Look but Don't Touch

Probably inspired by the Mona Lisa, the great renaissance artist Raphael painted this portrait of a young woman. But why is she holding a mythical beast in her hands?

With all the religious wars, the 17th century was a tense time in Europe. And in art one theme caught everyone’s imagination: the Virgin Mary.

Christian philosophy is based on two abstract and complex concepts, but art can simplify them: Paradise, where everything was good and is lost, and Hell, which is so scary that no one wants to go there. And in between there is…us!

The painter Artemisia Gentileschi was rediscovered in the 1970s by pioneers of gender studies in art. A simple question arose: why are so few great masters women?

Did you know that the word digital comes from the Latin "digitalis" which means "the size of a finger"? We use it to talk about the digital world, because in the old days we used to count with our fingers! But what has this got to do with Leonardo da Vinci’s St John the Baptist?

In 2010, the Louvre Museum launched an appeal for donations to raise 1 million euros to buy a work by Cranach, which had previously been locked away in a private collection. The poor thing... Fortunately, many people responded to the appeal, so everything went well for her. Lucky her!