First Lecture - St Peter’s Basilica - 2000 years of Christianity in Rome

Join professional Rome tourist guide Stuart Harvey for a journey through 2000 years of Christianity as we explore the art and history of the spectacular St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. Its origins take us back to the tradition that St Peter was crucified upside-down by the Emperor Nero and buried in the nearby necropolis. 

The original basilica built by Constantine was rebuilt in the 1500s to designs by Michelangelo, and decorated in the 1600s under the great baroque master Gianlorenzo Bernini, who also designed the sweeping colonnades of St Peter’s Square.

Among the many treasures inside St Peter’s we can admire the beauty of one of Michelangelo’s most famous sculptures, the Pietà, and Bernini’s magnificent bronze baldachin towering over the high altar, as well as the tombs and shrines of Popes and saints in this most sacred place.

Second Lecture - Treasures of the Borghese Gallery

The Borghese Gallery houses what is arguably one of the greatest collections of art in the world.  In the early 1600s Cardinal Scipio Borghese, the nephew of Pope Paul V, amassed an incredible collection of ancient sculptures and renaissance art, including works by Titian, Botticelli and Raphael. Scipio added to this by commissioning statues from Bernini and buying up works by Caravaggio, Domenichino and other contemporary artists of the day. 

The collection also houses later artworks acquired over the centuries by the Borghese family, all in a magnificent building designed for Cardinal Scipio especially to house his collection. The Borghese Gallery is set in the Villa Borghese gardens, until a century ago the private gardens of the Borghese family, and today one of the most beautiful public parks in Rome.

Stuart is a “History and Art Communicator” of 30 years' experience. He is a London Blue Badge Tourist Guide and a Guida Turistica Abilitata della Provincia di Roma. He has worked in educational tourism since 1992, leading study tours all over Europe. Living in Rome since 2003, Stuart has developed a great love for the Eternal City and its many treasures. In addition to his primary career as full-time Rome tourist guide, Stuart’s entertaining and lively lectures and virtual tours bring the rich artistic and historical wealth of Rome’s 28 centuries to life.

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Learn about the art, people and daily life of the amazing cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, buried by the eruption of Mt Vesuvius in AD 79. 

Lecture 1 looks in detail at city life, home and private life, including news on recent discoveries. In the Roman world, wealth and status were all-important and your home reflected this.  We explore living and dining rooms, gardens kitchens and even the toilets.  We see beautiful sculptures, stunning mosaics and wall paintings, silverware, jewellery, glass and even wooden furniture miraculously preserved.  Finally, we come to the tragic end of the cities and their people - ordinary people just like us. 

Lecture 2.   Before lunch, we focus on the Roman love affair with food and drink.  For the Romans, life meant getting together to eat and drink, in a pub or at a banquet.  This talk, based on the 2019-2020 exhibition Last Supper in Pompeii at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, takes us from fields and vineyards to markets and shops, from tables to toilets and even the tomb.  Recent discoveries here too.

Dr Paul Roberts is former Keeper of the Department of Antiquities at the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford University. He studied Classics at Cambridge, and Classical Archaeology at Sheffield and Oxford, and lived in Italy for several years, teaching and researching. He has travelled throughout the former Roman Empire, from Britain to Syria, and has excavated in Britain, Greece, Libya, Turkey and in particular Italy. He has written on the daily life of ordinary people, including on Pompeii and Herculaneum, and Roman Emperors. His latest book Ancient Rome in Fifty Monuments came out in Spring 2024.

From 1994 to 2015 he was Senior Roman Curator at the British Museum, and curated the exhibition Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum (2013). Arriving in the Ashmolean Museum in 2015, he curated Last Supper in Pompeii, (2019) a tribute to the Roman love affair with food and wine.  In 2022 he became Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia (Knight of the Order of the Star of Italy) and in 2025 received an OBE for services to Archaeology and Culture.

Two morning lectures followed by lunch.

