Christian Palestinian tattoo artist Walid Ayash draws a tattoo on the arm of a Coptic Egyptian pilgrim on April 28, 2016, at his studio in Bethlehem.
Thomas Coex /AFP via Getty Images
Historically, many Christians got tattoos around Holy Week − usually a cross − to honor Christ’s martyrdom.
Sonnets still have a reputation for being about the unrequited love of a man for a woman.
AndreasPraefcke/Wikimedia Commons
These moving poems are a reminder that on Valentine’s Day, it’s OK to celebrate a broader definition of love.
Coral reefs in the waters of Tatawa Besar, a popular dive site near Komodo Island in Indonesia, photographed in 2009.
AP Photo/Dita Alangkara, Fil
Coral has been incorporated into traditions, art and even religion in communities around the world.
Portrait of Leonardo da Vinci.
North Wind Picture Archives/Alamy Stock Photo
A document, which dates to 1452, shows that da Vinci’s father emancipated an enslaved woman named Caterina – Leonardo’s mother.
Medieval city on a river, by Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1815).
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie / Andres Kilger
The press, films and series and even everyday language still reflect a derogatory conception of the Middle Ages. Was the period really that bad?
Although pregnancy was celebrated in Renaissance paintings, like the ‘Primavera’ by Botticelli, the reality was quite different. Will Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government reverse abortion rights in Italy?
Uffizi Gallery
The baby drop box is a revival of centuries-old cultural practices from the Italian Renaissance when reproductive rights were zero.
Beyoncé on stage in South Africa in 2018. Her new album is called Renaissance.
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Global Citizen Festival: Mandela 100
With Renaissance, Beyoncé is again shaping pop culture, honouring black disco pioneers and Africa’s rise.
Children celebrating Easter, with their Easter Bunnies and Easter eggs.
Sanja Radin/Collection E+ via Getty Images
A folklorist explains the prehistoric origins of the mythical Easter Bunny and why this longstanding cultural symbol keeps returning each spring.
The annual BioArt competition highlights the hidden parts of biology revealed under a microscope.
Todd Green/BioArt
Scientists have been using art to illuminate and share their research with the public for centuries. And art could be one way to bolster K-12 science education and scientific literacy in the public.
A sculpture of two saints meeting and embracing embodies the importance of touch in Renaissance culture as a form of devotion and ultimately a way to access the divine.
(Renaissance Polychrome Sculpture in Tuscany database)
After a year of pandemic social distancing, we know touch is a much-desired privilege. In the Italian Renaissance, people longed to touch not only each other, but also religious sculptures.
15th century paintings and frescoes by Fra Angelico and others inside monastery Convent of San Marco, Florence.
Shutterstock
The Renaissance San Marco convent, now a museum, is where Fra Angelico lived and painted under the patronage of Cosimo de’ Medici. It was also where Savonarola proclaimed the Bonfire of the Vanities.
Vittore Carpaccio’s portrait of a woman reading (1510).
Wikiart
The first French novelist wrote about an adulterous affair and moved to Paris after separating from her husband.
Six Tuscan Poets by Giorgio Vasari, 1544. Dante Alighieri,
Giovanni Boccaccio, Petrarch, Cino da Pistoia, Guittone d'Arezzo and Guido Cavalcanti are depicted in the oil painting.
Wikimedia/MIA
The history of Italian literature cannot be understood without the vernacular poets. But their works were largely unknown until Lorenzo ‘the Magnificent’ sent a gift to the Prince of Naples.
The 17th-century plague in Rome.
Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images
The 17th-century plague of Italy has lessons for today: Back then, too, people broke public health laws, but there were clergymen who intervened.
‘The Queens Closet Opened,’ first published in 1655, shared recipes and support for the deposed monarchy. Here, portrait of Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria, by Anthony van Dyck, 1632.
(Arcidiecézní muzeum Kroměříž/Wikimedia)
Recipe sharing is all the rage in the pandemic as in other times of turmoil. English cookbooks of the 16th and 17th centuries promised recipes for comfort with a dash of glamour.
The earliest biblical descriptions do not mention the presence of any barnyard animals, that are part of Nativity displays today.
Oscar Llerena/Flickr
Nativity scenes showing the birth of baby Jesus first originated in the small Italian town of Greccio.
Lords of the dance.
British Museum
Channel 4 dating show Flirty Dancing is a reminder of the 18th century men who endured endless abuse to get Britain moving.
Waldseemüller map of the world, 1507.
A new look at Renaissance paintings demonstrates the world has always been global.
Leonardo da Vinci’s experiments with friction underpinned the modern science of Tribology.
Once called ‘the most important subject no one has heard of’, tribology is now a key part of the fourth industrial revolution.
Marcantonio Raimondi’s 1505 engraving may show Leonardo da Vinci playing an instrument called a lira da braccio.
Cleveland Museum of Art.
A lot has been said about Leonardo and music, much of it speculation. But what do we know for sure?