Jungjin Lee

Penteli, 2020

Invocating Pan to the Devil’s Revelry

Interior of Salisbury Cathedral (1805) by J.M.W. Turner

Picta Poesis (1552) Barthélemy Aneau

One of my favorite historical tidbits is that Arab traders, for centuries, fooled Europeans into thinking cinnamon came from a rare, vicious and fearsome cinnamon bird.

The belief was so prevalent, in fact, that the mythical cinnamon bird shows up in the writings of Herodotus and Aristotle, all the way into medieval European manuscripts where it’s illustrated in all its fierce, cinnamony glory:

Pliny the Elder expressed skepticism of the bird in his writings, rightly assuming that it was a tale invented to keep control on the trade and prices by reducing competition, but the belief was already so widespread that it persisted in many areas into the early 1300’s.

Florence, Italy (by Adrian Botica)

La visión del Coloseo. El último mártir