The School of Athens is a fresco painted between 1509 and 1511 by the Italian Renaissance artist Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, commonly known in English as “Raphael.” It depicts a scene of famous philosophers and thinkers of the past from different time periods, all standing around conversing and debating with each other. It is located in the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City and is widely considered to be one of the greatest masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance. It has been the background image for this website since I first created it. Nonetheless, the fresco is filled with all sorts of fascinating symbolism and iconography that is often lost on the average viewer, so I thought I would take this article to give a quick guided tour of Raphael’s School of Athens.
Continue reading “A Guided Tour of Raphael’s “School of Athens””Tag: ancient Athens
No, Throwing Apples at People Was Not Considered a “Marriage Proposal” in Ancient Greece
Internet memes are a notoriously unreliable source of information about the historical past. It should therefore come as little surprise to most people that a popular meme in widespread circulation on the internet claiming that throwing apples at people was “considered a marriage proposal” in ancient Greece is largely inaccurate. It may come as a surprise, though, that this meme actually does have some remote grounding in factual reality and—as is often the case—the truth is far stranger and more fascinating than the fiction. While it is true that the ancient Greeks had no custom of proposing marriage by pelting someone with apples, throwing apples was really considered a ploy at seduction.
Continue reading “No, Throwing Apples at People Was Not Considered a “Marriage Proposal” in Ancient Greece”Three Times the Winners Did Not Write History
“History is written by the victors” is a saying so commonplace that it has become almost a platitude. It seems as though everyone has simply come to accept it and believe it. The problem is that it is not actually always true. Strictly speaking, history is not, in fact, written by the victors. History is written by the people who write history. These people are often the victors, but not always and not necessarily. There are examples throughout history of history being written by the people who lost. In this post, we will explore just a few of the occasions when the victors did not write history.
Continue reading “Three Times the Winners Did Not Write History”The Bizarre Origins of the Word Idiot
The 2016 election cycle in the United States has been one of the most bitter and divisive in recent memory. Both of the candidates—Hillary Rodham Clinton (D) and Donald J. Trump (R)—are regarded as so thoroughly unlikeable in every way that many people are outright refusing to vote for either of them. If you decide not to vote in this election, though, you are an idiot. I do not necessarily mean you are unintelligent or even ignorant for that matter; I merely mean that you are an idiot.