Dominic Selwood
speaker
436 appearances
4 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2026
last heard 8 Sep
Dominic Selwood’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 4 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 1.
Appearances
World War I was now approaching, and Vincent went off to fight for Italy in World War I. Then he returned and settled in France again, where he married and had a family.
He died in France at age 44, possibly of lead poisoning from house painting work that he'd been doing.
The Mona Lisa stayed in Italy for a little while on display so the excited public could see it, and then it was returned to the Louvre in Paris, where it was now consolidated as a national treasure.
Although it's not something people think of often, museums in fact have been victims to a huge number of thefts over the centuries.
Particularly in the 1700s and 1800s, theft was pretty common from museums in Britain, in France, in Germany, because systems of security were far less advanced than they are now.
But even in the modern day and age, thieves have managed to steal from the Louvre, from the British Museum, from places like Buckingham Palace.
There really isn't, as most police officers will tell you, any building that can be made 100% theft-proof.
And obviously, given the huge value of things in museums, they are regularly targeted by thieves.
The impact of the theft on the history of the Mona Lisa was gargantuan.
The saturation publicity that the newspapers gave the Mona Lisa had taken it out of the world of art specialists and into society.
worldwide public consciousness.
Before 1911 it had not really been particularly widely known beyond a circle of critics and it really wasn't in any way the most visited object in the Louvre.
But after the theft it became the Louvre's most prized possession and even in the early days after the theft, owing to the media coverage, crowds went along just to see the empty wall space where this amazing painting had once hung.
Once it had been returned, the anxiety over another theft meant it became a painting that people absolutely must see, thereby increasing its popularity.
Vincent Perugia, it can be said, was the best PR agent the Mona Lisa ever had.
The Pendle Witch Trial is the most notorious in British history.
James I, of course, was a king who was absolutely terrified of witches.
The jury returned verdicts of guilty on everyone, largely on the evidence of this nine-year-old girl.
The Pendle Witch Trial is the most notorious in British history, and it has a status similar to the Salem Witch Trial in Massachusetts in the US.
And it's helped by the fact it took place in a deeply wild and romantic part of Britain, in the Forest of Pendle, which is in the Pennines in Lancashire, so just west of Leeds, a few miles north of Burnley.
Showing 241–260 of 436 · page 13 of 22
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