Showing posts with the label Italy

Aqua Tofana: The 17th Century Husband Killer

Apr 1, 2025

Sometime in the summer of 1791, or perhaps even earlier, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart fell ill. His biographer, Franz Niemetschek, described him ...

Santorio Santori And Insensible Perspiration

Oct 18, 2024

Some people become obsessed with tracking their weight, carefully counting every calorie they eat and burn through exercise. They even weigh...

The Delft Tower Experiment

Oct 7, 2024

In 1654, twelve years after the death of the brilliant Italian astronomer and scientist Galileo Galilei, Prince Leopold de' Medici, brot...

Claude Ruggieri: Master of Pyrotechnic Brilliance

Mar 27, 2024

Fireworks have accompanied celebrations and festivities for at least a thousand years. They were first used in China during the Song dynasty...

Ponte dei Trepponti: A Unique 5-Way Bridge

May 12, 2023

The Ponte dei Trepponti or Trepponti bridge is a rare five-way bridge located in Comacchio, Italy. Although the name “Trepponti”, originatin...

Girolamo Segato’s Mysterious Petrified Mummies

May 9, 2023

For thousands of years, different cultures across continents have successfully preserved bodies of their ancestors. For the Egyptians, mummi...

Amphitheater of Capua: The First Roman Amphitheater

Sep 13, 2022

Of all the amphitheaters built by the Romans, the Colosseum or Flavian Amphitheater in Rome is the largest of all in dimensions, followed by...

Frog Battery

Sep 1, 2022

The term ‘battery’ was first used by Benjamin Franklin in 1749 to describe an apparatus he had designed to produce electricity. Franklin lin...

What is Galvanism, And How Did it Inspire Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein?

Jun 16, 2022

On 18 January 1803, George Foster was hanged by the neck. The jury had found him guilty of murdering his wife and child by drowning them in ...

Staglieno Cemetery: Where Death is Beautiful

May 18, 2022

The cemetery of Staglieno represents more than the dead. It represents a confluence of movements that furthered the cause of the living. Cim...