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“... political classes, still constrained by his origins in Arpinum, sixty miles south-east of Rome.Andrew Dyck’s giant volume begins there, with Cicero’s birth in 106 BC, and sticks relentlessly to biographical chronology. It is very much a life – the best in English since Elizabeth Rawson’s fifty years ago – not a life and times. The context of ...”

“... dictated by which happen to be in range of available banquettes, and in particular the Van Dyck portrait of Archbishop Laud. It’s hung beside one of his voluptuous court ladies, compared to which it’s almost a sketch with Laud looking tetchy and impatient, as if resentful of having to spend time on such fripperies. He looks entirely humourless and ...”