The past that speaks now

The medieval artist setting a Roman triumph in a Gothic city was not confused about history, but was making a claim about it.

Nero, represented as a medieval king, watching Rome, depicted as a late medieval city, burn - in an early 15th-century French manuscript (Toulouse. Bibliothèque de Toulouse, Ms 822, f. 27v)

A historical narrative these days can take many forms. It can be popular or academic, narrative or analytical, sympathetic or forensic. It can engage with the eviden…