When did you first hear about Jeremiah Horrocks? As a child, I saw him and his telescope on the stained-glass windows at St Michael’s Church in Much Hoole, Lancashire. The windows, depicting his groun

It’s the question I’m asked more than any other whenever I give a talk on the history of the constellations: who invented the Southern Cross? The short answer is: no one did – or at least no individua

“Johannes Vermeer is the most laconic of the Dutch old masters,” Andrew Graham-Dixon once remarked, adding that this “may explain why he has been the cause of so much volubility in others”. A quarter

JOHN DOWLAND IS MY NAME: musician, composer, greatest lute player of my age in Europe, some say, when in England Elizabeth and James were on the throne. I died in 1626 when I was 63 and was buried on

Collecting fields often have holy grails, and in medieval illuminated manuscripts one is the Roman d’Alexandre or Romance of Alexander. The 20cm-tall book, written in Old French and illustrated with 1

When James Watson died on 6th November last year at the age of 97, he was survived by a wife, two sons and a severely tarnished reputation. Watson was one of the world’s most famous scientists, having