2 of 3

Italian scientists have exhumed 14th-century scholar Francesco Petrarch, considered the first modern poet. "This investigation could show something new about the poet and his personality," Claudio Bellinati, director of the historical archives of Padua, told Discovery News. "We will know what he looked like and we will be able to understand whether painful events, such as accidents and diseases, might have affected his life."

For example, tradition says that Petrarch fell from his horse. However, archeologists found his skeleton largely intact. Save, that is, for the missing right arm, messily swiped by a drunken monk about two and a half centuries after Petrarch's death. While Petrarch is today largely remembered for his romantic poetry (and then known for his hunger for fame and pagan knowledge), he also produced great Christian treatises, including essays on solitude and the contemplative life.

In the three volumes of Secretum (1342), he imagined Augustine of Hippo trying to convince him to reject the ways of flesh for eternal life. Augustine seems to have won out: Petrarch's last poetic work, Trionfi, is an allegory telling of the successive triumphs of Love, Chastity, Death, Fame, and Time—which is finally defeated by Divinity. The researchers hope to report their findings by July 20, Petrarch's 700th birthday.

If you want to see how the father of English church history lived, don't go to his writings. The Venerable Bede (c. 673-735) left very little about himself. All he says is that in 680, at age 7, he was entrusted by his parents to a monastery at Jarrow, Northumbria, and "spent all the remainder of my life in this monastery and devoted myself entirely to the study of the Scriptures." But today, a British museum has brought the historian's world to life. At Bede's World (www.bedesworld.co.uk), on the site of his monastery, visitors can see the life of a monastery recreated in buildings, archeological finds, and a working farm. Interpreters demonstrate the arduous way such crafts as silversmithing and calligraphy were done 1,300 years ago. The disciplines of medieval faith may also be tasted at many contemporary monasteries in the U.K. that offer contemplative retreats for the modern Christian.

It's called the Word of God, but artists and evangelists have long sought to add images to the text of the Bible. Among the more notable examples are the famous woodcuts of Gustave Doré (1832-1883) and A Curious Hieroglyphick Bible, published by American printer Isaiah Thomas in 1788 for children (only four copies remain). Now other artists are taking up the approach of these two men. Barry Moser spent four years on his Pennyroyal Caxton Bible, which contains 232 fine engravings that many critics say surpass Doré's famous work. "Doré didn't bother with four of the five books of poetry," admits Moser. Initially intended for only 400 handprinted copies, Moser's Bible was published in a 2002 paperback edition by Viking Press. More closely following Thomas's approach is Patrick Hembrecht, the artist running the Flaming Fire Illustrated Bible project (www.flamingfire. com/bible.html). The multiple-artist effort, launched in 2002, hopes to illustrate all 36,665 verses of the King James Bible—and has about 35,000 to go. "I love reading the Bible and talking about it," he told Religion News Service. "And I wanted to do it in a way that seemed like sharing and not like I was being preachy."

next page... |  2 of 3

share this page

FREE E-Newsletter Sign up for the ChristianHistory.net e-mail newsletter. Discover more about your Christian heritage with this weekly e-newsletter that features key people, topics, and events from the history of Christianity.      RSS Feed   RSS Help