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Fresco showing Romans drinking at a convivium (banquet). Naples Museum (MANN) 120031 Pompeii AD 50-79.  Copyright MANN

The Golden Age was a period in Dutch history, roughly spanning the 17th century, in which the Dutch were a major world power and leaders in trade and science but also in art.  The paintings produced by Dutch artists are considered some of the greatest works of art in the world.   It is thought that more than 5 million paintings were produced, some of which are considered among the greatest works of art in the world. 

This Special Interest Day will not only discuss the art of this dynamic period but will also talk about the history and culture that brought this art to fruition.  We will concentrate on Genre and Still Life.  As well as talking about the artists, their subjects and style, we will explore what caused this explosion of art and why different kinds of paintings became such specialities of the Dutch.  Not only the great masters Rembrandt, Vermeer and Jan Steen will be discussed but many of the 'minor masters' as they have come to be called will also be included. 

Many of you will remember the wonderful tour of the Mauritshuis with Jane Choy-Thurlow on Zoom during the pandemic.  Jane is a docent who enjoys giving lectures and tours at the Mauritshuis, Prince William V Gallery and Huygens Museum Hofwijck in The Hague, The Netherlands.   She has been involved in many exhibits in the Mauritshuis, including the legendary Johannes Vermeer Exhibit, Rembrandt by Himself and Holbein, Portraitist of the Renaissance.

She received her BSc from Salem State University, USA, her MEd from Trinity College Dublin and continued art history studies at Leiden University.

She was made a Knight of the Order of Oranje Nassau by King Willem Alexander of The Netherlands, for her knowledge and work in the field of the Arts.

Image:  Vase of flowers in a window by Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder 

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A half day event focusing on Elizabethan theatre which will include the politics, espionage and show-business developments of the period.

First lecture - Christopher Marlow:  Poet and Spy

When men were prepared to murder and be martyred for their religious faith and the Elizabethan security services were zealously gathering inteligence against a militant enemy, a Golden Age of Theatre emerged in England.  Assassinated at the age of 29 Christopher Marlowe was very much a man of his times.

Second lecture - William Shakespeare:  The Birth of Modern Show-Business

Poet, playwright and theatre entrepreneur, William Shakespeare became one of the wealthiest theatre entrepreneurs of the Elizabethan age.  A shrewd businessman, his career coincided with the emergence of the English playhouses and the beginnings of theatre as a commercially viable form of popular enetertainment.

Giles Ramsay returns following a compelling lecture to The Arts Society South Downs in 2022 on Greeks - Where we Began.  He is the Founding Director of the charity Developing Artists (www.developingartists.org), a former Fellow of St. Chad’s College, Durham University and Course Leader in Theatre at The Victoria and Albert Museum in London.  He regularly lectures on the history and practice of theatre on the Queen Mary 2 as it sails from New York to the UK. Giles combines academic analysis with hands on experience to bring a unique insight to the world of the theatre.

Image:  Christopher Marlowe 1564-1593

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Jazz is one of music’s most important genres: a fascinating blend of rigorous structure, free-wheeling creativity, close-knit ensembles and imaginative improvisation. Drawing on his experience both as musicologist and gigging musician, Sandy can shed light on jazz from the inside. His talk covers the early years of jazz up to the Second World War, and touches on the disparate influences which lay behind the emergence of jazz. Musical illustrations range from the blues, ragtime and the very first jazz recordings through to classics by Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five and the Duke Ellington Orchestra, and the dawn of the Swing Era.

Sandy is one of the UK’s most versatile music commentators, enjoying a career that combines broadcasting, performing and lecturing. After studying at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge and working as music director for the RSC, National Theatre and in London’s West End, Sandy Burnett spent a decade as one of the core team of presenters on BBC Radio 3. He devises and leads cultural holidays all over the world, is the author of the Idler Guide to Classical Music, runs an online classical music appreciation Listening Club, is a highly sought-after double bassist on the London jazz scene, and was appointed the Academy of Ancient Music’s Hogwood Fellow for the 2018-19 season.  Sandy will bring his double bass.

