You know what I haven’t talked about in awhile? Mmmm yeah, it’s time for another random story of my (ig)noble namesake being a big old douche.

This time, we travel to Milan in Carnival 1733. A young Carlo Goldoni is running away from his home in Venice to escape an arranged marriage (a pleasing gender-bending start to any story) with nothing but his clothes, a pocket full of sequins, and his masterpiece, an all-new opera libretto. He will later go on to become one of Italy’s best loved playwrights, but for now, he is 26 years old and flying on connections, good manners, and dreams.

I arrived at length at Milan, the venerable capital of Lombardy, the ancient appanage of the Spanish monarchy [...]. I was eager to present my piece, and to have it read. We were then in the very time of the carnival. There was an opera at Milan, and I was acquainted with Caffariello, the principal actor, and also - with the director and composer of the ballets, and his wife (Madame Grossatesta), who was the principal dancer. I thought it would look becoming, and be of advantage, for me to be presented to the directors of the Milan theatre by known individuals. On a Friday, a day of relaxation throughout almost all Italy, I waited in the evening on Madame Grossatesta, who kept an open house, where the actors, actresses, and dancers of the opera usually assembled. This excellent dancer, who was my countrywoman, and whom I knew at Venice, received me with the utmost politeness ; and her husband, a clever and well-informed Modenese, had a dispute with his wife respecting my country, in which he very gallantly maintained that by descent mine was the same as his own. It was still early, and as we were almost alone, I took advantage of that circumstance to announce my project to them. They were enchanted with it, and promised to introduce me, and they congratulated me beforehand on the reception of my work.

The company continued to increase; Caffariello made his appearance, saw and recognized me, saluted me with the tone of an Alexander, and took his place beside the mistress of the house. A few minutes afterwards, Count Prata, one of the directors of the theatre, the most skilled in everything relative to the drama, was announced. Madame Grossatesta introduced me to the count and spoke to him of my opera, and he undertook to propose me to the assembly of directors; but it would afford him infinite pleasure, he said, to know something of my work ; a wish in which he was joined by my countrywoman. I wanted nothing so much as an opportunity of reading it. A small table and a candle were brought towards us, round which we all seated ourselves, and I began to read. I announced the title of "Amalasonte." Caffariello sang the word "Amalasonte.” It was long, and seemed ridiculous to him. Everybody laughed but myself: the lady scolded, and the nightingale was silent. I read over the names of the characters, of which there were nine in the piece. Here a small shrill voice, which proceeded from an old castrato who sung in the choruses, and who mewed like a cat, cried out, "Too many, too many ; there are at least two characters too many." I saw that I was by no means at my ease, and wished to give over my reading. M. Prata imposed silence on this insolent fellow, who had not the merit of Caffariello to excuse him, and, turning to me, observed, "It is true, sir, there are usually not more than six or seven characters in a drama; but when a work is deserving of it, we willingly put ourselves to the expense of two actors. Have the goodness," he added, "to continue the reading, if you please."

I resumed my reading, — Act first, scene first, Clodesile and Arpagon. Here M. Caffariello again asked me the name of the first soprano in my opera. "Sir," said I,"it is Clodesile." "What!" said he, "you open the scene with the principal actor, and make him appear while all the people enter, seat themselves, and make a noise. Truly, sir, I am not your man." (What patience!) M. Prata here interposed. "Let us see," said he, "whether the scene is interesting." I read the first scene, and while I was repeating my verses, a little insignificant wretch drew a paper from his pocket, and went to the harpsichord to recite an air in his part. The mistress of the house was obliged to make me excuses without intermission. M. Prata took me by the hand, and conducted me into a dressing-closet at a considerable distance from the room.

Unfortunately you cannot read this opera for yourself, because poor Carlo went back to his hotel that night and threw it in the fire. However, Carlo told this story to the Resident of Venice (Foreign Minister in Milan) the next day and the guy thought it was hilarious, and became Carlo’s patron, so he probably ended up better off!

From the memoirs of Carlo Goldoni, a 19th century English translation. (Unlike some elements of Goldoni’s memoirs, this is pretty easily plausible: Caffarelli was verifiably working in Milan this Carnival season. And Caffarelli actually would have been 3 years younger than Goldoni, so Goldoni got bullied by a 23 year old, what a big baby.)

