There are legends that just live in European culture for centuries, since ancien Times till nowadays. There are motifs that keep coming back. One of those motifs – especially in Christian culture – is a story about a man who sold his soul to the devil. Source of inspiration for…
Taming of the devil
One of the most beautiful places in Moravia (or perhaps in the Czech Republic all together) is Telč; a city with the Old Town listed at the UNESCO World Heritage List. One may find there amazing renaissance houses, old churches and a beautiful castle, and I definitively recommend you visiting…
Details from behind
For a good start of the Autumn and a new academic year, I decided to write abut some very interesting aspects of mixing sacrum and profanum in the medieval art. I would like to focus on the decorations of the cathedral in Bourges: to be precise, I would like to…
Our Lady of the Baton
The exhibition “Maria Mater Misericordiae” (in the National Museum in Cracow) is almost finished. It collected various depictions of the Virgin Mary, portraying her in many different roles: as a tender mother, as a beautiful woman, as Co-Redemptrix suffering with her crucified son… and also we may find there some…
A way to scare away the devil
There are various stories present in the European folklore telling how women are capable of defeating even the satan himself. A popular tale about the devil getting married and subsequently running away from his horrible wife was used in the sixteenth century by Niccolò Machiavelli in his novella “Belfagor arcidiavolo”;…