Posts

Showing posts with the label Rockox house

Blogging Anniversary - 10 years

-
Image
A while ago I checked when I did my first blog post, in order to celebrate with an anniversary post. Well, that day came and went without any reaction from me. Better late than never, so here a reminder of my very first blog post from 24 October 2012.  The book was New Finnish Grammar  by Diego Marani. Marani is an Italian novelist, translator and newspaper columnist. While working as a translator for the European Union he invented a language ‘Europanto’ which is a mixture of languages and based on the common practice of word-borrowing usage of many EU languages. It was a suitable book to start with, being a book about letters, languages and memories. With a beautiful prose, the novel went directly to my heart.  "One night at Trieste in September 1943 a seriously wounded soldier is found on the quay. The doctor, of a newly arrived German hospital ship, Pietri Friari gives the unconscious soldier medical assistance. His new patient has no documents or anything that can ide...
6 comments
Read more

A day in Antwerp

-
Image
Rockox House Yesterday, Karin and I went to Antwerp to visit the Rockox house and museum. Since the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp is on repair, part of their collection is shown in this house. So who was Rockox? He lived in Antwerp from 1560-1640, born into a wealthy, bourgeois family, and studied in Leuven, Paris and Douai (a town in north eastern France (I had to look it up!). Married to Adriana Perez, who also came from an old and wealthy merchant family (of Spanish origin). During the first half of the 17th century he was an important figure in the political, artistic as well as in the social life of Antwerp. At one time he was a mayor. He gained an exceptional reputation as a patron, antiquarian, humanist and numismatist (the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, and related objects; had to look this up as well; thank you Wikipedia). Interested in the arts, he commissioned, and hereby supported the local artists, including Rubens. He als...
2 comments
Read more