You’re tired in a way that sleep doesn’t fix. You wake up after 10 or 12 hours and feel like you haven’t rested at all. Your muscles feel heavy, weak, like they’ve forgotten how to work. Walking to the kitchen feels like a workout. And no matter how much you rest, the exhaustion doesn’t budge.

This isn’t laziness. This isn’t “just being tired.” What you’re experiencing has a real explanation, and it’s one of the most common things people with CFS deal with every single day.

Your nervous system may be stuck in overdrive, and your muscles may have deconditioned on top of that. Both of these are commonly reversible.

What Does CFS Fatigue Actually Feel Like?

CFS fatigue is a deep, persistent exhaustion that doesn’t improve with rest or sleep. It’s one of the defining features of ME/CFS, reported by virtually 100% of people with the condition. It’s also one of the most common symptoms in long COVID, fibromyalgia, and other nervous system conditions. But calling it “fatigue” barely scratches the surface of what it actually feels like.

It’s not the tiredness you feel after a long day. It’s the kind of exhaustion where your body feels like it’s running through wet concrete. Your legs feel like they weigh twice what they should. Your arms struggle to lift a glass of water. Getting out of bed takes every ounce of willpower you have, and by the time you’re standing, you already need to sit back down.

On top of the fatigue, there’s the weakness. Your muscles feel like they’ve lost their strength. Tasks that used to be automatic now require conscious effort. Climbing stairs, carrying groceries, even holding your phone up: these things feel disproportionately hard.

The specifics vary person to person, but the pattern is consistent:

• Exhaustion that doesn’t improve with sleep or rest
• Muscles that feel heavy, weak, or “jelly-like”
• Feeling physically drained after minimal activity
• Waking up feeling as tired (or more tired) than when you went to sleep
• Difficulty doing things that used to be effortless
• A “wired but tired” feeling where your body is exhausted but your mind won’t shut off

If your blood tests come back normal and your doctors say nothing is wrong, that’s actually useful information. It suggests the issue may be functional rather than structural. The nervous system could be what’s keeping you stuck.

Why Fatigue and Weakness Happen With CFS

The fatigue and weakness you’re feeling aren’t random. They make perfect sense when you understand what’s happening inside your body.

There are actually two things going on at the same time. The first is the nervous system piece. The second is physical deconditioning. Most people only focus on one. Understanding both is what changes things.

The nervous system piece

When your nervous system gets stuck in a chronic stress response (fight-or-flight mode), your body runs on adrenaline. It’s like leaving the engine running 24/7. Your body is burning fuel constantly, even when you’re lying still. That’s why you feel exhausted even though you haven’t done anything. Your body is working overtime behind the scenes, running stress responses, scanning for threats, keeping everything on high alert.

Research has documented that autonomic nervous system dysfunction is a consistent finding in ME/CFS. The system that’s supposed to toggle between “active” and “rest” gets stuck in “active.” That constant activation drains your energy reserves.

The deconditioning piece

On top of the nervous system fatigue, there’s a physical reality: when you don’t use your muscles, they weaken. It’s called deconditioning, and it happens faster than most people realize. Studies show that healthy, active people can lose 25-30% of muscle strength after just two weeks of inactivity. If you’ve been stuck in bed or on the couch for months, significant muscle loss has occurred.

Picture this: if you put a cast on your arm for three months and then took it off, that arm would look and feel completely different from the other one. Not because something is wrong with the arm, but because muscles need regular use to maintain their strength. “Use it or lose it” is real.

1 The nervous system gets stuck in overdrive
Your body runs on adrenaline 24/7. Even lying still, your system is burning through energy reserves. You feel exhausted because your body is constantly in stress mode.

2 Inactivity leads to muscle deconditioning
Because you’re too tired to move, your muscles start to weaken. The less you use them, the more they atrophy. Simple tasks start requiring more effort.

3 Weakness creates more fear and avoidance
Feeling weak is scary. It makes you want to rest more. But more rest means more deconditioning, which means more weakness. The spiral feeds itself.

