English and Americans flocked to Florence at the close of the nineteenth century and many stayed and bought properties there. They shared a passionate interest in Renaissance Italy - a fascination that was expressed through the extensive collections of Renaissance objects with which they decorated their Italian homes. In this lecture we will step inside some of their villas and gardens in Florence and the surrounding countryside to see how these Italophiles reimagined the Renaissance for a new age

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Dr Lydia Goodson is an art historian and lecturer specialising in the art and material culture of Renaissance Italy. After a career in television production and raising a family Lydia returned to academia and now holds a BA in Renaissance History, an MA in History of Art and was awarded her PhD in 2020 from the Warburg Institute of the University of London, for her thesis on painting and patronage in Renaissance Perugia. This return to study as a mature student has given Lydia a passion for the benefits of life-long learning and she hugely enjoys writing and delivering lectures for audiences of all ages. She is an art history tutor for City Lit and regularly speaks to other adult learning groups. Lydia’s research interests centre on painting production in Central Italy in the Renaissance. Lydia lives in Kent and the Umbrian region of Italy.

The remarkable untold story of Carry On actor Peter Butterworth, and his wife, Britain’s first female tv impressionist Janet Brown, best known for her impression of Mrs Thatcher.  Using classic film and tv clips, personal mementos, and rare photographs and letters from his family’s unseen collection, Tyler reveals the private story behind his parents’ public lives. It’s a journey that takes in MI9, the building of a theatre in the notorious WW2 Prisoner of War camp Stalag Luft III, nights at Chequers with a Prime Minister, This Is Your Life, and many more moments in their long, shared life in the theatre.

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Tyler Butterworth grew up in a theatrical family and spent twenty-five years as an actor working extensively in film, television, theatre and radio. He then worked as a development producer in television documentaries. Now, he produces walking audio guides to cities across Europe for private clients. He lives in Sussex where he walks on the South Downs and the South Coast.

Shot twice in the neck and stabbed five times in the leg, Mr Frick was back behind his desk within the week. Today, his name is synonymous with beauty and culture through the house on which he spared nothing, built with the sole intent of leaving it, and everything in it, as a gift to the nation. But just who was Henry Clay Frick, and how did this man, who swapped a beehive oven for the classroom, become the most prominent art collector of his generation in America, and the benefactor of its finest collection of European paintings? Join me on another astonishing ride from rural Pennsylvania to Gilded Age New York as we pull back the curtain on Frick: the man, and his museum.  

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Mark is the founder of AmericanAristocracy.com and lectures regularly in Europe and the United States, notably at the New-York Historical Society. After leaving Stowe School, Mark worked for twenty years as a plumber in London. However, his real passion has always been history, and he delights in 'telling a story,' not 'giving a lecture'. Packed with facts and laced throughout with humour, he takes a particular joy in bringing to life the stories behind the people that shape houses; and, his area of special interest lies in the great American houses and American social history, from pre-revolution to the end of the Gilded Age. 

The history of this enduring and peculiarly British institution, from its origins in 16th century Italian commedia dell’arte through the influence of 19th century music hall, to the family shows that are still much-loved today. On the way we examine the origins of some of the stories used in pantomime as well as such traditions as the (female) principal boy and the (male) pantomime dame. The talk is interspersed with personal anecdotes from the speaker’s years of working (and appearing) professionally in pantomime.

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Ian Gledhill has had a very varied career, from designing underground railways as an engineer for London Transport, to appearing in pantomime with Julian Clary. In between he has worked in travel and tourism, music publishing, television, and especially the theatre, where he has been an actor, director, set designer, stage manager and opera translator. His main interests include architecture, history, transport and classical music, especially opera and operetta, and these are reflected in the wide-ranging list of subjects for his lectures.