From today's featured articleWilliam de Corbeil (c. 1070 – 1136) was an Archbishop of Canterbury, and the first Augustinian canon to become an archbishop in England. Born at Corbeil, south of Paris, he was educated as a theologian. In 1123 he was elected to the See of Canterbury. Throughout his archbishopric, William was embroiled in a dispute with Thurstan, the Archbishop of York, over the primacy of Canterbury. As a temporary solution, the pope appointed William the papal legate for England, giving him powers superior to those of York. He presided over three legatine councils, which condemned the purchase of benefices or priesthoods and admonished the clergy to be celibate. He oversaw construction of the keep of Rochester Castle (pictured), the tallest Norman-built keep in England. Towards the end of his life William crowned Count Stephen of Boulogne as King of England, despite his oath to the dying King Henry I that he would support the succession of Henry's daughter, the Empress Matilda. (Full article...) Did you know...
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In the newsAbiy Ahmed
On this dayOctober 12: National Day in Spain (1492)
Nicholas Brend (d. 1601) · Kamini Roy (b. 1864) · Wilt Chamberlain (d. 1999)
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Portrait of a Man with a Blue Chaperon is a very small oil-on-panel portrait of an unidentified man attributed to the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck. The painting was commissioned and completed sometime around 1430. It contains a number of elements typical of van Eyck's secular portraits, including a slightly oversized head, a dark and flat background, forensic attention to the small details and textures of the man's face, and illusionistic devices. It had long been thought that the ring held in the man's right hand was meant as an indication of his profession as a jeweler or goldsmith and so the painting was long titled on variants of such. More recently, the ring is interpreted as an emblem of betrothal and the titles given by various art historians and publications since are usually more descriptive of the colour or form of the headdress. The painting was attributed to van Eyck in the late 19th century, but this was repeatedly challenged by some art historians until a 1991 cleaning when infrared photography revealed an underdrawing and methods of handling of oil that were unmistakably van Eyck's. Prior to 1948, the panel belonged to the Brukenthal National Museum in Sibiu, Romania. That year, the new Communist regime seized the panel, along with eighteen others it considered the museum's most valuable holdings, and gave it to the National Museum of Art of Romania in Bucharest. At the end of 2006, in time for Sibiu's stint as European Capital of Culture, the works were returned to the Brukenthal Museum. Painting credit: Jan van Eyck
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