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 Adam Driver photographed by Marco Grob for TIME Magazine +

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“That’s a big irony. Lawman in jail.”

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The Real Beauty and the Beast

I recently discovered this interesting story about a real Beauty and her beloved Beast.

In 1547, a young boy was captured and presented to the Henry II, the King of France. He suffered from hypertrichosis, as you can see in his portrait. His name was Pedro Gonzalez, better known now as Petrus Gonsalvus

He was assumed to be part animal and was treated as an experiment. They decided to raise him as a gentleman to see if they could “make the beast a man.”

After Henry’s death, his queen Catherine de Medici decided it was time the beastman married and produced more beast children. So she selected for him the daughter of a upper palace servant, also named Catherine. 

Unfortunately, little is known about Catherine prior to her remarkable marriage, not even her maiden name. All that is known is she had no idea who she was marrying when she went down the altar, so certainly she was more than a little surprised to see who her groom was.

The couple had seven children together, four of whom also had hypertrichosis. Sadly, Petrus and his four children with his affliction were not seen as people, but as animals. His children who were afflicted as he was were given away as “gifts” to other royal and noble families.

The couple and their remaining children eventually settled in Italy. They were always regarded as oddity, but lived a fairly quiet life in the end. Petrus is believed to have died in 1618 while Catherine’s death is recorded in 1623.

It was wondered for years whether or not Catherine loved her unusual husband, but this little image found in a book of oddities seems to suggest she did.

Note how Catherine has her hand on her husband’s shoulder. This was a sign of affection back then. The fact that Catherine wanted to show this in their painting suggests that she truly did care about her husband. Perhaps after years of being the “odd couple” of the courts and raising children together, losing some to be given away as pets, they had come to love each other and found their own happiness.

There is little doubt that Petrus and Catherine’s story inspired the French tale Le Belle et La Bete. 

You can watch and interesting mini-documentary on Petrus and Catherine here broadcasted by the Smithsonian Channel. 

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Petra - Jordan (by Rodney Topor)

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Athens - Greece (by Rodney Topor)

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Anon hate from the late 1800’s.

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I’m not afraid of cops. I have no reason to be. I never break any laws, ever, because I’m deathly afraid of cops.

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Isolation..  | Photographer 

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I’m not religious but this is great

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True Detective season 2 opening sequence

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PHOTO: DAVID MAISEL—INSTITUTE

See the Eerie Photos Behind True Detective‘s Opening Credits

David Maisel’s photographs appear in the hit HBO show

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Meet the Mona Lisa of the Prado, the earliest known copy of Da Vinci’s best portrait. Similarity in the undersketch of the painting indicates that this was very likely painted concurrently with the original Mona Lisa, by a student of Da Vinci.

There is much controversy in the art world over the question of whether or not to clean the fragile Mona Lisa, but her sister has been restored and some fairly odd later alterations removed to show the original vibrant colors and lighting. Some details, such as the sheerness of her shawl and the pattern on the neckline of her dress, have become utterly obscured in the original, but in the restored copy they’re perfectly clear.

It blows my mind a little bit to look at these two sisters side-by-side and imagine how much vivid detail could be hiding in the Mona Lisa under 500 years of rotten varnish. 

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