The ceiling of St Mary’s Church in Grantully, Perthshire, is intricately painted with coats of arms, images of saints, and proverbs, with a central panel depicting what is thought to be the Last Judgement – all in a typical Scottish…
Hiding in plain sight Look carefully at Renaissance paintings and you will see all sorts of fascinating cultural details, from the most obvious – the clothing that was fashionable at the time the painting was made, the jewellery, the hairstyles,…
When the army of Europe’s most powerful monarch besieged the Tuscan city in 1554, it took terror and hunger to achieve what cannon and arquebus could not, as William E Welsh explains.
The former palace of the Farnese family in Parma contains no fewer than five cultural institutions. Dalu Jones is our guide to the recently renovated Pilotta complex, where the dukes of Parma put art, archaeology, and theatre to use.
Fragments of ceramic vessels, cooking utensils, and bones of pigs and oxen with cut marks have also been found, offering a glimpse of the feasting that went on.
The dates listed below may have changed since we went to print. Check the websites of the museums for the most up-to-date information and bookings.
A rare history painting by the French artist Marie-Guillemine Benoist (1768-1826) has recently joined the collections of Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Few people have recently had as much face time with the ghosts of the Roman emperors as Mary Beard, a well-known professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge. Her latest book – Twelve Caesars: images of power from the…
One of the most accomplished painters of the 17th century, Peter Paul Rubens had a deep interest in the ancient world, expressed through the power of the paintbrush, but also the written word. Lucia Marchini speaks to Anne Woollett to find out more about the artist’s engagement with Greece and Rome – from discussing cameos to staging spectacular triumphal processions.
This dramatic work has been acquired by the J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where it is now on view. Artemisia trained with her father Orazio Gentileschi, and her Lucretia joins two of his works in the Getty collection.
Thanks to modern scientific analyses, the every-day circumstances of Tuscany’s Dark Age peoples are no longer mute. One thing is certain from this excavation: objects and nature played an active part in transforming the primitive experiences of Tuscany’s 9th-century peasants and their early feudal masters into some of the most sophisticated lifestyles in Europe by the 12th century.
'In 1638, Kircher was lowered into an awakening Vesuvius to advance his geological knowledge.'
When, in 1908, Julius von Schlosser published Art and Curiosity Cabinets of the Late Renaissance (originally Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance), he had been working for more than 15 years in what is now the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna,…
While there are impressive artefacts from all periods within, including a fantasy courtyard made from sculptural fragments of Roman Florentia, its glory is really the series of Etruscan antiquities.
Ashley and Stephen Cooper take a close and critical look at the hallowed idea of war by personal combat.
No doubt those early Christians would say it was relatively mild revenge for the sufferings of the martyrs.
Published 500 years after the event took place, this book serves as a quincentenary celebration of the legendary first meeting between Henry VIII, the English king (r. 1509-1547), and Francis I, the French king (r. 1515-1547). Known as the Field…
As a dozen Renaissance gilded silver treasures, the Aldobrandini Tazze or Twelve Caesars, go on show at Waddesdon Manor, Professor Mary Beard unscrews the puzzle of how the Roman emperors and dishes got mixed up
Dominic Green gives us a preview of an exhibition about to open at the Getty Center in Los Angeles that shows us how the ancient world was viewed through medieval eyes
Standing just under a metre tall, the bronzes depict muscular, naked men – one young, the other older and bearded – riding panthers, each with an arm raised in a triumphant gesture.