Centrally located along the Silk Road, Uzbekistan has produced amazing art under rulers as diverse as Alexander the Great, the Ancient Persians and the Soviets. Famous UNESCO cities include Bukhara and Khiva, but if any place encapsulates this multi-culturalism then it is Samarkand, capital of Timur – known in the West as Tamerlane. Christopher Bradley will lead us through this mesmerising world in today's lecture.

This lecture will showcase many of the most important works by these two great artists, who from 1508 both worked in Rome for the great Renaissance pope Julius II.

Can a single year adequately encapsulate an artistic environment in British Art History? This thematic lecture, The Art of 1935, explores that year’s many aspects of decorative and fine art, demonstrating how these artistic forms reflected the period in a fitting and cohesive manner.

Set against the backdrop of the 1935 Silver Jubilee Celebrations of King George V and Queen Mary, we will be transported back to this fabulous time and learn about this pivotal year.

They say seeing is believing - but, as Op-Art reveals, you can't always believe your eyes. Today Cindy Polemis will guide us through the discombobulating world of Optical Art (Op-Art, for short) - how artists including Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarely use shapes, patterns and eye-popping colours to create artworks which bedazzle our eyes.

Today's lecture explores the story of Chinese porcelain for emperors and export. The technical ingenuity of China's potters, cultivated by emperors, stimulated an export trade in porcelain at first to the Middle East and later to the West. These countless millions of porcelain wares destined for palaces, aristocratic or town houses, were carried on ships propelled by trade winds on seas of a colour which matched the coveted blue and white Chinese porcelains.

Antoni Gaudí is well known and much loved. In this lecture we investigate how deeply he engaged with nature - and in the most innovative and extraordinary ways. We will also place him in context, by exploring buildings by other Catalan architects of the period.

From the earliest days of photography women claimed this new art for their own. In today's lecture Suzanne Fagence Cooper examines two centuries of photography through the works of pioneering female photographers, from Julia Margaret Cameron, through the protest images of Olive Edis, to the uncompromising reportage of war correspondent Lee Miller.

Today we explore Niven's remarkable life and career in cinema, from movie extra to Hollywood Institution, with an examination of his enduring place in public affection.

His charm, wit, and dashing persona earned him roles in classic films and ultimately an Academy Award. But he was also a writer and he had a notable military career during the Second World War.

There was much more to this unique actor than a moustache and a smile.