york
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There is a figure that keeps resurfacing in books, discussions, astrology, and modern reinterpretations of history. Her name is Lilith, and she seems to change face every time someone tells her story. Now… a clarification is necessary right away, because over these thousands of years an incredible number of legends have been built around Lilith.…
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E se vi dicessi che nel Medioevo si drogavano, voi come la prendereste?Eh, era un’epoca dura quella… austera… tanto che forse qualcuno aveva bisogno di sballarsi… o forse no. Forse le droghe, così come le intendiamo noi, non servivano di certo a sballare… ma proviamo a fare un passo alla volta. Le droghe esistevano, eccome…
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You probably think that swearing is a modern invention. That profanity belongs to us, the enlightened, irreverent present, and that in the Middle Ages, for instance, not only was it impossible, but it was actually quite likely that God would strike you down from the sky and set you on fire. Well, no. In the…
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When the name Heloise is spoken, collective memory almost automatically turns to another figure: Pierre Abélard. Their love story, overwhelming, scandalous, tragic, has, over time, become one of the founding myths of Western romantic imagination. Yet to stop there is to betray precisely what makes Heloise an exceptional figure. For Heloise is not merely the…
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Objects, as we know, travel through time. And sometimes monuments or chronicles are not needed: a single line of ink, a signature, a motto slipped into the margin of a book is enough to bring back to the surface, after five centuries, a truth of identity. In the first part (here), we followed the most…
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When we think of Christmas, we most often think of the tree, Santa Claus, lights, and huge family tables filled with laughter and arguments (yes, that happens too, let’s admit it peacefully!). But in the Middle Ages, how was Christmas experienced? First of all, Christmas festivities did not begin on December 8 as they do…
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Quando pensiamo al Natale, pensiamo molto spesso all’albero, a Babbo Natale, alle luci e alle enormi tavolate in famiglia fatte di risate e litigi (sì, accade anche questo, ammettiamolo pacificamente!). Ma nel Medioevo, il Natale com’era vissuto? Partiamo col dire che le festività natalizie non iniziavano dall’8 dicembre come oggi, ma cominciavano il 25 dicembre…
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Objects, as we know, travel through time. They retain something of us, something we chose to imprint so that our children, our grandchildren, and all those who come after us might understand who we truly were. Sometimes a single book, a line, a signature, a motto… is enough to cry out to the world, centuries…
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Gli oggetti, si sa, viaggiano nel tempo. In loro resta sempre qualcosa di noi, qualcosa che abbiamo voluto imprimere affinché i nostri figli, i nipoti e tutti quelli dopo di noi capissero chi davvero fossimo.A volte basta un libro con una frase, con una firma, con un motto… per urlare al mondo, dopo secoli, chi…
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If today a doctor told you, “To understand what’s wrong with you, let me examine your urine… under the light of the Moon,” you would probably run for your life. In the Middle Ages, however, not only would you not have been scandalised… you would have considered the request perfectly normal.For centuries, in fact, the…
Beyond Death 