#italian rennaisance

[lightthereis]

Sandro Botticelli - The Story of Nastagio Degli Onesti, 1483

[youngestdaughtersyndrome]

DM with your cash app tag or paypal to get spoiled with weekly allowances ❤️🥀

sorry mister .... papá has given all of our money to the church to stay in the grace of our good lord, including all my fine gowns and my dowry ....

[lesbians4armand]

On Armand + Atropa belladonna

To begin this post, I'm sure I've mentioned somewhere my ongoing belief that the poison that killed Armand was Atropa belladonna, colloquially known as Deadly Nightshade. Where I posted this exactly I'm not sure, It could have been here or on either my main or private Twitter accounts. Either way, it needed more elaboration, so I'll write about it here.

For those unfamiliar with this infamous poison, Atropa belladonna, more often called Deadly Nightshade, Belladonna, or Devil's Cherries, is a flowering plant native to Europe and Western Asia, and naturalised in many parts of North America. They are well known for their light purple bell-shaped flowers, their pointed green leaves, and their highly toxic pitch-black berries.

My interest in these plants has been a long-standing one, and I even plan on having the plant tattooed on me, but another interest arose recently when I was thinking about the history and usage of these plants.

It's well established in the Vampire Chronicles that Armand died from poisoning, mirroring his own fledgling Daniel's death to alcohol poisoning centuries later. Of course, what truly caused their deaths and turnings was being made into a vampire, that's what ceased their mortality, but it does not change that they were both still already dying of poison, and although we know Daniel's poison was alcohol, Armand's remains a mystery.

What begins my theory of Armand's poison being belladonna, is the name itself. While belladonna has had many medicinal uses throughout history and even in the modern day, the most famous use remains its namesake- "Beautiful Lady" in Italian. During the Renaissance, the time in which Armand lived, died, and was made a vampire, this plant was hugely popular among noble women of Italy, particularly in Venetian courts, where these ladies would drop the juice into their eyes, as the toxins in the berries cause the pupils to dilate and the eyes look larger, which was considered a beauty standard at the time. (Interestingly,one of the tropane alkaloids found in belladonna and other plants in the Solanaceae family (Atropine) is still used in modern optometry for the dilation of the pupils.)

Immediately, there is a direct link to Armand's death. With belladonna being such a known and widely used poison in Rennaisance Venice, It is by no means unlikely that it was the poison that eventually caused his mortal death.

But other details in the Chronicles point to this as well. Belladonna was widely used by upper-class Venetian women during this period, but it was not a Venetian woman who killed Armand, it was an English Lord. But who was it that was a noblewoman, who had intimate knowledge and use of poisons, and the host of this very Lord? Bianca.

It's almost guaranteed that Bianca had access to and used belladonna, both as a poison and as a cosmetic at this time. This lord could have easily acquired this poison from Bianca through theft, asking for it, or having been given it freely. Bianca at this time was both a murderer and a courtesan, and with belladonna's widespread use as a cosmetic, it may not have seemed unusual to her to be requested the poison by a guest.

One setback to the theory is that Belladonna is primarily deadly when ingested, and Armand's poisoning was not caused by ingestion of the plant. However, it can still be absorbed through the skin, and if the essences such as the juice of the plant were coated onto a blade that was then used to cut someone as Lord Harlech cut Armand, it would enter the bloodstream anyway and likely be fatal-as it was.

It's described in TVA how the cuts where Harlech's blade had caught Armand began to swell, a side effect of topical belladonna not often seen in poisonings vis ingestion, yet no less real, as belladonna exposure on the skin can cause severe contact dermatitis, as well as its other more known symptoms also found in ingestion poisonings; dizziness, blurred vision, hot flushes, vomiting, fever, delirium, etc. All are also described within the book.

Overall, the time, place, symptoms and associations all line up to make Armand's death read as belladonna poisoning, regardless of what poison may have been Anne Rice's intent, if any specific poison at all. There is also of course the poetic irony of the associations between belladonna and beauty, and Armand's own beauty being somewhat of a curse to him. How perfect it would seem if his death was caused by beauty too, not just his own and how his murderer desired him, but the very poison that was the weapon being a symbol of beauty too?

(Another detail that could be interesting to AMC show fans is that another of the tropane alkaloids found in plants in the Nightshade family such as Atropa belladonna is hyoscyamine, which is used in medicine to reduce spasms in patients with Parkinson's disease, which Daniel suffers with in the show. This is a lot more minor, but interesting nonetheless that the association with nightshades is found in other places in TVC and adaptations)

[disfrutalakia]

Anyways did you guys know that one of my biggest hyperfixations during the pandemic was fashion? Literally, historical fashion was my shit and while I'm not a specialist I still like it a lot which is why I'm always trying to fit the cubitos into dresses.

