Browse Items (167 total)

This is a paper portrait of Mr. Payne, an English actor, acting in the role of Robin Hood. The paper is 114 millimeters by 91 millimeters. It was drawn sometime between 1850 and 1872. This portrait is most probably cut from a larger one filled with…

The Column of Marcus Aurelius details his wars along the Danube River on the northern frontier of the Roman Empire. It demonstrates the military prowess of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius as well as the power of imperial propaganda. It contains reliefs…

This is a trade token that is worth half a penny. It was used at Robin Hood and Little John Tavern in Chiswell Street and was issued by John Tomlinson. Chiswell Street is near Finsburyfields where people practiced archery. This coin shows Robin Hood…

This is a non-illustrated manuscript from a “Blue Qur’an” from the ninth or tenth century. This version of the Qur’an is made entirely on indigo pages with gold and silver script, both of which indicate its origin in North Africa. This folio is…

This is a fifteenth- or sixteenth-century manuscript of the Qur’an, the central religious text of Islam. The Qur’an is said to contain the words of Allah as revealed to the prophet Muhammad. This particular manuscript displays exquisite calligraphy…

This image, from the fourteenth-century Abrégé des histoires divines found in the Pierpont Morgan Library, shows the coronation of King Arthur performed by a bishop. It is generally accepted that Arthur, though a popular literary figure, was not a…

This edition of The Decameron (c.1492) shows an illustration of the ten narrators of the stories included in the book, told over the course of ten days. The narrators include seven women and their three male companions. The ten are seated in what…

This sword, found in the Greek and Roman art collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, originates from the same culture and approximate period of The Last Legion’s version of Excalibur. The film combines Arthuriana and Roman history by positing…

Et hymno dicto exierunt in Montem Oliveti - when they had sung a hymn they went out to the Mount of Olives. The “Arrest of Christ,” being one of the most important moments in the Gospels, is naturally a subject of artistic rendition. The arrangement…

It was probably the Four Evangelists on fol. 27v that the twelfth-century chronicler Giraldus Cambrnsis was describing when he wrote of a book that “is the work of angelic, and not human” hands. The Four Evangelists are represented by their unique…