Category Archive: HISTORY
Winston Spencer Churchill
Peerless self-confidence
(30 Nov. 1874 to 25 Jan. 1965) The 50th anniversary of Churchill’s death prompts us to recall a person the like of which we no longer see. Whilst he was a giant even from early age, Churchill was wildly inconsistent in his politics and his professional allegiances. He failed more often than he succeeded and a case can be made that he was a far better writer (and painter) than politician or military strategist. Yet he completely embodies the heroic myth of ‘cometh the hour, cometh the man’. Hard as it is to believe today, for a great deal of…
Continue Reading →Roman Guide – Pierfrancesco Vecchio
If you are new to Rome and can’t stay for more than several months, you would do well to see the Vatican chambers and the Forum Romanum (at least). Best to do that with a learned guide. TVC was lucky enough to have Pierfrancesco Vecchio, art historian and archaeologist, from Imago Artis. Francesco, who wears his deep learning lightly and with his trusty tablet at hand, knows just what to cover, what to pass by and he made our experience easy and fun as well as instructive. Our concierge had recommended him to us and we thank him for that…
Continue Reading →The Elgin Marbles
Image courtesy Andrew Dunn
‘And so this is Christmas and what have we done?’ Have we been friends of the earth and enemies of the people; open to change and closed to knowledge; fighting for peace and appeasing terror? Tu se’ pagliaccio! The squabbles over the Elgin marbles continue. There are many arguments pro and con; some ingenious, some tosh. Legally, you can paraphrase Mr Gutman from the ‘Maltese Falcon’ and say clear title rests with Pheidias, so how can another claim prevail except by right of possession? The only edifying aspect to squabbles over title is that it reveals a hitherto latent love…
Continue Reading →The Athenaeum Library – Melbourne
First Floor, 188 Collins Street, Melbourne. Literally a Melbourne Institution, the Athenaeum Library is an oasis among the desert of commerce in the heart of Melbourne, a quiet place to sit, read, reflect. More power to it!
Continue Reading →Captain Cook’s Voyages 1768-1779
(James Cook) Stirring accounts of Cook’s scissoring across the world in leaky boats, to places often unexplored, from South America, Africa, South East Asia, the Bering Sea & Strait and all over the Pacific. This book is based on Cook’s journals and reports to Admiralty, selected by Glyndwr Williams for the Folio edition (1997). Cook was one of a handful of giants in exploration when about a third of the world was unknown. By the time he was lethally sandwiched by natives in Hawaii, he had become famous in his homeland and well known to much of the rest of…
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