The best cadaver tombs in Europe, though, are in England. One in Ewelme church, Oxfordshire, is truly gruesome; and there are nastily realistic ones in Wells Cathedral, and also in Tewkesbury Abbey. But my favourite is old As-I-Am, in the south aisle of Norwich cathedral: a portrait bust of a skeleton incised and infilled in [...]

Dead Europe

I remember seeing the Archbishop when I was a child. I was about nine, he was nearly five hundred years old. His name was Simon of Sudbury, and his skull - tautly covered with yellow shriveled skin - was kept in a box in the vestry in a church in Sudbury, [...]

Cults of Personality

Along with great treasure-houses like the Louvre and Prada, and the many fine regional, historical, and special interest museums, Europe abounds in sites devoted to particular individuals.
Both the individuals and the museums range from the famous to the forgotten, from the magnificent to the merely curious. In a few cities, [...]

Housed in four splendid 18th- and 19th-century buildings, part of which comprised the Russian royalty’s Winter Palace (and still retains the name & much of the interior splendor thereof). The collections, housed in over three hundred rooms, are in total one of the largest in the world. They are divided into 6 major exhibits: Prehistoric [...]