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The Headlines

DON’T LOSE YOUR HEAD. The final letter written by Mary, Queen of Scots before her execution in 1587 is now on public display in Scotland for the first time in 30 years at Perth Museum, where it will remain on view until April 26, reports the Washington Post. Mary composed the four-page, hand-quilled letter to her brother-in-law, Henry III of France, shortly after being informed of her death sentence, an execution that would take place only hours later. In it, she portrays her fate as the result of anti-Catholic hysteria and frames herself as a martyr. “Tonight, after dinner, I have been advised of my sentence: I am to be executed like a criminal at eight in the morning,” she wrote. The letter is held by the National Library of Scotland and can only be exhibited rarely because of strict conservation limits. Even in its current windowless display room, exposure must be tightly controlled. “We’re basically using its whole light budget,” said Ashleigh Hibbins of Perth Museum. “It won’t be out again for a long time.”

RUB-A-DUB-DUB. To mark International Women’s Day on March 8, the French artist Luz has covered the bronze bust of singer Dalida in Montmartre, Paris, with a reflective new “armor,” reports Le Figaro. The mirror-encrusted white bodice, complete with protruding spikes, was designed to discourage a long-standing habit among passersby: rubbing the sculpture’s breasts for good luck, particularly in matters of love or sex, which has left them with a noticeably lighter patina. In an Instagram post, Luz argued that the gesture humiliates women. Her hand-sewn installation, she added, is meant as “an armor for all women.”

The Digest

Gerhard Richter supports the new plan to charge an entrance fee to the Cologne Cathedral, he told reporters. Richter designed the crowd-drawing stained-glass window in the south transept of the cathedral, unveiled in 2007. [dpa]