Mars and the Muses: The Renaissance Art of Armour Armour was a fundamental Renaissance art-form. By the sixteenth century, most of the richest noblemen in Europe were dedicated patrons of the armourer’s art. Armour represented a complex visual language, developed to project aristocratic identity, prestige and power. The armour-making process demanded both fantastic skill in the sculpting of iron and steel, and mastery of decorative techniques such as acid-etching and mercury-gilding. This talk provides an introduction to the concept of armour as art, exploring how protective equipment for fighting became an expressive art-form. Here the achievements of virtuoso armourer-artists embodied magnificence, radiating detailed and subtle messages about status, affinity, social order and divine power.

One of the most evocative of medieval art-forms is found not in museums, but in parish churches all over England. Funerary effigies, carved in alabaster, bring us face-to-face with the real Middle Ages. They also provide a unique way to understand the art of the armourer in England. No English armour has been preserved from earlier than the sixteenth century, but many long-lost masterpieces of armour-making were carefully recorded in sculptural form by English effigy carvers. Join Toby as he discusses his investigation, spanning nearly three decades, of effigies and armour in England, telling something of the story behind his award-winning Armour of the English Knight series of books.

Explore the many historical questions around the discovery of the grave of King Richard III (1452-85), with Dr. Toby Capwell. Toby traces the unlikely (but true) story of his involvement in the investigation of Richard III’s remains, the Channel 4 documentaries, the reburial in 2015, and the 2022 feature film The Lost King.