In Venice, in the Scuola Grande di San Rocco. Tintoretto as astounding as ever.

Here’s the official image release from NASA: www.nasa.gov/image-articl...

Having a short break for refreshment.

This lovely fresco is from Herculaneum. Like our pet rabbits, he loves his fruit and we see him here investigating plump, succulent figs. 🕰️C1st AD 🏛️📷 National Archaeological Museum, Naples #FrescoFriday

Let’s start with Francis d’Arcy Osborne. Ambassador to the Vatican since 1936, he was an unlikely hero. When Italy declared war on 🇬🇧 in 1940, the FO ordered him to stay on. Having been living in Rome, he moved rapidly in to the Vatican with butler, secretary and Cairn terrier Jeremy. 1/5

It's a good Friday on the Via Ferrata Carlo Giorda alla Sacra Di San Michele.

Starting in October, the #Louvre will begin a 4-year #restoration of the 24 paintings Rubens created (1622–1625) for his beloved patron, Maria de #Medici — from her birth in Florence to her grand arrival in Marseille. The Richelieu wing will be transformed into one big restoration atelier!

The Viking Age 'Christ from Aunslev' filigree gold cross. Dating to the first half of the 10th century, this is the earliest known depiction of Christ from Denmark. It is paralleled closely - down to the rope ligatures - by the silver Birka Crucifix from grave Bj 660. My 📷 @nationalmuseet.dk

“No Romanticist or Victorianist can excuse an ignorance of Scott. Back then, everybody read him. He was the first global superstar of the novel… Everybody read Scott, no exceptions” —Prof Adam Roberts on Walter Scott #BookologyThursday #C19 amechanicalart.blogspot.com/2016/06/some...

🌿🌾 You like gardens? You like history? And games? Then rejoice, because LOBELIUS is here! Thanks to official partners, Museum Plantin-Moretus and the Meise Botanical Garden, the players can skim through the 1581 Kruydtboeck by Matthias de l´Obel. Can you make the most beautiful early modern garden?

Today I visited the Bärenpark Schwarzwald in Bad Rippoldsau-Schapbach, a beautiful and vast sanctuary giving rescued bears a second chance at life. These incredible animals once lived in circuses, zoos, or were captured as so-called “problem bears” (term that honestly makes me really angry). 📷me

Fab pre-Easter bike ride this morning taking in the upland lanes of the Cambrian Mountains. Not a soul around 👌 #cycling #specialized 📷 Nant y Moch reservoir, Ceredigion

The Floating Feather: Pelican and Other Birds beside a Pool, c.1680, commissioned by Stadtholder William III, and painted by Melchior d’Hondecoeter, Dutch Baroque artist, who specialised in vibrant bird compositions; died in Amsterdam #OTD 1695. @rijksmuseum.bsky.social

Easter Wings: George Herbert, Welsh metaphysical poet & priest, born #OTD 1593; author of The Temple (1633), known for devotional & pattern poems. He is commemorated in the Herbert niche statue by Jay Battle, 2008, West Front Salisbury Cathedral. @salisburycathedral.bsky.social

The Ambassadors, by Hans Holbein the Younger, dated to Good Friday 1533 (annus horribilis). Painted in London, it portrays French envoys Jean de Dinteville & Georges Selve. Known for vanitas anamorphic skull, rich array of celestial & terrestrial objects - & lute with broken string. National Gallery

Kelmscott Manor opens today! From now until the end of October, Thursday to Saturday, you can visit what William Morris described as 'heaven on earth’. Here are some collection highlights to inspire you before you visit! kelmscottmanor.org.uk

This angry fellow is Charon, ferryman of the dead, shown here driving a chariot accompanied by a sinister, shadowy demonic figure which is the stuff of nightmares. It’s from the Etruscan Tomb of the Infernal Chariot near Siena. 🕰️C4th BC 🏛️📷 Museo Civico Archeologico di Sarteano 🏺 #AncientBlueSky

And we're off! First day of the 2026 Red House open season: the Archive door is open, the official brick is in position to hold the door, and Nick from the team gets to lead off the 2026 Stories from the Archive sessions in 15 minutes' time. Always great to get to share this stuff with the public!

Germany is celebrating the late Queen! A special stamp marks what would have been Queen Elizabeth II’s 100th birthday on 21 April. It honours her legacy and work towards reconciliation between the UK and Germany.

The Dutch police have recovered the Helmet of Cotofenesti, stolen from the Drents Museum in Assen in January last year, Arthur Brand announced on X. Sources also told Dagblad van het Noorden and RTL Nieuws that the stolen treasures have been recovered nltimes.nl/2026/04/02/d...

A 3,200 year-old painted scene of a lion and a gazelle playing a board game, probably senet. From an ancient Egyptian illustrated papyrus showing animals taking on human roles in comic situations where they act against their natural instincts. 📷 British Museum #Archaeology

An amazing experience to sing today alongside the choristers of #Christchurch Priory, with all-female vocal consort Papagena in this Premiere Week for Passia, by Liz Dilnot Johnson. The story of the crucifixion from the perspective of five women at the foot of the cross. Incredibly moving.

Went to the Gwen John exhibition at the National Museum in Cardiff yesterday and it was wonderful

The Last Supper, 1486, large fresco by Domenico Ghirlandaio (1448-1494), versatile Florentine Renaissance artist, master of Michelangelo. Ghirlandaio painted an earlier version (1480) at Ognissanti Convent, which inspired Leonardo’s Last Supper at Milan. Refectory San Marco Florence #MaundyThursday

For years after the central boulevards were completed in the 1870s, horses had trouble pulling carts up from the old streets to the new road built above the river Senne and its banks. The press called these slopes 'Anspach humps' after the mayor that organised this huge speculation.

