Cultural

G.R. Potter describe show, during the 15th and 16th centuries the scholarship of the humanists and theologians was fused at Basel into something characteristically Swiss.

Possibly some innate realism prevented the Mesopotamians from seeing death other than objectively. But the Epic of Gilgamesh remains an eloquent witness to the poignancy of their interrogation of the meaning of human life and destiny. S.G.F. Brandon.

Much of the history of any English district is recorded in its farmhouses. This, writes W.G. Hoskins, is particularly true of Devon; where, at some places, “farming has been carried out without a break since Romano-British times,” and possibly from the prehistoric period.

John Gage gauges the impact of Italian influences trickling through to Britain until the 17th century.

Boyd Alexander profiles a man whose whole life and fortune were spent in creating and living out a youthful dream. But William Beckford was not only a romantic visionary: he was also an inspired collector and an artistic pioneer.

Far more interesting than Byron's romantic hero, who also inspired a celebrated circus act, is the real Mazeppa, as described in this article by L.R. Lewitter.

For nearly two hundred years Jesuit missionaries held a privileged position at the court of the Chinese Emperors, C.R. Boxer writes, where they laboured not only as fishers of men, but as astronomers, mathematicians, portrait-painters and skilful architects.

Peter Green meets the satirists of the Roman Empire, and is presented with a picture of a world in corruption and decline. Yet the Empire outlasted its bitterest critics by several hundred years.

D.M. Walmsley analyses the plentiful artistic and personal connections between the explorations of the Virginia company and the Bard.

Esther A.L. Moir meets the early English antiquaries— from William of Worcester to Sir William Dugdale—pioneers who laid the foundations of an important form of modern historical scholarship. Travelling up and down Great Britain, They kept a careful record of everything they heard and saw, investigating the monuments of the past and describing the landscapes of their own age.