Museum

The Meeting of Dante & Virgil, Designed by Francesco de Rossi Salviati, Woven by Jan Rost & Workshop; Florence, Italy, now in Minneapolis Institute of the Arts, 1546-49 A rare and special object is on display at my hometown museum: the Minneapolis Museum of the Arts is exhibiting its own tapestry of Dante Meeting Virgil, from 1549. It was a product of an elite tapestry workshop owned by Cosimo de' Medici, fashioned at every step by top artists with the finest materials. Max B

Bologna is a magnificent city, with an overwhelming number of sites to see, and you could easily miss the small Museo Civico Medievale, off the main street from the Basilica of San Pietro. But if you go there, you'll find a rare, perhaps unique, collection of funerary monuments, and if you're a special kind of geek, you'll appreciate how very different they are from the ones you'll typically find in large and famous museums in Europe. Famous sarcophagi and funeral monuments

Hercules, with help from Hermes and Athena, steals Cerberus from Hades Our hero has three remaining labors before he is freed from his servitude to King Eurystheus (and, by extension, Hera). If you missed Part 1, with the preceding labors of Hercules, you can read it here . Hercules fights the Giant Geryon, Mosaic Floor, 26 CE, National Archeological Museum of Spain, Madrid This task on which King Eurystheus sends Hercules is yet another suicide mission. As well, it's anoth

Hercules serves as the slave of Queen Omphale, mosaic pavement, 26 CE, National Archeological Museum of Spain, Madrid (discussed in next part, but pretty nice for a banner) I cannot think of any other Ancient Greek character more of a draw for trouble than Hercules. Beside Hercules, Odysseus is a slacker; Theseus and Perseus--choirboys. In the many stories where he is the hero, he is mortal (though a demigod--one of the earliest Marvel Universe-style heroes in Greece perhaps

The use of lions in medieval religious and political art hews closely to the traditions inherited from around the Mediterranean. Lions...

If you're looking at prestige art and architecture, it's likely that you're going to find lions in its decoration. I wouldn't be...

Modern representations of the snake-haired woman depict her as a dangerous beauty, but the Ancient Greek and Roman images show her as...

Ancient Roman sarcophagi were for the wealthy, and were created in workshops which concentrated on particular themes: demonstrating the...

The Villa Giulia houses a great collection of Etruscan art. This post provides you with a few of the highlights. Here is a close-up of...

The barbarians here are not a journalistic representation of a specific battle, just as the image of the decedent at the center of the...