Xanadu’s Reviews > Batavia's Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny > Status Update
Xanadu
is on page 60 of 512
Unless you're on Arrakis, "spice" always seemed a strange thing to base your economy on:
Why spice? Amsterdam, in truth, was built upon the taste of rotting meat. In 1600...most of the cuts sold by butchers or hung in larders throughout Europe were sour and decaying. The only things that masked the tang of decomposing flesh were spices such as pepper, which thus became the most-sought-after luxury goods of the day.
— 6 hours, 16 min ago
Why spice? Amsterdam, in truth, was built upon the taste of rotting meat. In 1600...most of the cuts sold by butchers or hung in larders throughout Europe were sour and decaying. The only things that masked the tang of decomposing flesh were spices such as pepper, which thus became the most-sought-after luxury goods of the day.
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Xanadu
is on page 55 of 512
Heavy weights were tied to the painter’s legs while four men hauled him into the air by ropes that had been attached to his wrists; he was left hanging in this way while more questions were put to him. Afterward he was stretched on the rack until his limbs were pulled from their sockets. A third torture damaged his jaw and left him temporarily unable to eat, and ...some effort was actually made to shoot him.
— 6 hours, 26 min ago
Xanadu
is on page 55 of 512
The painter, it was popularly supposed, was actually a black magician who freely admitted that his masterpieces were not produced by human hands. Rather, it was claimed, he simply placed his paints on the floor next to a blank canvas and watched while supernatural music played and his paintings magically created themselves.
— 6 hours, 55 min ago
Xanadu
is on page 47 of 512
It is just possible that the apothecary’s family may have been one of those that made its way to Friesland after the collapse of the last Anabaptist robber-bands, and quite likely that Cornelisz heard the radicals’ beliefs discussed during his youth in the province. In time, he would demonstrate an apparent familiarity with their ideas concerning righteous killing and the communality of property and women.
— 9 hours, 48 min ago
Xanadu
is on page 44 of 512
Tales of syphilis and scandal. All the info about 17th century apothecaries is really cool--opium theriac, fecal prescriptions and eating mummies.
— 10 hours, 55 min ago
Xanadu
is on page 22 of 512
When supplies from Egypt were hard to get, which they usually were, European bodies might be substituted, but it was important that the corpse from which the flesh was taken had not succumbed to disease. Although the very finest mummy was supposed to come from the remains of men suffocated in a Saharan sandstorm, therefore, in practice the principal source was the bodies of executed criminals.
— Sep 22, 2026 02:51PM