Art

The Renaissance in Italy, writes Alan Haynes, was enhanced by the arrival of scholars from Byzantium towards the end of the fourteenth century.

As Consul General for Great Britain in Egypt, Henry Salt established a friendly understanding with the free Albanian Viceroy Mohamed Ali. John Brinton describes how, through their relationship, Salt was able to rescue many treasures of ancient Egyptian art.

Michael Grant describes how, when Etruscan civilization burst into flower, among its most characteristic products was a wealth of splendid jewels.

Michael Greenhalgh describes how a masterpiece of fifteenth-century Italian art was for a long time used as an ashtray, only to pass into the national collections.

‘Unwearied in the office of friendship’, all his life Crabb Robinson was devoted to men of genius and faithfully recorded their behaviour, as Joanna Richardson here discusses.

David Mannings describes how the painters of the eighteenth century conducted their studios and sittings.

Prudence Hannay recounts the life of the Bostonian who first set sail for Britain in April 1815. Ticknor would go on to pay his homage to and became the good friend of many European intellectuals. Among those he met were Byron, Scott, Goethe, Chateaubriand and Madame de Stael.

Elka Schrijver describes the art and making of a northern Renaissance man.

Impressions of the social and literary scene in the French capital, as recorded by nineteenth-century visitors.

Aram Bakshian Jr. profiles a true Venetian, Lorenzo Da Ponte, who, like his associate Casanova, had an extravagant and boldly adventurous career.