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All About History Books
The Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker of Swinbroke. Baker was a secular clerk from Swinbroke, now Swinbrook, an Oxfordshire village two miles east of Burford. His Chronicle describes the events of the period 1303-1356: Gaveston, Bannockburn, Boroughbridge, the murder of King Edward II, the Scottish Wars, Sluys, Crécy, the Black Death, Winchelsea and Poitiers. To quote Herbert Bruce 'it possesses a vigorous and characteristic style, and its value for particular events between 1303 and 1356 has been recognised by its editor and by subsequent writers'. The book provides remarkable detail about the events it describes. Baker's text has been augmented with hundreds of notes, including extracts from other contemporary chronicles, such as the Annales Londonienses, Annales Paulini, Murimuth, Lanercost, Avesbury, Guisborough and Froissart to enrich the reader's understanding. The translation takes as its source the 'Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke' published in 1889, edited by Edward Maunde Thompson. Available at Amazon in eBook and Paperback.
On 25th March 1823 Jean-Baptiste Bertrand was born.
1869. Jean-Baptiste Bertrand (age 45). "The Death of Virginie".
1872. Jean-Baptiste Bertrand (age 48). "Death of Ophelia".
1875. Jean-Baptiste Bertrand (age 51). "Lesbie and the sparrow". The subject of our painting is both a praise of the favorite animal and a lamentation over its death, a common theme in antiquity. It can also bear an erotic significance, with the death of the sparrow, an animal whose melodious voice endowed it with a reputation for sensuality, symbolizing the end of a passionate love. Lesbia was the mistress of the poet Catullus (87-54 BC) to whom he dedicated many poems (half of the 118 that have survived). The wife of a consul, she was famous for her libertine ways and inspired the artists of her time. Catullus is said to have given her the nickname Lesbia in reference to the Greek poet Sappho, who lived on the island of Lesbos. Sappho ran a school for women there, where eroticism and poetry were taught.
1876. Jean-Baptiste Bertrand (age 52). "Ophelia".
On 26th September 1887 Jean-Baptiste Bertrand (age 64) died.