Minerva - January/February 2017

The real King Arthur?

Separating fact from fiction in the legend of King Arthur and the Round Table is no easy matter but, here, he is revealed as a warrior king from Wales who retired to become a saint in Brittany. Chris Barber

A stitch in time

From copes to orphreys, exquisite English medieval embroidery known as Opus Anglicanum was much admired across Europe – a new exhibition at the Victorian and Albert Museum shows why. Jenny Davenport

Memories of Antiquity

How the Classical world was viewed during the Medieval era is reassessed in an exhibition at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles that examines the way in which the past has been viewed in different ages. Dominic Green

Embroidering history

The famous Bayeux Tapestry tells the story of the battle between England’s King Harold and Duke William of Normandy, but the extraordinarily well-preserved 12th-century embroidery also reveals much about the landscape and the architecture of the time. David Miles

Following the Thunderbird

Jago Cooper, the British Museum’s Curator of the Americas, describes his new exhibition, which explores the ancient cultures of the continent’s far northwest coast where he spent childhood holidays. Diana Bentley

A capital architect

Acquired by Sir John Soane at a knock-down price, the elegant plans and designs by Robert Adam, the influential neoclassical architect of town and country houses, are on show in London. Frances Sands

The passionate collector

An exhibition at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris reveals the private collection of Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, the French businessman whose taste stretches from ‘primitive’ sculpture to modern art. Nicole Benazeth