Hidden Secrets Tour

03/20/2024

Hellenistic terracota figurine of Skylla from the 3rd or 2nd century BCE, found in Sicily. The items she holds are broken so what they were is uncertain, but in similar Etruscan portraits she holds two anchors, oars, or rudders as weapons, evidently collected from ships broken on her rocks.

She sits astride a cone of waves, emerging from the sea. Her womanly half is beautiful, with a very lovely face and pleasing expression. She wears a girdle/belt with extension that lends modesty to her appearance.

For Homer, she was very monstrous during her encounter with Odysseus. She had twelve dragon tails and dog heads issuing from her waist, a crab shell on her back, and several long-necked heads, veru distant from the two-tail mermaid.
This Beautiful Skylla is the kindlier version who was a goddess to the Etruscans. She protected the dead lost at sea and served the dead by leading them into the afterlife. Her cult evidently lingered in Sicily.

03/20/2024

Even a touch can kill. The Visha Kanyas were supposedly poisonous young women who operated as in . Any contact with these toxic ladies would mean death. However, no one can say for certain where truth ends and myth begins about the historicity of these venomous assassins and the superhuman-like aura surrounding them.

Visha Kanya, literally meaning "poison maiden," comes from a disputed and disgraceful (if true) practice in which ancient Indian Kings trained girls to become assassins from an early age and gradually fed them many different types of poisons to make them immune to their lethal effects. By the time they reached puberty, these girls would have been thoroughly toxic and ready to be used as deadly human weapons.

From the second day of birth, ancient Indian Kings would feed one tiny drop of snake venom to the baby girl. Gradual feeding of different types of poison continued throughout the girls early age to make them immune to the lethal effects. By the time they reached puberty, these girls were not only beginning to awaken arousal, but were thoroughly toxic and ready to be used as deadly human weapons.

The king could then use these seductive assassins against his most powerful enemies.

Sexual in*******se, a kiss, contact with her sweat or even just sharing a glass of wine with her would be fatal for the victim.

These star-crossed girls were chosen by kings if their horoscope (jyotish) promised widowhood. Even a specific cast was established for them.

The Pseudo-Aristotle treatise, Secretum Secretorum (“The Secrets of Secrets”) conveys Aristotle warning his pupil Alexander the Great to be careful of lavish gifts from Indian kings.

In one Hebrew version of this treatise, which is likely to be earlier than most, Aristotle says that he fears the clever political strategists of India.

One french version tells a story that Socrates and Aristotle told two slaves to kiss the girl and they both fell down dead instantly. Other versions have her kill by bite, s*xual in*******se, or even just an icy glare.

13th century Spanish author Guillem de Cervera declares that Aristotle saved Alexanders life by using the same astrological techniques (Jyotish) to determine a poison maiden and avert the attack.

Incidentally, the german word for poison is “gift.”

Toxicology Branch of Ayurvedic Texts Warning About Visha Kanyas

"A girl who has been exposed to poison from brith, and who has thus been made poisonous herself. She kills a lover just be her touch or her breath. Flowers and blossoms wilt when they come into contact with her head. The bugs in her bed, the lice in her clothes, and anyone who washes in the same water as her, all die. With this in mind, you should keep far away from her as possible.”
Astanga Samgraha of Vaghbata, 1.8.87-89."

Dalhanas commentary on Susrutas verse is even more graphic:

“If she touches you, her sweat can kill. If you make love to her, your p***s drops off like a ripe fruit from its stalk.”

Dalhana on Susruta Samhita, 5.1.4-6

The problem with all of these stories is they are most likely fiction and no historical sources verify any of them.

02/25/2024

02/22/2024

Earliest known depiction of the famous 'Wooden Horse' of the Trojan War, on Mykonos Terracotta Vase (Pithos) - 670 BC, found at Mykonos island, Cyclades.

02/22/2024

Is it human or animal? Is it natural or artificial? Is it repulsive or is it cute and sweet? These are some of the contrasting thoughts that arise when viewing Patricia Piccinini’s works. Piccinini makes sculptures, drawings, videos, and installations that draw on our primeval senses and destabilize our perception of reality. A storyteller, the Australian artist seeks to question our understanding of being human and to explore its transformation and evolution through scientific and technological innovations.

The grotesque meets beauty in Patricia Piccinini’s work. Her entire oeuvre is about relationships, especially those between humanity and nature.

02/18/2024

Gertrud Louise Goldschmidt also known as “Gego” from childhood, was born on August 1, 1912 in Hamburg, Germany. She was educated at the University of Stuttgart, Germany, acquiring a degree in architecture in 1938.

Her German citizenship was nullified in 1935 and to escape the increasing anti-Semitism in her home country, she emigrated to Caracas, Venezuela in 1939, where she worked as a freelance architect and industrial designer until the mid-1940s and becoming a citizen in 1952. In 1953, she moved to the coastal town of Tarma and began her artistic work, producing drawings, watercolors, monotypes and xylographs; the majority of these early works were figurative and expressionist. She returned to Caracas in 1956, and there, using pure abstraction as her starting point, she began to address problems of sculptural space in her work; in 1957, along with artists Carlos Cruz-Diez, Alejandro Otero, and Jesús-Rafael Soto, Gego participated in the exhibition Arte abstracto en Venezuela.

By 1959, the Museum of Modern Art in New York had begun to acquire her work; she moved to New York in 1960 and remained in the United States until 1967.