4 The cycle reinforces both problems
The nervous system stays activated because you’re stressed about the weakness. The muscles keep declining because you’re not using them. Breaking this cycle requires addressing both pieces.

This is important to understand because it means the weakness you feel isn’t all from CFS itself. A significant chunk of it is from the muscles not being used. And that part is very fixable.

CFS Fatigue vs. Normal Tiredness

Everyone gets tired. But CFS fatigue is fundamentally different from the tiredness healthy people experience. Here’s how to tell the difference:

Normal Tiredness

Has a clear cause (long day, bad sleep, exercise), Improves after a good night of sleep, You can push through it with effort, Proportional to effort (more activity = more tired), Muscles feel tired but functional, Energy returns within a day or two of rest, Blood tests may show low iron, thyroid issues, etc.

CFS Fatigue

Often appears without an obvious trigger, Persists even after 10-12+ hours of sleep, Pushing through causes crashes that last days, Disproportionate (minimal effort = massive exhaustion), Muscles feel heavy, weak, or like “jelly”, Rest doesn’t restore energy. Can persist for weeks or months, Standard blood tests typically come back normal

If your experience matches the right column, that’s a strong signal that your nervous system is involved. And that’s actually hopeful, because nervous system patterns can change.

What Makes Fatigue and Weakness Worse

Fatigue fluctuates. Some days are more manageable than others. Understanding what drives the worst days helps you recognize the pattern instead of feeling blindsided by it.

Too much rest. This sounds counterintuitive, but it’s one of the biggest traps. When you rest all day every day, your muscles continue to decondition. You lose more strength. And the weaker you get, the more effort simple tasks require, which makes the fatigue feel even worse. Rest is important, but too much of it feeds the downward spiral.

Pushing too hard. The opposite extreme is just as damaging. If you have a “good day” and try to do everything you’ve been missing, you’ll often crash hard afterward. That crash reinforces fear and drives you back to resting, which starts the deconditioning cycle again.

Stress and fear about the fatigue. Worrying about why you’re so tired, wondering if you’ll ever feel normal, analyzing every symptom: all of these thoughts activate the nervous system further. More activation means more energy drain. The fatigue itself becomes a stressor that makes the fatigue worse.

Poor sleep quality. Even if you’re sleeping 10+ hours, the quality of that sleep matters. When the nervous system is activated, sleep tends to be light and unrefreshing. You spend hours in bed without getting the deep, restorative sleep your body needs.

Running on adrenaline. Some people feel “wired but tired.” Their body is exhausted, but their mind is racing. That’s adrenaline. The nervous system keeps pumping stress hormones even when the body is depleted. This creates a cycle where you can’t rest properly but also can’t function properly.

