Andrew Graham-Dixon tells Carla Passino why he thinks we have read Vermeer wrong all along– and who the Girl with a Pearl Earring really is

Goethe’s achievement as artist, scientist and statesman

The gargantuan, bewildering Louvre

Edward Brooke-Hitching Simon & Schuster 978-1-398-53240-3 256pp (hb) £30 This is a fascinating compendium of classical curiosities, thoroughly researched and charmingly written by Edward Brooke-Hitchi

Did you know that Thomas Müntzer, leader of the German Peasants’ War in 1525, used a rainbow flag to rally his followers? It’s an aptly exuberant image for the radical charisma of Müntzer, and for the

H OW to categorise Leonard Cohen? There is ...