Need more Caffarelli? Try:

• The time he pretended to poop in the living room to piss off his friend
• The time he dueled and actually wounded a random Frenchman over the artistic merits of French vs. Italian opera, then had to cheese it out of France because dueling is illegal
• The time he challenged a composer to a duel for daring to complain that he hadn’t come to any of the rehearsals
• The time he fought another castrato during a nun’s consecration because that guy didn’t know his name
• And for a reverse, the time Farinelli made him cry in his dressing room

Trololololo, hohohoho!

We're a team of scientists and historians from around the world who built a quantitative database of history. Want to be a part of it?

Here's an animation describing the project [3 min].

We're starting with the history of religion to answer questions about the role of religion in the rise of civilization. You can check out the database here: http://religiondatabase.org

Access is currently restricted to historians, but if there's general interest, we'd like to make our visualization tools available to everyone. We're also thinking of launching a Kickstarter to build a suite of publicly available analytic tools. Any interest?

We want to tell more people about the project, and generally gauge public interest, especially among people who are savvy or interested in history (i.e., folks on /r/AskHistorians). If we attract more historians to join the effort, that would be a nice bonus!

Well nobody said anything last week so I guess Blanning's Frederick the Great biography is not on anyone else's Bookshelf atm. I'm now 36% of the way in. Blanning has cast his eye over Frederick's early life, his relationship with his father, his taste in art, his sexuality and his warmaking. His assessments seem fairly even-handed- Frederick gets copious praise for what he does right, and firm criticism elsewhere (his misogyny and his general tendency to shirk blame for defeats come under particular scrutiny). Blanning remains Blanning- he loves little details, and with a smaller subject like a single king of Prussia (rather than, say, the whole of the "long 18th century" that he looked at in The Pursuit of Glory) he has free reign to indulge himself in them. For the most part these nuggets add a lot to the history, though (and this is probably just personal taste) in some places, such as the many architectural details Blanning reels off in talking about Frederick's various palaces and houses, they can get tedious. Also a little unbecoming is Blanning's enthusiastic poo-pooing of various artistic tastes- it certainly makes for more entertaining reading when something is described in the honest opinion of the author, but describing what are undoubtedly personal tastes, even historical ones, as "bland" or "boorish" leaves a bit of a bad taste in the mouth and goes some way towards undoing the afore-mentioned even-handedness Blanning uses when discussing other aspects of Frederick.

All that said, I am enjoying myself immensely and, more troublingly, finding that I had forgotten a fair amount about the Seven Years' War.

Serious question: someone told me that, all the genocide and war crimes notwithstanding, Hitler invaded Poland with the best of intentions, which is to defend the German-speaking peoples there. Likewise with the annexation of Czechoslovakia. Therefore, while Nazi Germany started the war, they were forced to do so in order to protect the Germans, and all the Bad Things that followed were due to them getting carried away.

I do not personally believe this, but nonetheless, I must investigate all avenues of inquiry. So on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being "the Sun rises in the East" and 1 being "I am Spartacus", how "true" is the "defend the Germans" theory?

I just want to share some trivia.

The oldest paper (amatl) that I know of recovered in Mesoamerica comes from a shaft tomb site in Jalisco. It dates to 75 AD

Been an interesting week thus far. The library where my SO works has called upon me to teach a class or two on how to conduct interviews for an Oral History project they're working on. The area where i'm from has several man-made lakes nearby built in the 1960s for a power plant. The areas that were flood were previously home to several small agricultural towns and villages (and at one point, a British fort

The director of the library wants to track down people who lived in these towns and interview them to see what life was like in those areas so I get to train a bunch of librarians on how to interview people the right way.

Video of some guys diving to the now underwater cemetery beneath one of the lakes, skip to 2:00

What books are recommended to learn about 15th and 16th century Latin America?

Does anyone know exactly what the "oil" was that was provided as part of the rations to people living in the ancient near east, for example in the Ur III dynasty or in the city-states that came before it? I've read a few books about the ancient near east and from what I recall they all refer to it simply as "oil" with no more description. Was it olive oil? I didn't think olives grew in Mesopotamia, but maybe I'm wrong. Was it some other type of vegetable oil, perhaps?

