Facebook-f Linkedin Vimeo
All members are invited to participate in this year’s AGM which will review the Society’s activities during the year, elect Trustees and other office-holders, and review the Society’s annual accounts.

Participation in the AGM is free of charge but registration is required. Please register by clicking the “book now” button.

The meeting will last approximately 20 minutes and it will be followed at 7 pm by the lecture A Good Match: Livia, Wife of Augustus. By Matthew Dennison.

If you wish to attend the lecture following the AGM, please book separately by heading the relevant event page. Thank you.

 

Details about this event are coming soon.

The explosive story of the terrorist group who brought Italy to a standstill in the 1970s.
In March 1978, the Red Brigades kidnapped former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro,murdering his bodyguards. For nearly two months, they held him hostage while a shocked world looked on, before eventually killing him and dumping his body in the middle of Rome. But who were this terrorist group? What did they want? And how did they continue to operate for almost twenty years, terrifying a nation from 1970 to 1988?  John Foot’s talk will describe how they became the most formidable left-wing terrorist organisation in post-war Western Europe. Drawing their support from the student protest movements of the 1960s, activists and workers radicalised by the ‘hot autumn’ of 1969, the Red Brigades were inspired by terrorist groups from across the world, especially in Latin America. They recognised no rules and authority other than their own, and launched a campaign of murder, kidnap, kneecapping and intimidationthat paralysed Italy’s justice system and reshaped the political landscape. For a time, they were admired as freedom fighters by the Italian left and commemorated as martyrs. Underlining the meticulous research behind his new book on this subject, Foot will outline the true story behind the myths that have grown around the Red Brigades, highlighting the human costs of their actions, as well as their impact on Italian society. He will explain how the contradictions inherent in their actions eventually led to their downfall in a series of high-profile mass trials and the legacy of conspiracy, distrust and bitterness that still lingers in Italy to this day.
John Foot is Professor of Modern Italian History and was recently a Distinguished Visiting Goggio Fellow at the University of Toronto. He has published widely on subjects relating to contemporary Italian history and politics, such as sport and divided memories and psychiatric reform. His most recent books have looked at Italy since 1945 (The Archipelago, 2019), Fascism – Blood and Power (2022) and the Red Brigades (2025).

Important Information

DISCLAIMER: By participating in a BIS webinar or live event you automatically agree to authorise recording of audio and visual content during the event and consent to subsequent use of the recording in the public domain. This recording may include questions, comments and poll responses provided by you during the event in addition to your name, voice, image or likeness. This recording will be made available after the conclusion of the live event as part of the BIS webinar archives, and will remain available indefinitely. If you do not wish to consent to the recording, please do not join the event or contact us to discuss your concerns.

Was Titian really the greedy old master that history suggests? This lecture reveals how Venice’s greatest painter became Europe’s most sought-after artist through shrewd business strategies and an extraordinary royal partnership. When PhilipII inherited both the Spanish throne and Titian’s services, he commissioned a series of bespoke mythological paintings that would become the most luxurious art ever created. Through masterpieces like Venus and Adonis and Diana and Actaeon, we will explore how Titian developed tailor-made products for the world’s most powerful client – and discover why he waited until just two years before his death to send Philip II his first bill. The story builds to a dramatic confrontation in 1564, when Titian made his boldest business move yet – one that would redefine the relationship between artists and patrons forever.
Discover how Titian transformed from Venetian craftsman to international entrepreneur, creating the template for professional artistic practice that still influences the art world today.

Dr Carlo Corsato is a Venetian-born art historian specialising in Renaissance art and the cultural history of Venice. He works as a curator and in-house educator at the National Gallery, London, where he has developed innovative approaches to engaging diverse audiences with historic art. Carlo has been a Visiting Scholar at St John’s College, Cambridge and has lectured at the universities of St Andrews, Buckingham and the Courtauld Institute of Art. He also leads cultural tours for Martin Randall Travel and teaches for adult education institutions, including Venice in Peril, Morley College, and City Lit. His research focuses on early-modern art in Italy and Flanders, with particular expertise in Venetian painting and archival documentation. Carlo co-edited Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. Devotional Space, Images of Piety with Prof Deborah Howard—the first comprehensive monograph on the church—and has contributed to major exhibition catalogues including Titian: Love, Desire, Death. His groundbreaking research on Titian’s Magdalens, published in Titian: Themes and Variations, has reshaped understanding of the artist’s commercial practices. He also authored Lives of Titian and Lives of Tintoretto, making available in English crucial sources about these artists for contemporary scholarship.

 

Important Information

 

DISCLAIMER: By participating in a BIS webinar or live event you automatically agree to authorise recording of audio and visual content during the event and consent to subsequent use of the recording in the public domain. This recording may include questions, comments and poll responses provided by you during the event in addition to your name, voice, image or likeness. This recording will be made available after the conclusion of the live event as part of the BIS webinar archives, and will remain available indefinitely. If you do not wish to consent to the recording, please do not join the event or contact us to discuss your concerns.

This talk recreates a visual tour of Italy in the company of J.M.W. Turner. By studying rarely seen drawings from his travel sketchbooks we will take a privileged look into the world of the artist, following in his footsteps through Venice, Rome, Tivoli and Naples. Through his most intimate and private sketches we will recapture the excitement and dangers ofnineteenth-century tourism, and the British love of Italian culture and history. In addition to on-the-spot sketches documenting where he went and what he saw, we will examine Turner’s artistic response to his Italian experiences, tracing the evolution of his ideas from preparatory studies to finished watercolours and oils.

Nicola Moorby is an art historian specialising in British art of the 19th and early 20th centuries. She is Curator of British Art, 1790-1850 at Tate Britain and guest curator of Turner’s Kingdom: Beauty, Birds and Beasts at Turner’s House in Twickenham. Her new book, Turner and Constable: Art, Life, Landscape is published by Yale University Press (2025).

 

DISCLAIMER: By participating in a BIS webinar or live event you automatically agree to authorise recording of audio and visual content during the event and consent to subsequent use of the recording in the public domain. This recording may include questions, comments and poll responses provided by you during the event in addition to your name, voice, image or likeness. This recording will be made available after the conclusion of the live event as part of the BIS webinar archives, and will remain available indefinitely. If you do not wish to consent to the recording, please do not join the event or contact us to discuss your concerns.

Photo credit: Yale Center for British Art