marred when an anchor ripped-up the telegraph cable connecting North Africa to Europe. Several days of intercontinental radio silence ensued. Off Madagascar, illness and disease took its toll. A live shell was fired to mark one sailor's funeral but was not aimed away from the fleet and scored a direct hit on the battlecruiser Aurora.
Clearly in need of gunnery practice, a line of stationary targets was attached to a support vessel. The shelling missed the targets but hit the vessel. The torpedo practice was no less farcical. One torpedo started whizzing round and round in circles, forcing the fleet to disperse in fright.
Amazingly, the arrival proved worse than the journey: at the Strait of Tsushima, the Russian fleet was pulverised by the Japanese, and Rozhestvensky taken prisoner. But as far as preventing international incidents are concerned, it is perhaps right to be more fearful of the underpractised navy than the one that goes in for expensive war games.

Roman Gardens

Mary Beard pays tribute to a deceased colleague:

I had missed the sad fact that Wilhelmina Jashemski died just before Christmas, aged 97. Hardly a household name, she had been Professor at the University of Maryland for almost 40 years, retiring in the 1980s. It was, however, thanks to her that we have a reasonably good idea what the average Roman garden once looked like. I never met her .. and our only contact was when she asked me to write an article on ancient cucumber frames (sic -- which I regretfully declined). But I find that I’ve been using her more and more while I’ve been writing about Pompeii.
Jashemski’s triumph was to see that you could do a proper archaeology of Roman gardens. That meant not just picking up all those microscopic traces of seeds and pollen that earlier archaeologists simply didn’t spot. Jashesmski did for plant roots what Giuseppe Fiorelli did for dead bodies.
That is to say, where Fiorelli in the late nineteenth century saw that you could pour Plaster of Paris into the cavities left in the lava by decaying corpses and reveal the shapes of the bodies, Jashemski saw that you could do the same with the roots of plants … and so see what big trees/shrubs had been growing.
[snip]
The other one that I’ve found really interesting is in the “House of Julius Polybius”, just a few doors away from "Chaste Lovers". The space is roughly the same, and it’s also in an open court in the centre of the house. Bt this time Jashemski’s work revealed a quite different plan. This plot was not an ornamental garden at all. It was packed full of fruit trees and probably a couple of olives, and against the boundary wall more trees were espaliered.
The guess is that these might have been something exotic, like lemons. The evidence? Well around the roots, there were still fragments of the terracotta pots in which these trees had been planted out – and that’s the kind of process that Pliny recommends for more delicate plants.
It was in other words a working garden, not an elegant place for a promenade at all. Further proof of this was found in the print of a ladder some 8 metres tall found on the surface of the soil. It tapered towards the top, and Jashemski’s workmen instantly recognised it as the kind of ladder they used for picking fruit.

Christian Epigraphy

Many early Christian inscriptions are quite crude. This burial inscription from the Basilica of St Agnes outside the Walls (click on the photo to enlarge) is typical. What's interesting is the spelling - it seems to give an indication of how ordinary folk actually spoke. The two things that spring out at me are the last words of the 1st and 2nd lines - Nobenbres and bixit respectively. Spelled correctly they should be Novembres and vixit - amongst the some of the common folk, at least, 'v' was pronounced as 'b'. This reminds me of the manner in which present-day Spaniards speak Italian.
If any of my readers would care to add anything about the inscription, I'll happily update this post to incorporate comments. I was going to post a full translation, but I lose my way a little in the middle when I have difficulty breaking the inscription up into individual words.

More on St Agnes

My St Agnes posts are here and here.
Amy Welborn gathers links together here, along with a great picture of the Holy Father and the lambs.
Don Marco gives a beautiful homily for today. (Such a shame that I've never heard him preach!)
Fr Z also has a devotion to St Agnes and gives his own Patristic/Latinist's slant. In particular, this is interesting:

Pope St. Damasus composed a panegyric, an elogia, inscribed in gorgeous letters on marble (designed and executed by Dionysius Philocalus) in honor of Roman saints, including Agnes. This was the period when the Roman shifted from Greek to Latin. Damasus was also trying to make a social statement with these great inscriptions, set up at various places about the City. The panegyic of St. Agnes was placed in the cemetery near the saint’s tomb, but through the ages it was lost. Amazingly, it was at last rediscovered in 1728 inside the basilica, whole and complete: it had been used upside down, fortunately as a paving stone!

Now it is affixed to the wall in the corridor descending to the narthex. Its discovery was a find of vast importance.

