Astrology: Did you mean...?

Catherine de' Medici (l. 1519-1589) was the queen of France, mother of three kings and two queens and, between 1559 and c. 1576, the most powerful woman in France and, possibly, all of Europe. She was the strength behind the...

The term science comes from the Latin word scientia, meaning "knowledge". It can be defined as a systematic attempt to discover, by means of observation and reasoning, particular facts about the world, and to establish laws connecting...

Illuminated manuscripts were hand-made books, usually on Christian scripture or practice, produced in Western Europe between c. 500-c. 1600. They are so called because of the use of gold and silver which illuminates the...

Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945) was the head of the Nazi SS (Schutzstaffel) organisation. One of the most powerful individuals in Nazi Germany, Himmler built up the SS from a small paramilitary unit to a vast organisation, which...

The Florentine Codex is an encyclopedic accounting of life in 16th-century Mexico and an invaluable resource for understanding the exchange between European and Indigenous cultures during...

Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (c. 90 - c. 20 BCE), better known simply as Vitruvius, was a Roman military engineer and architect who wrote De Architectura (On Architecture), a treatise which combines the history of ancient architecture and...

Rudolf Hess (1894-1987) was deputy leader of the German Nazi Party and a key figure in the fascist regime of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) until his bizarre decision in 1941 to fly to Scotland. Hess believed he could persuade Britain to...

Gyeongju (Kyongju), formerly known as Seorabeol or Saro, was the capital of the Silla kingdom of ancient Korea from the 1st century BCE to the 10th century CE. Located in the south-east of the Korean peninsula, at its peak in the 9th...

The Magi are the visitors who came to Bethlehem to worship the newly-born Jesus of Nazareth in the gospel of Matthew (2:1-2). 'Magi' is a transliteration of the Greek magos from old Persian magus ("powerful") as a reference to the Zoroastrian...

A 3rd Century CE mosaic from Tusculum, a major ancient Roman city in the Latium region of Italy. Athena (Minerva), goddess of war, can be seen (middle) with the phases of the moon surrounding her. This mosaic is held...