Art
Minerva
King Of The World
Far from being simply a power-grabbing ruler and military strategist, the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal was a scholar, who assembled the first comprehensive library in the world, discovers Dominic Green when he visits the British Museums new exhibition.
8 min |
November/December 2018 Volume 29 Number 6
Minerva
Anglo-Saxon Attitudes
David Miles pays fulsome tribute to the late Jean Manco and reviews her last book probing the roots of the Anglo-Saxons, which is also the subject of a landmark exhibition on show at the British Library.
7 min |
November/December 2018 Volume 29 Number 6
Minerva
Pointing The Finger
The Campana art collection was assembled in Italy, acquired by Napoleon III, and then dispersed among the museums of France, including the Louvre, and also the Hermitage in Russia; Dalu Jones traces its journey.
7 min |
November/December 2018 Volume 29 Number 6
Minerva
Along The Wall With Hadrian's Cavalry
The 1900th anniversary of Hadrian becoming Emperor of the Roman Empire is being celebrated in a series of exhibitions at 10 different museums along the great wall he built from east to west across northern Britain.
7 min |
May/June 2017
Minerva
A Fine Figure
Dominic Green visits Princeton University Art Museum to see the current exhibition of exquisite Ancient Greek red-figure vases, largely the work of the so-called Berlin Painter, whose particular style was identified by the Oxford scholar Sir John Beazley in 1911.
9 min |
May/June 2017
Minerva
Dining With Socrates And Nero
Nicole Benazeth joins ghostly guests from the past at an exhibition in Marseille that charts the history of the banquet from ancient Greece to Rome.
8 min |
May/June 2017
Minerva
Blood Lines Of Rome
Classicist and novelist Annelise Freisenbruch describes the challenges and vicissitudes of the lives of women in ancient Rome and tells Diana Bentley why she chose Hortensia to be the heroine of her first novel, Rivals of the Republic.
10+ min |
May/June 2017
Minerva
Picasso – Half Man, Half Bull
Recent stories rom the world of art, archaeology and museums.
3 min |
July/August 2017 Volume 28 Number 4
Minerva
Metamorphoses Of The Poet's Mind
John Davie pays homage to the great Roman poet Ovid who died in exile 2000 years ago this year.
9 min |
September/October 2017 Volume 28 Number 5
Minerva
For The Love Of The Gods
An exhibition in Naples examines the timeless power of Greek myths, which are as vibrant today as when the Roman poet Ovid penned his Metamorphoses 2000 years ago.
7 min |
September/October 2017 Volume 28 Number 5
Minerva
The Galloping Goldsmiths
Everyone has heard of the Scythians but where did they come from, how did they live and what was it that helped them to rise to power?
6 min |
September/October 2017 Volume 28 Number 5
Minerva
Taking The Tablets
Paul Chrystal puts the record straight regarding how we know what we know about the Romans.
9 min |
September/October 2017 Volume 28 Number 5
Minerva
A Colourful Past
One of the ways that the Fitzwilliam Museum is celebrating its 200th anniversary is by the staging of a splendid exhibition of illuminated manuscripts at the end of July – a very fitting tribute to its founder, reports.
9 min |
July/August 2016
Minerva
A Stitch In Time
Jenny Davenport marvels at all the astoundingly intricate works of medieval English embroidery in Opus Anglicanum, a major exhibition currently on show at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
9 min |
January/February 2017
Minerva
The Hidden Secrets Of Lake Nemi
Headlines last spring announced that a third pleasure-boat built for the Emperor Caligula (r AD 37–41) was about to be recovered from the murky waters of Lake Nemi near Rome. As it turned out, after investigating the facts with the former director of the Museo delle Navi at Nemi, archaeologist Giuseppina Ghini, this was not entirely a matter of ‘much ado about nothing’.
3 min |
July/August 2017 Volume 28 Number 4
Minerva
Voyage Of No Return
In 1845 the ill-fated Sir John Franklin and his 129-man crew sailed off in search of the Northwest Passage and were never seen again – at least that is what was thought until some local Inuit people were interviewed. Roger Williams investigates one of Britain's greatest naval mysteries - the subject of an exhibition at London's National MAritime Museum.
9 min |
July/August 2017 Volume 28 Number 4
Minerva
Defend Or Destroy?
Guy de la Bédoyère charts the rise and fall of the formidable and privileged Praetorian Guard who were paid to serve as the elite bodyguard of Roman emperors but who might equally well turn on their masters if, and when, they chose to do so.
9 min |
March/April 2017 Volume 28 Number 2
Minerva
The Wrong Caesars
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
8 min |
May/June 2018
Minerva
Horse Sense
Dominic Green explores the fi ne equine imagery on Ancient Greek vases and coins in a wide-ranging exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
8 min |
May/June 2018
Minerva
Caesarea Will Rise Again
Archaeology in Caesarea – King Herod’s city, Roman and Byzantine provincial capital, Crusader stronghold and Ottoman village – has been slow in getting off the ground. But now a £47-million renewal project, one of the largest of its kind in Israel, is set to put the ancient city and its treasures firmly on the tourist map.
3 min |
July/August 2017 Volume 28 Number 4
Minerva
Casting Director
Artist Marc Quinn talks to Michael Squire about his latest work, Drawn From Life – a series of 12 sculptures installed in Sir John Soane’s Museum, – and reveals what it is about Classical art that has influenced his work.
9 min |
July/August 2017 Volume 28 Number 4
Minerva
The Colossus Of Rome
Dalu Jones discovers what happened to the largest amphitheatre in the world after the brutal public fights and barbaric contests ceased.
7 min |
July/August 2017 Volume 28 Number 4
Minerva
The Archaeologist Of Artists
Dominic Green looks at the sensual paintings of the acclaimed Victorian artist Lawrence Alma-Tadema currently on show at Leighton House in London.
10 min |
July/August 2017 Volume 28 Number 4
Minerva
Unbelievable Treasures
Is Damien Hirst’s trove of ‘antiquities’ brought up from the sea-bed just a shipload of crock, or is it an historically accurate, if anarchistic, tribute to marine archaeology?
9 min |
September/October 2017 Volume 28 Number 5
Minerva
Signs and Omens
Although astrology, fortune-telling, the use of amulets and other superstitious practices are frowned upon by Islam, they have been used throughout history for a variety of purposes, as Theresa Thompson discovers in a new exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum.
9 min |
November/December 2016
Minerva
In The Lap Of ​​​​​​​Luxury
Nicole Benazeth visits an exhibition of treasures in Arles that shows how the other half lived in the ancient world.
8 min |
September/October 2017 Volume 28 Number 5
Minerva
Magnificent Monteverdi
Tom Ford pays tribute to the ground-breaking Italian composer, born 450 years ago, one of the great musicians celebrated in the V&A‘s upcoming exhibition Opera: Passion Power and Politics.
7 min |
September/October 2017 Volume 28 Number 5
Minerva
The Sun Queen
Joyce Tyldesley traces the life of Nefertiti, consort of the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten, who is Ancient Egypt’s most iconic and, some would say, most beautiful female ruler
8 min |
May/June 2018
Minerva
Hero Of The Hieroglyphs
Andrew Robinson traces the life of the French archaeologist Jean-François Champollion, who deciphered the tantalising inscriptions of Ancient Egypt
8 min |
May/June 2018
Minerva
The View Over​​​​​​​ Atlantis
The myth of this fabled civilisation comes down to us from the Greek philosopher Plato but is there any truth in it – then or now? Steve Kershaw investigates
9 min |