Man meets woman--but this tryst's got a twist
Tag: Rome
Endless Things by John Crowley
If you arrived at a crossroads, would you take the right or the left fork? We are faced every day of our lives with choosing a path. Once our decision takes us onward, we cannot return. The past that once was--and the path we might have chosen instead--grows more and more distant with each 'Y' …
Demon Hunter Severian: Lady of the Night Gates by Giovanni Anastasi
Milan during the time of Bishop Ambrose and Emperor Theodosius in 394 AD was the new centre of the Roman Empire, a cosmopolitan city home to Christian and pagan alike--the perfect setting for demon hunt. A young girl and an elderly priest are found dead in their beds under similar circumstances, after a night of …
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Venetian Dragon
Today I will share a set of images I drew and painted of a Venetian dragon. This is part of my series on Renaissance dragons in urban settings. I will, as in my post on Florentine Dragon, take you through the process of painting it. I'm still practicing my skill, but that's how you improve. …
Behind Guy Fawkes: the History of Catholic Conspiracies
“But as a nation—continued he in his reveries—these Spaniards are all an odd set; the very word Spaniard has a curious, conspirator, Guy-Fawkish twang to it.” -Herman Melville, "Benito Cereno." “The imaginary is part of history.” -Michel de Certeau, The Possession at Loudun. “[A] good case could be made that the last unchallenged and most …
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Behind Guy Fawkes II: The Gunpowder Plot
"But 'The Gunpowder Plot'--there was a get-penny! I have presented that to an eighteen- or twenty-pence audience nine times in an afternoon. Your home-born projects prover ever the best; they are so easy and familiar. They put too much learning i'their things nowadays, and that, I fear, will be the spoil o' this." -Leatherhead, Bartholomew …
Machiavelli and the Problem of Memory in Tigana
"Tigana, let my memory of you be like a blade in my soul." -Guy Gavriel Kay, Tigana . Alessan's mantra for his beleaguered nation, erased from history by the tyrant sorcerer Brandin of Ygrath, forms a central node in the theme of exile and memory in Guy Gavriel Kay's Tigana. A novel set in the …
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Bloody Caesar; or The Ides of March
Several years ago, I wrote an experimental short story: the assassination of Julius Caesar told from the perspective of his blood. I'm still quite proud of it, and I thought I'd share it with you here. A nice short story that de-familiarizes the familiar, it was originally published online at the SPACE website, an arts-sciences …
Matthew Rettino 