In this post, I will quote from ‘Paths of Fire: An Anthropologist’s Inquiry into Western Technology’ (1996) by Robert McCormick Adams. I think that I will make a post soon that will include my review of the TV shows The Boys (2019-2026) and Stranger Things (2016-2025). I watched the first two seasons of Stranger Things when they were released, but then lost interest in the series. I finished watching the series a few days ago. When it comes to The Boys, I watched the first three seasons when they were released, but then lost interest in the series. I finished watching this series a few months ago. Since I like to finish watching what I start, I had no doubt that I’d get around to finishing watching the two series someday. Cobra Kai (2018-2025) is another show that I have to finish watching. “The foregoing account of the increasing scale and productivity of industrial operations is important not only for the impressive duration and cumulative character it documents but for the systemic breakthrough to mass production that was a part of it. These features clearly were major contributors to America’s climb to unchallenged industrial ascendancy from the Civil War era to the Great Depression and the buildup to World War II. But they were not the only contributors. Of comparable importance, at least in the earlier part of the period, were an impressive series of major inventions that permanently displaced the image of the United States as largely an adopter rather than innovator, and that associated American technology instead with a special kind of creative luster. Emerging from obscurity to occupy positions of great social esteem in the late nineteenth-century was a substantial group of remarkably prolific, characteristically independent, inventors who were largely responsible for these breakthroughs. It was an era when scientific research was only beginning to become identified with universities, and when industrial research capabilities also were still rudimentary. The relative weakness of these other avenues of innovation no doubt helps to account for the public adulation that the group achieved. But as Thomas Hughes’s penetrating discussion of them illustrates, it cannot wholly explain either their many similarities in personality and approach or the extraordinary fecundity of their work. Thomas A. Edison (1847-1931), “the Wizard of Menlo Park,” was by all odds the dominant figure as well as prototype of the group. With virtually no formal schooling, already as a telegraph operator in his youth he began to display what became a lifelong penchant for study and, especially, experiment. (“No experiments are useless,” he once replied to a critical business associate.) A tirelessly committed, hunt-and-try pragmatist, he dismissed formal theory and was content to rely upon trusted subordinates for mathematical rigor as well as the construction of working models. But the record of his accomplishments, both before and after he established and led a team of co-workers in what became renowned as something close to a manufacturing production line for inventions, was by any measure extraordinary. The numbers are impressive enough he received over a thousand patents in sixty years. His expectation for the forthcoming schedule at Menlo Park, “a minor invention every ten days and a big thing every six months or so,” was a realistic projection of the pace he had maintained during the early years of his inventive career. But no less impressive was the radical, rather than merely incremental, character of many of his and his staff’s contributions. Beginning with an electrical vote recorder, a stock ticker, and automatic telegraph systems, he went on to an electric pen that presently developed into the mimeograph; the carbon transmitter that was fundamental to the introduction of the telephone; the phonograph; an early variant of the incandescent lamp; the “Edison effect” covering his observation of a flow of electric current from filament to plate in incandescent lamp bulbs – the principle at the heart of the later development of radio tubes and hence of an entire industry that would presently follow; and many improvements in dynamos and electric propulsion and distribution systems. Later, in the 1890s and beyond, his attention would be directed still more widely, to magnetic ore extraction, storage batteries, a “kinetescopic camera,” and a variety of chemical processes. Almost mythical as this parade of interests and achievements seems, it is striking that there were others who were nearly as prolific. Elihu Thomson (1853-1937), concentrating on arc and incandescent lighting, alternating current transformers, motors, generators, and controls, electric meters, and high-frequency apparatus, also preferred to work with a small subordinate team isolated from other concerns, and held almost seven hundred patents. Francis H. Richards, Edward Weston, Alexander Graham Bell, and Nikolai Tesla are among many who exemplify roughly into the same pattern. Lee de Forest, Edwin H. Armstrong, and Wilbur and Orville Wright are further, somewhat later exemplars. Not all shared Edison’s antagonism to formal science. Some had even received advanced European academic training and hence were familiar with James Clerk Maxwell’s and Heinrich Rudolph Hertz’s fundamental work on the propagation of radiomagnetic waves. Some, like Tesla, had a taste for overdramatic flamboyance that occasionally carried them outside the bounds of science. But they shared a burning concern to invent. Applying to the group as a whole is Thomas Hughes’s remark on the Wright brothers: “Enthusiasm and a vague longing for fame and fortune explain more about their choice of inventing an airplane than do rational economic considerations.” Elmer A. Sperry (1860-1930), holder of over 350 patents, is a variant from the pattern principally in that he became a successful manufacturer at the age of nineteen. Responsible for a succession of impressive achievements in the design and production of arc lights and search lights, he also introduced commercial electrolytic processes and designed and manufactured electric mining machinery and electric motors and transmissions for streetcars. Sperry’s most enduring interests and contributions, however, lay in the direction of high-precision gyroscopic control devices. These found application in his introduction of the marine gyrocompass, automatic gyro-pilots for steering ships and stabilizing airplanes, gyrostabilizers for ships, and during World War I (in connection with his membership on the Naval Consulting Board) gyrocontrols for the guidance of submarine and aerial torpedos. All in all, the half-century or so after the Civil War saw in the United States an era of unparalleled inventive achievement. With independent inventors in the leadership, there was a tendency to concentrate on radical inventions for reasons both obvious and obscure. As noted, they were not constrained in their problem choices by mission-oriented organizations with high inertia. They prudently avoided choosing problems that would also be chosen by teams of researchers and developers working in company engineering departments or industrial laboratories. Psychologically they had an outsider’s mentality; they also sought the thrill of a major technological transformation. Carried along with this transformative spirit, and with accompanying industrial growth, was a cultural outlook of sweeping technological optimism and even omnipotence; technology rather than science, for the role accorded to science and scientists was generally a subordinate one. Yet rising mainly from obscure origins and with access to rigorous scientific training only in a few cases, this highly unusual clustering of inventors made an extraordinary contribution to the amenities of modern civilization that we now take for granted. Technological advance in America changed in character as it