Image courtesy of Sandy Burnett

This Special Interest Day will span over 2000 years of Chinese Imperial history, art and culture.

The first lecture will focus on the founder of Imperial China, Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi, an exceptionally talented emperor who created China’s political and bureaucratic framework, which would span all subsequent dynasties.  Best remembered for his obsession with immortality and the afterlife, this fixation would result in the building of the world’s largest necropolis, which included the iconic terracotta warrior army.

The second lecture brings us from the dawn of Imperial China to its final years, when effective rule lay in the hands of an exceptional woman, the Dowager Empress Cixi.   Cixi rose from relative obscurity as a low-ranking Imperial consort, to become the effective ruler of China in the second half of the 19th Century.   In contrast to her political power and influence, we will consider life in her beloved New Summer Palace, as she indulged her passion for the arts, fashion and the natural world.

Two morning lectures, lunch, followed by a review of members’ Chinese works of art.

A Chartered Insurer by profession and a Fellow of the Assurance Medical Society, David spent more than 25 years working and living in Asia.  Whilst living in Hong Kong (1991-2004), he assembled a collection of approximately 700 predominantly Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Imperial and related textiles and costume accessories.    

Image: The Summer Palace Oil painting of Empress Dowager

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John Benjamin will give two talks on the history of jewellery:

1.  Jewellery from Elizabeth I to Victoria

2.  20th Century Jewellery

After lunch there will be a workshop, at which members’ own jewellery will be discussed and valued

John Benjamin is a jewellery historian, lecturer, author and broadcaster. Formerly International Director of Jewellery at Phillips Fine Art Auctioneers, since 1999 he has been an independent jewellery consultant on behalf of the private client network.  John is well-known from his appearances over 30 years on BBC Television’s ever-popular Antiques Roadshow. He is a Freeman of the Goldsmiths’ Company, a Court Assistant and Founder Liveryman of The Worshipful Company of Arts Scholars and in 2021 was appointed Honorary Jewellery Adviser to the National Trust.

Image courtesy of John Benjamin

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The Cult of the Celebrity - Omai, the Exotic and Joshua Reynolds
Lecture 1 looks at the events leading up to Joshua Reynolds’s portrait of Omai, exploring this famous moment from history when two worlds collided: the key players in Omai’s story, his origins in Tahiti, his background, his motivation in coming to England and his time in English society. We will look at Joshua Reynolds’s ideas regarding his self-image, his influences, how this related to his image of Omai and consider what this portrait tells us about 18th century English society. What happened when Omai returned to the South Seas, the impact of going back: can one ever go back? Lastly, the legacy of the image we call Omai, an enigma in its own right.

Cook and the Invention of Paradise – Voyages and Discoveries
Lecture 2 studies the enduring Western obsession with and the invention of the so called ‘exotic’ or ‘noble savage’, starting with the first discovery of the Island of Tahiti in 1767. We chart the impact through painted images of the island and its people, of the English and European influence in this part of the world through the eyes of not only Captain Cook and those who came before him, but also through the eyes of the artists that accompanied these pioneering voyages and on into the 19th and early 20th century with the images of Gauguin. The lecture will look at how romanticised depictions of the island and its peoples by artists such as William Hodges, Benjamin West, John Webber and John Cleveley, and indeed those of Paul Gauguin, not only bolstered these notions in the minds of Europeans but helped to perpetuate and invent the Western notion of the exotic and the myth of paradise.

Art historian Leslie Primo is a graduate in Art History with an MA in Renaissance Studies from Birkbeck, University College, London. He has worked at the Courtauld Institute, The National Gallery and The National Portrait Gallery and teaches a variety of art history courses across many institutions, including Imperial College, London.  He has broadcast Art on the BBC, Turner – Light and Landscape as well as Michelangelo – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly on BBC4 and Moving Pictures on Radio 4.

