In 1348, the rats aboard ship from some great Italian commercial city, whether Venice or Genoa or somewhere else (we cannot tell) came infested with disease-ridden fleas, and Europe was struck with the bubonic plague, the so-called Black Death. One third of the continent’s population was wiped out. That would be as if 110 million

You can’t judge a book by its cover, we say, meaning that no man should be judged by his clothes, or by a mere glance at his demeanour. Fair enough, as far as it goes. “What went ye out into the wilderness to see?” Jesus asks, referring to John the Baptist. “A man clothed in

I don’t break my New Year’s resolutions, because I never make any, but if I were to recommend one to readers today, it would be to try to read one genuinely good book every month, and to try to embody, in prayer, in conversation, in work and in play, something of that joy that Christians

When Pope Honorius crowned the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) by proclaiming the new feast of Corpus Christi – a triduum of joy from the Thursday following Trinity Sunday to echo the triduum of Holy Week and Easter – the Catholic world responded with a burst of artistic creativity unmatched since the days of Ancient Greece.

Editor’s note: This article by the distinguished scholar Anthony Esolen is the first in a series on Catholic Aesthetics to be published in the Catholic Herald. Future articles by Joseph Pearce, Deal Hudson and others will offer readers an opportunity to reflect on the centrality of arts, creativity and beauty in the life and evangelical

When the pilgrim Dante has come forth at last from the jaws of hell to look upon the stars of heaven again, he does not do what the modern writer is required to do. He does not enter the overheated boudoir of his feelings, to rummage in the closet and come forth with objects that

My favourite of the Eastertide Gospels is Luke’s account of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. It appears at first to be the sort of thing that can happen to anyone while travelling. We might call it the Law of the Large Train Station: someone there whom you don’t recognise is strangely enmeshed in