Gego taught at the school of architecture of the Universidad Central de Venezuela and at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas Cristóbal Rojas. Her first individual show was held at the Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas in 1961; in 1962 she installed a sculpture at the headquarters of the Banco Industrial de Venezuela. She helped found the Instituto de Diseño Neumann in Caracas where she taught from 1964 to 1977. In 1969, with Gerd Leufert, she completed murals for the headquarters of the Instituto Nacional de Cooperación Educativa (INCE).

Gego met Venezuelan urban planner Ernst Gunz at the architectural firm where she worked with other architects to design the Los Caobos housing estate for Luis Roche. They married in October 1940 and opened a furniture studio called ‘Gunz’, where Gego designed lamps and wooden furniture. Together the couple had Tomás (b. 1942) and Barbara (b. 1944). Gego closed Gunz in 1944 in order to spend more time with her children. By 1948 she returned to designing private homes, nightclubs and restaurants. In 1951 she separated from Ernst Gunz, and in 1952 met artist and graphic designer Gerd Leufert. Gego and Leufert remained partners for life.

Her interest in lithographs, intaglios and etching led to artists' books, such as Autobiography of a Line, 1965

From the 1970s to the 1980s she completed important, architecturally integrated sculpture for public buildings, residences, and shopping malls. In 1972, for example, she constructed Cuerdas (Cords), a sculpture-installation consisting of suspended nylon and stainless steel strips, for the Parque Central architectonic complex in Caracas.

Gego eventually began to use random procedures and “found” materials such as industrial scraps and metals. Her series of suspended sculptures Dibujos sin papel (Drawings without Paper) and her series Bichos (Creatures) also date from the 1980s, as does her Reticulárea ambiental. Her last, extremely significant work was Tejeduras (Weavings), in which small fields of orthogonal lines were interwoven with strips of paper.

Gego died on September 17, 1994 in , .

02/09/2024

Doña Catalina de Erauso, hailing from Spain during the early Seventeenth Century, from a devout and respected family. Despite being forced into a convent by her aunt after the death of her parents, Catalina discovered herself bored and devoid of passion for religious life and yearning for something much more adventurous.

Seizing the opportunity, she fled the confines of the convent disguised as a man, embarking on a remarkable journey to the New World. Displaying her remarkable swordsmanship skills, she traversed from Spain to Peru and Chile, earning herself widespread renown as a formidable duelist.

Sometimes she worked as an , sometimes a . In one hard-fought battle against Indians in northern Chile she recaptured their flag and for this she was made a junior officer. No one thought this unusual for a member of the fair s*x, as no one was aware that she was a woman.

Being a successful sword fighter means that you kill a lot of people and even in the rowdy world of colonial mule drivers this attracted the Law’s attention and finally led to her being arrested and about to be condemned to death, whereupon she revealed that she was a woman and a virgin and, by the way, also a nun, which would put her under the jurisdiction of the Church.

The authorities in Peru decided that this was above their pay grade, so they sent her to Spain to have her case resolved there. The Spanish authorities, similarly baffled, sent her case to the Pope.

The Pope was so intrigued by her story that he gave her dispensation to wear male clothing the rest of her life. Once the Pontiff had cleared the air, King Philip IV, also taken by her story, granted her a pension of 500 pesos.

In about 1640, Catalina returned to New and to mule driving, and according to some, “became the terror of the Mexico City-Veracruz road”.

At this point, love entered her life and she fell madly for the wife of a young hidalgo. When he learned about the affair between Catalina and his wife and demanded it end, she challenged him to a duel which was prevented. Doña Catalina died a few years later, in about the year 1650. ゚viralシ

01/31/2024

Ginevra was around seventeen years old, well-educated and from a wealthy Florence family. It is likely that this portrait, possibly da Vinci's first, was made to commemorate Givenra de Benci's marriage to Luigi Niccolini that year.

Ginevra de Benci was said to have been beautiful. Da Vinci enhanced her beauty, painting her flawless, smooth skin.

He used the ends of his paintbrush to create her ringlets. Her elegant brown gown shows wonderful details of blue ribbon fastenings, gold braid and a gold pin. Ginevra de Benci is also wearing a black scarf which was fashionable a the time.

She is painted in front of a Juniper tree which is a slight pun, as "ginepro" the Italian word for juniper, suggests her name. In the distance, there are more trees and an expanse of water. Da Vinci creates a misty effect in the background using overlaid oil glazes to create his hazy sky.

This portrait was quite ground-breaking at the time as it show Ginevra de Benci in a three-quarter pose and her eyes gaze towards the viewer although not making direct contact. Da Vinci's contemporaries commented that this portrait was extremely lifelike.

01/25/2024

During the early 17th century in London, various factors contributed to the mortality rates among its inhabitants. One belief held by many medical practitioners was the influence of planets on health and mental well-being. Those deemed “planet-stricken” were believed to have fallen under the malevolent forces of certain planets, exhibiting symptoms resembling , , and heart attacks.

Another significant cause of death was , now known as , caused by bacteria primarily targeting the lungs. By the turn of the 20th century, it had become the leading cause of death in the United States.

The King’s Evil, also known as scrofula, was a tubercular infection affecting the lymph glands in the throat. People believed that being touched by a monarch could cure this ailment, but between 1629 and 1660, it still resulted in an average of approximately 30 deaths per year.

caused by the removal of kidneys, referred to as ‘Cut of the Stone,’ were also recorded in the city during this period.

Moreover, dental infections posed a significant health risk during the 1600s. Listed as the fifth or sixth leading cause of death in London, they continued to be a serious concern up until 1908 when they still resulted in fatal outcomes for 10 to 40 percent of those affected.

As society progressed and medical knowledge advanced, the understanding and management of these causes of death improved, leading to a decline in their prevalence over time.