Image:  Portait of Omai, Sir Joshua Reynolds

A wide-ranging exploration of the music chosen by ballet choreographers through the years, proving that the right composition with the addition of the right moves and the right designs can create modern masterpieces and timeless classics.  We move from the grandness of Imperial Russia with the creaton of Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and other established and popular works, through to the current modern repertoire of the Royal Ballet, exploring the challenges met by both composers and choreographers.  There will be several performance video clips.

Nigel Bates is an English percussionist, manager, writer and speaker and is a former Music Administrator for The Royal Ballet.  He has worked as a freelance percussionist with nearly all the London orchestras and ensembles and has worked with many of the leading figures in the classical music industry.  He was a producer for the BBC's Maestro at the Opera and Pappano's Classical Voices documentary series.

Two morning lectures followed by lunch

Born in Copenhagen, Lars Tharp read archaeology at Cambridge University.  At Sothebys, he specialised in Chinese Ceramics and he has been curator and museum director of the Foundling Museum, London. He has served on the annual Art Fund Prize, is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, he holds an Honorary Doctorate of Arts and serves on the Court of the Worshipful Company of Weavers, London’s oldest recorded guild.  As a freelance broadcaster, Lars has worked regularly with the BBC on the Antiques Roadshow since 1986.

10.30 First lecture                          The Gate of Heroes – An East to West China Epic

11.45 Second lecture                      Harlots, Rakes and Crashing China                  

2.00   Roadshow Challenge            (Items brought at owner's risk

During the 19th century, when many Central European countries were still under the control of the Habsburgs in Vienna, art and culture were often the only ways in which the Empire's constituent crownlands could express national identity.  One hundred years after the end of Habsburg dominance in Central Europe, this special interest day looks at the two case studies, Slovenia and Hungary, through the prism of their capital cities, Ljubljana and Budapest.

This is a two-lecture special interest day followed by lunch.

Gavin Plumley is a writer and braodcaster, appearing on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4 and contributing to newspapers, magazines and opera and concert programmes worldwide.  He lectures widely about the culture of Central Europe during the 19th and 20th centures.

Image of Budapest courtesy of Gavin Plumley

This unusual and fascinating Special Interest Day brings together material from several lectures. The morning sessions outline the history, explore the terrain and examine the buildings which range from Anasazi Cliff Dwellings and Spanish Missions to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West.  En route, there will be log cabins and ‘Victorian’ towns; the morning will end with two 20th century creations – mid-century modernism at Palm Springs and the success of excess at Las Vegas.

In the afternoon we will look at the art, starting with figurative painters and sculptors like Remington and Russell and moving on to landscape painters like Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) and Thomas Moran (1837-1926). For once the word epic is fully justified. Explorers as well as artists, their paintings do justice to the extraordinary landscapes of the West. They are great names in American Art but hardly known on this side of the Atlantic.

Roger Mitchell studied History at Oxford and Fine Art at Leeds.   He was awarded Churchill Fellowship to travel and study in USA.   A former College Vice-Principal, he now lectures for the University of Liverpool and for Adult Residential Colleges.  He lives in Lancashire.

This will be a 3-lecture Special Interest Day with lunch.  The speaker is happy  to take a smaller group in the afternoon if people wish to leave after lunch.

The Silk Road extended for over 8,000 km, acting as a highway for beliefs, ideas, inventions and art, whilst silk was just one of the many products traded for 1,400 years. Buddhism spread throughout Central Asia and there are wonderful paintings from the Magao Caves at Dunhuang and the 'Caves of the Thousand Buddhas' at Bezeklik. Samarkand and Bukhara are the beginning of the great Islamic buildings that continue through Persia and Syria. Along the way we see traditional murals, ceramics, statues, carpets, architecture, mosaics, tile-work, rock carvings and of course, silk itself.

