Tea at Trianon: Archaeologists Excavate Ancient Byzantine Church

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, May 12, 2023

Archaeologists Excavate Ancient Byzantine Church

From Heritage Daily:

A team of archaeologists from the Directorate of Istanbul Archaeology Museums have been excavating the Church of St. Polyeuktos, located in Istanbul’s Saraçhane neighbourhood, Turkey. The church was constructed between AD 524 to 527 under the patronage of Anicia Juliana, a Roman Imperial princess during the reign of Justin I. Juliana’s intention to assert her own imperial lineage was reflected in the opulent design of the building, which was the largest church in the city until the construction of the Hagia Sophia. The church incorporated Sassanid Persian decorative elements on a grand scale and is believed to have pioneered the architectural style of the domed basilica, which was later perfected in the Hagia Sophia. (Read more.)