Yes this my Forever in a italian rennaisance gown agenda again

[artbyaine]

Taking the advice of my lecturers from my mid semester review yesterday, I went home and did another mind map of my theme. However, this time, I chose to do a visual mind map using photographs I found on the Internet to help me pinpoint what I imagined.

Looking further into my theme of pheonix, I decided to focus on the rebirth aspect of the legend. At first, I simply looked up the word "rebirth" and chose some images that stuck out to me.

These first images inspired me to look at personal identity and rebirth, which led me to look at performers such as drag queens and other theatrical performances. As an actor myself, I find the process of leaving yourself behind to become a different person on the stage exhilarating. The feeling perfectly encompasses the rebirth of a pheonix. From putting on the costumes and makeup to altering your mannerisms, you morph into an entirely new person. This is something I would like to look at more deeply for my project.

Delving further into the rebirth theme, I was interested in the rennaisance. I decided to look into stage productions of the rennaisance writer William Shakespeare. Although I quite like the dramatic staging as it reminds me of classic Italian rennaisance paintings, I'm not as drawn to it as I am to the middle section as it is overall less vibrant in terms of colour and performance.

Thinking further, I also realised that performing on stage not only gives a sense of rebirth but is also in itself a very temporary thing. Unlike film, performances on stage exist only within the moment it is happening. Even if the show has multiple runs, it will never be performed exactly the same. The only thing that immortalises a stage show is memory, provided it hasn't been filmed.

[opensourcewitchcraft]

Circe and her Lovers

Dosso Dossi

Public Domain

**Does anyone recognize what magic circle that is? What’s she cooking up or rather what grimoire did Dossi get his hands on?

[saintmachina]

“Matter bears the mark of the sacred and has itself a spiritual radiance. Hence the world is holy, nature is holy, bodies are holy, women’s bodies are holy. For the Sprit creates what is physical - worlds, bodies, senses, sexuality, passions - and moves in these every bit as much as in minds and ideas.” -Elizabeth A. Johnson

Photo credit: @galdramani. Taken in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts

[the-history-witch]

[nec-dextrorsum-nec-sinistrorsum]

Giovanni Bellini

Resurrection Of Christ

1475-79

[hometoursandotherstuff]

A diamond in the rough, in need of TLC. This is an 1885 Renaissance Revival/Italianate brick mansion in Wheeling, West Virginia for $399,990. 

The land is right on the water, so a boat dock can be built, too.

There’s a nice porch and the yard could some sod.

Foyer and center entrance hall. 

Looks like again someone started working on it, and stopped. At least they got the floors in.

This fireplace is a beauty.

Many lovely features. This is an elegant lady that deserves to be restored.

I’m thinkin’ this glass isn’t original. 

Beautiful. So, the ceilings and lighting is done here.

Wow, an elegant ballroom or dining room. 

Very nice.

Look at how they preserved those old walls. They look like tin. 

So many stunning rooms. Love the soft colors of the wallpaper.

An inner hall.

Looks like they replaced the fancy inlaid flooring.

This is beautiful. I kind of like it flakey just as it is.

This is weird- looks like a school library.

Must’ve been used for some kind of classroom- there’s a blackboard. This room would make a gorgeous bedroom. 

Unusual pedestal sink, and look, it has a urinal, too.  

Beautiful bedroom. 

Another nice bath with a fireplace.

Stairs going to the attic.

Now, this is a potential ballroom. They’re working on the awesome dome.

A lot of work has already been done. could this be a kitchen going in?  This house is going to be gorgeous, as long as someone buys it and keeps doing the restoration, not a modern thing. 

https://us.prospects.com/prospects/m.do?

[lightthereis]

Domenico Ghirlanadaio detail art

[rennystrawberry]

I layed some colours over scrapped schoolwork as an excuse to draw royalty au lilanette 😋✌

[boylerpf]

Antique Edwardian Silver Peruzzi Amethyst Bracelet - Italian Renaissance

via Boylerpf

[wakeupfinnegan]

Giambattista Vico - La Scienza Nuova (The New Science)

[academic-vampire]

One of my favorite things in art history is when Pope Julius II basically told Michelangelo that he wouldn’t reimburse him for the supplies he just spent so long obtaining…..

… so Michelangelo ran away to Florence and sent a letter to the Pope literally saying, “if you want me, you can come get me.” (he probably said “bitch” at the end… or at least it was definitely implied)

[idonotinfatuateadority-blog]

The Disputation of St Catherine of Alexandria by Pinturiccho

One of a series of frescoes in the Borgia apartment in the Vatican City, Rome.

Cesare, Lucrezia, Juan, Jofre and Sancia are depicted as characters in the painting.