Christopher Bradley

Expert in the history and culture of the Middle East and North Africa, as a professional tour guide and lecturer he has led groups throughout the Middle East and Asia. Has written extensively on Arabia and is the author of The Discovery Guide to Yemen, Insight Guide to the Silk Road and Berlitz Guides to Libya; The Red Sea; Cairo; Abu Dhabi and Nile Cruising. As a photographer he has pictures represented by four photographic libraries.  Christopher has a broad range of lecturing experience, including to the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Institute of British Architects.  As a film producer and cameraman, he has made documentaries for the BBC, National Geographic TV and Channel 4.

1.  The Classical Re-invented.  The legacy of Sir Christopher Wren

In this talk we wind the clock back to the seventeenth century and enjoy an armchair tour of some of Wren’s magnificent structures including City Churches, the Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich and of course, his greatest masterpiece St Paul’s Cathedral. Wren was primarily a mathematician and astronomer and we’ll see how these disciplines are harnessed in his work. His love of the classical order is everywhere to be seen in his legacy.

2.  The Brilliance of Thomas Heatherwick.  A Modern Leonardo

The past few years have seen the meteoric rise of this extraordinarily versatile young British designer with his acclaimed Olympic Cauldron, the iconic new London bus and designs for some spectacular high-profile buildings in the UK and overseas. Over the last twenty years the Heatherwick Studio has used an intriguing combination of curiosity and experimentation to produce a vast range of solutions to design challenges around the world. This talk looks at the problems presented and the wonderfully creative ways in which Heatherwick and his team have responded in designing everything from handbags and furniture to universities and entire towns.

Ian Swankie.      A Londoner with a passion for art and architecture, Ian Swankie is an official guide at Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Guildhall Art Gallery and St Paul’s Cathedral.  He is also a qualified and active freelance London guide.

For three hundred years Venice was the most powerful city-state in the Mediterranean, and much of its wealth was put towards ornamenting itself with works of art. Paintings were frescoed onto the ceilings of churches and the facades of palaces along the Grand Canal; canvases were set into gilded altarpieces and the ornate walls of Council Chambers. Art was the outward proof of status, the symbol of the city’s prestige and influence. Then, when the Republic collapsed and the city fell into decay, it became a treasure house for the artistic imagination and painters from all over Europe came to Venice to paint its quiet back waters, its crumbling plasterwork, shadowed doorways and sunlit reflections, and the city was reborn as a romantic vision.

The three lectures that made up this very popular Special Interest Day looked into the artists who have lived and worked in Venice, their styles, their techniques and how each added his own unique contribution to the artistic legend of the city.

Rupert Willoughby presents a trilogy of talks about the Normans - from an unravelling of the Bayeux Tapestry to an account of the orgy of building after 1066 that all but effaced the fabric of Saxon England, and, to conclude, a celebration of the life of William the Marshal, a characteristic Norman knight of the Magna Carta period.

This Special Interest Day consisted of three lectures:

Imperial Purple to Mauvine looked at this large topic to set the scene for the application of colour within embroidery and tapestry.

Embroidery for Special Occasions looked at embroidered pieces for the church, military, royalty and special events.

Tapestry: the Ultimate Wall Decoration explored the difference between tapestry and embroidery and examined some of the most famous sets of embroidery.

This extremely popular Special Interest Day followed the course of this hard, determined, often brutal dynasty which ruled Russia for over three hundred years, from Peter the Great, the founder of St Petersburg, through his eccentric daughter Elizabeth, to Catherine the Great, the most powerful of the Empresses of Russia who  had no real claim to the threone, and on to the tragic figure of Nicholas II, the last Tsar and one of the most poignant figures in history whose death in a cellar in Ekaterinburg ended the reign of this turbulent and ill-fated family.

Cross-cultural encounters between Japan and the West from the mid-16th century onwards produced fascinating artistic results. At first, Europe influenced Japan but by the mid-19th century, the movement was reversed and Japanese art had a revolutionary impact on the West, known as ‘Japonisme’. The day included 3 digital presentations, display of objects & discussion of DFAS members’ treasures.