Spectacles in early Northern Renaissance art

In a week where optics made it into Parliament with the Lords discussing the whys and wherefores of adjustable spectacles (see Optician February 19) optics was also being discussed elsewhere in the media gaze.

Those devotees of BBC Four, or the Renaissance, will have been glued to their screens at nine o’clock on Monday night for Waldemar Januszczak’s look at how the history of the Renaissance has been written – Renaissance Unchained.

The basic premise of the programme was that while the Renaissance is traditionally seen as a Latin phenomenon the seeds were sown in the Northern Europe much earlier. A colourful romp through Albrecht Durer, Hieronymus Bosch, Jan Van Eyck et al ensued. See the BBC's gallery.