Holbein's "Ambassadors", the picture and the men

Few pictures have attracted more attention than Holbein’s double-portrait of two Ambassadors, since its migration in 1890 from Longford Castle to the National Gallery. The great...

When, in 1890, the picture of “The Ambassadors” was purchased for the national collection,[2] nothing was known of its story prior to the last hundred years. The record began wi...

Meanwhile Camusat, ever active in the cause of archæology, carefully preserved the record of the famous Polisy Holbein, in letters addressed to his friends, the Godefroy brother...

In attempting to follow the career of Jean de Dinteville, and to read aright the picture by Holbein, which is, to so large an extent, the intimate expression of his mind, it is...

Four years had passed since the release of Francis I., when, in 1530, his two eldest sons were at last set free from their Spanish prison. This happy event was due in great meas...

From Calais to Dover was then, as now, the more frequented passage; but Boulogne being French territory, it sometimes happened that Frenchmen selected that route in preference t...

That auspicious day was now rapidly approaching. The very date, May 23, which saw the despatch of Dinteville’s letter, just quoted, was also that on which Cranmer pronounced the...

On arriving in France, the Bailly of Troyes hurried to Lyons to join the king on his return from the interview with the Pope.[214] Francis was on his way to Bar-le-Duc, there to...

With the mission of 1537 the Bailly of Troyes vanishes from the arena of public affairs. How the following year and a half were spent, there is nothing to show. At the end of th...

It was during these years of leisure necessitated by ill-health, that the Bailly of Troyes rebuilt the Château of Polisy from the ground. The construction of the new house bring...

The career of the Bishop of Lavaur, the ambassador _de robe longue_, forms an interesting contrast to that of the _homme d’épée_, or _de robe courte_, whose acquaintance has bee...

At some time in the course of the year 1534, having completed the canonical age, George de Selve was consecrated bishop.[334] Whether this took place in France before his depart...

It is uncertain whether the Bishop of Lavaur spent in his diocese the whole of the fifteen months which elapsed between his return from Italy in the summer of 1538 and his next...

Meanwhile, following the court from place to place on the Emperor’s progress through Holland, the month of August found Selve at the Hague. An urgent letter to Montmorency, who,...

Benvenuto Cellini, in his “Autobiography,” records an interesting conversation which took place between Francis I. and himself. The artist was submitting to his patron a drawing...

THE LUTHERAN HYMN-BOOK.—The introduction of a German Hymn-book on the lower shelf of the table, near George de Selve, tends to confirm the belief that the Bishop of Lavaur had a...