approached the modern era. At least in some sectors, of which the manufacture of farm equipment is one, there is evidence of a transitional stage of organized product improvement before the full development of corporate research laboratories. An “inventive profession” was recruited into corporate ranks, composed not of academically trained scientists and engineers but of craftsmen with practical experience in farm-machine shops and a track record of some earlier success as small-scale entrepreneur-patentees. The trend may have begun slowly as early as the 1850s, but from 1870 onward most patents concerned with some of the technologically more complex machine requirements were received by hired professionals. From the mid-1870s onward, Rosenberg and Birdzell rightly speak of the most promising and active sector of the technological frontier turning away from exploitation of the long-familiar, visible world of mechanical objects and machine components. Beginning to receive attention instead was a hitherto invisible world of electromagnetic forces and microscopic or submicroscopic particles. This latter world offered few immediate attractions for the technological innovator. In order to enter it at all, new levels of organizational support needed to be assured not only for long-term investigative efforts but for expensive instrumentation and laboratory facilities. Specialization was also becoming more necessary as the knowledge base in science and technology advanced. To an increasing degree, new inventions and innovations came to depend on the collaborative efforts of specialists. Individual inventors played a smaller and progressively declining part; even Thomas Edison stood at the head of a substantial staff and laboratory devoted to the business of invention. Before long a fundamental division of labor would appear between “work done by basic scientists, functioning in what amounted to an autonomous sector of their own, pursuing knowledge for its own sake, and funded by grants and subsidies not directly linked to economic values, on the one hand, and work done by industrial scientists, functioning in the economic sector, and funded on the basis of the economic value of their work, on the other.” By 1890, the situation had begun to change more rapidly. For physicists, and more especially mathematicians, nonacademic employment opportunities still were not numerous. A number of universities, on the other hand, had succeeded in establishing relationships with local industries that as yet lacked research facilities of their own. Records probably do not exist from which to plot the pattern with any accuracy, but Nathan Rosenberg and Richard Nelson have recently offered their general impression that “a century ago a large share of American university research was very much ‘hands-on’ problem-solving.” Simultaneously, universities were evolving in the direction of offering some support for their faculties’ less immediately utilitarian, basic research, and being recognized as an advantageous setting for it. Moreover, a new situation had begun to present itself in the rapidly expanding electric power industry. Despite the continuing public adulation of Edison and his own tenacious efforts, he was demonstrably losing his battle to prevent the victory of alternating current generation over the direct current networks he had introduced. With this defeat went a loss of opportunities for many self-taught technicians or even empirically trained engineers to retain their former leadership against academically better-trained counterparts. The prodigously growing utilization of steel provides perhaps the earliest example of industry’s discovery of the need for growing numbers of trained scientists. Bessemer converters of the 1850s had opened the door to relatively cheap and plentiful steel production. “One part fuel in the Bessemer process equalled 6 or 7 parts in the old method of steelmaking, and comparison of labor and machinery requirements would yield similar results.” But while effective in removing carbon and silicon as impurities in molten iron, phosphorus in any concentration was left as an unresolved problem. Moreover, the process proceeded so quickly, with so little opportunity for intervention or control by the operators, that it was difficult to specify the properties of the resultant product within commercially acceptable limits. A need quickly appeared, therefore, for quantitative chemical analysis. Low-cost steel became a resource of enormous importance in practically every industrial field. Iron rails of Civil War vintage would support only eight-ton rolling stock before wearing out in a couple of years. The steel rails of 1905 carried seventy-ton cars and lasted ten years. In transportation in high-performance machinery of all kinds, in steel girders for bridges and the new multistory buildings, in agricultural equipment, and presently in the fabricating of automobiles and airplanes, reliable steel components were a critical constituent. The transition from the Bessemer process to open-hearth furnaces contributed to this end, permitting the use of a wider range of iron ores and facilitating the widening use of alloys that met increasingly demanding specifications. But the essential point is that already by the early years of this century chemical analysis, and hence trained chemists, became an essential part of the process. Before the turn of the century General Electric had already organized a semi-autonomous consulting-engineering department, essentially an R & D laboratory-under the renowned Charles P. Steinmetz. Here ways were found to prepare tungsten lamp filaments that were ductile rather than brittle, and to achieve important results in the design of radio tubes and other electronic equipment. The American Bell Telephone Company (later AT&T) similarly began to strengthen its engineering department during the 1890s, and soon afterward, faced with eroding patent protection of some of its key products, took steps leading to the founding of the great Bell Laboratories. From the limited available data, however, it appears that by the early years of the twentieth century the dominant area of industrial research activity lay in chemistry and its offshoots. Electrical machinery and instruments provided less than 10 percent of total industrial research employment in 1921, while by contrast slightly more than 40 percent and an almost equivalent proportion of all the new industrial laboratories opened during the entire 1899-1946 period was attached to the chemicals, glass, rubber, and petroleum industries. The industrial demand for organic chemists also swelled as new products and by-products proliferated. Drug, food-processing, and petroleum works identified a new need for organic chemists. The gross proportions are reported to have remained “remarkably stable,” modified only by an increasing research intensity on the part of the automobile industry, even while there was a tenfold growth in total employment at industrial laboratories between 1921 and 1940. Already by the turn of the century, the president of the American Chemical Society could claim that “many of the more important [industrial] works have corps of chemists numbering from 10 to 50, while very many more have smaller numbers.” Du Pont’s consistent policy of investing heavily in R & D laboratories, employing numbers of professional chemists that were a full order of magnitude higher than even the larger of those suggested earlier, followed by the time of World War I. Out of this complex presently came the firm’s entry into the production of tetraethyl lead, cellophane films, freon refrigerant, and rayon. Later still, Du Pont was responsible for the major commercial successes of neoprene and nylon, although the bulk of Du Pont’s other innovations during the interwar period were acquired rather than originating in its own research laboratories.”

