“Lavinia Fontana: Trailblazer, Rule Breaker” at National Gallery of Ireland
Partway through my visit to the “Lavinia Fontana: Trailblazer, Rule Breaker” exhibition, I realised that I couldn’t remember ever having walked through room after room …
Museums & Exhibitions
“Expéditions d’Égypte” at Royal Museums of Art & History, Brussels
There’s another universe out there where instead of becoming a medieval historian, I pursued my childhood fascination with ancient Egypt instead—I was that kid who …
“Striking Power: Iconoclasm in Ancient Egypt” at MAG
Why do people feel moved to damage a piece of art? This is one of the main questions which the exhibition “Striking Power: Iconoclasm in …
The Bride of Frankenstein and the Colmar Treasure
Visiting the Cloisters Museum always makes me think vaguely of the Bride of Frankenstein: beautiful but cobbled together from parts of many different bodies. The …
The Met, Medieval Catholicism, and the Popular Imagination
The steps leading up to the front entrance of the Metropolitan Museum in New York are always busy, but are probably rarely so photographed as …
Walking the Medieval Mile Museum
Very few medieval buildings have survived the centuries without major changes, and the former church of St Mary’s in Kilkenny is not one of them. …
The Space Age and the Digital Age: Linking Museum Exhibits and the College Classroom
When I first came to the University of Iowa, the north lobby of the Main Library was a drab, dated, and draughty area that had …
Hardin Library Medical Incunabula
Above from left: Nuremberg Chronicle; Ars Moriendi; Niccolo Scillacio’s “Que in hoc libello continentur”; Celsus’ “De medicina.” I headed away from my usual campus haunts …
“Coptic Textiles” at the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin
Being from Ireland, I’m pretty used to heading into a museum and seeing artefacts which have been preserved in the acidic, anaerobic environment of an …
“Lumières de la sagesse” Exhibition – Musée de l’Institut du Monde Arabe
This Saturday I paid a visit to a new exhibition at the Musée de l’Institut du Monde Arabe, called “Lumières de la sagesse – Écoles …