Classic Vienna. -- Stephansdom, detail. #photography #Vienna #photographyOnBlueSky #Austria

Holy Trinity Church, Torbryan, Devon This mainly 15th Century Perpendicular church has an entrance porch with fan vaulting. Viewed here with the 17th Century wooden door being open. #AdoorableThursday #IronworkThursday

Émile Zola, French writer, activist, Dreyfusard, pioneer of naturalism, born #OTD 1840; author of Rougon-Macquart series of novels, including Le Ventre de Paris, Germinal. Portrait by Édouard Manet, 1868, Musée d’Orsay‬⁩

Self-portrait of artist, and wife 1866-67, painted by William Holman Hunt, a founder of Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; born #OTD 1827. Galleria degli Uffizi | Private Collection

”I never dreamed of such happiness as this, when I was an ugly duckling." Hans Christian Andersen, Danish writer of fairy tales, born #OTD 1805. Portrait By Christian Albrecht Jensen 1836 | Hans Christian Andersen House, Odense #internationalchildrensbookday

This is my favorite climate change chart. Japanese monks, aristocrats, and emperors kept meticulous records of cherry blossom festivals for 1,200 years and accidentally built the world's longest climate dataset.

There’s something adorable about this guardian and child, who’ve brought a foldable chair to watch Maria de’ Medici's #ceremonial farewell from #Amsterdam on 5 Sept 1638. They watch the #French queen mother’s carriage leave #Dam Square—clearly making a day of it, as shown by Jan Martszen de Jonge.

🏛 Analysis of ash from incense burners found at Pompeii and Boscoreale has revealed that frankincense from India or sub-Saharan Africa was burned alongside wine, demonstrating the global trade networks underpinning Roman religious practice. 🔗 open.substack.com/pub/historyh...

Researchers sequenced the genomes of 54 grape seeds dating from the Bronze Age to the medieval period. A 600-year-old grape seed from northern France is genetically identical to grapes used today to make pinot noir wine.

Blank pages invite use. In this 1578 print album by Philip Galle, published in collaboration with the Officina Plantiniana, a later reader used the flyleaves and leftover white space to sketch contemporary faces and figures. #bookhistory #rarebooks #earlymodern 💙📚📜

Gold bracteate dating to c. AD 500 from Fyn/Funen, Denmark 🪙 Migration Era bracteates were inspired by Late Roman coins and medallions. The runic inscription on this *may* read: houaR laþu aaduaaaliiu a[lu] The High One [Óðinn?]. I invite / invitation ? ? My 📷 DR BR42 @nationalmuseet.dk

Looking towards Springfield Lane Ely, Cambridgeshire #Clouds #TheFens

Well the banner is up. Nothing more nerve-wrecking than to send your manuscript to people you respect & wait for their opinion. V.grateful to @jonathanfreedland.bsky.social @ciaranm.bsky.social @gavinesler.bsky.social and especially the generous @jameshawes.bsky.social for supporting my book.

Fool’s cap map of the world Know Yourself 1590-1600 Bibliothèque de France #AprilFoolsDay

Ship of Fools, oil on panel, fragment of triptych, 1490-1500, by early Netherlandish artist Hieronymus Bosch. The Ship of Fools was an allegory of inept governance in Plato’s Republic and was further popularised by Sebastian Brant in his satire Das Narrenschiff 1494. Musée du Louvre #AprilFoolsDay

April is the time for new lambs and hope. #MedievalCalendar Morgan Library MS M.399; Da Costa hours, illuminated by Simon Bening; ca. 1515 CE; Belgium; f.5v

William Harvey, influential English physician, FRCP, born #OTD 1578, described full circulation of blood in landmark work De Motu Cordis (1628); Physician to James I & Charles I, Warden of Merton College Oxford. Portrait after Daniel Mytens, National Portrait Gallery | @bodleian.ox.ac.uk

The month of April Avril, Château de Dourdan A spring betrothal: a richly attired couple in the foreground exchange rings before witnesses; the young girl’s attendants pick flowers in a verdant landscape. Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, 1412-16 Musée Condé #OTD Château de Chantilly

Ancient Egyptian gold finger-ring set with a mouse amulet inscribed with the cartouche of king Thutmose III. Gold and glazed steatite. New Kingdom, Dynasty 18, 1479-1425 BC. Squeak squeak Thutmouse! 🐭❤️ 📷 The Met www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti... #Archaeology

"Kilpeck is famous for the wealth of ebullient carvings left by the 11th-century masons; there are dozens of amusing, grotesque, and intricate carvings around the doors, windows, and roof line of the church. One of the finest small Norman churches in Britain." #grotesque #monstrous #stone #carving

The Vergilius Romanus is a C5th AD illustrated manuscript of the works of Virgil. It contains the Aeneid, Georgics, & some Eclogues. It is one of the oldest manuscripts of his work. One of its well preserved illustrations is this delightful portrait of Virgil. 🏛️📷 Biblioteca Apostolica, Vatican

These are the bronze doors of the senate, built by Sulla, added to by Julius Caesar & completed by Augustus. In the C17th, Pope Alexander VII moved them to their present site, the Lateran Cathedral. An incredible survival from classical times. 📷mine

Designed to look like books, these ceramic objects are actually flasks or hand warmers. They are thought to have been filled with hot water or coal to warm the hands of the wearer on a cold winter's day. They functioned as a sort of ceramic hot water bottle. The perfect gift for book lovers!

I am pleased to share that I have signed a contract with Cambridge University Press to write “The End of Roman Britain and the Arrival of the Saxons,” which I have been approached to write by the editors of their series “Cambridge Elements in the Late Antique World”.