Has China’s Economic Miracle Peaked?

By Jefferson Weaver There is a school of political theorists known as “declinists” (e.g., “Debbie downers”) who share a common assumption that the United States will inevitably be displaced as the global hegemon by another power. This view has been expressed repeatedly in academic lounges and news programs alike for decades — regardless of whether […]

Pietro Lorenzetti

Lorenzetti, two 14th-century Italian painters who were brothers. Pietro and Ambrogio, born in Siena, belonged to the Sienese school dominated by the stylized Byzantine tradition developed by Duccio di Buoninsegna and Simone Martini. Pietro trained under Duccio di Buoninsegna and participated in the decoration of the lower Basilica at Assisi. He then returned to Tuscany […]

Galleria Corsini, Caravaggio in Rome 6

After leaving the Vatican Museums, we head south and, following the Tiber River, we will reach the Corsini Palace. The palace houses half of the National Galleries of Ancient Art (we will visit the second half, the Palazzo Barberini, later in our itinerary). Just like in the Vatican Pinacoteca, there is only one masterpiece by […]

The Queen’s Hamlet in Versailles

Marie-Antoinette’s reconfiguration of the Trianon gardens can be divided into two distinct phases. The first, starting in 1777, corresponds to the creation of the English Gardens. Subsequently, in 1783, she tasked Richard Mique with extending the gardens to the north and building a whole model village around an artificial lake. Work began in the summer […]

Astronomers Discover Disc Around Star in Another Galaxy for the First Time

“When I first saw evidence for a rotating structure in the ALMA data I could not believe that we had detected the first extragalactic accretion disc, it was a special moment,” says Anna McLeod, an associate professor at Durham University in the UK and lead author of the study published today in Nature. “We know […]

The French Gardens of the Petit Trianon in Versailles

Louis XV was always fond of Le Trianon. A passionate fan of gardening and botany, he made his first forays into these domains at the Château de Choisy, before turning his attentions to the area east of the Grand Trianon in the late 1740s. Over the years the gardens would continue to grow. The French Gardens […]

Classical: What Does it Mean in Art and Life?

By Alexandra York We start by identifying that the English term “classical” finds its etymological roots in the Latin adjective classicus which referred to the highest class of Ancient Roman citizens. “Classic” also denoted the Romans’ adoration of all things considered timeless by the Greeks like philosophy, architecture, drama, mythology, and the visual arts. Later, […]

Sandro Botticelli, Representative of the Golden Age of the Early Italian Renaissance

Sandro Botticelli, (1445-1510) was an Italian painter of the Florentine school during the Early Renaissance. Less than a hundred years later, this movement, under the patronage of Lorenzo de’ Medici, was characterized by Giorgio Vasari as a “golden age”, a thought, suitably enough, he expressed at the head of his Vita of Botticelli. His posthumous […]

The Queen’s Theatre, in Versailles

A great lover of the dramatic arts, Marie-Antoinette eventually grew tired of the temporary stages knocked together for performances in the gallery of the Grand Trianon and the orangery of the Petit Trianon. Once she had decided to commission her personal architect Richard Mique to build her a real theatre, work was completed in spring […]

The Art of War: Sun Tzu’s Timeless Treatise on Warfare

By Josh Longster, Lillian Zheng The specter of war has been casting its long shadow all over the world. Wars in Eastern Europe and the Middle East dominate the media headlines. With their devastating consequences on livelihoods and society, these conflicts serve as poignant reminders of the enduring relevance of human struggles and military solutions. […]