It was the winter of A.D. 210, and the Roman emperor Septimius Severus lay dying. He had been in Britain since 208, overseeing a series of merciless campaigns into present-day Scotland. Roman armies ...

A small diptych, made around 1500, includes a panel devoted to Saint George painted in the local Ethiopian style on the left, and a panel in the Byzantine gold-ground style devoted to the Virgin, ...