When a group of Ethiopian artifacts went on special display at the V&A in 2018, they reopened an 11-year debate about the state of these objects and their repatriation. As the V&A faced mounting pressure to confront its colonial legacy over the return of the Mäqdäla Crown—an artifact bound to a defining moment in Anglo-Ethiopian history.

As the Metropolitan Museum of Art opens its newest exhibition on Raphael’s works, Alexandra reflects on his piece Portrait of Young Woman with Unicorn alongside Leonardo da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine. In particular, she considers symbolism of animals and the relationship between technology and visual analysis.

The Culture Wars of the eighties saw a struggle for dominance between queer rights and conservatism. Campbell considers how prominent artists at the time pursued confrontational thematizations of queerness that destabilized public consensus on sexuality, race, and religion, transforming art into a confrontational political battleground.

Vanni’s painting of The Virgin and Child Appearing to Saint Francis of Assisi guides the viewer through a theatrical ultra-reality showing Saint Francis’s spiritual experience and the beauty of the divine.

Adam discusses the presence of the sciapod within medieval illustrations, examining it in light of St. Augustine’s views on the subject of monstrous races in The City of God and Camille’s modern view of marginal illustrations.

Parsa examines Annibale Carracci’s ceiling frescoes in Palazzo Farnese and argues for a reworking of Gian Pietro Bellori’s Neoplatonic interpretation of early Carracci biographers through the lens of Socrates’ so-called Ladder of Love from Plato’s Symposium.