Minerva Magazine - November/December 2016

In this issue

Fashion plates

The design of suits of armour in the 14th and 15th centuries may have had some fancy detailing which made them look extremely impressive, but it also served to save the wearer’s life. Tobias Capwell

Victorian classics

Frederic, Lord Leighton’s popular painting, Flaming June, has returned home to London from Puerto Rico, to join four of his other late paintings at Leighton House Museum. Dominic Green

Power and protection

Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum throws light on superstition in the Islamic world with a fine show of stunning amulets, illuminated astrological charts and intriguing fortune-telling devices. Theresa Thompson

Divine decadence?

The birthplace of a mighty and innovative civilisation has had a bad press since its portrayal in the Bible as decadent and corrupt, but an exhibition 
at Louvre Lens puts it in an entirely different light. Polly Chiapetta

East meets West

Sparked by a chance find in a Brussels antique brocante, an American couple, Sam and Myrna Myers, built up a fine collection of rare and beautiful Eastern art, which is now on show in Montreal. Dalu Jones

Written in stone

Going on a search for mysterious rock art and ancient petroglyphs carved and pecked on boulders, scattered across the wild landscapes of the state of Utah, makes for a gratifying road trip. Carol Chamberland

Classical forms

Can neuroscience explain how features of local landscape influenced Greek and Roman architecture – and even dress? One civilisation preferred angles and straight lines; the other favoured rounded shapes. John Onians