FAMA REFERT SANCTOS DUDUM RETULISSE PARENTES
AGNEN CUM LUGUBRES CANTUS TUBA CONCREPUISSET
NUTRICIS GREMIUM SUBITO LIQUISSE PUELLAM
SPONTE TRUCIS CALCASSE MINAS RABIEMQUE TYRANNI
URERE CUM FLAMMIS VOLUISSET NOBILE CORPUS
VIRIBUS INMENSUM PARVIS SUPERASSE TIMOREM
NUDAQUE PROFUSUM CRINEM PER MEMBRA DEDISSE
NE DOMINI TEMPLUM FACIES PERITURA VIDERET
O VENERANDA MIHI SANCTUM DECUS ALMA PUDORIS
UT DAMASI PRECIBUS FAVEAS PRECOR INCLYTA MARTYR

It is told that one day the holy parents recounted that Agnes, when the trumpet had sounded its sad tunes, suddenly left the lap of her nurse while still a little girl and willingly trod upon the rage and the threats of the cruel tyrant. Though he desired to burn the noble body in the flames, with her little forces she overcame immense fear and, gave her loosened hair to cover her naked limbs, lest mortal eye might see the temple of the Lord. O one worthy of my veneration, holy glory of modesty, I pray you, O illustrious martyr, deign to give ear to the prayers of Damasus.

[Click on the photo for a closer view]
I snapped a photo of this stone, with the intention of doing a post at a later date about early Christian inscriptions. The lettering style is very distinctive - these are the so-called Damasine letters which were the work of Furius Dionysius Filocalus who was the Pontiff's calligrapher. Pope Damasus did a huge amount of work related to the preservation and veneration of the martytrs' relics, and frequently composed monumental inscriptions which were then carved into stone in this distinctive script.

The Miracle of Bl Piux IX at St Agnes Outside the Walls

I made a pilgrimage this morning to the Basilica of S.Agnese Fuori le Mura and came across the following fresco in a chapel which leads off the courtyard just inside the main entrance from the Via Nomentana.
I had read previously that Bl Pius IX had miraculously escaped injury whilst visiting the Basilica, and a little digging turned up the following article from the New York Times of 13 April 1905:

To Canonise Pius IX
Pope Receives Surviving Witnesses of Supposed Miracle of 1855.

ROME, April 12. -- an interesting ceremony took place this morning in the Basilica of St Agnes, 2 miles outside of Rome. The building stands over the catacombs, where, among others the body of St Agnes is buried.
While Pius IX on April 12, 1855 was receiving the College of the Propaganda in the Basilica the floor gave way and all present were precipitated into the catacombs, 20 feet below. Nobody was injured, and this, by some persons, was considered a miracle.
The only survivors of the accident the Rev. Dr. Richard L. Burtsell of Rondout, N.Y., and Archbishop Rubian, the resident representative of the Armenians in Rome. In the Basilica this morning Dr. Burtsell celebrated high mass and Archbishop Rubian intoned the Te Deum and bestowed the benediction on the members of the College of the Propaganda.
The Pope later in the day received Dr. Burtsell and Archbishop Rubian. The Pontiff took the occasion to speak of Pius IX. He says that many persons were urging him to begin the informative process towards his canonisation.
"Miracle of the Basilica of St Agnes," the Pope continued, "is one of the events which will be brought forward to establish the fact that Pius IX performs miracles. It is a good thing that there are living witnesses to give evidence."

On either side of the picture are lists of those who survived the incident. To the left are the various dignitaries who escaped, and to the right is a list of seminarians from the Propaganda College who survived, including Burtsell and Rubian. It would be interesting to establish whether the figures in the painting true to life. Bl Pius IX is, of course, clearly recognizable and I suspect that at least the senior dignitaries portrayed are intended to be realistic. If you look at the figure of the Cardinal who is lying underneath a fallen beam in the bottom left of the picture, you will see that he bears a more than passing resemblance to Cardinal Antonelli who was certainly present.

