Dr Francesca Santoro

@phyllida.bsky.social

1919 Followers 828 Following

Greek & Roman history, politics, art history, literature. Music: Mahler, DSCH, opera, chamber music. Have lived in Rome & Amsterdam. Love languages, theatre, museums in general, Shakespeare, London, the House of Commons, Rowson cartoons, in particular.馃槉

A barn swallow in flight.
Illustration by Kay Nielsen from "In Powder and Crinoline".
A Renaissance game of Tennis.
"Dream of the Magi", by Ma卯rew Gislebertus, Cathedral of Saint Lazare, Autun, France. 12th century, Carved on Capital. "An An angel wakes one of the 3 kings and points to the 7-pointed Star of Bethlehem. The others dream on.
19th century engraving of Henry V wooing Catherine de Valois.
The etherial Dame Maggie Smith, perfectly cast as Titania.
Story from mediaeval "Alexander Romances." King Alexander meets the anthropophagi.
Viola, disguised as an Illyrian youth [with curved scimitar], Cesario, woos the proud Olivia on behalf of the Duke Orsino, telling her that if he [Viola] were speaking on his own behalf he'd call her name so often that the very air would echo with it. Chas. A. Buchel sketched the the actors in their costumes.'
Iago hatching plots against Othello and Desdemona. Edwin Austin Abby, 1904.
jRS STANHOPE Juliet & her Nurse, (1863)
Eglantine鈥攑hoto from web
Can't remember where I found it, but ain't it grand,
BBC 1 production, a Midsummer Night's Dream. Act 5: "The Most Lamentable Comedy of Pyramus and Thisbe." This is Shakespeare's spoof on Juliet's speech." Bottom plays Pyramus in play within the Play.
"Night", by ER Hughes, 1917.
A gracefully draped woman lies asleep on a couch. Around her forearm a serpent coils.
"Such stuff as dreams", illustration, The Tempest, Edmund Dulac. A pair of hands fashions dreams.
When in Venice do not neglect reflections!
A vaporetto stop with mirrored rectangles.
Romeo, who's just had news that Juliet has died and is lying in the Capulet's tomb, seeks out an apothecary to buy poison to take at her side.
Arial's song, Full-Fathom Five: illustration by Edmund Dulac (1908).
October, 2019
"Flora", 1st C. CE fresco. Naples, National Museum
Selene discovers the beautiful sleeping shepherd Endymion and decides to let him sleep forever, so she can have him all to herself. ca 3rd c. Metropolitan Museum.
... signed, Your Brother-in-Law, Octavius Caesar. Actually, a warning at Horse Guards, Whitehall.
Ma'at, wearing the feather of Justice, sits at the feet of Thoth, here, an Ibis [perched on a stack of papyri?].
This was a real album of shellac records in brown sleeves, before LPs. It ignited my passion for ancient Rome.
Portrait, by Chas. A. Buchel, of the actor Mr. Taber, as the Duke Orsino,
Artist: JRS Stanhope, Juliet waiting at her window for news from Romeo. 1863.
Julius Caesar, Nicolas Cousteau, Commissioned in 1696 for the Gardens of Versailles; Louvre.
Louvre Museum,
Credit: Weird (and Wonderful) Secondhand Finds That Just Need To Be Shared 路 Glenn Happe, FB 路 April 11, 2024 "I found this funny alarm clock in a gift box at the flea market in Kassel, Germany and he crows....馃槀"
Frederick Stewart Church, "The Witch's Daughter," NY, 1881. Smithsonian
Westminster Portrait, ca. 1090. Richard, crowned, wearing his Coronation robes, sits on the Coronation Chair. He holds the orb and scepter.
Winter: Love's Labours Lost; Act V, Scene 2.