Electronic Arts reportedly rejected a Dead Space 4 proposal from series creator Glen Schofield and other developers who worked on the original game.

Schofield directed the 2008 survival horror game, while Bret Robbins was its creative director and Christopher Stone was the animation director.

The trio discussed wanting to make Dead Space 4 in a recent interview with Dan Allen Gaming (via Resetera).

“We tried actually, you know, the three of us yeah, we tried Dead Space 4,” Schofield said.

“All three of us sat there and wanted to do it,” Stone added.

Schofield said discussions took place this year, but EA rejected the idea.

“Well we didn’t go too deep, they just said no, we’re not interested right now, we appreciate it, blah blah blah, and you know, we know who to talk to, so we didn’t go take it any further, and we respected their opinion you know, they know their numbers and what they have to ship and all that.”

“The industry is in a weird place right now,” Stone said. “People are really hesitant to take chances on things, so you’ve got to you know, take it with a grain of salt, who knows, maybe one day, I think we’d all love to do it.”

“Yeah, we’ve got some ideas,” Schofield added.

In April, a pair of reports claimed that the Dead Space franchise was on hold after sales of the most recent game failed to meet EA’s expectations.

Dead Space remake studio Motive was reportedly keen to make another series entry after the franchise returned to critical acclaim in January 2023, but its plans were said to have been scuppered by lacklustre sales.

The claims followed EA’s announcement that Motive had joined its wider Battlefield development team.

