From Inigo Jones in the early 17th century until the early 19th century, classicism was THE style in Britain. In these five walks, you will see the hundreds of different incarnations of British classical architecture. You will learn not just the classical orders but also how British architects played with them: from baroque to Palladianism,

Why is a Leonardo painting worth over $450 million? Can we be sure that it is by the hand of Leonardo? The art market currently accounts for $60‐70 billion per year and, in spite of the global recession, continues to grow. The new millennium has witnessed the globalisation of the art market, with the emerging

During the Renaissance just one artist achieved immeasurable fame within his lifetime and would tower over all others for centuries thereafter. He was Michelangelo Buonarotti. No artist had ever been so naked in his ambition. He would invent the modern superstar celebrity, setting the standard so high that all subsequent artists would struggle to emerge

By discussing a range of important works, as well as relating music of these eras to the other disciplines in the arts, Peter Medhurst examines two of the greatest moments in the history of music.

The Enlightenment was a watershed moment in European history, society and culture. Individual merit, thought and emotion were celebrated by thinkers such as Rousseau, Kant, Voltaire and Hume, challenging the established order, and economic power was slowly passing into the hands of a new, industrial class. Such upheavals inevitably generated new explorations in the arts

This course will use ten buildings to explore key aspects of European architecture. The buildings have been chosen for their architectural quality and for their capacity to stand in for architectural trends of their own time as well as those which come earlier and later. The lectures will be free-standing, but interlinked issues concerning structure,

Over the centuries numerous artists have disappeared for a number of reasons, usually because they were not fashionable. But some have not only vanished, they have been deliberately excised from the historical record. Their crime? They were women. But if we explore this rich seam, we can see that these artists not only flourished, but

This series of lectures will look at art in relation to science. Although the two subjects are often pitted against each other, on account of their apparent subjectivity and objectivity, they are joined at the hip. We will explain how the two stories - both epic in their own way - developed together.

The Decameron’s Big Idea is to create an endless pretext for people to tell each other tales (true or false), not just to pass the time but also to outdo one other in narrative brilliance. Boccaccio’s biography reads like one of the tales: he might have been born in Florence, or in rural Tuscany at

Today, we use the Middle Ages as a touchstone for all that is crude, primitive and ignorant, but does this really accord with the radiant windows of Chartres, the elegance of the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries, the soaring cathedrals and ravishing aristocratic manuscripts? We will look at the range and accomplishment of the arts,