BoschWiseMen - The Monday Morning Memo

This is a detail featuring the Magi (Wise Men) from a 500 year-old painting by Hieronymus Bosch (1450 – 1516) an Early Netherlandish painter. “His work is known for its fantastic imagery, detailed landscapes and illustrations of moral and religious concepts and narratives.” – WIKIPEDIA

Anytime I run across a trippy image of the Magi like this one, I immediately remember what Chesterton said:

“The more we are proud that the Bethlehem story is plain enough to be understood by the shepherds, and almost by the sheep, the more do we let ourselves go, in dark and gorgeous imaginative frescoes or pageants about the mystery and majesty of the Three Magian Kings.”
– G.K. Chesterton, Christendom in Dublin, Ch.3

“On the coming of evening, I return to my house and enter my study; and at the door I take off the day’s clothing, covered with mud and dust, and put on garments regal and courtly; and reclothed appropriately, I enter the ancient courts of ancient men, where, received by them with affection, I feed on that food which only is mine and which I was born for, where I am not ashamed to speak with them and to ask them the reason for their actions; and they in their kindness answer me; and for four hours of time I do not feel boredom, I forget every trouble, I do not dread poverty, I am not frightened by death; entirely I give myself over to them.”

- Niccolò Machiavelli to Francesco Vettori (December 10, 1513). Machiavelli was a rat bastard, but an eloquent one in this passage. – Indy Beagle

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