Mark Hamill and his dislike for Star Wars The Last Jedi…

St. Georges Avenue is a residential street in North Vancouver, a scenic city across the Burrard Inlet from Vancouver, known for its blend of urban amenities and natural beauty (e.g., proximity to the North Shore Mountains). It runs through the Central Lonsdale neighborhood, a bustling area with shops, restaurants, and community services. The street is part of a well-connected residential zone, with easy access to key local landmarks and transit options, making it a desirable place to live or visit.

The Saint George Apartments is a multi-faceted community on or near St. Georges Avenue. It offers studio, 1-bedroom, 2-bedroom apartments, and 3-bedroom townhomes, featuring amenities like in-suite laundry, in-floor radiant heating, and stainless-steel appliances. Located near Central Lonsdale, it’s close to Lonsdale Quay Market, retail shops, and outdoor attractions like water and mountain vistas. It emphasizes a “better way of life,” appealing to those seeking modern living with access to nature, suggesting St. Georges Avenue is a hub for young professionals, families, or retirees.

St. Georges Avenue is well-integrated into the city’s road network, accessible via major arteries like Lonsdale Avenue. Its location near Central Lonsdale places it within walking distance of public transit (e.g., SeaBus to Vancouver) and the Highway 1 corridor, enhancing connectivity.

As of 2025, North Vancouver’s real estate remains competitive, with Central Lonsdale seeing steady demand due to its amenities and views. Prices for condos or apartments on St. Georges Avenue likely range from CAD 600,000 to over CAD 1 million, depending on size and condition.

Central Lonsdale, where St. Georges Avenue is located, is known for its vibrant community feel, with local favorites like the Lonsdale Quay Market offering fresh produce and artisan goods. The area’s proximity to parks (e.g., Lynn Canyon) and outdoor activities aligns with Vancouver’s active lifestyle culture. The population includes a mix of young families, professionals, and older residents, with a growing international community reflecting North Vancouver’s diversity. North Vancouver is generally safe, with low crime rates compared to Vancouver proper. St. Georges Avenue’s residential nature suggests a quiet, family-friendly environment, though its central location means some traffic noise.

St. Georges Avenue in North Vancouver is a residential street in the heart of Central Lonsdale, offering modern living options like The Saint George apartments, strong connectivity, and proximity to shopping and nature. It’s an attractive spot for those seeking a balanced urban-outdoor lifestyle, with a real estate market reflecting its desirability.

The Codex Benedictus, also known as the Cassinese Lectionary, is an impressive example of a vitae, or Saints’ Lives, in both size and content. It was made in Montecassino in the Benevento region of Southern Italy around 1071. The manuscript describes the life of Saint Benedict — the founding saint of Montecassino abbey — whose relics reputedly still reside in the church there. It also describes the lives of his twin sister, Saint Scholastica, and his first oblate, Saint Maur.

The manuscript reveals a great deal about the milieu in which it was made and informs on the working practices of the artists during this time. It is among the larger of the extant vitae, being 37 cm x 25 cm, and its 262 parchment folios are in generally excellent condition.

Born in Nursia, Italy, Benedict, who died around 560, is an important figure in the development of Christian religious practices. While at the community of Montecassino, he established a set of rules for both monks and laymen, which were to shape Western monasticism for centuries and which are still observed in some monasteries today.

The Codex Benedictus was made during a period of great artistic endeavor under the abbacy of Desiderius (1058–1087). Intent on repairing the crumbling abbey, he also commissioned many works of art including mosaics, wall paintings, and lavishly illuminated manuscripts. Considered one of the most important of the illuminated manuscripts made at Montecassino, it not only features the life of their founding saint, but is also one of the few remaining examples of artistic works from Montecassino of this period.

The parchment used is of the highest quality, and a wide range of pigments are employed on the extensive pictorial programs of the saints’ lives. Gold is used throughout but is particularly employed to decorate the ornate, full-page initials, all of which attest to this lectionary as an exceptionally luxurious object.

