Episode 36: In this episode of A Closer Look, Dr Nick Gordon sits down with historian of medieval and Renaissance Italy, Dr Nick Eckstein, to discuss Siena’s beautiful Piazza del Campo.

Episode 35: In this episode of A Closer Look, historian Dr Nick Eckstein joins Dr Nick Gordon to take us inside the loggia, and also inside the city and the mentality of its inhabitants.

Episode 34: In this episode of A Closer Look, Dr Nicholas Eckstein, a historian and expert on the Brancacci Chapel, takes a closer look at Masaccio's fresco of St Peter healing with his shadow.

Episode 33: In this episode of A Closer Look, Dr Nick Gordon and Dr Kathleen Olive discuss Leonardo da Vinci’s beautiful portrait of Cecilia Gallerani, the so-called Lady with an Ermine that is now in Krakow.

Episode 32: In this episode of A Closer Look, Dr Kathleen Olive makes a case for the importance of Lavinia Fontana, a painter from Bologna who was recognised with the highest professional honours awarded to Italian artists in the seventeenth century.

Episode 31: Katushika Ōi, daughter of the great Japanese woodblock artist Hokusai, was a skilful painter and designer. In this episode, we take a look at her painting Night Scene in the Yoshiwara, now in the Ōta Memorial Museum of Art in Tokyo.

Episode 30: The Naples Archaeological Museum’s huge artwork, known as the Alexander Mosaic, is one of the most iconic ancient examples of this medium. Dr Mary Jane Cuyler, an archaeologist and Latin scholar, joins us to explain further.

Episode 29: You may be familiar with Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers in Rome. In this episode, archaeologist Dr Mary Jane Cuyler reveals the history of the ancient obelisk that surmounts it.

Episode 28: In this episode, archaeologist and Latin scholar Dr Mary Jane Cuyler introduces us to the Torlonia Relief, a large sculptural work excavated in the 19th century outside Rome.

Episode 27: In this episode, art historian Dr Louise Marshall joins Dr Nick Gordon to discuss Giovanni Bellini’s San Zaccaria altarpiece, probably his last and best known work in the style of a “sacra conversazione”.

Episode 26: In this episode, Dr Nick Gordon talks with art historian Dr Louise Marshall about the glittering portraits of imperial power in Ravenna’s San Vitale, one of Europe’s most important sites for Byzantine mosaics.

Episode 25: In this episode, Limelight’s Dr Kathleen Olive speaks with art historian Dr Louise Marshall about Giotto’s frescoes in Padua’s Scrovegni Chapel, the most complete surviving work of this master artist.

Episode 24: In this episode, Limelight’s Dr Nick Gordon speaks with Freya Middleton about Gino Severini’s Sea = Dancer, a Futurist masterpiece acquired by the forward-looking Peggy Guggenheim.

Episode 23: Freya Middleton, an art historian and specialist art guide in Florence, talks to Limelight Arts Travel’s Dr Nick Gordon about Michelangelo’s Doni Tondo. It’s fascinating to uncover how an artist who consistently defined himself as a sculptor innovates in composition and colour, and brings his sculptural aesthetic to an intimate family painting.

Episode 22: Raphael’s work has been emulated by other artists for centuries. In this episode, Freya Middleton, an art historian and specialist art guide in Florence, talks to Limelight Arts Travel’s Dr Nick Gordon about what makes him so unique, with reference to his Madonna of the Goldfinch.

Episode 21: What happens to a great work of art when later tastes move in a different direction? In this episode, art historian and specialist guide Freya Middleton explores the history of Duccio di Buoninsegna's fourteenth-century masterpiece, the Maestà or Madonna in Majesty.

Episode 20: art historian and specialist guide Freya Middleton takes us into the creation of Simone Martini's Annunciation, an extraordinary masterpiece of the Sienese Gothic, crafted together with his brother-in-law Lippo Memmi. She explains how the two artists brought refined aesthetics together with technical mastery and theological care – and sheds light on why this peerless work is now to be admire in Florence's Uffizi Gallery.