In Germany these days there is a debate about whether schools should stop teaching classics like Goethe's Faust. After all, "in Berlin for example, 55% of all children and teenagers have familial roots outside of Germany, according to Berlin's statistics office" (source: Deutsche Welle)

This is really a story about money and riches, but more on that in a minute. Even today it reads like a tabloid headline but, in January 1496, after the Tiber River flooded the city of Rome, a rumor got around that a monster had been found in the mud

What was the most toxic cosmetic ever used? Lead would be the favorite. Lead White carbonate was used in cosmetics because it could be caked on easily. It also was used by painters of frescoes, manuscripts and portraits, since it was easy to work with. Your face as a canvas.

Or should I say She? My favorite Death character in literature is Ninon de Lenclos' Noctambule where, if Ninon doesn't cheat Death exactly, she does delay him and deny him her immortal soul. She lived to be 84. Similarly, in movies it's Ingmar Bergman'

The original storytellers of The Judgment of Paris don't seem overly concerned with chronology, because the golden apple is thrown by Eris, the goddess of discord, into the wedding of Achilles' parents because she wasn't invited, which implies that Achilles wasn't born yet.

Did Cleopatra choose eternal beauty? No. Cleopatra chose power, not beauty and she already had riches and fame. We know this from Roman denarius coins from her era that show a woman who was hook-nosed, with thin lips and a pointy chin. Now some people might find this image of

Eugène Delacroix's lithograph of Méphistophélès dans les Airs (sometimes translated as Mephistopheles Flying Over Wittenberg), which he produced in 1828 as the first of a series of 17 to illustrate Goethe's Faust. If Martin Luther was Faust, who was Mephistopheles? Was he a demon? An agent

The painting below is Goethe's most famous portrait: Goethe in Campagna (1787) by Tischbein, a German painter who had spent many years in Italy, and with whom Goethe stayed when he was in Rome. He was 38. The Campagna refers to the Roman Campagna, the area surrounding Rome,

Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné, better known as Madame de Sévigné, is most famous for her letters to her daughter, Françoise de Sévigné, Countess of Grignan. She was born in the lovely Place des Vosges (then called the Place Royale) - above. Below is Château des Rochers in Brittany,

There are surprisingly few interesting images of Helen of Troy in the history of art, although there are many. Maybe painting the world's most beautiful woman was a challenge. Or it produced strange offspring, like this painting of her birth: that's not Helen though. That'

Born Françoise d'Aubigné in 1635, she was known after her first marriage as Madame Scarron and later as Madame de Maintenon, a title she earned from Louis XIV. She took the name after the estate she bought in 1674, shown below. It is outside Paris, on the way

The real Faust figure was Martin Luther, who died in 1546, a few years after the necromancer Georg Faust. Both are associated with Wittenberg. Luther was Goethe’s intellectual ancestor, upending the northern European world forever by defying the Devil (the Pope in Rome) just as Faust does. He successfully

The influential courtesan and intellectual Ninon de Lenclos held her salon from 1667 onwards in the Hôtel de Sagonne at 36, rue des Tournelles, in the Marais district, where she lived for 48 years. It is also where she died, in 1705. The building is still there although now it

It is difficult to miss the homosexual theme in the painting below, The Rape of Ganymede by Rubens (1611), where the eagle is Zeus, but most major painters and writers treated the theme at some point in their career. So what, then, was on Goethe's mind when he

The Devil only emerged as a strong character in his own right in the late medieval period - the late 1300's or early 1400's in northern Italy when he took on a garish appearance. (He has his own lineage separate from Satan; for another image here.

* 1517 Martin Luther begins the Protestant Reformation in Wittenberg. * 1540-1541 The historical Georg Faust is said to have died in Wittenberg, possibly torn apart by the Devil * 1543 Copernicus shows that Earth is not the centre of the Universe * 1546 Death of Martin Luther * 1587 Anonymous chapbook Historia von D.

Trojan prince Paris was asked to judge who was the most beautiful goddess in the heavens.  He chose Aphrodite over Hera and Athena and was rewarded by her with the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen. Except that she was already married.  As was he. This set in motion

Literally “sleepwalker” or “nightwalker” or perhaps “night crawler” in French – referring to those who like to ramble in the city at night, hence “noctambulism.” The Noctambule is a venerable tradition in French Gothic arts, music and literature that had its heyday back in the 19th century when it referred mainly

For over a hundred years the arts and culture in France were controlled by aristocratic women and intellectual life was dominated by the salons. Initially the leading salon of the era was the Marquise de Rambouillet’s, from 1620 till 1645, but it became pretentious, as they all do eventually,

In the century before Ninon de Lenclos, a strange figure emerges in the literary histories: Louise Labé, aka Louise Labbé, who was born in the early 1520's and who lived most of her life in Lyon, the French city most associated with the Renaissance. Records show she was

One of the unanswered questions about The Judgment of Paris is why did Helen of Sparta agree, if in fact she did, to be the "prize" awarded to Paris if he chose Aphrodite. Had Helen even met Paris? Did Aphrodite cast a spell on her? Was she miserable

Voltaire, who was born in Paris in 1694, met Ninon de Lenclos in 1705 when he was 11 years old. Voltaire managed to find a way to avoid following in his father’s footsteps, by writing satirical poetry and other works that made him very popular with the smart set,