Edited to add:
I forgot to mention that there's another interpretation of what happened to Bl Pius IX. Some superstitious sorts believed that he had the 'evil eye' - not that he himself was evil or malevolent, but that he was an involuntary bringer of ill-fortune. This book explains:

Ask a Roman about the late Pope's evil eye reputation, and he will answer: "They said so, and it seems really to be true. If he had not the jettatura, it is very odd that everything he blessed made fiasco. We all did very well in the campaign against the Austrians in '48. We were winning battle after battle, and all was gaiety and hope, when suddenly he blessed the cause, and everything went to the bad at once. Nothing succeeds with anybody or anything when he wishes well to them. When he went to S. Agnese to hold a great festival, down went the floor, and the people were all smashed together. Then he visited the column to the Madonna in the Piazza di Spagna, and blessed it and the workmen; of course one fell from the scaffold the same day and killed himself. He arranged to meet the King of Naples at Porto d'Anzio, when up came a violent gale, and a storm that lasted a week; another arrangement was made, and then came the fracas about the ex-queen of Spain.
"Again, Lord C------ came in from Albano, being rather unwell; the Pope sent him his blessing, when, pop! he died right off in a twinkling. There was nothing so fatal as his blessing. I do not wonder the workmen at the column in the Piazza di Spagna refused to work in raising it unless the Pope stayed away!"

Now a Rome 'blog...

I forgot to mention sooner that the Cranky Professor may now be numbered among the Rome 'blogs as he's spending a semester here with some of his students. His post of today has a fascinating assignment which will help them get to grips with the ever-present historical character of the Eternal City.
The professor himself gave a presentation concerning one of my own favourite relics of pre-Christian Rome:

I did a demonstration by taking them around the corner from the Campo dei fiori to look at what modern Rome has made of the foundations of the Theater of Pompey. Click and enlarge at point A on the map - look at the semicircles of streets and blocks . . . those rise up on the form of the theater, a semicircle of concentric and radial lines of masonry. There is almost nothing left of the building (unless you go in a few restaurants and certainly some cellars), but the ghost of the building still shows. The straight streets to the right (east) of the semicircle represents the side walls of the very large courtyard attached to the theater - which allowed patrons to stroll in gardens between acts or between plays. Pompey built the first permanent theater in Rome in 60 BCE - something which always surprises me. Plautus (died 185 BCE) and Terence (died 158) would have played only in temporary theaters, or on one of the flat spaces at the Forum Romanum! Pompey's innovation was to introduce a permanent building on the Greek model (sort of) to the City, which at least shows Roman assimilation of Greek institutions and almost certainly should be understood as Roman triumphalism, especially when combined with the decorative statuary Pompey certainly imported as well. Oh, and Julius Caesar was assassinated here, which allowed me a second link to the Forum tour last week.

One of my favourite theories about Roman history is that Pompey managed to circumvent the prohibition on building permanent theatres within the city walls by designating the structure as a temple rather than a theatre. Officially speaking, the fact that this temple just happened to serve very well as a theatre was a happy coincidence. ;)

Henry VIII's Bible

The Times has a fascinating article about an edition of the Bible that I'd not heard of before:

In July 1535 the industrious London stationer Thomas Berthelet, who also served as “King’s Printer” to Henry VIII, published a selective text of the Latin Old and New Testaments, in the Vulgate version of St Jerome: this seems to have been, perhaps surprisingly, the very first bible to have been printed in the British Isles.
[Snip]
Berthelet’s isolated novelty, a stout but handy small quarto, laid out in double columns, is titled Sacrae Bibliae Tomus Primus (ie, the first volume – only – of the Holy Bible); it consists of the Pentateuch, Joshua and Judges, Psalms, Proverbs and the Sapientia or Wisdom of Solomon (a late Greek text now consigned to the Apocrypha), plus the entire New Testament, including Revelation. A preface addressed to the devout reader, headed “Pio Lectori”, apologizes none too humbly for the apparent eccentricity of leaving out more than half the canonical Old Testament, and promises to collect all the omissions in a supplementary volume, which either never appeared or (far less likely) has perished.
[Snip]
One might assume at first that the writer of such a preface, who begins by routinely puffing the product – the Scriptures – as “true riches” valuable beyond any worldly goods, but also takes specific credit for its selection, arrangement and issue, was the publisher Berthelet himself, [...] However, a second look reveals that the author, hence the conceiver or designer of this idiosyncratic recension and its robust apologist, was not Thomas Berthelet, nor any of his corresponding or in-house scholars or “correctors of the press”, but his own royal patron, Henry VIII.
[Snip]
You know well”, the prefacer declares,
how our Lord God, whose words or scriptures we are discussing, ordered that when a king sat on the throne of his kingdom, he should write for himself the law of God, and having it with him, should read it every day of his life, so that he should thus learn to fear the Lord his God, and guard His words."
This is a reference to Deuteronomy 17:18–19, employed to justify (as only a king could) the present reordering and selection of scriptural materials, offered to the pious but perhaps obstinate reader who found any “departure, however slight, from ancient practice or established form . . . an offence to religious scruple”.

