A small local newspaper’s print swan song. A 90-year-old high school newspaper wrestles with paper prices. “The world’s most beautiful calendar.” Scientists have finally cracked the code of the Mayan calendar. A German magazine publishes a fake AI-generated interview with Michael Schumacher, for some reason. A shredded book designed to be read. Xerox donates the Palo Alto Research Center to SRI International. Seiko Epson invests in a company that develops brain-to-computer interfaces. The Light-Up Chess Set features pieces that are illuminated. England’s Blackpool Zoo is hiring a “seagull deterrent” bird costume required. Color-changing marshmallows. All that and more in WhatTheyThink’s weekly miscellany.
One of the most common questions about daily life in the Middle Ages is what did homes look like. Medieval manuscript illuminations can reveal much about the exteriors and interiors of a peasant’s house.
Limbourg brothers, Limbourg also spelled Limburg, three Dutch brothers who are the best-known of all late Gothic manuscript illuminators. Herman (b. c. 1385, Nijmegen, duchy of Gelre [now in Gelderland, Netherlands] d. February? 1416), Paul (Pol) (b. c. 1386/87, Nijmegen d. February? 1416), and Jean (Johan) (b. c. 1388, Nijmegen d. February? 1416) were among the first illuminators to render specific landscape scenes (such as the environs and appearance of their patron’s castles) with great accuracy and sensitivity. Together they synthesized the innovations of other illuminators and developed a personal style characterized by subtlety of line, painstaking technique, and minute rendering of detail.