Venue: ALL SAINTS CHURCH OAKHAM

From diplomatic gifts to tokens of love,  between the 16th-19th centuries  miniatures were commissioned as small  portraits which could be held in the  hand or placed inside lockets creating  an intimate relationship between the  owner and sitter. I will look at the history  of these tiny treasures of art. 

François Clouet - Henri II of Valois and  Caterina de' Medici, Surrounded by  Members of Their Family - Unknown author.  Public domain

Venue: GREETHAM VALLEY GOLF CLUB

From the early Kosovan silver mines which are  mentioned in Dante, through the twentieth  century politics over Kosovo’s mines which  resulted in both a war and a golf course, a silver  thread winds through Kosovo’s history.  Its most intricate tanglings are in the country’s  cultural capital, Prizren, where a seventh  generation of filigree artisans use ‘filum’ and  ‘granum’, zigzags, ‘mouse-tooth’ designs and  other twists and turns to magic lacy creations  from dull sticks of raw material.  The results – in boxes, buttons, jewellery,  religious ornamentation and the talismans of  superstition – are a fine narrative of Kosovo’s  history and traditions. 

Medieval panagiarion Serbian. Photo: JohnGotten. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike  4.0

Venue: All Saints Church Oakham

The welcome return of Bertie Pearce - lecture information shortly