French want Boney III Back

From the Telegraph:

He was the last emperor and the first president of France but for 120 years the Emperor Napoleon III's remains have lain in England.
Now the French want them back. Tomorrow Christian Estrosi, the secretary of state for overseas territories, will arrive in Britain to request the return of the remains of the exiled emperor and his wife, Empress Eugénie, which lie in a crypt in St Michael's Abbey in Farnborough, Hampshire.
Mr Estrosi said: "This trip will be for me an occasion to send a clear message to the British - to thank them for all they did for the imperial couple in exile but also to remind them that we have some rights over them."
But Father Cuthbert, the Benedictine monk who heads the abbey, is unlikely to agree to Mr Estrosi's request to return the remains of Napoleon III, who sought refuge in England with his family and a few faithful followers after his defeat in the Franco-Prussian war in 1870.
The monk said he hoped the minister was coming to ask forgiveness for having left the monastery so long without news or support.

Bravo Fr Cuthbert!

Ancient Roman Medicine

From the Telegraph:

An ancient doctor's surgery unearthed by Italian archaeologists has cast new light on what a trip to the doctor would have been like in Roman times. Far from crude, the medical implements discovered show that doctors, their surgeries and the ailments they treated have changed surprisingly little in 1,800 years.
Sore joints were common, patients were often told to change their diets, and the good doctor of the seaside town of Rimini even performed house calls.
Archaeologists have spent the past 17 years at the Domus del Chirurgo - House of the Surgeon - painstakingly excavating the site and compiling the world's most detailed portrait of medical treatment in Roman times. Their discoveries go on public display for the first time on Tuesday.
"This is the largest find of surgical instruments anywhere," said Dr Ralph Jackson, the curator of the Romano-British collection at the British Museum and an expert in ancient medicine.
Among the 150 different implements is a rare iron tool used to extract arrowheads from wounds, which suggests the doctor had experience as a military surgeon.
(snip)
"It tells us a great deal of how he worked and the range of procedures he undertook because of its completeness. All previous finds have been only partial," Dr Jackson said. "The healer almost certainly concocted anaesthetic preparations of white mandrake, henbane and opium poppies."
Perhaps the most unexpected find was a piece of equipment that would delight a modern podiatrist: a ceramic hot water bottle in the shape of a foot, into which oil or water could be poured when the foot was inserted.
"Joint problems were the single most common complaint in Roman times, and they were probably treated with heat and cold," said Dr Jackson.
The discovery suggests that the doctor used diet as a first approach to treating a disease, then drugs prepared from plants in a pestle and mortar, and finally surgery. That could include anything from pulling teeth - dental forceps were part of his equipment - to opening a patient's fractured skull to remove bone fragments.
"One of the most exciting finds was a lenticular, a small chisel used for opening the skull safely after gouging a channel into it with another instrument," said Dr Jackson.

Ome of the thoughts that occasionally crosses my mind is whether there's anything we could learn about Roman physicians and their patients' perceptions of same which would refine our understanding of the use of the image of Christ as physician in the writings of the Latin Fathers.

Mad King Ludwig Murdered?

From the Telegraph:

A century-old mystery surrounding the fate of the “Mad King” who built Bavaria’s celebrated fairytale castles has taken a new twist after an historian claimed that he was murdered.
The allegation comes from an art expert turned sleuth who claims that contemporary portraits of Ludwig II prove that far from killing himself in a fit of melancholy, he was assassinated to put an end his extravagant spending.
Ludwig’s body was found on June 13, 1886, in the knee-deep waters of a lake not far from Neuschwanstein Castle, his most fanciful creation, whose soaring towers and turrets now draw tourists from all over the world.
After a cursory investigation, the death was declared suicide by drowning - a verdict fiercely protected by his successors, who have forbidden any modern scientific examination of his remains.
But art historian Siegfried Wichmann now claims that he can prove that Ludwig was murdered, after an investigation that has taken up half his life and has drawn upon his own wartime experience. “I can say that, professionally, I have never been wrong in all my career,” said Mr Wichmann, who is the leading authority on Bavarian paintings from the late 19th century.
[snip]
A secret Bavarian society known as the Guglmänner, whose members dress in capes and hoods and claim to be guardians of the German monarchy, has long questioned the official version of his death. But the calls for Ludwig’s body to be exhumed and given a modern autopsy have now grown louder. Last month, Detlev Utermöhle, a Bavarian banker, made a sworn statement claiming that he had seen the coat Ludwig was wearing on the day of his death, and that it contained two bullet holes.