Tag: Italy
Marcus Aurelius: A Timeless Guide to Life from the Philosopher King
Roman emperors are perhaps remembered for their notoriety more than anything else. We remember Julius Caesar, after whom all the subsequent rulers took their name, as a brilliant commander (and because he…
Silphium: Can We Rediscover the Roman Wonder Drug?
Cure-alls are, generally speaking, never what they claim. Most medical wonder drugs are nothing of the sort, and snake oil salesmen have existed throughout history, prospering as long as there are people…
Milanese Hospital Bones Suggest Early Use of Cocaine
Researchers in Italy excavating a crypt in Milan’s Ospedale Maggiore have discovered something which sets established history on its head: traces of cocaine in the brains of two bodies, which suggests the…
Baldassare Castiglione: The Courtier, Perfected
The term “Renaissance Man” is a reasonably well known one, which draws a pretty wide set of definitions but which basically refers to someone who is accomplished in multiple fields seen as…
Searching for the Lost Treasure of Alaric the Visigoth
For those with a mind to search for them, there are many rumoured lost treasures out there. Some are certainly waiting to be find, sunken ships loaded with valuables or hidden caches.…
666: Making Sense of Revelations and the Roman Connection
The Book of Revelations is a total trip. It is hard to read its apocalyptic foretellings and warnings of chaos and catastrophe without feeling that someone, somewhere, was smoking something pretty strong.…