The world at my feet

From 15 may to 2 November 2008 the London’s Museum in Docklands holds the first exhibition about Jack the Ripper, the most famous serial killer of history, who killed five women in the autumn of 1888. The exhibition Jack the Ripper and the East End will allow to examine, for the first time, surviving documents from the investigation, victims’ personal belongings, letters from the public and the supposed Ripper himself. It will also make room to the labyrinthine world of delinquency, prostitution and misery wherein the crimes was committed and the big impact that had on the media of those times. Maybe the yellow press was born just with Jack the Ripper. Besides the five victims imputed to him, the exhibition will also revolve about six women killed likewise in those years.

Jack the Ripper is a legend, the holy grail of crime history. Who was Jack the Ripper? Maybe the serial killer par excellence was a woman, maybe a celebrated painter or even a Windsor. The theory more fascinating is that one about a Mason plot. Whatever the truth is, now the mysterious Jack is making fun of us “From Hell”.

Photo  Debs_UK 

A Renaissance mystery has been solved. Arsenic killed Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Angelo Poliziano , the two illustrious humanists both died in 1494. So Poliziano was not a victim of syphilis, thesis claimed by the traditional historiography, but was murdered. This is the result of a seven months’ study conducted on the exhumed bodies. We are faced with a compelling intrigue that sees a double homicide, while the principal in the crime is an enigma. Maybe was Piero de Medici, one of Lorenzo the Magnificent’s sons, famous for his resentful and cynic temper. But maybe it must look for the murderer in the esoteric underworld well-known by Pico and Poliziano. It’s better to not get lost in digressions worthy of Dan Brown, the matter is not over yet and the forensic detectives are studying the DNA. The affair becomes more and more interesting.

I usually don’t take the polls as gospel, but in this case the results are rather funny. The UKTv Gold commissioned a study that tested the nation on its historical knowledge. The 3000 polled people reserved several surprises. The 58 percent of Britons believes that Sherlock Holmes really existed, the 51 percent swears to Robin Hood, the 47 percent to Eleanor Rigby ( How about Father McKenzie?). For the 47 percent of the sample Richard the Lionheart is only a myth, for the 23 percent Winston Churchill and Florence Nightingale are fictional characters. No one wanted to answer the question: “Who is Snow White?”. It’s always better to keep the mouth shut about the pushers.