Homer’s Shield of Achilles — a microcosm of war, harvest, dance, and law — inspired Flaxman’s stunning 1821 silver-gilt masterpiece, proudly displayed at George IV’s coronation banquet.
Teaching with Domenico Veneziano
Vasari’s gripping tale of artistic jealousy, a lute smashed and a murder committed — totally fictional, yet Domenico Veneziano’s ethereal Florentine masterpieces remain breathtakingly, undeniably real.
Matisse and Jazz
Matisse’s Jazz — bold, improvisational, electric with colour — mirrors the music it celebrates. Two dazzling pochoirs in Athens invite us to feel rhythm through cut paper and pigment.
Lion Hunt Mosaic
Did Pella’s breathtaking Lion Hunt mosaic echo Krateros’s lost bronze monument at Delphi — immortalising Alexander’s legendary struggle with a lion in marble, metal, and memory?
Dioscurides and Krithamo
The Vienna Dioscurides — a breathtaking 515 AD Byzantine manuscript gifted to Anicia Juliana — preserves Greek botanical wisdom and over a thousand medicinal plants in luminous illuminated splendour.
Teaching with Donatello
Donatello commanded his sculptures to speak — and they did. From Florence’s peasant Christ to Padua’s magnificent Gattamelata, his genius reshaped Renaissance sculpture for centuries to come.
Louise Glück and William Waterhouse
Louise Glück’s Meadowlands reimagines Homer through Penelope’s voice, echoing Waterhouse’s painting—where a single thread captures fidelity, tension, and the timeless complexity of waiting, weaving, and desire.
Teaching with Giotto di Bondone
From Dante Alighieri to Pablo Picasso, Giotto di Bondone emerges as a transformative genius—surpassing Cimabue and redefining painting through lifelike vision and enduring influence.
Unidentified Church in Constantinople known today as Vefa Kilise Camii
The enigmatic Vefa Kilise Camii remains one of Constantinople’s least understood monuments—an 11th–12th century Komnenian structure, possibly linked to St. Theodore, yet still rich in unanswered questions and lost mosaics.
Émile Gallé
A childhood memory of wonder finds its echo in the artistry of Émile Gallé, whose nature-inspired glass—shaped by curiosity, science, and imagination—transforms fragile material into poetic brilliance.