Word: virgines
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...their physical nature, angels were traditionally said to assume bodies only as needed to carry out a task. This meant that they had no gender, despite the sentimental Victorian image of the pale virgin with wings. Milton's angels, however, among the most vivid in literature, were robust figures who ate and drank freely. Raphael, in fact, "with a smile that glowed/ Celestial rosy red," blushingly explained to Adam and Eve how angels make love, "Easier than air with air, if spirits embrace, / Total they mix, union of pure with pure/ Desiring...
...color photos of it -- the emerging image clearly shows that contrary to a previous assumption that Christ's expression is one of anger, it instead betrays impatience, as though He were saying, "Silence! Now I will pronounce judgment!" Even more significant, no one in the fresco except the Virgin Mary seems to know his own fate, and thus everyone looks fearful. Says Fabrizio Mancinelli, the Vatican's curator of Renaissance art: "Michelangelo's way of interpreting this theme -- the uncertainty -- was not in line with the church at the time. The church wanted to project itself as the only certainty...
...Cardinal likes to explain his faith through the story of one of his theology professors, a man who questioned the thinking behind the church's 1950 declaration that the Assumption of the Virgin Mary into Heaven was an infallible tenet. "He said, 'No, this is not possible -- we don't have a foundation in Scripture. It is impossible to give this as a dogma.' " This led the professor's Protestant friends to hope they had a potential convert. But the professor immediately reaffirmed his abiding Catholicism. "No, at this moment I will be convinced that the church is wiser than...
...CROIX, U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS. Five centuries after the event, the U.S. National Park Service has dedicated a park at the only documented site now part of the U.S. where Christopher Columbus' crew landed on the explorer's second voyage to the New World; the date was Nov. 14, 1493. A 370-hectare enclave on this island's north shore, the Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve has the largest remaining mangrove forest in the Virgin Islands. The park harbors a wide variety of endangered flora and fauna, including giant swamp ferns and bottle-nosed dolphins, and includes...
...restored rooms in the north wing of the Palais Saint-Pierre. Among the 150 paintings, 70 sculptures and 250 objets d'art on display are medieval French ivories, enamels and goldwork; 10th to 14th century Islamic ceramics, arms and copperware; and Italian Renaissance sculpture, including Andrea Della Robbia's Virgin and Child and Mino da Fiesole's bust, St. John the Baptist. Seven of the rooms are devoted to painting: 17th century French works by Stella, Le Brun and Jouvenet, as well as Golden Age Dutch and Flemish canvases by Rubens, Jordaens, Rembrandt, Ter Borch and Jan Brueghel. A research...