Volume 24 Issue 4 April 1974

A Monastic Hegira

Tudor Edwards describes how the austere order of Trappists in Normandy was driven by the French Revolution to seek refuge in Switzerland, Austria and Russia.

The Golden Age of the County Map

John E. Holehouse considers the factors that led to a sudden and rapid improvement in cartographic scope and technique from 1480 onward.

Rodin’s Monument to Balzac

‘I sought in the Balzac...’ wrote the artist, ‘to represent in sculpture that which was not photographic... to imitate not only form but also life itself’. By Michael Greenhalgh.

Thomas Aquinas, 1274-1974

J.J.N. McGurk describes the life of the tall, corpulent and silent Aquinas, the greatest of medieval philosophers, who worked and taught in Italy, France and Germany during the thirteenth century.

Roman Portrait Busts

Michael Grant describes how, in their portrait-heads, which reveal an extraordinary grasp of the subject’s personality, Roman sculptors ‘created one of the outstanding arts of all time’.