Julián Casanova Franco 528pp. Crítica. €22.90. Giles Tremlett El Generalísimo Franco: Power, violence and the quest for greatness 528pp. Bloomsbury. £30. Juan Carlos I, with Laurence Debray Reconcilia

ENGINEERING THE END OF MEDIEVAL WARFARE

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

● In Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s epic tale of ...

This column is condensed from a stiffer academic one (Byzantion 51, 1981, pp8-21) intended to amplify and correct a paper on the same subject by Constance Head (Byzantion 50, 1980, pp336-40). Alongsid

Verdi’s dramatic operas are among the most popular, but grief nearly halted his output and the Italian composer and countryman only returned to creativity after finding solace on his farm, reports Henrietta Bredin