Fitness instructor carves his girlfriend’s name into the Colosseum.
Thirty-Five Expressive Heads, by Louis-Léopold Boilly, c. 1825. Musee des Beaux-Arts, Tourcoing, France.
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Miscellany
Niccolò Machiavelli, author of The Prince, was well known in his lifetime as a comic dramatist. An early performance in Florence of The Mandrake caused Pope Leo X to insist that its actors and scenery be brought to Rome in 1520. In the prologue to Clizia, a play inspired by Plautus, Machiavelli wrote, “Comedies were invented to be of use and of delight to their audiences.”
Laughter always arises from a gaiety of disposition, absolutely incompatible with contempt and indignation.
—Voltaire, 1736Lapham’sDaily
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