The Fall of Constantinople and G.K.C.'s Birthday

"They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,--
    They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound.
    And he saith, "Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide,
    And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide,
    And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest,
    For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west.
    We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun,
    Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done.
    But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know
    The voice that shook our palaces--four hundred years ago:
    It is he that saith not 'Kismet'; it is he that knows not Fate;
    It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey at the gate!
    It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth,
    Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth."
~ "Lepanto" by G.K. Chesterton



Salvete all!

This one is going to be a short journal entry, simply because I wanted to commemorate two important events in history that occurred on this day, May 29th. Namely, that it is the 560th anniversary of the Fall of the great Queen of Cities, Constantinople.



"O LORD, behold my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed!" The enemy has stretched out his hands over all her precious things; yea, she has seen the nations invade her sanctuary, those whom thou didst forbid to enter thy congregation. All her people groan as they search for bread; they trade their treasures for food to revive their strength. "Look, O LORD, and behold, for I am despised."

"Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow!" - Lamentations 1:9-12



"Gentlemen, illustrious captains of the army, and our most Christian comrades in arms: we now see the hour of battle approaching. I have therefore elected to assemble you here to make it clear that you must stand together with firmer resolution than ever. You have always fought with glory against the enemies of Christ. Now the defense of your fatherland and of the city known the world over, which the infidel and evil Turks have been besieging for two and fifty days, is committed to your lofty spirits.

Be not afraid because its walls have been worn down by the enemy's battering. For your strength lies in the protection of God and you must show it with your arms quivering and your swords brandished against the enemy. I know that this undisciplined mob will, as is their custom, rush upon you with loud cries and ceaseless volleys of arrows. These will do you no bodily harm, for I see that you are well covered in armour. They will strike the walls, our breastplates and our shields. So do not imitate the Romans who, when the Carthaginians went into battle against them, allowed their cavalry to be terrified by the fearsome sight and sound of elephants.

In this battle you must stand firm and have no fear, no thought of flight, but be inspired to resist with ever more herculean strength. Animals may run away from animals. But you are men, men of stout heart, and you will hold at bay these dumb brutes, thrusting your spears and swords into them, so that they will know that they are fighting not against their own kind but against the masters of animals.

You are aware that the impious and infidel enemy has disturbed the peace unjustly. He has violated the oath and treaty that he made with us; he has slaughtered our farmers at harvest time; he has erected a fortress on the Propontis as it were to devour the Christians; he has encircled Galata under a pretense of peace.

Now he threatens to capture the city of Constantine the Great, your fatherland, the place of ready refuge for all Christians, the guardian of all Greeks, and to profane its holy shrines of God by turning them into stables for fits horses. Oh my lords, my brothers, my sons, the everlasting honor of Christians is in your hands.

You men of Genoa, men of courage and famous for your infinite victories, you who have always protected this city, your mother, in many a conflict with the Turks, show now your prowess and your aggressive spirit toward them with manly vigor.

You men of Venice, most valiant heroes, whose swords have many a time made Turkish blood to flow and who in our time have sent so many ships, so many infidel souls to the depths under the command of Loredano, the most excellent captain of our fleet, you who have adorned this city as if it were your own with fine, outstanding men, lift high your spirits now for battle.

You, my comrades in arms, obey the commands of your leaders in the knowledge that this is the day of your glory -- a day on which, if you shed but a drop of blood, you will win for yourselves crowns of martyrdom and eternal fame."

- Last speech of Emperor Constantine XI before the Fall of Constantinople on May 29th, 1453

UGGGGGH. IT BREAKS MY HEART ON SO MANY DIFFERENT LEVELS.



The second event (and I just discovered this today), is that it's the birthday of G.K. Chesterton! I just have to share the remarks from his first chapter of his Autobiography (which you can read here: www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/b… ):

"Bowing down in blind credulity, as is my custom, before mere authority and the tradition of the elders, superstitiously swallowing a story I could not test at the time by experiment or private judgment, I am firmly of opinion that I was born on the 29th of May, 1874, on Campden Hill, Kensington; and baptised according to the formularies of the Church of England in the little church of St. George opposite the large Waterworks Tower that dominated that ridge. I do not allege any significance in the relation of the two buildings; and I indignantly deny that the church was chosen because it needed the whole water-power of West London to turn me into a Christian.

Nevertheless, the great Waterworks Tower was destined to play its part in my life, as I shall narrate on a subsequent page; but that story is connected with my own experiences, whereas my birth (as I have said) is an incident which I accept, like some poor ignorant peasant, only because it has been handed down to me by oral tradition...The story of my birth might be untrue. I might be the long-lost heir of The Holy Roman Empire, or an infant left by ruffians from Limehouse on a door-step in Kensington, to develop in later life a hideous criminal heredity. Some of the skeptical methods applied to the world's origin might be applied to my origin, and a grave and earnest enquirer come to the conclusion that I was never born at all. But I prefer to believe that common sense is something that my readers and I have in common; and that they will have patience with a dull summary of the facts.

...

