Tea at Trianon: An Old Roman Tombstone

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 10, 2026

An Old Roman Tombstone

From All That's Interesting:

When Roberto Tessari recently hiked into the woods near Livorno, Italy, he was hoping to find some wild asparagus. Instead, he stumbled across an ancient Roman tombstone that was partially submerged in a shallow creek and had seemingly become exposed after a period of heavy rains in the region. The tombstone, which dates from the 2nd century C.E., is engraved with three names. Though little is known about the people it references, archaeologists suspect that it was made by a family of freed slaves or their descendants, and that it possibly contains the hint of a family tragedy. According to a report from local media outlet Livorno Today, 77-year-old Roberto Tessari, a former firefighter, was walking in the woods near Livorno when he spotted something sitting in a creek.
In the 1970s, Tessari was one of the founding members of the Livorno Paleontological Archaeological Group (another member of which discovered ancient coins near Livorno in 2023), so he quickly realized that he’d stumbled upon an important artifact.

“I was walking through a wooded area when my eye caught sight of a rectangular shape just above the water’s edge,” Tessari explained. “I approached and immediately realized it was something interesting. I turned it over and noticed it was an ancient tombstone that undoubtedly speaks to the history of our area. It has several names engraved on it.”

Tessari immediately notified both a friend, Lorella Alderighi — the archaeological official of the Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the provinces of Pisa and Livorno — as well as the local fire department. (Read more.)