Early tarot cards — used for gaming, not divination — emblemize the midpoint of fifteenth-century Italy, a crossroads of Medieval imagination and Renaissance intellect. They…
Abandoned to water and sky and what earth the roots of the scrubby trees and grass can hold, abandoned islands dot the lagoon of Venice.…
The sidesaddle, designed with stirrups on one side so that women could ride horses in relative safety without sitting astride, didn’t come along until around the sixteenth century. How…
In the Arthurian tale of Tristan & Iseult, the little dog is inseparable from the lovers after it laps up the remains of a love…
The exquisite hand-painted tarocchi (tarot) cards of medieval Milan display neither titles nor numbers. Yet “The Fool,” as he will be called in later decks,…