I am sorry if the landscape or the people appear disappointingly respectable and even reasonable, and deficient in all those unpleasant qualities that make a biography really popular. I regret that I have no gloomy and savage father to offer to the public gaze as the true cause of all my tragic heritage; no pale-faced and partially poisoned mother whose suicidal instincts have cursed me with the temptations of the artistic temperament. I regret that there was nothing in the range of our family much more racy than a remote and mildly impecunious uncle; and that I cannot do my duty as a true modern, by cursing everybody who made me whatever I am. I am not clear about what that is; but I am pretty sure that most of it is my own fault. And I am compelled to confess that I look back to that landscape of my first days with a pleasure that should doubtless be reserved for the Utopias of the Futurist. Yet the landscape, as I see it now, was not altogether without a visionary and symbolic character. And among all the objects in that landscape, I find myself returning at the last to those which I mentioned first. In one way and another, those things have come to stand for so many other things, in the acted allegory of a human existence; the little church of my baptism and the waterworks, the bare, blind, dizzy tower of brick that seemed, to my first upward starings, to take hold upon the stars. Perhaps there was something in the confused and chaotic notion of a tower of water; as if the sea itself could stand on one end like a water-spout. Certainly later, though I hardly know how late, there came into my mind some fancy of a colossal water-snake that might be the Great Sea Serpent, and had something of the nightmare nearness of a dragon in a dream. And, over against it, the small church rose in a spire like a spear; and I have always been pleased to remember that it was dedicated to St. George."

And that's it. Everyone have a lovely evening.

Pax Vobiscum!
Valete!
~Omnes ad Iesum per Mariam~

Your Sister in Christ,

* ~ Theophilia ~ *



New art e-mail address: theophilia.art@gmail.com
Please contact me at this address if you'd like to request a commission or if you'd like to order prints. Or you can note me.

How to Order Prints:
Send me a note/e-mail that:
Indicates exactly what picture(s) you want (preferably a link to the picture that I made, since, for example, saying that you'd like "Our Lady of Guadalupe" when I have four different versions could lead to rather embarrassing mix-ups).
Indicates the size and number of the print(s) you want.
Sends me your address (or whatever address you want me to send it to).
(And if applicable) gives me the date when you need it by so I can make it a priority.

Then I will reply with my address and the amount owed for the purchase of the requested prints. Then you can send me a check for the amount, and once I have received the check and it has cleared, I will send the prints your way. If you decide to cancel an order, let me know as soon as possible. I usually take a long time about cashing my checks anyway, so you'd probably be fine.  

Print Prices:
Shipping: $3.00 (except for Wallet, I can fit those in an envelope, so only $0.50 for postage)

2.5 x 3.5 (Wallet) - $2.00
4x6 - $5.00
5x7 - $8.00
8x10 - $20.00

POSTERS
Shipping: $6.00

11x14  - $35.00
12x18  - $50.00
8x20  - $50.00
16x20  - $65.00
18x20  - $90.00
20x30  - $110.00
24x36  - $150.00

Shipping covers the costs of my driving to and fro (gas money), my purchasing of the container (shipping tubes for the bigger ones) in which to ship your item, and the actual postage.

I can also do mugs, calendars, mousepads and magnets, but those get a bit pricey for me to ever order, much less for someone else to purchase. But if you're super keen on getting a mug or something, let me know.




Art for Other Deviants:

1.) St. Sebastian for ZhaneAugustine
2.) Pope Gregory the Great for alcuin18
3.) Arthur and Morgaine for Alois-Noette
5.) Ballad of the White Horse Project with FireFiriel



My Book List

1. On the Field of Glory– Henryk Sienkiewicz
2. The Deluge – Henryk Sienkiewicz
3. Fire in the Steppe/Pan Wołodyjowski – Henryk Sienkiewicz
4. Edmund Campion – Evelyn Waugh
5. Titus Andronicus - Shakespeare
6. The Man on a Donkey - H.F.M. Prescott
7. King Lear - Shakespeare
8. The Decameron– Boccaccio
9. Doctor Zhivago– Boris Pasternak
10. Collected Works– Anton Chekov
11. The Crusades - Reginé Pernoud
12. Chronicles of the Crusades - Joinville and Villehardouin
13. Two Lives of Charlemagne– Einhard
14. Democracy in America - Alexis de Tocqueville
15. Those Terrible Middle Ages: Debunking the Myths - Reginé Pernoud
16. The Chronographia– Michael Psellus
17. Seven Pillars of Wisdom - T.E. Lawrence
18. Chronicles– Jean Froissart
19. The Histories– Herodotus
20. The Gallic Wars– Julius Caesar
21. The Rise of the Roman Empire– Polybius
22. The Letters of the Younger Pliny– Pliny the Younger
23. The Annals of Imperial Rome– Tacitus
24. City of God – St. Augustine
25. Practice of the Presence of God – Brother Lawrence
26. Reflections on the Song of Songs– St. Bernard of Clairvaux
27. Summa Theologica– St. Thomas Aquinas
28. The Spirit of Thomism– Étienne Gilson
29. The Philosopher and Theology– Étienne Gilson
30. The History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages– Étienne Gilson
31. Ascent to Mount Carmel– St. John of the Cross
32. Introduction to the Devout Life - St. Francis de Sales
33. Theology of the Body– John Paul II
34. Woman - Edith Stein
35. Happiness and Contemplation – Josef Pieper
36. Art and Contemplation– Josef Pieper
37. Pensées– Blaise Pascal
38. Wisdom and Innocence - Joseph Pearce
39. Poetic Diction - Owen Barfield
40. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
41. Lost in the Cosmos– Walker Percy
42. The Problem of Pain– C.S. Lewis
43. A Grief Observed– C.S. Lewis
44. Why Catholics Can't Sing– Thomas Day
45. The Dark Angel - Mika Waltari
46. Where did you go Michelangelo?– Thomas Day





My Deviant Friends:



Other Great Artists I Enjoy Visiting:







Create your own visitor map!