M.J. Rose

Tis the season for ornamentation and decking halls. This glorious book seems to fit right in…

Minaggio 116: A male Kestrel sits above a Siskin. In the background, a soldiers stands guard on a road leading to a church.

From Atlas Obscura,

See a 400-Year-Old Book Made Entirely from Feathers

“In 1618, Dionisio Minaggio, Chief Gardener of the State of Milan, created a series of pictures. They were images of birds and scenes from the era: hunters, tradesmen, musicians and actors from the Commedia Dell’Arte. The difference was that these pictures were made of feathers, along with some supplementary bird parts: skin, beak and feet. In total, there were 156 images, which were bound into a book: The Feather Book, or Il Bestario Barocco (The Baroque Bestiary).

While the book mostly shows the birds of the Lombardy region, some of the scenes are familiar to us today: one depicts a bloody patient enduring a 17^th-century dentist. Another shows a man waiting patiently for his dog to finish pooping. It’s not clear what prompted Minaggio to create the feather book; some have speculated that it was to occupy his staff during winter and use up the feathers from the kitchen. Others say the regional governor may have commissioned it…”

For the rest, and many photos, click here.

These photographs speak for themselves…

King Tut’s excavation, in color (1922)

From Dangerous Minds,

“You’ve probably seen these photos of Tutankhamun’s excavation a million times already. But, whether you saw them in school, National Geographic magazine, books or on TV, they’ve always been in B&W. Well, some of the more iconic images from the discovery have been colorized by Dynamichrome for the exhibition The Discovery of King Tut which opens in New York City at Premier Exhibitions on November 21, 2015.

I’m normally not a fan of colorized photos, but these are different for some reason. They’re almost like Dorothy leaving her B&W Kansas and stepping into Oz for the first time or the doors opening up to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. Glorious eye candy…”

Click here for the rest of the gallery.

A peek into history…

Maria Rasputin as an animal trainer at a London circus in 1934. (Photo: Planet News Archive/Getty Images)

The Many Lives of Maria Rasputin, Daughter of the ‘Mad Monk’

by Hadley Meares (Atlas Obscura)

“I was born in 1899 in the village of Pokrovskoe in the county of Tobolsk. My parents are peasants, simple people. Our family consists of: father, mother, grandfather (my father’s father), my brother, sister and myself. We all live happily together but sometimes I get cross with my brother and sister, but with my sister I get cross all the time. My father plays an important role because the Sovereign knows him and loves him.”

“Maria Grigorievna Rasputin wrote the simple words above as a young teenager in unpublished diaries. But from the beginning of her life in rural Siberia to its end in sunny Los Angeles, nothing about Maria’s life would ever be simple or easy.

Maria spent her early childhood in a relatively well-off family of peasants. Her mother was a practical, hardworking woman. Her father Grigori, was a Starets, an un-ordained holy man who traveled the country preaching and comforting those in need. From the start, Maria seems to have had a healthy sense of skepticism. She and her brother and sister dreaded the long hours of enforced prayer and fasting “for which everything, anniversaries or penitence’s, served as an excuse.”

In 1906, the family’s life was transformed when Grigori, who would become known to history simply as “Rasputin,” was introduced to the royal family in St. Petersburg. He was soon credited by the Empress Alexandra for saving the life of Alexi, the hemophiliac heir to the Russian throne. In 1910, Maria and her sister, Varvara, were sent to live with their father in St. Petersburg so that they could be transformed into “little ladies.”…

For the rest, click here.