View of St Mark’s campanile (left) and Palazzo Ducale (right) from the lagoon, Venice By Dr. Ellen A. Hurst / 08.09.2015 Art Historian Venice in the 14th century Today, we think of Italy as a unified country. But in the fourteenth century, the major urban centers of Italy were largely unstable. Wars were common. Rivaling[…]
Meenakshi Temple, Madurai, Tamil Naidu, India (photo: Jorge Royan, CC BY-SA 3.0) By Edward Fosmire / 04.03.2018 Assistant Professor of Art Santa Ana College Imagine approaching a temple complex where you are greeted by a soaring gateway more than fifteen stories tall, covered in 1500 brightly painted sculptures of divine and demonic figures. It’s overwhelming and[…]
Effigy of Eleanor of Aquitaine in the church of Fontevraud Abbey – By Adam Bishop – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0 First and foremost there’s his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine. By W.B. Bartlett / 04.12.2018 Richard I (king of England from 1189 to 1199) is a man and a monarch probably best remembered for his role as[…]
Mum’s gone to Iceland. Creatista/Shutterstock The traditional picture of Vikings is one of boatloads of hairy men pillaging their way along the coasts of Europe. True to some extent, they and Norsewomen were also explorers and settlers. By Dr. Daniel Zadik / 12.16.2014 Postdoctoral Research Fellow University of Nottingham The traditional picture of Vikings is one[…]
A gold coin from Syracuse depicting the tyrant Agathocles, 310-300 BCE. (Palazzo Blu, Pisa) / Image from Sailko, Wikimedia Commons By Mark Cartwright / 03.30.2016 Introduction Agathocles of Syracuse (c. 361 – 289 BCE) ruled as tyrant of the Sicilian city for over 25 years. Ambitious, unprincipled, and seeing himself as a new Alexander, he famously attacked Carthage in a three-year campaign and made conquests in[…]
The fall of the Athenian army in Sicily during the Peloponnesian War in 413 BC as depicted in an 1893 illustration by J.G.Vogt. Wikimedia Commons Thucydides’s insights into the power of words to influence public sentiments remain acutely up-to-date. By Dr. Julia Kindt / 07.12.2017 Associate Professor and Chair Department of Classics and Ancient History University of Sydney Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War breaks off before[…]