King of Ithaca, he first feigns madness to dodge going to war against Troy, but then uses his cunning and ingenuity to design the Trojan Horse and conquer the city. Runs into trouble with Polyphemus during the return journey to Ithaca.
Beccafumi
Fine paintings from Jan van Eyck, Leonardo da Vinci, Fra Bartolomeo, Gerard David, Beccafumi, Lavinia Fontana, Tintoretto, El Greco and Murillo.
Dante and Virgil enter the first circle of Hell, Limbo, where those who never sinned but weren’t baptised in the Christian faith are confined.
Odysseus had been away from his home, wife Penelope and son Telemachus for over 20 years. What would she have written to him?
Two themes now largely forgotten: Christ’s descent into Limbo and Harrowing of Hell, and his supper at Emmaus.
Queen Penelope and their son Telemachus were awaiting the return of Odysseus, whose ships ended up off the island of the Cyclops.
Should chiaroscuro paintings show much in the way of colour, given that in the dark only the rods in our retinas function, giving us monochrome vision?
Hannibal crossed the Alps, but the Romans adopted guerrilla tactics before being defeated at Cannae. Then Scipio invaded north Africa and destroyed the Carthaginians at Zama.
Dante awakes in Limbo, the outermost part of Hell reserved for those whose only failing was that they lived before the Christian era. An opportunity for self-promotion.
From Jan van Eyck’s trompe l’oeil, through Tanner’s fiery cross, to the modern young Polish woman of Jacek Malczewski.
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