Tea at Trianon: Sicily in the Middle Ages

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

Friday, April 28, 2023

Sicily in the Middle Ages

From Medievalists:

Strategically situated at the heart of the Mediterranean and at the crossroads of distinct cultures and often competing traditions, Sicily emerged as a diverse, sophisticated, and powerful territory during the Middle Ages. Between the eighth and ninth centuries, the Byzantine Empire and the Arabs routinely clashed over control of this networked region. In the following centuries, the Normans further transformed the cultural complexity of the area. This issue of the magazine highlights Sicily’s complex history and exquisite local visual culture indebted to Byzantine, Western medieval, and Islamic traditions. From key figures like Roger II to world-renowned monuments like the Cappella Palatina in Palermo, and from medieval coins to painted ceilings, the articles offer a rich picture of medieval Sicily. A few of the contributions also touch on the conflicts and natural disasters that transformed the landscape, the people, and the local heritage from the Middle Ages into the present. (Read more.)