Andrew R. Casper, "An Artful Relic: The Shrou...

Jim Downs’ most recent book is Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine. Professor Downs is the Gilder Lehrman-National Endowment for the Humanities Professor of Civil War Era Studies and History at Gettysburg College. The book offers a new histo ...  Show more

From Revlon to Glossier, from Marilyn to Gaga, lipstick is as shape-shifting and unwieldy as femininity itself.Who wears lipstick today – as a matter of routine? And for those who do, is it out of obligation to a strict feminine standard, or some other reason entirely? Lipstick r ...  Show more

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The Shroud of Turin has long fascinated both historians and the religiously devout. It is pu ...

Melvyn Bragg discusses 'Lives of the Artists' - the great biographer Giorgio Vasari's study of Renaissance painters, sculptors and architects. In 1550 a little known Italian artist, Giorgio Vasari, published a revolutionary book entitled 'Lives of the Most Excellent Italian Paint ...  Show more

In Turin, Italy there’s a piece of cloth that has perplexed religious experts for decades. Is the Shroud of Turin one of the greatest antiquities known to us? Or nothing more than a medieval hoax? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices 

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the astonishing work of Michelangelo (1477-1564) in this great chapel in the Vatican, firstly the ceiling with images from Genesis (of which the image above is a detail) and later The Last Judgement on the altar wall. For the Papacy, Michelangelo's ...  Show more