Word: convention
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Chemically, the Last Slipper had always been a bad risk. The refectory of Milan's convent church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, where Da Vinci painted the jfresco, was damp to start with. To make matters worse, Da Vinci, the eternal experimenter, invented special tempera pigments for the fresco, and they proved to be less durable than those then commonly in use. Even in Da Vinci's own lifetime the Last Supper had begun to fade, and as early as 1556 Art Historian Vasari complained that it had become "a muddle of blots...
...manuscripts, Poland's storied coronation sword, Szczerbiec. Their intrinsic value was in the millions, their historic value above price. In Canada they were carefully stored: 24 cases with the Redemptorist Fathers at the Shrine of Ste. Anne de Beaupré, eight with the sisters of the Precious Blood convent in Ottawa, two in the vaults of the Bank of Montreal in Ottawa...
...long ago, Minister Fiderkiewicz (called "Fido" in Ottawa) decided to ship the treasures back to Poland. He sent the custodian of the collection, Dr. Stanislaw Swierz-Zaleski, to pick up the cases at the Ottawa convent. To the nun behind the grill Dr. Zaleski mumbled the secret password: "Holy Virgin of Czestochowa." The nun looked surprised. Only a few days before, a man "with a tumor on his ear" had appeared at the convent. He too had pronounced the secret password-and she had given him the treasures...
...Soon she has a second and better opportunity for mischief in the guise of piety. A country boy entrusted to a saintly and intelligent priest for schooling falls in love with Brigitte's stepdaughter. The woman separates them to punish their "sin," and sends the girl to a convent where she is even forbidden to write to her lover...
...Easter gift to the Orthodox Church, the Soviet Government last fortnight announced that Russia's once-wealthiest convent, the 422-year-old Novodyevichi ("New Virgins"), which has been a Moscow museum since 1922, would be restored to the Church. It could again take in Russian girls as nuns. About 90 other convents and monasteries throughout Russia have been recently returned to the Church, making its recovery of confiscated properties exceed...