Month: June 2017

This and That

Quixotic Musings: the Adventurous Life of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

  By Juan de Jauregui y Aguilar (circa 1583 – 1641) (The Bridgeman Art Library, Object 108073) Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, author of Don Quixote, died on 22 or 23 April 1616 in Madrid. Born in about 1547 to a deaf surgeon, Cervantes spent his childhood in poverty. The profession of surgeon was not at all high-paying. Cervantes’ exact date of birth is unknown, but … Continue reading Quixotic Musings: the Adventurous Life of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Heather R Darsie2 Comments
This and That

It is Not in the Stars to Hold Our Destiny, but in Ourselves

Around 23 April 1564, a great mind was born in a small English market town. Such an immortal mind was baptised 26 April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire. With inauspicious beginnings as the third of six children born, first to survive infancy, to a leather merchant and landed heiress, William Shakespeare would go on to lead the life of an intellectual lion, whose roar can … Continue reading It is Not in the Stars to Hold Our Destiny, but in Ourselves

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This and That

Remembering Hieronymus Bosch, 500 Years Later

On Wednesday 9 August 1516, a funeral mass was sung for the soul of Jeroen von Aeken. Better known by his artistic name of Hieronymus Bosch, he was 58 to 66 years old at death. Dying in the city of ’s-Hertogenbosch, located in the Brabant, Bosch may have passed on from pleurisy which was plaguing the city around that time and claimed the lives of … Continue reading Remembering Hieronymus Bosch, 500 Years Later

Heather R Darsie1 Comment