Fake news in fifteenth-century Rome: The miraculous discovery of the Titulus Crucis relic

There is nothing new about "fake news", as this post about various reports on a "miraculous discovery" in fifteenth-century Rome reveals!

Marianne Ritsema van Eck • May 11, 2018

“A pair of apples fashioned in ivory”: Female breasts and the male gaze in Renaissance Italy

[Click here: naked women!] Modern advertising companies often use the female body, and breasts in particular, to attract attention. Renaissance artists and writers were rather preoccupied with the subject too.

Marlisa den Hartog • March 02, 2018

Pigs and Bagpipes: Geoffrey Chaucer's Miller in Context

Geoffrey Chaucer drew on various medieval traditions surrounding pigs to characterise one of his most memorable characters in the Canterbury Tales: Robin the Miller

Thijs Porck • February 02, 2018

Dracula en de drukpers: Hoe Vlad III een monster werd

Dracula staat sinds de late negentiende eeuw als vampier bekend, maar heeft al een veel langere voorgeschiedenis. Deze post belicht populaire Duitse Dracula-pamfletten uit de vijftiende en zestiende eeuw en hun invloed op de latere beeldvorming.

Johannes Müller • January 05, 2018

#MeToo in Persian poetry

#MeToo may be seen as a new phenomenon, but there are many examples in medieval Islamic literature of sexual harassment and women who defend their rights and personal integrity.

Asghar Seyed Gohrab • November 24, 2017

The walking dead: Fear of the supernatural in the Italian novella

“Varied and strange indeed are the terrors that the dead give the living."

Marlisa den Hartog • October 13, 2017

Lucky pigs and protective boars: The medieval origins of the Glücksschwein

Why are pigs associated with good luck? Traces of 'lucky pigs' are found in late medieval board and card games, while the use of boar effigies as talismans is attested as far back as the early Middle Ages.

Thijs Porck • October 13, 2017

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