According to CNN, Barcelona’s famous Sagrada Familia will finally be completed in 2026. That’s amazing. Miraculous, in fact. For much of the 20th century it was in a state of semi completion. I went there as a young man in the early 90s and even then it was taken as a fact that it would NEVER be completed. But that was not a fact at all, thank heavens.
Barcelona is an amazing city to visit: it’s going to be even more so once the church is done. Go see it if you can.
Yesterday I featured a painting I took of a Dutch Still Life in the National Gallery in London. Today I want to feature one of the paintings in the Gallery with royalty as a subject. Specifically, Habsburg royalty. If you don’t know anything about the Habsburgs, you might look at this painting and say: his chin is a bit odd. If you did, you would be correct! As this piece shows, centuries of inbreeding among European royals (specifically the Habsburgs) was responsible for famous facial deformities seen in historical paintings. And so you get facial features like those above (or worse).
This is not a terribly ancient behavior: Queen Elizabeth and her husband were third cousins. So it’s not like the Habsburgs were outliers. (See also: Romanovs.) It is a behavior that can cause terrible genetic deformities, though. Deformities that the Royal Family worried about, if the stories of the Bowen-Lyon sisters locked away are any indication.
In the end such deformities in the Spanish Habsburg led to the War of the Spanish Succession, a major turning point in Europe and the World. All due to inbreeding throughout the ages. Inbreeding you can see in the portrait above.
Comments Off on The Habsburgs, their history and genetics
Posted in history
Tagged arthistory, Habsburgs, history, Spain
 | smartpeopleiknow on A new form of hostile architec… |
 | Norbert Hoeller on A new form of hostile architec… |
| smartpeopleiknow on On the end (?) of the Cape Bre… |
 | Carl Setzer on On the end (?) of the Cape Bre… |
| Carl Setzer on Happy Birthday to Gmail, from… |
| smartpeopleiknow on Happy Birthday to Gmail, from… |
| Carl Setzer on Happy Birthday to Gmail, from… |
Smart People I Know 