Tea at Trianon: Da Vinci Deluge

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Da Vinci Deluge

From William Newton:

Since 2019 has been declared the “Year of Leonardo Da Vinci”, on account of this being the 500th year since his death, there is a deluge of Leonardo-related projects currently in the works: books, documentaries, exhibitions, you name it. There are at least two films about the artist currently in development, one slated to star Leonardo DiCaprio and based on Walter Isaacson’s recent biography, although whether we’ll see those on the screen this year or not who knows. The really big event, if you happen to find yourself in Paris later this year, is going to be the upcoming Leonardo retrospective at the Louvre, which will probably be a once-in-a-lifetime event for fans of Da Vinci’s work. There are certainly plenty of interesting Leonardo-related stories swirling around the Louvre at the moment, even long before the retrospective opens. (Read more.)