This is kinda meta, but: I'm really glad I discovered this sub, because it's made me question a lot of my own assumptions. I'll read a question, and think that I have something approaching an answer, but upon reflection, realize that while I have a lot of good, logical suppositions, the number of legit, documented answers I have are far fewer. For example: Someone just posted one asking why Hungary and Romania were Axis co-belligerents despite their shared conflict over Transylvania. Now, I know a decent amount about WWII, so I have a pretty good guess: Firstly, the Iron Guard was pretty much running Romania, so they were heavily disposed towards Germany (the fact that Germany was buying their oil, and, later on, the Romanians' fear of the Soviet Union are other likely factors). Secondly, the Hungarians' case is more straightforward: They, too, had a powerful homegrown fascist party, but they also had direct German military pressure. In a conversation with a friend who wanted the same question answered, I probably wouldn't hesitate to use the above explanation, although I would clarify that I'm not very sure about the dates in question. Here, though, I realize that most of my information about this subject comes from tangential sources: The part about the Iron Guard is background from a mass-market book about Nazi collaborators who emigrated to the US. The part about the Szalasi coup in Hungary is from several Holocaust memoirs by people who were young children at the time. And my general knowledge of prewar Hungary and Romania comes mostly from Patrick Leigh Fermor's travelogue Between The Woods And The Water, which is a wonderful and fascinating book, but not at all scholarly. And so I realize, I really don't know. I can assume that overwhelming German military power made the Transylvania conflict fairly irrelevant next to the larger 'you're with us or against us' attitude of Nazi Germany, but I don't have specific knowledge of how that conflict impacted this specific question. And now I really hope someone answers it.

Did Afro-Americans in the US use to be... darker? I've recently come across a couple photos of black soldiers at the time of the civil war doing archive work, and I was struck by how, well, black they were.

Was it something in the black and white photography? Or something else?

Why are pre-modern coins so crappy in terms of shape? I get the basic process used, but why are they generally blobby and not closer to circular? Is pouring metal into a circular mold that hard?

My first project ( and first at uni ) in Modern History was a big success ! So many points saved in case my Christmas exams go wrong ... Relaxing evening now ...

I'm currently reading Owen Connelly's book, Blundering To Glory - Napoléon's Military Campaigns and I'm currently on the Third Coalition, right after the Ulm Campaign. According to COnnelly, Napoléon blundered badly. He apparently had no idea of where Mack was and had Mack not been held back by Archduke Ferdinand, he could've done all kinds of damage to Napoléon. Now, this is totally different from how David Chandler described it in Campaigns of Napoléon and I don't think Mack was capable of doing significant damage to Napoléon regardless of if he had attacked his supply lines or not, since Napoléon had three times the amount of soldiers (about 200,000 to about 70,000). Now I'm wondering, is Connelly right here? Did Napoléon just blunder into the surrender of Mack? Did he just steal the credit while blaming his marshals for the screw ups on the way? And could Mack have done considerable damage to the Grande Armée? And also, how accurate is Connelly's book in general? Cheers!

Third week in South Africa. I've been invited to give a couple of talks about my work for professionals and map collectors, but I honestly have no idea what I will actually say. Still, it's a nice honor to be asked, and God knows I want it on the CV.

The problem for me here in Cape Town, aside from the rather increased amount of "international" crime in the city center, is the realization that I have a lot to do here but no idea where all the work here is leading. Friends tell me it's the second-book blues: you know what you want to study, and why, but figuring out how to do it and what's important (and where that important material might be) is an emergent process. It's frustrating, and reminds me of the difficulty I had pegging down my dissertation topic adequately.

[Edit: Perhaps the biggest problem is that I keep going after things that relate to the work I've already published. It's a terrible temptation. On the other hand, going to the well sort of randomly has produced some hilarious bits of annoyed prose by land surveyors and officials, and a few really weird things. Those, I'll talk about a bit for Saturday, even though it's already Saturday here.]

I like how much How big were Asses in ancient Rome? got upvoted. I wonder if most voters realized it wasn't about butts, just upvoted it based on the title or for fun.

I'm in Albuquerque, N.M., for the annual conference of the Society for History of Technology. Separately, I posted a blog post about Niigata, the "fifth" atomic bombing target of 1945, and why it was spared (and has generally been ignored): Neglected Niigata.