This Discovery Day grew from our Speaker Julian Halsby's book Venice - the Artist's Vision about British and American artists who discovered Venice in the early 19th century, starting with Turner and progressing through Samuel Prout, John Ruskin, Clarkson Stanfield, Myles Birkett Foster, James McNeill Whistler, John Singer Sargent, and Walter Sickert, as well as some lesser known artists.

Through them, we will also look at the social life of the British and Americans living in Venice, a society centred around the Curtis family at the Palazzo Barbaro on the Grand Canal, where Sargent, Henry James and others stayed, and discover how the arrival of the railway brought tourism and money to what was a very poor city.

From 1887 until 1954 a large part of Indochina was ruled by the French and today we will explore the impact of the area and its culture on a whole generation of French artists.

Perhaps the best known of these are Alix Aymé, who travelled widely through the area in the 1920s and 30s, and Victor Tardieu who founded the Ecole des Beaux Arts de l'Indochine in Hanoi in 1925, thereby attracting other French artists to the area as well as influencing the work of a number of Vietnamese artists.

This Discovery Day promises to be a fascinating exploration of art and artists relatively little known in the UK.

For the Romans, life meant getting together to eat and drink, in a pub, in a simple flat or at a banquet in a triclinium or grand dining room. Last Supper in Pompeii celebrates the Roman love affair with food and wine, in a journey from fields and vineyards to markets and shops, from tables to toilets and the tomb.

Carpe diem - Seize the day!