The Best Popes.

[LabelKing]

Originally Posted by Manton

I agree, it is best to say "No" to these archaic letterings, which only confuse without shedding full spectrum light on any important or relevant phenomona. While it is often admirable to cherish and exalt the past -- to preserve the best that has been thought, seen, said, and regurgitated -- nonetheless, to vomit up obscure references only in the attempt to impress upon others the extent of one's pedantry, or at least mastery of Wikipedia, lacks something of the soigne and is, in the last anaylsis, rather vulgar.
But where would your circa 1898 London be without a little imagination, the hobby-store and a whole lot of wikipedia/conservapedia pictures?

 

[RJman]

Where do Yog-Sothoth and the Hounds of Tyndalos come in?

 

[JBZ]

Originally Posted by Manton

Not at all. These archaic spellings had been largely lost to the mists of time, before their rediscovery by scholars who dug them out of the archives at the Chicago Tribune building; not the one actually completed, but the one designed by Adolf Loos. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the keepers of the Gregorian Alphabet crossed the Channel to France, where a mere 250 years later (give or take a solar revolution) they faced even worse persecution from the Incroyables of the post-Bourbon effluvience. Fleeing the ridicule of the Directoire, they found refuge in Eastern Orthodox citadels, revelling in the warmth of the Byzantine mosiacs (though, truth be told, they found the tiles a mite cold against their bare feet). You can guess the encroaching irony. The Bolshevik victory, while well deserved, given their utterly superior sense of style -- because, really, in a revolutionary context, red is always more soigne that white -- was a hardship for the monks, who were forced to trek across Asia. That is, those who were not killed or sent to camps. They ended up in Japan, tolerated if not honored (for Japan has a strong monastic tradition, in the Buddhist warrior vein). Some years after the decline of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, a saleswoman at Paul Stuart's Tokyo store used this alphabet in a catalogue that was later shipped to the United States by mistake. Some believe that she is the same person who brought the term "trad" from that archipelego to the American continent, but this may have the same cognative status as certain pre-shogun-era myths. Thus, there is no shame in not knowing this rather charmingly outdated arrangement of letters.

Your gracious explanation in the face of my ignorance is both insightful and befitting of a true gentleman. I wonder if you were aware that the Tokyo saleswoman referenced above was a Chinese immigrant who came from a small countryside town the name of which is now lost to the sands of time. Her ancestors were distant relatives of the royals of the Tang dynasty and were well-known caligraphers. Ultimately, they were exiled due to a spelling mistake which ignited a small, but bloody civil conflict. She herself faced many years of persecution before her unlikely rise to the position that she held at the time of the catalogue mishap. I find the irony of this given the context of your larger tale quite droll.

 

[Manton]

Originally Posted by JBZ

Your gracious explanation in the face of my ignorance is both insightful and befitting of a true gentleman. I wonder if you were aware that the Tokyo saleswoman referenced above was a Chinese immigrant who came from a small countryside town the name of which is now lost to the sands of time. Her ancestors were distant relatives of the royals of the Tang dynasty and were well-known caligraphers. Ultimately, they were exiled due to a spelling mistake which ignited a small, but bloody civil conflict. She herself faced many years of persecution before her unlikely rise to the position that she held at the time of the catalogue mishap. I find the irony of this given the context of your larger tale quite droll.
I did not know this, and I thank you for graciously bringing it to my attention. It so deliciously augments the tale that, even if it is not true -- and I have little doubt that it is -- I would choose to believe it in any event, as the perfect coda to this story that so well illustrates the power of letters and the importance of correct spelling.

 

[chronoaug]

After doing a research paper a few years ago on the Donation Constantini, i'd have to say that i'm a huge fan of Pope Stephen II. One of the 3 most influential popes of all time along with Innocent III and Gregory the Great. Innocent III and Henry IV wouldn't even exist if it weren't for the brilliant forgery by Stephen II and his crew.

The fabricated life of Pope Sylvester I (as written by the donation of constantine forgers) is one of my favorite as well. I'm sure his life was no where near as dramatic and interesting, but his legacy was very important until the Renaissance.

It's a good read if anyone cares. The actual donation itself, a few other related sources and then Lorenzo Valla's treatise exposing it are all fascinating. I'm going to work on a paper to be published on the subject in the next year.

 

[Brian SD]

Every post in this thread enthralls me.

 

[chronoaug]

Word is that the late Pope John Paul was a good keeper when he was younger and more athletic. Plus believing in evolution makes for a pretty good pope in my book. He always seemed like a good guy. I don't trust Benedict for some reason.

 

[LabelKing]

Originally Posted by chronoaug

Word is that the late Pope John Paul was a good keeper when he was younger and more athletic. Plus believing in evolution makes for a pretty good pope in my book. He always seemed like a good guy. I don't trust Benedict for some reason.
I think it's something in his face.

 

[countdemoney]

Originally Posted by Brian SD

Every post in this thread enthralls me.

+1

There is a certain frisson one gets from reading them.

 

[RJman]

Which one was the one MI6 was blackmailing? It's in Stephen Dorril's book.