Evidence of Ottonian and Byzantine Styles

The manuscript has an unusually large number of depictions for a vitae: sixty-five multi-scene miniatures for Benedict and twenty-nine for Maur. The depictions reflect the increasing impact of Byzantine images in the West. The full-page initials are derived from and interpret earlier traditions using gold, vibrant colors, and animals, to enliven the interlaced forms (fols. 3v, 53r, 72v).

With its wealth of images for the separate cycles of Benedict and Maur, the Codex Benedictus is clearly the work of several artists. These artists not only employ different techniques but also have different skill levels, as evidenced in some images by unsatisfactory drapery, badly-proportioned heads, and poorly-detailed facial features. Some depictions also show evidence of highly-skilled execution with minor involvement by a lesser-skilled artist.

The artists employed a model as the basis for the depictions which may have emanated from Rome. One indicator of such a source are two tenth-century frescos found in the church of St. Crisogono in Rome which are replicated almost identically on fols. 31r and 61r. Other depictions may reflect an earlier model, but unique details demonstrate the artists adapted and included their own innovative style.

Some initials are closely allied to those found in Ottonian manuscripts, but the artists improved the style to create their own versions (fols. 18v, 87v). Large initials and small capitals employ red dots to decorate the shapes. Terminals and mid-sections are accented by large interlace knots, in some cases including beaked monsters and dogs (fols. 3v, 53r, 72v, 259v).

An Enduring Script

Written in Beneventan minuscule, the text shows no evidence of haste in the clear, precise rendition of the letters. This is indicative of the desire to produce an item of quality, where rushed letter forms might indicate pressure to complete, for whatever reason. The scribe is thought to be the monk, Leone, also possibly responsible for Codex Casinensis 99 and the Exultet Scroll, Vat. Lat. 3784.

Historians named the script after the Benevento region in which it flourished in southern Italy. Early versions of the style date from the late eighth century, and it evolved and remained in use until the end of the thirteenth. Among other identifiable traits, it is characterized by an extensive use of ligatures, giving the text a particularly pleasing visual appearance.

The apogee of the style is considered to be during Desiderius’ abbacy. The letter forms during this period demonstrate a regularity and precision which contributes to the overall appearance of the script and is evident in the Codex Benedictus.

A Lavish Liturgical Manuscript

Produced during the abbacy of Desiderius (1058–87) while undertaking the reconstruction of Montecassino abbey, the manuscript was intended for liturgical use on the abbey’s important feast days of Saints Benedict, Scholastica, and Maur.

The abbey’s inventory indicates it was located there during the papacy of Paul II (1464-1471). Subsequently, the inventory of around 1475 lists it in the Vatican Library collection.

This 9th episode discusses the Post-WWII reconstruction in the USSR.

SOURCES*

Andreĭ Vladimirovich Ikonnikov, Russian architecture of the Soviet period

Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism

A. Palladin, “The Ruined Cities Are Reborn”, USSR information bulletin, Volume VIII, no. 14, July 28, 1948

Robert Dale, “Divided we Stand: Cities, Social Unity and Post–War Reconstruction in Soviet Russia, 1945–1953”, Contemporary European History, Vol. 24, No. 4, Special Issue: Urban Societies in Europe (November 2015)

Alexei Tarkhanov, Stalinist architecture

Maurice Frank Parkins, City planning in soviet Russia

Hans Blumenfeld, “USSR Postwar Reconstruction”, TASK Planning and Architecture, Vol. 7-8, special issue on Reconstruction (published by Harvard University), 1948

I. Vizen, “Prefabricated Housing Booms in USSR As New Buildings Rise”, USSR information bulletin, Volume VIII, no. 23, December 8, 1948

A. Bazdyrev, “History of Soviet Architecture: From Palaces to Boxes”

*Tarkhanov, Parkins and Dale are capitalist authors whose work I don’t recommend. Ikonnikov is a revisionist whose work is of varying quality. Fundamentals of ML is a revisionist textbook, which should be read only very critically. Blumenfeld is a liberal but his writings are good. Bazdyrev is also a good author. I also recommend the USSR information bulletin.