I've been studying art and history for a long time. One or the other or both of those subjects have consumed about four-fifths of my life, and to be honest, I've only scratched the surface of what could be learned. I'll be at it for the rest of my life, and never run out of new, interesting, or cool things to discover. I discovered something new this morning that has me really excited. The University of Pisa is engaged in a study of the earthly remains of Henry VII, the Holy Roman Emperor. He died while on a visit to Italy in 1315, and was buried with great ceremony in the cathedral in Pisa. He was a young spark when he died, not even forty years old, and how he ended up as a medieval tourist attraction was a question of the time and it remains a question today. For some reason, it was necessary to open the tomb this spring and examine the contents. Now, the University is carefully testing minute particles from the remains to determine whether the king was poisoned or had some other health issue that resulted in his untimely end.
Meanwhile, I was scooting around my usual Internet haunts and found some references to the study, including a video of the university staff opening the sarcophagus.
The part that really got my attention was the crown that they found in the box. The university's press release had some fantastic photographs attached to it and among them were some images of Henry's entrance into Pisa, drawn in the early 1300s. I love this style of art! No matter what their subject, there's an earnest, light-hearted quality about these kind of drawings. I tootled around looking for an image that I could include here and came up with the two you see. It looks like his hair was always kind of in his face.
The thing that struck me right between the eyes was the unbelievable accuracy of the drawings. Today we think of medieval images as stylized and not really the most faithful representation of their subject that could exist. But look at the crown they found in the box, and the crown in the drawings, particulary the one of Henry and his retainers on horses (scroll down in the press release link, above).
I'll never look at medieval art in the same way again. That's why I wonder if his hair was always in his face -- it seems to be, in all of the drawings of him, and if they've got his crown right, then what else is right? I am amazed and delighted.
Ah, the musings of a history geek.
Meanwhile, I'm hard at work on getting the craft room organized, and I don't mean that I'm doing it via Pinterest (although I've spent a good bit of time on it in the past few days, looking for yet more inspiration). One of my graduate students finshed her degree and remarked to me that she was getting rid of her furniture in preparation for moving to the next university. I asked if she planned to jettison a dresser, and she not only did, but she brought it over here. I bought two tall bookshelves to put on either side of it, and have got one of them put together and in place. When the other is finished, I'll start moving stuff around and figuring out where to put what. It's exciting! I'll finally get a space to work in, and be able to actually get to craft materials I haven't seen since June of 2012. I'll post photographs when there's something to see.
In addition to all of this,I finished the Robin Hood socks and have even washed and worn them. Right as school let out I started the Emperor's Pretty-Secret Christmas Socks, and will probably finish the first one before this weekend is over. I don't know if the yarn is slightly heavier, or if I'm just knitting more quickly, but it's flying off the needles. Once the second one is finished, I'll start the Jupiter cardigan; I can't get to the yarn until the craft room is finished, anyway, so I might as well do something constructive in the interim.
One of the discoveries I made while looking through Pinterest was the 2014 fall/winter fashion color forecast, and I found that much of my present wardrobe is right on the money, color-wise (let's not talk about silhouette or fabric). This means not only that I'll be accidentally in style, but I should be able to find new bits in colors I love to add to what I already have in the closet. It also means that my plan to knit Jupiter with my dark pine green Galway stash will be fashion-forward, as will the Hitofude cardi, meant to be a warm orangey brown. I could never have planned it that way, even if I had tried.
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